9to5 Staff

According to data collected by The NPD Group, Apple

Apple has received a bit of a setback in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, where it has been found guilty of infringing a patent held by OPTi Inc.

The court yesterday issued the final judgment in the patent infringement action between OPTi Inc and Apple Inc. This suit centred around a patent on

The OLPC project hasn’t been the success that Nicolas Negroponte, its creator, had hoped.  That’s not because of the lack of good advice that Apple’s CEO gave along the way.

Interestingly, Jobs did advise founder Nicholas Negroponte at several points along the design process even though his advice wasn’t well received..

“I got an email from Steve Jobs (the night the laptop was revealed) he said you can’t build it for a hundred dollars, and my answer was oh yes I can,” Negroponte said as part of a lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Thursday night.

It turns out he couldn’t and he had to double the price…even though some Netbooks cost less than $200.  And by most accounts the OLPC is a POS.

“He was actually a very good critic, and each time we got to a point, I did talk to him,” Negroponte added. Negroponte also mentioned his displeasure with Microsoft, both in terms of Windows 7 performance, and Microsoft’s attempts to thwart the OLPC initiative.

How will FakeSteve reconcile this story?

Via CoM, Image via Gizmodo

In case that Speedy Core i7 iMac was making you Mac Pro shoppers’ eyes wander a bit, Apple has beefed up the top end of their lineup.  The Mac Pro can now be configured with a 3.33GHz Quad-core Xeon Processor (strangely the 3.33GHz processors aren’t available in Octo-Core configs). 

Also, Apple has upped the build to order option to 8TB of Hard drive space (4x2TB) from 4TB. 

3.33GHz Xeons processors and 2TB hard drives have been out for quite awhile, so this isn’t a big surprise.  In fact, 2TB hard drives have reached commodity status (two generations of iMacs) with prices falling below $200 for consumer level versions.

Apple’s Xserves also get the 2TB hard drive (x3 slots=6TB).  Apple has thrown in a build-to-order RAM update as well.  Apple now stocks 4 GB RAM modules, doubling the build to order capacity of the quad-core Xserve to 24 GB and the 8-core Xserve to 48 GB.

Interestingly, Apple states that the total capacity of the Dual Processor Xserves is 96GB, but only with with Snow Leopard.  That means that 8GB modules will work in this machine.

The 3.33GHz Processor will add $1200 to the base configuration.

Each additional  2TB hard drive is $550.

Apple faces a court room struggle against IP firm, St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants, which has filed a lawsuit claiming the computer company has violated several of its digital camera patents.

The case was filed in October in the US District Court in Delaware and has reached the scheduling conference stage, which begins January 13 2010.

The Loop informs us that the lawsuit alleges Apple

Remember Apple

Apple UK has announced the

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLDxv9ohH2s&w=560&h=340]

Here’s the latest Verizon Droid ad, which assures us the Motorola-made device isn

Yet another slice of I Am T-Pain action, with developer Smule offering a series of Christmas tracks for download and use within the application.

Seasonal fayre includes: O Holy Night, Jingle Bells and The Twelve Days of Christmas, all three of which are now available within the game’s download catalogue. If you

Forbes has a pretty no-nonsense article about the iPhone’s fortunes in China written by Shaun Rein of the China Market Research Group. 

Background: Apple had only sold 5,000 legitimate iPhones in China after a week of being on sale and one of China’s biggest online retailers had only sold five in two weeks.   That of course is swayed by the fact that millions of cheaper, unlocked phones from Hong Kong and elsewhere have been selling without a contract in the mainland for years.   Oh, and the gray market iPhones have Wifi – which Apple was forced to remove for the legit China launch.

Rein offers additional factors which have slowed Apple’s official launch:

1. Local Consumer preferences weren’t being taken into consideration.  Most Chinese are Pay-as-You-Go customers.  It takes Hours/Days to fill out the paperwork to go pre-paid vs. 30 seconds for an unlocked SIM. Also, typical Chinese consumers spend less than $12 a month, choosing texting over voice calls.  Early adopters change phones often and don’t want to be tied into a contract.

2. Apple chose the weaker partner.  China Unicom only has 30% of the market and less coverage and quality than China Mobile (70% of the market).  There is also no number portability so China Mobile customers didn’t want to lose their number.

3.China’s launch was over two years after the US’s.  Getting technology last is buzzkill.  It is hard to build excitement for a launch over two years after the original.

Our conclusion?  Apple should learn from the black market.  Sell them direct to consumers and unlocked.  They’ve already sold millions this way indirectly, it seems to be working. 

Heck, why not try that in the US?

Is the click wheel iPod (Classic, Nano) on the way out?  A new report from Joystiq (via MR) seems to suggest that Apple has ended support for click-wheel games. 

Rather than being a simple touchscreen-enabled port of the original click wheel game, the iPhone Song Summoner contains both Song Summoner and Song Summoner 2, which was never released due to Apple ending support for click wheel games.

If true, one would have to wonder why Apple is ending support for the format.  New iPods aren’t due for another nine months but might Apple be preparing for the end of the click-wheel?  Mini touches?  It is all specualtion at this point but curious.

Apple