What's next for Mac OS X?

Apple is already testing a new version of its desktop operating system, reports claim.

Citing their respective Web logs, Apple rumor blogs MacRumors and 9to5Mac say that they have seen a steady increase in the number of visits to their site by computers running Mac OS X 10.8. The blogs said that the computers running the operating system started accessing their sites in August. The people using the operating system appear to be Apple employees, since the site requests originate from the company's headquarters and surrounding areas.

Although those findings are by no means a smoking gun that Apple is working on a follow-up to its desktop operating system, the timeline appears to make some sense. As MacRumors points out, Apple typically launches new versions of its operating system every other year, and based on Web logs, visits from computers running Lion first started hitting its site in late 2009, seeming to indicate that testing starts nearly two years before the software's launch.

Assuming Apple keeps the same schedule, the company is t... [Read more]

If this year's Halloween festivities haven't sufficiently freaked you out yet, we'd like to direct your attention to Contract Killer: Zombies, a gory first-person shooter that puts you smack dab in the middle of an undead apocalypse.

Fans of the original, non-zombified hit, Contract Killer, should recognize both the format of the game and the swipe-to-aim interface.

In Contract Killer: Zombies, you and your partner Evelyn trek through zombie-ridden streets in search of both survivors and supplies. As you conquer missions, you gain experience points and earn money, both of which lead to the buying of bigger and badder weapons. The gameplay is far from monotonous, as mission objectives vary from procuring supplies from abandoned buildings to rescuing trapped survivors. The constant among them all, however, is the smattering of zombie blood throughout the city streets.

Contract Killer: Zombies (download) is available now for free in the Android Market.

Much has been made of the "do not track" features built into the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari (the setting for Firefox is shown below). A do-not-track option is available in Google Chrome only as an add-in from Google called Keep My Opt-Outs.

The 'do not track' option in Firefox and other browsers is merely a suggestion; it doesn't actually prevent trackers from recording your Web activities.

As Wired.com's Ryan Singel reported last April on the Epicenter blog, Google's wait-and-see attitude toward do-not-track features reflects the uncertainty about what kind of tracking is prohibited.

(In a Privacy Inc. post earlier this month, Declan McCullagh examined the approach to Web tracking being taken by the Federal Trade Commission and the World Wide Web Consortium.)

At the same time, Google and other Web services stand to lose a considerable amount of money if they're no longer allowed to track their users.

At present, the track-me-not setting in browsers is merely window dressing. Compliance is strictly volu... [Read more]