Silicon Valley companies back Samsung in infringement case against Apple
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The patent infringement lawsuit between Samsung and Apple has gone on for as long as anybody can be bothered to remember. Most recently, Samsung was ordered to pay $548 million USD, their total profits from Galaxy devices that were deemed to have infringed on Apple patents. However, an interesting twist has been thrown into the mix: a number of Silicon Valley companies have backed Samsung in a “friend of the court” briefing which involved the likes of Facebook, Google, eBay, HP and Dell. Their argument is that enforcing that Samsung pay Apple, the court would essentially be “stifling innovation”.
“If allowed to stand, that decision will lead to absurd results and have a devastating impact on companies, including [the briefing draftees], who spend billions of dollars annually on research and development for complex technologies and their components.”
There’s a lot of truth in that statement, as it could have been anyone instead of Samsung – Samsung just happens to be the biggest target. But of course, Apple sees differently – Apple wants the briefing dismissed, arguing that since Google is part of the movement, it can’t possibly be impartial as a “friend of the court”.
You can kind of see where each side of the argument is coming from, but ultimately this is a matter for the courts to decide – even so, what are your thoughts about who is right? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: MacRumors via SamMobile
The post Silicon Valley companies back Samsung in infringement case against Apple appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Qualcomm set to axe up to 10 percent of its workforce
Qualcomm has been besieged by problems lately and quite a few of its employees may soon pay the price. It’s planning to lay off around 10 percent of its workforce — several thousand employees — according to The Information. The WSJ is also reporting that the company will conduct a comprehensive review of its operations and may split into two separate businesses: chip production and patent licensing. Qualcomm profits dropped drastically last quarter due to delays in the launch of its flagship Snapdragon 810 chip and the loss of one of its largest customers, Samsung. The company was ordered to pay a $975 million antitrust fine in China and is facing the same problem in the EU.
Qualcomm is also up against increased competition from rivals like MediaTek, Samsung and numerous smaller chip-makers in China. This time last year, the company was announcing record profits and predicting that its processors would soon be everywhere. Still, it had long been expected that Samsung would eventually use its own Exynos chips instead of Snapdragon models, and Qualcomm has been mulling a breakup for quite a while. Its chip-making business currently generates two-thirds of its revenue, but its intellectual property arm could actually be worth more, up to $87 billion compared to $74 billion for the chip arm.
Qualcomm profits dropped drastically last quarter due to delays in the launch of its flagship Snapdragon 810 chip and the loss of one of its largest customers, Samsung.
Last quarter CEO, Steven Mollenkopf said he was unhappy with Qualcomm’s financial outlook and would conduct a “comprehensive review,” of its cost structure. However, there’s no guarantee that will result in an imminent split, cautions the WSJ. On the other hand, multiple sources have reported that at least some layoffs will happen, making that situation much more likely. We’ll find out when Qualcomm releases its quarterly earnings tomorrow, July 21st.
Filed under: Peripherals
Big tech companies back Samsung in court case against Apple
Just like Taylor Swift in Bad Blood, Samsung has also found a powerful group of backers in its fight against Apple in court. According to a document unearthed by Inside Sources, Google, Facebook, eBay, Dell, HP and other big tech corporations have submitted a “friend of the court” brief on July 1st, supporting Samsung’s stance. The two companies have been embroiled in legal fisticuffs for years, ever since Apple first filed a lawsuit against Samsung for violating various intellectual properties, such as tap-to-zoom, sinle-finger scrolling and two-finger zooming, as well as edge-to-edge glass design, among other things.
Samsung was eventually ordered to turn over the total profits of the Galaxy devices the court decided were infringing on Apple’s IPs, worth almost $1 billion. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals lowered that amount to $548 million, but the Korean electronics maker is still fighting for the decision to be reversed completely. See, the companies that filed the friend-of-the-court briefing believe that having Samsung turn over the total profits of those devices sets a bad precedent. They think that if the decision is allowed to stand, it “will lead to absurd results.”
Inside Sources quoted this relevant part of the document to illustrate what the companies mean:
Under the panel’s reasoning, the manufacturer of a smart television containing a component that infringed any single design patent could be required to pay in damages its total profit on the entire television, no matter how insignificant the design of the infringing feature was to the manufacturer’s profit or to consumer demand.
Software products and online platforms face similar dangers. A design patent may cover the appearance of a single feature of a graphical user interface, such as the shape of an icon. That feature-a result of a few lines out of millions of code-may appear only during a particular use of the product, on one screen display among hundreds. But the panel’s decision could allow the owner of the design patent to receive all profits generated by the product or platform, even if the infringing element was largely insignificant to the user and it was the thousands of other features, implemented across the remainder of the software, that drove the demand generating those profits.
As for Apple, it has reportedly asked for the dismissal of Google’s involvement in the briefing, since it’s the company behind Android, the platform loaded on most Samsung devices.
[Image credit: Janitors/Flickr]
Filed under: Misc, Apple, Samsung, Google, Facebook
Via: The Verge
Source: Inside Sources
Having issues connecting to devices via Android Device Manager? You’re not alone
Android Device Manager can remotely locate, alert, lock or factory reset your smartphone… except when it can’t. Google’s theft protection service should work with no issues, given its delicate nature, but an onslaught of users have been reporting issues with the security system connecting to their devices.
It all started with Sandra Buensalida bringing the issue to light, back in March. We know that’s some time ago, but only lately did the story start picking up traction. Sandra’s Android Device Manager was displaying a “No Active Devices” message when trying to locate her Nexus 5 running Android 5.1. Her smartphone was active on the Google Play Store, Google account settings and everything else seemed to be working well; all with no luck on Android Device Manager.
The issue was buried in the product forums until Googler Paul came into the picture asking Sandra to perform some more trouble shooting. This is when all the other reports began coming in. While Paul previously believed this was an isolated event, more users started catching Google’s attention and Paul finally announced the Search Giant was working on it.
So far there hasn’t been another update suggesting the issue has been resolved, so all we can do is assume this problem is still active – even though that post was last edited on April 27th. The good news is Paul’s last update does mention a possible workaround.
How to fix this issue
This is not a proven method and even Google’s Paul mentioned it “may make your device show up again in the Android Device Manager”. Regardless, there seems to be at least a temporary fix. Those who have added a guest account to their Android devices should go ahead and remove it. Apparently this has helped some of the Google Product Forums members.
We still need a fix
This is hardly a solution, though, as you shouldn’t have to give up one feature just to use another. Also, Android Device Manager is part of the kill switch method Google integrated to the Android platform. Essentially, those going through these problems don’t have access to a kill switch, hence they can’t protect their phone or private data. Not good news, especially considering California law requires a working kill switch.
We were wondering how many of you guys were being affected by this. All my devices are showing up without an issue, so I can’t really speak on this myself. How about you?
U of M challenges Silicon Valley for automotive tech crown
A fake city rising from the middle of a Midwestern college campus is more than a proving ground for autonomous and connected car technology expected to revolutionize American roads. It’s a lynchpin in Michigan’s strategy to stay economically relevant and prevent automotive technology jobs from being poached by Silicon Valley.
Some dignitaries who spoke Monday at the opening of Mcity, a 32-acre test lab that simulates the look and feel of a regular traffic environment, only made oblique references to the competition between Detroit, the auto industry’s longstanding home, and the Bay Area, where major OEMs have all opened offices. Others were blunt.
“We are not going to let Silicon Valley take this technology,” Senator Gary Peters (D-Michigan) said.
While speaking at the opening of the outdoor facility, located on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor, Peters and others underscored the need for Michigan to remain at the center of the industry’s foray into self-driving and connected technology. Their remarks could have been considered harmless civic cheerleading, if the stakes weren’t so high.
Automotive research-and-development spending accounts for $11.7 billion each year, according to a Center for Automotive Research (CAR) Group study released earlier this year. The industry as a whole directly employs about 1,553,000 workers directly. Nowhere is that felt more acutely than Michigan, where more than 75 percent of that R&D money is spent, according to CAR Group.
With Google developing dozens of self-driving car prototypes in California, Apple apparently mulling a move into the auto industry, and both companies investing in infotainment systems that will soon appear in hundreds of thousands of cars, many Michiganders have fretted over the industry’s westward shift (and don’t forget Tesla). Indeed, some question the need for a dedicated autonomous testing lab when Google is already testing self-driving cars on public roads.
Without knocking the value of real-world testing, Jim Sayer, who led Mcity’s development and works as a scientist at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, said there’s a need for a simulated facility. Mcity offers a closed system where the cityscape and roads are built to the same precise standards as what’s in use in the real world.
“We needed some place just like the real world, but one where we could control and test things 100 times exactly the same way,” Sayer told Autoblog. “It’s pretty hard to get a pedestrian on the sidewalk to go across and start again so that you can test the technology on your car. So it’s about the repeatability. There are companies doing testing in simulated roadway environments, but not actually built with the curbs and signage. This is the first example of its kind anywhere.”
Mcity isn’t the only potential testing lab for this sort of technology in the state. In June, federal officials awarded a $247,000 grant to an economic-accelerator group working to redevelop the old Willow Run factory, which churned out airplanes at the rate of one per minute during World War II, into a connected-car development center.
The difference: As of Monday, Mcity is now open for business. It cost approximately $6.5 million to build the facility, which sits on the university’s North Campus on land formerly owned by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Mcity is the result of a public-private partnership between the university, governments and 48 OEMs and automotive suppliers. The area is divided into two basic areas – one for high-speed testing that simulates a highway environment and the other, a fake downtown area with suburban streets, for lower-speed experiments.
Mcity could typically accommodate up to two companies interested in testing technology at a given time, but on Monday there were a half-dozen showcasing the sort of testing they expect do at the facility. Among them: Honda demonstrated a pedestrian-detection system that warns drivers of unseen pedestrians and applies autonomous braking, Verizon showed off a prototype digital license plate that could streamline the registration and renewals processes, and Delphi showcased a camera-based technology that allows a car to detect when its drivers’ eyes and head are not focused on the road. And a University of Michigan professor detailed a car-sharing experiment that relies on a 3-D printed, electrically driven, autonomous cart.
Peters enjoyed hands-on demonstrations of the exhibits Monday, just as he enjoyed a spin in a Google self-driving car about two years ago, which was a new experience for Michigan’s junior senator. “I like to drive a car, and I like to be in control,” he said. “We were going down the road, and another car came into our lane and it reacted very nicely, and it’s all pretty amazing. The Google folks were strutting their stuff. Well, they’ve got nothing on us. This is the center of the universe.” Later, he articulated a more specific version of that universe and it’s proximity to Silicon Valley, saying, “This will still be the center where you see most of the intellectual work being done.”
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Filed under: Transportation
Scientists use lasers to find out why astronauts have bad skin
A team of German scientists are employing advanced imaging technology to help understand one of the unusual effects of long-term space habitation – thinning skin. Led by Professor Karsten Koenig of Saarland University, the study is an offshoot of the European Space Agency’s Skin B project detailing the effects of skin aging in space. According to Reuters, his team has documented three astronauts, scanning their skin cells before and after their time on the ISS using multiphoton tomography (MPT). Koenig’s company JenLab, the developer of the system, claims that its femtosecond laser pulses provide a “spatial resolution a thousand times higher than that of ultrasonic devices.” It also eliminates the need for lengthy biopsy processes, instead serving up results in seconds.
Among the trio of astronauts tested was Samantha Cristoforetti, who was scanned before traveling to the ISS in November 2014 and again upon return in June this year after her record-setting 199-day mission. The results showed an increase of collagen in the dermis, the lower layer of the skin, indicating a slight anti-aging effect. However, on the outer epidermal layer the skin was shrinking and in turn getting thinner by nearly 20 percent. One drawback is its increased susceptibility to dangerous radiation, affecting the area where stem cells are located and skin cancer often begins. Once back on Earth, the process is reversible, but increasingly long missions could have damaging results. Koenig is continuing the studies in hopes of curtailing this thinning skin phenomenon before astronauts are subject to more than a year’s journey on NASA’s Mars mission.
Filed under: Science
Source: Reuters
Android Wear sporting ASUS ZenWatch drops to $129 in the Play Store
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The Android Wear sporting smartwatch portfolio is pretty hefty. The Motorola Moto 360
The watch had a retail price tag of $199.99, which was slightly less than the round variant of the Moto 360 unless it happened to be on sale. Currently the watch is listed for $129.99, $70 off. There is no indication that it is permanent or sale price drop. If it is permanent, then it is likely the ZenWatch 2 could be finally making its way into the store soon. Either way, if the ASUS ZenWatch was on your list of things to pick up, now is looking like a pretty good time to do it.
Head to the Google Store and get your ASUS ZenWatch order in before things change.
The post Android Wear sporting ASUS ZenWatch drops to $129 in the Play Store appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
GoPro’s licensing portal sells creators’ high-quality videos
GoPro has a new content portal, and, as you’d imagine, it’s filled with extreme footage subscribers can pay to use. The company has followed in the footsteps of Flickr and 500px, launching a licensing program that gives its content creators — especially prolific ones who take high-production videos — the chance to make money off their work. The portal makes it easy not just for creators to sell their stuff, but also for advertisers and other companies to browse for what they need and to secure the proper copyright in one place.
At the moment, you’ll have to apply for access if you want to log into the website. Once you’re in, you’ll find that it allows users to preview videos, download files in different resolutions and formats, as well as look for specific content through the search box. Unfortunately, we didn’t see clues about pricing when we browsed it, but considering the words “premium” and “high-end” were used to describe the portal on its announcement post, we’re guessing it won’t be cheap. We asked a spokesperson about GoPro’s pricing scheme and the percentage a content creator will get per download to be sure, but we were told that the company’s not disclosing those details yet. He claimed, however, that GoPro’s number one “priority is to get money back into the hands of [its] athletes and [its] community.”
Filed under: Cameras
Source: GoPro, GoPro Licensing
Facebook, Google and Other Silicon Valley Companies Side with Samsung in Patent Case
Facebook, Google, eBay, HP, Dell and other Silicon Valley companies weighed in on the ongoing Samsung and Apple patent case, siding with the Korean company in a “friend of the court” briefing filed on July 1 to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and first spotted by Inside Sources [PDF via AppleInsider]. The companies argue that the court ordering Samsung to turn over profits would lead to stifled innovation.
If allowed to stand, that decision will lead to absurd results and have a devastating impact on companies, including [the briefing draftees], who spend billions of dollars annually on research and development for complex technologies and their components.
The companies contend that technology like smartphones, which include thousands of different components in both hardware and software, is too complex to award profits, like Samsung is being ordered to do, based on individual component infringements. They argue that any company could then be opened up to patent infringement cases for insignificant features like a specific user interface creation that only appears on a single screen of an app, therefore stifling innovation.
After the companies submitted their thoughts to the court, Apple responded by arguing their thoughts should be dismissed. The Cupertino company specifically called out Google, pointing out that the company has a strong interest in the case because its behind the Android operating system used by Samsung and that the Mountain View company cannot be an impartial “friend of the court”.
In mid-June, Samsung asked the court to reconsider a central part of a recent ruling that ensured Apple would receive $548 million in damages, with Samsung wanting the court to rehear the case with a full 12-judge roster rather than the 3-judge panel it used in the previous ruling. That previous ruling reduced Apple’s reward from $900 billion to $548 million.
Discover Weekly by Spotify curates a dynamic playlist based on your musical tastes
You may have noticed something different about your Spotify interface recently. If you haven’t, go back and check. You should find a new playlist you didn’t put together yourself. For a moment I thought I was having too much fun this weekend and forgot I created this, as most of the tunes seem rather familiar. After digging a bit, I found out it was a new feature from Spotify, and it’s a pretty fun one! The music streaming service calls it Discover Weekly, and it more or less does what its name entails.
Discover Weekly by Spotify creates a playlist consisting of about 2 hours of music. However, this is not music you listen to often, or that is included in your current playlists. Instead, the service takes your listening habits and helps you discover songs it deems similar to your specific musical tastes.
I have been listening to my curated playlist and realize many of these songs I actually know, but I never added to my playlists. The few I had no idea about also seemed pleasant, so the software Spotify is using to pick these songs seems to work very nicely. Most of my playlist is in Spanish, but I assume that’s related to the fact I went through one of my Hispanic music phases last week. Let’s see what next week’s list looks like!
By the way, your Discover Weekly playlist should be updated every Monday. The beginning of your work week should no longer be as stressful, and you will always have a fresh list of music that you are likely to enjoy.
Discover Weekly compared to main competitors
Google Play Music: While we are huge fans of Google Play Music around here, we can’t really say it’s the best for discovering music. The Search Giant’s streaming service does offer recommendations that are personalized, but they simply aren’t as well-organized as Spotify’s. You have to manually tell Google what you like, then the service gives you a collage of tiles with suggestions (some based on what you have been listening, as well). You can also listen to music curated for specific environments (happy hour, after work, etc), but those are not exactly made for you, either.
Pandora: One could say Pandora is pretty much a music-discovering service by nature. After all, it is all about finding music that is similar to what you already like. The only issue is Pandora is random all the time. You can’t exactly pick and choose your songs.
Songza: Songza is all about the curated playlists, so if any of these Android services will compete with Spotify it has to be this one. Sadly, these are not really personalized, but you can always find a plethora of lists with hand-picked music for all tastes and situations. The library is pretty ample and I happen to enjoy Songza when I am feeling a bit more random.
Apple Music: We know some of you will hate seeing this category here, but Apple Music is, after all, one of Spotify’s biggest competitors. And considering it is expected to come to Android at some point, I thought it was important to include. The truth is Apple Music could have been one of the main reasons why Spotify is trying to expand its discovering features and curated content.
Apple’s new streaming service is huge on playlists curated by actual persons. Adding that human element seems to be working very well for Apple Music, as all of the recommendations and playlists I have seen during my testing are spot on. To be honest (please don’t hate me), if I personally had to pick my favorite curated playlists, my choice would be between Spotify and Apple Music.
What is your Discover Weekly playlist like?
I showed you part of my Discover Weekly playlist above, and told you a bit about it. Now it’s your turn! Go ahead and hit the comments and let us know how pleased you are with Spotify’s suggestions. Are they as accurate as mine? Are you liking the mechanics of this new service so far?
AIVAnet 