Can we save AM radio?

Before Facebook, before the internet, before cellphones and TV and even FM radio, there was AM radio. Entire families would gather around elaborate refrigerator-sized receivers and bask in the warm glow of vacuum tubes as news, music, and entertainment poured from the only source of broadcast content in existence — NBC, ABC, and CBS were all on AM before they were on TV. Amplitude modulation operated at the very core of American culture.

But in America we have a bad habit of eviscerating the past. Radio broadcasters, once a vital part of American culture, have been shedding listeners for decades — the mass transition to digital media has been particularly brutal for the AM band, where listenership against FM audiences is at a record low of 15 percent. Predictably, there are only a few people that care about this impending extinction — but one of them just happens to head the Federal Communications Commission.

Old-timey mass media

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai grew up listening to high school basketball games on KLKC 1540AM in his native Parsons, Kansas. It’s not hard to envision the son of Indian immigrants actively becoming more American as he participated in this aural ritual practiced by generations of homebound sports fans before him. AM’s low fidelity makes it relatively unsuitable for music compared to FM; this has traditionally made it a home of hyperlocal talk-radio programming, particularly when it comes to sports and community news. The AM band is still home to 90 percent of all news and talk programming.

“I’m often asked why we should care about the future of AM radio,” Pai said in September at a meeting with the National Association of Broadcasters. “If you care about diversity, you should care about AM radio. Most minority-owned radio stations are located in the AM band … If you care about localism, you should care about AM radio. Many AM radio stations cover local news, weather, and community events.” KLKC still airs ball games today, as well as a sort of Craigslist-without-the-internet show called The Trading Post.

"IF YOU CARE ABOUT DIVERSITY, YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT AM RADIO."

But listening to AM radio in 2014 can be an exercise in frustration. When amplitude modulation was developed in the early 1900s there was little else in the air to get in its way. Now we have iPhones with as many as eight transmitters onboard, pervasive Wi-Fi, and military communications in the mix. Non-digital machinery like cars can also wreak havoc on a signal: you can usually hear the RPMs of your motor fluctuate clearly with in-dash AM receivers, whining up and down with each gear shift. Even nearby lightbulbs can make an otherwise-clear broadcast sound like garbage — that’s because almost any AC-connected appliance radiates frequencies below the 30MHz band, which is also where AM lives. High-powered ESPN and Radio Disney affiliates can usually be heard clearly, but the nostalgic core of AM — those small-town stations like KLKC — are increasingly marginalized by the massive financial, technical, and legal costs of operating a licensed transmitter.

This is where having an AM junkie like Pai at the head of the FCC gets interesting: he’s letting his nostalgia for the antiquated band leak into his policy decisions.

A Pai with a plan

On October 29th, the FCC published a set of guidelines it hopes will “revitalize further the AM band by identifying ways to enhance AM broadcast quality and proposing changes to our technical rules that would enable AM stations to improve their service.” There are six core proposals in the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM 13-249): the first is to allow AM broadcasters an exclusive opportunity to file for an FM translator — that is, to take their existing signal and rebroadcast it into the more widely consumed FM band. Easy enough to understand.

The remaining five address some very technical economic regulations.

In its first 50 years, AM was a large enough player in the media landscape that it required lots of technical regulations to keep stations from interfering with one another’s signals while simultaneously serving their communities with adequate signals. Advertising money was pouring in, and business was big enough that it could support a large and robust engineering workforce to ensure compliance with all those regulations. Now that its audience is relatively microscopic and competition is low, those regulations need to be relaxed to make AM a viable medium, especially for minority and rural (read: small-budget) broadcasters to be able to effectively serve their communities.

If the FCC doesn’t adopt these rules, or something like them, the AM band may simply be too big of a hassle for Americans to both produce for and listen to. In a comment filed on the FCC’s proposed guidelines, Leigh Ellis, the owner of WAKE 1500AM in Porter County, Indiana said: “As helpful as some of these proposals in the NPRM might be, they may not … achieve … a noticeable change in the AM services long-term.”

Ellis is one of the many small-market station heads that filed official comments in support of the proposed changes to the AM band itself, but he’s also resigned to the fact that their businesses will probably be untenable if they don’t get an FM translator as well. Even if every AM listener in the country could hear any local station they wanted to perfectly clearly 24 hours a day, the fact remains that there just aren’t very many people hitting the “AM” button on their tuners these days, and there’s almost nothing anyone can do to change that trend. So what we end up with is proposed legislation that mostly aims to aims to enhance the AM programming band by turning it into FM programming.

Digital, or “HD” AM transmission is something we’ve been hearing about for more than a decade — but most of us have never actually heard it. Like digital TV, it sounds better, but requires stations to buy new transmitters and listeners to buy new receivers — and unlike TV’s transition to digital, there are still legal barriers to rolling out all-digital broadcasts. The National Association of Broadcasters commented on their ongoing experimentation with digital AM broadcasts, but pointed out inherent regulatory challenges: “Deployment of all-digital AM radio service would require a change to the commission’s rules.” After spending so much time in technical and legal beta, digital AM seems more like an expensive, niche destination than a viable alternative to its analog ancestor.

Virgin Atlantic using Google Glass, Sony smartwatches for London passenger check-in

Virgin Atlantic has begun a six-week test aimed at giving its employees more information about some passengers as they enter the London Heathrow airport. The program, which is currently designed only to aid customer service staff attending to upper class passengers, uses Google Glass and Sony's SmartWatch 2 to serve up information about passengers and their destinations:

From the minute Upper Class passengers step out of their chauffeured limousine at Heathrow's T3 and are greeted by name, Virgin Atlantic staff wearing the technology will start the check-in process. At the same time, staff will be able to update passengers on their latest flight information, weather and local events at their destination and translate any foreign language information. In future, the technology could also tell Virgin Atlantic staff their passengers' dietary and refreshment preferences - anything that provides a better and more personalized service.

FOR FLIGHT INFO, WEATHER, AND LOCAL EVENTS

Virgin says the program replaces an existing service that gave its employees customized information. If successful, Virgin says it could bring Glass or the Sony watches to other airports, though the company did not say whether it might trickle the service down to passengers with lower tier tickets.

Google Glass continues to be available only to those who sign for up the company's Glass Explorer program, with the hardware running $1,499 a pair (or more if you opt for the new prescription frames). It's unclear just how many units of Glass and the Sony smartwatch Virgin Atlantic bought and plan to use as part of the pilot.

Nokia and HTC bury hatchet in patent disputes

The two have been battling since 2012, and several HTC phones have been banned from sale in Europe

Nokia and HTC have settled their long-running patent infringement battles, which played out in several countries and have seen a handful of HTC phones banned from sale in Europe.

The two companies, both major players in the smartphone industry, said they have agreed on a "patent and technology collaboration" that will settle all outstanding litigation.

[ Simon Phipps tells it like it is: Why software patents are evil. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. | Read Bill Snyder's Tech's Bottom Line blog for what the key business trends mean to you. ]

Precise details were not revealed, but the companies said HTC will pay Nokia an undisclosed sum and the collaboration will involve HTC's patents on LTE technology. LTE, often called 4G, is a high-speed wireless data transmission technology being rolled out by carriers in many countries.

Nokia's chief intellectual property officer, Paul Melin, hailed the agreement as validating Nokia's patents while HTC's general counsel, Grace Lei, said her company was "pleased to come to this agreement."

Nokia had asserted since 2012 that HTC infringed on about 50 of its patents and engaged in unauthorized use of proprietary innovations.

The cases had been making their way through the courts in countries including the U.K., Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S.

In March 2013, Nokia won an injunction in Germany against some HTC smartphones that were found to infringe upon a power-saving technology.

In September, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled HTC infringed two patents held by Nokia related to cellphones and tablets, and in October the High Court of England and Wales ruled that some HTC devices infringed on a Nokia mobile network standard patent.

Nokia won a sales ban against the HTC One Mini smartphone in the U.K. as a result of that latter judgment.

Patent battles between major smartphone manufacturers have become a common part of the industry in the years since Apple introduced the iPhone and sparked the smartphone boom. Faced with a highly competitive marketplace, companies have been suing each other when one considers a competitor's products look too similar to their own.

The iLuv iMM747 Audio Cube

The iLuv iMM747 Audio Cube is a fully-dedicated iPad stereo docking station. The Audio Cube provides two speaker channels, each with iLuv’s enhanced jAura Soundcell Technology. The iMM747 features easy docking via an adjustable, sliding docking wall, which provides secure iPad vertical support and a flexible 30 pin connector that automatically adjusts to dock your iPhone 4 or iPod as well.

Cost: $149.99

 Attractive dedsign. Clever dock connector design. Works on iPods, iPhones, and iPads. USB connection works flawlessly for syncing devices. The iLuv Audio Cube looks nice and can handle any iPod, iPad, or iPhone device, but its underwhelming power and lack of a remote prevent it from being a compelling dock.

Court bans AT&T's Aio Wireless from using magenta color

A federal court has granted T-Mobile a preliminary injunction against AT&T subsidiary Aio Wireless on grounds that the low-cost carrier's color scheme infringes on T-Mobile's iconic magenta. In the decision, Federal District Court judge Lee Rosenthal writes that "T-Mobile has shown a likelihood that potential customers will be confused into thinking that Aio is affiliated or associated with T-Mobile based on the confused association between Aio’s use of its plum color and T-Mobile’s similar use of its similar magenta color." The opinion prohibits Aio Wireless from using its plum color in advertising, marketing, and store design.

In the complaint, T-Mobile argued that Aio's plum color scheme and similar wireless services confused customers into thinking that the low-cost carrier was associated with T-Mobile. Winning a preliminary injunction requires a strong case, as T-Mobile had to prove that it had a strong likelihood of success in the final case. Considering the likelihood that Aio was infringing — and the damages that the infringement was causing to T-Mobile — The court decided that it should stop Aio from continuing to use its shade of plum. A final ruling is yet to come, and issues such as monetary damages will be decided later.

'Flappy Bird' creator says that tomorrow he's pulling the game offline

Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen has said in his twitter update that tomorrow he's pulling the game offline. It is assumed that he will remove it from IOS & Android App Store for some unknown reasons.On Twitter, Nguyen, whose surprise hit is making $50,000 a day in ad revenue, said that he "cannot take this anymore" and would remove the game 22 hours from now, or midday Sunday.

https://twitter.com/dongatory/statuses/432227971173068800



The notoriously difficult Flappy Bird was created in mid-2013, but it only gained recognition over the past weeks as a sudden rise in popularity brought it to the top of both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. It's received both genuine and backhanded praise for its simple design, which asks players to simply navigate between pair after pair of pipes without hitting either one. Just a few days ago, Nguyen told The Verge that he was thinking about a sequel, so this is a sudden turn of events. We've reached out to Nyugen for more answers, but for now, play Flappy Bird while you can, in case it really is gone tomorrow.

007 Spy Gear....Spy gadget

You might have heard about spy gadgets in James bond movies. It might be surprising for you to know that these gadgets are now available in the market for sale. The greatest surprise is that many companies are manufacturing these gadgets for cheaper rates thereby making it affordable for common man. Initially these gadgets and spy gears where used only by high officials while dealing with very high confidential jobs.

 

 

These were shown in television as most expensive gadgets on planet earth. It was the dream of every man to at least see these gadgets for real. Now the dream is turning to reality making it possible for every body to own a spy gadget. There are many types of spy gadgets like spy cameras, GPS tracking devices, listening devices, surveillance equipments, counter spy and many more. You can even get a spy gear where hidden camera is placed along with a sun glass which helps to record the videos with the help of the camera placed behind the sun glasses. You will not be able to find out the camera even after taking the glass off your face.

The camera is having 4GB capacity to store both video and audio. Spy pens forms another extraordinary spy gear with 8GB memory storage capacity. This helps in detection of sound along with video capture and also takes still photographs. The pen has the capacity of recording videos for hours without any problem. This comes with a USB interface. It is interesting to know that even watches are attached with various spy devices. Spy watch DVR is another popular spy gear that comes to market with a capacity of 2GB/ 4GB/8 GB flash memories. This is also having a USB interface and comes along with a charger which will help in charger the devices where ever you go.

All the videos are recorded in.avi format making it easy to view on any player. It is also possible to use the device while charging. All most all the spy gadgets are available in market with at least six months warranty. Internet is the best place where you can search in order to find a suitable gadget. 007spygear.com is one among the website offering variety of spy gadgets from which you can select according to your interest. Even children are now day's fond of having one in order to play with it. Spygear is trusted as number one for comprehensive expert advice. This company is a well respected, established and experienced manufacturers of spy gear,spy gadgets and surveillance equipment and are selling online.

Camcorder Pen: Spy pen with style

 

Riding the crime wave, we have seen justice being served by our silver screens greatest spy knowingly identified as James bond with his latest gadgets and technology splashing all over the silver screen. Anybody gets tempted with the amazing gadgets that we see in the movies. It is proved that technology now embraces all parts of our lives and entwined with every work and influences every decision you make. Being a part of geekiegadgets.com, you will always receive not only the latest but the things that you expected not to be existed. You might be excited with another piece of spy gadgets for your hidden and secret venture. Take a close look around this Camcorder Pen that records anything you want without being noticed or getting caught.

 

Grooving with cool looking stylish pen that sits in your pocket like a normal pen does but the hidden function is unknown to everyone. It is small and can be used at anytime, anywhere when you want to catch someone doing something in front of you. Unlike other spy pen, this Camcorder pen comes with new and improved CMOS sensor for better function. This pen captures the video in MPEG4 –AVI format with sound at range of 10 meters by the built in microphone.

Okay, the space that this pen holds is 1 GB that is well enough to capture up to 3 hours of videos. More interestingly the focus range of this spy cam is from 150 mm to infinity, capturing at rate of 15 fps with 352×288 resolutions videos plus 128 kbps PCM audio. The buffering technology helps to record and encode the videos on the fly in mpeg4 format. The unit can be charged via USB output as it includes internal batteries. Doesn’t this sound so simple, when you have a pen that writes in style and captures everything around you secretly? Now, again you can venture your secret adventure of your own. Make sure it is fully charged and don’t lose it.

Strap Ya's Solar Cell Phone charger

Lunar Baby Thermometer

Japanese computer mice

 

SanDisk slotRadio

The new SanDisk slotRadio is an unusual audio player. For just under $100 you get an MP3 player that comes bundled with a slotRadio microSD card that packs in 1000 songs. This player isn’t really an iPod competitor, it’s not about packing in the latest technology and features, but rather it’s all about value for your money and ease of use. It’s also one of the few digital audio players to ever come with music straight out of the box, and in this case it’s packing a ton of music.

In the Box:
The slotRadio comes with some typical accessories: a silicon protective case, a USB cable, ear phones, and AC adapter for your electrical outlet. The other end of the AC adapter attaches to the USB cable. Nothing here is especially out of the ordinary, but including a protective case is appreciated. Of course included is the slotRadio itself and a slotRadio microSD with preloaded songs.

Design:
The SanDisk slotRadio is a little bit bigger than the iPod shuffle and even has a metal clip attached to the back of it for easy attachment to your jeans or jacket. The casing is metal and the display is comprised of a black and white LCD and directionals to scroll through songs in either in forward or reverse. The top of the player has a switch to power it on, select either FM Radio or play your MP3s.  There is also the slot to insert your microSD card. On the front face of the player, the right side of the player has a next button for songs in a playlist while the left side of the player has two volume buttons (+ -). The bottom of slotRadio has a USB connection and an input for your headset. Overall the design is very simple and lightweight and you could easily slip this into your pocket or clip it on to your shorts and forget it’s even there.

             

Interface:

The menu has a few simple but cool animations which jazz up the player but they are only in black and white. Operating the device is very easy and won’t take too much to get used to. But other then that the slotRadio’s design is very simple and so is its feature set. I was very impressed with the FM radio feature. I was able to pick up a static free signal immediately and listen to all my favorite channels. There is also the ability to create preset channels by holding down the ‘next button’ for a few seconds on the right side of the slotRadio. Overall, this player is all about getting the most music for your money.
The slotRadio player can accept any other microSD card and it will play MP3 files off it.  If you want to put on additional MP3 files, just drag and drop them on to your slotRadio player, you’ll be able to do so via a drag and drop interface on both Mac and PC. However, you are not able to see any of the music that comes preloaded on the slotRadio card. In contrast, the slotMusic cards for the slotMusic player are totally DRM free so that means you can drag and drop their music files wherever you’d like and delete them if you so choose. However the music that comes bundled on the slotRadio player’s card is a different story. SanDisk says that they are working on mobile applications that will let you take the slotRadio music cards and listen to its music on mobile phones. They also have slotRadio genre cards in the works, including one which just contains country music.

Sound Quality:
Since there is no equalizer or bass/treble options for the player, the sound quality really depends on the quality of files you upload to the slotRadio. The songs preloaded onto the player we got seemed to be decent quality and if you really need to experience a more full bodied song then turning the volume up will certainly improve the sound experience. I transferred a few songs on to the player and it was a fine playback experience and certainly nothing I would snicker at being subpar quality.

Conclusion:
The slotRadio is certainly different. For starters it comes with a card that is preloaded with 1000 songs. What other MP3 player does that? The other very unusual aspect of the slotRadio player is that it has no play button. Instead it’s only sporting two simplistic buttons – which are skip forward and backward on playlists. Unfortunately the unit we tested is not a final unit, and neither was the card that was included. Thus we don’t know for sure what music will be bundled with the slotRadio player. However we do know that SanDisk is working with Billboard to provide the music, and Akon definitely has some music on there along with many other top hit artists.

Artificial Pancreas – Device for Diabetes Patients

 

Scientists at London have used an “Artificial Pancreas” system of pumps and monitors to improve blood sugar control in diabetes patients in the first study to show the new device works better than conventional treatment. Researchers from Britain’s Cambridge University tested the device on 17 children with type 1 diabetes during a series of nights in hospital and found it kept their blood sugar levels within the “normal” range 60 per cent of the time.

HOW IT WORKS?

 

The new system, which involves patients wearing a matchbox-sized monitor and a similar-sized pump with a tube to deliver insulin into the body, also halved the amount of time blood sugar dropped to worrying or dangerous levels, they said. Medical device makers have been working for years to develop a so-called artificial pancreas to deliver insulin to patients with type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease in which the body destroys its own ability to make insulin. The bodies of type 1 diabetes sufferers become unable to properly break down sugar and if untreated, blood vessels and nerves are destroyed, organs fail and patients die.

“These devices could transform the management of type 1 diabetes, but it is likely to be a gradual process,” Roman Hovorka of Cambridge, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.
He said the results were “an important stepping stone” towards bringing an artificial pancreas to the commercial market, but predicted several years yet of refinement before it could be used day and night by patients. “It’s a bit like with mobile phones. When we started, the technology wasn’t very good and the functionality was limited, and it took a number of generations to move to the device that we have now. I see the same thing with this system.”

24-HOUR CHECKS
The goal is to create a device that can check patients’ blood day and night. The Cambridge study found their device performed better than a conventional pump, which delivers insulin at pre-set rates and which kept blood sugar levels around normal for 40 per cent of the time compared with 60 per cent for the artificial pancreas. Hovorka said the findings were particularly encouraging because the study included nights when the children went to bed after eating a large evening meal or having done exercise — both of which can affect blood sugar levels.

iOS Jailbreakers Dig Up a Wormy Little Exploit

Hackers at JailbreakMe.com have revealed an iOS vulnerability that could apparently give nefarious exploiters a great deal of control over an iPhone. Apple has promised that a fix is on the way, though the jailbreak group has already issued its own patch, meaning that for the moment, one's best protection against this particular flaw could be to jailbreak one's iPhone -- though that could open it up to other vulnerabilities.

Zero-day vulnerabilities in Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iOS that are used to jailbreak iPhones and iPads could also be used to access confidential information, according to the German Federal Office for Information Security. The bug, exposed by a team of hackers at JailbreakMe.com, exploits vulnerabilities on PDFs. It allows users of an Apple device that runs on iOS version 4.3 through 4.3.3 to jailbreak an iPhone or iPad, meaning that user now has a new level of control over the device. Typically, this is done in order to install apps that haven't been given the Apple seal of approval.

"While this allows users to run any apps they want, even those not reviewed by Apple, it is not without risk. In the past we have seen jailbreaks exploited to install banking malware on vulnerable systems. Essentially, this defeats the entire security posture of the device," Tim Armstrong, malware researcher at Kapersky Labs, told MacNewsWorld. In the wrong hands, the vulnerability could prove invasive. "Had this exploit been released by a malicious party, it could have been used to hijack personal information on the device, install malware, surveil the user by tracking their GPS information, access the camera and/or microphone, or a perform a myriad of other nefarious tasks," Jonathan Zdziarski, iPhone hacker and data forensics analyst, told MacNewsWorld. Apparently the developer realizes this is a more dangerous threat than other exploits, because the group released a fix in tandem with the jailbreak product."Usually the developers of these types of exploits do not concern themselves with larger security threats that come with this behavior. It is a sort of a 'buyer beware' type situation," Armstrong said. Apple announced Thursday it will also be issuing a fix as soon as possible, according to The Wall Street Journal.

To Jailbreak or Not to Jailbreak?

In the meantime, users hoping to protect themselves run into a sticky security situation. First, users of the iPad or iPhone should stay away from unknown PDFs. Also, users face the decision of whether or not to jailbreak their devices. Ironically, in this particular scenario, jailbreaking may be the only way a user can guarantee staying safe.
"Going to jailbreakme.com and jailbreaking their phone will not only fix the PDF vulnerability, but open their device up to a new world of legal freeware, shareware, and other great software just like your desktop," Zdziarski said. Others say that while it's a good safety mechanism, jailbreaking can also open up a world of security concerns. "It's a very difficult decision. If you choose not to jailbreak your device and install the additional patch, you remain vulnerable until Apple releases an official patch. On the other hand, if you jailbreak, you could possibly add additional security holes to your device," said Armstrong.
Jailbreaking one's phone may also void the device's warranty.

Security Concerns on the Rise

Security researchers urge both users and tech companies like Apple and their competitors to be increasingly vigilant as malware, security breaches and malicious hacking become more common in the digital world.
"There's no way to prevent every single security vulnerability, but Apple has been known to be lackadaisical in securing iOS. To many in the open source community, many of their approaches to security seem nonsensical and administratively lazy," Zdziarski said. Others agree that on top of prevention, Apple needs to make it a priority to get fixes to users quickly.
"The most that companies like Apple can do is to follow coding and security best practices to make it as difficult as possible to engineer these types of exploits, and to patch them as quickly as they can once they're discovered," Armstrong told MacNewsWorld. Another way the company can tighten its hold on security and keep iPhone and iPad users happy is to make sure it's not necessary to upgrade software every time a fix comes through.
"The best way Apple can prevent such vulnerabilities from becoming as big of an issue in the future ... is finding ways to deliver small operating system fixes without having to upgrade the device's firmware entirely. Can you imaging how often security vulnerabilities would get fixed if you had to reinstall [Mac OS X] Snow Leopard on your desktop every time there was a new fix?" said Zdziarski.

Apple and the Dogs of Patent War

Patents and patent law have played big roles in Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) business this past week.

For one thing, Apple's chief patent counsel, Richard "Chip" Lutton Jr., will be leaving his post, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.Meanwhile, Apple's patent disputes with Android device makers HTC and Samsung continue; a consortium led by the company is getting its hands on several Nortel (NYSE: NT) patents; and Apple has had a setback in its legal battle to claim copyright over the term "App Store."
In other reaches of the Apple universe, the iPhone continues to be a money-spinner for Cupertino, with a report that it has given Apple 50 percent of the profits made by the smartphone industry, despite having less than 20 percent of the market and losing ground to Android.Analysts continue to debate the possibility of Apple launching one -- or perhaps two -- new iPhones in September.

On the apps front, Cupertino appears unassailable. Apple users are not only buying lots more apps, but they're paying more per app, and the company claims more than 15 billion apps have been downloaded from the iTunes App Store. That could ensure Apple remains dominant in the tablet market, although the best-selling tablets at Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) are Android devices. Cupertino did not respond to requests for comment on several of these issues by press time.
AAPL closed at $353.75 on Tuesday.

Apple and the Patent-Go-Round

Apple's chief patent counsel, Richard "Chip" Lutton, is leaving the company after 10 years and will be replaced by B.J. Watrous, a former deputy general counsel with HP (NYSE: HPQ), Reuters reported.
The departure comes at a time when Apple is tied up in patent litigation with Android device manufacturers HTC, Samsung and Motorola (NYSE: MOT).It's not clear why Lutton is leaving, or how his departure might impact Apple.Meanwhile, a consortium led by Apple has obtained court approval to snap up several patents put on the block by ailing Canadian telecommunications vendor Nortel. These include several smartphone-related patents, many related to LTE, which is becoming a widely adopted 4G wireless technology worldwide.Separately, a federal judge has denied Apple's request for a preliminary injunction preventing Amazon from using the term "App Store," but it disagreed with Amazon's claim that the term is purely generic, paving the way for litigation to continue.

Minting Money With the iPhone

Apple snarfed up about 50 percent of the net earnings of the entire handset industry in the first quarter of 2011, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley has reported. The iPhone 4 continued to be the leading smartphone at both AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon in June, Walkley said.Meanwhile, there's lots of speculation over when Apple will release a new iPhone, and what will be unveiled when it does.
Some analysts contend Apple's building two iPhones to be released in September, while others believe it will unveil only one.

The Power of the App

Apple's iOS, which runs on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, will continue to be the leading mobile operating system, Cannacord Genuity's Walkley stated.That is likely driven by the plethora of apps available for iOS devices.Apple users are reportedly buying 61 percent more apps and paying 14 percent more per app, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a note to investors.Last week, Apple announced that customers have made more that 15 billion app downloads from the iTunes App Store.

iPad on the iThrone?

The best-selling tablets on Amazon.com are Android devices, although the online retail giant also carries iPads."All tablets have been selling very well this year as customers continue to show strong interest in this new category," Amazon spokesperson Anya Waring told MacNewsWorld. "The Toshiba Thrive 10.1-inch Android Tablet currently occupies the No. 1 position," she added.Another possible competitor to the iPad family might come from Amazon itself, which is reported to have plans to bring out its own device.
"A Retrevo survey found that Amazon's very high up on the list that people would buy a tablet from, so they have very good brand recognition, Apple notwithstanding," Andrew Eisner, director of community and content at Retrevo, told MacNewsWorld. However, that threat may not be so lethal.

"The question device manufacturers have to answer is, 'Why are you doing this?'" Michael Morgan, a senior analyst at ABI Research, told MacNewsWorld. "

A lot of people have the technology, but Apple offers a lifestyle." That, Morgan suggested, is why iOS devices are so successful.