Bryan Chaffin

The Wild West I want to focus on this part first: SealsWithClubs (that's a great name) is the Wild West of online poker. The company says so in its own description. The online poker world was thrown into turmoil by Black Friday, and SealsWithClubs is a small company using an unregulated virtual cryptocurrency (Bitcoin) offering…

iTunes 11 in its everyday normal state Now, hold down the Option Key on your Mac (it might work with the Alt key in Windows, but I didn't have a Windows box handy to test it), and it looks like this: Insta-Genius Shuffle! Click that Genius Shuffle button, and you get an on-the-fly playlist that…

Constable Neil Gillespie with His iPad Source: New Zealand Police The New Zealand Police force is a national police force that handles all local law enforcement duties, including duties covered by local police in the U.S. The stated purpose of Policing Excellence is, “to free up Police from time-consuming processes and paperwork so they can…

The data shows that the smartphone race in the U.S. remains a two horse race in the U.S. between Android and iPhone, with Android maintaining its lead in wireless subscribers. comScore's data: Top Smartphone Platforms 3 Month Avg. Ending Oct. 2013 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Jul. 2013 Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+ Source:…

Adding insult to injury, Judge Cote has established rules that allow Mr. Bromwich to interview Apple employees without Apple's own attorneys present and then report to the judge without Apple's attorneys present. Bloomberg reported that Apple is protesting Mr. Bromwich's epic rates, as well as the rules that Judge Cote set up. In court documents…

This is the sort of rumor that needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I always point out that there is usually a grain of truth in DigiTimes rumors based on supply chain leaks, but that's more true when it comes to devices Apple is ordering or testing. For a rumor on who…

That witness was Julie L. Davis, a certified public accountant based in Chicago, who testified as an expert witness on behalf of Apple. Foreman Colleen Allen told Bloomberg that, “Mrs. Davis was on it,” and that she was a, “superstar witness [who remained steady] even when she was cross-examined.” TMO's Bad Reenactment of Apple's Jury…

As of this writing, the feature is only showing up with this particular Editor's Choice listing, and only in the UK. The trailer is also limited to that Editor's Choice page, which is separate from the app's regular page in the App Store. MacStories broke the news. Clumsy Ninja Editor's Choice Page (video on the…

The possibility of U.S. intervention to crush Bitcoin has been an overhang on the currency from the get-go, and Monday's comments indicate that overhang could disappear. Bitstamp Exchange 24-hour Chart (Note the correction at the end of the chart) Source: Blockchain.info As noted above, Bitcoin is a virtual currency, one with no assets backing it,…

For its part, Samsung wants the world to know that how many Galaxy Gears it sold isn't nearly as important as the fact that it beat Apple to market, because that's what it means to innovate. MacRumors noted comments from Samsung executive vice president David Eun during BusinessInsider's Ignition conference that seem to be defensive…

According to FOSS Patents' coverage of the ruling, the judges wrote: We find no reason to dislodge the district court's conclusion that Apple failed to demonstrate irreparable harm from Samsung’s infringement of its design patents. Accordingly, we affirm the denial of injunctive relief with respect to those patents. However, with respect to Apple's utility patents,…

What do you get if you take one tiny state with no sales tax, one part proximity to some of the highest population density in the U.S., and stir in the most popular smartphone on the planet? You get the Apple Store retail location that sells more iPhones than any other, and ABC figured that…

IHS announced the results of its teardown analysis on Apple's new iPad Air, and the research firm believes the new devices comes with even better margins than previous iPad models. The company said the bill of materials for the base iPad Air model comes to US$274, 13.3 percent less than the $316 BOM on the…

The Los Altos Historical Commission voted unanimously on Monday to designate the childhood home of Steve Jobs an “historic resource.” The house, whose garage famously saw the birth of Apple Computer, Inc. (now Apple, Inc.), will now be preserved. According to The San Jose Mercury News, the designation means that the house will be subject…

There's one phrase from Apple's conference call with analysts on Tuesday that has resonated with me, and that was when CEO Tim Cook talked about the importance of customers being able to “access the entire ecosystem” with Apple's products. As with everything that Tim Cook says, those words were very considered and deliberate, but I…

Taiwan has fined Samsung TWD10 million (that's New Taiwan dollars, or US$340,131) for mounting a fake campaign to praise Samsung's Android devices and criticize unspecified in article comments and forums. Phys.org reported that Taiwan's Federal Trade Commission began an investigation of Samsung in April and concluded the South Korean giant paid people to talk up…

Carl Icahn Carl Icahn let the world know that he sent a letter to Tim Cook, and oh yeah, he just happened to also mention that the contents of that letter will be revealed on Thursday (tomorrow) on a brand new site he's launching that same day. That's pretty clever, if you're into that sort…

Auction Team Breker announced on Thursday that it will be auctioning the 46th Apple I computer made, making it one from the first batch of 50 units manufactured for The Byte Shop in 1976. The motherboard was signed by Steve Wozniak, and it comes with the original box, the original Apple software on casette, and…

Chrisann Brennan, Steve Jobs's first serious girlfriend and the mother of oldest daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, has penned a memoir titled The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs (Amazon). As the name suggests, it's about her life with and memories of Steve Jobs during his late teens and early 20s…

This is why I don't like paying for services through advertising: Google has announced a change in its terms of service that allow the company to use our names, personal information, and likenesses (photographs) in ads for third party companies, products, and services that we have +1'd, commented on anywhere using our Google+ login, rated…