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Although the economy has caused it to curtail opening more retail locations in 2009, Apple Wednesday officially added France and Germany to its list of European stores.

Two locations appear to be vying for the spot as Apple’s first storefront in Paris. The most well-known is one slated in the Carrousel du Louvre, a mall nearby the famous Louvre museum. However, a store is also on the drawing board situated close to the Paris-based Garnier operahouse, according to reports.

Following its Paris premiere, Apple is expected to launched another French store in Montpellier.

During bleak economic times, companies need to welcome the faintest rays of sunshine. That appears to be the word from one analyst forecasting lower sales for Apple’s upcoming March quarter.

“We believe this data will be perceived as a neutral or a slight positive given the uncertainty surrounding the Mar-09 quarter,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told clients Tuesday.

Sifting through numbers from NPD and internally, Munster expects -6 percent growth for Mac sales, compared to the second quarter of 2008.

Cell phone maker Samsung Tuesday added its name to the growing list of manufacturers joining the Android bandwagon. The company said it would unveil at least three handsets based on the open-source Google mobile phone platform in 2009.

In a Reuters interview, Samsung’s product strategy chief, Won-Pyo Hong, said ‘at least three’ Android phones would be produced, the first appearing in the later half of this year. Previously, the No. 2 cell phone maker had said its Android phones would appear in the Spring.

Although the company released few details, talk has surrounded Sprint and T-Mobile as the handset’s U.S. carriers.

There are many co-workers who would be wise to read this message before approaching, just wonder if over time, they’d start pretending you hadn’t declared yourself the resident grouch.

Available for $6 on Etsy

Apple made a huge detail about the non-removable battery it created for the 17″ Unibody MacBook Pro. By going with a sealed design, the company argued, it would be possible to make a much-higher capacity battery. Well, the guys over at iFixit have had their way with one of the new models, and it’s pretty clear the battery isn’t THAT hard to remove. It actually surprises me how much it looks like the interior of my existing MacBook, giant fans excepted.

Definitely check out the full slideshow — it’s good stuff. Anyone picked up a 17-incher yet? What do you think?Check out a couple more shots from iFixit’s meticulous disassembly operation after the jump.

The long-awaited South Park iPhone app (submitted to Apple last October) has been officially denied AppStore approval, according to Matt Stone, creator of the hit Comedy Central television show, who informed fans in an email to BoignBoing Tueday. “We are sad to say that our [iPhone] app has been rejected. According to Apple, the content was potentially offensive.”

Memo to AppStore Gatekeepers: “Huh?”

The South Park iPhone app was a little something that would have given fans of the show and other users the ability to stream clips, grab wallpapers for the phone, read news, and browse the complete episode index.

A cool feature that would likely have been a big hit with many was the ability to choose character likenesses as “contact images” for the iPhone’s address book. An incoming call from a user’s best friend would display as Kyle or Cartman; the medical marijuana dispensary could be Towelie; Tony Bourdain could be Chef, etc.

This is indeed sad news and further evidence of the persistent inscrutability of Apple’s AppStore approval process, especially in the light of users already being able to purchase entire episodes of the foul-mouthed tv show directly from iTunes.

Via VentureBeat

AT&T announced Monday its next-generation 4G network will be commercially available in 2011. The carrier had previously said the new network would begin trials in 2010.

The 2011 timeframe would put the exclusive iPhone carrier a year behind rival Verizon Wireless, which has said its trials of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network would begin this year.

For AT&T, the shift in timing for introducing LTE differs from previous statements by the carrier suggesting it intended to use its 3G HSPA, or HSPA+, technology until 2012.

(Larger version here.)

Norwegian Mac support company Teknograd likes to have fun with its advertising campaigns, and this latest one is the cleverest idea yet.

In recent years they’ve had a series of ads showing a Mac desktop where the Hard Disk is under attack from a mass of files and folders. But for this year’s campaign, they wanted something new that made use of the default Leopard desktop wallpaper.

The result is these TIE fighters, created by advertising agency TBWA. I asked them how they did it – surely not with real icons on a real desktop? No.

“We have photoshopped this, in almost 400 layers, but each folder is named individually, so it was a hell of a lot work. Martin Holm, the illustrator and art director, just passed out when we asked him how long time it took,” they told me.

Apple’s planned refresh of iPhones is putting increased pressure on flash memory manufacturers managing dwindling inventory, according to one analyst Tuesday.

“Our checks indicate that Apple has started ordering for its iPhone refresh (iPhone and iPhone Nano), stifling the supply chain,” ThinkEquity analyst Vijay Rakesh told clients in a note.

In the case of memory maker Samsung, Apple has allocated its inventory until April, according to Rakesh.

HTC Monday unveiled its Magic handset, the second smartphone powered by Google’s Android software. The phone also is the first Google phone to sport a virtual keyboard, striking closer to home for the Apple iPhone.

Although the model does away with a physical keyboard, the Magic retains its 3.2-inch touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, as well as 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS for access options.

Vodafone will be the first carrier to offer the Magic. The carrier won an exclusive deal in the UK, Germany and Spain and a non-exclusive pact in Italy. France’s SFR will also sell the phone.

Not too surprising that nearly 70-year-old Sir Tom Jones doesn’t “do” technology.
Hey, he’s a sex bomb, not a geek, ok?

Jones has an iPod with trendy music —  Kings Of Leon and The Ting Tings — but someone else has to load up the device  for him.

“I am useless at the internet and I have never owned a computer,”  Jones told tab The Sun. “I have an iPod but I don’t load it up myself.”

“I don’t get any pleasure from that sort of thing. I have never seen a text message – what’s the point? Why not ring someone up?”

In other, unrelated Jones news, the Welsh crooner has finally decided to give up the Grecian formula and show his gray hair. If he ditches the fake tan, I’m in the front row.

Via the  Sun

If you’ve spent any time around wee ones lately,  you know toy manufacturers seem to be challenging each other to see who can devise the most annoying, ear-wormy tinny electronic jingle to fart out whenever your kid interacts with it in some way.

Hail the Combi Bouncer, the killer app for baby bouncers. You can plug in the music from your iPod and a vibration unit driven by the music sends them into cooing cuteness or sleep faster. Sound controls are on the back,  so the baby is not disturbed when you turn down the “Cradle Song.”

It can hold babies up to 25 lbs and comes with a removable collapsible canopy, toy bar with wooden toys and an adjustable hammock-style seat design.

$79.99 USD on Think Geek

Via Softpedia

Here’s an interesting concept for an Apple product by San Francisco artist

Here’s the first touchscreen Mac. Harvey says, “I designed the product from all angles (the back is absent from this page) and set it up on a layout typical to apple.com. Down below there’s also a sloppily thrown together iPhone ][ in a (PRODUCT)RED advert and spliced into Steve Jobs’ hand.”

Check out more of Harvey’s work at deviantART

Wow, here’s a fantastic hack from the RetroMacCast forum, in which contributor Charles Mangin creates a new body for a Mac mini – using the body of an ancient Apple Disk ][ drive.

Palm continues to be a thorn in Apple’s iPhone as the handset maker announced its touch-screen phone will include Adobe’s new mobile Flash version.

After engaging in saber-rattling over the Pre, the two companies face-off on a nagging problem for the iPhone: lack of a suitable version of Flash. Until recently, smartphone makers were forced to choose either Flash lite or the bulkier Flash version meant for desktop computers. Recently, Adobe said it was still committed to developing a version of its graphics software that met the requirements of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

As part of its announcement, Palm also said it would join Adobe’s Open Screen Project, an industry-wide initiative.

HyperMegaNet UG, the maker of Germany’s PearPC Mac clone, voiced confidence it would win a copyright infringement case against Apple in European courts.

“We are not afraid of going to court with Apple,” a HyperMegaNet spokesman told Computerworld. The German company said they “are awaiting” contact from Apple’s legal eagles over its PC towers that come with Mac OS X pre-installed.

Germany’s laws invalidate Apple’s end user licensing agreement (EULA), according to the spokesperson, Dirk Bloessi.

Geting creative with a slow news day, NPR convinced classical music expert Miles Hoffman to create an iPod playlist for Honest Abe in honor of President’s Day.

Hoffman’s picks include:

Friedrich von Flotow: “Ach so fromm” from Martha, a love song from an opera that Lincoln liked.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk: The Union, a Fantasy on Patriotic Airs,

Traditional Scottish: “Annie Laurie”

“I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land” (Bob ‘n’ John Minstrels)

If “Dixie” comes as a surprise, Hoffman says it shouldn’t: “It had already been a popular song before the Civil War and came from a minstrel show.”

Lincoln had been quoted as saying, ‘I have always thought “Dixie” one of the best tunes I have ever heard.’ ”

“After the war,” Hoffman adds, “Lincoln is reported to have said, ‘That tune is now federal property, and it is good to show the rebels that, with us in power, they will be free to hear it again.’ ”

Check out the podcast to hear them all.

Via NPR

Despite the economic downturn, data plans are not among the items consumers can apparently do without, a new study indicates.

The survey found U.S. and European smartphone owners plan to increase their mobile phone data plan usage over the next two years, according to Reuters.

The question was posed in November at the height of the global economic mess.

Casinos in Nevada were warned by gambling regulators to keep an eye out for a card-counting program that runs on the iPhone and iPod Touch that illegally helps players beat the house in blackjack.

Card counting itself is not illegal under Nevada gambling laws, but getting electronic help to count cards is a felony.

In blackjack, card counting techniques help players determine when they are likely to win a hand and adjust their bets accordingly.
Casinos were warned last week by the Nevada Gaming Control Board in a memo (pdf). Nevada learned of the program from gambling regulators in California, where officials at an Indian casino found customers using it and tipped state authorities.

The memo says the app is called Blackjack Card Counting program and describes how it works: “The program calculates the “True Count” and does it significantly more accurately. The card counting program uses a choice
of four (4) card counting strategies. For each strategy the user presses the button that contains the face cards as they are drawn from the deck. Depending on the strategy and on the value of the card the button will
either add or subtract 1 or 2 from the “Running Count.” It can also be used in “stealth mode.”

A quick search of  the iTunes store for “card count,”  showed several card counting apps, it’s not clear which one the casinos were warned about.

It looks like to live the 21 story, you don’t even have to be a card-counting geek…

Image used with Creative Commons license, thanks to nataliehg on flickr.

Via AP

The technology allowing iPhone users to skim through screens and Web sites is at the heart of a new lawsuit. Picsel Technologies, a mobile software developer, said Apple’s handset and iPod touch infringe its graphics acceleration technology.

The lawsuit, filed in Delaware U.S. District Court, asks Picsel Technologies be awarded treble damages based on the number of iPhones sold.

Unlike many patent trolls, the Picsel lawsuit includes a number of high-profile licensees. The company named iPhone rivals Palm and Motorola among the 250 companies using the graphics acceleration patent.

This mixed media work by South African artist Nicholas Hlobo has iPod earbuds stitched on to what looks like a series of knotty scars.  It’s on show at London’s Tate Modern until March 1, 2009.

Called “Phulaphulani,” or ‘to listen,’ the title of the work derives from the root phula, ‘to break.’ Hlobo says “to listen is to break down or process multiple sounds so that meaning can be understood and in turn passed on.” The work combines ribbon, rubber, thread, fabric and iPod earphones on Fabriano paper.

The friend who told me about it says the work comes together live much more than in a photo… Hlobo explains the work in a video here, also take a gander at the background image on the Tate site.

If you check it out, let me know what you think.

Image courtesy Tate Modern © Nicholas Hlobo. Photo: Mario Todeschini

iFart Mobile, maker of a wildly popular app for iPhone and iPod Touch, asked a court on Friday to rule that it can use the term “pull my finger” without risking trademark infringement claims by another iPhone fart app named, …wait for it, Pull My Finger.

InfoMedia, which developed iFart Mobile, filed a complaint for declaratory judgment in Colorado District Court naming rival Air-O-Matic as defendant after a lawyer from Air-O-Matic demanded $50,000 from InfoMedia for its use of the phrase, according to an InfoMedia blog post.

Apparently, Air-O-Matic first approached Apple with complaints that InfoMedia was guilty of unfair business practices and trademark infringement because it used the term “pull my finger” in a news release and YouTube promo video. Air-O-Matic also asked that iFart Mobile be removed from the iPhone App Store, but Apple told the companies to work it out among themselves, according to a report at Cnet.

Early this year, iFart Mobile was one of the more popular titles on the AppStore, where there are currently over 75 fart-themed titles on offer. The bloom may be off the rose, however, as only iFart (99¢) Mobile and the free app Atomic Fart are in the top 100 downloads of either category.

Apple has filed a response to an Electronic Frontier Foundation request that the US Copyright Office exempt from the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch which violate certain term of Apple’s SDK, describing the very act of “jailbreaking” an iPhone a crime.

The EFF wants the Copyright Office to officially exempt “computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute lawfully obtained software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications with computer programs on the telephone handset.”

The non-profit consumer advocacy organization believes Apple’s efforts to control the software that runs on iPhone is “corporate paternalism” and described them as comparable to an automaker welding shut the hood of its cars to only allow servicing to be done by authorized dealers.

Apple’s extensive response to EFF’s request (available as a PDF) cites, among other things, danger to the device from unauthorized software and increased support costs that result from problems caused by jailbreaking the phone, and asserts that jailbreaking fails all four “nonexclusive statutory fair use factors prescribed in § 107 of the copyright statute,” essentially calling jailbreaking a crime.

The Copyright Office is not expected to rule on EFF’s request until October.

If you’re interested in a detailed rehash of the legal brickbats flying between Apple and EFF over the matter, AppleInsider has a very good discussion of the arguments raised by both sides.

iPhone developer Ralf Ackermann has achieved a working device-to-device Bluetooth solution, according to a report at ArsTechnica.

Building on work developed by Matthias Ringwald, who has put together a user space bluetooth stack, Ackerman has built external adapters that plug into the iPhone’s connector port, accessing the phone’s bluetooth stack in a way that could possibly even comply with the standard iPhone SDK, according to developer/blogger Erica Sadun.

With such capability developers could theoretically build games and utilities that allow phones to transfer data without having to be on the same WiFi network or connect to a server as an intermediary. Users could transfer photos, play chess against each other, shoot over a vcard, and more, using software that could be sold on App Store.

While the iPhone ships with Bluetooth capabilities, they are a limited subset of its normal features. You cannot, for example, connect your Mac to your iPhone and transfer data files.

Don’t hold your breath for Apple to take Ackerman’s lead in this arena, but this, as Sadun notes, is pretty big news and a great step forward for the effort to make iPhones communicate directly with each other.

Via ArsTechnica