Business & Tech

The First 'Conflict-Free iPhone?'; Apple's 'Store within a Store' Coming to Target

A look at the ways our favorite backyard tech giant has made the news this week.

Every week, makes news with technology developments, business deals and, more often than not, controversies.

That’s where our weekly "Core Bytes" column on Apple comes in. We’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our favorite backyard tech giant.

Controversies
Could Apple make the world’s first “conflict-free iPhone?” That’s what one Congolese man is petitioning for, pointing that minerals found in smartphones like Apple—tungsten, tantalum, and tin, for example—also fuel mass violence in his home country. “Apple is perfectly positioned to be the first company to create a Congo conflict-free iPhone,” he wrote this week in the Guardian UK.

The international patent wars between Apple and Samsung rage on, and this week Apple has come out ahead. An Italian court rejected Samsung’s request for a preliminary injunction against the iPhone 4S—the third time they’ve failed to win a ban on the phone in Europe. Apple, on the  other hand, has won injunction requests against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, Australia and the Netherlands.

New Products
Forgetting a password: we all do it. Now Apple has patented a power charger which also backs up lost passwords. The user would simply plug in the cord, and it would decrypt the password, eliminating the name for remembering mothers’ maiden names or favorite pets. But one writer points out a flaw: what if a thief stole the computer and its cord?

Many analysts are predicting when Apple will unveil its TV. But reportedly its head designer Jonathan Ive already houses a 50 inch one in his living room, which differs dramatically from the anticipated model.

Business Deals and Developments
Apple is planning to create a “store within a store” at 25 Target outlets around the country. They are, er, targeting Targets in areas that could not support a stand alone Apple outlet. Apple already has “Apple Shops” at 600 Best Buy outlets around the country, some which utilize Apple Solution Consultants.  

Not surprisingly, Apple benefited from the holiday consumer frenzy. Now it’s ringing in the new year with a bang, with analysts predicting that the Big Apple will reach 116 million iPhone and 55 million iPad sales in 2012.

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