News from category ‘Official’

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office revealed a patent application from Apple entitled "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device." The invention describes methods to identify users through a picture, the sound of their voice, or even their heartbeat.

"The photograph, recording, or heartbeat can be compared to a photograph, recording or heartbeat of authorized users of the electronic device to determine whether they match," the application reads. "If they do not match, the current user can be detected as an unauthorized user."

If an unauthorized user were to attempt to access an iPhone or another device, the owner of the handset could be notified via a phone call, text message or e-mail. It could send the owner - or the police - a picture of the unauthorized user, or other information specific to the potential thief.

The handset could recognize an unauthorized user if they do certain uncharacteristic activities with the phone, such as hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removing a SIM card.

During Jimmy Kimmel’s live show Justin Long picked up his iPhone to share some interesting SMS he had. Meanwhile he also showed Cydia on his iPhone’s main screen. For those of you who do not know anything about this man, Justin Long is the very guy who starred in the most popular and successful commercials called "Get a Mac" by Apple, which appeared between 2006-2009 years.

Now that he no longer works with Apple, he is not afraid to break the rules of his former employer. By the way, today jailbreaking is fully legal in the USA, is not it?

New report from Associated Press reveals that this Friday Nokia acquired a company named Motally, though there was no information on the terms of the deal. Such a strategic move is pointed on boosting Nokia's Ovi platform and making it more interesting for mobile software developers.

"The Finnish company says the acquisition Friday underscores its attempt to improve mobile Web browsing analytics for software developers of its Internet services, that are struggling to match competitor Apple Inc."

Motally is a small analytics firm that was founded in 2008 and has only eight employees.

Apple did not acquire any analytics firms yet though it has strong partnership with a few of them.

Coconut Island Studio has introduced a new game called Finger Balance. This application has taken the lead in many rankings and is now ready to please everyone. Finger Balance received the title of "New and interesting" and "What's New" in the world of Apple App Store. To celebrate the success of the application and show gratitude to all the users who appreciate it, Coconut Island Studio decided to present a free iPhone 4 and, as a bonus, give a classic game iDragPaper this weekend.

Everyone can take part in the raffle. To do this, just buy Finger Balance and pass levels 4-N, N 7-and 10-N. Then, at each level you will see a button. Click on it, enter your email address, confirm it, and you are registered in the raffle! Now Coconut Island Studio will give a winner 10 iTunes gift certificates at $ 15 each.

Raffle ends at midnight on August 22, 2010. The winners will be contacted by e-mail. So do not waste time, play!

A global supply manager for Apple  - the 37-year-old Paul Devine has worked for the company since 2005 -  was faced a civil suit from Apple, which alleges that he received more than $1 million bribes and payments for his assistance to six overseas suppliers. But on Monday he pleaded not guilty in a federal court.

Pegatron, the parent company of Kaedar Electronics, admitted Monday that it did pay brokerage commission to an intermediate trading company between 2005 and 2008. The incident occurred before Pegatron acquired Kaedar, which has supplied iPod packing boxes to Apple since 2005.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Pegatron said Kaedar's business arrangement with Apple was introduced by the same intermediary company that accepted the commission. A spokesperson said that no money was every paid to an individual.

NearFieldCommunications World reports that Apple has recently hired Benjamin Vigier as its new product manager for mobile commerce. Vigier is described as an expert in near field communications (NFC) having been in the field since 2004. Apple also has published a number of patent applications related to NFC technology. That means, that Apple’s mobile devises can be used as an electronic wallet and payment system.

Near Field Communications is short range wireless communication technology (~4 inches) that is used in mobile phones for a variety of applications including mobile ticketing, mobile payments, interactive advertising and more. The same site had previously reported that Apple has had prototype devices already outfitted with the required radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips.

Vigier joined Apple in July 2010. And now he is a product manager for mobile commerce.

Now you can find a lot of accessories for iPhone 4, some of them offer high functionality, while others make it even more attractive! Most of you probably have already seen accessory Xtand for iPhone 3GS, 3G and iPod touch, which enjoys wide popularity. Its main advantage is that it allows you to turn your iPhone into "the smallest desktop in the world." Xtand accessory is fully compatible to work with iPhone 4, but most important is the fact that now everyone can make his or her favorite iPhone 4 in the “mini” iMac, to give it a presentable appearance. Do you still doubt? Then look at the image above.

Accessory Xtand is a perfect complement to the existing list of accessories for iPhone 4 and it is without a doubt, the best way to show off your iPhone 4 all around. It can be ordered from the Apple Store for $ 24.95.

New report published in the San Jose Mercury News reveals that recently Apple’s global supply manager Paul Shin Devine was accused by the US Internal Revenue Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation in a fraud scheme. It is claimed that Devine was using his security clearance to obtain confidential information about Apple’s upcoming products and provide it to the company’s suppliers. The latter then used the info to make favorable deals with Apple and after that paid Devine kickbacks. One of the suppliers was Andrew Ang from Singapore, who is also named in the indictment as an accomplice, as Devine was sharing his kickbacks with him.

To receive payments Devine held a series of accounts inside and outside the US. Payments were marked as “samples” so no attention was attracted. Bank accounts were registered under his and his wife’s names. It is reported that sometimes Devine received bribes on the meetings with suppliers in Asia.

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Here is the story of a 16-year-old boy whose name is Christian Owens. Being so young, he managed to make $1,000,000, following the steps of his mentor Steve Jobs who is Apple’s CEO.

Being an unusual boy, he achieved this result after 2 years of work in the Internet. Read how he did it: “The British teenager living in Corby, Northamptonshire got his first computer at 7. Three years later, he got a Mac and started studying the principles of web design. In 2008 when he was 14, he founded his first company. It was a simple website that some people may know: Mac Bundle Box. The website was pretty good and corresponded to the principles of design and style oа Apple.”

The website offered software at incredibly low prices, for example, an application that costs $ 400, here its price was just $ 50. This business has been developing and for the first two years of its work the website Mac Bundle Box has brought its owner $ 1,000,000. But he didn’t stop and created another 17 websites for the iPhone and Android applications, and new company called Branchr ...

Recently iStorytime has announced a new application for reading texts with children called Danny the Dragon. It's not the content of the selected stories, which we admire. This application for the iPhone and iPad devices is one of the first that includes video stories being read in a beautiful and understandable language.

Well, if you are waiting for something extraordinary or high tech, you have come to the wrong place. This application includes simple video narrations being read by the woman. Nevertheless, it is quite useful and necessary application for each family that has a child and has no time to go shopping in search of paper books.

In the world, the Apple's Regent Street store is still the busiest selling point, according to senior vice
president of Apple's retail sales Ron Johnson. He has highly appreciated Regent Street considering that undertaken
risk has been justified. Now, in the Regent Street store has one of the best traffic performances in the world.

The Apple network has had a significant impact on the retail sector. Many other stores around the world seek to
repeat their success.

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Today Adobe has announced a new Photoshop application for the devices based on iOS while giving a new image to its previous limited functional application Photoshop.com Mobile for the Apple iPhone. Now it has got a new name Adobe Photoshop Express. Here you’ll find a great number of new features for the iPad sporting the larger screen space, support for the device and improved user interface (UI).

Does it have pros and cons?

Yes! There is no support for the Retina Display of the new iPhone 4. It is quite disappointing for many users.

This Wednesday VirnetX filed a lawsuit against Apple, accusing the latter in violation of patent No. 6,502,135. NEC, Cisco and Aastra are also named as the defendants.

The patent No. 6,502,135 is titled «Agile network protocol for secure communications with assured system availability" and describes technologies that are used in creating and managing VPN-connection. VirNetX is assured that these technologies are illegally used in all iPhones, iPod touches and an iPads.

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This week Apple announced the retirement of the iPhone and iPod division head Mark Papermaster.  Various resources started immediately discuss whether Papermaster was fired or he left on his own record as no information was revealed on that.  Some of them speculated that it may be possibly connected with the recent antenna issue situation and its negative consequences for the company's reputation.

Mark Papermaster came to Apple from IBM two years ago. That was accompanied with a legal battle between these two companies as IBM was afraid that Mark could tell Apple too many secrets. In January of 2009 a settlement was reached and IBM obtained a permission to "keep an eye" on Mark's duties at Cupertino's company. But that legal dispute showed that Papermaster was not a best choice to become a leader of iPhone and iPod division.

Electric Pig previews London's new huge Apple Store in Covent Garden. It looks like an Apple Mall, rather than just a store: