Apple rumored to have a team of over 100 designers already working on the iWatch

The rumors surrounding a possible iWatch are starting to hit fever pitch. Earlier in the week, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times claimed to have knowledge of its existence and now Bloomberg has added to those rumors. According to ?two people familiar with the company?s plans?, Apple has a team of over 100 designers working on the device.

Apple Inc. has a team of about 100 product designers working on a wristwatch-like device that may perform some of the tasks now handled by the iPhone and iPad, two people familiar with the company?s plans said.

The team, which has grown in the past year, includes managers, members of the marketing group, and software and hardware engineers who previously worked on the iPhone and iPad, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plans are private. The team?s size suggests Apple is beyond the experimentation phase in its development, said the people.

As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire and there is certainly a lot of smoke hanging around when it comes to the iWatch rumor. Apple will have to pull off something pretty spectacular if the rumoured iWatch is to become a hugely popular product. The idea of running iOS on a tiny screen doesn?t appeal to me all that much however until we know exactly what Apple is working on, it?s too soon to comment. If it looks anything like the concept image above then it could be massively appealing!

Are you excited by the rumored iWatch?

Source: Bloomberg Image: GottaBeMobile

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/9yLZ5PJmWss/story01.htm

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10 Things to Know for Today

Pope Benedict XVI blesses the faithful from his studio's window overlooking St.Peter's square during the Angelus noon prayer, at the Vatican, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Benedict XVI blesses the faithful from his studio's window overlooking St.Peter's square during the Angelus noon prayer, at the Vatican, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

An Indian woman weeps as she watches from a staircase as rescue workers tend to the bodies of those killed in a stampede on a railway platform at the main railway station in Allahabad, India, Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. At least ten Hindu pilgrims attending the Kumbh Mela were killed and more then thirty were injured in a stampede on an overcrowded staircase, according to Railway Ministry sources. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

Snow begins to melt on cars parked at a dealership after a winter storm in Hartford, Conn., Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013. A howling storm across the Northeast left much of the New York-to-Boston corridor covered with more than three feet of snow on Friday into Saturday morning. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

1. POPE BENEDICT XVI TO STEP DOWN

The 85-year-old pontiff, the first to resign in nearly 600 years, says his advanced age and diminishing strength have made it too difficult to carry on.

2. SNOWED-IN NORTHEAST TRIES TO GET BACK TO WORK

Public transit returned after more than 3 feet of snow fell in some places and New York reopened a major highway where hundreds of cars were stranded.

3. MANHUNT FOR EX-LA COP MOVES TO SUBURBS

Police surround the Irvine home of a believed target of Christopher Dorner, and evacuated a San Fernando Valley store after a reported sighting.

4. HORSEMEAT SCANDAL SPREADS THROUGHOUT EUROPE

France says Romanian butchers and Dutch and Cypriot traders were involved in the supply chain that put horsemeat disguised as beef in frozen food. EUROPE-HORSEMEAT

5. GATES BACKS OVERSIGHT OF DRONE PROGRAM

The former defense secretary supports proposals for a special court to review Obama's deadly strikes against Americans linked to al-Qaida.

6. TWISTER DAMAGES MISS. CAMPUS

The governor was to tour hard-hit Hattiesburg today where windows were blown out and roofs ripped off at his alma mater, University of Southern Mississippi.

7. STAMPEDE AT HINDU FESTIVAL KILLS 37

At least 30 others are hurt when thousands celebrating the Kumbh Mela fell into a crush rushing between train platforms.

8. REAL-LIFE CRASH ON REALITY SHOW

Three people died in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles while filming an untitled military-themed show for the Discovery Channel.

9. GRAMMYS SPREAD THE LOVE WITH SURPRISE BEST ALBUM WINNER

Mumford & Sons' Babel won the top prize, while the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach took home four trophies and Fun. won best new artist.

10. WHY YOU'LL FIND THE YANKEES PRESIDENT AT DOG SHOW

Randy Levine, co-owner of Mitch, a 5-year-old yellow Lab, says: "He's like Derek Jeter. Very calm."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-11-10-Things-to-Know-Today/id-5dab5feff90345bb8c1af9540d8c6136

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Deceased programmer invented 'Like' button before Facebook, says lawyer

Rosa Golijan , NBC News ? ? ? 9 hrs.

A patent firm has filed a lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of a deceased computer scientist who might have dreamed up the famous "like" button before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg even got his start.

The suit revolves around two patents held by the family of Joannes Jozef Everardus Van Der Meer, who died in June, 2004, just months after Facebook's Harvard debut.

According to the complaint, on Sept. 1, 1998, Van Der Meer filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a "Web page diary" which allows users to "collect personal information and third-party content, organize the information chronologically on a personalized Web page, and share the information with a selected group of people, such as the end user's friends, through the use of user-settable privacy levels."

Sounds vaguely familiar, no? Hello, Timeline.

Van Der Meer's second patent application describes a method of automatically transferring content from a website to a user's personal "Web page diary" with a click, allowing people to "collect interesting content as they browsed the Web."

Rembrandt ? the company that represents independent inventors and patent holders such as the family of the deceased programmer ? suggests that the second patent outlines the functionality of the Facebook "Like" button. You click it, content of some sort is thrown onto your Facebook Timeline. Or your "Web page diary." Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

The first patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,415,316) was issued on July 2, 2002 and the second patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,289,362) was issued on Sept. 11, 2001. While the patents were pending (and after they were issued), Van Der Meer attempted to "commercialize his inventions." He formed a company and bought a domain, surfbook.com, to launch a "pilot system that utilized some of the innovations described in his patents." He died before seeing his vision through, however.

The odd similarities between Van Der Meer's domain of choice and Facebook's aside, his patents sound as if they could be applied to nearly any of today's social networks. Nonetheless, legal action is currently only being pursued against Facebook and AddThis, a company which "acts like an enhanced version of the Facebook transfer script," according to Rembrandt's complaint, thereby allegedly infringing on U.S. Patent No. 6,289,362 as well.

"We're not currently pursuing claims against anyone else," Thomas Melsheimer, one of the lawyers representing Rembrandt, told NBC News, "but that doesn't mean that won't happen." (One might assume that Facebook was singled out because one of its patents cites one of Van Der Meer's, implying that the company was aware of it.)

Rembrandt is seeking "no less than a reasonable royalty" for the alleged patent infringement. It's tough to guess what this might amount to, but Ars Technica's Joe Mullin does point out that Rembrandt has managed to successfully "wrest a $41 million verdict from contact-lens maker Ciba Vision in 2008" while working with a husband-wife inventor team who developed what may have set the groundwork for the extended wear contacts many of us use.

Additionally, as Melsheimer pointed out to NBC News, the company representing the case, Fish & Richardson, is "one of the largest firms practicing intellectual property" in the U.S. (The firm once beat Amazon in court, when representing an independent feminist bookstore in an infringement case.)

Get the popcorn ready, folks. I have a feeling we'll be hearing about this case for a while.

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/deceased-programmer-invented-button-facebook-says-lawyer-1B8302021

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