With the Academy Awards just around the corner, it’s always fun to make predictions as to who the winners might be. To help you in this, and promote its Oscar-related content, Vanity Fair magazine is launching a free iPhone app that will allow you to make your picks for all the awards and receive realtime results on the night of the show.

Of course, you can also invite friends to vote for the people you think have the best chance of winning, compare your selections to friends and the Vanity Fair editors, and chat via the app the app in Facebook. On Oscar night, the app will show you who is winning from your picks.

The app also offers access to Vanity Fair’s content including background information on nominees, stories, photos, profiles, trailers of nominated films, and slideshows. Hey, they gotta pay for the app somehow, right? With some much hype surrounding the Oscars, its nice to see an app that caters to the most important aspect of the night: who’s gonna take home the golden statue.

If you check out the app, tell us what you think in the comments. Also, after the break, we’ve included a little video that helps you understand Vanity Fair’s vision for this app and a little more on how to use it. So check that out too.

The Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 7 at 8/5P on ABC.

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Got an iPhone or an iPod Touch? If so, it’s time to connect them to iTunes to get the latest version of Apple’s operating system for these devices. This latest version, dubbed 3.1.3, addresses a number of issues including the following:

CoreAudio
Playing a maliciously crafted mp4 audio file may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

ImageIO
Viewing a maliciously crafted TIFF image may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution

Recovery Mode
A person with physical access to a locked device may be able to access the user’s data

WebKit
Accessing a maliciously crafted FTP server could result in an unexpected application termination, information disclosure, or arbitrary code execution

WebKit
When WebKit encounters an HTML 5 Media Element pointing to an external resource, it does not issue a resource load callback to determine if the resource should be loaded. This may result in
undesired requests to remote servers. As an example, the sender of an HTML-formatted email message could use this to determine that the message was read.

The update also offers the requisite “stability and usability enhancements.” Confused? Don’t worry, just update and things will be fine. Although, if you’re worried, you could wait a couple days to see if this latest update breaks something else, which sometimes happens. For more on this update, visit Apple’s Security Update site.

Seriously, who doesn’t like frees stuff? And when that stuff happens to be a game where you can blow the crap out of Nazi Zombies, the gift is all that much sweeter. If you love free stuff and killing Zombie Nazis then you’re in luck because starting now you can do that for free on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Interested? Of course you are. To find out more, take a look at this handly press release provided by our friends at Activision.

Zombies have overrun App Store as Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) and developer Treyarch have launched a free version of Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES. The Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES Lite App allows iPhone and iPod touch players to experience three rounds of the “Nacht der Untoten” (Night of the Undead) map in single player, explore the map and access a multitude of weapons from the Mystery Box. Multiplayer fans will be able to play for two rounds via Wi-Fi, locally or across the Internet with four players or two players over Bluetooth.

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If you’re a fan of Eric Powell’s awesome comic book series The Goon but often find yourself having trouble getting to the comic store to pick up the recent issues, then you’re in luck because this post is for you. According to Dark Horse Comics, publishers of The Goon, several issues of the comic including the graphic novel Chinatown, the Mystery of Mr. Wicker and The Goon #7 are going digital and will be available on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Intrigued? Thought so. Check out all the sccop from the official Dark Horse press release.

THE GOON ARRIVES ON THE iPHONE THIS WEEK AND IS BACK IN PRINT WITH THE ALL-NEW BUZZARD MINISERIES THIS SUMMER

Fans and critics alike rejoiced in 2008, when creator Eric Powell took his redneck zombie noir, The Goon, monthly for an entire calendar year. Following the release of the landmark graphic novel Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker, Powell laid out his most complex story line to date, spanning twelve issues. In 2009, the creator celebrated the tenth anniversary of the title, releasing a special anniversary issue to coincide with a burlesque anniversary party in his honor in Nashville, followed by a special all-silent issue in November. While both were strong standalone issues, the significantly lighter release schedule left fans wondering what’s next for the madcap mercenary.

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iPhone and iPod Touch users rejoice! Are you tired of cursing the programming gods because you have to use clunky Safari in order to look up what ever happened to Jennifer Grey or remember the name of your favorite Sylvester Stallone movie? Well, the smart cats over at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb to us locals) finally decided to put their heads together and come up with a coherent, iPhone friendly app for browsing their site.

No longer do we have to backdoor through Wikipanion or Movies App. Instead, the IMDb app is slick, and one could even say that it’s easier to navigate than the site itself. Nothing is watered down either. Users get the same access in the app as they would on the regular website, including:

• Over 1.5 million movie and TV titles
•  Over 3.2 million celebrities
•  US movie showtimes
•  Trailers
•  Photos
•  US TV listings
•  Top ranked movies (MOVIEmeter)
•  Top ranked celebrities (STARmeter)
•  Celebrity birthdays
•  US Box Office results
•  Movies coming soon
•  Top 250 rated films of all time

Best of all is that the app comes 100% free (which makes sense, considering that the site itself is free). IMDb is currently available in the iTunes App Store, so go grab it now, and be grateful that we live in an age of such jaw-dropping technology.

Apple rarely, if every, discounts its products so this latest “leaked” brochure, which seems to showcase the consumer electronics giant doing just that should be taken with one of those ginormous grains of salt. Still, if true, these deals do look pretty sweet and seem far more reasonable than other reported “deals’ being shown around the Internets.

If its a little difficult to see the fine print, we’ll give you a hand and highlight some of the deals. They are available only at Apple’s online store, and include iMacs starting at $1098, iPod nanos starting at $138, iPod touch starting at $178, MacBook Pros starting at $1098, Apple TVs starting at $208, Airport Express starting at $88, Magic Mouse and Wireless Keyboard going for $64 each, and a whole lot more.

We realize that the deals are pretty hard to read over there on the right, so be sure and click through to see a much larger version. Good luck on Friday and be safe out there.

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We’re fans of Dropbox here at The Flickcast and we use it almost every day to share files with our contributors all over the world. Well, okay, all over the US and Canada. Anyway, the service is pretty cool and offers an easy and convenient way for users separated by distance to give each other all kinds of different files types.

Dropbox also has an app for the iPhone, which has been recently updated to a new version. The Dropbox iPhone app is free from the App Store and is 3.0 compatible too. Also in the works is a soon-to-be-released update to the app that includes optional passcode locking, better handling of images and more. So, look for that one soon. The service will also see other enhancements in the coming months including larger storage options, PayPal support and the one I’m really waiting for: selective sync.

In the meantime, check out Dropbox at their new website and see if you don’t think its as useful as we do.

This is great news for any of you jealous of your friends who’ve had the opportunity to play Call of Duty: World at War with the additional zombie map packs. Now, if you’re one of the people who has an iPhone or iPod Touch but doesn’t have an XBox 360 or PS3, you too can enjoy some cool zombie killing action along with the rest of us because COD: World at War: Zombies is now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

According to the official word from our pals at Activision, this mobile version of the game “offers both single player and (Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies) highly-addictive co-op gameplay experience in full 3-D, allowing up to four players to join a game via Wi-Fi, locally or across the Internet, and up to two players via Bluetooth.” In addition:

“This is a great opportunity for fans of Call of Duty: World at War to take the fight against the Zombie masses wherever they are,” said Mark Lamia, Studio Head of Treyarch. “Zombies is a single player and co-op gameplay mode that people from all over the world have enjoyed playing and have spent countless hours conquering limitless waves of Zombies.”

The Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies app, developed by Ideaworks Game Studio for the iPhone and iPod touch, is available for $9.99 from the App Store right here.

Excelsior! Sorry, couldn’t resist. Actually, that word completely applies in this case seeing as how the X-Men were created by the great Stan “The Man” Lee and Jack “King” Kirby. Still, its a pretty good day today and a pretty cool thing we have to share with you right now.

Our pals at Marvel have provided us with a new video showing a bit of behind the scenes with the folks who make the Astonishing X-Men motion comic. Hosted by producer Kristine Stone, you get a tour of the production facility and get to meet many of the people responsible for putting this cool project together. All in all, not a bad way to spend a few minutes.

You get to learn some things and have a little fun too. What could be better than that? Not much, so be sure to check out the video after the jump. The Astonishing X-Men MOCO is available now at iTunes and on Hulu.

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If you happen to live in New York, or are planning on being in the city on October 28th and you love all things Marvel, this post is for you. Why? Well, glad you asked.

Marvel is having a big party and you’re invited. Check out all the details about Marvel’s upcoming event “MarvelFest” from this very official press release:

Marvel is proud to announce MarvelFest NYC 2009 (www.marvel.com/fest), an all-new interactive outdoor experience in New York City to celebrate the iTunes release of the groundbreaking Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic on October 28th. In celebration of the release of the AXM Motion Comic, based on the award winning story by superstars Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and John Cassaday (Captain America), this landmark first episode will be projected three stories high so that fans can experience the adventure like never before! Join celebrities and the biggest names in Marvel history to commemorate the Astonishing X-Men premiere!

The festivities begin at 4pm at Forbidden Planet (www.fpnyc.com), when some of Marvel’s most legendary creators, including Neal Adams (Uncanny X-Men), Chris Claremont (Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Forever), and Dan Slott (Amazing Spider-Man) sit down to meet fans and sign autographs. This is your chance to meet some of the most influential writers and artists in Marvel history!

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