Apple CEO Tim Cook opened up All Things Digital’s tenth annual conference on Tuesday evening and while no one expected any product announcements during his time on stage with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, all eyes were on Cook during one of his first public appearances as CEO. Highlights from the interview:Cook believes the system that governs standards-essential patents is broken, and he says that Apple’s ongoing patent disputes with rival vendors like Samsung and HTC are a “pain in the ...

Apple may be the most valuable company in the world, but when it comes to security, the Cupertino-based company doesn’t hold a candle to Microsoft. Kaspersky Lab co-founder and chief executive Eugene Kaspersky on Wednesday told CBR that Apple is a decade behind Microsoft in terms of computer security. ”I think they are ten years behind Microsoft in terms of security,” Kaspersky said. “For many years I’ve been saying that from a security point of view there is no big difference...

It isn’t uncommon for companies to scan through the Internet looking for information on potential hires. Young job seekers, however, have found ways to avoid having prying eyes find private data by applying a wide-range of privacy settings to their Facebook accounts. Now, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday that numerous employers are asking potential hires to hand over login credentials to their email accounts, social networking websites and other online services. The ACLU immediately blastedÂ...

Apple and Samsung have met in court dozens of times over designs, patents and more over the past few years. Among Apple’s numerous complaints was the repeated allegation that Samsung smartphones and tablets are copycat devices that stole numerous elements from the iPhone and iPad’s designs. While similarities between rival gadgets are sometimes bound to appear from time to time — Apple’s own iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S feature a design that is quite familiar — the Samsung executive responsib...

Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse is being watched closely by the company’s board of directors, but the CEO has to answer to investors and subscribers as well. Last year in October, Hesse revealed that the company is placing a massive $15.5 billion bet on Apple’s iPhone, and in a recent interview with the GSMA’s Mobile World Live blog, Hesse defended the move, which has been criticized by a number of industry watchers. Read on for more. (more…)

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom on Thursday questioned his accusers’ motives while speaking to The Guardian. ”I’m no piracy king,” Dotcom told the paper. “I offered online storage and bandwidth to users and that’s it.” Dotcom was arrested in his New Zealand mansion on January 20th after his notorious Megaupload service was shuttered earlier that week as part of a multi-agency sting across several countries. He was released on bail and it currently awaiting trial, havin...

Sony has no plans to launch smartphones with more powerful quad-core processors this year, a Sony Mobile Communications executive confirmed on Wednesday. Speaking with CNET Asia, Sony Mobile product marketing manager Stephen Sneeden said he believes Sony will wait until 2013 to launch smartphones powered by quad-core processors like NVIDIA’s Tegra 3. ”We’re going to join quad-core when we feel that the performance matches the battery efficiency,” Sneeden said. “Because right no...

Apple and Foxconn have each responded to various claims made in ABC’s Nightline segment that took a look inside two Foxconn factories in an effort to shed light on their working conditions. Responding to a comment made by one worker who claimed she carves aluminum shavings from 6,000 iPad cases each day, Apple said this was likely the result of a miscommunication. “In manufacturing parlance this is called deburring. Her line processes 3,000 units per shift, with two shifts per day for a total of 6...

Apple deviated from its standard closed-door approach to unveiling new software earlier this week and gave a number of media outlets early access to an upcoming version of its OS X operating system for Macs. Apple’s OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will launch this summer, featuring a wide range of enhancements that will see Apple’s desktop platform look and behave more like its mobile platform. Executives from the Cupertino, California-based technology giant even met with reporters personally to demonstr...

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 shattered sales records when it launched last November. The wildly popular first-person shooter sold an estimated 6.5 million copies and pulled in more than $400 million during its first 24 hours of availability, and more than 12 million copies were purchased over the game’s launch week, racking up about $740 million in revenue. But Activision isn’t done, of course, and the next major launch in the Call of Duty franchise is shaping up to be a big one. ”The ne...

Former Research In Motion co-CEO and co-Chairman Mike Lazaridis said in a recent interview that he had been planning to step down from his role at the helm of the company for several years. While speaking with The Record, Lazaridis confessed that he had been planning to relinquish his co-CEO role for several years leading up to January 22nd when RIM announced that Lazaridis and co-CEO Jim Balsillie were stepping down. Lazaridis said in the interview that he had been grooming new CEO Thorsten Heins for the CE...

Investors had been clamoring for Research In Motion co-founders Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis to relinquish their co-CEO and co-chairman roles, and the company finally announced this past Sunday that Balsillie and Lazaridis were out, replaced by new chairperson of the board Barbara Stymiest and new chief executive officer Thorsten Heins. RIM’s stock plunged more than 13% when Heins introduced himself as the company’s new CEO, due in large part to a video interview during which he essentially ...

After months of investors unrest, Research In Motion on Sunday announced that Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were stepping down from their roles as co-CEO and co-Chairmen. Barbara Stymiest was named RIM’s new chairperson of the board, in line with rumors, and former Ericsson executive Thorsten Heins was named president and CEO. Heins and Stymiest hosted a conference call Monday morning, with Heins leading the show, and the company took its first steps in a long climb toward regaining shareholder conf...

Bad products, horrible software and no cohesive vision have seemingly turned Research In Motion into a company without motion at this point. Throw in a huge delay before BlackBerry 10 smartphones start shipping, and it’s clear why people are losing, or have lost, faith in a company that played a tremendous role in making the smartphone industry what it is today. Thanks to one of our most trusted sources, BGR now has new information on what’s going on inside Research In Motion, and the picture it p...