Tim Cook made a visit to Washington D.C. this week to discuss the U.S. technology policy with one of the most tech-focused Senators on Capitol Hill.

The Apple CEO met with Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah on Tuesday, reports The Hill, after Cook paid a visit to the nearby Georgetown Apple Store the previous day for Worlds AIDS day. Senator Hatch’s Innovation Agenda for the 114th Congress was the focus of the conversation, as Hatch currently serves as the chairman of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force.

In some bad news for Apple, Australia’s Federal Court has rejected an appeal by the company to trademark the term “App Store.”

In a ruling made Wednesday, judge Justice Yates dismissed Apple’s case and ordered it to pay the court costs of Registrar of Trade Marks.

Apple has been locked in a long-standing tug of war with Oz’s Registrar of Trade Marks over whether it should have ownership over the term it popularized on Mac and iOS. The company first took the registrar to court in March 2013, after the “App Store” trademark was revoked following its initial accepted. Since then, Apple has lost a total of three appeals: firstly by the trademark examiner, then by the Australian Trade Marks Office, and now today’s ruling.

The Los Angeles school board has officially shelved the $1.3 billion contract that would have provided iPads to every student, teacher and campus administrator in the district.

The deal first stalled back in July, after which it was reported that former Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent John Deasy and his then-chief deputy, Jaime Aquino, had been unlawfully discussing the deal with Apple up to two years before the bidding process was finished and contracts were approved.

Steve Jobs made an appearance Monday as a key witness in Apple’s most recent antitrust lawsuit — courtesy of a video deposition taped shortly prior to his death in 2011.

The lawsuit concerns a long-running class action antitrust lawsuit dating back to 2005. It is argued by the plaintiffs that Apple gained an unfairly monopolistic position by blocking competitors from putting their music on iPods.

Jobs avoided many of the questions he was asked during the 2-hour video deposition, saying that “I don’t remember,” “I don’t know” or “I don’t recall” a total of 74 times — including when he was asked if he was familiar with what the lawsuit was about.

A few typically snappy Steve Jobs moments did crop up, however. Responding to a question about the former iTunes rival Real Networks, Jobs replied, “Do they still exist?”

In a universe where things worked out a bit differently, Ronald Wayne would be a billionaire.

When Apple was incorporated on April 2, 1976, Wayne was named alongside Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as one of three founders. Wayne owned a 10 percent stake in the company, a fact that raises questions about who owned apple.

However, just 12 days after Apple started up — feeling out of his depth because he “was standing in the shadow of intellectual giants” — Wayne threw in the towel and sold his shares for just $800.

“I was 40 and these kids were in their 20s,” Wayne told Cult of Mac. “They were whirlwinds — it was like having a tiger by the tail. If I had stayed with Apple I probably would have wound up the richest man in the cemetery.”

Apple is no stranger to filing lawsuits against iPhone cloners, but in a twisted turn of events, an Chinese Android manufacturer with a handset that looks suspiciously similar to the iPhone 6 is claiming that Apple ripped off its designs.

Little known Chinese smartphone maker DigiOne published a letter today that the company’s lawyers sent to Apple in September. The letter contests that “the design of Apple’s mobile device with the brand name “iPhone 6”, may infringe on one of Baili’s Chinese patents” filed in January of 2014.

Digione’s cheap handset, which is being sold by subsidiary brand 100+, was granted the patent in July. The patent in question does look similar to an iPhone, in that it features a device that is thin and rectangular shaped, with a flat back, rounded edges, and glass screen.

Check out their weird ad for the V6 see for yourself:

If you are like most, you use a multitude of mobile devices. Your data – files, emails, and contacts – are likely spread out, with some on one device, other files on another, and so on.

Now you can easily place all of your data in one convenient location to be accessed by almost any device at any time with A Lifetime Of Unlimited Mobile Backup From IDrive, 79% off for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is about to become a reality TV star. If you’re curious to see what watching The Woz might be like when it airs, Starwood Hotels just shot a quick video of Woz demonstrating their SPG app to magically unlock his hotel room at the W in Hollywood.

The SPG app seeks makes hotel keys obsolete by giving visitors a Bluetooth key upon checkin within the app, allowing  you to skip the front desk altogether and unlock your room with the iPhone 6’s new NFC chip. The new SPG keyless entry system has only been around for a month, but Woz says its so easy to use, you don’t even need someone to teach you what to do.

Watch Woz demo the keyless entry app in the video below:

A guy will go to great lengths to impress a woman. But pufferfish and Bowerbirds make us all look a little cheap.

More than just a bag of air, a male pufferfish works nonstop for a week straight creating an ornate design on the seabed in an apparent move to attract a female and create a safe and elegant place for her to lay eggs.

In Australia, Bowerbirds build elaborate homes with twig-thatched roofs and carefully arranged gifts on the outside in hopes a girl will come a-knocking.

Microsoft released its list of the top Bing searches of 2014 this week, and among tech companies, Apple appears to be this year’s big winner, again.

The iPhone 6 and iPad both ranked among the top 5 tech search words of 2014, according to BingTrends. Other top searches included Fitbit and the Xbox One, but the iPhone 6’s biggest competitor – the Samsung Galaxy S5 – didn’t even place in the top 10.

Here are the complete rankings:

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Banks and credit card companies have been making a big push to get customer to use Apple Pay, but perhaps no one is trying harder than Wells Fargo.

So far the bank has been doing everything from emailing customers to use Apple Pay, and even paying people just to try it out. In it’s newest effort to get card holders to activate Apple Pay, Wells Fargo has released a new ad showing how wicked fast it is to pay with your iPhone 6, rather than a credit card. So fast in fact, it might actually ruin your surprise birthday party.

Check out the funny ad below:

Apple’s negotiator-in-chief, Eddy Cue is out to clear the air surrounding the price-fixing conspiracy Apple was found guilty of by U.S. federal court in 2013, before the case hits an appeals court later this month.

In a rare interview, Cue sat down with Fortune to talk about the ebook controversythat has embroiled Apple and the six top book publishers ever since the iPad launched with the iBookstore in 2011.

Apple was found guilty of conspiring to raise ebook prices in 2011, after the launch of the iBookstore saw price of ebook new releases spike 17% overnight. Apple has maintained its innocence through the entire ordeal, and though the company has been criticized for its litigious nature, Cue says the company has to “fight for the truth,” no matter what.

Famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has a better way to talk now, thanks to a new custom predictive text software upgrade from SwiftKey and Intel Labs. The technology that Professor Hawking was currently using was going on 20 years old, and needed a fix to help him communicate and work faster and more efficiently.

His life-long motor neurone disease of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has necessitated his use of communications technology, and this new system will allow him to choose words rather than individual letters, which lets him type less than 20 percent of all needed characters in his messages. It also makes him 10 times more efficient with other computing tasks like browsing the web, working with files, and switching between tasks on the computer.

Well, that didn’t take long.

It’s only been four days since The Force Awakens trailer appeared on all of our computer and iPhone screens, and here we have the entire thing recreated with the ubiquitous plastic building toy.

Why did this YouTuber build his stop-motion homage?

“Made this out of boredom,” he says, “… enjoy!”

It’s been over two and a half years since Apple TV was updated, and while Apple’s been happy resting on its laurels, its biggest competitors are passing it by.

Google’s Chromecast is now more popular than Apple TV, reports Parks Associates, which says streaming media players become more popular than ever in the first three quarters of 2014, as 10 percent of U.S. households bought at least one new streaming device.

HP just announced its newest business laptops today – the HP EliteBook Folio 1020 – and even though the company is touting them as the thinnest and lightest ‘business-class’ notebooks ever made, they certainly look a hell of lot like the MacBook Air.

This isn’t the first time HP’s design team ripped off Apple’s work, but the copycats have fine-tuned the design of their previous MacBook Air rip-off, the 1040, by removing the unsightly ventilation fan on the side, so it looks even more Apple-esque.

Here’s another look:

When the final Space Shuttle flight landed in July 2011, there was a sadness that America’s future involvement in space exploration would be nothing more than one of our astronauts occasionally hitching a lift on a rickety Russian rocket.

But NASA, partnered with various aerospace companies, has been quietly designing and building a new program that could eventually take humans into deep space.

An incredibly sketchy report, citing supply chain sources, claims the iPhone 6s could arrive as early as spring next year, to coincide with the eagerly-anticipated launch of Apple Watch.

“[O]ur source says that Apple is hesitant about launching the iWatch in the spring of 2015 without a new iPhone to go along with it, as it could give hesitant consumers an excuse to wait on buying both until the fall,” notes Jerry Miller of Stabley Times.

The report goes on to suggest that Apple is looking to narrow the time between iPhone releases down to six-monthly intervals to match the more rapid release cycle of other companies, such as Samsung and Sony — the latter of which upgrades its Xperia Z handsets every six months.

We’re months away from being able to shackle our wrists to the Apple Watch, but the UI designers at Impekable have been busy dreaming up new app experiences that will delight wearers once the timepiece is finally available.

“Our concept was to re-envision how Apple Watch could enhance the Starbucks customer experience by providing an even better way to order rather than standing in a long line,” Impekable’s founder Pek Pongpaet told Cult of Mac. “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could just go grab a table, order one of my usual drinks, pay for it using Apple Pay or my Starbucks card and get notified when my drink is ready – all from my phone without leaving the comfort of my seat?”

Check out the slick concept below:

There have been rumors of a possible 12.2-inch “iPad Pro” for ages now, and a new video from YouTube user Canoopsy offers a glimpse of what that might look like — comparing the giant-sized tablet the current iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, and recent iPhones.

While Apple isn’t the first company that would “go big” with its tablet (Samsung has its GALAXY NotePRO 12.2, for instance), the idea of a larger iPad frankly has us salivating. And given the success Apple has had with its “phablet” iPhone 6 Plus, it would be surprising if Apple was feeling any different.

Check out the video after the jump:

Despite never having laid their hands upon an Apple Watch, developers are feverishly crafting apps for the long-awaited wearable.

To do this, they face considerable challenges: The size of the device is unlike anything most of them have ever contemplated, and they must design for an entirely different kind of user experience. To make matters worse, the Apple Watch’s functionality will be severely limited, at least at first.

Still, the independent developers that Cult of Mac spoke with are unabashedly delighted to take on the design challenge as they seek to colonize the next frontier of computing: your wrist.

The abandoned Steve Jobs monument previously erected in St. Petersburg, Russia is to be auctioned off, according to a new report.

The 6-foot-tall iPhone-looking slab was designed by local Russian sculptor Gleb Tarasov and named “Sunny QR Code.” It was assembled in the wake of Steve Jobs’ 2011 death, but removed earlier this year — reportedly as a result of Russia’s anti-gay laws after Tim Cook outed himself in an open letter.

The statue is being sold off by owners the Russian Holdings Company, with a starting price of 5 million rubles (around $95,000). Money from the sale will go to Russian tech developers.

It’s pretty clear that Samsung’s mobile business is faltering at the moment, and members of its executive team are paying the price. Not only has Samsung recently posted dismal quarter profits, but it also wildly overestimated the appeal of the Galaxy S5, with the result that unsold units are now piling up in warehouses.

According to a new report coming out of Korea, to get things back on the right track Samsung has just sacked three top executives in its mobile business as part of large-scale reshuffling/downsizing effort.

The three heads on the chopping block include Lee Don-joo, head of the mobile business unit’s strategic marketing office, Kim Jae-kwon, chief of the global operations office, and Lee Chul-hwan, who was previously in charge of the mobile R&D office.