Category Archives: Industry News

President Obama Brings Major Patent Reform With the Signing Of America Invents Act

Posted by on September 16, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

President Obama has just signed into law the America Invents Act. This is the biggest step in patent reform the US Patent and Trademark Office has seen in over 60 years. The newly signed law will give the UPTO the funding and manpower they need to not only help companies and inventors avoid delays but also avoid the unnecessary litigation we’ve been seeing as of late. The law wont go into effect over night. It will take another 18 months for everything to get settled in which time Apple will continue using all their manpower to sue the pants off of Android OEM’s. Here’s a snippet of the “press release” from The White House Blog:

The newly-signed law has a number of important transformations that will build on reforms already underway under the leadership of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s dynamic Director David Kappos. The law will give the USPTO the resources to significantly reduce patent application waiting times, building on the great strides the patent office has already made, including reducing its backlog by 75,000 during this Administration even as the number of filings per year has increased.

Excessive litigation has long plagued the patent system.  The America Invents Act will offer entrepreneurs new ways to avoid litigation regarding patent validity, without the expense of  going to court, and will also give the USPTO new tools and resources to improve patent quality. The new law also will harmonize the American patent process with the rest of the world to make it more efficient and predictable, and make it easier for entrepreneurs to simultaneously market products in the United States and for exporting abroad.

[Via Whitehouse]

Nintendo CEO Responds To Rumors Of Developing Games For Smartphones

Posted by on September 16, 2011 1 comment

This image has no alt text

There has been some talk of Nintendo entering the smartphone gaming market after the creators of Pokemon released a card-based app game for Android and iOS. Even though it wasn’t Nintendo who directly published the game, Pokemon is a uniquely Nintendo franchise which pretty much got the rumor mill churning. During the Tokyo Game Show that’s taking place on the other side of the world, Nikkei was able to interview Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata and asked him to speak on the rumors of Nintendo releasing games for smartphones. In typical Nintendo fashion, Iwata had this to say,

“This is absolutely not under consideration. If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.”

In other words, NO. You have a greater chance at seeing Apple open source their software than Nintendo officially developing app games for smartphones. Guess it’s back to the emulators..

[Andriasang via Electronista]

AT&T to Launch 4G LTE Network September 18

Posted by on September 15, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

Speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Entertainment, and Communications conference, AT&T CFO John Stephens announced the launch of AT&T’s next-gen 4G LTE network for September 18th. AT&T will be bringing its first true 4G experiment to five markets — Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio — with a total of 15 switched on by the end of the year. The launch of the new network will breath new life into AT&T’s current lineup of LTE data sticks and hotspots, as well as their first LTE device, the HTC Jetstream tablet.

[via FierceWireless]

Verizon Flips On The 4G LTE Switch In 26 New Cities (Still No Rancho Cucamonga)

Posted by on September 15, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

Verizon announced they will be flipping on their phone melting 4G LTE switch in 26 new markets today. The rollout is set to begin this coming Thursday. Want to see if your city made the cut? Here’s the list:

  • Fort Smith and Jonesboro, Ark.
  • San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara, Calif.
  • Daytona, Fla.
  • Bloomington, Champaign/Urbana, Rockford and Springfield, Ill.
  • Quad Cities, Ill./Iowa
  • Iowa City, Iowa
  • Shreveport, La.
  • Kalamazoo and Saginaw, Mich.
  • Reno, Nev.
  • Las Cruces, N.M.
  • Fargo, N.D.
  • Canton, Lima and Mansfield, Ohio
  • Dyersburg, Tenn.
  • Tri-Cities, Tenn./Va.
  • Austin, Beaumont/Port Arthur, Wichita Falls and El Paso, Texas

Not content with spotty 4G coverage (cough — Sprint — cough) Verizon is also making major 4G LTE expansions on Thursday in San Francisco, Indianapolis and Cleveland/Akron. Total it up and Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network now covers more than 160 million Americans in 143 cities. Big Red is also hoping to cover 185 million Americans by the end of this year.

Playstation Suite SDK Coming In November to Playstation Certified Devices

Posted by on September 15, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

The Tokyo Game Show is taking place right now in Japan and Sony is dropping a world of hurt on the gaming industry thanks in part to their new PlayStation Vita handheld gaming device. To help capture the mobile market, Sony is introducing the Playstation Suite SDK for developers to be available this November. This new SDK will allow developers to make cross platform games and apps that work with any Playstation Certified device like (of course) the PSVita as well as Android powered devices like the Xperia Play and Sony’s new brand spankin’ new Tablet S and Tablet P. Sony expects C# developers to have some content up and running by Spring of 2012. This is HUGE news for Android as Sony hopes to have their own Android game market for all Android users regardless of your device. Check out the full press release below.

Sep 14, 2011 23:37 ET
Sony Computer Entertainment to Offer Software Development Kit for PlayStation®Suite Starting This November

SCE to Provide Strong Support to Content Developers for PlayStation®Suite With the Distribution of the Newly Developed Content Starting Next Spring

TOKYO, Sept. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that it will offer software development kits (SDK) for PlayStation®Suite (PS Suite), called “PlayStation®Suite SDK,” *1 for content developers starting this November. PS Suite is an initiative solution to deliver the world of PlayStation® to Android™ based portable devices.

Through PS Suite SDK, content developers can create content for PlayStation™Certified (PS Certified) devices, hardware certified through the PS Suite license program, as well as for PlayStation®Vita (PS Vita).

Supporting C# as the programming language, PS Suite SDK can run programs developed in C# on virtual machine equipped on both PS Certified devices and PS Vita. By supporting development for multiple devices and by adopting libraries to create a variety of content not only limited to games, PS Suite SDK will not only help developers save their cost in creating new content but also allow them to efficiently create their content on one SDK and without having to create on several different SDKs.

Through PS Suite SDK, SCE will provide to game developers and publishers the potential to further expand their business opportunities to Android based portable devices. In addition, SCE can approach to a wider range of content developers, non-gaming developers and individual programmers. The detailed information of PS Suite SDK, including how to download, will be announced via a dedicated PS Suite section on SCE’s official website.

As of September 15th, 2011, PS Certified device line-up includes Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB’s Xperia PLAY, Sony Corporation’s “Sony Tablet” S, “Sony Tablet” P, and SCE will continue to further accelerate the expansion of PS Certified devices in addition to the current hardware line-up.

Furthermore, SCE will provide a variety of content towards these PS Certified devices from end October through PlayStation®Store*2 on PlaySation®Network, starting with original PlayStation games (PS one® classics). The service will start in nine countries including Japan, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Australia and with more countries to follow. In next spring, SCE will enhance the PS Store for PS Certified devices and provide content created by PS Suite SDK, further prevailing the world of PS Suite.

Through PS Suite, SCE will deploy various measures to support content developers in their business for rapidly prevailing Android based portable devices and will expand the PlayStation entertainment experience on an open operating system.

*1
Software Development Kit is a set of development tools and software libraries. Developers are able to obtain this SDK by signing a license agreement with SCE and by purchasing tool products.
*2
Users can download vast digital content including games through PS Store for PS Network for PS3, PSP, PS Vita and PS Certified devices.
*3
Number of content differ by regions.

[Via Engadget]

Google Buys 1K Patents From IBM To Help Defend Android

Posted by on September 15, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

It has just been made known that Google recently bought 1,023 patents from IBM in a move that will no doubt help the internet search giant defend the Android OS from rivals like Apple and Microsoft (boo — hiss). The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s show that Google acquired these patents back in August 17th but the information was just released today on their website. A Google spokesman would not comment as to further details or the financial terms of the transaction.

Add this thousand to the 1,030 they acquired from IBM back in July and the some 17,000 patents Google recently acquired when they bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion last month and Googorola is a force to be reckoned with. Google has mentioned that these patents would only be used to defend themselves against the forces of evil. To help fight the good fight, Google was generous enough to transfer 9 of their patents to HTC who was able to use those in their lawsuit against Apple. And that’s how you play the patent game, folks.

[Via Bloomberg]

Qualcomm Unveils Plans for their Own 2.5GHz, Quad-Core CPUs Due Next Year

Posted by on September 14, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

We knew NVIDIA and their “Kal-El” line of processor wouldn’t be the only cowpokes in the quad-core rodeo, but with other chip manufacturers playing catchup in the dual-core department we weren’t sure when to expect the likes of Qualcomm to reveal plans for their next generation of CPUs. The manufacturer of the Snapdragon platform that has become almost synonymous with high-end Android smartphones announced that their 2.5GHz quad-core chips could be making it to mobile handsets during the early parts of 2012.

The new Snapdragon chips will be coupled with Adreno graphics and support 3D, full 1080p, and LTE at a bare minimum. With that sort of power, next year’s smartphones and tablets could start to take on the laptop market in terms of mobile computing power. It’s kind of scary, actually, to think how far we have come since the days of the 1GHz single-core Snapdragon.

[via PocketLint]

New Details Revealed In Google’s Intitial Bid For Motorola

Posted by on September 14, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

Looks like Google originally bid a few billion less when it was looking to acquire Motorola Mobility back in August. How much less? Well, according to a regulatory filing today, as much as 33% less than the $12.5 billion Motorola eventually agreed to. Apparently, Google wasn’t messing around when it came to Motorola’s fat patent portfolio (especially after missing out on Nortel’s patent auction) and increased their $30 a share offer to $40. Motorola’s CEO Sanjay Jha knew exactly how to play hardball with Google and gives us further insight as to who won that ping pong match back on August 14th.

[Via Reuters]

New Details Revealed In Google’s Intitial Bid For Motorola

Posted by on September 14, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

Looks like Google originally bid a few billion less when it was looking to acquire Motorola Mobility back in August. How much less? Well, according to a regulatory filing today, as much as 33% less than the $12.5 billion Motorola eventually agreed to. Apparently, Google wasn’t messing around when it came to Motorola’s fat patent portfolio (especially after missing out on Nortel’s patent auction) and increased their $30 a share offer to $40. Motorola’s CEO Sanjay Jha knew exactly how to play hardball with Google and gives us further insight as to who won that ping pong match back on August 14th.

[Via Reuters]

Intel and Android Relationship Gets Deeper as Andy Rubin Shows Off Medfield-based Gingerbread Handset

Posted by on September 13, 2011 No comments

This image has no alt text

Yesterday, Intel announced that their new line of Atom-based  E6xx processors would features support for Android 2.3, and today Andy Rubin was on stage at IDF with the real deal on hand. Joining Intel CEO Paul Otellini, a Medfield-based Android handset was the star of the show, but perhaps more important then the actual product (which appeared to be a previously spied Aava Mobile handset) was talk of a greater commitment from the two companies to work together to make Android on Intel a reality.

While Intel plans to continually work to build Android support into their upcoming products, the Android Team will do the same at the OS level. The companies went as far as to promise that all future Android builds will be optimized for Intel’s Atom CPUs.

[via Engadget]