Walking through the Huaqiangbei area of Shenzhen, it is not uncommon to see crowds of people thronging shops selling accessories for Apple's iPhone and iPad. Known as the “first street of electronic products” in China, Huaqiangbei attracts 300,000 to 500,000 shoppers every day for products as diverse as regular iPhone cases to customized earphones and large volume portable batteries. But what makes the street really unique is that it is the destination of choice for Apple aficionados from China and abroad. Not surprisingly in Shenzhen, there is a whole genre of industries that thrive from ...

Just two months after school started in August, a number of students at Athens Elementary School began an initiative. It was aimed at a current educational trend that could change the future of education — the use of iPads in the classroom. The question educators wanted to answer — how do iPads enhance education? To find out Technology Director Dr. Chris Hamilton and Instructional Technology Specialist Dr. Beth McKinney with Athens City Schools started the iPad initiative at the school. Eight teachers, including Kate Armstrong, first-grade; Leah Hunt, fourth-grade; Jenny Johnstone, special ...

And while it may have hoped the iPhone phenomenon was close to running its course, Apple Inc last month said quarterly profit had almost doubled in the first quarter of 2012, quieting talk that its days of sharp growth were over.Meanwhile Nokia's response to the iPhone, the Lumia, has not so far demonstrated it can compete."Nokia's Lumia was an attempt to catch up, but it was simply too little too late," said Nancy Utterback, credit strategist at Aviva Investors."I would not rule out the possibility of Nokia being downgraded further," Utterback said. "The company is in a negative spiral that ...

Chief executives of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. will meet in San Francisco Monday in a court-directed session aimed at settling their smartphone patent war. But a deal seems unlikely, people familiar with the matter and others tracking the battle say. Apple has said CEO Tim Cook and General Counsel Bruce Sewell will lead its team at the meeting. Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung and Chief Legal Officer Kim Hyun-chong, a former South Korean trade minister and U.N. ambassador, will head its delegation. Both companies declined interview requests for this article. Apple, determined to stop ...

Shares in Apple Inc. closed at almost a three month low on Thursday, ending the day at $530.12, down $15.955 (-2.92%), on heavy volume of 25.6 million shares trading hands. That’s the lowest close since February 28th, 2012, when the stock closed at $525.76.AAPL has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride during the last three months, as the stock rose to an all-time closing high of $636.23 on April 9th, only to give away most of those gains in the last few weeks. The chart below tracks Apple’s three month stock performance.Three Month Chart of AAPL, with Circles and Arrows Source: Yahoo! FinanceOn the other hand, if you look at the last three months in the context of the last 12 months of trading, you get an entirely different picture, which we have conveniently supplied below.One Year Chart for AAPL, with More Circles and Arrows Source: Yahoo! FinanceIn that context, we see that Apple is still flying high, and is trading well above the levels set when Steve Jobs resigned and then passed away in late 2011. It’s also up some 30.9 percent in calendar 2012, after the stock ended 2011 at $405 per share.So what’s going on to push the stock around so much in the last few weeks? First, there was the run the stock in March and the early part of April, as investors were excited about the new iPad, rumors of an Apple television set, and giddy anticipation of an iPhone 5. All those gains make for some attractive profit taking when you’re worried about the global economy.Indeed, global economic worries have everyone in a rut, and the ongoing debt crisis in Europe has been compounded by political turmoil in Greece that could result in that country pulling out of the Euro (as in €). There is considerable worry that if that happens, other countries could choose or be forced to do the same, with the possibility of the whole thing unravelling.There’s also been concern of slowing iPhone sales ahead of an expected upgrade later this year, and the possibility of carrier subsidy plans having a deleterious effect on iPhone sales, too.The end result is that while most still think that Apple is the bee’s knees, investors have simply been in a selling mood. In fact, let’s compare AAPL to the performance of the three major U.S. indices:Apple vs. DOW vs. NASDAQ vs. S&P 500, with Our Leftover Circle and Arrow Source: Yahoo! FinanceThis chart shows us just how well that AAPL has done compared to the entire rest of the market, especially in the last three months.*In the interest of full disclosure, the author holds a tiny, almost insignificant share in AAPL stock that was not an influence in the creation of this article. ...

I was going to offer you quite the treatise on a particular version of the Beach Boys' wonderful "Vegetables" — a version I have on my iPod from god-knows-where. But I couldn't find that version on the iTubes, so there you go — five-part-harmony and episodic-contrapuntal analysis down the drain. Oh well.In its place, this treat. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross — the geniuses of three-part jazz scat — performing on the earliest Playboy TV show, Playboy's Penthouse (not Playboy After Dark, a later show that included clips of the earlier show). The first video is the three of them scatting away. If ...

Ripping a CD to your iPod is like buying a pair of socks then wanting to wear them with one of your other pairs of shoes. With analogies that actually make sense like that, you'll never be elected to the Canadian Parliament, John. While the comment that came in second was way, way behind in votes, the second, third, fourth and fifth comment all scored remarkably close to one another, so I think we're just going to post them all and use up my "editor's choice" slots with the overall audience favorites. First up was an Anonymous Coward, responding to a statement by the MPAA applauding the ...

Apple has always been against any kind of modification to its products. If you want to add more functionality to your iPhone or iPad or even your iPod Touch, you can not do it. And Apple has this very bad practice of not giving some very basic functionality in its devices. For example, you are not allowed to send or receive files of any kind via Bluetooth on any of your Apple post PC devices. This is not a good move. But still, the products are a hit. But some people who like the product because of the design or the build quality or just because of the brand name, buy the devices and then try ...

With the ever increasing popularity of iPod apps and computer games, said museum curator Simon Webb, giving children these skills to program themselves was essential. He added: “There is an enormous amount of interest at the moment in getting kids coding, this is something that we have been very successful at within our childrens computer club. “Scratch is a fabulous way of getting kids to start to learn programming, at the same time as having a lot of fun. “It has been a really popular day with all the workshops sold out apart from one and we have had people coming from Coventry and even ...

Apple recently released the latest update to its iOS software for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to fix bugs and repair security issues. The iOS 5.1.1 addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks and fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances, as well as security issues concerning Apple's Safari browser. In addition to the bug fixes, the update also patches some serious security vulnerabilities, including a number of patches in the WebKit rendering engine, such as a memory-corruption issue.    >>> More Enterprise Mobility ...

If the price is right, they may add an iPad, laptop or some other hardware. The shared-pricing approach is part of a push to get users to pay for wireless service for everything from health monitors to internet TVs. There will be more than 250 million active devices on shared plans globally by 2015, up from a few million in 2011, according to Infonetics Research Inc. “When billing and service plans are a little more user-friendly, customers will be more interested in adopting more devices,” said Shira Levine, an analyst at Campbell, Calif.-based Infonetics. Sales of the iPhone and other smart ...

I think this app is best on an iPad, and when your iPad is not in use it makes it a pretty effective piece of art for your desk or a nightstand. The app supports a selection of ambient music, but I actually like the effect better when I am free to contemplate the scene in a quiet room. The app supports the full Retina display on the iPhone. For some knotty technical reasons, the developer says the GUI is full Retina resolution on the iPad, but the images are not. Nevertheless, the images are terrific. As was done with Magic Window, I'd love to see more scenes become available, but the app is ...

She said: “The iPad allows me to work wherever I am and makes it much easier to liaise with the office and constituents while I am moving between London and the constituency or between meetings in Mid Bedfordshire.” Earlier this month, in an attempt to ‘modernise parliament’, it was announced that politicians could put tablet computers on expenses if they traded in old pieces of computer equipment.The electronic tablet was purchased on November 2, 2011 for £534 and it was put into the category of ‘office costs’. Ms Dorries did, however, spend the least of Bedford’s Tory MPs in the tenmonth ...

And while it may have hoped the iPhone phenomenon was close to running its course, Apple Inc last month said quarterly profit had almost doubled in the first quarter of 2012, quieting talk that its days of sharp growth were over.Meanwhile Nokia’s response to the iPhone, the Lumia, has not so far demonstrated it can compete.“Nokia’s Lumia was an attempt to catch up, but it was simply too little too late,” said Aviva Investors Credit Strategist Nancy Utterback.“I would not rule out the possibility of Nokia being downgraded further," Utterback said. "The company is in a negative spiral that will ...

s ultrabooks, the MacBook Air from Apple Inc. and ARM-based lightweight PCs-will present plenty of new opportunities for low-power DRAM, especially when ultrathins comprise the majority of shipments by 2016. For high-end ultrabooks in particular, PC manufacturers are projected to have enough margin to afford the installation of low-power double data rate 3 (LPDDR3) DRAM in their products, adding to overall DRAM industry revenue. LPDDR3 will account for as much as 19 percent of the total DRAM market in 2014.In the case of smartphones, increasing shipments during the next five years coupled ...

... from entering the country after the US International Trade Commission ruled late last year that HTC had infringed on a crucial patent held by Apple Inc.“The company is closely working with the US customs to speed up the review,” HTC said in the statement. “The company is confident that the problem will be resolved soon.”The US customs’ review went faster than a possible three-week examination estimated by Jeff Pu (蒲得宇), who tracks the handset industry for Fubon Securities (富邦證券), and that means the ban could have less impact on HTC’s revenue this quarter.Originally, Pu expected US customs ...

The chiefs of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd are used to running the show at their global tech empires, but they will be in for a different experience when they arrive at a San Francisco federal courthouse on Monday.Apple's Tim Cook and Samsung's Choi Gee-sung, whose companies are embroiled in bitter patent litigation, have been instructed by a federal judge to appear for court-supervised mediation. A joint court filing in April said that “as directed by the Court, Apple and Samsung are both willing to participate” in the discussions. In other words, it was not exactly their idea.  ...