Apple's Maps Tilt in Strange Directions  —  Last week, I used Apple's new Maps app on my iPhone to guide me to a speaking engagement.  —  The GPS navigation screen was clean, bold and distraction-free.  The voice instructions spoke the actual street names.  The prompts gave me just the right amount of time to prepare for each turn.

Schmidt raps Apple for patent trolling  —  Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt made it clear Thursday that he is against patent wars in the mobile phone industry, expressing his frustration with Apple's recent move to file a myriad of legal attacks against users of the Android operating system (OS), including Samsung Electronics.

EU regulators set to charge Microsoft over breached deal  —  (Reuters) - EU regulators are preparing to charge Microsoft Corp for failing to comply with a 2009 ruling ordering it to offer users a choice of web browsers, the EU's antitrust chief said on Thursday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Apologizes To Kim Dotcom  —  “Of course I apologize to Mr Dotcom, and I apologize to New Zealanders.”  —  These were the humbling words of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key today after a report from Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Paul Neazor found …

Operation Unlike Is A Go: Page Fan Counts Are Dropping Because Facebook Is Deleting Fake Accounts  —  Some Facebook business Pages lost tens of thousands of fans today, but they shouldn't fret.  Facebook has confirmed with me that it's currently purging fake accounts and Page Likes …

Will TV will be Apple's Undoing?  —  The Wall St. Journal columnist who foresaw the “Microsofting of Apple” has a new theory  —  FORTUNE — Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. published a provocative theory Wednesday in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal.  —  The “maps farrago,” as the paper's …

Amazon seeks to throw out Apple “app store” advertising claim  —  (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc has asked a federal judge to throw out Apple Inc's false advertising claim in a lawsuit challenging the online retailer's use of the “app store” name.  —  The claim is part of a March 2011 trademark lawsuit …

Apple's A6 CPU actually clocked at around 1.3GHz, per new Geekbench report  —  As the initial wave of iPhone 5 reviews hit, it looked as if Apple's dual-core A6 processor was sporting a clock speed of around 1GHz.  We saw reports (and confirmed with our own handset) ranging between 1.00 and 1.02GHz …

The iPhone 5 Display: Thoroughly Analyzed  —  When Apple rolled out the iPhone 5, they announced that it had a full sRGB gamut, which the new iPad almost achieves and would be a substantial improvement over the 4 and 4S displays.  The slight increase in screen resolution and size means …

FCC chair grants AT&T's wish for a nationwide 4G band  —  AT&T asked, and the Federal Communications Commission most definitely listened.  Three months after AT&T submitted a complex proposal to turn a very cellular-unfriendly band into pristine 4G airwaves, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski appears set …

“iCloud Backup”  —  Last year, I bought my 87-year-old grandfather an iPad 2 to replace the who-knows-what PC that was frustrating him constantly.  He only used the PC for email and playing music, so it was a no-brainer.  —  Since my grandparents live in Arizona and I usually …

LG Display Files Patent Suit Against Samsung  —  SEOUL—LG Display Co. said it filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against its biggest rival, Samsung Electronics Co., in a South Korea civil court over the use of advanced OLED displays in smartphones and tablet PCs.

US calls Assange ‘enemy of state’  —  THE US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States - the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency.  —  Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents …

Instagram Beats Twitter in Daily Mobile Users for the First Time, Data Says  —  Of the 110 million current smartphone owners in the U.S., users visited Instagram from their smartphones on a daily basis more frequently than they visited Twitter during the month of August, AllThingsDigital has learned …

Tracking growth: the iTunes app store vs Google Play  —  There are now more than 675,000 apps available in Google Play, a noteworthy figure not for the number of apps, but because it means Android is now within striking distance of overtaking iOS as the mobile operating system with the most apps.

Disrupt Battlefield Finalist Zumper Reveals It Raised $1M Seed Round From Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, Others  —  Zumper, the San Francisco-based startup that's assisting apartment hunters in finding the most ideal abode, announced today that it closed a $1 million seed round.

The Primetimeness of Apple's Passbook  —  I'm not really in the habit of breaking down other writer's posts, but in this case I'll make an exception.  Erica Ogg wrote the article linked above at GigaOm, entitled Apple's New Passbook Isn't Quite Ready For Primetime.

Infamous AOL Squatter Launches Education Startup  —  A few months ago, an ambitious 20-year-old tech entrepreneur named Eric Simons made headlines when it was discovered he was secretly living at AOL's Palo Alto campus, posing as an employee.  He gained access to the swanky office by being part …

Qualcomm reveals quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play processors, ramps up entry smartphone speeds  —  Don't think Qualcomm is limiting its quad-core processors to superstar phones.  The Snapdragon S4 Play line is growing to include the MSM8225Q and MSM8625Q, parallels to the existing two Play chips …