If something feels off today, blame it on the 4th of July holiday on Wednesday. (If you live outside of the U.S., feel free to insert an excuse of your own.) Should you be unable to get much accomplished in a post-firework haze this fine Friday, take heart: The weekend is here, which gives most of us two more days of goofing off before we face a full five-day work week on Monday. So let's wrap up this Independence Day week with a few tech stories for Friday, July 6, 2012!
9to5Mac is reporting "a truckload of Apple products traveling through Aulnay-sous-Bois in Paris this morning was taken over at gunpoint by several masked assailants carrying assault rifles." Thankfully, reports from AFP and several French websites indicate that no one was hurt in the assault, and while police were able to recover the stolen product in Les Mureaux, three or four masked men believed to be suspects have yet to be located. The bandits were armed with "Kalashnikov or M16" assault rifles, which they used to overpower the two truck drivers.
The Verge is reporting that AT&T will introduce a new service for "reporting and blocking stolen devices" this Tuesday, July 10. Based on a leaked memo to customer service reps, the new service would help customers "deny voice, data and SMS access to any individual phone or tablet while keeping their account intact," thus avoiding the hassle of having an entire SIM card blocked. The carrier will likely have to answer some hard-hitting questions related to privacy when the service launches, which could presumably be tied to a national database of stolen phones which is being compiled by all four major U.S. carriers in conjunction with the FCC.
Forbes is reporting that the Palo Alto home of the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is currently under renovation, complete with photos taken on the 4th of July holiday to prove it. "It is isn’t entirely clear what’s happening, but a quick drive-by yesterday showed a massive construction project underway, including changes in the roofline; the extensive nature of the work on the house would suggest that Laurene Powell Jobs and her children are not currently living there," Eric Savitz writes. If you're planning a tour of Apple-themed locations, we might suggest saving Palo Alto for a future trip.
Digitimes is reporting that a veritable flood of quad-core smartphones will be washing ashore in Q4 this year, casually noting that Apple's next iPhone could be among them. "Apple is also expected to release its next-generation iPhone built on Samsung's Exynos 4 quad-core processor in the second half, heating up competition in the segment," the website's sources reveal. Cupertino may not want to wait much longer, given that HTC, Samsung, LG and Meizu have already released quad-core smartphones in the second quarter of the year.
The Verge has published a fascinating look at the cell phone industry five years after the introduction of the iPhone -- and it's not particularly good news for those hoping for more innovation in the future. Despite the runaway success of Apple's handset, the report details "a market tightly controlled by carriers who capriciously pick winners and losers while raising prices and insisting that their use of valuable public spectrum remain free of any oversight." Worse yet, manufacturers have little choice but to cow tow to carriers, locking their most lucrative handsets down with exclusive deals. "Exclusivity is the bane of my existence," claims one source at a major manufacturer. "But it's the only way business gets done." The situation is even worse when it comes to tablets, with Microsoft's upcoming Surface limited to Wi-Fi only models out of the gate and Google remaining mum on the subject of a data-equipped Nexus 7. "The cell phone market in the United States is not set up to encourage innovation," laments Vizio CTO Matt McRae. "The inability to sell product directly to the consumer means that companies can't experiment and iterate quickly." Be sure to hit the link and read the entire piece on The Verge website!
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(Image courtesy of 9to5Mac)
