Apple TV

The Apple TV is a nice little gadget that helps you to stream content from your iPhones, IPod Touches, and computers (via iTunes).  The Apple TV looks like it will be growing part of Apple's strategy -- of moving into our living rooms!

Here's an excerpt from a good article:

Here are a few numbers for you to toss around in your brain: 1.3 million. 663 million. 2 billion. They're all crucial to what we may be watching unfold.

• 1.3 million: That's how many Apple TVs the company sold in the last quarter alone. Want a jaw-dropping frame of reference? Apple sold more Apple TVs in the last nine months than it did iMacs and Mac Pros. Combined.
• 663 million: That's how many dollars in revenue Apple gobbled up in that same quarter from the combined sales of Apple TV, its AirPort and Time Capsule devices, and displays. It's by far the company's lowest-revenue product category.
• 2 billion: Apple's dollars in revenue—again, just last quarter—from iTunes, App Store, and iBookstore sales, with the odd iPod accessory tossed in. It's the fastest-growing source of cash for Apple behind the iPad. Because it's almost entirely composed of 30% bites out of content sales or in-app purchases, the overhead is practically nonexistent. More bluntly: It's a cash cow.
• Why would Apple concede a large chunk of that content cash by allowing competitive products into the fold? Because it knows it's chasing bigger game.
  Four million Apple TVs have been purchased in the last nine months. That's with zero promotional effort for a product with no apps and only a handful of partners. 

Read more here:
http://gizmodo.com/5931185/why-apple-tv-just-became-apples-most-important-product

Another good article on the Apple TV (which has no storage, but instead streams the content from your device or computer via your wireless router to your TV):
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2010/09/new-apple-tv-is-99-eliminates-storage-and-integrates-netflix/?comments=1&start=40#comments-bar

GoDaddy.com Attacked 9/10/12

A malicious flood of network traffic has knocked Internet registrar GoDaddy’s servers offline -- taking with it the site, its email, and thousands, potentially millions of websites registered through one of the Internet’s most popular services.

a DDoS attack involves an overwhelming flood of communication that a server can't keep up with, but it can be orchestrated with as few as 50 computers.

That an Internet service which hosts more than 5 million websites wasn’t protected reveals a surprising truth: The Internet is still startlingly vulnerable to such an attack.

“Anyone can be hacked, the size of the company has no bearing on it all,” Ghosh said.

Twitter user Anonymous Own3r claimed credit for the attack, and was quick to distance himself from the hacking collective that goes by a similar name.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/09/10/every-godaddy-registered-site-temporarily-offline/#ixzz266UzQjvi

Beyond Khan Academy

Many of us have heard about the good work being done at Khan Academy.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Here is another good site (Class-Central) -- that compiles some of the best online courses from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and more.  These online courses are a great addition (more advance, additional subjects, college level) to the basics reviewed at Khan Academy.

http://www.class-central.com/