In the space of just a few hours, hackers managed to remotely delete Wired reporter Mat Honan's iPad, iPhone, even the hard drive on his computer. Brooke talks to Mat about the surprisingly simple means by which the hackers were able to devastate his online life.

It's Superbowl weekend, and for non-football fans who've been coerced into watching the game by social pressure of geological magnitude, there's always the ads to look forward to. (Although advertisers are ruining the fun by leaking their ads ahead of time.)

There's almost no chance any of those ...

For Apple, the last two weeks have been filled with praise and scrutiny. Steve Jobs was held-up as the best American business has to offer in Tuesday's State of the Union address while the New York Times reported worrying work conditions at Chinese factories that produce Apple products. Bob speaks with Wired's Steven Levy who says the bad news won't immediately change public opinion of Apple.

On this week's show we ran a story about the Chinese toy maker In Icons and its plans to release a Steve Jobs action figure. Perhaps good news for the legions of Apple fans, the news was less warmly embraced by Apple itself, who threatened legal action against the toy manufacturer.

But as PC World reported yesterday, In Icons has stopped production on the controversial doll. Tandy Cheung, the Hong Kong businessman behind the doll said in a statement that "though we still believe that we have not overstepped any legal boundaries, we have decided to completely stop the offer, production and sale of the Steve Jobs figurine out of our heartfelt sensitivity to the feelings of the Jobs family."

A Chinese toy maker is set to release a Steve Jobs action figure next month, but Apple is hoping to halt the sales of the doll by threatening legal action against the manufacturer.  Apple successfully stopped a similar doll from being sold back in 2010, but the rules this time around might be different.  Brooke speaks to paidcontent.org legal writer Jeff Roberts, who says the rules protecting personality rights don't carry on after death in most places.

                For the past almost 28 years, I have been calling "1984" the best commercial ever made. Not that this is a controversial position; Ridley Scott's Super Bowl tour de force is often so cited, because it so dramatically defined the new Macintosh computer and the entire Apple brand. The IBM  PC was hardware for the masses of conformists and brainwashed drones; the new Mac was a tool of liberation for the heroically independent thinker. The message, in essence: Pick a side --  you can be under the thrall of some hectoring, bellicose Big Brother, or you can join the partisan struggle with that chick in the track shorts and t-shirt.