Displaying items by tag: Samsung

Over the course of the next few weeks you will read dozens of articles on the web and in print talking about the top technology and how this or that product shaped the market. However, no matter how impressive the technology was there was one thing that shaped the world of consumer electronics more than anything else. The lawsuit; it is a simple and unfortunate fact that patent and copyright lawsuits had a bigger impact on the consumer electronic market than any 5 products put together.

The tablet market has pretty much exploded. It seems that everyone has one or wants to build one. ARM (the company that holds the IP for 99% of the CPU technology that goes into tablets and smart phones) is enjoying a huge success. So much so that now Intel and AMD have set their sights on them, but we will get into that later. ARM’s designs as produced by companies like Samsung, Texas Instrument, nVidia, and many others have improved and are even encroaching on the x86 market.

After hearing from some of the top security analysts that CarrierIQ did not have any means of logging key strokes on a mobile device we now find that it does have that and can be asked to transmit the data to CarrierIQ.  Additionally there is evidence that CarrierIQ has captured SMS messages (due to a programming “glitch”). This new information came out of the letters sent in response to Senator Al Franken’s direct questions to CarrierIQ and the companies that utilize the software.

If you were looking for any additional confirmation that AMD is reorganizing for a major rally then the announcement that they are canceling CPUs before they are launched might be of interest for you. It appears that AMD will be outright cancelling their Krishna and Wichita 28nm CPUs. The stated reason, Global Foundries will not be ready with 28nm in time.

It looks like Samsung might be getting some vindication on the Ban imposed on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia. It appears that at least one Appeals Judge feels that the original ban might not have been fair. According to several articles on the Internet Federal Court Justice Lindsay Foster could be the saving grace for Samsung in their legal battles down under. The original ban was put in place as a temporary measure until a full trial could take place over what Apple calls “blatant copying”. Samsung, on the other hand, feels that the ban was unjust due to the large number of other tablets on the market with the same look and feel as the iPad. To prove their point they have produced video evidence showing off tablets from Motorola, Asus, Acer and others.  They feel that Apple is singling them out (in much the same way that Adobe was attacked by Apple over Flash).

AMD has faced some rough time recently. After their ATi purchase back in 2006 AMD has had one poor leader after another. Under Hector Ruiz we ended up with the ill-fated $5.4 Billion buyout of ATi. This was a purchase that caused AMD to not have a profitable quarter for almost 5 years. In fact if AMD had not gotten a settlement from Intel in late 2010 they would still be operating in the red. Hector Ruiz was also responsible for the shedding of AMD’s foundries.  This split created Global Foundries and forced AMD as a CPU and GPU manufacturer into a Fabless state. They now have to pay to have their processors made by another company.

There is no doubt that Apple under the hand of Steve Jobs was a force to be reckoned with. It seemed they were almost untouchable in court and had the freedom to do what they wanted to in the market and in their business dealings. However, in the short weeks since the unfortunate passing of Steve Jobs, Apple has been handed down two very unusual judgments. The first one we told you about a couple of days ago where a Spanish court ruled against Apple in their attempt to label the Spanish corporation Nuevas Tecnologías y Energías Catalá as a product pirate.

This loss has now turned into a counter suit for loss of revenue and for damage to the company’s reputation as well as an Anti-Trust complaint against Apple. These two cases have not even started yet so we do not have any new information, but it is significant in the fact that the original indictment filed by Apple used the same argument that Apple has successfully used against Samsung in the EU and in Australia (the product does look like a stretched iPad).

Although this is localized to Spain the ruling does set precedence as now other courts will look to the decisions made in other countries when ruling on similar matters. It is also important to remember that the ban in Australia is not permanent just yet. Although there is a preliminary ban in place the final ruling will not happen for a bit yet. This loss could factor into it. It may also help Samsung in the EU with their appeals there.

Our next unusual loss for Apple comes in the form of a default judgment handed down by a German court which bans the delivery or sale of Apple mobile products in Germany. This judgment was put into effect due to the fact that Apple did not respond in time to the charge that they are infringing on two of Motorola’s patents. The reason Apple chose not to respond is not clear as the have plenty of legal staff to cover this kind of thing. Other sites have reported that Apple does not care about this because they are only the parent company (which the original suit was against) and their local subsidiary (Apple GmbH) is free to continue to sell Apple products as long as they like.   There are two flaws in this thought, the first is obvious; although Apple GmbH is the local subsidiary there are still run by the global parent. If they continue to sell Motorola can argue this and work to get the sales stopped.  The second is the wording of the judgment. It prohibits Apple from “delivering” mobile products into Germany. This means that once Apple GmbH and others run out, well they are out.

There is more to this though. Apple’s German website is nothing more than a redirection to Apple’s US site. Both names are owned by the parent company Apple, Inc. This means that Motorola can have that site taken down in Germany and prevent Apple from selling any mobile product through the web (regardless of where it ships from).

Now we have to remember that this is a default judgment and is by no means final. Apple still has the right to have the case heard and judged on its merits. There is a chance they could win this one yet, but it is odd that they did not answer the first response. We simply do not know why they have chosen not to answer, but it could have something to do with an upcoming hearing into Samsung’s use of FRAND (Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory) patents against Apple. Apple is claiming that the patents that Samsung are attempting to use against it fall under this guideline and that upholding those against Apple alone would be anti-competitive (hello pot). If the EU investigates this and finds against Samsung then Apple can use FRAND as a defense in this case. One of the patents that Motorola is using is essential to the operation of GSM, UTMS, 3G. If Apple attempted to use this now and the EU commission rules in favor of Samsung then that defense is out the window.

So we see some things are changing for Apple since the death of Steve Jobs, the question now is; “are the two related?” Most people would like to think they are not, but we tend to think of big companies as their public persona. When you think of Microsoft you think Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer (and his goofy photos). When you think of Apple you think of Steve Jobs. This is an important sub conscious issue that could lead many to look at Apple differently even in court.

We are going to keep an eye on both the EU investigation into the use of FRAND patents and the German case against Apple by Motorola. We will update you of any major changes in either.

Source for information on the Motorola judgment FossPatents

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With all the news about the major ARM players like Samsung, nVidia, Texas Instruments etc. It is nice to finally hear the news about one of the largest, yet least talked about. At one time if you bought a cell phone (this was before the Smart Phone age) you had Qualcomm under the hood (and in many cases AMD as well). However, lately all we hear about is Hummingbird and Tegra (with an occasional mention of Snapdragon). That is until yesterday.

Qualcomm has announced that they are prepping to launch a new series of 28nm processors which they claim are 50% faster than “other ARM based offerings in the mobile CPU market”. This is very healthy boast to say the least. Right now all of this is in the pre-production stages so we do not have any phones or designs to tell you about, but we do have a little bit of information about the processor itself.

The new proc will be dubbed the S4 MSM 8960 and will hit the market as a dual core offering with a quad core to follow. Instead of an on/off switch for power the CPU is going to be built with something like a dial. This will allow for dynamic power steps to be sent to the processor. I have not heard of this being done quite this way so it should be interesting to see how it works out.

Inside the 8960 you will have a new GPU, this is the Adreno 225 which is a unified shader design (think AMD/ATi) and will support DX9.x and possibly shader model 3. Now we wonder what kind of radio they are going to build into this as that has been one of Qualcomm’s strengths (the Cellular and Wireless Radio built into the SoC) and something that Samsung and nVidia have been trying to get done as well.  We know that nVidia has been buying up wireless technology patents with the hopes integrating their own radios into their Tegra SoC, but have not announced anything on that just yet.

For now it would seem that Qualcomm has taken a step out front in the performance arena. We do think that their GPU offering is probably not up to the same standard as nVidia’s Tegra, but then again many people looking to buy a phone do not need it to play graphics heavy games… I mean really, how much GPU does Angry Birds or words with friends use?

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If you did not see this one coming then you are either deluding yourself or perhaps your just discovered this thing call the Internet. It seems that despite a temporary ban on Sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia sales are still booming. According to the Sydney Morning Herald the only ones that are being forced to comply with the ban are the local resellers. One of these Harvey Norman has let their displeasure known and have asked that both Samsung and Apple do something about it.

The problem is that Harvey Norman is looking to lose out on a possible $30 Million in retail sales because of this ban. This, coincidentally, is why Apple wants the ban in the first place. Oh they have put on a good show about their Intellectual Property being stolen and that the Tab 10.1 is a copycat product and many other items all of which were, unfortunately, bought by the judge presiding over the hearings.

This judge then issued a temporary ban on all sales of the Tab 10.1 in Australia. Technically this should mean online sellers that can ship there as well. However, as we have already mentioned this is not the case. According to several lawyers enforcing a complete ban especially one that is only temporary is near impossible and the amount of resources and money that it would take to track down every person that purchases one through the internet is simply not worth it. This loophole works in Samsung and the consumer’s favor even if it does lock out the local resellers.

While Apple has not made any comment on the situation yet they have made some of their usual threats to smaller online resellers some of which have stopped selling the offending tablet. Other and more larger online outlets have refused to be bullied and are still offering the popular iPad alternative for sale.

Our take on this is that Apple has such a culture of control they feel they have the right to shut out other companies even if they have to fudge the evidence or file knowingly invalid patents (ones either too broad, cover concepts, or the look and feel of something) by putting on some extra legal pressure. It really is time they discovered that consumers want what they want. Sometimes that is Apple and sometimes it is not. However, by trying to block competition and limit consumer choice we think that Apple could soon find the rather fickle market turning on them and finding way to get alternatives even if they are less than legal.

Source The Sydney Morning Herald

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So Apple had their little press event yesterday. The Hype was there, the buildup was there, and even the usual plethora of rumors was there. However, sadly neither Steve Jobs nor an exciting new product was there. We watched a little bit of the event, but after a while when we did not see the normal euphoric responses from the press we got bored and moved on to something else.

This morning we decided to check out the “morning after” reports and were rather surprised to see that the majority of analysts felt the same way that I did. The reactions went from mildly disappointed to one headline that stated that people should not bother waiting in line for this one. The impact was also felt in Apple’s wallet as their stock prices several point before rebounding, but leaving Apple a little over 1% down from their normal lofty height. In fact at one point during the trading Apple lost close to 13 Billion (with a B) in market value.

Why all of the antics and the sour grapes? Well here is the deal, remember that yesterday we talked about how Microsoft runs on the “build it and they will come” school of business? Well we are actually seeing Apple fall into that. Instead of launching a device that is truly revolutionary Apple gave us a phone that matches the core specifications of phones that have been on the market for months. Yes Apple has caught up to HTC, Samsung, and others in terms of CPU (the dual core A5) and memory. However, Apple failed to match any of them in terms of connection speed. So you are buying a phone that will have an average speed slower than many other phones on the market.

Some of the Apple fans have chimed in with comments saying Apple left of 4G to preserve battery life and other things of that nature, but in reality these are excuses to cover the fact that Apple did not have anything real to offer at this time. The iPhone 4S is a kneejerk reaction to the success of phones like the HTC Evo 3D, the Samsung Galaxy IIS (which Apple is desperately trying to bury) and others. These phones are gaining in popularity for their speed, style, and flexibility. This is driving Apple nuts as they have been used to being the only game in town.

All hope is not lost though. Apple did do something very smart; they are partnering up with Sprint. Before you scoff at that statement I want you to think about one of the biggest complaints about the iPhone in recent years; data plan caps. Anyone remember the outcry when AT&T capped their data plans? Or when Verizon did right after they started offering the iPhone? Both times the actions of these carriers angered their customers. Sprint has already announced that they are going to maintain unlimited data for their new iPhone 4S customers. This is sure to bring in some customers from AT&T and Verizon that are tired of watching their data each month. It will also convert a few exiting Sprint customers that are looking to upgrade from their older Android phones (like the Original EVO and its horrible batter life).

Apple will gain a few new customers and will sell the iPhone 4S to its existing fan base, but in the end this is not a magical or revolutionary device and Apple may find it harder to spin this one and charm the press into thinking it is something more than device to play catch up with the competition. We have our own review (on Sprit) planned for this one and will let you know how it fares against the Dual Core HTC Evo 3D. For now, let’s all sit back and see what Apple does to compensate for the less than stellar response from the press and the market.

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