Apple co-founder Wozniak airs cloud computing concerns
The engineering brains behind Apple's early success claims cloud users could lose control of their data
By Caroline Donnelly

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has laid bare his fears about moving data to the cloud, claiming it could lead to “horrible problems“ in the future.

Wozniak was reportedly the star turn during Mike Daisy’s one–man show in Washington, United States, called The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.

Wozniak is often credited with driving Apple’s early success in the computer market, having founded the company with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne in the 1970s.

As reported by Agence France-Presse, during a post–show Q&A session, Wozniak said he found the concept of moving data from physical, on-premise servers into the cloud worrying. “I really worry about everything going to the cloud… I think it’s going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years,” he said.

He also raised concerns about the lack of control, he claimed, users have over the data they store in the cloud.

“With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away,” he said.

Details Here

Also, check out my blog: “IT Forecast: Clouds”

first published week of:   08/06/2012

Apple iOS in-app purchases hacked; everything is free

Russian developer ZonD80 figured out how to circumvent Apple's iOS In-App Purchase program, allowing iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users to acquire digital game items, upgrade to full versions of applications, and purchase additional content for free. The hack reportedly works on all Apple devices running anything from iOS 3.0 to iOS 6.0 (the In-App Purchase program requires iOS 3.0 or later). This circumvention technique relies on installing certificates for a fake in-app purchase server as well as a custom DNS server. The latter's IP address is then mapped to the former, which in turn allows all "purchases" to go through. ZonD80 could easily be gathering users' iTunes log-in credentials (as well as unique device-identifying data) in a man-in-the-middle attack.

Details Here

first published week of:   07/16/2012

Apple is now worth more than the GDP of Sweden

Apple (AAPL) closed Thursday at a record high $493.17, up a whopping $16.49 (3.46%) for the day. That pushed its market capitalization (share price times shares outstanding) to nearly $460 billion -- more than any other company in the world and, as Apple Insider's Neil Hughes noted, greater than the value of Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) combined.

What else is Apple worth more than? Let's see ...

Updating some of the links in the Things Apple Is Worth More Than tumbler, and adding a few of our own, we find:

• The gross domestic product of Sweden ($458 billion)
• All the gold in the Federal Reserve, and then some. ($350 billion)
• All the illegal drugs in the world, and then some ($321 billion)
• Six and a half years of global coffee consumption ($70 billion/year)
• More than six years of U.S. beef consumption ($74 billion/year)
• More than five U.S. Civil Wars ($74-$84 billion each)
• More than 2.5 Apollo space programs ($145-$170 billion apiece)
• Three times the entire U.S. clothing industry ($150 billion)
• Fourteen National Football Leagues ($33 billion for all the teams combined)

first published week of:   02/13/2012

Apple Patent Involves Adaptive Mobile Device Navigation

An Apple patent (number 20120253665) for adaptive mobile device navigation has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Maybe it will help improve iOS 6 Maps. Per the patent, adaptive mobile device navigation system, methods, and apparatus provide location information for a mobile device performing location estimation using dead reckoning.

Here's Apple's background and summary of the invention: "The role of traditional printed maps is being supplanted by modern devices capable of rendering dynamic map displays. Devices that include mapping or navigation applications provide information regarding an area selected by a user by recalling map data from local memory or networked services.

"Mapping devices often include the ability to provide directions from a point of origin to a destination. When coupled with any of a number of positioning technologies, a mapping device can display a current position on a map as well as deliver navigation instructions based on the current position to route a user to a desired destination. Positioning technologies include satellite positioning systems such as GPS, information from nearby cellular base stations, and information from other transmitters such as, such as Wi-Fi networks.

"Not all mobile mapping devices include the necessary hardware and software to receive positioning information. In addition, due to interfering factors of the environment in which a mobile device is being operated, the mobile device may not be able to receive positioning information even if it is equipped to do so.

"Disclosed herein are systems and methods for adaptive mobile device navigation. In one implementation, a device position is stored in memory. Sensor data is received from a motion sensor measuring movement of the device. The sensor data is compared to map data corresponding to the device location. An estimated current device location is determined. The determination is based at least in part on the device position, received sensor data, and an interpretation of the received sensor data as corresponding to movement along at least one pathway defined by the map data.

Details Here

first published week of:   10/08/2012

Apple slowly gaining patents to fight its war of attrition with Android

Apple recently was awarded a patent related to multitouch input processing, which the Internet immediately characterized as a “key multitouch patent” that Apple could use to target Android handset makers. While the patent does describe a useful—and perhaps even important—part of Apple’s multitouch technology, it certainly isn’t a “thermonuclear” option that Apple could use to wipe out its smartphone competition.

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs wasn’t shy about telling the competition that the company had done its homework and filed over 200 patents on the technology used to build the iPhone during his January 2007 keynote address. Apple’s most recently awarded patent, US Patent 8,085,247 “Advanced frequency calibration,” was filed on January 3, 2007, just days before Jobs unveiled the iPhone publicly. And in the coming months, it’s likely that Apple may be awarded more of these 200+ patents.

The patent in question discusses a method to automatically tune and calibrate the oscillators used in a capacitive touch interface. Will this patent finally give Apple what it needs to shut down Android for good? Not likely, according to the legal experts we consulted.

“Apple files tons of patents all the time, but this one appears to be almost comically narrow,” Nilay Patel, a former IP attorney that currently writes about technology and law for The Verge, told Ars. In other words, the patent very narrowly describes a particular method for tuning the oscillator using a binary search–like algorithm.

Details Here

first published week of:   01/02/2012

Apple v. Google — Will the future be decided in the iCloud?
by jonny evans

Internet services are the backbone for the mobile era but in the words of at least one ex-iPad engineer, Apple [AAPL] has a big problem keeping up with competitors when it comes to these, because: “Almost everything Apple does that involves the Internet is a mess.”

Patrick B. Gibson thinks Apple has a blind spot when it comes to the Internet, and he believes the company's lack of innate understanding of how to deliver effective online services is giving Google an advantage in the technology arms race.

You have to take the criticisms of any ex-company employee with a huge pinch of salt, but Apple's history does show provision of Internet-based services as one of its weakest points:

• .Mac and MobileMe clearly missed the mark, with Apple's decision to decimate its .Mac user base by levying a sudden charge causing a lot of damage to that company's early lead in provision of such services.
• iCloud is a more effective service, but lost and delayed messages, service unavailability and other foibles show just hard Apple finds it to maintain a service that's set to be at the heart of everything any Mac or iOS user does. And where's the iCloud file browser?

first published week of:   11/26/2012

Volume 31

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