Atten-shun, fanboys, trolls, and all you beautiful normal people you: We will covering the WWDC 2011 keynote this Monday, June 6 at 10:00am. I feel a surprise in the air! Or it may be the cookies in the oven. More »
Do you love music? Do you love it in the cloud? Are you still trying to figure out if “the cloud” is “your bag?” Regardless of your mixed emotions regarding the impending iCloud service, that’s just a third (based on rough calculations) of what Steve Jobs will talk about on Monday, when WWDC 2011 kicks off in San Francisco. iOS 5 and OS X Lion will also be major topics of conversation, and while we’ve no evidence that new hardware will be kicking around backstage, we’ve got history at our backs giving us a sliver of hope. Naturally, we’ll be there kicking out the facts as they happen, and you’re encouraged to join us at this very link.
Bookmark that and return at the times listed below, and if your neck of the woods ain’t listed, shout it out in comments. Oh, and any predictions? Anything somewhat sane is welcome below.
07:00AM – Hawaii
10:00AM – Pacific
11:00AM – Mountain
12:00PM – Central
01:00PM – Eastern
06:00PM – London
07:00PM – Paris
09:00PM – Moscow
02:00AM – Tokyo (June 7th)
Take a look through the archives with our past WWDC liveblogs!
Steve Jobs talks iCloud, iOS 5, OS X Lion and more at WWDC, liveblog starts at 10AM PT on June 6th! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Apple is always filing patents for strange and fantastic things that never seem to find their way into actual products. But an application published today details some interesting tech that we could actually see getting jammed into a future iPhone (for better or worse). By pairing an infrared sensor with the camera already on board, portable devices could receive data from transmitters placed, well, wherever. Beyond simply blasting out text and opening links like a glorified QR code, transmitters could disable certain features, such as the camera, to prevent recording at movie theaters and music venues. If completely shutting off the cam seems a bit heavy-handed, watermarks can also be applied to photos identifying businesses or copyrighted content. Some potential uses are a little less Big Brother, like museums beaming information about exhibits to a user’s or launching an audio tour. Obviously third parties would have to get behind the IR push and there’s no guarantee that Apple will put this in a future iProduct. Still, we’re a little worried that the days of blurry YouTube concert videos may be coming to an end.
Apple camera patent could stop smartphone bootleggers in their tracks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As Apple rushed to allay privacy concerns over its handling of location data, it also let slip that it was working on a “crowd-sourced traffic database”. Now a patent application dating from 2009 has been made public which suggests Apple is thinking of this technology not merely as an add-on to iOS Maps, but as something which could feed into other areas such as calendars and alarms. The implicit suggestion is that if Apple can figure out how long it will take you to get from A to B, then it should be able to adjust your appointments to make sure you get there on time without having to go on a rampage. Until then, if everyone just stays out of the way, then no one will get hurt.
Apple wants to make your calendar sensitive to location and traffic, get you there on time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 15:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Want to download the latest Engadget Show from the iTunes Store on your Mac or PC? Well, you probably can’t — right now, at least. That section appears to be down for most of us at the moment, with the Podcasts tab presenting a “not enough memory available” error message on each click. We’ve confirmed the error on iTunes 10.2.1 and 10.2.2.12 — the latest version — and aren’t able to get past the home page. We’re sure Cupertino is working on a fix, but you may need to put your podcast obsession on hold, or jump on your iOS device for all that tech talk in the meantime.
Update: We’re also unable to download apps from both the Mac and iOS App Stores. After clicking to download an app in iOS, it appears on the home screen briefly, then disappears. We’re also prompted to re-enter passwords with each attempt, so this may be related to an authentication issue. Jump past the break for the App Store error.
Update 2: The outage extends to all iTunes Store content, including music, movies, TV shows — the works. Time to go out and enjoy the sunshine?
Update 3: As of 3:15pm ET things look to be up and operational again. You may now recommence stuffing your devices with datas.
[Thanks, Jeff]
Continue reading Podcasts down in iTunes desktop store (update: it’s back!)
Podcasts down in iTunes desktop store (update: it’s back!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 13:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You name it, you can probably play it on the iPad. That’s the genius of the blank slate: All it takes is an app, and your iPad can be just about anything musical, such as a guitar, a keyboard, a drum machine, some sheet music or a beatbox.
Heck, if you wanted to, you could replace your recording studio or create an entire rock band with nothing more than an iPad and a suite of apps. (Though you probably won’t get lucky nearly as much as a traditional rock star.) And if cranking tunes out of a tablet isn’t your thing, there’s a host of neat, interactive apps that teach you how to play real instruments.
From synthesizers to loop creators, sheet-music readers to recording tools, here are some of the coolest iPad apps for musicians we’ve found in the App Store.
Made by Apple, the GarageBand app is simply stunning. The app packs a virtual piano, guitar, bass guitar and drum set into an easy-to-use music suite for recording songs.
Especially neat are Apple’s Smart instruments, which contain preset chords and rhythms for each instrument, so anything you play can sound good. This way, people of all ages will be able to pick up an iPad and compose some cool tunes.
Thinking about upgrading your iPad or iPhone just to add more storage for videos, photos and music? Kingston hopes to save the day with its Wi-Drive, a WiFi-enabled battery-powered storage device designed exclusively for use with iOS. Several factors make the pocket-sized device a tough sell, however, including its cost ($130 for 16GB, $175 for 32GB), and the fact that this otherwise clever content sharing contraption adds yet another gadget to your already crowded portable mix. We’d probably save up for a new, higher-capacity device before accessorizing our old gadgets, but a compact media server does seem like the perfect companion for a road trip, serving up HD videos and other content simultaneously to multiple devices using the free iOS app. This is strictly a content server — while you can move move content off the drive and later transfer it back, there’s no backup tool included, and Kingston says we shouldn’t expect one in the future, either. Click past the break for our impressions of Kingston’s flash-based server, due to hit stores later this month.
Gallery: Kingston Wi-Drive
Continue reading Kingston Wi-Drive wireless storage for iOS preview (video)
Kingston Wi-Drive wireless storage for iOS preview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Texas patent firm Lodsys is going after both Android and iOS developers on the basis of patent-infringement claims. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
A patent firm filed lawsuits this week against several Android and iPhone app developers, accusing the programmers of patent infringement.
Texas-based patent firm Lodsys accused a pair of Android app developers last Friday of infringing four of its patents, which involve the use of a feature allowing users to “upgrade” from a free to a paid version of an app.
Lodsys asked developers in a letter to come to a “non-litigation licensing arrangement” within a 21-day period, implying legal action will be taken if no response is received. On Tuesday, the firm made good on its threats against iOS and Android developers. Lodsys filed a patent-infringement suit against seven iOS and Android developers in the Eastern Texas district court, asserting two of its four patents were infringed upon by the seven app-development studios.
“Lodsys has only one motivation: we want to get paid for our rights,” Lodsys said in a blog post on Tuesday.
The practice of “patent trolling” or “patent pirating” is common enough — smaller companies usually go after larger ones that may or may not be infringing upon its patents. Opportunistically, the smaller companies usually profit from defendants who’d rather settle than go to trial.
Lodsys is based in east Texas, home to a federal court that is often favorable to patent litigation plaintiffs. A remarkable 88 percent of patent plaintiffs who go to trial in the Marshall, Texas, court end up winning, according to a study conducted by research firm Legalmetric.
In Lodsys’ case, the small patent firm is targeting other small companies for what essentially amounts to milk money, which is an unusual practice.
The developer community was up in arms when iOS developers received similar letters from Lodsys earlier this month. Companies like Apple and Google provide developers with the payment technology used to perform these in-app functions, so it would make sense for Lodsys to file suit against the big companies instead of the developers who use the technology.
“The surprising part of this is that Lodsys is going after the little guys instead of the big guy,” Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford who focuses on intellectual property and technology, told Wired.com. “It’s not efficient.”
Even if developers were to agree to licensing deals with Lodsys, the gains wouldn’t be lucrative.
“The licensing fees he’s asking for, taken from in-app purchases are about 0.5 percent of our total revenues,” said Mark Ng of Clapfoot, an Android app studio in Toronto that was targeted by Lodsys. “He’d be getting maybe 100 bucks from us.”
But a statement released last Monday by Apple’s general counsel shed some light on why Lodsys is targeting small-time developers instead of the Cupertino, California, giant itself.
“Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patents and the Apple App Makers are protected by that license,” wrote Bruce Sewell, general counsel to Apple, in a response to Lodsys.
After Apple’s statement, iOS developers breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“It shows that Apple cares about its developers and they are willing to stick up for them when something like this occurs,” app developer Dave Castelnuovo told Wired.co last week.
Even if developers are in the clear, legal battles over patent litigation can be costly and drawn out. A small outfit like Clapfoot can’t afford to prove Lodsys wrong even if it wanted to.
“We don’t have any resources to defend ourselves from this sort of thing,” Clapfoot’s Ng said. “The truth is, [Lodsys] can intimidate us. The last thing we want to do is go to court over any of this.”
Ng and his partner Alkas Baybas are hoping for support akin to that which the iOS developers have already received.
“The iPhone developers got support from Apple; we hope the same thing happens with Google,” Baybas said.
Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Lodsys took it a step further on Tuesday. The company filed a lawsuit against seven app developers infringing upon its patents. All seven develop for iOS-based devices like the iPad and iPhone, though one company — Sweden’s Illusion Labs — also develops for Android devices.
“We stand firm and restate our previous position that it is the 3rd party Developers that are responsible for the infringement of Lodsys’ patents and they are responsible for securing the rights for their applications,” Lodsys wrote in a company blog post on Tuesday.
Aside from the reported news of the filing, some app developers seem to be in the dark. Illusion Labs told Wired.com it hadn’t received any information whatever on the lawsuit as of Wednesday. Two of the other six defendants — Richard Shinderman of Brooklyn and Combay of Roanoke, Texas — had no direct contact information or website. Requests for comment from the other four defendants in the case were not returned.
Lodsys claims that if its infringement allegations are incorrect, it is willing to pay $1,000 to any iOS app developers who received a letter.
But small-timers like most of these app developers probably can’t afford to see the case that far through.
“Suits like this rely on the fact that patent litigation is expensive,” Lemley said. “A number of these app developers will cave.”
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Despite our commander-in-chief’s seemingly undying allegiance to BlackBerry, it looks like the federal government could be ready to make a break from RIM. According to a Washington Post article published yesterday, a number of agencies within the federal government are questioning their attachment to the standard-issue BlackBerry devices, and allowing government employees to bring in their own preferred methods of communication — among other things, Congress now allows the use of iPads and iPhones on the House floor and use of BlackBerrys at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has dropped from 1,000 to 700 in the past year. What’s more, the General Services Administration is currently shifting 17,000 employees to Gmail, a move it says could reduce expenses by 50 percent in the next five years. Likewise, the USDA will also move its email services to the cloud with Microsoft’s services, claiming $6 million in annual savings. Now, we doubt Obama’s going to turn a blind eye to RIM entirely, but he has been getting awfully cozy with that iPad.
BlackBerry finally sees competition within US government originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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