Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Android Authority

Android Authority


Details on Motorola vs. Apple patent case lodged with the ITC emerge

Posted: 21 Aug 2012 12:32 AM PDT

You may have heard that Motorola has filed a new complaint against Apple seeking the ban onApple products in the U.S. due to patent infringement. New details have surfaced, with the ITC posting a copy of the full complaint online.

The lawsuit, filed with the International trade Commission last Friday, seeks an import ban on products that include the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Mac computers. TechCrunch has offered a summary of the lawsuit’s salient points, which focus on these seven patents:

  • 5,883,580: Patent relates to processing messages in the context of space and time. Motorola says Apple’s location-reminders infringe upon this patent.
  • 5,922,047: Patent relates to communications and control systems for multimedia, particularly “control over a plurality of media applications including telephony, video conferencing, analog video, digital video, and AC power line signaling …” Motorola says the iPhone and iPad infringe on this patent.
  • 6,425,002: Patent is for communications devices, ensuring apps installed only receive messages of interest.
  • 6,983,370: This patent relates to continuity between messaging client, particularly the ability to sync messaging capabilities of multiple devices. Motorola says all Apple devices infringe on this patent, except the iPod and Apple TV.
  • 6,493,673: Patent is for communications devices that are capable of providing interactive services. This involves a prompt, input mechanism and converting audible user input into a text string.
  • 7,007,064: Patent discloses an “apparatus and method for obtaining and managing wirelessly communicated content.”
  • 7,383,983: Patent is for managing content between devices in various domains. The patent also relates to “pausing content in one device and resuming playback of the content in another device.”

Motorola has filed the patent complaint against the ITC, saying Apple has refused to negotiate licensing terms for these technologies. If the ITC sides with Motorola (and effectively, Google) in this case, the trade commission could enforce an import ban on Apple products, which means virtually all Apple devices manufactured in its facilities in China and elsewhere.

It could be argued that Apple may instead choose to produce its goods within American soil, given that it can accommodate additional costs within its hefty profit margin. But this will result in reduced earnings for the company.

At this point, however what is effectively an Apple vs. Android patent war is likely to lead to a review of the patent system, given how these lawsuits are seen to be hurting the innovation process.


This article, Details on Motorola vs. Apple patent case lodged with the ITC emerge , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


Green Day themed Angry Birds episode coming When September Ends

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 09:14 PM PDT

No, you won’t need 21 guns to fend off pig attacks, and we definitely don’t want you to lay down your arms and give up the fight. This Fall, Rovio is launching an episode of its hugely popular Angry Birds franchise that rock fans are going to love. Rovio has partnered with Green Day for a special 10-level episode of Angry Birds Friends that features music from the band.

Band members Billy Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tire Cool also appear on this episode, lending their likeness to the antagonist pigs, complete with rock band getup. Armstrong lauded the game, saying they’re big fans. “It's such an addictive game that when we first started playing it we couldn't stop. Go Team Green!”

The game will feature Green Day’s latest single “Oh Love,” and will have a track released exclusively through the game: “Troublemaker.”

Do you have the time to listen to pigs whine? Check out the upcoming Angry Birds Friends edition later this Fall.


This article, Green Day themed Angry Birds episode coming When September Ends , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


Dual ecosystem phones coming soon from Jolla

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 08:15 PM PDT

This is a story about Jolla. It may sound like an infamous Linux distribution, but it’s not. It’s a little Helsinki (Nokia ground zero!) based startup and it reminds us a bit of Saygus. Jolla wants to use MeeGo, Nokia’s orphaned ecosystem and deliver the world an Android-friendly smartphone.

Here’s some juicy info on this company’s plans:

  • The device will run HTML5 apps in addition to Qt apps
  • It will also run Android apps in addition to its own native ‘house brand’ apps
  • Using Openmobile and Dalvik VM will provide app compatibility between MeeGo and Android environments
  • Screen real estate is going to be somewhere between 3.5 to 4″

The company is comprised mostly of ex-Nokia employees who believe the Meego OS deserves another shot in the market. I guess they weren’t paying attention the last few years. When Nokia switched over to Windows Phone and sold, but only managed to get 1 MeeGo phone out the door, it doesn’t say much in favor of Jolla’s eventual success. Then again, Jolla’s motto may be that MeeGo never got a fair chance from Nokia and was ditched too soon.

Most cross-platform customers who have used MeeGo appreciate the iOS-style interface. However, the development on MeeGo is lacking and therein, Jolla intends to pursue such work with passion. This is obviously a shot in the face of Nokia. Jolla executives and employees may believe in MeeGo, but the big question is, do customers believe in MeeGo with popular choices like Android and iOS staring at them on the shelves?

 


This article, Dual ecosystem phones coming soon from Jolla , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


Judge not satisfied with Google’s non-disclosure of paid commenters, gives August 24 deadline

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 07:59 PM PDT

In the ongoing appeal in the Oracle vs. Google patent infringement litigation, U.S. district Judge William Alsup asked both parties to make adequate disclosure of any journalists, bloggers or commentators they have compensated, which may have influenced media coverage. Oracle has complied, by disclosing that patent blogger Florian Mueller is a consultant, but the judge is not so satisfied with Google’s response.

“In the court’s view, Google has failed to comply with the August 27 order,” writes Judge Alsup. The search giant was therefore ordered to make a disclosure on August 24, with the following clarifications:

  • “Payments” exclude ad revenues from Google’s AdSense program;
  • Experts disclosed under Rule 26 are likewise excluded;
  • Any consultant, contractor, vendor or employee who may have commented on the matter should be named;
  • Trade organizations need not be listed, unless an employee was a commenter;
  • Gifts to universities can be ignored.

Judge Alsup has said that the court was not asking for the impossible, noting how Google earlier claimed that listing everyone would be impossible, given the number of bloggers and publications earning from Google’s ad network.

“Please simply do your best but the impossible is not required,” writes Judge Alsup, adding that Google “need only disclose those commenters that can be identified after a reasonably diligent search.”

The point here is that the court wants to bring to light authors whose online commentary may have been influenced by financial gain from either company, even though payment may have been for a different purpose. This will help keep trial-by-publicity in check by ensuring opinions publicized through the media are not biased. Judge Alsup notes that even public commentary may have an “influence on the courts and/or their staff if only in subtle ways.”

The ball is now in Google’s hands. Let’s see how they will respond.


This article, Judge not satisfied with Google’s non-disclosure of paid commenters, gives August 24 deadline , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


First official Jelly Bean-based AOKP build released

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 07:26 PM PDT

Android enthusiasts fiddling with custom ROMs are familiar with two major efforts, namely CyanogenMod (CM) and the Android Open Kang Project (AOKP). With the release of Jelly Bean, CM beat AOKP to the punch in terms of launching an official build based on Google’s latest Android release.

While nightly builds of AOKP already implement a custom 4.1 Jelly Bean release, official releases of the custom ROM are still based on 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. AOKP developers, however, are nearly ready with a formal release: AOKP build 1 r28 is already available for download. Device support is still limited, and the developers are not accepting bug reports yet.

Some of the highlighted features included in this build are as follows:

  • Notification Toggles
  • Lockscreen tweaks (no custom targets yet)
  • Navigation bar modifications
  • Custom kernel performance options
  • LED colors
  • Notification wallpapers
  • Phone ringer modifications (flip call to silent, silent/vibrate when headphones are in)

Head on to the source link for download and installation instructions. Again, device support is still limited, but the developers have confirmed these work for the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S, Nexus 7, Galaxy Tab 2, T-Mobile Galaxy S2 and T-Mobile Galaxy S3.


This article, First official Jelly Bean-based AOKP build released , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


Here’s how Nikon’s first Android-powered Coolpix camera looks like [Leaked press images]

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 07:09 PM PDT

(Image credit: Nikon Rumors)

Android is not just about phones. Given the flexibility and extensibility of the platform, we’re now seeing Android running on embedded devices such as cameras. Nikon, for one, has been known to be developing an Android-powered digital camera, the S800c. A few leaked press images have surfaced, care of Nikon Rumors.

Specs-wise, the Nikon Coolpix S800c is said to come with a 25-250 mm Nikkor lens, a 3.5-inch OLED screen, and GPS and Wi-Fi connectivity. The camera will ship with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and will have access to Google Play apps.

Note how the two images differ, particularly the lenses. One comes with a 12X wide optical zoom ED lens, while the other a 3X zoom. Is Nikon planning different variants? Nikon will reportedly launch the S800c officially on Wednesday, August 22, well ahead of Photokina in Cologne, Germany this September.


This article, Here’s how Nikon’s first Android-powered Coolpix camera looks like [Leaked press images] , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


photup for Facebook: Quick and easy Facebook photo uploader

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 06:00 PM PDT

People who snap shots of all their important life events and manually upload their images to Facebook have a lot of time to spare. Some of them even take the time to tag each photo individually and add a caption to them. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same amount of free time. The fewer the steps it takes for me to upload to Facebook, the better. It seems that Chris Banes, developer of photup for Facebook, had the same idea in mind.

Say goodbye to wasting too much time uploading an image to Facebook. photup for Facebook allows you to easily snap a shot, enhance the photo, and upload it — all from one app. When you first launch the app, you’re instantly shown its neat and frills-free interface. It’s holo-themed, which goes perfectly with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Using the app is also intuitive. You don’t need several screens of lengthy instructions to know how to use photup. I was quite impressed that for a free app, there was not a single ad present.

Naturally, you’ll need to sign in to your Facebook account. Once you’ve signed in, the app will put together all the images you have stored on your Android device in easy-to-see thumbnails. You can select any of those images to upload.

Selecting more than one image is also very easy. You don’t need to fiddle with options to be able to do it. Just tap on the image that you want and move on to the second. The grey check mark in the upper-right corner of the thumbnail lights up in green.

When you’ve selected all the images you need, tap the paper airplane icon in the upper right portion of the screen. You’ll be brought to another screen where you can check your Facebook account and the album you’ll be uploading the images to. Upload the images and you can see that each image has its own gauge, showing you how much of the image’s data have been uploaded.

If you want to snap images of your own, you can tap the camera icon on the app’s home screen. After you’ve snapped a shot, you can do a number of things before you upload it. You can add a comment or a title to it. Or, if you find that the picture turned out too bland, you can apply effects to it. You can crop out unnecessary parts or rotate it properly. Last but not the least, add a location to your picture so that people know where you were when you snapped the shot.

Want to speed things up even more? photup for Facebook lets you instantly upload things through the Settings page. Any shot you take, you can instantly share with your Facebook friends. Just make sure that you’re careful with your shutter trigger fingers and you don’t snap any compromising or embarrassing photos if you have this option enabled.

Using the app was certainly easy and it doesn’t take too much of your time. Unfortunately, when the app loads all the images present on your phone, it can be a little inconvenient to squint at the thumbnails and hope you’ve selected the right images. Perhaps the developer could incorporate folders in future updates. The developer is already working on more privacy options.

Enjoy a quick and easy Facebook photo uploader and make your picture snapping and photo sharing experience fast and seamless by downloading photup for Facebook from the Google Play Store today.


This article, photup for Facebook: Quick and easy Facebook photo uploader , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


Galaxy Nexus ‘minuscule’ compared to iPhone sales – Samsung defense against Apple’s copy claims

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 05:45 PM PDT

In addition to the main U.S. Apple vs Samsung case that we're following closely these days, there are other patent-based battles between the two giants – in total there are over 50 cases spread across four continents.

Today Bloomberg informs us on a different U.S. legal predicament between Apple and Samsung, this one related to a Galaxy Nexus sales ban that was recently obtained by Apple in the USA, only to be stayed on second appeal by Samsung pending Apple's appeal.

Apple has made its case in the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, where it claimed again that the Galaxy Nexus copied the iPhone:

"This was the beat-Apple strategy," Apple lawyer Mark Perry of Gibson Dunn, said yesterday in arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. "This was the top of the line, Cadillac phone they trotted out to compete with the iPhone."

To such arguments, Samsung responded, among other things, that the market share of the Galaxy Nexus is "minuscule" in the U.S., compared with the iPhone's share. That's definitely a good argument for Samsung, as Apple has to prove the Galaxy Nexus costs Apple market share loss, but at the same time it's also pretty sad for both Samsung and Google.

The Galaxy Nexus did not become the iPhone 4S rival the two companies expected it to be. Samsung's own counsel acknowledged that Samsung sold $250 million of the Galaxy Nexus device in the first two quarters it was on the market" compared to the $16.2 billion worth of iPhones sold by Apple in the second quarter of the year ending in June (it's third quarter in fiscal year 2012.)

Samsung lawyer John Quinn said Apple, which has the biggest share of the U.S. market, wasn't harmed by the "minuscule" sales of the Galaxy Nexus, so there's no threat if the phone remains on the market.[...]

"This is a product that, at most, captured 0.5 percent of the market," Quinn said. "Nothing in the record here would support a finding of irreparable harm" to Apple.

The trial in this U.S. Apple vs Samsung case is scheduled for March 2014, so we're probably bound to see a lot more pre-trial friction between the two sides until then. One of the results of this Galaxy Nexus attempted ban can already be seen on other Samsung devices, namely the removal of the unified search feature, a technology that Apple claims is infringed by the Galaxy Nexus. In fact, Samsung has also taken precautionary measures and removed unified search capabilities from its U.S. Galaxy S3 versions, probably in hope of avoiding such conflicts with Apple.

Also worth noting is that third parties such as Google and Sprint intervened in Samsung's favor, both having different reasons for backing up the Android maker:

The patent relates "at best, to a very minor aspect of the Galaxy Nexus phone's overall functionality which was never shown to drive sales," Google wrote. [...]

Modern smartphones have thousands of features, and if patent owners can block products based on a single invention, all of the devices would be vulnerable to such orders and "the design and manufacture of similarly complex technological marvels would become economically infeasible," Google wrote.

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S), which sells the Galaxy Nexus, said in a court filing that a ban "harms Sprint's substantial investment in its device portfolio" that can't be filled for nine to 12 months.

"It impacts the inventory of thousands of downstream distribution points and it tarnishes Sprint's reputation," Sprint said, calling itself an "unwitting victim" in the legal battles over smartphones.

We'll be back with more news from the Apple vs Samsung worldwide conflict in the following days, with added focus on the on-going San Jose trial that has already reached the closing arguments phase.


This article, Galaxy Nexus 'minuscule' compared to iPhone sales – Samsung defense against Apple's copy claims , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


Xiaomi on its way to Europe by 2013?

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 05:39 PM PDT

Android fans are probably aware of Chinese brand Xiaomi, which has been considered the Apple iPhone of China. The smartphone is described as such because of the tight integration between hardware and software, and because of how the phone is dependent on in-house services and apps.

For the price of $315 for a premium device, who wouldn’t bite? Still, other smartphone users are likely to be oblivious to the device, even though it had been selling like hotcakes in China. That’s becaues the Xiaomi Mi-One, initially released in August 2011, has had a China-only release.

Elsewhere, users would have to rely on the grey market, which tends to jack up prices, thereby defeating the purpose of the inexpensive phone itself. Likewise, the MIUI interface is highly dependent on in-house development, which non-Chinese users might not appreciate.

Word is that Xiaomi may be heading to Europe by 2013, says a source cited by Engadget. A Chinese startup is reportedly planning to bring its products to Europe, although there is no word as to when exactly in 2013 this will be.

Xiaomi has recently launched its second-generation Mi2 which is considered among today’s most powerful smartphones spec-wise. The quad-core smartphone is especially attractive due to the price tag. The question at this point, however, is whether Xiaomi will be able to launch the Mi2, or whether European users would have to wait for the third-generation device.

Also interesting at this point is whether the European market will receive the phone warmly, given that other Chinese brands like Huawei and ZTE have not been able to penetrate the market like other Asian brands such as Samsung. Still, these smartphone makers are already popular in the U.S., if only for the co-branding that carriers have stamped on ZTE and Huawei smartphones. Will Xiaomi also go the same route?

Then, of course, users from other regions would also want to get their hands on an inexpensive premium-spec’d device. Give us a hint, Xiaomi! When can we expect an international release?

No related posts.


This article, Xiaomi on its way to Europe by 2013? , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.


500,000 devices in China infected by SMS payment malware

Posted: 20 Aug 2012 05:05 PM PDT

Smartphones are on the rise in China. With a billion mobile phones, a fast-growing proportion of which are smartphones, this mobile ecosystem is ripe for the picking for malicious hackers. According to an assessment from a security company, almost half a million smartphones in the country have been infected by an SMS payment malware coming from Android app marketplaces.

Google Play is banned from within the so-called Great Firewall of China. As such, Chinese Android users would usually get apps from third-party app stores. However, anti-virus company TrustGo says it has identified a piece of malware capable of sending premium SMS numbers and accessing financial information on infected phones.

The malware is dubbed Trojan!SMSZombie, and has been proliferating in apps found on GFan, one of the more popular app stores in China. 500,000 is a very small proportion of the billion or so mobile users in the country (just .05%), but the potential for harm is great, given its ability to access banking information.

TrustGo says the trojan hides in a variety of wallpaper apps, mostly with provocative titles and photos. The app will request to install additional files supposedly associated with the app, but will actually download and execute a payload within a file called “Android System Service.”

This process will then obtain admin privileges and then subsequently take over the phone’s SMS capabilities. TrustGo has offered removal instructions for anyone infected.


This article, 500,000 devices in China infected by SMS payment malware , was originally published at AndroidAuthority.com - Your Android News Source.