News tagged ‘report’

Apple is progressively expanding the capabilities of its Siri voice assistant feature of the iPhone 4S. Wolfram Alpha reports in its blog that it is now enabling its clients to browse Best Buy's electronics and appliances data provides iPhone 4S Siri users a new way to shop and compare products using their voice. The retailer's database includes 35,000 consumer products.

"We’ve taken the strengths we’ve developed in math, science, and socioeconomic data and created something equally unique and useful for online shoppers," the search provider stated.

Using either the web or one's own voice using Siri, users can search for a general product category or a specific product model and obtain a comprehensive report detailing product features, prices and availability, users ratings, price comparisons with similar models.

Users can even shop for products based on their specific needs, such as asking for "the lightest digital camera under $100 with a pixel resolution greater than 12MP,” or compare multiple models. The Best Buy data is currently only available to users in the United States.

Research in Motion is struggling now for its share of the mobile market. But the price of  its stocks is getting lower and lower, so the company is worth less than the estimated value of just Apple's App Store. An analysis from Trefis' Brian S. Hall notes that at a price of $13.44, RIMM stock finished last week at a total value of just $7.04 billion, less than the $7.08 billion that Apple's App Store is estimated to be worth. As for the whole Apple company, AAPL stock has a market cap of $354 billion, or more than 50 times greater than RIMM.

"The App Store is probably worth more than BlackBerry," Hall wrote. "All of BlackBerry. Just the App Store. Nothing else. Not the iPhone or iPod. Not Mac. Just the App Store."

App Store is now one of the key components of Apple’s success. Just a year of Apple's iTunes Store and App Store’s operation costs Apple $1.3 billion, but last year only developers received $2.5 billion in payments in the App Store. According to a last week report, iOS applications bring in 300 percent more revenue than their Android counterparts.

RIM's stock has been showing decline in the price since the company announced last week that BlackBerry shipments reduced year over year while the company managed to ship just 150,000 PlayBook tablets last quarter. Moreover the company delayed the release of its next-generation smartphone operating system, BlackBerry 10, until the second half of 2012.

As The New York Post reports, on the last week the New York Police Department conducted a sting targeting merchants that were suspected of trading in stolen iPhones. The NYPD spokeperson Paul Browne said that undecover police officers sold iPhone 4S and iPad 2 at more than 600 locations asking from $50 to $200 after stating that these devices were stolen.

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The Paradox iPod nano watch kit

Nick Bilton from The New York Times, who in October wrote that large parts of rumoured Apple’s television sets appeared in the company's supple chain, now reports that Apple may be researching and even prototyping new wearable devices.

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The resent rumors suggesting that Apple may purchase Israeli firm Anobit, nudge that Apple plans to set up its first research and development center outside of its Cupertino headquarters.

Sources inform "Globes" that Apple Inc. has decided to open a development center in Israel focusing on semiconductors. The decision was taken even before the company entered into talks to acquire Herzliya-based flash storage solutions provider Anobit Ltd..

Apple has hired Aharon Aharon, a veteran player in Israel's high tech industry, to lead the new development center.

[...]

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According to a report from DigiTimes, Apple may be preparing to launch a high-resolution MacBook Pro as early as the second quarter of 2012. The report cites sources from supply chain which claim that Apple is going to double the display resolution of its new MacBook Pro to 2880x1800 pixels.

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Today market research company Strategy Analytics reported on its research which covers «connected TV players», such as Ruku and Apple TV. The report shows that Apple is expected to reach sales of 4 million Apple TV boxes for 2011, leading the growing market with a 32 percent share.

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Apple suppliers now claim that the next generation of iPads will arrive on the market in the next 3-4 months. Manufacturing partners of the company have reportedly begun delivering parts and components for the third-generation iPad while reducing the iPad 2 production, through it is expected to remain steady at 14-15 million units in the December quarter, before declining to 4-5 million units in the first quarter of 2012. The same sources said that production of the iPad 3 will reach 9.5-9.8 million units next quarter.

China's Commercial Times has reported that Apple will begin producing the device in January ahead of large-scale production in February. Moreover, analysts suggest that there left no significant technical hurdles for the device.

The iPad 3 is expected to include a high resolution Retina Display. Last month we reported that Apple invested in a Sharp factory for production of LCD panels for the next iPad that will be utilize IGZO (indium, gallium, zinc) technology to provide a thinner design and improve battery life. However, the recent report from Japanese source claims that iPad 3 will be little thicker that the current-generation Apple’s tablet because of unknown reasons.

The new report claims that Apple has transferred several patents to the patent-licensing firm Digitude Innovations and accuses the company of aiding a so-called "patent troll." Digitude Innovations filed suit against tech giants this week, including Research in Motion, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sony, Amazon and Nokia. Having investigating the lawsuit, TechCrunch found out that two of the patents mentioned in the lawsuit had belonged to Apple earlier this year.

Apple is claimed to transfer a dozen of patents to the company called Cliff Island LLC earlier this year. Noteworthy, the company's address is the same as Digitude investor Altitude Capital. Cliff Island apparently transferred the patents to Digitude.

In June Forbes reported that Digitude Innovations was established by Altitude founder Robert Kramer. Digitude is in the business of acquiring patents to sue others, the company has been labeled a "patent troll." The company is utilizing a new investment strategy of allowing investors to contribute patents instead of money. Participating companies would then receive a license for all of the firm's patents.

It is not clear whether Apple entered into an agreement with Digitude, but Apple may use the company as a "hired gun" in its patent battles.

"The idea that the company didn’t have any options other than handing over valuable patents to a patent troll — knowing full well that it would then use those patents to sue other tech companies — seems ludicrous."

According to Japanese blog Macotakara, Apple held a MFI Conference for iPod / iPhone / iPad for accessory manufacturers in Shenzen, China this past week.  During the conference Apple reported that the company was going to introduce a new chip for MFI program ("MFI" means Apple's Made iPod / iPhone / iPad certification program) in order to encourage manufactures to produce more iOS-compatible accessories. The rumored chip will provide access to devices running iOS via AirPlay, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The current program for iOS devices is limited to physical dock accessories.

TouchArcade has confirmed these rumors by its recent article telling us about iOS gaming accessories. TouchArcade explains that the reason why all the current gaming accessories rely on Bluetooth keyboard emulation is due to the restrictions Apple has placed over bluetooth connections and with the new chip such restrictions seems to be loosed opening the way to analog control sticks for iOS devices.

Moreover, Apple has recently revealed that the company would be adding support for AirPlay over Bluetooth. It is unclear what advantages this will offer.

BGR reports that Samsung is preparing to launch its own high resolution tablet that will carry a 2560 x 1600 resolution screen that would beat the 2048x1536 display that the iPad 3 has been rumored to have.

Even though the tablet features a larger display than Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, we’re told that the tablet is “barely larger” due to the fact the slate will have a thinner bezel with a whopping 2560 x 1600 resolution, 11.6-inch screen with a 16:10 aspect ratio.

Samsung introduced a similar 2560x1600 screen that uses the less conventional PenTile technology to achieve its high resolution back in May at SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium.

The PenTile display uses a series of local filter operations to convert the underlying image into display intensities, including convolution, thresholding, color curve adjustment, and postprocessing with locally-adaptive filters. In practice, this means the display blurs the red and blue channels by dispersing these color intensities to the nearest subpixel element of the right color, and then also implements subpixel positioning to increase the apparent resolution again. However, subpixel spacing is not constant across the display, making the real apparent resolution complicated to estimate.

Rumors that Apple has been working on the high resolution display have been circulating about a year. Apple's iPad 3 is expected to carry a resolution of 2048x1536 both vertical and horizontal ones. Rumors have suggested that there have been production constrains on creating these high resolution screens in quantities that are enough to satisfy Apple’s needs.

According to a research note issued by Citi analyst Richard Gardner, the next-generation iPad will be introduced in February.

According to "several sources" the next iPad will launch in February, and it will sport a screen with double the resolution of the current model.

Gardner says, "there do not appear to be any significant technical hurdles remaining" to prevent a launch of a high-resolution iPad, despite rumors to the contrary.

Some of the prior reports of a mid-winter launch for the iPad 3 suggested that Apple's display suppliers were struggling with mass production of the higher-resolution 2048x1536 displays.  It still unclear is whether the next-generation Apple’s tablet will be thinner or slightly thicker than the iPad 2. Some sources claim that it will be slightly thicker due to use a dual light bar system that is necessary for the Retina Display. But others suggest that Apple will use a new technology that will allow the iPad 3 to be slightly thinner than the current model.

Citing an Asian supplier who is allegedly crafting components for Apple's next iPad, Japanese blog Macotakara claims that Apple's third-generation iPad will be slightly thicker than the iPad 2 for an "unknown reason." That means that third-party cases that cover the back side of the device won’t fit to the iPad 3, but Apple’s Smart Covers will remain compatible with the next-generation Apple’s tablet.

The screen of the iPad 3 will have the same 9.7-inch screen size as the iPad 2, but Apple is rumored to implement the Retina Display technology into the next-generation iPad. One reason for a thicker frame on the iPad 3 could be the components necessary to include a high-resolution Retina Display.

In order to include a Retina Display, Apple may adopt entirely new display technology. One report in November suggested Apple would use IGZO displays from Sharp to reach a 330 dots-per-inch screen resolution. But that report claimed the IGZO display would also allow for a future iPad to be thinner, not thicker. Other reports, however, claimed that Apple would utilize a dual-LED light bar system to illuminate the Retina Display of a third-generation iPad. Apple's apparent difficulties with the higher resolution displays and new LED backlight designs were said to have already affected the launch schedule of the next iPad.

The Retina Display technology was firstly introduced by Apple with the 2010 iPhone 4. Apple boasts that an individual pixel on such screen is so small that cannot be distinguished by the human eye.

Intel intends to launch its mobile Ivy Bridge processors in April and May of next year. The report posted yesterday ttracts special attention to the fact that the Ivy Bridge platform, both mobile and desktop, will provide support up to three independent displays. Noteworthy, one of those displays will be an internal one.

While we're talking about graphics, as with the desktop Ivy Bridge processors, the mobile processors also support up to three independent displays, although one of these will be the built in display in the notebook, but hopefully we'll see notebooks with a DisplayPort connector as standard come next year.

The current Sandy Bridge platform supports only two independent displays. For example, the 13-inch MacBook Pro can only drive two external displays by turning off its internal display. More powerful MacBook Pro models can currently drive two external displays in addition to the internal one. But Ivy Bridge opens door to a direct support of three displays. Users of the MacBook Air will be able to connect to two external displays.

Apple has reportedly submitted revised plans for their so-called "Spaceship" campus. The company plans to break ground on the project next year and open the facility in 2015. This mega-campus in Cupertino, Calif., is expected to provide Apple with approximately 2.8 million square feet for up to 13,000 employees. Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs personally presented the original plans for the campus to the City of Cupertino in June. Following Jobs' presentation, city officials quickly voiced support for the project. Jobs described it as follows:

It's a pretty amazing building. It's a little like a spaceship landed. It's got this gorgeous courtyard in the middle... It's a circle. It's curved all the way around. If you build things, this is not the cheapest way to build something. There is not a straight piece of glass in this building. It's all curved. We've used our experience making retail buildings all over the world now, and we know how to make the biggest pieces of glass in the world for architectural use. And, we want to make the glass specifically for this building here. We can make it curve all the way around the building... It's pretty cool.

The City of Cupertino posted an update to the company's "Apple Campus 2 Project" on Tuesday evening. Though most of the new renderings are higher-quality versions of the original design, some of the images show a darker color for the structure's roof. Other changes include addition of parking plans, drawings for a private jogging path and a proposed expansion of the corporate fitness center from the original proposal of 25,000 square feet to 45,000 square feet.

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