MG:

That’s why Paul’s post is dangerous. He’s shining the spotlight on something, but he’s missing the mark. There is exactly one person to blame for all of this — and her name is not Erick.

IndustryGamers:

Market research firm Interpret has issued a new report “iPad Gamers: A Look at the Users of Gaming’s Shiny New Toy,” which Interpret says “demonstrates that Apple’s popular tablet computer is both drawing the attention of traditional console gamers and developing its own new user base of nontraditional gamers.”In fact, the base of iPad gamers in the U.S. has now grown to over 8 million, the firm claims. 71% of iPad owners in the U.S. use the Apple tablet for gaming, and Interpret says that these owners “include a substantial number of traditional gamers, as well as an ever-bigger proportion of non-traditional gamers.”

It certainly shouldn’t be a surprise, given the widespread popularity of gaming on the iPhone, but it should be reassuring to game developers considering the iPad as a platform to know that there’s already a large and growing audience for their products.

Examiner.com:

Sony is updating the user agreement for the Playstation Network starting on September 15 and one of the changes included in the update seeks to stop class action lawsuits against the company.

Sony was the target of a hacker break-in earlier this year that exposed tens of millions of user accounts because of lackadaisical security. Sony’s move is a defensive measure to prevent more legal exposure. The company allows you to opt out of the arbitration clause, but you’re required to do so in writing within 30 days of agreeing to the new terms of service.

I would like to thank Pixelmator for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed.

Pixelmator is the beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing app for Mac OS X that has everything you need to create, edit and enhance your images. With tons of new features and improvements, the next generation of Pixelmator—codenamed Chameleon—is clearly the best Pixelmator ever built. Even more, Pixelmator 2 will be available later this month via the Mac App Store as a free upgrade for everyone who purchased any version of Pixelmator via the Mac App Store.

Washington Post:

The attorney generals of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington joined the suit filed in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. They argued that the deal would violate antitrust laws by reducing the number of wireless carriers from four to three national companies and removing an important lower-cost competitor.

By piling on the existing Department of Justice lawsuit, the states may make it less likely that Justice will accept a settlement instead of forcing the merger to stop altogether, according to a legal expert consulted for the article.

Electronista:

BlackBerry owners on Friday were dealt more unfortunate news Friday after many reported losing access to Internet services. Both BlackBerry Messenger and e-mail faced outages, primarily in Canada and Latin American countries. RIM was “investigating” as of Friday afternoon but didn’t have a cause or an estimated time for a fix.

Wow. RIM just can’t catch a break.

PC World:

U.S. President Barack Obama has signed the America Invents Act, the first major overhaul of the U.S. patent system in about 50 years.The America Invents Act, passed 89-9 by the U.S. Senate last week, would allow new challenges to patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It allows third parties to file a challenge to a patent within nine months of it being awarded.

The law changes the patent process by giving the patent to the first person to file, not the first person to create. This puts the U.S. on a level playing field with most of the rest of the world. Opponents of the legislation fear that will put small businesses and sole inventors at a disadvantage with larger companies with deeper pockets.

BGR:

During RIM’s second-quarter earnings call, Co-CEO Jim Balsillie noted that the company plans to offer price cuts on the not-so-popular BlackBerry PlayBook in the form of rebates, and an incentive program for enterprise sales.

He also said there’s a big software update coming. Too little, too late.

Heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Smashing Magazine:

Illustrator makes it easy to use symbols multiple times within a document as well. With the Symbols tools, you can add and alter several symbols at once. And in CS5, you can now change the settings for a symbol while editing.

Some great tips from Matt. Definitely worth a read.

Paul McDougall, InformationWeek

We’ve been very clear since the very first CES demos and forward that the ARM product won’t run any x86 applications,” said Stephen Sinofsky, president of Microsoft Windows unit, during a meeting with financial analysts Wednesday. Windows 8 for tablets runs on devices powered by chips designed by U.K.-based ARM. The desktop version runs on traditional, x86 chips from Intel and AMD.

Just in case there was any confusion.

The feds raided Gibson’s factory in late August confiscating several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The feds executed search warrants for ebony and rosewood that were imported from India — the government says Gibson violated the Lacey Act, which stipulates that a company cannot import wood in a manner that’s against the laws of the country the wood is coming from. However, Gibson says it complied with Indian law and no concerns have been raised by the Indian government.

A number of people are showing their support for Gibson, including Godsmack’s Sully Erna.

Reuters:

Two stores in Queens, New York, accused of peddling unauthorized Apple Inc accessories have agreed to hand over all products in their inventories bearing the word “Apple” or any of the company’s ubiquitous trademarks.

@RandallB

This is Apple’s original AppleTV, from circa 1996. Rob Gould, who works on the AOL HD project with my company, Castfire, sent me these awesome pics from his time back at Bell Atlantic (now Verizon) when they had access to this box. He calls it the “Pippen”, likely a spin-off from the Apple Pippin, from earlier in the decade.

Pictures are a lot different than what we have now.

Mat Honan, for Gizmodo:

If you’re not intrigued by Windows 8 and Metro, if you can’t recognize that it’s a big leap forward, if you’re not excited about what it means for you, personally then you don’t really care about technology; you care about brands. You care about platforms. You care about politics. You’re a fanboy.Look, we all lean certain ways. I have my own set of preferences. I tend to vote for Democrats and buy Apple products. But that’s because they tend to support my priorities, not vice-versa. If the Democrats suddenly turned their backs on science, or Apple began pushing out products with buggy cluttered interfaces, I’d look elsewhere. I don’t really get those who treat brands like sports teams, offering blind allegiance over self-interest. That’s just zealotry. God bless that file system; my platform, right or wrong.The older I get the less I trust anyone who puts party or platform over the advancement of society.

I agree with Mat wholeheartedly. Use what you want to use – Windows, Android, OS X, iOS, whatever. Just stop being such a dick about it.

Australian Business Traveller:

According to Mark Larson, technical manager at Boeing’s Dreamliner Gallery, all 787s now in production will be fitted with Android-based servers and touchscreens.

The Android systems will be used for in-flight entertainment systems throughout first class and coach seating on the giant airliner, according to the report. Panasonic has built Android touchscreens certified for use by Boeing in the 787s.

The report says that “Boeing’s decision effectively locks out Apple [and others]” from being installed on the 787. Not such a big deal, considering how many of the 787’s passengers are likely to be carrying iOS devices anyway.

The Next Web:

Last weekend, Stevie Wonder made a special appearance at a nightclub in Los Angeles, ad-libbing to his songs, playing some other tracks but also taking some time to stop the music to give a speech on helping others with disabilities.At around the 4:38 mark in the video embedded above, Stevie Wonder takes time to thank Steve Jobs and Apple for how they made technology accessible for everyone…

Peter Kafka:

Netflix, which instituted a price hike earlier this fall, says the higher costs are turning off more customers than it expected. The video rental company has cut its third quarter U.S. subscriber projections from 25 million subscribers to 24 million, a four percent cut. The majority of the shrinkage, Netflix says, will come from its DVD-only customers.

I never thought the backlash would be this bad.

Andrew Richardson:

Well, Windows on a diet running alone in 2 GB sounds reasonable. Windows plus one non-bloatware application running in 2 GB, maybe. Windows multitasking a half-dozen apps, some of them legacy Windows applications like Outlook, Excel or Photoshop, and a browser with ten open tabs? Good luck with that. It won’t matter that the user can switch between the Metro UI and mobile apps, and something resembling Windows 7 and desktop apps, because it all has to fit in a RAM store that remains cost-competitive with a tablet.