News

Yahoo is apparently determined to show that it can do more than pay $1.1 billion for a bunch of teenage girls’ blogs. Unnamed sources tell Bloomberg that Yahoo has submitted an offer to buy video streaming website Hulu, a sign that the company is still considering ways to counter the enormous video streaming clout that Google now holds with YouTube. Yahoo was interested in buying a majority stake in French video streaming website Dailymotion earlier this year but that deal fell apart after the French government reportedly threatened to block it. In making an official bid for Hulu, Yahoo will be competing with Time Warner Cable, which is considering buying a 33% equity stake in the company. It’s unknown at

The good news with patent suits is that even when they’re successful they very rarely result in outright sales bans of popular products. And now Ars Technica reports that yet another attempt to enforce a sales ban has fallen flat on its face, this time Motorola’s attempt to stop sales of Microsoft’s Xbox. According to Ars, Motorola filed suit against Microsoft back in 2010 because its Xbox allegedly infringed upon Motorola patents that detailed technologies for “video transmission and compression as well as Wi-Fi.” Motorola’s quest against the Xbox ended this week, however, when a six-person panel at the International Trade Commission decided to toss out the company’s complaint. A Microsoft spokesperson described the ITC’s decision as “a win for

As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple today seeded build 12E55 of OS X 10.8.4 to developers. The release comes nine days after the previous build 12E52 and marks the eighth beta iteration of OS X 10.8.4.


As with previous beta releases, Apple continues to ask developers to focus on Wi-Fi, Graphics Drivers, and Safari.

The update is available through the software update tool in the Mac App Store and Apple's Developer Page.

It appears that Apple has begun quietly phasing out its trailer download options from the trailers.apple.com website, effectively eliminating 1080p trailer availability.

Previously, the site gave users the ability to stream trailers in 480p or 720p, along with providing download options for 480p, 720p, and 1080p. Trailers uploaded to the site after an approximate date of May 22 no longer have any download options and can only be streamed in-browser at 480p or 720p.

Trailer options before 5/22
Trailer options after 5/22
While trailers uploaded before May 22 can still be downloaded, Apple appears to be removing the option from movies with multiple trailers that have a trailer uploaded after that date. For example, Disney Pixar's Monsters University has trailers that were uploaded on the following dates: 6/20/12, 3/08/13, 5/20/13, and 5/22/13. None of these trailers have download options.

Disney’s Planes, on the other hand, has trailers that were uploaded on the following dates: 3/15/13, 04/04/13, and 5/17/13. Each of these trailers can still be downloaded at all resolutions, including 1080p.

So, while older trailers can still be downloaded from the site, Apple appears to be removing downloads from older trailers as newer trailers are added, slowly phasing out the availability of trailer downloads altogether.

It is not clear at this point why Apple has begun phasing out movie trailer downloads, but we have contacted the company for more information.

(Thanks Eduardo and Theo!)

Microsoft’s newly unveiled Xbox One has gamers excited despite some huge question marks, but Microsoft thinks its current-generation Xbox 360 still has legs. Speaking with Official Xbox Magazine, Microsoft’s senior vice president of Interactive Entertainment Business Yusuf Mehdi said that the company is looking to sell 25 million more Xbox 360 consoled over the next five years. The Xbox 360 recently registered its 28th consecutive month as top-selling console, but sales of the 8-year-old console have slowed significantly in recent quarters. Inevitable price cuts may help Microsoft on its mission, but the company also has a few tricks up its sleeve that will be announced during the annual E3 video game conference next month.

Automatic introduced its Automatic Link connected car system in March of this year, promising to ship out the app and the Bluetooth adapter beginning in May.

The system includes a plug-in adapter that is designed to read data from a car's onboard diagnostics, turning nearly any car manufactured after 1996 into a connected car. The adapter utilizes an accompanying iPhone app to provide detailed information on driving habits and car health.


Unfortunately, Automatic has experienced some problems with the aforementioned iPhone app and as a result, it has decided to delay (via Engadget) the final release of the system until August to work out some of the kinks.

The good news is that the Link – that little device that plugs into your car – is ready and being manufactured! Unfortunately, we underestimated the time needed to complete the iPhone app and we're sorry to say that it won't be ready until the end of August.

As it is only the software that needs to be tweaked (the hardware is already in production), Automatic is offering its first preorder customers the opportunity to test a beta version of the system. Customers that opt-in to the beta will receive the dongle and the app in mid-June, but the company warns that the current version of the app lacks support for Crash Alert, multiple cars, and multiple users.


Customers who are eligible to participate in the early release of the Automatic Link should have already received an email from the company with details on how to proceed. Customers who ordered later or who order today can expect to receive the Link in August.

The Automatic Link retails for $69.95 and can be preordered from the Automatic website.

Both Google and Microsoft think it’d be a shame to deny Windows Phone users the glory of Keyboard Cat videos, which is why the two companies have agreed to team up and jointly create a native YouTube app for Microsoft’s mobile platform. The Next Web reports that the companies released a joint statement today saying that they “are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube’s API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks.” Once they finish the new app, Microsoft will remove the YouTube app it created from the Windows Phone store. The two companies’ decision to collaborate on a new app comes just a week after Google

One of the most common problems that annoyed early Xbox 360 adopters was the appearance of the “red ring of death,” a flashing red light on the console’s start button indicating that its hardware was essentially fried and would need to be sent to Microsoft to be replaced. But Microsoft Game Studios vice president Phil Spencer tells Edge that the company has learned its lessons and that the new Xbox One will not experience hardware failures on a mass scale like the Xbox 360 did. In particular, Spencer noted that Microsoft’s success rate on the more recently released Xbox 360 Slim was “very high” and said that the same team behind the Slim also built the Xbox One, so chances are very good that the

It is no secret that Google would like to be a wireless carrier. The company has long been rumored to be eyeing various partnerships to launch its own wireless network as soon as this year. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Google is looking to fund, build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets in Africa and Southeast Asia. The company is said to be interested in connecting people to the Internet who live outside of major cities, while at the same time improving speed in urban locations. Google will reportedly create the business model to support the networks in collaboration with local companies. Google is said to be trying to win over regulators to launch its

Snapchat has taken the mobile world by storm. The application allows users to send pictures and videos to friends that will self-destruct after a maximum of 10 seconds. Even better, if someone tries to take a screenshot of the image, the sender is automatically notified. Although its founders may not be proud of it, the application has become rather popular among the “sexting” crowd, a practice in which you send naked pictures and videos to another person. The application isn’t perfect, however. As we saw earlier this year, SnapChat videos can be secretly saved. The truth of the matter is that while Snapchat deletes the images from its servers, they are still stored deep inside the receiver’s smartphone and can

The common knock on Google Glass has been that it’s far too dorky-looking for normal people to want to wear. David Pogue, writing at Scientific American, says that he got a chance to play around with Google Glass recently and came away with a somewhat different take: Google Glass is too creepy. In particular, Pogue says that people who are wearing Google Glass instantly make everyone else around them uncomfortable if they’re not also wearing the headset. Pogue came to this realization after he “ran into a Google employee wearing it in public” and had a “screamingly uncomfortable” conversation with her. “There she was, wearing this creepy-looking, faux-futuristic forehead band — with a built-in video camera pointed at my face,”

A French firm that specializes in camera optics and image sensor analysis has found the camera on Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone outperforms the iPhone 5 and Nokia’s Lumia 920. DxO Labs ranked the Galaxy S4′s camera as the second highest rating among smartphones it tested. The firm praised the 13-megapixel camera for its fast and accurate autofocus, good auto-exposure, rich colors in different lighting conditions and impressive detail preservation in bright light. The Galaxy S4 scored a total of 79 points out of a possible 100, ahead of both the iPhone 5 and Lumia 920, which scored 74 points and 64 points, respectively. The iPhone 5 scored higher when it came to video, however. The Galaxy S4 was found to shoot

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has sent a letter to BioSense Technologies over its iPhone uChek urinalysis system, asking why its medical app hasn't been cleared by the agency. The app is one of the first that turns the iPhone into a medical device, designed to read urinalysis test strips that are normally examined by users and compared to a color-coded chart.

With the uChek system, patients can take a picture of the strip with the iPhone's camera and then receive an automated readout of parameters like glucose, urobilinogen, pH, ketone and more. The app also stores results which then can be analyzed over time.


Though medical device makers have adopted the iPhone for some measurements like blood glucose monitoring for diabetics, large scale use of smartphones and tablets as a replacement for existing medical devices has yet to take off -- likely due in large part to government regulation of medical devices.

From Bloomberg:

Biosense Technologies Private Ltd.’s uChek system isn’t cleared by the Food and Drug Administration and the agency said it wants to know why not, in a first-of-its-kind letter to a maker of a mobile-device application. The app relies on users, such as diabetics checking their glucose, to dip test strips in urine and use the smartphone’s camera to allow the system to processes and generate automated results.

UChek works with test strips made by Siemens AG (SIE) and Bayer AG (BAYN), which are only approved for visual reading and require new clearance for automated analysis, the FDA said in the letter. The agency has said it wants stricter rules for apps that directly diagnose or treat conditions, proposing in 2011 to apply similar quality standards as for heart stents, ultrasound machines and other medical devices.

The uChek kit can be purchased in the US and India for $40, while the uCheck iPhone app is a free download [Direct Link] from the App Store -- though the app can also manually read urine strips from other companies.

One of the most annoying traits of many technology fans is their conviction that their favorite technology platform should by all rights crush rival operating systems and become the dominant OS in the smartphone or tablet market. In their narrow-minded little worlds, all rival technologies should go the way of webOS so that everyone can bask in might of their favorite operating system, thus proving that their personal preference for a particular type of technology was right all along. The big reason I find this mentality borderline repulsive is because most of us are old enough to remember the last time an operating system definitively won the market place and effectively set up a monopoly for itself that it’s taken

Best Buy is launching a new four week promotion that will drop the price of new iPhone purchases by $50. According to AllThingsD, the sale will apply to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 4S, and the iPhone 5, when purchased with a two-year contract from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint.

An iPhone with two-year contract typically costs $200 for the 16GB entry level phone, so with the sale, the price will drop to $150. The discount applies to all phone models.

Best Buy has offered similar sales in the past, most recently discounting the iPhone 5 by $50 during the holiday season. Other retailers have also offered significant discounts on the iPhone 5 in the past, with Walmart selling the device for $127 at one point.

Best Buy's current sale will begin on Sunday, May 26 and it will run for four weeks.

Skycore, a marketing and developer support firm, has introduced a new feature to its services platform to allow developers to send Passbook passes to users via MMS. The feature should allow more companies to use Passbook because they won't need users to download a dedicated iOS app.

Passbook was a new feature in iOS 6 that allows users to store frequently used items like gift cards or frequent shopper cards, as well as single use items like movie and airline tickets. Developers can have those cards appear right on the lock screen, targeted by time or location.

"As with SMS, the recipient of an MMS is instantly alerted on their home screen. An MMS pass recipient simply has to tap an image to view and install it. While we also deliver passes via mobile-optimized email and mobile landing pages, MMS is very useful for 'anywhere, anytime' delivery," said Rich Eicher, Skycore's CEO.

"A number of clients expressed concerns about relying on just their apps to deliver passes, especially for tickets, coupons, gift cards and IDs. While mobile-optimized email is a good option, MMS is ideal because the recipient instantly knows when they've received it, and they don't need to open their email client to find the pass," said Eicher.

Skycore supports MMS Passbook delivery to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon customers.

Apple today significantly reduced prices on refurbished models of the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad, with all models now carrying approximately 15% discounts relative to brand-new units.


iPad mini

- 16 GB Wi-Fi: $279, down from $299 previously and $329 brand-new
- 32 GB Wi-Fi: $359, down from $389 previously and $429 brand-new
- 64 GB Wi-Fi: $439, down from $489 previously and $529 brand-new

- 16 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $389, down from $429 previously and $459 brand-new
- 32 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $469, down from $519 previously and $559 brand-new
- 64 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $549, down from $619 previously and $659 brand-new

Fourth-generation iPad

- 16 GB Wi-Fi: $419, down from $449 previously and $499 brand-new
- 32 GB Wi-Fi: $499, down from $549 previously and $599 brand-new
- 64 GB Wi-Fi: $579, down from $649 previously and $699 brand-new

- 16 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $529, down from $579 previously and $629 brand-new
- 32 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $609, down from $679 previously and $729 brand-new
- 64 GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $689, down from $779 previously and $829 brand-new

Introduced last October, the iPad mini and fourth-generation arrived in Apple's online store for refurbished products in mid-March at modest discounts. The company's 128 GB fourth-generation iPad models introduced in early February have yet to appear in the refurbished store.

Rumors have indicated that Apple is unlikely to launch its next versions of the iPad and iPad mini until late this year, but the company has apparently still decided to reduce pricing on refurbished units of the current generation in order to attract more buyers as its supply of refurbished units has undoubtedly grown over the past several months.

Update: Apple has also knocked $30 off of the price of its refurbished Thunderbolt and LED Cinema Displays, bringing the prices down to $799 compared to $999 brand-new.

9to5Mac shares more details on Jony Ive's redesign for iOS 7, noting that not only will it bring a flatter look to the operating system but also more emphasis on black and white design elements.

Sources have described iOS 7 as “black, white, and flat all over.” This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements. [...]

For the upcoming operating system, which Apple says will be unveiled at its June Worldwide Developers Conference, Ive has not simply picked areas of the software design to tweak. He has essentially made his mark on every corner of the operating system, according to descriptions from sources, all while mostly keeping the essence of what has made iOS so ubiquitous.

The report walks through a number of specific changes appearing in the current development version of iOS 7, including changes to the lock screen, notifications, and the home screen. The report also describes how the look of some of the default iOS apps has changed:

[T]he iPhone’s Notes app has replaced the yellow notepad design for a flat white look. Apps such as Mail, Calendar, and Maps have also gained a more uniformed look with flat white textures. While the core elements of those apps are mostly white, each app has been given a unique button color. Essentially, each app has a white base with a respective color theme.

For example, the Calendar app could potentially have red buttons, while Messages could have green controls.

Other changes include the addition of panorama home screen wallpapers that pan as the user swipes between screens, subtle animations in the Weather app, and the possibility of FaceTime being moved out of the Phone app into a standalone app for greater visibility.

Apple is expected to show off at least some of iOS 7's changes at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) where the keynote is scheduled for June 10. Today's report indicates that Apple has tested several different design themes for iOS 7 over the past several months and that things may still change before the public release, but it seems reasonable to expect that aspects shown at WWDC will be close to the final shipping version.

Control of personal information in the digital space, and particularly on mobile devices, presents a unique design challenge.

Most people aren’t aware that their personal data is being collected and shared. Many users don’t take the time to validate their expectations and most never read privacy policies.

People only seem to become aware of such concerns when something happens that doesn’t meet their expectations, such as seeing their friend’s picture in a Facebook ad or seeing banner ads that match their most recent purchase. And when people do become aware and their expectations are violated, trust in the brand is eroded.

People want transparency and control, but they want it on their...read more
By Ilana Westerman

MacRumors has learned that AT&T's GoPhone prepaid wireless brand will be undertaking a significant expansion of its services starting tomorrow, offering support for AT&T's fastest LTE and HSPA+ data networks for the first time and also adding official support for the iPhone.

Until now, GoPhone has allowed iPhone users to sign up for service, but without cellular data access. With the changes coming tomorrow, the iPhone will have access to the full range of AT&T services through GoPhone, including LTE data and Visual Voicemail.


GoPhone will support three service plans for the iPhone, including the high-end $65/month plan that offers unlimited calls and texts and 1 GB of data. Users can also opt for cheaper $25 and $50 plans, but they must purchase separate data packages on top of those plans if they wish to use cellular data.

For iPhone purchases, GoPhone customers can either bring their own off-contract iPhone or purchase one in-store at the full no-committment price. Existing GoPhone iPhone customers will be automatically updated with support for cellular data access on June 21, but support representatives will be able to manually upgrade customers before that time upon request.

The iPhone has been making significant inroads into the U.S. prepaid carrier market, led by Cricket nearly a year ago. Since that time, Sprint's Virgin Mobile brand and AT&T's prepaid brands Straight Talk and Aio have also begun offering the iPhone. Sprint prepaid brand Boost Mobile has also been rumored several times to be launching iPhone support, but has yet to do so.