Apple may block Samsung Galaxy SIII sales in US

 An Apple lawyer said the iPhoneand iPad maker may seek a legal order stopping the launch of Samsung Electronics's Galaxy S III phone in the United States later this month. 

At a hearing on Thursday in a San Jose,California federal court, Apple attorney Josh Krevitt said the company could file for a temporary restraining order against Samsung as early as Friday. 

"Once sales are made, the harm is irreparable," Krevitt said. 

However, US District Judge Lucy Koh said she has many other cases. If Apple decides to seek a restraining order, it would likely delay a July trial date over different Samsung phones, as well as the Galaxy Tab 10.1. 

A hard drive is good to find: Six external drives with a twist

Not all hard drives are created equal.

Oh sure, they all do the same thing at its core — store all your files, such as documents, photos, videos, music and games — but some of today's external hard drives go beyond the call of duty with advanced features ranging from wireless connectivity and extreme ruggedness to automatic back-up software and designer bodies.

Whether you're looking to pick up a new drive for work or play, or a bit of both, the following are a half-dozen of the newest — and most unique -- hard drives worthy of a spin.

Remote possibility

While they might look like any other desktop hard drive, the Western Digital (WD) My Book Live(from $159.99 for 1TB) can be connected to your home network, allowing you to access these files anywhere in — or even outside of — the home.

Even if you're halfway across the world, PC or Mac users can securely access your files via a password-protected site (WD2go.com), while those on a smartphone or tablet can use free WD2go apps for Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry or Apple's iOS devices. An auto-sync feature means new or modified files added to My Book Live automatically sync to mobile devices.

You can also share files with others via a link, stream media (such as movies) and access content with no monthly fees. Plus, your data is stored in your home and not via a third-party cloud service.

Hardware details of the next iPhone (N41AP / iPhone5,1) and more on the new Maps app

The next iPhone has 1,136-by-640 display. Its totally redesigned back plate and unibody construction. But what will it have under the hood? 9to5Mac delved deep into a beta version of iOS 6 to find out…

The iPhone running iOS 6 boasts Darwin Kernel Version 13.0.0. We can also see that the processor is an ARM S5L8950X.Interestingly, that is a full release above the most current developer version of MAC OS 10.8 Mountain Lion. The XNU build is also higher (21XX vs 2050.5.8):

The Samsung 5L8950X ARM processor is most likely manufactured at the same fab in Austin where Apple’s other Ax processors are built. The S5L8950X is a step up from the S5L8940X on the previous iPhone and the S5L8945X on the ‘new’ iPad but we’re not sure what that means in terms of cores, processor speed or fab size. We’d place our money on a low power dual core processor similar to the new iPad 2 on Samsung’s 32nm fab.

Facebook‘s Acquisition of Face.com Gives a New Look to Search

With Facebook’s acquisition of Face.com reportedly a done deal, all of the focus is on what the merger will do for Facebook’s mobile efforts. But there may be more to the deal than just mobile.“Give us 14 images of you,” Google’s Eric Schmidt famously told the Technology Conference in 2010, “and we can find other images of you with 95% accuracy.”

That was impressive at the time, and that 95% is probably much higher now. But what was more impressive is that the feature, which isn’t available on Google Image Search, is expected to be offered first by Face.com. As the Web becomes increasingly visual, image search is going to become increasingly important, and an acquisition of Face.com may be the strongest signal yet thatFacebook is positioning itself to go toe-to-toe with Google in search.

Google Promises To Unveil The “Next Dimension Of Google Maps” Next Week

The online mapping space is quickly heating up. What used to be a relatively straightforward competition between Google and Microsoft (with OpenStreetMap and a few other smaller players standing on the sidelines) will likely become a far more complex scenario now that Apple is likely to reveal its own solution at its WWDC later this month. Google, it seems, is trying to steal some thunder from Apple and is holding an invite-only press event in San Francisco where the company promises to unveil “the next dimension of Google Maps.” The invitation also notes that Google will offer attendees “a behind-the-scenes look at Google Maps and share our vision. We’ll also demo some of the newest technology and provide a sneak peek at upcoming features that will help people get where they want to go – both physically and virtually.”

Given that Apple is widely rumored to drop Google Maps in iOS6 in favor of its own solution with afocus on 3D maps, it’s hard not to look at Google talking about “the next dimension of Google Maps” without thinking about more 3D features.