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After announcing that an iCloud security breach was not to blame for hackers posting nude photos of celebrities to the internet, Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with The Wall Street Journal for his first interview since the leak. Cook claims that the hackers either correctly guessed security questions to gain access to celebrity accounts, or that the celebrities themselves fell for a phishing scam.

Apple plans to give iCloud users a better sense of security by sending a notification every time someone attempts to access an iCloud account for the first time on a new device or alter any information like passwords. The new notifications will begin rolling out in two weeks when iOS 8 is expected to be released to the public.

Apple has added a new live page and countdown clock to apple.com. The page reads: "Live video from our special event will be right here. And so will a whole lot more. Join us at Apple.com on September 9 at 10 a.m. PDT to follow every moment."

Apple sent out invites for the event on Thursday, August 28th. The keynote is being held at Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, California, instead of the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco where Apple normally makes its new product announcements.

It has never been a question of if, but rather when Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) would embrace mobile payments and develop its own digital wallet. Since the iPhone 6 was first announced, many industry analysts have speculated that the new handset would incorporate an NFC chip to facilitate mobile payments; now the Wall Street Journal agrees, not only for the iPhone, but for the iWatch as well.

In Thursday's report, WSJ writers Greg Bensinger, Lorraine Luk and Daisuke Wakabayashi wrote that both as yet unannounced devices would incorporate near field communications (NFC) technology. According to sources close to Apple, "NFC wireless is central to Apple's plans to incorporate so-called tap-to-pay into its mobile devices, allowing users to pay for goods and services using credit cards stored with iTunes."

Apple today published a press release addressing the massive celebrity photo leak that broke the internet over Labor Day weekend. In case you've been living under a rock, an unidentified person published private photos of several high profile celebrities, like Jennifer Lawrence, to an infamous image board that we will not name. Several reports suggested that the hacker may have acquired the images through a security flaw found in Apple's iCloud or Find My iPhone services, but today Apple confirmed that there was no breach in any of its systems. Instead Apple said the celebrities were victim of a " targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions."

"We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple’s engineers to discover the source. Our customers’ privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud® or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved."

With iPhone 6 and iWatch excitement at a feverish level, Apple shares (NASDAQ: AAPL) once again closed the week at an all time high of $102.50. The buzz continued over the weekend as after hours trading led to a $103.06 opening price on Tuesday morning. At the time of this writing shares have been as high as $103.74.

The excitement stemmed from Apple's official announcement of a September 9th event in which the company will debut its flagship iPhone 6, as well as the iWatch (which, by the way, is not officially called the "iWatch" at this point). The event will be held at the Flint Center for the Performing Arts in Cupertino, which is a departure from the company's normal venue, the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. It will start at 1 PM Eastern, 10 AM, Pacific.