Apple, seeking to help finance a $100 billion capital reward for shareholders with borrowed money, is selling its first bonds in almost two decades in what may be the biggest U.S. corporate offering on record, reports "Bloomberg" (http://tinyurl.com/cyfujku).

The article notes that Apple intends to issue debt as soon as today, including floating-rate notes maturing in 2016 and 2018 and fixed-rate securities due in 2016, 2018, 2023 and 2043, according to a regulatory filing. Proceeds may help the company avoid repatriation taxes on its $102.3 billion of funds held overseas as CEO Tim Cook returns an additional $55 billion to shareholders through 2015 to compensate for a stock that’s been hammered by signs of slowing growth.

"You’ll see a meaningful amount of interest,” Ashish Shah, the head of global credit investment at New York-based AllianceBernstein LP, which oversees $256 billion in fixed...

A federal judge has set new trial dates in November to decide whether US$450.5 million of damages awarded by a jury to Apple in a patent dispute with Samsung should stand, reports "Reuters" (http://tinyurl.com/dyl9kkb).

In March, Judge Lucy Koh slashed a $1.05 billion jury award by more than 40% and set a new trial to determine damages. On Monday the judge ordered that the new trial on damages should take place between Nov. 12 and 18.

This is all part of the ongoing, global legal battle. Apple and Samsung have filed more than 30 lawsuits against each other across four continents. For example, Apple alleges that Samsung copied the slide-to-unlock technology of its iPhone and iPad devices.

Realore has announced All My Gods Free for Macintosh, a free trial version of its god-sim strategy game. It requires Mac OS X 10.6.6 and is available at the Mac App Store (http://tinyurl.com/d9wx3t9).

Here's how the game is described: "All my Gods allows players to immerse into the atmosphere of Ancient Rome and play as a young aspiring godling. The mission is to develop into a mighty Roman god and build a great Empire. With the release of All my Gods Free players have a chance to feel what it's like to be a Roman god without paying a dime.

"The game begins when one of the oldest gods, Saturn, decides to retire and wants his son to take his place. Other Roman gods decide that first Saturn's heir has to prove that he is worthy of their trust and divine powers he is about to receive.

"All my Gods is a city-building god-sim strategy that allows players to immerse into the atmosphere of...

MaxUpgrades has announced the SSD SATA Module with heat sink for the iMac 2012 models. It's available in an US$99.95 single SSD drive kit and a $119.95 dual SSD drive kit.

SSD SATA Module with heat sink for iMac 2012 Models enables the iMacs to use dual standard 2.5 inch Form Factor SSDs, or an SSD + HDD configuration. It also fulfills RAID 0 or RAID 1 requirements of identical SSDs of same capacity, make and model,with the highest capacity and maximum Performance SSDs available in standard 2.5-inch form factor (such as the Crucial 960GB M500 Samsung 840 Pro series.) For more info go to www.MaxUpgrades.com .

Apple has won a court ruling that it doesn’t infringe patent claims brought by intellectual property licensing firm Golden Bridge Technology, reports "Bloomberg" (http://tinyurl.com/bltvnws). The company sued Apple in 2010 over patents for boosting connections in mobile networks.

U.S. District Judge Sue Robinson in Wilmington, Delaware, also canceled a jury trial that was scheduled to begin today over two patents for 3-G network communications held by Long Branch, New Jersey-based Golden Bridge. Golden Bridge sued Apple in 2010 over patents for boosting connections in mobile networks.

"The record evidence remains consistent with the finding of non-infringement," Robinson wrote in an order April 25 affirming earlier decisions on the patent descriptions, notes "Bloomberg."

Golden Bridge plans to appeal.

Winter Wolves has released Bionic Heart 2 for the Mac. It's a "deep and dark, sci-fi visual" novel/game told from four points of view.

Here's how Bionic Heart 2 is described: "Take control of Luke, Tom, Tanya and Tina. Each character has their own personality, complete with quirky traits that could potentially whip the story straight into a plot twist. Bionic Heart 2 is the only visual novel featuring a scene with TWO talking brains! The game also features beautiful manga artwork, a full original soundtrack, and meaningful choices that will have repercussions on the whole universe."

You can download the demo and buy the game from Winter Wolves website at www.winterwolves.com/bionicheart2.htm . It costs US$19.99 to purchase.

Apple will challenge a November 2012 jury verdict that awarded $368 million in damages to Nevada patent-holding company VirnetX, a filing with U.S. regulators showed -- as noted by "Macworld" (http://tinyurl.com/bwfn5qv)

In a Form 10-Q filed this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Apple said it had not yet recorded the millions owed to VirnetX on its balance sheet. "The Company is challenging the verdict, believes it has valid defenses and has not recorded a loss accrual at this time," Apple said in the SEC filing.

VirnetX filed its lawsuit against Apple in August 2010. The company claimed that Apple’s FaceTime and Message, a video chat application and SMS text-replacement, respectively, infringed on four of its patents.

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 76.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013 (1Q13), down -13.9% compared to the same quarter in 2012 and worse than the forecast decline of -7.7%, according to the "International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker."

The extent of the year-on-year contraction marked the worst quarter since IDC began tracking the PC market quarterly in 1994. The results also marked the fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year shipment declines.

Despite some mild improvement in the economic environment and some new PC models offering Windows 8, PC shipments were down significantly across all regions compared to a year ago. Fading mini notebook shipments have taken a big chunk out of the low-end market while tablets and smartphones continue to divert consumer spending, says IDC. Apple fared better than the overall U.S. market, but still saw shipments decline as its own PCs also face competition from iPads.

PC industry efforts...

Quark says Quark XML Author now supports the Japanese language with a fully-localized and integrated user interface.

Quark XML Author is the add-in to Microsoft Word that enables the creation of structured XML content through the familiar Word interface. With Quark XML Author all content creators, not just technical experts, can create valid XML-based content components.

Now Quark XML Author supports Japanese-speaking content creators as well as users from around the world who create Japanese-language materials. In addition to a fully localized and integrated user interface, Quark XML Author now supports Microsoft IME and Microsoft Office IME (2007/2010) for Japanese, including keyboard and IME Pad support. For more info go to http://tinyurl.com/byjvekf .

A new report (www.soluto.com/reports) from Soluto a Web service company, quantifiably concluded that the "MacBook Pro is the best Windows PC on the market," beating out traditional PCs.

The report based its findings on a number of criteria including application crashes, blue-screens-of-death, long boot times, etc.  According to the report, "if you’ve ever looked for an excuse to buy a MacBook -- now you have it."
 
On a related note, millions of people improve their Windows on Mac experience by using Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac, the No. 1-selling solution for simultaneously running Windows and Mac apps side-by-side without rebooting. Parallels Desktop will even simply move your entire PC to your Mac so you can have everything you need on one computer. 

Parallels Desktop (www.parallels.com) is also a great way for...

A Beijing court has ordered Apple to compensate three Chinese writers for selling their works via its app store without getting their permission, reports "ZDNet" (http://tinyurl.com/avpg77f), translating an article from the "China Daily" newspaper.

The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ruled in favor of the authors. Apple will have to pay them in excess of 730,000 yuan (about US$118,000) for the infringement. Apple had not gotten permission before selling their books on the Apple App Store, according to the court. The presiding judge, Feng Gang, said Apple has the duty of checking whether the books uploaded by third-party providers are in line with current laws.

Literature & Latte has introduced Scapple, a project planning and organization tool for Mac OS X (10.6.8 or higher).

Scapple is designed to help you get ideas down quickly and make connections between them. More like a freeform text editor, it allows you to make notes anywhere on the page and to connect them using straight dotted lines or arrows.

Creating notes can be done by double-clicking anywhere on the canvas and then typing. Making connections between ideas involves dragging and dropping one note onto another. Notes can also be dragged from Scapple into Scrivener, Literature & Latte's content-generation program.

Scapple is now available for purchase from www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php for US$14.99. A fully-featured, 30-day trial is also available for download.