Why Apple should follow Michelin

Jean-Louis Gassée’s Monday Note: What’s the use of offering more than 500,000 wares if customers can’t find their way through the gigantic bazaar? …the iPhone has sold in ever larger numbers (we’ll soon see if the December quarter number crossed … Continued

AT&T, T-Mobile file for spectrum transfer approval

Greg Bensinger for the Wall Street Journal: T-Mobile USA and AT&T filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission for approval of the transfer of $1 billion in wireless airwaves AT&T promised as a result of the failure of its … Continued

Bloom County now available in iBooks

Mobile Nations: Birkley (sic) Breathed’s Bloom County was my two favorite comic strips growing up, and now it’s starting to become available in iBooks. From Bill the Cat’s run for president to Milo’s skewering of Senator Bedfellow to Oliver’s landing … Continued

Ringtone interrupts, violist plays along

Remember the story from earlier this month of the “iPhone that stopped the “New York Philharmonic”? It has happened again but with much more amusing results. Slovakian musician Lukáš Kmit was play a solo on his viola in a synagogue … Continued

New CEO: RIM needs better focus

Peter Kafka for AllThingsD: Research In Motion isn’t broken, so no need to break it up. But it needs better internal focus, and better external focus, too. That’s the takeaway from new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins, who told analysts this … Continued

How Kodak squandered every digital opportunity it had

Mashable: Kodak has finally formalized what had been expected for years — it’s gone bankrupt. In the past 15 years, digital technology changed photography dramatically, and Kodak, a former heavyweight in the analog film business, got left behind. In fact, … Continued

Star Wars Uncut

Star Wars Uncut: In 2009, Internet users were asked to remake “Star Wars: A New Hope” into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from Star Wars however they wanted. SWU has been … Continued

China’s challenge to the iPad raises a red flag

Reuters: China Communist Party members can now carry tablet PC to verify identification cards, read the blogs of cadres and manage state-owned firms without fretting that using a bourgeois Apple Inc iPad will ruin their street cred. Enter RedPad Number … Continued

The Milky Way and storms over Africa

International Space Station: This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 30 on board the International Space Station…The complete pass is over southern Africa to the ocean, focusing on the lightning flashes from local storms and the Milky Way … Continued

Remembering Etta James

The “Matriarch of the Blues”, Etta James, died on Friday morning. She toured with Little Richard while still a minor and had her first hit at 15. She was a six time Grammy winner and one of the few artists … Continued

POTUS sings Al Green as your ringtone

Obama for America: President Obama was inspired to sing a bit of Al Green during a recent campaign stop at the Apollo Theater. And now you can have his rendition of “Let’s Stay Together” as a ringtone. Don’t you hate … Continued

Apple, America and a squeezed Middle Class

The New York Times: Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight. A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to … Continued

“Aww! We just got Samsunged!”

Another slightly amusing ad from Samsung poking fun at iPhone buyers. Samsung will supposedly unveil the commercial during the upcoming Super Bowl. Interesting way to blow through $3.5 million dollars – the cost of a 30 second ad during the … Continued

Google+ now boasts 90 million users

Network World: Google CEO Larry Page announced yesterday that Google+ now boasts more than 90 million users worldwide, more than double the number of users it had in the previous quarter. Page also said that engagement on the social networking … Continued

Truly unprecedented in iBooks 2

David Smith: All Apple is doing with this restriction is saying that if you directly profit from this free tool and platform that we have created, then we deserve our cut. Which seems entirely fair to me. The range of … Continued

Camera-less iPhone 4, iPhone 4S on sale in Singapore

Yahoo! News: The camera is normally a big selling point, but in Singapore Apple’s iPhone 4 and 4S are now available without the function — to cater to military personnel banned from taking image-capturing devices into army camps. Camera phones … Continued

How to install iBooks Author on Snow Leopard

Digital Tweaker: Anyone can create a book for iBooks with Apple releasing the iBooks Author app in the Mac Store. It uses simple drag and drop features with Word files and images so that everything is done for you. Since … Continued

Apple’s new math or why a $15 eBook = a $75 book

AllThingsD: McGraw-Hill normally sells high school textbooks for $75 a pop. Now it says it will sell electronic versions of the same books, via Apple, for $15 apiece. How can the publisher make that work? “Volume,” says McGraw-Hill CEO Terry … Continued