Apple began adding the Galaxy S4 to its ongoing patent-infringement case against Samsung last week, and it has now specified five patents which it believes the device is breaching. The Cupertino company has also taken aim at Google Now, which allegedly infringes its unified search patent.

FOSS Patents has obtained a copy of Apple’s motion, which highlights five patents that are allegedly infringed by the Galaxy S4.

Two of those patents cover Siri’s “universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system” (8,086,604 and 6,847,959), and another covers a “graphical user interface using historical lists with field classes” (5,666,502).

The other two cover ”asynchronous data synchronization amongst devices” (5,946,648), and a ”system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data” (7,761,414).

Apple prevailed over HTC with that fifth patent, and the company claims that Android infringes it on an operating system level. So, technically, any device running Google’s platform could be guilty of infringing this one.

In addition to these claims against the Galaxy S4, Apple also added Google Now to its complaint, which allegedly infringes a patent that covers unified search boxes.

Apple’s motion does now mention the upcoming Galaxy S4 Google Edition, which runs stock Android rather than Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface, and instead focuses on the existing model that’s currently on sale right now.

However, we assume the Google Edition will also be added once Apple has had a chance to look at it.

Source: FOSS Patents

The Apple online store went down for just over four hours earlier today, and it came back with Apple’s new Father’s Day promotion and a few noticeable design changes.

The Cupertino company is again heavily promoting the iPad and the iPad mini, but the iPhone 5 also gets a lot of room on the store’s homepage.

Previously, the Apple online store had navigation menus down both the left and right sides, which let visitors quickly find the products they were looking for. Those are now gone, and the only way to get around the store now is to click the “Shop Mac,” “Shop iPad,” “Shop iPhone,” “Shop iPod” and other buttons buttons across the top of the page.

This is fine if you’re looking for those items specifically, but if you want accessories, software, or other things related to those items, it seems like a slower approach. It’s unclear whether the design changes are permanent or just there temporarily for the Father’s Day promotion, but it certainly seems like they’re here to stay.

Apple is promoting a range of products and accessories for Father’s Day, including iPads, iPhones, iPhone cases, the GoPro HD HERO3 video camera, the Nest home thermostat, and the Nike FuelBand. The company is also advertising its engraving service for iPads and iPods.

There’s also a handy page that’ll give you Father’s Day shipping deadlines for all kinds of products.

Source: Apple Store

Apparently the OLPC cemented the colors green and white as the color scheme of choice for the education market, because now the new Logitech Wired Keyboard for iPad is similarly hued.

I have no problem with that: the combo is so ugly that it’ll seriously diminish the resale value should light-fingered pupils decide to earn a little extra pocket money.

Apart from its green’n’whiteness, the new Logitech is unusual in other ways. First (as the name suggests) it is wired. And second, it comes in both 30-pin dock connector and Lightning varieties, catering to both new and old iPads.

The case is tough: it shrugs off spills and is rated for five million key strokes before it dies. Hopefully that’s five million per key, because five million across the entire keyboard isn’t much:

Even if you count very conservatively, I still manage around half a million words a year just writing here on this site. And that’s words. If you split that down to letters then I would hit 5 million strokes in a couple years easy, and I don’t even type that much.

Still. The keyboard looks good, and has the excellent feature of requiring no batteries and no Bluetooth. I wonder what happens when you try to deploy thirty Bluetooth keyboards to 30 kids all working in the same room? Even if you managed to match up the right keyboard to the right iPad (and re-pair everything at the beginning of each class), I’m guessing there might be some interference problems, too.

The price hasn’t yet been announced, but I imagine it’ll be a lot less than the now-standard $100 that you pay for almost any iPad keyboard.

Source: Logitech

Two new iPad mini keyboard cases from Zagg today: A super-thin magnetic cover and a thicker stick-on “folio” case, similar to the Pro Plus case for the regular-sized iPad only with a top cover too. And both, amazingly, are backlit.

For me, it’s a shootout between Zagg and Logitech when it comes to choosing the best iPad keyboards. I remain unconvinced by either of their offerings for the iPad mini, though, as they’re just too small: The iPad’s small size might be perfect for a tablet, but it’s terrible for a keyboard. Making a keyboard case that matches the mini is almost certain to end in netbook-style disaster. I type on my mini all the time, but I use a full-sized Logitech keyboard to do it.

Still, if you’re going to cramp yourself, you should at least do it without cramping your style. Both of these cases (set to be around $100 when they launch) look great, and offer the usual iPad-specific media and control keys.

I’ll skip them: I already teeter on the edge of RSI every day that I type, so I’ll stick with my comfy – and big Easy-Switch K811.

Source: Business Wire

Thanks: Jane!

Wallets: I hate them, but having loose coins in your pocket which fall out every time you sit down is worse. Especially in a country where the coins are actually worth something. Right now I have a typically over-engineered German wallet which will probably last me forever, but I like the look of SF Bags’ new Finn. It’s flat, it holds cash and cars and – if you pick the bigger model – it also has space for your iPhone.

The Finn comes in two sizes and six autumn-y colors. The 25 holds 20-ish cards plus “a nice wad of cash,” and the 27 is a little wider, accommodating your iphone 5. Both have self-locking YKK zippers which open up on two sides, letting you get into the wallet without letting everything fall out.

The price isn’t bad either: $35 for a hand=stitched Italian leather wallet. And if it’s up to Waterfield’s usual high standards it should last you a good long while.

Source: Waterfield

Thanks: Heidi!

PhotoExif is an app that lets you add EXIF data to photos shot with a film camera. You can dial in aperture, shutter speed, focus distance and focal length, along with notes about your photo, and when you get the photos back, freshly scanned from the lab, you can add the info to the digital images.

Back when I was studying photography in school, I used to carry a notebook. This was back in the days of film, before SLRS even had autofocus, and the notebook was for writing down the camera settings for each shot: aperture, shutter speed and so on.

As you can imagine, I didn’t manage to keep to this regime very often. Instead, I learned to look for clues in the pictures which would tell me the details: blurred leaves on a tree? Shutter speed of under 1/125th sec. Front-to-back focus? Aperture of ƒ11 or ƒ16.

PhotoExif, on the other hand, takes out the guesswork, although you do have to put in a little more effort when shooting. And the app adds in some features I never even dreamed of back in my school days: it’ll capture the GPS co-ordinates of your pictures (as long as you input the data when you actually snap the picture).

Then, when you’re back at the computer, you load up the (free) Mac companion app and so the tagging right there with your iPhone.

If I was shooting film, though, I’d probably just skip this and snap two extra pictures with my iPhone: one of the scene in front of me (as a reminder) and one of the top of the camera. From this second shot I could see all the available settings: aperture, shutter speed, film speed, focal length and distance. Then I could go home, have children, wait for them to grow up a little and set them to some serious data entry, tagging my film pictures based on my iPhone ones. Foolproof.

PhotoExif is $2.

Source: Photistics

Haunting Melissa is a horror "movie" which is dripped into your real, everyday life by your iPad or your iPhone. Instead of sitting down for an hour and a half and watching the story unfold, the story comes in episodes.

The twist is that the snippets are delivered at unexpected times, and you’re told about them through push notifications sent to your iDevice.

Veteran storyteller Neal Edelstein has reinvented filmmaking in a way that brings the power of hypnotic, episodic content to the iTunes Store. Viewed exclusively on the iPhone and iPad this frighteningly haunting story is released in sporadic and unexpected ways that will leave you constantly guessing, and constantly engaged.

You can pay for each new episode, or buy a season pass, just like with regular TV shows. I would probably love this idea if I was still into horror movies (I got out of them just before Wes Craven got crappy), but what I love even more is that independent producers and studios can now choose how to deliver their TV shows and movies. Maybe this is the way Apple TV will work in the future?

Source: Haunting Melissa

Via: Prolost

I quite like the dark linen texture that sits behind the elements of the iOS (and recently OS X) interface, but I’m pretty sure that Jony Ive’s upcoming Great Purge will consign it to the same tomb as brushed aluminum – after all, this is a designer so minimalist that he even removed a superfluous “n” from his own name.

So this wraparound case from Plus Motif might be my last chance at linen.

It’s not real linen, of course, any more than the linen in your iPad is placed there, sheet by sheet, by the Foxconn workers.But it looks like it, and it also comes in colors.

The case itself is a wraparound folio-style number, with space on one side for your iPad (regular or mini) and a replaceable paper notepad on the other. It even comes with a hybrid stylus/ball pen for writing on either one.

The lack of logos or lame designs means that nobody younger than post-graduate age will buy this thing, but for adult study classes it looks to be just about ideal” When I used to do Spanish classes in the evenings I had all kinds of trouble stoping my iPad from slipping off the desk.

The price? A steep $40, and the company won;t even sell you notepad refills. Still, the included 30 sheets might last you longer than iOS’ childish skeuomorphism.

Source: Pus Motif

Where do I put the betamax?

Ok, so if you’ve been paying attention to the gaming space today, you’ll know that Microsoft unveiled its new gaming console, the Xbox One. This next generation console is going to play video games, control your TV (sort of), and act as a DVD/Blue-Ray player. It’s got a Kinect motion sensor box on top, which can not be disconnected, and the console won’t play Xbox 360 discs.

This is all well and good, and represents a step forward in Microsoft’s quest to own the living room, even though a lot of us don’t have the time, space, or extra cash to spend on a huge entertainment hub these days, anyway. That’s really not what bothers me, though.

The Xbox One is just uglier than anything I could have imagined.

Heck, my ten year-old son, not a maven of design in any way, saw pictures of the new Xbox, and chuckled. “Why is it bigger than the Xbox 360?” he asked. “It looks the same, just more square.”

Which really made it all hit home for me: design matters. The case design of the Xbox One is firmly rooted in the past. Which makes a lot of sense if you consider the reveal today, full of the same games and the same brands with better graphics.

Take a look at this beast. It looks like a relic of the early 1990s, with the squared corners, tall, thick profile, and those odd cross hatching lines that must be for cooling purposes but just end up looking like a 1980s science fiction author’s idea of a cyber-deck.

I suppose I could live with such a big fat presence in the living room if it didn’t completely remind me that the days of the monolithic gaming console/entertainment hub are coming to an end. Microsoft showed its hand today–echoed in the flat, unimaginative design of the Xbox One. The looks of this monstrosity are shouting loud and clear, “We’ve run out of ideas, so we’re going to do more of the same.”

What Microsoft, and to a lesser degree, Sony and Nintendo, really needed to do for this new generation of consoles was take a quick look around them at what’s already happening. These mega-gaming corporations have missed something essential.

The gaming population is no longer congruent with the console population. We connect Apple TVs and Roku boxes to our huge HDTVs to watch on-demand shows while we multitask on our iPads. We fund innovative startups like Ouya because we want something different, dammit, and the Xbox One just isn’t it.

Same as the old boss.

The design of an electronic entertainment hub says a lot about its purpose. Microsoft wants to dominate the space in our hypothetical living rooms, and the Xbox One says so loud and clear, with the immensity of its casing and the huge Xbox logo front and center on each component piece. Do we even have stereos like that anymore? Maybe audiophiles do, but not the rest of us.

If the console makers want to expand their business, this is not the way to do it. Hire someone like Jonathan Ive, or—better yet—someone brand new and fresh, who knows that the way a product looks will define what that product feels like to the consumer.

Design a console that reflects our current and near-future gaming and entertainment reality, full of mobility, openness, and choice. Bring a console to life that gets what Ouya is trying to do, that understands the as-yet-unfulfilled promise of Apple TV and iOS gaming, that can breathe new life into the Steam ecosystem and play well with others.

Sadly, I don’t hold any hope for this to happen within the big three gaming companies of the last few generations of console hardware. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are treading water, paddling for dear life to stay afloat in a rapidly changing world.

Will Microsoft sell a lot of these fugly Xbox One consoles? Probably. Will the current conservative model of gaming and design inspire the next generation of gamers and developers to reach new heights and explore innovative ideas? Probably not.

Image: Wired

Walmart’s video on demand service, Vudu, just rolled out a new update for its iOS app. Version 2.0 of Vudu now lets you download videos from the service, and then watch them even if you’re offline. The player itself is streamlined, and Closed Captioning–already supported on the iPad version of the Vudu app–is now available on the iPhone, too.

Vudi is a Netflix-style video on demand service that is owned by Walmart that lets users stream videos to Mac, PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Roku, various Blu-Ray players, Android phones, and iOS devices. Vudu claims its advantage over Netflix is that Vudu movies come out the same day as the DVD versions, and users can access their UltraViolet codes via the service, as well. Plus, there’s no monthly fee; you only pay for the movies you rent to stream, with a rate of two dollars per two night rental period.

The new update is only for iOS at this time, leaving Android users wishing they had an iPhone or iPad.

What’s New in Version 2.0
• You can now download and watch your collection of movies and TV shows offline.
• We’ve listened to your feedback and made the Player easier to use.
• Closed Captioning for the iPhone is now supported. (Closed captioning is already supported for iPad).
• General bug fixes have been applied.

Source: iTunes App Store
Via: TUAW

Badger is a new jailbreak tweak that lets you access unread notifications from an app icon. Instead of opening Notification Center, swiping on a specific icon can reveal a list of notifications. From there, you can clear individual messages and even respond to texts.

Convenient.

Once you install Badger, the tweak’s preferences can be customized in the Settings app. The animation style is totally up to the user, but I prefer for the notification window to fade in and fade out. There are several activation methods that can be selected. I found that the swipe up and down gestures felt the best.

Swipe on an individual notification in the Badger window to delete, clear, or open the app to view the notification in its native environment. If it’s the Messages app, the left arrow lets you quickly respond to a text without leaving the window. Tap on a specific notification in the Badger window and the text will start scrolling to show you the rest of the message.

Badger is very similar to another recent jailbreak tweak called Velox. They both attempt to supercharge app icons, but Velox does a lot more than just handling notifications. But for only notifications, Badger is a better tweak.

Badger is available now in Cydia for $1. Make sure to check out Velox as well for $2.

Apple has published the opening statements read by CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer earlier today at the U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on corporate taxes. The hearing lasted several hours and was televised live on CSPAN.

Senators like Carl Levin, John McCain, and Rand Paul were present to lead the committee and hear from industry experts. Apple was called to the stand to explain why it stores a large percentage of its billions in cash overseas.

Apple was adamant that it obeys all corporate tax laws, including the “spirit of the law.” Instead of critiquing Apple for using loopholes to avoid heavy taxation, Cook and Oppenheimer urged the committee to see need for policy reform, a sentiment that was echoed by Senator Rand Paul.

Senator McCain and Levin (especially Levin) accused Apple of cheating the U.S. tax system, and Apple said the tax code is so broken that it puts the company at a competitive disadvantage against other international companies, like Samsung.

You can read Cook and Oppenheimer’s statements in full here and here for a concise look at Apple’s arguments.

Image: Jason Reed/Reuters

Today Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One at its Redmond, Washington campus. As the battle for the living room rages on, Microsoft has won a decisive victory that puts it well ahead of the competition.

The Xbox One is just as much for all-around entertainment as it is for gaming, perhaps even more so. It’s designed to be the one box that sits below your TV and does everything: games, movies, live TV, music, surfing the web, messaging, and even video calling. Minority Report-style gestures control the experience, it can recognize your face when you walk in the room, and you can talk to it like Siri on steroids.

Should Apple be worried? The answer is no, at least not yet.

The Xbox One demonstrates how to play to an audience. And that audience isn’t the same as Apple’s.

“Microsoft has included everything but the kitchen sink.”

While the Xbox One certainly looks like a fantastic entertainment hub, it would totally overwhelm my mother. Microsoft has included everything but the kitchen sink. To go from a traditional remote + controller combo to pinch and pull gestures with voice commands is quite the leap, even for a tech nerd.

If you use Netflix, get pumped for the new Call of Duty, and are hooked into Xbox Live, then the One console is a no-brainer. It’s a product that will instantly appease hip, young techies and gamers. The entertainment system aspect is definitely there, but the Xbox is still based on the foundation of console gaming. That won’t change, and that ultimately limits Microsoft’s reach.

“Content is king for Apple.”

On the other hand, the Apple TV is for everyone. You can mirror iOS games to the big screen, but the crux of the product is not built around gaming at all. Playing games is just one part of the Apple TV experience. The Apple TV is ultimately designed for watching and listening to stuff. Content is king for Apple. It always will be.

Xbox One owners will have little need for an Apple TV, unless the ability to use AirPlay is of great value. But most people won’t be buying a more expensive Xbox One instead of a $99 Apple TV.

If the Apple TV doesn’t get new features or replaced entirely over the next couple years, there are going to be problems. Competitors like Microsoft are piecing together what it takes to create a modern living room experience. Apple hasn’t solved it yet, and today Microsoft got closer.

One of the Xbox One’s coolest features is the ability to instantly recognize a person’s face and track command gestures with the Kinect sensor bar. That combined with voice support for navigating creates a pretty compelling, futuristic experience. We reported that Apple was prototyping the same kind of features in a HDTV last year. Little is known about Apple’s current plans for TV, other than the fact that the company has desperately been trying to secure licensing deals for streaming live programming. A standalone ‘iTV’ panel could be involved, or the current Apple TV could be turned into the internet-connected, app-ready, TV guide/DVR you’ve always wished you had.

The Apple TV hasn’t received a major, fundamental change since it was released in 2006. Sure, the box has been made slimmer and sleeker. The interface has changed, and a few app-like channels have been added, but the hockey puck is still pretty much the same. Apple has called it a “hobby” for years, although recent comments from Tim Cook suggest that something more is brewing.

This living room stuff takes time. It’s been nearly eight years since the Xbox 360. I wonder how long it will take Apple.

Intel lost the opportunity to power the iPhone, but the company is hard at work to make sure they don’t get completely shut out of mobile hardware, and to do so they’re hiring some old Apple talent.

To lead the charge in its plans to build “smart devices” Intel has hired former Apple Vice President, Mike Bell, to head up Intel’s new Smart Devices Unit.

Bell and his team will dive into emerging technologies and product trends, like ultra-mobile products. Mike worked with Apple for 16 years, before leaving to become SVP of Product Development at Palm.

In a statement to All Things D, Intel had the following to say about Mike Bell’s team:

“The group will be tasked with turning cool technology and business model innovations into products that shape and lead markets.”

It sounds like Bell will basically work on finding ways to get Intel chips into mobile devices of the future, which has proved a harder task than the company originally thought.

Intel dominated the desktop PC processor industry for over a decade, but has since seen its influence deteriorate with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Intel was originally invited to build the CPU for the original iPhone, but former CEO Paul Otellini ended up passing on the project and Apple used an ARM processor instead. Since that time companies like Qualcomm, Nvidia, Broadcom and other ARM-based processors have dominated the mobile space as Intel has struggled to catch up, despite it’s vast resources.

Source: ATD

iBooks is not only a fantastic e-reading app on your iPhone or iPad, but it’s also a fantastic study tool. If you need to read books for class or your own learning objectives, you can use iBooks to highlight words or passages, search the text for specific words or phrases, and make notes that appear in the margins as little colored sticky notes.

Using these tools could help you become a much more organized studier, letting you go back to a passage in a book to remember the important things with a couple of taps. Here’s how, using iBooks 3.1, the latest version of iBooks.

When reading an iBook, tap and hold on any text you want to select, like you would in Safari or Pages. A pop up bar will appear, letting you Copy, Define, Highlight, make a Note, Search, or Share the text you chose. Tap on Highlight.

The pop up bar will change to give you new highlighting options, which include changing the color of the highlight or adding a note, itself in the same color as the highlight. You can also Share to Mail, Message, Twitter, or Facebook from this menu, as well. If you tap away from the selected word and lose the pop up menu, simply tap the colored highlighted area again to bring the highlight menu up again.

Tap the notecard icon, helpfully the same color as the text you just highlighted, and type in any notes you want in the resulting pop up note card. Tap away from the note card to close the text entry window, and you’ll see a little colored sticky note icon in the margin next to your highlighted text.

If you want to search for a given word in the text, tap and hold on a word in the body of the book and select Search from the pop up menu. You can also tap the magnifying glass icon in the upper right of the screen and type in a search term or text string. iBooks will look for it in the book itself. If you want to search the web, or Wikipedia, there are buttons at the bottom of the search window to send that term out to Safari.

iPhoto is fantastic, if a little insular.

I just got back from a week-long vacation. We were staying in Tel Aviv, Israel, which meant lots of walking and cycling (I took my Brompton), plus day trips. Which in turn meant traveling light.

The iPad is perfect traveling companion, and the iPad mini is even better. But if you want to take lots of photos with an actual camera, or – worse still – a camera that shoots huge RAW images, you need to plan ahead. And as I didn’t want to take a Mac with me, I needed a few tricks to help out.

This post isn’t about how I managed my photos on the trip (although I will mention that side of things a little in terms of the hardware I used). It’s about the gadgets and apps that help you work around the limitations of the iPad when you’re relying on it away from home.

First, a list of my gear:

Essential Gear

• iPad Mini Wi-Fi 32GB
• iPhone 5
• Fujifilm X100+leather case
• Garmin EDGE 500 GPS bike computer
• 4x Batteries for the X100
• Lightning camera connection kit
• Ultra-light iPhone backup battery
• 5w iPhone charger
• 10w iPad charger (the big one meant for the Retina iPad)
• Huge, bulky Fujifilm battery charger
• Griffin stubby USB cables

Stuff I Totally Should Have Taken

• Kindle
• Power splitter
• Bike mount for GPS
• Digipower battery charger for camera

Bring lots and lots of batteries. Photo Flickr/France 1978

Batteries

The battery is more important than anything else. If you don’t have juice, you can’t do anything. You can carry a charger with you wherever you go, or you could schlep a big 13,000mAh spare battery along with you. I was carrying everything in small canvas shoulder bag, though, so these were out.

The battery is more important than anything else. Without power, you can’t do anything

Better to save power when you can, and make sure you’re fully charged before you leave the house. This means charging everything overnight, and using an app like SystemStatus to check that your battery is actually fully charged (it keeps sucking juice for an hour or so after hitting 100% in the status bar). The iPad mini lasts ten hours or more on a charge, which is more than enough for a day, even if you spend a lot of that day catching up with the Kindle app. Unless you are streaming Netflix over 3G, then you’ll haver more than enough power. I did a fair amount of photo editing and reading and I could have gotten two days of use out of the iPad on a single charge.

If your’e carrying both an iPad and an iPhone, use the iPad for battery-intensive tasks like checking maps. I have a Wi-Fi-only iPad mini so maps weren’t that useful, but if you have an iPad with GPS (plus an offline map app like Forever Maps) then you should use it. Not only is a map way easier to read on an iPad’s bigger screen, but the iPad’s battery is a lot stronger.

Charging

I took an iPad charger and an iPhone charger with me. The iPhone charger is small enough to carry if you’re going to be away from your home base for few days, and also – so I’m told – better for the batteries in your devices as it charges them more gently. But both the iPhone and the iPad mini will charge a lot faster if you use the big 10w or 12w charger designed for the big iPad. I used this charger when I was “home” for an hour or two and wanted a quick top up.

The iPhone charger also comes in handy for charging other gadgets, like the Jambox speaker and the Garmin GPS.

You’ll also want to pack a two or three-way power splitter. I didn’t, so I was constantly charging things in the bathroom or wherever I could find a socket. A socket doubler would have added minimal bulk to my luggage and been very useful.

GPS

Any GPS dongle will do, but try to pick one that doesn’t force you install desktop software just to copy the files.

My camera doesn’t do GPS, but I love to know where I took a picture, especially on vacation. The quick answer to this is to use the iPhone to track my daily meanderings and add the resulting GPX track to my photos later. This is a great idea, but GPS kills the iPhone’s battery fast, meaning you need to carry a bulky external battery.

A GPS dongle will track your daily meanderings for photo-tagging and map-making purposes

So I took my Garmin EDGE 500 along instead. It was handy when I rode my bike, but I mainly just switched it on in the morning, tossed it into my bag and left it there until the end of the day. The battery will last for a full day (18 hours is the estimate), and you can pull the GPS info out and apply it to your pictures, or view your wanderings on a map.

The problem here is that you need a computer to pull the data off the EDGE 500, and you need to either install Garmin’s driver software on that Mac, or use an app like Trailrunner. My host had a Mac, but I wan’t going to ask if I could install software on it, so I just waited until I got home and added the GPS tags to my photos using Lightroom.

Kindle

If you have one, I strongly recommend taking your Kindle with you on vacation. First, it’s less conspicuous if you decide to read in a bar at night. Second, you won’t have to search out a shady corner just to be able to read a novel for an hour to so. And third, its battery will last you for your whole vacation without a single charge.

The Kindle can take the place of a backup battery.

But you knew that. What the Kindle also does is take the place of a backup iPad battery. No, it won’t charge the iPad, but it’ll save you a good 10% per hour of iPad battery use. It also weighs less than a bulky battery pack, making it a smart addition to your day bag.

So there we have it. Instead of carrying a bulky battery pack, just carry a couple of lightweight gadgets which mean you don’t need to use it as much. Hell – with a paper map and an iPhone, you mightn’t even need to take the iPad out for the day.

Photos

The X100S is an amazing travel camera, it turns out. Light enough to carry all day, small enough to be unobtrusive even in quiet places, and almost completely silent in use. It also takes amazing photos.

Best. Camera. Ever.

The trouble? If you shoot RAW, those photos are around 45-60MB each. I stocked up on SD cards (8GB SanDisk Extreme Pro), but I also wanted to view and edit the day’s shoot on my little iPad each evening.

Thanks – presumably – to Fujifilm’s film heritage, the X-series cameras produce amazing in-camera JPGs. The straight color pictures are fantastic already, but if you add in the custom settings which let you emulate the look of various classic Fuji films, along with color filters for your B&W pictures and the ability to set custom values for many aspects of the conversion to JPG then you soon realize you have a camera that can be used JPG-only.

JPG-Only

It sounds sacrilegious to shoot JPG when you could have RAW files, but Fuji’s JPGs are better than the results I get in Lightroom.

It sounds sacrilegious to shoot JPG when you could have “better” RAW files, but even though I love to tweak pictures in Lightroom, this part of the photo “workflow” is too time consuming. And to be honest, Fuji’s JPGs are often better than the results I get in Lightroom anyway. I also liked the restrictions. You need to get white balance, exposure and the like dead on in camera, as JPGs don’t stand up to post-processing like RAW. So I made this into a virtue. Instead of spraying off a bunch of images to give me something to “fix in post,” I took my time. I switched off picture reviews, and made sure that everything was right before pressing the shutter. I even used manual focus for around 30% of shots, and manual exposure for a few, too. The resulting JPGs are around 3-5MB. I didn’t even fill up one of my 8GB SD cards.

iPhoto is pretty good for editing and sharing.

It was like shooting film, only without all the bad parts. I even waited until I had transferred the picture to the iPad before looking at them. Do you remember what it was like to wait for days to get your film shots back after a vacation? You got to enjoy the moments all over again. Forcing myself to wait recaptured some of that anticipation.

Each day I would import all pictures, and immediately add them to a folder made for the trip (named “Tel Aviv”). Then I’d switch to iPhoto for viewing and quick touch-ups. I used Snapseed for some pictures, and used the photos app to add the results to my Tel Aviv folder.

I would have geotagged them on the iPad, too, and made an iPhoto journal to share the best pictures, but as you saw above my GPS tracks were locked up in the Garmin. In truth, the whole process was a little annoying, with too much manual juggling of pictures even for a nerd like me. I actually have a prototype method involving Dropbox which I’m currently working on. I’ll write that up if y’all want me to.

Backups

After importing an SD card’s contents, it went back into the camera. This was backup number one: I brought 4x8GB of fast cards, plus some bigger, slower cards for emergencies, and planned from the start to fill a card and keep it.

Back up two was iCloud. From what I can tell, the “Camera Roll” backup part of iCloud actually backs up all of your photos, events and albums. Photo Stream, on the other hand, only “backs up” photos in the actual Camera Roll. This is probably a good thing as it doesn’t try to stream all of your imported photos right away, giving you time to cull the crap and save the keepers out to the Camera Roll.

A third option would be Dropbox. There are several apps, including the excellent PhotoSync which can bulk upload to Dropbox from any folder on your iPad (the Dropbox app’s Camera Upload feature only draws from your Camera Roll).

Back Home

When you get back home, you have a few options. You can import your SD cards straight into Lightroom, aperture or whatever. Or you could save all the keepers from iPhoto on the iPad to your iPad’s Camera Roll and let Photo Stream take care of it. Or you could use iPhoto (on the iPad) to share all your photos via iTunes and grab them from there.

It really depends on your final destination. Just remember a few things. If you export from iPhoto on the iPad, then you’ll lose some of the metadata that is embedded by the camera. In the case of the X100S, this is information like the position of the focus point, or the film emulation mode used. This may or may not be important to you. Also, iPhoto will downsize any edited JPGs over (the last time I checked) 24 megapixels. That’s worth knowing. Anything smaller, or anything unedited, or anything in RAW is untouched.

Conclusion

It’s perfectly feasible to travel with a camera and an iPad, even for fairly high-end work. If you shoot RAW, then the setup will be a little different (you might want to delete most of the days shoot from your iPad after reviewing the images, and bring a huge pile of memory cards). Likewise, your iOS devices are excellent companions for a vacation. Unlike a business trip, where you’re constantly using the internet and maybe even making phone calls (people still do that, they tell me), you’re likely to spend a lot of the day with your iPhone and iPad still in your bag or pocket.

Add in a couple of well-chosen accessories, and take care of keeping things charged and you’re golden. And best of all, you can spend the plane trip home putting together a killer slideshow, ready to bore your friends and family as soon as you arrive.

This morning Microsoft unveiled  its newest console, the Xbox One. Unlike previous Xbox models though, Xbox One isn’t just about games, it’s about becoming the one system your living room needs, and it probably means trouble for the Apple TV.

Not only can Microsoft’s latest box play video games with the best of them, but Microsoft has added features to make it the only box your TV really needs by recognizing who you are, what you movies and shows you like, and allowing you to control it all with just your voice.

The Xbox One features a new design that makes it look more like a boring cable set top box, except there’s a optical disc slot in the front that can handle both DVDs and Blu-Ray.

With its new Snap Mode feature, Xbox One can run other apps, movies, or TV on the side of screen while you’re still playing a game. Rather than selling the Kinect sensor separately, Microsoft says Kinect will come with each Xbox One unit sold.

Taking a queue from Siri, Microsoft has added voice controls to the Xbox One as well. Now when you want to pause a movie you can just say “Xbox, pause” rather than fumble around with your controller. Oh yeah, and the controller’s been redesigned too to get rid of the battery bump in the back and better controls.

One of the most exciting features that Microsoft showed off this morning though was the ability to integrate your cable set-top box with the Xbox One. Thanks to HDMI throughput, the Xbox One can display all of your cable channels, and with the new voice commands you can effortlessly switch to your favorite channel straight from a video game. All you have to do is say “Xbox, ESPN” and the console will switch the screen for you.

Microsoft also touted features like NFL Fantasy Football integration, Skype, Smart Glass, and the Kinect’s ability to detect your heart rate. Game discs will only have to be used for one-off installation, but unfortunately the Xbox One won’t be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games.

It was clear at Microsoft’s keynote that the company doesn’t want consumers to think of Xbox as just a video game console anymore, but just incase anyone doubts the Xbox’s gaming powers they crammed 8GB RAM, an 8-core CPU, 500GB of storage space, USB 3.0, a 1080p camera on the Kinect, and HDMI in and out into the Xbox One. Pricing wasn’t announced at the event, but it’s expected to launch later this year.

With the sheer amount of features that Microsoft has crammed into the Xbox One it’s pretty clear that Microsoft is the company to beat in the living room right now. While Apple TV is a simple and cheap enough solution for many TV lovers, the advanced features in Xbox One make it appeal to both gamers and video content lovers alike.

Hopefully Apple’s got something up its sleeve for Apple TV at WWDC, otherwise it’s going to be impossible for Cupertino to compete in the living room now that Redmond is targeting hardcore gamers as well as average TV addicts.

Looking like a prop out of Star Trek: the ScanSnap iX500.

Once I started my review of the ScanSnap iX500 document scanner, the new model in Fujitsu’s hugely popular line of top-tier ScanSnap scanners, it didn’t take long to see this machine was going to earn its pedigree.

With a small footprint, dashing good-looks, scanning direct to an iOS device, and progressional-grade intake rollers, the iX500 actually makes digitizing papers easy, and dare I say, maybe a little sexy. Its included software suit also makes sense of doing something with all those scanned docs.

There’s a reason many consider Fujitsu’s ScanSnaps the finest scanners around, and the iX500 continues in that legacy with some useful new features.

What It Does

At 25 double-sided pages per minute, Fujitsu’s iX500 scanner is the fastest consumer-grade document scanner on the market today.

Scanning directly to an iOS device is easy.

But speed isn’t the only thing that makes the iX500 excite me in ways it shouldn’t; its Star Trek-inspired blue backlights and shiny black design make its warp-speed scanning feel futuristic and a lot less nerdy than it probably actually is.

There’s a reason many consider Fujitsu’s ScanSnaps the finest scanners around.

Wi-Fi scanning direct to an iOS device is another touted feature of the new iX500. In today’s digital landscape, being to scan directly to my iPad or iPhone has big appeal.

The ultrasonic double paper feed feature built-in to the iX500 is also one Fujitsu boasts; this bit of sensoring allows the machine to detect when more than one page is passing through the scanner, alerting you that there’s an issue. That’s a handy feature in a machine built to intake, and then correctly orient, a huge heap of documents varying is size, thickness, and position.

Intaking fat stacks of paper can also often lead to frequent jams, an occurrence Fujitsu tries to dial out of the machine by including high-quality intake rollers not normally found on machines of smaller price points.

In Use

I don’t want to bury the lede here, so let me just get this out of the way: the iX500 is a fantastic scanner. There, I said it. Here’s why.

First, this thing’s a cheetah. It doesn’t just chew through stacks of documents fast, it’s really fast.

Closed up in stealth mode, iX500 has a small desktop footprint.

And though its fast, with over 3,000 pages run through my review unit, I had not a single jam. Not one. I can only assume that’s on account of the—I’ll just call them “magic rollers”—built in to the unit. Fujitsu says many consumer scanners scimp the the high-end roller tech because it’s expensive. The iX500 doesn’t, and it shows.

Let me just get this out of the way: the iX500 is a fantastic scanner.

The magic continues through the whole document management cycle. Once scanned, on a Mac using Fujitsu’s excellent ScanSnap software, you can choose where you want your document to go; a folder, Dropbox, SugarSync, Adobe Acrobat—ScanSnap even lets you customize its menu, adding other programs or locations as post-scan destinations. Document management has obviously been well thought out by Fujitsu, and the included software does a good job at steering you into an end-to-end workflow.

This document management process is a cinch to set up, and makes actually doing something with your scanned documents somewhat effortless, making scanning regularly less of a chore.

The ScanSnap menu pops when when your document is scanned.

Fujitsu also includes their CardMinder app with the scanner, allowing you to digitize those huge stacks of business cards you’ve collected over the years. Imagine being able to search digitally for a card you got two years ago, bringing up a contact, and being able to see the front and back of their business card. That’s what the iX500 paired with CardMinder does.

I also found iOS scanning to be an incredibly useful feature. This functionality allows you to avoid plugging your computer into the iX500. But wait. Isn’t the iX500 a wireless scanner? Kind of. Those Wi-Fi scanning talents only work with your iOS devices. That was a point of frustration for me, and one I’ve heard echoed from users who have reviewed the unit online. This means, if you want to use the iX500 with your Mac, it needs to be plugged in via USB. Scanning to an iOS device, however, is as easy as opening the scanner from its closed position, entering a document, then clicking scan. Poof! Scanned documents are sent to any iDevice running Fujitsu’s free ScanSnap iOS app, and can then be emailed, sent to Dropbox, or moved on elsewhere.

I should also mention a quirk I experienced with my unit; one that rendered my first iX500 unusable without disabling the machine’s ultrasonic sensor. It seems, and Fujitsu is aware of the problem, that certain places (houses, offices, etc.) experience some kind of radio interference that confuses the iX500′s ultrasonic sensor, causing the machine to throw errors whenever scans are initiated. After going through two machines, we discovered my household is one of those rare places. Fujitsu reported that only a small handful of people have complained to them about the problem, and users should contact them for a fix. They were able to solve my issue once we discovered what the issue was, and from that point forward, my review unit performed flawlessly.

So what’s the bottom line here? The iX500 is the scanner to beat. If there’s a better consumer-grade document scanner on the market, I haven’t tried it. If there’s one that’s more svelte-looking, I haven’t seen it. I’ll be the first to admit that document scanning isn’t sexy or cool, but using the iX500 makes it feel that way, and if you’re looking to digitize all the important documents and paper clutter in your life, there’s no better way to do it.

Product Name: : iX500 Document Scanner. The Good: Small, fast, jam-free document scanning with excellent supporting software. The Bad: Radio interference affects some machines, but it’s rare. The Verdict The scanner to beat and the one to buy if you can afford it. Buy from: Amazon

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ 

The iPhone has become just as much a camera as a communication device. So if you love using your iPhone and want to take advantage of its ability to take great photos then Cult of Mac has a video course for you – and at the low price of only $19 for a limited time.

Besides getting over 93 lectures and 8 hours of content, here’s why this course is ideal for iPhone photo shooters:

1. You’ll discover the full capabilities of your iPhone camera. The camera capability of your iPhone is quite remarkable so you should take the time to discover its full potential.
2. You’ll learn about all of the iOS apps that will give your photos that extra touch to make them even more stunning.
3. You’ll cover several techniques that will help improve your camera composition and your creative eye. Even if you’re not a natural, by the time this course is over, you’ll be well on your way.

Chet Davis (your instructor) really digs deep to bring out your inner photographer. Not only is he a fantastic teacher but he also makes learning fun. Chet loves to teach. He loves helping others learn – whether it’s an artistic technique in video or photography, or a software application or technology tool. Chet has 17 years of experience in the classroom as teacher of a high school Video Technology program in California. He’s made presentations at national and regional conferences and led hands-on workshops for in 41 US states, 3 Canadian provinces and in Europe.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this video course:

• Your iPhone’s Camera Settings and Functions
• Managing Photos in the Camera Roll
• Sharing Photos in the Camera Roll
• Popular Sharing Apps
• Favorite Apps for Photo Capturing, Editing, and Special Effects
• iPhone Photography Tips and Techniques – Building Your Creative Eye
• Connecting iPhone and Computers for Sharing and Archiving

If you’re looking to improve those iPhone camera skills of yours, you have a great opportunity right at your fingertips. Head over to the Deals page now and pick up this course for just $19 before time on this offer runs out!

[subscribebutton]deals[/subscribebutton]

U.S. Senator Rob Portman from Ohio has just raised a fascinating point at today’s Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc.

The American corporate tax system is so broken that Apple is at a competitive disadvantage against Samsung when it comes to the taxes it pays globally, and how easily it moves its money around.

Senator Portman pointed out to Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer that, globally, Apple and Samsung pay the same tax rate, when all loopholes are accounted for: about 14%.

Apple has tax havens and holding companies set up to reduce its tax burden, but any cash that comes into America must pay a 35% corporate tax rate.

Samsung, however — Apple’s biggest competitor — operates out of South Korea, where the corporate tax rate is just 25%.

Peter Oppenheimer agreed as to what this meant: “Samsung is able to freely move its income, where as we can not.”

Portman pointed out the absurdity of this. “It’s worst for Apple because they can’t bring their money home. Your investment options are a lot more limited.”

In other words, because of America’s byzantine corporate tax code, which is not globally competitive, Cupertino is at a competitive disadvantage against Samsung… symptomatic of a larger problem. American companies are at a disadvantage internationally when it comes to our tax codes.

With WWDC less than a month away, we’ve seen a ton of designers come out with their visions for what iOS 7 might look like, but the next iPhone has been ignored.

Concept designers Uygar Kaya and Ran Avni have a new video for the iPhone 6 that gives it a slimmer profile, waterproof coating, wireless charging, a notification LED, and more. It’s one of the sleekest iPhone 6 concepts we’ve seen yet, but would Apple actually add those features? Guess we’ll have to wait till 2014 to find out.

Check out the concept video below:

Source: YouTube

Via: iJailbreak

Senator Claire McCaskill has just asked Apple CEO Tim Cook about the deal Apple forged with Ireland to pay only 2% taxes, and whether or not there will ever be a country that offers Apple such a great tax deal that they would pack up and move out of Cupertino to overseas.

Tim Cook explained that Ireland originally recruited Apple back in 1980 as part of an initiative to attract technology companies to the then extremely poor country. That rate is what has allowed Apple in the last four years to pay only $10 million tax on $74 billion of overseas revenues.

McCaskill then brought up the question of whether or not there wouldn’t always be foreign countries which would undercut America’s taxes, no matter how modest.

Cook said that America still has extraordinary advantages over other countries, and that a simplified tax code would help. Cook reiterated that he didn’t want to pay nothing on repatriating money brought back home from overseas. “I propose we eliminate all corporate tax expenditures, and we have a reasonable tax on bringing tax back overseas. I think many many companies would bring cash back in that scenario.”

McCaskill then asked whether or not Apple would ever leave America if the tax system became too onerous. Tim Cook seemed astouned by the suggestion.

“We’re an American company, and we’re proud to be an American company. Vast majorty of R&D is in California. We’re there because we love it there. It’s who we are as people. We’re an American company whether we’re selling in China, or Egypt, or Saudi Arabia. It has never even entered my mind to move our headquarters to another country, and I have a wild imagination.”

After Oklahoma City was ravaged by a tornado yesterday where 91 souls lost their lives, AT&T has announced that it will be waving all voice, data, and text overage charges for victims of the tornado.

The tornado system was reported to be one mile wide as it ripped through parts of Oklahoma City Monday afternoon as it left a colossal amount of devastation in its wake.

AT&T’s state president for Oklahoma, Bryan Gonterman, released the following statement regarding the tornado:

Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the tornado that hit the Oklahoma City area Monday. We are coordinating with local authorities and bringing in additional resources.

Because of the high volume of calls of customers trying to get in touch with loved ones who were in the path of the storm, Gonterman recommends reaching friends and family via text messaging rather than voice calls. AT&T customer’s can contribute a $10 donation to the Oklahoma relief effort by texting “REDCROSS” to 90999.

Source: TUAW

John McCain ended his grilling of Apple CEO Tim Cook at today’s Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. with a nice little joke.

“Sir, there’s only one thing I wanted to ask you today: why do I keep on having to update all the apps on my iPhone? Can’t you guys fix that already?”

“Sir,” Tim cook laughed. “We’re working on making our products better all the time.”

“Do you feel that you’ve been bullied or harassed by this committee?” Senator John McCain has just asked Tim Cook at the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc.

“I feel good to be participating in this. I hope to help the process. I’d like comprehensive tax reform to be passed this year, and we will help in anyway we can.”

“I wasn’t dragged here, sir,” Tim Cook laughed.

“You’ve obviously taken advantage legally of a number of loopholes. Couldn’t you draw a conclusion that you have an unfair advantage over domestic companies?” asked McCain.

“No, it’s not the way I see it. Apple pays 30.5% of its profits in taxes on the United States. I would guess that’s high on the list of how it stacks up against other companies. We do have a low tax rate outside the U.S., but it’s for products we sell there, not within. So the way I look at this is there’s no shifting going on.”

Tim Cook is saying that because domestic companies operate only domestically, Apple has no advantage over them domestically: it only has an international advantage, which isn’t applicable in talking about “competitive advantage” in a U.S.-only context.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer are in Washington D.C. this morning to talk to a Senate subcommittee about Apple’s off-shore cash hoard. The Apple execs are expected to face a lot of heat surrounding Apple’s Irish subsidiary, through which Apple has funneled 64% of its earnings without paying any tax, yet has zero employees.

Before the hearing got underway though, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Eamon Gilmore, issued a public statement which claimed Ireland isn’t to blame for Apple’s low tax bill, even though the country has become a tax haven for multinationals since the 1960s.

As reported by Reuters, Eamon Gilmore had the following to say regarding the Apple taxation controversy:

There are issues that arise from the taxation systems in other jurisdictions, and that is an issue that has to be addressed first of all in those jurisdictions.

Apple isn’t being accused of breaking any tax laws; however, the company has used Ireland’s tax laws to mitigate the amount of taxes it pays internationally. The committee is looking for solutions to fix U.S. corporate tax laws so companies like Apple can’t funnel $78 billion over four years to subsidiaries with no employees and pay a fraction of taxes on it.

For a full breakdown on how Apple used Ireland’s tax laws to avoid paying international taxes, check out our full article right here.

Reuters

Apple CEO Tim Cook has just started his testimony in front of the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. in Washington, D.C.

“I am proud to represent Apple here. With Apple’s international revenues twice as large as domestic revenues, we are often asked ‘Does Apple still consider itself an American company? To that, I answer an emphatic yes. We are proud to be an
American company.”

Tim Cook is using most of his early testimony to remind the Senate how much Apple has done for America. Cook points out that Apple has created jobs for over 600,000, between employees, the App Economy, and so on. And they’re doing more, committing $100 million to building future products in America.

Tim Cook is also reminding the Sub-Committee that Apple is the largest corporate tax payer in America. He’s reiterating that Apple says they don’t use tax gimmicks, don’t keep it on a Carribbean island, and so on. “We pay every dollar of tax we owe, and we obey both the spirit and the letter of the tax law.”

So why does Apple have so much money overseas? Tim Cook says it’s based upon the explosive growth of Apple’s overseas business.

“The tax code has not kept up with the digital age,” says Tim Cook, saying that part of the problem is the existing tax code law.

“Apple has always believed in the simple, not the complex. It is in this spirit that we recommend a dramatic revision of the existing tax code system. And we make this recommendation with our eyes wide open, and knowing that it will increase Apple’s U.S. tax rates.”

Despite increasing competition from the likes of Samsung and Google, Apple continues to be the world’s most valuable brand, according to the latest annual BrandZ report from Millward Brown.

The Cupertino company was one of three technology firms in the top five, with Google and IBM placed in second and third respectively.

Apple’s brand value in 2013 was rated at $185 billion, which is a 1% increase over its 2012 value. Google saw a larger 5% increase, but its $113 billion brand value only secured second-place.

IBM’s brand value actually fell 3% to $112 billion, while fourth-place McDonald’s fell 5% to $90 billion. Coca-Cola took fifth place with a 6% value increase to $78 billion.

“Despite a more competitive marketplace and other challengers nipping at its heels, Apple’s ability to maintain its no.1 position demonstrates the value that having a strong brand brings to business,” Millward Brown managing director Nick Cooper said. “People still love the brand regardless of its stock price.”

Millward Brown noted that Apple’s falling stock price hasn’t been its only setback, and that the company has also received bad press for its new Maps app, which replaced Google Maps on the iPhone last fall and actually boosted the brand value of Google and Samsung.

However, Samsung does not appear in the list of top ten brands in 2013 at all.

Source: Millward Brown

Via: TechnoBuffalo

Tim doesn’t look too happy, does he? And no wonder: the Senate Sub-Committee Hearing to Examine Offshore Profit Shifting and Tax Avoidance by Apple Inc. is a hostile room, and the experts are being very clear about the why and how Apple is dodging its U.S. tax burden. And so far, the only person defending Apple in the room is Rand Paul.

Tim Cook is expected to testify before the Senate Sub-Committee sometime this morning. We’ll be covering it live.