The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple on Thursday that reveals a 3D eye-tracking-based interface that could be used for gaming, digital photography and videography in future iOS and iMac devices, reports PatentlyApple. The new features could work in conjunction with Apple’s current 3D head tracking and ambient light technologies. The solution would utilize a variety of sensors such as an accelerometer and compass in combination with eye-tracking technology to alter the perspective of 3D graphics displayed on an iPhone. The result would be a 3D experience that constantly adjusts to the user’s position and a device’s position, creating a unique experience far more advanced and precise than current solutions. The patent application was originally filed in the third quarter of 2010 and it is unclear if Apple is currently experimenting with the technology.

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In 2009, Tristan Schaap received the chance of a lifetime when he was offered an internship by Apple’s Platform Technologies Group. During his time interning with the company, Schaap was part of a team that was secretly attempting to port Mac OS X to the ARM architect, according to his Bachelor thesis published by Delft University of Technology. ARM-based chipsets are currently used in in Apple’s mobile devices while its computers use Intel processors. The thesis was originally embargoed due to the sensitive content, however the embargo has since been lifted and the paper was published in September last year. After completing his 12-week internship and graduating with a B.S. in Computer Science, Schaap was hired by Apple as a CoreOS engineer. It has long been rumored that Apple is considering a move to support ARM in its desktop and laptop computers.

[Via iMore]

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Apple started seeding OS X Lion 10.7.2 11C37 and iCloud beta 7 to developers on Friday afternoon. The latest iCloud beta 7 build includes updated versions of Documents & Data Cloud, Find my Mac and Back to my Mac, 9to5 Mac said. The latest OS X Lion 10.7.2 build is being offered “solely for testing iCloud and updates to the public release of OS X Lion and any earlier seed of OS X Lion 10.7.2,” Apple said. iCloud, which is still only open to those with developer accounts, allows users store up to 5GB of free data online. Apple opened iCloud up to developers on August 1st and it offers a tiered pricing system for additional storage.  The latest OS X Lion and Cloud Beta 7 builds can be downloaded from Apple’s iCloud developer portal now.

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Fresh on the heels of launching a client for the iPad, Skype released Skype version 5.3 for Mac on Monday. The update adds support for Apple’s latest OS X Lion operating system as well as HD video chat. Users will now be able to send and receive HD-quality video using their built-in Mac webcams or other HD-capable cameras. Skype says that the feature will work best for those with internet connections that can maintain at least 1.5Mbps upload/download throughput. The software is compatible with with OS X Leopard and later versions of Apple’s PC operating system.

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Florida-based Operating Systems Solutions has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. OSS is alleging that the Cupertino-based firm’s Mac OS X fast-boot feature infringes on one of its patents relating to a “method for quick booting an OS.” More specifically, the lawsuit says Apple infringes on:

A method for fast booting a computer system, comprising the steps of: A. performing a power on self test (POST) of basic input output system (BIOS) when the system is powered on or reset is requested; B. checking whether a boot configuration information including a system booting state which was created while executing a previous normal booting process exists or not; C. storing the boot configuration information from execution of the POST operation before loading a graphic interface (GUI) program, based on the checking result; and D. loading the graphic user interface (GUI) program.

LG Electronics was originally granted the patent in 2002 and Patently Apple said the patent was then reissued to a company named Promitus Technologies LLC in 2008. It remains unclear how Operating Systems Solutions obtained the patent, or if LG or Promitus Technologies are involved in the lawsuit in any way.

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It wasn’t exactly a secret, but now the proverbial big cat is out of the bag. Apple has just updated the company’s best-selling computer product, the MacBook Air with a Core i5/i7 option, better storage, Thunderbolt port, and finally, a backlit keyboard (again). Mac minis are updated as well, at long last bringing them up to speed with current processors and features.

The other big story is obviously OS X Lion which is Apple’s most iOS-like release yet, and it slowly starts to bridge PC and post-PC devices. Lion is a major OS update with more than 250 new features, and it’s available for $29 through the Mac App Store starting now.

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Moments ago at WWDC 2011, Apple announced that the next major update to Mac OS X, Lion 10.7, will be available for purchase and download exclusively through the Mac App Store in July for just $29. OS X 10.7 Lion features over 250 new updates to the OS including Mission Control, Launchpad, full-screen apps, Auto Save, Resume, and much more. Hit the break for Apple’s full press release.

Mac OS X Lion With 250 New Features Available in July From Mac App Store

SAN FRANCISCO—June 6, 2011—Apple® today announced that Mac OS® X Lion, the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system with more than 250 new features and 3,000 new developer APIs, will be available to customers in July as a download from the Mac® App Store™ for $29.99. Some of the amazing features in Lion include: new Multi-Touch® gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software, built right into the OS; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

“The Mac has outpaced the PC industry every quarter for five years running and with OS X Lion we plan to keep extending our lead,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The best version of OS X yet, Lion is packed with innovative features such as new Multi-Touch gestures, system-wide support for full screen apps, and Mission Control for instantly accessing everything running on your Mac.”

New Multi-Touch gestures and fluid animations built into Lion let you interact directly with content on the screen for a more intuitive way to use your Mac. New gestures include momentum scrolling, tapping or pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, and swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps. All Mac notebooks ship with Multi-Touch trackpads and desktop Macs can use Apple’s Magic Trackpad.

Full screen apps take advantage of the entire display and are perfect for reading email, surfing the web or browsing photos, especially on a MacBook Air® or MacBook® Pro. With a single click your app fills the display and you can swipe from one window to another, between full screen apps, or back to your Desktop, Dashboard or Spaces® without ever leaving full screen. iWork® and iLife® apps, as well as Safari®, iTunes®, Mail, FaceTime® and others, all take advantage of Lion’s system-wide support for full screen apps.

Mission Control combines Exposé®, full screen apps, Dashboard and Spaces into one unified experience for a bird’s eye view of every app and window running on your Mac. With a simple swipe, your desktop zooms out to display your open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of your full screen apps and your Dashboard, and allows you to instantly navigate anywhere with a tap.

The Mac App Store is built into Lion and is the best place to discover great new Mac apps, buy them with your iTunes account, download and install them. Apps automatically install directly to Launchpad, and with Lion’s release, the Mac App Store will be able to deliver smaller “delta” app updates and new apps that can take advantage of features like In-App Purchase and Push Notifications.

Launchpad makes it easier than ever to find and launch any app. With a single Multi-Touch gesture, all your Mac apps are displayed in a stunning full screen layout. You can organize apps in any order or into folders and swipe through unlimited pages of apps to find the one you want.

Lion includes a completely redesigned Mail app with an elegant widescreen layout. The new Conversations feature groups related messages into an easily scrollable timeline, intelligently hiding repeated text so the conversation is easy to follow, and retaining graphics and attachments as they were originally sent. An incredibly powerful new search feature allows you to refine your search and suggests matches by person, subject and label as you type. Mail includes built-in support for Microsoft Exchange 2010.

Additional new features in Lion include:

• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
• Auto Save, which automatically and continuously saves your documents as you work;
• Versions, which automatically records the history of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, revert and even copy and paste from previous versions; and
• AirDrop, which finds nearby Macs and automatically sets up a peer-to-peer wireless connection to make transferring files quick and easy.

Pricing & Availability Mac OS X Lion will be available in July as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard® from the Mac App Store for $29.99 (US).  Lion will be the easiest OS X upgrade and at about 4GB, it is the size of an HD movie from the iTunes Store®. Mac OS X Lion Server requires Lion and will be available in July from the Mac App Store for $49.99 (US).

Lion requires an Intel-based Mac with a Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7 or Xeon processor and 2GB of RAM. The Lion upgrade can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs.

The Mac OS X Lion Up-To-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 6, 2011. Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchase of their Mac computer. Customers who purchase a qualifying Mac between June 6, 2011 and the date when Lion is available in the Mac App Store will have 30 days from Lion’s official release date to make a request.

That’s right, we’ll be at Moscone in downtown San Francisco on Monday covering Apple’s annual WWDC conference live! Apple already tipped its hat as to what Steve Jobs and co. will be speaking on, but let’s not kid ourselves… it’s sure to be the biggest WWDC keynote in recent years. Mac OS X Lion 10.7 will be shown, iOS 5 will be revealed for the first time — most likely with major, major changes — and Apple’s iCloud service will make its debut among other announcements. Make sure to follow along with our liveblog starting around 9:30 a.m. PDT / 12:30 p.m. EDT on Monday at the address below (it won’t be live until then!).

Live from Apple’s WWDC 2011 keynote with Steve Jobs!

Blog SemiAccurate has published an interesting article stating that Apple intends to move its desktop and laptop computer systems from the Intel x86 architecture to ARM-based architecture in the semi-near future. “The short story is that Apple is moving the laptop line, and presumably desktops too, to ARM based chips as soon as possible,” reads the posting. “With A15/Eagle allowing more than 32-bit memory access, things look up, but it seems silly to do so before the full 64 bit cores come in the following generation. [...] Think mid-2013. At that point, Apple can move to ARM without worrying about obsoleting code with an ISA [instruction set architecture] that is on the verge of changing, and no memory overhead worries either.” Apple’s iOS line of products are powered by ARM silicon. The publication cites “moles” as the source of the information — moles that have provided accurate intel (pun intended) about Apple’s manufacturing component choices in the past. Will Apple shift desktop architectures yet again? Will we get to see more commercials featuring barbecued moon men? Time will tell.

[Via Mac Rumors]

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French blog Consomac has discovered an interesting bit of intel inside Apple’s latest developer build of Mac OS X Lion. The information insinuates that users of the company’s MobileMe cloud service will be prompted to upgrade to an offering dubbed “Castle” at some point in the future. It is unclear if Castle will be the new name of an expanded cloud-service offering — iCloud? — or rather the name of an update to the current service. The company’s World Wide Developer Conference is set to take place next month, and we’re sure most of the details will be ironed out by then.

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An Apple hire from earlier this month ignited rumors that a composite, fruit-branded smartphone may be in the works. Kevin Kenney, the employee in question, assumed the position of “Senior Composites Engineer” at Apple after a 14-year stint making carbon fiber bicycles. The origin of this latest, notebook related rumor seems to be a blend of Mr. Kenney’s hiring, sprinkled with a dash of information published by iLounge earlier this year — stating that a “milestone” update to the MacBook Pro laptop family was due in 2012. The most recent Apple fodder has the company revamping its MacBook Pro line with a black, composite casing and improved specs. Not a lot of firm ground to stand on with this one, but worth mentioning nonetheless.

Read [PCMag] Read [iLounge]

According to Peter Kafka over at All Things D, Apple’s presumed cloud-based music service will not be all that dissimilar from Amazon’s. The report details that Apple, like Amazon, will allow iTunes users to store newly purchased tracks and already-owned digital music in an online locker. Unlike Amazon, however, the Cupertino company is looking for deals with major record labels.“They’ve been very aggressive and thoughtful about it,” said an industry executive speaking with Kafka. “It feels like they want to go pretty soon.” The report also notes that the industry buy-in and licensing will allow Apple to store a single, master copy of a digital music file on its services and share that file with authorized users — making the company’s storage schema much more streamlined. Amazon’s Cloud Drive implementation is based on its S3 storage service and functions more like a cloud-based hard drive — every time a user buys a track it’s uploaded to that specific users online locker. “Sources tell me that Apple has already procured deals from at least two of the big four labels (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony and EMI) within the last two months,” writes Kafka. “One source tells me Apple content boss Eddy Cue will be in New York tomorrow to try to finalize remaining deals.” Apple has some experience with cloud-based services as it has offered its MobileMe service — formerly iTools and .Mac — since early 2000.

UPDATE: CNET is now reporting that Apple and Warner Music Group reached a deal this afternoon: “Apple has an agreement with Warner Music Group to offer the record label’s tracks on iTunes’ upcoming cloud-music service.”

Read [All Things D] Read [CNET]

According to a report filed by Reuters, Apple will edge out Google in the race to provide users with a cloud music service. “Apple’s plans will allow iTunes customers to store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an Internet connection,” writes Reuters, citing two people familiar with Apple’s plans. The article goes on to cite a source familiar with Google’s cloud music plans, simply saying that the venture has stalled. “Apple has not told its music partners of when it intends to introduce its music locker,” the report continues. It has been widely rumored that Apple’s new North Carolina data center will be the bit-locker and heart of this new music venture. Apple declined Reuters request for comment.

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Late yesterday, Apple released its second, preview-build of Mac OS X Lion (10.7) to developers. The new seed carries build number 11A419 and is accompanied by Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 2. Apple announced its next generation desktop operating system — which includes many elements from its iOS mobile operating system — at a media event last month. Parties interested in testing the software can login to Apple’s developer portal, developer.apple.com, to download the latest bits.

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Earlier today, Apple announced that it will be holding its annual Worldwide Developers Conference from June 6th to June 10th in San Francisco where it said that it will “unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS.” That suggests that Apple may stray from its usual schedule of announcing an updated iPhone during the show each year. “You get caught up in patterns, and it holds true, until it doesn’t,” Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Gartner, told The Loop. “There is no reason for Apple to follow a predictable yearly pattern, and it keeps their competition off guard a little bit.” We’ll be honest, it would be pretty disappointing to many Apple fans if this deviation was true, but we’re skeptical. It makes perfect sense for Apple to announce the new hardware alongside an updated iOS platform with developers in the room. Why stray from what works?

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