Apple Sued Over iPhone’s Proximity Sensor in New Patent Troll Lawsuit

511 Innovations, Inc. is the latest patent troll to file a complaint against Apple with the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas, claiming that the iPhone’s proximity sensor infringes upon five of its patents.

The asserted patents¹, filed between 1999 and 2012, relate to various methods for measuring optical characteristics of an object, such as color spectrums, translucence, gloss, and position detection.

511 Innovations is a Texas-based non-practicing entity that does not appear to sell any sensor-related products, but instead seeks to enforce its patented technologies through litigation. Eastern Texas is a common district for patent holding firms to target larger companies like Apple, which has fought similar lawsuits from VirnetX, Dot 23, VoIP-Pal, and others in recent years.

The small firm acquired the asserted patents in 2013 from JJL Technologies, which claims to have sold world market-leading spectrophotometers, according to court documents filed electronically this week. It then licensed the patents to Spectral Sensors, whose website has been “under construction” since 2013. Further complicating things, JJL Technologies had acquired the patents itself from LJ Laboratories.

511 Innovations has demanded a jury trial and is seeking damages in the form of a reasonable royalty, plus interest and fees, in addition to a permanent U.S. sales ban on iPhones and all other infringing products and services.

Legal battles of this nature can prove costly. Last month, Apple agreed to license Cover Flow- and Time Machine-related patents from Mirror World Technologies for $25 million, and it agreed to pay another $25 million in a Siri-related in April. It is, however, close to escaping a $533 million verdict won by Smartflash, LLC, and a $625 million verdict won by VirnetX was overturned last week.

¹ U.S. Patent Nos. 6,307,629, 7,110,096, 7,397,541, 8,472,012, and 8,786,844.

Tags: lawsuit, patent
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Spotify’s Release Radar is Discover Weekly for new music

Discover Weekly is one of Spotify’s best and most unique features, serving up a personalized playlist full of artists you probably haven’t listened to before. But what happens toward the end of the week, once you’ve cycled through its recommendations a few times? Enter Release Radar, a new playlist that drops every Friday. The personalised mixtape, which sits in the Discover section, will offer a collection of brand-new releases from artists you follow or listen to regularly. Spotify says it’ll also throw in some “new discoveries” which, similar to Discover Weekly, are based on your listening habits inside the app. It could be a handy new feature, provided your favorite artists aren’t those signing exclusives with Apple Music.

Source: Spotify

ICYMI: 10-minute cold brew, robospiders and flaming neck shots

Today on In Case You Missed It: A lightning-fast crowdfunded cold brew coffee machine called the Prisma is currently campaigning on IndieGogo. Plus, a pair of spider-bots weave webs of high-strength carbon fiber filament that you can sleep on. And, in the end, we watch as a fame-seeking daredevil gets shot in the neck with a flaming arrow on live national television. Are you not entertained?!

As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Apple Continues to Struggle in India as iPhone Sales Drop 35 Percent in 2016

Despite India’s overall healthy growth in the smartphone market — currently sitting as the third largest behind China and the United States — Apple is having a tough time gaining ground in the country. According to a new report from Strategy Analytics, Apple saw a drastic percentage dip in iPhone users from 2015 to 2016, with 35 percent fewer iPhone devices sold this year. Earlier in May, Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted iPhones are too expensive in India, potentially harming the company’s sales figures as it tries to grow.

In its new report, the market research firm said that Apple sold just 800,000 handsets in Q2 2016, while in the same year-ago quarter, the company sold 1.2 million units. These deflating sales numbers rippled into Apple’s operating system marketshare in India, essentially getting halved down from 4.5 percent in Q2 2015 to 2.4 percent in Q2 2016. Director of Strategy Analytics, Woody Oh, pointed out a few ways Apple might go about course correcting its current struggles in the country, including the ongoing saga of boosting its retail presence in India.

“Apple iOS fell 35 percent annually and shipped 0.8 million smartphones in India in Q2 2016. Apple’s smartphone marketshare has halved from 4 percent to just 2 percent in India during the past year. Apple iOS will need to reduce iPhone pricing to cheaper levels, attract more operator subsidies and enlarge its retail presence through Apple stores or online channels if it wants to regrow significantly in the future.”

Apple Stores aren’t as ubiquitous in India as they are in other parts of the world thanks to the country’s rules on foreign direct investments, which required 30 percent of goods sold by a foreign company to be manufactured or produced within India. Thankfully, after a ruling in June cleared the way for companies to circumvent that law, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a precedent by granting Apple a three-year extension on the strict local-sourcing rule, due to its single-brand retail company status selling “cutting-edge technology.” Companies similar to Apple are expected to get similar treatment.

While the relaxation of these rules should help Apple moving forward, it doesn’t change the fact that Android remained the dominant force in India this year. In total, 29.8 million Android smartphones shipped within the country in Q2 2016, growing from 23.2 million in the same quarter last year. Similarly, Google’s Android operating system remained the dominant force in the Indian mobile market with a record 97 percent hold for the quarter, increasing from 90 percent a year ago.

Apple’s retail future in the country might be turning around, but the company is still hitting smaller roadblocks on its route to increasing sales figures in India. In May, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman ruled “not in favor” of a proposal laid out by Apple to sell used iPhones in the country. Thanks to Apple’s repeated growth frustrations, Strategy Analytics said that Android’s domination of the Indian smartphone market “looks unbeatable right now, due to its deep portfolio of hardware partners, extensive distribution channels, and a wide range of low-cost apps like Gmail.”

Tag: India
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Spotify Debuts ‘Release Radar’ to Suggest New Music Based on Favorite Artists

Spotify today announced a new curated music section of its popular streaming platform, called Release Radar, that will automatically update every Friday with new music from artists already in each user’s library. The company said that the section will help its listeners stay “on top of the latest singles by your favorite artists,” without having to manually search for new music.

The new Release Radar — which will be found in the New Releases for You section within Discover — will gather up to two full hours “of the newest drops from the artists you follow and listen to the most,” as well as introducing its listeners to new music after intelligently analyzing listening habits. The new update is a version of Spotify’s existing feature Discover Weekly, which gives users music suggestions of entirely new artists and singles every Monday, instead of ones they already have been exposed to.

“With the huge amount of new music released every week, it can be difficult to keep up with the latest tracks,” says Matt Ogle, Senior Product Owner at Spotify. “With Release Radar, we wanted to create the simplest way for you to find all the newly released music that matters the most to you, in one playlist.”

Most streaming services have been giving users similar features over the past few years, including Apple Music’s “For You” tab, which accumulates recommendations based on a liking system coupled with each user’s most listened-to music. Instead of one giant playlist like Release Radar and Discover Weekly in Spotify, Apple Music populates the For You section with custom-created playlists for music streaming based on things like the time of the day and moods, as well as giving basic new artist suggestions.

Apple Music is just over a year old and was reported to have 15 million subscribers on the anniversary of its launch this past June. Since then the service has debuted a number of exclusive tracks from popular musicians, and expanded to a few new territories, including Israel and Korea. In comparison, Spotify said recently that it has 30 million paid subscribers, and 100 million total monthly active users worldwide, who take advantage of its free service.

Over the summer, Apple and Spotify butted heads over a few changes Apple announced coming to the App Store — particularly a new revenue split for subscriptions and ads in search results — which Spotify said was “a nice gesture, but doesn’t get to the core of the problem.” Jonathan Prince, Spotify’s head of corporate communications and global policy, mentioned specifically that “Apple still insists on inserting itself between developers and their customers,” making it difficult to read into subscriber analytics, like finding out why customers churn.

Spotify users should begin seeing Release Radar soon, since the company said its wide rollout begins today. Spotify Music is available for free on the iOS App Store. [Direct Link]

Tags: Spotify, Apple Music
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ASUS is bringing the ZenFone 3 series to India on August 17

ASUS is launching the ZenFone 3 series in India on August 17. The company has sent out invites to the media for its Zenvolution event, where we’ll likely see all three models in the ZenFone 3 series — the ZenFone 3, ZenFone 3 Deluxe and ZenFone 3 Ultra — make their debut in the country.

ASUS already revealed that the ZenFone 3 Deluxe will be the first phone to run the Snapdragon 821 SoC, which has four Kryo cores clocked at 2.4GHz. All three models in the ZenFone 3 series come with 1080p displays, with display sizes ranging from 5.5 inches all the way up to 6.8 inches.

ASUS counts India as one of its key markets, with the vendor seeing a lot of traction with the ZenFone 2. We’ll be on the ground at the Zenvolution event, and will bring you pricing and availability details. Who’s looking forward to the ZenFone 3 series?

MORE: ASUS ZenFone 3 series preview

Having LTE issues on the Nexus 6? Google is working on a fix

If you’re having LTE issues on the Nexus 6, you’re not alone. Users from all over the world are facing issues with LTE cutting out when used in conjunction with location services. Google has mentioned that it is aware of the issue, and that it is working on a fix.

The issue isn’t limited to a carrier or version number, with users from Australia, Sweden, Canada, Finland, the U.S., and Hong Kong facing random LTE drops. While a fix is in the works, this temporary workaround seems to work for now:

Settings -> Apps -> tap three dots in upper right, Show System, scroll down to Google Connectivity Services, tap three dots in upper right, Uninstall Updates.

Then do a full power down reboot of the N6.

Is your Nexus 6 affected? Let us know if the aforementioned workaround fixes the issue.

New Quake Champions trailer finally shows incredible gameplay

Bethesda pulled a great surprise out of the bag at the start of its E3 press conference in June, with the announcement of Quake Champions. But we were only treated to a pre-rendered trailer of the new competitive Quake game that didn’t really give much away.

Now QuakeCon is underway in Dallas and a new trailer has emerged, one that shows pure, fast and furious gameplay.

The first-person shooter reminds us a lot of the original Quakes, naturally, but also the Unreal Tournament franchise. There were fears during E3 about the different characters and abilities shown at the time, but looking at the action in the latest collection of clips, everything we know and love has been retained – including rocket jumps, oh yes!

The game promises to be incredibly quick and will certainly satisfy the hardcore fans. It also promises to be smooth, much like the recent Doom reboot. Even the YouTube video runs at 1080p in 60fps.

• E3 2016: All the launches, games and consoles at the show 
• Bethesda trailers from E3 2016: Prey, Dishonored 2, Skyrim and Quake, plus Fallout VR
• Doom review: Redefining the remake

It’ll be a while before you get your hands on it, however. A closed beta is planned for 2017, but beyond that no release date has been discussed as yet. You’ll have to keep your eyes on Quake.com to keep up to date with how to get onto the beta.

Bethesda is even yet to reveal what formats it will be coming to, but we expect PS4, Xbox One and PC at least.

What’s creepier than Stranger Things? Stranger Things in VR! Watch it here

Netflix Originals show Stranger Things has been critically revered since its debut in July. The creepy thriller series has become the most talked about thing in the Pocket-lint office and, if Twitter is any indication, pretty much everywhere else too.

It’s also one of the shows on Netflix that’s available in 4K, so can be viewed in Ultra HD on compatible TVs and devices, including the Nvidia Shield Android TV box and the new Xbox One S.

There’s another way to watch it too – at least, one specially made part. Netflix has created a spooky teaser for the show in 360-degree video, so you can visit one of the scenes from Stranger Things through a virtual reality headset.

The immersive clip is best viewed through a VR device, but can also be viewed online, with your mouse doing the scrolling. It lasts for around two minutes and sets the tone superbly for the show. Be warned though, it’s not for those with a nervous disposition.

Stranger Things is now available to watch on Netflix in the US and UK. There are eight episodes in season one, all of which are available on the platform now. 

It is based in the 80s and Winona Ryder leads a stellar cast.