10 Alternative Career Choices Your Favorite Rappers Could Make

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Hip-hop loves side hustles. Whether it’s designing a fashion line or red-hot sneaker like Kanye West, managing big league sports and music stars like Jay Z at Roc Nation, hydrating the masses with electrolytes like 50 Cent, peddling premium Ciroc vodka and running an entire television network like Diddy, or following Ice Cube, Eve and Will Smith’s footsteps into the world of acting, rappers are always looking for new ways to expand their audiences and resumes, and in the process, make some serious cash.

Some rappers like LL Cool J, Queen Latifah and Ice T are so nice with their moonlighting gigs that we have all but forgotten that they were rappers from the start. Changing careers can be challenging. For every savvy business move, like Dr. Dre creating his billion-dollar Beats by Dre empire or Snoop Dogg coaching a successful kids’ football team, there are rappers who took the wrong career turn.

Think of the countless artists who have unsuccessfully tried to expand inorganically by running record labels only for their releases to go double wood, degrading themselves for the wrong reality television show role or selling tacky clothes that currently collect dust on discount store racks. There are so many options available for rappers and one misfire can be detrimental not just to an artist’s side income, but more importantly, to his or her main hustle too.

The Boombox is here to help. We play guidance counselor for some of your favorite MCs to assist them with the perfect career choice if they decide to hang up the mic. From Nicki Minaj to Drake to Rick Ross, check out 10 Alternative Career Choices Your Favorite Rappers Could Make.

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Disruptions: Apple’s Next Unveiling Could Make or Break a Business

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Disruptions: How Driverless Cars Could Reshape Cities

Jeff Swensen for The New York Times A self-driving car at Carnegie Mellon. Researchers have been contemplating how cities could change if our cars start driving for us, including having narrower streets because parking spots might not be necessary.

SAN FRANCISCO — By now, seeing one of Google’s experimental, driverless cars zipping down Silicon Valley’s Highway 101, or parking itself on a San Francisco street, is not all that unusual. Indeed, as automakers like Audi, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz make plans for self-driving vehicles, it is only a matter of time before such cars become a big part of the great American traffic jam.

While driverless cars might still seem like science fiction outside the Valley, the people working and thinking about these technologies are starting to ask what these autos could mean for the city of the future. The short answer is “a lot.”

Imagine a city where you don’t drive in loops looking for a parking spot because your car drops you off and scoots off to some location to wait, sort of like taxi holding pens at airports. Or maybe it is picked up by a robotic minder and carted off with other vehicles, like a row of shopping carts.

A test of Google’s self-driving car.

Inner-city parking lots could become parks. Traffic lights could be less common because hidden sensors in cars and streets coordinate traffic. And, yes, parking tickets could become a rarity since cars would be smart enough to know where they are not supposed to be.

As scientists and car companies forge ahead — many expect self-driving cars to become commonplace in the next decade — researchers, city planners and engineers are contemplating how city spaces could change if our cars start doing the driving for us. There are risks, of course: People might be more open to a longer daily commute, leading to even more urban sprawl.

That city of the future could have narrower streets because parking spots would no longer be necessary. And the air would be cleaner because people would drive less. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 30 percent of driving in business districts is spent in a hunt for a parking spot, and the agency estimates that almost one billion miles of driving is wasted that way every year.

“What automation is going to allow is repurposing, both of spaces in cities, and of the car itself,” said Ryan Calo, an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law, who specializes in robotics and drones.

Harvard University researchers note that as much as one-third of the land in some cities is devoted to parking spots. Some city planners expect that the cost of homes will fall as more space will become available in cities. If parking on city streets is reduced and other vehicles on roadways become smaller, homes and offices will take up that space. Today’s big-box stores and shopping malls require immense areas for parking, but without those needs, they could move further into cities.

The Autonomous Intersection Management project, created by the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, imagines cities where traffic lights no longer exist but sensors direct the flow of traffic. Although a video showing off the automated traffic intersection looks like total chaos, the researchers insist that such intersections will reduce congestion and fuel costs and can allow cars to drive through cities without stopping.

Of course, getting to a utopian city will take a little longer than circling the block looking for a spot. A spokesman for Audi said a fully automated car would not be available until the end of the decade. And the regulatory issues to be addressed before much of this could come true are, to put it mildly, forbidding.

But the pieces are starting to fall into place, at least enough to excite future-minded thinkers. Last year, Jerry Brown, the governor of California, signed legislation paving the way for driverless cars in California, making it the third state to explicitly allow the cars on the road. And federal agencies are starting to consider their impact. In May the Transportation Department made its first formal policy statement on autonomous vehicles, encouraging cities to allow testing of driverless cars.

But to some, this promise — or overpromise as the case may be — sounds familiar.

“The future city is not going to be a congestion-free environment. That same prediction was made that cars would free cities from the congestion of horses on the street,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and a member of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. “You have to build the sewer system to accommodate the breaks during the Super Bowl; it won’t be as pretty as we’re envisioning.”

Mr. Smith has an alternative vision of the impact of automated cars, which he believes are inevitable. Never mind that nice city center. He says that driverless cars will allow people to live farther from their offices and that the car could become an extension of home.

“I could sleep in my driverless car, or have an exercise bike in the back of the car to work out on the way to work,” he said. “My time spent in my car will essentially be very different.”

“Driverless cars won’t appear in a vacuum,” Mr. Smith said. Other predictions for the future city imagine fewer traditional-looking cars. Taking their place will be drones and robots that deliver goods.

Oh, and that food-delivery car double-parked outside? That, Mr. Calo said, will be replaced by a delivery drone.

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

Outcome of E-Book Case Could Hurt Competition, Apple Lawyer Says

Orin Snyder, a lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who represents Apple, made that point in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday, the last day of the three-week antitrust trial. He told Judge Denise L. Cote of United States District Court that if Apple was found liable for conspiring with publishers to raise e-book prices, “that precedent will send shudders through the business community.”

In the future, he said, retailers negotiating with content providers might then feel pressured to “not utter a word” about their discussions with other companies and offer substantially different terms to each party.

He said that in negotiations, businesses typically inform one competitor what another competitor is willing to do. “It is perfectly lawful to do all of that,” he said.

In its antitrust case brought a year ago, the federal government accused Apple of being the “ringmaster” in a conspiracy with five big book publishers to raise e-book prices across the industry. Before Apple entered the market in early 2010, Amazon controlled 90 percent of e-book sales, and the publishers were not happy with Amazon’s uniform price of $9.99 for e-books. The publishers have all settled their cases, but Apple has said it is fighting as a matter of principle because it has done nothing wrong.

Much of the debate at the trial has centered on a condition, known as the “most-favored-nation” clause, that Apple made in its contracts with publishers. It guarantees that if a publisher offers an e-book at a lower price to one retailer, the book will cost the same in Apple’s e-book store. The Justice Department argues that Apple and the publishers used the most-favored-nation clause to defeat price competition and pressure Amazon to change the way it sold books and raise its prices as well.

On Thursday, as the lawyers wrapped up their arguments, Judge Cote peppered both Apple and the government with questions.

Several of her questions to the government revolved around one thought: why would Apple want to change the industry’s business model? Mark W. Ryan, a lawyer for the Justice Department, argued that Apple believed its iPad hardware was so ahead of anyone else’s, it wanted to eliminate price competition in the e-book market so that the iPad could compete with the Amazon’s Kindle solely on hardware, not book prices.

Mr. Ryan noted that the government’s concern was not solely the most-favored-nation clause, but the way that Apple and the publishers deliberately used the clause to force Amazon’s hand. “It’s the collusion to move the market to the place where competition would not otherwise take it,” he said.

If Amazon had continued the way it sold books under what is called the wholesale model — where publishers charged retailers about half the cover price for a book and Amazon sold the books for $9.99 — then the retailers would have lost a substantial amount of money selling the books for $9.99 to Apple because Apple takes a 30 percent cut.

That, Mr. Ryan said, is why the publishers understood they had to collectively force Amazon into the agency model, where the publishers, not the retailers, set the price of the books. They could use the most-favored-nation clause to put pressure on Amazon while also threatening to delay the release of their e-books until after the more expensive hardcover versions had been on the market for a while, he said.

Judge Cote challenged the government’s interpretation that Apple was deliberately scheming to help the publishers raise prices. Allowing them to raise their prices in Apple’s e-book store could be viewed as a “sales pitch” to get the publishers to agree to sign on with Apple in the month and a half leading up to the iPad introduction, she said.

In Apple’s closing statements, Mr. Snyder spent most of his time trying to illustrate that Apple fought “tooth and nail” with the publishers before cementing the contracts. He showed e-mails between Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, and the chief executives of the big publishers that demonstrated they were negotiating rather than cooperating.

Judge Cote asked Mr. Snyder whether Apple took the position that it had not understood that the publishers were forming a collective effort to raise prices industrywide, when the fact they were working together seemed obvious from articles published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Those articles said a group of publishers had announced plans to “window,” or delay, the release of e-books.

Mr. Snyder said that the articles just showed how business was done, and that they did not prove that the publishers were already conspiring. “When one company does one thing, the other companies take notice and do the same thing,” he said.

The big question surrounding the trial is whether there will be a change to the way businesses negotiate if Apple loses, as Mr. Snyder suggested. Charles E. Elder, an antitrust lawyer at Irell & Manella, which is not involved in the case, said that most-favored-nation clauses present unusual challenges under antitrust laws. While they ensure a customer gets the best deal, they can discourage price-cutting because the consequence of lowering prices for one retailer will be lowering prices for other retailers protected by the clause.

Mr. Elder said that he “would be very surprised” if the judge found Apple’s most-favored-nation clause illegal, and that he was not aware of any case where such a thing has happened. He said this antitrust case was based on the theory that the most-favored-nation clause resulted from a price-fixing conspiracy among the publishers that was furthered by Apple. If the judge holds Apple liable, he said, this case will be unlikely to have a “revolutionary impact” on businesses.

“Horizontal conspiracies to fix prices have always been illegal,” Mr. Elder said.

Judge Cote is expected to write her decision in the coming weeks.

Outcome of E-Book Case Could Hurt Competition, Apple Lawyer Says

Orin Snyder, a lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who represents Apple, made that point in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday, the last day of the three-week antitrust trial. He told Judge Denise L. Cote of United States District Court that if Apple was found liable for conspiring with publishers to raise e-book prices, “that precedent will send shudders through the business community.”

In the future, he said, retailers negotiating with content providers might then feel pressured to “not utter a word” about their discussions with other companies and offer substantially different terms to each party.

He said that in negotiations, businesses typically inform one competitor what another competitor is willing to do. “It is perfectly lawful to do all of that,” he said.

In its antitrust case brought a year ago, the federal government accused Apple of being the “ringmaster” in a conspiracy with five big book publishers to raise e-book prices across the industry. Before Apple entered the market in early 2010, Amazon controlled 90 percent of e-book sales, and the publishers were not happy with Amazon’s uniform price of $9.99 for e-books. The publishers have all settled their cases, but Apple has said it is fighting as a matter of principle because it has done nothing wrong.

Much of the debate at the trial has centered on a condition, known as the “most-favored-nation” clause, that Apple made in its contracts with publishers. It guarantees that if a publisher offers an e-book at a lower price to one retailer, the book will cost the same in Apple’s e-book store. The Justice Department argues that Apple and the publishers used the most-favored-nation clause to defeat price competition and pressure Amazon to change the way it sold books and raise its prices as well.

On Thursday, as the lawyers wrapped up their arguments, Judge Cote peppered both Apple and the government with questions.

Several of her questions to the government revolved around one thought: why would Apple want to change the industry’s business model? Mark W. Ryan, a lawyer for the Justice Department, argued that Apple believed its iPad hardware was so ahead of anyone else’s, it wanted to eliminate price competition in the e-book market so that the iPad could compete with the Amazon’s Kindle solely on hardware, not book prices.

Mr. Ryan noted that the government’s concern was not solely the most-favored-nation clause, but the way that Apple and the publishers deliberately used the clause to force Amazon’s hand. “It’s the collusion to move the market to the place where competition would not otherwise take it,” he said.

If Amazon had continued the way it sold books under what is called the wholesale model — where publishers charged retailers about half the cover price for a book and Amazon sold the books for $9.99 — then the retailers would have lost a substantial amount of money selling the books for $9.99 to Apple because Apple takes a 30 percent cut.

That, Mr. Ryan said, is why the publishers understood they had to collectively force Amazon into the agency model, where the publishers, not the retailers, set the price of the books. They could use the most-favored-nation clause to put pressure on Amazon while also threatening to delay the release of their e-books until after the more expensive hardcover versions had been on the market for a while, he said.

Judge Cote challenged the government’s interpretation that Apple was deliberately scheming to help the publishers raise prices. Allowing them to raise their prices in Apple’s e-book store could be viewed as a “sales pitch” to get the publishers to agree to sign on with Apple in the month and a half leading up to the iPad introduction, she said.

In Apple’s closing statements, Mr. Snyder spent most of his time trying to illustrate that Apple fought “tooth and nail” with the publishers before cementing the contracts. He showed e-mails between Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet software and services, and the chief executives of the big publishers that demonstrated they were negotiating rather than cooperating.

Judge Cote asked Mr. Snyder whether Apple took the position that it had not understood that the publishers were forming a collective effort to raise prices industrywide, when the fact they were working together seemed obvious from articles published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Those articles said a group of publishers had announced plans to “window,” or delay, the release of e-books.

Mr. Snyder said that the articles just showed how business was done, and that they did not prove that the publishers were already conspiring. “When one company does one thing, the other companies take notice and do the same thing,” he said.

The big question surrounding the trial is whether there will be a change to the way businesses negotiate if Apple loses, as Mr. Snyder suggested. Charles E. Elder, an antitrust lawyer at Irell & Manella, which is not involved in the case, said that most-favored-nation clauses present unusual challenges under antitrust laws. While they ensure a customer gets the best deal, they can discourage price-cutting because the consequence of lowering prices for one retailer will be lowering prices for other retailers protected by the clause.

Mr. Elder said that he “would be very surprised” if the judge found Apple’s most-favored-nation clause illegal, and that he was not aware of any case where such a thing has happened. He said this antitrust case was based on the theory that the most-favored-nation clause resulted from a price-fixing conspiracy among the publishers that was furthered by Apple. If the judge holds Apple liable, he said, this case will be unlikely to have a “revolutionary impact” on businesses.

“Horizontal conspiracies to fix prices have always been illegal,” Mr. Elder said.

Judge Cote is expected to write her decision in the coming weeks.

Bits: If Our Gadgets Could Measure Our Emotions

“Honey, we know,” my mom replied. “But it should!”

She had a point. After all, computers and technology are becoming only smarter, faster and more intuitive. Artificial intelligence is creeping into our lives at a steady pace. Devices and apps can anticipate what we need, sometimes even before we realize it ourselves. So why shouldn’t they understand our feelings? If emotional reactions were measured, they could be valuable data points for better design and development. Emotional artificial intelligence, also called affective computing, may be on its way.

But should it be? After all, we’re already struggling to cope with the always-on nature of the devices in our lives. Yes, those gadgets would be more efficient if they could respond when we are frustrated, bored or too busy to be interrupted, yet they would also be intrusive in ways we can’t even fathom today. It sounds like a science-fiction movie, and in some ways it is. Much of this technology is still in its early stages, but it’s inching closer to reality.

Companies like Affectiva, a start-up spun out of the M.I.T. Media Lab, are working on software that trains computers to recognize human emotions based on their facial expressions and physiological responses. A company called Beyond Verbal, which has just raised close to $3 million in venture financing, is working on a software tool that can analyze speech and, based on the tone of a person’s voice, determine whether it indicates qualities like arrogance or annoyance, or both.

Microsoft recently revealed the Xbox One, the next-generation version of its flagship game console, which includes an update of Kinect, its motion-tracking device that lets people control games by moving their hands and bodies. The new Kinect, which goes on sale later this year, can be controlled by voice but is not programmed with software to detect emotions in those interactions.

But it does include a higher-definition camera capable of tracking fine skeletal and muscular changes in the body and face. The machine can already detect the physics behind bodily movements, and calculate the force behind a punch or the height of a jump. In addition, one of the Kinect’s new sensors uses infrared technology to track a player’s heartbeats. That could eventually help the company detect when a player’s pulse is racing during a fitness contest — and from excitement after winning a game. For avid gamers like myself, the possibilities for more immersive, interactive play are mind-boggling.

Albert Penello, a senior director of product planning at Microsoft, says the company intends to use that data to give designers insight into how people feel when playing its games — a kind of feedback loop that can help shape future offerings and experiences. He says Microsoft takes privacy very seriously and will require game developers to receive explicit permission from Xbox One owners before using the data.

Microsoft says games could even adapt in real time to players’ physical response, amping up the action if they aren’t stimulated enough, or tamping it down if it’s too scary. “We are trying to open up game designers to the mind of the players,” Mr. Penello said. “Are you scared or are you laughing? Are you paying attention and when are you not?”

Eventually, he said, the technology embedded in the Kinect camera could be used for a broader range of applications, including tracking reactions while someone is looking at ads or shopping online, in the hope of understanding what is or isn’t capturing the person’s interest. But he said those applications were not a top priority for the company. (Some companies have experimented with technologies like eye-tracking software to see what parts of commercials draw the most attention from viewers.)

Online media companies like Netflix, Spotify and Amazon already have access to real-time consumer sentiment, knowing which chapters, parts of songs, movies and TV shows people love, hate, skip and like to rewatch. Such data was used to engineer the popular online Netflix series “House of Cards,” whose creators had access to data about people’s television viewing habits.

So it is not much of a leap to imagine Kinect-like sensors, and tools like the ones Affectiva and Beyond Verbal are developing, being used to create new entertainment, Web browsing and search experiences.

The possibilities go far beyond that. Prerna Gupta, chief product officer at Smule, a development studio that makes mobile games, spoke about the subject at South by Southwest, the conference in Austin, Tex., in March. She called her talk “Apps of the Future: Instagram for Cyborgs,” and gazed far into the future of potential applications.

Long Wait for a Green Card Could Be Ending

Then, he waited for the American government to decide if he could stay.

“I know this country better than my own country, and I still feel like an outsider,” said Mr. Sant, 35, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2006, and has been waiting for federal officials to approve his green card application for six years. “That’s the thing that bothers me.”

That is also the predicament of tens of thousands of workers here in the heart of the tech industry who were born overseas and educated in the United States. Though not living in poverty or in the shadows, as are migrant workers who are here illegally, they are nevertheless in a bureaucratic limbo while they wait in a long line for a green card.

Now, though, Congress is poised to end their uncertainty.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws on a bipartisan vote, and sent the measure to the full Senate. The bill would make it much easier for science, math and engineering graduates of American universities to become permanent residents.

Crucially, it would also lift the limits on how many immigrants are allowed in from each country, which has meant that citizens of populous countries like India end up waiting far longer than others.

The provisions to ease the green card process enjoy bipartisan support, reflecting a stark reality: Nearly half of all engineering graduate students at American universities are from abroad.

Technology companies, like Facebook and Microsoft, want to hire many more of them, which is why they have lobbied to make it quicker for them to get permanent residency. So has the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a group that campaigns for American workers.

Still, not everyone is a fan. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, who has testified against the legislation, said easy, unlimited access to green cards for math and science graduates could encourage the emergence of “visa mills,” or schools established just to sell access to the United States. Also, he said: “American young people with bachelor’s degrees see these occupations distorted by large-scale admissions of foreign workers. That then changes their own decision making about what to do in the future.”

The green card provisions have been obscured by the louder, more polarizing fight between industry and labor over foreign guest worker visas, known as H-1Bs. But they stand to have a far greater impact on the men and women who drive this industry.

Mr. Sant, like many of his friends, was drawn to the United States for higher education. In 2010, the most recent year for which data is available from the National Science Foundation, a government agency, 45 percent of master’s and doctoral students in engineering were from abroad, up from 35 percent in 1990 and 24 percent in 1980, according to the agency.

At some universities, the share of foreign students is even higher. At Carnegie Mellon University, which has one of the most prestigious engineering schools in the world, 62 percent of engineering graduate students came from abroad, and at the Rochester Institute of Technology, 56 percent.

This year, at the University of Southern California, the figure is 68 percent, according to university officials.

Among those who come to study in this country, about one in three end up staying on temporary work visas, mainly through the H-1B program. An analysis by the Brookings Institution concluded that in 2010, 30 percent of those who were working on H-1B visas were former students at American universities. Their wait for permanent residency can be frustratingly long, depending on their homeland.

According to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, more than 150,000 of them have filed for green cards since 2010; nearly a third of them are from India, the largest single block.

Kartik Shah, 29, was among them. A native of Mumbai, he went to the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, for a master’s degree in electrical engineering. He graduated in 2007 and swiftly landed a job as a software engineer at Cisco’s headquarters in San Jose, just south of here.

The company soon filed a green card application on his behalf, which it says it does for the vast majority of its H-1B workers. The government cleared his application, essentially ruling that his skills were needed. Then, it told him to wait.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 24, 2013

An article on Thursday about the potential effect of federal immigration legislation on tens of thousands of American-educated workers in the technology industry incompletely identified the university from which one such worker, Sanket Sant, received his doctorate. It is the University of Texas at Dallas, not simply the University of Texas.

Bits Blog: A Ruling Could Support F.C.C.’s Net Neutrality Defense

Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press Justice Antonin Scalia

The Federal Communications Commission’s high-profile attempt to defend its net neutrality rules against a court challenge got major support on Monday from the Supreme Court, which ruled in a separate case that regulatory agencies should usually be granted deference in interpreting their own jurisdictions.

In a 6-to-3 decision, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that in cases where Congress has left ambiguous the outlines of a regulatory agency’s jurisdiction, “the court must defer to the administering agency’s construction of the statute so long as it is permissible.”

That has big implications for Verizon v. F.C.C., in which Verizon challenged the F.C.C.’s Open Internet Order, its rules on net neutrality. Those rules said that an Internet service provider must treat all traffic on its system roughly equally, not giving priority to any one type of data or application as it moves through the provider’s Internet pipes.

The net neutrality case is pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The appeals court was expected to hear arguments in that case this spring, but deferred the case until next fall. Court watchers have speculated that the delay may have been spurred by anticipation of Monday’s decision in Arlington v. F.C.C., No. 11-1545.

“This case just gave the F.C.C.’s argument a lot more weight,” said David Kaut, a telecommunications regulatory analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Company in Washington. Mr. Kaut cautioned, however, that the differing facts of the two cases made it uncertain whether the precedent in the Arlington case was sufficient to validate the F.C.C.’s argument that it has authority to regulate Internet service providers.

Edward S. McFadden, a Verizon spokesman, said the company did not “anticipate that today’s decision in Arlington v. F.C.C. will have any effect on our appeal” in the net neutrality case.

That decision will be parsed for months, particularly because in explaining his reasoning, Justice Scalia constructed a hypothetical example that sounded very much like the Verizon net neutrality case.

Using two options of how Congress might have written a telecommunications law, Justice Scalia asked under which of those options the F.C.C. could legitimately claim jurisdiction over Internet service providers.

The answer, he said, was both.

“The question in every case is, simply, whether the statutory text forecloses the agency’s assertion of authority, or not,” he wrote.

The precedent applied by Justice Scalia in the Arlington case was Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, in which the court held that courts must defer to an agency’s interpretation of its statutory jurisdiction unless it exceeds the specific bounds set by Congress.

How that applies to the Verizon case remains uncertain, however, because of a previous decision by the District of Columbia Circuit itself, in Comcast v. F.C.C. In that case, which involved a net neutrality enforcement proceeding, the circuit court said that the F.C.C. did not have authority over Comcast’s Internet service, because it was not ancillary to the authority laid out by Congress in the Communications Act.

Bits Blog: Disruptions: Smart-Gun Technology Could Prevent Massacres Like Newtown

Justin Lane/European Pressphoto Agency A police officer at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 15.

Gun owners and advocates are fond of saying, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

This might be a more useful aphorism: Smart-guns don’t kill the wrong people.

Technology exists, or could exist, that would make guns safer. The idea of a safe gun might seem to be the ultimate oxymoron: guns are designed to kill. But something missing from the gun-control debate that has followed the killing of 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., is the role of technology in preventing or at least limiting gun deaths.

Biometrics and grip pattern detection can sense the registered owner of a gun and allow only that person to fire it. For example, the iGun, made by Mossberg Group, cannot be fired unless its owner is wearing a ring with a chip that activates the gun.

But you would be hard pressed to find this technology on many weapons sold in stores. “The gun industry has no interest in making smart-guns. There is no incentive for them,” said Robert J. Spitzer, a professor of political science at SUNY Cortland and the author of four books on gun policy. “There is also no appetite by the government to press ahead with any kind of regulation requiring smart-guns.”

Why can we open our front doors with our iPhones and have cars that drive themselves, but we can’t make a gun that doesn’t fire unless its registered owner is using it?

“We can,” Dr. Spitzer said. “These safety options exist today. This is not Buck Rogers type of stuff.” But gun advocates are staunchly against these technologies, partly because so many guns are bought not in gun shops, but in private sales. “Many guns are bought and sold on the secondary market without background checks, and that kind of sale would be inhibited with fingerprinting-safety technologies in guns,” he said.

I called several major gun makers and the National Rifle Association. No one thinks a smart-gun will stop a determined killer. But I thought Smith & Wesson and Remington, for instance, would want to discuss how technology might help reduce accidental shootings, which killed 600 people and injured more than 14,000 in the United States in 2010. The gunmakers did not respond, and neither did the N.R.A.

A Wired magazine article from 2002 gives a glimpse of the N.R.A.’s thinking. “Mere mention of ‘smart-gun’ technology elicited sneers and snickers faster than a speeding bullet,” the magazine wrote. It quoted the N.R.A.’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, as saying, “Tragic victims couldn’t have been saved by trigger locks or magazine bans or ‘smart-gun’ technology, or some new government commission running our firearms companies.”

After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in December, Mr. LaPierre created a new aphorism: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” He said violent video games and movies were part of the problem, but he didn’t mention smart-guns as a solution.

TriggerSmart, an Irish company, has patented a childproof smart-gun. One feature is a “safe zone” that can be installed in schools and acts as a force field, disabling any TriggerSmart gun that enters a designated area. Robert McNamara, the company’s founder, has been trying to persuade gun makers to adopt the technology. He isn’t having much luck. “One gun manufacturer told us if we put this technology in one particular gun and some kid gets shot with another gun, then they will have to put them in all guns,” he said.

“We believe we could have helped prevent the Newtown massacre.”

E-mail: bilton@nytimes.com

Apple Shake-Up Could Lead to Design Shift

There, behind a list of text messages, missed phone calls and other updates, is a gray background with the unmistakable texture of fine linen.

Steven P. Jobs, the Apple chief executive who died a year ago, pushed the company’s software designers to use the linen texture liberally in the software for the company’s mobile devices. He did the same with many other virtual doodads that mimic the appearance and behavior of real-world things, like wooden shelves for organizing newspapers and the page-flipping motion of a book, according to people who worked with him but declined to be named to avoid Apple’s ire.

The management shake-up that Apple announced on Monday is likely to mean that Apple will shift away from such visual tricks, which many people within the company look down upon. As part of the changes, the company fired Scott Forstall, the leader of Apple’s mobile software development and a disciple of Mr. Jobs. While Mr. Forstall’s abrasive style and resistance to collaboration with other parts of the company were the main factors in his undoing, the change also represents the departure of the most vocal and high-ranking proponent of the visual design style favored by Mr. Jobs.

The executive who will now set the direction for the look of Apple’s software is Jonathan Ive, who has long been responsible for Apple’s minimalist hardware designs. Mr. Ive, despite his close relationship with Mr. Jobs, has made his distaste for the visual ornamentation in Apple’s mobile software known within the company, according to current and former Apple employees who asked not to be named discussing internal matters.

This may seem like little more than an internal disagreement over taste. But Apple venerates design like few other companies of its size, and its customers have rewarded it handsomely as a result. Apple’s decisions can influence how millions of people use and think about digital devices — not only its own but those made by other companies that look to Apple as a standard-setter in design.

Axel Roesler, associate professor and chairman of the interaction design program at the University of Washington, says Apple’s software designs had become larded with nostalgia, unnecessary visual references to the past that he compared to Greek columns in modern-day architecture. He said he would like to see Mr. Ive take a fresh approach.

“Apple, as a design leader, is not only capable of doing this, they have a responsibility for doing it,” he said. “People expect great things from them.”

Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, declined to comment.

Apple’s customers do not seem to have serious qualms about the design choices the company has made as they continue to buy iPhones and iPads at a healthy clip. But within the circles of designers and technology executives outside Apple who obsess over the details of how products look and work, there has been a growing amount of grumbling in recent years that Apple’s approach is starting to look dated.

The style favored by Mr. Forstall and Mr. Jobs is known in this crowd as skeuomorphism, in which certain images and metaphors, like a spiral-bound notebook or stitched leather, are used in software to give people a reassuring real-world reference.

In contrast, Microsoft, not known as a big risk-taker, has been praised recently for taking greater creative risks in the design of its software than Apple has. It has come up with a visual style that is now used throughout its computer, mobile and game products. It relies heavily on typography and sheets of tiles that provide access to programs and are updated with photos and other online information. It is not yet clear whether this approach will be a hit with people who do not spend time thinking about design.

Bill Flora, a former Microsoft designer who created the earliest prototypes of its new visual style, said Apple had not been innovative enough in the design of its software. “I have found their hardware to be amazing and sophisticated, and I have found their software to be kind of old school,” said Mr. Flora, who now has his own design firm, Tectonic, in Seattle. “Their approach really wasn’t what I was taught as a designer in design school.”

Donald Trump — My Obama Announcement Could Change the Election | TMZ.com

You are Here: Hip Hop News Daily » HIP HOP NEWS » Donald Trump Calls Touré “Racist,” Wants Him Fired From MSNBC

Donald Trump has made it clear … the information he has concerning the President of the United States is HUUUUGE … and he tells TMZ he’s going to reveal the info on Wednesday. 

Trump just called in to “TMZ Live” and told us the information is nothing short of “a big fact.”

When asked if his secret will make Obama happy – Trump replied, “I don’t wanna comment … that’s up to him.”

Earlier this morning, Trump described his information to "Fox & Friends" … saying it’s “something very, very big concerning the president of the United States … It’s going to be very big. I know one thing — you will cover it in a very big fashion.”

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2012/10/22/donald-trump-obama-tmz-live-information/#ixzz2A8sMAxcx

Bits Blog: Graphene Could Usher in Flexible, Ultra-Slim Gadgets

Ji Hye Hong Graphene is a fully flexible material.

You’ve probably never heard of graphene, a carbon-based material, but it might be stuffed into your pocket or wrapped around your wrist in the not-too-distant future.

According to the American Chemical Society, graphene is a “wonder material” 100 times stronger than steel and is so thin that a single ounce of it could to cover 28 football fields. It could also usher in a new era of ultra-slim and fully flexible gadgets.

Although graphene has been in the news before, A.C.S. said that it was now currently under development for use in flexible solar panels “that could be used to cover the outside surface of a building, in addition to the roof.” And as soon as these solar panels actually become a viable product, cell phones would be next up on the flexible list.

“Touch screens made with graphene as their conductive element could be printed on thin plastic instead of glass, so they would be light and flexible, which could make cell phones as thin as a piece of paper and foldable enough to slip into a pocket,” the A.C.S. explained in a report on its Web site this week. “Because of graphene’s incredible strength, these cell phones would be nearly unbreakable.”

The March issue of Nature noted that the graphene could also be used to create bionic implants, too, which are essentially electronic devices that are placed inside the human body. Nature predicts that once scientists figure out how to make large batches of graphene economically, it could ”radically advance technologies ranging from transistors to touch screens to solar cells to bionic implants.”

So when can we expect these wonder devices? Scientists aren’t sure just yet, but they do predict that the first consumer application for graphene will be a flexible cell phone.

For Some Drivers, Electric Motorcycle Could Be the Best of Both Worlds

What if you got rid of the bad parts of both?

You might end up with something like the C-1, an electric motorcycle that looks as if it came out of the movie “Tron.” For protection, the bike is encased in a metal shell, and it is controlled like a car, with a steering wheel and foot pedals. Two big gyroscopes under the floor are designed to keep it from tipping over, even when a car hits it from the side. The C-1’s top speed is 120 miles an hour, and it can travel 200 miles on a full charge.

A small start-up called Lit Motors is developing the C-1 in a three-story warehouse here. Its 33-year-old chief executive, Daniel Kim, was tinkering with a biodiesel sport utility vehicle eight years ago when a 500-pound chassis nearly crushed him. The experience got him thinking about cutting out the bulk.

“Most people drive alone,” Mr. Kim said in an interview. “Why not cut the car in half? I was really into bicycles at that time and I thought, Why can’t we have the efficiency of a bicycle and motorcycle but all the amenities of a car?”

Fully electric vehicles have long been a dream among environmentalists and technologists, but companies have found it hard to deliver affordable and practical vehicles to the mass market. One of the biggest names in this field is Tesla Motors, which makes expensive sports cars and has had trouble increasing manufacturing.

But Lit Motors, which has just 10 people on staff, thinks it can bring the benefits of an electric vehicle even to those who aren’t rich. Mr. Kim says his motorcycle will be money-saving, safe to drive and simple to build.

The main culprit in the high price of electric vehicles is the battery, said Dan Sperling, a professor of civil engineering and environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis and director of its Institute of Transportation Studies. Unlike computer chips and digital storage, which have improved rapidly while dropping in price, battery technology has made slow progress, he said, so vehicle batteries are still bulky and pricey.

The other challenge, Dr. Sperling said, is that most people are not ready to embrace electric vehicles yet. Consumers could be nervous about the reliability and maintenance of such an expensive purchase — buggy software, for example, could lead to more serious consequences than it would on something like a smartphone. That’s why many auto companies have stuck to making hybrid vehicles, which use both gas and electricity and are more affordable, easier to produce and more familiar to drivers.

“It’s not like when you buy an iPhone and you throw it out or don’t use it as much when it gets old,” Dr. Sperling said. “Unlike an iPhone or Windows system, it can’t crash — it has to perform with high reliability all the time.”

Mr. Kim, who dropped out of Reed College and the University of California, Berkeley and later studied industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design, has plans to overcome those obstacles. The motorcycle is lighter than a car so its batteries can be smaller and cheaper. And to improve reliability, the system is equipped with more components than it actually needs, Mr. Kim said.

The C-1’s secret weapons are the gyroscopes that allow it to balance itself, similar to the approach used in the Segway scooter. In a video, the company shows the bike remaining upright as a car yanks it from the side. Only one gyroscope is needed to maintain balance, but there are always two running; each gyroscope has redundant computer chips, controllers and sensors, so if any one of those fails, there are extras to back it up.

The bike is made up of 2,200 parts, or one-tenth the number in the average car, which should make it easier to mass-produce, Mr. Kim said. He plans to start manufacturing the motorcycle in the United States.

There are two main target markets for the vehicle, said Ryan James, chief marketing officer for Lit Motors: motorcyclists between 45 and 60 years old who are concerned about safety but don’t want to give up their two-wheeler and younger commuters who live in urban or suburban areas where driving a car can be a bother or feel wasteful.

Still, Mr. Kim’s start-up, which is on a hiring spree, faces some tough hurdles. So far it has raised just $720,000 from early investors and another $80,000 from family and friends. It will have to get people to buy a vehicle they haven’t had a chance to drive or even see in real life — and spend some serious money on it. Each motorcycle will cost $24,000 for the first production run of 1,000 in 2014, Mr. Kim said, and he hopes to bring the price down to $14,000 by around 2016, putting it in the range of a nice Ducati motorcycle or an entry-level car like a Honda Fit.

The company is already taking early orders and down payments on its Web site. About 250 people have signed up.

Mr. Kim said the company plans to team up with car dealerships in California, San Francisco and Los Angeles, in addition to selling the bikes online. And next summer, Mr. James will be driving an early version of the electric motorcycle to college campuses and conventions to show it to people and let them test-drive it. The company is also working on smartphone apps so C-1 owners can be part of their own social network.

Mr. Kim has his doubters. Kevin See, an analyst with Lux Research, which studies electric vehicles and alternative energy, said the motorcycle might appeal only to a small niche, and the initial price tag would be much higher than most people were willing to pay for a two-wheel vehicle. There are also plenty of more affordable vehicles on the market that perform well and already have a trusted brand, he said.

“It’s very tough to roll out a vehicle of any kind with such a significant price premium versus an incumbent,” he said. Mr. See said the C-1 reminded him of Aptera Motors, a start-up that tried to sell a futuristic car but went out of business in December. (Steve Fambro, a founder of Aptera, is listed as one of Lit’s technical advisers.)

Dr. Sperling of the University of California said the biggest challenge for Mr. Kim would be finding buyers for the vehicle and then finding the means to deliver it.

“He’s got some clever ideas, and it really comes down to questions that all these companies face, and that is can they find a market for the product, and can they actually do the manufacturing in an efficient and effective way?” Dr. Sperling said.

Still, he said he was optimistic about the company’s chances.

“There are people who want to do something to save the world, make a contribution to it, do something both in terms of energy and climate,” he said. “If it’s cool and good for the world, you’ve got a winner.”

Why PlayStation Mobile Could Be a Big Deal

"PlayStation Mobile" -- formerly PlayStation Suite -- has been a buzzword around Sony for a while, but today, it finally matters. Maybe. See, while you were worrying about PlayStation Vita sales and where you're scoring your next PlayStation Network Trophy, Sony was worrying about taking on the Apple and Android App Stores. Today, you can begin buying these games.

You should be very excited about this, but cautious at the same time. Let me explain.

PlayStation Mobile is Sony's move to get "PlayStation-like" games on smart phones and tablets -- regardless of brand -- as well as the PlayStation Vita. Basically, PlayStation Mobile gives developers one set of tools to create with and then allows those games to go to gamers regardless of where they play. Any would-be developer can grab the PlayStation Mobile tools for just $99, whip up a title, and get it to the people. Sound familiar? It's the Apple App Store model, and it's a momentous step for PlayStation.

“

But I expect a lot of speed bumps.

Back in 2009, PlayStation Minis debuted on the PSP, but the movement never took off. The "bite-sized" experiences don't offer online support, don't pack Trophies, and are way too expensive. Part of this problem is that even though these were smaller games, they were still being worked through the traditional PlayStation pipeline. Now, PlayStation Mobile is streamlining the process and letting games get to the people without the traditional hurdles Minis have faced. Young upstarts working in their dorm room now have an affordable shot at getting their games on a PlayStation-certified device.

Does this mean we'll get breakout App Store hits like Game Dev Story and Hexagon to come to PlayStation Mobile? Who knows. If it's easy to port from one platform to the other, sure -- but what's more exciting is the untapped potential. PlayStation Mobile represents the next big mobile/indie game. The title we haven't even thought of that someone is going to tinker around with and publish one day.

Download the PlayStation Mobile title Aqua Kitty: Milk Mine Defender with its old-school graphics, shoot'em up gameplay and chiptune score and tell me that there isn't potential here. Tell me there aren't a million great game ideas out there ready for a crack at the big time.

Aqua Kitty in action.

This is all speculation, of course. PlayStation Mobile has a lot to prove now that it's out in the wild (you can get to the first run of games via the PlayStation Store on the Vita). First and foremost, when most of us think about mobile games, we think of 99-cent endeavors, but PlayStation Mobile titles range from free to $20.

On top of that, there are still a number of questions we as consumers need answered.

Will PlayStation Mobile games always come out on Wednesdays rather than Tuesdays?Will there be games every week?Will they ever have Trophies?Will online functionality be supported?How do developers make money? Percentages?What's the approval process for a game like? How long does it take?

I reached out and asked PlayStation these questions, but the rep declined to comment. I wish I could tell you that I have the utmost faith in PlayStation nailing this program, but I expect a lot of speed bumps.

The fact that PlayStation didn't include Trophies in PlayStation Mobile -- a surefire way to give mobile users a stake in the PlayStation Network -- speaks to the platform and its missed opportunities. Pricing is probably going to be too high, online will be nonexistent, and really these are just going to be modern Minis.

 

That's not the worst thing in the world. I think gamers like you and me might not be super-excited for the program at the moment, but people getting their first taste of PlayStation on their phones won't know what they're missing. They'll begin playing, and PlayStation will begin iterating.

Think of today as the first step. It'll be shakey and there's going to be plenty to improve on, but if PlayStation Mobile can get its feet, it could be pretty impressive when it's running and be the lifeblood of Sony's gaming division. One day, PlayStation won't be in the hardware business -- there will be no PlayStation console for you to wait in line for. Buying studios to make games and getting PlayStation Mobile off the ground are examples of PlayStation future-proofing its business, making sure there's still a PlayStation even if you're playing its games on a Microsoft device.

It's just a question of whether or not the moves are going to work.

Common Sense: Apple’s Map App Could Raise Antitrust Concerns

These milestones were reached with the steady hand of Timothy D. Cook at Apple’s helm, but they seem inseparable from Mr. Jobs. They are the result of initiatives begun during his tenure and, in many ways, reflect his personality — one that was perfectionist, competitive, driven and controlling.

Those qualities have remained on display at Apple in the year since his death, most recently in the decision to substitute Apple mapping software for rival Google’s in the iPhone 5 and the new iOS 6 operating system, as well as allegations that Apple and book producers conspired to control the price of e-books.

Apple hasn’t fully explained its decision to replace Google’s maps, but it probably reflects the evolution of the Apple-Google relationship from close allies to fierce competitors, a process that began well before Mr. Jobs’s death. Apple also hasn’t indicated whether it was carrying out Mr. Jobs’s wishes, but the decision seems consistent with his “compulsion for Apple to have end-to-end control of every product that it made,” as Walter Isaacson put it in his book “Steve Jobs.”

Apple’s use of its own mapping technology in the iPhone appears to be a textbook case of what’s known as a tying arrangement, sometimes referred to as “bundling.” In a tying arrangement, the purchase of one good or service (in this case the iPhone) is conditioned on the purchase or use of a second (Apple maps).

To the degree that tying arrangements extend the control of a dominant producer, they may violate antitrust laws. Probably the best-known example was Microsoft’s attempt to bundle its Internet Explorer browser on Windows software, to the disadvantage of Netscape, a rival browser, despite complaints that Explorer was initially an inferior product. This was the linchpin of the government’s 1998 antitrust case against Microsoft. E-mails were introduced as evidence in which Microsoft executives indiscreetly stated their intentions to “smother,” “extinguish” and “cut off Netscape’s air supply” by bundling Explorer with Windows.

Among other findings, the judge ruled that Microsoft had engaged in an illegal tying arrangement. The outcome of the case kept the door open to competition in the browser market. Today, the once-dominant Internet Explorer faces stiff competition from rivals like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Microsoft’s settlement came too late for Netscape’s browser, which was no longer being developed or supported after 2007. But Firefox traces its lineage to Netscape’s source code.

Could Apple’s map suffer a similar fate?

Early users searched for locations and got nonsensical results. Mad magazine ran a parody of the famous Saul Steinberg New Yorker cover of the world seen from Ninth Avenue “now using Apple Maps,” in which the Hudson was the Sea of Galilee and other landmarks were ludicrously misidentified.

Mr. Cook swiftly tried to contain the damage. “Everything we do at Apple is aimed at making our products the best in the world. We know that you expect that from us, and we will keep working nonstop until Maps lives up to the same incredibly high standard,” he said a week ago.

Would Mr. Jobs have been so quick to apologize? Perhaps not. He was famously resistant to the idea after complaints about the iPhone 4’s antenna, and the Apple “genius” manual instructs employees never to apologize for the quality of Apple technology.

Bundling its maps with the iPhone 5 may yet prove to be a strategic blunder for Apple, but it may nonetheless skirt the boundaries of the antitrust laws that tripped up Microsoft. “There’s no antitrust theory under which vertically integrating into an inferior component is considered anticompetitive,” Herbert Hovenkamp, an antitrust professor at the University of Iowa College of Law, told me. That’s because the problem is considered self-correcting by market forces. “There have been lots of complaints about tying arrangements involving inferior products. But ordinarily, incorporating an inferior product doesn’t increase your market share, because consumers leave for a better product. It’s not a promising strategy,” Professor Hovenkamp said. The danger for Apple is that customers will choose an Android phone with a superior Google Maps application rather than an iPhone.

An exception is when a monopolist does it, which is what happened with Microsoft. If a consumer used Microsoft Windows, the dominant software, Explorer was installed by default. “This arose with Microsoft because back then Explorer was considered inferior and quirky,” Professor Hovenkamp said. “But that wasn’t why it was a violation. It’s because consumers had no choice.” By contrast, Apple’s iOS isn’t the dominant smartphone operating system. Apple’s software has captured 17 percent of the global smartphone market, compared with 68 percent for Google’s Android. Apple users who want Google maps can readily switch to an Android phone. “Most tying arrangement cases have involved firms with close to 100 percent market shares,” Professor Hovenkamp noted.

The real test will be whether Apple makes rival mapping apps readily available for downloading on its iPhones. In his apology, Mr. Cook suggested that iPhone users try alternatives, and even suggested using Google maps by going to Google’s Web site. Google said it was working on a map application for the iPhone.

From an antitrust perspective, the e-books controversy is more serious. United States antitrust authorities have accused Apple of conspiring with major book publishers to raise e-book prices, and Apple offered to settle a European investigation into the same practices. The Justice Department cited a passage in Mr. Isaacson’s book in which Mr. Jobs called the strategy an “aikido move,” referring to the Japanese martial art, and said, “We’ll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30 percent, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway.”

The charges describe a classic price-fixing arrangement, “which is presumptively illegal,” Professor Hovenkamp said. “Everybody wants market dominance, not just Apple. But it’s how you go about it. You can’t go out and fix prices.” Apple has denied the charges, and a trial has been set for next year.

Mr. Cook’s challenge has always been to guide Apple out of the shadow of its visionary and charismatic founder. Can he encourage Mr. Jobs’s competitive zeal and drive for perfection while distancing Apple from Mr. Jobs’s potentially damaging — even unlawful — need to dominate and control? “Historically, Apple hasn’t been very sensitive to antitrust issues,” Professor Hovenkamp said.

There’s no quarreling with Apple’s extraordinary success, and Mr. Jobs’s obsession with controlling all aspects of Apple’s products clearly paid off for its customers and shareholders. It proved to be the right strategy for the time. But competition in smartphones and Apple’s other efforts has intensified in the year since Mr. Jobs died, and Apple may not be able to continue blindly down that path. With his swift apology for the imperfections of Apple’s maps, Mr. Cook seems to have taken a step in the right direction. If he also settles the e-books case and makes Google’s and other map applications readily available to iPhone users, he’d be signaling a clear break from the past and encouraging Apple to embrace, rather than stifle, competition.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 5, 2012

An earlier version of this column referred incorrectly to a case in which Microsoft resolved anticompetitive concerns by agreeing to offer users a choice of browser. The agreement was part of a 2009 settlement of a European antitrust case, not the United States government's 1998 antitrust case.

Wireless Charging Mat Could Work as an iPhone Dock Someday

Prior to a number of major leaks, there were rumors the iPhone 5 would be Apple's first device with NFC and inductive charging. Instead of an NFC chip for mobile payments, Apple made the Passbook app.

And instead of including inductive wireless charging, they built a better dock connector. As Apple's Phil Schiller told AllThingsD, "having another device you have to plug into the wall (i.e., a wireless charging station) is actually, for most situations, more complicated," than using a charging cable.

Schiller went on to promise Apple will continue to use the Lightning connector "for many years to come."

 

But a new patent application, dug up by Apple Insider, shows that Apple hasn't written off wireless charging at all. The company has been researching it (and possibly developing prototypes) while its executives belie its utility.

But Apple didn't invent inductive charging! you're probably thinking. How could they get a patent for it? Good question! Apple isn't actually seeking a patent for inductive charging; the application pertains to additional docking-station type functions for a wireless charging pad, based on how various devices are oriented on it.

 

So for example, placing your (future) iPhone face-down could both charge and sync it to iCloud, whereas placing it face-up could just charge it. Make room for a second iPhone or iPod Touch or compatible camera, throw NFC into the mix, and you could do all kinds of cool things.

Of course, patent applications don't necessarily indicate a company's intentions, so it's totally possible we'll never see Apple implement anything like this. And even if we do, that doesn't mean Lightning will go the way of the buffalo.

Does wireless charging make sense for the iPhone? Let us know in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 Could Be Naruto's Best Brawler

The annual, unchanging Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm series has little to offer anyone but hardcore fans. For that particular audience, though, it’s a consistent, reliable giver. It rarely shakes up the core mechanics of its 3D combat, instead opting to improve the spectacle of it all.

Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 appeals to fans that may have been let down last time, and gives them new layers to appreciate. And all the while, it leaves those unfamiliar with the popular anime in awe.

It’s clear developer CyberConnect2 learned a lot working on Asura’s Wrath – Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 has more interactive button-prompt sequences than ever. Typically quick time events leave bad tastes in gamers’ mouths, but these are so stylish in presentation that they’re easy to love. Fights are as much about fast-paced punching as they are presentation, so if you’re not into watching a bit of action go down and having control taken away, you’re absolutely not going to fall for Naruto Shippuden. That said, battles are fully watchable separate from the game because they’re so true to Naruto’s television style.

This is particularly true during the returning boss battles. What’s not to love about beating a city-smashing fox with a giant pipe, or transforming into a massive fighter and suplexing it in a Godzilla fight? Yes, that’s really a thing. Check it out:

Their spectacular scale is part of a broader thesis in Ultimate Ninja Storm 3: Size matters. It’s all about huge bosses, more fighters, and more ways to play. The most intriguing new addition for Naruto fans, though, is the minor element of choices – again, another in-the-moment interruption for those concerned about it. During some battles, the camera will zoom in behind your brawler at an important moment, giving you the opportunity to finish the fight or play through a flashback. The memories serve more than a story purpose – giving you insight into the characters – because they fundamentally change the form and function of your fight.

If you're playing as Naruto, for instance, you'll flip back in time from the Shippuden era -- just before the Fourth Shinobi World War in which Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 is set -- to the ninja's childhood. The characters you and your opponent play revert to their younger selves, changing their appearance as well as play style, special moves, and interaction. This disrupts expectations you have going into a fight, and forces you to learn to play multiple fighters. It's a clever bit of fan service that also adds an interesting element to an encounter.

Naruto Shippuden games have been predictable until now. With more than 70 characters in the roster, the return of epic boss battles, and the switcheroo flashback matches, there's enough here to keep even the most vetted fans on their toes -- and that's exactly what this series needed to stay strong.

Kim Kardashian & Kanye West Staging A Major Cover-Up: Could Kim Be The One In The Sex Tape

Remember how earlier it was reported that there are now TWO Kanye West sex tapes floating around, starring two different Kim Kardashianlook-a-likes???

Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore!

Supposedly, as many have suspected, the woman in the sex tape IS Kimmy K — and Kimye is doing any and everything they can to keep everyone from finding out!

Even more so, the leading lady, Mony Monn, was reportedly given old, unreleased pics of the reality star to upload onto her Facebook to aid in the cover-up!

Not only that, but we’re also hearing that Monn was given somewhere near six-figures to go along with the story that it’s her and NOT Kim!

Talk about KRAY!

So if Kim is indeed the leading lady, why won’t she just fess up???

Two words: Kris Humphries.

The ex-couple’s divorce proceedings are STILL going on and we all know how much Kris is trying to prove the whole marriage was a sham.

What better evidence than a sex tape, supposedly filmed at the start of their marriage, to show that Kimmy was unfaithful???

Mz. Kardashian might end up having to cough up the kash — and a shiz ton of it!

Uh oh… sounds like Kimye has gotten themselves into one HUGE mess of a situation! Who knows how this will all end up!

JLA, Batman Reboot Could Have Separate Batmen

Remember way back when Warner Bros. shut down the Justice League of America movie -- the version that would have been directed by George Miller and starred Armie Hammer as Batman and D.J. Cotrona as Superman -- because Christopher Nolan didn't want another Batman competing with his Dark Knight trilogy starring Christian Bale?

Well, Batman-on-Film says it has heard, via a longtime source, that the studio "has at least considered the possibility" of multiple Batmen, Supermen and Wonder Women onscreen.

The studio's already having LEGO Batman (voiced by Will Arnett) swing onto the screen in their new LEGO Movie, but this would be one actor playing Batman in the JLA movie and a different actor altogether playing the Dark Knight in a presumably tonally different Batman solo series/reboot. This would also presumably extend to Henry Cavill's Superman from Man of Steel as well.

Again, this is a rumor. Warners might nix it. Maybe it was just something some exec threw out there at a meeting that got mentioned elsewhere, etc. Or maybe it's their new road map, a way for the studio to have their cake and eat it, too. We shall see.

Sound off in the Comments below if you think the idea of multiple Batmen onscreen would confuse you as a filmgoer or be the coolest thing since the Joker killed a guy with a "magic trick."

Bits: Craigslist's Challenger Could Be an App, or Several

A few days ago an incoming alert caught my eye. Someone had posted a public message through Highlight, an iPhone app that shows people who else is nearby whom they might want to meet.

The note simply read: “Selling 2 face value wilco tix for tonight – share pls. Thanks!”

It was enough to raise my eyebrows. Highlight is a type of application that tries to extend the social graph from the people you know to the people you might know. I’ve seen it used for networking and dating, and as a travel guide in new cities — but never as a targeted, location-based classified ad service.

Yardsale, a mobile application, lets people browse through items for sale based on how far away they are from the person who is selling them.

The notification might be part of the answer to a question raised by my colleague Nick Bilton a few weeks ago: Why has no upstart knocked Craigslist from its perch, despite its outdated design and failure to work nicely with others?

It might not be one site that rises up to claim the throne. It also might not be a site. It might show up in the form of a distributed network of sites and applications, one that connects buyers and sellers who are near each other, linking them through the location-aware, always-on, powerful machines in our pockets.

The Highlight example is one of many. There are several start-ups that are trying to tap into our mobile phones to build out that exact network of listings, but only for people nearby. Yardsale, for example, lets people browse through items for sale — everything from dining room chairs to gaming consoles — based on how far away they are from the person who is selling them. Bondsy is trying to build a marketplace layer over a user’s existing social network. Another service, called Ketup, shows a photo feed of nearby items that are for sale.

Ryan Mickle, one of the founders of Yardsale, said that while the company did not consider itself to be a direct competitor to Craigslist, he thought it could be a healthy alternative.

“We wanted to rebuild the experience of buying and selling,” Mr. Mickle said. “We could streamline it and make it so that if you had some salt-and-pepper shakers that you wanted to get rid of, you could take a picture, upload it, and 15 seconds later it would be available through the app.”

For now, this is tech that is still limited to the one-percenters. Craigslist appeals to people all around the country, and world, because of its simplicity and accessibility. You don’t need to have a fancy phone to sell your old sofa on Craigslist. But Craigslist’s foothold is still largely on the Web — meaning that as the world moves to mobile, companies that are not able to adapt could be left behind. For companies like Yardsale, whose app has been downloaded around 100,000 times, mobile is crucial.

“We can show you the items for sale on your block,” Mr. Mickle said. “The serendipity of what’s available from your neighbor could lead you to finding stuff you didn’t even know you want.”

Soon, one — or all — of these services could be giving Craigslist a run for its money.