A couple of days ago, some long-awaited iPhone hardware news finally hit the Web. No, it's not the iPhone 5 (which some are saying won't be released until fall). The big news out this week is that the white iPhone 4 will finally become available as soon as by the end of this month.

I have to admit that the white iPhone 4 looks pretty cool, but I can't imagine anyone waiting to take the plunge to buy an iPhone based on the color of the device. Is it just me? If anyone reading this has been waiting for the white iPhone 4, let us know in the comments.

This week's apps are an audio-enhancement app that gives your music 3D surround sound and a snowboarding game that might be the best in the App Store.

3D Music Player Pro ($2.99) gives you some interesting options for enriching the sound of your music, and it does a pretty good job with only a few flaws. Upon launch, use the plus sign button in the upper left to add a couple of songs from your music library and test the various effects. Once they're queued up, you can play a song and then touch the 3D Sound button to hear the basic audio enhancements in the app. I noticed a difference immediately in my testing, with the app adding a much fuller and warmer sound to my songs.

Beyond the main button, there's much more to play around with in 3D Music Player Pro. Hit the gear icon in the upper right to bring up the settings screen. From there you can fiddle with all of the app's sound enhancements individually and turn them on and off to hear the results. The 3D.STEREO control lets you turn on surround sound and adjust bass output for a 3D stereo listening experience. The G.EQ control lets you adjust the levels for songs like a regular equalizer, and the ON.STAGE control gives you three options simulating the sound and reverb effects of playing the song in a studio, a concert hall, or a stadium.

3D Music Player Pro's features are fun to play around with and each of the effects definitely enhances the way your music sounds, but the app is not perfect. When I added my entire music library the app seemed to choke on the approximately 8GB of music. After a restart I was able to get all my music to show up, but 3D Music Player Pro doesn't share your iPod's ability to let you search through your music quickly (think of the alphabetized strip of letters on the right of your iPhone music library that allows you to jump to different parts of the alphabet). This means that you'll spend a lot of time scrolling to listen to specific songs. An even bigger issue is that when you quit the app and relaunch, your previously uploaded music will no longer be listed. This is definitely a bug the developer must have overlooked and will probably be fixed soon.

Overall, 3D Music Player Pro is a unique app that lets you mess around with audio settings to give your music a much warmer sound. With the right bug fixes and some slight interface enhancements, this app will be a great way to get more out of your music.

Snowboard Hero ($4.99) is a 3D snowboarding game that might be the best yet for iPhone--once you get the settings squared away. Start by choosing between Career and Record Chaser modes. In Career mode you'll start by playing as the default character, "Dude," but after racing and beating specific challenges, you'll be able to choose from six different characters with varied skills. Start by going through the tutorial, which gives you the basics for jumping, grinding rails, and performing tricks. From there you'll need to complete challenges that vary from going down the hill as fast as possible to trying to pull off the most tricks as possible to get a high score. Earn money by pulling off tricks and grabbing pickups as you speed down the hill.

After a few races you'll earn enough money and unlocks to buy new clothing. You'll also be able to purchase new boards that have varying strengths and weaknesses. Part of the fun in Snowboard Hero is choosing the best board for the challenge at hand. Later you'll be able to unlock new characters, each of whom has higher stats than the last, and you can buy new tricks for bigger scores.

When I first hit the slopes in Snowboard Hero, I thought the game looked great graphically, and I liked the onscreen trick controls that include pressing the screen and swiping in a direction for more complex tricks. My only issue was with the tilt-to-steer controls, which felt far too stiff. I highly recommend exploring the options to set the sensitivity to about 80 (out of a 100) for a more realistic turning experience. After I tweaked the settings I found Snowboard Hero to be one of the best of its genre in the App Store, so I think it's crucial to try changing the sensitivity early before you judge this game.

Overall, Snowboard Hero offers great-looking graphics, solid controls (once you tweak them), and enough challenges and unlocks to keep you coming back for more. If you've been looking for a good 3D snowboarding game, Snowboard Hero is the game to buy--even at $4.99.

What's your favorite iPhone app? Are you impressed with the enhanced sound quality in 3D Music Player Pro or do the bugs outweigh the cool features in this app? Do you have a better 3D snowboarding game than Snowboard Hero? Let me know in the comments!

At long last, Google's "doodles" are making their way to the Google Search for iPhone app. The topical, witty, and often whimsical takes on Google's logo appear globally and in selected countries to honor holidays and other historically important dates.

There isn't much official news from Google yet. CNET requested more information from Google after we noticed an update to the iTunes app store and updated the app on an iPhone 4.

In the meantime, you can peruse Google's doodles in reverse chronological order here.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

In the early days of Android, gaining root access was a complicated process, involving around a dozen steps and patience enough to test even the most serene of ascetic monks. Nowadays, not only do you not need a saffron-colored robe, it's much simpler: There's an app for that.

However, do note that rooting your phone voids your warranty, and the process is risky even in this streamlined form: there is still a chance that you can brick your phone and render it permanently inoperable.

That being said, also note that these are general instructions. There might be device-specific idiosyncrasies you ought to know about before you begin.

First, download the version of SuperOneClick (download) without drivers and save it to your desktop. Do not run it yet. It's also available from shortfuse.org.

Now connect your phone to computer and make sure that the SD card has not been mounted. You can double-check this by going to Settings, SD card, and phone storage, and Unmount the SD card. Enable USB debugging by going to Settings, Application Settings, Development and Enable USB debugging.

Go back to your computer and double-click on SuperOneClick.exe. Choose the Samsung Capitvate tab if that's your phone, for all others choose the Universal tab unless your phone is built by HTC. HTC phones can only be rooted with the Unrevoked tool, which is designed to break through the NAND-flash memory lock that the manufacturer has installed.

Last, click the Root button and go get yourself a tasty beverage because the rooting process can take a while. If you want to sit and watch it, though, you ought to see a bunch of activity scrolling by, with "OK" appearing after each one. You might see some warnings, too, but they're nothing to worry about as long as SuperOneClick doesn't freeze. In other words, if you're using a laptop, make sure it's plugged in. Once finished, reboot the phone.

Rooting ought to add an app to your phone called Superuser. It's got a skull-and-crossbones icon. It's also a good idea to allow non-Market apps to install if you haven't set that up yet. Go to Settings, Applications, and check Unknown Sources.

Voila! You've now given yourself root access, which ought to allow you to remove apps that come pre-installed, overclock your phone, change the kernels that power it, and, of course, install a customized version of Android itself.

New Norton betas include the ability to rate a download's stability based on the file behavior on the computers of other Norton users and full Google Chrome support, setting the tone for the premium security suite updates due later this year.

Released today by Symantec, Norton Internet Security 2012 beta (download) and Norton AntiVirus 2012 beta (download) also include a new start-up manager that debuted earlier this year in Norton 360, changes to Symantec's SONAR technology, and a new autofix feature for curing installation woes quickly.

The changes are not ground-breaking, but do appear to be able to keep Norton on top of its game. The Chrome support is a long-request feature for the world's third-most popular browser, and extends Norton Safe Web toolbar features such as search result evaluation, link scanning, and Norton's ID Safe to Chrome users.

The two engine changes in the Norton 2012 betas aren't exposed in any new interface modules, yet they are important. Insight 3.0, and its component Download Insight 2.0 feature, have been improved. As mentioned above, Download Insight now looks at downloaded files for security and stability. It won't stop you from downloading a file that's known to cause instability, but it will warn you and provide an option to stop the download.

This is a fairly well-designed feature, and can tell the difference between operating systems. This means that if a file is known to be stable on Windows 7 but unstable on Windows XP, only Windows XP users will see the warning.

Meanwhile, improvements in SONAR 4.0 include upgraded behavioral protection, which monitors running programs for suspicious behavior and will stop them if it detects any. One of the bigger changes in SONAR is that it now scores DLL file separately, allowing for more nuanced detection.

There have been some interface tweaks in the betas, adding bright green to a formerly yellow-and-black interface. While not a major redesign, the green does serve to better highlight key features, such as your security status. Norton's online storage vault also catches up to the competition this year, integrating a cloud sync feature, and the Norton Power Eraser for last-ditch fixes has been integrated with the Norton bootable recovery tool, so you won't have to download them separately.

While CNET Labs won't benchmark the Norton 2012 betas until the final versions are released, Symantec itself says that it is seeing substantial, double-digit benchmarking improvements over 2011's strong times.

Let us know your thoughts on Norton's 2012 betas in the comments below.

Android doesn't offer a native backup service, so it's easy to ignore the need to do so. But don't wait until it's too late to start thinking about backing up your phone. Many of us rely on our phone cameras to snap day-to-day photos of our lives and save text messages to have some of the most important conversations. So before a thief swipes that phone, or a spilled cup of coffee bricks it, follow these tips:

Google has your back. Go to Settings > Privacy, and make sure that "Back up my settings" and "Automatic restore" are checked off. Go to Settings > Accounts and sync, open your Gmail account, and check off all options. With these settings in place, your contacts, system settings, apps, calendar, and e-mail will be restored whenever you set up a new Android phone with that same Gmail account.

Photos. Google hasn't implemented a native photo backup service yet, so look to third-party apps to safeguard your photos. You might want to consolidate your mobile photos with those you already have stored in a cloud service. For instance, Photobucket Mobile will automatically upload newly snapped photos in the background to your Photobucket account. Flickr Companion and Picasa Tool are also free apps that allow mobile uploading but don't do so automatically.

Drag and drop. Back up photos from your Android the traditional way. Connect your phone to your computer via USB, set it in Disk Mode and locate the drive (on the desktop for Mac, in My Computer for Windows). Open the drive, find the DCIM folder, and drag the photos you'd like to back up onto your hard drive.

Text messages. Folks at SMS Backup + figured out a smart way to back up your text messages in the cloud. The free app automatically sends your SMS threads to Gmail and stores them under a new label, "SMS."

Let someone else do it. If you like the idea of having someone else back up your data, download MyBackup Pro. The $5 app backs up everything--SMS, photos, apps, call log, contacts, system settings, bookmarks, and more--to your SD card or its online server at no extra charge. MyBackup also allows you to restore your data, should you need to do so.

Originally posted at Crave

I'm pretty sure icon badges (the little red numbers that appear in the corners of some apps) have been around since iPhone Day One, and yet Apple has never seen fit to add one to its Weather app. Which is strange, seeing as that would give you a convenient at-a-glance outdoor temperature reading.

As always, third-party developers to the rescue. New weather app Fahrenheit (also available as Celsius) works a lot like the countless other weather apps currently available, but with one tiny--yet major--difference: it displays the current temperature as an icon badge.

In other words, now you can finally have a temperature gauge right on your home screen. The app is universal, so it works equally well on iPhones, iPods, and iPads. Just start it once, approve notifications and your location, then head back to Home. Presto: there's your local temp!

Of course, you can't judge a weather app by its ingenious badge alone. Fahrenheit keeps things simple but informative with a 10-day forecast, each day showing high/low temps and a general summary: "overcast and rain," "partly cloudy," and the like.

You can tap any day to expand a full forecast, complete with UV index, wind speeds, sunrise/sunset times, and temps/conditions in three-hour intervals.

In short, Fahrenheit offers all the weather data most people need, and does so with a simple, elegant interface. It's my new favorite weather app (good riddance, AccuWeather!), and the best 99 cents I've spent this month. (Added bonus: its omnipresence on your home screen should help you learn to spell "Fahrenheit," a notoriously tricky word.)

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Mozilla is reviewing a final draft of its baseline policies to address problems in the way that Internet certificates are issued.

The browser maker wants certificate authorities (CAs) that issue certificates to adopt a standard that's been dubbed "Baseline Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-Trusted Certificates" (PDF), published by the Certificate and Browser Forum and still in a final draft.

Mozilla consultant Kathleen Wilson said on a Mozilla development forum that CAs will have until May 25 to review the draft.

She said that from June 30, Mozilla software will refuse certificates signed with the troubled MD5 hash algorithm for intermediate and end-entity CAs, and "will take this action earlier and at its sole discretion if necessary to keep our users safe."

In late 2008, security researchers had already exploited weaknesses in the MD5 algorithm to forge fake certificates.

Related links
• Comodo hack may reshape browser security
• Why browsers differ on Web sites' safety
• Google, Yahoo, Skype targeted in attack linked to Iran

Read more of "Mozilla drafts changes to certificate policy" at ZDNet Australia.

Originally posted at News - Security

Apple this week unveiled the next major version of Final Cut Pro, the company's video-editing software that plays big brother to the more ubiquitous Mac pack-in iMovie.

The software, which arrives in June, comes off a two-year update hiatus and is a bold step for Apple. It does away with boxes and discs, instead being delivered as a direct download. It also comes in at $700 less than the current version, which is available as part of Apple's pro video-editing suite.

Such a cut raises some questions though, like "what's missing?" and "is this a downgrade for current Final Cut Studio users?" CNET is here to give you the answers with an FAQ.

What's new?
Final Cut Pro X has a laundry list of new features and tweaks, but the really important thing is that the application is now 64-bit, meaning it can address more RAM. The application also makes use of some of the new low-level system features in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard like Core Animation, OpenCL, and Grand Central Dispatch, which lets the software run on as many processing cores and as much of the graphical processing unit as it can get.

As a result, Apple says the software has effectively done away with rendering times, giving editors a way to view changes they've made to content instantaneously. This is managed with a new background-rendering feature that does the work behind the scenes each time a change is made.

Final Cut's interface has also been completely reworked, which Apple says puts the focus on the three areas video editors tend to need while making cuts: a preview area, a new media browser, and an editing timeline that's been given an overhaul. Two of those areas: the media library tool and the timeline are where many of the most drastic changes can be found.

The media library tool, which is where clips are organized has been redesigned to do some of the heavy lifting with footage. This is something pros have told CNET they thought could be improved from older versions of the software, and it's something Apple has addressed in Final Cut Pro X.

The new library lets editors begin edits on media that's being imported, before it's fully transferred. And as footage is being imported, it can analyze shots to help editors sort them out, including tools that can tell what type of shot it is (close, medium, wide), and if there are people in it. It can also run color management and stabilize video if it's shaky. To add to this, footage that's been imported can be organized with range-based keywording, which lets users apply tags to specific, or entire clips to search and pull out later.

On the timeline side, Apple has tweaked the connection between audio and video tracks with something it's calling "Clip Connections." This binds secondary audio tracks to the primary audio tracks that are attached to footage. This way, if it's dragged to another part of the timeline, it won't lose the secondary audio that was added after the fact. Joining that is a feature Apple calls "Magnetic Timeline" which makes sure that these connected items that are dragged around on the timeline do not collide with one another.

To make specific clusters of edits less unwieldy, Apple has added a timeline feature called "Compound Clip" that can group together audio, video, transitions, and titles into single clips. These can be treated just like a finished clip, but de-clutter the timeline. And because it's non-destructive, editors can go in and make changes to something in this cluster any time they want, then re-compound it to save space.

Other changes made to the edit side include an inline precision editor, which lets users adjust where cuts have been made on clips, right on the timeline. This has been set up so if you realize you want an extra second or two from a clip, you don't have to go back and re-find it from your library, cut out one that's slightly longer, and switch it out. You can just dip into that source clip from the timeline, extend it and be done. Another edit feature, called "Auditions" lets users do A-B testing on two variations of an edit to see what each one would look like, without having to redo the work to re-create it.

In its presentation, Apple said these were just a few of the new features that are part of the new software, with more to be unveiled closer to its release in June.

What's it look like compared with the current Final Cut Pro?
Here's Final Cut Pro 7:

And Final Cut Pro X:

OK, those are neat pictures, but this is a video application, I want to see it in action. Is there a video somewhere?
There is. As spotted by MacRumors, pro film group Les Machineurs was there and filmed Apple's presentation. It's split up into two parts with a small break in between. What's missing is the initial part of the presentation where Apple spells out some of its customer satisfaction metrics and that it's got more than 2 million licensed Final Cut Pro users.

If you're looking for the hands-on demos with the software, skip to part two, which has Apple's chief architect of video applications, Randy Ubillos going over some of the new features.

Part one:

Part two:

How does this compare with Final Cut Studio?
The big difference here is that this is one application, versus Final Cut Studio's six. That suite includes Final Cut Pro along with Motion, Compressor, DVD Studio Pro, Soundtrack Pro and Color.

That said, there are features you'd find in Soundtrack Pro and Color that have been built into Final Cut Pro X. But that may not be enough for pros, who were using the authoring tools in DVD Studio Pro to make salable products with their work, or movie makers using Motion to do composite work.

So does that mean those applications aren't making the jump to be a part of the Final Cut Pro X universe? Following the presentation an Apple representative told The Loop that "today was just a sneak peak of Final Cut Pro," and to "stay tuned."

How does this compare with iMovie?
Final Cut Pro X is a much more advanced piece of editing software with many more bells and whistles than iMovie. That said, several features that started out in iMovie have made their way over to Final Cut Pro X, such as skimming previews for clips, identification for types of shots and if people are in them, as well as some of the visual aesthetics.

The bottom line is that if you're an iMovie user who wants a little more, Apple is going for the same up-sell as it's had with Final Cut Express. The big difference is that this is now being positioned as its top of the line editor at about $100 premium of what Express costs.

What does this mean for Final Cut Express?
Apple has stayed mum on if Final Cut Express has been shelved. However comments made about the $199, middle-of-the-road between iMovie and Final Cut Studio at the end of Apple's presentation strongly suggest it's being replaced by the lower-priced Final Cut Pro X once the software is released. From Apple's Richard Townhill, who is the director of pro video product marketing:

"Lastly perhaps, we've had a couple of different flavors. We've had upgrade pricing, we've had Final Cut Express, we've had Final Cut Studio. So we decided we really wanted to do away with that. We wanted to greatly simplify the pricing structure and make it very easy for you if you decided that you wanted to get a copy of Final Cut Pro. So we've decided to make it available for the amazing price of $299."

With that said, Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro 6 (which pre-dated the current version of Final Cut Pro) remain two of the the last versions in the Final Cut family that can run on PowerPC hardware, providing those with older computers a way to edit using Final Cut.

I already have Final Cut Pro, do I still have to pay $299?
Yes. Unlike past versions where a new version means previous users can pay a smaller amount with an upgrade price, everyone pays $299 for Final Cut Pro X.

One thing to keep in mind is that the previous upgrade price for Final Cut Studio upgrades was also $299, so its no more than it used to be. It can be argued that users are getting less included if Apple does not ship it with a comparable feature set with what some of the other studio tools can do.

Can I buy this in stores?
No, Apple has only said that it's offering Final Cut Pro X as a paid download through its Mac App Store. On the plus side that means there are no more worries about punching in serial numbers or losing physical media since it can be re-downloaded.

Can my computer run this?
Apple has not released hardware requirements, but it's making use of many OS X 10.6 specific features that will require Snow Leopard, specifically Grand Central Dispatch. The current version of Final Cut Pro requires that users are running Mac OS X version 10.5.6 or later.

What's up with the name?
Similar to Mac OS X, the X is a Roman numeral, meaning it's said like "Final Cut Pro ten." But don't be confused, this isn't actually the 10th iteration of the software. The last version of the software was version 7, technically making this version 8.

Version 8 and 9 didn't disappear per se. Apple just seems to have followed a similar naming convention to what it did in making the jump from QuickTime 7 to QuickTime X in Leopard to Snow Leopard. Apple also has a history of doing this with its iLife apps, so it's odd, but not unusual.

Any other questions? Send them our way and we'll try to get them answered for you.

Originally posted at Apple Talk