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iPad iPhone iPod News retail

Apple allies with Merchants Bank Co. to offer installment-based payment plans to Chinese customers

If you’re buying Apple equipment in China, there’s a payment plan for you. Per Bloomberg, Apple on Thursday introduced a new option for Chinese buyers of iPhones and MacBooks, allowing them to spread the cost of purchases ranging from from 300 yuan (US$48) to 30,000 yuan (US$4,800) over as long as two years. The new […]

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Hardware News

Apple buys fingerprint recognition company AuthenTec for $356 million

This could turn into something interesting. Per Reuters, Apple has signed a deal to buy a Florida-based company, AuthenTec, at a price of US$8 per share or about US$356 million. That’s a premium of 58 percent over AuthenTec’s Thursday closing value. While largely unknown to the public, the firm makes fingerprint sensor chips used in […]

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MacBook MacBook Pro News

“Strange odor” at manufacturing plant could lead to reduced Mac notebook shipments in November

Come to think of it, metal housings ARE sort of important on your Mac notebook… According to the Financial Times, a Chinese factory responsible for manufacturing the metal housings for Apple’s uni-body laptop lineup has been shutdown due to “strange odors” emanating from the plant, potentially causing a 40% decrease in shipments for November. Catcher […]

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MacBook Air News

MacBook Air supplies running low prior to anticipated Sandy Bridge, Thunderbolt port refresh

It’s when the current supplies run low that the interesting stuff tends to be around the corner. Per 9to5Mac, sources have stated that supplies of the MacBook Air are dwindling ahead of an expected refresh for the product line. Back in April, it was reported that new MacBook Air models were likely to be on […]

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News Processors

Nvidia announces seven new GeForce 400M notebook graphics card with accelerated Web browsing features

This could be nifty. Graphics chip maker Nvidia on Friday announced seven new GeForce 400M series graphics cards for notebooks, which could provide parallel-processing capabilities to accelerate Web browsing and 3D image rendering. Per Macworld, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome have either implemented or will soon include the capability to offload tasks […]