Monday 2 July 2012

02/07/2012

Samsung and Google set to strike back at Apple?


   Having been slapped with a bunch of patent lawsuits from Apple, it seems Samsung and Google have got together to mastermind a fight back against Apple's recent complaints.
   
   Exactly what pair have planned it s a bit of an enigma because Samsung have refused to detail it publicly. “It’s too early to comment on our game plan in the legal battle; but we will do our best to get more royalties from Apple, which has benefited from our technology,” a supposed Samsung insider has said today. “The fight is becoming more dramatic and the possibility of a truce in the form of a cross-licensing deal, seems to be becoming likely.”

   Samsung has a demanded 2.4-percent royalty rate for iPhone and iPad units using technology it has patented, but Apple argues is against the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) nature of the licensing terms. This sort of litigation from Samsung has seen the European Commission investigate them for antitrust behaviour.

   Google has already attempted to lend it's support to HTC, in a previous case of patent case against Apple. Google even went so far as to sell HTC a set of patents it went on to use in a counter-strike against the i-aggressors. The Galaxy Nexus case is much more of a pressing issue to Android; it's Google’s device and it's designed to guide Google's OEM's.

   Samsung is currently waiting to hear whether the preliminary injunction will be upheld. The company argued that Apple had not sufficiently demonstrated that the infringed patent in question causes substantial damage to iPhone sales, and we sincerely hope the judge will change her mind. This set of anti-competitive litigation from Apple is not good for anyone and especially not consumers.

Boot2Gecko becomes Firefox OS and gets official launch partners!
From Coolsmartphone.com.


   Boot2Gecko has been one of Mozilla’s top priorities lately as they rush to get their HTML5 based OS off the ground and into the turbulent mobile world as soon as possible.

   So far Mozilla has done a good job getting companies on board, they’ve already got; Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telenor as partners. ZTE and Alcatel One Touch will be creating devices  which we can expect to hit shelves at the start of 2013.

   Interestingly, it seems as though Qualcomm is set to maintain their mobile dominance, as they have been selected as the chip of choice, but we don’t know whether Firefox OS will run on newer S4 chips or something older or perhaps it’ll use a currently unannounced chipset. Either way we are told to expect great performance!

   The Firefox OS will be completely open-source and if you’re chomping at the bit to get one of these intriguing new devices it looks like it’ll help to be based in Brazil, because that’ll be the first place with availability, but they will spread out around the world soon after!

   We’ll have to wait to see whether this new OS will be able to compete with iOS and Android or whether it’ll go the same way as WebOS! But, what do you think? Are you excited about the possibilities of HTML5 based apps or do you think this is another niche project for geeks? Let us know in the comments below!


In other news:

  • HTC's Incredible S just got bumped to ICS!
  • Apple has been ordered to pay Proview $60million for the iPad trademark in Chine!
  • VLC Beta for Android has landed in the Play Store
  • Treyarch have announced they have no idea who's developing Call of Duty Black Ops for the PS Vita!
  • LittleBigPlanet's Karting has entered Beta and you can sign up now!

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