Phil Schiller took to the stand yesterday for the second day of Apple’s latest patent trial with Samsung.

Schiller mostly rehashed the same defense he used when the two companies met in court last November, also over a patent dispute — namely that Apple was the company which took the risk developing the iPhone, and that Samsung’s copying has hurt the company.

“I believe it has caused damage for Apple in the marketplace,” Schiller said. “It has caused people to question some of the innovations we’ve created and Apple’s role as the innovator. That challenge is made harder in the copying.”

The most shocking revelation to come out of jury selection for the latest Apple-versus-Samsung trial isn’t that the Silicon Valley jury pool is loaded with people connected to one of the two companies. It’s that one potential juror claims ignorance when it comes to Apple’s nearly ubiquitous tablet.

“I’m kind of a dinosaur,” said one potential juror Monday. “I don’t even know what a iPad is.”

Apple and Samsung are headed back to court today for round two of their billion dollar patent lawsuit that will see the two companies pointing fingers and slamming down arguments on who copied whose patents.

We’ve seen enough evidence to have our own opinion on Samsung’s copying ways and now thanks to this Thai cartoon it all becomes perfectly clear why Samsung just can’t help itself.

Image: Killua51
Thanks: Grahame

It was just a few hours ago that we told you that Apple had patented new transparent texting system which would help users who walk while typing be more aware of their surroundings.

If you thought the patent sounded like a great idea for a jailbreak tweak, you weren’t alone. CamText is a new tweak for jailbroken devices that replaces the default Messages.app background with a live stream from your camera’s video feed.

So if you have a jailbroken iPhone, why wait until iOS 8 to get Transparent Texting today? It’s fully compatible with both Messages and BiteSMS, although not the iPad. You can buy it through Cydia today for just $1.50.

Via: iClarified

When Facebook acquired Oculus VR for $2 billion, Mark Zuckerberg said virtual reality was the natural follow-up to mobile as a platform. And while Apple might have missed the boat on Oculus, has Cupertino really missed out on virtual reality?

There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Apple has been investigating this area for the better part of a decade — well before the Oculus Rift gaming headset appeared on Kickstarter.

Following news of Facebook’s surprise acquisition of Oculus VR for $2 billion, Mark Zuckerberg shared some impressive numbers regarding the social network’s sustained mobile growth. Facebook has an “active” mobile user base of 1 billion, Zuckerberg announced, while the Facebook-owned Instagram has 200 million active users of its own.

This means that Instagram has added 100 million users since Facebook acquired it back in April 2012. Under Facebook’s control the Instagram iOS app has been regularly updated, much like Facebook’s own iOS app.

In the fourth quarter of 2013, Facebook had 945 million active mobile users, out of a total of 1.23 billion users.

You know how you see folks running or jogging and holding those pathetic little half-kilo (one-pound) dumbbells in their hands? And you know how sometimes you also see runners carrying their iPhones in a hand?

What if there was a product which was both a weight and an iPhone case? Somewhat predictably, given the title of this post, now there is. It’s the ToneFone, and it is billed as “The World’s Heaviest iPhone Case.”

Recently Cult of Mac described how among Siri’s Easter eggs is a whole back story — programmed by her creators, and accessible by asking just the right questions.

Beginning life as a five-year DARPA-backed project to build an intelligent virtual assistant, Siri certainly has some stories to tell: if only we could gain access to them.

When I wrote my story a couple of weeks ago, I asked readers to send in any insights they managed to unlock. Dallas-based tech columnist and CoM reader Jim Rossman read the article and sent in some interesting screenshots from his own conversations with Siri — revealing some insights that go beyond her usual “I was designed by Apple in California” spiel.

Rolling out in April, United Airlines will offer a special personal device entertainment system on-board select aircraft for people using the iPhone and iPad, running iOS 7.

Customers will be able to choose from more than 150 movies, and close to 200 TV shows, which they can access free of charge.

Apple wants Samsung to pay a $40 license fee for every smartphone and tablet it sells after the South Korean company infringed five patents with a number of Galaxy-branded devices.

That’s right… just five patents, $40 for every device. It’s a pretty surprising demand — especially after Apple recently stated that monetary damages were “not an adequate remedy” for Samsung’s patent infringing ways.