UPDATED 14:41 EDT / DECEMBER 10 2012

NewsDesk MobileANGLE Round-up: Apple Maps Hazardous for Australians

Police in Victoria, Australia issued a warning to motorists this weekend regarding Apple Maps after several travelers became stranded in the Murray-Sunset National Park trying to reach the city of Mildura using Apple Maps directions. Some of the motorists located by police had been stranded for up to 24 hours without food or water and had walked long distances through dangerous terrain to get phone reception. A report from Australia’s ABC News reveals that Victoria police have had to rescue a total of six people in the last two months after they became lost using Apple Maps. Police in Victoria have contacted Apple about the Maps discrepancy and are warning travelers to use an alternative mapping system until it is fixed.

Samsung has announced its new Premium Suite Upgrade, also known as the latest Jellybean update, for its Galaxy S Three Smartphone. There are a number of new camera features – one that’s ideal for group pictures, is called “Camera, Best Face,” which takes five consecutive pictures and lets you choose the best face for each person among those shots. There’s also a “low light function” for taking pictures in dark places. Other highlights include contextual awareness features, such as a page buddy that will predict what app you want to use based on your actions and you can choose from your most frequently used apps first. An enhanced enhanced multi-window feature will allow you to open two different apps simultaneously in two different windows on the mobile screen.

The polls are still open! Over half a million Facebook users exercised their right to vote against Facebook’s governance changes, but almost 300 million more votes are needed by tomorrow morning in order for users to keep their voting abilities. Facebook notified users by email about the voting rights proposal, giving users ample time to vote, as well as allowing people to share when they voted or the current results.

Apple and Google have put aside their differences temporarily to come together and offer more than $500 million to buy Kodak’s patents out of bankruptcy. When bidding first started this summer, the two tech companies were bidding against each other before realizing that it could benefit their business needs to join forces and make a higher bid by combining forces. Kodak’s patents relate to the capture, manipulation, and sharing of digital images. The company is selling its patent collection to fund a turnaround after seeking Chapter 11 protection back in January of this year. According to court documents, the patents for sale may be worth between $2.21 to $2.57 billion.

Square Wallet, the mobile payment app, is now selling digital gift cards on iOS. Square Wallet 2.5 comes with the featured gift card update, which allows users to buy, send, and receive e-cards of various values for businesses that have registered as Square merchants. The update also applies to Square Register, the business side of the app, which now accepts the gift cards, integrates with Apple’s Passbook application, and works with QR codes. Mobile payment services have typically had a slow adoption rate by enterprise businesses, but the addition of Passbook integration is a joint effort to change that trend, by allowing Square payments to process through iOS 6 software.

See the whole segment with Kristin Feledy on the Morning NewsDesk Show.


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