Supplemental 13″ MacBook Air Update solves iTunes freezes

A glitch causing system lockups in iTunes for some MacBook Air owners with Snow Leopard 10.6.7 installed has been fixed with a small update released yesterday. The Supplemental 13″ MacBook Air Update, now available via Software Update or from Apple’s site, “addresses an issue that makes the system unresponsive when using iTunes.” It weighs in at just 461KB and is recommended for all 13-inch MacBook Air (Late 2010) owners running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.7 (build 10J869).




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Microsoft unsure if tablets are a fad

It’s the tablet craze and everyone’s going bonkers over a post PC era where slates rule casual computing. Everyone except software giant Microsoft who remains suspicious of the trend. Because they lack a horse for this race, it isn’t shocking they’re shooting down tablets. It’s the smartphones that are post PC devices, not the tablets, suggested their chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie. Microsoft didn’t jump on the distinction between mobile and portable fast enough, he thinks. But isn’t portable and mobile essentially the same thing, you ask.

Mobile is something that you want to use while you’re moving, and portable is something that you move and then use. These are going to bump into one another a little bit and so today you can see tablets and pads and other things that are starting to live in the space in between. I don’t know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not.
Check out the source link at The Sydney Morning Hearld for a video. Mundie’s also seen a prototype smartphone screen in the labs that beams HDTV to your retina. “Instead of seeing a screen it can beam individual rays of light into your eyes right on your retina,” he said. Wow, what a mind job.


Contrasting his skepticism about tablets, IMS Research said Tuesday tablets and e-readers will continue chipping away from PCs. The iPad effect has forced players like Acer to lower their sales expectations. Taking this all in, I personally believe there’s a huge market for a canvas other than a smartphone. One needs look no further than Apple’s iPad and the kind of apps taking advantage of its 9.7-inch display, offering user experiences and the level of multitouch sophistication not possible on smallish smartphone displays.


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AT&T CEO says T-Mobile deal will boost iPhone service, chances for world peace

Good ol’ AT&T has got their PR machine in high gear today. CEO Randall Stephenson told Businessweek that the T-Mobile deal would instantly bring more bandwidth to users in constrained cities:

“This transaction is very instrumental” in improving network service, said Stephenson at the event. “Virtually on the day you close the deal, getting a 30 percent lift in capacity in New York City: that’s a significant improvement in call quality and data throughput.”
Other things that would have helped: Adding capacity at the same rate you were adding customers.




It isn’t like iPhones will suddenly be able to use T-Mobile’s 3G network radios.


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JBL wows with “conversation-starting” iPad speaker dock

JBL, an American audio electronics company, is drumming up the OnBeat, an awesome-looking $150 iPad speaker dock that also works with the iPhone, iPod touch or other audio sources hooked up via a 3.5 millimeter auxiliary hack. It comes with a standard 30-pin dock connector allowing you to charge and sync your iOS device, even when the system itself is off.

There’s also a USB connection for desktop iTunes, an IR remote and an AC power supply. Another nice-to-have: A built-in composite video output that sends video from your iOS gadget to an a TV set or a compatible external display. The perks don’t stop here, quite the contrary. Read on for more juicy details and beautiful shots right after the break.




It’s got dual Phoenix full-range transducers with computer-optimized DSP equalization for a “richly detailed 360-degree soundstage”. The speakers are integrated into an awesome-looking flower iMac-like base. “It’s as sculptural as it is conversation-starting,” a blurb says. A clever dock connector design lets you rotate your docked device in full 360-degree freedom, for portrait or landscape viewing and everything in between. The OnBeat system can be yours in exchange for a cool $150 beginning next month.










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Amazon: Kindle subscribers can read NYTimes.com for free

The New York Times has raised a pay wall yesterday. From now on, you must choose between three subscription models ($15/$25/$35 every four weeks) to access online articles at NYTimes.com. As you know, everyone can read up to twenty articles each month for free and home delivery subscribers get to enjoy unlimited access to online articles on NYTimes.com and via smartphone and tablet apps.

In addition to those deals, Amazon partnered with the paper and announced yesterday that subscribers to the Kindle version of The New York Times will get free and unrestricted access to all online articles at the NYTimes.com site. Russ Grandinetti, Amazon’s VP of Kindle content:

Given The Times’ transition to a digital subscription model, we’re excited to be able to offer Kindle subscribers online access to all the digital content available at NYTimes.com at no additional cost.
You’ll receive an email notice when the offer goes live. The New York Times is the bestselling newspaper in the Kindle Store, Amazon tells us. This interesting proposition was obviously conceived as another reason to buy the Kindle hardware. If last couple of week are an indication, Amazon sure knows how to keep themselves in the news.


First they made a splash by launching the Android Appstore for Android despite lawsuit from Apple over the use of App Store trademark, then turned heads with the new Test Drive feature that lets you sample Android apps in a browser and yesterday they beat Apple and Google with a cloud locker for music, movies and other document types.



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Nokia files second ITC complaint, says Apple infringes 7 new patents in all products (tablets included)

Not content with the ruling last Friday by the International Trade Commision that freed Apple of any wrong-doing in alleged patent infringement, the Espoo, Finland-based cellphone giant has filed a new complaint with the ITC. This time, they’ve broadened the scope to include new patents not previously mentioned, alleging that Apple is infringing intellectual property in virtually all Nokia products. In a statement issued via Thomson Reuters One, Nokia mentions seven new patents used in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, tablets and computers:

The seven Nokia patents in the new complaint relate to Nokia’s pioneering innovations that are now being used by Apple to create key features in its products in the areas of multi-tasking operating systems, data synchronization, positioning, call quality and the use of Bluetooth accessories.
The two ITC complaints and patent cases filed in the US, Germany, UK and the Netherlands bring the number of Nokia patents Apple’s been alledgely infringing to 46, many of which “filed more than 10 years before Apple made its first iPhone,” according to Nokia’s IP chief Paul Melin. He didn’t stop there, though.


“Apple must stop building its products using Nokia’s proprietary innovation,” he added. Curious that Nokia is only now making a lot of noise when the iPhone accounts for half the smartphone market’s profits. Why didn’t they sue when the original iPhone came out? Back then, Nokia executives were full of it, ridiculing Apple’s handset and boasting how they ship more phones a day than iPhones in a quarter.


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Sprint officially opposing AT&T/T-Mobile deal, urges government to intervene

Following last Monday’s news of AT&T’s $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA that sent Sprint Nextel’s stock down 15 percent, the carrier is now officially opposing the deal which is pending federal review by the FCC and Department of Justice, which could take at least a year. A statement Sprint put out yesterday mentions duopoly and voices concerns for consumers and competition, urging the government “to block this anti-competitive acquisition”.

A duopoly created would threaten Sprint’s existence, the statement argues. Revenue-wise, the combined company would be three times the size of Sprint, it reads. Sprint warns the transaction “will likely spark a host of hearings in the US Congress,” adding:

AT&T and Verizon are already by far the largest wireless providers. If approved, the proposed acquisition would create a combined company that would be almost three times the size of Sprint in terms of wireless revenue and would entrench AT&T’s and Verizon’s duopoly control over the wireless market. The wireless industry moving forward would be dominated overwhelmingly by two vertically integrated companies with unprecedented control over the U.S. wireless post-paid market, as well as the availability and price of key inputs, such as backhaul and access needed by other wireless companies to compete.

Sprint is the third largest wireless carrier in the country, behind AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Interestingly how those super-profitable carriers that rake in billions of dollars raise their head when their interests are jeopardized, but keep mum when consumers are really being taken advantage of with pricey tariffs and fine print.


Above image: Flickr user “forklift”

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