apple

It’s not the best kept secret that Samsung and Apple are not exactly best friends, with the latter often accusing the former of copying their products and even going so far as taking them to court to battle it out.

Bye bye, Belisha. There’s a new beacon in town.

In The Guardian, Simon Baldwin blogs that iBeacon seeks to lead.

Apple’s proprietary challenger to Near Field Communication arrived with iOs7. It boasts a range of up to 50 metres and uses Bluetooth low energy (BLE) to pinpoint location.

"Snow is falling all around me.
Children playing having fun.
Trains are cancelled. Shops are heaving.
It's the season of MacBooks and shiny iPads. 
Merry Christmas everyone."

I'm in a musical mood, so sue me ;-) And those Applistas everywhere are struggling to resist the urge to splurge on a shiny new metallic toys from the wizards in Cupertino.

But, I hear you cry, who put the "i" in iMac, iPhone, iPad? And did you know that Steve Jobs hated the name originally? And had an alternative...

Ken Segall (@ksegall), the ad-man Apple turned to, talks about his naming fame and his book, Insanely Simple about the principles that guides the company and makes it stand out from its competitors, in this video from Thinking Digital 2012.

The hullaballoo surrounding Facebook's IPO, the eye-watering $100bn headlines and the subsequent bickering, has largely passed by the social giants' 901m users.

Last week's launch of the App Center could make a much bigger impression and may prove a canny move in answering criticism of Facebook's slow progress in monetising it's half-a-billion (yup, you read it right) active mobile users.

If the IPO critics are to be believed, the company's valuation and its future is all about advertising revenue, but the App Center launch launch hints at a longer-term strategy. If successful, it could establish Facebook at the heart of the app ecosystem, as well as seeing the coffers swell with mobile ad and targeting revenue.

Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 5, is due to be released tomorrow and it boasts to have “added over 200 new features — taking a mobile operating system that was already years ahead of anything else and moving it even further ahead.”

With so many new features I’ve put together a quick and easy to read list of the main changes and what it means for iUsers worldwide…

Yes, you read that right. Nope, it's not a typo. £25 (actually, £23 on current rates). Rumoured features include colour, multi-touch 10.5" screen, 2Gb memory, Flash compatibility, Wifi, Ethernet connection, camera and an optional extra of a solar charger.

That means word processing, video conferencing, web browsing and yes, the ability to play Flash videos, games for less than the cost of the AppleCare warranty on an iPad (3 times less, if we're counting).

The Indian technology sector is developing a name for itself for throwing out the rule book when it comes to the cost of consumer technology. Witness the £1,900 Nano car from Tata and for roughly the same price, how's about open heart surgery.

You've got to hand it to The Sun for its latest set of ads. Taking firm aim at Apple and harnessing the full wit of it's sub-editor's headline legendary word smithery to great effect in these parodies created to celebrate The Sun's 40th birthday.

The ads are beautifully pitched avoiding invective and taking a tongue-in-cheek approach,

"The Sun has been the UK's best handheld for 40 years. Top news, sports, photos, gossip and games in an easy-to-share format. No waiting for pages to load, no contract, no losing reception. There's no substitute for the Sun."