Swiss Tribune

With environmental activists at Greenpeace International criticizing Apple over its energy consumption for more than a year, the company revealed in a Thursday announcement that, by the end of 2012, its 500,000-square-foot data center in Maiden, North Carolina, will be powered completely by renewable sources.

Apple's decision to power the data center entirely by renewable resources by the end of the year is evidently an upshot of the demonstrations by

Greenpeace activists who have been condemning the tech company for its excessive use of coal for powering the data center.

In a Thursday announcement, Comcast said that it intends making a transition away from static data limit policy, by lifting its Internet data cap and turning to a model which allows more flexible allotment.

According to the Comcast announcement, the company has begun its testing a number of tiered models in specific locations; and the tests of the new options, over the next few months, will offer more bandwidth to the users as part of their cable Internet plans, along with enabling them to purchase additional bandwidth if required.

According to reports, Porsche is apparently all set to commence the on-road testing of ‘more complete’ prototypes of its sleek 918 Spyder, which is one of the company’s highest performing and greenest vehicles thus far.

While the testing of the first prototypes for the 2014 Porsche 918 Spyder had reportedly begun at secret Europe locations earlier this month, Porsche recently released some official pictures of one of the prototypes, as well as confirmed some of the final specifications of the car.

In a move aimed at disabling the long-outdated versions of Adobe's Flash Player, Apple issued a security-related update - the first one in almost a year - for OS X 10.5, or `Leopard', on Monday.

Essentially a Leopard-aimed version of Apple's last week releases for OS X 10.6 and OS X 10.7 - commonly called Snow Leopard and Lion respectively -, the Monday-released Security Update 2012-003 does not fix any of the known vulnerabilities. The update will also not be installed on PowerPC-equipped Macs running Leopard.

French iOS hacker Pod2g has claimed that he has successfully jailbroken Apple's original iPad as well as the new iPad.

The well-known iOS hacker teased a video via micro-blogging site Twitter to claim that developers and hackers have been working behind the scenes to offer users of iOS 5.1 with an untethered jailbreak solution.

Using Twitter, the hacker said, "Hey. iPad 3,1 running iOS 5.1 untethered jailbreak. Next on the list: stabilizing the payload, and then trying 5.1.1."

Apple has reportedly started removing the "4G" moniker from the new iPad to get rid of complaints and legal action over the 4G issue.

The Cupertino firm's new iPad works on 4G LTE service only in the U. S. and Canada on the airwaves of around five carriers, including AT&T and Verizon.

Though the latest iPad failed to work on 4G networks in other countries of the world, yet the Cupertino firm had been selling it with the "4G" moniker.

Apple Singapore Web page is now showing "Wi-Fi + 4G" iPad as a "Wi-Fi + Cellular" iPad.

Two deaths have occurred due to norovirus stomach bug as it was thought that these people were infected by the bug.

Underlying medical conditions were behind the deaths that took place at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, according to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

A spokesman added, “Our thoughts and sympathies are with the patients’ families at this difficult time.”

No new admissions are being done by six wards at the hospital. The virus symptoms are seen in 26 patients but no cause of concern has been seen yet and measures to control the infection are already applied.

The European Parliament yesterday endorsed a plan to lower mobile phone roaming charges across the Continent and extend the limits for another five years.

The statement released by the Parliament said that the members approved the plan by a vote of 578 to 10, while 10 members remained absent.

The plan, which will limit the price of data at 70 Euro cents per MB, will take effect from 1st of July. The limit will further be restricted to 45 Euro cents in 2013 and to 20 Euro cents by 1s of July 2014.

Currently, there are no caps on roaming mobile data service in the continent.

One of Leica’s three newly unveiled cameras is the M-Monochrom, which according to the company’s claims is the world's first digital camera that comes equipped with a full-frame black-and-white sensor.

Designed purposely for black-and-white photography, the M-Monochrom features an 18-megapixel image sensor, which doesn’t notice colors which lets it to produce better black-and-white pictures than a camera fitted with a color-sensitive sensor.

Tour operator TUI Travel Plc. reported an increase of around 25 per cent in loss before tax for the first half of its financial year, thanks to weak winter sales.

Revenues in the six months to March 31 jumped 5 per cent to £5.4 billion, but operating loss also jumped 3 per cent to £317 million.

The deficit widened by £91 million, from £366 million to £457 million.

Bookings in France were down 16 per cent, while bookings in the UK slipped 6 per cent. However, bookings in Germany climbed 3 per cent.