Macgasm

With the upcoming release of Mass Effect 3 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, BioWare and EA have announced that a full featured third person shooter companion game is coming to the iPhone and the iPad. I’m not sure about you guys, but I’m just going to let EA’s last attempt at a Mass Effect mobile game stay hidden in the darkest recesses of my memory and hope for the best on this one.

The premise of the game involves you having to rescue prisoners from a hostile Cerberus base. The word is that you’ll have access to a fairly stocked arsenal of weapons and powers from the Mass Effect universe, so you’ll get to take advantage of that as you gather evidence against Cerberus. One of the neatest features with Infiltrator is that each time you complete a rescue mission or gather intel, it will automatically increase your Galaxy Readiness rating through the Galaxy at War system in Mass Effect 3. If that actually works, it’s already better than the last one.

There’s no word yet on when Infiltrator will be available on the App Store, but it’s probably safe to assume it’ll be a timely launch with Mass Effect 3 which comes out on March 6^th. Keep your eyes peeled, Commanders.

Source: Slide To Play, IGN

Hey Beatlemaniacs! The “Sir” Beatle and Apple are teaming up to stream a live performance directly to iTunes and Apple TV.

Considering all of the tension between the two Apples, Paul sure does like to pimp his new work through Apple Inc.’s marketing channels. It’s an interesting way of promoting your album, but sadly, only a member of the most successful band of all time gets to take advantage. Think of a world where buying an album on iTunes was your ticket to see a band streaming live. It would make music less of a commodity and more of an event. We’re hoping that Apple does more events like this in the future with lesser known artists.

Are you planning on attending virtually? What if you had to buy the album first? Would you put up the $10 USD album cost to see the walrus live on the Internet? We’re curious if eConcerts could work, and if Apple would be willing to do them. Sound off in the comment section and hit us up on Twitter. Our handle is @macgasm. We want to hear what you think, so don’t hesitate.

Hat tip to MacRumors
Image Credit: Mike Krzeszak

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably realized that there’s been a lot of lawsuits being thrown around in the mobile arena over unapproved patent usage. Apple’s been on both ends of these lawsuits, obviously. However, it seems that Apple has decided that it’s time to lobby the European Union’s Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to get guidelines set up for Fair, Resonable, And Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing of some of these patents in the mobile space.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Apple has gone on the record stating that, “the telecommunications industry lacks consistent licensing schemes for the many patents necessary to make mobile devices, and offered suggestions for setting appropriate royalty rates that all members would follow.” Long story short, Apple wants a fair and open approach to licensing technology that has become standard in the mobile telecommunications industry. Currently, it could become very difficult for competing companies to gain access to the necessary patent licenses to release a mobile phone.

Apple wants the EU and ETSI to set clear rules about how patent licenses are negotiated, and to ensure that companies working on and developing standard-centric licenses agree to license patents under FRAND terms.

In the original article, it’s pretty clear that Apple, and more specifically Apple’s intellectual property head Bruce Watrous, is worried that the current system gives patent holders a huge advantage in negotiating patent licenses because competing products could be forced to remove products from the market place due to injunctions. Apple’s legal team wants injunctions to be abolished under FRAND terms.

The EU is currently investigating both Samsung and Motorola’s patent licensing practices for anti-competitive behaviour.

If you’re interested in reading up more on this topic, you can give the Wall Street Journal article a read, but sadly, it’s behind a paywall.

A recent research by Dr. Michael Mandel of South Mountain Economics says that the smartphone industry has created nearly 500,000 new jobs for the economy. It’s hard to doubt such a claim. Since the release of the iPhone in 2007 and the announcement of the App Store one year later, a new market has been created. The app market. I remember when applications were just seen as tiny games that we played while waiting for the train or in the doctor’s office. What were some of their names? I believe Cube Runner was one of them. Great game, but you wouldn’t think that a company could rise from that, right? You’d be correct. The app was created by one guy, Andy Qua. Great guy, but I highly doubt he’s accepting resumes for positions. So that’s where we were one to three years ago. However, today is so different. This is now where the jobs are.

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