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Photos of purported MacBook Pro chassis surface with OLED touch bar slot, four USB ports, no MagSafe : "Photos of a supposed next-generation MacBook Pro chassis that surfaced Tuesday appear to support recent predictions that Apple is planning to drastically revamp the laptop's design by adding an OLED touch bar and winnowing down external connections to four USB format ports. " Are you kidding me? Headphone jack on the right side of the chassis? I'm never buying a Mac again. I'm gonna just be the first to hashtag it: #headphonejackgate.

Caltech sues Apple & Broadcom over alleged Wi-Fi patent infringements : "iPhones, iPads, Macs, the Apple Watch and various other Apple devices violate four patents related to IRA/LDPC encoding and decoding technology, Caltech said in a complaint with the U.S. District Court for Central California highlighted by Patently Apple. Apple and Broadcom are "jointly and severally liable for infringement," the case alleges." Now if only the patent trolls could be sued for infringement as well.

ARM’s newest CPU design wants to make throttling a thing of the past | Ars Technica : "Cortex A73 is being positioned as a replacement of sorts for Cortex A72, which in turn replaced Cortex A57. Like its two predecessors, it’s a high-end 64-bit CPU design, and it can be paired with with “little” Cortex A53 or A35 cores that handle light or idle tasks to reduce power consumption." Because I always post about the ARM SOC designs.

Apple Store's worst feature? Customers, says ex-employee - CNET : ""Maybe 60 percent of the time there's actually something wrong" with a product, she said. "But the point is, they'll come to you. They won't have booked a Genius Bar appointment or have looked it up online first. About once a day I was called a bitch for not knowing how something worked."" These are the same customers downloading Apache Cordoba craplications from the App Stores. I checked. Let's keep changing Xcode to cater to Javascript developers. Winning strategy! And outrageous conclusions from facts not in evidence.

Xiaomi has switched from copying iPhones to copying drones | Cult of Mac : "Xiaomi, aka the biggest copy-cat in tech, has decided to stop ripping off Apple for a bit and instead set its sights on drone maker DJI by unveiling its first cheap knockoff drone, the Mi Drone. And it doesn’t look that bad." And we're outraged because Apple has never copied anyone .

AT&T’s data caps impose harshest punishments on DSL users | Ars Technica : "AT&T's home Internet data caps got an overhaul yesterday when the company implemented a recently announced plan to strictly enforce the caps and collect overage fees from more customers. Customers stuck on AT&T's older DSL architecture will be facing lower caps and potentially higher overage fees than customers with more modern Internet service." Streaming seemed like such a superior technology to the optical disc. Until the arrival of Google Fiber, remember that a Blu-Ray platter holds 50GB. That's 20 HD movies a month. Seems kinda chintzy unless you realize the real goal is to upsell HBO or whatever else is available for bundling that uses historical cable networking tech.

IDC: $200-350 Chromebooks shipped 37% more U.S. units in Q1 vs Apple's $1,200 MacBooks : "Google's Chrome OS partners Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Samsung and Lenovo collectively shipped 37 percent more low-priced netbooks than the number of premium laptops Apple sold during the quarter in the U.S., although most of those Chromebook sales were to K-12 schools. Might be time to rethink that $1200 thin client jewelry and get back to building machines for creative people.

New photo purports to show 'iPhone 7' shell with single, raised rear camera opening : "If the new part is authentic, it would discredit a dummy shell that emerged over the weekend, since the latter positioned the flash under the camera lens, instead of to the side. The dummy also featured four speaker ports, whereas rumors have pointed to the "iPhone 7" having two at most." The ghost in the shell?

iPhone camera lenses to DIY repair kits: the week’s best deals at Cult of Mac [Deals] | Cult of Mac : "Cult of Mac Deals are brought to you by StackSocial, an e-commerce platform offering flash sales on digital tools, web apps and tech gear. " Deals on wheels!

Apache e-mails, shown in court, say Android “ripped off” Oracle IP | Ars Technica : "Kwun: Mr. Mazzocchi, are you a lawyer? Mazzocchi: I'm not. Kwun: Have you ever held yourself out as an expert in copyright law? Mazzocchi: No. Kwun: How often do people at Apache ask you for legal advice? Mazzocchi: Never. Kwun: What did you know about fair use and copyright law? Did you know about the legal standard for fair use? Mazzocchi: I didn't, and still don't." Almost as entertaining as Donald Trump.

Google’s Allo and Duo are 2 communication apps based on your phone number | Ars Technica : "On Wednesday at Google I/O, the company announced a new messaging app called Allo and a new video messaging app called Duo. Both apps are based on your phone number and are focused on bringing more information to users as they're typing or about to pick up the phone." The reason Google will prevail in the long haul is they understand the value of building ubiquitous communication tech that runs on my platform (Android and Chrome) and on your platform (iOS). When they add Windows and Mac, they may just complete with Skype. Skype was such a brilliant strategic acquisition. Kudos MSFT on that one.

How Intel missed the iPhone revolution | TechCrunch : "Unlike with x86, if one ARM vendor tries to squeeze you, you ditch them and move to another. ARM chips may not have had the same performance/per watt or transistor size as Intel, but they’ve always been cheap, easy, available, and totally devoid of the threat of lock-in." So rare that you read a well-written article on the internet. This blog included! But here's one.

Cult of Mac | Tech and culture through an Apple lens : "If you’re an iPhone user who loves Google, or you just like to keep up with the competition, then you’ll be pleased to know there’s now an official iPhone app for next week’s Google I/O conference." I love it all!

How To Spot Fake Product Reviews On Amazon | Redmond Pie : "A number of reports and insight studies into the world of online retail and digital shopping have predicted that North Americans will spend over $300 billion shopping online in 2016. That represents a significant growth over last year’s figures. That number is not only astronomical, but also means that consumers are becoming more online-aware when it comes to making purchases, which invariably includes consulting review sites and reading product reviews left on product pages on sites like Amazon. Of course, you can’t always trust that those reviews are accurate and legitimate. Step forward Fakespot to assist with that." Scratching an important itch.

Apple confirms iCloud Mail and Notes are down for some users : "Apple’s service status page confirms an issue with iCloud Mail and Notes that is rendering the services unavailable for some users. The outage has been ongoing for two hours now, and there’s currently no word on when we should expect it to be fixed." You say cloud storage, I say dumb terminal. If I wanted the limitations of a Chromebook, I'd have bought one.

Messaging service WhatsApp launches desktop app for Mac : "Like its Windows counterpart, also released today, WhatsApp for Mac acts as an extension to existing mobile services, syncing conversations and messages between multiple devices to bridge the gap between multiple platforms. It also makes the service readily accessible from more machines. " Going after Skype et al, it will soon be obvious that for a communications platform to dominate, it must run on every platform. Hence, Google hangouts.

Hyperloop One shows off its high-speed propulsion system : "North of Las Vegas in the Nevada desert, Hyperloop One is taking a gamble. Specifically, a gamble that flew along a test track and ended in a spray of sand and applause. The company has been working on creating a propulsion system and pods based on a mass-transportation white paper by Tesla CEO Elon Musk." Apparently Elon Musk is the real Tom Swift.

Microsoft can't even give away Windows 10 : "Despite being free for almost a year, the company’s latest upgrade hasn’t been able to put any significant dent in Windows 7’s user base. It has only just overtaken the universally despised Windows 8.1 release." It's amazing how poorly understood this is: people who use computers to do useful tasks (as opposed to, say browsing the web and using Facebook) generally do not like to upgrade their OS unless it is a necessary change which will positively affect their productivity. The millenials will get it too, once they're in charge of 50,000 desktops and have to field calls at the help desk. But not before then. I think Microsoft's mistake is copying Apple's OS strategy. What works great for phones might not be so great for desktops.

Watch: Apple's 2016 MacBook vs. 2015 13" MacBook Air in head-to-head comparison : "Apple's latest 12-inch MacBook refresh brings better battery life and a faster processor to the ultraportable platform, but in some respects is outperformed by last year's 13-inch MacBook Air. Is the ultimate in portability worth concessions like a single USB-C port and slower CPU? Find out in AppleInsider's head-to-head comparison. " Huggadah, huggadah.

Microsoft begins warning users it will cut free OneDrive storage to 5GB, matching Apple's iCloud : "Microsoft is sending out email alerts to OneDrive customers, warning people with free 15-gigabyte accounts that their storage will shrink to 5 gigabytes on August 10, assuming they didn't previously opt into keeping the higher amount." This is called trending in the wrong direction. If Google can afford 10GB for free, I'm sure both Apple and Microsoft can do same. Probably why I'm paying $1.99/mo for Google storage and nonebodyelse.

Cult of Android - Samsung snags top smartphone spot from Apple | Cult of Android : "LG managed to claim third place with a 17.1 percent share, which is even more impressive when you consider its new G5 didn’t go on sale in the U.S. until April 1." Banzai, Daniel-san!

Apple says all apps must support IPv6-only networking by June : "Come June 1, all submissions to Apple's App Store must be compatible with IPv6-only standards, the latest internet protocol version for hardware identification and network routing. The company first announced iOS 9 would be transitioning to IPv6-nly network services at last year's Worldwide Developers Conference. " So long 10.0.0.1, it's been swell.

Hacker puts Windows 95 on Apple Watch for some reason : "We’ve seen a lot of people do a lot of things with Apple’s debut wearable, but one hacker wasn’t satisfied merely to summon the ghosts of ancient first-party mobile and desktop operating systems. No, hacker Nick Lee set himself the goal of putting the venerable Windows 95 on Apple Watch." In a couple of years, it'll be fast enough to run Word for Windows 2.0, my all-time favorite word processor.

Exclusive: Apple's top secret 'Athena' chip fab gets new 'delicate equipment' Apple has quickly moved to overhaul the equipment installed at the San Jose, Calif., chip fab it acquired from Maxim Integrated Products in December, indicating that the purchase was a strategic priority for the company in its relentless drive to out-innovate its competitors. New SOC coming soon to a fab near you.