Apple today announced that John Browett will join the company as senior vice president of Retail, reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Browett comes to Apple from European technology retailer Dixons Retail, where he has been CEO since 2007. Beginning in April, he will be responsible for Apple’s retail strategy and the continued expansion of Apple retail stores around the world.“Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we’ve met,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple.”
Replacing Ron Johnson, who left Apple for JC Penney.
There are a lot of approaches to getting rid of wall-warts, those blocky power transformers that let you plug your low-voltage, battery-powered USB products into the wall to charge.But this one is a little more elegant than most.Newer Technology has designed a two receptacle in-wall outlet called “Power2U” that also has two USB receptacles arranged so you can use all four simultaneously.
Clever idea but we may need vendors to start making USB cables even longer.
We’ve compiled the 20 fight scenes we regard as the most electrifying and just plain jaw dropping that have ever been choreographed and committed to film.
Do not go to this story if you have any where to be in the next hour or so. You’ll get sucked into YouTube fight scenes and won’t realize how much time has gone by!
After Cameron Kaine wrote for Seeking Alpha that the Kindle Fire was released to rave reviews, MacDailyNews did the best rebuttal I’ve seen in a long time. A massive list of links of everything but rave reviews.
Point-and-shoot camera sales were down 20 percent last year across the industry, with entry-level shooters declining the most sharply…Dying doesn’t mean dead, though: these cheap cameras still account for as much as 80 percent of camera sales.The three new Cyber-shot cameras Sony launched today hint at how the company’s moving ahead in the market — by equipping its cameras with better video, more zoom, and megapixels galore.
Point and shoots bring to mind the old man at the beginning of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” – “I’m not dead yet!”
Forty-nine per cent of British children aged 12 and under, would be sad without access to the web, while one in five would be lonely.The ‘Digital Futures’ project, which surveyed 1,000 young people in the UK between the ages of eight and 16 about the impact of the internet on their lives, found that the emotional attachment to the web was even stronger with teenagers.
This update is for all 802.11n AirPort Express, 802.11n AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule models. It fixes an issue with wireless performance and provides support for remote access to an AirPort disk or a Time Capsule hard drive with an iCloud account.
Use AirPort Utility to set up and manage your Wi-Fi network and AirPort base stations, including AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule. See a graphical overview of your Wi-Fi network and devices. Change base station and network settings, or manage advanced features such as security modes, wireless channels, and more.
While supplies last, Target has the Apex Digital LD4688T 46-inch LCD HDTV for $379 shipped. So, what kind of 46-inch TV could $350 (ish) possibly buy? On paper, the TV sounds mixed, I’ll admit. Of course, you’ve got to allow a little slack when you’re getting a 46-inch TV for $379.
If you need a good sized TV for your Man Cave to watch the Big Game this coming weekend, this might fit the bill.
Mirroring the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, this long version of a RPA-created Honda CR-V commercial that will air during the Super Bowl follows Matthew Broderick throughout his day as he, like his character did in the movie, calls in sick and has a day of adventure.The video, directed by Todd Philips, has a couple dozen Easter egg references to the movie including a reference to Rooney’s secretary Grace. See if you can count them all.
Watch the full two and a half minute version of the ad, starring Matthew Broderick riffing off his “Ferris Bueller” character. The full commercial is unlikely to be shown in its entirety during the Big Game.
By comparison, you’d spend around $800 for an iPad 2 and a new textbook each year for those four basic courses. You’d get more up-to-date materials, interactive learning, and a smaller footprint in your luggage for those long-distance field trips. And, you’d spend half as much for that learning experience as you would using traditional books.
Interesting, I hadn’t considered the impact on home schooling.
While Super Bowl ads require a substantial investment, they tend to get a measurable marketing bump from their prominent placement. According to Nielsen, ads that aired during 2011’s Super Bowl XLV were, on average, 58 percent more memorable than commercials airing during regular programming in the first quarter of 2011. In addition, brand awareness for commercials airing during the Super Bowl was up to 275 percent higher than awareness for the same creative during regular programming.
Investment bank Morgan Stanley believes Apple will partner up with both China Telecom and China Mobile “over the next year” to make its iPhone available on all three Chinese carriers, a move that could bring incremental sales of as many as 40 million units next calendar year.
This is predicated on Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty’s assumption that the next-generation iPhone will work on the TD-LTE network favored by China Mobile. But given the company’s position as China’s largest base of high-end phone subscribers, it’s safe to assume that Apple is very interested in getting the iPhone into China Mobile’s customers as soon as it’s feasible. (Apple current sells phones to the Chinese market through China Unicom, a competitor of China Mobile.)
When Van Bryan and Bunting arrived in the US, they were immediately detained by officials at Los Angeles International Airport, held by armed guards and questioned for over five hours before they were “handcuffed, put in a van with illegal immigrants and locked up overnight.”
Why doesn’t Hollywood get it? The music industry was handed profits from online downloads, but it seems like the movie industry is fighting the inevitable.
Should you boycott Apple products, as many commenters have suggested and some publications are now calling on you to do?That question opens a pandora’s box that taken to its logical conclusion would mean eschewing pretty much all devices made in China–including the one on which you’re reading this post.
So that’s what Apple needs to do … Chip away at the problem, iteratively investigating, auditing and fixing. But also pay a little more to suppliers in order to meet these stringent requirements.Apple gets more blame than it deserves for worker abuses in China, and doesn’t get enough credit for the enormous effort the company has expended in raising work standards in China.
I agree with Elgan up to a point, but the danger of Apple paying its suppliers more to meet improved requirements for factory conditions puts it at a disadvantage with its competitors, and that’s not in a place Apple (or its shareholders) wants to be.
In order for things to improve in China, there’s going to have to be a very delicately orchestrated effort between industry, commerce and international diplomacy. Even then, it will take time.
One landmark study cited “human errors” as the “definite or probable causes” of 93 percent of crashes. Faced with the alternatives — that guy who cut us off without signaling, the mom nursing an Ambien hangover who’s drifting into the right lane, the Bluetooth jockey doing 90 mph — I welcome our new robotic Prius-driving overlords.
I love driving but reading the article makes you realize we might be better off if we let computers take over most of the “heavy lifting” of day to day driving.
Over the past week, Norway has been witness to some jaw-dropping light shows, the result of an M8.7 class flare and a coronal mass ejection in a direction pointed toward Earth. Many Norwegians shared their photos of the northern lights — or “nordlys” in Norwegian — on Flickr.
Most people have never seen the Northern Lights in person but if you have, it’s sight you’ll never forget.
Madison teachers will soon be handing out Apples to students.The School District for the first time plans to buy more than 600 iPads for use in the majority of schools this spring. Another 800 iPads are expected to be in classrooms by next fall, all paid for with part of $3.4 million from a state-negotiated settlement with Microsoft.
In terms of GIFs, we’ve seen everything from mainstream celebrities photobombing major award shows to familiar web trends like cats and Star Wars characters. But when it comes to animated GIFs, one thing is for certain: Humor always wins.
I’m sorry but the above Panda image had me laughing out loud.
There’s nowhere else in the world you can build a modern smartphone or tablet as cheaply, easily, and reliably as the massive factories of companies like Foxconn, which operate on a scale that is difficult to comprehend. The price for doing business with companies like Foxconn is living with the knowledge that these products are being built by people who have signed up for a modern-day version of indentured servitude.So what can be done about that?
No need to waste your time sitting through commercials during Super Bowl XLVI when you could be doing other things like eating and drinking and arguing, right? Here’s a sneak peek at some of the geekiest/techiest commercials on tap for the big New England Patriots vs. New York Giants matchup.
Ads from VW, Samsung, GoDaddy and Ferris Bueller is back!
Thanks to Universal Audio for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.
Meet Apollo, the first professional, high-resolution computer audio interface that delivers the sound, feel, and flow of analog recording. This 18 x 24 FireWire/Thunderbolt – ready interface combines genuine UA analog design with class-leading 24-bit/192 kHz sound quality and onboard Realtime UAD Processing.
Apple’s Steve Jobs directly asked former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt to stop trying to recruit an Apple engineer, a transgression that threatened one junior Google employee’s job, according to a court filing.The 2007 email from Jobs to Schmidt was disclosed on Friday in the course of civil litigation against Apple Inc, Google Inc and five other technology companies. The proposed class action, brought by five software engineers, accuses the companies of conspiring to keep employee compensation low by eliminating competition for skilled labor.
Who said Apple and Google couldn’t be cooperative?
The Atlantic: