UK judge who forced Apple apology now legal expert for Samsung
How's this for irony: The U.K. judge who ruled Apple must publicly apologize to Samsung as part of a patent appeal is now an expert on the Korean manufacturer's legal team.
Foss Patents reported Thursday that Professor Sir Robin Jacob, a retired U.K. judge-turned-professor who famously forced a public apology out of Apple last year, now appears to be working for the very company he ruled in favor of.
Sir Robin is currently one of nine experts "working on behalf" of Samsung Electronics, defending the Korean manufacturer against an Ericsson complaint filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).
The ex-judge's latest endeavor is raising eyebrows in the wake of the appeals court verdict he handed down - along with two other judges - less than four months ago. Read more...
Samsung bolsters BYOD management with a Fort Knox approach
Samsung Monday announced an improved version of its SAFE management and security system for popular Samsung-branded Android smartphones and tablets.
Samsung dubbed the updated tool set Knox, after the famous Fort Knox in Kentucky where much of the U.S. gold reserves are stored.
The Knox technology, to be demonstrated at Mobile World Congress here this week, means that Samsung smartphone and tablet users will soon be able to take advantage of a dual persona or containerization approach, where corporate and personal data are kept in separate spaces on the Android OS. Read more...
Samsung claims jury misconduct, demands retrial against Apple
The foreman of the jury that recently handed Apple a $1 billion patent victory over Samsung Electronics was untruthful and biased, the South Korean company alleged in a filing with a U.S. court. Samsung wants a retrial of the case, in which Apple made patent infringement claims against a number of its smartphones and tablets.
Jury foreman Velvin Hogan, "failed to answer truthfully during 'voir dire,'" Samsung's lawyers said in a document filed with the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California on Tuesday.
Voir dire is a legal term that refers to the court procedure of questioning prospective jurors to determine whether they may be biased before they are allowed to take part in the jury. According to Samsung, Hogan was biased and failed to mention important details during the voir dire hearing. Read more...
USSD attack on Samsung Android devices can also kill SIM cards
A variation of the recently disclosed attack that can wipe data from Samsung Android devices when visiting a malicious Web page can also be used to disable the SIM cards from many Android phones, researchers say.
Ravishankar Borgaonkar, a research assistant in the Telecommunications Security department at the Technical University of Berlin, recently demonstrated the remote data wiping attack at the Ekoparty security conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The attack can be launched from a Web page by loading a "tel:" URI (uniform resource identifier) with a special factory reset code inside an iframe. If the page is visited from a vulnerable device, the dialer application automatically executes the code and performs a factory reset. Several Samsung Android devices, including Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S II, Galaxy Beam, S Advance, and Galaxy Ace were reported to be vulnerable because they supported the special factory reset code. Read more...
Samsung increases smartphone storage capacity to 128GB
Samsung Electronics' semiconductor arm has begun volume production of 128GB embedded memory modules for next-generation smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, the company said on Tuesday.
An upgrade to 128GB would double or quadruple the storage capacity compared to today's high-end smartphones. Apple's new iPhone 5 has up to 64GB of integrated storage while the recently announced Optimus G from LG Electronics and Nokia's Lumia 920 both have 32GB.
Consumers watching and shooting video along with cameras that have higher resolutions will drive the need for more storage capacity, while the inclusion of more integrated storage lessens the need for a card slot, allowing smartphones to become even smaller, according to Francisco Jeronimo, research manager at analyst IDC. Read more...
Samsung set to announce Series 5 Hybrid PC tablet
Samsung is expected to show off its Intel-based Series 5 Hybrid PC tablet running Windows prior to the start of the IFA trade show in Berlin this week.
The South Korean manufacturer posted a photo of the new device on Facebook today. The photo shows the tablet atop a keyboard docked to it. The docked keyboard lets the tablet double as a laptop much like the Asus Transformer Prime.
Reports from Computex in June revealed that the tablet will also have 8-megapixel and 2-megapixel cameras for video calls. The device's battery is expected to last an estimated 10 hours.
The hybrid system also supports a digital stylus, which Samsung made popular as part of its Galaxy Note. Read more...
Samsung wants Galaxy Tab ban lifted in the U.S. after Apple patent verdict
Samsung Electronics asked a Californian court on Sunday to lift a preliminary ban on sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the U.S., after a jury found that Samsung does not infringe on an Apple design patent. Samsung also said it wants Apple to pay damages for lost sales.
Apple had alleged that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringed on its U.S. Design Patent No. D504,889, but in a decision that otherwise went largely in Apple's favor, a California District Court jury decided on Friday that it did not. However, the jury also decided that the South Korean company must pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages because its smartphones and tablets infringed on several of Apple's other patents. Read more...
Samsung: We NEVER sniffed around RIM… or BlackBerry licence
Samsung has once again slapped down rumours that were circulating about Samsung licensing RIM's next OS. Yesterday's prediction, which came in the form of a note to clients from a veteran analyst, pushed RIM's shares up 6 per cent. But Samsung was in touch with news agency Reuters first thing this morning to say it wasn't even considering such a deal.
Analyst Peter Misek put out a note to his clients last night saying that Samsung was sniffing around RIM with a view to licensing the OS or even buying the company, assuming that Blackberry 10 arrives on time and impresses the market.
Samsung is anything but loyal when it comes to platforms. At one point the Korean company was making flagship handsets running Symbian, Android and Windows Phone, while at same time pushing its own Bada platform and any number of localised variants. Samsung was also a member of LiMo, and LiPs, and let's not forget Tizen - the MeeGo detritus which is still getting life support from Samsung and Intel. Read more...
Samsung seen as player in RIM’s future — again
Samsung is considering buying Research in Motion or licensing RIM's BlackBerry 10 operating system, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek wrote in a note to investors this week.
"Among other options, we believe Samsung is considering ramping up its internal OS development efforts, licensing BB10 or buying RIM," Misek wrote. "We think any acquisition is unlikely until after BB10 launches." That launch is set for January 2013.
Misek's comment sparked news reports and comments from other analysts, including some who don't think Samsung will benefit much from a RIM acquisition.
"I think a Samsung acquisition of RIM is unlikely because the restructuring would be more complicated than Samsung's just sticking with what they have and pulling business away from RIM," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner who has followed RIM for decades. Read more...
Samsung will ship Galaxy Note 10.1 in August with better processor than expected
Samsung Electronics will start shipping the Galaxy Note 10.1 later this month, with a 1.4GHz quad-core processor and a software feature from the Galaxy S III.
When it revealed the Galaxy Note 10.1 at Mobile World Congress in February, Samsung said the device would have a 1.4GHz dual-core processor, but the company apparently felt that wasn't enough to compete with the latest iPad or the current crop of Android-based tablets.
Removing the S Pen stylus from its slot in the Galaxy Note 10.1 turns the screen on, while a software feature inherited from the Galaxy S III uses the front camera to see if someone is using the device, and while that is the case the screen isn't dimmed. Read more...
Apple asks court to sanction Samsung by ordering in its favor
Apple has requested a court in California to sanction Samsung Electronics in a patent infringement dispute by granting judgment in favor of Apple, after the South Korean company released to the press documents including exhibits that were not allowed as evidence in the suit.
The exhibits that Samsung distributed include images meant to establish that Samsung developed a phone with several elements of the iPhone's design ahead of the introduction of the iPhone in January, 2007. Also included were documents that sought to prove that Apple allegedly used a prototype inspired by Sony designs to arrive at the design of the iPhone.
In a filing to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California late Wednesday, Apple said the court should sanction Samsung by granting judgment in Apple's favor on its claim that Samsung infringes Apple's phone design patents, and by granting judgment that those patents are not invalid. Read more...
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...
Apple wants ‘billions’ from Samsung in patent case
Apple will seek billions of dollars in damages from Samsung when a high-profile patent lawsuit between the companies goes in front of a California jury next week.
Details of Apple's claim were included in documents submitted overnight to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, where the trial is scheduled to begin on Monday.
"Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property," Apple's trial brief claims. Read more...
ChangeWave: Apple iPhone 5 ‘biggest demand yet’, Samsung also shines
Wake up! Apple [AAPL] has put its iPhone 5 (equipped with a 19-pin new Dock connector) into production and the new smartphone seems set to break its own sales records once again when it hits the shops in Fall, the latest survey results explain.
iRider on the storm
Perhaps it is no surprise that the world's biggest-selling smartphone will remain the world's biggest-selling smartphone, despite five years of increasingly vicious competition in the rapidly-expanding space.
Interest in smartphones among consumers is at an all time high, the latest ChangeWave Research claims claim. And Apple's iPhone 5 will be at the top of the tree in market share terms, while sitting under many trees this coming Christmas season as Apple wrests the "Market Leader For The Quarter" award from the only other real beneficiary of the smartphone surges, Samsung. Read more...
Samsung tablets not ‘cool’ enough to infringe Apple design, says UK judge
Samsung tablets do not infringe on a registered Apple design because "they are not as cool" and the Galaxy Tablets "do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design," a U.K. judge said in a ruling on Monday.
Samsung sought a declaration that three of its tablet computers, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9 and Galaxy Tab 7.7 do not infringe on Apple's registered design that describes the shape of the iPad. The Samsung tablets and the iPad had to be seen as members of the same family, rather then the same devices, Judge Colin Birss said in his ruling.
"Samsung products are very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back. They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool. The overall impression produced is different," and therefore Samsung tablets do not infringe on the Apple design patent, he concluded. Read more...