In this photo provided by the New York City Police Department, police officers grab a man who dove out a seventh floor window in what they believe was a suicide attempt, when officers tried to restrain him, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, in New York. He was successfully pulled to safety and taken to a hospital with a sprained wrist and ankle, where he remains pending psychological evaluation. (AP Photo/New York City Police Department)

NEW YORK – Police say two officers rescued a suspect as he dangled from a seventh-floor Manhattan apartment window after nearly lunging to his death.

Officers Isaias Alicea and Vincent Gagliostro grabbed the 200-pound man’s arm and leg as he fell, holding him until colleagues arrived to help pull him to safety.

The suspect and one officer were treated for minor injuries.

Police say officers Alicea and Gagliostro were responding to a call of child neglect at the Harlem apartment Thursday morning when they happened upon the man.

During a struggle with the suspect, police say he broke free and dashed for a window. He removed a barrier and jumped out, but the officers grabbed his arm and leg as he fell.

The man is undergoing a psychological evaluation.

Turns out Google Music isn’t just about listening to tunes delivered from the Web.

Google just updated its Music Manager software that customers use to connect with its Web-based music service, turning it into a useful way to back up digital music collections stored on a PC. Now, Google Music users can download in bulk all of the songs they’ve uploaded to the service or purchased from the Google Music store.

When Google Music launched in November, it offered users the ability to upload 20,000 songs to the service all at once. That way, users could stream those songs to any browser or Android-based device, such as a phone, a tablet, or Google TV.

But they could only download the songs one at a time. That made the service virtually useless as a music library backup. That’s because if a user’s PC hard drive failed, he or she could only painfully rebuild the music collection from Google Music song by song.

“Now if your computer crashes, you’ll have a great backup for your music,” Google noted in a post on Google+ announcing the new feature.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has responded to a New York Times report about the working conditions at its Foxconn contract manufacturer as false and offensive.

In a long letter to employees published by 9to5Mac, Cook outlined how Apple cares about workers in its supply chain and takes steps to audit how they are treated. The response comes after a New York Times went into detail about how Apple’s China manufacturing efforts are a) necessary due to U.S. inability to be nimble and b) the cost advantages of making your electronics abroad.

Apple was the main target of the story, but the Times made a passing mention that there was a tech industry problem. It didn’t go much deeper on the subject. Apple is a much better storyline. I’ve been relatively silent on this Apple supply chain argument because I think the company is being targeted because it’s the big dog on the tech block. In fact, the Apple-Foxconn tale isn’t really just a tech problem. It’s a U.S. problem and it’s a consumer problem that goes well beyond tech.

In other words, Cook has every right to be miffed about the Times report. His company is being singled out.

A few thoughts at a high level:

Apple may be the poster child for manufacturing abroad, but HP also uses Foxconn heavily. Analysts estimate that Apple will be roughly 40 percent of Foxconn’s revenue in 2012. Hewlett-Packard is about 25 percent, according to Fubon Research. No one is writing about HP, though, even though its supply chain report reads just like Apple’s. Every electronic device you have on you right now goes through China. The data center that powers the cloud behind those devices were also made by folks stacked in tech dorms in China. The minerals in the battery were mined somewhere. Deep down do you really give a rat’s ass about the working conditions that created those relatively inexpensive devices? Of course not, you’re from a Western economy. And from what I can tell you’re still buying as much tech gear as you can.

This chart from Fubon Research gives you a rough sketch of Hon Hai’s revenue breakdown. Hon Hai is the parent of Foxconn.

It’s not just tech. Tech is being thrown under the bus with this debate because it’s sexier. Ever notice how everything you wear comes from somewhere else too? We go to Wal-Mart, Target, or wherever and demand cheap chic. You don’t get cheap without inexpensive labor. In the fashion industry the race is on to find more sourcing outside of China. Why? Labor costs are going up. Africa is looking good at the moment. Rest assured that shirt on your back has some exploited labor behind it. In fact, everything you own comes from a supply chain that probably has multiple things you just don’t want to know about. You could swap out Apple in that New York Times story and replace it with almost any American corporate giant.

The U.S. wants inexpensive. Theoretically, there should be some “buy American” movement that would make companies manufacture here and then charge prices that make them whole. First, the “buy American” movement never quite worked. Every institution we have depends on prices being kept in check. To do that you need the cheapest labor you can find. Take the U.S. government. These guys print money better than any counterfeiter on the planet. The whole house of cards depends on the U.S. being a reserve currency. Inflation would go through the roof if we all suddenly manufactured everything here. The pols talk about U.S. manufacturing being built up, but their grand plan to print money depends on cheap goods or we’ll look like Germany after World War I with buckets of worthless currency.

And then there’s the reality that all of these takes on the abused supply chain are all viewed through the Western lens. To that person working in the Foxconn plant he’s providing for his family and future generations. To him, the pay is probably pretty good. Maybe the second and third generations wind up running Foxconn. Ditto for the textile worker in Africa and every other person in an emerging market.

The bottom line here is we enable a supply chain that has a lot of warts. We want to examine those warts, but not really. This flap about worker safety isn’t about Apple, the tech industry or any other vertical. It’s about us.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet’s Between the Lines under the headline “Apple’s supply chain flap: It’s really about us.”

The 500px site has attracted many photographers who want to showcase their best photos without them being lost in Flickr’s see of more mainstream shots.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Flickr added a new three-month option for Flickr Pro accounts.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Google+ encourages people to check social-network photographic activity by presenting images artfully while showing how much discussion each shot attracted.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

A day after a report detailed harsh working conditions at one of Apple’s component suppliers in China, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company cares about every worker in its supply chain and that any suggestion to the contrary was “patently false and offensive.”

Yesterday, The New York Times published an exhaustive report that profiled hazardous factory conditions linked to scores of injuries and a handful of deaths. The report recounted an explosion at a plant in Chengdu that killed four, focusing on the final months for Lai Xiaodong, a 22-year-old who had worked a few months at the Foxconn Technologies plant where the iPad is produced.

One former Foxconn executive told the Times that “Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost.” Perhaps more troubling was the insight of a former Apple executive, who said: “We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on.”

Apple did not respond to a request for comment from CNET last night, but Cook today addressed the issues highlighted in the report in an e-mail sent to employees today, a copy of which was obtained by 9to5mac.

“We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain,” Cook said. “Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us.”

Cook pointed out that Apple conducts annual audits of its component suppliers and focuses on educating workers about their rights: “Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people.”

Cook also told employees that Apple would not “stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word.” Cook’s e-mail:

Team,

As a company and as individuals, we are defined by our values. Unfortunately some people are questioning Apple’s values today, and I’d like to address this with you directly. We care about every worker in our worldwide supply chain. Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are.

For the many hundreds of you who are based at our suppliers’ manufacturing sites around the world, or spend long stretches working there away from your families, I know you are as outraged by this as I am. For the people who aren’t as close to the supply chain, you have a right to know the facts.

Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people.

At the same time, no one has been more up front about the challenges we face. We are attacking problems aggressively with the help of the world’s foremost authorities on safety, the environment, and fair labor. It would be easy to look for problems in fewer places and report prettier results, but those would not be the actions of a leader.

Earlier this month we opened our supply chain for independent evaluations by the Fair Labor Association. Apple was in a unique position to lead the industry by taking this step, and we did it without hesitation. This will lead to more frequent and more transparent reporting on our supply chain, which we welcome. These are the kinds of actions our customers expect from Apple, and we will take more of them in the future.

We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment. As you know, more than a million people have been trained by our program.

We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do–and never have done–is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word. You can follow our progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.

To those within Apple who are tackling these issues every day, you have our thanks and admiration. Your work is significant and it is changing people’s lives. We are all proud to work alongside you.

Tim

Twitter said today that it will withhold tweets from a country when there are local restrictions rather than having to block them globally.

“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression,” the company wrote on its blog. “Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.”

Until now, the only way Twitter could operate in those countries was to remove the purportedly objectionable content entirely from its site.

“Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world,” the post says. “We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.”

Twitter hasn’t yet taken this action. But when the situation arises when a country requires it to withhold a tweet Twitter will attempt to inform the person who posted the tweet and “will clearly mark when the content has been withheld,” according to the post.

The company has expanded its partnership with anti-censorship site ChillingEffects.org on Chillingeffects.org/twitter, where notices related to these takedown requests and activities will be posted.

Twitter, like any popular Web service, regularly gets requests from content owners to remove content, like this DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice from Universal Music Group.

In response to concerns that the move would give repressive regimes greater latitude to censor Web content, Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray tweeted: “that’s one of the reasons transparency is key. Keep an eye on chillingeffects.org/twitter/ and let us know if you think we go wrong.”

In making this move, Twitter follows in the footsteps of Google which created a censored version of its Web search site specifically for China in 2006, and Yahoo, which was forced to block the sale of Nazi-and Ku Klux Klan-related memorabilia from its site in 2001.

(CNET’s Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.)

Google hopes to cut down on Web browsers’ autofill confusion.

(Credit: Google)

This post was written and reported by CBS News’ Chris Francescani

The father of Jessica Buchanan, the American rescued by Navy SEALs in Somalia along with a Danish colleague this weekend, described in an interview with CBS News the two most amazing phone calls he said he has ever received.

John Buchanan told CBS News one was the call he finally got from his daughter, right after President Obama called following his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

“She said, ‘Daddy, I love you, and I’ll be fine. I’m OK.’ It was just after, over 93 days and I hadn’t spoken to her. It was pretty amazing and incredible that she’s fine and (the SEAL teams) were able to do something and get her,” Buchanan said. “We’re just extremely grateful to God first, and to the U.S. government. They’ve been great throughout this whole thing – from the first day there were there, supporting us.”

The families of the two hostages had their own negotiators, who worked in conjunction with the aid organization and the U.S. government, but were independent, Buchanan said. The hostage takers originally contacted the family through the aid organization.

“They were very difficult on everybody – on her husband, myself, her brother and sister. We got what (the hostage takers) wanted us to know,” Buchanan said.

U.S., Dane hostages on their way home
SEAL Team 6 spotlighted again in Somalia raid
Obama’s “good job” a public wink on SEAL secret

Buchanan said he was heartened throughout the ordeal to know that “the FBI were looking over their shoulder the whole time, keeping everything on the up and up. I can’t say enough about what the FBI did both in Kenya and here in the U.S. They were efficient. They were kind. They were just on top of everything. They knew what they were doing and what was going on at all times. They utilized a ton of resources.”

Buchanan said he was briefed several times a week by the negotiators, and daily by the aid organization. But still it was trying. “Most days it was ‘nothing,’” he said. He and his other daughter spent “about a month in Nairobi and Kenya” with Jessica’s husband, where they met with aid organization officials and the hostage negotiators, but returned home empty handed.

Still, he knew that talk of a rescue was in the air.

“I was sort of getting a picture [of the situation] last week, because we had been getting some bad reports on Jess’s health and I knew what the triggers were for them to intervene,” Buchanan said.

He said he it was “completely coincidental” that he was in D.C. for meetings – which he said were set up two weeks prior – with the aid organization. He said the State of the Union was “the last thing” on his mind. He was in a hotel room in D.C. with his other daughter, taking calls from relatives, and not paying much attention to the State of the Union broadcast.

The lead-up to Mr. Obama’s phone call “was very strange, because [White House officials] called, and somebody from the Situation Room called and told me to make sure my phone would be clear for a very important call. It was 40 minutes of not knowing what that call would be. I didn’t know if it was going to be the worst or the best. We were in a hotel, myself and Jessica’s sister. We had concluded a meeting. And so we just waited. A guy came on the phone and said ‘Mr. Buchanan, the next voice you’ll hear will be the President of the United States.’ I said ‘OK.’ I’m thinking ‘this could be some kind of cruel joke.’”

As it turned out, it was most definitely not a joke.

“He said, ‘John, this is Barack Obama. I’ve got some really good news for you. Your daughter Jessica has been rescued and evacuated by our SEAL team and she’s on her way home.’ He said he empathized with me, having two daughters, and said something to the effect of how proud he was that our young people would go help these other people.”

Buchanan says he is very thankful for all that was done for his family.

“I love my daughter,” Buchanan said. “I’m just thrilled that she’s ok and she’s back. It sounds corny but I really am proud to be an American. We are the greatest country in the world, with the best resources. And I’m grateful to be an American.”

Say hello to the white Sony Walkman Z.

Chances are slim we will see this device stateside, but the faithful Sony enthusiasts in Japan get a special 64GB platinum white version (NW-Z1070/W) on February 17. Japan already has access to the regular purple and red 64GB Walkman Z versions as well. A description of the color on Sony’s Web site says this special Walkman shines like a pearl and is easier to wipe clean. It also carries a hefty 45,800-yen price tag (about $533).

The Android-equipped Sony Walkman Z arrives in the U.S. around March, but Sony is only playing a conservative lineup with capacities ranging up to only 32GB.

Does Sony have what it takes to pull off an Android media consumption device and audio powerhouse? CNET Senior Editor Donald Bell answers these questions and more in his full review of the Sony Walkman Z.

Ever since Spotify launched its API for mobile developers last August, engineers have been hard at work designing apps that integrate the music service into iOS.

Now there’s one that could spell trouble for Pandora–SpotON Radio.

This app by Swedish Application Development was released January 8 and is free (for now); SpotON Radio allows iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users stream music directly on their devices–much like Pandora Radio. Features include access to more than 15 million tracks from Spotify and the ability to create personal radio stations, like and dislike songs, and share music with friends.

However, users must have a Spotify premium membership account–which costs $9.99 per month–and iCloud integration if users want to sync stations between devices.

“This product is not affiliated with or endorsed by Spotify” and available only through iTunes and on their site, the SpotON Radio developers wrote on their Web site. “We’re lone gunmen, fighting the fight for a better interface to music packaged as the most beautiful user experience possible.”

In November, Spotify launched a new app platform open to all developers allowing engineers to create free apps for the music service. Many of these apps can be found on Spotify’s Web site, including Rolling Stone, Last.fm, and Pitchfork. However, these apps are available only for desktops–which is what makes SpotON Radio different.

Despite the future looking bright for Spotify (and SpotON Radio), it’s unclear if music labels will continue to work with the streaming music service. In November, 200 labels pulled out, and artists such as Coldplay and Tom Waits said they weren’t being compensated enough and therefore wouldn’t distribute their newest albums through Spotify.

With Mobile World Congress bearing down on us next month, Android-related leaks continue to surface.

Such is the case with an oft-rumored Samsung Galaxy S II successor. If history is any indicator, then we should expect to see Samsung announce a followup device to last year’s wildly popular Android smartphone.

And why not? It was at Mobile World Congress, after all, where Samsung unveiled the last two iterations of the handset.

So what would go into a new Galaxy device? If Eldar Murtazin is to be believed, then we are in for even more cutting-edge hardware.

Now, before I go any further, I have to point out that Murtazin’s past record of Android leaks and inside tips hasn’t been perfect. Whereas he was first to tell us that the Galaxy S II would feature a dual-core processor, he also was the guy who scared everyone with word that Gingerbread was going to have hardware requirements.

So in other words, the next bit of details will depend on how much stock you put into Eldar. Now might also be a good time to reach for the salt shaker.

That said, this latest tidbit is too juicy to pas up. According to a handful of recent tweets, the Samsung Galaxy S III will come in both dual-core and quad-core iterations and feature 12-megapixel cameras. What’s more, the phones are said to run Android 4.0 with a “tweaked” UI, likely Samsung’s TouchWiz, and feature an HD display. Assuming the latter is true, we might expect to see a similar screen size (4.5 inches and above) and resolution (1,280×720 pixels) as the Galaxy Nexus.

There is mention as to how much memory or storage is included in the next-generation smartphone, but rumors have been floating around for some time. With numbers that range from as low as 1GB RAM and 16GB storage to as outlandish as 2GB RAM and 64GB storage, it’s tough to say for sure.

As to when we might expect to see the handset, it would make sense to employ the same strategies as in the past. International models should begin rolling out in Q2 with U.S. editions arriving in the second half of the year.

Everyone with a live mind who happens not to work for an oil company knows that we must harness our energy.

The possibilities are vast. Consider, for example, Heather Patron of Studio City, Calif., and her Prius. Everything plastic on it began to melt. The side-view mirrors, for example.

This seemed a little odd. She took it to Toyota. The company said there was nothing wrong with the car.

And then she noticed her neighbor’s energy-efficient windows that seemed to be directing a concentrated beam of energy-efficient light towards her energy-efficient vehicle.

Patron told CBS Los Angeles: “I’m positive that this window is what is causing the damage to my car.”

CBS 2 Los Angeles took a thermometer along to see how hot it was around Patron’s plastic. More than 120 degrees was the answer. Indeed, Patron seems to think it’s not just her car that the reflected beam is melting, but also that of another neighbor’s parked in the condo carport next to hers.

The local Department of Building and Safety told CBS 2 that there was no code violation here. One person’s energy-saving can, indeed, be another person’s Prius-melting.

Because we are a fair-minded, solutions-based blog here, we tried to consider what Patron might do in order to save her little car– if it is, indeed, the neighbor’s window that is causing the problem.

First, of course, she could park it away from the beam of light. However, that would surely cause her inconvenience. No one in the L.A. area wants to be walking more than 10 or 11 steps daily.

She could also cover her car every day. But no one in the L.A. area wants to make an effort when they don’t have to. And anyway, this being L.A., someone might steal the cover.

Perhaps, then, she could install her own energy-efficient windows. Perhaps they, too, might reflect light toward her neighbor’s car. And then, who knows, some mutual accommodation might be reached– although it’s hard to imagine what the neighbor could do about his or her windows.

Still, Patron could also opt to simply give back the Prius and opt for a vehicle that isn’t quite as plasticated.

Do tanks have plastic side-mirrors? I don’t think so.

I had an opportunity to chat with Charles Rich, Nastel’s Vice President, Product Management and Marketing, about the veritable herd of different tools and approaches that have been called application performance management (APM). What Nastel is offering is designed to combine a sophisticated event processing capability with predictive analytics to create a “set it and forget it” management environment.

Rich pointed out that the management tools built into the operating systems, virtualization tools, application frameworks, applications, database engines and networking tools produce an overwhelming amount of operational data. IT administrators really don’t have the time or the desire to wade through all of that data to discover what is important, that is what hints at potential problems. These IT administrators would prefer to be able to just do their jobs rather than being forced to monitor a dashboard just to see everything is “on the green.” No, they’d rather be alerted when an issue is cooking, long before it has become a problem.

Nastel, Rich pointed out, developed a complex event processing system that can take in all of this data, compute metrics based upon what is seen in the operational data, and then present useful metrics to the IT staff.

I was forced to recall a conversation with RainStor in which we discussed the biggest challenge in Big Data is knowing what data to ignore while looking for what the user thinks is important. Nastel’s event processing system is doing much the same thing. When I mentioned this observation to Rich, he agreed that the trick is being able to throw away unneeded data fast enough to keep up with what’s important. Nastel’s engineers worked a long time to give the event processing engine that capability.

Unfortunately, as often happens in my conversations, we took a turn from a serious conversation to being silly.  Could it be me? Nastel believes it is offering “one tool to rule them all.” I suggested that putting that slogan in Elvish on the side of all of their literature would attract the Lord of the Rings enthusiasts. He laughed, but thought that was going a bit too far.

Nastel appears to really understand the challenge of gathering and analyzing operational data and then being able to tease out the important from the mass of unimportant data that IT systems generate.

Disclosure

Dan Kusnetzky

Just over six months ago, well-known hacker George Hotz, a.k.a. Geohot, joined the straight and narrow and got a day-job at Facebook.

However, word has it that he’s already gone. Business Insider reported today that Hotz left Facebook and is back to hacking in his free time.

This time, though, it’s legal hacking.

Last Saturday, Hotz attended a Backplane hackathon, according to Business Insider. Backplane is a social startup that heralds famous investors like Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and pop-star Lady Gaga.

Hotz first became known for creating software to jailbreak iPhones in 2007 and later allegedly hacked into Sony’s PlayStation 3. Sony later sued Hotz arguing that he violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Computer Fraud Abuse Act. The case was settled last April.

During the Backplane hackathon, Business Insider said that Hotz built an app that lets users see their Facebook friends on a map. However, his app lost the hackathon to a group of high school students.

The reasons for Hotz’s departure from Facebook aren’t yet known.

Despite the spectacular collapse of solar panel maker Solyndra, which declared bankruptcy after receiving more than half a billion dollars from the Obama administration, President Obama said this evening that he doesn’t want to give up on government-backed alternative energy projects.

The president used the opportunity of his State of the Union address to say it’s time to “double down” on the concept but pointedly avoided mentioning Solyndra by name.

“The payoffs on these public investments don’t always come right away,” Obama said. “Some technologies don’t pan out–some companies fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.”

Solyndra, which Obama personally touted as a success story in a 2010 visit to the company, became an embarrassment for the administration after its demise last fall. Subsequently released documents showed that politics infused the process, with major donors to Obama discussing the $528 million loan with the White House, and the loan taking place despite the project being rated as “junk” by Standard and Poor’s.

The Washington Post reported last month that: “Since the failure of the company, Obama’s entire $80 billion clean-technology program has begun to look like a political liability for an administration about to enter a bruising reelection campaign.”

During tonight’s address, at least, Obama urged Congress to continue to fund such projects, even if they’re risky. “It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable”–a swipe at the oil industry–”and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising,” he said.

He also:

• Said that “it’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated.” That’s not an endorsement of the Stop Online Piracy Act, which its supporters hope will address that point, but it’s also not a criticism of it either.

• Suggested that “if you’re a high-tech manufacturer, we should double the tax deduction you get for making products here.”

• Proposed revamping the U.S. immigration system to make it easier for students who graduate American universities to stay. These graduates would “staff our labs” and “start new businesses.”

• Offered a nod to a cybersecurity proposal that the White House sent to Congress last May. It’s designed to force companies to do more to fend off cyberattacks.

Apple has been waging legal battles against rivals such as Samsung. It may have spent more than $100 million on legal bills in 2011.

Tim O’Reilly, the influential CEO of book and conference company of the same name, tweeted:

He isn’t the only critic, you can see others here:

It might seem like a lot of money is being wasted by Apple, but is it?

It looks like cheap insurance: $100 million represents just 1/460th of just three months’ sales — $46 billion in its most recent quarter. It’s an even smaller fraction of total annual sales.

Companies take legal action to protect their business, and in Apple’s case it’s a very big business indeed: $112 billion in 2011. That would make that $100 million in legal costs less than 0.1% of total revenues.

That’s a tiny cost to hedge against competitors. And Apple can’t be accused of using patent lawsuits instead of innovating, like Interval Research — most agree that it continues to bring out unique and useful products.

It’s easy to see why Apple won’t be pulling back in its legal claims. In fact, it’ll probably “lawyer-up” even more in 2012.

Apple has an opportunity to go even further: protect Apple iPhone and iPad app developers from lawsuits. An important key to the success of the PC platform was the cross-licensing that Intel and Microsoft engaged in with other large tech companies. This created a safe development environment which led to a mass of applications and devices that propelled PC popularity and reduced prices.