The Tech News Blog
iPad Hacker Sentenced to 41 Months in Prison
A hacker convicted of improperly accessing the accounts of AT&T iPad owners was sentenced to 41 months in prison today.
As reported by Wired, Andrew Auernheimer will spend the next three years and four months behind bars. The sentence was handed down after Auernheimer reportedly got into a scuffle with court officials over a mobile device he had. The Verge said he was not supposed to be using a computer with a keyboard, and ultimately, the exchange led to him being cuffed.
Auernheimer - known online as Weev - and Daniel Spitler, believed to be members of the Goatse Security coalition of hackers, were arrested in mid-January 2011 on two counts each: one for fraud and the other for conspiring to access an unauthorized server, in this case, AT&T's. In June 2010 the carrier disclosed the theft of 114,000 e-mail addresses and ICC-IDs (identity numbers stored in SIM cards) of Apple iPad 3G owners, including Michael Bloomberg, Harvey Weinstein, and blogger Kara Swisher.
The hackers provided the stolen email addresses to gossip blog Gawker, which posted the data in redacted form, and said a group known as Goatse Security was claiming responsibility.
THX Sues Apple, Claims iPhone, iMac, iPad Speakers Infringe Patent
THX has filed suit against Apple, claiming that the tech giant has infringed on one of THX's patent's for "Narrow profile speaker configurations and systems" within the company's iPhones, iPads, and iMacs.
The result? The violations cause THX "monetary damage and irreparable harm," reports Bloomberg, and the company is seeking monetary damages or royalty payments, as well as a court order that would force Apple to cease its alleged infringement.
According to THX's complaint, filed Thursday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple's infringing the patent on its iPhone 4 (and later models), iPads, and iMacs, "which incorporate narrow-profile speaker units that output sound through a duct or aperture having a narrow dimension."
Here's where it gets interesting. The patent that THX is holding over Apple's head was granted to the company in 2008. U.S. Patent No. 7,433,483 describes, in part, "A narrow profile speaker unit comprises at least one speaker outputting sound towards an internal surface and through a duct with an output terminus, such as a slot, having a narrow dimension, effectively changing the cross-section of the speaker's audio output wave. A pair of speakers may face one another, outputting sound towards a common output slot."
Apple Selling Refurbished 4th-Gen iPad, iPad Mini
Apple has started selling refurbished versions of its latest iPad lineup, which could help you save between $30-$50.
At this point, Cupertino is only offering the Wi-Fi plus cellular versions of the fourth-gen iPad and the iPad mini.
A refurbished 16GB iPad mini in black will set you back $429, savings of $30 or 6 percent off a brand-new tablet. A new 16GB iPad mini starts at $459, while the 32GB is $559 and the 64GB is $659. The Wi-Fi models run from $329 to $529.
A refurbished 16GB fourth-gen iPad in white for Verizon's network, meanwhile, is selling for $579, which is $50 less or 7 percent off a new machine. The same device would be $629 brand new, and goes up to $929 for the 128GB version.
Could Next Wave of iPhones and iPads Have Intel Inside?
Apple has used ARM-based A-Series processors for several generations of the iPhone and iPad, but a rumor out of Taiwan this week has the company turning to Intel for at least a portion of its future mobile device chip production.
Does this mean x86-based chips will finally find a place inside Apple's best-selling iDevices? The short answer is an emphatic "no," at least in the near future.
Rather than a move to the Intel architecture akin to Apple's sea-changing switch from IBM PowerPC chips to x86 for its MacIntosh products in 2005-06, this rumored move would utilize Intel's foundry services to produce some 10 percent of Apple's future A7 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) parts, according to DigiTimes.
Those SoCs would presumably still be based on the ARM architecture, especially given Apple's major investments in the architecture, both materially and in terms of an evolved app ecosystem built around ARM. Further on down the road, say a few years out, is anybody's guess. Intel has arguably been making major strides in catching up to ARM in terms of producing competitive Atom-branded x86 processors for smartphones and tablets, which provide the kind of battery life bang mobile device makers value.
Samsung Fails to Get Apple iPhones, iPads Banned in Japan
Samsung this week failed in its bid to have Apple products pulled from the shelves in Japan.
As reported by Bloomberg, the Tokyo District Court found that Samsung had not made good faith efforts to negotiate patent licensing deals with Apple. Samsung also can't seek damages from Apple, Bloomberg said.
"We are disappointed by today's court decision," Samsung said in a statement. "Following a thorough review of the ruling, we will take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights."
The Korean company's licensing tactics have landed it in hot water with regulators lately. In December, the European Commission accused Samsung of patent abuse in its dealings with Apple. The Department of Justice in the U.S. is reportedly investigating Samsung for the same thing.
Samsung has had some success in Japan before, though. Back in August, a three-judge panel in Tokyo ruled that Samsung did not infringe on an Apple patent claim covering the syncing of video and music data with devices to servers. Led by judge Tamotsu Shoji, the panel rejected Apple's request for damages related to the alleged infringement, which would have amounted to 100 million yen (approximately $1.27 million).
The patent battle between Apple and Samsung in Japan dates back to 2011. In Sept. 2011, Apple filed suit in Tokyo District Court, requesting a ban on Samsung Galaxy S smartphones and Galaxy Tab tablets. A month later, Samsung asked the same court to ban the iPhone 4, 4S, and iPad 2.
Leaked iPad Mini Images Hint at Retina Display
After only four months on the market, the iPad mini is a certified hit with consumers. But perhaps the only knock against the device has been related to its display, which falls slightly behind similarly sized tablets such as the Nexus 7Â and the Amazon Kindle Fire HD. However, if new leaked images are any clue, Apple may be about to remedy that issue in the device's next update.
In a post on China's WeiPhone, which was picked up by mobile device site Mobilespie, one forum member uploaded a set of photos showing off what looks to be an updated back casing for the iPad mini. Sporting an odd, possibly pre-production blue Apple logo, the case has all the design elements associated with the current iPad mini, however, upon closer inspection of the images, the back casing appears to be slightly thicker than the current version.
A thicker housing would support the notion, rumored almost since the launch of the first iPad mini, that Apple would have to slightly increase the device's thickness in order to support a higher-resolution Retina display. Of course, considering the high volume of bootleg gadgets produced in China, any images originating from the region are just as likely to be counterfeit knockoffs. Nevertheless, after perusing the various close-up angles of the new back casing, the authentic appearance of the hardware is difficult to dismiss.
New Apple TV Spots Focus on iPad Apps
Apple this weekend debuted two new ads that focus on the 300,000 apps currently available to owners of the iPad and iPad mini.
"With over 300,000 apps, iPad is up for anything you are," read the video descriptions on YouTube.
Both ads - dubbed Alive and Together - feature a quick sequence of adjectives flashing on screen; when they stop on one (like "loud") a group of voices read it aloud and the iPad then demonstrates how it embodies that word.
"Loud" shows off GarageBand, detailed images of the inner ear, and shots of models in bold prints. "Deep" includes interactive images of the Earth's crust, TED Talks, an app that zooms in on the body's cells, and shots of a boat on the bottom of the ocean. "Alive," meanwhile, features an animated great white shark, an interactive vocab app for kids, animated images of the heart, and someone editing video of a gravity-defying snowboarder. The last word, of course, is iPad.
The second ad focuses on the words wild, bright, and together.
Microsoft Losing Billions Without Office for iPad
Microsoft is losing out on billions in revenue by not offering its Office suite of products for the iPad, according to a new analyst report.
Releasing a $60 Office for the newest iPads could add $1.3 billion in revenue, while extending it to Apple's complete lineup of tablets could boost that to $2.5 billion, according to an analyst note from Morgan Stanley's Adam Holt.
Holt pointed to the fact that Microsoft has a 30-40 percent Office attach rate on Macs for paid Office vs. 10-15 percent on Windows.
"Our conversations lead us to believe Microsoft will price for value with Office on the iOS and net 30 percent to Apple (which can be negotiated). Microsoft may get $50-70+ [per] Office unit," Holt wrote. "If Microsoft got 30 percent attach in one [year] at $60 [per] unit on the ~200M base it is $2.5B in [revenue], more than the total amount of software [revenue] we forecast for Microsoft (Office + Windows) from 11 percent tablet share in FY14. The math is compelling and may drive Microsoft to move Office."
It could also help Redmond recoup the approximately $5 billion in Office revenue it loses to piracy each year, Holt said.
Microsoft has not made any announcements about Office for iOS. At the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this week, Peter S. Klein, Microsoft's chief financial officer, was coy when asked about extending its suite to Apple's platform.
Apple Tops PC Market … Thanks to iPad Sales
Apple isn't just a leader in the smartphone market — it also holds the top spot among all other PC makers, according to new data from Canalys.
The market research firm came to that conclusion, however, because it counts tablets in the same category as desktops, laptops, and notebooks. Overall, worldwide PC shipments increased 12 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2012 to reach 134 million units, with tablets making up a third of that number.
Apple nabbed an overwhelming 20 percent share of the market, shipping 27 million units - 22.9 million of which were iPads. Mac sales actually dropped during the fourth quarter, which Apple CEO Tim Cook attributed partially to supply issues with the company's new iMacs.
Second-place HP shipped 15 million PCs, narrowly beating Lenovo by just 200,000 units. HP and Lenovo each took 11 percent market share.
Samsung found itself in the top five for the first time, elbowing Dell out of fourth place thanks to strong tablet shipments. The Korean electronics giant shipped 11.7 million PCs for 9 percent market share. Meanwhile, fifth place Dell only shipped 9.7 million units in the quarter, a 19 percent decline compared to 2011 as the company's "reputation in the PC market continues to fade," Canalys said.
The notebook segment struggled, with volumes in the fourth quarter flat compared to the same period in 2011. Even the highly anticipated launch of Windows 8 and the busy holiday shopping season didn't have much of an effect on worldwide shipments.
Holidays Boost Kindle Fire, But iPad Still King
The iPad still dominates the tablet market, but Amazon's Kindle Fire is holding on to the gains it made over the holiday season, according to new stats from mobile ad network Chitika Insights.
The tablet market grew 75 percent during the fourth quarter, compared to the same time period in 2011, highlighting the trend of mobile and tablet devices driving personal computing. NPD DisplaySearch reached a similar conclusion last month, estimating that global tablet shipments will hit 240 million units this year — a 64 percent year-over-year increase.
Tablet competition, however, still remains fairly one-sided. Based on data collected by Chitika between Jan. 19 and 25, the mobile ad firm pointed to an unsurprising lead by the iPad , which had 81 percent of the tablet market last month, leaving a giant gap between Apple and it's Android-based contenders.
The Amazon Kindle Fire, however, landed almost 8 percent of the market — a 3 percent boost from its late-December standing. Google Nexus , Samsung Galaxy, and B&N Nook tablets also saw smaller gains last month, with all three now contributing a combined 6.7 percent of U.S. tablet Web traffic, Chitika said.