Apple may be more interested in phones and watches these days than the 20th century legacy product that is the PC, but has nonetheless issued a new update for the operating system it still offers for the antediluvian machines.

OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.3, to give the update its full name, slipped down the skids today promising, among other things, “the ability to redeem iTunes gift cards in the Mac App Store using your Mac's built-in camera”.

A predicted surge in sales of smaller, lower-cost tablets will bump up the number of shipments this year, according to a new report from IDC.

The research firm now expects global tablet shipments to rise to 190.9 million in 2012, up from its prior forecast of 172.4 million. IDC also sees an average rise in shipments of 11 percent from now through 2016, leading to more than 350 million tablets shipped by the end of 2017.

Apple‘s much-rumored smartwatch could be the first broadscale implementation of Corning’s flexible Willow Glass, potentially opening the door to an iOS-connected timepiece that wraps its display fully around the wrist. Speculation of an Apple-made Pebble rival resurged over the weekend with chatter that the Cupertino firm was working with Foxconn on a power-efficient companion device to the iPhone, featuring a curved glass screen. Exactly how curved that might be was unclear, but according to the New York Times the flexed wearable could be wrapped entirely about the wearer’s arm.