It’s tax time and Apple just got itself a new lead tax man
Apple has hired a new leader of its tax department, according to an SEC filing this morning. Phillip Bullock, formerly Symantec’s Chief Accounting Officer, has chosen to leave the company he joined in 2006, to join the winning team in Cupertino. Phillip A. Bullock, who was appointed as Symantec’s Chief Accounting Officer in September 2009,...
Future MacBooks could have this surround sound speaker system
According to an Apple patent application published by the United States Patent & Trademark Office and detailed by PatentlyApple, Apple is working to implement audio transducers in combination with multiple speakers to enable surround sound configurations on MacBook-like devices. Apple’s focus of the patent appears to be improving audio in mobile devices as speakers decrease...
Lenovo’s laptops are looking less like Thinkpads and more like MacBook Pros
. This is the new Lenovo IdeaPad U310 (and U410) as it appears in the FCC database. I always wonder if, in the design meetings at Lenovo, they pretend like they came up with this look or the boss just says “make me something that looks exactly like this MacBook Pro”. 
RIM (RIP?) is in its death spiral
There is no way to sugarcoat today’s announcement from the once-great Blackberry-maker RIM. The company is, after years of putting its head in the sand, finally taking drastic measures to change course, including getting rid of former Co-CEO and current board member Jim Balsillie and its CTO and COO (loooong overdue). Revenues are way down—and...
Apple working on advanced 3D cameras with object and gesture recognition
This is not the first time an Apple patent has surfaced relating to three-dimensional camera technologies. A previous patent highlighted advanced 3D object recognition and verification. A new patent—published today by the United States Patent & Trademark Office and detailed by PatentlyApple—shows Apple is continuing to work on 3D camera technologies that could land in future...
Game Over: Latest Nielsen survey says over 90% of US Smartphones purchased in last 3 months are iOS or Android
With iOS gaining on its roughly 30 percent U.S. marketshare as of Q4 2011, at the expense of RIM, Nokia and Microsoft, new numbers from Nielsen’s latest study shows just how much of a duopoly the US market has become. While noting approximately 50 percent of mobile subscribers in the U.S. are now smartphone owners,...
The next Macs will likely have one of these Intel Ivy Bridge processors, due in a month
Ivy Bridge CPUs launching by April 29 We have heard reports in recent months that the launch of Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor lineup, which will likely find its way into next-generation Apple products, has been delayed. While an April/May launch was expected for some of the lineup initially, Intel confirmed in February that the launch...
New patent details Apple’s work with high refresh rate LCD technology HDTVs
A ton of recent rumors all but confirm Apple plans to enter the TV market with a full-fledged Apple-branded HDTV, but today a patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office details an advancement of high refresh rate LCD technology known as “fringe field switching.” As described by PatentlyApple, Apple’s patent offers advancements in the...
Apple offers royalty-free licensing of proposed nano-SIM to competitors (Updated)
Update: Nokia has responded to reports that Apple is offering to license its nano-SIM patents royalty-free by claiming Apple does not have patents “essential to its nano-SIM proposal” (via ITworld): “We are not aware of any Apple Intellectual Property which it considers essential to its nano-SIM proposal. In light of this, Apple’s proposal for royalty-free licensing seems no...
Square rebrands Card Case as ‘Pay with Square’ in monster update following Paypal’s announcement
Square updated its “Card Case” app with a new design, new name, and a shiny new icon (literally) less than a week after PayPal announced its triangular Square competitor. Unlike the previous version of the app, which used a credit card metaphor for each store you had an account with, version 2.0, now called “Pay...
