By Greg Mills

In a stunning setback for Constitutional privacy rights regarding the contents of smart phones, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that if you are arrested on any charge and happen to have your smart phone on you, the police have the right to see and copy everything on it.  

Further, the contents of your phone may be used against you in a court of law, even if unrelated to the original charge they bust you on. All this without a warrant or probable cause. Business information, normally held secret, is also affected at this time.

While I believe in the necessity of the police being able to search a person they arrest to make sure they don't have a weapon on them, the notion that the incredible amount of personal data found on a modern cell phone suddenly and automatically belongs to the State, without probable cause and without a warrant, is counter to the Constitutional notion of a warrant being required...

An Apple patent (number 7865927) at the US Patent & Trademark Office for enhancing media system metadata hints at what could be the future of the Apple TV -- or perhaps an Apple TV successor -- that involves implementing "cable/satellite box" features.

Systems and methods for providing enhanced metadata to a user. Systems and methods can include extraction of data from metadata and searching for related metadata based upon the the extracted data. The inventors are Rainer Brodersen, Rachel Claire Goldeen, Mihnea Calin Pacurariu and Jeffrey Ma.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "Historically, video content for television was free broadcast video content. The revenue model for content providers was to sell advertising during the free broadcast content. The advent of cable television systems has significantly changed the business mode for content providers in many instances. For example, content providers such as Home Box Office (HBO), available...

Apple has won a patent for the design of its Cinema Display and for displaying structured electronic documents by the US Patent & Trademark Office.

The Cinema Display is, of course, Apple's standalone monitor, now available only in a 27-inch size. The inventors on its design patent are listed as Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De Iluiis, Evans Hankey, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Douglas B. Satzger, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whange and Rico Zorkendorfer.

Patent number 7864163 is for a portable electronic device (namely, the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad), method and graphical user interface for displaying structured electronic documents. It involves acomputer-implemented method, for use in conjunction with a portable electronic device with a touch screen display, comprises displaying at least a portion of a structured electronic document on the touch screen display, wherein...

IBM recently unveiled the fifth annual "Next Five in Five" -- a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years. The Next Five in Five is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as -- not surprisingly -- emerging technologies from IBM's Labs. Let's look at what IBM predicts -- and how this might affect the Apple world.

Innovation one: you'll beam up your friends in 3D. In the next five years, 3D interfaces -- like those in the movies -- will let you interact with 3D holograms of your friends in real time. Movies and TVs are already moving to 3D, and as 3D and holographic cameras get more sophisticated and miniaturized to fit into cell phones, you will be able to interact with photos, browse the web and chat with your friends in entirely new ways.

Scientists are working to improve video chat to become holography chat -- or "3D telepresence." The technique uses light...

Driven by North American, European and Asia Pacific markets, online gaming continues its steady growth and the latest study from ABI Research (http://www.abiresearch.com) forecasts revenues of slightly more than $20 billion in 2012. Technology developments will mean new opportunities for connected devices beyond the computer.

The Asia-Pac region, especially China, will be the engine behind much of this growth. However, in China, due to generally lower levels of personal computer ownership, the business models are evolving a little differently. According to industry analyst Michael Inouye, “World of Warcraft, for instance, generates significant revenue for Activision in Europe and North America on a subscription basis. But in China, despite a large ‘subscriber’ base, the revenues are far smaller: it's more of a pay-as-you-go model (prepaid game cards). This also creates a greater reliance on ‘cloud’...

Apple may be considering making its own portable power supplies. An company patent (number 20100327664) for a portable power source to provide power to an electronic device via an interface has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It relates to portable power sources and, in particular, relates to a portable power source operable to selectively provide power to a device connected to an interface of the portable power source.

The portable power source cooperates and communicates with the electronic device via a peripheral bus to which the electronic device is attachable. The portable power source includes circuitry to process a power request signal from the electronic device to determine whether a device connected to a bus interface of the portable power source is requesting power from the portable power source. The inventors are David John Tupman, Doug M. Farrar, Joseph R. Fisher Jr., Jesse L. Dorogusker and Donald J. Novotney.

Here's Apple's background...

Several Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number 20100332124 involves analyzing and consolidating track file data. Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, are disclosed for track simplification and correction. In one aspect, a track data set having track points defining a course can be accessed and inaccurate track points and incorrect track points can be identified, wherein identifying inaccurate track points includes comparing, for one or more of the track points, a dilution of precision (DOP) value associated with the track point to a DOP threshold, and identifying incorrect track points includes performing an error correction process.

Also, a corrected track can be generated by removing identified inaccurate track points and incorrect track points from the track data set. Further, identifying an inaccurate track point...

A year ago I made my predictions for what Apple would do in 2010. So let's see how effective I was.

First prediction: By spring we'll see new versions of iLife and iWork, which will probably be dubbed iLife X and iWork X instead of iLife '10 and iWork '10.

The truth: iLife wasn't introduced until October -- and it was dubbed iLife '11, not iLife X. iWork '11/X never showed up.

Second prediction: iWork.com will come out of beta and Apple will promote it heavily along with iWork. iWork is a service Apple is developing to share iWork ’09 documents online. Using your Apple ID, just click the iWork.com icon in the Keynote, Pages or Numbers toolbar to upload your document and invite others to view it online. Viewers can provide comments and notes, and download a copy of your document in iWork, Microsoft Office or PDF formats. A consolidated online list of all your shared documents indicates when your viewers have posted comments...

By Rick Sutcliffe

Spam is used either as a noun to refer to unsolicited bulk email, or as a verb to refer to the act of sending same. There are two categories of spam -- the difference depending on whether or not the mail has a commercial or monetary aspect;that is, the sender is attempting to obtain money from the recipients for a service, product, or cause.

There may or may not also be a fraudulent aspect to the spam -- generally one should expect that those who engage in one unethical activity would challenged where the truth is concerned as well. For instance, non-commercial spam is frequently sent to argue for or against some cause, and may be abusive of the recipient, or of some identifiable group or organization to which the recipient may be supposed to belong. Sometimes it's even a one-time friend or former fellow member of some organization who is now prosecuting a vendetta in semi-public fashion.

But no matter what the motivation for...

An Apple patent (number 7,859,521) for an integrated touch screen has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. And it shows that Apple is at least considering "touchless" touch screen interfaces for some devices -- including Macs.

The patent relates generally to displays including display pixel stackups, and more particularly to touch sensing circuitry integrated into the display pixel stackup of a display. 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...

Think the race for connected TV gadgets is crowded now? Think Blu-ray is doomed (as Apple CEO Steve Jobs seems to think). Perhaps you should think again.

In 2011, Facebook and other companies may join Apple, Google and Microsoft in the cloud TV arena. What's more, the Strategy Analytics research group (http://www.strategyanalytics.com) notes that Apple’s iTunes will enter its second decade with challenges ahead, and Nintendo will have to decide what to do about the decline of the Wii. Social networks will pass one billion users, $10 billion will be spent on Blu-ray discs, and more than 500 million connected TV devices will be in use. Revenues from tablets will exceed netbooks, but on the downside, only 20% of 3DTV owners will be watching 3D content.

“2011 promises to be another exciting year in the evolution of the digital home,” says David Mercer, principal analyst, Strategy...

By Greg Mills

I am amused to read the ravings of clueless tech sorts like the court jester of high tech writers Dvorak, who are normally so very wrong about Apple and its products. A lot of PC minions are clamoring for news that iPad is cannibalizing Macs sales. That does not seem to be supported by the numbers. Mac, iPhones and iPads are all flying off the shelf.  

There is one sort of cannibalism I can relate to. Some of the time I would have spent on-line with my MacBook Pro I spend on my iPad these days. Since I have an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro, sometimes there is a certain calculous in my mind as I reach for one of them sitting on my desk to browse or do a certain task. There is a lot of truth to the statement that the Mac is for creating content and the iPad is for consuming content. The iPhone is for web content and a phone that fits in your pocket.

There are people who can clearly get by with just an iPad who might have popped for a...

An Apple patent (number 20100325194) for a push-based location update has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It's generally related to location information updates for mobile devices.

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media for a location information server to gather location updates by sending location-update-requests through a push notification service to a mobile device are disclosed. The mobile device provides location updates in response to the push-based location-update-requests received through the push notification service. The mobile device can switch from a self-initiated location update mode to a push-based location update mode depending on the current state of the mobile device.

The mobile device can also choose an appropriate positioning system for self-locating based on the information embedded in the location-update-request received through the push notification service. The information embedded in the pushed location-update-...

Apple is apparently working on a new display standard, based on a patent (number 20100321395) for a display simulation system and method that has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to display devices and, more specifically, to techniques for simulating display devices on a computing device.

A display simulation system is provided having a flexible design for emulating and/or supporting any number of display types and/or display standards. The display simulation system may include one or more reference drivers that include a virtual graphics processing unit (GPU) and one or more virtual frame buffer drivers.

In one embodiment, the display simulation system may implement a virtual display in response to a user selection input. For instance, the user selection input may initiate a simulated hot-plug event on the display simulation system. Based upon the user selection, an appropriate display profile corresponding to the selected...

The "MacNews" and "MacTech" sites will be closed Friday for Christmas. We wish all of you a happy holiday and offer this little holiday poem for your amusements.

Twas the start of a new year -- 2011
Yet another 12 months of good Apple heaven
Our wish stockings were hung in our brains without care
To answer all our wishes Apple hasn't a prayer

We Apple fans are nestled in front of our Mac
That "beleaguered" computer that's come roaring back
While rumors of Sandy Bridge processors sound mighty good
And Light Peak and Blu-ray, oh, they'd be soooo good

And out in Cupertino there arose such a clatter
Steve Ballmer jumped out of bed to see what was the matter
Away to his private jet he flew like a flash
Kicking through piles of unsold Windows 7 Phone stash

The sun beating down on the Infinite Loop of good buzz
Gave the luster of mid-day because, well, it was
When what to Ballmer's wondering eyes...

By Greg Mills

The FCC voted 2 to 3 to make the new rules regarding wired "Net Neutrality" official. It won't be know for some time if they even had the authority, since the radio waves are not in use for wired Internet, but the principles of the rules may be adopted by Congress, anyway. The Internet wants to be free of censorship by ISPs and not be controlled by carriers of broadband service.

NetFlix and others big in the downloadable content business are likely very glad to see the cable companies throttled back. Apple stands as much as any company to benefit from the rules, despite the potential for people claiming they are trying to manage the internet by allowing or not allowing iOS apps in the Apple App Store.

The Windows Stuxnet worm continues to frighten US experts due to the potential that it can be converted into malware that might attack our infrastructure and cause an unknown amount of damage. While...

By Greg Mills

The FCC is preparing to make rules for what is called "Net Neutrality." This is important to those of us who use the Internet and particularly those who might want to innovate in new services related to broadband, like Apple.  

There will likely be a vote today, and it is expected the FCC will move to ban wired broadband Internet providers from blocking or slowing down traffic they don't like. The notion is to make wired broadband unrestricted by ISPs to the benefit of streaming services.

Ironically, despite a lot of concern about what the FCC does in this area, a recent Federal Court ruling raises issues as to the jurisdiction of the FCC to make rules concerning broadband Internet, in the first place. This will play out in the courts and the Congress. As we have seen Apple launch into a number of download services over the last few years, with more on the way, the openness of the Internet will become more and more important to...

By Greg Mills

The day computers began to communicate with each other was an ominous day in the ongoing development of technology. No one could have realized the ramifications that would be the result of that connection.

The Internet, in its inception, was the linking of computers limited to the military and colleges.  Slowly more and more computers were hooked up. Then the age of personal computers was born in a garage in California and you know the rest.

The issues related to privacy of your computer has been a complicated and controversial issue.  When I tap my fingers on the keyboard of my MacBook Pro or tickle the touch screen of my iPad, it is hard to imagine that in the privacy of my home what I do can be tracked remotely, down to the last key stroke. Should that be? I think not. It turns out if you think privacy on your computer is a problem, your iPhone and iPad are far worse.  

This morning I noticed an interesting article on...

When the Mac App Store rolls out for Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") next month and is built-into Mac OS X Lion when it begins prowling in 2011, let's hope Apple makes it simple to delete an app.

Right now removing an app doesn't involve simply dragging the app to the trash. There are preference files, documents and more that have to be removed. Some apps have an uninstall feature. Others can be removed by third party apps (AppZapper is my personal favorite).

But if Apple plans on making installing apps from the Mac App Store a no-brainer procedure a la iOS apps, then, hopefully, the company will do the same with apps purchased there. In other words, deleting an app ought to remove all accompanying files.

Of course, that will probably only apply to software bought at the Mac App Store. For software purchased and downloaded elsewhere, tools such as AppZapper will still be needed.

-- Dennis Sellers

Two new Apple patents at the US Patent & Trademark Office show that Apple is considering a new "v-shaped" user interface for media playback to replace (or perhaps exist in addition to CoverFlow.

The patent obviously affects iTunes. However, it could impact the entire Mac OS X interface at some point.

Patent number 20100318908 and 20100318928 is for an user interface for media playback. According to the patent, a graphical user interface made up of icons representing individual files and collectively forming the shape of a “v” is described along with methods of using and creating the graphical user interface. The v-shaped interface is useful to display detailed information about many of the items in a list and facilitates manipulation of list order and selection of the active file in the list. The interface further permits the use of a representative icon associated with the list as a whole. Manipulation of the representative icon can cause modification or...

Mac need to be able to accept an AirPlay feed. Right now I can start watching a video on my iPad, then "zap" it to my HDTV. Why can't I do that with my Mac?

AirPlay lets you stream music, photos and video from your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch directly to the Apple TV. Unfortunately, you can't stream media from the Apple TV to the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. In an ideal world, I'd like to be able to stream media to and from my Mac, iOS devices and HDTV as I roam from room to room.

"Aunt TUAW" (http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/08/dear-aunt-tuaw-can-i-airplay-to-my-mac/) says there's no reason that the Mac can't accept and play an AirPlay video or photo stream, other than that Apple has yet to get around to implementing it and there aren't yet third-party "catcher" apps available. AirPlay is basically a standard...

Many folks think that Apple should and will buy Netflix. I personally doubt it, but I can see the advantages for both companies. Regardless, pricing for Netflix and similar services may see a price hike.

On Nov, 19, Comcast informed Level 3, an Internet backbone provider that handles streaming for Netflix, that, for the first time, it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content.

"By taking this action, Comcast is effectively putting up a toll booth at the borders of its broadband Internet access network, enabling it to unilaterally decide how much to charge for content which competes with its own cable TV and Xfinity delivered content," says "Fortune (). "This action by Comcast threatens the open Internet and is a clear abuse of the dominant control that Comcast exerts in broadband access markets as the nation's largest cable provider. This sets a scary precedent.  If...

By Greg Mills

Verizon iPhone rumors are making enough waves that it's starting to seem this may actually jell in some form.

Apple is so famously secretive on product development and new product launches, you sort of need to take Apple related rumors with a grain of salt. Sometimes, rumors pan out, and sometimes they don't. Steve Jobs is famous for punishing parts companies that leak accurate information about what they are doing.  

Some folks don't understand the copycat problem Apple has with Microsoft and a scad of other players who have made an industry of knocking off everything Apple does and diluting the market. Add the suspense and drama Jobs weaves into new product launches and you have a marketing program Apple's competition dreams about. Millions of dollars of free advertising and favorable spin are a major benefit. (iPhone 4's "Antennagate" being an exception to the rule.)

"MacDailyNews.com" ran a story...

An annual study of consumer video consumption habits and platforms conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates (http://www.magid.com) -- research-based strategic consulting firm -- reveals that despite the increased use of alternative video viewing platforms (like video-on-demand, set-top boxes, instant streaming, and mobile apps), the vast majority of consumers intend to continue to maintain their traditional subscriptions with cable, satellite, and telco TV providers.

For several years, cable, satellite, and telco TV providers have been working under the assumption that as the use of alternative video viewing platforms grows, consumers will increasingly "cut the cord" and cancel their subscriptions. On the contrary, Magid's new study, "2010: The New Age of Video Entertainment," uncovers several consumer behaviors that should persuade the industry to take a second look at earlier defection forecasts, including:...