1 Why is Chrome spawning a new browser engine?

The WebKit maintainers wouldn’t let us attack Apple directly, by changing WebKit in ways that would make it perform badly on OS X and iOS.

Because they share a rendering engine, developer effort to ensure Chrome compatibility currently benefits Apple platforms for free. To prevent this, we must make Chrome and WebKit behave differently.

Hilarious.

Some classics here.

Safari for iOS was responsible for 61.79% of total mobile internet traffic during the month of March, an increase from 55.41% in February. Safari’s closest competitor for mobile browser dominance was Google’s Android browser, which had a 21.86% share of Web traffic in March.

Once again this brings up the obvious question — what are all the Android people doing with their phones?

Very clever idea.

Staff were informed of the shutdown this morning, according to a reliable Kotaku source. Some 150 people were laid off, and both of the studio’s current projects—Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313—were cancelled. Disney will still use the LucasArts name to license games, but the studio is no more.

Very, very sad, and the end of an era in video games. While the LucasArts brand didn’t get started until 1990, George Lucas’ movie production company Lucasfilm produced games under the Lucasfilm Games label in the 1980s, for 8-bit computers of the era include Apple II. In addition to Star Wars games, LucasArts created popular adventure games like the Monkey Island series, Full Throttle and Sam & Max; military sims based on World War II scenarios and others.

LucasArts was acquired by the Walt Disney Company in October of 2012 when Disney acquired Lucasfilm.

Often, you’re not buying the song so much as the license that lets you hear the song.

I believe that if I pay for it, I should own and that should include the ability to resell it if I want.

Note: I linked to the print version because Businessweek was using popups and multiple pages to show the story.

Dan and Jim discuss Apple and China, the Pebble Smartwatch, a fantastic 6-year-old drummer, and more.

Sponsored by Hover (use code DANSENTME for 10% off), Mailchimp, and Smile.

I want one.

Google is just crazy, but they’ll get away with it and it will look better for Jelly Bean adoption.

I just noticed the dates for the Mac Developer get together have been announced for October 2013. You can sign-up on the Web site to be kept up-to-date.

Visual.ly:

An easy-to-use guide to cuts of beef. The chart shows where each cut of meat comes from on the cow, how much it costs and how to best cook it.

Mmmm. Ribs. Skirt steak. Sirloin. Pot roast. Ever wonder where on a cow all those cuts of meat come from? Visual.ly has a really interesting infographic about one of our most useful (and delicious!) animals.

J.C. Penney shares have plunged nearly 60% over the past year as Johnson — a former Apple executive who spearheaded the tech giant’s retail strategy — has struggled to lead a turnaround effort. He took over at J.C. Penney in November of 2011 and has since announced a series of new initiatives including overhauled prices, redesigned store layouts, and even free haircuts for kids.

So far, the results have been dismal.

Selling iPhones wasn’t so bad after all.

Kevin C. Tofel:

There’s little doubt that Facebook will unveil a new phone on Thursday, but the star of the show will be software, not hardware, in this battle between Facebook and Google for user engagement.

A new type of tarantula about the size of your face has been found in northern Sri Lanka. Scientists found the spiders — with a leg span up to 8 inches across — living in trees and the old doctor’s quarters of a hospital in Mankulam.

THE SIZE OF YOUR FACE.

Creatorverse is the product of Linden Lab, makers of the online virtual world known as Second Life. Creatorverse made its debut last November for $5, but now the company is giving it away.

Creatorverse provides you with tools and frameworks to build virtual creations – simple physics experiments, complex games, animations and all sorts of stuff. Plus you can share your creations with other users. It’s really cool.

Hell, I’d settle for getting a signal in major cities.

It’s been years since I’ve used Ableton’s Live, but this looks like a really great feature to have at your disposal.

With its rare apology, Apple Inc went from pariah to praiseworthy in the eyes of China’s state-controlled media, a lesson for other foreign firms not to underestimate the speed and power of the government press.

Just a couple of days ago Apple was under a coordinated media assault by state-run media in China over warranty issues.

In a judgment filed Saturday, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan sided with Universal Music Group’s Capitol Records, which had sued ReDigi for copyright violation.

Sullivan’s argument, in a nutshell: Unless the copyright owner gives you explicit permission to do so, you can’t resell a digital media file.

That doesn’t make sense to me.

Bobby Owsinski:

By now you’ve all heard that the legendary producer Phil Ramone has passed. If you read any of the obituaries, you’ll notice that they all quote his many Grammys and the superstars he worked with, which indeed placed him above the majority of his contemporaries. Phil was more than that though. He was a behind-the-scenes mover and shaker on the technical side as well, always eager to embrace new technology.

Stephen Hackett got his Pebble and posted his review. With everything I’ve heard about this watch, I was a little surprised with the conclusion.

Great story.

Ernie Varitimos:

Ask yourself, how many times have you tried to make sense of an analyst’s statement, where they’ve demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of Apple culture, the ecosystem, or the fan base. This isn’t universal of course, some analysts are very knowledgeable and huge Apple fans, but even a respected Apple bull like Gene Munster ranks only in the middle of the pack, well behind several amateur analysts. Some of the most influential analysts rank near the bottom of the pack, like Charlie Wolf and Kathy Huberty.

I have little to no respect for financial analysts.

Next year’s Macworld/iWorld expo will now take place March 27 through March 29, 2014. It had previously been scheduled for the first three days of February. The rescheduled event will move from Moscone West to Moscone North in San Francisco, as well.

If the beginning of February wasn’t good for you, does moving the event until the end of March make it more likely that you’ll attend?

Reeder developer Silvio Rizzi is giving away the Mac and iPad versions of his software until he releases version 2.0, which will incorporate improvements to free the software of reliance on Google Reader. He promises development will continue past Google Reader’s end date.

There’s never been a better time to go paperless. Doxie scans your paper – simply, automatically, and with no computer required. Just push the button and insert your sheet. Doxie scans anywhere in your home or office with a built-in rechargeable battery and memory.

When you’re ready to organize, sync scans to your Mac or iPad, just like a digital camera. Doxie’s elegant Mac app creates multi-page searchable PDFs you can save or send to Evernote, Dropbox, or via iMessage. Doxie even works with your iPad with both Apple’s Lightning and 30-pin SD Card Reader accessories.

Available now: the rechargeable Doxie Go for just $199.

Much respect to The Macalope for a great list. I might have given Eric Schmidt two or three spots though.