News Archive for 12/06/11
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In addition to the other higher-profile offerings at Apple's Worldwide Developer's conference today, the company announced two new adapter cables for all Thunderbolt-equipped Macs. Shipping today is the Gigabit Ethernet Thunderbolt cable, and the Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt adapter cable arrives later this summer.
Nintendo's tough financial fortunes appear to be continuing unabated, as the company announced today that it will be reducing summer bonuses for its employees by 20 percent. Reuters reports that flagging sales of the company's console and handheld gaming devices played a role in the bonus reduction, and Nintendo will also be reducing executive compensation accordingly.
On Friday, information surfaced that Samsung has added the Australian patent commissioner to a complaint alleging that the official didn't follow protocol when issuing Apple some patents. As a result, Samsung is attempting to invalidate the patents before the Australian court battle begins between the two giants. The hearing to invalidate the patents allegedly granted beyond the powers of the patent commissioner is scheduled for June 25. The overall patent battle will begin some time later this summer.
[Update: added comments from NYT columnist David Pogue, alleged Tim Cook email] Apple has quietly updated its Mac Pro line, putting an end to speculation that the product would be discontinued -- but has instead given the machine the lightest possible refresh, updating the processors slightly (faster versions of the same two-year-old Westfield chips) and dropping the price of the 12-core standard configuration by $1,200 to $3,800. However, some evidence has emerged that this is a transitional move to a full re-design in 2013.
In addition to the new Mac hardware and the iOS refresh, Apple has made a smaller announcement today: the Apple-produced Smart Case has been redesigned. Changes to the case are small, but the accessory now covers the whole of the iPad while retaining the functionality of the original Smart Case.
An International Trade Commission (ITC) judge has granted Apple's motion to have five of the patents asserted against it by HTC thrown out of an ongoing legal dispute. The five patents were assigned to HTC by Google less than a week before HTC filed the complaint in September 2011. Three of eight patents remain in HTC's second ITC complaint against Apple.
The staff behind Pieceable Viewer, a browser-based viewer for iOS apps, has been hired on by Facebook. The staff acquisition was detailed today in an announcement on the company's site. Notably, Facebook will only be bringing on Pieceable's entire staff, not the company itself, its technology, or its stored customer data.
The United States Department of State recently announced that it had awarded a $16.5 million contract to Amazon for the provision of e-reader and tablet devices for State Department employees. The contract was awarded on a no-bid basis, meaning Amazon secured the arrangement without the Department considering other manufacturers. In a companion filing (PDF) explaining the no-bid nature of the contract, the Department noted that Amazon's Kindle was the only device that provided the functionality necessary to fulfill its needs.
Joint venture Duracell Powermat has launched the 24-Hour Power System, bundling an iPhone case with a wireless charger and a backup battery. The collection arrives ahead of the Wireless Power Nation initiative, which will see public wireless charging hotspots for Powermat users.
The world's largest social networking site may well be beyond its best days of growth, according to an analysis in The Wall Street Journal. Facebook rose to the top of the social web through sustained, meteoric growth, but recent figures show that the site is taking on users at a rate much slower than it did in previous years, and user engagement with the site may be leveling off as well.
The iOS 6 Maps app, revealed today, actually uses TomTom data as its primary source of mapping data, screenshots show. A check of the Acknowledgements section lists TomTom under copyrights. The app's corner menu, meanwhile, mentions "Data from TomTom, others."
Apple allowed WWDC attendees to take a closer look at the new 15-inch MacBook Pro, which features a 2880x1800 Retina display among other new features. The new design measures just 0.71 inches thick and weighs in at 4.46 pounds, shaving nearly a quarter inch and a full pound off the standard 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro. Check out our live gallery for close-up images of the new device.
Lenovo has introduced a self-branded mobile broadband service for its ThinkPad line. Lenovo Mobile Access is a prepaid broadband connection powered by Macheen, which users in the US and nine countries in Europe will be able to use on selected new purchases from the manufacturer.
Recently-uncovered job listings seems to indicate that Apple is looking to bring a version of its pro-photography program Aperture to iOS. The listings show that Apple's Aperture team is looking to bring on user-interface engineers, managers, and software coders with experience working in the iOS environment. Experience in programming for iOS is listed as a key requirement in the listing, which seems to suggest that the listing is aimed at bringing in talent to eventually produce an iOS app, AppleInsider reports.
At today's WWDC 2012 keynote, Apple formally unveiled iOS 6, its next-generation mobile OS. In all the firmware is said to have some 200 new features, foremost of which is a new Maps app. The software severs ties with Google, and has several major new features including local business search, and 3D map views in some cities, using vector and/or aerial imagery. Turn-by-turn navigation has been introduced, which also supports Siri commands such as navigation and point-of-interest requests. Traffic data is based on real-time anonymous data from iOS users.
Pop-culture and retro label Shout Factory has bought the Video Time Machine iOS app [$2.99, App Store]. In a deal with undisclosed terms, Original Victories sold the classic movie and TV app to the label. The buyer is said to be considering new sponsorship deals and planning to release an equivalent app for Android devices.
Apple kicked off its WWDC keynote by highlighting its latest App Store metrics, boasting that overall downloads have surpassed 30 billion. The company also noted that developers have fetched more than $5 billion in payments from the iOS app portal, which breaks down to a $1 in revenue for every six downloads.
Presenting at its WWDC 2012 keynote, Apple today announced new MacBook Pro and Air models. The flagship system is a new, ultra-thin 15-inch Pro, just 0.71 inches thick, and 4.46 pounds. It also makes an upgrade to a Retina display, with a resolution of 2880x1800 and a 220ppi pixel density. The screen is also said to have a higher contrast ratio, better viewing angles, and reduced glare. To match, all the stock apps in OS X Lion have been updated to support the screen, as have Aperture and Final Cut Pro.
Two Star Trek icons and an animator will be talking during the Lunchtime Sessions at WWDC this week. LeVar Burton, J.J. Abrams, and William Joyce will be speaking at the conference, with subjects centering on how technology is impacting storytelling and views on changing the content creation process, along with demonstrations on how these are happening.
Sprint no longer has a majority stake in Clearwire, it announced on Monday. This now means its voting rights in the venture are increased and there is no risk of defaulting on its own debt. Late last year, Sprint invested hundreds of millions into Clearwire to help it out of debt and to build out its 4G LTE network.
Rumors of an Asus-produced Google Nexus tablet were confirmed today, Android Authority is claiming, as a company representative is said to have verified that a seven-inch model would be arriving at the end of June. The Nexus tablet was previously outed in benchmarking tests and is expected to be powered by Nvidia's Kai platform.
UK-based Storage Options has added two new Android 4.0 tablets to its range. There is the 8-inch Scroll Engage and 9.7-inch Scroll Elite. Both get aluminum bodies and share 1.2GHz Cortex A8 processors and Mail-400 dual-core graphics processors. The larger Elite sports an IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with 1024x768 resolution and 16GB of integrated storage, though a microSD memory card slot is also present.
Twitter touts itself as the platform best suited to advertising on the mobile web, but the site's newest ad isn't a tweet; it's a television commercial. The new ad is one of several the company is rolling out to publicize its new hashtag URL feature, which AllThingsD says is aimed at luring advertisers into a closer relationship with Twitter.
Sony has launched a countdown on its Facebook page to the launch of a new Xperia-branded smartphone. What's a little different in this case is that the countdown is interactive, with visitors to the page getting the chance to fast forward the date so the phone will be unveiled before its originally-planned debut on June 22. On its devoted blog, Sony revealed that 2,102 users have clicked the button, which sped up the release date by 11 hours and 42 minutes, so the handset will launch at least one day earlier.
A few leaked images of a new interface seem to confirm that Microsoft is working on a massive overhaul of its Hotmail e-mail service. Dubbed "Newmail," the new e-mail system integrates aspects of the tile-based UI found in Windows 8 and Windows Phone. According to liveside.net, Newmail will also feature increased integration of social networking services.
Apple's next Macs, which are widely expected to be unveiled within hours, may feature customized USB 3.0 ports. Several recent leaks have pointed to USB 3.0 support as a likely feature, however sources have told Electronista that Apple pushed to get its own exclusive grey-colored connectors for upcoming devices, rather than utilizing the existing blue connectors found on most USB 3.0 products.
(Updated with Retina MacBook Pro specs) Specifications have been leaked for Apple's new Mac Pros and MacBook Pros, expected to be announced later today at WWDC 2012, according to 9to5Mac. The Mac Pro is anticipated to come in two regular stock configurations, and one server setup. The base configuration includes a 3.2GHz quad-core processor, 6GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and ATI Radeon 5770 graphics. A higher-end option includes the same hard disk and graphics, but switches to a 2.4GHz 12-core processor and 12GB of RAM. The server is closer to the base configuration, but uses 8GB of RAM and two 1TB hard drives, while losing the Radeon graphics.
The dedicated TV set Apple is working on could use both motion detection and a touchscreen remote, says a new memo from Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White. The claim is based on a visit to Taiwan for the Computex trade show, and on talks with supply chain companies in the area. He suggests that the TV will support several methods of interaction, of which motion detection would be just one.
At the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, Intel once again showed off its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) small form-factor PC. It's just four by four inches in size and the latest information shared by TechReport suggests the device will cost $400 and ship sometime in the third quarter of the year. The PC was originally meant for digital signage but thanks to strong demand, it will be sold to a wider audience by system integrators and online reporters.
Italy's LiquidTv has just introduced a new dongle that promises to bring not only web access but Android 4.0 to HDTVs equipped with an HDMI port. The product is called SmartKey TV and houses a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 CPU, Mali 400MP GPU, and 512MB of RAM. The 4GB of onboard storage is supplemented by a microSDHC memory card slot.
LG’s answer to Samsung’s Galaxy S III, the LG Optimus 4X HD, is now on sale in Europe. Like HTC’s current HTC One X international flagship, the Optimus 4X HD runs Nvidia’s 1.5 GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor. German customers will be the first to get their hands on it, followed by the Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom and Italy with more countries across the globe to follow.
Intel’s Mike Bell has leveled criticism at Android SoC vendors for not doing enough to optimize their multi-core ARM-based processors for Android devices, reports The Inquirer. According to Bell, Android’s thread scheduler is not yet capable of taking maximum advantage of the multicore processors on the market. Intel’s internal benchmarking of ARM-based SoCs shows that single-core processors can run the Android much more effectively, whereas having additional cores can actually be detrimental to performance.
Andy Rubin has scotched rumors suggesting that he may have been leaving Google. Tech commentator Robert Scoble had suggested Rubin could have been headed to tech start-up CloudCar headed by a former Apple Distinguised Engineer Konstantin Othmer. The rumor gained enough momentum over the weekend that Rubin responded to them by tweeting that he has ‘No plans to leave Google.
New photos have surfaced claiming to show Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro motherboards. Chinese forum WeiPhone show some images of a motherboard that looks similar to previous versions, with mentions made towards the specifications of the MacBook Pro revisions. There however does not appear to be any sign of a previously rumored Retina-based display joining the updated line.
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