MacRumors

Taiwan's Central News Agency reports (via Patently Apple) that Apple's manufacturing partner Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision, is currently working with Apple to test several designs for an Apple television set in the range of 46-55 inches.

Hon Hai, the world's largest contract electronics maker, has declined to respond to the reports, saying that it never comments on specific business deals with any single client.

However, the Hon Hai source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the initial phase of tests on the TVs has kicked off.

Nevertheless, the source said it is unlikely that shipments of the appliances will begin as soon as the end of next year.

The source claims that Apple may be looking to show off its new television products at CES next month in Las Vegas, but that seems difficult to believe given Apple's penchant for avoiding trade shows and for holding its own media events to introduce its products as close as possible to launch. With the report apparently claiming that Apple's television sets are unlikely to launch in 2013 and other recent claims that Apple's television projects are being slowed by difficult content negotiations, there would be little chance of Apple showing off anything at CES.

The report notes that using displays in the claimed range of 46-55 inches gives Apple flexibility in deciding on one or more vendors to supply LCD panels for the television sets. Foxconn has worked closely with Sharp and has made an investment in a Sharp LCD factory, but the report's source indicates that it is unlikely that Sharp panels will be used in the Apple television set.

According to The Oregonian, Business Oregon, the state's economic development agency, and officials in New York may both be competing to attract a massive chip manufacturing company, which uses the code name "Azalea."

Business Oregon -- the state's economic development agency -- confirms that it's recruiting a company that goes by the codename "Azalea." The department declined to discuss details of the effort, citing a nondisclosure agreement with the unnamed company.

However, officials in New York have been actively pursuing what's known there as "Project Azalea." Documents obtained by The Business Review, an Albany, N.Y., weekly, describe that project as a 3.2-million-square-foot semiconductor factory that would employ at least 1,000 people.

The cost of building and equipping a new semiconductor factory -- a fab, in the chip industry's parlance -- runs in the billions of dollars. That's attracted great interest to the chatter around Azalea, which at this point is largely speculative.

Within the chip industry, the theory is that the fab would be a contract facility to build microprocessors for Apple's mobile devices, the iPhone and iPad.

The EETimes believes that this mysterious "Azalea" chip factory is none other than the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which appears to be waffling between creating a new factory in New York or Oregon.

There have been several rumors over the last two years linking Apple to TSMC, pegging the semiconductor company as Apple's likely partner as Apple moves away from Samsung because of the ongoing dispute between the two companies.

Samsung currently builds all of the custom A-series processors that Apple uses in its iOS devices in an Austin, Texas plant, including the newest 32-nanometer process A6 chip used in the iPhone 5 and the A6X chip used in the fourth generation iPad. Rumors have, however, suggested that Apple is interested in making a deal with TSMC instead, both to cut ties with Samsung and to take advantage of TSMC's 20-nanometer process for use in late 2013.

Earlier this year, TSMC turned down both Apple and Qualcomm, who placed bids for exclusive access to TSMC's chip production, but the company did indicate that it might possibly devote a factory to a single customer. This suggests that if TSMC is indeed behind "Project Azalea," then the upcoming U.S.-based chip factory could potentially be used to create chips for Apple's iDevices.

Google has updated its Google Play music service with an iTunes Match-like song matching service. This means users won't have to spend hours or days uploading gigabytes of music, as they had to previously.

Notably, Google's matching service does not have a subscription fee like Apple and Amazon's do, with users matching up to 20,000 songs. While European Google Play users have been using this service for a while, this launch is new for those in the U.S.

Traveling this season and want to make sure your music goes with you? Add up to 20,000 songs from your music collection to Google Play and stream it to your Android devices and your computer, anywhere you go.

Our new music matching feature gets your songs into your online music library on Google Play much faster. We’ll scan your collection and quickly rebuild it in the cloud - all for free. And we’ll stream your music back to you at up to 320 kbps.

Amazon upgraded its Cloud Player with a scan and match feature earlier this year, charging $24.99/year for the service. Apple charges the same amount for iTunes Match.

TIME today unveiled its shortlist of people who are being considered for TIME's annual Person of the Year Award. Apple CEO Tim Cook is on the list, as well as Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

The Person of the Year award is given to "a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine" that has "for better or for worse done the most to influence the events of the year." TIME's editorial team decides the winner.

The two tech CEOs join notable figures like Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani activist who suffered a head wound after being shot by the Taliban, United States President Barack Obama, Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the three scientists behind the discovery of the Higgs Boson.

In 2011, Steve Jobs was posthumously nominated for TIME's Person of the Year by NBC Nightly News Anchor Brian Williams, but he did not win. He also did not make it to the final shortlist. This year, Cook has worked to bring some production of Apple products back to the United States, and to improve working conditions for factory employees. He also stepped up to accept responsibility for Apple's Maps failure and restructured Apple's management.

The Protestor, a group choice inspired by Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit vendor who famously set himself on fire in a public square, received the award in 2011, while Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg won in 2010.

TIME's 2012 winner for Person of the Year will be announced tomorrow morning.

Brazilian electronics maker IGB Electronica SA has announced a new line of Android phones under the IPHONE brand, a trademark that was originally applied for in Brazil in 2000.

From Reuters:

The first model will be called "Neo One," IGB said in a securities filing. The company was formed this year after the restructuring of Gradiente Eletronica SA, which had applied for exclusive rights in Brazil to register its products under the name IPHONE in 2000.

Apple will either file a lawsuit, or perhaps more likely, begin negotiations for a settlement deal.

Apple was involved in a similar trademark issue in China, with Proview owning the "iPad" trademark. Apple ended up paying that company $60 million to gain control of the 'iPad' trademark.

Brazil is an important country for Apple. The company has begun hiring for new Apple Stores in the country, which would be its first locations in South America and Apple and Foxconn have begun iPad and iPhone production there.

Finally, Apple CEO Tim Cook has said in the past that Brazil is the company's next big target after China.

Apple has released an iOS update for the iPhone 5 and iPad mini, bringing the iOS version for those devices up to 6.0.2. The release notes for the iPhone note only that an unnamed Wi-Fi bug has been fixed.

There have been a number of complaints related to malfunctioning Wi-Fi connections on the iPhone 5, so this could be a welcome update for many users.

iOS 6.0.2 Software Update

This update contains improvements and bug fixes, including:

• Fixes a bug that could impact Wi-Fi

For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

iOS 6.0.1 was released on November 1, with the fourth beta of iOS 6.1 released just yesterday.

Update: Many users are reporting difficulties downloading iOS 6.0.2, with attempts at over-the-air updates simply yielding errors. Users updating through iTunes appear to be having more success, although even then it may take several attempts.

Apple has updated its supplier responsibility pages to note that it is now tracking working hours for one million employees in its supply chain, up from 900,000 at its previous update.

Compliance with Apple's 60-hour work week standard stood at 88% in November, below the peak of 97% reached in July and August. Apple notes, however, that it allows the normal 60-hour standard to be exceeded during period of high demand if workers volunteer for the additional time. That policy seems to have had an impact on overall compliance over the past three months, coinciding with Apple's major product ramps for the iPhone 5, iPad mini, fourth-generation iPad, updated iPods, and a number of new Mac models.

Going deep into our supply chain, we now follow weekly supplier data for over 1,000,000 workers. In November 88 percent of workweeks were less than the 60-hour maximum specified in Apple’s code of conduct. In limited peak periods, we allow work beyond the 60 hour limit for those employees that volunteer to do so.

Apple reports that with one million supply chain workers now being tracked through the system, the company has doubled its coverage since early this year when it began a new initiative to more openly address worker rights and safety throughout its supply chain. Apple has also partnered with the Fair Labor Association to provide third-party monitoring of conditions.

In yet another development in the worldwide patent battle between Apple and Samsung, The Verge reports that Samsung has dropped its requests for injunctions barring the sale of a number of Apple products in Europe. Samsung has accused Apple of infringing several standards-essential patents related to cellular technology and has been pursuing both sales bans and monetary damages. Samsung's statement reads:

Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court. In this spirit, Samsung has decided to withdraw our injunction requests against Apple on the basis of our standard essential patents pending in European courts, in the interest of protecting consumer choice.

While Samsung is portraying its move as an altruistic one focused on "protecting consumer choice", the company has been under scrutiny from the European Commission over potential antitrust issues related to licensing the standards-essential patents it owns.

Standards-essential patents are required to be licensed under FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms in order to promote competition. The requirement is aimed at preventing a single company from controlling an entire industry by refusing to license patents critical to building a competing product. Apple's lawyers have argued, however, that Samsung's offers for licensing its 3G-related patents have not been reasonable.

Apple has been pushing for greater clarification of how patents subject to FRAND terms should be licensed, and has been one of a number of parties to argue that standards-essential patents should not be used as the basis for requests for sales injunctions as the patents are intended to be licensed.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple is in early discussions with popular location-based app Foursquare for a data-sharing deal. Apple SVP Eddy Cue is reportedly involved with the negotiations as he tries to improve a Maps app that has failed to live up to Apple's expectations.

Apple Inc. is in early discussions to integrate local data from Foursquare Labs Inc. into its mapping application, according to people familiar with the talks, as the company continues to build an arsenal of local data to try to take on Google Inc.

Foursquare's data includes local businesses like restaurants, bars and more and even allows users to leave tips about businesses for future visitors. The Wall Street Journal notes that Apple may be able to use that data in its Maps app as well.

This news comes days after Google announced its Maps app for iOS, which was downloaded more than 10 million times in the first 48 hours. These are just preliminary talks however, if the report is to be believed. There's no guarantee what kind of data Foursquare will share with Apple, if the deal is ever finalized.

Recently, Cue has been posting Foursquare check-ins on his Twitter account.

According to a Google+ blog post from Jeff Huber, Google Maps for iOS turned out to be a success, with more than 10 million downloads just 48 hours after the app was released last Wednesday night.

We're excited for the positive reception of Google Maps for iPhone around the world. Congratulations to the Maps Team on the recognition for the passion and hard work they poured into it, for this release and over the last 7+ years.

If you already have it – thank you, and please tell a friend. Any feedback you have is welcomed, here in G+ or in the app (just shake it).

Google Maps was highly anticipated by users who were unhappy with the rampant errors in Apple's built-in mapping solution. Criticism over Apple Maps led to the restructuring of Apple's iOS software team, and a public apology from Tim Cook.

Google Maps shot up to the number one free app on the App Store within a day of its launch, and today it maintains a 4.5 star rating with more than 20,000 reviews.

Though 10 million is a significant number, it still represents just a fraction of iOS users. Only three days after iOS 6 was released on September 21, Apple announced that it had been downloaded onto more than 100 million devices.

The number of iOS 6 downloads has likely increased quite a bit over the last three months, indicating that the majority of iOS users have chosen to stick with Apple's Maps application rather than switching to Google Maps, despite the rampant complaints about the quality of the built-in app.

Google Maps is a free app that can be downloaded from the App Store. [Direct Link]