Apple

CORONADO, Calif.--Looming energy problems present noteworthy challenges for the world, but big thinkers in science, business, and technology know they have to compete with the status quo without a helping hand.

The Future in Review conference has always been about sketching a picture of the technology and business landscape five years into the future. But this year, attendees and presenters are focused on a more pressing issue: the need for alternative energy sources to replace fossil fuels sooner, rather than later.

As such, the early talk at the Hotel Del Coronado is all about alternative energy, whether that's … Read more

If you're buying a computer to get onto the Internet, don't you think you'd be interested in a service that makes that computer much easier to use with the Internet?

Over the last five years, people have grown more accustomed to storing personal photos, documents, and files in the "cloud," rather than on a hard drive in their home. At the same time, they are buying Apple's Macs in larger numbers than ever. The company's answer to this trend has been its .Mac service, a $99-a-year collection of online tools released in 2002 … Read more

Apple's doing well in the high-rent district of the computer industry, according to NPD.

On Friday eWeek published some data confirmed by NPD that reveals Apple now owns 66 percent of the U.S. retail market for personal computers that cost more than $1,000. Its percentage of the U.S. retail market in general is 14 percent, according to NPD.

Apple only sells one Mac below $1,000--the Mac mini--so it's not all that surprising that it would do well in that category, given the momentum behind Mac sales over the past year. By contrast, the … Read more

Apple will be a chipmaker--of sorts--for a while after its acquisition of PA Semi as it satisfies demand for that company's current product.

The Register is reporting that Apple will support PA Semi's current Pwrficient processors after it finalizes the purchase of the company. Apple CEO Steve Jobs indicated after his company bought PA Semi that its primary interest in the chipmaker was for the company's talent and patents, not the actual chips themselves.

But PA Semi counts some pretty influential organizations among its user base, such as the U.S. Department of Defense, which uses military … Read more

Research in Motion has a touch-screen BlackBerry in the works that should be out in the third quarter, according to a report Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal has echoed a previous report from The Boy Genius Report that RIM's BlackBerry Thunder will arrive later this year exclusively on Vodafone and Verizon's networks. The device is seen as an answer to Apple's iPhone, which will likely be running on AT&T's 3G network by the time the Thunder arrives.

RIM is by far the leading smartphone company in the U.S., but Apple has come out … Read more

Intel has emphatically denied a report that Apple is planning to use its Atom processor in a future version of the iPhone.

On Wednesday, our sister site ZDNet.de reported that the head of Intel's German operations told reporters that Apple was planning to use the Atom chip in a larger version of the iPhone, due out at some future date. ZDNet.de has since amended its article to say that Hannes Schwaderer was only referring to the possibility that Apple might use Atom in a future Mobile Internet Device, not the iPhone.

An Intel representative in the U.… Read more

In the interest of brevity, here's today's roundup of iPhone news and rumors.

Telefonica CEO Matthew Kay told reporters in the U.K. that Apple and the telecom company would be making a joint announcement in "the coming weeks," reviving the never-quite-dead speculation that Apple is about to release a new version of the iPhone.

Along those same lines, AT&T associates have supposedly been told to impose purchase limits on regular iPhones as supply dwindles. AT&T customers are now being limited to just one iPhone purchase per person, and must pay with … Read more

In what might be a high-profile case of career suicide, an Intel Germany executive has reportedly confirmed that Apple plans to use Intel's Atom processor in a future iPhone.

The report, from our sister site ZDNet.de, is in German. I don't speak German. Google's translation service says "As part of an Intel-Events for the 40th Birthday semiconductor company BMW in Munich, Germany-World's managing director Hannes Schwaderer today confirms what has long been a rumor on the Internet kursierte: namely, that there is an iPhone with Intel's new nuclear-chip type." Atom, in the … Read more

IBM and Research in Motion are expanding the reach of IBM's Lotus software onto BlackBerry handsets.

BlackBerry users in companies committed to IBM's Lotus suite of software can now access the Lotus Connections software from their handhelds, the companies plan to announce Wednesday at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium in Orlando, Fla. Lotus-equipped companies have long been able to deliver e-mail, contacts, and calendar appointments to BlackBerry users, but companies can now allow their workers to get Web 2.0-ified in a safe, staid manner formally approved by the IT department.

Lotus Connections lets you pick the brains of … Read more