If you've been around the web for more than a couple of years, chances are you remember Digg. The news aggregation site made social sharing cool long before Facebook or Twitter hit their high notes.
But the last couple of years have been rough for Digg. After seeing a dramatic drop in page views, the site that was once in talks with Google over a $200 million buyout, sold for a measly $500 thousand to the folks at Betaworks.
Enter Digg v1...
We're only two days into this patent trial of the century and already things are getting out of control in the courtroom. Even though Judge Lucy Koh denied Samsung's request to present to the jury its pre-iPhone F700 device meant to establish it did not copy the iPhone, the South Korean consumer electronics maker just issued a press release with two batches of evidence Judge Koh specifically excluded from the litigation...
We've known for a while now that News Corp.'s made-for-iPad newspaper The Daily was in trouble. Last fall, the paper's audience was estimated to be somewhere in the area of just 100,000 active readers — well short of the 500,000 it needs to break even. Then back in May of this year, word got out that the Daily had been put "on watch" for its poor performance.
Well there must have been some truth to the chatter, as a new report is out today claiming that The Daily just laid off a third of its staff...
It's day two of the monster Apple vs. Samsung trial and Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller testified, but only briefly as the jury was dismissed for the day. What came out of him reflects Steve Jobs' notion that it is Apple's rather than the consumers' job to know what they want.
He also mentioned Apple New Product Process for exploring new products and revealed it was he that Steve Jobs sent the vacation photo to at the 2007 MacWorld introduction of the iPhone...
Apple may be unlike other companies in many regards, but when it comes to thinking stuff up, its designers gather around good ol' kitchen table to come up with bright new ideas. I'm not making this up, this little nugget was just revealed in a testimony by a member of Apple's design team during the afternoon hearing in the Apple vs. Samsung mega-lawsuit....
Looks like something is amiss with that $1 billion North Carolina data center as Apple just acknowledged that a limited number of iCloud users are having issues accessing their iCloud email. A bunch of people reported the problem earlier today on Apple's discussion forums.
The Cupertino, California company is working to resolve the problem "ASAP", reads a notice on Apple's iClod status page. It appears that the issue is not contained just to iCloud email as some users are beginning to complain about hiccups with the App Store and iMessage services as well. Moreover, looks like FaceTime is down for some, too...
UPDATE: All services are now back online...
This is pretty interesting. Verizon has just reached a settlement with the FCC in their ongoing dispute regarding tethering apps. The carrier will pay out $1.25 million to the US Treasury, and will stop blocking the use of third-party tethering apps.
Unfortunately, the decision only applies to Verizon customers for the time being, as it comes as a stipulation in the carrier's deal to purchase 700 MHz of wireless spectrum from Cox and other cable companies. FCC press release is after the break...
With the ten-person jury selected, a plenty of tidbits hit newswires as Apple and Samsung locked horns this morning inside a San Jose courtroom. Samsung is basically saying that Apple didn't invent the rectangle, while Cupertino insists that Samsung lifted the best iPhone ideas.
Before Apple could portray itself as a smartphone underdog in the opening remarks, the packed courtroom received an 18-minute video primer on how the patent system works, seen right after the break.
Coincidentally or not, in what could foreshadow a major design change for Android amid heating patent wars, Google has filed for an interesting patent which promises to bring radial menus to its mobile operating system and Chrome devices...
If you haven't grabbed your tickets for this year's JailbreakCon event, you may want to hurry up and do that. The largest jailbreak-centric convention on the planet is coming to San Francisco, California in just two short months.
The convention is going to be held at the South San Francisco Conference Center, and it already has an impressive list of guest speakers slated to appear. Want to see how it's all going to go down? Here's the 2012 WWJC schedule...
A certain hit-and-miss Asian trade publication (I know, don't start) reported this morning that the initial shipment of a sixth-generation iPhone could be disrupted due to yield problems with in-cell panels the device is believed to adopt.
Apparently, suppliers are experiencing yield rates too low to generate profits, despite the fact that Apple allegedly offered an estimated $10-15 per-panel subsidy. Really, what's up with in-cell tech and the next iPhone?
Famous jailbreak master Joshua Hill, known in the community as P0sixninja just announced on his Twitter account that he is leaving the Chronic Dev Team, a reputable group of iOS hackers he helped create a few years ago, and of which he was considered the front-man, up until now.
At this point of time, it is unclear what the motivations behind the departure are. A follow up tweet sent by P0sixninja makes it sound like it might be a money matter, but my sources tell me it is far more complicated than that.
Despite producing multiple iPhone prototypes (here, here and here) leading up to its blockbuster 2007 release, the company's brain trust nearly shelved the project because it didn't believe the device was up to Apple's exacting standards of what a mobile phone should be, Cupertino's vice president of industrial design Jonathan Ive revealed in an interview.
One of the issues that had the team consider axing the iPhone involved the device's touchscreen accidentally initiating a phone call when put against one's ear. Apple later solved this by equipping the iPhone with a proximity sensor which automatically turns off the display to prevent spray input from your face...