News

Episode #111   I first heard about Phillips’ Hue Personal Wireless Lighting when the Apple Store began carrying the Phillips Hue Starter Pack in 2012. It promised everything you needed to get started, namely three color-changing LED light bulbs plus a Wi-Fi hub that lets you control bulb color and intensity with an iPhone/iPad app.…

Apple buys, shuts down Camel Audio An official announcement hasn't come from either company. The confirmation for the buyout came via documents found on the corporate registry site Companies House, according to MacRumors. Camel Audio's address is now the same as Apple's in London, and its only director is listed and Heather Joy Morrison, who…

Pebble's new Time smart watch with color display to ship in May The company said Time is about  20 percent thinner than the original Pebble smartwatch, and has a slightly curved body to better fit your wrist. It combines the Pebble's plastic body with the Pebble Steel's metal body for a new look the company…

Some of TMO's readers were among the first to predict Samsung would try to develop its own electric car in response to Apple. Rumors about an Apple Car have exploded in the last 10 days, and Samsung has a storied track record of copying Apple. Cue our editorial image above. But—and that's a really big…

Lenovo had to send out its CTO to do interviews and try to spin mitigate the PR disaster, which would be fine but there was no discussion of how bad the issue truly is. Then the Department of Homeland Security warned against the software, calling out Lenovo by name and urging users to get the software…

There is officially no such thing as computer security. At least from the most sophisticated attackers. Our only hope is that our profile is so low and are activities so mundane that we're off any entity's radar. If you disagree, I present several stories that came to the surface this week. 1. First, at least…

Ignoring the disgusting bit where Lenovo is trying to push shopping/advertising onto their paying customers, this issue highlights the reality that any backdoor baked into any software is accessible by anyone, including malicious hackers. With the U.S. and UK governments both demanding backdoor access to our mobile devices and messaging services, Lenovo's behavior serves as…

A123 Systems sues Apple for hiring its car battery design team A123 named Apple along with the five employees who left for the Cupertino company in the lawsuit. The filing said Apple first hired away their CFO Mujeeb Ijaz, who then brought on board four other employees over an eight month window. The five were…

This is the second major mainstream report claiming Apple is developing a car this week. The Financial Times reported that Apple had hired a top Mercedes-Benz executive to work on the project Both reports follow BusinessInsider's reporting that an Apple employee told that publication Apple was working on something that will “give Tesla a run…

Each social network handles your post-death data differently Facebook Facebook's new policy still offers the memorial page option, but now includes a way for subscribers to assign someone as a caretaker for their account after they're gone. Once Facebook has received notice of your death, your legacy contact can change your profile photo, accept friend…

At issue is Google's long-standing deal with Apple to be the default search engine on Safari. No one who's talking knows exactly when that deal will expire, but there has been increasing speculation that it's “soon.” Like, within-the-next-6-to-18-months soon. And that has companies jockeying for position and observers speculating on who will win that spot…

Twitter blames Apple for 4 million user drop Mr. Noto said during the company's quarterly earnings report, So we said we lost four million monthly active users due to the iOS 8 integration. One million of those monthly active users were Twitter owned and operated monthly active users. And three million were on Safari, what…

Net neutrality protection is coming, but there's still a fight ahead Mr. Wheeler revealed his plans in a Wired op-ed piece on Wednesday. In his piece he said, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC. These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking…

FCC ready to propose changes to protect net neutrality Industry analysts and lobbyists said the FCC will push to group ISPs as a telecommunication service under Title II of the Communications Act, according to the New York Times. That change would give the FCC much more authority over ISP practices, but chairman Tom Wheeler is…

Congress may be taking Tim Cook's advice to heart and changing corporate tax policies When grilled by the subcommittee, Mr. Cook said, The tax system handicaps American corporations in relation to our foreign competitors who don’t have such constraints on the free movement of capital. It is in this spirit that we recommend a dramatic…

Apple ht with patent infringement lawsuit over Lightning connector tech Comarco's 8,492,933 patent, titled Power Supply Equipment for Providing a Data Signal, Identification Information and Power to an Electronic Device, describes a system where device chargers include a cable with a smart tip that can communicate with the device its charging, much like Apple's Lightning…

Particularly keenly felt by the Apple watching community will be the loss of TUAW (pronounced “too-ah” sort of like a Marine). First posting Apple news starting in December 2004, the site will close on Tuesday, February 3rd—the archives will remain as a section of Engadget. Many former TUAW writers have gone on to other notable…

Senate bill aims to get Apple, other companies to bring money into the US The bill is cosponsored by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) and proposes to use the tax funds it generates to extend the U.S. Highway Trust Fund. Titled Invest in Transportation Act of 2015, the two are promoting the bill…

$AAPL ended the day at $118.90 per share, a gain of $+3.59 (+3.11 percent), on heavy volume of 84.2 million shares trading hands. The stock hit an intra-day high of $119.19 just before the closing bell. $AAPL Chart for Year Ending January 29th, 2015 Source: Yahoo! Finance On Tuesday, Apple reported record high quarterly revenues…

China demands back door into computers, apps The rules are targeting companies selling to the Chinese banking industry, according to the New York Times. Groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have come out against China's new regulations, and President Barak Obama is expected to offer up some negative comments on the changes, too. There…

FCC to hotels: Stop blocking hotspots Hotspots are devices like Verizon's MiFi that let users create their own personal network with a wireless broadband Internet connection. They're handy in areas where other Internet options are limited, and are popular with travelers who don't want to pay hotels high fees for poor Internet access. The FCC's…

Micahel Fassbender, from a 2012 GQ Spread Seth Rogan (The Interview, and we'll leave it at that) is playing Steve Wozniak. Danny Boyle is directing, and the film is now officially named Steve Jobs. Seemingly on the fasttrack to get made in the first year or two after Steve Jobs died in 2011, this movie…

YouTube switches to HTML5, gives Flash the kiss of death HTML5 isn't anything new to YouTube. The company started supporting the format a few years ago for mobile devices, but didn't make the same jump on the desktop because of technical limitations. YouTube Engineering Manager Richard Leider said, At the time, there were limitations that…

Dropcam HD Here's the statement from the support page about the program: We’re always trying to improve Dropcam and the software behind it. But that means some features won’t work with our older Dropcam models. As we improve Dropcam, we’ll no longer be able to give Original Dropcam and Dropcam Echo owners an experience that…