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Apple leases former Pepsi plant for unnamed projects The lease started in November, 2015, and was discovered by Silicon Valley Business Journal only a few days ago. The facility, located at 960 Kifer Road, covers 96,000 square feet and has been vacant since 2013. Apple is also leasing 80,257 square feet at 1150 through 1170…

FBI Director Comey testifying at House Judiciary Committee hearing on encryption Today's hearing was spurred by the debate over the legality of an FBI obtained court order requiring Apple to create a password hackable version of the iPhone's operating system. The FBI wants the tool so it can find the passcode on an iPhone related…

There were some individual shareholders who certainly think Apple is wrong, including one unnamed attendee who told The LA Times, “I do think they should unlock it. For something as serious as this, there should be a way to do it.” Security and encryption experts, however, have long understood that this is a situation where…

FBI Director James Comey The FBI asked a federal court to compel Apple to create a new version of iOS that could be sideloaded onto an iPhone used by Sayed Farook, one of two terrorists who murdered 14 people in an attack in San Bernardino, CA, in December of 2015. The court agreed, but Apple…

Silicon Valley companies to file amicus brief supporting Apple in privacy fight According to sources speaking with the Wall Street Journal, the companies will file a joint brief with the court next week. Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith confirmed today his company would be supporting Apple in its brief. Twitter is planning on submitting…

Gizmodo reported that CIA Director John Brenner and NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett blamed the media for terrorists turning to encryption in a hearing by the House Intelligence Committee. This is not only a dangerous idea for a free society, it shows that some of our top intelligence folks are drawing precisely the wrong lessons…

App: Constitution for iPhone and iPod Touch If you love the constitution, the right to privacy, and America, you should support Apple against the government's push to destroy your civil liberties. Although there are many technical nuances that can mire down the discussion around this issue, 3 tried and true constitutional arguments against eroding our…

Reuters/Ipsos Poll First off, let's look at the Reuters/Ipsos survey results, which shows that 46 percent of people agreed with Apple's decision to fight the court order. 35 percent disagreed. The poll broke down results by political affiliation, just 37 percent of Republicans agreeing with Apple, while 45 percent disagreed. For those identifying as Democrats,…

The just released Satechi Aluminum Wireless Presenter is a beautifully designed red LED laser pointer combined with slide navigation buttons, all wrapped in Bluetooth and a rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery. It's available in the matching Apple colors of Silver, Space Gray or Gold. Satechi  Aluminum Wireless Presenter The Laser This is red LED laser with a…

More iPhone unlocking cases are lining up Sources speaking with the Wall Street Journal said the DOJ is trying to get at potential evidence on iPhones with passcode locks in place, much as it is doing in the San Bernardino case. These 12 other cases, however, don't involve terrorist acts, and are essentially on hold…

Pew Survey Chart Pew surveyed 1,002 people, half on landlines and half on cellphones. 51 percent sided with the FBI, while 38 percent thought that Apple should not unlock the iPhone. In reality, Apple has not been ordered to unlock the iPhone, but instead was ordered to create a new operating system that could be…

DOJ to court: Make Apple comply with iPhone unlocking order DOJ prosecutors said Apple is resisting to help in a Federal investigation despite the fact that the company has until February 26 to respond to the court order. According to ABC News, the new filing stated, Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a…

It's been a bit of a war of words so far. Chairman Wheeler has noted that while the cost of computers has gone down dramatically, the cost of these set-top boxes, typically DVRs, has not, and the customers are paying hefty annual rental fees of about $200. And if the customer wants to cancel service…

Episode #163   It’s been a couple of years since I talked about universal remote control devices and apps. For me, an awesome universal remote control is the holy grail of home automation; having a single device that can mimic every function of all five individual remote controls for my home theatre system is priceless.…

Warning! Creative Cloud bug could delete files without permission The bug deletes the contents of the hidden folder that's alphabetically first on user's hard drive when they log into Creative Cloud. In some cases, that folder holds system-critical files, or in the case of Backblaze subscribers, the data used to keep track of which drives…

This is happening in two stages. First, I have seen the community of Mac users steadily replacing the boot drives in their Macs with SSDs (or direct Flash memory). This started first on the MacBook Air and is now common on iMacs. I first did this in 2010 when I paid an extra US$400 to…

Apple hit with patent infringement lawsuit over haptic feedback features Immersion named the Apple iPhone 6, Apple iPhone 6 Plus, Apple iPhone 6s, Apple iPhone 6s Plus, Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sport, and Apple Watch Edition in its lawsuit. The company named U.S. patents 8,619,051 “Haptic Feedback System with Stored Effects,” 8,773,356 “Method and Apparatus…

VoIP-Pal sues Apple over iMessage, WiFi calling patent infringement According to VoIP-Pal's filing the system Apple uses to determine whether conversations in the Messages app should use iMessage or standard SMS, and the system for deciding when to use WiFi calling are covered by patents it owns. The company said Apple, AT&T, and Verizon all…

Autonomous cars are upon us. Sure, it'll be a few years before they are pervasive, but we're already on the leading edge of the technology. For some interesting and informative background, I refer you to the February 2016 issue of Car & Driver, p. 58, “Going to the Dogs.” From the intro: So while we're…

Sonos rounded up 30,000 people from  U.S., Canada, U.K.,Germany, The Netherlands, France, Sweden and Australia to participate in a study conducted by United Minds. Dr. Daniel J. Levitin—a neuroscientist and author of This is Your Brain on Music—was an advisor for the study. The study showed that listening to music out loud (as opposed to…

Hackers ready to buy Apple employee logins An Apple employee told Business Insider, “You'd be surprised how many people get on to us, just random Apple employees. You get emails offering you thousands [of euros] to get a password to get access to Apple.” Hackers are reportedly also targeting Apple employees for company information. Exactly…

To make matters worse, the malware is digitally signed with a valid Apple developer certificate. Intego says that certificate was issued to a “Maksim Noskov.” According to Johannes Ullrich, Ph.D., of the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center, the security researcher who first spotted the malware, Apple has since revoked that certificate. Mr. Ullrich posted a…

Foxconn's bid for Sharp won out over INCJ With its bid getting the green light, Foxconn wants to move quickly to wrap up the deal, according to the Wall Street Journal. If all goes well, Foxconn hopes to finish the transaction in the next few days. Foxconn's strong push makes sense because there's still a…

There are many ho-hum and many good portable battery chargers for our iDevices. Most are just little boxes with a battery, LED lights and USB ports. However, the new Lynktec (5,300 or 8,000 mAh) charger has a multitude of thoughtful features, expansion options and usage profiles. It sets a new standard. This product has so…