The recent influx of smartphones to the UK has prompted a slump in the popularity of desktop computers, according to a new study, though I don't buy it.

The survey found that while 64% respondents owned a desktop computer, 94% now own a smartphone. YouGov research commissioned on behalf of Kaspersky Lab, a developer of secure content and threat management solutions, also revealed that users are now reaching for their smartphone ahead of their computer when looking up something online. Seventy-eight percent of respondents went to their smartphone first, compared to the 57% who chose their desktop. 

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the correlation in the fact that more people are surfing the Web on smartphones rather than on desktop computers. Maybe there are folks out there who purchase a computer mainly to surf the web, but I doubt it. Those who buy a computer want to also do other entertainment and productivity tasks that just aren't possible on a...

Tablet computers such as the iPad are quickly emerging as a preferred online shopping device. Shopatron (http://www.shopatron.com), an eCommerce and order management solution for over 1,000 brands, found that, across all client stores, purchase rates are equivalent between tablet and desktop users.

In recent months, the conversion rates for tablet shoppers have been a mere 5-8% below the conversion rates of desktop-based shoppers. In addition, conversion rates from paid search ads have actually been higher on tablets (up to 3%). In a month-long analysis across several sporting goods clients, Shopatron found that click-through rates for paid search ads on tablets were 51% greater than those on computers, and the average cost per click was 7% less.

"With fewer advertisers to compete with, tablet advertising is costing less than advertising to desktop-based shoppers," says Greg Squires, Shopatron's...

An Apple patent (number 201200188402) at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows that the company is working on ways to make its devices work more smoothly with an array of digital cameras.

The patent is for an apparatus and method for compensating for variations in digital cameras. The invention relates generally to digital cameras and, more particularly, to calibrating digital camera components to minimize manufacturing variations in such components.

A method of manufacturing a digital video camera is provided. The method comprises acquiring video images of colored light, and measuring a light intensity response of the video camera to the colored light. The method further comprises comparing the intensity of the measured response to a desired colored light intensity for determining a color intensity bias and storing the intensity bias for the colored light in the camera so that the bias can be applied when the camera is operating at an arbitrary lighting...

An Apple patent (number 20120188052) for a system and method for simplified control of electronic devices shows the company is eyeing the home automation market.

For example, per the patent, For example, a method for controlling a variety of electronic devices using another single electronic device may include receiving control information associated with a controllable electronic device via near field communication, determining a control scheme for controlling the controllable electronic device based on the control information, and controlling the controllable electronic device using the determined control scheme. The control information may be received from a near field communication interface of the controllable electronic device or from a radio frequency identification tag associated with the controllable electronic device.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "A person may use a wide variety of electronic devices each day, including computers and media...

So much for Mac sales bottoming out in Apple's recent fiscal quarter (which ended in June). Despite no major desktop or laptop refreshes (the new MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs weren't announced until June 11) Mac sales increased.

Not by a lot, admittedly. But they did increase. For the quarter, Apple sold four million Macs -- that's a 2% unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Also keep in mind that while Apple's current object of love, the iPad, accounted for US$9.1 billion of the company's revenue, the Mac accounted for $4.9 billion. Not bad for a platform that's been around as long as the Mac.

And the current fiscal quarter should be even better. Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion begins prowling today. Sales of the Retina display MacBook Pro, as well as the refreshed "regular" MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, will jump start Mac sales. And I'm betting we'll see that rumored 13-inch MacBook Pro and a new iMac either this fiscal quarter or next.

-- Dennis Sellers

An Apple patent (number 8,228,305) for a method of proving human input into a computer has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention provides a method for providing human input to a computer which allows a user to interact with a display connected to the computer and shows that Apple continues to investigate touch technology for Macs.

The method includes the steps of placing a first target on a first portion of the user's body, using an electro-optical sensing means, sensing data related to the location of the first target and data related to the location of a second portion of the user's body, the first and second portions of the user's body being movable relative to each other, providing an output of the electro-optical sensing means to the input of the computer, determining the location of the first target and the location of the second portion of the user's body, and varying the output of the computer to the display based upon the determined...

An Apple patent (number 8228339) for a framework for graphics animation and compositing operations has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

The patent involves a graphics animation and compositing operations framework has a layer tree for interfacing with the application and a render tree for interfacing with a render engine. Layers in the layer tree can be content, windows, views, video, images, text, media, or other types of objects for an application's user interface. The application commits state changes to the layers of the layer tree. The application does not need to include explicit code for animating the changes to the layers.

Instead, an animation is determined for animating the change in state by the framework which can define a set of predetermined animations based on motion, visibility, and transition. The determined animation is explicitly applied to the affected layers in the render tree. A render engine renders from the render tree into...

The common scenario for the rumored Apple HDTV (the "iTV") is pretty much a traditional television set with (depending on which reports you believe): Siri voice control; gesture control; 3D (perhaps without glasses); a Retina display for watching 4K movies (such as the upcoming "Hobbit" films); use of an iDevice as a remote control; and a la carte TV programming.

However, if Apple really wanted to think and act different, it could serve up a modular TV or perhaps a glass screen powered by a set-box top.

As reported by "Bloomberg Businessweek" (http://macte.ch/Bc9zj), Israel-based NDS, a TV services provider, thinks that the future of the television is modular. Recently, the company showcased a large matrix of six flat-screen TVs, without bezels, that combined to form a honkin' big TV wall. The displays could be broken up, airing a video in varying sizes near the middle of the wall,...

An Apple patent (number 20120185456) for information management with non-hierarchical views has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Apparently, it involves a modified Finder window in Mac OS X.

Per the patent, information items in a file system are arranged into groups that are created according to a grouping component. A non-hierarchical view displays visual representations (e.g., icons, thumbnail images) of the information items arranged in visually delineated groups according to an arrange type that can be specified for each group.

Various view formats are available including icon, list and column view formats. In each view format, a condensed mode can be selected for one or more groups, resulting in multiple visual representations of items being displayed in a fixed amount of screen space in the non-hierarchical view. In icon view, each condensed group includes a single row of visual representations that can be navigated separately from other...

My, how things have changed. According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics (http://www.strategyanalytics.com), the Microsoft Windows Phone operating system will capture 4% share of 123 million smartphones sold in the United States market during 2012. That's up from 3% in 2011.

Remember when Apple was the beleaguered company and the Mac only had 3% market share in the U.S.? Those were dark days. It's nice that the sun is shining in Apple-land now.
Don't get me wrong. I certainly don't think that Microsoft is "beleaguered"; it's making money hand-over-fist. However, Apple is one of the great comeback stories in the business world -- arguably the greatest comeback of all time.

That said, Apple can't afford to rest on its laurels. Now or ever. There's always some young whippersnapper just waiting to take the top dog's place.

The great pitcher Satchel Paige...

Two new Apple patents have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office that show Apple is working on different antenna ideas.

Patent number 8223082 involves slot antennas for electronic devices. The slot antennas may have a dielectric-filled slot that is formed in a ground plane element. The ground plane element may be formed from part of a conductive device housing. The slot may have one or more holes at its ends.

The holes may affect the impedance characteristics of the slot antennas so that the length of the slot antennas may be reduced. For example, the holes can be used to synthesize the impedance of the slot antennas so that the slot antennas have a resonant frequency that is different from their natural resonant frequency.

The holes may affect the impedance of the slot antennas in multiple radio-frequency bands. The inventors are Bing Chiang, Douglas B. Kough and Enrique Ayala Vazquez.

Patent number 8223077...

An explosion of bandwidth-hungry applications and broadband Internet users is driving dramatic changes in the high-speed data transmission market. Meanwhile, fiber optic sensor technology is also expanding rapidly.

Monitoring and data transmission using fiber optic sensors and optical fiber in cabling have become commonplace in various applications. What does the future hold for optical networks and sensors? According to new data from Global Information (http://www.giiresearch.com) -- an information service company partnering with over 300 research companies around the world -- public and private networks are experiencing unprecedented end-user demand for bandwidth, resulting in a need to cost-effectively scale the capacity of communications networks.

The amount of backbone Internet bandwidth maintained by major Internet carriers has been expanding by 75% to 125% per year. 40 Gb/s networks...

By Greg Mills

Google's got balls.

That crude statement has a whole rainbow of meanings, depending on who you are.  

To Steve Jobs it meant Eric Schmidt, Apple board member and CEO of Google at the time, had stolen the look and feel of iPhone to inspire Android. Apple's thermonuclear legal war was launched. Jobs appeared to be upset.

To Oracle, owner of Java, it means Google intentionally used bits of Java code to get the Android OS working without licensing the software. Will it also mean they fight infringement actions in court and win? Ouch! Now Google wants Oracle to pay Google's attorneys for their time.  

To the Federal Trade Commission, it means that the worst offender in high tech abuses of user agreements (other than Facebook) has again been busted. This time Google was fined for tricking Safari into accepting advertising cookies that over rode user preferences to not be tracked.

The long list of examples of...

An Apple patent (number 201200177222) for dynamic audio parameter adjustment using touch sensing has appeared at the U.S Patent & Trademark Office. It's designed to improve audio quality in headsets and earpieces for the iPhone.

Per the invention, an audio communications device has a handset in which a touch sensing ear piece region is coupled to an acoustic leakage analyzer. The acoustic leakage analyzer is to analyze signals from the touch sensing ear piece region and on that basis adjust an audio processing parameter. The latter configures an audio processor which generates an audio receiver input signal for the device.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "People have long been accustomed to making telephone calls using a handset whose earpiece portion the user typically presses up against her ear (in order to better hear the voice of the other party.) As mobile phones became prevalent, the acoustic system that delivers sound to the user's...

An Apple patent (number 20120177239) for a removable case design offering wind noise protection for the iPhone has appeared at the U.S Patent & Trademark Office. It would sport a windscreen over the smartphone's microphone to improve sound quality.

The invention (top graphic) is for a removable case for a mobile communications device includes an opening that aligns with a microphone port that is built into the device. The case includes a windscreen that is sealed across the opening of the case. The windscreen is designed to reduce wind noise, air blasts, vocal plosives, and other noise. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "Handheld mobile communications devices, particularly mobile phones, have enabled users to engage in real-time two-way conversations while walking, running, riding in a car, or during other activities. In a number of these situations, a user may be conducting a conversation in...

Apple’ is to be commended for its decision to provide a FireWire-Thunderbolt adapter (US$29) for Macs such as its revamped MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines -- which lack FireWire ports.

Apple's new, great love -- and understandably so -- is Thunderbolt. Still, a lot of folks have big bucks invested in FireWire products. The FireWire-Thunderbolt adapter allows those products to be used with the latest Macs.

At its June 11 Worldwide Developers Conference Apple introduced a new FireWire adapter, or cable, for use on MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac minis. It can be used with the Thunderbolt links included on the new models, and also can be used on similarly equipped 2011 Macs. The cable adds a wired interface to the MacBook Airs now in use.

Alas, the new systems won't natively use FireWire target disk mode. I'm not sure if you could put a Thunderbolt-only system into FireWire target disk mode using the FireWire-Thunderbolt adapter, but it should be possible to...

An Apple patent (number 8,217,913) for an integrated touch screen has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows that Apple has investigated touch screens on Macs -- at least laptop Macs.

Per the patent, displays with touch sensing circuitry integrated into the display pixel stackup are provided. Circuit elements, such as touch signal lines, such as drive lines and sense lines, grounding regions, in the display pixel stackups can be grouped together to form touch sensing circuitry that senses a touch on or near the display.

An integrated touch screen can include multi-function circuit elements that can operate as circuitry of the display system to generate an image on the display, and can also form part of a touch sensing system that senses one or more touches on or near the display.

The multi-function circuit elements can be, for example, capacitors in display pixels that can be configured to operate as storage capacitors/electrodes, common...

Will there be new iMacs of any sort introduced this year? And, if there are, will there be a Retina display model?

With no new iMacs or Mac Pros (and, no, the slight processor bump of the latter doesn't count) introduced at the 2012 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, several sources -- including David Pogue of, among other places, "The New York Times" -- hinted that there would be no new desktops until 2013.

However, "DigiTimes" (http://www.digitimes.com) -- which, admittedly, has a sporadic track record on Apple prognostications -- says Apple's supply chain will start supplying components for a new iMac this month with the updated all-in-one going on sale in October. The article says there's a "high chance" that the new iMac will sport a Retina display.

A couple of months ago ABC News (http://macte.ch/nNPeB) reported...

An Apple patent (number 20120171964) has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office showing that Apple is working on a dual-mode wired/wireless headset for the iPhone and other devices. The patent is for a wireless communication headset with wired and wireless models.

Per the patent, the wireless headset can include a headset connector assembly that can be coupled to a cable connector of a cable, which can in turn be connected to a telephone. When the wireless headset is coupled to the telephone, it can advantageously be operable to exchange audio information with the telephone through the cable, receive electrical power from the telephone through the cable, or both.

In addition, the cable connector can advantageously be coupled to the wireless headset without obstructing airflow to a microphone that is located in the headset connector assembly, through use of apparatus of the invention located on the cable connector, such as an acoustic tunnel, a microphone-...

The iPad continues its march toward world domination. But Macs will continue to rule, as well, it seems.

Use of tablets such as the iPad and Android-based devices by consumers for viewing TV/video content more than doubled in 14 regional markets surveyed, according to the latest "Global TV Replacement Study," conducted by NPD DisplaySearch (http://www.displaysearch.com). The widespread tablet adoption was driven by improved connectivity infrastructure has facilitated use of these devices as alternate content-viewing devices, notes the research group.

Besides tablets, consumers are also leveraging other alternate electronic devices such as laptops and mobile phones to view TV/video content. The study indicates that more than 70% of consumers use alternate electronic devices such as tablets (about 12%) , laptops (42%), smart phones (22%), MP3 players such as the iPod touch (12%) and desktop...

An Apple patent (number 8212859) for peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Could this have something to do with the rumored "iTV?" An iMac with television features? The Mac line in general?

The invention involves methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing and using techniques for projecting a source image in a head-mounted display apparatus for a user. A first display projects an image viewable by a first eye of the user. A first peripheral light element is positioned to emit light of one or more colors in close proximity to the periphery of the first display.

A receives data representing a source image, processes the data representing the source image to generate a first image for the first display and to generate a first set of peripheral conditioning signals for the first peripheral light element, directs the first image to the first display, and directs the first set...

An Apple patent (number 8213177) for a device foot has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. A moveable device foot for an electronic device is described, such as that on the Magic Trackpad and Apple keyboard.

The device foot can include a rigid weight bearing member and a flexible sealing member that is integrally formed with the weight bearing member. The device foot can be formed using a double-shot injection molding process. The weight bearing member of the foot can be mounted to an interior portion of the electronic device such that it extends through an external casing of the electronic device.

The flexible sealing member can be mounted to the external casing to seal the interior of the electronic device. During operation of the electronic device, the device foot can be configured to move relative to the external casing, such as in response to an external force applied to the electronic device.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "...

If/when Apple releases its own branded HDTV, the product will almost certainly continue the trend of allowing Apple users to starting watching a video on device and continue watching it on another. And if the broadcast networks are smart, they'll work with Apple to move beyond today's outdated method of receiving content.

For example, new data from comScore (http://www.comscore.com), which specializes in "measuring the digital world, finds that tablets have quickly reached a critical mass in the U.S. with one in every four smartphone owners using tablets during the three-month average period ending April 2012. The study also found that tablet users were nearly three times more likely to watch video on their device compared to smartphone users, with one in every 10 tablet users viewing video content almost daily on their device.

"Tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies in...

An Apple patent (number 20120162465) for an electronic device with two image sensors -- think laptop -- has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Per the patent, the electronic device may include a black-and-white camera having a first sensor area configured to receive luma data pertaining to the object.

The first sensor area may correspond to a first pixel array, the luma data associated with the first pixel array. The electronic device may also include a color camera having a second sensor area configured to receive chroma data pertaining to the object. The second sensor area may correspond to a second pixel array. The chroma data may be associated with the second pixel array. The electronic device may also include first logic configured to correlate pixels in the first pixel array with locations on the second sensor area.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "An embodiment of the present invention relates to an electronic device for producing an...