One of the big, bad issues with 3D has been the variety of technologies used by different vendors. At this stage in the game, with the HDTV market delineated by price tier, most companies have determined to stick to one particular format of 3D technology.  On the lower end of the price spectrum, companies offering “budget” 3D HDTV’s, use ‘passive’ glasses. On the higher end, companies use generally heavier and more power-hungry ‘active’ glasses. Each technology has its caveats and pitfalls. With passive (polarized) glasses you get the same image projected to both lenses at slightly different angles, thus resulting in a “3D effect”, while the image being viewed also tends to appear darker. Active Shutter glasses (using the “Eclipse” effect)  alternate the light using infrared (IR) to communicate with the TV/Projector to determine how quickly to flicker. This system allows for a wider array of viewing angles. With the already high premium being paid for 3D sets (and the price of active-shutter glasses starting around $100 and up!) four of the big players in the market are working together to insure consumers don’t find themselves stuck with obsolete technology when upgrading or replacing a 3D HDTV.

Together, these companies are working to develop the “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative” to ensure cross compatibly among products.  In the words of an industry executive:

“The Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative license also includes multiple types of infrared (IR) system protocols between 3D active shutter glasses and 3D displays, ranging from the protocols jointly developed by Panasonic and XPAND 3D, to the proprietary protocols of Samsung and Sony, respectively.

The Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative brings together the world’s leading 3D TV manufacturers and 3D technology providers for the benefit of consumers. Glasses utilizing 3D active shutter technology benefits consumers in that they enable Full HD 3D picture quality to be displayed to each eye, depending on the 3D displays.

There are two types of licenses: one for TV/Projector/Emitter and one for 3D eyewear. Each license has three licensed technologies and several product categories to choose from. The license program includes verification procedure for licensee products before the product is sold in the market. The verification program ensures (that) the compliant products work seamlessly with other compliant products consumers own.”

Now if the other major players in the 3D market get on board with this project, the consumers will be the big winners. When the consumers win, the companies also win. So here is hoping that 2012 is the year of true 3D cross-compatibility!

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

Technology news. The Samsung Galaxy Ace is perhaps one of the best budget smartphones on the market right now and that is since its initial release way back in March 2011. Now, however, Samsung has given it a refresh and it all starts in the name; the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus. Featuring a 3.65-inch (up fro 3.5-inch) 320×480 HVGA TFT touch screen and a single core 1GHz processor (up from 800MHz), the Galaxy Ace Plus comes at a time when expensive dual-core smartphones win the headlines.

From the above, the major update over the original Ace is the processor, which is now 200MHz faster than the original 800Mhz one. This added ooph will allow Galaxy Ace Plus users to perform more system heavy tasks without as much lag as they had previously. As for storage, you are looking at 3GB built in out of the box and yes, it does take microSD cards to fill up with tunes expandable to 32GB.

Aimed at students, young professionals and first time smartphone buyers, the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus should be available in store within the next 2 months on pay as you go, sim free and pay monthly options. Overall, Samsung’s Galaxy line up keeps on getting better and better and this new update for the Ace makes for a very tempting purchase indeed.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

A vast number of people on earth have technological items which are based on one or more patents. Patents are a form of intellectual property. For the term of the patent, the patent’s owner has the full right to control its use as he sees fit. Sometimes companies will devise their own technology as a way of getting around having to license a patent. Sometimes the patent holder will refuse to license the use of the patent in order to keep the technology to themselves and stifle competition. Nonetheless, it is common business practice for companies to license their patents. After all if you devised a technology that billions of people might want, wouldn’t it be logical to benefit from that want through licensing and cross-licensing?  In addition to receiving compensation for the investment in research and development in creating the technology, the company will often have an eye out to improve the product or create new products.

Beginning in April 2011, there has been an ongoing “Patent War” between Apple and Samsung.  Apple started this War, by using the courts in the United States and the European Union to block the importation and sale of Samsung’s latest flagship Smartphones and Tablets. Samsung in turn has countersued Apple and has also tried a similar tactic against Apple’s phones and tablets throughout Asia the  European Union and the United States.

Currently, the Patent War between Apple and Samsung encompasses 19 active cases in twelve courts spanning four continents and 12 countries.

One might logically ask, which critical proprietary technology did Samsung allegedly misappropriate to warrant this international imbroglio?  Surely it must be something vital to Apple’s existence!  Perhaps it is the patent that makes every apple device “magical”? Perhaps Samsung has moles in Cupertino that leaked top secret technology back to the Samsung offices in South Korea? Perhaps Samsung’s CEO Lee Kun-Hee once defeated the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a round of golf, and Apple is now seeking revenge?

If one thought that there is a reasonable basis for Apple’s vendetta against Samsung, one would be mistaken. (The aforesaid golf suggestion would have made a lot more sense). Unfortunately, the critical matter at issue, seems so inane, that I am surprised that the respective judges have not laughed the Apple lawyers out of court.

The main issue is over (1) the physical design (although there is ongoing litigation regarding 3G connectivity and multitouch screen technology) – and (2) the user interface (UI) of the Samsung Android powered Galaxy, Galaxy S, and Galaxy SII line of the Smartphones featuring 4 and 4.3 inch screens respectively and the Android powered Galaxy Tab family of Tablets that come in screen sizes of 7, 8.9 and 10.1 inches respectively. That’s it folks!

The Samsung Smartphones and Tablets listed above, all bear a physical (shape) similarity to Apple’s  iPhone and iPad. The iPhone is rectangular in shape with a screen size of 3.5 inches. The iPad is square in shape and features a 9.7 inch display. The Galaxy family of Smartphones are all rectangular in shape, and so is the Galaxy Tab family of Tablet products.

Until I heard about the Apple litigation in April, I had not been aware that one could patent universal shapes.  If one is using a Smartphone other than the ones listed, take a good look at it. Odds are that it is rectangular. With exceptions, most mainstream Smartphones are, although often manufactures like to toy around with different designs.

If the reader is reading this on a computer, take a look at the monitor in front of you. What shape is it? Odds are it is one with a rectangular 16:9 aspect ratio that is now used on virtually every laptop. In fact most monitors manufactured over the last half decade all use this particular design. If it is not a rectangular 16:9 monitor, than then the other possibility is that it is one of the square varieties featuring a 4:3 aspect ratio. These are both universal shapes used in many products today.  The reader can appreciate that it would be absurd for someone to claim a patent on the square or rectangular shaped monitor.

When Apple introduced the iPhone back in June 2007, save for the lack of a physical keyboard, they were not introducing a new physical phone design never before seen. However, some of the technology that made the phone so unique was new. Most significantly, the operating system, iOS was new.  When Apple introduced the iPad in January of 2010 they were not introducing a completely new product that no one had ever seen or conceived. Tablet computers became popular in approximately 2002, although pen tablets were introduced in the 80’s and 90’s. Although, some of the technology was new, what was truly unique was that the rush to buy tablets was new!  That was about it.

Now for the sad part

Despite the market success of the Apple iPhone and iPad family of products, Apple seems to view its closest direct competitors as a major financial threat that clearly must be eliminated through any legal means possible, similar to how Bill Gates viewed Microsoft’s direct competitors, before the Justice Department decided that its behavior was a violation of anti-trust and involved in the restraint of trade. As a company, Apple has stroked itself over its claim to be innovative. The company’s long standing slogan “Think Different”,  now comes off sounding like an oxymoron as the practice of suing to have the products of other companies from being sold seems to be ‘old style’ restraint of trade.  Instead of continuing to innovate, they are now concentrating on protecting their bottom line, through engaging an army of Ivy League lawyers ready for worldwide combat against the competition.

This does not just hurt Samsung, it hurts electronics retailers, it hurts cell phone service providers, and most importantly, it hurts the consumer.

Sure, there are many other tablets out there. Some good, some bad, but a victory by Apple against Samsung would fail to be the Pyrrhic victory many companies wish for. Why? Because after Samsung, who is next? Sony, LG, Toshiba, Vizio, Archos? It means that every law abiding company is going to have to spend millions of dollars hiring hundreds, if not thousands of lawyers to work in order to keep their products on the shelves. Yes, I am suggesting that the Samsung litigation is just a test case and that Apple is likely to use this litigation as a template to go after each and every company producing rectangular Smartphones and Tablets with a UI similar to the iPhone and iPad. Without viable competition, Apple can price their products sky high and further limit how the end user uses the product, that is unless the Justice Department decided that their litigation campaigns represented a restraint of trade and violation of anti-trust laws.

Competition is good. It makes new products more affordable for consumers and forces manufacturers to innovate. Consumers have more choices to pick the product they feel will benefit them the most. Darwin’s theory of evolution and the idea of “survival of the fittest” applies directly to the Tablet and Smartphone market. In the end it needs to be the consumer who decides which products they feel to be superior and those are the ones that will thrive. It should not be a court-mandated determination merely because a particular product looks vaguely like its competition.

Sources:

Technologyblogged (1,2,3,4)

Huffingtonpost

Fudzilla (1,2)

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

In the world of technology lawsuits, Apple’s serious gripe with Samsung grabs all of the headlines due to Apple’s seemingly relentless assault on the Korean company regarding patents and also how Samsung’s devices look ‘similar’. Now, however, Apple has received a major blow against their request to have Samsung Galaxy devices blocked  in the US, after a US District Court judge rejected it. ”It is not clear that an injunction on Samsung’s accused devices would prevent Apple from being irreparably harmed” the judge said on the decision.

Whilst this is bad news for Apple however it is great news for Samsung, who have come out and said that this decision clearly shows that Apple’s allegations ‘lack merit’. You can see their response to this news below.

Samsung welcomes today’s ruling denying Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction. This ruling confirms our long-held view that Apple’s arguments lack merit. In particular, the court has recognized that Samsung has raised substantial questions about the validity of certain Apple design patents. We are confident that we can demonstrate the distinctiveness of Samsung’s mobile devices when the case goes to trial next year. We will continue to assert our intellectual property rights and defend against Apple’s claims to ensure our continued ability to provide innovative mobile products to consumers.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

On this graph from netmarketshare you can clearly see some very different releases with iOS ahead by a long margin, then JAVA and sitting in 3^rd access from all of the Android OS not just Samsung. Even though these numbers are only from the US it clearly displays just how well iOS is doing in the handheld device market, which can be seen by the rise since January in the graph.

On these figures it’s safe to say that iOS is here to say with a commanding lead in the market. However it will be interesting to see what the new Nokia smartphones with the Windows phone OS bring to the table.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

If you think that Samsung’s latest handsets in the Galaxy line look the part, then the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the part of ALL PARTS. In new leaks from Romania’s Mobilissimo.ro, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus has been spotted in the wild and video’d properly (as opposed to the blurrycam action usually seen with leaks). In the video, it clearly shows what appears to be a  4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display with a pretty high pixel density and also Android Ice Cream Sandwich, Google’s next generation mash up between the mobile OS Gingerbread and the tablet OS Honeycomb.

Hit up the video below to see what we are talking about, and I think you’ll agree that it looks very yummy indeed, and even more yummy than Apple’s iPhone 4S which interestingly is the exact same design as the iPhone 4 released in 2010. At least some manufacturers are changing the way devices look, eh?

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus is set to be unveiled at Samsung’s ‘Unpacked’ event, on October 11th 2011.

Via: Engadget

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

In the video Samsung teases that ‘something big is coming’, and we have no doubt that something certainly is. Whether it will be a big success however we’ll leave you to ponder upon. If this handset does indeed turn out to be the Samsung Nexus Prime, then it will almost certainly pack the 1.5GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor as seen in the S II HD, 1 GB of ram and heavy Google Wallet integration. Personally we are pretty excited to see what happens at Samsung’s ‘unpacked’ event. Video below.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.

If there was ever a handset which was perfectly balanced for the operating system it runs on, then that mantle would go to the Samsung Omnia 7, Samsung’s very first Windows Phone 7 handset and one of the first current generation Windows handsets to be released. We reviewed that particular handset all the way back in January of this year, and we loved it. So who’s willing to place a £5 bet that we are going to love the new update to it even more?

Yes it’s completely true, Samsung has finally unveiled their Samsung Omnia W handset to the world and with it admitted it’ll be packing WP7.5, Microsoft’s update to it’s current operating system, dubbed “Mango“. Specificationm wise, and on paper the power this handset is going to pack isn’t going to turn any heads immediately, with it totting a 1.4GHz single-core processor backed up by 512MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. You have to note however that within Android mobiles and also in HP WebOS devices, the second CPU within a dual-core processor is only used under heavy multitasking or when there is a very graphics heavy app. Feature set wise,  towards the back of the handset you’ll find a a 5-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording capabilities and around the front you’ll find a VGA forward-facing snapper.

Naturally, Wifi and Bluetooth are all apparent too.

It’ll be interesting to see how Samsung sells this handset to consumers in the near future what with Apple’s iPhone 5 soon to be released and handsets such as the HTC Sensation XE being available soon. On top of that, Nokia’s Windows Phone 7 handsets are looming on the horizon.

©2012 Technology Blogged, News. All Rights Reserved.