Apple are the masters at marketing, at hype, and at creating products that, quite ‎simply, ooze sex. Well done to them on this front.‎
Their latest release – the iPhone SDK downloads – has proved Apple’s marketing skills. Within ‎four days of the announce of the apps for iPhone SDK beta more than 100,000 people had ‎made the effort to apps download the pack. I’m willing to wager that a fair proportion of ‎those had no idea what an SDK was, never mind what they were going to do with it (it ‎stands of “Software Development Kit”, for those of you that have it and don’t know ‎what it is).‎
The enormous number of iPhone downloads of the apps that can be downloaded iPhone SDK – along with more than one ‎million views of the Apple video describing the release – put so much strain on ‎Apple’s servers that they gave up the ghost and packed in for the day. Ooops!‎
The iPhone SDK when downloaded has (rightly) excited developers. Expect classic games from Capcom ‎and PopCap to start appearing in the Apple iPhone apps in download store any time soon. Game on!‎

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today initiated enhanced security procedures for international travelers visiting the U.S. through San Francisco International Airport, the agency announced.

Since 2004, non-U.S. citizens arriving at the airport’s International Terminal were subject to photographing and a digital scan of two fingerprints.

Today, visitors will have all 10 fingerprints scanned, a procedure that according to Homeland Security officials will more accurately verify identities and stop criminals or potential criminals from entering the country.

The scans are crosschecked against records of immigration violators, FBI criminal records and known or suspected terrorists, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to “stopping potential security risks,” according to officials, the program is designed to help prevent the use of false documents and protect visitors from identity theft.

The 10-fingerprint scanning procedure is already in effect at airports in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Houston, according to officials.

The program is scheduled to be implemented at all air, sea and land border ports of entry by the end of the year.

Some of the 20,000 workers dropped from United Airlines payroll in the last eighteen months are to be helped to find new employment by the airline which is opening job centers in Chicago and San Francisco.

United is teaming up with a Swiss employment agency to open the first center at its Chicago headquarters on March 17 and a second, at San Francisco Airport, on March 31.

Former United employees elsewhere also will be able to get help via the job search and placement services of the Adecco employment agency’s offices both in the US and overseas.

“Our goal is to be supportive and to provide valuable resources to United employees who have been affected by work-force reductions or who have retired since September 2001,” said Sara Fields, United senior vice president.

On Monday the airline, which is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, is expected to seek permission to change contract conditions with three of its unions which have, so far, failed to reach agreement on cost cuts.

The carrier may ask the bankruptcy court to allow it to tear up existing agreements and impose new conditions.