News

I've been wrestling with the right way to put this for weeks. There was something about Samsung that's been bugging me since the Bizarro World media event to introduce the Galaxy S4 back in March, but I couldn't put my finger on it. At first I was thinking the company had delusions of grandeur, but…

While Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) are accusing Apple of using shelters in other countries to avoid paying U.S. taxes, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is accusing the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of bullying Apple. Senator Paul's comments came on Tuesday during a subcommittee hearing into corporate tax practices in Washington DC. Senator…

Samsung is hoping to draw more developers to the Android OS platform and to spark interest in the Group Play feature on the Galaxy S4 smartphone with a contest that includes US$800,000 in prize money. Group Play lets Galaxy S4 users share content like photos, music and games, and for the feature to take off,…

Google announced on Wednesday that it would be offering customers a version of Samsung's new Galaxy S4 (GS4) that has been stripped of Samsung's layered-on-top interface and other added software. At Google I/O 2013, the company's annual developer conference, Google said that it was “Google's take on Android”*, and that it would sell the device…

How much is an hour with Apple CEO Tim Cook worth? Roughly a 2013 Lamborghini Aventador judging by the final results from a CharityBuzz charity auction. That auction closed Tuesday at US$610,000, tying CharityBuzz's previous record for the above-mentioned super car. Mr. Cook offered up a coffee date to auction to benefit the RFK Center…

Shocked, we say. Shocked. We are utterly shocked*. Sales of the HTC First—the so-called “Facebook Phone—have reportedly been so bad that AT&T is ready to kill it. The device was announced on April 4th, but according to BGR, AT&T has sold just 15,000 units and is ready to pull the plug. TMO's Dramatic Reenactment of…

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was recently interviewed by Charlie Rose for 60 Minutes, and one of the topics of discussion was the late Steve Jobs. Mr. Gates became quite emotional when thinking back to his last meeting with Mr. Jobs, and he said he wished he had Mr. Jobs's sense of design. Bill Gates Thinking…

Amazon unveiled its Cloud Drive Photos for the iPhone and iPod touch over the weekend along with a companion Mac app in what looks like a move to compete with Apple's iCloud Photo Stream feature. Cloud Drive Photos includes 5 GB of storage and lets users upload images to their Amazon Cloud and then download…

If God Had Intended Humans to Fly… Now that Google Glass is being widely tested and written about, reactions are all over the map — as they should be. That's a good sign for a new technology: our inability to come to consensus on the technical and social aspects at first. But in the long…

The developers of Hike, an instant message app, have launched a brilliant promotion, offering US$100,000 in additional prizes to the winner of Apple's 50 billionth app download contest if the winning app is Hike. Hike Screenshot From the company's announcement, “The lucky winner will be gifted $100,000* worth of Apple products and accessories from hike!…

New Zealand's parliament is considering a bill that rethinks software patents. The bill, while not explicitly banning software patents per se, instead declares software alone as not eligible for patent protection because there is no “inventive step” involved. In other words, since all software builds on prior software, and thus are not true inventions. This…

MXL specializes in microphone and sound equipment, and the AC-406  is one part of their line of products. Sound is their business, and it is reflected in this product.   MXL AC-406 The black AC-406 has a small footprint 4.5 x 1.75-in (11.4 x 4.4 cm). It is made from plastic and the bottom is lined…

“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” — C.S. Lewis Many Apple customers throughout the years profitably utilized the rack mounted Xserve product in their businesses. It was a quality product that cost less than the competition's by a significant amount. Yet, it was doomed to failure. Here's how it happend. _________________________ Buried…

The CharityBuzz auction for a coffee date with Tim Cook has risen to US$605,000. This is the first increase in the price of the auction in several days, and comes with eight days left in the bidding. The auction is for an hour (that amount of time is not promised) with Tim Cook on the…

Apple is getting ready to retake control of the narrative, according to Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes, and doing so could help the company's stock regain momentum. Mr. Reitzes raised his price target for $AAPL to US$525 from $465, sparking a rally. In the early afternoon session, the stock was trading at $460.928, up $10.948 (+2.43…

I love getting review items from Just Mobile because their products are not only top of the line in quality, they are always unique. The new Gum Max Duo meets my expectations as usual. This product will charge an iPad and an iPhone at the same time, yet at only 4.25 x 3.25 x 1.25-in…

Once again I'd like to thank Smile for sponsoring us here at TMO, and this week I get to tell you about PDFPenPro 6. You've likely previously read my stuff about PDFPen, and PDFPenPro builds on that with a few key features. The big things that the Pro version has always added are the ability…

Let's offer a salute to clever game developers, especially Patrick and Daniel Klug, the cofounders of GreenheartGames. When they released Game Developer Tycoon for Mac, Windows, and Linux, they decided to put a cracked version of the game for pirates to steal on bittorrent, but they did so with a twist: players playing the cracked…

There are times when the iPad or iPhone user needs a stylus. And because stylus technology has come a long way in terms of the design, craftsmanship and the nib material, they're even more fun to use. The LYNKtec TruGlide Pro, with a 5 mm microfiber tip, is the best pure stylus I have ever…

It took Beethoven four years to write that symphony. Some things can't be rushed. Good music and good wine. Paul Masson's emerald dry. Delicious white wine. Paul Masson's wines taste so good because they're made with such care. What Paul Masson himself said nearly a century ago is still true today, 'We will sell no…

Along with earnings that hit US$43.6 billion, Apple reported on Tuesday that it is more than doubling its investment in returning capital to investors. The company is adding $55 billion to its shareholder returns, bringing the total up to $100 billion, and includes a 15 percent increase in the quarterly dividend. Apple expands its capital…

The U.S. International Trade Commission gave Motorola Mobility a tough pill to swallow on Monday when it invalidated the company's proximity sensor patent. The ruling killed the last remaining patent in Motorola's 2010 infringement lawsuit against Apple, and shot down Google's hopes of eventually winning an iPhone import ban. ITC says Motorola's proximity sensor patent…

AMD has hired Raja Koduri away from Apple some four years after Apple hired the graphics engineering executive away from AMD. This is the second GPU wonk that AMD has reclaimed from Apple, with Jim Keller having returned to the processor firm in August of 2012. Apple first hired Raja Koduri in April of 2009.…

Everything is About the Balance of Forces Humans beings are stretched to the limit when it comes to analysis that has substance when also burdened by the need to be timely and appealing. Headlines are designed to attract attention and make bold claims. As a result, much of the time, nothing is as it seems.…