News

The wait is over for iPhone 5 owners hoping to walk into an Apple Store and buy third party accessories that are compatible with the smartphone's new Lightning connector. So far, only car chargers are available, but other compatible accessories are likely coming soon. Lightning-compatible car chargers now in Apple retail stores Lightning-compatible accessories with…

Oracle has released Java 7 Update 11 of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to address a security vulnerability discovered last week. The latest version of Java 7 can be downloaded directly from Oracle. As described last week, in light of the newly discovered vulnerability, Apple remotely disabled previous versions via its Xprotect mechanism. On Sunday,…

Image credit: Fred Benenson Aaron Swartz, one of the brilliant minds behind RSS and an Internet activist pushing for open access to public government and academic documents, took his own life on Friday at the age of 26. Mr. Swartz was facing the possibility of up to 50 years in jail on Federal charges for…

As Internet technologies rapidly morph and develop, the human interaction with the Internet has to change as well. At first, that means the adoption of certain technologies. In the early days, it was browsers and email, then personal habits and work strategies, then apps and tablets, and then, perhaps, intelligent agents to help us leverage…

This is my annual column on how to get the best service at Apple Genius Bars. The young people who work as Geniuses at Apple stores across the nation get a lot of technical training before they ever hit the floor and many of them have a lot of Apple knowledge before they are even…

Office Technology firm Xerox announced early Friday that its Chief Financial Officer, Luca Maestri, will leave the company in February to join Apple as its Corporate Controller. Mr. Maestri, who has been with Xerox since February 2011, will take on accounting and financial responsibilities under Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Mr. Maestri has served several large…

Cheap smartphones will “never be the future of Apple,” according to an interview of Apple’s marketing chief Phil Schiller by Chinese newspaper the Shanghai Evening News Thursday. Mr. Schiller’s remarks, translated by The Next Web, put a damper on recent rumors that the Cupertino company will launch a low-cost iPhone in the near future. Mr. Schiller…

LAS VEGAS – The Pebble team is living the startup dream. They unveiled their iPhone and Android-connected smartwatch on Kickstarter and quickly sold 85,000 units, have commitments from customers for thousands more, and just hosted their fist ever press event at CES. Despite delays that forced the company to push the watch's launch out be…

The iTunes application celebrated its 12th birthday this week, but the iTunes Store, launched as the iTunes Music Store in 2003, will hit the ten-year-mark on April 28, 2013. According to an analysis Wednesday by Asymco’s Horace Dediu, the nearly ten-year-old iTunes Store is certainly making its parent proud, as it now generates as much…

UPDATE: Amazon has just launched the Auto Rip service, covering both new purchases and previous purchases dating back to 1998 for over 37,000 eligible discs. A new “Auto Rip” icon will appear next to physical CD listings in the store to identify eligibility. [Thanks, Bosco, for letting us know!] Online retailer, consumer electronics firm, and…

LAS VEGAS – Samsung's booth in Central Hall at CES is huge. It's pretty cool, too. Lots of stuff, some massive screens, lots of TVs, a bunch of clean white tables holding Samsung gadgets that people can check out. Oh, and lots and lots and lots of people. It was jam packed full of folks…

At CES this week, there have been several unveilings of 20 to 27-inch, Windows 8 tablets. The idea behind these tablets seems to be the classic coffee table book, artwork, video and board games. Will these new, giant tablets really appeal to consumers? First and foremost, current tablets have made the grade because they are…

On Tuesday, Mozilla released Firefox 18 for Mac, Windows, Linux and Android. The new version brings Retina display support for Macs and a new JavaScript compiler called “IonMonkey” that Mozilla says will speed up Web apps and games by 25 percent. Also included, according to Mozilla are: performance enhancements in tab switching, better imaging with…

Yes, folks, while CES happens this week we're also deep into planning for everything we'll be doing at Macworld/iWorld 2013, and that includes … Cirque du Mac X (that's the 10th incarnation of Cirque du Mac and we're happily using the roman numeral to illustrate that… we trust you understand why!). Cirque du Mac will…

Las Vegas — LEGO unveiled its new Mindstorms EV3 DIY robot kit at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. The kit's EV3 Intelligent Brick “brain” can be controlled through an iPhone, ending the lineup's requirement for a PC. LEGO Mindstorms EV3 is programmable from your iPhone The EV3 Intelligent Brick includes 64GB RAM, and SD…

The designer who helped Apple create its first mouse, and assisted in the design of thousands of other tech products, recalled his experiences with Steve Jobs during a 60 Minutes interview Sunday. David Kelley, founder of design firm Hovey-Kelley (now called IDEO), worked with Apple on several products during the company’s early years, including mice,…

Las Vegas — Withings unveiled two new products in its personal health and fitness monitoring lineup at CES in Las Vegas on Sunday. The Smart Body Analyzer is a smart scale that tracks your weight, heart rate and air quality, and the Smart Activity Tracker logs your daily steps and other activities. Both connect wirelessly…

A holiday season marketing campaign by retail giant Walmart “rankled” the company’s rivals, according to The Wall Street Journal, when the company significantly lowered the price of Apple’s iPhone 5 without adequate stock to support the demand. Walmart’s competitors, who generally have price-match guarantee policies, were forced to match Walmart’s lower price, costing them tens…

Samsung's global smartphone sales are set to climb 35 percent in 2013, according to Strategy Analytics, and Apple's response will be the long-rumored iPhone mini. Samsung is expected to hold 33 percent of the world's smartphone market this year, compared to Apple's 21 percent and a less expensive iPhone model could help Apple keep that…

Apple’s long-rumored television, said to be “just around the corner” for years, will not launch in 2013, according to BTIG media analyst Richard Greenfield in a media predictions report published Thursday. Mr. Greenfield believes the product is in the works, but legal concerns and content deals will keep it out of the market for at least…

The rumored deal for Apple to acquire social mapping service Waze, news of which broke yesterday, is false. TechCrunch, which ran the original story, and CNET have spoken to new sources who confirm that, while the two companies have engaged in low-level talks in the past, there is no pending deal for an acquisition and earlier reports…

Apple is apparently deep in negotiations to buy the online map service Waze. Sources say the Mac, iPhone and iPad maker is willing to pay upwards of US$500 million for the company, although Waze is said to be holding out for $750 million. Apple may be working on Waze purchase News of the potential deal…

Optical Thunderbolt cables will soon hit the market courtesy of Sumitomo Electric Industries. The Japanese company recently announced the impending availability of Thunderbolt cables based on fiber optic data transmission, as opposed to the copper core cables used currently. Optical Thunderbolt cables will support the same fast data transfer rates, and have the same basic…

Intel is apparently planning on introducing its own virtual cable television service and set top box during CES in early January. Sources said company is jumping into the television market because Google failed to gain traction with its own Google TV based on Intel chips. Intel ready to get into the TV service game Intel's…