Apple is reportedly toying with the idea of a slightly bigger MacBook Air. This report comes in the wake of several others, pointing that the MacBook Pro of the future will look increasingly like the MacBook Air. Apple is considering this new, big MacBook Air to fully enter the Asia PC market, sources told DigiTimes. 14-inch notebooks are preferred more in the Asian markets, while European buyers, for instance, prefer 15-inch (or bigger) ones. The screen resolution of the new 14-inch MacBook Air is not known. The current biggest model in the series, the 13.3-inch one, packs 1440x900 pixels.

Thought the 1920x1200 pixel 10.1-inch Super IPS+ display with ASUS Transformer Infinity tablet carried shock-value? Wait till you hear what Samsung's innovators have been up to. They've managed to develop a market-ready 4.8-inch display for the upcoming Galaxy S III smartphone that packs a whopping 1920x1080 pixels resolution, which smokes Apple's Retina display the iPhone 4S comes with (960x640 pixels in a 3.5-inch screen), or the 1280x800 pixels AMOLED screen Samsung's own Galaxy Note phone-tablet-thingy comes with. Then there are PC monitor vendors with the audacity of selling 27-inch monitors with the same 1920x1080 pixels resolution for upwards of $500. Multi-billion Dollar price-fixing scam much?

The lawyer armies of both Google and Apple have yet another battle on their hands as last week one PanoMap Technologies, LLC, a virtually unknown company based in Florida, sued both of them for patent infringement.

Filed in Orlando federal court, PanoMap's complaint claims that the Street View feature of the Google Maps iOS app violates US Patent No. 6,563,529. This patent is entitled "Interactive system for displaying detailed view and direction in panoramic images" and it describes "A method and system for indicating the camera position, direction, and field of view in a map or panoramic image comprises a map image window which displays a map or panoramic image of the site to be studied (house, apartment, city, etc.)."

The 6,563,529 patent was given to scientist Jerry Jongerius back in 2003 and was transferred to Empire IP in 2011. PanoMap got a hold of it (through another transfer, gotta love this) only this month (on February 14th to be exact).

PanoMap says Google and Apple were aware of their infringement and wants triple damages.

Taiwan-based Proview Electronics Company, Ltd., ("Proview Taiwan"), a leading producer of high-quality monitors for computers and media devices, announced today that it has filed an amended complaint in California Superior Court in Santa Clara, accusing Apple Inc. of fraud and unfair competition.

Separately, in another action, Shenzhen-based Proview Technology Shenzhen Co, Ltd. continues to pursue litigation against Apple in China. In the Chinese lawsuit, Proview Technology Shenzhen Co, Ltd. has demonstrated that the IPAD trademark for Mainland China was never assigned to Apple or its affiliates. The legal questions and remedies in the China and U.S. lawsuits are separate and distinct and have no bearing on one another.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced estimated mobile devices graphics chip shipments and suppliers' market share for 2011.

We found that shipments during the fourth quarter of 2011 of GPUs in mobile devices (tablets and smart phones) had a CAGR for the year (Q1 to Q4) of 18%. Samsung's sales surged in Q3 and Q4 giving them the highest CAGR for the year (39%), Followed by Apple (26%), and Qualcomm (16.5%) which was already enjoying high shipment rates.

In terms of shipments Qualcomm led the pact and ended up with 31% market share for the year, followed by Apple (23%) and TI (17%).

After pulling off a largely successful AAA launch with Battlefield 3, which also served as a potent launch-pad for its Origin content-distribution platform, EA got carried away, and decided it could milk the name "Battlefield 3", only this time, the "battlefield" isn't on a PC or Console, but Apple's tech-toy, the iPad. EA launched Battlefield 3: Aftershock for the iPad, as the franchise's first entry to portable devices. Only the game was so offensively bad in every way, that EA decided to pull the plug on it.

To be fair, there are some pretty decent games out there for the iPad, which won on counts of good gameplay mechanics, and graphics engines that make decent use of what little hardware resources they have, even if its graphics-rendering capabilities aren't anywhere close to game-consoles, or even portable consoles such PS Vita.Reviewer GameZebo stated:

Apple shipped nearly 23.4 million mobile PCs in Q4'11, up 128% Y/Y, and over 62.8 million mobile PCs in 2011, up 132% Y/Y, according to preliminary results from the latest NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report. Nearly 80% of Apple's mobile PC shipments were iPads, more than 18.7 million shipped in the quarter, up 156% Y/Y, and 48.4 million units for the year, up 183% Y/Y.

Overall mobile PC shipments grew 12% Q/Q and 44% Y/Y, reaching 88 million units in Q4'11. This was driven by continuing strong demand for tablets. Tablet PC shipment growth was 42% Q/Q and 210% Y/Y, reaching 31.7 million units in Q4'11. Notebook PC shipments were flat Q/Q but up nearly 11% Y/Y, reaching 56.3 million units. As expected, consumer mobile PC adoption was focused on tablets, holding up demand in notebooks.

Later this year, Apple will refresh its MacBook Pro line with a new generation, and it is reported that these new products will look increasingly similar to the MacBook Air, as they will get a lot more slimmer. MacBook Pro is Apple's main line of portable Mac computers, and arguably its most popular Mac. Apple has mastered ultra-compact notebook design with the MacBook Air, which its PC rivals are struggling to get even close to. It is now going all out on the ultaslim form-factor by designing ever more powerful MacBook Pros based on it.

The ultra-slim form-factor will also see hardware such as optical drives and hard disk drives leave. Primary storage will be handled by SSDs, there will be an increasing relevance of iCloud for additional storage. "They're all going to look like MacBook Airs," a source familiar with the designs of the upcoming MacBook Pros told AppleInsider. We will get to see MacBook Pros that are as slim as the MacBook Air, but as big as 15-inch and 17-inch, while being backed by powerful hardware, even as PC makers struggle with big Ultrabooks since they're government by specifications laid down by Intel, a move that could limit their success in Europe, creating a great market opportunity for Apple. AppleInsider provided mock-ups of what the new MacBook Pros could look like.

"Entering 2012, Lenovo/IBM's rise in reliability will be an important boost for the company. Although Apple's market share has risen over the last 12 months, its reliability has declined. The comparatively smaller Toshiba and Samsung are illustrating interesting reliability trends worth watching over the coming year," stated David Milman, CEO of RESCUECOM. For 2012, Rescuecom now includes all manufacturers with a market share of at least above one percent in this report.

The computer reliability report scores for 2012 are:

1. Lenovo/IBM (281)
2. Toshiba (190)
3. Samsung (156)
4. Apple (151)
5. Asus (126)
6. HP/Compaq (100)
7. Dell (68)
8. Sony (64)
9. Acer (40)

After taking Apple to court over alleged infringement of the iPad trademark, successfully convincing the court over the allegations, leading to incidents of Chinese authorities pulling iPad off shelves, and taking it further to seek an seeking an export ban, ProView softened its stand. ProView's lawyer Xie Xianghui said that his client is open to talks with Apple over reaching a settlement. He believes that both sides are "still able to sit together and reach an out-of-court settlement."

The saga began with Apple acquiring rights to use the "iPad" brand name in China from ProView, which the latter claimed was acquired using dubious means, through a newly floated company by Apple, without ProView knowing it who it was really dealing with. This way, Apple probably bought rights to the brand name for much lower than what ProView would have sold them for, had it known who it was dealing with. iPad went on to become one of Apple's most successful brands. ProView sought a large amount of money from Apple in damages.

Even as Apple is going on a childish suing spree over every touchscreen device manufacturer that uses a "slide to unlock" mechanism to wake sleeping devices up, it has emerged that Apple wasn't the first to patent such as technology to begin with, it was Neonode, which envisaged the concept 3 years earlier, and patented it. Neonode is a Swedish mobile phone manufacturer. Neonode had this patent filed under US Pat. No. 8,095,879, its claim that details the technology leaving no room for ambiguity:

12. The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the user interface is characterised in, that an active application, function, service or setting is advanced one step by gliding the object along the touch sensitive area from left to right, and that the active application, function, service or setting is closed or backed one step by gliding the object along the touch sensitive area from right to left.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Apple was conducting inspections of the manufacturing facilities of its foundry partners via independent agencies, to assess working conditions and well-being of workers. It requested the Fair Labour Association (FLA) to carry out the inspections. In addition to Foxconn, the FLA will inspect facilities of Quanta Computer Inc, Pegatron Corp, Wintek Corp and others. While the final report of its inspections will be released only by late next month, FLA revealed its first impressions of what it saw.

The FLA finds the working conditions in foundry partner Foxconn's facilities "above average". Auret van Heerden, president of the FLA commented on the Foxconn inspection: "The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm." He continued, "I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory," he said. "So the problems are not the intensity and burnout and pressure-cooker environment you have in a garment factory. It's more a function of monotony, of boredom, of alienation perhaps."

Launched yesterday as a developer-preview, Apple's OS X "Mountain Lion" will support fewer Macs than its predecessor, probably because of increases in hardware requirements for smooth operation that older Macs can't quite guarantee. The support list for Mountain Lion looks like this:

• iMac (mid 2007 or later)
• MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, 2008), (13-inch, plastic, Early 2009 or later)
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, 2.4/2.2 GHz), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)
• Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)
• Xserve (Early 2009)

As you can see, some x86 Mac models are out of the support list, including importantly, the pre-Unibody plastic Macbook Pros. Perhaps Apple will support Mac OS X "Lion" with security updates for a lot longer.

Earlier today, Apple unveiled a developer preview of its upcoming operating system for Macs, Macbooks, Mac Pro, and Mac Servers, codenamed "Mountain Lion". It could be observed that Apple mentioned the new OS as simply "OS X", without the "Mac" (as in Mac OS X). A quick run through the new developer preview by The Verge, revealed that the change took effect in the software as well, as all about boxes and information pages reflected it. The article also notes that Apple conspiracy theorists may draw a line between today's development and the 2007 decision to rename the company Apple Inc., from Apple Computer, indicating that Apple is prioritizing on its portable computing device product lines a lot more than its core product, the Mac.

Apple today released a developer preview of OS X Mountain Lion, the ninth major release of the world's most advanced operating system, which brings popular apps and features from iPad to the Mac and accelerates the pace of OS X innovation. Mountain Lion introduces Messages, Notes, Reminders and Game Center to the Mac, as well as Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay Mirroring.

Mountain Lion is the first OS X release built with iCloud in mind for easy setup and integration with apps. The developer preview of Mountain Lion also introduces Gatekeeper, a revolutionary security feature that helps keep you safe from malicious software by giving you complete control over what apps are installed on your Mac. The preview release of Mountain Lion is available to Mac Developer Program members starting today. Mac users will be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store in late summer 2012.

After a significant victory in a long drawn out trademark dispute with Apple over the name "iPad", in which Chinese courts ruled in favor of ProView, followed by Chinese authorities beginning implementing the order by pulling iPad off shelves in stores, ProView is going for the kill, and seeking an export ban on Apple iPad till the Cupertino company reaches a fresh agreement with it over use of the trademark "iPad", and pays the $1.5 billion it sought in damages. Apple manufactures iPad through foundry partners such as Foxconn, which are located in China. An export-ban would kill supply of iPad worldwide, as China is the only country in which it is manufactured.

Today Fox Business is reporting U.S. and European regulators approved Google Inc's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility on Monday and said they would keep a sharp eye on the web search giant to ensure patents critical to the telecom industry would be licensed at fair prices. The U.S. Justice Department also approved an Apple Inc -led consortium's purchase of a trove of patents from bankrupt Canadian company Nortel Networks.Both the Justice Department and European antitrust authorities said that they would monitor how patents are used to ensure they comply with antitrust rules. Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic are concerned that patents essential to ensuring communications devices sold by different companies work together are licensed for a reasonable fee.

Apple seems to have a revolving door for legal actions as of late. Today the Chicago Tribune is reporting Apple has asked a federal court in California to block Samsung from selling its new Galaxy Nexus smartphones, which use Google's newest version of Android, called Ice Cream Sandwich, alleging four patent violations including new features such as a voice-command search function.

Galaxy Nexus, the official debut of which was delayed by Samsung in October to pay respect to Apple's co-founder Steve Jobs, is the first phone running on the newest Android version before the platform is widely adopted by hardware manufacturers such as HTC Corp and Motorola Mobility. HTC and Motorola are also in separate patent disputes with Apple. In a lawsuit filed last week in San Jose, Apple said the Galaxy Nexus infringes on patents underlying features customers expect from Apple products. Those include the ability to unlock phones by sliding an image and to search for information by voice.

Today Apple announced its market value to be $500 billion dollars after a massive stock surge Monday. The tech giant's valuation is now nearly halfway to the 10-figure mark, with speculation Apple will launch iTV later this year driving shares to new record highs. Yet, Apple still has a way to go to become the most valuable company of all time. If Apple shares continue to hit new record levels, its market cap will reach $500 billion when the price reaches $537.

Still, shares will need to rise another $100 above that level to put Apple in contention for the most expensive company ever. According to Standard and Poor's, ExxonMobil was the most recent company to see a valuation north of $500 billion, back in 2007 when oil prices were at record highs. While Microsoft may not excite investors like it did in Y2K, the software behemoth still holds the record for the most expensive valuation. Its market cap closed out 1999 at just over $600 billion according to Standard and Poor's, before peaking north of $650 billion during the tech bubble in 2000. The high analyst price target on the street for Apple right now is $700. At that price, its market cap will handily surpass Microsoft's Y2K record.

Time will tell if Apple will reach the trillion dollar mark.

According to the New York Times Apple is going on the offensive to save face in a string of workers rights issues in Chinese factories.

Apple said Monday that an independent labor rights organization had begun auditing working conditions at Chinese factories where Apple products are made. Apple said the group, the Fair Labor Association, started its first inspections Monday at a factory run by Foxconn in Shenzhen, China, known as Foxconn City. Apple said the inspection had been led by a team of labor-rights experts including Auret van Heerden, president of the association. Apple said the group, at Apple's request, would also conduct audits of other factories where Apple products are assembled, including Foxconn's factory in Chengdu and others run by Quanta and Pegatron.

Authorities and retailers have started taking Apple iPad off shelves in China, as an implementation of a court-order. Representatives of State agency Administrations of Industry and Commerce (AIC) have started confiscating inventories of the tablet from some retailers, while other retailers have voluntarily de-listed it, and taken it off shelves. The court-order is a result of a long drawn out battle between Chinese company ProView and Apple over the trademark "iPad".

Apple acquired the "iPad" brand name from ProView in 2006 by what the latter alleged as "dubious means", by floating a proxy shell company called "IP Application Development", without ProView having the slightest clue that it was dealing with Apple, which would go on use it for one of its biggest product lines. The only way Apple can get out of this mess is by working out a fresh agreement with ProView over the use of the iPad trademark, and possibly paying up to US $1.5 billion, which ProView seeks in damages. Apple is already having to pay a fine of $38 million to the Chinese regulators.

A little earlier this month, Apple discontinued supplies of its 13-inch white MacBook (base) to educational institutions, which it stopped selling to consumers much earlier, last year. Apple has replaced this education variant of white MacBook with a new education variant of MacBook Air. The new variant will be offered to educational institutions at US $999 a piece, when purchased in packs of 5 (costing US $4,995), making it a viable replacement to the white MacBook.

The new MacBook Air variant is also a 13-incher, driven by Intel Core i5 ULV processor clocked at 1.60 GHz, with 2 GB of DDR3 memory, 64 GB solid-state storage (carried on from the 11-inch consumer base model of MacBook Air), but features the larger 13-inch display. Unfortunately, this model is only available to educational institutions that purchase in bulk (those packs of 5), and so the cheapest MacBook individual students can buy is the 11-inch MacBook Air.

Apple closed the chapter on the white MacBook (base), after it ended its distribution to educational institutions (schools, universities, students). The company had discontinued its sale to consumers back in July, 2011, but it continued shipping it to educational customers to honor its supply commitments, which has just been met. The relatively affordable white MacBook ran out of shelf space on Apple, as it got replaced by the MacBook Air, the products in the new series cater to both affordable price-points and more premium ones.

ProView has the last laugh, while Apple gets a taste of its own medicine, in a remarkable turn of events that unfolded in China. Apple and ProView have been locked in a tussle over the brand name "iPad", which the latter claimed Apple dubiously acquired rights to use in 2006, by floating a shell company called IP Application Development and using it to deal with ProView. ProView had no idea it was dealing with Apple at the time (it was not shared that information), or that Apple would go on to use the name for one of its biggest selling products. A Chinese court ruled in favor of ProView. Apple now has to cough up US $38 million in fines, and sit down with ProView to work out a fresh agreement to using the brand name "iPad", or face a sales ban.

As notebooks get slimmer with the advent of Intel's Ultrabook specification, designers will be faced with hurdles when it comes to choosing the right materials that give their products the sturdiness of conventional notebooks, while not adding to the weight much. ABS plastic might not cut it anymore, and designers might be forced to follow the footsteps of Apple, by designing chassis similar to its Apple Unibody, which is milled out of a single block of aluminum, and offers better structural rigidity and heat dissipation compared to ABS, at those extremely compact dimensions.

Major notebook ODM Quanta Computer is making large scale purchases of CNC machines to gear up for an influx of designs (mostly Ultrabook), that employ metal uni-bodies. Quanta is a contract-manufacturer to some of the biggest notebook brands. With the increasing labor costs in China possibly set to affect ODMs' 3-5% gross margins, ODMs are becoming more aggressive about controlling their costs, and vertical integration has become a major tactic to help reduce costs. What this means to the end-user is that a good proportion of Ultrabooks will employ metal uni-bodies.