FINDLAY, OH—Two hours after she woke up, Madeline Tarver, 16, crawled back in bed just to keep her mom on her toes. Just in time for the holidays, Apple’s fifth Manhattan store opens for business at New York’s world-famous Grand Central Terminal at 10 a.m. on Friday, December 9. The store overlooks the historic Main Concourse and features two Genius Bars, entire rooms dedicated to Personal Setup and Personal Training, and an expert team of 315 employees. Holiday shoppers can test-drive Apple products, attend 15-minute Express workshops, get free technical support, and more. Vogue’s “Need It Now” column features the new Cards from Apple, which lets users create and mail beautifully crafted cards personalized with their own text and photos from their iPhone or iPod touch. Each card is just $2.99 when sent within the U.S. and $4.99 when sent to or from anywhere else — postage included. Vogue calls the Cards app “nothing short of genius” for reviving the almost forgotten pleasure of receiving a “real, honest-to-goodness paper greeting card in the mail” and concludes: “This is the kind of vintage innovation we would all do well to download.” New York Times columnist David Pogue reports on AssistiveTouch, an “amazingly thoughtful” iOS 5 feature that makes it possible to complete Multi-Touch gestures using one finger or a stylus. Writes Pogue: “I doubt that people with severe motor control challenges represent a financially significant number of the iPhone’s millions of customers. But somebody at Apple took them seriously enough to write a complete, elegant and thoughtful feature that takes down most of the barriers to using an app phone.” The United States withdrew all staff from its embassy in Syria on Monday, blaming President Bashar al-Assad for escalating violence and mayhem in the country. Obama campaign aides are spending their time, they say, looking for Mitt Romney missteps, and they have been rewarded. The FDA urges Americans to check out a really weird-looking potato, a suitcase looks forward all year to the carousel ride, and Syria is running dangerously low on citizens to oppress. Apple today announced iBooks 2 for iPad, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that’s dynamic, engaging, and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users gorgeous, full-screen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, and unrivaled navigation. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore, with most priced at $14.99 or less. And with the new iBooks Author, anyone with a Mac can create iBooks textbooks and publish them to Apple’s iBookstore. Starting today, iBooks 2 is available free from the App Store and iBooks Author is available free from the Mac App Store In an interview at National Geographic’s Adventure blog, director Tim Kemple of Camp 4 Collective — an outdoor video and film production company — describes using iPhone 4S to shoot a hi-def music video at the Great Salt Lake as an experiment in remote location capture. Kemple reports getting excellent video from iPhone 4S, noting that “because it’s always with you means you end up using it when you’d least expect.” The interview includes tips for stabilizing shots, optimizing for iOS 5 features, using helpful apps in extreme environments, and shooting in low light. PBS 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. CST The hit British show has to do damage control after last week's episode, in which all the characters referred to the fighting in France as "World War I." An appeals court ruled on Monday that Alberto Contador, a three-time winner of the Tour de France, used a performance-enhancing drug when he won the race in 2010. DALLAS—Sought-after free agent pitcher Roy Oswalt said he was "flattered and impressed" by the effort the Texas Rangers made in trying to sign him this week, but admitted he had no idea why the team made such a point of emphasizing the abu... In a CNET Editors’ review, Jason Parker gives the new GarageBand for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch 5 out of 5 stars, citing the app’s “uniquely designed and authentic-sounding instruments, smart touch interface, and tools that make song creation easy.” He adds: “Anyone with even a passing interest in creating music should download GarageBand for iOS. Frankly, we wish we could give it more than five stars for the virtually unlimited song possibilities, ease of use, and excellent touch-screen controls.” Apple today announced an all-new iTunes U app, giving educators and students everything they need on their iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to teach and take entire courses. The all-new iTunes U app lets teachers create and manage courses — including essential components such as lectures, assignments, books, quizzes, and syllabuses — and offer them to millions of iOS users around the world. The app also gives iOS users access to the world’s largest catalog of free educational content from top universities including Cambridge, Duke, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford. And starting today, any K-12 school district can offer full courses through the iTunes U app. Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 fourth quarter ended September 24, 2011. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $28.27 billion and quarterly net profit of $6.62 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $20.34 billion and net quarterly profit of $4.31 billion, or $4.64 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.3 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 63 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Republicans will reveal the identity of the Mystery Candidate only after he, or she, wins the election. Suitcase Spends All Year Looking Forward To Carousel Ride Nation Horrified By Carolina Panthers' Disturbingly Graphic Logo Redesign Boy, it feels like I just went to bed. I must've hibernated on my back all weird or something. What a dream, though, wow. I wonder what time it... Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 first quarter, which spanned 14 weeks and ended December 31, 2011. The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. “We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iPads, and Macs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.” TAMPA, FL—After finishing last in this week's Florida primary, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul told reporters his poor showing in the polls was caused by the prohibitively expensive cost of the poster board, markers, and tape he uses to c...