Hasta La Gadget!

Several announcements have been made today by Apple regarding their current staff and leadership, with none other than Bob Mansfield coming out of retirement to work under Tim Cook. Mansfield announced his retirement in June of this year, but will now be working on Apple products for the foreseeable future. Apple also let it be known that Craig Federighi and Dan Riccio have been promoted from vice presidents of their respective parts of the business to senior vice presidents.

Federighi is now senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, where he’ll be working with Apple’s operating system engineering teams and will retain responsibility for the development of Mac OS X. Notable here is Apple’s usage of “Mac” in front of “OS X” where with the release of Mountain Lion it appeared that Mac was axed as a brand name from the OS. Federighi’s impressive past was recounted by Apple as well:

Federighi worked at NeXT, followed by Apple, and then spent a decade at Ariba where he held several roles including vice president of Internet Services and chief technology officer. He returned to Apple in 2009 to lead Mac OS X engineering. Federighi holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Riccio will be working with Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod engineering teams as new senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. His body of work is also pretty fabulous, Apple letting us know what he’s been through over the past collection of years.

He has been instrumental in all of Apple’s iPad products since the first generation iPad. Riccio joined Apple in 1998 as vice president of Product Design and has been a key contributor to most of Apple’s hardware over his career. Dan earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1986.

Mansfield was the previous senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, and it’s not quite been stated in letters what his current position is (as far as a title goes.) We’re sure that Tim Cook is more than pleased that Mansfield will be sticking around, one way or another.

[via Apple]

Apple entices Bob Mansfield out of retirement is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Friday is here once again folks, and what a Friday it was. What started out as a relatively slow news day became very exciting later on, as the jury deciding the Apple and Samsung case delivered their verdict after only three days of deliberation. The verdict? Let’s just say that Apple’s lawyers will be having a celebration tonight. Samsung was found guilty of multiple patent infringements, and a lot of that patent infringement was found willful by the jury. To make matters worse for Samsung, the jury found that it wasn’t owed any damages by Apple. Needless to say, we think there will be an appeal.

This verdict comes on the same day that Tim Cook wraps up his first year as Apple CEO, and elsewhere in the world, a similar lawsuit between Apple and Samsung ended with both companies facing bans in South Korea. Ouch. After a bit of a shake up at the OnLive headquarters, things seem to have calmed down a bit, and Steve Perlman will be staying on as OnLive CEO. LG has teased an incoming smartphone with an S4 quad-core processor, and Google’s legendary I’m Feeling Lucky button has been given a pretty major update. It isn’t the same I’m Feeling Lucky button it once was, of course, but we think it’ll begin to grow on you after awhile.

The presidential campaigns will soon begin receiving donations through text messages, and the Nikon D600 full-frame DSLR camera may be getting a release in September. Speaking of cameras, beleaguered Kodak has come up with a new way to raise some quick cash after patent auctions left something to be desired. The much-rumored iPad Mini has apparently popped up in some photos for a pre-fab case, and it seems that Samsung has a new smartphone called the Galaxy Stellar coming to Verizon, which is all well and good, but Samsung actually has yet to announce the phone or release a list of specs.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has beaten the iPad when it comes to profit margins, and for the third time this week, Rockstar has released a new batch of Grand Theft Auto V screenshots. Astronomers have discovered a pair of new spiral galaxies that have a lot in common with our own, and it would appear that Amazon has leaked its tablet plans through a new advertisement. Wrapping up the news tonight, Facebook is having its developers use the Facebook app for Android in order to get them motivated to fix it, or at least that’s what the rumors say.

As is usually the case here at SlashGear, we didn’t just have news for you today, as Chris Burns provides a review of SuperTooth DISCO 2 for you to check out. Have a good weekend everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 24, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Rumors and speculation of upcoming products is practically tradition for almost every industry, i.e. cars, technology, and etc. Given that it is about that time of the year, we guess you guys have probably realized that iPhone rumors have standard to run rampant, with alleged leaked photos of components, speculated release dates, features and the likes. While they do a good job of hyping up consumers, sometimes these rumors fall flat on their face and ultimately causes disappointment. For example last year many had expected the iPhone 4S to undergo a major redesign. Instead we were given a rehash of the iPhone 4 with slightly upgraded hardware. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: New iPhone cases confirm smaller 19-pin dock connector and 4″ display?, Apple expected to provide 30-pin adapter for the rumored 19-pin dock connector on its next-gen iPhone,

“Made in America.” For some reason, my parents — and the parents of many of my peers — take great pride in seeing that phrase. I’ve seen people buy inferior products just because the label on the back proclaimed that it was thrown together in one of our 50 great states instead of across some imaginary line in “another country.” Part of me wonders if people actually check to see if said claims are legitimate. As a business graduate, I fully understand the importance of producing goods within one’s borders. There’s a delicate balance that needs to be struck between imports and exports, and a huge part of a nation’s economic growth hinges on how well that balance is executed.

I suspect the generation before mine remembers a very different America than the one I’ve grown up in — one where smokestacks outnumbered high-rise buildings, and one where jobs requiring steel-toe shoes were more lauded than those requiring a fancy degree and “knowing the right guy.” Manufacturing was the backbone of America through some really, really trying times, and there’s some sense of national pride that comes along with images of swinging hammers and climbing ladders. “We built this country,” as they say.

Continue reading Made in America: could your next phone be homegrown?

Made in America: could your next phone be homegrown? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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