Apple Discounts Retina MacBook Pro; iWatch Rumors Heat Up; Opera Shifts to WebKit

Apple topped tech headlines on Wednesday after?quietly dropping the price?on its lineup of MacBook Pros with Retina display, and giving them a speed boost.

The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro now starts at $1,499 rather than $1,699, while the 15-inch starts at $2,199.?The laptops also got a processor update.?

In other Apple news, a new report from Bloomberg claims that Cupertino has "100 product designers working on a wristwatch-like device?that may perform some of the tasks now handled by the iPhone and iPad." The team working on the device reportedly includes members of the company's iPhone and iPad software and hardware team, as well as staff dedicated to marketing the gadget. For more on the so-called iWatch, check out The Apple Smartwatch's Top Competition.?

Meanwhile,?Opera Software said Wednesday that its browser products have hit 300 million monthly users. The company also announced plans for a "gradual transition" from its own Presto rendering engine to the open-source WebKit engine?that powers Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari browsers.?The independent Internet browser developer said "most of its upcoming versions of browsers for smartphones and computers" would be built on the WebKit engine.

Also making headlines yesterday:?

• Nvidia Bucks PC Industry Trend With Strong Earnings: The company?reported booming sales for its fiscal 2013 and the final quarter of last year though profits dipped a bit on both an annual and sequential quarterly basis.
• iFixit Touts Surface Pro's Battery, Pans 'Repairability':?The teardown artists at iFixit discovered the "Cadillac of batteries" inside Microsoft's new Surface Pro?but the inaccessibility of its parts led the site to?give the tablet a 1 out of 10 score?for repairability.
• Lawmakers: CISPA Will Help Battle Cyber Attacks From China, Iran:?The authors of the controversial CISPA information-sharing bill argued that the legislation is necessary to protect against cyber attacks from countries like China and Iran.
• A&E Adds Full-Length Episodes of Storage Wars, More to iPhone:?Are you behind on?Storage Wars, Duck Dynasty, or?The First 48? Now you can catch up on your favorite A&E shows anywhere you are, right from your iPhone.
• Q&A With Pulse: More Than Just a News Aggregator:?From class project to internationally recognized iOS and Android app, Pulse has grown exponentially in the less than three years.
• Amazon Adds Star Trek, Other CBS Shows to Prime Streaming Library:?Amazon and CBS announced?an expanded content licensing agreement that brings a number of classic series and hit TV shows to the Web giant's Prime Instant Video streaming service.
• Jawbone Hack Exposes Email Addresses, Passwords:?Jawbone has informed customers of a hack that resulted in the theft of "limited user information."
• PayPal, Lenovo Alliance on the Hunt for Password Alternatives:?Retina scans to check your email? Fingerprint analysis before ordering from Amazon? That may be the future of the Internet if the Fast Identity Online?Alliance gets its way.

For more from Angela, follow her on Twitter @amoscaritolo.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2415418,00.asp?kc=PCRSS05079TX1K0000992

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