Business

The Youngest Technorati

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From The New York Times:

Ryan Orbuch, 16 years old, rolled a suitcase to the front door of his family’s house in Boulder, Colo., on a Friday morning a year ago. He was headed for the bus stop, then the airport, then Texas.

“I’m going,” he told his mother. “You can’t stop me.”

Stacey Stern, his mother, wondered if he was right. “I briefly thought: Do I have him arrested at the gate?”

But the truth was, she felt conflicted. Should she stop her son from going on his first business trip?

Ryan was headed to South by Southwest Interactive, the technology conference in Austin. There, he planned to talk up an app that he and a friend had built. Called Finish, it aimed to help people stop procrastinating, and was just off its high in the No. 1 spot in the productivity category in the Apple App store. Ryan was also eager to go because, as he put it: “There were really dope people, and I really like smart-people density.”

A great read.

Mac market share breaks 8%, Windows falls below 90%

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It’s been a slow and steady fall for Windows, for as far back as NetMarketshare has been collecting this data. And for the Mac, the reverse is true. Mac market share was 4.58% back in February 2009 and has steadily climbed to its current share of 8.16%.

John S. Chen, BlackBerry, and Steve Jobs

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BlackBerry CEO John S. Chen, in an interview with the New York Times Bits blog, talks future plans and compares his situation to that of the return of Steve Jobs.

Samsung files appeal against first patent trial verdict

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With surprising speed, Samsung has now officially filed a notice of appeal over the final judgement in the first Apple vs. Samsung patent trial from 2012. The last ruling in the case was handed down yesterday, when Judge Lucy Koh ruled in Samsung’s favor that sales injunctions on the products it was found guilty of infringing Apple patents with were not warranted in the interests of competition. Apple is likely to appeal that portion of Judge Koh’s rulings.

In the original trial (and the limited damages retrial), none of Samsung’s original counter-claims against Apple were given the time of day by the two juries in the case; all were dismissed due to prior art, while Apple won judgements against Samsung to the tune of nearly $1 billion in penalties against the Korean electronics firm (originally Apple was awarded just over $1.05 billion, but a portion of the damages was re-calculated in a juried damages retrial, with the result being $929 million instead).

Will this never end?

The case for Apple to buy Nintendo

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This case has been made before, but this article does a good job of analyzing all the moving pieces.

In my view, access to the Nintendo game catalog on iOS would strike a major blow to Samsung. Having Pokemon, Mario, Zelda, and their many friends exclusively tied to iOS would likely provide the most significant point of software differentiation between the two rivals.

[Via a free reg-wall]

Track your luggage using an iBeacon

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[VIDEO]This is a brilliant app idea, assuming it works. Put an iBeacon in your luggage, get notified as your luggage arrives at baggage claim. Genius!

Apple’s new San Francisco store wins final approval to demolish and build

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All obstacles have been cleared, and the long-planned Union Square flagship Apple Store has finally received final clearance from the San Francisco City Council to demolish the current standing building and begin renovations and construction on the new store. The new building will be a two-story structure with an all-glass frontage facing Union Square, utilizing a cantilevered design that features a patio and waterfall behind the store.

Yet another reason for me to make the trip out to San Francisco. Can’t wait to see this store.

Samsung escalates patent arms race

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One of the latest signs that there’s an escalating “patent arms race” between Apple and Samsung is that Samsung in record filing more than 10 times as many European patents as rival Apple in 2013.

This is just unfortunate, a bad trend.

Apple’s iPad is targeted in new patent troll lawsuit

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A patent troll by the name of Penovia LLC has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. The lawsuit claims that Apple’s iPad infringes their acquired patent that’s about a maintenance technique that monitors office machine status without personal attention. This is the typical type of case that the Federal Trade Commission is now studying to find ways to assist tech companies from having to waste their time fighting such suits.

When I see the phrase “acquired patent”, I see red. In my opinion, this type of lawsuit is destructive and serves simply to line someone’s pockets. This needs to be fixed.

Bill Gates back on top as the world’s richest person

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Forbes posted its annual list of the world’s top net worth individuals. For all his philanthropy (and Gates gives vast amounts of his money and his time), Gates has found his way back to the top of the list. Wonder if he bought any Apple stock.

Google locking down approval process for Chrome add-ons

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This might seem like an obscure change in a small part of the Google universe, but it might just be signaling a sea change in Google’s stance on the apps and add-on approval process.

Google has been talking up the auto-removal of unsanctioned extensions since November, when the company characterized the policy as a security necessity, claiming that “bad actors” were using loopholes to continue installing malicious add-ons without user approval or knowledge.

Top executives Bates and Reller to leave Microsoft

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Two direct reports to new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella — EVP of business development and evangelism Tony Bates and EVP of marketing Tami Reller — are leaving the company, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

The shakeup begins. Standard stuff when a new CEO takes over, more a question of who will stay and who will go. Bates came to Microsoft when it bought Skype. Reller worked for the Windows unit, as both CMO and CFO.