MacRumors

After Steve Jobs' passing last year, a number of so-called "lost interviews" with the iconic businessman were released, but Fast Company claims it has "a treasure trove of unearthed interviews, conducted by the writer who knew [Jobs] best."

Since 1985, reporter Brent Schlender had covered Steve Jobs for Fortune and the Wall Street Journal and discovered three dozen tapes with recordings of interviews Schlender had conducted with Jobs over 25 years:

Rummaging through the storage shed, I discovered some three dozen tapes holding recordings of extended interviews--some lasting as long as three hours--that I'd conducted with him periodically over the past 25 years. Many I had never replayed--a couple hadn't even been transcribed before now. Some were interrupted by his kids bolting into the kitchen as we talked. During others, he would hit the pause button himself before saying something he feared might come back to bite him. Listening to them again with the benefit of hindsight, the ones that took place during that interregnum jump out as especially enlightening.

The interviews cover much of the time that Jobs spent at Pixar, which often gets forgotten because of what he did putting Apple on top of the corporate world. But, of all that Schlender shares of Steve Jobs is the change in Jobs after he marries Laurene Powell-Jobs and starts a family.

Even after he went back to Apple, there was nothing Jobs liked more than spending time at home. Not that he wasn't a workaholic. We were iChat buddies for several years, so his name would pop up whenever he was working at his computer at home. Almost invariably, he was in front of his Mac until after midnight. We'd occasionally have a video chat, and if it took place early in the evening, I'd often see one of his children in the background looking on.

The full article, "The Lost Steve Jobs Tapes" -- as well as the selected highlights from the interviews themselves -- are worth a read and show some of the personal and professional growth that Jobs experienced during his years at NeXT and Pixar.

As documented by Corkipedia, four Greenpeace activists climbed to the roof of Apple's offices in Cork, Ireland today, posting signage and distributing leaflets in an attempt to push Apple to adopt cleaner energy sources for its data centers. The protest, which lasted approximately an hour, came a day after Greenpeace blasted Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft for relying heavily on dirty coal power for their data centers.

It appears, however, that Greenpeace's assessment of Apple's energy use was based on flawed assumptions, and Apple stands by its claims that its new data center in Maiden, North Carolina and a forthcoming one in Prineville, Oregon will be among the cleanest in the world.

Greenpeace estimated that the Maiden facility would require 100 megawatts of power at peak capacity, claiming that Apple's proposed solar and fuel cell facilities at the plant would provide only 10% of the center's energy needs. The group's report also appears to assume that the Prineville facility will run on dirty power sources, and those two assumptions were combined to give Apple a low "clean energy index" score of 15.3% and estimate Apple's share of data center power usage derived from coal at an industry-high 55%.

Apple quickly responded to the Greenpeace report, issuing statements to several media outlets claiming that the Maiden data center requires only 20 megawatts of power at peak capacity and that the renewable energy sources being built at the site will provide at least 60% of the center's power needs. In addition, Apple notes that the Prineville data center is planned to run on 100% renewable energy.

“Our data center in North Carolina will draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity, and we are on track to supply more than 60% of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation which will each be the largest of their kind in the country,” Apple said in a statement. “We believe this industry-leading project will make Maiden the greenest data center ever built, and it will be joined next year by our new facility in Oregon running on 100% renewable energy.”

For its part, Greenpeace believes that Apple is continuing to obfuscate its energy numbers and release only those that make the company appear in a positive light. And so despite Apple's claims regarding significant efforts to minimize the impact of its data centers on the environment, Greenpeace believes that the company should be doing more to publicly lead the way toward further adoption of renewable energy sources.

While Apple has pushed out several software updates to detect the Flashback malware and remove it from infected systems, Symantec noted late yesterday that over 100,000 machines remain afflicted by the issue as detected by their sinkhole operation to redirect server traffic.

Symantec pegged the number at approximately 142,000 as of Monday, listing a rough estimate of "over 99,000" as yesterday's data was still coming in. Those numbers are down from a peak of over 600,000 machines two weeks ago, but a substantial number of machines are still infected by the malware.

The statistics from our sinkhole are showing declining numbers on a daily basis. However, we had originally believed that we would have seen a greater decline in infections at this point in time, but this has proven not to be the case. Currently, it appears that the number of infected computers has tapered off, but remains around the 140,000 mark.

As there have been tools released by Symantec and other vendors in the past few days concerning this threat, the infection numbers should have seen a dramatic decrease by now.

Symantec also takes a look at the domain name generator that allows infected machines to connect to their command-and-control servers to receive instructions. The generator uses a list of 14-character strings rotated each day, coupling each string with one of five top-level domains (.com, .net, .info, .in, or .kz) to find its instructions.

The report also claims that Flashback-infected systems can receive updated command-and-control server locations through Twitter, although no details on that process are provided. A similar claim was made for earlier versions of Flashback, although there has apparently been no demonstration of the Twitter delivery method actually being used.

Kickstarter is a popular place for wild ideas to gain some traction, but sometimes an idea clicks with so many people it's possible to wonder why no one thought of it before. Such is the case with the Pebble digital wristwatch.

It uses an e-paper display, similar to the screen on the Amazon Kindle, and connects to the iPhone (and Android devices) via Bluetooth. Pebble uses vibrating alerts to tell the wearer of incoming calls, emails, calendar alerts, Facebook and Twitter messages, weather alerts and more. It also has an extensive SDK for developers and its own "Pebble watchapp store". It will also be waterproof enough to swim with, but it will not be a dive watch.

The company behind the watch even has experience with smart watches. Pebble has been making a BlackBerry-compatible watch called the inPulse, and is a graduate of the Y Combinator startup incubator. It has now received pledges for $3.8 million from 26,500 backers on Kickstarter for a watch that will retail somewhere around $150 when it goes on sale this fall.

An article by Bloomberg notes that Kickstarter wasn't Pebble's first choice for raising funds. He tried to raise money via traditional venture capital firms, but "few investors were interested in betting on a hardware startup, or dealing with the headaches that often come with manufacturing goods." However, Kickstarter seems to have worked out very well. The watch is the most funded Kickstarter project ever.

Pebble told MacRumors that it's treating Kickstarter as a discounted pre-order mechanism, and once the funding period closes in a month it will continue taking orders on its website. US buyers can preorder a Jet Black Pebble watch via Kickstarter for $115, while foreign buyers will pay slightly more to cover shipping.

Update: Pebble has now passed the $4 million mark.

Back in January at Macworld, we noted that Autodesk was planning to bring its Inventor Fusion mechanical design software to the Mac. At the time, the company promised the a free technology preview of Inventor Fusion for Mac would be available in the coming weeks, with an official release to follow later.

Autodesk today announced that the free software preview is now available for download and will remain active through January 1, 2013.

Inventor Fusion is a free technology preview that enables creation of designs through intuitive direct manipulation tools. Our aim is to set a new standard for Assembly design, giving users greater control over designs without sacrificing productivity. Hopefully this technology preview will make it easier to open and edit 3D models from virtually any source and incorporate them into new or existing designs (such as in Autodesk Inventor). Your feedback will determine if we are correct in our thinking.

The system requirements for Inventor Fusion for Mac include most relatively recent Mac Pro, iMac, and MacBook Pro models with specific graphics options from AMD, NVIDIA or Intel. Autodesk has, however, indicated that users may still have success running the software on officially unsupported systems.

The release of the Inventor Fusion preview for Mac is the second major Mac-related announcement for Autodesk this week, following the company's unveiling of Smoke 2013, an updated version of its professional-level video editing and visual effects software for Mac. Smoke 2013 will be launching "later this fall" at a price of $3,495 per license, a significant discount from the $14,995 pricing on previous versions.

FOSS Patents reports that the chief executives of Apple and Samsung, along with their respective general counsels, will meet within the next 90 days at a San Francisco courthouse for a court-moderated discussion aimed at settling the long-standing patent dispute between the two companies. As outlined in a joint statement before the court:

As directed by the Court, Apple and Samsung are both willing to participate in a Magistrate Judge Settlement Conference with Judge Spero as mediator. At Apple, the chief executive officer and general counsel are the appropriate decision-makers, and they will represent Apple during the upcoming settlement discussions. At Samsung, the chief executive officer and general counsel are also the appropriate decision-makers, and they will represent Samsung during these settlement discussions.

The report notes that the settlement talks are "semi-voluntary" in that the court can only compel the parties to meet and talk, but can not force them to reach an agreement. It also in the best interest of the two companies to make their most senior officials available for the discussions so as to demonstrate for the court a good faith effort at resolving the dispute.

Apple would obviously be represented by CEO Tim Cook and general counsel Bruce Sewell, while Samsung would appear to be sending representatives from the parent company including CEO Gee-Sung Choi.

Marking yet another milestone in its rollout of 4G LTE connectivity, Verizon today announced that with another major expansion coming later this week, the carrier's LTE network will now cover two-thirds of the United States population. This week's expansion, officially going live on Thursday, will see coverage in 27 new markets and expansion of coverage in 44 existing markets.

Verizon Wireless, owner of the nation’s largest 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, today announced that it will cover more than two-thirds of the U.S. population when it introduces its 4G LTE network in 27 new markets and expands in 44 markets on April 19. With the new and expanded markets, Verizon Wireless continues to lead the industry in 4G LTE deployment, offering network coverage in 230 markets across the United States.

By the end of the year, Verizon expects to have LTE coverage available in over 400 markets, making the next-generation data speeds available for 260 million people, or well over 80% of the U.S. population.

Verizon, which is leading the major U.S. carriers in LTE deployment, boasts real-world speeds of 5-12 Mbps download and 2-5 Mbps upload. AT&T is also rapidly building out its LTE network, and while it is behind Verizon in its rollout, it does offer faster fallback 3G speeds than Verizon does. Sprint, the third major U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone, has yet to officially launch its LTE services as it seeks to migrate away from WiMAX as its 4G technology, although its LTE network should debut in its first round of markets in the near future.

Apple currently offers LTE compatibility through AT&T and Verizon on the new iPad, with separate models offering the support on each carrier. The company has, however, been embroiled in some controversy in international markets, where its "4G" claims have been targeted by regulators seeking to determine whether Apple has been providing adequate disclosures that the devices will not be compatible with LTE networks in those countries due to differences in the frequencies being used by the carriers.

Activist group Greenpeace today issued a new report entitled How Clean is Your Cloud?, targeting major Internet companies including Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft over their heavy use of coal-derived power for their massive data centers.

Given the energy-intensive nature of maintaining the cloud, access to significant amounts of electricity is a key factor in decisions about where to build these data centers. Since electricity plays a critical role in the cost structure of companies that use the cloud, there have been dramatic strides made in improving the energy efficiency design of the facilities and the thousands of computers that go inside. However, despite significant improvements in efficiency, the exponential growth in cloud computing far outstrips these energy savings. Companies must look not only at how efficiently they are consuming electricity, but also the sources of electricity that they are choosing.

The study covers 14 Internet companies, but singles out Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft as the biggest offenders. According to Greenpeace's data, Apple is the only one of the 14 companies to derive more than half of its data center power (55%) from coal. Apple also ranks third in the share of its power needs coming from nuclear sources.

Greenpeace acknowledges Apple's work to build a 20-megawatt solar farm and 5-megawatt fuel cell facility at its new data center in Maiden, North Carolina, but downplays their significance by claiming that the facilities will cover only 10% of the site's power needs. Greenpeace specifically takes Apple to task for its decision to locate its data center in North Carolina, which reportedly maintains one of the dirtiest power grids in the country. In particular, Duke Energy is continuing to invest in coal and nuclear power options while investing "very little" in renewable energy. A similar situation exists in Prineville, Oregon, where Apple has announced plans for another data center.

To deliver iCloud services, Apple has dramatically expanded its data center infrastructure. It has invested at least $1bn in an “iDataCenter” in North Carolina, one of the world’s largest data centers, and just announced another facility to be built in Prineville, Oregon. Unfortunately, both of these investments are powered by utilities that rely mostly on coal power. Given the lack of transparency, siting policy or a clear commitment to power the iCloud with renewable energy, Apple is finding itself behind other companies such as Facebook and Google who are angling to control a bigger piece of the cloud.

Apple maintains a significant environmental section of its website, including disclosures on its Maiden data center, which the company believes is the only data center of its size to achieve a LEED Platinum rating from the U.S. Green Building Council. But while Greenpeace gives Apple some credit for its steps, the organization continues to give Apple poor marks for a lack of complete transparency about its data center power demands and publicly-available policies regarding the energy considerations for its projects.

While Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft take the brunt of Greenpeace's criticism, Yahoo and Google receive high marks for their policies prioritizing renewable energy in their projects and for promoting policies to increase investment in renewable energy. Facebook also receives high marks for its recent commitment to renewable energy, including its latest data center in Sweden that can be powered with 100% renewable energy.

Update: In a statement issued to The New York Times, Apple discloses for the first time that the current data center in Maiden, North Carolina consumes roughly 20 megawatts of power, meaning that the 25 megawatts of power planned for the solar farm and fuel cell facility at that location should be sufficient for at least this phase of the project. Apple's long-term plans include eventually doubling the size of the data center with a second building, and it seems unlikely that the 20-megawatt number includes those plans.

In a statement issued in response to the report, Apple disclosed for the first time that the data center would consume about 20 million watts at full capacity — much lower than Greenpeace’s estimate, which is 100 million watts. In territory served by Duke, a million watts is enough to power 750 to 1,000 homes.

Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, added that the company is building two large projects intended to offset energy use from the grid in North Carolina: an array of solar panels and a set of fuel cells.

Update 2: Greenpeace has responded with a blog post questioning Apple's statements about energy usage at the Maiden data center.

While it is good to see Apple acknowledge it should reveal more details of the energy consumption of its data centers, the information they released today does not add up with what they have reported to be the size of the investment and physical size of the data center. [...] While Apple is well known for making more expensive consumer products, if Apple’s plans for the $ 1Billion investment only generates 20MW in power demand, that would be taking the “Apple premium” to a whole new level.

The Next Web notes that a new iPhone 4S ad aired during ESPN's SportsCenter this afternoon, featuring actor Samuel L. Jackson giving Siri orders.

Updated: The ad does appear to be an Apple creation, with the three U.S. iPhone carriers -- AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon -- being variously featured in title cards at the end of the ad. There is a similar ad featuring Zooey Deschanel being broadcast as well:

Apple rarely, if ever, uses celebrities in their advertising, particularly as themselves. The "I'm A Mac" ads featured Justin Long and John Hodgman, but they were playing characters rather than acting as a celebrity endorsement. One notable exception was actor Will Ferrell, who did a number of iPod ads a few years back.

As noted by MacStories, Apple has discontinued its free trials of Aperture and iWork, directing users to the Mac App Store where the apps are available for purchase.

The discontinuation of the Aperture trial is not particularly recent, as discussion forum reports indicate that it has been missing for at least a month, but the removal has gone mostly unnoticed. It is not entirely clear when the iWork trial was taken down from Apple's U.S. site, but it appears to still be available from some international sites such as the UK site. Other international sites also suggest that the iWork trial is still available, but attempts to download the app simply lead to the Mac App Store.

Since the launch of the Mac App Store in January 2011, Apple has moved all of its major software products to the marketplace, which does not support free trials. The company advises Mac App Store developers wishing to offer free trials of their software to host the downloads on their own sites, but Apple appears to have decided that this option is no longer worthwhile for most of its own apps. Apple does, however, continue to offer a free 30-day trial of Final Cut Pro X, so it has not yet abandoned trials entirely.

Aperture is priced at $79.99 in the Mac App Store, a significant cut from the $199 price of the boxed software it replaced. In a similar fashion, the three iWork applications (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) are available through the Mac App Store at $19.99 each, less than the $79 price for the boxed version containing all three applications.

ifoAppleStore shares some photos of a newly-revamped Apple product display section in an Arkansas Walmart store near the retail chain's headquarters. Coming with dedicated wood display surfaces and lighted signage, the new displays mark a distinct improvement over the previous Apple product displays that had simply been integrated into existing display shelving.

The displays feature tall, double-sided, back-lit graphics, a clean-looking wood table, live display products and under-table accessory storage with security glass. The new look updates previous Apple product displays within Walmart stores that have been notoriously small, invisible and poorly maintained.

Walmart has long been a close retail partner with Apple, and the company has served as a launch-day source for a number of high-profile Apple products. The chain was even the first store to begin selling the new iPad in many locations in the United States, with a number of the company's stores offering select models of the device at 12:01 AM local time on launch day, eight hours ahead of Apple's own retail stores.

Apple has been rumored to be partnering with Walmart to bring store-within-a-store concepts to the retailer's Sam's Club warehouse stores, and it seems that the companies are also at least exploring expanding their partnership in the more plentiful Walmart locations. Apple has also committed to bring 25 dedicated Apple shops to Target stores, signifying the company's interested in expanding its presence at mass market retailers with a broader reach than its own retail store network.

While Apple has received much publicity for its partnership with the Fair Labor Association to audit working conditions at several of its manufacturing partners' facilities in China, Financial Times reports that the company has now also partnered with the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) for an environmental audit of a supplier's facilities.

Apple has agreed to a jointly monitored audit of pollution controls at a supplier's factory in China, in what activists see as a breakthrough in their efforts to persuade the world's most valuable company to address environmental concerns.

A maker of printed circuit boards for the Silicon Valley company is due to be inspected in the next few weeks by auditors, with Apple and the China-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) jointly monitoring their efforts.

According to the report, Apple and the IPE have been in discussions for months about a partnership, culminating in a five-hour meeting in Cupertino last October that set the stage for a formal relationship. Following this initial audit, the IPE hopes that it will be able to partner with Apple on audits of thirteen other facilities in China that are already being monitored by Apple.

The IPE is led by Ma Jun, an environmental activist who just today was announced as one of six winners of this year's Goldman Environmental Prize.

In October, the activist and author met with senior Apple executives in San Francisco and Cupertino to discuss his report, published a month earlier, on health hazards caused by pollution in the company's Chinese supply chain.

Ma will be at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco on Monday to receive the Goldman Environmental Prize for "bringing unprecedented environmental transparency and empowering Chinese citizens to demand justice." His work has prompted the Chinese government and multinational corporations, including Apple, to more seriously confront the issues he has long been raising.

As part of its environmental disclosures, Apple has noted that it focused on 14 suppliers for environmental audits in 2011, and the company is expanding its efforts in 2012 to include additional facilities, work more closely with governmental and nongovernmental agencies such as the IPE, and increase training on environmental responsibility throughout its supply chain.