Bob Mansfield, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, to retire

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Apple:

Apple today announced that Bob Mansfield, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, will retire and the role will be transitioned to Dan Riccio, Apple’s vice president of iPad Hardware Engineering, over several months. The entire hardware engineering team will continue to report to Mansfield until his departure.“Bob has been an instrumental part of our executive team, leading the hardware engineering organization and overseeing the team that has delivered dozens of breakthrough products over the years,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are very sad to have him leave and hope he enjoys every day of his retirement.”

Hands-Off: Microsoft Surface review

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Marketing Land:

After seeing yet another “hands-on” review of the Microsoft Surface tablet, I thought it would be interesting to shed more light on what exactly the journalists who assembled in Hollywood this week for the Surface launch event actually got to do with the tablets. In short, not a lot. Come along as I explain the hands-off reality of what I saw.

Nice to see someone calling a spade a spade. No matter what you’ve read, none of the assembled media got any real “hands on” with the Surface.

Apple v. Motorola: Judge Posner dismisses entire patent case, no injunctions to be issued

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The Verge:

In US federal court this evening, Judge Richard Posner just ruled that the case of Apple v. Motorola will be dismissed in its entirety. The case, in which Apple alleged Motorola was in violation of four of its patents and Motorola was left with one claim in return (the patent counts had originally been higher on both sides), had been in litigation since 2010, most recently with a hearing in Chicago this past Wednesday.

TextExpander 4 adds features, leaves Mac App Store

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Macworld:

Smile on Thursday released TextExpander 4, the latest incarnation of its typing shortcut utility. Among the new features are additional options for “fill-in-the-blank” snippets, fill-ins for multi-line text fields, dropdown menus for multiple choices, and optional text blocks that you can trigger as needed when expanding a text snippet.But because TextExpander 4 can’t adhere to Apple’s recently-enforced sandboxing guidelines, the new version of the app isn’t available in the Mac App Store.

TextExpander is an indispensable piece of software for me.

Giant Hot Wheels track with double vertical loop and real drivers

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Wired:

A team of engineers and two crazy drivers are preparing for a history-making challenge drawn from the daydreams of every child who’s ever crisscrossed his parents’ living room with plastic race tracks: building, and racing on, a human-scale Hot Wheels double loop track, just like the one you had when you were a kid. The “Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare” is set to take place at this month’s Summer X-Games in Los Angeles.Drivers Tanner Foust and Greg Tracey will attempt to race through a 60-foot vertical loop modeled after the new Double Dare Snare Hot Wheels toy, in what would be the first time in history two cars mounted a vertical loop at once.

I have found memories of playing with this track as a kid so I’m looking forward to this stunt. But, just like the Niagara Falls tightrope walker, they’ve had to remove some of the element of danger by using a safety net in case the cars can’t complete the loop. Chickens.

General Motors to offer Siri Eyes Free

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GM Authority:

Last week, Apple announced a host of planned updates to the Siri personal assistant service found in company’s iPhone smartphone and iPad tablet (Siri integration is coming to iPad in the fall). One of those updates, called “eyes-free”, allows an iPhone or iPad user to use Siri without picking up or looking at the device to initiate the feature, which can be used to schedule a meeting, send a text message, add a reminder, find a local restaurant, check sports scores, and perform a myriad of other tasks — all using natural-language voice commands.Today, GM Authority has learned that The General will soon introduce Siri eyes-free integration in its vehicles and the first ones to get the integration will be the Chevrolet Spark and Sonic. While the automaker’s media representatives didn’t provide specific timing details, we were told that we should expect an announcement within the next 12 months.

Want iOS 6? No problem. Buy it from a scofflaw developer

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Wired:

If you’re a diehard Apple fan who desperately wants to run a buggy alpha version of iOS 6 right now, your only legal option is to shell out the $99 to join the iOS Developer Program. Affordable for a developer, the barrier to entry is high enough to keep out casual fans from accidentally bricking their phones and cluttering up the Genius Bar.But over the last couple years, a cottage industry’s popped up around illicit UDID activations — startups exploiting Apple’s Developer Program to sell access to pre-release iOS software, usually for less than $10 per device. The craziest thing? Apple doesn’t seem to care.

No price, no date, no apps, no problem. No wait — problem

Written by

Parislemon:

I’m just now catching up on the news about the new Microsoft Surface. Reactions seem mixed, tilting slightly positive or at least hopeful. People seem to want to believe Microsoft can pull this off and that’s understandable — competition is good, and right now, the iPad has no competition. My hunch is that whatever tablet Google announces shortly will be more of a Kindle Fire competitor than an iPad competitor. This Surface is a full-on iPad competitor.On the surface — see what I did there? — the thing seems compelling. It’s a tablet that runs Windows, and Office, and has a keyboard. There’s no denying that the keyboard/cover hybrid is a smart thing to try.Two years ago, I think this thing would have been pretty competitive. Today? Color me very skeptical.

Everyone, especially the tech media, should be skeptical about this tablet. Microsoft? Shut up and ship.

Comparison chart of 20 real life spaceships with the Starship Enterprise

Written by

io9:

Check out this elegant infographic by Invader Xan, molecular astrophysicist and master of ceremonies at astronomy blog Supernova Condensate. Here, silhouetted in colors that correspond to their present state of operation, you’ll find twenty iconic spaceships and space stations situated beneath the only fictional spacecraft of the bunch: the U.S.S. Enterprise.What’s great about this image is that all the spacecraft have been drawn to scale. This gives you a real sense of perspective.

I love that he has listed the Starship Enterprise as “in development”.

Bento 4 for iPad now available

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Bento 4 for iPad adds easier customization capabilities, spreadsheet like table view and calculations, and more functionality.

Kodak sues Apple over patent sales

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Apple and Kodak’s legal battles continue as bankrupt Kodak is now suing Apple to stop it from interfering with attempts to sell a large portfolio of digital imaging patents.