MacRumors

Earlier today, we noted that Apple had received official approval for its 20-megawatt solar farm across the street from its data center in Maiden, North Carolina. But even more significant developments are also occurring today, with Apple posting a new page to the environmental section of its website touting that all of the company's data centers will be powered by 100% renewable energy.

At the North Carolina site, the previously-annnounced 20-megawatt solar farm is being joined by a second farm of equal size a few miles away. Combined with the 5-megawatt fuel cell facility also being built at the data center, 60% of the data center's power needs will be generated on site. The remaining 40% will be purchased through agreements with outside renewable power producers.

We’re currently building two solar array installations in and around Maiden. These sites use high-efficiency solar cells and an advanced solar tracking system. A 100-acre, 20-megawatt installation on the same site as our data center will produce 42 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy annually. A 100-acre site located a few miles away will produce another 42 million kWh. Together that’s 84 million kWh of clean, renewable energy supplied annually. When our bio-gas-powered 5-megawatt fuel cell installation comes online later this year, it will provide more than 40 million kWh of renewable energy annually. This means Apple will be producing enough onsite renewable energy — 124 million kWh — to power the equivalent of 10,874 homes.

Apple's efforts in renewable energy will also extend to its other data center facilities, as the company previously disclosed that its upcoming Prineville, Oregon data center will be powered by 100% renewable energy. And the new page posted today reveals that the company's original, smaller data center in Newark, California will soon be powered by renewable energy as Apple works to locate and purchase clean energy for the facility, with the capacity scheduled to be in place by February 2013.

Greenpeace last month bashed Apple using estimates it claimed showed that only 10% of the North Carolina data center's power would be from renewable sources. Apple rebutted those claims, noting that at least 60% of the center's energy would be from renewable sources. With today's announcements, Apple has expanded its efforts even further to power all of its data centers with 100% renewable energy.

The North Carolina Utilities Commission today officially approved (PDF) Apple's proposal to construct a 20-megawatt solar farm across the street from its data center in Maiden, North Carolina.

The Public Staff presented this matter to the Commission at its Regular Staff Conference on May 14, 2012. The Public Staff recommended that the Commission approve the application and issue a certificate of public convenience and necessity for construction of a 20 MW solar photovoltaic electric generating facility to be located at 6028 Startown Road, Maiden, North Carolina.

After careful consideration, the Commission finds good cause to approve the application and issue the attached certificate of public convenience and necessity for the proposed 20 MW solar photovoltaic electric generating facility.

Previous filings with federal regulators have indicated that Apple plans to have the solar farm installed by November 1, with operation to begin by December 21.

Apple signaled its intentions to build a data center at the site last October, moving to clear and grade the land as it sought approval for the project. The company publicly unveiled its plans back in February, noting that the facility will be the largest user-owned solar array in the United States. A separate 5-megawatt fuel cell facility is also under development at the site and is proceeding through a parallel regulatory approval process.

The official proposal was filed with the North Carolina Utilities Commission on February 15, and was subjected to staff review of the plans, a public notice and comment period, and input from the State Clearinghouse on environmental and other issues. With that information in hand, the Commission offered its official approval this past Monday and finalized the certificate issuance today.

Exploring an observation initially made by iOS hacker @planetbeing, Shoutpedia notes that Apple has mysteriously begun censoring the word "jailbreak" in the U.S. iTunes Store. While not all mentions of the word are affected, the vast majority of them across all content types are currently being censored to "j*******k".

Apple has long objected to the jailbreaking process, which opens up iOS devices for installation of apps from non-Apple approved sources and other system tweaks. But it is unclear what the company is trying to achieve with its iTunes Store censoring, which affects such content as Thin Lizzy's song and album of that name and an episode of the The Roy Rogers Show from the early 1950s.

The censoring appears to only affect the U.S. iTunes Store at the present time, but it has been in effect for over eight hours now.

Update: The censoring appears to be inadvertent. Searches for 'jailbreak' on the Apple Store now return results without any asterisks.

Earlier this month, we noted that Apple had filed a claim with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) seeking to gain ownership of the iPhone5.com domain, which had hosted a small independent discussion forum for the past year and a half.

The Next Web now reports that the case has been terminated, indicating that the dispute has been resolved without WIPO having had to render a decision. The domain is now under the control of brand protection firm Corporation Service Company, presumably on Apple's behalf, and simply displays a blank page.

Apple's move to take possession of the iPhone5.com domain naturally fuels speculation that it will use the name for its next-generation iPhone, although that is not necessarily the case. Given the popularity of the name within discussions of the future iPhone, Apple may simply be protecting its iPhone trademarks while also seeking to control content at what is likely to be a popular destination for those searching for information on the company's products.

For those curious about iPhone6.com, the domain has changed hands several times, having first been registered in 2007 by an individual in Dubai who later transferred it to an owner in South Korea. But since mid-2010, ownership information for the domain has been kept private and there is currently no site associated with the address.

Time Warner Cable and Viacom have settled their legal entanglements regarding Time Warner's streaming of Viacom video content on its iPad app, according to the New York Times.

The breakthrough comes as a result of a settlement between Time Warner Cable and Viacom, which owns cable channels like Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV and others. For months there had been a heated dispute over whether the cable company should have access to Viacom programs through its TWCable TV app.

On Wednesday, Viacom said that the companies had agreed "to resolve their pending litigations" and that "all of Viacom’s programming will now be available to Time Warner Cable subscribers for in-home viewing via Internet protocol-enabled devices such as iPads."

The companies have been fighting over streaming rights for more than a year. Time Warner argued that its existing agreements give it the right to provide video streams on any screen, rather than just the television. Viacom said the app was "unlicensed distribution of Viacom's programming." Viacom still has a pending lawsuit with Cablevision over its Optimum live TV app.

Viacom's programming will roll out on the Time Warner Cable app over the next few weeks.

Time Warner's app, TWC TV, is available free on the App Store for its cable customers. [Direct Link]

Security firm Symantec previously estimated that the authors of the Flashback malware that affected hundreds of thousands of Macs at its peak could have been generating up to $10,000 per day by hijacking users' ad clicks. Further analysis from the company suggests that the developers may have only earned $14,000 over the three weeks the malware was active.

From our analysis we have seen that, for a three-week period starting in April, the botnet displayed over 10 million ads on compromised computers but only a small percentage of users who were shown ads actually clicked them, with close to 400,000 ads being clicked. These numbers earned the attackers $14,000 in these three weeks, although it is worth mentioning that earning the money is only one part of the puzzle—actually collecting that money is another, often more difficult, job. Many PPC providers employ anti-fraud measures and affiliate-verification processes before paying. Fortunately, the attackers in this instance appear to have been unable to complete the necessary steps to be paid.

It is estimated the actual ad-clicking component of Flashback was only installed on about 10,000 of the more than 600,000 infected machines. In other words, utilizing less than 2% of the entire botnet the attackers were able to generate $14,000 in three weeks, meaning that if the attackers were able to use the entire botnet, they could potentially have earned millions of dollars a year.

Symantec notes that the malware developers displayed more than 10 million hijacked ads and could have delivered many more if the developers had been more successful in their attacks.

Some security specialists have said that the Mac OS is "really vulnerable" to further infections, though these claims should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt -- those security specialists make their living off vulnerabilities and it is in their best interest to promote awareness of them.

Apple today pushed out another update to its OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion developer preview program, moving to build 12A206j. The update comes on top of build 12A193i, which was released on May 1.

Apple notes that "MacBookPro3,1", which corresponds to mid and late 2007 machines, is not compatible with the new build, but that issue will be rectified in a later build.

No other details on improvements in the latest build are available yet, but it certainly appears that Apple is making some of its final tweaks for developers leading up to its Worldwide Developers Conference less than four weeks away. Apple is expected to provide extensive previews of OS X Mountain Lion at the conference, with a public launch scheduled for "late summer".

The new Mountain Lion build is still a bit short of the 12A211 build spotted in a Geekbench entry for an apparently unreleased MacBook Pro earlier this week. While that entry could have been faked, the data does match closely with what is known about upcoming Ivy Bridge MacBook Pro models, and Primate Labs believes the entry to be legitimate.

With Apple's MacBook Pro line now widely rumored to be gaining ultra high-resolution "Retina" or "HiDPI" displays at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference, CNET reports that such panels are already available in the supply chain and that they carry price premiums of up to $100 over their non-Retina counterparts. But what remains to be seen is whether that price difference will be passed along to consumers or if Apple will find ways to cut costs in other areas in order to maintain its existing price points.

DisplaySearch Senior Analyst Richard Shim says that super high-resolution 13.3-inch and 15.4-inch panels that Apple would be a prime candidate to use are already available from suppliers.

"We're seeing it at 15.4 (inches)," Shim said in an interview yesterday. "You can get it."

According to Shim, a Retina 15.4-inch display at 2880x1800 resolution for a density of 220 pixels per inch (ppi) currently costs approximately $160, a $92 increase over Apple's estimated cost of $68 for the current display in the 15-inch MacBook Pro. In the smaller 13-inch MacBook Pro, a Retina display at 2560x1600 costs $134, a $65 premium over the display used in the current model.

Unaddressed is the 17-inch MacBook Pro, which would require a display of 3840x2400 and undoubtedly carry an even higher price premium over the current display. It is unclear, however, whether the 17-inch MacBook Pro will be receiving the same upgrades as the rest of the family at WWDC, as most rumors so far have pointed to only 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models being in production. In addition, Apple has been rumored to be following the pattern of its transition to the unibody MacBook Pro design in moving the 17-inch model to the new form factor several months after its smaller siblings.

Shim notes that with these Retina resolution displays available in the supply chain, Apple is the most likely customer for the screens, although he has been unable to confirm what company or companies are purchasing them for use in their computers.

Also unclear is how Apple will handle the cost increase associated with the Retina displays. While some cost savings will be achievable by the removal of the optical drive, Apple will almost certainly see increased costs for storage as the MacBook Pro reportedly moves from traditional hard drives to solid-state drives. While such drives are used in the lower-priced MacBook Air models, higher-end users expected to be drawn to the MacBook Pro will likely demand higher-capacity drives at significantly greater costs. Consequently, it will be interesting to see how Apple ends up pricing the redesigned MacBook Pro given all the changes involved.

U.S. cellular carrier Verizon is planning to move its customers who still have unlimited data plans for their smartphones to its new family data-share plans as customers switch to LTE data plans.

The iPhone was initially offered with unlimited data plans when it launched on Verizon early last year, but the carrier soon dropped the unlimited option in favor of data plans with allocations of data.

Fierce Wireless has the details, quoting Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo at a JP Morgan conference:

As these 3G unlimited data plan customers migrate to 4G LTE, they will have to purchase the company's data-share plan (which Verizon plans to launch in mid-summer) and move off the $30 per month unlimited data plan. "Everyone will be on data share," Shammo said.

Verizon currently throttles its unlimited data users only when a particular cell tower is overloaded, whereas competitor AT&T slows its unlimited users after they use 3GB of data in a month. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson recently noted that his one regret about bringing the iPhone to AT&T was offering unlimited data.

Sprint, the number three carrier in the country -- and the only carrier to still offer unlimited data packages for the iPhone -- has said it will continue to offer unlimited data plans for the iPhone, even if the next iPhone includes LTE, as is expected.

Digitimes' poor track record has been thrust into the spotlight in recent days, but that hasn't stopped one of the Taiwanese news site's reports from having a major effect on stock prices for Samsung and Hynix. The report from earlier this week claims that Apple has placed "huge" orders for DRAM chips with Elpida, soaking up half of the capacity at the firm's main plant in Hiroshima, Japan.

As noted by Reuters, the rumor has had a significant effect on fellow DRAM manufacturers Samsung and Hynix, with Samsung losing $10 billion in market value today in a 6% stock decline. The smaller Hynix was down nearly 9%

"It looks like Apple doesn't want to see Samsung and hynix dominate the chip market. Apple wants to maintain its bargaining power by keeping Elpida running," said Choi Do-yeon, an analyst at LIG Investment & Securities.

Elpida filed for bankruptcy in late February, and Micron has emerged as a likely acquirer for the company. The combined Micron-Elpida would be a strong competitor in the DRAM market, sparking concerns for others in the competitive industry.

DRAM, the volatile memory used to hold active applications and other data for use while a device is in operation, is a commodity in the consumer electronics market, with Apple routinely sourcing from multiple suppliers and shifting orders to achieve the best pricing.

Last December, Apple won a U.S. International Trade Commission case against HTC, with the agency ruling that several of HTC's handsets infringed upon a pair of Apple-held patents. The agency's ruling included a ban on the import of infringing devices beginning in April, although HTC quickly responded to say that it had already designed a workaround for the issue in question.

But as reported by The Verge late yesterday, U.S. Customs officials have delayed shipments of HTC's new One X and Evo 4G LTE handsets into the United States as it investigates whether those handsets also infringe upon Apple's patents.

We've learned today that the One X and Evo 4G LTE are indefinitely delayed at Customs as the agency investigates patent issues with Apple, and sources have further confirmed that some shipments are indeed being held back. The One X is also currently out of stock at AT&T's online store and at most AT&T retail stores we've called — and few had any information on when more units would arrive.

HTC issued a follow-up statement confirming the customs hold and indicating that it is working to secure the release of the shipments.

The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order. We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC Evo 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get these products into their hands as soon as possible.

Dow Jones Newswires provides more information today, noting that HTC will need to delay the launch of the Evo 4G LTE, which had been scheduled to debut on Sprint this Friday, May 18. In addition, AT&T is experiencing shortages of the One X due to the customs hold, although some units were able to enter the country before the import ban went into effect on April 19.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has placed orders for screens measuring "at least 4 inches diagonally" for the next-generation iPhone, marking a significant increase in size over the displays used in every iPhone model released to date.

Apple Inc., which is expected to launch its next-generation iPhone later this year, has ordered screens from its Asian suppliers that are bigger than the ones used in iPhones since they debuted in 2007, people familiar with the situation said.

Production is set to begin next month for the screens, which measure at least 4 inches diagonally compared with 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4S, the latest phone from Apple, the people said.

Apple is reportedly working with LG, Sharp, and Japan Display (the newly-merged display businesses of Sony, Hitachi, and Toshiba) on the new screen.

The Wall Street Journal's report does not specify what aspect ratio the larger display will use, and other rumors have conflicted on whether Apple will maintain the existing ratio or increase the screen's height while keeping the width consistent with existing models.

Update: Reuters has filed its own report making similar claims, although one of its sources seems more firm that the screen will measure 4 inches diagonally, as opposed to the "at least 4 inches" reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Apple Inc plans to use a larger screen on the next-generation iPhone and has begun to place orders for the new displays from suppliers in South Korea and Japan, people familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. [...]

The new iPhone screens will measure 4 inches from corner to corner, one of the sources said.

Sony Pictures today announced that Aaron Sorkin will indeed serve as the screenwriter for the studio's upcoming film adaptation of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs. Sorkin, who is famous for his work on The West Wing, The Social Network, Moneyball, and A Few Good Men, noted late last year that he was "strongly considering" taking on the project.

Commenting on the announcement, [Sony Pictures Co-Chairman Amy] Pascal said, "Steve Jobs' story is unique: he was one of the most revolutionary and influential men not just of our time but of all time. There is no writer working in Hollywood today who is more capable of capturing such an extraordinary life for the screen than Aaron Sorkin; in his hands, we're confident that the film will be everything that Jobs himself was: captivating, entertaining, and polarizing."

Casting for the film has yet to be determined, but rumors have suggested that George Clooney and Noah Wyle may be in the running for the role of Jobs. Wyle portrayed Jobs in the 1999 made-for-TV film The Pirates of Silicon Valley, which focused on the early days of Jobs and Bill Gates.

The project is a completely separate effort from an independent film about Jobs that has Ashton Kutcher starring in the lead role. Just last week, Kutcher was spotted wearing Jobs' trademark wardrobe en route to the film's set, where filming is currently underway while Kutcher is on a break from his television show Two and a Half Men.

Tim Cook met with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) today. It is unknown what the topic of discussion was, but it's possible that Cook was lobbying Boehner to pass a tax holiday that would allow Apple and other companies with large overseas tax holdings to bring back their earnings at a lower corporate tax rate.

As of its most recent earnings call, Apple held $74 billion of its $110 billion in cash and marketable securities offshore.