iPad 2013: Mini on the rise

The iPad Mini is a first-gen Apple product. So speculation about Act 2 will be rampant in 2013.

Some obvious changes seem to be in store for the iPad Mini in 2013. But it won’t be a no-brainer for Apple to crank out the next-gen Mini in short order.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple appears to have hit another consumer sweet spot with the iPad Mini. So, how much sweeter can it get in 2013?

First, some numbers that point to just how popular the 7.9-inch iPad seems to be. NPD DisplaySearch had originally expected display makers to ship 6 million iPad Mini displays in the fourth quarter of 2012. But last month it quickly upped that estimate to about 12 million.

Though it’s not clear if display makers were actually able to ship that many, owing to supply constraints in regard to displays, it’s safe to say the Mini’s in demand.

What gets better? In a word, the screen.

Punching up the Pixels: The iPad Mini’s relatively grainy 1,024×768-pixel resolution display is fine for most people. But at only 163 pixels per inch — versus 264 pixels per inch for the Retina iPad — I don’t think it’s good enough for Apple.

Particularly when the competition is knocking on Apple’s door. Amazon’s larger Kindle Fire HDachieves 254 pixels per inch in an 8.9 inch display. And Google’s popular Nexus 7 offers better resolution than the Mini too.

So, how does Apple up the ante? The conventional wisdom, driven by Asia-based rumors, is that Apple slaps on an eye-popping 2,048×1,536-pixel screen (same pixel count as the 9.7-inch Retina iPad but in a considerably tighter space) and swaps out the A5 chip for a faster A6.

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Sounds enticing, but that’s a costlier Mini to build than the one that’s being sold for a starting price of $329 today. So you may have to pay more for a Retina Mini.

But it would be worth it. For me, the pixel shock — after using the Retina iPad 4 and a Mini over the last month or so — isn’t so much going from the 4 to the Mini but switching back to the 4′s Retina. That display is so obviously superior to the Mini’s that it’s impossible to put down the 4 sometimes, despite the Mini’s ergonomic appeal.

Peppier processor: And here’s another reason I keep going back to the iPad 4: it’s a lot faster. While there are benchmarks that demonstrate this, I can feel it. After using the Mini — which isn’t slow, by the way — for a while then picking up the 4, it feels like everything has been turbocharged.

So you can bet that Apple will eventually put the same speedy A6 chip that’s in the iPhone 5 and iPad 4 inside the Mini.

And how soon will all of the above happen? That depends on how quickly suppliers can mass produce the prospective Mini’s Retina display. My guess is that mass producing a 7.85-inch, 3 million-plus pixel density display that can fit in the current Mini’s chassis is a lot harder than people think.

But I’m sure suppliers will let us know via the grapevine how soon this might happen.

 

iPad 2013: Mini on the rise

Six states outlaw employer snooping on Facebook

he list of states that don’t put up with employers demanding employee’s social media passwords is growing — both California and Illinois laws went into effect on the first of this year.

Six states have officially made it illegal for employers to ask their workers for passwords to their social media accounts. As of 2013, California and Illinois have joined the ranks of Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware in passing state laws against the practice, according to Wired.

With Congress not being able to come to agreement on the Password Protection Act of 2012, individual states have taken the law into their own hands. Both California and Illinois agreed on password protection laws in 2012, but the laws didn’t go into effect until yesterday.

The laws are designed to prohibit employers from requiring an employee or job applicant to provide their username and password for social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Assemblymember Nora Campos, who authored the California bill, called the law a “preemptive measure” that will offer guidelines to the accessibility of private information behind what she calls the “social media wall.”

 

It’s unclear how many employers have actually demanded access to workers’ online accounts, but some cases have surfaced publicly and inspired lively debate over the past year. In one instance last April, a teacher’s aide in Michigan was suspendedafter refusing to provide access to her Facebook account following complaints over a picture she posted. 

According to Campos’ office, more than 100 cases before the National Labor Relations Board in September involved employer workplace policies around social media. Facebook has also said it has experienced anincrease in reports of employers seeking to gain “inappropriate access” to people’s Facebook profiles or private information this past year.

While these six states now ban employer snooping on private information, all public information posted on social media accounts is still fair game.

Six states outlaw employer snooping on Facebook

 

• Police Down Under rescue Apple map users

Police Down Under rescue Apple map users

Australian police warn against using Apple Maps, Instagram pulls photos off Twitter, and Valve works on a new video game console.

by Bridget Carey

 December 10, 2012 2:12 PM PST

 

Monday’s CNET Update shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque:

 

It’s no secret that Apple’s Maps are bad. But using the app could be hazardous to your health. Australian police had to rescue several people who were stranded in the wilderness after being directed 70 kilometers off-course by Apple’s directions on iOS 6. Police have urged residents to use other mapping apps in the meantime.

Today’s tech news roundup also looks into the continued drama between Twitter and Instagram. You’ll no longer see a photo automatically load inside of a tweet — you have to click the Instagram link. The services are becoming photo-sharing rivals. Twitter is working on its own tool for adding filters to a photo, and perhaps co-founder Jack Dorsey has been testing such a feature.

Police Down Under rescue Apple map users

Congress speaks, tech investors party -- like it's 2013

And what a start for 2013 as Congress’ fiscal cliff resolution sends tech to big gains on the year’s first day of trading.

Wall Street’s first day of trading in 2013.

(Credit: Getty )

Well, it took long enough. 

But after finally clinching a (literally) last-minute deal to break a weeks-long deadlock over the so-called fiscal cliff, tech investors had a field day on the first day of trading for 2013.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index closed up more than 3 percent on the day, led by the usual roster of big names with Google finishing at $723.25, up 2.24 percent and Apple gaining almost 3 percent to close at $548.07. Facebook, which for much of the spring and summer had been a neglected stock, continued its recent climb, finishing up more than 5 percent to close the day at $28.

Of course, the Nasdaq’s gains reflected the 309-point increase in the stock market, which marked the Dow Jones’ biggest opening-day point jump ever. One notable wall flower was

Congress speaks, tech investors party -- like it's 2013

Apple to report first-quarter earnings on January 23

Apple said today that it will announce its fiscal first-quarter financial results on January 23.

The quarter is typically Apple’s strongest, fueled by strong sales of the company’s products during the lucrative holiday shopping season.

When announcing its fourth-quarter results last October, Apple said it expected revenue of $52 billion and projected earnings of $11.75 per share for its first quarter of 2013. Wall Street’s expecting Apple to beat that with $54.5 billion in revenue, on earnings of $13.32 per share.

Much of that tally is expected to be buoyed by sales of the iPhone, which continues to be Apple’s top seller. Apple’s iPhone 5 was on sale for the entirety of the quarter, while its newest iPods and iPads launched near the end of October. The company also revamped much of its Maccomputer line, though its iMac models only began shipping near the end of the quarter.

As usual, the company will hold a conference call at 2 p.m. PT to discuss the results with Wall Street analysts, a call that is typically run by Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter

Apple to report first-quarter earnings on January 23

Samsung soups up its ultrabook with 1080p, graphics, and touch

Samsung Series 7 Ultra

(Credit: Samsung)

The story of last year’s CES was all ultrabooks; this year, the PC story is all about Windows 8 and touch. Samsung’s latest laptop fuses both into a touch-screen computer that’s hardly a surprise but meets what feels like a new expectation threshold in upper-tier Windows ultrabooks.

The 13.3-inch Series 7 is a new ultrabook for Samsung, as opposed to last year’s top-end Series 9 and budget-targeted Series 5. The all-aluminum laptop is more “multimedia-targeted” than the Series 9 ever was, with a 1,920×1,080 resolution, discrete AMD HD8570M graphics, and JBL speakers. It’s also bigger, at 3.2 pounds and 17.5mm thick or 3.6 pounds and 18.9mm for the touch-screen Ultras. The slimmed-down Series 9 from mid-2012 weighed a mere 2.6 pounds.

Besides the optional touch screen configuration, the Series 7 Ultra can be built with either a Core i5 or i7 ULV processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and a maximum 256GB SSD. It’s also equipped with three USB 3.0 ports and optional 4G LTE, although prices haven’t been specified.

The Series 7 Ultra joins the larger, more fully-equipped touch-screen 15-inch Series 7 Chronosto form the first wave of Samsung’s CES 2013 offerings. Both laptops lack optical drives, a trend that seems to be unavoidable in the age of tablets.

Samsung soups up its ultrabook with 1080p, graphics, and touch

 

The snoop state’s still alive and well (Anybody notice?)

The new year starts on a sour note after Obama extends government wireless wiretapping for another five years — and the public reacts with a big yawn.

(Credit: National Security Agency/Getty Images)

In mid-December, a good portion of our wired world had a collective cow after Instagram put out a confusing statement about how it planned to treat users’ photos. (The company blamed the ensuing uproar on imprecise wording and retreated to its original terms of service.) Oh, we love our photos. Fine. Whatever.

Now compare that uproar with the (relative) sound of silence greeting the five-year extension of extraordinary spying powers handed to the National Security Agency. Even in an age when attention deficit disorder seems to be the default mode, this was something else. In the closing days of 2012, President Obama signed into law a bill that lets the government avoid judicial review, leaving the NSA free through the end of his term to intercept international e-mails and phone calls without needing a court order. (The new law is awkwardly named the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012, and it reauthorizes 2008′s FISA Amendments Act, which modified the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.)

On paper, the new act prevents domestic targeting. Before starting surveillance on Americans, the government is supposed to ask for a warrant from a special 11-judge court of U.S. district judges appointed by the Supreme Court. But that’s little balm to privacy advocates when there’s still no huge barrier to prevent the government from gathering access to Americans’ international communications. In fact, the FISA court possesses only limited supervisory powers to investigate particular surveillance programs, even in cases where the government’s activities are judged to be unconstitutional.

Until the passage of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 Uncle Sam first had to prove to a court that there was probable cause connecting a target to a terror group or a foreign government before the NSA could proceed. And this extension of those 2008 amendments means the NSA has another five years to conduct its business in the way it sees fit.