Samsung Electronics admitted that its attempt to breach the tablet market has largely been a flop, with one executive offering a sobering summary of its performance.“Honestly, we’re not doing very well in the tablet market,” Hankil Yoon, a product strategy executive for Samsung.

So, to boost sales you release a stylus?

David Goldman for CNNMoney:

Apple’s valuation is now higher than the gross domestic product of Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, or Taiwan.

Apple’s stock market value reached more than $500 billion in pre-market trading on Wednesday. It was only last month that Apple’s valuation hit the $400 billion mark.

Lee Chyen Yee and Huang Yuntao for Reuters:

Lawyers for Apple Inc. argued for its right to use the iPad trademark in China on Wednesday, as a higher court began a crucial hearing that could result in sales of the wildly popular tablet computer being halted throughout the Chinese mainland.The Higher People’s Court of Guangzhou is hearing an appeal by the U.S. firm after a lower court ruled in favor of debt-laden Chinese tech company Proview Technology (Shenzhen), which says it owns the trademark in China.

Apple used a shell corporation to secure the iPad trademark from Proview, a financially-troubled computer peripheral maker based in Shenzhen, China. But the company claims that Apple negotiated a deal with its Taiwanese subsidiary, not the Shenzhen headquarters, and claims that Apple’s trademark is invalid in mainland China. The legal dispute has led to the iPad being pulled from store shelves in some parts of China.

If it is ultimately victorious, Proview is expected to try to negotiate a financial settlement with Apple, based on recent comments made by Proview’s chairman.

iFilm:

When Steve Jobs died in October of last year, it was a blow to us all. The loss was felt especially hard at Pixar, the successful film company he helped not only create, but isolate from the Hollywood machine. John Carter, directed by one of Pixar’s most prolific directors, Andrew Stanton, comes out next week and though it’s not Pixar, the film is dedicated to the memory of the legendary businessman and inventor. During the credits, a card says:Dedicated to the Memory of Steve Jobs, an Inspiration to Us AllAt a recent press junket, Stanton was asked why he decided to dedicated Carter to Jobs and his answer was both logisically sound and beautifully poignant.

The Atlantic:

I do have to wonder what Steve Jobs would have thought if he had lived long enough to see this video – which is Rick Santorum’s application of the 1984 motif in his campaign.

It also has echoes of Apple’s much disliked “Lemmings” ad.

Animal:

The Department of Homeland Security monitors updates on social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, to uncover “Items Of Interest” (IOI), according to an internal DHS document released by the EPIC. That document happens to include a list of the baseline terms for which the DHS–or more specifically, a DHS subcontractor hired to monitor social networks–use to generate real-time IOI reports.

So – don’t use those words.

New York Times:

Developers of applications for Apple’s mobile devices, and Apple itself, came under scrutiny this month after reports that some apps were taking people’s address book information without their knowledge.As it turns out, address books are not the only things up for grabs. Photos are also vulnerable. After a user allows an application on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to have access to location information, the app can copy the user’s entire photo library, without any further notification or warning, according to app developers.

AllThingsD:

Twitter is expanding its ad program to iPhone and Android handsets, as the company gets more aggressive about ramping up revenue. Twitter has already been showing some limited advertising on its mobile apps.Just like the Promoted Tweets that Twitter shows on its primary Twitter.com site, these ads will show up in users’ “timelines.” At first Twitter will only allow advertisers to place the ads in front of users who already following their accounts. But within months it will expand the program to allow marketers to reach people who don’t follow them — just as it does on the Web.

Matthew Panzarino for The Next Web:

Earlier this morning, mobile phone carrier Sprint released its 10-K filing with the SEC for the fiscal year ending in December. In the filing, it revealed that it had made a commitment with Apple to purchase a minimum number of iPhones from Apple amounting to $15.5B in outlay.

Panzarino cites Horace Dediu of Asymco’s back-of-the-envelope average revenue per user (ARPU) projections to come up with a total of 23.8 million iPhones. That’s quite a commitment from Sprint, which just started carrying the iPhone last year.

Alice Chan for psfk:

Luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz unveiled plans to integrate Apple’s Siri into its A-Class electronics system that would allow drivers access to their iPhone apps using voice commands.

The Drive Kit Plus electronics package will enable iPhone users to interact with Siri and their phones using the built-in “system screen,” according to the report.

Tom Davenport and Charles Arthur for The Guardian:

Apple is working on a new audio file format that will offer “adaptive streaming” to provide high- or low-quality files to users of its iCloud service.The new format could mean that users can get “high-definition” audio by downloading to an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Alternatively, it could offer a streaming service – like that of Lala.com, the music streaming and online storage company, which Apple acquired late in 2009.

The report indicates that the service will adjust sound quality depending on bandwidth and available space on the target device. Apple for its part refuses to comment on rumor, of course.

Thumbtack is a menu bar utility that provides quick and easy access to the most recently saved bookmarks in your Pinboard account. It was developed around one core feature allowing it be polished, reliable, and extremely efficient.

Dave Caolo talking about Gizmodo’s Mountain Lion review:

Complaining that an early pre-release meant for developers is unfinished. I stopped reading right there.

I agree.

I wondered about this when I saw the stories this morning. Ben Brooks gets to the bottom of it.

In many work environments, cashiers are given worksheets where denominations are counted, recorded, totaled, then submitted. Deposit was created with this in mind. With Deposit, each denomination is recorded separately, the total is calculated in real-time, and printed cash reports are only a few touches away.

It can also print the total and send an email to your manager.

Fred Dutton for EuroGamer.net:

A proposed bill to impose a one per cent tax on violent video games in the US state of Oklahoma has failed to become to law.

The bill would have created a one percent tax on violent video games, with the proceeds used to “fight childhood obesity and bullying.” It died in a subcommittee hearing when lawmakers failed to establish any directly causal relationship between such games and childhood issues like obesity and bullying.

Andrew Beaujon for Poynter:

Krystal Myers’ editorial for the Lenoir City High School student newspaper about how atheists like her don’t have the same rights as Christians met a somewhat ironic fate: It was not published. School officials feared “the potential for disruption in the school.”

Minimalism has always been one of the things I admired most whether it’s about interior design, people, fashion or web design. When you are looking for information let’s say on the Internet, you might get really annoyed because of the flow of commercials or different colorful and intricate designer stuff that get in your way while browsing a website in order to find what’s most important – content. “Less is more” – that’s what should be on a web designer’s mind when inventing something new to post on the Internet.

Adam Satariano and Peter Burrows for Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s rivals aren’t rushing to emulate the iPhone maker’s decision to subject supplier factories to audits by a labor group. Instead, they’re sticking to internal checks that may leave room for violations — and negative public relations fallout.

Where’s the outrage from citizen’s groups and environmental groups?

Cool idea. If you only want to work in a Mac environment or at least think it’s a good idea to single those places out, you can.

Florian Mueller:

Apple scored a breakthrough court victory today against Motorola. Its important can hardly be overstated. This is so huge that it even begs the question of whether Google’s strategy for its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility has failed before the deal is even formally closed (they’re still waiting for some regulatory approvals).

That’s protection.

I don’t even know what to say.

Adobe:

Photoshop Touch app lets you quickly combine images, apply professional effects, share the results with friends and family through social networking sites like Facebook, and more — all from the convenience of your tablet.

A first review is available at MacStories.