In the wake of its patent infringement case with Samsung, Apple has filed a notice stating which Samsung products it is looking to have banned in the U.S.
“Despite having received a finding of infringement from the jury on most of the 28 products in play in the case, it looks like Apple is only going after an injunction on eight of them — all smartphones,” reports The Verge. “That’s not terribly surprising given the fact that many of the products in the case are no longer available in the U.S.”
The filing lists the following devices: Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S2 (AT&T), Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket), Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile), Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail.
“With infringement already established… Apple must convince the court that it will be irreparably harmed if these handsets are not banned in the country. It’s easier to make this argument after a positive jury verdict, but an injunction is by no means a foregone conclusion,” notes the post. “It’s easier for Apple to establish irreparable harm when the focus of the injunction is on products it may actually compete against in the market.”
“We will take all necessary measures to ensure the availability of our products in the U.S. market,” responded Samsung in a statement.
Samsung has announced its plans to appeal the U.S. court verdict that found the company willfully infringing on Apple’s patents. Even as it looks to appeal the $1.05 billion decision, Samsung “will not want to put at risk its Apple supply contract which is worth billions of dollars,” reports Reuters.
According to a Samsung counsel, Samsung’s chips, processors and screens account for 26 percent of the iPhone’s component cost.
“Samsung’s component sales could hit $13 billion next year and bring in $2.2 billion in operating profit, according to a recent estimate by Morgan Stanley. That’s nearly 8 percent of estimated group operating profit for next year,” the article states.
Apple has been looking to become less reliant on Samsung by diversifying its supply chain. Likewise, Samsung is looking to expand its customer base beyond Apple. Even so, the two companies are still intertwined.
“Apple needs Samsung to make the iPhone and iPad. Period. Samsung is the sole supplier of Apple’s processing chips and without Samsung, they can’t make these products,” says analyst James Song of KDB Daewoo Securities. “Samsung might be considering lots of options to leverage its components business’ importance and pressure Apple, and Apple could be also well aware of this.”
Even though it may seem like Samsung’s court experience spells trouble for Google’s Android OS, ReadWriteWeb argues that the decision will actually help Android fight fragmentation.
“Android has often been criticized for the fragmentation the open source platform undergoes every time a hardware vendor makes modifications to the core Android platform in order to differentiate itself from the vendor’s competitors,” notes the article. “In addition to confusing Android users who switch brands, such modifications have made it difficult for application developers to write apps that work on all Android device/OS combos.”
As Google explained in a statement, the features that the court decided were infringing upon Apple’s patents had been added by Samsung — and not part of Google’s core OS.
“Google seems to be saying that if the Android vendors stick closer to the core Android operating system — and not try to add on so many of their own bells and whistles, they’ll be more likely to avoid the kinds of disasters that sliced 7 percent off Samsung’s market cap on Monday,” the article states.
Google recently acquired Motorola Mobility, a move that will help it create a bulletproof “home” platform for Android.
“Motorola’s ‘safe’ platform could also serve as a beacon for other Android vendors: a version of Android that’s less vulnerable to lawsuits could be very attractive to Motorola’s competition, even if it means working more closely within Android’s core look and feel,” ReadWriteWeb suggests.
Last week the California state legislature passed the Location Privacy Act of 2012 (SB-1434), “which would make it mandatory for law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before gathering any GPS or other location-tracking data that a suspect’s cell phone might be sending back to its carrier,” reports Ars Technica.
The act passed with strong support from both parties and requires the governor’s signature to be put into law.
“But the bill isn’t necessarily a straight-shot to penal code glory: the EFF points out that Governor Jerry Brown vetoed California’s last attempt at enforcing stricter privacy rules in 2011, when he killed a bill that would have prevented police from searching the phones of apprehended suspects without a warrant,” according to the article.
The issue was recently in the news after a federal appeals court ruled that law enforcement could track the GPS signal coming from a suspect’s prepaid phone without a warrant.
“Privacy advocates questioned the constitutionality of that ruling, which seems to open the door to a world where cellphones can reveal much more information to the wrong people than their users would ever have expected,” concludes Ars Technica.
Global communications agency M Booth and analytics firm Simply Measured studied sharing patterns and interactions on Facebook and other social networks. The report found videos and photos are much more effective sharing tools than links or text.
The report indicates users share videos twelve times more often than text and links combined. The report also indicates users like photos twice as much as text posts.
Photographs also dominate Tumblr, as pictures represent 42 percent of all posts, while text, chats, quotes, videos and links constitute the rest.
The success of Instagram also lends credence to the importance of photographs in social media. Instagram is on pace to reach 100 million users in under four years, which would represent a record for social media growth.
As of February 2012, users share 700 YouTube videos per minute via Twitter.
The post includes a compelling infographic featuring additional statistics.
It’s a transitional time for websites and mobile devices. As increasing numbers of consumers spend less time on their PCs and more time on their mobile devices, it’s more important than ever for sites to design specifically for such devices.
“The problem is that much of the Web is just too overcrowded for tablet displays. When you load up a site on your iPad, you’re often presented with a crush of text, pictures, and videos that are jammed up together. Sites are powered by code that’s too slow and buggy for small devices, they’re stuffed with buttons and links that are too small to hit with a finger, and their pictures don’t look good on super-high-definition tablet displays,” writes Slate.
The tablet should now be the first consideration for designers, suggests the article. It’s time to reprioritize and put PC page design behind mobile. “They ought to think of tablets first when they’re creating new sites. Only after building pages for 7- and 9-inch touchscreens should they tweak their sites for desktop browsers.”
Because of the simple and often elegant design of tablet pages, columnist Farhad Manjoo believes that the entire Web, traditional and mobile, would be vastly improved if tablet design became the top priority for designers.
“Web companies should focus on building a unified experience that can work across every gadget. In an ideal world, the mobile site wouldn’t be an offshoot of the desktop site — the desktop site would be the same as the mobile site, a clean, quick-loading page that looked good on every gadget,” writes Manjoo.
Under the guidance of Mike Bell, a rebellious spirit who was hired in 2010 to help Intel become the “premier chip provider in the phone industry,” Intel is on course to break into the mobile industry.
“Intel had built its business by predictably releasing increasingly powerful chips that could accomplish ever-more-impressive tasks… That, however, was before the iPhone, the iPad, and Android phones and tablets hijacked the future of computing,” reports Wired. “Unfortunately for Intel, its rivals knew how to build chips for just those kinds of devices.”
Thus, Bell was brought on board. “He spent 17 years as an engineer at Apple, where he worked on software for the Mac and the original iPhone before decamping to Palm, where he led hardware development of its well-received but ill-fated Pre and Pixi devices,” according to the article.
“Bell’s phones had the processing power that consumers had come to expect from Intel,” reports Wired. They were above average by almost every measure — energy efficiency, display, call quality, and processor speed. They were no match for the iPhone — these were just the first round of Intel phones, after all, and were meant to be modest — but they were a good value.”
Bell exceeded the expectations of building a low-powered chip for mobile. He’s also created a phone to put it in.
“This spring, after an intense two-year sprint, the first consumer phones to use Intel processors went on sale in India, China, and Europe. By the end of this year, Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google, is expected to launch its own Intel-powered phone,” notes the article.
More than two-thirds of smartphone users say they cannot live without their smartphones, according to “A Portrait of Today’s Smartphone User,” a report from The Online Publishers Association (OPA).
The report estimates 107 million Americans own smartphones. This represents 44 percent of the American Internet-using population. The OPA expects this number to grow to 142 million within the next year.
OPA President Pam Horan explains the shift to smartphone use as consumers “now expect the world at their fingertips anytime, anywhere, and publishers have worked vigorously to optimize their mobile sites and create apps that cater to this demand and behavioral shift.”
She also notes that “smartphones are providing a great monetization opportunity for publishers. With over half of smartphone users accessing content on a daily basis, this growing smartphone population is showing a willingness to pay for content.”
The report found that 24 percent of smartphone users have “purchased content for viewing on their smartphones,” 54 percent of multiple device users prefer using their phones over other devices for at least one activity, and 84 percent of smartphone users self-identify as two-screen multitaskers.
According to a related post from Mashable, a recent survey from free messaging app TextPlus found that “half of all teens surveyed said they couldn’t live without their mobile device for a week, while 36 percent said they weren’t able to go 10 minutes without checking their phones.”
The TextPlus survey also found that “texting is the first and last thing teens do everyday, with 73 percent checking their phones before bed, and 72 percent on their devices first thing in the morning.”
TIME, in cooperation with Qualcomm, recently surveyed 5,000 people in an effort “to better understand attitudes about mass mobility.”
An infographic has been posted that provides an overview of the survey results. Some interesting findings:
29 percent of U.S. respondents said their wireless device is always the first and last thing they look at every day (15 points below the international average).
26 percent said they feel guilty if they don’t promptly respond to work-related messages outside of normal work hours, and 66 percent indicated they would take their wireless mobile device to work instead of their lunch.
65 percent of parents believe their devices make them better parents.
32 percent said that given the choice, they prefer to communicate via text message, and 17 percent said they check their phone at every meal.
29 percent of respondents said they fear society places too much emphasis on technology.
Google has rolled out its Google Fiber initiative that offers 1 gigabit of Internet speed to users for $70 a month. Its pilot run in Kansas City is expected to cost the search giant $500 million, but Google could stand to gain much more.
“Google Fiber also offered the ability to record eight TV programs at a time. And to download a single high-def movie in seven seconds (versus 22 minutes for a 5mbps connection). And a free Nexus 7 tablet as a remote control. And a free terabyte of data storage on Google Drive,” explains Fortune. “And, on top of all this, no data caps.”
Skeptics believe the project will not disrupt the control of the powerful ISPs, but Google hopes to challenge the current low speeds and high prices.
“As video chat, streaming media and photo sharing have increased, people are finding their broadband isn’t broad enough anymore. The U.S. is 15th on Akamai’s list of the countries with fast broadband. Google Fiber offers faster speeds at lower prices than most ISP’s offer today,” the post states.
“A week after the announcement, Google had signed up more than 7,000 homes in Kansas City, 4,900 in Missouri and 2,100 in Kansas. That’s about 5 percent of the cities’ total homes,” Fortune reports. “Residents are halfway through the six-week rally to get others in their designated ‘fiberhoods’ to sign up. As of this week, some neighborhoods have as much as 39 percent of their homes plugged in.”
Google isn’t just making money on subscriptions. “…the surge in broadband content could bring Google new revenue from Web and TV advertising. And by becoming an ISP, Google could win a strong presence in many U.S. living rooms.”
Even if Google doesn’t take over the ISPs’ control, “this initiative is less about a long-term revenue opportunity for Google and more about pushing current Internet providers to increase speeds and innovate (which could benefit Google in the long run),” says analyst Ben Schacter of Macquarie Securities.
Although it still has to be approved by a federal judge, Verizon’s $3.9 billion acquisition of 4G spectrum from various cable operators just cleared a big hurdle, getting the green light from the FCC.
Verizon stands to gain 20 MHz of Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) licenses from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House. The wireless carrier will use the new spectrum to build out “a supplementary high-capacity LTE network parallel to its current near-nationwide 4G infrastructure,” explains GigaOM.
However, in order to get FCC approval, Verizon had to commit to selling a good portion of its new AWS licenses to T-Mobile as well as selling any unused 700 MHz spectrum.
The FCC tacked on two additional requirements before giving the deal its stamp of approval. “The big one is a requirement that Verizon open its LTE network to roaming partners, a key demand of rural operators. The second is that Verizon complete 70 percent of its network over the new bands. While billed as concession to the FCC, it seems more like a concession to Verizon,” the article states.
An added win for Verizon; “the approval implicitly gives Verizon and its new cable buddies permission to divide the wireline and wireless markets between them. The cable companies will resell Verizon’s mobile service, and Verizon can now sell cable broadband and TV service in any area where it doesn’t offer its FiOS fiber-to-the-home connections,” GigaOM reports.
This collaboration could potentially hurt competition, and without wireless pressure on cable providers, there could be less incentive to regularly improve the infrastructure.
Apple’s decisive victory over Samsung on Friday fortifies its current wireless dominance and could potentially make Google and others rethink future product plans.
“The nine jurors here also sent a signal that companies need to be much more careful in incorporating basic design elements in their electronic devices, particularly those affecting the way gadgets look and feel,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
The verdict arrives just weeks before Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhone. The company has earned $156 billion in iPhone-related revenue in the last five years.
Patent lawyers anticipate the decision will lead to an increase in patent suits and may open new ground for litigation. More companies may use Apple’s success in the case to defend the design and features of their own products.
WSJ explains: “More courtroom warfare could raise costs to makers of smartphones and tablets and reduce the number of gadgets on the market — increasing prices to consumers, some lawyers and market watchers say.”
Products with similar form factors and features may be in peril, notes the article: “Not only Samsung but Google — and other smartphone makers who use its Android mobile operating software — could decide, or be forced, to drop or modify features to avoid running afoul of patents.”
While some developers claim the verdict could lead to higher costs for Android software, other analysts suggest that Apple is not the only innovator out there.
“Apple’s patents will not be that hard to design around,” says Jorge Contreras, associate professor at American University Washington College of Law. “I don’t see this verdict as an Android killer.”
Google believes that most of the patents in the case do not relate to the core Android operating system. “The mobile industry is moving fast and all players, including newcomers, are building upon ideas that have been around for decades,” said a Google spokesperson.
Following 21 hours of deliberation, the jury has sided with Apple in one of the biggest patent lawsuits to date. Samsung now has to pay $1.05 billion in damages.
The jury upheld Apple’s utility and design patents; found willful infringement on 5 of 6 patents; and decided “Samsung ‘diluted’ Apple’s registered iPhone, iPhone 3 and ‘Combination iPhone’ trade dress on some products, not on others,” CNET reports. However, according to the jury, “Samsung did not violate antitrust law by monopolizing markets related to the UMTS standard.”
Apple originally sought $2.75 billion in damages. Samsung had asked for $421 million in its countersuit.
“Today’s verdict should not be viewed as a win for Apple, but as a loss for the American consumer,” said Samsung in a statement following the trial. “It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices.”
From Apple’s statement: “The lawsuits between Apple and Samsung were about much more than patents or money. They were about values. At Apple, we value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. We make these products to delight our customers, not for our competitors to flagrantly copy. We applaud the court for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.”
Wristwatches didn’t really catch on until after World War I when people began to ask if it made sense to carry their watch in their pocket. Decades later, people are again asking the same question after wristwatches were replaced by smartphones.
Apple, Nike, Sony and multiple start-ups are working to reinvent the wristwatch as an extension of the smartphone. These devices leverage the power of mobile devices to go beyond just telling time.
Sony’s Smartwatch, for example, can display emails and tweets. Nike’s FuelBand measures the amount of energy the wearer exerts in a day. Start-up Pebble has created a watch that can play music, display text, and show other information like weather.
But some have their doubts about the futuristic-looking devices. “I don’t know if the mass market wants a big display on their wrist if they have a display in their pocket,” suggests Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman. “The wrist is used for fashion and expression. You can’t just make something functional, and it can’t just do fashion, either… If you’re going to do this well, you have to merge the two.”
Rahman also suggests consumers might purchase multiple wrist devices for various purposes, which would be appealing to manufacturers. “You don’t wear the same thing when you go running that you do when you’re going to dinner,” he says.
Game publisher Capcom has released details regarding its planned online service ResidentEvil.net, a companion to the “Resident Evil 6” game.
According to the Capcom video included in the post, the free service will allow players to compete in challenges, track stats and earn points, while interacting with social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
“The publisher will also launch a smartphone app for iOS, Android and Windows devices,” reports USA Today. “‘Resident Evil 6’ launches October 2 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.”
“Video game publishers and developers have been working for a while now to try and keep gamers playing their games long after their initial release,” notes WebProNews in a related article. “The downloadable content (DLC) that comes along with a major title release is almost expected at this point, and some companies have even successfully turned their DLC into a subscription service.”
“Whether this type of service will take off for a game that has no large-scale competitive multiplayer mode will be interesting to see,” suggests WebProNews. The article cites requirements of signing up for a ResidentEvil.Net account and having a PlayStation Network or Xbox LIVE account as potential hurdles. “If this is accurate, Capcom is snubbing PC gamers, who are exactly the type of gamers most likely to form niche communities around games they enjoy.”