Weekly News Roundup – 14 December 2012

Once again the week is coming to an end and that means it’s time for a roundup of the past weeks news!

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition Assaults The Mac App Store – The critically acclaimed RPG The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is now available on the Mac App Store. The development team promises that your choices really do matter, and will determine the fate of the people and kingdoms in the game.

Facebook iOS App Updated With Faster News Feed And Photo Uploading To Specific Album – Today Facebook released an update to its popular iOS app that brings multiple speed improvements and a new feature. Version 5.3 speeds up the timeline profile view for the iPhone, and the News feed now loads even faster on both iPhone and iPad.

Apple’s Best of the iTunes Store 2012: ‘Action Movie FX’ and ‘Paper’ Win Top App Honors – Apple today released the 2012 version of its annual iTunes Store awards, previously called iTunes Rewind, which celebrates the best music, movies, TV shows, apps, books, and podcasts of the year.

Apple opens iPhone 5 sales in China – Apple kicked off sales of the massively popular iPhone 5 handset in China and 31 other countries on Friday, fending off supply constraints as the company continues its fastest rollout ever.

Apple Quickly Updates Malware Definitions to Detect New SMS Scam Trojan – Apple has moved quickly to address the threat, adding definitions for the malware to its “Xprotect.plist” blacklist, which is part of the basic anti-malware tools Apple launched with OS X Snow Leopard in 2009.

App Store app gifting returns to iOS just in time for the holidays – Just in time for the holidays, Apple has restored the ability for a user to buy (“gift”) an App Store app for another App Store user via an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

iTunes 11 Gets First Update With “Show Duplicate Items” And Bug Fixes – Apple released iTunes 11 about two weeks ago, and now the software’s first update has been released in the Mac App Store. iTunes 11.0.1 brings back the ability to find duplicate items in a library.

A&E, HISTORY, and Lifetime launch iPad apps with full episodes, additional content for Xfinity TV users –  A+E Networks announced today the introduction of its first iPad apps for watching shows from some of its most popular networks, A&E, HISTORY and Lifetime. All three of the iPad apps are available for free on the App Store starting today and feature the ability to watch full episodes, access exclusive clips, and create a customizable Watchlist of upcoming shows.

Digitimes claims next iPad mini to have higher-res display, next 9.7-inch iPad to be lighter – According to Digitimes, Apple’s next-generation iPad mini’s enhancements will center around the device’s display resolution.

Matrox Launches DS1 Thunderbolt Docking Station for $249 – Matrox is one of the manufacturers that has been working on a Thunderbolt docking stations, having announced its $249 DS1 hub back in June. At the time, the product was scheduled to launch in September of this year, but the company later pushed back the launch to December as it decided to roll out separate models for DVI and HDMI monitor compatibility.