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:
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Some of Samsung’s handsets, including its Galaxy S 4G model, infringed Apple’s design patents for the look of its iPhone including the system it uses to display text and icons
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All the disputed Samsung devices had copied Apple’s "bounce-back response", which makes lists jump back as if yanked by a rubber band
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Several Samsung devices incorporated Apple’s facility allowing users to zoom into text with a tap of a finger
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Pinch and pull with two fingers on the display in order to zoom in/out
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
If you are like me (and thousands of others in the world) then you simply cannot live without your cell phone. These little devices are something that many of us have become totally dependent upon. For instance, what is the first thing I do in the morning? Before I even get out of bed I reach over and look at my cell phone. I check my mail messages and the weather before I have been awake for two minutes. I depend on my phone for work, social connections, calculations, alarms and calendar events. I would feel naked without it. The problem is that these phones are so compact that sometimes we cannot find where we laid them down! Sometimes we get distracted after a phone call or email and forget to put our phone back in its case. Sometimes we simply cannot remember when it was last seen. For me, losing my cell phone switches me over to panic mode. I can only imagine how horrible it is for those of you who set their phones on vibrate! At least when the volume is up you can call it from anther phone and track it down. However, this will only work if you lost in the vicinity in which you are dialling for the sound. What happens if you have been ten places in a day and have no idea where the phone may have been dropped or left? Cell phone app developers recognize this issue and have come to our rescue with phone apps that are meant to help us find lost or stolen cell phones – and we love them for it! I highly recommend that once you get a new phone, you install one of the following five apps before you do anything else! It is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to such an important part of your life!
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
ARCHOS, today announces the ARCHOS 101 XS, a 10.1-inch tablet weighing only 21 ounces and measuring only 8mm thick. The 101 XS will be the first of a new line of extra slim Android tablets to debut mid-September, followed by the release of the ARCHOS 97 XS and ARCHOS 80 XS later in 2012.
The entire Gen10 XS line is Google certified, features Android 4.0 and allows full access to Google PlayT featuring over 600,000 apps. The range will be upgradable to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in Q4 2012.
In addition to creating a new standard of thin for tablets, each model from the Gen10 XS line comes with an innovative Coverboard, a unique magnetic keyboard that will offer protection, a kickstand, docking and easy typing. The Coverboard is included in the box with each tablet.
Combining very high performance hardware, intuitive software and affordability, the ARCHOS 101 XS will be available in mid-September 2012 for £299.99 SRP.
“As the pioneer in the Android tablet market, we strive to continually push the technological boundaries of tablets and user experience,” says Henri Crohas, ARCHOS Founder and CEO. “We are taking our tablets to the next level by releasing an entirely new design that will redefine thin, while providing more functionality and a better price than any current Android tablet in the market.”
Check out the video below: Continue Reading »
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
James and Gareth discuss the rumor of a new Galaxy Nexus from Samsung, 4G LTE coming to the UK, tablet goodness from Samsung and a whole host of bargains. Fun for all the family. Actually – it isn’t!
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, including Private Jet Jobs, which will create new opportunities for highly skilled professionals in the aviation sector. 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
If you saw our Galaxy Note 10.1 unboxing the other day and were tempted to pick one up the good news is you can now do so at the Carphone Warehouse. The WiFi only variant will set you back £399.99 or grab the 3G one for £499.99.
This revolutionary Samsung tablet runs on Android Ice Cream Sandwich and opens up a whole new category in the tablet market, through exciting tools that inspire the imagination. The S Pen allows users to create more, produce more, and learn more. It allows content to be created in the most natural way possible, by replicating the precision and versatility of pen and paper.
The innovative S Pen stylus re-writes the rulebook; allowing ease of creative express and bringing ideas to life. Users can draw, sketch, design or produce slick documents on a much larger 10.1″crystal clear screen.
Until this Thursday (24th August) Carphone Warehouse is also offering the original 5.3″ Samsung Galaxy Note for the fantastic price of just £21 per month on T-Mobile. The handset is available in black, pink or white.
Both deals available now at Carphone Warehouse stores, online at www.carphonewarehouse.com or by calling 0800 925 925.
Posted by: James
As discussed on the UK blog on mobile phone tracking trackingmobile.co.uk, the announcement that the TfL is actively considering using a mobile phone tracking system brought in a lot of cheers and excitement amongst those who have been actively propagating the implementation of this system and have been quite excited about its future potentials. However, a spokeswoman later announced after the start of the Olympic Games that the TlF has decided to shelve the proposal only saying that they did not go ahead with it. The London Olympics were a major event that attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world and provided a great opportunity for the administrators of the city to showcase that London is still amongst the finest cities of the world, celebrating its legacy as the former capital of the largest empire the world has ever seen, despite a lot of setbacks over the past many years.
What speculators had expected was the introduction of a GSM based system which has been used widely by government authorities from around the world in the past. Mobile phone tracking software have been developed for basic level use in the past, however, it has also been used by intelligence agencies from around the world. A very basic level technology has also been used by animal welfare organizations and zoologists during experimentation and detecting the migratory patterns of various animals. While the idea of uses might sound very divergent, but it goes on to say that this technology has a lot of potential for growth considering its very wide scope.
At the end of the day, the implementation of this system could have had highlighted the fact that London remains one of the most advanced cities of the world and allowed experts to review the reach of the system itself. This would have helped them overcome any shortfalls and London itself could have been the first cities to establish such a system which is expected to be used widely in the future by major cities for managing their traffic problems. In fact, Beijing is already considering using such a system for better management of the traffic there, and would soon introduce a mobile surveillance system to ease congestion.
Posted by: Matt
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