Editorials

What’s this??? A US Senator, John Cornyn (R-TX), is working to introduce a patent reform law that will help to limit the number of suits created by Patent Trolls. Called the “Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013” the bill looks to be a step in the right direction at least when considering Patent Holding companies. The problem is that this bill does little to stop or slow down filing obvious, vague, or patents covered by prior art which many of these suits stem from.

Apple is not having a good run of luck lately. They are sagging behind their rival and manufacturing partner Samsung by almost 2 to 1 in terms of unit sales which is hurting consumer confidence in their phone and tablet products. Apple is also probably going to lose their suit with the Department of Justice over eBook Price fixing which will impact the pile of cash they have an investor confidence. To further add insult to injury they are under investigation for their tax policies in the US an overseas. The Apple mythology is crumbling faster and faster while others jump in to pick up the pieces. Apple may even be delaying the launch of new products which is not doing them helping their situation considering Samsung and others have much faster refresh times than Apple can maintain.

About a month ago a memo was “leaked’ by the DEA to CNET that started a storm of articles about how secure some online messaging systems were. The memo appeared to indicate the Apple’s iMessage service was so secure that it could not be broken by government agents. They claimed that they were not able to get message details or information. Sadly, the memo ended up making the DEA look incompetent and showed that it was just an attempt to sway public opinion on the need for more surveillance powers for law enforcement.

Despite there being no clear reason to do so it looks like Microsoft is going to go ahead and push out a smaller version of their Windows 8/RT tablets. The information was leaked accidentally today by Acer Finland. The new product is going to be called the Iconia W3-810. When the rumor about an 8-inch Windows RT device first hit opinions varied as to if this was going help or hurt Microsoft and Windows RT. After a lukewarm launch sales of Windows RT and then Windows 8 devices immediately started to decline. Some blamed the radical redesign of the UI while other felt it was the locked down OS that kept people away. No matter what the cause Window 8 and RT sales were and are continuing to fall which is worrisome for Microsoft.