Twelve South, makers of fine accessories for Macs and iOS devices, have announced today the latest entry in their family of add-ons for iMacs and Apple displays: the HiRise. Made of aluminum and stamped steel, the HiRise is a height-adjustable stand that doubles as a storage system for your desk, so you won’t end up cluttering your workspace with keys, your wallet, or USB drives anymore.

The main purpose of the HiRise is to elevate the base of an iMac or Apple display to a more comfortable position for your preferred viewing angle. By using an internal metal “shelf”, you can adjust the height of an iMac depending on your viewing position, and, alternatively, you can use the HiRise to place an iMac and Apple display already on your desk at the same height (a minor detail that has annoyed owners of multiple displays for a long time).

It’s time to do better than a phone book!” said Andrew Green, Creative Director of Twelve South. “We see Mac users prop their beautiful hardware up on reams of copy paper and cringe. Many agree that just a few extra inches of height makes their Mac tremendously more comfortable to use. Enter HiRise for iMac. It raises your Mac to six different positions. It hides connected hard drives and keys inside. But coolest of all, its design integrates with your Mac to look like nothing else you’ve ever seen.

With a perforated, Mac Pro-like metal front plate that attaches magnetically, the HiRise can also work as a hidden, classy storage space for your desk. According to Twelve South, HiRise fits all Apple iMacs, Apple Thunderbolt Displays “and Apple Cinema Displays with metal L-shaped desk stand”.

While the main purpose of this accessory could easily be replicated with some quick DIY skills (case in point: an iPad box), Twelve South’s typical attention to detail should ensure a premium-quality product with a grade of finish and “Apple feel” that should be difficult to find in other solutions. However, the price may be a little steep depending on just how much you’d value such an accessory: the HiRise will set you back $79.99 from Twelve South’s website.

Check out more photos of the HiRise here, and a video below.
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I don’t always use two Macs simultaneously, but when I do, either there’s an Apple keynote or I’m trying new apps.

That’s how I stumbled upon Teleport, a free OS X utility, last year when I needed to switch back and forth between MacBooks during an Apple keynote, and why I decided to take the app for a spin again now that’s been updated for Lion. Teleport isn’t new to Mac users — in fact, it’s been around since Tiger and it’s probably the most popular app to control two Macs on the same local network. Now that version 1.1 is out with support for Lion and multi-touch gestures, I thought a fresh mention would be appropriate.

Teleport is extremely simple in what it does, although it uses some advanced technology to accomplish it: once installed in System Preferences, Teleport allows you to move your cursor (and keyboard) between multiple Macs. Teleport recognizes Macs “shared” on the same network, and through a system similar to Apple’s “hot corners” and based on Bonjour, it lets you “teleport” the mouse across screens.

Shared Macs that have Teleport activated in the settings will show up with their respective desktops in the app’s panel; you can arrange Macs placing them next to a main computer’s screen so you’ll remember how to switch displays, and configure options in a dedicated sub-menu. These options include handy things like “switch only if key is pressed” or “share pasteboard”. In this latest version of Teleport you can assign a keyboard shortcut to switch to another Mac, and Lion’s gestures are fully supported so you’ll be able to perform three-finger swipes and other Mission Control trickery on a Mac running Lion.

When controlling my iMac through my MacBook Air’s trackpad and keyboard, I was able to drag & drop files using Teleport, and have the contents of the pasteboard from my MacBook Air automatically synced on my iMac. There are several utilities to control how the pasteboard is shared and synced across local Macs, but Teleport manages to make the whole process “invisible” in a package that also happens to do much more.

For instance, Teleport supports encryption for file transfers, and you can read more about it on Abyssoft’s website and the ReadMe file included in the download. Long story short: you can generate your own certificate to activate encryption and it’s even easier if you already have a .Mac account. Also in Teleport’s settings, you can enable a menubar item, bezel, and sound notifications. The sound effect is particularly neat when you switch between Macs, as it really gives you the sense of something “travelling” between two spaces (Teleport also displays a quick animation at the side of your screen). Control requests are also handled well between shared Macs, with options to “ask me if host can be trusted”, “reject if host not already trusted” and “automatically accept”. If you leave Teleport always running, when a shared Mac comes back online a red indicator will flash on the previously configured side of the screen.

Version 1.1 includes a few more features like:

• Host specific options: you can define the switching and sharing options per host, to have different settings.
• Propagated options: the options you set for a host also apply when coming back from it.
• Full multi-screens support: all screens of shared Macs are now visible, so pairing a secondary screen is much easier than before.

Teleport isn’t new, but it’s nice to see the app working well on Lion with gestures and multiple displays. If you happen to control multiple Macs every once in a while, give Teleport a try. It’s a free download (and make sure to donate if you really like it).

According to a report in the Korea Times, Apple has begun quality testing LCD displays from Samsung and LG for the iPad 3. A source claims that the LCD displays currently being tested are QXGA with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 – a resolution twice that of the current iPad display. Such a resolution for a 9.7″ display would mean the display has roughly 260 DPI and would likely fit under the ‘Retina Display’ marketing term – despite the fact that for the iPhone it was specified to be above 300 DPI, this is because the iPad is normally held further away from the eyes, and thus the DPI requirement is lower.

Apple’s upcoming iPad 3 will feature an improved display to support quad extended graphics (QXGA), a display resolution of 2048×1536 pixels with a 4:3 aspect ratio to provide full high definition (HD) viewing experience, said a source close to the talks

A deal between the two display manufacturers and Apple is also supposedly close to being finalised. One source told the Korea Times “Apple has traditionally preferred to use the same providers of the same parts for the same device, even as they evolve to different versions. I don’t see any fundamental change to that approach”. That said, it comes at a time when the relationship between Apple and Samsung is strained amid ongoing legal battles between the two companies. In fact just last week it was rumoured that Apple may be shift production of an A6 processor to TSMC.

Although neither LG or Samsung would not comment on these suggestions, Samsung officials did stress that the chances are “very low” for the current legal battles to affect Apple’s relationship with the LCD manufacturing division of Samsung. LG, however, is reportedly “euphoric” about increasing LCD orders from Apple and other handset and tablet manufacturers amid a still slow global recovery. It should also be noted that just a few weeks ago, there was a rumor of an iPad HD that was set to arrive this fall that would feature an increased resolution display, just like the one described by this report, and be aimed at ‘pro’ users.

[Korea Times via The Next Web]

A new patent application surfaced at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office entitled ”Display that Emits Circularly-Polarized Light” and discovered by AppleInsider today points at a new kind of LCD screens capable of playing nice in outdoor viewing when an iPhone or iPad user is wearing sunglasses to protect himself from harmful UV rays. The problem with polarized sunglasses — not necessarily LCD screens exposed to directly sunlight, something Apple’s own displays have long been criticized due to poor performances when compared to the Amazon Kindle — is that they “only allow through light with an electric field that vibrates in the vertical direction”, and considering current LCD displays have an electric field that vibrates in one direction, the user wearing polarized sunglasses may see distorted images when looking at the screen from certain angles. Polarized sunglasses and LCDs don’t play nice together, and Apple’s proposed solution is aimed at building an LCD display that, with circularly polarized light, allows sunglasses to not see black areas, distorted images, and so forth.

The layer receives the linearly-polarized light on one surface, converts the linearly-polarized light to circularly-polarized light, and then emits the circularly-polarized light from another surface,” the application reads. “By emitting circularly-polarized light, the display reduces the perceived distortion found at some angles when the display is viewed through a linearly-polarizing filter.

The patent design seems to suggest Apple might get around the problem of iOS devices used outdoors assuming people generally tend to wear sunglasses in direct sunlight. The patent credits John Z. Zhong, Wei Chen, Cheng Chen, Victor H.E. Yin, and Shawn R. Gettemy as inventors.

According to a report by The Korea Herald, in a recent visit to South Korea Apple COO (and temporary CEO) Tim Cook has discussed with Samsung the possibility of implementing AMOLED displays in the next-generation iPad, dubbed iPad 3. The “industry sources” cited by The Korea Herald claim that Apple would be interested in the technology for an “upgraded version” of the iPad 2, with the website also relaying an old rumor that suggested Apple could release another iPad model later this year.

Apple wants to tap into Samsung’s AMOLED technology for an upgraded version of the iPad 2, considered as many by the iPad 3 that is likely to be launched toward the end of this year,” a source told The Korea Herald on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.

Tim Cook is not only the COO, but also acting CEO of Apple. During Cook’s trip last week, Apple seems to have offered Samsung an advance for the AMOLED displays, the source said.

Apple’s rumor timeline in regards to AMOLED displays produced by Samsung goes a long way back to 2009: various reports from last year indicated the company had considered AMOLED screens for the iPhone 3GS, but couldn’t implement them due to production capacity issues, high costs and the PenTile technology used by Samsung at the time.  Also last year, when Apple was rumored to be working on a new iPad, speculation surrounding the supply chain in Asia claimed Apple was negotiating with Samsung over the usage of AMOLED displays, which didn’t happen as the company preferred standard LCDs with IPS technology produced by LG, among others. Manufacturing issues with LG displays that allegedly caused problems with iPad 2 shipments in the last quarter might lead the company to choose another supplier for the next-generation iPad, though The Korea Herald is also claiming Apple is considering a major shift in the technology being used and an early launch later this year.

Samsung’s AMOLED technology is said to have dramatically improved over the past months to be suitable for tablets, sport brighter colors and deeper blacks, better behavior in direct sunlight and low power consumption. Samsung is currently using AMOLED in its Galaxy S smartphones, and it’s also rumored to use the displays in future tablets running Android. Samsung is currently facing a lawsuit from Apple, whose claims of patent infringement for the design of the iPhone and iOS copied by Samsung’s Galaxy devices and TouchWiz UI have led the tech press to believe future collaborations between the two companies may not go as smoothly as before. [The Korea Herald via 9to5mac]

According to DigiTimes, the latest rumor going around the Taiwan supply chain is that the next iPhone (whether it be the 4S or 5) will feature a curved cover glass for the display. It would see the next iPhone resemble aspects of Google’s Nexus S phone which had the glass curved into a concave, or perhaps like the older model iPod Nano which had convex glass.

In the past, manufacturers of the glass for smartphone displays had been reluctant to commit to the investment in appropriate glass cutting equipment because of the high capital costs associated with producing them. However, Apple is said to have purchased between 200 and 300 glass-cutting machines for the glass manufacturers according to DigiTimes’ sources.

Prior reports put the production of the next iPhone as beginning in August this year, but today’s DigiTimes report notes that there is no firm timetable yet for the beginning of production. Apple is supposedly still involved in working with suppliers for cover glass, glass cutting, lamination and touch sensors to improve yield rates before production begins.

[Via DigiTimes]

At the SID Display Week 2011 International Symposium, Samsung will officially unveil and demonstrate the first 10.1-inch display with 2560 x 1600 pixel resolution specifically meant for tablets. The industry-first display, built with the collaboration of Samsung’s partner Nouvoyance, will offer a “ultra-high resolution” at 300dpi using standard LCD technology. According to Samsung’s press release, the display also relies on the PenTile technology, which allows for 40% less power consumption and two-thirds number of subpixels.

Because tablets are regularly used for viewing rich-colored images, the 10.1-inch 300 dpi display is ideal for applications that require extraordinary image and text clarity such as browsing the web and viewing high-definition movies, or reading books and spreadsheets.

“In order to develop tablets with the form and function that consumers demand, a design engineer ultimately has to determine how to get the highest resolution display possible, while still fitting within the overall power budget for their design,” said Joel Pollack, executive vice president of Nouvoyance, Samsung’s affiliate company that developed the PenTile RGBW technology.

Samsung’s announcement opens the door to the possibility of having a “Retina Display” on Apple’s iPad — the iPad 2 uses Samsung’s 9.7-inch panels alongside other displays manufactured by LG, but if Apple were to double the resolution of the current generation iPad (1024 x 768), Samsung would have to cut its new display to 2048 x 1536 to fit Apple’s (rumored) need for a screen displaying 2x graphical elements. In the past months, several rumors pointed to Apple willing to implement a Retina Display on the iPad 2, which didn’t happen and left much room to speculation for an iPad 3 featuring a higher-res screen. Among the problems with a Retina Display on the iPad, power consumption was one of the technical issues ofter mentioned by bloggers and battery experts (together with production costs); if Samsung’s new display really manages to use 40% less power than other technologies though, Apple might have a chance to consider it for the iPad 3 — though this new display uses PenTile instead of Apple’s preferred IPS technology. Technical issues aside, the lawsuit Apple filed against Samsung last month (and the series of countersuits from Samsung) led many to believe the partnership between the two companies for component supply was nearing its end; Apple COO Tim Cook, however, confirmed at the Q2 2011 earnings call that Samsung is still a valuable partner in Apple’s supply chain, although action needed to be taken against its mobile division.

Samsung’s new tablet display will be demoed at the LA Convention Center between May 17-19. Read the full press release below. (more…)