An anonymous reader writes "In late March, four US senators banded together and wrote a letter to Apple asking that they remove apps that alert users as to the whereabouts of DUI checkpoints. Now, Apple has revised its app store guidelines to ban those type of 'illegal' apps."

halfEvilTech writes "Microsoft isn't the only company denying equal online footing to Windows XP users. Apple will not give PC users access to iCloud – its great digital locker in the sky – if their machines are running Microsoft's aging but still popular Windows XP. Tucked at the bottom of the iCloud announcement, Apple says you'll need a PC running Windows Vista or Windows 7 to jump into Steve Jobs' version of the interwebs."

itwbennett has a story that might answer the question of what Apple is doing with the billions they have in the bank. "Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday presented plans for a new Apple campus to the Cupertino City Council. The office building will look 'a little like a spaceship landed,' said Jobs. It will also be just 4 stories tall, is big enough to house all 12,000 Apple employees (with room for growth), and will generate its own energy." Keep reading to see the riveting town council meeting.

Barence writes "When Steve Jobs announced last night that he was 'going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device,' it was the clearest indication yet that Apple is phasing out Mac OS X, argues PC Pro's Barry Collins. 'Over the past couple of months, there have been continual rumours that Apple is testing the iPad's A5 processor in its MacBook range, suggesting Apple believes iOS could stretch further than smartphones and tablets,' Collins argues. Plus, Apple would take a 30% cut on all Mac software if it mandated downloads via the App Store only. 'The only part of Apple's portfolio where iOS doesn't make sense is in the high-end. Yet, Apple's already discontinued its Xserve range of servers and... it's almost exclusively fixated on the consumer market,' he argues."

Tasha26 writes "After the suicides and fatal explosion, the Taiwanese company Foxconn now faces losing its blue-chip status. Falling prices for smartphones, laptops, tablets and other gadgets and rising wages in China have undermined Foxconn's financial performance. The company lost $220m (£135m) in 2010. Foxconn International will be removed from Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng index and be replaced by insurer AIA and nappy maker Hengan. The two new entrants use China both as a source of cheap labour and as a market for their product, a switch which Foxconn is now considering."

Mightee writes "MuscleNerd of the iPhone Dev Team has posted some pictures on his twitter account, confirming the jailbreak works fine on iOS 5, but of course it is limited to tethered boot only, which means you will have to connect it to your computer on every reboot. According to his initial testing, Cydia appears to be working just fine on his jailbroken 4th-gen iPod touch; he managed to install an SSHing utility app called iSSH successfully, which can be seen in one of the screenshots below."

An anonymous reader writes "Betanews has a series of articles talking about an apparent hack in iTunes that has resulted in fraudulent charges for some users involving Sega's Kingdom Conquest game. The reports start with a personal account from reporter Ed Oswald, who was a victim of the hack itself. The next story adds reports from readers, and the most recent story adds additional reports, with Oswald saying the number of reports received are in the 'dozens.' Apple has yet to confirm the existence of a hack, although reports have appeared on Sega's own support forums, Apple discussion boards, and through other news outlets."

Steve Jobs was on hand today to kick off Apple's WWDC keynote. Lion took the lead, with no surprises except a $29.99 pricetag and a July ship date. iOS is getting a new "Notification Center"; Twitter is being integrated; he announced a split thumbable keyboard for iPads; wireless syncing; and a native IM system for iOS devices, shipping in the Fall. iCloud will be free, syncing apps (Mail, Calendar, Contacts and iWork apps) across devices. Photostream is iCloud for pictures. iTunes iCloud will let you re-download your tracks at last, and iTunes Match will let you match your ripped CDs to Apple's copies.

theodp writes "Working calmly in broad daylight and filming their efforts for YouTube posterity, a fake construction crew attached a large Microsoft Windows logo to the black facade of a soon-to-open Hamburg Apple Store. Neat hack in the MIT vein, but next time the crew might want to take along a pic of the Windows logo — with the adrenaline flowing, some of the colors got rearranged and were hung upside down."

aquabat writes "According to Shanghai Daily, a boy from the Anhui Province desperately wanted to buy Apple's flagship tablet but didn't have enough cash. Rather than waiting to save up the money for the Apple product when it invariably gets marked down, the lad decided to sell one of his kidneys for 22,000 yuan (roughly $3,400) so he could afford one. But, surprisingly, the scenario in which the organ was harvested wasn't in the best of conditions, and the boy isn't feeling very well."

sticks_us writes with news of an Apple patent application, recently published by the USPTO, for an on-board camera system that would include circuitry for processing external infrared signals. The data received from these signals could then be used to present information to the user of the device, or even to modify the device's operation. "For example, an infrared emitter could be located in areas where picture or video capture is prohibited, and the emitter could generate infrared signals with encoded data that includes commands to disable the recording functions of devices. An electronic device could then receive the infrared signals, decode the data and temporarily disable the device's recording function based on the command. ... In some embodiments, a device may apply a watermark to detected images as an alternative to completely disabling a recording function."

Dachannien writes "Patently-O and Ars Technica report that Lodsys has filed suit [here's the complaint] in the Eastern District of Texas against seven iPhone developers, asserting that the defendants are infringing two patents. Apple had previously indicated their belief that all iPhone developers are protected by a licensing agreement that Apple had made with the patents' former assignee, Intellectual Ventures. But Lodsys insists that the defendants are nonetheless liable for infringement. Still an open question is whether Apple will go beyond the mailing of strongly worded letters in defending third-party iPhone devs."

KingSkippus writes "According to a story at CNN, Apple has begun enforcing third party promotion guidelines (PDF) that, among other things, restricts organizations from giving away iPads, using the word 'free' to describe any Apple products in a prominent manner, or promoting giveaways of iPod Touches in lots of less than 250 and with Apple's explicit approval."

XxtraLarGe writes "Apple released a security update yesterday designed to rid Macs of the menacing MacDefender malware that has plagued users for nearly a month. But mere hours after the update, cyber-criminals released a new variant of the malware that easily defeated Apple's belated security efforts. That didn't take long."

CWmike writes "Apple released an update for Snow Leopard on Tuesday that warns users that they've downloaded fake Mac security software and scrubs already-infected machines. Chet Wisniewski, a security researcher with Sophos, confirmed that the update alerts users when they try to download any of the bogus MacDefender antivirus software. Wisniewski had not yet tested the malware cleaning functionality of the update, but was confident that it would work. 'It's reasonably trivial to remove MacDefender,' said Wisniewski. 'It's not burying itself in the system, not compared to some of some of the crap that we see on Windows.' The update, labeled 2011-003, adds a new definition to the rudimentary antivirus detection engine embedded in Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, and also increases the frequency with which the operating system checks for new definitions to daily."

iONiUM writes "Through a press release ahead of WWDC, Apple has revealed that it will be releasing its own cloud service to rival Google and Amazon's. In addition, they will unveil the new iOS, and the latest desktop OS." Apple also announced the release of the iWork suite for iOS devices.

tekgoblin writes "The suit against Samsung that Apple filed back in April has been full of surprises recently; Apple even asked to see some of Samsung's future devices. Now, Samsung is requesting to view Apple's upcoming devices such as the iPad 3 and iPhone 5."

fullymodo writes "Alaska Airlines has become the first major US airline to hop on board the paperless bandwagon. While it's not quite ready to ditch paper navigation charts just yet (though that is under consideration), the airline has announced that it will be replacing its traditional flight manuals with iPads, which will be loaded up with the GoodReader app and PDFs of 41 different manuals and other materials.' So explain why I have to shut off my non-wi-fi-capable ebook reader during take-off and landing?"

jbrodkin writes "Skype has released a new version of its Windows software to fix the problem that has kept some Skype users from logging in and making calls yesterday, and plans to issue a similar update to Mac users later today, the company said. Skype, which is in the process of being sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, previously gave users instructions on how to fix the problem, which involved deleting a 'shared.xml' file. While Windows and Mac users are being given a software fix, Linux users still have to fix the problem manually (but they can handle it). Still unknown is what caused the Skype outage. Skype said it affected only a small percentage of users, but hasn't explained the cause. Skype has at least updated its status page to reflect the outage, however. Even after issuing yesterday's fix instructions, the status page had claimed for a while that sign in and registration were 'all working normally.'"

CWmike writes "Amazon launched a Mac-specific application download store on Thursday that will compete with Apple's nearly five-month-old Mac App Store. The new subsection of Amazon's massive online store, dubbed 'Mac Software Downloads,' kicked off quietly Thursday. Amazon has long offered software downloads for both Windows and Mac customers, but this was the first time that the company called out its Mac-centric 'store.' The retailer, however, apparently did not want to goad Apple into another legal battle by mimicking its rival's 'App Store' moniker: The two companies are already in court over Amazon's 'Appstore for Android,' which Apple claims violates its trademark. Unlike the Mac App Store, which Apple opened in early January, Amazon's includes the popular Office for Mac line from Microsoft."