Judge Rules: HTC Infringed On 2 Of Apple’s Patents

The patent battle between HTC and Apple that had been so quiet for so long has really heated up in the past few weeks. Apple filed yet another ITC complaint against HTC just last week, and this week a judge has ruled that two of the ten proposed patents Apple presented in its case were infringed upon by HTC.
Despite HTC’s dismay over the filing, share prices began falling after Apple filed its second complaint on July 8, spurring a 15 percent decrease. Share prices fell 4.1 percent after the infringement ruling this weekend. But HTC hasn’t thrown in the towel. The company plans to stage a share buy-back for September to bring what Macquarie Group analyst Daniel Chang calls “near-term support.” In the mean time, HTC has an appeal planned for July 16.
If you’re unfamiliar with the ITC import ban process (which you likely should be), it goes a little something like this: Administrative Law Judge Carl Charneski decided on July 15 that HTC was in violation of certain Apple patents. From there, Charneski’s ruling goes before the International Trade Commission’s six-person board in Washington, where HTC will launch an appeal. At that point, it’s in the hands of the commission, which could decide to ban U.S. imports of some HTC phones running the Android OS.

[via Bloomberg]

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Samsung Epic 4G Doppelganger Spotted With Verizon Branding

Hey, look! It’s the Samsung Epic 4G!
Wait, no it’s not. The Epic 4G is for Sprint… but that quite clearly says “Verizon”.
So, what’s going on here? As far as we can tell, it looks like Verizon’s about to launch their own rebranding of the Epic 4G — albeit one that comes nearly a full year after the original.
Our buds over at AndroidCentral dug up a handful of photos and specs on this re-hash.
Here’s what the rumor mill has to say:

• 4″ 480×800 Display (Just like the original)
• 4G LTE support (As opposed to 4G WiMax support)
• 1Ghz, Single-core CPU (Again, like the original)
• 1800 mAh battery (up from 1500 mAh)
• Dual cameras: 5 megapixels on back, 1.3 on front (Epic 4G had a 5 megapixel cam on back, but a paltry 0.3 megapixel [VGA] cam on front)
• There’ve been a few keyboard tweaks: shift and function have swapped places, the silly emoticon key has been replaced with a mail key, and the home/back keys have been switched around.

All in all, it’s a pretty modest revision, but certainly a welcome one. No word yet on pricing — but based on specs alone, I wouldn’t expect this one to break $200 on a 2-year-contract.
Here’s a side-by-side of this new look-alike and the original Epic 4G for comparison’s sake:

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Ticketmaster For BlackBerry Beta v2.0 Available Now For Beta Zone Members

If you’re a member of BlackBerry Beta Zone, you should be happy to hear that Ticketmaster has just released the Ticketmaster for BlackBerry app in beta version 2.0. This means you can select the event of your choosing straight from your phone, buy tickets, and be on your way, all from the comfort of that QWERTY keyboard.
The app has been revamped from the floor up and now sports a nice, clean looking UI. But the real goodies lie in the updated Search feature, which gives you a few different ways to find the right event. For one, you can do a basic search by artist, teams, or venues. GPS steps in and makes sure your search is filtered to present only events happening nearby, so you don’t get all excited about some Black Eyed Peas concert that’s happening 200 miles away. Searches can also be further filtered based on the date of the event. You can choose between “this weekend,” “the next 90 days,” or build your own custom date filter.
Another cool enhancement is Calendar integration. With Ticketmaster for BlackBerry Beta 2.0, users who have purchased tickets from their phone can now sync the date with their BlackBerry calendar to stay organized. Overall, this is a nice future addition to the BlackBerry App World, and we hope it makes its way out to the masses sooner rather than later.

[via BlackBerry Blog]

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Map Trends Show Mobile And App Growth Outpacing Browsers

Location-based services and increasing smartphone sales are leaving their mark on the mapping world: mobile-based map access is up significantly, while access from “stationary” points (i.e. desktop and laptop PCs) actually dipped slightly.
It’s not particularly surprising, but the rate of growth is remarkable. Mobile use increased by 39% year-over-year by Comscore’s measure, but access via apps doubled. This suggests a nice halo effect from local-knowledge apps like Foursquare and Urban Spoon. Mobile browser use also increased, but I suspect that the gap will only widen, or the two will become difficult to separate; do web apps count as web or app?
At this point I think it’s a relatively safe assumption, given the still-primitive state of many mobile web browsers, that this mobile-browser map use is actually web-based, for example accessing the web interface via an embedded map on a restaurant’s website after Googling (or Binging) them. As this behavior is damaging to the standard “division of labor” on smartphones, it will likely only decrease due to more forceful redirection of web maps to the native mapping app (if compatible, which is another issue altogether). Mustn’t sent a browser to do an app’s job, or vice versa.

Comscore’s data also shows that nearly 90% of map users selected “driving” as their mode when requesting directions. This measurement is probably useless, considering that driving directions are selected by default in many cases, and at any rate are often identical to walking directions. I’d be interested in seeing how public transit is being looked up, however; the bus and metro apps I’ve seen are quite good, but the public sector might want to move in on them before they hit critical mass.
One methodological problem that is sure to present itself in the next year is how to quantify passive map use. An increase in active tracking (though the user is not actively requesting, hence passive) while a device is idle is sure to show this coming year, and it may throw traditional measuring methods off. Apple and Google are not likely to miss out on the possibilities of passive location tracking (indeed, Apple seems to have already begun the festivities), and there are already plenty of apps (for instance, fitness and pedometer apps) forming the vanguard of this wave.
The dip in PC mapping is more difficult to analyze, however; PCs have more or less saturated the US market, but the standard of entry to “advanced” categories of browser and PC use (the computer illiteracy of the market can’t be underestimated) is ever dropping and I would personally have expected continuing slow growth in web map use given steady sales and access numbers. The continuing rollout of decent broadband would tend to increase these usage numbers as well. But it seems that this period of rapid smartphone growth has pulled more people from the PC pool than enter on average.
It’s a pity this data isn’t richer — knowing the app breakdown, success rate, exit rate, and so on would be interesting data for number crunchers.

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Samsung Gives First 5000 Galaxy Tab 10.1s To Developers At Google I/O

The giveaways at Google I/O have become one of the most-publicized features of the conference; after all, the new features and frameworks matter to developers, but Oprah Moments^TM tend to resonate on the internet. Previously it was handsets being given away, but this year, with Android handset numbers blocking out the sun and tablets underdeveloped, it was Honeycomb that ended up in developers’ laps. Specifically, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1.
Yep, 5000 of them are being distributed to Google’s dev base. This is pretty cool, since Samsung was previously a bit gun-shy about its new tablet, even publicly saying they had some work to do after the iPad launch. But the relaunch in March had them confident again, though the release was distant enough that we thought they might still have some work to do. I guess the developers at I/O will be able to tell us whether that’s true.
If you’re looking to get your own, check eBay in a couple hours, or else wait until June 8, the planned release date for the 10.1. Personally I’m thinking about that 8.9 — a little smaller, but with mostly the same specs. The 10.1s given out at I/O won’t ship with Android 3.1, but will be getting it soon.

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Gingerbread Rolling Out To Galaxy Tabs?

Samsung Italia is alive with the sound of Gingerbread! It seems that the country is among the first to get the Android 2.3.3 update for the original 7″Galaxy Tab. It’s rolling out via KIES, Samsung’s useful device management tool, but naturally there’s no word of it here in the states yet. Remain vigilant!
You could load it yourself before now if you really wanted to, but this update should have support for Samsung’s custom widgets and app store, among the performance gains and other features.

[via Unwired View]

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Samsung Readies 4G LTE Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S III Prematurely

As Samsung’s Galaxy Tabs 8.9 and 10.1 wait to launch onto the market, Samsung mobile boss J.K. Shin is already filling us in on forthcoming tablets from the South-Korea based company. In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, Shin spilled that the company plans to release a 4G LTE-capable version of the Galaxy Tab later this year. In other words, you’re yet-to-be purchased Galaxy Tab 8.9 or 10.1 will be old news later this year, so patience will certainly be a virtue when it comes to slate shopping.
Shin also mentioned that the third installment to the Galaxy S smartphone line (what we assume will be called the Samsung Galaxy S III) will debut in the first half of 2012. The Galaxy S smartphones have been wildly popular here in the States, overseas in Europe and especially in South Korea.
No doubt we’re excited about the third-generation Galaxy S smartphone, and a 4G LTE-capable Galaxy tablet from Samsung sounds pretty sweet, too. What I can’t seem to understand is why Samsung would let us in on the fact that our cool new gadgets will be obsolete in the next few months.

[WSJ via BGR]

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Samsung CTO Responsible For The Galaxy Tab Line Steps Down

Omar Khan, the Samsung CTO who was responsible for the rise of the GalTab and other Android-powered smartphones, is moving to Citibank to handle that company’s global digital banking initiatives. He will be replaced by Nick Dicarlo and Gavin Kim in “product and service spokesperson responsibilities for Samsung Mobile.”
Clearly this whole hardware thing didn’t work out for him.
These sorts of lateral moves aren’t unusual but for Khan to have led a fairly successful run of tablets and cellphones and then decide to roll over to a bank points to a bit of political infighting and potential disappointment at the GalTab line, especially as Samsung is fighting – and lobbing – lawsuits atApple over “copyist” techniques by both giants.
Samsung is also facing intense pressure from HTC and, to a lesser extent, Motorola and their latest Android phones, while popular with a certain set, did not set the world alight like the Galaxy S.
via Slashgear

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