Apple’s new Siri commercials are a little too comprehensible, the designer of the Mac has an unusual Steve Jobs souvenir, and one Google acquisition apparently came with some guts. The remainders for Friday, February 10, 2012 are laying down their cards.
Road Trip/Rock God (Apple)
Apple’s posted two brand new iPhone ads featuring Siri, one about a couple that takes a spontaneous cross-country road trip (like you do), and one about a teenager learning to play the guitar. These both left me a bit cold—I’d like to see one where Siri continually screws up when I try to add a simple reminder. That’s real.
iWitness (Seven Days)
Jerry Manock was one of Apple’s first five employees, and worked on both the Apple II and the original Macintosh. In an interview, he recounts his interactions with Jobs, even mentioning that his daughter still has the teddy bear Steve Jobs gave her almost 35 years ago, when she was born. We predict treasure hunters from far and wide will now be converging upon Vermont, all trying to locate the elusive mystical iBear.
Texas Jury Strikes Down Patent Troll’s Claim In Clear Victory For Patent Reform (Forbes)
A Texas jury has deemed invalid a claim by Eolas Technologies that it held a patent on the “interactive web.” I think we’re all lucky that the jury decided against the claim and that Eolas can now finally go back to its home in Middle-earth.
Chutzpah: Google also wants 2.25% of every iPhone sale (Fortune)
In a letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Google says that it is prepared to license the mobile-related patents it received in its acquisition of Motorola for the very reasonable fee of 2.25 percent per phone. Which we expect Apple to agree to just as soon as Google agrees to pay Apple 5 percent per copy of Android.
Product News:
CopyCatX 5.1 – The latest version of SubRosaSoft’s backup/disk-cloning utility gets improvements in performance and interface, and, at last, support for OS X Lion. The program lets you make exact copies of a hard drive, including permissions and hidden files; it also has cross-platform support, allowing you to clone Boot Camp, Windows, and Linux volumes, too. The interface tweaks in this latest version mean it takes fewer mouse-clicks to configure and initiate a disk-copy job. The update also includes improved foreign-language support and bug fixes. It’s available for $50; owners of version 4 or earlier can upgrade for $20.