Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 238

Things are really heating up in the Samsung vs. Apple patent lawsuits, where last week we saw Samsung slapped with a $1 billion-plus fine, as well as many of their Galaxy-branded devices removed from US retail shelves. But, and this is a big but, Samsung are waiting in the shadows, with some serious firepower.

The Korea Times is reporting that Samsung have "confirmed that it will immediately sue Apple if the latter releases products using advanced long-term evolution (LTE) mobile technology". IP research firm iRunway, earlier this year found that Samsung fully owns 10% of all LTE patents issued so far, meaning that they are definitely putting their money where their mouth is.

Now, Apple would be a bit stupid, and far behind the times to release a next-generation iPhone without LTE, so this is going to get very, very interesting. If they release the new iPhone with 3G only, we'd be looking at waiting nearly an entire year before they release another phone, which would still not include 4G. Apple don't have many moves to make here. Another thing to consider is that the Cupertino-based company already has their iPad with 4G capabilities, have Samsung been waiting for the new iPhone before they pounce?

LulzSec, a hacktivist group similar to Anonymous, has seen members getting arrested after the leader of the group started helping the FBI. The latest arrest is of Ronaldo Rivera (20), a hacker from Tempe, Arizona. He faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted on charges of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of protected computers.

Rivera is said to have worked with Cody Kretsinger (24) in hacking Sony Picture's computers. During the hack in 2011, they obtained more than 1,000,000 users' personal information including passwords, email addresses, home addresses, and dates of birth. The hacking was announced and credit taken by LulzSec through a posting on Pastebin:

We recently broke into SonyPictures.com and compromised over 1,000,000 users' personal information, including passwords, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and all Sony opt-in data associated with their accounts...What's worse is that every bit of data we took wasn't encrypted. Sony stored over 1,000,000 passwords of its customers in plaintext.

I'm sure most users have heard about the alleged eBook pricing that several publishers were involved in. Three of the major publishers that were accused of price fixing have agreed to settle with 54 District Attorneys across the United Sates. They announced the settlement in which Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, and Simon & Schuster have agreed to pay $69 million over the alleged eBook price inflation.

"While publishers are entitled to their profits, consumers are equally entitled to a fair and open marketplace," Attorney General Jepsen said today in a statement. "This settlement will provide restitution to those customers who were harmed by this price-fixing scheme, but it also will restore competition in the eBook market for consumers' long-term benefit."

Apple has, of course, refused to to settle. Macmillan and Penguin have also declined to settle. Steve jobs could be the root cause of bringing attention to the issue when he told his biographer about offering them the agency model, which came with higher prices.

It was only a matter of time, and with Apple not slowing down with their growing list of patent targets, Google are now looking to attack the iPhone maker, reports AndroidPIT. Apple are currently looking to ban as many Android-based products as possible, with lawsuits against Samsung, HTC and Motorola, and that's just recently.

Google only recently acquired Motorola, and will now defend their acquisition against Apple. The Mountain View-based company are now seeking a sales ban on not just the iPhone, but the iPad and Mac computers across the United States. Google have pledged support for Android device makers in the past, but this is different, this is now Google, telling Apple, this is it, we've had enough, back down or feel the wrath of Google.

Apple's lawsuit against Samsung that was victorious earlier this week targeted relatively small things, like rectangles and other shape-related patent infringements. Google aren't being so petty, and are claiming patent infringement for non-standard essential patents. This means that Google and their recently acquired Motorola, have filed a case for a patent that courts cannot legally force companies to license, meaning that if Google win this case, Apple could be forced to completely halt the use of this technology in their devices.

Apple may have initially won the court case, but it's not over yet. Samsung have said on Tuesday that they are willing to modify their smartphones if they can't successfully fight the Cupertino-based company's request to have them banned across the US.

Apple made an initial request to ban eight of the South Korean company's smartphones, including one of the most popular, the Galaxy S II. Samsung does plan to fight the request, and would be willing to modify the devices to avoid the ban. How could they do this exactly? Removing their TouchWiz UI and replacing it with the stock Android ROM, be it Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.1 Jelly Bean would do the trick.

Users have been begging smartphone makers to release stock Android ROMs, and it looks like this time is upon us. If Samsung were to begin offering flagship devices with stock Google Android OS's, things could get very interesting, very fast. Could Apple have inadvertently started a new, wonderful trend of smartphone makers pushing devices out with stock, or at least close to stock, Android operating systems?

AMD has hired a new Chief Graphics Product Architect for the Graphics Business Unit. This means that the visionary behind Gustafson's Law will be working on the AMD Radeon and AMD FirePro line of products. With fresh blood comes fresh ideas, so here's to hoping he can come up with something that really pushes graphics technology forward.

"Our industry-leading graphics technology predicates that we consistently deliver the most differentiated and superior graphics processor unit (GPU) architectures and products -- without compromise," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics. "With the growing importance of parallel compute in defining the computing experience, John brings the full package of industry experience and knowledge needed to help us expand and execute our AMD Radeon and AMD FirePro graphics technology programs, and will help forge an aggressive long-term roadmap that allows AMD to continue to lead and win with our gaming and virtualization technologies."

John Gustafson's resume is impressive and he will surely be an asset to the company. He joins AMD from Intel, where he "headed the company's eXtreme Technologies Lab, conducting cutting-edge research on energy-efficient computing and memory, as well as optical, energy and storage technologies."

The FCC has issued a statement today saying they are forming a group to study the use of portable electronic devices (PEDs) on aircraft. The current policy is quite cumbersome and requires lots of time and effort to get a device authorized for use during flight. The FCC recognizes this is an issue of consumer interest and this is the reason they have formed the group.

"With so many different types of devices available, we recognize that this is an issue of consumer interest," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "Safety is our highest priority, and we must set appropriate standards as we help the industry consider when passengers can use the latest technologies safely during a flight."

The group will examine the methods used for certification along with a variety of other issues and then present the findings to the FCC. Unfortunately, they will not be investigating the use of cell phones for voice communications. A reason for this was not provided and it seems like a massive miss on the group's priority list.

Store shelves could soon be bare of Samsung products, if Judge Koh accepts Apple's preliminary injunction request. We knew that Apple would go after sales bans after winning by so much over Samsung, we just didn't know which products. Now, Apple has filed with the court listing the models that they would like banned.

Apple is going after the eight devices listed in the chart above. Why wouldn't they go after all 24 of them? Well, a large majority of them are no longer being sold and Judge Koh doesn't like having her time wasted, as Apple and Samsung found out, so they've narrowed the list down to a more reasonable amount.

The devices included in the list are the Galaxy S 4G, the Galaxy S II ATT, the Galaxy S II Skyrocket, the Galaxy S II T-Mobile, the Galaxy S II Epic 4G, the Galaxy S Showcase, the Droid Charge, and the Galaxy Prevail.

Waiting for the next Samsung smartphone or tablet? Well, you could be waiting just a bit longer than expected due to Apple's decisive win over Samsung on Friday. Since Samsung was found to be infringing on basically every single patent Apple asserted, Samsung will likely redesign phones and tablets that are currently in the works to avoid being sued again.

"The verdict is worse for Samsung than what many had anticipated, and it will have to change some products in its pipeline," Chang In Whan, president of Seoul-based KTB Asset Management Co., said. "There could be delays in developing and releasing new models, which together with a potential sales ban could weigh on corporate value."

However, a spokesman for Samsung has said that the verdict won't affect the current product launch schedule. Being forced to do things that are radically different from Apple could, in the end, wind up better for Samsung and the consumer market as a whole. If they have to reinvent the UI or physical design of the phone, they may come up with something far superior.

Your broadband Internet connection may get a little bit more expensive if the FCC goes ahead with a plan to tax it. Right now, the FCC has asked for comment on several different proposals designed to raise money for the Connect America Fund, a fund used to bring broadband access to rural Americans, and a tax is among the proposals.

AT&T, Sprint, and Google have all supported the tax, likely because it would increase their revenues. The tax would be similar to the fee already paid on landlines and cellular phones. This fee goes to the Universal Service Fund, a fund that was designed to ensure every person in America had access to phone service.

"Today we propose three goals for contribution reform: efficiency, fairness, and sustainability," Genachowski, chairman of the FCC, said. "And we underscore that any reforms to the contribution system must safeguard core Commission objectives, including the promotion of broadband innovation, investment, and adoption."