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Bowing to Chinese law, Apple is reportedly blocking iPhone users in China from downloading applications about two figures Beijing considers "separatists": the Dalai Lama and exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. IDG News Service said at least five iPhone software programs related to the Tibetan spiritual leader are unavailable in Apple's China App Store along with one related to Kadeer. IDG, publisher of Macworld, Computerworld, PC World and other magazines, said the move would make Apple the latest US technology giant to censor its services in China. Asked for comment on Thursday by AFP, Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, repeated a...

Apple wins appeal in earbud hearing-loss lawsuit By Sam Diaz, ZDNet Thursday, December 31, 2009 10:15 AM Just because something can benefit from some improvement doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad for you. That's basically what a San Francisco appeals court said when it upheld a previous ruling that Apple iPod earbuds cannot be held responsible for hearing loss, according to a Reuters report. In the ruling, a judge wrote that the plaintiffs didn't offer evidence to show that iPods earbuds were dangerous, only that they believed they could be made safer. The judge wrote: The plaintiffs do not allege...

Steve Jobs and Apple appeared in an extraordinary number of 2009's "Best of" listsOur favorite: "There's an app for that," the Yale Book of Quotations' No. 3 quote of the 2009, right before Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie" and after Captain Sully Sullenberger's "We're going to be in the Hudson."Some other citations… Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade. Fortune magazine.Steve Jobs: Best Performing CEO in the World. Harvard Business Review.Steve Jobs: Person of the Decade. Wall Street Journal.Apple: Brand of the Decade. Adweek's Best of the 2000s.Steve Jobs: Marketer of the Decade. Adweek's Best of the 2000s."Get a Mac": Campaign...

Intel has unveiled a prototype chip that packs 48 separate processing cores on to a chunk of silicon the size of a postage stamp. The Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC), as it is known contains 1.3 billion transistors, the tiny on-off switches that underpin chip technology. Each processing core could, in theory, run a separate operating system. Currently, top-end chips for desktop computers typically contain four separate processors. Intel and Rival AMD will both launch six-core devices in 2010, allowing computers to simultaneously tackle a number of complex tasks, such as processing graphics. 'Tiny islands' The chip has won the "cloud"...

Israel Border Police officers shot at an American student's laptop as she entered Israel via Taba, Egypt, two weeks ago. Lily Sussman, 21, wrote on her blog that border police subjected her to two hours of questioning and searches prior to shooting her Apple Macbook three times. "They had pressed every sock and scarf with a security device, ripped open soap and had me strip extra layers. They asked me tons of questions? where are you going?" Sussman wrote, describing the experience.

Windows 7 passes Mac OS X in market share race Weekend numbers for new OS bigger than for all versions of Mac OS X, says Net Applications Windows 7 passed the 5% market share milestone last weekend, which put it, if only temporarily, above the total market share of all versions of Apple's Mac OS X, a Web measurement firm said today.Last Saturday and Sunday, Windows 7 powered an estimated 5% and 5.14% of all computers that were online those days, according to Internet metrics vendor Net Applications. The two-day average of 5.07% was higher than the 5% of the...

A number of complaints are swirling around the Internet today about issues with Apple's new Core i7-based iMacs -- among them, reports of units showing up dead on arrival or even with cracked screens. New iMac users are reporting that their unit chimes as it should when the power button is pressed, but the display is blank and nothing else happens. Adding insult to injury, these customers are discovering that after returning their dead units, they face a lengthy wait of up to two weeks for a replacement. Apple's discussion support forum is filling up with such complaints according to...

Apple is set to files its brief on Monday detailing the damages and injunction details it wants to see imposed on Psystar for building and selling unauthorized Mac clones. Apple filed a lawsuit against Psystar in Northern California several months ago claiming the small PC maker was violating the Mac OS X end user license agreement, and that it was violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act with the steps it used to install the Mac operating system on PCs. Psystar claimed that it should be allowed to build and sell PCs with Mac OS X pre-installed and that Apple is...

Another iPhone worm has been spotted in the wild.Unlike the previous exploitation, which merely changed a jailbroken iPhone's wallpaper to a picture of Rick Astley of "Rickrolling" fame, this new threat allows hackers to steal sensitive information. According to security firm Sophos, which wrote about the exploitation after a Dutch ISP spotted it late last week, the worm attacks jailbroken iPhone and iPod Touch devices only. The worm "uses command-and-control, like a traditional PC botnet," Sophos wrote in a blog post on Saturday to warn users about the exploit. "It configures two startup scripts, one to execute the worm on...

According to a report in The Consumerist, Apple is telling some customers that smoking near a product covered under the AppleCare program voids the warranty. However, try to find that limitation in the policy wording. It doesn’t seem to be in there. Two different readers of Consumerist reported that Apple had said that second hand smoke traces in the returned equipment voided the warranty because it exposed workers to secondhand smoke, and that nicotine was on OSHA’s list of hazardous substances.

Unless you've just arrived in 2009 on a time machine, you know that smoking isn't good for you. Did you know, that smoking isn't good for your computer, either? It's true, at least according to Apple. Two readers in different parts of the country claim that their Applecare warranties were voided due to secondhand smoke. Both readers appealed their cases up to the office of God Steve Jobs himself. Both lost. Back in April, Derek copied us on his e-mail to Jobs: I took my mid 2007 apple macbook (black) into the Jordan Creek Apple Store in West Des Moines,...

Apple agreed to turn over iPhone source code in antitrust lawsuit, but then reneged, plaintiffs say iPhone owners charging Apple and AT&T with breaking antitrust laws asked a federal judge this week to force Apple to hand over the iPhone source code, court documents show. The lawsuit, which was filed in October 2007, accuses Apple and AT&T of violating antitrust laws, including the Sherman Act, by agreeing to a multi-year deal that locks U.S. iPhone owners into using the mobile carrier. On Wednesday, the plaintiffs asked U.S. District Court Judge James Ware to compel Apple to produce the source code...

Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. Here's the order [PDF]. It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal. Psystar's motion for summary judgment on trademark infringement and trade dress is denied. So is its illusory motion for copyright misuse. There are still issues remaining for trial, despite Psystar's attempt to present everything now as being moot. Here's what's left to be decided at trial: Apple's allegations of breach of contract; induced...

Apple won a sweeping legal victory against Macintosh clone maker Psystar Corp. Nov. 13 when a federal judge in San Francisco ruled (PDF, courtesy of Groklaw) that Psystar had violated Apple’s copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Judge William Alsup struck what may be a death blow for Psystar by granting Apple’s motion for summary judgment while denying Psystar’s counterclaims. The only real surprise here was the swiftness and thoroughness of Apple’s victory. Judge Alsup basically ruled that the OS X End User License Agreement (EULA), which prohibits the installation of the software on non-Apple hardware, is legal and...

Windows Vista was quite possibly the worst operating system known to man. When it launched, it required users to upgrade to expensive new computers, failed spectacularly to work with crucial hardware and software, and didn't offer much in the way of improvement over Windows XP. Fast-forward to 2009 and we're seeing a similar trend with Apple's latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Despite earning positive press reviews, we'd argue its teething problems are reminiscent of those of Vista. Since its launch, it's been riddled with software and hardware incompatibilities. There's a lack of Earth-shattering new features and...

I've got some sour news for you, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) shareholders. It doesn't matter how many iPods you buy, iPhone apps you download, or black mock turtlenecks you wear: Steve Jobs couldn't care less about you. And that's why -- despite great products, a killer brand, and mouth-watering growth potential -- I would advise against owning shares of his company. Hey Steve, the Jerk Store called There's plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that Jobs is a jerk. Stories of Apple's CEO throwing temper tantrums, berating his employees, taking credit for others' ideas, and even parking his Mercedes in handicapped...

We've been saying it for years, but everyone thought that we Mac-heads had a chip on our shoulder from the once-sour relationship with Microsoft. Finally, however, the truth has come to light; a group manager from Microsoft has gone on record and admitted the source of some of Windows 7's prettier bits and pieces. Simon Aldous sat down with PCR for an interview and when he was asked to comment on the agility of Redmond's latest operating system, he had this to say: "What we've tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it's traditional format or in a touch...

Two rebels defy a beloved computer companyRobert Pedraza is a 24-year-old self-taught programmer with a thin frame, spiky dark hair, gleaming braces and squinty eyes. His brother Rudy is a year older and three inches taller. He wears a half-buttoned dress shirt and has an intense stare. Last year, the two Miami natives shoved a stick in the eye of America’s coolest corporation. Robert cracked the code behind Apple Computer’s elegant operating system, OS X. It’s the engine that drives iPhones, MacBooks, and all the other shiny white or black toys the world loves. For more than a decade, the...

First iPhone worm discovered - ikee changes wallpaper to Rick Astley photo Apple iPhone owners in Australia have reported that their smartphones have been infected by a worm that has changed their wallpaper to an image of 1980s pop crooner Rick Astley.The worm, which could have spread to other countries although we have no confirmed reports outside Australia, is capable of breaking into jailbroken iPhones if their owners have not changed the default password after installing SSH. Once in place, the worm appears to attempt to find other iPhones on the mobile phone network that are similarly vulnerable, and...

The second half of 2010 could finally bring a much-anticipated Verizon Wireless iPhone. A new hybrid chip developed by Qualcomm makes it possible to communicate with several different network technologies using only one component. This means Apple can manufacture one device, the "world mode" iPhone that will work on all of the networks it's currently compatible with as well as Verizon's CDMA network. Previous reports speculated that Apple would wait until at least 2011 for Verizon's launch of LTE technology.