Apple won’t be suing HTC over the One A9’s blatant iPhone 6S-like design
HTC this week announced the One A9, and the design turned out to be a blatant copy of the iPhone 6/6S. HTC claims that it was actually Apple who copied the Taiwanese manufacturer, but Cupertino won’t be serving papers to HTC anytime soon either way.
Apple was quick to start the litigation process with Samsung over every little minuscule patent, but not HTC. And that’s because in 2012, HTC and Apple reached a deal where the Taiwanese company would pay Apple $6-$8 per Android device the manufacturer ships in return for the patent battles to stop.
The terms of the deal remain confidential to this day. The agreement was for 10 years, and we’re only three years into it so far. HTC China’s President Ray Yam said this in 2012:
“The settlement with Apple will start to pay off next year, and the fourth quarter of this year is still going at a set pace. The biggest benefit to us is that we can put more energy into innovation, which is more important than anything else for a technology company.”
In other words, we won’t be seeing any litigation over the One A9, unless HTC breaks some confidential term of the deal. And in the meantime, HTC continues to “innovate” with blatant copycat devices.
What’re your thoughts on the One A9?
Come comment on this article: Apple won’t be suing HTC over the One A9’s blatant iPhone 6S-like design
Android executive promises a new batch of emojis via Twitter
If you’ve been casting an envious eye over your friends iOS device because they have some fancy new emojis to compose messages with instead of constructing an entire word, it seems that your reason for turning green may soon cease to exist. This is because a new batch of Android emojis is currently being developed.
Android executive, Hiroshi Lockheimer, has acknowledged the needs of the Android faithful, promises that he and his team are working on new emojis, and also apologises for the wait.
So I have a feeling y'all want new emojis? a) Thanks for the feedback, b) We're on it, and c) Sorry!
— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) October 23, 2015
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
It doesn’t sound like we’ll be waiting too long for this new batch of emojis, and I’m hoping we’ll see more around the topic of coffee. Because one can never have too much coffee in one’s life.
Source: Hiroshi Lockheimer (Twitter)
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Motorola’s Moto 360 (2015) charging dock now on the Google Store
If you’re looking to get a replacement charger for your Moto 360, Google is now selling the 2nd Gen wireless charging dock in the Google Store. It’s selling at a pricey $40, which is the same cost as the previous version.
It’s an elegant little dock, perfect for a stylish smartwatch like the Moto 360 (2015), though! Anyone getting one?
source: Google Store
via: Android Police
Come comment on this article: Motorola’s Moto 360 (2015) charging dock now on the Google Store
Apple Maps Hints at Upcoming Apple Pay Support in Australia
Apple Pay badges have been added to Apple Maps listings for select Coles and Woolworths supermarket locations in Australia, as spotted by multiple users on discussion forum AppleTalk Australia. The badges are normally reserved for locations that accept Apple Pay, which is noteworthy given the mobile payments service has yet to officially launch in Australia.
Apple Pay badges added to some Apple Maps listings in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney
The badges appear in Apple Maps for select Coles and Woolworths store listings in or near large Australian cities such as Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Many other Coles and Woolworths listings do not have the badge, nor do large Australian chains such as McDonald’s, so it remains unclear if they were added by mistake, or are indicative of forthcoming Apple Pay support in Australia.
Apple Pay launched in the U.S. in October 2014 before arriving in the U.K. last July, but Apple has remained quiet about its plans to expand iPhone-based contactless payments to additional countries. In August, Fairfax Media reported that Australian banks oppose Apple sharing a portion of the $2 billion interchange fees they collect from merchants each year in return for use of payment infrastructure.
Australia is a well-prepared candidate for Apple Pay, as contactless payments technology has been widely adopted throughout the country over the past few years. Several retailers that support Apple Pay in the U.S. and U.K. also operate in Australia, including Aéropostale, Apple, Babies “R” Us, Champs Sports, Foot Locker, GameStop, McDonald’s, Nike, OfficeMax and Subway.
Beyond Australia, The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Apple is planning a November launch of Apple Pay in Canada, which was likely prematurely leaked by TD Canada Trust last week. Apple has reportedly been in talks with Canada’s six largest banks, including the Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Canada Trust.
The HTC One A9 is a quietly brilliant move for a failing company
By now you’ve probably heard all about HTC’s new One A9. There are two camps in regard to the company’s late-2015 flagship, and it seems like everyone either loves it or hates it. And while there is plenty of criticism that you can throw at HTC and the One A9, this phone is arguably the best chance the company has to plug the holes in its financially-sinking ship.
There are two distinct parts of the One A9 that are important here: price and design. The pricing is probably the more important of the two and is very telling about the direction HTC is planning on taking the One A9. It’s launching at $399 (in the United States, at least) which puts it directly between the two most competitive markets in the smartphone game.
It’s more expensive and more premium than the cutthroat budget market, going against the legion of budget Chinese smartphones and Motorola’s fantastic Moto E and Moto G, but remains priced below the heavy hitters like Samsung, LG, and Apple. That’s important because there really aren’t many smartphones in this price range, unless you count discounted older models. The biggest competitor HTC has to contend with at $399 Google’s and its Nexus line, which has always struggled to claim tons of market share thanks to a strained relationship with carriers and a lack of any real advertising. That last point might change with the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, but so far we haven’t seen a wildly successful Nexus device in the mainstream.
In this decidedly mid-range market, HTC has an opportunity to stand out more than they do at the extreme high-end and the extreme low-end. The HTC One line has struggled to stand up to Samsung and Apple in previous years, and HTC isn’t profitable enough to compete in a race to the bottom with shrinking margins. The One A9 hits a sweet spot between someone trying to save some cash but still looking for a premium, powerful device.
The One A9 doesn’t have ridiculous high-end specs on paper that match the Galaxy Note 5 or the LG V10, of course, but does it really need them? The Snapdragon 617 is the more advanced cousin of what we’ve seen in phones from just a couple years ago. The Galaxy S4 and original One M7 both used the Snapdragon 600, and if you’ve played with either of those devices recently, they still run pretty well. They aren’t going to do laps around a Galaxy S6, especially when it comes to gaming, but they hold up extremely well for web browsing, checking Facebook, sending text messages, and all of the things that most of us use our phones for 95% of the time. Processors have really only gotten better for things like gaming, and even older processors do just fine for all but the most demanding mobile games.
On top of that, the Snapdragon 617 is more power efficient than the original Snapdragon 600, which should make up for the admittedly small battery in the One A9. But between a more efficient processor, opting for a perfectly acceptable Full HD (1920×1080) AMOLED screen, and focusing on software, all signs point towards the One A9 doing more with less. It’s too early to say for sure just how the battery will hold up. At first glance, it looks like that’s been a serious priority for HTC.
And aside from the processor, HTC crammed in high-end specs where it mattered. The internal storage here, set at 32GB, should be a standard on all phones, and HTC included a microSD card slot. There’s 3GB of RAM on board, more than enough for multitasking, and the camera is shaping up to be one of the best HTC’s ever featured. There’s still the fantastic UltraPixel camera on the front of the device, which is really where it excels. The only thing that’s really missing would be the famous BoomSound speakers, but with all of the other hardware and software tweaks HTC has made for music listeners, that’s almost an acceptable loss.
HTC has also doubled down on software updates, promising the newest version of Android within 15 days of when Nexus devices receive software updates for its unlocked version. That’s as close to a Nexus device that you’re going to find from any manufacturer, bar none.
All of this brings up to the second major point about the One A9, and that’s the design. And we can all be completely honest here; it looks like an iPhone 6. You can argue that Apple subtly ripped HTC off with the original design of the iPhone 6, but what HTC did was a straight up, shameless rip-off of Apple’s flagship. And really, that’s not a bad thing. Love ’em or hate ’em, Apple knows how to design a smartphone. Even if you don’t like Apple’s design language, the iPhone 6 (and soon to be iPhone 6S) is the single most popular smartphone on the planet in terms of popularity and sales.
So while it’s kind of funny to see HTC boldly snag another company’s design quite so blatantly, that’s one less thing HTC had to worry about when designing the One A9. The iPhone 6 design is nearly universally loved with barely any complaints, excluding the protruding camera lens. There aren’t many high-end smartphones in 2015 that don’t have protruding cameras, and if that’s your biggest complaint with a device, it’s clearly doing everything else pretty well. The design fits well in hand, feels fantastic to use, and honestly just looks like one of the most attractive phones ever. There are some snags when you see the home button on the front of the device that acts as a fingerprint scanner, but again, Samsung and Apple are both selling phones by the truckload with front-facing fingerprint scanners, so that’s clearly something consumers want. Good artists copy, great artists steal, right?
The HTC One A9 is a mashup of the things that the vocal minority say they want. It has the attractive design and hardware of Apple’s iPhone, it offers the latest and greatest from Google, albeit with HTC Sense on top of everything, it’s easily unlockable for the tech crowd that wants to tinker and customize, and it focuses on doing the most with its hardware through software instead of just piling on more memory and faster processors, which doesn’t always work out. HTC found that out first-hand with the thermonuclear Snapdragon 810 incident earlier this year. The One A9 isn’t original, and it isn’t groundbreaking in any way, but it offers the best of multiple manufacturers in a price point that gives HTC a chance to survive to make another round of flagship phones.
This is all in theory, anyway. It’s up to HTC to execute. Fingers crossed.
Come comment on this article: The HTC One A9 is a quietly brilliant move for a failing company
TalkTalk’s website is hacked in ‘significant and sustained attack’, 4 million customers affected
If you are a TalkTalk customer, it may be worth your while changing your login details and keeping a keen eye on your various accounts over the next few months, because the phone and broadband provider’s website was the victim of a ‘significant and sustained‘ cyber attack on Wednesday, October 21. The hack is believed to affect more than 4 million customers, with personal data such as bank details and birth dates being snaffled in the attack.
TalkTalk announced the website hack late Thursday evening. It’s believed that the attack could be the work of a Russian jihadist cyber terrorist group that has apparently leaked a small sample of the data grab to both prove its authenticity and claim responsibility.
TalkTalk believes the hackers accessed the following details:
- Customer names
- Addresses
- Dates of birth
- Email addresses
- Telephone numbers
- TalkTalk account details
- Credit card details and /or bank details
TalkTalk says it is working closely with Cyber Terrorism experts as well as the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit to find out exactly what the hackers accessed. Currently, the TalkTalk website has been secured, and UK banks have been informed to monitor customers accounts for suspicious activity. TalkTalk is also offering 12 months worth of credit monitoring for all its customers via Noddle.
There isn’t much that customers can do at the moment although if you use the same login details for multiple accounts, it might be worth doing something about that. TalkTalk has stated it will never contact customers via telephone or email asking for your bank account details, to download software onto your computer or to provide your full password. Chances are, if someone asks you for your full password/ pin number/ bank details, then they should not be trusted.
TalkTalk’s share price dropped by 10% when the London Stock Exchange opened earlier this morning, and it isn’t difficult to understand why. This latest security breach is TalkTalk’s third in 2015, with customer’s details having previously been stolen in August and in February.
All you, as a customer, can basically do is watch your accounts for any unusual activity. It also may be advisable to move your business to a company that takes the security of your personal details seriously. If you have any suspicions of fraudulent activity on your accounts, you should contact the UK’s national fraud and internet crime reporting centre, Action Fraud, on 0300-123-2040 or via its website – actionfraud.police.uk.
Come comment on this article: TalkTalk’s website is hacked in ‘significant and sustained attack’, 4 million customers affected
ICYMI: Driving fails, global warming bacteria fix and more
Today on In Case You Missed It: AAA and the University of Utah teamed up to collect data on how well driver’s fare while using voice commands. The results are pretty terrible: Apparently it takes a full 27 seconds for a driver to fully concentrate after attempting to call someone while behind the wheel. Meanwhile Florida may be good for something beyond just the best Twitter account this side of the Atlantic. Researchers there found a strain of deep-sea bacteria that might be able to help fight global warming by attacking greenhouse gases. And a Spaniard got the first implanted 3D printed ribs in the world after a cancer fight. Good on him!
FCC caps ‘excessive and egregious’ prison telephone rates
Who are the criminals in this story? The FCC has acted to reduce what it calls “excessive rates and egregious fees” of up to $14 per minute charged by federal and state prisons. The commission notes that while contact between inmates and families reduces recidivism, “high inmate calling rates have made that contact unaffordable for many families, who often live in poverty.” It started the action after receiving a petition from Washington, DC grandmother Martha Wright, who requested relief from the “exorbitant” rates she paid to call her grandson in prison.
Source: FCC
Why Dyson’s pricey robot vacuum is late for its Japanese debut
We warned that Dyson’s first robot vacuum was going to put all that cyclone technology to use on your wallet’s contents and we weren’t wrong. After a hefty half-year delay, the 360 Eye robot vacuum goes on sale in Japan today priced at 138,000 yen — before tax! That’s around $1,150. Cutting-edge robot house cleaners that take care of themselves apparently demand high salaries (just ask Rosie). Dyson’s 360 Eye has undergone a handful of minor changes, both in the hardware and software, to prepare it for its first customers: the Japanese. My biggest takeaway? Dyson thinks the 360 Eye knows its way around cleaning a room even better than you, you big ole’ irrational human.
‘Steve Jobs’ Earns $2.6 Million in Limited Release, Opens Wide Today
Steve Jobs has been out in limited release for two weeks now, meaning fans in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and select other locations in the U.S. and Canada have been able to see the Danny Boyle-directed film about the former Apple CEO ahead of today’s official wide release. Since its debut on October 9, the movie has grossed $2,601,320 as of Wednesday, October 21.
With the wide release, Universal Pictures has uploaded a handful of new videos to its YouTube channel. Throughout its limited release, the company posted unique content surrounding the launch of the movie, including a video where Steve Wozniak discusses his relationship with the real Steve Jobs and new clips from the movie. Yesterday, a roundtable discussion video was posted showcasing the film’s cast and crew talking about the legacy of Jobs.
The new movie, made on a budget of $30 million, is projected to gross between $15 and $19 million on opening weekend, with its direct competitor for the top spot at the box office being the supernatural horror sequel Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (via Variety). In total, Steve Jobs will expand from its 60 previous limited release theater locations to 2,411 across the country today.
AIVAnet 