By Greg Mills

Steve Jobs anticipated the eventual copy cat problem, should the iPhone and iPad be successful. I really don't think anyone at Apple knew at launch just how successful the new platform would become. Jobs gave fair warning at the launch of the first iPhone that Apple had patented the phone and software lavishly with numerous patents. The competition panned iPhone, but also began to reverse engineer the device.

Google had a head start developing the Android OS since their CEO was on the board of Apple. Steve Jobs had been vilified for not trusting people in various writings about his life. When you consider the crown jewels of technology that have been stolen right from under his nose, a lot can be excused. It is not paranoid to think you can't trust outsiders with your trade secret, but simply good business sense to work in absolute secrecy when you have been burned before by those who call themselves friends.

Steve Jobs and Eric...

Apple is working on a wireless headset having adaptive powering, according to a new patent (number 20120212063) at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

A system that includes a bus, a battery, core processing circuitry, radio frequency (RF) processing circuitry, first power regulating circuitry, second power regulating circuitry, and control circuitry is provided. The bus can be coupled to receive power from a source external to the system. The core processing circuitry and RF processing circuitry can be selectively coupled to each other via a switch. The switch can be operative to turn ON and OFF based on a signal level received on the bus.

The first power regulating circuitry can be electrically coupled to the bus, the core processing circuitry, and the switch. The second power regulating circuitry can be electrically coupled to the battery, the RF processing circuitry, and the switch. The control circuitry can be operative to selectively turn ON and OFF the...

This week Apple became the most valuable company ever and its stock hit an all-time high (see http://macte.ch/bTrs0), but the company should beware: there are chinks showing in its armor.

The biggest is a blunder so colossally stupid that the powers at Apple have to be wondering if replacing retail guru with John Browett was a mistake. Browett came to Apple from European technology retailer Dixons Retail, where he has been CEO since 2007. Dixons isn't exactly famous for customer service or quality.

"Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we’ve met," Apple CEO Tim Cook said when announcing Browett's hiring. Recent events make you wonder exactly how many people they met.

Last week "Dow Jones" reported that Browett, had spearheaded a new staffing formula for its retail stores, leading some employees to see their hourly shifts cut and retail...

An Apple patent (number 20120212481) for video acquisition with integrated GPU processing has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

The patent involves systems and techniques for processing sequences of video images involve receiving, on a computer, data corresponding to a sequence of video images detected by an image sensor. The received data is processed using a graphics processor to adjust one or more visual characteristics of the video images corresponding to the received data.

The received data can include video data defining pixel values and ancillary data relating to settings on the image sensor. The video data can be processed in accordance with ancillary data to adjust the visual characteristics, which can include filtering the images, blending images, and/or other processing operations.

Here's Apple's background on the invention: "Image sensors can be used to detect video sequences that can be used by various client processes in a...

Apple has been granted a patent (number 8248554) by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for an edge-lit backlight unit with a thin profile.

In one embodiment, the backlight unit may include a light guide configured to receive light from a source and emit such light in a broad distribution to a turning film disposed over the light guide. The turning film may be configured to redirect light received from the light guide toward a normal of the turning film.

In one embodiment, the light guide may be configured such that peak light distribution therefrom occurs at an incident angle of approximately sixty degrees, with broad light distribution substantially occurring over an angular range between incident angles of thirty-five and eighty-five degrees. Additionally, in one embodiment, the turning film may include multiple prisms that receive and redirect the light emitted from the light guide, and that include apex angles of less than or about 60 degrees. Additional edge...

If you have trouble migrating an old image database, Apple seems to be working on a solution. Patent number 8249385 involves techniques a for causing digital image data to be interpreted according to a particular technique of a plurality of techniques.

According to an embodiment, digital sensor data is received, and user input is received that specifies which technique of a plurality of techniques to use to generate a display that depicts an unmodified image from the sensor data, wherein each technique of the plurality of techniques generates a display from the sensor data in a different manner than each other technique of the plurality of techniques.

The inventors are Nikhil M. Bhatt and Curtis A. Bianchi.

Also appearing at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office are:

° Patent 8249237 for an architecture for establishing a multi-participant conference. This architecture has one participant's computer in the conference act as a central content...

The results of a study released by Lieberman Software Corp. says that BYOD (bring your own device) increases costs to businesses. Perhaps that wouldn't be the case if those devices were all Apple devices -- although the folks at Lieberman seem to disagree.

Respondents were asked if they believed allowing employees to connect their own devices (such as USB drives, mobile phones, portable computers and home computers) to the corporate network increased costs -- with 67% saying that it did increase costs.

When asked what caused the organization the biggest headache, almost half (43%) cited an employee device introducing a virus; more than a quarter (26%) pointed the finger at employees losing a device, and employees stealing data the biggest concern for 22% of respondents.

The survey was carried out by Lieberman Software of nearly 250 IT professionals in London. Philip Lieberman, president and CEO of privileged identity management software vendor Lieberman...

Now here's a technology I'd love to see if/when Apple ever releases an HDTV (the rumored "iTV").: Ultra-D. It's 3D without the glasses.

Stream TV Networks has made a technology partnership with Hisense (the leading TV brand in China) for a range of televisions and other products featuring Ultra-D technology. The first product to market will be a 42-inch 1080p autostereoscopic 3D display with plans for additional 3D without glasses displays, smart televisions, tablets and smartphones incorporating the Ultra-D technology.

Ultra-D televisions will be bundled with the SeeCube Auto Converter. The SeeCube Conversion Box auto converts 2D and 3D stereoscopic (with glasses) into autostereoscopic (glasses-free) 3D format in real-time. Ultra-D supports nearly every kind of video feed including cable & satellite TV channels, Blu-ray, XBOX, PS3 and sites like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube. The Ultra-D technology can convert content from iTunes and devices such as the iPad and...

An Apple patent (number 20120207444) for transport control of a media device has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It involves manipulating a media processing device to control the presentation of content.

The patent is for a method of scanning content comprises receiving an input signal indicating that content being displayed is to be scanned, sensing a duration of the received input signal, and scanning the content at a rate based at least in part on the sensed duration of the received input.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "Media processing devices embedded with media applications capable of playing audio and visual content enhance user experience. The content can include music, video, photographs, and the like. Such media processing devices can be configured to play either a single type of content. For example, certain DVD players can play back only video content stored on a DVD. Other devices can be configured to play a...

Apple has given us illuminated keyboards, so why not illuminated touchpads? An Apple patent (number 20120206392) at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office shows that the company may be working on just that.

The invention pertains to improved feedback mechanisms for touch pads. One aspect relates to devices capable of illuminating the touch sensitive surface of the touch pad. Another aspect relates to methods for providing visual feedback at the touch pad.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "The invention relates, in one embodiment, to an illuminated input device. The illuminated input device includes an object sensing mechanism capable of sensing a user input over an input surface. The illuminated input device also includes a visual feedback system configured to illuminate the input surface in association with a user input.

"The invention relates, in another embodiment, to a method of operating an input device. The method includes sensing an object over...

In a recent Tech Night Owl (http://macte.ch/FbSAz) Gene Steinberg questioned whether we still need Office for Mac software.

Some folks, especially in the business world do, but for most end users, Office is no longer a necessity. Many, like me, prefer the simplicity of Pages, Numbers and Keynote to their Office alternatives. Plus, at US$20 a pop, the Apple iWork apps are a lot cheaper than Microsoft's offerings.

"Certainly, Microsoft appears to be running out of ways to make Office more compelling," Steinberg writes. "The most notable change in Office 2013 for Windows is half-hearted support for touch. But it appears to be limited to expanding the ribbons to improve your aim if you choose to activate those functions with your fingers. What a waste!"

However, he points out the fact that "if you work at a company that requires Office, there's no real choice" and, per Pages, "fidelity with Word...

An Apple patent (number 8245147) for a system and method for reordering an user interface has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates to dynamic user interfaces and more specifically to reordering groups of user interface elements accessing a highly structured document.

The patent involves systems, computer-implemented methods, and tangible computer-readable storage media for customizing a user interface. The method displays an interface to a user. In the interface, a slice has interface elements, a stack has a group of slices, a window has a group of stacks, and each interface element is associated with a segment of a highly structured document.

The interface includes a panel having one or more containers, each container representing one stack, and one or more tokens, each token representing one slice. The method relocates at least one token to a different location in the container based on user input, displays in the panel a preview based on...

An Apple patent (number 8243905) for a multi-participant conference set-up has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The architecture has one participant's computer in the conference act as a central content distributor for the conference.

The central distributor receives data (e.g., video and/or audio streams) from the computer of each other participant, and distributes the received data to the computers of all participants. In some embodiments, the central distributor receives A/V data from the computers of the other participants. From such received data, the central distributor of some embodiments generates composite data (e.g., composite image data and/or composite audio data) that the central distributor distributes back to the participants.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "In recent years, users of local and wide area networks (e.g., the Internet) have upgraded to increasingly higher bandwidth connections. The common user...

Apple has been granted a patent (number 8243027) by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for a touch screen liquid crystal display. Further refinements of the technology are certain to make its way into upcoming iOS devices.

The patent is for liquid-crystal display (LCD) touch screens that integrate the touch sensing elements with the display circuitry. The integration may take a variety of forms. Touch sensing elements can be completely implemented within the LCD stackup but outside the not between the color filter plate and the array plate.

Alternatively, some touch sensing elements can be between the color filter and array plates with other touch sensing elements not between the plates. In another alternative, all touch sensing elements can be between the color filter and array plates. The latter alternative can include both conventional and in-plane-switching (IPS) LCDs.

In some forms, one or more display structures can also have a touch sensing...

Disney's Apple and Disney are good buddies, so it will interesting to see if the former adopts, helps with or has any interaction with Disney's new Touché technology.

According to Disney, Touché is a new sensing technology that proposes a novel Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing technique that can not only detect a touch event, but simultaneously recognize complex configurations of the human hands and body during touch interaction. This enhances touch interaction in a broad range of applications, from enhancing conventional touchscreens to designing interaction scenarios for unique use contexts and materials.

For example, in Disney's explorations, the company says it added complex touch and gesture sensitivity not only to computing devices and everyday objects, but also to the human body and liquids. The company says instrumenting objects and material with touch sensitivity is easy and straightforward. Purportedly, a single wire is sufficient to make objects and...

An Apple patent (number 20120199455) for a keyboard design has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It's for a backlit keyboard with controlled halo brightness and contrast.

Per the patent, a keycap assembly is mounted into a case web having intersecting ribs. A flange, which can be angled, is on the bottom perimeter of the keycap and a correspondingly shaped flange is on each rib of the case web. An overlap of the keycap flange and the case web flanges prevents direct sighting of the backlight light source and also provides a more evenly distributed halo around the keycap, thereby improving both aesthetics and functionality by providing better light control and contrast.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "In one embodiment, a backlit keyboard assembly includes a keycap assembly mounted in a case web at an aperture formed by intersecting ribs of the case web. The keycap assembly has a flange around a perimeter of the bottom of the keycap and an...

Ben Kunz writing for "Bloomberg Businessweek" (http://macte.ch/rLG6B) thinks that Apple devices will soon project holograms "like you’ve never seen." Sounds a bit out-there, right? But Kunz may be onto something.

Kunz notes that in November 2010, Apple patented a three-dimensional display system that would “mimic a hologram” without requiring special glasses. The patent notes that one current market gap in screen technology is the ability of a device to project stereoscopic 3D images to multiple viewers at the same time.

Patent number 20118118 is for a 3D display system that would provide a projection screen having a predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function. Three-dimensional images are respectively modulated in coordination with the predetermined angularly-responsive reflective surface function to define a programmable mirror with a programmable deflection angle.

Apple's 3D...

An Apple patent (number 8239748) for a synchronization manager synchronizes multiple media streams. has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates to synchronization of media streams, and more specifically to utilizing clocks on multiple media devices and on a single host to synchronize multiple media streams.

The synchronization manager queries a media stream output device associated with each media stream to synchronize, and in response receives the current device clock time of each device, each device's next available media stream output time, and each device's delta between available media stream output times. The synchronization manager uses this timing information to determine an earliest available media stream output time common to each media stream output device, and synchronizes the output of the media streams by providing each stream to its associated output device at the earliest available common output time.

Here's Apple's background...

Connected TV penetration in North America and Western Europe will surge from just over 10% in 2011 to over 50% by 2017, according to ABI Research (http://www.abirsearch.coim). Blu-ray penetration is expected to have a similar progression, increasing from about 25% in Western Europe and North America in 2011 to over 76% by 2017 (standalone and game consoles included).

Too bad Apple has chosen not to embrace Blu-ray. Oh well. Meanwhile, game console penetration rates by 2017 are only expected to pass 61% and 46% in North America and Western Europe respectively, with rates significantly lower in other regions.

There are four major connected video CE devices: connected TV (such as, perhaps, the rumored "iTV"?), Blu-ray players, game consoles and Smart set-top boxes (STBs). According to ABI Research Senior Analyst Michael Inouye, most CE manufacturers (notably, Samsung and LG) use a common...

Apple has been granted a patent (number 8,239,276 ) for an "On-the-go Shopping List" that hints at an NFC-capable barcode-reading shopping assistant.

NFC (Near Field Communication) is a short-range wireless connection technology that could turn the iPhone into an electronic wallet or security passkey. NFC is already in use in Asia and is expected to explode here in the next three to five years, especially if Apple adopts the technology.

A report from Juniper Research (http://www.juniperresearch.com) finds that the NFC retail payments market will exceed US$180 billion globally by 2017, more than a seven-fold increase over 2012. The leading regions of North America, Western Europe and Far East & China will contribute 90% of this market value as smartphones with NFC payment technology become standard. The Juniper report found that 2011 was a watershed year for NFC payments. 

...

In his "Pogue's Post" column at "The New York Times," author and tech guru David Pogue blasts Apple's MagSafe 2 connector -- and he's right. Apple blew it on this one.

It's a case of improving something until it breaks. The original MagSafe was pretty much perfect the way it was. But the "sequel" is .... well, Pogue describes it perfectly in this column:

"The beauty of the MagSafe connector was that Apple had found precisely the right balance between attachment and detachment. Strong enough to hold the connector in place, weak enough to detach if it gets yanked.

"The MagSafe 2 connector fails that balance test. Badly. The magnet is too weak. It’s so weak, it keeps falling out. It falls out if you brush it. It falls out if you tip the laptop slightly. It falls out if you look at it funny. It’s a huge, huge pain.

"That weakness is compounded by a second problem: a return to the 'T" design of older MagSafe connectors. In other words, this thing comes...

Three Apple patents have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office that show Apple is working on ways to simplify the production of its various portable computing devices.

Patent number 20120194998 is for a portable computing device that can take many forms such as a laptop computer, a tablet computer, and so on. The portable computing device can include at least a single piece housing. The single piece housing can be machined from a single billet of material, such as a billet of aluminum. The single piece housing can include ledges with a surface receiving a trim bead and a cover. Corner brackets can be attached to the single piece housing to improve the damage resistance of the housing.

Here's Apple's background on the invention: "In recent years, portable computing devices such as laptops, PDAs, media players, cellular phones, etc., have become small, light and powerful. One factor contributing to this reduction in size can be attributed...

An Apple patent (number 20120194308) for a foldable accessory device has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Said foldable device being the Smart Cover for the iPad.

A magnetic attachment mechanism and method is described. The magnetic attachment mechanism can be used to releasably attach at least two objects together in a preferred configuration without fasteners and without external intervention. The magnetic attachment mechanism can be used to releasably attach an accessory device to an electronic device. The accessory device can be used to augment the functionality of usefulness of the electronic device.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "An accessory unit includes at least a hinge span having a first magnetic element, a flap portion pivotally connected to the hinge span. In the described embodiment, the flap portion includes a plurality of segments all but one of which are substantially the same size and wherein one segment is longer that...

Under another hat, the Spy runs WebNameHost, which is a small hosting company in business for a decade now, and offering professional hosting in a safe environment for Christian, authors, small businesses, and personal sites. This is less than a living business, but much more than a hobby, as his teaching demands that he be able to discourse with students on all manner of computing technology without seeming too much a fool or irrelevant. It also needs to break even.

Though he is otherwise Mac-centric, the commercial hosting environment of choice is a CentOS machine running Cpanel/WHM, with billing and help desk provided by WHMCS, previously a separate company, but as of this month a WHM partner. Cork, the machine he was using for everything was a dual opteron of several years seniority running CentOS 4, and therefore his version of CPanel (11.32) was the last he could use without upgrading as future versions would no longer support CentOS 4. Since it is as...