By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

This Friday the column is perforce shortened. I am off to Uttaradit early Friday morning, so have to sleep early too. I am going with the department and the students to visit the Sirikit Dam.

Apple Stuff

Showing to some that he still knows little about what Apple is, was and continues to be, John Sculley joined the chorus of pundits telling us that Apple must make a cheap iPhone for emerging markets, AppleInsider reports. Having almost destroyed Apple once, he wants another go?

On the other hand a possibility in the rumours field comes from Neil Hughes on AppleInsider who suggests that there is evidence for a thinner and lighter iPad next time. With Apple's moves towards these features all the time, this should not be much of a surprise.

However, while we are expecting that Taiwan Semiconductor will take over the production from Samsung real soon now, Patently Apple tells us there are rumours that, as well as the iPad and iPad mini, the production will also be for a "breakthrough" product due out sometime between late 2013 and 2014.

While we are on Asian matters, we know that TIm Cook has a soft spot for China and his recent visit brought about all sorts of goodies for the country and the Apple relationship. Now, we read on a number of sources, including in an item by Chris Foresman on Ars Technica that Chinese citizens are to be able to buy the iPhone in 12 easy payments. This appears similar to other such deals available in other countries, including Thailand from time to time if you have the right credit card.

I had a look at some interesting software this week, called Keycard. It uses Bluetooth on an iPhone, iPad or other device to lock a Mac when it is not in the vicinity.

Half and Half

We dare Samsung to try and produce a smartphone with a fingerprint sensor in the Home button. This is rumoured to be one of the features in a redesigned iPhone 5S or 6, Neil Hughes reports on AppleInsider, citing an analyst in quite a lengthy and useful article.

Other Matters

There is something about old film that digital will never have. The Lomo cameras are still fairly popular and there are some retail outlets in Bangkok where these are still available. I would like to check to see if another Lomo type of device is also there. Shawn Low reports on the Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner: negative film, scanned and into the iPhone library. What a lovely idea. This is not yet with us (and is not really a Lomo product as far as I can tell) but is a Kickstarter project. I am still waiting for the last one I sent money to to appear in the mailbox.

Office 2013 may be coming soon and in an article on CNET, Mary Jo Foley outlines the 8 versions - see there is one problem - and the pricing, but points out that Redmond is trying really hard to have people switch to a subscription model. All of this looks like typical overkill from the dark side: too much, too late, too expensive and too many choices that will confuse the customers in a market that is becoming saturated. And by having missed the tablet wave (where IS that Office for the iPad?), many consumers have moved on. Microsoft who?

Not long ago we mentioned the Stuxnet worm that had allegedly been created by the US and spread to Iran's electrical installations via an infected USB drive. The worm has turned (the pun is deliberate) and a number of sources, including Jim Finkle on WKZO, are reporting on an an apparent malware attack in the US which took an installation offline for 3 weeks. However, Homeland security are not saying where, but confirm that "criminal software, which is used to conduct financial crimes such as identity theft, was behind the incident." Sounds like Stuxnet or one of its derivatives. The article has some useful background.

There is also a Homeland Security report on this which says that " two power utilities in the US suffered virus infections" - note that this is two installations, not one like the other report and they use the word, Virus. This report says that the first attack used something like the Stuxnet worm (correct this time), but the other was unspecified "crimeware."

Local Items

There were a lot of interesting Tweets on Thursday as there was an AIS press conference on the go and several news items had some potential for stories. Richard Barrow looks at the point that NFC may be available soon from AIS to allow customers to use the Skytrain without a ticket. This will be in conjunction with the Rabbit Card. His report also confirms a new AIS service which made my eyes roll: a cloud service called Mycloud (and it was described as like iCloud). There may be some more stories on these features over the next few days.

Don Sambandaraksa also Tweeted, "AIS' CEO talking about the iPhone 5S launch date as a given. Did he just break an NDA?" Don will be writing about that in his piece that will be out later today on Telecomasia he tells me.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.