12th June 2012

Nintendo announces Heroes of Ruin to launch on the 21st June 2012 in Australia and New Zealand, exclusively for Nintendo 3DS. Heroes of Ruin is a brand new adventure game created specifically for Nintendo 3DS, pushing social and online interaction to the forefront of gameplay through innovative use of the Nintendo 3DS hardware.

Heroes can choose to take the battle to the next level by connecting locally or over the internet to fight alongside their friends in cooperative multiplayer. Players can trade rare and powerful items through an in-game shop which has an inventory updated through StreetPass. Connect your Nintendo 3DS console online to download fresh daily challenges which allow you to earn rewards as you play.

The game challenges players to carve their own adventure as a Gunslinger, Alchitect, Vindicator or Savage, create and customise characters and battle an array of fearsome and dangerous creatures through an environment with routes that change with every play.

For more information on Heroes of Ruin visit the official website: http://heroesofruin.com/

SYDNEY—12 June, 2012—Apple® today updated MacBook Air® with the latest Intel Core processors, faster graphics and flash storage that is up to twice as fast as the previous generation.* MacBook Air is the ultimate everyday notebook, and with new lower prices it is more affordable than ever. The current generation 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook® Pro have also been updated with the latest Intel Core processors and powerful discrete graphics from NVIDIA. Apple’s popular AirPort Express® has been redesigned to include features previously available only in AirPort Extreme®.

“Today we’ve updated the entire MacBook line with faster processors, graphics, memory, flash storage and USB 3 connectivity,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We’ve made the world’s best portable family even better and we think users are going to love the performance advances in both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.”

Available in 11-inch and 13-inch designs, the new MacBook Air features the latest Core i5 and Core i7 dual-core processors and is perfect for browsing the web, making movies and managing photos. The new integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 is up to 60 percent faster and gives the MacBook Air plenty of power to tackle games and videos.** MacBook Air features flash storage up to four times faster than traditional hard drives for instant-on performance and fast access to your apps and data. Now with 4GB of faster memory, configurable up to 8GB, you can run memory-intensive apps with ease. MacBook Air also features a new FaceTime® HD camera that delivers high-definition 720p.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro features the latest Intel Core i5 or Core i7 dual-core processors up to 2.9 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz. The 15-inch MacBook Pro features the latest Intel Core i7 quad-core processors up to 2.7 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.7 GHz and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro can be configured with a 1TB hard drive or SSDs up to 512GB that are up to twice as fast as the previous generation.

MacBook Air and MacBook Pro both feature a high-speed Thunderbolt port and two USB 3.0 ports to easily connect to external displays and a wide variety of high performance peripherals. The 13-inch MacBook Air, and 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro deliver up to 7 hours of wireless battery life, and the 11-inch MacBook Air delivers up to 5 hours. Mac® notebook batteries use advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology to provide up to 1,000 recharges.***

The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro ship with OS X® Lion. Starting today, customers who purchase a Mac are eligible for a free copy of OS X Mountain Lion when it becomes available. Mountain Lion introduces innovative features including the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, AirPlay® Mirroring, Game Center and the enhanced security of Gatekeeper. With iCloud® built into the foundation of OS X, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to keep your content up to date across all your devices.

Priced at a recommended retail price of AUD$119 inc. GST, the new AirPort Express features a completely redesigned compact enclosure and new wireless and connectivity capabilities. Simultaneous dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi allows users to easily create a network that delivers optimal performance and range. The AirPort Express also features an audio-out port to connect external powered speakers or an A/V receiver and use AirPlay to wirelessly stream from iTunes® on your Mac or iOS device. A USB 2.0 port allows you to share a printer wirelessly over your network, and an additional ethernet port lets you connect to other computers and network devices. Setup is built right into OS X and iOS and can be done in just a few simple steps, and with AirPort Utility 6.0 for OS X Lion and iOS you can access a visual map of your network for viewing and reconfiguring devices.

Pricing & Availability
The 11-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.7 GHz processor, 4GB of memory and is available with 64GB of flash storage starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$1099 inc. GST, and 128GB of flash storage starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$1249 inc. GST. The 13-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.8 GHz processor, 4GB of memory and is available with 128GB of flash storage starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$1349 inc. GST, and 256GB of flash storage starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$1689 inc. GST. Configure-to-order options include a 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, up to 8GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 onboard memory and up to 512GB flash storage.

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory and 500GB hard drive starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$1349 inc. GST, and with a 2.9 GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory and 750GB hard drive starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$1689 inc. GST. The 15-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 4GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, and 500GB hard drive starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$1999 inc. GST; and with a 2.6 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB of memory, Intel HD Graphics 4000 and NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, and 750GB hard drive starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$2499 inc. GST. Configure-to-order options include faster quad-core processors up to 2.7 GHz, additional hard drive capacity up to 1TB, up to 8GB of memory and solid state storage up to 512GB.
Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at apple.com/au/macbookair or apple.com/au/macbook-pro. The updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are available through the Apple Online Store (http://store.apple.com/au), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers.

*Testing conducted by Apple in June 2012 using preproduction MacBook Air configurations. For more information visit apple.com/macbookair/features.html.
**Testing conducted by Apple in June 2012 using preproduction MacBook Air configurations. For more information  visit apple.com/macbookair/features.html.

***The Wireless Web protocol testing was conducted by Apple in June 2012 using preproduction MacBook Pro and MacBook Air configurations. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings. For more information visit apple.com/macbook-pro/features/.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

SYDNEY—12 June, 2012— Apple® today announced that OS X® Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, will be available in July as a download from the Mac® App Store™. Mountain Lion introduces more than 200 innovative features including the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, Facebook integration*, Dictation, Power Nap, AirPlay® Mirroring, Game Center and the enhanced security of Gatekeeper. With iCloud® built into the foundation of OS X, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to keep your content up to date across all your devices.

“The pace of innovation on the Mac is amazing, OS X Mountain Lion comes just a year after the incredibly successful launch of Lion,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud built right in and the new Notification Center, Messages, Dictation, Facebook integration and more, this is the best OS X yet.”

Using your iCloud account, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to set up your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders and Notes. The new Reminders and Notes apps help you remember important tasks and jot down your thoughts quickly, while iCloud automatically keeps everything up to date. Documents in the Cloud works with iCloud-enabled apps including Apple’s iWork® suite so you can always access and edit your documents on any device.

The new Messages app replaces iChat® and brings iMessage™ to the Mac, so you can send messages to anyone with an iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch® or another Mac. You can include attachments, high quality photos and HD video, and your iMessages appear on all your devices so you can pick up a conversation right where you left off. iMessage includes group messaging, delivery and read receipts, typing indicators and secure end-to-end encryption. The Messages app also supports traditional instant messaging services, including AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk and Jabber.

Mountain Lion streamlines the presentation of notifications, and with Notification Center you can see all your notifications from OS X and third party apps in one convenient place. You can customise which apps send you notifications, the type of notification you receive, and how many items are shown in Notification Center. When you want to focus on your work or watch a movie, you can choose to temporarily suspend all notifications.

New system-wide Sharing is built into Mountain Lion, making it easier than ever to share links, photos, videos and other files. Clicking the Share button allows you to share quickly without having to switch to another app, and you just need to sign in once to use third-party services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo. Facebook and Twitter are integrated with Notification Center so you can receive notifications when someone sends you a message or mentions you in a post or Tweet.

With built-in support for Facebook, you can post photos, links and comments with locations right from your apps. Once you’ve signed in, your Facebook friends automatically appear in Contacts with their profile photos. Your Facebook notifications work with Notification Center in Mountain Lion, and you can even update your Facebook status from within Notification Center.

Dictation is built into Mountain Lion and allows you to dictate text anywhere you can type, whether you’re using an app from Apple or a third party developer. Mountain Lion also introduces Power Nap, an innovative new feature that keeps your MacBook Pro with Retina™ display and MacBook Air (second and third generation) up to date while it sleeps. Power Nap automatically refreshes Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Photo Stream, Find My Mac and Documents in the Cloud, and when plugged in, downloads software updates and backs up your Mac using Time Machine®.

The revolutionary new Gatekeeper feature makes downloading software from the Internet safer by giving you control over which apps can be installed on your Mac. You can choose to install apps from anywhere, just as you do today, or for maximum security you can set Gatekeeper to allow only apps from the Mac App Store. The default setting allows you to install apps from the Mac App Store and apps from developers that have a unique Developer ID from Apple. In addition to checking daily for security updates, Mountain Lion includes app sandboxing to keep misbehaving apps from compromising your system, and kernel ASLR for improved protection against buffer overflow attacks.

Additional new features in Mountain Lion include:

• AirPlay Mirroring, an easy way to wirelessly send an up-to-1080p secure stream of what’s on your Mac to an HDTV using Apple TV®, or send audio to a receiver or speakers that use AirPlay;
• Game Center, which brings the popular social gaming network from iOS to the Mac so you can enjoy live, multiplayer games with friends whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch;
• a faster Safari® with a unified Smart Search Field, iCloud Tabs that present your open tabs across your devices, and a new Tab View to quickly swipe through them; and
• over 1,700 new APIs that give developers access to the latest core OS and web technologies, as well as the newest features of OS X, including Documents in the Cloud, Notifications, Sharing and Game Center.

Pricing & Availability
OS X Mountain Lion will be available in July from the Mac App Store for a recommended retail price of AUD$20.99 inc. GST. Mountain Lion requires Lion or Snow Leopard (OS X v10.6.8 or later), 2GB of memory and 8GB of available space. For a complete list of system requirements and compatible systems, please visit: apple.com/osx/specs/. OS X Server requires Mountain Lion and will be available in July from the Mac App Store for a recommended retail price of AUD$20.99 inc. GST. The OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorised Reseller on or after 12 June, 2012.

*Facebook integration will be available in an upcoming software update to Mountain Lion.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Help test the standalone that protects kids, eases parental concerns 

SYDNEY & AUCKLAND – June 12, 2012 – Bitdefender, the award-winning provider of innovative antivirus solutions, has launched public beta testing of a novel parental control system aimed at increasing open communication between parents and kids.

Parental Control Standalone, opened to public beta testing on 11^th June, allows parents to protect their children from online dangers by simply checking up on their mobile phone or any other Internet-connected device. With GPS tracking, parents know where their children are so they can protect them from real-world threats.

The Facebook monitoring feature identifies kids’ profiles, allowing parents to monitor kids’ social accounts without being necessarily in the friends’ list. Extensive reports outline their children’s friends, comments, posts, photos, and their main interests.

“Parental Control Standalone is loaded with interesting features that help parents manage the dangers their kids are exposed to in the online environment,” said Mihaela Masdrag, Product Manager at Bitdefender. “Most important, our parental control software monitors instead of blocking, promoting honest communication between parents and kids.”

To this end, the child has to allow the social media app when he enters his account, but the parent is also alerted when children uninstall it. “Honest communication or reading the about section of the app lets children know they are monitored,” Masdrag said.

Bitdefender Parental Control Standalone also gives beta testers the opportunity to try the online user friendly interface, which can be accessed from any Internet-connected device.

Bitdefender Standalone Parental Control module is available for free beta testing at:

http://www.bitdefender.com/media/html/parental-control/

SYDNEY—12 June, 2012—Apple® today unveiled an all new 15-inch MacBook® Pro featuring a stunning Retina™ display, all flash storage and quad-core processors in a radically thin and light design. Measuring a mere 1.8 centimetres and weighing 2.02 kilograms, the completely redesigned MacBook Pro sets a new standard in performance and portability for pro users.

“The MacBook Pro with Retina display pushes the limits of performance and portability like no other notebook,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With a gorgeous Retina display, all flash architecture and a radically thin and light design, the new MacBook Pro is the most advanced Mac we have ever built.”

The new MacBook Pro Retina display is the world’s highest resolution notebook display with over 5 million pixels, 3 million more than an HD television. At 220 pixels-per-inch, the Retina display’s pixel density is so high the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels from a normal viewing distance, so text and graphics look incredibly sharp. The Retina display uses IPS technology for a 178-degree wide viewing angle, and has 75 percent less reflection and 29 percent higher contrast than the previous generation.

Featuring a precision engineered aluminium unibody design and an all flash storage architecture, the all new MacBook Pro is the lightest MacBook Pro ever and nearly as thin as a MacBook Air®. Flash storage that is up to four times faster than traditional notebook hard drives enables the all new MacBook Pro to play four simultaneous streams of uncompressed 1080p HD video from internal storage.* The flash storage architecture also delivers improved reliability, instant-on responsiveness and 30 days of standby time.

The MacBook Pro with Retina display features the latest Intel Core i7 quad-core processors up to 2.7 GHz with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.7 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics, up to 16GB of faster 1600 MHz RAM and flash storage up to 768GB. Two Thunderbolt and two USB 3.0 ports allow pro users to connect to multiple displays and high performance devices, and a new HDMI port offers quick connectivity to HDTVs.

The MacBook Pro battery delivers up to 7 hours of wireless productivity, and uses advanced chemistry and Adaptive Charging technology to provide up to 1,000 recharges.** The MacBook Pro also features a FaceTime® HD camera, glass Multi-Touch™ trackpad, full-size backlit keyboard, dual microphones, enhanced speakers, 3-stream 802.11n Wi-Fi and a thinner MagSafe® 2 power port.

OS X® Lion, iPhoto®, iMovie®, iTunes® and other Apple apps including Aperture® and Final Cut Pro® X have been updated to take full advantage of the new MacBook Pro with Retina display. The updated Aperture 3.3 also includes revolutionary new image adjustment features and now supports a unified photo library so photographers can move seamlessly between iPhoto and Aperture.

The all new MacBook Pro ships with OS X Lion. Starting today, customers who purchase a Mac are eligible for a free copy of OS X Mountain Lion when it becomes available. Mountain Lion introduces innovative features including the all new Messages app, Notification Center, system-wide Sharing, AirPlay® Mirroring, Game Center and the enhanced security of Gatekeeper. With iCloud® built into the foundation of OS X, Mountain Lion makes it easier than ever to keep your content up to date across all your devices.

Pricing & Availability
The 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display is available through the Apple Online Store (http://store.apple.com/au), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers. The 15-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.3 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, 8GB of memory and 256GB of flash storage starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$2499 inc. GST; and with a 2.6 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.6 GHz, 8GB of memory and 512GB of flash storage starting at a recommended retail price of AUD$3199 inc. GST. Configure-to-order options include faster quad-core processors up to 2.7 GHz, up to 16GB of memory and flash storage up to 768GB.

Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online at apple.com/au/macbook-pro.

*Testing conducted by Apple in June 2012 using preproduction MacBook Pro configurations. For more information visit apple.com/macbook-pro/features/.

**The Wireless Web protocol testing was conducted by Apple in June 2012 using preproduction MacBook Pro configurations. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings. For more information visit apple.com/macbook-pro/features/.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.