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The Karotz Smart Rabbit is a PC- and Mac-compatible gadget that brings a variety of fun and useful apps into a small, entertaining form factor. Through a web page interface, you can load up your Karotz with applications from an “Appz Store” that, while small, is growing daily and is open for developers to do…

Drivers of A-class cars fitted with a “Drive Kit Plus for the Apple iPhone” will be able to access features on their phone using controls on the center armrest. And, of course, all of this is meant to meld with the attractive look of the interior of the vehicle.Digital DriveStyle Screenshot App ImageSource: Daimler This integration…

Patent 8,095,879, titled “User interface for mobile handheld computer unit,” shows a filing date of December 10, 2002 and an issue date of January 10, 2012. Neonode’s earlier patent, number 7,880,732, describes a touch screen system for mobile phones.The company claims it is already licensing its touch-based patents to the likes of Sony, Barnes &…

Apple purchased the worldwide rights to the iPad trademark from Proview using a third company Apple set up to negotiate the deal under the name IP Application Development Limited. While Apple believes it purchased all rights to the name, Proview has argued in court that rights in mainland China were not part of the deal,…

First noted by MacRumors, the pricing sheet was posted (registration required) to Sina Weibo, a microblogging site (similar to Twitter) that is popular in China. It shows Apple’s current pricing for the iPad 2 in one column, with another column listing prices for the as-yet unannounced iPad 3. A Supposed iPad 2 & iPad 3…

The preferences allow you to customize the disc as soon as you insert it. You can auto append the date to the discs name, auto append the date when it’s untitled (often the default) and even have the program warn you when a disc is untitled. To make the most of your write-once media, you…

Google: Sidestepping “Don’t be Evil” Some day we may look at the side of the barn and see that the rule reads, “Don’t be too evil.” The Wall Street Journal ran a piece late last week, highlighted by Wired,that said Google intentionally worked its way around Safari’s default privacy settings, attaching specific types of cookies…

The company has been fighting Apple in China in hopes of proving the iPad maker didn’t properly license the iPad name for use in the country. Apple, however, says it purchased the trademark from Proview legitimately from one of the company’s subsidiaries, and that Proview Technology was aware of the transaction.Proview’s iPad trademark fight comes…

FAILED Advisory Vote on Executive Compensation. Apple asked shareholders to vote yes on this non-binding proposal that gives input on executive pay. FAILED (1.9% voted “For”) Conflict of Interest Report. Apple asked shareholders to vote no on this proposal put forth by The National Center for Public Policy Research, which wants Apple to assemble a report that…

Image credit: Neal PannAlong with protesters outside the meeting, the organization plans to present the company with a petition demanding what they call an “ethical iPhone” during the standard question and answer session. The group claims to have over 300,000 signatures from several rights groups.Protesters were lined up along the street outside the Apple campus…

Edifier, a company that specializes in sound systems, has a new speaker out, identified simply as the MP250. It’s sleek, ten inches long and 1.5-in wide at the widest point, and triangular in shape. Edifer MP250 speakerThe top and bottom of the speaker are brushed aluminum and the front side, where the sound emerges, is covered with…

Sorry, Proview. No iPad ban for you.According to Apple, it purchased the trademark to the iPad name from Proview in 2009.Proview has been trying to get the iPad banned in specific cities, although that doesn’t seem to be working out very well for the company. The Shanghai court’s decision doesn’t help Proview’s efforts, and it…

Air Force scraps big iPad purchaseAir Force Special Operations halted its iPad purchase plans two days after Nextgov asked about the inclusion of GoodReader as one of the apps for managing and reading PDF documents on the tablet device. GoodReader is a popular iPhone and iPad app that handles file transfers to and from the…

To make matters worse, engaging in every technology that comes along can not only complicate our life but also create conflicts that waste time and create frustration. I saw a tweet recently that said something like: Google+ is like a health club: everyone’s a member, but no one goes. We sign up for things that…

Apple has been targeted by human rights groups for the working conditions in factories that build its products. The company responded by saying it monitors the conditions at the facilities it subcontracts for production, and that new inspections in conjunction with the Fair Labor Association were underway.The FLA said that its preliminary investigation showed better…

The class action lawsuit claimed that Apple misled customers by intentionally withholding information about antenna performance on the iPhone 4. Attorneys jumped on the issue after reports surfaced showing that holding the iPhone 4 in a specific way could cause signal strength to drop.Apple responded to the allegations by claiming all cell phones can lose…

Surprise! It’s Mountain Lion Sometimes it seems as if all of the Apple surprises are gone. We expect big sales numbers ahead of earnings reports. We expect new iPhones and iPads months before we get them. Software updates are seen from a mile off. Yep. The days of the Apple surprises seem to be long…

A Foxconn FactoryFoxconn issued a statement Friday that indicated junior level workers would now be paid 1,800 yuan (US$290) per month, and if that worker passed a technical exam they could earn as much as 2,200 yuan, according to a report by Reuters.This is up from the rate of 900 yuan which was being paid just…

If that’s the case, then the real secret is not sales. It’s solving a problem. The Gateway people could’t begin to handle the intricacies of Windows, all they wanted was your credit card for the hardware. In the Apple stores, as we know, the focus is on answers. And occasional maintenance. And everything that’s on…

The olloclip 3-in-One Photo Lens certainly caught the eye of Mac Observer staff at Macworld | iWorld 2012. Ted Landau mentioned it in his overview of the show.  Jeff Gamet is going to cover it from the point of view of pixels and all that technical stuff. Me, I just want to talk about how fun…

I participated in a live demo of the Garmin GTU 10 at Macworld | iWorld, and the very first thing that came to my mind was an incident concerning a young man out riding his bicycle when he was hit by a car in a hit and run accident. He was thrown off the road…

The audio quality of the recording is quite low, but it’s well worth listening to if you want some insight on Apple’s new CEO. If you can’t listen, however, Philip Elmer-DeWitt and the team at Forbes put together a written transcript of the event. You’ll miss what we considered some of the emotional nuances (and…

According to Bloomberg, Apple says that during the early 1990s, it was involved in the development of a digital camera with Kodak, and that Kodak patented the resulting technology. Kodak has denied that and is currently suing Apple and Research in Motion over its image preview patent. That case, filed in January 2010, is still…

Proview CEO Yang Long-san told Reuters: “The customs have told us that it will be difficult to implement a ban because many Chinese consumers love Apple products. The sheer size of the market is very big. We have applied to some local customs for the ban and they’ll report to the headquarters in Beijing.”The CEO…