terminator

Grand Central Station commuters looking to score a holiday deal at Apple's imminent New York City store may have to wait a while.

Recent rumors had pegged the launch of the new Grand Central Terminal store for sometime this week as the holiday shopping season officially kicks into gear. But a construction worker reportedly confirmed to Mashable yesterday that Apple's latest store probably won't open for business until next month.

"It won't be any time too soon," the worker told Mashable. "We still have a lot to do, so my guess is that … Read more

As the former vice president of retail at Apple, Ron Johnson partnered with Steve Jobs to plan the first Apple store. Now the CEO of J.C. Penney, Johnson reveals why Apple stores work.

Writing about his efforts in fashioning the Apple store in a Harvard Business Review guest post, Johnson explained that a store has to do more than just offer products for sale. It has to create an experience--something that turns it into more than just a store.

"Any store has to provide products people want to buy," Johnson wrote. "That's a given. But … Read more

When managing problems in OS X we sometimes limit ourselves to using the input methods we see in front of us: the monitor, the keyboard, and the mouse. If a problem happens on the system such as a hanging program, we will try to force-quit the program using the Option-Command-Esc hotkey, or even use Activity Monitor or the Terminal to do the same thing.

This approach to fixing problems assumes that your keyboard, mouse, and monitor inputs are working properly; what do you do if they aren't? A common solution is to force the system to restart by holding … Read more

Look out Siri, there's a new virtual assistant in town--and you definitely don't want to get on his bad side.

YouTube user programmer4fun has created his own virtual personal assistant using a 3D model of the Terminator T-800 cyborg and his Microsoft Kinect.

In his video description, programmer4fun explains that he used the Kinect SDK to make use of the head tracking and speech recognition software. The Kinect sits behind him, though he notes it can be anywhere, while a small LED projector beams the Terminator's head onto the wall. He's even built in code to support anaglyph 3D if you really want to get up close and personal with the Terminator. … Read more

Apple's long-rumored Grand Central Terminal store in New York, currently under construction, could be open by the end of November, a new report claims.

According to Apple rumor site 9to5Mac, the iPhone maker has been putting its employees through "Core" training at a hotel in Times Square, and it could open the store as early as "the Saturday before Black Friday." If true, that would mean that the store would open on November 19.

It is worth noting, however, that Apple has yet to confirm that it is even opening a Grand Central Terminal store, … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions on trashing documents requiring an administrator password, Safari not being able to find or use Mail or another e-mail client, and why "sudo" terminal commands can't be run from a standard user account. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present answers here, we welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

NOTE: The "contact us" box for e-mailing us will hopefully be … Read more

Sprint has joined AT&T and Verizon Wireless in increasing its early termination fees (ETFs) for advanced devices. Sprint used to charge a $200 ETF for those who skip out on their contracts early; now it's $350. However, it will be prorated depending on how many months left you have in the contract.

Verizon Wireless increased its ETF for advanced devices to a prorated $350 in November 2009, and AT&T increased it to a prorated $325 in June 2010. Advanced devices includes smartphones, tablets, laptops, and Netbooks. T-Mobile is currently the only carrier that has not … Read more

Uninstalling apps you don't use is a great way to keep some free space for new apps and can sometimes lead to improved battery life or even a faster device. If you've followed the guide for uninstalling apps without the Android Market, you may have noticed that most of the preloaded apps are resistant to being removed. For help removing these apps once and for all, follow this guide:

Note: Removing these apps requires root access. For help rooting your Android device follow this guide, courtesy of CNET's Seth Rosenblatt. … Read more

When a program suddenly quits in OS X without any user direction, it usually means the program has crashed. The system will likely show the crash reporter window that you can submit to Apple to help the developers troubleshoot their code and correct the problem. However, if you are running OS X Lion then you may run into a situation in which applications you have open will close without showing any indication of a problem.

As an example, go ahead and open TextEdit and close any windows that open up. Then go through your Applications folder and launch a number … Read more