To paraphrase an old expression: Give a man an apple and you feed him for a day; teach a man to phish apple IDs and you feed him for a lifetime -- with stolen data. That's what some bold phishers are hoping for, according to a new report by security intelligence company Trend Micro, which documents a major phishing scam that has already compromised 110 sites in a plan to steal Apple IDs.

Phony log-in pages phish for user IDs.

According to Trend Micro, all of these sites are "hosted at the IP address 70.86.13.17, which is registered to an ISP in the Houston area" and victims of the scam, both in the U.S. and abroad, have been not only asked for their Apple IDs and passwords, but also for their billing addresses and even credit card information. Users are often misdirected to these sites by spam.

Spam messages misdirect users to phony log-in pages.

Before giving up your information, Trend Micro recommends that you always ensure that your browser bar displays a padlock icon indicating a secure connection, followed by "Apple Inc. [US]." They also suggest that you... [Read more]

Adobe's prototype software for raw photo editing included many of Lightroom's editing controls.

Adobe Systems plans to release high-end photo-editing software for tablets. The new app would be a close relative to Adobe's Lightroom software for PCs and serve as a cloud-connected companion to the program.

Tom Hogarty, Adobe's group product manager for Lightroom, demonstrated an early prototype version of the app Wednesday on the Grid, an online show from Photoshop guru Scott Kelby.

Adobe has done a good job with PC-centric photography software, but the company needs to better incorporate Internet connectivity and mobile devices into photography workflow, Hogarty said.

"We need to take that story beyond the desktop. We haven't done a great job of it yet," Hogarty said. "The thing I'd like to sneak today is taking that raw processing and bringing it onto the mobile device."

He wouldn't promise when the app would ship or what exactly it would do, but he did demonstrate some features of the prototype software running on an iPad 2. He also offered several details about its features:

• The ability to edit photos taken in raw photo formats, including Lightroom develop-module parameters like exposure, clarity, shadows, highlights, and white balance.

• Cloud... [Read more]

In the 2D/3D platformer, Fez, your protagonist Gomez embarks on an epic journey to uncover a universe-shattering mystery. The game's own journey from conception to the Windows platform has been nearly as monumental. First announced in July 2007, Fez's development was delayed for years. Creator Phil Fish's company, Polytron struggled with internal issues before finally demoing the game in 2011 and releasing a final version on Xbox Live in April 2012. Another year later, and the game finally lands on Windows, available from online distributors Steam and GOG.

Despite the long haul to release, Fez has received near universal acclaim for its unique look, intelligent level design, and sheer enormity of the stages to explore and secrets to discover. (Even the soundtrack has secrets!) If you dive into Gomez's world, you'll likely be there for a while.

Fez received the "Excellence in Visual Art" award at the 2008 Independent Games Festival, and then came back four years later to win the Seamus McNally Grand Prize at the 2012 IGF. The Xbox version receives a very solid 89 score on Metacritic (while the PC version also ... [Read more]