Russia’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that Syria’s vice president would seek open talks with the rebels, even as regime forces were reported to be shelling the city of Homs. Narcissist Thrilled To Find Symptoms In DSM-IV Completely Whipped Man Crying At Wife’s Funeral Nation Horrified By Carolina Panthers' Disturbingly Graphic Logo Redesign Wired reviewer Brian X. Chen writes that a superb new camera and speedy dual-core processor are great additions to iPhone 4S and that Siri alone is reason enough to buy the phone: “To give you an idea of how convenient Siri is, it takes about three seconds to create a reminder with a voice command, as opposed to the 10 seconds it takes me to manually type an event into a to-do list or calendar entry.” Chen concludes: “…both inside and out, this is a magnificent smartphone.” 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 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. Man Wants To Give To Local PBS Affiliate But Can't Stand Thought Of Free Doo-Wop Album The biggest New York City hotel operators have agreed to a contract that will give workers, among other things, security devices that would summon help if hotel staff encounter danger in a guest’s room. The Chicago Police Department has begun a voluntary workshop for officers who wish to tell their own stories and write their own books. FOX 6 p.m. EST/5 p.m. CST Judge Tommy rules that to recover his money from a crooked car dealer, plaintiff Clark Reynolds first has to kiss a dog's butt. Lobbyists were in a tizzy over provisions of a Senate-passed ethics bill that tighten regulation of lobbying and require secretive “political intelligence” firms to register as lobbyists do. Wired Magazine reports that Newsstand, a new feature of iOS 5, is “hitting it big with traditional media publishers thanks to its windfall delivery of new digital subscriptions.” Newsstand keeps all app subscriptions for newspapers, magazines, and journals in one convenient place on the iOS 5 home screen and makes it easy to shop for new reading material. Wired cites Conde Nast and The New York Times among publishers seeing large spikes in app subscriptions since Newsstand launched. Miami-Dade County officials are expected to abolish the city of Islandia, a desolate chain of 33 islands that mid-century land developers had hoped to turn into a rollicking resort town. Rick Santorum won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses and a nonbinding primary in Missouri on Tuesday, raising fresh questions about Mitt Romney’s ability to corral conservative support. Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper subsidiary was reported to have reached a new batch of settlements on Wednesday in the hacking scandal. Students at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, are using Mac notebooks to research class assignments and show results in ways they never could before. These include songs and podcasts recorded and edited in GarageBand, digital presentations and portfolios created in Keynote, campus news videos edited in iMovie and Final Cut Pro, and even iOS apps built using Xcode. Says sixth grade teacher Sandy Chang, “The Macs in my classroom are completely indispensable.” 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.” Check out the news from the launch and be among the first to download Internet Explorer 9. Jeremy Lin, an Asian-American Harvard graduate, couldn’t find a role in the league. Then he scored 53 points in two games for the Knicks. Driving the talks has been a clear recognition that the ever-worsening collapse of the Greek economy will require another increase in bailout funds.