While Samsung has been battling with Apple in the U.S., Motorola has been trying to win a few court cases of their own against Apple over in Germany. The two sides have mostly been arguing over some standard-essential patents that Apple needs for the iPhone to work.

Until now, Motorola has refused to license the patents to Apple at a fair price, but a recent court filing shows that Motorola has declared a ceasefire and will now license some, if not all, of their standard-essential patents to Apple.

There are a bunch of services which will take your old films, movies and even videocassettes and scan/digitize them, but YesVideo is not only pretty convenient, but also claims to be the first to modernize your analog memories and store them in the cloud.

Sure, the company will still send you a comedy “archival” DVD so you can put your hot coffee on your desk without leaving a ring, but now you can also store an unlimited amount of photos and videos online and ready to share.

I don’t use iCloud too intensively, mostly because I’d have to pay for extra storage and I already got 50GB on Dropbox. But if I were an Apple employee I’d probably use it until the wheels fall off because now Apple is giving all of their employees a free 50GB upgrade for their iCloud strorage accounts.

What does it take to become an Apple Genius? You’d think the biggest requirement would be a lot of technical knowledge, but really it’s empathy and knowing how to talk to people. Geniuses are the face of the company when customers are the most pissed off at Apple, so great customer service skills are key.

Gizmodo just unearthed Apple’s official Genius Training Student Workbook and it’s oozing with secrets, like words a Genius can’t use to describe a problem.

When I was a kid, baseball cards pretty much only featured athletes. I don’t even think the President of the United States could get a baseball card unless he also had a stint in the minor leagues before taking office.

Apparently, times have changed, and Upper Deck — the biggest baseball company in the world — now creates cards for famous people who had an impact on society. Like Steve Wozniak, who is now featured in the 2012 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions set.

AutoStitch, the fantastic panorama-shooting app, has been updated to v5.0. And what an update. The new headline feature is called StitchGuide, and it uses augmented-reality overlays to help guide your photo taking.

Kodiak is a PHP editor for the iPad, with one big difference: it can run your code offline. And they said the iPad is only for media “consumption.”

It isn’t too difficult to understand why the jury involved in the Apple versus Samsung case made the verdict it did last Friday, awarding Apple a landslide victory and more than $1 billion in damages. But what isn’t clear is how the jury came to its decision. Thanks to Jury Foreman Vel Hogan, we now have a fascinating insight into what it was like to be part of that panel.

In his first TV appearance since the billion dollar patent trial came to an end, Hogan reveals how he made up his own mind, how the jury decided on the damages Samsung must pay Apple, whether feelings and emotions influenced the jury’s decision, and more.

Yesterday, we reported on a theory that a small square chip in the next iPhone could be a secret NFC chip. But today, Anandtech is making a much more convincing case that it’s not.

Samsung just doesn’t get it. They just got brutally dominated in the Apple vs Samsung trial for copying a ton of Apple UI elements, so what do they do? Go out and copy OS X for their Windows 8 machines.

Samsung has a cool new feature for Windows 8 called the “S Launcher” that looks and functions just like the Dock in OS X. They copied it so well, it even has a 3D semi-opaque tray that reflects the icons contained therein.

No one likes turning off their portable electronics on a flight during takeoff and landing, especially if they’re as harmless as an iPod or an e-reader. And the rule if often the subject of debate as we all become more reliant on these devices on a daily basis.

Thankfully, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is now ready to reconsider the rule, and it’s asking passengers, flight attendants, airlines, and the makers of electronic devices for their opinion. Tell the FAA you think the rule is silly and you could help towards getting it abolished.

Ugh. That was my first reaction to the CruxSKUNK, a case which turns the iPad into a laptop-shaped-object. Then I got onto the name, which is equally clunky. Then I saw the price, which appears to be around $155-$250. Oh, and this case? It comes with its own case. Nice.

Take the back-of-the-envelope scribblings of a tech blogger with the appropriate degree of skepticism, but according to this breakdown of what the build-of-materials (BOM) cost of the upcoming iPad mini could be, Apple will sell their 7.85-inch tablet for $299 when it debuts later this year… and still make over $100 in profit on each unit sold.

If you’ve owned an Apple device for any extended period of time — whether it’s a Mac or iOS device — you’ve most likely encountered the Genius Bar at the back of every Apple retail store, where friendly, fresh-faced youths in blue t-shirts diagnose your problems and quickly provide a fix. Apple is one of a small few companies that offers such a terrific service, and according to a recent study, 90% of its customers love it.

When I was a cub scout, I made my own backyard weather station. It was to get my science badge, or weather nerd badge, or whatever, and it mainly consisted of counting the millimeters of rain in a jamjar with an oversized plastic funnel perched on the top. And there was always rain: This was England.

If I’d had access to the wonderful technology of today, though, I could have stayed in watching TV and let the Netatmo do the work for me. The Netatmo is a weather station for both indoors and outdoors, and is sold as something that will stop you from worrying about your children and — therefore — the future.

If you’re a T-Mobile customer who was hoping that the iPhone 5 would be the first iPhone to gain official support for your carrier, then look away now. A leaked T-Mobile memo reveals the company is instructing its staff to sell “against the iPhone” from September 21, and it looks like they’ll be trained to help customers choose alternative smartphones instead.

Remember that tip we gave you about showing more than seven days in a week in iCal? It’s been a while, but there used to be a way to enable a Debug menu in iCal to allow you to open multiple iCal windows, change the number of weeks that appear before and after the start date in Day View, and even show more than just seven days in a week.

Well, that debug menu has gone away in Mountain Lion, but we found a cool Terminal command that does something similar.

Dolphin is one of the best third-party browsers you’ll find on iOS, and it just got even better on the iPhone, thanks to a new design and user interface, new features, and lots of improvements in version 6.0.

Spotify’s official iOS app has received a new update that introduces a number of new features and improvements. In addition to playlist sorting on the iPad, Spotify promises “friendlier” login for first-time users on iPhone, a new settings menu that’s now arranged by category, faster radio, and more.

Apple has seeded a new OS X Lion build to registered developers this morning, less than two weeks after the previous build was seeded through the Apple Dev Center. This one comes with build number 11G45.

You’ve read plenty of rumors surrounding the iPhone 5 on Cult of Mac by now, but what about the big picture?

Our friends at Nowhereelse.fr have put together a handy infographic detailing all of the marquee iPhone 5 rumors and the likelihood of each one actually making its way into the phone next month. Some big tech and Apple blogs were consulted for the making of this graphic, including Cult of Mac. Here’s the results:

There’s a new icon on the Apple TV tonight, and it’s kind of a sweet surprise. The 2012 iTunes Festival will be in London, with apps available on iPhones, iPads and Macs for free streaming of the event.

Looks like Apple decided to get an app onto the Apple TV as well, ahead of the September 1st launch date.

Fan favorite (and BAFTA award-winning) point and click adventure game series Broken Sword is getting a sequel, called The Serpent’s Curse, and it’s being funded in part via Kickstarter. It’s a new adventure for Mac (and PC) starring series regulars George and Nico being developed by series creator, Charles Cecil, and his company Revolution Software.

Mac gaming portal, GameAgent, today announced a new version of its web portal. The new update will launch in September of this year and include information on over 150 Mac games, as well as some new game discovery features.

Popular cloud storage service Dropbox has introduced two-step verification in order to provide greater security for its users. After the ‘epic’ hacking of Wired’s Mat Honan digital life, online security has become a hot topic once again in the tech community.

Like Google, Dropbox now allows all of its users to login with a password and additional code sent via text. An authenticator app can also be used on the web or mobile devices like the iPhone for the second step.