New Zealand's parliament is considering a bill that rethinks software patents. The bill, while not explicitly banning software patents per se, instead declares software alone as not eligible for patent protection because there is no "inventive step" involved. Bryan Chaffin looks at the implications.

Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer's Managing Editor, will be speaking at the Colorado Macintosh User Group meeting on Thursday, May 9, in Boulder, Colorado. Jeff will be sharing his thoughts on Adobe's recent switch to just Creative Cloud for its apps and what that means for designers and the general software licensing world.

Social networking giant Facebook is apparently in negotiations to buy the social map app Waze in a deal that could hit US$1 billion. The companies are said to have been in negotiations for the past six months and are close reaching an agreement.

Apple wants to see Google's code for its Android operating system as part of its second patent infringment case against Samsung in the United States. Apple says the code ties directly to its infringement claims against Samsung, but Google thinks it's a move to get at proprietary information without targeting it directly in court.

Google, along with several other companies, filed "friends of the court" brief on behalf of Samsung earlier this week and Apple is now saying Google's involvement isn't impartial. The brief was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals in response to Apple's efforts to get a ruling denying a permanent injunction blocking the sale of some Android-based Samsung mobile devices overturned.

When Adobe announced earlier this week that it is moving to a subscription-only model for the next major update to its application suite in June, it also showed off a couple intriguing projects code named Mighty and Napoleon. Mighty is a stylus for the iPhone and iPad, and Napoleon is a digital ruler, and together they offer what could be a new way for artists and designers to use their iOS devices.

T-Mobile's first fiscal quarter results are out and show the company's iPhone 5 sales hit 500,000 during the one month Apple's smartphone was available. The carrier began officially offering the iPhone on April 12, making it the last of the big cell service providers to get in on Apple's smartphone game.

Apple and Samsung combined to claim 100 percent of hardware profits in the smartphone industry, according to a new report from Cannacord Genuity. While Apple still claimed most of those profits, Samsung has reached up to take more profits home to Korea.

A German court has invalidated eight clauses in Apple's user privacy agreement, highlighting the importance of privacy in that country. While Apple goes further than most tech ompanies to protect our data, the German ruling shows there is even more room for improvement.

Apple will start up production on the Retina Display version of the iPad mini in June or July, according to NPD DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim. He also said the displays for the new iPad mini will come from LG and not Samsung.