Archive for the ‘New Technology’ Category

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Nokia sues Apple for ‘patent infringement’

Monday, May 10th, 2010

The world’s biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia, has filed a lawsuit against Apple claiming the iPad 3G and iPhone infringe five of its patents.

Nokia claims the infringements involve technology used to enhance speech and data transmission and antenna innovations for compact devices.

This is the latest salvo in a long-running legal battle between the two companies.

Nokia and Apple are embroiled in another dispute concerning the iPhone.

“We’ve taken this step to protect the results of our pioneering development and to put an end to continued unlawful use of Nokia’s innovation,” said Paul Melin, general manager of patent licensing at Nokia.

In a statement, the company said that during the past two decades Nokia has invested about $51bn (£34bn) in research and development and has rounded up 11,000 patents.

Last year Nokia filed a similar lawsuit which claimed that various Apple products infringed Nokia patents. Apple responded with a countersuit against Nokia for infringing Apple patents with its smartphones.

Meanwhile, Apple is also involved in another legal row with Taiwan’s HTC, maker of Google’s Nexus One phone, which it says has infringed patented technology.

Patent disputes are common in the technology industry and often end with some kind of licensing agreement, correspondents say.

The Nokia lawsuit came on the day Apple announced that its iPad tablet computer will go on sale in nine countries outside the US on 28 May.

Resource:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8669529.stm

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Apple Buys a Start-Up for Its Voice Technology

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Apple continued its migration into Google’s turf on Wednesday with the acquisition of Siri, a mobile application that allows users to perform Web searches by voice command on a cellphone.

Siri, a start-up based in San Jose, Calif., describes itself as a virtual personal assistant for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. For example, Siri users can speak commands like “find a table for two at 9 tonight” or “send a taxi to my house”; using GPS and speech-recognition technology, the application translates the commands and uses search algorithms to find answers. For results, Siri worked with several companies, including Citysearch, OpenTable and Taxi Magic.

An Apple spokesman, Steve Dowling, declined to comment on the specifics of the Siri deal. “Apple buys smaller companies from time to time but doesn’t comment on products or plans,” he said.

Norman Winarsky, vice president of licensing and strategic programs at SRI International, a research lab that helped develop the application, confirmed the sale but declined to disclose any financial details of the transaction. Mr. Winarsky described the sale of Siri, which was released as a mobile app in February, as “a great event for us in terms of our impact on the world.”

Before its sale to Apple, Siri raised a total of $24 million from investors, including Menlo Ventures and Li Ka-Shing, a Chinese billionaire who has also invested in Facebook.

Apple may eventually hope to offer an alternative to Google’s search service on the iPhone, the iPod Touch and the iPad, said Charles S. Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. Google has made large investments in voice command search, location-based search and advertising and in visual recognition search.

“Apple is trying to break ties to Google,” Mr. Golvin said. “Rather than have search in the browser, users would have a more relevant search application to use.”

Apple has acquired several smaller companies over the last few months as part of a larger effort to gain an edge on rival mobile companies. Most recently, Apple bought Intrinsity, a company that makes a speedy computer chip for mobile devices that uses very little battery power while processing graphics, video and other images. In January, Apple acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising company.

“This is as much about keeping this good technology away from Google as it is about wanting it for themselves,” Mr. Golvin said.

Resource:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/technology/29apple.html?src=busln

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Mobile phone users hungry for accessing online including Facebook

Friday, April 30th, 2010

ALMOST a third of mobile owners regularly access the internet on their phone.

Searching for information on the web is the most popular activity for the new generation of tech-savvy phone owners, research into the mobile phone habits of Australians has revealed.

More than three-quarters of people with internet connected phones use them to hunt for information online while on the move – up from just 30 per cent a year ago.

Popular online activities for mobile phone users include:

CHECKING news and weather (59 per cent).

EMAIL (58 per cent).

MAPS or directions (56 per cent).

SOCIAL networking (39 per cent).

Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site accessed via the mobile Web, snaring 98 per cent of visitors, followed by Twitter and MySpace.

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The Nielsen internet and technology report shows new activities, such as buying items online, jumped 10 per cent to 17 per cent.

The previously popular pastime of downloading ringtones dropped 9 per cent to 21 per cent.

The survey comes as new social networking-oriented phones hit the market. They boast iPhone-style touch screens, Qwerty keyboards and the ability to snap and instantly upload photos to sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Samsung spokesman Tyler McGee said manufacturers were responding to the demands of consumers.

“Research shows that three out of five Australians under the age of 35 who access the internet claim to use social networking on their mobile phones,” he said.

Samsung has just released four internet-friendly phone models.

The survey said Nokia still leads the internet-capable mobile phone pack, controlling more than 35 per cent of the market. Apple’s iPhone has more than doubled its share to 28 per cent and is growing quickly.

About 13 per cent of Australians who have not yet used their mobile to go online plan to do so over the next 12 months.

“We’ve seen a big shift in the levels of activity among those who are using mobile internet,” Nielsen online spokesman Matt Bruce said.

Resource:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/mobile-phone-users-hungry-for-accessing-online-including-facebook/story-e6frf7l6-1225860323408

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Google growls at Groggle

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

It appears that earlier this month, Google presented the owners of soon-to-be-launched Australian liquor price comparison website, Groggle.com.au, with a cease and desist letter demanding it stop using the Groggle brand.

It appears that earlier this month, Google presented the owners of soon-to-be-launched Australian liquor price comparison website, Groggle.com.au, with a cease and desist letter demanding it stop using the Groggle brand.

According to the letter, sighted by Delimiter, Google is alleging that “The mark is is substantially identical with and deceptively familiar to the Google trademarks which are extremely well known in Australia.” The search giant is represented by law firm Middletons.

Groggle Pty Ltd is a startup based in Brisbane founded by Cameron Collie and Alec Doughty and is planning to offer a location-driven alcohol price comparison service online. Currently in beta, the Groggle project is over two years in the making and the founders had hoped to launch in a few months, with a look at launching a similar website in the US within the year.

Google’s letter alleged the Groggle name was “likely to mislead and deceive consumers into believing that Groggle has a sponsorship, affiliation or approval with Google, when this is not the case”.

Collie said in response to the C&D letter: “We are a legitimate business that is just trying to launch a startup and now we are facing the wrath of Google’s lawyers because Google thinks it owns any word that ends in ‘gle’ and cannot see that our domain is a play on the word ‘Grog’ and has nothing to do with their name.”

Collie also mention that the URL “Groggle.com” is not a typo of Google.com and could not be considered for typo-squatting, a practise of URL hijacking when surfers type an Internet address in the address bar and are then taken to another website not of their choosing.

The directors of Groggle Pty Ltd had until the 14th April to meet Google’s demands as stated in the C&D, including withdrawal of the trademark application and transfer of all domain names to Google. Groggle Pty Ltd has eight different variations of Groggle domains registered.

The C&D is riddled with mistakes and refers to “Groggle” as “Groogle”, such as “change its company name to a name that does not include the word “GROOGLE” or “GOOGLE” and provide a written acknowledgement that Groogle has infringed upon the Google trademarks.

A follow up letter was sent to Groggle Pty Ltd on the 20th April notifying Collie and Doughty that they have until 4pm on Thursday 29 April to comply with the C&D.

The way the website operates is when consumers search for their poison of choice, for example “Boag’s Classic Blonde” on the Groggle site and enter their postcode. The results displays the retailer with the cheapest price for the product, within the consumers district.

Retailers have to register with the website in order to be included in the results, they can then update prices and products as needed.

Collie and Doughty had registered Groggle.com using Google Apps Premier Edition and paid Google the annual fee of $50 per user account, totalling $100 for 2 user accounts.

Google didn’t have a response at the time of writing this article.

Resource:

http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/strategy/38635-google-growls-at-groggle

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