Like Jason Kottke, I have used each one of these browsers.

With the exception of Westminster Abbey, Apple’s images look better to my eye.

Samsung was forced to release a bunch of documents it had been keeping under seal that show the likeness between its products and Apple’s. Examples outlined in the documents include comments from Samsung workers discussing similarities with Apple’s products, and reports Samsung got from retailer Best Buy that Samsung tablets were being returned because customers thought they were getting iPads.

Supantha Mukherjee and Himank Sharma for Reuters:

Apple Inc has agreed to buy AuthenTec Inc for $8.00 per share, the maker of fingerprint sensor chips used in personal computers said, in a deal valued at about $356 million.

AuthenTec makes systems used by Lenovo and Dell. in addition to fingerprint sensor chips, AuthenTec makes Near Field Communication (NFC) chips and security software for mobile devices.

My latest column on Techpinions:

When Microsoft announced Office 2013 it’s not optimized for touch-enabled devices. Microsoft is telling its customers that the Surface tablet is important to them, but yet it’s most important application won’t work properly with the device.

Rian van der Merwe took one of my laughs from Amplified and made it into an iPhone ringtone. Thanks Rian.

Samsung Electronics Co, the world’s top technology firm by revenue, reported a record quarterly profit of $5.9 billion on Friday, as rampant sales of its smartphones more than offset a tumble in memory chip prices.

The social network earned a non-GAAP 12-cent profit, on target with expectations, on revenues of $1.18 billion, the latter up 32% and a tad above estimates.

Facebook suffered a net loss of $157 million, or 8 cents a share, largely because of accounting for employee stock plans post-IPO.

So overall, not a bad first quarter as a public company. It met analyst expectations and if not for the stock plans, it would have reported a profit.

ARC works by measuring your room using the included measurement microphone and measurement software and then generates an algorithm to provide a correction of your room’s acoustic problems that you can apply to your mix using the included plug-in. You canrecord and mix with confidence knowing that what you hear from your speakers is a faithful representation of how your music will translate to the outside world.

Cockpit Chronicles:

Al “Blacky” Blackman has reached a milestone few can claim. He has worked for 70 years as a mechanic for American Airlines based in New York, starting when he was only 17 years old.Surprisingly, he has no plans to retire. “I don’t consider this work. It’s being able to do what you like and getting paid for it.”

Al celebrated his milestone in a way suitable to his amazing employment longevity – with a flight around New York City in an original American Airlines DC-3, the oldest DC-3 still flying.

Flock finds the photos you take together with friends and family and magically brings all the photos from each person’s phone together into a single shared album.

No more nagging friends to email or post their photos after a night out. No more missing out on that great shot that someone else took. No more taking the same group photo on multiple phones.

Downloaded. This looks really cool.

Daniel Jalkut:

My beta-quality, more-or-less unsupported Subscribe to Feed extension adds a handy button to the toolbar that, when a page offers RSS or Atom feeds, can be clicked to easily open the feed:// link, which should automatically open your favorite news reader.

Charles Cooper for CNet:

On Monday, former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz offered a decidedly revisionist take with a column titled, “Who Really Invented the Internet?” In the piece, Crovitz cast doubt on the assertion that the U.S. government deserved credit for helping create the Internet. He described the claim as an urban myth. Instead, Crovitz, who said that Xerox deserves the credit, refracted the question through a different lens: “It’s important to understand the history of the Internet because it’s too often wrongly cited to justify big government,” he wrote.

Vint Cerf was actually there at the time and helped develop the TCP/IP protocol that still makes the Internet work to this day – with the help of government research grants.

He says unequivocally that the government was vital in the development of the modern Internet:

The U.S. government, including ARPA, NSF, DOE, NASA among others absolutely facilitated, underwrote, and pioneered the development of the Internet. The private sector engaged around 12 years into the program (about 1984-85) and was very much involved in powering the spread of the system. But none of this would have happened without this research support.

Marco Arment:

But now, I’ve lost all confidence that the apps I buy in the App Store today will still be there next month or next year. The advantages of buying from the App Store are mostly gone now. My confidence in the App Store, as a customer, has evaporated.

Marco brings up many good points in his article. I’ll admit, I’m not at the same point of frustration that he is, but I can see where he’s going with the argument. I’ve spoken to a number of developers that removed their apps from the Mac App Store and none of them wanted to do it, but they felt it was their only choice.

The vast majority of people will go where the apps are and where it’s most convenient for them. Currently, that’s the Mac App Store. However, if Apple forces developers to leave that could change quickly.

Google Fiber is 100 times faster than today’s average broadband. No more buffering. No more loading. No more waiting. Gigabit speeds will get rid of these pesky, archaic problems and open up new opportunities for the web. Imagine: instantaneous sharing; truly global education; medical appointments with 3D imaging; even new industries that we haven’t even dreamed of, powered by a gig.

Tricia Duryee for All Things D:

“We want to make it as easy as possible for the 2,500 games on Steam to run on Linux as well. It’s a hedging strategy. I think Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space. I think we’ll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people. If that’s true, then it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality.”

Valve recently revealed plans to make its Steam game service run on Linux (it’s been on OS X since 2010). He sees Steam on Linux as a positive way to make Linux appealing to mainstream users, suggesting that games drive “consumer purchasing behavior.”

Newell thinks Windows 8’s Windows Store — Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s Mac App Store — is a threat to the long-term viability of game developers. But more than that, he sees Microsoft’s efforts heading towards a “closed platform,” which he says couldn’t have resulted in businesses like his flourishing.

Hacking experts have demonstrated ways to attack Android smartphones using methods they said work on virtually all such devices in use today, despite recent efforts by search engine giant Google to boost protection.

Open wins.

Wii sales have dropped significantly, and gamers are now awaiting the launch of the Japanese company’s Wii U game console, which is expected to arrive later this year. The results show the peril of long transitions from one product generation to the next.

Brutal.

Ingrid Lunden for TechCrunch:

[Sprint] says it sold 1.5 million iPhones in the quarter, some 40 percent to new postpaid customers. That is exactly level with the number of iPhone sales it had last quarter. The iPhone push helped contribute to strong postpaid net additions of 442,000, double the number Sprint reported last quarter and the same quarter a year ago.

In April, Zynga conducted a “secondary stock offering” in which insiders dumped 43 million shares of stock at $12 a share, raking in about $516 million.

Yesterday, four months later, Zynga reported a horrible quarter, and the stock plunged to $3.

Ouch.

Time:

Jobs was a visionary whose great genius was for design: he pushed and pushed to make the interface between computers and people elegant, simple and delightful. He always claimed his goal was to create products that were “insanely great.” Mission accomplished.

[Via iMore]

Neil Hughes, AppleInsider:

A new, extensive patent application details how a new iPhone model with a near-field communications chip could serve as the connected centerpiece of an automated digitally connected home.

I don’t normally mention patents because they are just ideas that could take years to ever make it into a product, if they ever do. However, I thought this was cool.

The Office for Mac team is happy to announce that Office for Mac 2011 is Mountain Lion ready! We’ve been working with Apple to ensure a fantastic experience for our users.

Sam Radford makes a case for Apple to allow some type of sharing between iCloud accounts.

Most instruments only allow you to play one sound at a time, but with Tachyon, you can seamlessly blend between any two sounds as you slide your fingers up and down the screen.

Jordan is not only a friend, but also one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. It is really amazing to watch him sit down with an instrument, whether that’s a keyboard or an iPad, and play.

Apple lists all of the functions compatible Macs can do with Power Nap functionality. It’s really impressive.

Michael Lopp:

The best stories, the ones we love, have a surprise ending. Since Steve returned to Apple, an essential part of the keynote was the anticipation of the unexpected, and that means aggressive and invasive secrecy. Not because they don’t want you to know, but because they want to tell you a great story.

Another great piece from Michael.