According to this GamesIndustry International report, thousands of Foxconn employees continue to protest at various locations in China. The labor strike is the result of complaints about working conditions, which workers say have not been adequately addressed by the company. In case you have forgotten Foxconn helps build a variety of high end electronics for multiple companies including Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and many others.

Sources in the supply chain responsible for building the upcoming smaller version of Apple's iPad (the iPad Mini) are telling The Wall Street Journal that Apple has ordered 10 million iPad Minis for the run-up to Christmas. While Apple has yet to officially announce the smaller tablet device, it is widely known to exist because of so many leaks from various component suppliers around the world.

Let’s play a word association game.  I’m going to say a word, and you tell me what pops in your head.  Ready?  Okay, here we go…

“Appstore”

According to this Tech Radar report, Samsung has gone ahead and added the iPhone 5 to the list of apple devices that infringe on its patents. The company has added the latest iPhone to eight complaints it has filed against Apple, claiming that its devices infringe on various patents it holds.

Amazon.com has asked California U.S. District Court judge to dismiss Apple's claim that the online retailer's use of the term "appstore" is a case of false advertising. The request is in response to an Apple lawsuit filed in March 2011 that alleged that that Amazon.com's use of the name "Amazon Appstore" violated its App Store trademark. In November of last year Apple amended the complaint to include allegations that the use of "appstore" amounted to false advertising and would cause consumer confusion.

While Apple is celebrating the fact that it sold five million units of its iPhone 5 phone in three days since launch, the owners of the plant that make the device are not celebrating very much today as chaos and riots take all of its production offline.

World domination continues for the house that Steve Jobs built. In just three days of being on sale around the world, Apple proves that its iPhone is still the coolest cat on the block - at least according to the droves of consumers who continue to buy it. Apple announced this morning that in the first three days of launch it has already sold five million iPhone 5 phones around the world.

The US International Trade Commission has launched an investigation into patent infringement claims made by Motorola against Apple. The ITC announced that it had launched a formal investigation into the claims that Apple's iPhones, iPods, iPads, and Mac computers infringed on patents held by Motorola. Motorola filed the complaint last month claiming that Apple violated patents it holds related to wireless communication devices, portable music players, and more.

While AT&T might be willing to take a lot of public heat for its stance on Apple's FaceTime application, Verizon Wireless is taking an entirely different tact. The company says that it will enable Apple's popular video communication apple on all data plans.

"All Verizon Wireless customers will be permitted to use the data-intensive application with no additional charges, including those remaining on unlimited data plans," said a company spokesperson. Sprint has also said it won't place any limits on FaceTime use.

Having bested Samsung in a U.S. court over patent infringement, Apple is putting its focus on defending itself against phone maker HTC, but it may have an uphill battle on its hands. As SlashGear points out in this article, Apple is not starting out on the best footing.

Antisec hackers, an offshoot of sorts from hacktivist group Anonymous, claim to have hacked the laptop of FBI agent Christopher Stangl, who the FBI has put in recruitment videos looking to hire "cyber security experts." Hackers claimed to have found a .csv file with "a list of 12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID), user names, name of device, type of device, Apple Push Notification Service tokens, zipcodes, cellphone numbers, addresses, etc."

While Apple may have won a major victory in the United States against Samsung in its ongoing, never-ending patent war, the company has not been so lucky in other parts of the world. Adding to its column of losses is a new ruling in Japan where the courts there sided with Samsung.

The judge overseeing the aftermath of the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement case (in case you missed it, Apple won) has set a hearing to hear Apple's motion to ban eight Samsung devices in the United States for December 6. Samsung has also asked that the verdict be set aside. A hearing on September 20 will decide if a Samsung motion to have an injunction lifted from the Galaxy Tab 10.1 will be approved, now that the tablet has been cleared of infringing on Apple design patents.

As this Techie Buzz story points out, one of the most important things to come out of the Apple v. Samsung decision is the list of devices that Apple wants banned from North American retail shelves. The iOS device maker has listed eight devices it wants to be banned from being sold here in the U.S.

Those devices are the Samsung S 4G, Samsung S2 (on both AT&T and T-Mobile), the Samsung Skyrocket, Droid Charge, Galazy Prevail, Galaxy S Showcase and the Samsung S2 Epic 4G.

There's some debate among financial analysts and patent law experts on what impact (if any) Friday's news that Apple had won a $1 billion verdict against Samsung related to claims that its tablets infringed on various iPad-related patents. This morning various financial analysts offered their two cents including JP Morgan, Barclays, UBS, and Macquarie Equities Research. GIGA OM offers a rundown of comments from various financial analysts, but we offer the bullet points below.

Episode 17 of the Super Podcast Action Committee is here and that means more fun with hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight! This week they talk about Apple's patent victory over Samsung, OnLive's CEO Steve Perlman giving a donation to former employees, the results from our latest poll and a whole lot more. An earthquake guest stars, causing Andrew much consternation. We didn't feel a damned thing.

After only two and a half days of deliberation, the jury hearing Apple's patent case against Samsung has returned a verdict. The jury of seven men and two women has ruled in favor of Apple, agreeing that Samsung infringed on all of Apple's utility patents and three of the four design patents related to the iPad. Samsung has been ordered to pay Apple $1 billion in damages, though it is a lot less than the $2.75 billion Apple was seeking.

Apple has surpassed juggernauts like Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Google and others as the most valuable company in history. The company responsible for the iPad and iPhone has reached a world record valuation of $623 billion today, making it the most valuable company in history. This beats out Microsoft's 1999 record of $620.58 billion (the figures were not adjusted for inflation, so it's still up for at least some debate).

According to Courthouse News, Apple has been ordered to pay $2.1 million to lawyers related to a class action lawsuit for its "iPhone 4 Death Grip" legal battle. The company settled the class action in February.

Our chuckle of the day is sponsored by the BBC, who reports the surprising and mildly amusing response of Judge Lucy Koh after reading Apple's Witness list. The judge in the high-stakes, high profile US patent trial between Apple and Samsung made her comments after Apple attorney William Lee named 22 people in a 73-page witness list he wanted to call to rebut the testimony of Samsung's witnesses.

After looking at the list, Judge Koh offered the following response:

The patent infringement legal battle between Samsung and Apple took an odd turn this week when Intel interjected itself into the case over a witness for Samsung. Intel asked the court not to allow witness Tim Williams to testify in the case because the topics to be discussed by Williams and Samsung were sealed under a nondisclosure agreement. Intel's attorney said that Williams was under a number of NDAs that forbid him from talking about Intel’s source code, which Samsung planned to bring up in court.

According to an Associated Press story found on Time's Techland, the person that was arrested for burglarizing Apple co-founder Steve Job's Palo Alto, California home stole his wallet and his driver’s license, along with other items including Apple products and jewelry, according to a police report released Tuesday.

Jury selection for the trial between Samsung and Apple over patents will begin on July 30 in the U.S. District Court in San Jose, California. The case will be presided over by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh. Jurors will have to wade through the particulars of the case and decide which company has a valid claim that the other infringed on its patents related to their respective smartphone devices.

Apple has found a way to fight against a Russian hacker who made it so that users could circumvent the in-game purchase system to get premium versions of freemium games for free. Apple claims that it has found a solution to the Borodin App Store hack operated by Russian hacker Alexey Borodin.

Borodin admitted on his blog that the party is over for his hacking service.

"Currently game is over," Russian hacker Alexey Borodin said.

Litigation continues in the never-ending fight between Apple and Samsung over patents. Apple has managed to secure a ban on Samsung's popular tablet in all of Europe. Apple has won a preliminary injunction against the Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.7 in all European Union member countries. While the tablet was already banned in Germany, the new ruling means that Apple can return to the German court if Samsung sells the tablet in Europe and ask the court for remedies.

Travis Baldree, president of Runic Games is publicly calling out Chinese mobile developer EGLS for stealing art assets and sound files from his company's game, Torchlight. The game in question is an iOS-based massively multiplayer game called Armed Heroes Online. Baldree noticed the striking similarities in the character art from the game and Torchlight and took to Twitter earlier this month to point it out:

According to Gamasutra a hacker based in Russia has made life difficult for Apple and its App Store. Apparently the Russian hacker has found a way to work around the iOS in-app purchase system, which lets him or anyone that might get their hands on his hack to download the premium version of a game for free. On Friday, hacker Alexey V.

In what could be considered taking a great stride towards the promise of Microsoft’s Smart Glass, the company has revealed that its My Xbox Live app is now fully compatible with Apple's iPad. Microsoft's app now provides the same capabilities that were added to other Apple devices last month including the iPhone and iPod touch.

Realizing that a number of its customers really care that the products they buy can inevitably be recycled, Apple has backpedaled on its recent decision to drop the EPEAT certification for various computers. On Friday, soon-to-be retiring SVP of Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield wrote a letter on Apple’s official website calling the move "a mistake."

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has decided that its computer products will no longer be part of the government's Green Electronics Certification program. The Green Electronics Certification program designates that a product is "environmentally friendly."