According to new documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA and its UK counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), hacked into the computers of Gemalto, a company that manufactures SIM cards for a large number of carriers around the world. In doing so, the intelligence agencies acquired encryption keys that would allow them to intercept communications from customers of all four major U.S. carriers, along with 450 others around the world.

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Digging through the CrackBerry Forums there’s a lot of questions surrounding whether or not unlocked BlackBerry 10 devices will be able to get the BlackBerry 10.3.1 update directly from BlackBerry. Thankfully, that question was asked directly to BlackBerry Product Manager, Michael Clewley, who noted ShopBlackBerry devices would get the update direct. We followed up with Michael on that to ask about Amazon devices as well and to ensure that the information was indeed correct before posting and now, both ShopBlackBerry and Amazon purchased devices globally will get the update directly.

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T-Mobile CEO John Legere said today the wireless carrier is “having discussions” with BlackBerry about selling its handsets again. The two companies famously ended their partnership in April 2014, a couple of months after BlackBerry objected to a T-Mobile campaign that urged BlackBerry smartphone owners to switch to Apple’s iPhone.

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Apple is rumored to be targeting 2020 to start production of the rumored Apple Car. That timeline, if at all accurate, could place the company in direct competition with aggressive electric car offerings from industry leaders GM and Tesla. Bloomberg cites unnamed sources:

The timeframe — automakers typically spend five to seven years developing a car — underscores the project’s aggressive goals and could set the stage for a battle for customers with Tesla Motors Inc. and General Motors Co., both of which are targeting a 2017 release of an electric vehicle that can go more than 200 miles on a single charge and cost less than $40,000.

Recent reports indicate the company’s team includes former executives from Ford, Tesla, and Mercedes-Benz.

Whether or not Apple is merely exploring the idea of automotive or is actively prototyping cars, one thing is clear — there’ll be no lack of rumors for the next… 5 years.

Apple has just announced a repair extension program for MacBook Pro computers with video issues. Through the program, Apple will repair affected MacBook Pros or reimburse people who have already paid for a repair.

“We’ve found that a small percentage of MacBook Pro models sold between February 2011 and December 2013 may exhibit video issues and we will repair those systems free of charge,” an Apple spokesperson told iMore. “We are contacting customers who paid for a repair through Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider to arrange a reimbursement. Customers can learn more about the repair program, including affected models, service options and repair reimbursement information at http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro-videoissues/.”

Apple will be contacting customers over the next few days regarding the details of the program.

More: Apple program page

Cloud storage solution Box received an update for iPhone and iPad that includes the addition of previews for Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) image files. The file standard is used for storing and transmitting information related to medical imaging, and should you have any such files stored in your account, you will be able to see previews for them now. The update also resolves an image picker issue, and comes with stability improvements as well as bug fixes.

Here’s the official changelog for version 3.6.2:

• Added Preview support for DICOM image files.
• Resolved an issue where some users were redirected to incorrect images when selecting an image from global search results.
• Additional stability improvements and bug fixes.

Box is a robust service if you’re looking to store documents, with the service offering native viewing support for over 100 file types, including PDF, Word, Excel, AI, PSD and more.

• Box – Free – Download Now

Right on time. As was announced earlier this month, AT&T set the release date for both the BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry Classic for February 20th and if you head on over to the AT&T website right now, you’ll find both devices are now live and ready to be ordered online.

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Year past I would’ve been on a stage in China Town this week with Georgia Dow and Anthony Casella demonstrating Foshan boxing to the beat of lion drums, and then meeting up with friends for “ice cream” that consisted of red bean, ice, and tofu. That’s how we spent most of Chinese New Year when we were in college, and it forever bound us to the people and the culture.

These days we take to the microphone to talk about Apple, a company that’s finding Greater China and Japan increasingly important parts of their business, and cities like Shenzhen integral to their manufacturing efforts. New Apple Stores are soaring to the heavens almost monthly, it feels like, as are the numbers Apple reports during their quarterly calls.

Red envelopes filled with money are the traditional gifts given for New Year — choosing a gift for someone else is often seen as presumptuous — and some of that money will no doubt contribute towards new iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

If you’re just getting started with Apple and you stumbled upon this post, welcome to iMore. If you’ve been here for a while, thank you for sticking with us. Either way, may peace and prosperity, health and happiness be with you this year and every year.

Gong Hei Faat Choi. Gong Xi Fa Cai. 恭禧發財.

Happy year of the goat!

• Getting started with iPhone
• Getting started with iPad

My Trips isn’t a new app, it’s been around for some time but we haven’t talked much about it in recent times. But, if you’re a frequent traveller it’s something you should definitely look at. It hooks into the popular service, TripIt, which manages travel documents and itineraries on your behalf by pulling confirmations out of your inbox and organising them into trips for you.

Adobe is celebrating a big milestone for its landmark image editing software Photoshop. The venerable software package’s 25th anniversary this week. Few apps have had Photoshop’s industry-changing impact and popularity, and fewer still are as directly linked to the Macintosh’s enduring success as a tool for creative professionals.

Humble beginnings

While Adobe celebrates Photoshop’s 25th anniversary today, Photoshop can trace its lineage back to 1987, when Photoshop’s creator, Thomas Knoll, first wrote code to display grayscale images on his black and white Macintosh Plus.

Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, showed the app to his brother John, who worked at Industrial Light & Magic, the movie visual effects company started by Star Wars creator George Lucas. The two brothers collaborated on the development of image editing features that would ultimately become the core of Photoshop, the earliest shipping version of which was bundled with a photographic slide scanner.

Knoll pitched the software to dozens of app publishers. Russell Brown, Adobe’s art director, saw not only what the software could do, but what it could be. Adobe purchased a license to distribute the software, and would release Photoshop 1.0 for the Mac exclusively, in February, 1990.

The desktop publishing world would never be the same.

True industry disruption

The term “disruption” gets abused about by PR and marketing teams these days, but that’s truly the effect that Photoshop had on the desktop publishing market.

Before Photoshop, digital image retouching was an incredibly expensive endeavor: Dedicated high-end computer systems were needed to manage this feat. Businesses paid hundreds of dollars an hour for the privilege. After Photoshop, anyone with a color Macintosh and a scanner could produce incredible images for a fraction of the price.

Six years before Photoshop, the Mac came on the scene at a time when printing and typography were expensive and rarified professional markets, open only those with years of training and machines that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

Within less than half a decade, the Mac completely remapped that industry. Almost anyone working in graphic design and publishing could afford their own professional rig. The graphic design and publishing market exploded as a result: Designers old and new were able to work with digital imagery and precise layout technology at a fraction of the price they could before.

Adobe’s work on Illustrator and font management had already helped to secure the Macintosh’s place as the centerpiece of desktop publishing. Quark established QuarkXPress as as the premier page layout tool of the age. Adobe would eventually unseat Quark with InDesign, but at the time, Photoshop was the fourth pillar. Combined, the world of graphic design, page layout, typography, image editing and printing would never be the same.

Photoshop’s enduring legacy

Photoshop, and the industry of image editing tools and techniques that have developed in its wake, has had an incredible impact not just on the way we edit images, but the way we perceive images too. Photoshop has also become so seamlessly enmeshed in our lives that we look skeptically at almost every image we’re shown: Is it real, or is it Photoshopped?

Barely a magazine exists whose cover photo hasn’t been airbrushed and retouched extensively with Photoshop. Photoshop isn’t just used to as a creative or artistic tool that improves lighting and adds special effects: The abuse of Photoshop and other image editors by the media propagates harmful messages that affect women and girls’ body image and self esteem.

“95 percent of the human images we see are retouched,” said Jennifer Berger, Executive Director of the nonprofit organization About-Face. Berger is an expert in how media shapes our sense of self.

“The problems with Photoshop happen when it’s used to remove more than small blemishes, and instead waved over an image to remove wrinkles, bulges or enlarge breasts, lengthen necks, or other such body modification.”

We’ve even seen image editing software used for government propaganda too.

But the bottom line is that any tool can be used for good or ill. Photoshop is no exception.

Photoshop, and the work it does, has become such a routine part of life that it’s become a generic verb in English and other languages to describe image retouching. Photoshop is part of our daily lexicon like “Xerox” is for photocopying, “Hoover” for vacuuming, “Kleenex” for facial tissue and, arguably, “iPad” for computing tablet.

Photoshop’s future

Adobe’s relationship with Photoshop users changed in 2013, when the company announced it was discontinuing development of Creative Suite in favor of Creative Cloud, its cloud-based subscription service.

Customers no longer wait years for monolithic updates that cause major workflow disruptions. In exchange for a monthly fee, users get more frequent, incremental updates and feature changes.

Those who prefer paying once for software and forgetting about it have been left by the wayside, or in search of alternatives. And the good news is that there are alternatives. Photoshop isn’t the only image editing software out there, and never has been. Photoshop is an icon, however, and a sounding beacon for an entire industry of software applications.

Since Thomas Knoll’s work on a black and white Mac Plus in the 1980s, Photoshop has had a secure place in the pantheon of digital image editing software. It’s a legacy Adobe is sure to protect far into the future.

Here’s Adobe with the final word: