Edible Apple

While Samsung and Apple remain at each other’s throats, a new report claims that Apple CEO Tim Cook has been engaged in secret talks with Google CEO Larry Page about a whole host of IP issues.

Google Inc Chief Executive Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been conducting behind-the-scenes talks about a range of intellectual property matters, including the mobile patent disputes between the companies, people familiar with the matter said.

The two executives had a phone conversation last week, the sources said. Discussions involving lower-level officials of the two companies are also ongoing.

Page and Cook are expected to talk again in the coming weeks, though no firm date has been set, the sources said on Thursday. One of the sources told Reuters that a meeting had been scheduled for this Friday, but had been delayed for reasons that were unclear.

The two companies are keeping lines of communication open at a high level against the backdrop of Apple’s legal victory in a patent infringement case against Samsung, which uses Google’s Android software.

via Reuters

Seeing as he’s not the CEO and all, Google co-founder Sergey Brin doesn’t get as much attention as Larry Page, though he did participate in what might be the craziest product intro in history – Google Glasses at Google’s I/O conference earlier this Summer.

Brin, who already seems like a solid dude, just got a bit cooler, which says something for a guy already involved in a number of noteworthy projects including investments in genetic cures for diseases.

The WSJ reports that Brin has set up a real estate holding firm called Passerelle Investment Company that buys up property in Los Altos, California and rents it out (at below market pricing mind you) to entities he feels the community needs such as children’s bookstores and the like.

The firm, Passerelle Investment Co., also has helped keep some existing mom-and-pop shops in place—sometimes by charging them below-market rents, say local store owners and a person briefed on the firm’s activities.

Passerelle, which is a French word for “footbridge,” has paid tens of millions of dollars to snap up at least a half-dozen commercial buildings in the past three years, according to public records and local real-estate agents. So far, the firm has brought in businesses that cater to families, such as a children’s bookstore, a children’s “playspace” and a cafe called Bumble that has a supervised children’s play area and sandbox.

Passerelle also has publicly disclosed plans to build a hotel and office space on a property that it co-owns with the city of Los Altos.

Seems like money well spent.

Following Samsung’s recent loss to Apple over a number of asserted iPhone design and utility patents comes a report that Samsung is now trying to work more closely with Microsoft and carriers in an effort to lessen its dependancy on Android. Specifically, Samsung will reportedly work with carriers to develop new technologies for smartphones that fall outside the purview of Apple’s own technology patents.

Samsung has allegedly entered talks with the biggest US carriers including Verizon Wireless to modify existing smartphone design.

“Samsung has been in talks with major U.S. carriers to jointly develop modified design technology. This will be effective, though we can’t unveil more details for the time being,” a Samsung telecoms division official said.

Samsung meanwhile has vowed to fight the adverse jury verdict using all means at their disposal, and interestingly enough, the company has reportedly said it will sue Apple immediately should it release a smartphone with LTE technology. And of course, the rumored iPhone 5, set to launch on September 21 if you believe the rumor mill, will likely come with 4G LTE support.

So it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. At the same time, remember that Apple not too long ago was part of a consortium that placed a successful $4.5 billion bid for a collection of Noretel patents. The acquisition includes a large number of 4G patents, and some have reported that Apple, on account of it contributing the highest percentage of the $4.5 billion bid, retained outright ownership of said 4G patents.

via Korea Times

Apparently there was a report in Yahoo! News Mexico that Samsung was planning to pay its $1 billion judgement to Apple in nickels. And apparently this became a mini-Meme of sorts for a while, though hopefully anyone that came across it was sharp enough to know that the report was rather absurd on its face.

The Guardian takes a look at a few reasons why this story is completely bogus, that is, of course, if the sheer irrational nature of it all didn’t jump out at you immediately.

1) Samsung’s fine ($1.049bn) isn’t yet payable; the judge hasn’t ruled. All we have is the jury’s verdict. The judge’s decision, which could include a tripling of the fine, is due on 20 September (or possibly 6 December now; it’s unclear). Until then, Samsung only has to pay its lawyers. That should be less than $1bn.

2) If Samsung tried to pay the fine in five-cent coins, Apple could legitimately tell the trucks to turn around and head back to Samsung (if the trucks weren’t imaginary in the first place)…

3) Some more fact-checkiing from Ken Tindell via Twitter: “A nickel weighs 5g. It would take 2,755 18-wheeler trucks (max legal tare 80,000 lbs) to carry the money.”

4) Consider how much a billion dollars in nickels would weigh: you need 20bn of them, and at 5g each that’s 0.005 kg x 20,000,000,000 = 100,000,000 kg = 100,000 tonnes.

5) There probably aren’t that many nickels in circulation anyway. The New York Times noted in 2006 that there were about 20bn nickels in circulation at the time; rising metal prices were encouraging people to melt them for the copper and zinc. Another dose of reason.

The story reportedly originated in an Onion like web publication and somehow seeped its way into the mainstream for a hot minute.

Oh, the Internet.

This article makes the case that you should have at least 4.

Meanwhile, an interesting idea from the comments section:

After a tragic loss of a gmail account from hacking, I have a somewhat circuitous email management method. I use my yahoo email primarily for communication. I read my email in Gmail (I got used to the interface). My yahoo email gets forwarded to gmail, but stays on the yahoo server as a backup. Thus, I have all my email in two places online, if I ever loose one. I really don’t give out my gmail address, so there’s very little chance of it getting hacked.

Courtesy of AppleInsider which has a great breakdown of how Apple’s new Maps app in iOS 6 stacks up against Google’s map offering. You might remember that the technology comes from C3 Technologies, a Swedish company Apple acquired back in 2009.

They described their technology thusly:

C3 Technologies is the leading provider of 3D mapping solutions, offering photo-realistic models of the world for search, navigation and geographic information systems. Since 2007 when it was spun out of the aerospace and defense company Saab AB, venture-backed C3 has redefined mapping by applying previously classified image processing technology to the development of 3D maps as a platform for new social and commercial applications. The Sweden-based company’s automated software and advanced algorithms enable C3 to rapidly assemble extremely precise 3D models, and seamlessly integrate them with traditional 2D maps, satellite images, street level photography and user generated images, that together are forever changing how people use maps and explore the world.

A little Portland action.

Gorgeous.

Apple HQ..

Check out more after the break.

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First the A4, then the A5, then the A5x which debuted on the third-gen iPad, and now comes a few leaked photos purporting to be from the iPhone 5 which show Apple’s new A6 system on a chip.

MacRumors reports:

Sonny Dickson, who has been digging up photos of a number of components leaking out of Apple’s supply chain, has now posted a partial photo of what certainly appears to be the same logic board part seen in previous photos. In this new photo, an “A6” designation can be seen on the main chip, suggesting that Apple may indeed be rolling out a brand-new chip family with the next-generation iPhone.

Straight from the top, Apple employees can now enjoy a free 50GB upgrade to their iCloud storage account, a value that checks in at $100 a year. Not too shabby considering that the regular ole’ iCloud account comes with a relatively paltry 5GB of storage.

This is the latest in a series of perks that Apple employees have seen since Tim Cook assumed control as CEO. Back in June, Apple instituted a program whereby Apple employees who have worked at Apple for at least 90 days can receive up to $500 off of a Mac or $250 off of an iPad. What’s more, this discount can be used in conjunction with the existing 25% discount employees currently enjoy as it pertains to hardware. Note, though, that the $500/$250 discount can only be used once every three years.

President Barak Obama today got his MacBook on, along with a trusty Magic Mouse, today during a Reddit AMA session. Check it out over here to see his answers: Spoiler alert, there aren’t many.

via 9to5Mac

One of the strategies Apple has employed to become the most profitable companies on the planet includes buying components up front at a high cost but saving money in the long run by locking in favorable prices.

In a similar vein, Apple reportedly has made attempts recently to attain exclusive access to TSCMC’s custom smartphone chips. But also bidding against Apple is Qualcomm as Bloomberg notes that both companies have recently bid upwards of $1 billion.

And TSMC said no.

As a supplier to Qualcomm, Broadcom Corp., Nvidia Corp. and other companies that no longer operate their own factories, TSMC wants to keep the flexibility to switch its production between customers and products. TSMC Chairman Morris Chang told investors last month that he was willing to devote one or even two factories to a single customer.

Currently we believe we still can fund it,” Chief Financial Officer Lora Ho said in an interview on July 19.

TSMC wants to retain control of its plants, doesn’t want to sell part of itself and doesn’t need cash for investments, Ho said in the interview.

Ho added that if the company dedicates a single plant or process to one particular customer, they run the risk of being left with a specialized fab plant if the product or technology changes.

“You have to be careful. Once that product migrates, what are going to do with that dedicated fab?” Ho explained. “We would like to keep the flexibility.”

via Bloomberg

After crushing Samsung in their legal dispute on nearly all asserted patents and claims, Apple is keeping the ball rolling to the extent that they’re now seeking injunctions for 8 specific Samsung devices.

Samsung, for what it’s worth, has vowed to fight the proposed injunctions with all necessary means, but they can rest easy for a while because Reuters is reporting that a hearing on the matter won’t take place until December 6.

And Koh, true to form, is trying to keep things neat, orderly, and as brief as can be for such a complicated matter.

To wit, the order reads in part:

The page limits set forth herein will be strictly enforced. Any argument that is not explicitly articulated within the briefing page limits will be disregarded. Any supporting documentation shall be for corroboration purposes solely and shall not be used as a vehicle for circumventing the Court’s page limits. Any citations to the record must include the relevant testimony or exhibit language. Any single-spaced bullets in an attempt to circumvent the briefing page limits will be disregarded.

While the two parties were initially set to meet on September 20 to talk about Apple’s motion for injunctions, that date will instead be taken up by arguments regarding the permanent injunction of the Galaxy Tab 10.1. If you recall, the jury in the Apple/Samsung dispute found that the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is currently subject to an injunction, did not violate any of Apple’s iPad trade-dress. Consequently, Samsung is moving to have the injunction lifted.

via Reuters

Ah, Apple Geniuses, the last bastion of help when your Mac is on its last legs or simply acting up. But who are these mysterious men and women, often donning blue shirts, and helping out the Apple masses?

Well, is it any surprise that Gizmodo, of all sites!, got its hands on the training manuals Apple uses for its Geniuses?

From banned words to little psychological games, the handbook, so to speak provides an interesting glimpse into the psyche of the folks on Apple’s front line of retail.

Dubbed the Genius Training Student Workbook, Gizmodo reportedly got its hands on the most up to date version of it and so lets take a gander.

The manual could easily serve as the Humanity 101 textbook for a robot university, but at Apple, it’s an exhaustive manual to understanding customers and making them happy. Sales, it turns out, take a backseat to good vibes—almost the entire volume is dedicated to empathizing, consoling, cheering up, and correcting various Genius Bar confrontations. The assumption, it’d seem, is that a happy customer is a customer who will buy things. And no matter how much the Apple Store comes off as some kind of smiling likeminded computer commune, it’s still a store above all—just one that puts an enormous amount of effort behind getting inside your head.

Here’s how Geniuses can gauge how a customer is feeling at any given time.

And this is actually interesting that Geniuses are forbidden from using phrases like “bomb”, “crash”, and “hang.” Instead they’re directed to use words like “unexpectedly quits” or “stops responding.”

Also, remember that your computer doesn’t have a bug, but just a little “condition” or “situation” that needs some attention. No big deal!

Head on over to Gimzodo for the full run-down on this training manual expose.