Several Apple patents involving the accelerometer and other deterministic methods of navigation of the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

Patent number 20100188331 is for methods and apparatuses for operating a portable device based on an accelerometer. According to one embodiment of the invention, a movement of a portable device is detected using an accelerometer attached to the portable device. An orientation of the portable device after the movement is determined based on movement data provided by the accelerometer. It is determined whether the portable device is held by a user after the movement based on the movement data provided by the accelerometer. Locations of the hands of the user for holding the portable device are determined based on the orientation of the portable device. At least one interface that is not within the predicted locations of the hands of the user is activated. The inventors are Paul...

Apple is always looking for ways to make its Macs run cooler. Now a company patent (number 7,764,493) for systems and methods for cooling electronic devices using airflow dividers has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office.

An electronic device can be provided with a heat-generating component and a cooling module for dissipating heat. In some embodiments, the cooling component may include a fan configured to produce an outflow of air, and a divider configured not only to direct a first portion of the outflow between a first surface of the divider and the heat-generating component, but also to direct a second portion of the outflow along a second surface of the divider. In other embodiments, the cooling component may include a divider and a pressure clip. A first portion of the pressure clip may be configured to exert a pressure on a first surface of the divider such that the pressure may hold a portion of a second surface of the divider in contact with the heat-...

By Greg Mills

It is just coming out in the inquest over the largest oil spill in US history that the accident might have to do with a PC which was monitoring and controlling the drilling rig suffering a blue screen of death freeze.   

While it has not come out yet which operating system crashed, I don't recall ever having a blue screen of death event in my 25 years of using over a dozen various Macs . Hmmm, I wonder what operating system it might have been ....

The steady increase in business adoption of things Apple has a lot to do with overhead in the long term. How much time will be lost due to OS crashes? How many IP guys will it take to keep the servers up? What is the learning curve on the OS and the company computers in general? The old refrain, "Macs are great, but there just isn't software to do what we need to do that is available on Apple computers" is not really so relevant any more.

Smart phones are going the same way. As...

Well, maybe I won't have to update to the newest iMac, after all. I was expecting a wham-bam, gotta-have update to the all-in-one desktop, but found the latest rev a bit underwhelming.

Sure, all new iMac models come standard with Intel Core processors built on a new architecture. Based on Intel’s 32-nanometer process technology, these processors set new benchmarks for iMac performance. And the the ATI Radeon HD 5670 with 512MB of memory is an option. But my iMac has a quad-core Core i7 running at 2.8GHz and an ATI Radeon 4850 with 512MB of VRAM. So how much of a performance boost would I honesty see?

I like the idea of the Magic Trackpad and the Apple Battery Charger. But they're US$69 and $29 options, respectively, so I can get them for my current iMac.

My present system was the top-of-the-line iMac when I bought it last October. So, unless I'm missing something, guess I'll save my moolah for an iMac update that offers some really must-have additions -- at...

Got your back-up? The Spy has. Indeed, he is as much a back-up as a security paranoiac (refuses to connect to any network without interposing a firewall, for instance). He does not use the Documents folder on the boot partition.

Instead, his machines at work and at home each have a partition called "Files" where all working documents and email is stored (generally on a separate physical drive from the one with the boot partition). He carries about in his pocket a portable multi-interface drive, two of whose partitions are named FilesWork.bak and FilesHome.bak. The routine goes like this:

In the morning before leaving for the university, he backs up the Files partition at home to Files.bak. Upon reaching the ivory basement, he restores the latter to the Files partition on the machine there. When the day's work is done, he backs up to FilesWork.bak, and on reaching home, restores to the Files partition there.

A workable strategy? Yes, he rarely loses any files...

By Greg Mills

There is a story in the international press today that tells how the government of India is touting an Internet connecting touch screen pad that runs Linux, with a browser, has PDF display capabilities, WiFi, 2GBs of memory and potentially email and other features.  

India has 250,000 villages that need to be dragged into age of the Internet. The prototyped device, called "Nano" is designed to offer communications for the government to interface with all the little villages and support educational programs, as well.

The second major stab at an affordable computer for the world's poor, the new pad has promise.  It's set to launch in early 2011. The XO "One Laptop per Child" program has not been able to meet its goal of selling their units under $100, as hoped. The rock bottom, no frills devices are hardly comparable to anything we would use in the US, but they do fill a crying need.  

The bill of materials alone, before...

An Apple patent (number 20100182159) for a contactless plug detect mechanism has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. This is directed to systems and methods for detecting the insertion of a plug in a device port without physically contacting the plug.

For example, systems and methods are provided for detecting the insertion of an audio plug into an audio jack without using physical contacts placed in the periphery of the audio jack. In some embodiments, an electrically conductive element (e.g., a circuit board trace) can be provided on a surface of the port or within the port wall. When a metallic or conductive plug is inserted into the port, the plug can interact with the conductive element and cause a change in capacitance or induction detected by appropriate circuitry coupled to the conductive element.

In some embodiments, an optical sensor can be used to detect a plug placed in a port. In some embodiments, the electronic device can detect...

And here's another reason I think Apple should seriously consider adding Blu-ray playback to the Mac: worldwide Blu-ray player shipments are expected to more than double between 2009 and the end of 2010, and the numbers from ABI Research (http://www.abiresearch.com) forecast continued growth next year, for a total of more than 62.5 million shipments in 2011.

In North America standalone Blu-ray players are expected to reach almost 18% penetration among TV-owning households, up from just over 7% in 2009. As interesting as this estimate is, it's just part of a larger picture.

"The solid growth in Blu-ray player shipments highlights a trend within the wider consumer electronics market," says industry analyst Mike Inouye. "Larger, fixed-location devices such as Blu-ray players and flat panel TVs are enjoying rapid adoption relative to many classes of small, portable devices. Specifically, portable...

An Apple patent (number 7,760,187) for a visual expander has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. It seems to concern an upcoming feature for the iOS -- and perhaps Mac OS X.

A computer implemented method for a touchscreen display is disclosed. The method includes presenting graphical information on the touchscreen display. The method further includes detecting a touch over the touchscreen display. The method also includes expanding an area of the touch screen display proximate the location of the touch. The inventor is Peter Kennedy.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "There exist today many styles of input devices for performing operations in a computer system. The operations generally correspond to moving a cursor and/or making selections on a display screen. By way of example, the input devices may include buttons or keys, mice, trackballs, touch pads, joy sticks, touch screens and the like. Each of these devices has advantages...

Apple will announce its third quarter fiscal results today at 2 pm (Pacific). Here's what the Sellers Research Firm (that's me) is predicting.

I expect Apple to report net income of $2.9 billion, up from $1.8 billion during the year-ago quarter.

Apple will have sold 3.52 million Macs, compared to 2.6 million from the same period a year ago.

Apple will have sold 10 million iPhones during the quarter, compared to 5.2 million from the same period a year ago.

Apple will have sold 10.1 million iPods during the quarter, compared to 10.2 for the same period a year ago.

Apple will have sold 3.5 million iPads during the quarter.

We'll be covering the financial announcements, of course, so check back today to see how the Sellers Research firm did.

-- Dennis Sellers

I suspect we'll see new iMacs introduced in the September/October timeframe in time for the back-to-school shopping season). Here's what I expect to see -- as well as some things I hope to see.

The next iMac will probably include USB 3.0 and HDMI ports. Naturally, it will include speed boosts; I suspect we'll see a high-end six-core model running Intel's 3.2GHz Core i7-970 processor. Or perhaps even the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X Extreme Edition, Both feature Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost features and support 1066MHz DDR3 memory.

Or perhaps -- though less likely -- the next iMacs will sport "Sandy Bridge" processors. The difference between the Nehalem-based chips of today and Sandy Bridge is that the latter's architecture takes everything down to 32nm -- including the graphics processor and memory controller -- while keeping it all within the same enclosure. (Intel plans to eventually transition to a 22nm process.)

Intel claims that Sandy Bridge will increase...

First off, let me note that I don't have an iPhone 4 -- and won't until I Verizon (or Spring or T-Mobile) carries it. The AT&T reception is just terrible where I live. Still, despite all the hoopla over the antenna/reception issue, I'd love to have one.

That's not to say that Apple doesn't have a major problem on its hands with the iPhone 4, though it's more of a PR problem than a technical issue. And if I were a betting man, I'd place money on the Apple NOT having a recall of its latest smartphone line.

Sure, "Consumer Reports" has said it can't recommend the iPhone 4 due to antenna/reception problems -- if there are indeed problems. And I'm personally skeptical that there are major technical problems with the iPhone 4.

I know four people who have bought an iPhone 4; none of them are having any issues. Well, at least no more than they did with their iPhone 3Gs or 3Gses (thanks, AT&T). Changewave Research says there's still an incredible amount of...