Cyrus Farivar

Cell phone maker Nokia announced this morning that it has filed suit in U.S. Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that ten (count 'em, ten!) aspects of iPhones shipped since 2007 (which would be, um, every iPhone ever) infringe on Nokia's intellectual property.

The patents in question, according to the company's press release, "relate to technologies fundamental to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards." In addition, they cover topics such as wireless data, speech coding, security, and encryption.

Another tie between the board rooms of Apple and Google has been cut, as Arthur Levinson resigned from the board of directors of the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant while retaining the same position at One Infinite Loop.

Levinson is the chairman of biotech firm Genenetech. He's been on Google's board of directors since April 2004 and Apple's board since 2000.

A new study by the CFI Group reports that the iPhone has taken the top spot in customer satisfaction. The company surveyed over 1,000 smartphone users and the iPhone (surprise, surprise) came out as the top dog.

With a score of 83 out of 100, the iPhone beat out its next closest competitors (that would be the Android and the Pre) by six points. This data jibes with other recent iPhone survey data which show that iPhone 3GS users are happy, and a rather unscientific Technologizer study from about a year ago, that iPhones users love their choice.

With the economy in the tank, you or someone you know is probably putting off the decision to buy a new Mac. But what about a used Mac? Sure, it doesn't have all the glitz of a shiny new unibody MacBook, but an older-generation MacBook might just do the trick for a lot less money. Heck, you'd be surprised at how well an older iBook G4 can still handle just about everything that you might want to do. Here's how to make sure your money is well spent.

1. Check the battery life (laptops only)

First VLC, now Google. The kids are all growed up! Google has finally decided to ditch that pesky beta tag on several of its major projects. After five years of use, Gmail is apparently finally ready for prime time, along with Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Docs.

The reason for dropping "beta" from the products seems to be largely political: businesses are reluctant to have their critical infrastructure depend on software that's perpetually in beta. By getting rid of the moniker, Google is aiming to convince more enterprises to consider its products as suitable for their business. And, of course, given that those are the people actually paying real money for the product--instead of us consumer leeches who pay only by having our eyeballs assailed with ads--that's a smart move on Google's part.

So I was on my way to the local farmers' market here in Oakland with some friends on Sunday morning, when my good friend David Boyk and I were talking about how I'd recently lent him some books. He suggested that I check out Delicious Library to keep track of such things.

While this app has been around for a couple years now, Delicious Monster just released version 2.1. For the uninitiated, like me, Delicious Library can use your Mac's built-in iSight as a barcode scanner to search for title, author, publisher information about the books/CDs/DVDs/whatever that are in your in-house physical library. It's as easy as holding the book up to your camera. Seriously.

As a college student I frequently didn't go to class when I overslept, when I didn't feel like it, or heck, when it was Friday. I'm imagining that Japanese students are the same. That's why Aoyama Gakuin University's new plan to keep its students in line is pretty freakin' clever--possibly even bordering on devious.

Reuters, this June all of the university's 550 students, and some staff in one unnamed department, will receive a free iPhone 3G. Instead of teachers taking attendance, students are asked to input their ID number into an iPhone app--and to discourage fraud, this app apparently has GPS location data and monitors which Internet router students use.

Last fall, we told you that The New Yorker artist Bob Staake does his cover illustration using Adobe Photoshop 3.0 -- yes, a version from 1995.

Now comes the tale of another New Yorker cover artist, taking an entirely different technological approach. For this week's edition, Jorge Colombo created the entire cover using the iPhone application Brushes.

A Windows version of the ACDSee photography software has been around for a dozen years. This week, ACD Systems saw fit to make a Mac version available to the public. On Wednesday, the company made a beta version of ACDSee Pro for Mac available to the public.

One of the application's main features is that it apparently skips the step of importing files from various drives as it automatically detects various devices and drives, and lets users drag-and-drop images instantly. ACDSee also supports more than 40 various file types, including movie and documents formats. In the future, the company plans on adding additional Mac-specific features, like Cover Flow and Quick Look.

A Windows version of the ACDSee photography software has been around for a dozen years. Last week, ACD Systems saw fit to make a Mac version available to the public. On Wednesday, he company made a beat version of ACDSee Pro for Mac available to the public.

One of the application's main features is that it apparently skips the step of importing files from various drives as it automatically detects various devices and drives, and lets users drag-and-drop images instantly. ACDSee also supports more than 40 various file types, including movie and documents formats. In the future, the company plans on adding additional Mac-specific features, like Cover Flow and Quick Look.

Over at Wired, Macworld alum Brian Chen has an interesting piece on how the iPhone app store might be affected by apps in the future.

The story concerns the iPhone app Lyrics, which was rejected from the App Store because the songs for which it displayed lyrics might contain profanity. Developer Jelle Prins subsequently added a "profanity filter," and the app was approved upon resubmission.

While Apple's Photo Booth and iPhoto '09 both have features that let you apply wacky effects to your friends' faces, they also both require that you be at your Mac. As much time as I spend in front of my computer, I'm often found in front of my iPhone, too. So wouldn't it be cool to be able to muck around with their mugs while you're waiting in line for coffee?

An Italian software developer, Ab2Labs, has just launched Face Fun, a new US$3 iPhone app. Select a photo from your library; the app will detect the faces and then you can create various effects, including creating a puzzle or inserting that photo into other pictures.