Samsung has found a new way to make U.S. Judges angry by improperly acquiring confidential Apple and Nokia licensing agreements, and now the company is taking its act on the road by getting on the bad side of Australian Judges for doing exactly the same thing. The electronics maker is compounding the problem by failing…
News
Angela Ahrendts Could Become Cook's Most Significant Hire
The news that Angela Ahrendts has left Burberry to become Apple's Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores really reverberated around tech and fashion circles in London and the wider UK. While some question the decision of a clearly ambitious businesswoman to move from being CEO to being a senior VP, she is taking…
Taiwan Fines Samsung for Paying People to Praise Samsung and Bash Competitors
Taiwan has fined Samsung TWD10 million (that's New Taiwan dollars, or US$340,131) for mounting a fake campaign to praise Samsung's Android devices and criticize unspecified in article comments and forums. Phys.org reported that Taiwan's Federal Trade Commission began an investigation of Samsung in April and concluded the South Korean giant paid people to talk up…
Apple Allowing Free Updates to "Box" & Trial of Aperture [Update]
New versions of iLife and iWork were announced at Apple’s media event earlier this week, and in typical Apple style, updates to additional apps were quietly pushed as well. In particular Aperture was updated with some new features and support for Mavericks for users who had purchased it as a “boxed” version as well as…
Carl Icahn Tweets about Tim Cook to Promote New Website
Carl Icahn Carl Icahn let the world know that he sent a letter to Tim Cook, and oh yeah, he just happened to also mention that the contents of that letter will be revealed on Thursday (tomorrow) on a brand new site he's launching that same day. That's pretty clever, if you're into that sort…
Twitter Ready to Deep Six #music
Twitter is apparently considering shutting down its #music app only six months after launching it for the iPhone. #music let users share what they were listening to with other Twitter users, although it looks like no one has really been using the feature. Twitter ready to give #music the ax The #music service launched in…
Working Apple I (with Box) from First Batch of 50 to Be Auctioned
Auction Team Breker announced on Thursday that it will be auctioning the 46th Apple I computer made, making it one from the first batch of 50 units manufactured for The Byte Shop in 1976. The motherboard was signed by Steve Wozniak, and it comes with the original box, the original Apple software on casette, and…
Judge Cote Assigns DOJ Monitor in Apple Ebook Price Fixing Case
Judge Denise Cote has assigned former Assistant US Attorney and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Bromwich with the task of monitoring Apple as part of the five-year injunction she hit the Mac, iPhone, and iPad maker with in an ebook price fixing case. Mr. Bromwich will watch over Apple's business practices for two years, but…
Canaccord Raises AAPL Target on Strong iPhone 5s, iPad 5 Sales
Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley sees the just released iPhone 5s and the still unannounced fifth generation iPad as big sellers for Apple and is raising his target price for the company's stock from US$560 up to $580. He also expects an iPhone deal with China Mobile will give Apple another boost. Michael Walkley raised…
Samsung Smackdown: Judge calls Apple Info Leak Inexcusable
Judge Lucy Koh had harsh words for Samsung and its involvement in sharing confidential information about Apple's contracts with Nokia and very likely could impose sanctions on the company and its legal firm for their actions. Judge Koh called the leaking of the documents improper and Samsung's attempts to coverup what happened inexcusable. Samsung's courtroom…
Steve Jobs's First Girlfriend Writes Memoir About Early Days
Chrisann Brennan, Steve Jobs's first serious girlfriend and the mother of oldest daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, has penned a memoir titled The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs (Amazon). As the name suggests, it's about her life with and memories of Steve Jobs during his late teens and early 20s…
Google Plans to Use Our Pictures to 'Endorse' Ads, Here's How to Opt-Out
This is why I don't like paying for services through advertising: Google has announced a change in its terms of service that allow the company to use our names, personal information, and likenesses (photographs) in ads for third party companies, products, and services that we have +1'd, commented on anywhere using our Google+ login, rated…
BlackBerry Looks for Relevance with Cloud-based iOS Management Tools
BlackBerry is hoping to find new relevance in the mobile device world with the introduction of a new set of Web-based tools for managing iOS and Android-based devices. The Web tools, which haven't launched yet, are promised to make life easier for Administrators that need to manage iPhones and iPads, as well as Android and…
White House Allows Samsung Import Ban to Go Into Effect
Samsung lost its bid to get an import ban on smartphones that were found to infringe on Apple patent overturned. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman—a White House appointee—announced on Tuesday that he would allow the import ban to go into effect. Apples and Oranges Samsung had asked the White House to overturn the import ban,…
Samsung Hangs Hopes of White House Import Ban Veto on False Equivalence
Samsung seems intent on proving the company is incapable of learning lessons from…well, anything. Bloomberg reported that Samsung wants the White House to veto an import ban on some older Samsung devices the same way an import ban on a couple of Apple devices was recently vetoed, but Samsung is relying on a false equivalence…
Apple Appeals Ebook Price Fixing Ruling
As expected, Apple has filed an appeal in the Federal ebook price fixing case where Judge Denise Cote ruled that Apple conspired with book publishers to artificially raise prices. Apple has steadfastly maintained that it did nothing wrong, and that there never was any form of collusion with book publishers. Apple maintains it did nothing…
2.9M Adobe User Accounts Stolen in Hacker Attack
Account information, including user names and encrypted credit card numbers, were stolen from Adobe servers by hackers, potentially exposing information for 2.9 million user accounts. Adobe revealed the security breach on Thursday, and has already started notifying customers who may now have compromised credit cards In a statement on the Adobe website, Chief Security Officer…
Samsung Given Access to Confidential Apple Licensing Terms in Violation of Court Orders
Hold on for this shocker: Samsung's outside counsel provided Samsung executives, internal attorneys, and even external attorneys working on other cases with details of a highly confidential licensing agreement between Apple and Nokia despite a court order not to do so. Better yet, Samsung then further shared those details, on several occasions, with more than…
Samsung and Others Cheat on Benchmarks to Impress the Nerds Who Would Bust Them
Cheating. I don't care for it. If you have to cheat to win, there's no value in the victory. I know there are tons of folks who don't care about such things—and thus we have cheating—but some cheating transcends morality to venture into the weird because it's hard to see how the cheater thought he…
Top Microsoft Shareholders Reportedly Want Bill Gates to Step Down as Chairman
Bill Gates Three of Microsoft's top shareholders—representing some 5 percent of the company's outstanding shares—want company cofounder Bill Gates to step down as chairman. In an exclusive report, Reuters said that Mr. Gates's presence at the head of Big Redmond's board will inhibit the adoption of new strategies and products and limit the power of…
Judge Blocks Apple from Intervening in Lodsys Patent Licensing Attacks
iPhone and iPad app developers were dealt a serious blow recently when a Federal Court Judge ruled that Apple can't intervene on their behalf in in the ongoing patent licensing case patent holding company Lodsys is bringing against them. The patent holder claims app developers must pay licensing fees for in-app purchases even though Apple…
Apple Click Wheel Patent Infringement Costs Apple $3.3 Million in Japan
A Japanese court has ruled that the Click Wheel in Apple's iPod Classic infringes on a patent owned by Norihiko Saito and has ordered the company to pay Y330 million (about US$3,334,650) in damages. Mr. Saito filed his lawsuit against Apple in 2007 and was originally asking for Y10 billion (about $101,050,000) in damages –…
Sponsor: PDFpen Scan+
I am happy to welcome Smile back as this week's sponsor here at TMO, and especially so this week because they've asked me to talk about their brand new product, PDFpen Scan+. Your iPhone's got a great camera, and it also has a really killer processor. Put those two things in the hands of the smart…
iPhone 5c BOM Is 12% Cheaper than iPhone 5
IHS has conducted its teardown of the iPhone 5c, and the firm said that the bill of materials (BOM) for the device is some 12 percent less expensive than the iPhone 5 it replaced in Apple's product line. This is in keeping with thoughts on the device, but the IHS report offers some specifics on…