Florian Mueller, FOSS Patents:

…Today, finally, Apple’s motion was granted in part: “Apple is permitted to intervene in this suit, but such intervention is limited to the issues of patent exhaustion and licensing.”Judge Rodney Gilstrap concluded that Apple was entitled to intervene, and in any event, a permissive intervention (one that the court can allow in its discretion) was also an option.

Lodsys is a patent troll who last year tried to sue iOS app developers for patent infringement. Lodsys says that in-app purchases violated its patents.

With this ruling, Apple is allowed to exercise a measure of protection to shield developers who otherwise might have been exposed to such suits.

Reached for comment, an Apple spokeswoman said the company is not working on a new product with Starck.

If he was working on a project with Apple, he isn’t any more.

Federico Viticci:

With third-party developers, however, adoption of iCloud sync and storage features has turned out to be a bit tricker, and possibly less intuitive than Apple’s own implementation due to the early nature of the platform.

I’m hoping this gets easier for developers. I rely on iCloud and would like to use it even more.

Instarchive:

There’s been a lot of talk about Instagram lately. We’re pretty sure the sky isn’t falling, but you should always have a backup, so we built this little tool for you.It’s called Instarchive, sign into your Instagram account and we’ll send your photos down to your computer in a convenient zip file. It’s quick and easy, we hope you like it.

Hat tip to Daring Fireball.

Jeff John Roberts for paidContent:

District Judge Edward Da Vila responded to Apple’s request by upholding four of the parents’ five claims, including allegations that Apple violated consumer protection laws by falsely marketing the apps as free:“Contrary to Apple’s argument, Plaintiffs have alleged with specificity which misrepresentations they were exposed to, their reliance on those misrepresentations, and the resulting harm. Plaintiffs pled specific facts that Apple “actively advertis[ed], market[ed] and promot[ed] its bait Apps as ‘free’ or nominal .”The ruling was issued last week but didn’t attract attention until Seattle tech lawyer Venkat Balasubramani wrote about it on Eric Goldman’s Law and Marketing Blog.

The next step is for Apple to file its defense, which it will do late next month.

Apple came under fire after some users – mainly children playing games – racked up large bills by making in-app purchases following the download of a game. Initially, Apple did not require users to re-input a password to make in-app purchases within 15 minutes of downloading the game.

Pebble E-Paper Watch:

The Pebble is an “electronic” watch with an e-paper display. It vibrates, has a three-axis accelerometer and contains Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR for connecting to your phone. Battery life is seven days and is charged via USB.The beauty of the Pebble Watch will be the apps and customization – everything from different styles of watch faces to all kinds of apps.

Amazingly, this Kickstarter project is fully funded already with over $2 million dollars pledged and still 35 days left to go.

Cool Material:

The Craft Beer App has (deep breath): an enormous database of craft beer (from all 50 states), beer podcasts, beer videos, beer descriptions, reviews, ratings and food pairing recommendations. Most importantly, it will locate your favorite craft beers around your location. Want an Allagash White, like, yesterday? Done. Left Hand Milk Stout? No problem.The availability obviously depends on your location, but it’s easily the best use of geo-location to date. Besides, what else are you going to do in the car/bus/cab? Draw something? This is obviously better.

Mmmm…beer.

My dog sends me texts. I post them here. Yeah, it’s weird.

I couldn’t help but laugh at a few of them.

“The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.”

Jason Snell:

Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the venerable Mac text-editing app BBEdit. I’m sure there are other apps not published by a gigantic company that have managed to last as long, but I’m not sure that any app has changed with the times and remained as relevant as BBEdit.

I’ve been using BBEdit for 18 years to build Web sites and do my daily writing. It is an indispensable tool.

Congrats to Rich and the crew at Bare Bones Software and thanks for such a great piece of software.

TechCrunch:

Livestream, the live video streaming service, is announcing an interesting new product: a $495 hardware encoder that can be connected to virtually any camera and that can stream HD video directly to the Web through a WiFi connection or most USB wireless modems.The small device is fully integrated into the new Livestream platform. The purchase price includes three months of free access to Livestream’s ad-free HD streaming service (normally $45/month). Livestream describes the device as “the industry’s first affordable unlimited ad-free HD live streaming end-to-end solution.”

This could be a very exciting piece of tech for broadcast geeks. It would allow them to quickly and easily get high quality video streamed live to the web.

The New York Times:

The government’s decision to pursue major publishers on antitrust charges has put the Internet retailer Amazon in a powerful position: the nation’s largest bookseller may now get to decide how much an e-book will cost, and the book world is quaking over the potential consequences.Amazon, which already controls about 60 percent of the e-book market, can take a loss on every book it sells to gain market share for its Kindle devices. When it has enough competitive advantage, it can dictate its own terms, something publishers say is beginning to happen.

This is a story with a lot of different angles and repercussions depending on your point of view.

The Next Web:

In the past 24 hours, Apple appears to have started prompting iOS devices owners and those with Apple IDs within iTunes to make their accounts more secure, requiring them to pick three security questions and enter their answers when they download a new app.Whilst the new prompt will undoubtedly help secure accounts, many Apple device owners are confused by the new pop-up message and believe it is a phishing attempt.

Great idea from Apple but “springing” this on users without prior knowledge has caused a lot of unnecessary confusion and consternation among users.

The Wall Street Journal:

At the heart of the U.S. government’s suit against Apple and some publishers over e-book pricing is something called “agency pricing.”It’s a term for a new way of setting e-book prices that came about as Apple prepared to introduce its iPad in 2010. Under the traditional “wholesale” pricing model, publishers had long charged booksellers around half the cover price of a book, leaving booksellers to discount the books if they wanted.When Apple entered the fray, it offered publishers the ability to set their own prices.

Good explanation of what the two different pricing models are and how the effect book prices.

Marketplace:

Last week, Marketplace’s Rob Schmitz actually got inside a Foxconn factory in the southern city of Shenzhen. He didn’t meet anybody who was poisoned on the job. He didn’t meet any 13-year-old workers. Nobody he talked to had been hurt in an explosion. He says the stories he heard were more about China than Apple.In the first of two reports, Rob introduces us to the people behind our iPads.

The Apple Store is the place where those experiences are made far better or far worse. Being on the front lines means gathering some great war stories. Stephen is here to share a few of his.

Jeff Scott:

The lack of an ability to download previously paid for digital goods, in the case an app, is the real problem. In the world of digital distribution, one where we are moving to a cloud-based backend and a Post-PC world, the apps and other digital media you buy in the App Store, you expect to be available forever. But the sad truth is, they are not available if the developer chooses to pull them. There are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of Tetris for iPad users that will find that out next time they upgrade devices and try to download the app.

I signed up for this yesterday to give it a try. It’s a curated list of stories that people you follow find interesting. You can find friends through Twitter or Facebook to make things a bit easier. You can also check out the staff recommendations.

There’s so much crap around the Internet these days, I’m all for looking through some good stories. I like it so far.

Dark Roasted Blend:

Dizzying heights, pervading mists and isolation seem to invariably fuel humankind’s spiritual quests and lofty aspirations, so it comes as no surprise that we find monasteries and other sacred architecture suspended high above deep valleys, perched on impossible rocks and looming over gorges. The air is certainly clearer there, though at these heights, it’s often much foggier.Serving partly as castles and almost always as unconquerable fortifications, these ancient sites were built on steep cliffs and daring promotories, often accessible only by secret paths – and thus provide the utmost seclusion amid serene surroundings, so valued in true spiritual devotion.

As a Canadian, all I can think of is, “It must be a bear to get beer up there.”

The best-selling Anne Geddes Baby Record Book, My First Five Years is now available in an incredible new way to record your baby’s precious early years. Imagine being able to record your baby’s favorite lullaby, to have proud grandparents film a keepsake message for their new grandchild, and to have the ability to store all of your captured moments in one place.

I love Anne Geddes. If this were available when my kids were young, I’d definitely buy it.

Music & Memory is a non-profit organization that brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or infirm through digital music technology, vastly improving quality of life.

The group is also asking for donations of your old iPods. Sounds like a good cause to me.

Om Malik:

Infact I get so much unwanted email from the service and from people I don’t know and don’t want to know. Today, I got so frustrated with the whole email thing, that I shut down the account. Done! I will give them full credit for making it much easier than say Facebook to delete my account.

I must say this is similar to my experience with LinkedIn. I did use it when I left Macworld to show recommendations, but that’s about it.

CNET:

The Department of Justice “has a far better case against the publishers than Apple,” says Dominick Armentano, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Hartford and author of Antitrust and Monopoly who’s now affiliated with the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. “If the CEOs of the various publishers got together in hotel rooms to discuss prices, they are sunk” and might as well settle, he says.

The aim of this article is to find out why people still find it difficult to use CSS sprites. Also, we’ll come up with a couple of substantial improvements to current techniques.

I like, but don’t understand how to implement sprites. I’ll do it one day.

Richard Leadbetter for GamesIndustry International:

But make no mistake, Apple has clear designs on expanding its gaming empire, having dominated the mobile sector with the right products at the right time, backed by the most powerful graphics hardware in the market. In a week where Apple’s market cap has exceed $600bn and where it accounts for 36 per cent of S&P’s total 500 Index Q1 earnings, the sky’s the limit. It’s no longer a case of whether Apple will bring its own brand of gaming to the home, it’s a matter of when and how…

Leadbetter goes into some serious detail about the hardware inside the new iPad, what it means for gaming, what the strengths, benefits and problems are, and what it suggests for Apple’s future roadmap. If you have any interest in how the new iPad stacks up as a game system and its potential, this is definitely worth a read.

Lauren Goode for AllThingsD:

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Nest, maker of a “smart” thermostat and target of a patent-infringement lawsuit filed by industrial giant Honeywell, has submitted a formal response to Honeywell’s claims.The start-up has also brought Richard “Chip” Lutton, a 10-year Apple Inc. veteran who managed the company’s patent portfolio, on board as vice president and general counsel.

Nest was founded by Tony Fadell, formerly in charge of Apple’s iPod division. The company made waves earlier this year for introducing a programmable home thermostat with a radically simpler, smarter interface than what you can buy elsewhere. No sooner had the company introduced its first product then it was hit with a lawsuit by Honeywell, which says that Nest is infringing its patents.

Chip Lutton left Apple in 2011.

Here is my latest column for TechPinions where I look at iCloud:

iCloud is not just a syncing service — it’s a content delivery mechanism that will play an increasingly important role in future products.