Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Larry Page are reportedly in talks regarding mobile patent disputes between the companies.

According to Reuters, which cited “people familiar with the matter,” both chiefs spoke on the phone last week while more discussions between “lower-level officials” are also underway:

Page and Cook are expected to talk again in the coming weeks, though no firm date has been set, the sources said. One source told Reuters that a meeting was scheduled for this Friday, but had been delayed for reasons that were unclear.

The two companies are keeping the lines of communication open at a high level against the backdrop of Apple’s decisive legal victory in a patent infringement case against Samsung, which uses Google’s Android software.

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French website Nowhereelse [translated] posted more part leaks for the next-generation iPhone this morning, and while we get a new glimpse at the front screen, neither of the pictures show anything terribly new. The bronze piece pictured was originally thought to be an NFC chip, but more conventional wisdom suggests it is a speaker for the headset.

We also received an image of 4 iPhone motherboards before being chip loaded:

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…And, perhaps our most sketchy image:

Adding to the slew of alleged leaks, a new image of a purported logic board for the next-generation iPhone has surfaced. The crisp picture shows the logical board without any protective EMI shielding for an internal look at the A6 chip that supposedly sits inside. We are a bit wary about the authenticity of this picture, as its originator, Sonny Dickson, said it needed to be “enhanced with Photoshop.”

It is speculated the A6, or a variant of the A5X chip, would appear in the next iPhone, and many thought Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s 28nm process would manufacturer the quad-core chip, but the latest reports claimed Apple is stuck with Samsung for at least CPU and/or baseband chip building after TSMC rebuffed an exclusive bid.

We also see another 9-pin dock cable from Sonny below:

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A gallery of new parts is below—including a video from Sinocent. Read more

As we detailed last week, Parallels released version 8 of its market-leading Virtualization software for Mac this morning.

Existing users can download Parallels 8 now. New users will be able to update Sept. 4.

Parallels also announced the availability of Parallels Desktop 8 Switch to MacTM Edition, which includes Parallels Desktop 8 software and a set of switching tools to automatically move programs, files and browser favorites to Mac, as well as in-box video tutorials to learn about the Mac. Details are available at www.parallels.com/products/desktop/stm.

New and improved features in Parallels Desktop 8 include:

Life Simplified

• Speak, don’t type – Use the new Mountain Lion Dictation tool across both Windows and Mac environments
• Open in Internet Explorer – When a website doesn’t render well within Safari, launch it in Internet Explorer with a click of a button
• Drag and drop email attachments – Simply drag and drop files from the desktop onto the Dock icons for Outlook and other Windows email clients to attach and share them
• Multilingual keyboard – Keyboard language changes made on the Mac automatically sync, to simplify switching languages in Windows
• Parallels Wizard –Download and automatically install Windows or other operating systems (OSes) including Google Chrome OS, Ubuntu and Android on your Mac. Parallels Desktop customers have downloaded more than 500,000 copies of Windows using the Parallels Wizard to-date, and many additional customers have moved their Windows PCs to their Mac or added Windows and other OSes.
• Bluetooth-sharing – Multiple Windows and Mac devices can now share Bluetooth connections
• Windows apps on OS X Launchpad – Add Windows applications to the Mountain Lion or Lion Launchpad to quickly launch Mac and Windows applications used most
• Consolidated notifications – Integration of Windows notifications into the Mac OS X Notification Center makes it easy to stay updated on Windows virtual machine operations
• Resource monitoring – Disk space and memory usage of virtual machines are conveniently displayed for easy customization and management
• Mountain Lion gestures for Windows apps – Enjoy seamless integration of Mountain Lion gestures with Windows apps – such as pinch to zoom, Mission Control, three-finger drag, swipe between full-screen apps, two-finger scroll, Launchpad and rotate
• USB 3.0 devices support – Benefit from easy access to all-important files and data from a virtual machine
• Visually Stunning
• Brilliant Retina display support – Enjoy stunning Retina display resolution in Windows OS and Windows applications to see crisper fonts, vivid photos, images and animations
• No-hassle presentations – The new Presentation Wizard makes presentations interruption- free by disabling screensavers on Mac and Windows, optimizing the full-screen display and automatically adjusting resolution
• Improved graphics – Don’t compromise, even with graphically intensive applications


Proven Performance
Unmatched performance – Enjoy improved Parallels Desktop 8 performance that is up to 30 percent faster for input/output (I/O) operations, 30 percent faster for games and up to 25 percent faster for virtual machine operations such as boot, suspend, shutdown and resume, when compared to Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac**. Parallels Desktop 7 beat the leading competitor in nearly 75 percent of the benchmark tests conducted by MacTech magazine and won 60 percent of the tests by a factor of 10 percent or more.

Availability and Pricing
Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac is available beginning Aug. 30, 2012, as an upgrade for current Parallels Desktop for Mac users. The full version will be available to new customers on http://www.parallels.com/desktop starting September 4. Packaged software will also be available starting September 4 at Apple retail stores, Apple.com, Amazon.com, Fry’s Electronics, MicroCenter and hundreds of other resellers and retail locations nationwide.

Full Press release follows: Read more