Following Apple’s success in court against Samsung last week Apple have now requested a temporary injunction against 8 Samsung phones, preventing their sale in the US.
According to The Verge, in order for Apple to successfully have the devices banned it must convince the court that the company face irreparable harm if sales were allowed to continue. The court is scheduled to address the injunction in a hearing set for September 20th.
Posted by: Matt
The recent court ruling on coming down on the side of Apple in the Apple vs Samsung case is a very significant landmark. It sets a huge precedence that’s going to echo through the smartphone industry as a whole.
A total of 5 of Apple’s patent claims were upheld, these included:
Following the Apple victory, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, issued a memo which 9to5mac were able to get hold of a copy of:
Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.
Many of you have been closely following the trial against Samsung in San Jose for the past few weeks. We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work. For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It’s about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the jury who invested their time in listening to our story. We were thrilled to finally have the opportunity to tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung’s copying went far deeper than we knew.
The jury has now spoken. We applaud them for finding Samsung’s behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn’t right.
I am very proud of the work that each of you do.
Today, values have won and I hope the whole world listens.
Tim
Apple had wanted $2.5bn in damages. Samsung had sought $519m.
It may also seek to use this ruling to block other devices powered by Google’s Android software that it believes replicate elements of its user-interface, including current models by Samsung as well as other firms.
Samsung said that they will appeal.
Posted by: Matt
First man on the moon, Neil Armstrong dies aged 82.
Often described as the ‘reluctant hero’, to say that Neil Armstrong was a legend ins an exercise in stating the bleedin’ obvious but the quiet man from Ohio was an inspiration to millions. He set foot on the Moon on 20 July 1969, famously describing the event as "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind". The phrase is the oft-repeated and one of the best know in the English language.
Apollo 11 was Armstrong’s last space mission. In 1971, he left the US space agency NASA to teach aerospace engineering.
Born in 1930 and raised in Ohio, Armstrong took his first flight aged six with his father and formed a lifelong passion for flying.
Mr Armstrong died following complications arising from surgery to relieve 4 blocker coronary arteries on the 7th August.
I sincerely hope that parents and teachers will continue to teach history of space flight to the current young generation so that kids don’t grow up thinking that Buzz Lightyear was the first man on the moon!
Posted by: Matt
Amazon have been offering cloud storage solutions for a while but recently they’ve started a free entry-level 5GB available to all.
I guess this has been introduced in order to compete with Apple’s 5GB cloud offering too. There are a number of other companies offering this service, our personal favourite is Dropbox, but Amazon have great pricing for anyone wanting more than the free 5GB.
20 GB – £6.00 / year
50 GB – £16.00 / year
100 GB – £32.00 / year
200 GB – £64.00 / year
500 GB – £160.00 / year
1000 GB – £320.00 / year
Details can be found here.
Posted by: Matt
We told you yesterday that Everything Everywhere had got the go-ahead from Ofcom to roll out 4G LTE in the UK this year, but it now seems there has been a development in the favour of Three. Everything Everywhere have today announced that they now have an agreement with Three to dispose of 2X15MHz of its 1800MHz. The disposal is in line with the European Commission’s competitive assessment of the merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK in March 2010, and follows the news that Ofcom has approved Everything Everywhere’s request to liberalise its 1800MHz spectrum for 4G LTE services.
Dave Dyson, CEO of Three UK said: “Acquiring this spectrum will more than double the capacity available to customers on our network. We have seen a huge growth in data consumption with average mobile handset customer usage now more than 1.1GB per month.
Three has led the market in the significant growth of mobile data consumption and the shift to consumer use of smartphones to access the internet. New spectrum, supported by further committed technology spend, is a clear signal that we are committed to maintain our lead as the network built for the mobile internet.”
From a consumers point of view this is great news as it will not just be Orange and T-Mobile that initially dominate the UK 4G market. Let’s see what else develops.
Posted by: James
We posted back in May this year that Everything Everywhere thought they would get the go-ahead from Ofcom to roll out 4G in the UK this year and it looks like they were right. Permission has been granted to free up the 1800MHz spectrum for use by Orange and T-Mobile and this could well give them a sales advantage over the other UK networks.
“Ofcom’s decision to make 4G available this year is great news for the UK. Consumers will soon be able to benefit from the much greater mobile speeds that 4G will deliver. 4G will drive investment, employment and innovation and we look forward to making it available later this year, delivering superfast mobile broadband to the UK.”
Everything Everywhere already started upgrading their cell sites some months ago in preparation for LTE so I presume that as soon as dates are confirmed it will be all systems go. Will we now see manufactures launching LTE devices here soon?
Posted by: James
This week, the super money saving “Smart Deal” from Carphone Warehouse is the fantastic combination of the Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Tab 2 7″ W-Fi enabled 8 GB tablet.
The Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Tab 2 7.0 are available for free on a tethered deal to new customers and upgrades from today until Thursday 23rd August, for the incredible price of just £15.50 a month*. This deal is exclusively available with Carphone Warehouse on Orange and T-Mobile networks.
The compact and neat Samsung Galaxy Y is a full-featured smartphone with a sharp 3″ touchscreen display and a 2MP camera. The Samsung Galaxy Y’s Social Hub lets you access all your social networks, instant messengers and emails together in a single place, making sure you can keep an eye on your updates all at once.
Weighing just 345g and with a screen measuring just 7 inches, the Wi-Fi Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 is a perfectly portable tablet, great for watching your favourite films, catching up with friends on Skype, social networking, web browsing and playing your favourite games.
Powered by the latest Android software, the Samsung Galaxy Y and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 will give you access to 600,000 + apps in the Google Play store and a huge selection of exclusive Samsung-only apps. You’ll also have access to movies, music and the world biggest e-book collection.
The Carphone Warehouse Smart Deal of the Week is available in store, online at www.carphonewarehouse.com or by calling 0870 087 0870.
*24 month contract applies
Posted by: Matt
The guys over at Coolsmartphone.com picked up on a little story from Stuff about a tablet Acer have mentioned in the past. Acer’s A110 tablet has a 7? screen, Tegra 3 CPU and Jelly Bean confirmed to be on the way. We had prices from the US however with 8GB this is merely priced at £179 at launch. The one big spec that propels the Acer is that the tablet will have a microSD slot. That’s one of the two major options covered that many will have been holding back on buying the Google Nexus 7 tablet for. The Nexus 7 lacks both expandable storage and a 3G modem option. However, this does have a problem in that there is no guarantee of future updates to the Android operating system.
It looks like the budget tablet market has really been shaken by the Amzazon Kindle Fire and, more recently, the Nexus 7 and its open ground for the manufactures to get creative in. The Nexus 7 has set the benchmark very high and it will be fun watching to see just what company will surpass it.
Posted by: Gareth
News just in from HTC that the HTC One X is to receive its next firmware update today. This latest update will take the device to Android 4.0.4 (ICS) putting it on par with it’s arch-nemesis, the Galaxy S3.
HTC also state that there will be improvements to the Sense experience. I’ll be checking for updates on my One X shortly and will report back with findings!
HTC’s full statement:
As part of our ongoing commitment to ensure customers are receiving software updates that improve their user experience, we are pleased to announce our next upgrade for the HTC One X will be released on August 10th.
The primary update will include an upgrade to Android version 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich), in addition to an improved Sense experience which will: enable the ability to map menu function to the ‘recent app’ key (improving visual presentation in non ICS apps like Facebook); improve tab management in the browser with a dedicated tab switching button and enhance camera capabilities such as white balance and continuous autofocus. Furthermore, customers can expect enhancements to memory, platform stability and the overall browsing experience. Other improvements include a Single Sign-On for Facebook allowing user access across applications and browsers and upgrades to Beats audio, which reflect our dedication to providing an authentic sound experience.
From a developer perspective, we are expanding SDK support for Media Link and providing a framework for video call applications to achieve improved performance and quality.
Posted by: Matt
If you’ve just bought a Kindle book from Amazon and are trying to download it on you iPhone or iPad you may be confronted with a ‘Download Error’ message. It’s not a problem with your device, do not adjeust your set, you are not alone, this issue has been affecting the Kindle service for at least a day now and hundreds of users are complaining of the problem on Amazon’s Kindle support site.
It’s not clear if this is a worldwide or UK only issue but an email from yours truly to Amazon yielded the following response:
I’m sorry to learn that you’re unable to download the books to your Kindle for iPhone application.
We are aware of this issue, and we’re working on a solution. Once the issue is resolved, I’ll update you via email at the earliest.
Meanwhile, If you have any further questions, please contact us by using the following link and we’ll do everything we can to help you.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/kindlesupport
We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you and would like to express our gratitude for the patience you’ve displayed thus far.
I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
I’m not sure if the issue affects proper Kindle devices or is limited to apps. Can anyone confirm?
Hopefully they be able to solve this soon but over 24 hours since I first noticed is NOT good at all for their credibility.
Posted by: Matt
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