MacRumors

Corning today unveiled a new material that it's been working on, which combines the strength of its existing Gorilla Glass with ultra scratch-resistance like that of sapphire, reports CNET. The material, which goes by the name "Project Phire," was shown off during an investor meeting by Corning Glass president James Clappin.

"We told you last year that sapphire was great for scratch performance but didn't fare well when dropped," Clappin, president of Corning Glass Technologies, told the crowd at the event. "So, we created a product that offers the same superior damage resistance and drop performance of Gorilla Glass 4 with scratch resistance that approaches sapphire."

Corning's existing Gorilla Glass product is used in a range of smartphone and tablet displays, from Samsung's Galaxy line to Apple's own iOS lineup. Apple planned to move away from Corning's Gorilla Glass with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, switching instead to sapphire produced by GT Advanced, but was unable to use the material due to production issues that later saw the dissolution of the partnership between the two companies.

According to Corning, Gorilla Glass is superior to sapphire due to sapphire's brittleness and tendency to shatter when dropped. Corning has on several occasions pitted Gorilla Glass against sapphire to highlight the former's benefits -- lighter weight, greater strength, and lower pricing.

Gorilla Glass 4, Corning's most recent product, is even more resistant to shattering when it falls onto hard, rough surfaces than previous versions of Gorilla Glass, but it is unable to match the scratch resistant properties of sapphire crystal. Sapphire is second only to diamond when it comes to hardness, and Apple already uses the material to protect the iPhone's rear camera and Touch ID fingerprint sensor from scratches.

Apple's desire to produce iPhone displays with greater scratch resistance may make Corning's "Project Phire" material highly appealing to the company for use in next-generation devices, as it could potentially serve as a more affordable, easier to acquire replacement for sapphire.

In addition to a new Photos app and emoji improvements, yesterday's developer release of the first OS X 10.10.3 beta also includes new direct support for Google's 2-Step Verification when setting up Google services in the Internet Accounts section of System Preferences.

2-Step Verification is an optional security setting that requires users to enter not only their account password but also a unique code sent by Google via phone app, text message, or voice call to a previously registered device or phone number, greatly enhancing account security.

Not all devices and apps support Google's 2-Step Verification, however, and as a backup Google also allows users to generate app-specific passwords to register a unique password for that device or app. The app-specific password can be revoked at any time by logging into the user's Google account for another time, making it easy to disable access on a device that has been lost or stolen.

On OS X 10.10.2 and earlier, users setting up their machines to access Google accounts with 2-Step Verification enabled have had to use this app-specific password option. Users trying to log in with their standard Google account passwords are met with error messages informing them they need to use this option.

But as noticed by developer Jonathan Wight, the new OS X 10.10.3 beta now fully supports 2-Step Verification, allowing users to log in with their standard passwords and unique verification codes.

The change makes logging in with 2-Step protected accounts much simpler and increases security by making sure the user attempting to log in has a secondary trusted device to provide the verification code.

(Thanks, Sean!)

While the featured addition in yesterday's OS X 10.10.3 developer seed was the new Photos app, Apple is addressing other issues with the forthcoming update, and one of these focus areas is emoji, which is seeing several changes and improvements.

One immediately evident change is the menu option used to bring up the character palette where emoji and other symbols can be browsed and selected. The Character palette a is systemwide option generally accessed through the "Edit" menu in most Mac apps. On OS X 10.10.2 and earlier, the menu item is called "Special Characters," while on OS X 10.10.3, it is labeled "Emoji & Symbols". The change offers a clearer description of what can be accessed through the menu item while specifically giving a strong visibility boost to emoji.

Another significant change for emoji in OS X 10.10.3 is the apparent laying of groundwork to support skin tone modifiers proposed for the Unicode 8.0 standard. Apple noted almost a year ago that it was working with the Unicode Consortium to bring more diversity to emoji, and the proposed skin tone modifiers are a significant step in that direction. OS X 10.10.3 also appears to include a number of placeholders for new emoji in the character palette, but no images or descriptions have yet been added for these entries.

The skin tone modifier proposal would apply to certain skin-colored emoji, allowing users to select from a range of skin tones to best represent the message they wish to send via emoji. As can be seen in OS X 10.10.3, many of these skin-colored emoji now display an arrow that when clicked brings up a menu of options.

While the menu is currently non-functional, it does show the selected emoji followed by five instances of the emoji paired with a number one inside a black box. These are presumably incomplete implementations of skin tone modifiers, waiting for the Unicode Consortium to finalize its standards for Unicode 8.0. Just yesterday, the Unicode Technical Committee officially moved the technical report covering skin tone modifiers and other emoji changes for Unicode 8.0 to draft status, and Unicode 8.0 itself has been approved for beta release.

In one other change for emoji in OS X 10.10.3, the pop-up emoji picker available in many apps has been transitioned from a paginated layout to a single larger vertical-scrolling page. Under OS X 10.10.2 and earlier, the various emoji categories are contained on separate pages within the picker, with users needing to click on a toolbar along the bottom to change pages.

In OS X 10.10.3, all emoji are displayed on a single page, and while they are still organized by category and users can still click toolbar buttons to quickly jump between categories, users can now also simply scroll the entire list if they wish.

All of these changes come as emoji have exploded in popularity, spreading beyond their origin in Japan to be embraced worldwide as a quick, fun, and easy way to share a variety of emotions and thoughts, most commonly within messaging apps. As a result, Apple has been working to increase support for emoji across iOS and OS X, and this first OS X 10.10.3 developer build is a clear sign of that continued interest.

(Thanks, Sachin!)

Apple and Tesla have been battling to recruit top talent from each other, according to a new report from Bloomberg Business. Tesla has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than they have from any other company.

The company has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than from any other company, even carmakers. The former Apple staffers work in many areas of the 6,000-employee automaker, including engineering and law. “From a design philosophy, [Apple] is relatively closely aligned,” says Musk, Tesla’s co-founder and chief executive officer. Apple declined to comment for this story.

Former Apple employees say their decision to join Tesla was based on the company's electric cars and CEO Elon Musk, who is a similar figure to Jobs. Like Jobs, Musk pays a great deal of attention to the details of his products and is a strong, visionary leader. Musk reportedly has a soft spot for Apple and enjoys comparisons to Steve Jobs as well, one former Tesla employee tells Bloomberg.

Apple's influence can be felt in the 17-inch touchscreen installed in Tesla's cars as well as its retail stores, both of which had former Apple employees in key roles. High profile former Apple employees at Tesla include Doug Field, Apple's former VP of Mac Hardware Engineering, who leads new vehicle development at the car company. Using top Silicon Valley talent, like former employees at Apple, allows Tesla to get a leg-up on competitors in the automobile industry.

While Tesla has had success recruiting talent from Apple, Musk says that Apple has hired "very few people" from the car company despite offering $250,000 signing bonuses and 60 percent salary increases to its employees.

Apple and Tesla have interacted in the past, with a report emerging in February 2014 that Apple had considered purchasing Tesla. Musk also revealed the two companies have had "conversations", though it isn't known whether those were about a potential acquisition, iOS integration in Tesla cars or battery technology.

The report also provides an interesting look into other ways Apple has influenced one of the most talked about companies in Silicon Valley and is worth reading at Bloomberg Business.

Following the release of the first OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 beta to developers this afternoon, the embargo has lifted for media outlets to publish their first impressions and hands-on reviews of the all-new Photos for OS X app. Below is a roundup of some of the more interesting comments and opinions about Photos for OS X, which combines iPhoto and Aperture into one for OS X Yosemite.

The Wall Street Journal describes Photo for OS X as a significant improvement for users in the Apple ecosystem, adding that the app is less confusing to use than iPhoto thanks to an improved iCloud-based approach. It also found Photos for OS X to have snappier performance than iPhoto based on the Apple-provided demo notebook.

"If you choose to turn it on, all of your Apple devices feed all their full-resolution photos into iCloud, making them all available over the Internet to the Photos apps on all your Apple devices. [...] You can see the advantage to all this when you edit photos. With iCloud, any change you make on one device will show up moments later everywhere else."

Wired was also impressed with Photos for OS X, describing the software as a "vast improvement" over iPhoto and praising its new built-in photo editing tools. It believes that, while some professionals might opt for Adobe Lightroom and other tools, Photos for OS X is an ideal photo management and editing solution for most Mac users.

"Advanced users, particularly those operating on 5K iMacs or Mac Pros, may be happier eventually switching to Adobe Lightroom—though most of them probably have done so already. But for most of us, particularly recent Mac converts and people who may not fancy themselves serious photographers, Photos is a welcomely humble way to approach image editing."

Even further praise of Photos for OS X was provided by Re/code, which described the software as a "huge improvement" over iPhoto with easy-to-use editing tools and seamless iCloud syncing. Its hands-on impressions found Photos for OS X to be lacking some advanced editing tools found in Aperture, however, noting that some users might opt for professional software.

"While Photos offers some advanced settings like white balance and level, it lacks some of the professional-level tools found in Aperture. For example, it doesn’t have brushable or curve adjustments and doesn’t support splitting and merging libraries. And you can’t add custom metadata fields in the app."

The Verge went hands on with Photos for OS X and walked away impressed, noting that it handles large photo libraries much better alongside more powerful photo editing, sharing and syncing options. As with other publications, it found Photos for OS X to be more suitable for beginners than professionals.

"iPhoto was never one of Apple’s most beloved products. Every year, it seemed slower and less connected to the phone — the place where most photos are taken. Photos for OS X does a lot of things right, but mostly it’s just fast and tightly integrated with your other devices. It feels like a big step forward, even if feels overdue."

Yahoo Tech claims that much of Photos for OS X will be a familiar experience for most Mac users, noting that power users will be impressed with the several photo parameters that can be adjusted. The review finds that Photos for OS X gives up some iPhoto features, however, including flags, star ratings, events, round-trip editing in other apps and sorting albums by keyword, title and rating. Many professional options from Aperture are also missing.

"If you’re happy with iPhoto and Aperture now, you should feel no hurry to switch over when Photos comes out this spring (as part of the free Yosemite 10.10.3 update), unless you want that iCloud Photo Library feature. Which would be understandable. [...] Someday, yes, there will be some OS X version that can’t run today’s iPhoto and Aperture at all. But that’s years away. In those years, Apple has plenty of time to bring Photos’ feature list up to code, and you can freely keep using iPhoto and/or Aperture and Photos, side-by-side on the same Mac."

Overall, Photos for OS X appears to be a significant improvement for users migrating from iPhoto, but a step down in functionality for those coming from Aperture. A number of other publications have shared first impressions and hands-on reviews, including CNET, Engadget, Macworld, Mashable and SlashGear. Photos for OS X will be available as a public beta soon ahead of a Spring launch as a free update on OS X Yosemite.

Apple today seeded the first beta of OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite to developers, just over a week after releasing OS X 10.10.2 to the public. OS X 10.10.3 includes the much anticipated Photos app for Mac.

The new beta is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Mac Dev Center.

Recent rumors questioned the removal of mentions of the Photos app for Mac from Apple's website, suggesting it might be delayed, but today's beta release indicates that it is still on track for an early 2015 launch. 10.10.3's release notes offer details on the app:

All new for OS X, Photos automatically organizes your photo library and helps you perfect your photos with comprehensive editing tools. You can also store your photos and videos in the cloud using iCloud Photo Library, and access them on all your devices.

Photos lets you:
- Browse your photos by time and location in Moments, Collections, and Years views.
- Navigate your library using convenient Photos, Shared, Albums, and Projects tabs
- Store all of your photos and videos in iCloud Photo Library in their original format and full resolution
- Access your photos and videos stored in iCloud Photo Library from your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iCloud.com with any web browser
- Perfect your photos with powerful and easy-to-use editing tools that optimize with a single click or slider, or allow precise adjustments with detailed controls
- Create professional-quality photo books with simplified bookmaking tools, new Apple-designed themes, and new square book formats
- Purchase prints in new square and panoramic sizes

Quite a few sites have been given preview access to Photos for Mac, giving us our first look at the app that is designed to replace both iPhoto and Aperture. Re/code, for example, has shared several screenshots of the app, and calls it "both refreshingly new and comfortably familiar."

Apple has also created a Photos preview page that walks users through the Photos experience. The Photos for Mac app takes on a Yosemite-style design, with an emphasis on translucency and flatness. Like Photos for iOS, the Mac app organizes images into Moments, Collections, and Years, in a format that's immediately recognizable to anyone who has used the iOS app.

Photos for Mac integrates with iCloud Photo Library (though iCloud Photo Library is not required), letting a user access all of their photos regardless of the device they were captured with, for a seamless photo editing and management experience. Beta Photos users will find that their existing iPhoto libraries will be updated for compatibility with the Photos app, and there's also an option to import Aperture libraries.

Edits made to a photo on iOS or on Mac through the now-universal Photos app are automatically synced to all devices if iCloud Photo Library is enabled, and the Mac app includes a range of editing tools. Enhance can be used to improve images with a single click, but there are also Smart Sliders for more customized adjustments.

The app has somewhat more in-depth tools than were available in iPhoto, giving access to a histogram along with Light, Color, Black & White, Levels, White Balance, and Definition. Eight pre-defined filters are also included for adding quick effects, and there are options for printing Photo books and sharing images on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and more.

Update: OS X 10.10.3 includes a new emoji picker that consolidates emoji into a single page with clear labels. In OS X, the emoji menu is brought up by pressing Control + Command + Space.

The update also includes new support for Google 2-step verification when setting up accounts in System Preferences.

Swatch CEO Nick Hayek today revealed that the company has plans to manufacture and ship its own line of smartwatch devices with a launch target within the next three months, easily setting itself up against Apple's recent confirmation of an April launch date for the Apple Watch (via Bloomberg).

Hayek previously displayed skepticism about smartwatches, in particular the idea of one from Apple, saying he didn't believe it would be "the next revolution." Hayek also previously dismissed the concept of a Swatch smartwatch initiative, arguing the company's highest-end devices should already be called smartwatches because "they make you look smart."

Apple and Swatch were rumored at one point to be joining together for a smartwatch, but Swatch quickly denied those claims last summer. Now, building on the decades of experience Swatch has accumulated over the years, Hayek voices determination in the face of going practically head-to-head with Apple on the smart wearables front.

“Entrepreneurs are practical people, and they care more about being successful than being consistent,” said Luca Solca, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas. “Hayek has always said they have relevant technology for a smartwatch -- sensors, display, battery -- and seems to be set to make the most [of] it. Better to have an option and a hand in this category than not to. Nobody can yet say how relevant smartwatches will be in the end.”

Some of the biggest claims Swatch makes about its upcoming smartwatch include the ability to connect to the Internet "without having to be charged," undoubtedly a direct shot at Apple's yet-to-be-confirmed battery life for the Apple Watch. The Swatch device will also include a form of mobile payments baked into the watch, but as of now will function only in a select few Switzerland-based grocery stores, with the company in talks to acquire more mobile payment retailer partners.

Under the looming launch of the Apple Watch, several other high-end watchmakers have shifted gears and decided to delve into the smartwatch market, including TAG Heuer and Montblanc's "e-Strap" accessory band that attaches to traditional watches in lieu of buying an entirely new device.

Fourteen major U.S. hospitals have rolled out their own trials of Apple's HealthKit tool, with the pilot program earning praise among doctors for its ease of use and advanced tracking of various health metrics, reports Reuters.

According to the news agency, eight hospitals trying out HealthKit are on the U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll which ranks the best hospitals, with the program seeing more of a positive reaction versus health tracking programs by Google and Samsung.

Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans has been working with Apple and Epic Systems, Ochsner's medical records vendor, to roll out a pilot program for high-risk patients. The team is already tracking several hundred patients who are struggling to control their blood pressure. The devices measure blood pressure and other statistics and send it to Apple phones and tablets.

"If we had more data, like daily weights, we could give the patient a call before they need to be hospitalized," said Chief Clinical Transformation Officer Dr. Richard Milani.

Apple said that over 600 developers are integrating HealthKit into their health and fitness apps. The company has also hired Rana and John Halamaka, who act as two informal industry advisors that focus on health data privacy and industry introduction. Last September, it was reported that Duke University and Stanford University Hospital had begun trials with HealthKit, with representatives from both hospitals speaking highly about the program's convenience for patients and doctors.

Apple introduced HealthKit alongside the new Health app in iOS 8 as a part of a new initiative into health and fitness tracking. HealthKit taps into data from the iPhone's various sensors along with compatible accessories to provide a more comprehensive picture of a user's health. The upcoming Apple Watch will also contain a number of sensors and health tracking features that seamlessly integrate with the Health app.

Rumors about Apple's television plans have died down in recent months as no new product has appeared, but the company hasn't given up on TV. According to industry executives that spoke to Re/code, Apple is in talks with television programmers over deals that would see the company offering a web-based TV service.

Such a service would potentially allow Apple to deliver customized television packages that would be streamed over the Internet, providing access to a bundle of channels from participating content providers. The service would not include a full lineup of channels like traditional cable, but it would offer a range of content delivered by Apple with its own interface on devices like the Apple TV.

The theory is that Apple would put together bundles of programming -- but not the entire TV lineup that pay TV providers generally offer -- and sell it directly to consumers, over the Web. That means Apple wouldn't be reinventing the way TV works today, but offering its own version of it, with its own interface and user experience.

Apple is reportedly far enough along in the development of such a service that it has been showing potential programming partners demos, but talks remain in the early stages -- pricing and a potential release timeline are unknown.

Apple originally had very ambitious plans for revamping television, which included a desire to create a subscription television service that would replace existing cable subscription packages, but was unable to move forward with that idea due to pushback from content providers.

After a string of failed negotiations, Apple scaled back on its television plans, aiming to wedge itself between cable companies and consumers by designing a set-top box that would play live television in lieu of a traditional cable box. Rumors suggested Apple was in talks with Comcast and Time Warner over such a service, which would also include cloud-based DVR functionality, but that has yet to materialize and may have shifted into its newest web-based television plans.

Apple has repeatedly failed to reach deals with content providers due to their reluctance to change the status quo, but as Re/code points out, the television industry has been shifting towards web-based models in recent months, and both Sony and Dish have managed to establish deals with programmers to provide live TV and video-on-demand over the web.

During the company's most recent earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again reiterated that television is something that Apple "continues to look at." Apple is working towards finding a way to make a "greater contribution," than what it currently offers, he said.

Typo Products, a company that developed a BlackBerry-esque keyboard case for the iPhone, must pay BlackBerry $860,000 for continuing to sell its Typo case despite being ordered to cease sales in March.

The Typo keyboard was first announced in December of 2013 and was backed by media personality Ryan Seacrest (of American Idol fame). Seacrest reportedly invested $1 million into the product, which was the result of a desire to introduce a physical keyboard for the iPhone.

According to Seacrest and his partner Lauren Hallier, they saw many of their friends carrying two phones -- one for typing and correspondence, presumably a Blackberry, and an iPhone for everything else. The keyboard that the duo developed, which snapped onto an iPhone, bore a marked resemblance to BlackBerry's signature keyboards, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the company.

Just a month after the Typo keyboard was announced, BlackBerry filed a lawsuit accusing Typo Products of "blatantly" copying the BlackBerry keyboard and infringing on BlackBerry patents. A judge agreed with BlackBerry, handing down the aforementioned injunction that banned the Typo from selling its keyboards, despite Typo's argument that it was not harming BlackBerry as BlackBerry was already losing market share.

Typo ignored the injunction and continued selling its Typo keyboard cases, leading BlackBerry to file a contempt of court order in August, which resulted in today's $860,000 fine. BlackBerry had initially asked for $2.6 million in penalties, plus attorneys' fees for the violation.

In addition to continuing to sell the original keyboard case, Typo Products introduced the Typo2 keyboard for the iPhone 6 in December of 2014, which it says does not infringe on any BlackBerry patents. Typo2 features a sleeker design with a built-in keyboard that unfortunately blocks the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the iPhone 6. Typo's website currently sells Typo2 keyboards for both the iPhone 5/5s and the iPhone 6.

In response to the fine levied against it, a Typo representative told Re/code that the ruling is "part of the ongoing patent litigation related to the initial Typo product" and that it "has no impact on the Typo 2." A BlackBerry representative only had this to say: "The court's order speaks for itself."