On Thursday Apple released an update for the most recent version of its Mac Pro desktop machine. The Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.5 includes fixes for a few bugs: one that resolves an issue preventing the firmware password prompt from being displayed, and the other that smoothes out incidents where the Boot Picker doesn’t show up if the machine is on an Ethernet network without DHCP. The update is recommended for all users of the 12 cores Mac Pro models. It requires Mac OS X 10.6.4.

Download here: Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.5 (1.96MB)

John Savio created a very amazing costume for Halloween, which looks like a real iPhone 4, but 10 times larger than the original. It is thin, has rounded corners, LED light on the back as a flash and even touchscreen. The costume was created from 40" LED LCD Panel used as the smartphone’s screen. It is powered by two car batteries and run by Jailbroken iPhone 4, weighs roughly 75 lbs. The process of costume’s creation took about 40 hours to complete.

Earlier this week Apple opened it online store in China. Now people in China are able to order Apple’s products directly from the company. But within 10 hours after the store’s opening the whole amount of the iPhone 4 was sold out. And again like in situation with Apple’s retails stores in Chine, scalpers were blamed in rapid depletion of Apple's online store stocks. In Apple’s retail stores are not allowed to sell large number of the device per a person, the online store appears to be not protected from scalpers, who have special auto-refresh system to place orders.

The demand for iPhone 4 is really high in Chine. People don’t even care about price and people, who sell them handsets. They just want to get the rumored device and tell friends that they have one.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has announced that the owners of new 11-inch MacBook Air are allowed not to remove their notebook from bag at security checkpoints in U.S. airports.

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It seams that hackers have had their hands on the iOS 4.2 beta 3 for iPad. But, as we know, there is no official jailbreak for it. Recently the well-known iOS hacker posted aт interesting picture in Tweeter. The shot depicts an iPad running MobileTerminal, a jailbreak application, which gives users full access to the terminal command line interface. But it looks strange, because it means that the hackers missed the beta 4, which should be released this past Tuesday, according to the Apple’s schedule. This could signal that Apple may skip beta 4 altogether and go straight to a GM build sometime next week.

Famous technology journalist Walt Mossberg published another review where he analyzes new MacBook Air notebooks and describes them as "gorgeous, very thin and light, but very sturdy aluminum computers".

After using notebooks for some time he made a conclusion that the 11.6-inch system is very iPad-like, the battery life of the devices is "strong" and the systems wake up from sleep every time almost instantly. Though such machines won't fit as primary computers, especially for power users, they should fit fine for light-duty users. Walt revealed that even the $999 model can run 7-8 programs at the same time, even if there are iTunes, Safari Web browser with couple of dozens of apps opened and Microsoft Office among them.

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New Apple's application with a title "Nitriding Stainless Steel for Consumer Electronic Products" was published this week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The document describes a cost-effective system, which can place a nitride layer on the surface of stainless steel exterior.

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Today two largest wireless carriers in the USA started offering the iPad in their brick-and-mortar stores. The date of Oct. 28 was announced few weeks earlier. As you remember, AT&T will be selling all 3G-enabled iPads with standard prices, and Verizon will only sell Wi-Fi iPads but with MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot routers, and the bundles will have the same cost as 3G-enabled models.

For information on data plans read this post.

Verizon's sale of Apple's iPad for the holidays became the reason to steam the rumors about CDMA version of the iPhone that will be compatible with its network and must supposedly appear in early 2011.

According to the Financial Times, A Taiwanese contract manufacturer of flat screens Proview sold the "global trademark" of iPad to Apple in 2006 but it still possesses the trademark in China. Few years ago Proview released an I-Pad tablet, but the product wasn't successful and the company abandoned the project.

Caixine, which is a Chinese news site, reveals that Proview asks more than 1.5 billion dollars from Apple. Proview chairman Yang Rongshan even threatened the company:

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Yesterday we told you that the rumored white iPhone 4 became available for reservation via Apple Store application. But today Apple has removed mention of the model from its ordering page. Apple continues to use a white iPhone 4, however, in promotional images for the company's bumpers. The white model is also still shown in Apple's iPhone 4 image gallery.

Today the Apple’s 2010 annual report was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Here some interesting facts:

• The Company had approximately 46,600 full-time employees (over 35% since last year's annual report) and 2,800 full-time temporary employees and contractors on its payroll;
• Apple's advertising budget for fiscal 2010 was $691 million, up 38% from last year's $501 million;
• Apple's revenues allowed the company to reduce its percentage of revenues spent on advertising from 1.37% to about 1.06%;
• The Company expects its gross margin percentage to decrease in the first quarter of 2011;
• Expected that in future component cost and other cost increases.

Apple is said to be hosting an exclusive, secret iPhone and iPad developer’s summit in Cupertino, starting next Tuesday and running for 3 days, which the company is going to hold to improve the quality of software on the App Store. As known, this event will be a more intimate version of the iPhone Tech Talks that Apple held last year.

Of course, the stealth summit will be invitation only event, so Apple will invite only those developers, who it wants to see there. They will be granted time with Apple engineers, and may receive help with their applications. It is believed the event is timed to the release of iOS 4.2. It will be the first time then the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch will all be running the same version of iOS.

Taiwan Economic News received information from its industry sources on CDMA version of the iPhone 4. The newspaper reveals that Foxconn, which is a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., will ship the CDMA-enabled iPhones 4 to Apple in the next year. It is also suggested that the device will be offered by China Telecom and Verizon Wireless.

But Foxconn will not be the only producer of CDMA iPhone. Rumors had it in May that Pegatron won the contract for the device and that it will allegedly start the production in November. Foxconn's share of the order is declared to be 15 million units.

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Apple partnered with Gemalto (digital security firm) to create a custom SIM card. Such card will be integrated into the iPhone as a built-in chip, which will contain subscriber identification information for carriers and allow users to activate their devices with a broad array of carriers. The new device will be of most use in Europe, where there are many competitive carriers operating on similar technologies.

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TechRestore tore down the Apple’s MacBook Air. While removing the gloss from the laptop, the TechRestore crew discovered that the MacBook Airs’ multi-layered displays are truly a thing to behold.

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