Mike Beauchamp defines “Benchmarking” and “copying” for Samsung.

I think Gruber summed it up nicely.

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co said on Thursday it has not considered acquiring Research In Motion or licensing the embattled BlackBerry phone maker’s new mobile operating system.

I don’t know, buying RIM and using the software in its devices might be a good idea for Samsung, especially if it loses the lawsuit that Apple brought against it.

Daniel Eran Dilger, AppleInsider:

Only 16 percent of viewers observing Samsung’s TV commercials realized it was a Samsung product, according to an internal report the company commissioned, and which has been submitted as evidence in its trial with Apple.

According to macProVideo.com’s Founder and CEO, Martin Sitter, “Until now, macProVideo.com has been the place ‘Where Mac Users Learn.’ With the acquisition of AskVideo.com, we have purchased a great brand with over 8 years of experience in online training. AskVideo will become our primary portal for bringing our trademarked NonLinear Educating System™ to the larger world of Windows PC users.”

Huge news in the video training market. I’ve been a user of MacProVideo for years. Good luck to Martin and the gang.

My latest Techpinions column:

Samsung contends that Apple doesn’t own the right to putting a receiver on an icon to indicate that it’s used for making a phone call. Samsung fans also argue that Apple can’t patent a rectangle. These arguments don’t get to the heart of the matter, which is the blatant copying of everything Apple is doing.

Ed Bott:

When Microsoft shipped its Release Preview of Windows 8 in June, it announced that the default browser, Internet Explorer 10, would have the Do Not Track (DNT) signal enabled by default. That action unleashed a heated debate in the Tracking Protection Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).To the advertising and analytics companies that make up the tracking industry, this issue is an existential one. If the default browser in the world’s most popular operating system is set to disallow tracking, the effect would be profoundly disruptive to companies that live and die by their ability to follow users around the web.

Kudos to Microsoft for doing the right thing.

After Apple introduced evidence that clearly shows how Samsung purposely copied its iPhone, Samsung released the following statement:

“Samsung benchmarks many peer companies,” she said. “In fact, these are typical competitive analyses routinely undertaken by many companies in many industries – including Apple. Samsung stands by its culture of continuous improvement and innovation. We are very proud of the product innovations driven by our more than 50,000 designers and engineers around the world who have made Samsung’s products the products of choice.”

It’s doesn’t say, but I’m guessing the Samsung rep didn’t say that with a straight face.

Another great release from the Pixelmator Team.

Pixelmator 2.1 is a major update introducing several new features and improvements, including the following:

• Retina-Ready: Both Pixelmator’s friendly user interface and its powerful image editing engine are now optimized for the Retina display.
• iCloud: Built right into the app and keeps your Pixelmator work up to date across all your Macs.
• Effects Browser: The best and the most fun way to browse: instantly preview and quickly apply special effects or add color adjustments to images.
• New Effects: Use the new Vintage, Miniaturize, Black and White, Rain, and Snow effects.
• Alignment Guides: Quickly position, align, and evenly distribute objects in your Pixelmator compositions with pinpoint accuracy.
• OS X Mountain Lion Support: Pixelmator takes full advantage of all the latest and greatest technologies.

Ars Technica:

Google’s search app for iOS is about to become more Siri-like. The app, which already allows users to enter search terms via voice, will soon gain the ability to better understand your intent—that is, what you actually mean with all those extraneous words coming out of your mouth. Google announced on Wednesday that the feature will be available “soon” for iPhone and iPad.

Big advantage of this Google “version” is that it will be available on the iPhone 4.

NPD’s research also revealed that the lion’s share of smartphone-market growth is concentrated in the top two brands. In fact Samsung’s and Apple’s combined smartphone unit sales rose 43 percent between Q2 2011 and Q2 2012, as unit sales for other brands fell 16 percent.According to NPD, the top five smartphone brands, and their market shares, in Q2 were as follows:

• Apple: 31 percent
• Samsung: 24 percent
• HTC: 15 percent
• Motorola: 12 percent
• LG: 6 percent

The Wall Street Journal looks at the case the feds have against Gibson and why they settled.

Sebastian Anthony for ExtremeTech:

In Curiosity’s case, the CPU is a PowerPC 750 (PowerPC G3 in Mac nomenclature) clocked at around 200MHz — which might seem slow, but it’s still hundreds of times faster than, say, the Apollo Guidance Computer used in the first Moon landings.

Jim Dalrymple and Dan Benjamin talk about Apple’s motivations for suing Samsung, Mat Honan’s hacked life and Amazon and Apple’s security flaws (and remedies), the new Apple iPad advertisement, exotic wood, and more.Sponsored by Flixel, Squarespace (use coupon DANSENTME8 for 10% off), and Hover (use coupon DANSENTME for 10% off).

Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin has a nice article showing us what Samsung’s phones looked like before and after the iPhone was released in 2007. Surely even the most hardened Apple critic can have no doubt how badly they were ripped off.

The company will take an $8 billion charge in the third quarter related to that $14 billion merger, and including the massive writeoff, HP expects to report a loss of as much as $4.49 per share, or approximately $8.85 billion.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read such complete and utter shit.

A brutal assessment.

Verizon Wireless Tuesday revealed that there are five additional data tiers over and above the six tiers announced with its Share Everything plans earlier this summer.

Peter Ha for TechCrunch:

Beginning this fall, Square will begin processing all U.S. credit and debit card transactions at participating Starbucks stores across their 7,000 locations. Pay with Square users will be able to find a nearby Starbucks in the Square Directory from their iPhone or Android smartphone. Additionally, Starbucks will be investing $25 million in Square for the company’s Series D financing round, which clocks in at a $3.25 billion valuation. (Just shy of the $4 billion valuation we’d been hearing about.) Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, will also be joining Square’s Board of Directors.

Square enables anyone to process credit or debit card transactions using a small square dongle that attaches to the headphone jack of your mobile device, and accompanying software. The company currently counts 2 million merchants and about $6 billion in annual sales.

The addition of “Pay with Square” support for Starbucks means customers won’t have to swipe credit cards at all to purchase their venti latte – instead they can use the Pay with Square app on their iPhone or Android phone just as they do with other “Pay with Square” merchants – an alternative to the “Mobile Pay” feature on the Starbucks iPhone app.

Square’s made leaps and bounds since its introduction, but Starbucks is by far the highest-profile organization to adopt Square as a payment method – it’s a move that’s almost certain to propel the company into mainstream acceptance in a very significant way.

Consider the wall of apps in this photo of the company’s new shop-in-a-shop in Italy’s Centro Sicilia, which appears to feature not only the iOS icon for Apple’s mobile Safari browser, but the icon for the company’s iOS App Store — three instances of it.

Oopsie.

Samsung’s Vice President of Electronics has released a video defending his company. C’mon, the Galaxy phone bears no similarity whatsoever to the iPhone. Absolutely none at all!

Just go watch the video. I actually laughed out loud. Great job Conan and team.

John Paczkowski and Ina Fried:

In short, the document makes the case that the Galaxy (identified as the “S1″ in this document) would be better if it behaved more like the iPhone and featured a similar user interface.

Apple just must love going to court against Samsung.

David Chartier:

Twitter can get the consistency it wants and the revenue it needs by changing the direction of its platform, but there is more than one way to adjust a ship’s course. There’s still time to try less turbulent tactics.

We’ve already learned that Apple is seeking more than $2.5 billion in damages from Samsung, but newly-released court filings have revealed exactly how much Apple feels it is owed on a per device basis.

Matthew Modine:

“In 1985, Stanley Kubrick encouraged me to take photos and keep a journal while playing the lead role of Pvt. Joker on the set of FULL METAL JACKET. In 2005, I published a limited edition book of my photos and diary. This app is based on that book; enriched and reimagined as an interactive, audiovisual experience. I hope you enjoy it!”

I was a big fan of Full Metal Jacket when it was released. Great movie. The app includes:

• Modine’s complete diary text from his out-of-print, award-winning, metal-bound book
• Five chapters chronicling the filmmaking process – Private Life, Vietnam, Boot Camp, On Leave, and Boot Camp Redux
• A nearly four hour audio experience with Modine’s own absorbing narration, produced with immersive sound effects and original music
• Over 400 high-res photos and personal documents scanned from original negatives and source material
• Detailed information on photos including dates, locations, and all-new remembrances written by Modine
• Three bonus galleries featuring select photo restoration comparisons
• Interactive “favorites” gallery designed to simulate Matthew’s original contact sheets used in compiling his book
• Store your favorite photos and audio clips for later reference
• Share your favorite photos with your friends via Twitter
• Links to related articles, videos, content, and much more