Geekly Update - 21 June 2012

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

"Sounds like a driver issue..." A Massachusetts woman whose car ended up in a golf course's sand trap is blaming it on her GPS. (And yes, that was a triple entendre pun. You're welcome.)

"Penguin pilots?" Perhaps because of last year's malware attack on the Air Force's Windows-based drone, the Navy has decided to use Linux as the operating system in its Fire Scout helicopter drones.

Some of the big news originating from Apple's WWDC was the next gen 0.71" ultra-thin MacBook Pro with a Retina display of 2880 x 1800 pixels. Both the 13" and 15" models feature faster Intel processors, FaceTime HD cameras and prices starting at $1,199.00. CEO Tim Cook also said that Apple has sold over 30 billion apps, and that OS X Mountain Lion will be available this July at the Mac App Store for $19.99.

In other gadget news, Microsoft announced their new Surface tablet. Sporting a 10.6-inch display, integrated kickstand and a cover that doubles as a keyboard, the Surface running Windows 8 will debut in October.

"I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords..." Senior VP of Google Mobile Andy Rubin posted on his Google+ profile that 850,000 Android phones and tablets are activated daily.

"Just stay in the shallow end, and you'll be fine..." For the terminally clumsy, Kyocera and Sprint have teamed to produce the DuraXT for a mere $69.99 with rebate and two year contract. The flip phone has a military-grade durability and water resistance as far down as in a meter of water for about 30 minutes.

"Dot-Chaos..." While there was plenty of controversy over the dotXXX web domain, there will soon be more confusion over ICANN's decision to add hundreds of new top-level domains. Entries such as .APPLE, .PIZZA and .WOW were some of the other 1,900 proposed new addresses.

Amazon's Cloud Player has finally come to the iPhone/iPod touch with the capability of uploading full music libraries. Already available for Android, Kindle and Blackberry, the app allows access to over 20 million tunes, a million albums and the ability to store them.

Nokia plans to cut 10,000 jobs, close plants, divest itself of its luxury phone Vertu and make personnel changes to save its ailing company. They will focus on smartphones, less expensive feature phones and expanding location based services.