ITC decides in favor of Kodak in Apple's complaint

The International Trade Commission on Thursday ruled in favor of Kodak in Apple's trade complaint. An administrative law judge determined that Kodak hadn't infringed on Apple's patents on camera and image technology for devices like the iPhone. The ruling isn't yet binding and will be either upheld or tossed after a collective ITC decision on September 19....

Source: http://feeds.macnn.com/click.phdo?i=63afc2cd1d0334f7cfce1d0fc903e08f

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TUAW's Daily iOS App: Samurai Girl

Samurai Girl is a 2D Korean RPG on iOS that's surprisingly deep. The combat is pretty traditional 2D stuff, but this game has all of the features that you'd expect in a full RPG, including over 50 quests and various skills to earn, a full collectibles and crafting system and even a pet system, which the game claims is the first ever seen in an action RPG (I'll argue that Torchlight has pets, but whatever).

Unfortunately, the game suffers from a pretty cluttered UI, so while the controls are responsive, it might take a little getting used to all of the buttons and seeing around them. But the action is pretty fast and furious, and while the game's Korean heritage doesn't do it any favors (it can be a little confusing knowing where to go and what to do), the RPG elements are surprisingly deep and make for a nice big experience.

Plus, the game's on sale for just a buck this weekend, so if you have any interest in playing this one at all, it's more than worth a try.

TUAW's Daily iOS App: Samurai Girl originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 13 May 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/13/tuaws-daily-ios-app-samurai-girl/

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Apple Testifies on Mobile Privacy, Location Cache Encryption Coming to iOS

As noted last week, Apple vice president Bud Tribble today participated in a U.S. Senate panel discussion of mobile privacy, particularly as it relates to location tracking. Tribble's appearance alongside Google's Alan Davidson and other experts and privacy advocates was supplemented with a new formal letter (PDF) from Apple to concerned legislators reiterating and expanding upon comments made several weeks ago as Apple sought to address public scrutiny of the issue.

During his testimony, Tribble took great pains to make clear that the iOS location database has not been tracking users' devices directly, instead containing information on nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi access points to aid the device itself in quickly determining its location for services relying on that information. Apple of course acknowledged several bugs that had allowed that local cache to grow larger than intended and prevented the information from being deleted when location services were disabled. Those bugs were addressed with last week's release of iOS 4.3.3.

Apple apparently plans to go further, however, noting that it will encrypt the downsized local cache as of the "next major release" of iOS. And Apple has already ceased backing up the cached access point location data to users' computers as part of the device backup process.

The local cache is protected with iOS security features, but it is not encrypted. Beginning with the next major release of iOS, the operating system will encrypt any local cache of the hotspot and cell tower location information.

Prior to the [iOS 4.3.3] update, iTunes backed up the local cache (stored in consolidated.db) as part of the normal device backup if there was a syncing relationship between the device and a computer. The iTunes backup, including consolidated.db, may or may not have been encrypted, depending on the customer's settings in iTunes. After the software update, iTunes does not back up the local cache (now stored in cache.db).

Senators also pressed Apple and Google on third-party applications, inquiring about how the companies address data collection and usage by third-party developers offering software for their platforms, as well as whether those developers should be required to publish explicit privacy policies regarding users' data.

In response, Tribble briefly explained Apple's App Store review process and noted that the company believes that developer privacy policies would not go far enough in informing users, sharing information on Apple's decision to include visual indicators within iOS telling users when their location is being accessed and which applications have accessed that information within the previous 24 hours.

On the topic of how Apple polices developers on what is done with that data after is collected, Tribble pointed to random audits of applications and their network traffic behavior, a reliance on user and blog reports of issues, and a fast response time to pull down apps exhibiting questionable behavior until those issues can be resolved.


Source: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/10/apple-testifies-on-mobile-privacy-location-cache-encryption-coming-to-ios/

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Phase One's Expression Media updated, rebranded as Media Pro

Phase One has launched Media Pro, an updated and rebranded digital asset management app based on Microsoft Expression Media. It handles photos, videos and multimedia, and various storage types, like hard drives, DVDs and shared folders, with offline workflow. It bypasses an old barrier of 128,000 files per catalog, and can cope with an unlimited number of catalogs. Images can be added via drag and drop, and keyworded, browsed, rotated, cropped, resized and magnified, with search and annotation support. Catalogs can be archived, published as a slideshow or web gallery...

Source: http://feeds.macnn.com/click.phdo?i=aeccb1a22c567b9ae5213dbb30567080

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Netflix adds captioning to iOS apps

netflix

Adding captioning to movies in Netflix for the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone is going to be a big deal for a lot of people, and Netflix has added that feature today. It's already present when you watch Netflix movies with a browser on a desktop or laptop, but now mobile users can take advantage of captions as well.

Unfortunately, not all films have this feature. If there is captioning, a little voice balloon icon will appear on the volume control. Tap it and select English, which is the only option for now. I tried it in several movies, and about half of those I sampled have the feature. The captions are in yellow text and are easy to read. Captions are going to be really great for the hearing impaired, or even nice for watching a movie in a crowded environment.

As of this writing, the version listed in the iTunes store is 1.2.1, but the version that was delivered to my iPhone was 1.3. I think the iTunes store information is running behind, but make sure you have the latest version, which contains the captioning feature.

Netflix adds captioning to iOS apps originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 12 May 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/12/netflix-adds-captioning-to-ios-apps/

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Microsoft to Acquire Skype for $8.5 Billion


Rumors of the acquisition broke last night, and this morning Microsoft has confirmed that they are acquiring Skype for $8.5 billion.

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and Skype Global S. r.l today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Skype, the leading Internet communications company, for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake. The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both Microsoft and Skype.

Skype is the popular voice over internet service that also offers a Mac and iOS App version.

Microsoft reports that Skype will support Microsoft devices like Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone and a wide array of Windows devices, and Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live and other communities. The press release also states that they will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms.


Source: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/10/microsoft-to-acquire-skype-for-8-5-billion/

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TUAW's Daily Mac App: Shuttie

Shuttie

Ever wanted to leave your Mac running unattended at night, but don't want it running all night long? Today's Daily Mac App will help you do just that.

Shuttie allows you to bind one of six actions to a countdown timer, allowing you to shutdown, restart, sleep or logout of your Mac, or fire off an AppleScript or an alert. You select the action you want, the countdown time and hit the activate button. Shuttie will provide periodic Growl notifications as it counts down to zero, as well as a timer on its dock icon, and then it will initiate whichever activity you've got selected. Loading an AppleScript is a drag-and-drop affair while your desired alert text is entered into a text box.

Sure, there are other ways of doing this kind of thing, but Shuttie is a good way to set up these tasks to be performed remotely. It's US$1.99 in the Mac App Store.

TUAW's Daily Mac App: Shuttie originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 11 May 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/11/tuaws-daily-mac-app-shuttie/

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