Author: Brad Reed

Although Microsoft (MSFT) hasn’t been considered “cool” since the heyday of Pogs and “The Macarena,” a new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that things may be changing.  As Reuters reports, the poll shows that roughly 50% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 think Microsoft is cooler than it was a year ago, a positive result for the company that mirrors a recent survey of American teenagers showing strong interest in the Surface tablet. Microsoft still has a ways to go before it’s the “coolest” tech company around, however, as the poll also found that 70% of young Americans said that Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system has gotten cooler over the last year, while 60% said that Apple (AAPL) had gotten cooler over the past year.

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Apple (AAPL) has always been known for its trend-setting designs, but it looks like an early sketch of its long-rumored “iWatch” took a page from a long-forgotten fad from the early ’90s. Patently Apple has some good analysis of a 2011 patent filing that shows Apple has been working on a wristwatch that is essentially “a slap bracelet configured to display information wirelessly transmitted from a portable electronic device.”

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Let’s be honest — an Apple (AAPL) wristwatch doesn’t at first glance sound like the most exciting product the company has come up with over the past decade. But if past patent filings are any indication, the long-rumored ‘iWatch’ could be much more interesting than some might think since they could help make the classic wristwatch work a lot more like an iPod. Researcher Nickolay Lamm, best known for his pre-release renders of the iPad mini and his futuristic iPhone design concepts, passed along some new renders showing what an iWatch could look like if Apple chooses to incorporate some key design elements from some of its older patent filings.

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Nokia (NOK) on Tuesday began ramping up its efforts to compete with both Spotify and iTunes by announcing a new Nokia Music+ service that Lumia smartphone owners can subscribe to for $3.99 per month. Music+, which is an enhanced version of the free Nokia Music service the company launched last year, removes the free service’s limits on how many specialized mixes users can download and effectively lets Lumia users have as much offline music on their smartphones as they want. The new subscription service also significantly boosts the sound quality of music and Nokia claims that it “allows you to download music at six times the existing quality” and lets you “set rules to only download high quality when you’re on WiFi.” Nokia says the new service will roll out over the next few weeks.

For all the overwrought doom-and-gloom talk surrounding Apple (AAPL) lately, it’s easy to forget that the company is still the most valuable tech company in the world and that it’s an absolute cash cow that hauls in ungodly sums of money every year. Case in point: AppleInsider directs our attention to new research the NPD Group showing that Apple accounted for roughly one out of every five dollars generated by the consumer technology industry in the United States in 2012. This is actually an increase from 2011, when Apple accounted for 17.3% of consumer technology revenues in the United States.

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While Samsung (005930) has traditionally been a Korean company through and through, it may now want to put more of an American stamp on its operations. The Los Angeles Times reports that Samsung has been aggressively expanding its presence in Silicon Valley recently by building its own innovation center, by launching a $100 million venture fund for Silicon Valley startups and by building “a massive new semiconductor campus with a distinctive design destined to compete with Apple’s proposed spaceship-like campus for the title of Silicon Valley’s most distinctive architectural landmark.”

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As we expected to happen this week, Apple (AAPL) has released iOS 6.1.2 to patch a bug related to the Microsoft (MSFT) Exchange Calendar that drains battery life and, in all likelihood, a major security hole in iOS 6.1 that makes it incredibly easy to bypass the iPhone’s unlock screen pass code. Although Apple makes no mention of specifically patching the unlock screen security hole, MacRumors notes that “sources had indicated that it also addresses” the issue in addition to addressing the Exchange bug, so it’s likely that Apple has taken care of both issues in its latest release.

UPDATE: Ars Technica’s Andrew Cunningham has installed iOS 6.1.2 and has found that the new update does not fix the unlock screen security hole, which is pretty surprising given that it is potentially more serious than a battery-draining bug.

The last thing Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos probably wanted to read this week was that his company had allegedly hired a security firm to guard its warehouses in Germany that just happens to be linked to neo-Nazis. Per the International Business Times, a documentary that aired on German TV channel ARD this week accused Amazon of hiring HESS, a security company that has alleged ties to neo-Nazi groups and that shares a name with Rudolf Hess, who served as Hitler’s deputy in the Nazi party. According to the International Business Times, “the documentary showed the guards invading and searching [warehouse workers’] bedrooms and kitchens, and telling the workers that they were mandated to ‘keep order’ in their homes.” Amazon, for its part, denies that it hired HESS and says that it is “currently examining the allegations concerning the behavior of security guards and will take the appropriate measures immediately” and that it does “not tolerate discrimination or intimidation.”

Anyone expecting Nokia (NOK) to unveil its first-ever tablet at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month shouldn’t get their hopes up. Research firm Strategy Analytics has just finished conducting “extensive channel checks” and has concluded that Nokia will not be showing off any kind of tablet at MWC this year and will instead focus exclusively on its Lumia line of Windows Phone 8-based smartphones. Strategy Analytics says that this is the correct strategy for Nokia because it should “expand its Lumia smartphone range and solidify its growing leadership of the global WP8 market” before committing itself to other form factors.

With a company as secretive as Apple (AAPL), some of the best information on its upcoming projects often comes from its job postings. 9to5Mac now points us to a new Apple job posting that seeks an “experienced engineering manager to help deliver the next generation features for Apple TV” who will also “work closely with cross functional teams” while “representing Apple TV across Apple.” Since the job posting also says that the engineering manager will help “bring the Apple experience to the living room,” it sounds as though the new Apple TV features will more tightly integrate the platform with other Apple products based on iOS and OS X. Recent rumors have indicated that Apple will release an SDK for its Apple TV platform sometime this year, so it would make sense for Apple to hire an engineer for additional help making the company’s set-top box function more like a smartphone or a tablet with support for third-party apps.

There’s no doubt that the Xbox 360 is one of the best things Microsoft (MSFT) has going for itself right now — not only has the popular console sold 76 million units, but it’s rapidly moved beyond the gaming sphere to become a well-rounded entertainment center thanks to popular content streaming apps for Netflix (NFLX) and Hulu. Per Engadget, Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Business senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi told the D: Dive Into Media conference on Tuesday that Microsoft really doesn’t see the Xbox as a mere gaming console anymore and now views it as a comprehensive “entertainment console.” And what’s more, Mehdi said that this gives Microsoft a big long-run advantage over Sony’s (SNE) rival PlayStation console since it “isn’t as good of an entertainment console” as the Xbox. It will be very interesting to see how much Microsoft plays up the “entertainment console” aspect when it launches its Xbox 720 later this year and if the company plans to add any features to the device to improve its appeal as a living room hub.