Archive for August 31st, 2010

Apple has posted a new job listing looking for a marketing manager specifically for the iBookstore. The listing seeks an experienced business marketer "to drive awareness and sales of iBooks through co-marketing programs with publishers and authors, strategic partnerships, and via online and direct marketing tactics." It seems like a lot of the position will be self-driven, as whoever's chosen will be asked to come up with some interesting schemes to push iBook sales, both with publishers, and even across the other divisions of iTunes. But the bottom line is of course sales -- Apple wants someone to push iBooks, specifically in the US.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a display with nanometer-thin sheets of metal (called nanoresonators) that use slits to create pixels eight times smaller than the pixels currently on the iPhone 4. To show off their work, the University of Michigan researchers created their school's logo on a display only 9 microns tall (a strand of human hair is about 100 microns wide).

Crazy. You have to wonder what an iPhone-sized display would look like with a resolution like that (or if we'd even tell the difference, given that our eyes have a limit on the amount of detail they can discern). Obviously, such  display would probably cost a lot more than the iPhone 4 actually does.

iTunes users will be able to sample a minute of a song before purchasing. Currently, iTunes song samples are limited to 30 seconds.

The report said that the addition of more sample time is one of a number of expected changes to iTunes, aimed at helping users discover music. It is rumored that Apple will spend "a large part" of its 1st September  special event detailing how the new iTunes improves the user experience. But Apple is not expected to introduce a cloud-based iTunes service, which would allow users to stream music to devices such as the iPhone.

Apple and its  iAds mobile advertising service are the target of a new lawsuit from a company that owns a patent related to location-based ads. Apple was named in the lawsuit from StreetSpace, along with Quattro Wireless, which is now being phased out in favor of iAds. Other defendants include Google, AdMob, Nokia, Navteq, Millenial Media and Jumptap.

StreetSpace is the creator of a remote Internet terminal the Web Station. Users can walk up to one of these terminals to access the Internet, and are delivered targeted advertisements in the process. The suit alleges that iAds service, launched on July 1, is in violation of StreetSpace patent because it delivers personalized advertisements based on a user's location, profile and usage history.

Related to that invention is U.S. Patent No. 6,847,969, which StreetSpace has alleged Apple is in violation of. Named "Method and System for Providing Personalized Online Services and Advertisements in Public Spaces," it was granted on Jan. 25, 2005.

The two pictures of airplane propellers seem absolutely unreal. Yet, it is no Photoshop – just the iPhone and its Rolling Shutter Effect.

The photos were made by Soren Ragsdale and Jason Mullins, and they represent the iPhone’s way of image acquisition.

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Apple’s Special Event is just 2 days away, and fresh iPod rumors appear each day. Late last week there was a leak of information about a smaller iPod nano. Now there are more images from Asian websites showing screen protectors and additional cases, supposedly for a next-generation iPod nano as well.

One of the images is detailed enough, so we can try to establish some of the main features of the forthcoming device. In the edge of case there is a long slot that is certainly meant for Apple’s dock-connector, expected in the new iPod nano. The opposite edge is occupied by an elongated hole – most probably the slot for the on/off buton or the hold switch, like we can see on the already-existing iPod models.

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