Apple is working on technology for upcoming cameras in iPhones, iPod touches, probably the iPad and perhaps other devices. A patent (number 20100238344) for an electronic device having a camera flash redirector has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

An electronic camera device has an imaging sensor to capture an image of a scene, a flash to illuminate the scene for capture by the sensor, and an evaluator to detect a condition in the scene. A redirector shifts the peak of a spatial energy profile of light from the flash. The peak is shifted from being aimed at one region in the scene to being aimed at another region in the scene, in response to the evaluator having detected the condition in the scene. Other embodiments are also described and claimed in the patent. The inventor is Richard Tsai.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "In photography, there has been recognized the need for providing flash illumination, at an angle that is...

For those who think technology is killing pastimes such as reading, well, think again. In fact, the iPad as an ebook reader could actually be a boon to the book industry.

Currently, just one in 10 Americans (8%) uses an electronic reader device of some kind, according to a new Harris Poll of 2,775 adults surveyed online between Aug. 9 and Aug. 16 by Harris Interactive (http://www.harrisinteractive.com). But that will change -- and perhaps publishers should be glad.

Those who have eReaders do, interestingly, read more. Overall, two in five Americans (40%) read 11 or more books a year with one in five reading 21 or more books in a year (19%). But among those who have an eReader, over one-third read 11-20 books a year (36%) and over one-quarter read 21 or more books in an average year (26%).

eReader users are also more likely to buy books. One in five Americans (21%) say they...

By Greg Mills

As I read iPhone/iPad killer stories on the web, I am always amused that a "too late to the party, me too" product would be launched with the wild idea of actually replacing Apple's products.

Frankly, most of the competitors would be happy to not actually loose money on their device, and the notion of killing the Apple product is a headline used by journalists to attract readers. Apple is too well established to be displaced with some suddenly released stronger competitor.  The real risk is Apple being reduced, over time market share wise, by a slew of similar product that dilute the market. Note that "similar" means fully similar in both function and price. So far any real competitors to iPad are vaporware or pads lacking a critical ingredient to actually compete.   

Android is the only real threat in the long term to iPhone, but since it is open source and relies on third party hardware, it is unlikely to beat the smoothly...

Apple has been granted several patents by the US Patent & Trademark Office, including one filed in 2005 that points to such upcoming devices as the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Patent number 7,800,592 is for a handheld device with multiple touch sensing devices. The inventors are Duncan Kerr, Steve Hotelling and Brian Huppi.

Here's Apple's summary of the invention: "The invention relates, in one embodiment, to a handheld electronic device. The handheld electronic device includes a first touch sensing device located in a first region of the hand held electronic device. The handheld electronic device includes a second touch sensing device located in a second region of the hand held electronic device. The second region is at a different location than the first region of the hand held electronic device.

"The invention relates, in another embodiment, to a hand held electronic device. The handheld electronic device includes a housing. The handheld electronic...

A recent study by market research firm Technology Business Research (TBR) has confirmed what I've said since the iPad's introduction: its a complement to your primary computer (for me, an iMac), not a replacement. The tablet is good at many things, but it can't handle all the chores a desktop can.

TBR finds that the iPad will displace many consumers' secondary computers, creating a third major device category for personal computing and connectivity. The study points to the success of the Apple tablet as a demonstration that the consumer seeks quick, easy e-mail and web access via a device that features more portability than a laptop while providing instant-on and more usability than a smartphone.

Although laptops will lose some ground to tablets, TBR believes the market will support all three device styles for computing and connectivity, including the laptop, tablet and smartphone. And, in fact, analyst Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. told clients on...

Well, who would have thought iPad would cut into laptops sales. ... read that: PC laptop sales. Mac laptops, unaffected. Sort of like viruses and worms, PCs are suffering while the Mac is unaffected.  

While there might be a slight dip in the steep growth curve for Mac laptops, they are still selling very well despite the recession. One only has to use an iPad a while to swear off a desktop computer or PC laptop for a lot of applications.

I submit that part of the reason iPad is killing PC laptops is not just about the fabulous form factor and all that makes iPad so revolutionary. It's also that iPad is an Apple product and all that goes with that perception. Smart, stylish and easy to use, without the learning curve associated with Windows. This sells people who are open to finding a better way to do things.

I had a sonogram test to check my neck arteries for blockages today just as a health screening exercise and the PC laptop running the sonogram device...

Five Apple patents at the US Patent & Trademark Office show the company plans to beef up the interaction between accessories and the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Patent number 20100233961 involves an accessory and mobile computing device communication using an application communication protocol. Embodiments of the present invention provide various communication techniques for communication between a mobile computing device and an accessory. An accessory protocol that is generic to the mobile computing device can be used for some communication. An application executing at the mobile computing device can communicate with the accessory using an application communication protocol. In some embodiments, the application communication protocol can be different from the accessory communication protocol. In other embodiments the application protocol may only be recognized by the application and the accessory. In some embodiments, messages conforming to an...

By Greg Mills

The news is full of stories related to a possible hack of the copy protection system common to HDTV, Blu-Ray disks, video game disks and even iTunes music. This is not unanticipated, but much sooner than many had expected. The sky is not falling, but this is a significant issue for reasons that go well beyond the companies that have content to protect.

Copyright protection is the legal right to sue someone for "copying" your original content. Any time something is written, drawn or fixed in a tangible form, such as paper, a disk or the like, the content is automatically protected by a copyright. The person who owns the rights is the author, unless they have assigned their rights to someone else. This article is original content, but when I submit it to "MacNews" it will become the copyright property of "MacNews" due to an agreement I made with the company.

While you can sue if your content is stolen, you are entitled only to...

By Greg Mills

The FCC, the agency that controls radio frequencies in the US, is about to open up some long wave frequencies in the 700 MHz range that are now available due to the digital TV frequency changes last year. The frequencies are particularly valuable since they penetrate buildings and go further with the same amount of radio energy as shorter wave frequencies that don't go nearly so far, or through walls very well. Look for miles of transmission distances instead of hundreds of feet.  

Further, this new SuperWiFi frequencies are not going to be regulated and will, thus, be like current WiFi and BlueTooth, where the radio chip sets are tested and approved by the FCC but the use of the frequencies will be available to anyone. Wireless devices will also have to transmit back to the more distant Wi-Fi sites, so additional and more powerful SuperWIFi cards will be required.  

This will open up the way for Super Wi-Fi servers that will...

By Greg Mills
Nokia, in big trouble

I can remember having Nokia cell phones, but that goes back a few years. Recently the smart phone revolution has taken it's toll, and Nokia's market share has fallen off dramatically.  In an attempt to reinvigorate the company, they ditched their CEO of long standing, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo to tap a former Microsoft Executive, Stephen Elop for the job. To a great extent it might be sort of like rearranging the deck chairs on the doomed ship Titanic.  

Apple and Google have the app store business so locked up, Rim and Nokia and the also rans are struggling to even stay in the game. I can well remember extremely stupid smart phones. I had one Motorola (also a sinking ship) cell phone that had a web access element that even a Sprint service center couldn't get up and running. Despite acknowledging the problem, the Sprint customer service department was reluctant to remove the charges on my bill for that service...

Well, I would have thought it would have been bigger, but Uptrends.com (http://www.uptrends.com), a global webs site monitoring company, says the 1024 x 768 screen resolutions size is used more often than any other size.

The 1024 x 768 screen resolution size has the largest share of global usage, with global usage of 25.17%. But less and less people are using this resolution. In April 2007, the share of global usage was 55.34%. Internet users worldwide have been increasingly choosing larger screens with higher screen resolution. Apple might make a note of this, as the company seems to think that the world wants increasingly smaller displays (witness the latest iPad nano).

In a study conducted by Uptrends, the usage of smaller screen resolutions such as 800 x 600 is also on the decline. For example in April 2007, the global usage of the 800 x 600 screen resolution size was 8.18 percent. In this year’...

Two Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office showing that Apple wants to beef up the viewing options in iTunes on Macs.

Patent 20100229088 is for graphical representations of music using varying levels of detail. Systems, methods, and machine-readable media are disclosed for providing graphical representations of music of varying levels of detail. An electronic device can determine the attributes of a first type (e.g., genre) associated with the music.

The electronic device can display a graphical representation of the music using the attributes. The graphical representation can be based on a spiral, helix, map, or any other geometric shape or curve. A user can zoom into a portion of the graphical representation to select the music of a particular genre in which to view more detailed information. In response, the electronic device can determine the attributes of a second, more detailed type (e.g., artist) associated with the selected music...

An Apple patent (number 20100225657) for systems and methods for operating a display has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It's for LCD screens on computers and TVs to be able to run in two different modes.

Embodiments of the electronic device include a display driver with the ability to receive image data in a streaming display mode or a frame-buffered display mode. In some embodiments, the electronic device may switch seamlessly between the two display modes based on which display mode will provide reduced power usage given the type and/or variability of the image data being received. The inventors are Kapil V. Sakariya and Wei H. Yao.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are commonly used as screens or displays for a wide variety of electronic devices, including consumer electronics such as televisions, computers, and handheld devices (e.g., cellular telephones, audio and video players, gaming...

I haven't yet decided if iTunes 10 is, for me, an good upgrade or not. Quite frankly, I doubt I'll use Ping. I'm on Facebook and that's about enough social networking for ome.

However, it occurred to me that the Apple App Store needs playlists like the Music Store has. In other words, if I'm a very successful real estate agent that others are trying to emulate, and I want to share my setup, I should be able to create a playlist of apps that others can see.

Now maybe this will be taken care of once Ping adds Apps, Books, etc. In that case, I might use Ping after all.

-- Dennis Sellers

The new Apple TV has met with a very mixed bag of advance notices (I have one ordered; when it arrives I can give you an in-depth report). However, "VentureBeat" (http://games.venturebeat.com/2010/09/06/how-apple-could-undermine-consol...) thinks the device could compete with game consoles if Apple plays its cards right. They may be onto something.

"VentureBeat" says that all Apple would have to do is launch an Apple TV version of the Apple App Store on Apple TV with downloadable game apps. The article says that Apple might "further disrupt the business by selling its own Apple-branded connected TVs with Apple TV built right in." Since Apple has cool touchscreen and motion-sensing controls in its iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone devices, it already has lots of...

Apple has won a QuickTime related patent from the US Patent & Trademark Office for "One-Click Full Screen Video." The invention provides a method and system for playing full-screen video on a user computer.

The method includes displaying in the user interface at the user computer a web page containing at least one link to electronic video file, selecting the link to request the video file, downloading the video file to user computer in response to the request, detecting by the user computer receipt of the video file, opening in the user interface to window of the video player in full-screen mode in response to the detecting, and reading the video file by the player to play the video in the window.

A feature of the present invention is that the video player may not have its preferences preset by the user to open in any particular mode. The mode in which the video player opens will be determined by the downloaded video file. The inventors are Robert Douglas Werner...

Samsung Mobile has announced the results of a new online survey that showed working Americans who own smart phones are breaking old boundaries on when and where it’s appropriate to make and take business calls. And some folks are a bit too enamored of the phones.

According to the results, these professionals conduct their business far, far away from the office setting including while on vacation, the bathroom, during a date, at church or even during -- now, c'mon, folks, get a life -- sex. Respondents admit the need to stay connected and productive with their jobs led them to take their business calls into more private settings than ever before, such as a trip to the bathroom or during an intimate moment with their significant other.

Close to three quarters (72%) were comfortable taking calls on the commode, while at least one out of every 10 people came clean about doing business over the phone at a funeral (16%) or in the throes of passion (10%). Other taboo...

Toshiba working on a 3D TV that doesn't require glasses, and this could be a game changer for 3D technology, if it works. However, some folks think that Quad HD/4K could be the next big thing in HDTVs. And -- who knows? -- it might filter over into Macs.

As noted by "ZDNet" (http://macosg.me/2/sn), Quad HD/4K provides more than four times the resolution of 1080p HD at 3840 x 2160 (slightly less than the 4K digital cinema standard, but way more than the 1920 x 1080 of today's HDTVs). While it will require its own set of infrastructure updates (new TVs, additional bandwidth to get the content into your home, etc.), it won’t require any pair of glasses on the end user’s face.

In August Marseille Networks demoed its its complete, end to end 4K-over-HDMI prototyping system, stimulating the rapid adoption of Quad-HD resolution in Blu-ray and audio video receivers (AVRs) for the next wave of high definition...

Andrew Eisner, Retrevo.com's director of Community and Content, predicts the next platform for apps will be connected TVs. Retrevo sees a living room where TV viewers click on a weather app or sports app instead of watching the local news.

A home where families play a board game together on the TV using the Monopoly app, or stay in touch with their friends with a FaceBook app, all from the comfort of the living room couch. Following are some of Eisner's thoughts on the looming battler for the TV OS.

"Microsoft unlikely to win this battle

"Unlike the battle for the desktop OS it doesn't look like Microsoft has much of a chance of winning this battle for the TV OS. Competition over who will provide a TV OS is heating up with Google TV getting set to take on all comers for control of the living room. Meanwhile Apple may soon lob a salvo with an updated version of their Apple TV that will plant Apple iPhone/iPad apps firmly in the living room TV...

An Apple patent (number 20100223400) has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office regarding features -- both present and future -- of Apple's GarageBand app. The app is for correlating changes in audio.

Exemplary embodiments of methods and apparatuses to correlate changes in one audio signal to another audio signal are described. A first audio signal is outputted. A second audio signal is received. The second audio signal may be stored in a memory buffer. The first audio signal is correlated to conform to the second audio signal. The first audio signal may be dynamically correlated to match with the second audio signal while the second audio signal is received. At least in some embodiments, a size of a musical time unit of the second audio signal is determined to correlate the first audio signal. At least in some embodiments, the adjusted first audio signal is stored in another memory buffer. Chris Moulios is the inventor.

Here's Apple's background and summary...

Now that I'd had a few hours to think about all the announcements from Apple at yesterday's special event, here are some random musings about them.

Despite rumors of the iPod shuffle's demise, it lives on. For now. I still think that its days are numbered, now that the nano has gotten so small. Eventually, I think we'll see a 2GB nano replacing the shuffle entirely.

Hmmm, the new nano trades its camera for a touchscreen. Is that a good swap?

The iPod classic is still around, but received no update. As soon as the iPod touch reaches 128GB of capacity (it's only half that right now) you can bid adieu to the classic, which Apple seems to regard as the ugly ducking in the iPod line-up.

The new iPod touch sounds great, but I was hoping for a 128GB version now. And if the teeny nano can have an FM radio feature, why not the touch? Yes, that's right, I want it all and I want it now!

As for the Apple TV update, overall, I think it's a great step forward....

iOS4

iOS4 has recently been released to the iPod, providing the new features to a larger number of existing Apple customers. Of most importance to the Spy were multitasking and folders, the former in operational terms, the latter in organizational.

He wasted no time in reorganizing his five home pages down to two, with most applications in folders. To do this, hold a touch until the wiggle effect starts, then drop one app on top of another. A folder with both will be created, which can then readily be renamed to suit, and additional apps can be dragged into it. Most people will wonder how they got along without application folders.

Double clicking the bottom application switching button is now supposed to produce the multitasking bar, providing quick access to currently running processes. However, within individual applications the implementation of this feature is inconsistent. Even within the same application, sometimes a single press...

Apple has been granted eight patents by the US Patent & Trademark Office. Following is a summary of each.

Patent number 7,788,656 is for a system for reducing the number of programs necessary to render an image. Disclosed is a system for reducing memory and computational requirements of graphics operations. The system provides techniques for combining otherwise individual operations to apply filters to images. The combined filter emerging from the combination spares the processor time and the creation of an entire intermediary image. The system further provides for application of these techniques in many contexts including where the operations are fragment programs in for a programmable GPU. John Harper is the inventor.

Patent number 7,788,582 involves techniques and graphical user interfaces for improved media item searching. Improved techniques and graphical user interfaces that assist users in searching through a group of media...

More U.S. households are watching online video and on a wider variety of devices now than two years ago, but we're not sacrificing our TV viewing to do so, according to international research firm Parks Associates (http://www.parkassociates.com). At least not just yet.

The firm's "Digital Media Evolution II" study found 40% of all U.S. broadband homes now regularly watch long-form video on a computer. However, service providers can allay their fears of cord cutting for now as high use of computer video doesn't yet correlate with decreased TV viewing. "Yet" may be the key word here.

"People are using online video to fill in the gaps," says Kurt Scherf, vice president, principal analyst, Parks Associates. "When it comes to watching TV shows and movies, nobody's first choice is the computer. People will watch this content on a computer when it is not convenient or feasible to watch on a TV...