Apple, Google 'interested' in arbitration over patent disputes

| at Friday, November 16, 2012 | Leave a comment
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Apple, Google 'interested' in arbitration over patent disputes

US-Iran nuclear talks might be less complex than this arbitration

The idea of Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility coming together to resolve their never-ending patent disputes seems more likely today now that both companies are expressing interest.

"Apple is also interested in resolving its dispute with Motorola completely," Apple said in a filing picked up by Bloomberg. "Arbitration may be the best vehicle to resolve the parties' dispute."

This conciliatory tone matches Motorola Mobility's arbitration suggestion floated on Nov. 5.

That's the same day that a US judge threw out Apple's lawsuit against Motorola for alleged patent licensing violations.

The HTC example

Both companies are looking to avoid expensive litigation in favor of less costly licensing fees.

That is the route sought by Apple and HTC in a 10-year licensing agreement that dropped all current lawsuits between the two phone manufacturers.

The terms, though undisclosed officially, are said to have HTC paying Apple up to $8 (UK£5.03, AUD$7.67) for every device it sells.

Even though this is a lower figured than Apple had originally proposed, according to analyst Shaw Wu, it's a lot more economical than paying for drawn out lawsuits.

Wu estimated that the deal could make Apple anywhere from $180 million (UK£113, AUD$176) up to $280 million (UK£176, AUD$268) a year.

That's $323,529 per patent

The proposed arbitration between Apple and Google would be much more complicated, as the search giant has 17,000 of Motorola's patents to bring to the table.

These patents are said to be the main reason Google bought Motorola Mobility in the first place.

Google says it spent $5.5 billion (around £3.5 billion) of its $12.4 billion (around £8 billion) bid on Motorola's catalog of patents alone. That comes out to $323,529 (£203,708) per patent.

Global framework preferred

The idea arbitration is seen as a positive step forward for both companies, but Google also expressed interest in a global framework for patents down the line.

"We have long sought a path to resolving patent issues and we welcome the chance to build on the constructive dialogue between our companies," said Google General Counsel Kent Walker in a Nov. 13 letter to Apple that was filed with the court.

"While we prefer to seek a framework for a global (rather than piecemeal) resolution that addresses all of our patent disputes, we are committed to reaching agreement on a license for our respective standard-essential patents."

To this point, United Nations got involved last month, hosting Apple, Google and Microsoft at a Geneva summit to discuss the global problem.

However it comes about, settling patent disputes may be a boon for innovation.


Source : techradar[dot]com

NPD Group: Even as digital business grows, the games industry is shrinking

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The decline of the video game retail industry and the rise of the digital distribution business are not taking place in tandem according to the NPD Group. The industry is still in decline. What does this mean for the next generation of consoles?

In the past two months, we’ve looked at how the business of selling video games on discs and cartridges it fading fast. The digital revolution is picking up steam and quickly. In August alone, video game sales were down 20 percent from last year, and that’s on top of declines across the first half of the year. That’s just retail, though. How is the industry doing in full? If everyone’s downloading their games, are they still paying the same amounts? Data from the NPD Group says that there’s good news and there’s bad news.

First, the bad news: The video game industry in the US was down in the third quarter of 2012. Overall, Americans spent nearly $3.8 billion on video games, accessories, and hardware between July and September of this year, down 9 percent from the more than $4 billion spent during that period in 2011. This is primarily due to those aforementioned declines in retail sales.

Now the good news: Digital sales are indeed on the rise, to the tune of 22 percent year-on-year. Digital game sales totaled $1.4 billion for the period, down from the previous quarter, but still a sign of growth. Just not enough growth to bring the games industry back to the exorbitant earning potential of the pre-crash boom years like 2008.

The state of the industry in 2012 demonstrates one thing about the immediate future: People are going to spend less on making games. Astronomically expensive games like Star Wars: The Old Republic, which cost in excess of $150 million to develop, will fade into the background for some time.

Development cost, not hardware horsepower, seems to be a defining factor in the next generation of game consoles. While some developers like Gears of War studio Epic Games are expecting development costs to double when the Xbox 720 and PlayStation 4 roll around, others like 2K Games boss Strauss Zelnick see costs staying flat or even decreasing.

Realistically speaking, game development costs have to come down if the industry is going to start growing again. If retail is going to survive, those new consoles will have to be affordable and easy to make games for. It follows that development costs will have to be modest as well.

It’s a whole new world for video games.

Source: Gamasutra


Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Galaxy S4 with Full HD Super AMOLED display to show up at CES?

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Galaxy S4 with Full HD Super AMOLED display to show up at CES?

Will Samsung roll the dice on the S4 in January?

Samsung might be pulling out all the stops at CES 2013, at least according to a rumor coming out of Korea.

The firm might unveil a phone loaded with a 4.99-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display at the Vegas show, one that rivals devices coming out of HTC, LG, Sharp and Sony.

According to a Samsung official speaking to a Korean newspaper, the company will pull out a handset featuring the ultra-thin AMOLED material and a screen with a 441 pixel per inch density.

Such blockbuster screen specs are likely to only show up on a blockbuster handset, pointing to the possibility that the main attraction Samsung offers the CES crowd is the Galaxy S4.

S4 time

According to the paper's source, Samsung is using its current mass production method mixed with advanced LITI technology to bring the phone to life.

It should feature a resolution of 1920 X 1080 and if kinks in mass production scaling can get ironed out, the S4 should arrive during the second quarter of 2013.

The source also reportedly said that the head of Samsung Electronics demanded the SIV feature a Full HD AMOLED display and not (yawn) LCD, giving it a unique selling point over new arrivals like the Droid DNA, the rumored Sony Yuga and Odin and Sharp's Aquos SH903W.

TechRadar will be in the lion's den that is the CES show floor come January, so stay tuned for word on what Samsung brings forth.


Source : techradar[dot]com

Electronic Arts named one of the best places to work by LGBT advocacy group

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The Human Rights Campaign named Electronic Arts one of the best places to work in the United States this week, thanks to the video game publishers efforts to create an equal work environment for LGBT game professionals.

Electronic Arts isn’t what you would call a creative powerhouse. The publisher’s got a stable of studios like BioWare and Criterion that are incredibly talented, but those creators are increasingly tasked with making games that are so broad in their appeal as to not have much personality left.  So games like Mass Effect 3 and Need For Speed: Most Wanted are the video game equivalent of white bread? They’re still good for making a proverbial entertainment sandwich. Originality and risk taking are not Electronic Arts’ forte. At the very least, the company is a bastion of equality for LGBT game makers.

The Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group working on behalf of LGBT community, gave Electronic Arts a 100 percent rating for LGBT equality this week, naming it one of the best places to work in the US in its Corporate Equality Index in 2012. EA received the same award from the HRC in 2010 and 2008.

EA was naturally proud of its policies. “I am very pleased that EA has scored a 100 percent rating and been recognized by the Human Rights Campaign in a year where the company has taken significant steps to remain inclusive,” said EA’s CTO Gabrielle Toledano, “EA has made changes to our medical benefits, been involved in LGBT events in our community and taken a public stance against the Defense of Marriage Act. EA champions diversity with a work environment where everyone feels welcome and can be themselves.”

EA did take a stand against the Defense of Marriage Act in July.

What’s particularly impressive about this rating is how it demonstrates how far EA has come as an employer. In 2004, EA came under major fire after the wife of a developer chronicled the horrible working conditions at the company. Today EA has a modest reputation with games industry professionals, with a 3-out-of-5 star rating on company tracking service Glassdoor.

America’s a swiftly improving country for the LGBT community. While gay couples can’t legally get married in every state in the union, more and more states are letting same-sex couples tie the knot. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington state chose to legalize same sex marriage in this month’s election, while the state of Minnesota saw an amendment to define marriage as union between man and woman only got voted down. It’s good to see companies like Electronic Arts doing their part in the effort.


Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Leaked Nokia slide looks to confirm new Windows Phone 7.8 features

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Leaked Nokia slide looks to confirm new Windows Phone 7.8 features

Windows Phone 7 will start to look a lot like the WP8

The internet got some official looking confirmation for the new features supposedly coming to Windows Phone 7.8 Friday.

The source of the info is reportedly a slide from Nokia training material. And, even though it's in Chinese, a translation outlines the features that should come with the update.

There have been all sorts of rumors surrounding what Windows Phone 7.8 owners will see once their phones upgrade, but this is the first sighting of anything official with talk of the new features.

Microsoft, by the way, has promised those with older Windows OSes (and not the most recent Windows Phone 8 OS) to keep their phones current with updates, so this could be a sign the Softies weren't just blowing hot air.

You can teach an old phone new tricks

The slide lays out a new start screen for Windows Phone 7.8, while three live tiles sizes are available to let owners give their phones a unique, personalized feel.

The update brings 20 more themes to match what's available in WP8. Users can also plaster their lock screens with Bing wallpapers instead of single photos.

The new WP7 should also let users edit MP3 files to make ringtones, which is a pretty nifty feature. It will include a new patch and security upgrade for Internet Explorer, as well.

We knew most of these additions would likely appear in the update, but now this slide seems to back up those earlier assertions.

Those are all the goodies we could glean from the slide, but much more are rumored to be in the works.

Other features are said to include Wi-Fi tethering to legacy smartphones, camera software updates and support for Xbox Music and SmartGlass.

WP7 and it's new little brother

Though WP7 appears to be getting a new bag of tricks, it's still missing out on a lot of features coming to WP8. Those include true multi-tasking, NFC support, over-the-air updates, multi-core processor support and IE 10.

But Microsoft has to save some stuff for its new OS.

Though the leak gave us confirmation of the features coming down the pipes, there was no mention of a release date, though we've heard plenty of rumors about that as well.

A Chinese tech blog clocked the 7.8 update to arrive four to six weeks after WP8 launches. Since the HTC 8X was the first WP8 released on Nov. 2, the update could roll out at the end of November or middle of December.


Source : techradar[dot]com

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