MacRumors

Barron's points to a research report from Stratfor Global Intelligence noting that 44 Chinese workers are preparing to file a lawsuit against LCD manufacturer Wintek after dozens of workers have been hospitalized due to poisoning from n-hexane used to clean iPhone screens.

Stratfor notes that at least 62 Wintek workers have been hospitalized since August 2009 due to n-hexane poisoning, a chemical "which can cause nerve damage and sometimes paralysis."

The note also cites media reports claiming that the factory manager had forced the company's workers to use the chemical instead of a safer alcohol product because of either faster drying times or reduced streakiness.

The Stratfor post says that according to some media reports, the factory manager in Suzhou made the workers use the chemical because it dries faster than alcohol, while other reports said it was used because it leaves fewer streaks than alcohol. The piece notes that the factory manager has since been fired.

The Stratfor article also claims that reports have suggested that the change to using n-hexane was made at Apple's request.

In addition to the iPhone, Wintek has been a primary supplier of touchscreens for the iPad. "Manufacturing bottlenecks" at the company have been blamed for tight supplies of the iPad, although a report has suggested that Apple is shifting even more production to the company as other partners have also struggled with delays.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) yesterday announced that it has agreed to investigate claims made by Apple last month against Kodak over alleged patent infringement.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has voted to institute an investigation of certain digital imaging devices and related software. The products at issue in this investigation are digital still cameras, digital video cameras, and related software.

The investigation is based on a complaint filed by Apple Inc., f/k/a Apple Computer, Inc., of Cupertino, CA, on April 15, 2010. The complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the importation into the United States and sale of digital imaging devices and related software that infringe patents asserted by Apple. The complainants request that the USITC issue an exclusion order and a cease and desist order.

Apple filed the complaint in response to lawsuits and ITC complaints filed by Kodak against Apple and Research in Motion back in January. The ITC agreed in February to investigate those complaints.

Meanwhile, former user interface design studio MONKEYmedia yesterday announced that it has filed a patent lawsuit against Apple alleging infringement of three of its patents. MONKEYmedia CEO Eric Bear also took the opportunity to echo the words of Apple CEO Steve Jobs from the press release announcing that Apple had filed suit against HTC in early March.

MONKEYmedia today filed a lawsuit against Apple, Inc. for infringing claims in three of MONKEYmedia's Seamless Contraction patents. Apple's infringement involves its user interfaces for document summarization, RSS readers and video players that can display multiple versions of text and/or audiovisual content. The lawsuit was filed in the Western District of Texas - Austin Division.

"We can sit by and watch Apple continue to use our patented inventions without paying, or we can do something about it," said Eric Bear, MONKEYmedia's CEO. "Synergy between inventors and manufacturers is healthy, and we love that Apple believes in our technology. We simply prefer open communications and fair compensation."

MONKEYmedia exited the user interface design business in 2001 and since that time has been focused on leveraging its patent portfolio.

World of Apple reports that Apple has seeded a new version of Mac OS X 10.6.4, termed Build 10F50, to select developers. According to the report, the update now weighs in at 581.3 MB and contains one documented minor issue.

Apple has also revised the seed notes accompanying the release to highlighting what it considers the most significant fixes brought in the update so far, including addressing issues with keyboard/trackpad unresponsiveness, Adobe CS3 application launching, and photo editing in full-screen mode on both iPhoto and Aperture. The notes also report that Apple has made improvements to VPN reliability, VoiceOver compatibility with iMovie and GarageBand, and braille display compatibility.

According to today's report, Apple continues to ask developers to focus their testing on the same five areas documented in the previous build seeded last week: GraphicsDrivers, SMB, USB, VoiceOver, and VPN.

Not entirely surprisingly, Wi-Fi Sync has been rejected from the App Store. We profiled the app in April. Wi-Fi Sync enabled users to wirelessly sync their iPhones with their computers via a local Wi-Fi network. The developer had submitted it to Apple with hopes that they would approve it for sale through the iTunes App Store. As many suspected, Apple rejected the app. Engadget cites the explanation the developer received from Apple.

"While he agreed that the app doesn't technically break the rules, he said that it does encroach upon the boundaries of what they can and cannot allow on their store. He also cited security concerns."

The developer is now distributing it outside the App Store on jailbroken phones for $9.99.

Most people seemed to expect that Wi-Fi would be rejected by Apple due to the unconventional nature of the app, but many were hoping to finally add wireless syncing as a feature to their iPhones.

The reason everyone is so interested in the leaked Apple iPhone goes beyond natural interest in the product. It's just that Apple usually does such a good job at keeping the their hardware under wraps. The lost iPhone(s) are easily the largest leak in the company's history.

Of course, Apple's labs are always brimming with activity, and many of these prototype designs eventually fall into the hands of collectors in the years to come. Here are a few interesting ones that were successfully designed behind closed doors.

A clear-case Prototype Apple Mouse apparently given to some Apple employees. It's labeled "Prototype" on the bottom and lights up when the it's plugged in.

A metal industrial design prototype of the Apple Macintosh G4 Cube. The production cube was, well, closer to the dimensions of an actual cube. The final Cube design was actually leaked prior to its release, though there were a lot of doubts about its authenticity at the time.

Apple's tablet efforts go back a long way. This PenLite design is from 1992 and represents a pen-based Mac built from a Powerbook design.

Patently Apple points to a newly-published patent application from Apple describing temporary proximity-based or location-based applications that could appear on a user's iPhone or other mobile device when in a specific area. Content would be managed by a central server that would pair a device's location as relayed by Wi-Fi connections or other means and deliver appropriate applications based on that location.

The idea is simple. Deliver a location based service to information savvy iPhone users that wish to receive temporary retail and service-based applications. Imagine standing at the entrance of a restaurant and viewing their menu on your iPhone or entering a public library and being able to access their database. The minute you leave the library or the front of that restaurant, the app disappears so that you don't clog up your iPhone with hundreds of local business apps.

In the patent application, Apple offers several examples of how this technology might be used:

- Restaurant: The patent application describes two possible uses of location-based temporary applications that could prove useful to a user approaching a restaurant. The first is a "Wait Time" icon that would automatically tell the user how long the current wait is to be seated at the desired restaurant. A second "Place Order" icon could allow users to access a restaurant's menu on their device and submit their food orders electronically.

- Public Library: Upon entering a library, a user could see an application automatically appear on their device that would allow them to search the library's digital database of books and other content without having to secure a position at one of the library's linked computers. The application could then automatically disappear from the user's device once they exit the building.

The patent application is solely credited to Apple engineer Scott Herz and was filed in November 2008.

It was almost getting absurd. We posted a link to BeGeek who posted some new images of the leaked 4th Generation iPhone. As it turns out, they simply obtained those images from the Vietnamese leak on Taoviet.vn.

That means there were still "just" three leaked 4th generation iPhones that we are aware of: Gizmodo's, Taoviet's, and an early Twitter leak.

Interesting to note is that these three devices are distinct. The Gizmodo model was labeled "DVT", the Taoviet model "PRO2", while the original Twitter leaked model is labeled "EVT1". All these models are presumably from different stages of development.

Silicon Alley Insider reports on a blog post that briefly appeared on the site of television streaming service Hulu announcing a number of new features for the service. In addition to announcing the new features, the blog post, which has since been pulled for unknown reasons, also revealed that the company has decided against adopting HTML5 for the time being, preferring to stick with its existing Flash-based player. The decision means that iPhone and iPad users should not expect to see Hulu in their browsers in the near future. This doesn't eliminate the possibility of an iPad or iPhone app.

When it comes to technology, our only guiding principle is to best serve the needs of all of our key customers: our viewers, our content partners who license programs to us, our advertisers, and each other. We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn't yet meet all of our customers' needs. Our player doesn't just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren't necessarily visible to the end user. Not all video sites have these needs, but for our business these are all important and often contractual requirements.

That's not to say these features won't be added to HTML5 in the future (or be easier to implement). Technology is a fast-moving space and we're constantly evaluating which tools will best allow us to fulfill our mission for as many of our customers as possible.

Rumors of Hulu on iPhone OS devices have been somewhat popular, beginning with an April 2009 claim that an iPhone version would be appearing "within a few months". The iPad's arrival set off a new round of rumors, with suggestions that the platform could serve as a testing ground for a Hulu subscription service apparently set for introduction later this month.

A new image (cached) posted by Vietnamese site Taoviet.vn shows what appears to be the prototype iPhone running iPhone OS 4. Few details are provided about how this might have been accomplished.

It seems likely that the poster to Taoviet.vn is the mobile phone dealer identified in the Associated Press article as the owner of the leaked iPhone.

The Associated Press managed to track down Tran Manh Hiep, the mobile phone accessory salesman in Vietnam who posted a hands on video of the next generation iPhone earlier this week.

The trail seems to end there, however, as Hiep isn't the owner of the device. Hiep reportedly rushed down to a cafe in Ho Chi Minh City after he heard someone was showing off the unauthorized device. He believes the phone is authentic, and said "when I plugged it into a Mac, it recognized it as an Apple product".

The actual owner of the device is another Vietnamese mobile phone dealer. Hiep said he did not know how the man got the iPhone.

Bloomberg reports that Wal-Mart is expecting to begin offering the iPad for sale in its stores sometime "later this year", building on the company's existing offerings of the iPhone 3GS and various iPod models.

"We anticipate being able to have the iPad later this year," Gary Severson, senior vice president of entertainment for Wal-Mart's U.S. stores, said in a telephone interview. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company isn't prepared to provide specifics on the timing and pricing of the iPad, he said.

Apple declined to comment specifically on the report, noting only that it has not made any announcements on new iPad retail partners since the device was introduced. U.S. distribution is currently limited to Apple's online and retail stores and Best Buy locations offering the Apple "store-within-a-store" concept.

Apple has been struggling to keep up with customer demand for the iPad in the United States, even as the company this week began taking pre-orders in nine new countries for delivery later this month. Customers looking to order the iPad in those new countries have already seen Apple burn through its launch quantities, with shipping estimates for new orders being pushed out beyond the May 28th launch date.

Silicon Alley Insider reports that a "plugged-in source in the mobile industry" has indicated that Apple is building some form of Facebook integration into iPhone OS, with a possible introduction next month at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference.

Our source tells us that Apple is at least going to build Facebook contact syncing directly into the iPhone software, so you can pull Facebook contacts into your iPhone's phonebook. This is a no-brainer, and is already a feature that some of Apple's competition offers, so it makes sense to include on the iPhone.

Other possibilities include syncing of Facebook photos, Facebook Connect integration, and perhaps Facebook messaging.

Apple has added support for minor Facebook integration to several of its products, including photo uploads in iPhoto '09 and information sharing in iTunes 9. Apple has also been rumored to be adding more Facebook integration in iTunes by deploying Facebook Connect, which would increase possibilities for social aspects of the platform.

Adobe today went on the offensive regarding the controversy over its Flash platform, pressing its support for openness on the Internet and responding to some of the comments made by others about the platform in recent weeks that it believes are incorrect.

We believe open markets that allow developers, publishers, and consumers to make their own choices about how they create, distribute, and access content are essential to progress. That's why we actively support technologies like HTML4, HTML5, CSS, and H.264, in addition to our own technologies.

Adobe has also published an open letter from founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock noting the company's history of publishing open specifications for its standards and arguing that it has attained its dominant market position by out-innovating competitors.

We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web -- the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody -- and everybody, but certainly not a single company.

As noted by Engadget, Adobe has also rolled out an advertising campaign in online and print media taking the angle that Adobe loves Apple, but doesn't love its choice to restrict how users can develop and experience Internet content on its devices.

Apple has announced that they are introducing the beta of an all new MobileMe Mail web application. Customers may apply by logging into MobileMe mail and clicking on the "Request Invitation" link found on the bottom left of the screen.

The new MobileMe beta introduces a number of new features including:

- Widescreen and compact views. When reading your mail at me.com, the new widescreen view lets you see more of each message with less scrolling. Choose compact view to hide your folders or classic view to see more of your message list.
- Rules to keep your email organized everywhere. Mail rules help you reduce inbox clutter by automatically filing messages into folders you select ahead of time. Set them up at me.com, and your rules organize your incoming email on the web and everywhere else -- on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC.
- Single-click archiving. Click the Archive button and the selected message is quickly filed into the Archive folder where it's always available for future reference.
- Formatting toolbar. You can create great-looking email messages using formatting buttons to bold or italicize text, change font color, insert images, and more. You can even create formatted web links to hide long URLs.
- Improved performance. Mail at me.com loads your inbox and messages faster. And with interface refinements such as the ability to scroll through your entire inbox without having to manually click to load the next set of messages, you'll be able to work more efficiently.
- Increased security with SSL. With the MobileMe Mail beta, accessing your email on the web is more secure than ever. Your inbox is protected to prevent anyone from eavesdropping on your webmail. As always, you receive SSL protection when you use your MobileMe Mail account on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC.

A Beta FAQ is also available.

Apple started airing a new iPad ad tonight called "What is iPad?". The Ad seems to be a departure from their recent ads with a bit of a gruff narrator walking through what the iPad is. However, it struck me as strangely familiar and I realized that Apple had reincarnated one of the original Apple Newton ads called "What is Newton?" from almost 20 years ago:

If Apple keeps up with the theme, we should be seeing a "Who is iPad" ad and "Where is iPad" to mirror Who is Newton and Where is Newton.

The Apple Newton was the first Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and was released in 1993. The Newton featured handwriting recognition which received a significant amount of bad press on launch. The recognizer improved significantly in the subsequent releases but it was never quite able to shake the bad reputation. The Newton line was discontinued by Steve Jobs himself after his return to Apple. While most people still carry a negative connotation with Apple's Newton, it was an ahead-of-its-time sort of device that had a hardcore fan base in its day.

A new report (Taiwanese) seems to identify Pegatron as the manufacturer for a CDMA-compatible iPhone. Translation via Electronista:

Pegatron has been contracted to make a CDMA iPhone, insiders claimed today. The scoop is short but would have the ASUS manufacturing arm building phones that would likely go to Verizon and possibly other carriers as well. A deal would help Pegatron take off as a major supplier, DigiTimes said.

But this is not the first time Pegatron has been singled out as the manufacturer for a Verizon-compatible iPhone. The Wall Street Journal first revealed that possibility back in March.

The CDMA iPhone model is being made by Pegatron Technology Corp., the contract manufacturing subsidiary of Taiwan's ASUSTeK Computer Inc., said these people.

While there have been a lot of conflicting rumors over the past few months about the possibility of a Verizon iPhone, we consider The Wall Street Journal a reliable source for rumors, so place their predictions head of all the other conflicting reports. What's also telling of their accuracy is that the March 30th article also described the new iPhone as "thinner" with a faster processor. This report was well before the leaked images of the next generation iPhone which did reveal the thinner form factor.

The WSJ believes that the next iPhone will launch this summer, but the CDMA (Verizon) iPhone won't begin manufacturing until September.

Steam for Mac has officially launched. The Steam store is now featuring Mac content with over 60 launch titles. Customers can browse the Mac store from their web browsers: click to browse. The actual Steam client will need to be downloaded to purchase and install games.

As part of their launch promotion, Valve is offering their highly acclaimed game Portal for free until May 24th.

Even if you don't consider yourself much of a gamer, we highly recommend giving Portal a try.