cloning

Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox announced today an epic sci-fi 3D doubleheader for fall 2013: "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" and "Episode III Revenge of the Sith" arrive in theaters during consecutive months next year.

Officially, the 3D version of "Episode II" hits the big screen on September 20, 2013, while the 3D "Episode III" debuts on October 11, 2013. … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple's patent licensing chief said here today that an earlier cross-licensing deal allowed Microsoft access to a host of its design and feature patents, but prohibited the copying of Apple's own products.

Apple patent licensing director Boris Teksler made the disclosure during testimony in the company's trial against Samsung, which could wrap up as soon as next week. It's not clear how long the cross-licensing deal he mentioned has been in place, or how long it will last.

"All these patents are in Apple's unique user experience, and not ones … Read more

The next generation of "Star Wars" Lego hardware includes two sweet throwback scenes that will tempt any fan of the sci-fi series, as well as a cluster of exotic early-trilogy ships, according to images and information garnered from past toy fairs and a recent update on Lego's official site.

Jabba's Palace, pictured above, appears to be the easy winner in the summer 2012 collection with an all-star cast of nine characters including Leia as Boushh the bounty hunter and a captured Chewbacca. While the $119 tag might turn off some buyers, the charm factor appears high. We love Jabba's ridiculous form factor, his hyena-like minion Salacious Crumb, and the foreboding Han frozen in Carbonite. While the play area appears limited, other views indicate the 717-piece set offers far more detail than first meets the eye. … Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied Psystar's request to review a lower court decision that keeps it from selling computers that run Apple's OS X but that are not made by Apple.

The decision not to hear the case (PDF) upholds a ruling made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last September that Psystar's Mac clones violate Apple's copyrights.

Apple took Psystar to court in 2008 on claims of copyright-infringement after the company made a business out of purchasing copies of OS X and selling them on hardware it put … Read more

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed in by our readers.

This week people wrote in with questions about the best way to move data from an old user account to a new one, the purpose for the key given to you when you enable FileVault, and how to add new menu extras to the menu bar. Others asked how to manage exceptionally large virtual memory used by programs, and how best to move an OS installation to a new partition. We welcome alternative approaches and views from readers, so if you have any suggestions, post … Read more

You've had your computer for a few years. Recently things have started to get slow, and you're thinking of getting a new one. I have nothing against a new computer, but what if you could greatly improve your current machine's performance without much hassle?

You actually can with a standard SATA solid-state drive (SSD).

(An SSD looks very much like a traditional 2.5-inch laptop hard drive, but it's much faster. You can find out more about the difference between these two types of storage devices here.)

In this post, I'll walk you through how … Read more

Apple's move to Intel processors for its Mac systems in 2006 opened up many opportunities for Mac users, one of which was the ability to install and boot Windows directly on the Mac hardware without any emulation. To facilitate this for those who needed it, Apple introduced Boot Camp to easily partition the hard drive and supply drivers to the Windows OS for various features like iSight cameras and multitouch trackpads.

Boot Camp is a great option to have on the Mac, but unfortunately its support from Apple is rather limited, especially if you need to migrate from your … Read more

In graphics apps, the Clone Stamp Tool "clones" (copies) a small area of an image and "stamps" (pastes) it over another area, such as a blemish you want to hide. It's also called the Rubber Stamp Tool, but it's the Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop. Photoshop is the Godzilla of graphics, so tools like LifeSniffer's Free Clone Stamp Tool follow the leader. And that should give you a good idea of what Free Clone Stamp Tool does: It provides a basic, serviceable clone stamp tool for touching up digital photos, especially photos of … Read more

Think DVDs are on the way out? Maybe so, but DVD collections will likely live on for quite some time. All the more reason to make backup copies of your movies, as a scratched disc is a ruined disc.

Until tomorrow, you can get BDlot DVD Clone Ultimate free of charge. Use license code BU-TUUXTGUJ-FBIFHU to register the program, which normally sells for $29.95.

Update: Some users are reporting that the activation code doesn't work. I'm not sure why, as it worked fine for me. Make sure you don't have any spaces before or after the … Read more