Apple's biggest store, Nasa tech, business iPhone apps and Enigma

Photos of the month - August 2010

While August is just about to draw to a close, the month did see Apple open the doors to its biggest retail store yet.

Located in London's Covent Garden, the Apple store is staffed by a massive 300 employees who demo Apple's kit and provide learning, training and support services in store.

For more on the store, see Apple opens biggest store in London's Covent Garden.

August also saw BlackBerry-maker RIM take the wraps off its new operating system for the device, BlackBerry OS 6.

Flagship features of the revamped OS includes its WebKit browser - pictured above demonstrating tabbed browsing - along with better social networking integration, a simplified set-up system and a universal search function.

For more screenshots of the OS, see BlackBerry 6 - how the new OS looks.

Screenshot: RIM

RIM also launched the first device to run BlackBerry OS 6, the BlackBerry Torch.

The firsts don't stop there for the Torch - it's also the first BlackBerry to have a capacative touchscreen and a slide-out physical Qwerty keyboard too.

The BlackBerry Torch, pictured above, brings some similar features and functionality found on rival platforms like Google's Android OS and Apple's iPhone to the BlackBerry, such as a WebKit browser, pinch-to-zoom browsing and visual voicemail.

For more photos of the device, see BlackBerry Torch launches with touchscreen and Qwerty too.

RIM also launched an update to its BlackBerry Curve smartphone series, bringing 3G connectivity to the handset to improve browsing performance.

The Curve, also known as the BlackBerry 9300 (pictured above), has been designed to appeal to first-time smartphone users, according to RIM.

The touchscreen-less handset will ship with the BlackBerry 5 OS but users will be able to upgrade to 6.

To see the device in action, see BlackBerry Curve 3G unveiled by RIM.

Another new device profiled in August was the Motorola Milestone XT720.

In an update to the original Milestone model, Motorola has given the XT720 a sleeker design and a better camera.

For more of the XT720, see Motorola's latest Milestone ditches Qwerty and upgrades camera.

Photo credit: Sarah Tew/CNET

In August, we also put a new release from SAP under the spotlight. The company recently announced the general availability of its software-as-a-service enterprise resource planning system, Business ByDesign. The technology is aimed at mid-sized companies and is SAP's first significant foray into software as a service.

Business ByDesign's report gallery screen, shown above, is a way of accessing different sets of pre-defined data using an Apple-esque interface.

Take a look at what other features the package has to offer, see SAP Business ByDesign up close and personal .

Screenshot: SAP

We also took a look at the best iPhone apps for marketing professionals during August.

Among the apps making the cut was Hootsuite for Twitter, which helps brands manage their social media presence.

The HootSuite for Twitter iPhone app allows for easy managing of Facebook and Twitter accounts, with the ability to schedule updates to each.

To see the full round-up, check out iPhone apps for marketing pros.

This month, Microsoft also announced the release date and pricing for Office for Mac 2011, the latest version of its productivity suite for the Apple platform.

silicon.com took a look at the new features to expect from the Office for Mac 2011, including new photo-editing tools - allowing things such as colour correction or background removal - seen here working in PowerPoint.

To find out what else has been added to the software package, see What's new in Office for Mac 2011.

Screenshot: Microsoft

With Microsoft's venerable browser Internet Explorer turning 15 in Auguest, silicon.com's sister site CNET News.com took a look back at how it's changed over the last decade and a half.

Shown above is Internet Explorer 6: despite being some nine years old, the sixth iteration of the browser still remains well used to this day.

To see more of the changing face of Internet Explorer, see Internet Explorer through the ages.

Screenshot: Ina Fried/CNET

Another look into technology's past came courtesy a photo story that celebrated the launch of the US' first communications satellite 50 years ago.

The Echo 1A was launched by Nasa on 12 August 1960 and not long thereafter, according to the space agency, Echo allowed President Eisenhower to make the first voice communication via satellite.

To see more of the Echo "satelloon", read: A glimpse of Nasa's history of satellite communications.

Photo credit: Nasa

More history came in the shape of a trip by silicon.com sister site CNET News.com to the The National Cryptologic Museum in the US, managed by the National Security Agency.

The museum is home to a fantastic history of code and codebreaking machines but the star of the show is the Enigma, the German device used by the Nazis in World War II to encrypt their messages which, despite Hitler's belief was unbreakable, was eventually cracked by the Allies.

Pictured above are the operational rotors of Enigma.

For more great pictures from the National Cryptologic Museum see the full gallery: The Enigma machines on show at the National Cryptologic Museum.

From technology of the past to technology of the future, as CNET News.com visited General Electric's research headquarters to find out what the energy giant is working on.

Among the areas of tech of interest to GE are is nanotechnology. After noticing that water seems to flow right off certain kinds of plants, such as this one, GE's scientitst are working to recreate the kinds of surfaces that nature has produced at the nanoscale, in order to be able to apply those kinds of surfaces to places and machines that are better kept dry.

To see what else GE is cooking up, see Inside General Electric's research headquarters.

Photo credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET

More futurisitic tech was on show this month as we explored the technology that will be carried by Nasa's Mars rover, set to visit the red planet next year.

Among the kit onboard will be the ChemCam, shown above, will fire a laser from the rover toward rock and soil targets up to nine meters away, vaporising materials from a 1mm area and analysing the atomic composition of the targets' surfaces. The vaporised material, a plasma of hot gas made of free-floating ions and electrons, will be analysed by the onboard spectrograph.

For more on the equipment making the journey to Mars, see The technology powering Nasa's Mars rover.

Image credit: Nasa/JPL-Caltech/LANL/J-L Lacour/CEA

Next time you fancy swatting up on what geological features lie beneath your feet or need to find where to live to minimise your commute check out the data.gov.uk website.

The website allows the public to access thousands of datasets collected by government and to plug the stats into apps that display that information in an engaging manner.

This is the Where Can I Live web app, which shows users areas where they can afford to live that are within an acceptable commuting distance of their workplace.

To discover more apps, see Apps to wake you up on the commute and find volcanoes under your feet.