John Browett will become Apple’s new Senior Vice President of Retail after leaving his current position as CEO of Dixons Retail, one of the largest consumer retailers in Europe with over 40,000 employees.

Apple today announced that John Browett will join the company as senior vice president of Retail, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Browett comes to Apple from European technology retailer Dixons Retail, where he has been CEO since 2007. Beginning in April, he will be responsible for Apple’s retail strategy and the continued expansion of Apple retail stores around the world.

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In July 2011 Taiwanese site Apple.pro published several photos of what was claimed to be the dock connector and ribbon cable for the next-generation iPad 3. Honestly, the connector didn’t provide much information about the full iPad 3 tablet. The only obvious fact was that the connector itself being white as opposed to black on the iPad 2, and it was one of the first reported leaks of iPad 3 parts. However,  Apple's suppliers seem to have taken the leak seriously. Apple.pro now reports that it has been sued by the supplier responsible for the part leaked in last year's report.

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Today Julio Semeghini, the Secretary of Planning and Development of the State of Sao Paulo revealed that Apple’s major contract manufacturer Foxconn will construct up to five plants in Brazil with 1,000 employees each.

According to local website Folha.com, Foxconn of Taiwan will leverage the additional factories to manufacture PCs and notebooks, electronic components, precision machine elements, batteries and connectors. According to the secretary, the factories should be located in Jundiai, Sao Paolo and negotiations will continue after the Chinese New Year ends.

Today European Commission announced the launch of an investigation to determine whether Samsung has violated EU antitrust laws in its legal agreements with competing companies. The European Commission will focus on patents that must be licensed on FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms.

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Apple has been demonstrating interest in incorporating short-range wireless communication technology Near Field Communication (NFC) into the iPhone for a long time. In March 2011 from the New York Times published the most creditable report, where the newspaper confirmed Apple’s interest in NFC, but was unable to specify when the technology would be incorporated into new iPhone:

According to two people with knowledge of the inner workings of a coming iteration of the Apple iPhone - although not necessarily the next one - a chip made by Qualcomm for the phone's processor will also include near-field communication technology, known as N.F.C. This technology enables short-range wireless communications between the phone and an N.F.C reader, and can be used to make mobile payments. It is unclear which version of an iPhone this technology would be built into.

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Using iPhone outdoors presents some problems for people living in cold climate. One of the solutions is wearing conductive touchscreen gloves.  A Dutch company has released new touchscreen gloves called Mujjo, which contain nylon fibers coated with silver in its fabric. The silver in the gloves makes them touchscreen compatible.

This touchscreen gloves are available only in two sizes, but they stretch to fit the largest of hands. You can purchase them for about $33 on the Mujjo's website.