Long-time Apple supplier Foxconn is up first for FLA inspection, not least because the company has seen several worker suicides over the past 18-24 months and come in for criticism over production line conditions. Apple said that Quanta and Pegatron would be next in line, with their investigations coming sometime in the spring.

It’s possible that Apple’s comments that all of the suppliers “pledged full cooperation with the FLA, offering unrestricted access to their operations” relate to the company’s general contractual conditions, rather than any specific notification of the new investigations. Quanta declined to comment on the audits.

Apple’s decision to request independent checks by the FLA come after widely-reported criticism which singled the company out over poor treatment of supply chain employees. Executives at the company, it was suggested, were aware of problems experienced by staff at Foxconn, Pegatron and others, but chose not to act upon that knowledge because it could impact manufacturing timelines and costs. The allegations prompted “outrage” from CEO Tim Cook.

The rocketing share price comes at the tail end of a record breaking financial quarter for Apple. The company announced that, for the first time, it had surpassed $40bn in revenue, as well as selling 37m iPhones and 15.43m iPads. The market had expected revenues under $40bn and just 30m iPhone sales, so the news had an instant impact on Apple’s shares.

More recently, the company has reacted to claims of worker mistreatment in its supply chain, requesting a full audit from the Fair Labor Association to counter allegations of poor conditions. It’s unclear exactly how much of a sway that news may have made; rumors recently that Apple plans an iPad 3 event in the first week of March is likely to have been a bigger consideration.

The upward rise looks unlikely to change any time soon. Apple is expected to reveal the iPhone 5 later in the year, and even the aging iPhone 3GS continues to be a strong seller despite the influx of Android devices. Meanwhile new Apple TV products are also expected, along with a significant Air-style refresh of the MacBook Pro.

“We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment, which is why we’ve asked the FLA to independently assess the performance of our largest suppliers … The inspections now underway are unprecedented in the electronics industry, both in scale and scope, and we appreciate the FLA agreeing to take the unusual step of identifying the factories in their reports” Tim Cook, CEO, Apple

As well as the production shop floors themselves, the FLA will have access to dormitories and other facilities at each site. They will also review procedural documentation, with the first results of the findings – as well as any recommendations – expected in early March 2012.

Foxconn is apparently up first – a reaction it seems to leaks from within the manufacturer suggesting conditions there were particularly grim, in addition to the several suicides of workers at the company’s facilities over the past 18-24 months – with Quanta and Pegatron opening up later in the spring. All suppliers have “pledged full cooperation with the FLA, offering unrestricted access to their operations” Apple says.

The assessment, when complete, will have investigated facilities where more than 90-percent of Apple’s products are assembled.

Apple was the subject of a widely-discussed investigation by the NYTimes, in which inside sources at the company said high-level management was aware of worker mistreatment but failed to act on that knowledge as it might impact production schedules and/or costs. Tim Cook reacted strongly to the allegations, describing them as “offensive” and pointing to Apple’s own annual responsibility reports as well as its relatively recent membership of the FLA.

The news marks the end of an era for Kodak, which was founded back in 1889 – the camera pictured above is one of the first to be sold by the company. Unfortunately for the business, it reacted too slowly to the rise of digital imaging, finding its products outclassed by cheap digital models from rivals and subsequently cannibalized by photo-capable smartphones.

Today, three-fourths of Kodak’s total revenues come from its digital businesses, though those include Digital and Functional Printing, Enterprise Services and Solutions, and Graphics, Entertainment and Commercial Films units. The company expects to incur a $30m one-off cost in shuttering its digital camera arm, though that should be more than offset by the predicted $100m yearly operating cost savings.

Kodak says it has more than 100,000 kiosks and order stations for digital prints worldwide, as well as integration with social networks and online galleries. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-January, after selling off assets including its digital camera sensor business simply to stay afloat.

[Image credit: National Museum of American History]

Meanwhile, gross margins have continued to slide all through 2011, starting the year at 29.25-percent in Q1, but ending it at 27.12-percent. HTC had a relatively strong summer, but lackluster holiday sales soured the year, despite annual revenues being up considerably on 2010.

The problem, it’s generally perceived, is too many “me too” phones and not enough legitimate Apple and Samsung rivals. It’s a shortcoming even HTC has conceded; the company said last month that it planned a return to the “Hero Strategy” in 2012, focusing on quality over quantity.

That won’t happen straight away, however, and HTC warns that Q1 2012 is likely to see even worse news as the company transitions to its new range. Revenues of just NT$65-70bn ($2.2-2.4bn) are on the cards, with a 25-percent gross margin.

“Despite short-term difficulties,” HTC insists, “momentum will resume in the upcoming product cycle driven by HTC’s brand strength, innovation, and design/engineering capabilities.” We’ll see the first evidence of that – with the HTC Ville and HTC Edge - at MWC 2012 later this month.

“I will not run away. I want to fight these allegations on a level playing field. I have three little children. My wife is pregnant with twins. I just want to be with them” Dotcom told the court, going on to point out that his assets had been frozen and at least some of the multiple passports seized during the raid.

As for his arrest, Dotcom has made claims of unnecessary brutality by police involved. “I was punched in the face, I was kicked down on the floor,” the outspoken exec says, “one guy was standing on my hands … it was bleeding.” He also says he has received “funny visits” while in jail, including one from a man claiming to be a prosecutor and suggesting he could, if discretely paid, arrange for a bail hearing in Dotcom’s favor.

“The judge correctly concluded that the risk of flight cannot be mitigated by the imposition of conditions, including electronic monitoring” prosecutor Anne Toohey said of the High Court decision. The FBI is believed to have infected MegaUpload computers with a spyware tool that recorded Skype IM logs among other traffic, as part of a five year evidence collection campaign.

It’s not the first time Apple has looked to execs with gaming experience to head its various iOS teams. Last year, the company hired Robert Saunders, formerly the lead of Nintendo’s PR team, to work on iOS app promotion, simultaneously grabbing Activision PR chief Nick Grange for a role “focussed on iPad hardware” that many assumed would be game-control related.

More recently, Apple hired a new retail manager, John Browett, who had been CEO at European electronics retail chain Dixons.

Apple declined to comment on Burrowes joining the company, and it’s unclear if the games-focused exec will be tasked with pushing the App Store as a gaming platform. The company has long been expected to make further inroads into the traditional games market, timely given Sony and Nintendo‘s underwhelming sales performance in the segment in recent months.

“Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature” Stringer said of his replacement. “I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead.”

Stringer and the Sony board had begun the search for replacement leaders back in 2009, and Hirai had been an early standout candidate. Hirai has been leading Sony’s Consumer Products & Services Group, encompassing the firm’s TV, home video, home audio, digital imaging, PC, gaming, and mobile products, along with networked services.

“The path we must take is clear: to drive the growth of our core electronics businesses – primarily digital imaging, smart mobile and game; to turn around the television business; and to accelerate the innovation that enables us to create new business domains” Hirai said in a statement. The foundations are now firmly in place for the new management team and me to fully leverage Sony’s diverse electronics product portfolio, in conjunction with our rich entertainment assets and growing array of networked services, to engage with our customers around the world in new and exciting ways.”

A cornerstone of those “exciting ways” will be Sony’s four-screen strategy, pulling together the quartet of displays users spend most time looking at – TV, computer, tablet and smartphone – into an interlinked environment of information, entertainment and content creation. That strategy will be accelerated now that Sony has sole ownership of its smartphone business, the final “screen” of the four.

It also suggests that “Apple release a worker protection strategy for new product releases, which are the instances when injuries and suicides typically spike because of the incredible pressure to meet quotas timed to releases.”

Allegations of poor conditions at factories producing Apple products have lingered for some time, but flared up last week after reports that the company’s executive team knew – but did not act fully upon – the issues. An NYTimes report quoted several former and current high-profile Apple staff, anonymously, who described “an unresolved tension” within the upper echelons of the company’s command structure about the balance between producing cost-effective and timely devices, and managing worker treatment.

Tim Cook subsequently wrote an internal letter to Apple staff, promptly leaked, denying the claims and arguing that Apple always had the wellbeing of its workforce – whether directly employed or at suppliers – at the forefront of its priorities.

“Here’s the thing: you’re Apple. You’re supposed to think different. I want to continue to use and love the products you make, because they’re changing the world, and have already changed my life” Shields wrote. “But I also want to know that when I buy products from you, it’s not at the cost of horrible human suffering.”

Apple already releases an annual responsibility report, this year detailing the vast majority of its suppliers. However the company may have to do more to convince users that the iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air they covet hasn’t come at the cost of a mistreated workforce.

Update: The poll has passed the 150,000 mark, though there’s controversy over whether Apple should be held solely responsible for an issue that plagues the industry. Have your say in the poll below:

Earlier this month, RIM announced a new CEO, Thorsten Heins, as well as a new independent RIM Board Chair, Barbara Stymiest. Previously a member of Royal Bank of Canada’s Group Executive, and a member of RIM’s Board since 2007, Stymiest is being seen as a placatory nod to investors frustrated by RIM’s direction at the hands of Lazaridis and Balsillie.

That nod was a primary motivator during the independent review, itself arranged after shareholder protest. Although the review found that combining the Chair and CEO positions was a common trend among RIM’s competitors, the overwhelming feeling toward the practice meant it still recommended the roles be separated.

A review of the decision will be undertaken annually, though it’s unclear if RIM will be able to prove itself on the turnaround within just twelve months time. The company’s first BlackBerry 10 devices aren’t expected until the end of this year.

“The Committee came to the point of view that the strong opposition to non-independent chairs in Canada should outweigh the other considerations, including current practice in the United States and in RIM’s ecosystem. While the Committee is comfortable that our Lead Director has performed the appropriate governance functions expected of that position up to the present, the Committee recommends that RIM should separate the roles of Chair and CEO and amend the Board mandate accordingly. The Committee believes that appointing an independent Chair is the appropriate solution for RIM shareholders and will resolve the issue for RIM and its employees and business partners” Independent RIM review

[via Reuters]

“Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we’ve met,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said of Browett’s joining the company in a statement. “We are thrilled to have him join our team and bring his incredible retail experience to Apple.”

Dixons not only operates its eponymous stores in the UK, but Currys, Currys.digital, PC World and Electro World, in addition to European brands including Pixmania and Equanet. The company also has its own in-house PC brand, Advent Computers. Although retail performance has been shaky in the past few years, the company is still a significant player in the marketplace.

Browett also led supermarket chain Tesco’s online shopping efforts, prior to joining Dixons. He replaces Ron Johnson, Apple’s former SVP of Retail, who left the company in mid-2011 to join JC Penny.

Carpathia, along with Cogent Communications Group, were two hosting companies named in a report suggesting MegaUpload’s server agreements would run out before the end of this week. That could mean users’ data – including legitimate files, rather than just copyright-infringing content – would be permanently lost.

The hosting firm suggests that “anyone who believes that they have content on MegaUpload servers contact MegaUpload” and says “please do not contact” the host itself. However, with MegaUpload’s notorious CEO Kim Dotcom under arrest in New Zealand, denied bail and awaiting extradition; the company’s bank accounts in lock-down; and the site itself offline, it’s unclear exactly who users should complain to.

We’re yet to hear from Cogent, though the assumption is that the response will be similar: like Carpathia, it has no access to MegaUpload data. According to the FBI, certain files expected to be used in the prosecution’s case were copied from the MegaUpload servers, but the machines themselves were not seized.

“In reference to the letter filed by the U.S. Department of Justice with the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 27, 2012, Carpathia Hosting does not have, and has never had, access to the content on MegaUpload servers and has no mechanism for returning any content residing on such servers to MegaUpload’s customers. The reference to the Feb. 2, 2012 date in the Department of Justice letter for the deletion of content is not based on any information provided by Carpathia to the U.S. Government. We would recommend that anyone who believes that they have content on MegaUpload servers contact MegaUpload. Please do not contact Carpathia Hosting” Spokesperson

Since the search warrant has now expired, prosecutors confirm, the government can no longer access the MegaUpload files so as to secure copies for legitimate users. Instead, it’s down to hosting companies Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications Group to decide what to do, with one or both of the firms being free to delete content from February 2 2012.

Rothken says he is working with the US prosecutors to try to prevent that from happening, both so as to protect backups and cloud-stored files in MegaUpload, as well as to use in the company’s own defense. “We’re cautiously optimistic at this point” he said, “that because the United States, as well as Megaupload, should have a common desire to protect consumers, that this type of agreement will get done.”

MegaUpload was taken down in mid-January, after US prosecutors accused the site of illegally sharing millions of dollars worth of movie, music and other content. Controversial founder Kim Dotcom was denied bail in a New Zealand court last week, over concerns that he could flee the country so as to avoid extradition to the US to face charges. Meanwhile, some of the site’s former users have set up a legal campaign to have MegaUpload reinstated so as to be able to access non-copyright infringing content.

HP subsequently decided to release webOS as an open-source package, turning its focus back to PCs, laptops and Windows-based tablets.

However, while many have blamed HP for mishandling the webOS acquisition and the few devices the company launched running the software, Rubinstein himself has also been fingered for some of the blame. Sources within the company claim he selected WebKit for the underlying engine for webOS with little understanding of the technical challenges that would involve.

“We just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design” Paul Mercer, former senior director of software at Palm claims, insisting that Rubinstein’s decision meant webOS phones and tablets would never be as slick in their performance as, say, Apple’s celebrated iPhone.

Rubinstein has “no immediate plans” according to the sources. Before his tenure at Palm, the exec worked at Apple, where he was instrumental in the company’s first generation iPod project.

The original report had consulted current and previous Apple executives, as well as sources at Chinese factories and the workers themselves, piecing together a picture of companies like Apple – though others, such as Samsung, got a passing mention – as juggling human rights for workers with the need to create timely, affordable products at the best possible rates. “An unresolved tension” inside Apple was cited, with high-level execs supposedly aware that production partners such as Foxconn were cutting corners in safety and working conditions, but made only passing attempts to address the problem as it would sap Apple’s device momentum.

The claims were followed by strong responses from Chinese factory workers themselves, some protesting Apple’s actions in the country, but others suggesting that the company was not alone in its priorities and, in some cases, was doing considerably better than other firms.

Apple has taken a vocal stance on employee rights in recent years, releasing a responsibility report detailing the investigations it had undertaken, and becoming the first tech firm to join the Fair Labor Association. “We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues” Cook warns. “What we will not do — and never have done — is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain.”

“As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.

For the many hundreds of you who are based at our suppliers’ manufacturing sites around the world, or spend long stretches working there away from your families, I know you are as outraged by this as I am. For the people who aren’t as close to the supply chain, you have a right to know the facts.

Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people” Tim Cook, CEO Apple

Tufeld voiced the B9 Robot, but the character’s movements were played by Bob May, who died in 2009. The voice actor is also known for work in various films and TV shows from the 70s and 80s, including Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Time Tunnel, and was brought back for the awful 1998 Lost in Space remake starring Matt LeBlanc.

As for the B9 Robot itself, designed by Robert Kinoshita – who also created Robby the Robot for the Forbidden Planet film – it was more accurately named the “Class M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot.” Licensed replicas are available, priced at a hefty $24,500, though there are numerous unofficial fan-builds.

Filtering has also been tweaked, with more granularity over relevancy, length, credits, copyright license and other aspects. Like Flickr already does for photos, Vimeo will also allow viewers to only see results that are subject to Creative Commons licenses.

As for privacy, Vimeo says video stats and individual users’ “your activity” feeds can now be kept private, and the ability to block other users has been added. Multiple uploads can be started simultaneously, with mid-upload alerts if Vimeo figures out there’s a potential problem, saving time and frustration.

Vimeo will preview the new design over the next few weeks, with a closed beta for specially selected users. That will soon open up to general availability, however.

An ExaFLOP/s capable computer – a quintillion computer operations per second – would be a hundred times faster than current supercomputers, Intel points out, and demand each possible source of latency and delay to be ironed out. To do this, rather than using switched networks as in ethernet connections, InfiniBand relies on switched fabric network topology, spreading traffic over a number of links simultaneously. There’s more on InfiniBand tech at Wikipedia.

QLogic says that shedding its InfiniBand business will allow it to concentrate on its other networking and interconnect specialisms, including “converged networking, enterprise Ethernet, and storage area networking products.” Intel has extended job offers to “a significant number” of QLogic employees from the acquired division.

Instead, Senator Reid suggests that Chairman Leahy return to the drawing board and redraft the proposed act, and that “there is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved.” A balance is needed, it’s claimed, between protecting American IP and “maintaining openness and innovation on the internet”, something that echoes comments by the Obama Administration’s team of tech and IP geeks.

When, exactly, a revised act could be resubmitted to the Senate is unclear. However, with the FBI moving on Megaupload in the past day, and Anonymous retaliating with a huge DDoS against the Department of Justice and various media organizations, it’s clear this issue isn’t going away anytime soon.

Everything you need to know on SOPA and PIPA in our SlashGear 101 Guide.

Full Statement:

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.

I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks” Senator Harry Reid

“At the same time as we have created our digital business, we have also already effectively exited certain traditional operations, closing 13 manufacturing plants and 130 processing labs, and reducing our workforce by 47,000 since 2003. Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core IP assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company” Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Kodak

In the meantime, Kodak has managed to organize $950m of debtor-in-possession credit, with Citigroup stepping in with an 18-month deal. The company will use that money to settle its old debts and restructure moving forward.

In the meantime, Kodak will continue to sell its existing range, honor warranties and refunds, and work with suppliers.

Kodak has set up a specific site discussing the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, Kodak Transforms, to explain what customers, investors and partners might need to know about the process. Yesterday, the company began what now appears to have been the first step in clawing back cash: suing Samsung over digital imaging patents.

The salvage attempt itself will be technologically complex, requiring multiple specialists teams to operate on the vessel simultaneously. Most immediate – aside from search & rescue looking for any remaining survivors – is a team from SMIT, which has been tasked with removing in excess of 2,300 tonnes of fuel still onboard.

Although experts say the risk of a spillage is low, there are concerns that if the Costa Concordia slips into deeper water then removing the fuel will be made far more complex. Anti-spill booms have been put into place around the ship.

Beyond that, a fleet of ships will winch the cruise ship upright again, potentially using inflatables progressively placed underneath its body to help tip it back to the correct orientation. That will only be possible once the full extent of the puncture damage underneath is understood, however. The salvage project as a whole is expected to extend across a period of months or more.

[via BBC]

“Apple will also open its supply chain to the FLA’s independent auditing team, who will measure our suppliers’ performance against the FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct and the results will appear on their website” Apple

In addition to the checks, the FLA will also be working with Apple on its worker empowerment program and its Supplier Employee Education and Development (SEED) program. These teach workers their employment rights – including health & safety and occupational health standards – as well as offering classes in finance, computers and English. The FLA already works with civil society organizations, universities and companies on social responsibility programs.

“We found that Apple takes supplier responsibility seriously and we look forward to their participation in the Fair Labor Association. We welcome Apple’s commitment to greater transparency and independent oversight, and we hope its participation will set a new standard for the electronics industry.” Auret van Heerden, president, FLA

Apple said that 229 audits took place in 2011, an 80-percent uptick from 2010, just short of half of which were first-time investigations. The company also called in independent engineering experts to carry out new environmental checks on fourteen specific Chinese facilities. “We uncovered some violations” Apple confirmed, but says it “worked with our suppliers to correct the issues.”

“We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites. We’ve already unreservedly apologized to Mocality. We’re still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we’ll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved” Nelson Mattos, Vice-President for Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging Markets

Mocality built its business list through paid crowd-sourcing, handing out cash through a Kenyan mobile money system to users who submitted information on local companies and kept that information up-to-date. Unlike in other countries, no existing list of Kenyan businesses is readily available.

A team of people working on Google’s own business website project in Kenya apparently decided that Mocality’s database was easy pickings, systematically pulling entries and contacting them. According to the startup’s investigations, the Google staff misrepresented them, either saying that Google’s GKBO project was in partnership with Mocality, or that Mocality would charge the equivalent of $200 per site whereas in fact it does not.

Google is still looking into exactly what went wrong, and Mocality is yet to comment on the search giant’s response to the matter.

The disclosure is part of Apple’s annual Supplier Responsibility Program, with the company releasing today its progress report for 2011. Apparently supply chain 229 audits took place last year – 80-percent more than in 2010 – and 100 of which were first-time investigations. These also included new environmental checks, focused on specific Chinese suppliers, working alongside independent engineering experts to look into 14 facilities.

“We uncovered some violations” Apple says, “and worked with our suppliers to correct the issues.” That environmental aspect is only going to get more intense in 2012, Apple claims.

Meanwhile, Apple found no underage workers, at its final assembly suppliers at least, and has apparently enrolled over 60,000 workers in business and entrepreneurship classes, lessons to improve computer skills, or to learn English. Common issues discovered among suppliers include not paying overtime or using salary penalties as disciplinary measures, some “accidental” hiring of underage labor where checks were insufficient, and various safety problems with equipment and training, which resulted in one facility being shut down until problems were addressed.

The full progress report can be read here [pdf link].

As for suppliers, some expected names are on the list, including Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and Quanta, though we can’t spot TSMC, the independent chip foundry which at one point was tipped to be replacing Samsung as an Apple A6 supplier.

[via Chronic]

“We were unable to open our store at Sanlitun due to the large crowd,” Apple spokesperson Carolyn Wu said in a statement, “and to ensure the safety of our customers and employees, iPhone will not be available in our retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai for the time being.”

Authorized resellers, along with carrier partner China Unicom, continued to sell the iPhone 4S as planned, while online ordering also went ahead. However, initial stocks of the smartphone “have already sold out”, Wu revealed, describing demand as “incredible.”

At least 1,000 of the over 2,000 people queuing outside the store were believed to be scalpers or people employed by them, Reuters reports. Targeting Apple products for their cachet and market value, the unofficial resellers have until now been importing “gray market” iPhone 4S handsets into China, to sell at a mark-up. However, the scheduled launch of the handset this week was to be an opportunity to grab devices locally instead, with groups of fifty each believed to be working for individual scalpers waiting to pick up as many devices as Apple would sell them.

The flagship Sanlitun store remained protected by police hours after the crowd had dissipated, though violent scuffles between law enforcement and those queuing had broken out beforehand.

Exactly which stores will get the Apple sections is unknown at present, as is the timescale over which Target plans to roll out the displays, though some of the designer homeware that will go on sale as part of the scheme will appear for sale in early May, and be available for six weeks. The guess is that Target will follow in the footsteps of Best Buy, which has distinct Apple sections in over 1,000 of its outlets.

Apple displays at Best Buy are distinguished with the typical pale wood tables and minimal signposting the Cupertino company uses in its own stores. Apple devices are already showcased at Target, but this new move is obviously designed to put more emphasis on the brand – and, likely, the hope that its halo will extend and make Target a destination for those who might not ordinarily consider shopping there.

It’s two years since the Doomsday Clock was updated, the last change being in January 2010 when we actually gained a minute. Then, the world looked like it was cooperating on reducing nuclear weapons and getting a grip on climate change, prompting a temporary bubble of enthusiasm and the sense that we might not all be going to hell in a handcart quite yet.

Sadly two years later and we’re back at five minutes to midnight. The fallout – political, industrial and literal – from the Fukushima plant disaster in Japan, along with increasing apathy about climate change and a rise in nuclear weapons testing have all contributed to the decision to plunge us sixty seconds closer to species annihilation.

“[The] failure to act on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by leaders in the United States, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, and North Korea on a treaty to cut off production of nuclear weapons material continues to leave the world at risk from continued development of nuclear weapons. The world still has over 19,000 nuclear weapons, enough power to destroy the world’s inhabitants several times over” Jayantha Dhanapala, former United Nations under-secretary-general for Disarmament Affairs (1998-2003)

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947 by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago, originally as a symbol of the threat of nuclear war. Since that point, it has come to reflect the dwindling supplies of – and increasing reliance on – fossil fuels, the impact of climate change, and other scientific discoveries that could have a serious impact on human life. The original time was set at 11:53pm, or seven minutes to midnight, with the latest setting being 11:58pm in 1953, when the US and Russia each tested thermonuclear devices within the space of nine months.

Before he died at the age of 48, Steno had discovered a new piece of animal anatomy, correctly identified the heart as simply another muscle in the body, created what have become three core rules of geology and identified a fundamental rule of angles in crystals. Steno also identified the correct source and preservation of fossils, which some had believed were fallen objects from space.

Meanwhile, Steno also completed theological studies, being ordained in 1675, but left to study the brain in 1683. After his death, only three years later, he was ordained a saint. Steno has craters on Mars and the Moon named in his honor, and there are various hospitals and research centers named after the researcher. More at Wikipedia here.

As confirmed in an SEC filing last year, the shares in Cook’s renumeration package are set to vest at different times. Half of the 1m stock units – valued at $376m back in August 2011 – will vest (i.e. be passed on to Cook) in August 2016, with the remainder coming in August 2021, ten years after he assumed the role of CEO.

In contrast, Cook’s regular salary is around $900,000 per annum, while the exec is also promised a similar amount again as a performance-related bonus. The oft-quoted $1 salary Steve Jobs took was offset by the Apple founder’s huge personal holding of shares in the company: Jobs owned approximately 5.5m, which at today’s rates would be worth in the region of $2.4bn.

“In light of Mr. Cook’s experience with the Company, including his leadership during Mr. Jobs’s prior leaves of absence, the Board views his retention as CEO as critical to the Company’s success and smooth leadership transition” Apple said in an SEC filing this week. “The RSU [Restricted Stock Unit] award is intended as a long-term retention incentive for Mr. Cook, and, accordingly, should be viewed as compensation over the 10-year vesting period and not solely as compensation for 2011.”

Although Fusion Garage was never short on ambition, good products and healthy sales always seemed somewhat beyond the company’s reach. Initially begun as part of the CrunchPad project, a joint venture with Michael Arrington, Fusion Garage split off amid some acrimony – spawning a lawsuit or two in the process – and decided to go its own way with the “JooJoo“ slate.

Sales of the JooJoo disappointed, and Fusion Garage went back to the labs to cook up the Grid10 and its companion smartphone, the Grid4, running Android with a heavily-customized UI on top. An over-enthusiastic teaser campaign and expensive pricing left potential tableteers unimpressed, however, forcing a quick $200 price cut.

That cut still wasn’t enough to drive sufficient sales to keep the company going, and last month customers reported calls going unanswered and pre-orders being frozen. Fusion Garage said it was attempting to secure new funding, but that doesn’t look to have been successful.

[via Business Insider]

UPDATE: Sony has confirmed that Hirai will not be rising to power, not at the moment, anyway.

The company will finalize the promotion as soon as February in a board meeting, it’s suggested. Hirai has until now led Sony’s consumer businesses as executive deputy president, and has been credited with turning around the gaming division’s fortunes. A similar task is now ahead of him again, with the loss-making TV business needing some serious attention.

Sony sold its share in the Samsung S-LCD joint venture last month, but still faces extensive losses for the most recent quarter. The company warned investors that those losses could amount to $1.15bn, with poor planning for the LCD market turnaround in demand particularly to blame.

Sony is yet to comment on the news. We’ll update when we know more.

[Thanks Tom!]

“It’s a very resilient movie” that source maintains, and with the Akira remake having already been killed off three times before and yet still returned to haunt fans of the original, that certainly seems true. Current producers Jennifer Kiloran Davisson and Andrew Lazar, among others, will have two weeks to thrash out what they can with director Jaume Collet-Serra, and there’s the possibility of Steve Kloves being brought back in to tweak the script some more.

Part of Warner Bros. concerns center around whether a relatively niche title can pay for itself at the box office. The original budget was around $180m, since cut to $90 when Collet-Serra joined the project, but some leaks indicate the studio is hoping for something more like $60-70m.

The Akira remake will use a live cast and has been shifted to America, with motorcycle gangs experimenting with psychic powers in a post-apocalyptic New Manhattan.

[via Twitter]

Still, we’re not short on suggestions. HTC has struggled in the courts this year, facing a defeat of what had seemed an “in the bag” win against Apple with planned acquisition S3 Graphics, forcing the company to reconsider the buy altogether. Meanwhile, the ITC ruled against HTC in a different Apple patent case, banning certain devices from sale in the US.

More importantly, though, unlike Samsung with its in-demand line-up of handsets, HTC has had difficulty creating smartphones users actually seem keen to buy. Revenues from sales were already ditching by 30-percent in November, and HTC failed to take advantage of its potential software and services leverage to compete with Apple’s refined iOS experience and Samsung’s potent hardware manufacturing advantages.

2012 will bring a new “focus on the product” according to HTC, which is being interpreted as fewer me-too devices and an overall smaller number of generally better phones. Among the first of those is expected to be an LTE Windows Phone for AT&T, the Radiant, and a quadcore Android uberphone at MWC 2012 in February.

2011 proved a good year for Samsung in mobile, with the company announcing last month that it had shipped 300 million phones in 2011. The company became the world’s largest smartphone vendor in Q3, overtaking Apple by throwing handsets at the market from its ever-increasing Galaxy range.

Sales, however, fell in Q4 2011 compared to the same period a year ago, going by Samsung’s estimates, though analysts expect the company’s TV and mobile business to report profit, Bloomberg reports. Having made a 170 billion won loss in TV in Q4 2010, analysts now expect a roughly 170 billion won profit; in December, Samsung announced plans to buy Sony’s share in the S-LCD joint venture producing display panels. The company had a target of 45m TV sales in 2011, and had almost hit that in November.

As for other components, Samsung washed its hands of its traditional hard-drive business last year as well, selling it off to Seagate. That leaves the Korean company to focus on solid-state drives.

The Yahoo! board is obviously hoping Thompson can bring some of his PayPal shine to its own bank account. While at the payments company, he saw the user-base more than double and pushed revenues over the $4bn mark.

“Scott brings to Yahoo! a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth, precisely the formula we need at Yahoo! His deep understanding of online businesses combined with his team building and operational capabilities will restore the energy, focus, and momentum necessary to grow the core business and deliver increased value for our shareholders. The search committee and the entire Board concluded that he is the right leader to return the core business to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation” Roy Bostock, Chairman of the Yahoo! Board

However, Yahoo!’s problems – and the road ahead – certainly seem more troubled than what PayPal faced. The company has 700m users, though has struggled to find a role in the current online ecosystem. “Speed is important but we will attack both the opportunity ahead and the competitive challenges with an appropriate balance of urgency and thoughtfulness” Thompson says of the challenge.

Acting CEO Tim Morse will return to his role as CFO when Thompson joins Yahoo! next week.

Ive had already been made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) back in 2005. Last year, reports suggested that Steve Jobs was in consideration for a knighthood of his own, back in 2009, but that the then-Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, turned down the suggestion after Jobs declined an invitation to speak at a political conference.

As for Ive’s recognition, the designer described it as “absolutely thrilling” and himself as “both humbled and sincerely grateful.” He is known to have shared a particularly close relationship with Jobs, with Ive holding “more operation power” than anyone bar the CEO himself at Apple. That was a conscious decision made to keep design a priority, Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson.

The honor is not the only recent recognition made of Apple’s distinctive design. Last year, an exhibition of Ive’s hardware was put on show in the German Museum of Arts and Crafts, with over half of the 300 pieces being Apple products.

That said, the questions keep on coming: did you get anything neat you’d like to share for Christmas? Did you spend this national holiday outside of the home, or did you spend it tinkering with your Android device to make that perfect kernel for the New Year? Will you be celebrating the new year with an iPhone in hand, or at the keys of a brand new Windows machine? What will you make of this next week?

And what do you look most forward to for the upcoming year in technology and gadgets? This year certainly seemed to be short when it came to reporting the news, did you get everything you expected from the manufacturers that create the toys we work with on the daily? Or is it all about what you’ve got already? What was your favorite device of the year?

We’ll have our own answers to all of these questions in the coming week – meanwhile feel free to answer them one-by-one right here in this post!

It’s not clear whether this is a temporary sign issue or an indication of a more long-term change, though given Sony’s plans for the company it seems more likely to be the latter. The building Sony Ericsson’s corporate team occupies is rented from a Middle Eastern investor and the company is only ten years into a 25-year lease; that can be broken in late 2016, it’s suggested, meaning it’s likely that the premises will be used for some other purpose until that point even if Sony/Sony Ericsson have no plans to continue the current team there.

Sony announced plans to buy out Ericsson’s share in Sony Ericsson back in October, in a deal worth €1.05bn ($1.47bn) in cash. The Japanese company hopes to use its sole control over the smartphone business to bring it further in line with its existing PC, tablet and home entertainment divisions, pushing a so-called “four screen” strategy.

There are also numerous patents, owned by Sony Ericsson, that could better arm Sony in the current legal morass. Assuming no regulators complain, the deal is expected to be completed by the end of January 2012, though it looks like the renovators have got in early.

That evidence presents as a set of consistent spikes or “modest excess of events” that occur between 115 and 127 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), with the prediction that the multiple independent measurements at 124 to 126 GeV are the most likely to be signs of the Higgs boson, if it exists. If they can identify it, the hope is that CERN scientists could lead the way in developing a new physics model to replace or augment the existing Standard Model, the theory of fundamental particles and forces.

Such a new model would address the huge amount of the universe that is invisible, though the experiments set to continue in 2012 will only open the door to that rather than prove anything conclusive.

“Higgs bosons, if they exist, are very short lived and can decay in many different ways. Discovery relies on observing the particles they decay into rather than the Higgs itself. Both ATLAS and CMS have analysed several decay channels, and the experiments see small excesses in the low mass region that has not yet been excluded” CERN

“Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region,” the teams conclude, “but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.” Full papers on the results are expected to be presented by the end of January 2012, and CERN expects to have the full answer by the end of next year.

The first thing you’ll be bound to notice is that this application is made to look just as nice one way or the other. That is, if you’ve got a tablet that you want to set up on its landscape side for most of your reading, but then want to bring it with you on the bus and want to hold it more like a portrait-style book, you’ll have no worries, as the flipping is both without delay and smooth as butter. This application begins on your home screen where you’ll see one ever-turning page of news stories, one by one, and the other side full of icons for sources you yourself add in.

You’ll find that each source leads to a page that’s either just full of news stories or has a selection of portals leading to different bits of content. If you have SlashGear on your homepage, for example, and head on in, you’ll see News Stories (from our main feed), YouTube videos, Columns, and more. YouTube is fully integrated with Currents, playing straight from a news story without a problem, and if you’ve got a portal to your YouTube Channel, you get an array of videos that can, if you want, play all at the same time – though that’d be rather loud if you ask me.

Once you enter a News Story, you’ll find that all the text is highlightable and selectable, but none of the images share that freedom. On the other hand, you are able to exit out to a full browser-window version of each story if you wish to see the news how the website publisher originally intended it. Comments and other such bonus features are not currently integrated with Currents, but you are able to Share stories with a variety of sources. There are also options to access a setting screen to change up and sign-in to each of your sharing services as well as a miniature feed access that pops up on the left side of your screen so you can easily access new stories without going back to your source’s main home screen.

Finally there’s adding sources, which is also a simple, your ability to add featured sources the most obviously easy to do, searching for a source similarly simplified down to the basics. For those of you wishing to add details to your own webpage listing in this situation, head to the Producer Portal — accessible by Google Chrome web browser only, mind you. Featured news stories in “Trending” come from Google News, and you have access to Google Reader sources as well – so you’re all tied up!

If you live inside the USA you’ve only to go to the Android Market if you’re using an Android device or on the iTunes Appstore for either this iPad version or the smaller version for iPhone / iPod Touch. If you live OUTSIDE the USA, there’s a method for that as well, but only for Android at the moment. Check it all out right this second and don’t forget to search to add Android Community and head to the Science and Tech section to find SlashGear – and subscribe your heart out!

Have a peek at this hands-on video as well as the screenshots taken from this iPad version of the application and note that the app on all platforms is completely free – what are you waiting for?!