Gadgetory

it's Tuesday August sixteenth 2011 I'm Wilson Tang on cnet com and it's time to get loaded amazon is launching a new iphone app geared directly towards students it's called amazon student app for iphone and on top uploading students check prices buy and sell textbooks they will get six months of amazon prime free two-day shipping built into the app is the ability to scan a barcode to find out whether that textbook video game where that box of ramen noodles is available online for a cheaper price t-mobile says it is partnering up with discount retailer family dollar stores to offer prepaid service family dollar which operates six thousand locations is meant to replace Radio Shack which is dropping t-mobile prepaid service and switching to verizon t-mobile will be selling its prepaid handset the LG GS 170 which is a basic flip phone customers can sign up for no contract service plans including a fifty dollar a month unlimited calls text internet access plan with a hundred megabytes of data after much rumor and speculation Apple has finally released Mac os10 lion on USB thumb drives via their online store the $69 drive will let users install OS 10 which requires seven gigabytes of storage space one caveat though is that users will not be able to use the line internet recovery to reinstall the OS they will need to reinstall from the USB thumb drive yesterday we reported on the San Francisco Bart cutting cellular phone service under ground to prevent protesters from causing disruptions this past Saturday well now the FCC is looking into the service shutdown saying anytime communication services are interrupted we seek to assess the situation meanwhile hacker collective anonymous's operation bart succeeded on monday and releasing customer private information causing dissent within the hacker group which lacks any formal structure meanwhile protesters showed up at a bart station Monday night at 5pm chanting and blocking train doors police close to station 20 minutes later and threatened to rest any protester who didn't leave immediately the next time you head into a Starbucks for a latte you might end up walking out with a free iPhone app to using its pick of the cards Starbucks will be using the system to give out free iPhone apps the first app to be offered for free is shazam encore which normally retails for 599 and helps users identify songs by matching them to a database in the past apple and starbucks have long had a partnership to give customers free music track downloads from the itunes music store finally the White House has announced the most prominent new user on the location-based social network Foursquare that's right President Barack Obama will be checking in as he visits locations around the country on top of that the White House says it will be posting tips as he tours the nation in preparation for his reelection campaign those are your headlines for today I'm Wilson tank for cnet.com and you've just been loaded