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Apple Seeks Growth Beyond Consumers

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Apple Inc. is boosting efforts to appeal to a new type of customer: small businesses.

The consumer electronics giant responsible for the iPhone is seeking to hire engineers in as many as a dozen U.S. retail stores to put together Apple-based computer systems for small businesses, according to recent job postings on Apple’s website. The employees would implement computer systems for clients and are expected to be proficient in networking hardware and server platforms.

“Thousands of businesses run on Apple products,” the posting reads. “Many more would like to, and that’s where you come in.”

Want to see the iPad? So do Apple store employees

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As Apple Inc gears up for the crush of customers expected for Saturday’s iPad launch, employees who staff its retail stores are just as curious about the tablet as the fans who will line up outside.

Apple store workers say they have yet to see or touch the iPad, even though the launch is just days away and they are being trained and encouraged to talk about Apple’s newest device with customers.

“We haven’t seen it; we never do” before a product is launched, said one employee, who asked not to be identified because workers are barred from speaking with the media. “Every store employee I know, including the managers, they haven’t seen it.”

Apple’s iPad: trouble for Intel’s mobile push?

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When Apple Inc unveiled its iPad last month, one crucial detail almost got drowned out in the hoopla: the new tablet computer will be powered by an in-house chip called the A4.

While Apple likely will not market the chip publicly, analysts say the new processor underscores how rival chip designs may eventually win out over Intel Corp’s designs in the emergent hot category of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

Intel says the first smartphones using its chips go on sale by 2010’s second half, as it tries to stake out a corner in the wireless market and replicate what it did for the formerly red-hot netbook category it now almost completely dominates.

But analysts point to an uphill battle against Nvidia Corp, Marvell and Qualcomm Inc, already making headway with cheaper, low-power processors based on designs by ARM Holdings PLC.

“They (Intel) don’t have a track record in delivering these types of chips,” said Wedbush Morgan analyst Patrick Wang. “They haven’t been successful in the past, and they’re trying to get in.”

Sculptor plugs Greek classics into iPod Age

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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — With an iPhone, Zeus could have saved time to call on lightning from the heavens — so says California-based sculptor Adam Reeder, who seeks to merge classical Greek iconography with 21st century gadgets.

“Art is what we use to talk about our time,” said the 33-year-old artist, whose unabashed aim is to fuse western civilization’s antiquity with its newfound technologies.

The sculptor did so with the mythological Greek nymph Pan, replacing a trademark flute with Apple Inc’s iconic music player and headphones.

“He’s still a musician, he’s still dancing, but now he’s listening to his iPod,” Reeder said.