Apple announced a new 17" MacBook Pro which will be available in late January. Utilizing the same unibody construction as the 15" MacBook Pro and 13" MacBook, the 17" MacBook Pro will be available in a single alterable configuration for $2799 including the following:

- Three USB ports
- Mini DisplayPort
- Firewire 800 (no 400)
- Digital audio in/out
- Expresscard
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Magsafe
- $50 anti-glare option available

Like the 15" MacBook Pro, the notebook includes both 9400M and 9600M graphic and a glass button-less trackpad. 320GB HDD standard with a 256GB SSD upgrade available. RAM can be upgraded to 8GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 memory.

True to rumors, the new MacBook Pro has a longer-lasting battery which will run for up to 8 hours, but is now non-removable. Apple claims the battery can take up to 1000 charges and will run up to 5 years. Apple is also offering a take-back and recycling program if you need to replace the battery.

International Music Applications

95.8 Capital Radio - Hit music station broadcasting out of London, England.

Ö3 iRadio - Austrian radio streamed directly to your iPhone or iPod Touch.
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In a presumably final sneak peek before CES, Garmin has posted a gallery of screenshots of the upcoming Nuvifone interface. Included in the gallery is a look at the home screen, web browser, navigation, email, calendar, camera, geotagging support and more. Hopefully this will whet your appetite for the Nuvifone until we can get a closer look at the handset during CES 2009. Hit the jump for more Nuvifone images than you can bear

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Folks at iclarified.com has did it again with a amazing iPhone 3G unlock tutorial.
These are instructions on how to software unlock the iPhone 3G for use with any GSM cellphone carrier.

Before you can follow these instructions you must have a jailbroken iPhone and you must be on the 02.28.00 baseband(modem firmware). This means that you must be running the 2.2 firmware. If you used PwnageTool to update to 2.2 from 2.1 you will have to rejailbreak using a QuickPwn jailbreak tutorial for the time being.

To find your firmware and modem firmware(baseband) versions you can follow this tutorial. If you are not on firmware version 2.2 and baseband version 02.28.00 then you need to follow one of these tutorials before unlocking: Mac, Windows

Watch the Video!
For your convenience this tutorial is available in video format also. Click the Watch It button to view the tutorial!

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News applications are a great way to get your daily dose of world and local news on the iPhone. The latest new app for the iPhone comes from USA Today , offering users the latest sports scores, pictures, headlines, and even weather through a colorful and intuitive interface. Unique to USA Today is the application’s location-aware weather display that keeps news-readers informed on local weather conditions.

As the best-selling newspaper in the US, USA Today has experience in news delivery - and it shows in the USA Today application’s comprehensive news coverage and polished interface. Better yet, the USA Today app is available for free from the iTunes App Store.

Find the USA Today application here . (iTunes link)

We’ve seen our fair share of LCD Photo frames, but the Trendnet TV-M7 7-inch Photo Frame brings something new to the game.  Thanks to its built-in WiFi it’s able to detect and access up to 4 Trendnet compatible security cameras on the network.  Of course it does the usual photo/video displaying and includes 512MB of memory and a media card reader.

The Trendnet TV-M7 7-inch Photo Frame is available here for $263

[Chipchick]

AOC’s V22 Verfino is a 22 inch LED backlit panel at 1,680 x 1,050 resolution that provides 100,000:1 contrast ratio, HDMI inputs, 2ms response time, Dynamic contrast ratio control. I think this LCD monitor is perfect for gaming purpose. [Engadget]

1. Discover

Discover is the only free app in the whole App store that gives you the full functionality of a wireless hard disk. With just a wireless network, you can freely upload/download files to your iPhone.

You can either use the WebDAV protocol to connect to your iPhone via Finder, Windows Explorer or Nautilus (Gnome) or use the Web interface and connect to it via your browser. If you are a Windows user, there is even a Discover Windows client that you can use to connect to your iPhone.

Discover comes with several useful features. There is an iPhone-discovery mode where you can discover other iPhones in your network and share files with them. There is also a viewer within the app that enables you to view your files while on the move.

2. Briefcase Lite

Briefcase Lite is the free alternative to the paid app Briefcase. This free app allows you to connect your iPhone to Mac and Linux in a local area network environment (Windows isnot supported). Similar to Discovery, you can transfer files to/from your iPhone and there is a viewer to view the various type of files while on the move.

There are several limitations to Briefcase Lite compared to Briefcase. Firstly, you can only upload files, but not directories. This means that if you have plenty of files, you have to upload them one by one, rather than upload them as one folder. Secondly, Briefcase Lite does not come with the remote login feature that is available in Briefcase. Thirdly, Briefcase Lite does not allow you to send files to another iPhone, but you can receive files from a Briefcase user.

In general, if you want basic file transfer and viewing functions, Briefcase Lite is sufficient. If you are looking for more sophisticated features like remote login and remote mounting of disk images and installing of packages, then Briefcase is the one to go.

Free Third Party Software

Other than the apps at the app store which deal on the iPhone side, there are also several third-party software that focus mainly on the computer side. You only need to install these software in your Windows and you will be able to browse, transfer and control your iPhone via the USB cable. There are several software for Mac as well but they are paid apps, so I will not mention them here.

3. iPhonebrowser

iPhoneBrowser is a Windows based file browser for your iPhone. Once you have it installed in your Windows, you can navigate the whole iPhone filesystem and drag and drop files to it. You can also perform backups in case you accidentally delete some important files.

4. DiskAid

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Same as iPhonebrowser, DiskAid is another software that allows you to browse and transfer files to your iPhone. There are lesser options, but it has a far simpler interface and easy to understand icons.

Other alternatives

If you have jailbroken your iPhone, there are some useful applications in the Cydia app that you can use.

5. Netatalk

Installing Netatalk via the Cydia app gives you the ability to connect your iPhone to your Mac using the AFP protocol. You can access your iPhone via the Finder and drag and drop any files to it.

6. OpenSSH

OpenSSH may not be the most elegant way to connect to your iPhone, but it is the best and easiest way for you to tweak and hack your iPhone. You will need a SSH client on your computer to make use of OpenSSH. Cyberduck (Mac), WinSCP (Windows) and Filezilla (Linux) are a few great SSH clients that you can use.

With OpenSSH, not only can you transfer files to/from your iPhone, you can also move the internal files around (do it at your own risk) or change the file permissions. This is useful if you are looking to hack your phone and install any cracked applications.

The above mentioned applications are some of the free alternatives to turn your iPhone into an external hard disk. Surely there are many more ways/hacks that you can use to access your iPhone, some of them are paid apps and are not mentioned here. If you use any of those, do share them with us.

Visa Mobile Application was being created as the first financial application for Android. It has been a while but they managed to push it to the Android Market in hopes that it would get some use for the holiday season.

With the Visa mobile application you can track your card transactions as they happen, to better keep track of your own expenses. With alerts you will know instantly when someone else is using your credit card. This feature is a must in today’s world with all of the credit card and identity fraud going on. If you delete this application you must text the word “STOP” to MVISA in order to discontinue text notifications.

This application also gives you many special coupon offers both online and on your handset. Visa Mobile Application even gives you location information where you can redeem offers. As with most Visa services there is always the fine print to watch out for. If you tear through the Terms of Service you will find one very unassuming line that could very well make you turn around and never look back. This line reads, “unfortunately, no data transmission via a mobile handset can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.” It just sound to me like Visa is trying to keep them selves from any liability T-Mobile may place on them due to Security  issues.