I'm a sucker for productivity management -- too much to do, never enough time, and there is always, it seems, some sort of flashing distraction. There are plenty of people out there with similar problems: Even if they survived a round of layoffs, there's usually a business need to get more done with fewer resources and people. If the ability to avoid distraction and meter out your energy in timed sprints sounds good, you'll want to check out 30/30 by Binary Hammer.[More...]
Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to appear before a U.S. Senate committee next week to answer questions about his company parking profits offshore. In a notice for the May 21 hearing, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said "representatives of a multinational corporation" would be appearing at the event, but a witness list wouldn't be available until Friday.[More...]
The U.S. Justice Department is painting Apple as the "ringmaster" of an e-book price-fixing conspiracy. The news came out in court filings made public earlier this week as the DoJ prepares to do battle with the only member of the so-called conspiracy unwilling to admit wrongdoing and take a public spanking.[More...]
Apple is attempting to add Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone to its list of infringing products in its ongoing California patent lawsuit. The hope is to strike down its rival's latest smartphone before it can penetrate the market. Apple's claims against Samsung are nothing new. However, the patent process can be slow compared to an industry that's moving fast.[More...]
With iGoogle scheduled to be axed in November, orphans of that offering will be looking at alternatives like uStart, Protopage, Netvibes and Myfav.es. While those alternatives will meet the needs of many iGoogle users set adrift by the search company, some souls may want to create their own homepage substitutes for the versatile portal.[More...]
Wow. I don't think I've ever started any review with a "wow," much less an italicized wow, but here it is: That one word sums up my first impression of Silk -- Interactive Generative Art, an app for the iPad and iPhone. The app lets you create flowing, mirrored strands of silk-like lines of colored light. You do that simply by swiping and dragging your finger.[More...]
Don't blame Jason Cheng for the latest news that iPad mini sales may be declining in the second quarter. Cheng is CEO of Pegatron, an Apple supplier based in Taiwan, who this week reportedly blamed declining iPad mini sales for contributing to the company's flagging revenues. Cheng denies he made any comments about the iPad mini or any other specific product.[More...]
Google's Android offers up more cool homescreens and customizations than Apple's iOS. In iOS, you get to jiggle your stack of icons around on the iPhone or iPad homescreen and swap out the background photo. Woohoo. I can hardly contain my excitement. There are no live tiles, like Windows Phone. There are no fancy weather images, no retro themes.[More...]
Apple's fall from grace on the stock market over the past six months has been well documented, but investor confidence seems to have taken a turn for the better over the past week. The company worked its way onto two high-profile lists. It was the top company on Barron's 500 list, up from its second-place finish in 2012 and fourth in 2011.[More...]
Scapple isn't a spelling mistake for that Pennsylvania Dutch concoction made with pork scraps, corn meal, flour and spices. In fact, scapple is actually a word meaning to work roughly, or shape without finishing. It's also the name of a dynamite new mind mapping program from Literature and Latte, the folks who brought the Mac world Scrivner.[More...]