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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…

Chester Chipperfield's LinkedIn Profile. Mr. Chipperfield also offered his goodbyes to native London on Twitter, as noted by 9to5Mac: Goodbye London. I have been lucky to call you home for 31 years, time to discover another city.. http://t.co/CRxTDxckQB — Chester Chipperfield (@chesterchip) December 28, 2014 Apple also raided Burberry for Musa Tariq, head of Burberry's…

John Chen Executive Chairman and CEO of BlackBerry In the roughly 15 months since he took over BlackBerry, Mr. Chen has delivered the company from death's door. Using a well-articulated strategy of focusing on services, Mr. Chen has convinced Wall Street that BlackBerry has, if not a bright future, some kind of future. That's no…

First off, you need a set of Hue bulbs, the color-changing ones with the hub (available at Apple stores as a “starter kit”), and you also have to get the free SyFy Sync app for your iOS (or Android) device. Within the app there's a setting where you connect to the hub for the Hue…

President Obama sides with UK, wants backdoor to our encrypted data Mr. Obama offered up the threat of terrorism as justification for the need to make encryption a privacy and security feature in name only. According to the Wall Street Journal he said, If we find evidence of a terrorist plot… and despite having a…

This device is a sleek beauty with specs that beat many of the specs in the iPhone 6 Plus. And it's cheap, at roughly $370 in China. The iPhone 6 Plus is roughly a grand. Here's a promo video for the device:

RBC's Amit Daryanani thinks Apple will report shipping between 67 million and 68 million iPhones for the holiday quarter, and that the current quarter will see upwards of 50 million iPhones shipped. He also expects Apple to see more growth as more retailers and banks support Apple Pay, and when Apple Watch ships this spring.…