Weekly News Roundup – 25 January 2013

Once again the week is coming to an end and that means it’s time for a roundup of the past weeks news!

Unlocking Cellphones Becomes Illegal Saturday – The clock to unlock a new mobile phone is running out. In October 2012, the Librarian of Congress, who determines exemptions to a strict anti-hacking law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), decided that unlocking cellphones would no longer be allowed. But the librarian provided a 90-day window during which people could still buy a phone and unlock it. That window closes on Jan. 26.

Pebble Smart Watch iPhone And Android Apps Now Available, Just In Time For First Shipments – Today, the company announced to its Kickstarter backers that both the iPhone and Android apps are available now, which means they’ll be fully functional for users of both types of devices when they arrive at backer doors.

Apple reportedly moving Japan headquarters to Roppongi Hills – Apple is supposedly planning on relocating its Japan headquarters to an office tower in the upscale Roppongi Hills complex in Tokyo, with the move said to be happening as soon as April.

Twitter launches Vine iPhone app – Twitter has launched a standalone video-sharing app for iPhone called Vine, which enables users to share clips up to six seconds in length, which play on a loop within tweets.

Apple chart: Why iPhones, iPads are key to future results – Apple Inc on Wednesday announced its results for Q1 2013 and the company posted a quarterly revenue of $54.5 billion and a quarterly net profit of $13.1 billion. While these numbers are a record by themselves for Apple, for Wall Street these numbers were just not good enough Apple missed the forecast for the third time.

Belkin buying Linksys – Belkin announced this afternoon that it is planning to acquire Cisco’s home networking business unit, which includes the Linksys brand.

Nearly one third of Apple’s market value is backed by pure cash – An after-hours sell off of Apple shares resulted in the company’s effective market capitalization falling to $436 billion, just over three times the size of its growing cash reserves, now worth $137 billion.

AT&T: Of 10.2 Million Smartphones Activated Last Quarter, 84% Were iPhones – Following Verizon and Apple’s quarterly earnings reports, AT&T has just released their numbers for the last quarter, and the iPhone 5 made it another banner period for Ma Bell: they activated 8.6 million iPhones last quarter, with 16% going to new AT&T customers.

EA launches Origin for Mac alpha, includes free Bookworm – Electronic Arts announced today that it’s bringing its Origin service to Mac, and that an alpha version of it is now available for download. According to EA, the alpha is being opened up to “a few thousand” users in North America and Europe.

Apple terminates contract with supplier after audit finds underage labor violations – In Apple’s seventh Supplier Responsibility Report released late Thursday, it was revealed that the company no longer does business with a Chinese component supplier due to that firm’s use of underage workers.