Apple, Samsung begin battle for billions in US patent smackdown
Apple and Samsung's tit-for-tat patent posturing will finally come to a head in the US today, as jury selection starts on a trial that could kill a massive audience for Samsung stuff, and result in a win (or loss) of billions of dollars for either side.
The last lines of the battle were drawn over the weekend as Judge Lucy Koh overruled Samsung's objections to opening Apple slides featuring images of Steve Jobs.
The Korean firm said that the "gratuitous images have no evidentiary value and have been asserted in order to turn the trial into a popularity contest", but the judge didn't agree. She said that all five of the slides with the Jobsian visage would be allowed because they were relevant to the iPhone or iPad design patents.
The rest of Samsung's slide objections and Apple's oppositions to Samsung's slides were given a more or less even mix of winners and losers and there's no more time for any dickering before the trial starts today. Read more...
Can Microsoft get SaaS right with Office 2013?
Microsoft's pushing hard to convince individuals and small organizations that they should rent instead of buy Office 2013. But unless it has learned from mistakes made with its Office XP rental experiment, the company could face an uphill battle convincing users.
The standard download for the Customer Preview version of Office 2013 comes emblazoned with the name and some of the accoutrements of Office 365. Microsoft clearly wants testers to associate Office 2013 with the online-only Office 365 package.
Microsoft rolled out Office 365 about a year ago as the successor to its BPOS (Business Productivity Online Standard) hosted server package. The emphasis was on all of the server-side stuff Office 365 brought to the mix: Microsoft would host Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync servers for you and also rent Office 2010 as part of the package if you wanted it. Read more...
Parents get new weapons in war over kids’ phones
Parenting is war. As the father of two adult children, I have the battle scars (if not the shell shock) to prove it.
But I had it easy compared with the parents of young children today. Mobile consumer technology, especially the ubiquitous cellphone, is putting a world of risks into the hands of very young children.
It's an arms race. And finally, parents are being offered an arsenal of powerful weapons to protect their kids. Read more...
Why Are People Resigning Before The Copyright Industries’ Will?
Defeat in a single battle in the war over net liberty doesn’t concern me too much. I know that the net freedom forces have the strategic and intellectual upper hand in this war over our freedom, but there is something else that concerns me gravely. Why are people seriously thinking that the copyright industries have the final say in shaping society?
In a discussion thread concerning a recent book from myself and Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament, people were concerned. The book is titled “The Case For Copyright Reform”, and is a collection of the most relevant essays over the past year, as well as reproducing contributions from Mike Masnick, Ernesto and Michael Geist. (Did I mention it’s available for free download? Copy and seed.) Read more...
Study: iPhone 4S users consume the most data
iPhone 4S users consume twice as much data as iPhone 4 users, signaling that operators will have to continue to battle with growing data volumes, according to a report published by network management software vendor Arieso.
Apple's iPhone has put some operator networks under immense pressure since the first version arrived, as users download more data than their networks can handle. The iPhone 4S takes data consumption to new levels, according to Arieso's report, which looks at usage patterns of at least 1,000 phones of each model, the company's CTO Michael Flanagan said.
The latest addition to the iPhone family is the champion among smartphones when it comes to data usage. Owners of the iPhone 4S download almost three times as much data as users of the iPhone 3G, which Arieso uses as the benchmark, and twice as much as the iPhone 4, whose users were the most demanding in last year's survey.
Reasons for the growing data volume include the addition of Siri and iCloud, according to Flanagan. Read more...
Google opens music store to US, challenge to Apple
Google unveiled its much-anticipated digital music store Wednesday, opening a new front in its battle with Apple to provide services over mobile devices.
For the first time, Google Inc. will sell songs on the Android Market, its online store for apps, movies and books. The service is available over the next few days to customers in the U.S., but it aims to roll it out eventually to some 200 million Android users globally.
Some songs are free, while others were priced at 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29 — the same prices as on Apple's iTunes. Artists whose work is available right away include Adele, Jay-Z and Pearl Jam. The store will feature dozens of free tracks from artists like Coldplay, Rolling Stones and Busta Rhymes. Read more...
Lawsuit aimed at Apple’s Mac OS may be Android battle by proxy, says expert
A patent lawsuit aimed at Apple could be the latest shot in the ongoing battle between that company and Google's Android mobile operating system, a patent expert said today.
In a filing with a federal court in Florida, OSS (Operating Systems Solutions) claimed that Apple's Mac OS X operating system and its Mac personal computers infringe on a patent that describes a "method for fast booting a computer system."
The lawsuit, which was first reported by the Patently Apple blog, is notable because it was originally assigned to LG Electronics, the South Korean company that makes smartphones and tablets powered by Google's Android. Read more...
Android, iPhone biggest winners in global smartphone battle
The latest global market-share estimates for smartphones are out. And as we've come to expect from these regular exercises in mobile OS number-crunching, the news is bright for Apple and Google, but a bit bleak for Nokia, Research In Motion (RIM), and Microsoft.
Research firm Canalys released its final smart phone market estimates for the second quarter of 2011, which show that Google's Android mobile operating system now has nearly half of the worldwide smartphone market--48 percent, to be exact. Of the 56 countries Canalys tracks, Android leads in 35 of them.
Nearly 52 million Android-based smartphones shipped in Q2, a staggering 379-percent increase over a year ago. Android has been the top platform by shipments since the fourth quarter of 2010, according to Canalys. Read more...
Microsoft posts $250K reward for Rustock botnet herders
Microsoft upped the ante on Monday in its months-long battle against the Rustock botnet by posting a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the hackers who controlled the malware.
It was the first time Microsoft used its malware bounty program since February 2009, when it offered the same amount for the people responsible for the fast-spreading Conficker worm.
Microsoft announced the reward early Monday in a blog written by Richard Boscovich, a senior attorney with the company's digital crimes unit. Microsoft also posted a reward document (PDF) that included an email address for tipsters. Read more...