APPLE'S AIRPLAY PRIVATE KEY REVEALED

It looks as though software developer James Laird has opened Pandora’s box for Apple’s AirPlay music streaming system. Frustrated by the fact that an AirPort Express emulator did not exist, Laird began to look for a solution that would allow him to stream iTunes music without the use of AirPlay. “I was disappointed to find that Apple used a public-key crypto scheme, and there’s a private key hiding inside the ApEx [Airport Extreme],” wrote Laird. “So I took it apart (I still have scars from opening the glued case!), dumped the ROM, and reverse engineered the keys out of it.” Laird has published the private key in an open source software project dubbed ShairPort (clever). The software, which is built in Perl and C, will allow users to stream iTunes content to hardware and software designed to talk to ShariPort. Apple has opened up its AirPlay system to third-parties in recent months, but this blows the doors wide open for all those looking to circumvent that red tape-filled process.

LINUX USERS GET AIRPLAY ABILITY

Linux users now have a relatively easy way to receive and play video streamed to their PC via Apple's AirPlay. To get things going, all you have to do is download a plug-in for the Totem media player (which ships with most popular Linux distributions), install it in the usual Linux fashion, and then start streaming video to your Linux PC with AirPlay just as if it were an Apple TV.

APPLE RELEASES iOS 4.3 BETA

Apple has released a beta version of iOS 4.3, the next version of the popular OS for iOS devices, to developers. So far the upgrades include:

• Personal hotspot capabilities for GSM devices — as we exclusively reported earlier today
• AirPlay support for third-party native apps and third-party Web apps
• Redesigned FaceTime icon
• Multi-touch gesture support for iPad — “This beta release contains a preview of new Multi-Touch gestures for iPad. You can use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen; swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar; and swipe left or right between apps. We are providing this preview before releasing them to the public to understand how these gestures work with your apps.”
• Configurable slide switch for iPad — users can now decide whether the hardware switch above the volume rocker on the iPad controls mute or rotation lock
• iAd full screen banners on the iPad — bigger ads… just what iPad users have been clamoring for

In addition iSpazio has uncovered the following effects for video capture and FaceTime calling:

• Thermal Camera
• X-ray
• Kaleidoscope
• Normal
• Tunnel of Light
• Collapse
• Turbine
• Enlarge