Beware: Apple iPad searches poisoned to lead to malware!!

The Apple iPad, Apple’s latest release has received rather mixed opinions from both experts and followers; it has, nevertheless succeeded in getting a lot of public attention.

Hackers have found a way to use the iPad’s popularity for their own benefit - launching a Black hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign to take advantage of
security loop holes in blogs and other such sites using PHP to lead the user to malicious websites. The fraudsters put popular keywords such as "iPad" and "apple tablet announcement" in "compromised legitimate" websites to trick the search engines into directing people to them. Interestingly, the websites are in no way related to the iPad. They are related to "fake antivirus" software.

Trend Labs warns that such search results will direct to fake anti-virus software, "Live PC Care" which, when executed, will warn you that your computer is infected. If you are lured into installing the software, you will be taken to a phishing page asking for your credit card information.



Other popular web searches that have fallen prey to such attempts by hackers include the crisis in Haiti (Pathetic!), the movie Avatar, Google’s new Nexus One smartphone and the death of the pop king, Michael Jackson.

Beware while surfing the net dear readers, it's a dangerous world out there! So sadistic and horrifying!!!

Apple's iBooks - the Kindle killer ebook application

After revealing the Apple iPad to the world, Steve Jobs also showcased their latest application -> an e-book reader dubbed, iBooks. "Amazon’s done a great job of pioneering [ebooks] with the Kindle", Steve Jobs said, "we’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a little further".

Surprisingly, iBooks bears a striking resemblance to the interface of Shelfari.com -- the online website for sharing book information which was brought by Amazon! The main interface resembles a bookshelf with a button to the Apple Store which can be used to find, buy and download e-books right to the iPad. The Apple iPad uses the ePub format, which is thankfully an open format. iBooks allows you to change fonts, browse a table of contents, flip pages, drag pages, and so on.

Apart from iBooks, Apple has also reworked the iWorks application suite to better suit the Apple iPad. A completely new version of Keynote, Pages and Numbers has been designed for the Apple iPad. You can thus work on spreadsheets, create, edit presentations, and of course write documents using Pages.

Each app in the iWorks suite is going to sell for $9.99.

Apple unveils the Apple iPad!!!

Steve Jobs has unveiled the Apple iPad -- a tablet device meant to sit between the laptop and the smartphone -- dubbing it the "best browsing experience you’ve ever had".

Calling a netbook, nothing but cheap laptops, Steve Jobs unveiled the latest Apple product, the iPad to applause at the Apple event currently taking place in the U.S. The iPad resembles a large iPhone with a user-interface that's a cross between an iPhone, with its grid-like icons, and the OSX, with its iconic dock. The Apple iPad is intended to offer the best web experience. Steve Jobs demonstrated the Apple iPad by browsing websites on its large screen, typing and sending email messages, browsing through photos with a photo scrubber at the bottom, using iTunes, and so on. The user interface shown was both familiar to iPhone users and yet different and somewhat unique to the Apple iPad. Steve Jobs also showed HD video content from YouTube, which looked good on the Apple iPad's screen.

The Apple iPad will run almost all the current Apple iPod apps as is. Every app can either be run in its native resolution, with black bars surrounding it, or with pixel-doubling -- enabling it to fill the entire screen. Apple also showed some game demos, powered by OpenGL ES, which ran with some choppiness, especially Gameloft's FPS Nova. Apart from games, a newspaper app from New York Times was also shown. Brushes, a painting application and an art browser was also showcased. Finally, EA showcased Need for Speed: Shift which was controlled via touch and the accelerometer.

SPECS:

- 0.5-inches thin
- 9.7-inch IPS display, full capacitive multi-touch
- 1.5 pounds weight
- 10 hours battery life
- Speaker, microphone, 30-pin connector
- Accelerometer, digital compass
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- WiFi 802.11n
- 16 to 64GB of flash storage
- 1GHz Apple A4 chip