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Patents

Apple Yanks Toddler's Speech-Enabling App 573

Posted by Soulskill from the like-taking-candy-apps-from-a-baby dept.
theodp writes "TIME reports that four-year-old Maya Nieder's speech-enabling 'Speak for Yourself' app was yanked from the App Store by Apple due to an unresolved patent dispute at the behest of Prentke Romich Company (PRC) and Semantic Compaction Systems (SCS), makers of designated communication devices (not iPad apps). 'The issue of whether or not Apple should have pulled Speak for Yourself from the App Store before the case was decided is trickier. Obviously, Apple would rather be safe than sorry and remove a potentially problematic app instead of risking legal action. The problem, however, is that this isn’t some counterfeit version of Angry Birds.' 'My daughter cannot speak without this app,' writes Maya's mom, Dana. 'She cannot ask us questions. She cannot tell us that she's tired, or that she wants yogurt for lunch. She cannot tell her daddy that she loves him.' If you're so inclined, Dana suggests you drop a note to appstorenotices@apple.com."

Comment Re:ethernet dongles (likely at added cost on $2k+) (Score -1) 683

by CheerfulMacFanboy (#40298887) Attached to: Apple News From WWDC and iPhone 5 Rumors

If most people don't use Ethernet most of the time, don't include it.

Half the offices I work in don't have wireless, and everyone plugs in their laptops. I'm skeptical that a signficant majority of people using macbook pro's at work are wireless.

Instead they will have a docking station with ethernet constantly connected.
Crime

RMS Robbed of Passport and Other Belongings In Argentina 386

Posted by timothy from the low-and-despicable dept.
New submitter Progman3K writes "Richard Stallman, father of the FSF, had his bag containing his laptop, medicine, money and passport stolen after his talk at the University of Buenos Aires on Friday, June 8." Adds reader jones_supa, excerpting from the same linked story: "As a result of this occurrence, he was forced to cancel his talk in Cordoba, and it's still unknown how this will impact the rest of his speaking engagements throughout the world."
Microsoft

History Will Revere Bill Gates and Forget Steve Jobs, Says Author 679

Posted by Soulskill from the skynet-will-forget-both dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "PC Magazine reports that journalist Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Outliers, has stirred up quite a controversy in tech circles with his off-the-cuff remarks that history will remember Bill Gates fondly while Steve Jobs slips into obscurity. Gladwell likened Gates' charitable work to the German armaments maker Oskar Schindler's famous efforts to save his Jewish workers from the gas chambers during World War II, and added that because of Gates there's a reasonable shot we will cure malaria. 'Gates, sure, is the most ruthless capitalist. And then he decides, he wakes up one morning and he says, "Enough." And he steps down, he takes his money, takes it off the table ... and I think, I firmly believe that 50 years from now, he will be remembered for his charitable work,' said Gladwell. 'And of the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. Who's Steve Jobs again?' For all his dismissal of Jobs' legacy, however, Gladwell remains utterly fascinated with him. 'He was an extraordinarily brilliant businessman and entrepreneur. He was also a self-promoter on a level that we have rarely seen,' said Gladwell. 'What was brilliant about Apple, he understood from the get-go that the key to success in that marketplace was creating a distinctive and powerful and seductive brand.' Gladwell concludes that the most extraordinary moment in the biography of Jobs is when Jobs is on his deathbed and it's over and he knows it. 'And on, I forget, three, four occasions, he refuses the mask because he is unhappy with its design. That's who he was. Right to the very end, he had a set of standards. If he was going to die, dammit, he's going to die with the right kind of oxygen mask. To him it was like making him send his final emails using Windows.'"
Science

Materials From Tough-as-Nails Crustacean Could Inspire Better Body Armor 144

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-mess-with-the-little-guy dept.
carmendrahl writes "The peacock mantis shrimp, a crustacean which is neither a mantis nor a shrimp, has hammer-like clubs for smashing the shells of its prey. They're so strong that regular glass aquariums can't hold them. But what's interested researchers for some time is how the clubs stand up to all that stress. Now, a team has figured out why: the mantis shrimp club's molecular structure is set up to resist fractures. That discovery could lead to stronger and lighter car frames or body armor."

Comment Re:The price sticker will probably say "Free". (Score -1) 110

by CheerfulMacFanboy (#40267493) Attached to: Apple To Unveil iOS 6 At WWDC 2012

The price sticker will probably say "Free".

Probably right, that is unless the upgrade is unavailable for your device (i.e. older iPhones), or breaks it. Under those circumstances, I contend the upgrade price will be the price of whatever phone Apple is pimping at the time of iOS 6's release.

Let me get this straight:you are an Android user complaining about the upgradability of Apple's phones. Good one.
Advertising

In Australia, Apple Fined $2.5 Million For '4G' Advertising Claims 154

Posted by timothy from the we-thought-this-island-was-for-crime dept.
Whiney Mac Fanboy writes "Apple has agreed to pay a $2.25 million (AUD) fine (along with 300k legal costs) to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission for misleading advertising. Apple misrepresented their iPad product as being a '4G' device, when in fact they're only compatible with a very small percentage of 4G networks around the world. The Age online has the full story."
IOS

Apple To Unveil iOS 6 At WWDC 2012 110

Posted by Soulskill from the system-requirements:-one-button dept.
redletterdave writes "At next week's WWDC 2012 in San Francisco, Apple is expected to unveil new laptops, desktops, accessories, and software features for its Mac OS X platform. But on Friday afternoon, several pictures surfaced on Twitter showing banners released around Moscone West in San Francisco, saying 'iOS 6: The world's most advanced mobile operating system.'"

Comment Re:MAD (Score -1) 160

Copy? Android is being developed since 2003, the T-Mobile G1 was released 2008 only a couple of months after the iPhone 3G (which was the first "smartphone" iPhone, the iPhone of 2007 not offering apps), so I guess Android was really quick at copying the stuff,

Nobody claimed that Android copied the iPhone from the start - first they copied Blackberry (notice the keyboard on that G1 - knew you could). Only after the iPhone was presented did Android suddenly have touch in mind from the start.

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