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Mobile Miscellany: week of May 14th, 2012
Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you're like us and really want to know what's going on, then you've come to the right place. This past week, Verizon Wireless brought its LTE service to 28 new markets and expanded its reach in 11 additional areas. We also saw Straight Talk introduce the Samsung Galaxy Proclaim, and it appears that Rogers will soon offer the HTC One S. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of May 14th, 2012.
LinkedIn arrives on the iPad
Well, who could have seen that coming? LinkedIn has released version 5.0 of its iOS app and the big feature is that it now natively supports the iPad. LinkedIn is currently the world's third largest social media site with 150 million members in over 200 countries. On the iPad the LinkedIn app is divided into three sections: "You," "All Updates," and "Inbox." "You" allows you to easily view your profile, post updates, see who's viewed your profile, and add contacts. "All Updates" is the real meat of the app. It's a beautifully designed interface that allows you to see all your contact's updates, see what they're sharing, and read headlines and articles from LinkedIn Today's news feed. Finally, "Inbox" is, of course, your LinkedIn mail which allows you to read your messages and accept new invites. As I've written before, it's cumbersome to view the LinkedIn website on an iPad, so the addition of iPad support to the already beautiful iPhone app is more than welcome. LinkedIn 5.0 is a universal app and a free download.
Daily iPhone App: WorldCard Mobile scans your business card collection
The paper business card may go away someday if innovative apps like Bump and Evernote Hello take over, but for now we're still dealing with these little chunks of cardboard. Of course, in almost all cases it's not the physical object we care about, but rather the data printed on the card. (Some exceptions are inevitable.) Getting those inky bits converted to actual bits is easy enough with your iPhone and the right app. My default tool for business card scanning has been CardMunch, which has a number of advantages: fast, ties in easily to parent company LinkedIn, accurate (using actual humans to do the card transcription) and free. Unfortunately, CardMunch's cloud dependency means that sometimes it can get backed up, and when you're sitting on an airplane with a stack of post-conference business cards to go through, it's quite likely useless. That's where the Penpower family of contact management apps comes into play. The flagship iPhone app is the US$6.99 WorldCard Mobile, and it picks up nicely where CardMunch leaves off. You can scan your cards neatly without any network connection, and all the OCR processing is handled locally on the phone. Additional features include the ability to copy an email signature and parse it into a contact record, which is a lot more useful than I thought it would be. How good is the OCR function? Well, you can test it yourself with the app's lite version (allowing three scans the first week, and one scan per week after that). In my evaluation, I'd give it a B+ compared to the intelligent transcription of CardMunch -- keeping in mind that CardMunch also makes mistakes on some cards. Given that it's working in disconnected mode, the slight loss in accuracy seems to be a reasonable tradeoff. What's a little harder to take is WorldCard Mobile's UI, which has the same weird aesthetic and hinky buttons as a lot of other utilitarian apps on the App Store. It compares unfavorably to CardMunch's clean look, and it's most reminiscent of the early versions of Readdle's apps (which have come a long way since v1, in fairness). The lite version will let you know pretty quickly whether the look will make you nuts or not. Penpower also has a WorldCard Contacts app, which lets you keep the card images alongside your contact records but omits the OCR tool; it's $2.99. There is an iPad version, too, which costs $14.99 and doesn't quite work as advertised with the iPad 2's onboard camera, per reviewers -- it's apparently not quite high-res enough for accurate recognition. If you're a frequent business card recipient and you'd like to be mobile-enabled, check out WorldCard Mobile; start with the lite version, and if it's useful you can fork over the $7 for the full build.
Treyarch contract art studio employee lists 'Black Ops 2' among current projects [update: pulled!]
Hugo Beyer has worked on some major titles over the years (Beatles Rock Band, Anno 1404), including some still unreleased ones (Doom 4, Aliens: Colonial Marines), at a variety of studios (Terminal Reality, Liquid Development). What stands out to us, however, is his current work with Nerve Software on what he refers to as "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2," as seen on his public LinkedIn page."But who is Nerve Software?" you're probably wondering. Nerve has done a bunch of contract work for Activision in the past, including Treyarch-developed James Bond title Quantum of Solace, as well as ... Call of Duty: Black Ops (the first one).So, there's one more lead in the "Activision and Treyarch are probably gonna release Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 this year" news cycle. Between domain registrations and reported retailer listings in Europe, we're thinking an announcement can't be too far off. Activision and Nerve Software had yet to respond to request for comment as of publishing.Update: Mr. Beyer (or someone on his behalf) has taken down his LinkedIn page, it would seem. We've still yet to receive responses to comment requests from him, or Nerve Software, or Activision.
Report: THQ VP of Tech Mark DeLoura out, alongside 174 others
When THQ announced plans for layoffs that didn't affect its five main internal studios, we didn't think folks like VP of tech Mark DeLoura would end up getting cut. But that's what an automated response from his email address confirmed to us last night. The response outright states, "Mark DeLoura is no longer with THQ." According to DeLoura's LinkedIn page, he was "responsible for technology strategy, the online game and MMO operations teams, the centralized online technology group, and relationships with platform and technology manufacturers."More specifically, we're told that DeLoura was leading up management on the upcoming Warhammer 40K MMO -- the same MMO that's rumored to be canceled. At the time, THQ responded to allegations that the MMO was canned with a nebulous statement: "[THQ] has not made any decisions regarding the planned MMO."Additionally, IGDA Mobile SIG chair Kevin Dent alleges that during the recent round of THQ restructuring, 174 employees were let go -- Dent was the origin of the aforementioned cancelation rumors (he isn't related to Harvey Dent, we're told). The company is also facing potential delisting on the NASDAQ stock exchange. THQ declined to offer comment regarding this report, and once more directed us to this Thursday's investor call.
Former Apple employee questions author Adam Lashinsky
Author and Fortune Magazine editor Adam Lashinsky's new book -- Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired - and Secretive - Company Really Works -- is in bookstores now and the author has embarked on a publicity tour to drum up sales. At the first stop on the tour at the LinkedIn headquarters in Mountain View, CA, Lashinsky had a fascinating exchange with a former Apple employee who asked the author "What creates the perfect Kool-Aid drinker?" The ex-employee notes that the book is quite accurate in its portrayal of the secrecy of the company and the rigorous interview process. While this is just a short (and irritatingly low volume) clip of the interview, you can watch the entire 50-minute talk emceed by LinkedIn executive editor Dan Roth here.
Coming soon: pick airline seatmates via social networks
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines plans to launch a service in 2012 that will enable you to pick who you sit next to on an airplane by visiting their Facebook or LinkedIn pages. "Meet & Seat" will be an opt-in service (similar to that already toyed with by Malaysia Airlines), so you can still fly anonymously -- as anonymous as air travel gets these days, anyway. It could be great for making friends or developing business contacts on your next international flight, or it could make for some really awkward conversation too. "So, your Facebook profile says you like Justin Bieber?"
Google, Facebook, Twitter and others speak out against the Stop Online Piracy Act
Earlier today, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) which, depending on who you ask, is either a means to stop piracy and copyright infringement on so-called "rogue" websites, or the most serious threat of internet censorship that we've seen in some time. In the latter camp are some of the biggest internet companies around, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, eBay, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Zynga and AOL (full disclosure: Engadget's parent company), who today made their stance clear by taking out a full-page ad in The New York Times. The ad itself is a letter sent by the nine companies to Congress, which states that while they support the stated goals of the bill and the related Protect IP Act, they believe that, as written, the bills "would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities, private rights of action, and technology mandates that would require monitoring of web sites." The companies further went on to say that they believe the measures also "pose a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation's cybersecurity." While they didn't all sign onto the letter, those companies also also joined by a host of others who have spoken out against the legislation, including Foursquare and Tumblr. The sole witness against the proposed measures at today's hearing, however, was Google's copyright policy counsel, Katherine Oyama -- you can find her testimony on Google's Public Policy Blog linked below.
CardMunch app adds LinkedIn profiles
Some of you may remember CardMunch before LinkedIn acquired it earlier this year. The app lets you scan business cards and add them to a contact list. It uses Amazon's Mechanical Turk service and an actual human to do the optical character recognition needed to translate the image into text. Now that LinkedIn has been working with the developers for the past few months, an updated version complete with LinkedIn profile integration has been released. Besides its tie-in to LinkedIn, the updated app has a fresh, new UI and improved support for the iPhone's camera. It also lets you add notes to each business card so you can remember where and when you met this new contact. Best of all, the app, which used to cost US$2.99 and 25 cents per scanned business card, is now available for free. [Via TechCrunch]
Four websites that need iPad apps
The iPad is an amazing device for surfing the web. Its large screen and multitouch gestures make it feel like you're actually holding a web page in your hands. Web browsing on the iPad is going to get even better with the release of iOS 5. That's when Safari on iPad gains Reading List and Reader functionality and the all-important tabbed browsing. However, as good as the iPad is at handling web browsing, some websites would clearly benefit from a dedicated iPad app. When viewed on an iPad, these sites lack key features that they show off to full effect when used with desktop browsers. Other websites have a high amount of interactivity that may work on an iPad, but that interactivity doesn't translate well to a touch interface. I realize that any website could be made into an iPad app. Most websites, however, don't need them. Here at TUAW, for example, there's not much interactivity that goes on when you visit beyond clicking on articles and posting comments. Both of those things are handled easily on an iPad. The same goes for other mainly news-driven sites where the main feature is reading -- dedicated apps really aren't needed. For more complex interactions, an app is a big help. Here's my list of four websites that need an iPad app... and also one service (or group of iPad apps, really) that needs a website. 1. Facebook.com Facebook is the biggest offender among websites missing an iPad app. Why? Well, the site does have 750 million users. By the beginning of next year there will be 50 million iPads on the market -- and most of those iPad owners use Facebook. However, the site's traffic doesn't alone dictate the need for an iPad app. No, Facebook.com needs an iPad app because its web functionality is cumbersome when viewed through Safari on the iPad and some features are missing entirely. The biggest missing feature while viewing Facebook's website on the iPad is Chat. There's just no way to chat with all your Facebook friends through Facebook.com on the iPad. There's also no way to upload photos or video to your wall, as tapping on "Upload" won't access your Camera Roll or Photos libraries on your iPad. Furthermore, Facebook relies on a lot of pop-up windows that you need to scroll through. These windows normally appear when you click on "X number of people like this" links below a wall post. If the list of number of people who "like" that post is long, you have to scroll through it to see everyone on the list. This is doable on the iPad by using two-finger scrolling, but many iPad users don't know about multitouch scrolling of a window within a web page; this contributes to the overall poor user experience for Facebook.com on the iPad. Thankfully we know that Facebook is working on an iPad app, which looks to be both cool and very functional Now all we have to do is hope Facebook actually decides to release its iPad app to the public. Soon. 2. Mint.com I'm a Mint junkie. It's the perfect solution for keeping track of multiple financial accounts. What's more, after Intuit bought the company, fears of Mint getting fouled up turned out to be largely unfounded; the site has actually only gotten better. However, Mint.com needs an iPad app. Why? Primarily because Mint features a huge amount of user interactivity. Not only can you see a complete overview of your financial accounts on the website, you can edit transactions, set budgets, create goals, and view trends -- from a desktop browser, at least. None of those features work well (most, not at all) on Mint.com on the iPad. Mint fans have been waiting (mostly patiently) for an iPad app for some time. When I interviewed Mint's founder Aaron Patzer, he told me that the company was working on an iPad app. That was over 18 months ago. More recently Mint has asked its users to hold on a little longer as the developer teams are "busy developing an iPad app." The iPad app won't be a simple rework of the iPhone version, but it will be "a brand new experience." Let's hope so. 3. LinkedIn.com If you're looking for the Facebook equivalent for business relationships, it's LinkedIn. The site allows users to keep connected with their colleagues and business contacts; it's a great alternative to Facebook or other more casual 'friend' networks, especially when you don't want to risk your boss seeing those pictures of you in compromising situations. While LinkedIn.com is mostly functional through Safari on the iPad, the site offers a high amount of interactivity via searching for contacts or jobs, updating your profile, creating status updates, etc, that could benefit immensely from a dedicated iPad app. It's worth mentioning that LinkedIn deserves credit for being the company that took what was one of the most horrendously designed UI's of any iPhone app (they originally let users change the color scheme of the app, allowing them to choose from over a dozen colors -- including hot pink) and completely reimagined it, turning it into one of the slickest -- both in design and navigation -- iPhone apps on the market. That gives me a lot of confidence that LinkedIn will be able to pull off a killer iPad app. Thankfully on the day LinkedIn announced its overhauled iPhone app, I learned from a source familiar with their mobile plans that the company is indeed working on a dedicated iPad app. However, like Facebook and Mint, there's no set time frame for a release. 4. Google Docs Google Docs is great. The suite of web apps from the search, email and advertising giant allows you to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more all through your desktop web browser. While Google does offer limited functionality for Docs on the iPad through a mobile version of the site, the mobile version lacks the rich editing capabilities of the desktop web-based version. That's due in part to some limitations in the iPad's mobile Webkit implementation. You can switch to the desktop view in Docs on your iPad, but don't expect it to behave quite like the original. It's true that there are iPad office application suites that work well with Google Docs. QuickOffice Pro HD and Documents to Go both allow you to download and edit documents from your Google account (see our head-to-head review here). Less-expensive, and correspondingly less functional apps for editing include Office2 HD and GoDocs. None of these truly delivers the simplicity and functionality of Google's cloud offering. When looking at the iPad as a serious productivity device, Apple's leading the with its iWork suite -- but Pages, Numbers and Keynote don't interoperate with Google Docs in any meaningful way, forcing users to go through hoops to get at their files. It's a frustrating hiccup in what should be a really easy and graceful workflow. That's why Google could transform the tablet document-editing space by creating a best-in-class dedicated iPad app for its suite. Go all the way or don't go at all. Apple's showed it can be done and I'm sure there are many users who would prefer an alternative to shelling out $10 an app for the iWork suite for rich text, presentation, and spreadsheet editing. Then again, it's not necessarily clear that Google has a strong motivation to make the iPad even more of a world-beater, so we may be stuck with third-party solutions on this one... or Apple could add the Docs API to iWork and turn everything upside-down. And three apps (or one service) that needs an iPad-compatible website... iCloud.com Yes, like MobileMe's website (www.me.com) before it, navigating to www.icloud.com on an iPad brings you to an iPad-specific web page that informs you that if you want to check your iCloud emails, contacts, or calendars on an iPad you have to do so through the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars apps that ship on the device. That's well and good, and the iPad apps function better than any web apps ever could -- but if it's not your iPad you want to check your email on and you are using an iCloud email account, you're out of luck. There is simply no easy way to check your iCloud (or MobileMe) email on an iOS device unless you enable your account to be used with the built-in apps on the device. (You may be able to get around this by using a third-party browser like iCab that allows you to spoof the user agent, but it's clumsy.) As far as iPhones go, I get the limitation. How often do we use someone else's phone to check our email, right? But on an iPad, which is more of a multi-user device (think sharing with the family or traveling in a group with one iPad, as you might do on a long trip across Europe), there's no way for multiple people to check their iCloud emails without all adding their accounts in the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars settings on the iPad. Doing so will of course enable all email accounts to show up in Mail, potentially causing confusion, privacy concerns, or emails being sent from the wrong account. Apple, if you are listening, I implore you to allow access to iCloud email accounts through Safari on the iPad -- even as a 'pro' option enabled in the account settings. It's an unnecessary barrier. So that's my list of the biggest iPad app-less offenders. I'd love to hear from you which websites you think really need an iPad app. Let me know in the comments!
LinkedIn overhauls its iPhone app
LinkedIn has updated its iPhone app today to version 4.0. It's actually more than an update -- it's a complete overhaul of the app. Version 4.0 features a totally new UI with quick and easy access to four areas of LinkedIn: your profile, account updates, your inbox, and groups. Tap on any one of those area's icons (the icons change in realtime to display what you last viewed in that area) to further view your LinkedIn world. The old LinkedIn app had one of the ugliest UIs of any social networking app. The new version has one of the most beautiful. Much of that beauty comes from its simplicity, which makes navigation a snap. Not only is the app much easier to navigate, it's also faster (even running on my iPhone 3G). If LinkedIn can do this great a job on an iPhone app, I'm extra hopeful they've got an iPad app waiting in the wings. I spoke with some people from the company a few weeks ago and though they didn't confirm an iPad app was coming, they coyly said "Stay tuned." LinkedIn 4.0 is available in the App Store now. It is a free download.
Rumor: Black Troll Studios is a new EA team working on PS3 FPS
Follow along with us: An online resume for one Mr. Rick Stalder noted that the developer was working on an unannounced FPS title for PS3 since September 2010. While that news in and of itself isn't revelatory, the name of his employer was: Black Troll Studios. While the developer, currently at Halo house 343, has since removed that reference from his resume, a screengrab was snagged by SystemLink PlayStation. After some quick Googling, the site tracked down the registrant of blacktrollstudios.com and ... you're never going to guess, guys! It says "Electronic Arts." Now, before you take that as gospel, it's worth pointing out that the semi-anonymized listing doesn't match EA's other registrations, like masseffect.com, needforspeed.com, visceralgames.com, and others. Perhaps it's different because the studio is still unannounced? But why list the name on the anonymous registration as Electronic Arts? We've reached out to EA for a comment, but don't let that stop you from getting ahold of us if you've got any info! [Image credit: Bludgeoner86]
iOS 5 contacts app has fields for Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and Myspace info
One of the more interesting iOS 5 features revealed this week during the Monday keynote was seamless integration with Twitter. Now a report published by All Things D shows that fields for other social networking sites also appear in the iOS 5 contacts app, including Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Myspace. While the operating system's integration with Twitter is fairly widespread -- single sign-on for multiple apps, ability to send photos directly from the Camera, YouTube, Safari, and Maps apps, and auto-fill from Contacts -- it appears that at this time the other social sites aren't as tightly bound to iOS 5. Users can begin by populating handles for each of the sites on an address book page for a contact, although developers speaking to All Things D reported that even that capability was a bit buggy at this time. As blogger Liz Gannes notes, "The inclusion of the feature shows Apple's acknowledgement of the importance of Web presences and contact information." At this point, manually entering friends' handles could be onerous for those who have hundreds or thousands of "friends" on each social networking site. Apple could offer Twitter-like authentication for the other services, which would make matching contacts and social network handles somewhat more automatic. With at least three or four months remaining before iOS 5 becomes available to users, we're sure to hear much more about social network integration in the new mobile OS.
Netflix, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Square apps expose your data
Here's a little tip for app developers: encrypt everything, especially passwords. Security firm viaForensics fed some popular iPhone and Android apps through its appWatchdog tool and found that Netflix, LinkedIn, and Foursquare all stored account passwords unencrypted. Since the results were first published on the 6th, Foursquare has updated its app to obscure users' passwords, but other data (such as search history) is still vulnerable. While those three were the worst offenders, other apps also earned a big fat "fail," such as the iOS edition of Square which stores signatures, transaction amounts, and the last four digits of credit card numbers unencrypted. Most of this data would take some effort to steal, but it's not impossible for a bunch of ne'er-do-wells to create a piece malware that can harvest it. Let's just hope Netflix and LinkedIn patch this hole quickly -- last thing we need is someone discovering our secret obsession with Meg Ryan movies.
Microsoft announces Windows Phone 'Mango' update, coming in autumn (updated)
Mango may no longer be a secret in and of itself, but we doubt Microsoft would've set up an entire event to preview its big Windows Phone update if there was nothing hidden up that Redmond sleeve. To that end, we've just come across an official press release from the company, released on its Romanian website. The machine translation awaits after the break. Update: We've now swapped in the natively English press release. There's also confirmation that Mango will indeed be known as Windows Phone 7.1. Update 2: Turns out Microsoft "had to give [the SDK] a name" and dubbed it 7.1, so Mango retains its formal WP7 moniker. The first thing to note is that the update will be "freely available" to all current Windows Phone handsets, something Microsoft already committed to, and will be ready for download "at the beginning of this summer." (Update: it looks like our translation machinery betrayed us, tipsters are saying it's actually the beginning of autumn.) Naturally, the new goodness will also figure in new devices and from new partners, including Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE. Those fresh faces join Nokia and the incumbent partners of Dell (maybe) HTC, Samsung, and LG to expand the WP ecosystem. A Beta SDK of the new Windows Phone free tools will be available within 24 hours, we're promised, for developers to sink their teeth into. In the communications department, Microsoft is introducing conversation threads, which seamlessly transition between MSN Messenger chats, SMS, and Facebook messaging to keep you talking to the same person irrespective of the method. New contact group tiles are also incoming, with the ability to send quick emails or IMs to entire groups. Twitter and LinkedIn contact integration is mentioned, though we expect this go a lot deeper in Twitter's case, as Microsoft has already demonstrated. Speaking of more in-depth integration, Microsoft has improved the Live Tiles to allow the display of more dynamic information from apps, which will of course be able to multitask beautifully. Internet Explorer 9 is also joining in on the Mango fun with support for HTML5. Jump past the break for all the details. Update 3: Would you look at that, Bing search has gotten a thorough sprucing up as well. Video of all the new goodness follows after the break -- or you can click here to hit up Microsoft's own video library, which is loaded to the gills with feature overviews. %Gallery-124305%
John Blakely leaves SOE for Zynga
These days fans are hungry for any word from Sony Online Entertainment, which has been mostly quiet following the hacking intrusion that required Sony to take down its MMOs on May 2nd. While we have received some news out of the company, unfortunately today's word is a sad one: John Blakely, SOE's vice president of development, has left the company to join Zynga. Kotaku reports that Blakely's LinkedIn resumé mentioned that he left SOE in April to become a general manager at Zynga in Austin. SOE has confirmed his departure, thanking Blakely for his "passion and leadership" and stating that he has been replaced by Lorin Jameson. Jameson was the executive director of development at SOE's Austin studio. In addition to being SOE's VP of development, Blakely filled the role of executive producer for DC Universe Online and senior producer for EverQuest II during his stay at the company.
Ex-BioWare employee claims to have worked on Jade Empire 2 in 2006, 2007
It could just be a very, very specific, unintentional typo, but we're gonna bet that ex-BioWare lead level designer Rafael Brown knew what he was doing when he included "Jade Empire 2 (360/PS3/PC)" in his list of "unreleased" games that he worked on in his LinkedIn profile. The listing suggests a current-generation sequel was planned for the 2005 Xbox/PC/Mac Jade Empire. The listing also indicates he was working on the title at BioWare somewhere between April 2006 and April 2007 -- the year that Brown was employed by the company. His job description at the dev even specifies he was the "lead level/world designer on an unannounced project." Meanwhile, other folks still employed at BioWare were feeling optimistic about the Jade Empire IP as recently as 2009. The BioWare of 2011, however, had yet to respond as of publishing.
Flock comes to the end of the road as support ceases
Flock, the original social web browser, has been marked for termination. Originally released back in 2005 and powered by a Firefox core, Flock brought social to the browser by integrating with Flickr, del.icio.us (as it was at the time) and a whole host of blogging services. Later, with the social networking revolution, Flock cozied up with a plethora of platforms, including the usual suspects: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Flock moved to the much faster Chromium core late last year, bringing greater speed (especially on the Mac), which was by then, an important factor in the "browser wars." Unfortunately for Flock, it wasn't enough to combat the new Chromium-powered social browser upstart RockMelt, which was well funded and had a lot of hype behind it. In January of this year, Zynga swooped in and bought the team behind Flock in a talent acquisition. Unfortunately for Flock, that didn't include technology, CEO Shawn Hardin or the Flock.com domain, so the writing was on the wall for the now struggling browser. Today, Flock.com has a notice stating that support for Flock will be withdrawn as of April 26, bringing an end to the social browser, and suggesting users look to Chrome or Firefox. Although not a Mac-specific browser, Flock added something extra to the browser choice on OS X, so it's sad to see it slinking off into the sunset, even if we do have RockMelt. [via TechCrunch]
Apple hires carbon fiber expert to posit composites
If you're going to compete in the consumer electronics business then you'd better have a solid grasp of industrial design and materials science. Otherwise, you're just another manufacturer trying to eke profit from drab slabs of commodity plastic. With the exception of the MacBook, Apple's entire Mac lineup is currently cut from aluminum. However, Apple's been caught experimenting with its newly acquired Liquidmetal materials recently, even as rumors swirl around new ultra-lightweight and durable carbon fiber components and enclosures. Speculation about the latter has been fueled by an Apple patent application for a process that would use carbon fiber materials woven into the reinforced device housings of mobile telephones, laptops, desktops, and tablets. Interestingly enough, the patent app was filed by Kevin M. Kenney (developer of the first all carbon fiber bicycle frame) on behalf of Apple back in 2009, a man who changed his job title to "Senior Composites Engineer at Apple Inc." on LinkedIn at some point after March 1st (according to Google cache). Of course, a carbon fiber laptop is far from unique -- just reference the Sony G11 from 2007 or 2008's Voodoo Envy 133 if you want to see how it's done. But if Apple makes a wholesale shift to carbon fiber in the months ahead then you can expect the horde of me-too OEMs to follow suit a year later. See the before and after LinkedIn profiles for Kenney after the break.
LinkedIn lets you follow social news with updated iPhone app
For those of you not familiar with it, LinkedIn is a social network for your professional contacts. Think of it as Facebook without the keg stand photos. I've been a big fan of LinkedIn for a while now and was excited when it launched its LinkedIn Today social news feature. LinkedIn Today is a social news aggregator for business people. It lets you easily follow news and stories from the industries you and your contacts work in. In conjunction with the premier of LinkedIn Today, LinkedIn also updated its iOS app to feature a brand new news section that shows you the headlines from your LinkedIn Today industry headlines. The addition of the news section to the app makes it infinitely more useful. Previously, I would only open my LinkedIn iPhone app when I needed to download new contacts, but today I've found myself checking it every half hour to see the latest articles and headlines related to my industry and what news links my peers are sharing. LinkedIn is available for free on the App Store.
