Eastman Kodak Company has lost a critical part of its ITC case against Apple and RIM, in which the company which claims invention of the first ever digital camera back in 1975 has been trying to win royalty payments on a common image-preview feature used in phones.
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If some of these HP/Palm Topaz specs look familiar, that’s because they pretty much line up point for point with Apple’s iPad.
Oh, you noticed a camera and micro USB port? We’ve heard things. The Topaz will have double the current RAM and a faster GHz processor but we’re expecting the iPad 2 to have at least 512MB of RAM, if not 1GB and a new CPU as well.
Also, check below. Even side buttons seem to be ‘strategically aligned’.
COMPUTERWORLD: We love music. We play it on our Macs, PCs, iPhones, iPads and iPods. iTunes sold its 10 billionth song in February 2010. What’s wrong? You should check your digital music is insured, as many insurers don’t offer coverage for your digital music collections within their standard policy — and Apple won’t help you get your music back if it gets lost or stolen — even though it could.
Here it comes — the much-delayed white iPhone 4 has appeared within AT&T’s ordering systems, one week since the device popped up inside Best Buy’s inventory system.
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Apple is working on an iPad with a super-high 2,048-x-1,536 resolution display and some component makers are already beginning to invest in processes to product such screens — but they aren’t set to appear until iPad 3.0. D’oh!
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Apple has hired ex-NSA security analyst David Rice as its newly-appointed Director of Global Security.
A graduate of the US Naval Academy and previously a ‘vulnerabilities analyst’ at the NSA and a cryptologist for the US Navy, Rice will lead Apple’s security plans. David Rice is also the author of the extremely compelling, ‘Geekonomics:the real cost of insecure software‘. In this he argues that software developers need to focus more tightly on writing secure software.
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Samsung may now have sold ten million Galaxy S smartphones, but Apple’s taking it to that firm’s home ground, with news it has sold two million iPhones in South Korea so far.
This has taken just over a year and means two million iPhones were active in the country as of January 20, including over one million iPhone 4’s, according to operator, KT Corp.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSAXEVXvNz8&w=560&h=340]
On their official Twitter profile, Microsoft announced their fourth store will be located at the South Coast Plaza mall in Southern California. Just like Microsoft’s other stores, this one will be a few steps away from an Apple Store and Microsoft will try to steal the spotlight with their ‘Answer Bar,’ big screens, glass front, wooden tables, and employees that wear different colored shirts, depending on their store job position.
Microsoft’s second store, the one in Mission Viejo, California, is a few stores down from an Apple Store, and their third store, located at the Mall of America in Minnesota, is literally across the hall. As our own Jonny Evans calls it, this is the continuation of the “Microsoft retail attack on Apple.” Microsoft has attempted to steal the spotlight at their store openings by giving away free Miley Cyrus tickets, and a wonderful introduction from CEO Steve Ballmer.
The store’s launch date is yet to be revealed but check out a picture of the closed off location (via Twitter) after the break. Oh, and who came up with the whole random Johnny Rockets dance routine, that randomly happens during the middle of the day?
The NYTimes posts a graph of Android and iPhone on the four big US mobile networks. It is interesting that AT&T has so few Android users compared to the others. Is AT&T’s lackluster Android offering to blame or is that what Verizon will look like in a year?
Also, it’s clear we are still in the early stages of the smartphone revolution.
Back at the turn of the last decade, industry naysayers and critics said Apple could never make it back to being a ten billion dollar company. They were so wrong as most of Apple’s earnings now come from products which didn’t exist back then — 65 percent of the cash comes from iOS device sales.
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COMPUTERWORLD: There’s so much focus on the iPad 2.0 right now, which we now know will likely be faster, slimmer, lighter, host cameras and boast better graphics with a better screen than the existing model, but what do we know about the iPhone 5? What features we can look forward to in the next-gen Apple smartphone when it ships in summer.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is stepping down. Larry Page to take over on April.
When asked for comment on Steve Jobs’ illness and Eric Schmidt’s resignation, Steve Ballmer had this to say:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]
Other possible titles below. Please add in comments.
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COMPUTERWORLD: You’ll turn round one day and realise that, with iOS and OS X devices connected at their UNIX core, you don’t just have a series of diverse products, you also have a unified, infinitely flexible and powerful computing platform.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULSUuWlo9Lw&w=670&h=401]
Apple is screwing your iPhone: what the issue is is that Apple is quietly moving to a new kind of tamper-resistant screw on its iPhone to keep you out, as iFixit explain in the video above. (And indeed as our own Mark Gurman spotted first way back in November).
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Here’s one that almost is too easy to believe. The original iPad had a 27 on the calendar app and was presented on January 27th. The new iPad has a 9 so one would think that Apple’s presentation will be on February 9th (a Wednesday). Too easy?
Someone go check Yerba Beuna’s calendar right quick! via
In case you’re still wondering if the iPad 2.0 will have a higher-res screen then here’s the latest claims, this time emanating from our old pals at Digitimes (who apparently don’t read Daring Fireball).
Apparently “sources” from inside AAPL’s component supply chain are saying the next-gen iPad will host a resolution of 2,048 x 1,536. We don’t know what to believe anymore!
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Apple has been slammed by Chinese environmental campaigners, who have ranked it last among 29 tech firms in terms of “responsiveness and transparency to health and environmental concerns” in China.
The Institute of Environmental and Public Affairs (IPE) said Apple had refused to confirm if suspected polluters were among the suppliers it used, and is also accused of avoiding taking responsibility for environmental problems associated with its products.
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We reported on a Best Buy Verizon iPhone leak earlier but have been told by employees that the screenshot is from a Best Buy Wiki, not the store’s inventory system. So Best Buy won’t likely have the Verizon iPhone at launch or soon after.
To back up that theory, Gearlive posts what they report to be a Best Buy employee manual that aims to direct potential iPhone customers to AT&T’s iPhone, which Best Buy has of course carried for awhile now.
Best Buy is training their employees to encourage customers to stay with AT&T. As you can see in the document above, which we’ve confirmed is straight out of a Best Buy playbook, you can see that Big Blue is looking to talk down the Verizon model. Verizon has yet to reveal prices and plans nor distribution points though its been mentioned that Verizon and Apple will handle the launch exclusively.
Update: Does that sound familiar?! Techcrunch notes that this is taken verbatim from a BGR post last week! Way to save some money on copy Best Buy. Hope BGR gets a consulting fee.
COMPUTERWORLD: Apple’s 91-day quarter yields some impressive numbers — take them apart a little and you get the kind of stats you can reel off at a dinner party without being seen as too utterly crushing a bore, for example, did you know there’s one iPhone being sold for every two people being born into this world today?
Apple’s iPad is seeing wide deployment in the big Fortune 100 companies, and Android tablets are ‘bizarre’, just two quiet take aways from last night’s record-breaking financial call.
“Today, over 80% of the Fortune 100 are already deploying or piloting iPad, up from 65% in the [previous] quarter,” said CFO Peter Oppenheimer. “Some recent examples include JPMorgan Chase, Cardinal Health, Wells Fargo, Archer Daniels Midland, Sears Holdings and DuPont.”
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From today’s earnings call:
16.24 million iPhones
~10 million iPod touches (iPod touch represents more than 50% of the 19 million iPods sold)
7.33 million iPads
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33 million iOS devices sold (not including AppleTVs)
/90 days in the quarter
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366,666 iOS mobile devices/day.
Remember that Google proudly announced they were shipping 300,000 Android devices/day last month. Apple is now significantly beyond that. Also, remember AppleTV is also iOS.
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Engadget has what appear to be the first sightings of the HP webOS devices they plan to unveil in February. I’ll admit it, they look kinda nice, certainly better than the thing Ballmer showed at CES last year. It probably helps not to have an Intel processor with its overhead and battery inside.
two tablets: the 9-inch Topaz and a 7-inch model codnamed Opal
The bad news? September is when they expect these things to hit retailers and they are only expecting to sell a few million in 2012 according to another leaked document.. That is forever in this fast-paced game. iPad 2 will already be running strong at that point as it competes with the Blackberry Playbook and Motorola Xoom which should be hitting shelves before summer.
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Using its Skydrive Cloud servers, Microsoft is now allowing iPhone users to access, edit, and share their desktop OneNote application data on iPhone. Microsoft has long been talking about bringing their Office applications and functionality to the iPhone and this is the first indication of doing that (OneNote is part of the Office suite).
While the OneNote Mobile app naturally doesn’t have all of the functionality of the full OneNote 2010 desktop application for your computer, it’s optimized for your iPhone’s display and lets you handle the basics with ease. Use OneNote Mobile to create shopping lists and to-do lists, prepare for a trip or project, and take class or meeting notes without lugging around your laptop. OneNote Mobile is also great for collecting ideas and tracking project notes, capturing ad hoc information about stuff you need to deal with at home or at work, as well as tracking activities, wish lists, gift lists — anything you can think of.
The app can be found here, more screenshots below.
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Apple 2.0 has published its quarterly poll of analyst expectations for Apple’s Q1 FY2011 results, the collection includes both amateur and employed financial analyst predictions. Apple 2.0 will publish the score card later in the quarterly amateurs versus pros tournament.
Meanwhile, Apple stock fell slightly on the US pre-market this morning, though Frankfurt is seeing some recovery as investors adjust holdings in wake of news of Jobs’ medical leave. In related news, Apple filed its Sec 8K forms disclosing the latter information over night, though this offers no fresh insights into the condition of the CEO.