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Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: No Kodak Patents, iPhone 5 Sales Soar

September 17, 2012 by

Kodak has indefinitely postponed the auction of its imaging patents with the move coming after the company has already postponed the auction more than once. In the works since August the company, currently in bankruptcy protection, has been seeking to sell approximately 1,000 imaging patents.

Now it looks like the company is looking at alternatives to auctioning the patents off and that includes keeping the patents in house.

Will existing patent law seriously harm Android?
An interesting piece at ZDNet brings up the point that under current patent law there is the possibility that the Android ecosystem could wither and die if Apple wins additional rounds versus Samsung on Apple’s patent claims.

Part of the issue is that the utility patents which govern the way things work are harder to develop work arounds than the look and feel issue, which simply requires a new design paradigm. Head over here to read the piece.

AMD targeting tablets with Hondo
Advanced Micro Devices is looking at entering the rapidly growing market for tablets with its Hondo microprocessor, a chip that was designed for the market. The chip will be initially only support Windows 8 when AMD launches it, but unlike the Clover Trail family of chips from Intel, AMD’s processor will also support Linux at the same time.

Apple wins a round in Germany vs. Motorola
In the ongoing patent wars between Apple and Motorola/Google, chalk one up for Apple. It has won a judgment against Motorola in Germany that calls for the banning of select Motorola products that use its ‘rubber band’ technology.

The court ruled that Motorola must recall all Android tablet and smartphones that infringe on a select Apple patent, one that was also part of Apple’s victory over Samsung in its case in the US. Apple will be required to post a bond to cover enforcement.

Speaking of Samsung the company took another loss in the U.S. court system as a judge has denied the company’s request for a ban on imports of Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPod devices due to their supposed infringement on Samsung patents.

iPhone sales break records over weekend
According to AT&T the iPhone 5, which went on sale last Friday, broke all previous sales records for iPhones at the carrier. Records were set both on Friday and for the overall weekend. The company said that the preorders will start to be filled on Friday, Sept. 21.

Hewlett-Packard to eventually enter smartphone space
HP CEO Meg Whitman has said that the company will enter the smartphone space; it is just a matter of when the company will do so that is at issue now. During an interview on Fox Business Network.she said that the company is already working on the development of a smartphone.

Tablets and smartphones now top memory consumers
The PC has been dethroned, at least as the top consumer of DRAM memory chips. The chips, which are a key technology for all computing devices has seen their demand shift from the PC space, the long term top consumer of the technology since the 1980s, to the merging tablet and smartphone space.

According to a report from research companyiSuppli showed that in the second quarter of 2012 PC consumption dropped to 49%. However it is not just tablets and smartphones that comprise the remaining 51% as a host of other devices also use DRAM.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, AT&T, Intel, iOS, iPhone, Lawsuit, Microsoft, Motorola, PCWorld, Samsung, Smartphone Tagged With: , , , ,

Intel talks about a Wireless Future

September 13, 2012 by

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Justin Rattner at IDF 2010

Day Three of the Intel Developers Conference brought about my favorite part of the conference from when I was a regular attendee at the show- the day when the research and development people get to strut their stuff.

Today was no different as Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer took that stage and made this prediction about where things are going in the labs. “In the future, if it computes, it connects.” More importantly he was talking about doing so wirelessly.

There was plenty at the show that was interesting from Rattner, but the two items that stand out here and will help mobile users the most was his showing of a few specific areas that are under development from the company.

The first was an all digital Wi-Fi radio that is integrated into to a chip that has other digital technologies. Calling it a “Moore’s Law Radio” it shows that going forward Intel will be able to scale the chip as it shrinks it process geometry, enabling the company to make more chips at a lower price. In the past when chips featured a mix of analog and digital they did not scale efficiently and so were much more costly to develop and manufacture.

In addition the combination of additional digital technologies on top of the Wi-Fi should mean that developers of tablets and smartphones will be able to create full featured radios that take up less space and use less power, enabling the creation of smaller connected devices.

WiGig

The second area was on the development of the next generation wireless standard that is called Wireless Gigabit or WiGig, a technology that is gaining traction from a growing number of industry players. It has the ability to deliver as much as 5 gigabits per second. The effort is seeking to consolidate a many of the proprietary 60 GHz developments into one that is accepted as an industry standard.

Intel showed a WiGig docking station that eliminated the needs for most wires and portends a future when we can have devices such as wireless displays and docking stations, easing the clutter on desktops and in offices.

Filed Under: Intel Tagged With: ,

Intel Talks Gesture and Facial Recognition, Low Powered Chips at Developer Forum

September 11, 2012 by

IDF 2012

The Intel Developers Forum officially launched today, although its Labs group had a Day Zero event yesterday, and as expected the company rolled out low powered processors along with some other interesting technologies on stage.

David Perlmutter, Intel’s head of its architectural group gave the opening keynote and showed quite an array of interesting technologies, not all of them home grown, before rolling out the big processor news.

He showed Nuance Communication’s software for a voice recognition demonstration. The software offers the type of help features that are currently available in both Apple’s iPhones and on Android devoices. Nuance expects to ship the software next quarter.

A key technology that will probably interest the growing group of people that use their smartphones for banking and purchasing products was a demo with MasterCard that showed Intel’s security technology authenticating a credit card- it was used with an ultrabook but there is little doubt that the company will also be looking at tablets and other mobile devices in the future.

The company reiterated its previous statement that there are 20 tablets based on it’s Atom processor technology currently in development by its OEMs, but the first on-stage demo went a bit awry. Expect to get a good look at most of these when Microsoft officially rolls out Windows 8 next month.

Intel's David Perlmutter

The company demoed its next generation Core microprocessor, code-named Haswell that will be targeted at next generation ultrabooks and tablets. The 22nm processor is will feature integrated HD graphics support, new instructions for faster encryption and performance, new hardware-based security features and low-power processor sub-states to enable longer battery life.

Perlmutter showed it against the company’s current Ivy Bridge processor and it ran more efficiently at half power than Ivy Bridge did at full power. The processor is expected to appear in products sometime next year.

The starting of the keynote with voice recognition software was a pointer in the direction the company is headed with its partners. It has released a Perceptual Computing Software Development Kit, available next quarter, that will allow hardware and software developers to incorporate gesture, voice and facial recognition capabilities in future products.

Filed Under: Apps, Intel, Tablets Tagged With: ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Nokia Tablet and Kindle Tidbits

September 10, 2012 by

Intel has reported that softer than expected demand for PCs along with partners reducing inventory has

led the company to lower its revenue forecast for the third quarter. The company now expects third-quarter revenue to be $13.2 billion, plus or minus $300 million, compared to the previous expectation of $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion.

Google buys security firm Virus Total
Google has added another company to its portfolio with its acquisition of internet security firm Virus Total. Virus Total is a free service that analyzes files and URLs looking for worms, viruses and other types of malware.

The deal, for an undisclosed amount, will provide Google with another tool to help eliminate malware and other unwanted travelers in its Gmail and other programs.

Will iPhone 5 support 4G LTE?
One of the interesting rumors that have been making the rounds over the last few weeks is that if Apple introduces the iPhone 5 with 4G LTE support Samsung will instantly sue Apple. Apparently Samsung owns a great number of important patents in this area and believes it can use them to strike back at Apple.

Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the phones will indeed support LTE, but possibly not in every country. The lack of access to the new high speed networks would have placed Apple at a competitive disadvantage to rivals that already feature support.

Kindle Fire HD to use Bing as default search engine
Chalk one up for Microsoft which has landed its Bing browser on the just announced Kindle Fire HD tablets, replacing rival Google. Users do have the option to change the search engine, according to a piece in ars technical.

Speaking of the Kindle, it looks like there will be permanent ads on both the revamped older Kindle models as well as on the new line of Kindle Fire HD tablets. According to Mashable, Amazon will include its Special Offers and Sponsored Screensavers on the lock screen and lower left hand corner of the home screen.

Well that did not take long. An hour after I wrote the above paragraph I saw that Cnet is reporting that Amazon has backtracked and will now allow users to opt out of the ads, for a $15 fee. Great, maybe I will opt in to a Nexus 7 instead as well.

However all is not well as it looks like Amazon will be tracking Kindle users’ online behavior. According to Tech Crunch, Amazon will update its Silk browser to include a ’trending now’ feature that shows what web pages and issues are hot. For now it looks like there is an opt out ability.


Kickstarter projects have raised $347 million
We have not reported on much from Kickstarter lately, in part because it seems to be increasingly funding video games and projects that just don’t appeal to us. However they are appealing to someone as Forbes has reported that the crowd funding site has raised $347 million for projects. An interesting tidbit is that $274.5 million has been spent on US-based efforts, so there is still a huge growth opportunity internationally.

Nokia hints at a tablet in its future
During its Windows Phone 8 smartphone rollout last week it appears that the company’s executives hinted at the possibility that the company would enter the tablet business, according Fast Company. The company’s CEO, Stephen Elop said that with Nokia’s strength in the mobile space other aspects of that market present a real opportunity for it.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Google, Intel, Mashable, Microsoft, Nokia, Smartphone, Startup, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Lots of NFL News and New iPhone 5 Next Week?

September 7, 2012 by

iPhone 5?

If you are a betting person it looks like a safe bet would be that Apple will be taking the wraps off of its next generation iPhone, the so-called iPhone 5. The company has started sending out press invites for an event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on that date.

Originally it was believed that Apple would also introduce its next generation iPad at the same event but it now appears that the company will host a different event within the next month to launch that product.

Intel takes another shot at ARM
Intel has long coveted the handheld processor market but has been pretty well shut out of it by market leader ARM and its allies. Next week at its annual Intel Developer Forum the company is expected to fire its latest salvo in its battle.

It is expected to unveil a chip code-named Haswell that has been designed as a solution for developers that are seeking an ultra power-efficient chip, according to C/net. The company is seeking to make inroads in both the tablet and smartphone space with the processor, which is not expected until the second half of 2013.

Earn Rewards for Activity on NFL.com
Are you always reading articles and commenting on them at the NFL.com web site? Well now you can earn rewards for doing just that as the NFL Digital Media has launched a program entitled NFL Fans Reward.

Reading and commenting are not the only ways to earn rewards as a number of other activities are included including watching video or participating in what it calls Drives. The rewards are in the form of virtual coins that can be redeemed at the NFL.com Rewards store.

Does Fantasy Football really cost employers $5.6 B?
That at least is the result of a study by Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas which made its estimation based on how much time employees spend on managing their fantasy rosters and general goofing off related to the fantasy team.

The report estimates that there are 22.3 million employees engaged in fantasy football and you can go to their site to see the overall math. I know reports like this come out each spring during March Madness and they tend to get rebutted by other studies that show that employees simply switch topics that they goof off on as the year progresses. So take the report with a grain of salt.

New smartphone rollouts from Nokia, Motorola beat Apple to the market
It used to be that hardware developers looked at the calendar and set their next product rollout based on the age of their current offerings as well as where the year is in relation to top selling season. Now it seems that the goal is to beat a rival to making waves with an announcement.

This week Nokia debuted a few new Windows 8 phones while Motorola Mobility unleashed 3 new phones, it’s first under Google. Why this week you ask? Apple is expected to release the new iPhone next week and they wanted to beat it to the punch. Of course Samsung seems to release products when it wants to and its Galaxy IIIS has already sold 20 million units.

Newbie to Twitter and want to follow the NFL? No problem!
Twitter has kindly provided a guide at its Blog for users that want to follow the NFL on Twitter. You would really have t be new to Twitter to not already know how to use the features but still it is a good idea because I know several people that have signed up for the service and then seem paralyzed when called on to use it.

Sports Illustrated takes the guessing out of NFL football broadcasting
The nice people at Sports Illustrated have taken the time to pour over all of the broadcasting teams, including personnel additions and subtractions, and made all of that information available in a nice little piece that can be found here.

I am not sure if the broadcasting teams are listed in order of how big a game that they will be broadcasting but I suspect that the top teams head each list. Also does ESPN really believe that we need two hosts, six analysts, seven reporters and a features person for its pregame show? Sometimes more is not better. And am I the only person that thinks with each passing season Jon Gruden looks more and more like Roger Goodell?

Speaking of Football, How cheap is your NFL team?
Profootballtalk ran a nice little piece showing how much each team in the NFL is under the salary cap. I was surprised at some of the results but expected a few teams that were in the top ten. Take a look and see why your team does not have a shut down corner.

Then hop over to ESPN and see how your teams’ ticket rices compare to the rest of the league. I was surprised that the NY Jets have not taken over the top spot in this area. Average cost is $78.38 and the average cost of a beer is $7.28.

Big 12 to sign $2.6 billion TV deal
The Big 12 is about to finalize broadcasting deals with ESPN and Fox Sports that will result in a $2.6 billion over the next 13 years, or approximately $200 million a year. Even for college that is real money!

Filed Under: Apple, Big Ten Network, ESPN, Fox Sports, Intel, iOS, Live sports via mobile, NFL, NFL Network, Sports Illustrated Tagged With: , , ,

Amazon refreshes Kindle Fire as More Competition Looms

September 6, 2012 by

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Amazon has come back to the market with its second generation Kindle Fire as well as its lowered prices and enhanced the performance of existing Kindle models. Declaring that the company has decided to go big, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took the stage today to introduce a pair of new Kindle Fire tablets called the Kindle Fire HD including an 8.9-inch device that caught many by surprise. There is also a 7-inch version.

The latest device appears to have something for everybody with enhanced e-mail that will appeal to business users, the ability to limit screen time that will make parents happy and a faster device and wireless capabilities that everyone will like.

The screen on the Kindle Fire HD has a 1920 x 1200 resolution and Amazon has eliminated the air gap in the new Laminated Touch Sensor display, a move that it said will eliminate glare by 25%. The tablet will be powered by a Texas Instruments 4470 OMAP processor.

The company has adopted a MIMO (multiple input-multiple output) dual antenna structure in the devices that help with providing a stronger, faster Wi-Fi signal, operating in the 5GHz band. A key advantages that even with the higher speeds it does not use additional battery power. Amazon said that this is 41% faster that the new iPad.

Additional hardware features a front facing camera and dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus. The storage will start at 16GB, with Amazon saying that 8GB, common in most rival offerings, just would not work with high definition.

There is a range of new software features including Whispersync for voice that enables you to listen to a book and then later start up reading where you were last listening. There is also a version for games so that you can continue on from where you stopped in a game.

For users that view movies on their tablets there is now a feature called X-Ray for Movies that was developed in a partnership with IMDB that allows you to freeze a scene and the app will tell you who is currently on screen. If needed it can go into a great deal of additional detail.

For the corporate user it has an enhanced e-mail that will enable a very tight integration with Microsoft Exchange. There is also a feature called Kindle FreeTime that lets you set screen time limits for kids with different settings for movies and reading.

The entry level price for the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD will be $199 while the 8.9-inch model will start at $299 and a 4G LTE version will have a $499 sticker price. The first model is expected in the next few weeks but the higher end models will not be available unit late November.

Another new offering from the company is its slim and light Kindle Paperwhite, a 7.5-ounch 9.1 mm thick e-reader that will include a front lit display with user changeable fonts and a higher resolution display. Its base price will be $119 while a 3G version will have a $179 price tag. The company reduced its Kindle from $199 to $159 with more memory and a faster processor, available on September 14.

The company first delivered the Kindle Fire last fall and it was one of the hottest products gifts of the holiday season, topping the sales charts at Amazon in its first weeks. However a bevy of competitors have darkened the sheen of the product. Amazon estimates that it now has 22% of the tablet market in the United States.

Barnes & Noble are fighting to get share with its Nook but the bigger competition has come from market leader Apple and its iPad lineup and newcomer Google with its Nexus 7 offering. In the near future we will see a host of tablets based on the two versions of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system

We are already seeing hardware OEM’s such as Lenovo, Acer, Asus and Hewlett-Packard release advance information about next generation tablets as well as new hardware developer Microsoft with its Surface platform. Intel claims that at least 20 tablets will be using its chips in future releases, and it is not the market leader in this space.

That is a reason why Apple’s and Samsung’s offerings cost significantly more; they are looking for profits off of their hardware. Amazon’s Bezos talked about how customers want services not gadgets and that hardware is a service. He noted that most of its rivals in the tablet space have failed because they do not realize this. He said that Amazon does not expect to make money from its hardware but from the content it sells. Despite this he claims that it is not a razor/razor blade situation. However there are dangers to this approach as pointed out here at CNBC.

Amazon has really raised the bar on features and performance with the Kindle Fire HD and it will be very interesting to see how the competition reacts. With Apple’s new iPad expected soon, it will probably be the first to face a drect comparison, followed by the Windows 8 tablets.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Dell, Google, Intel, iOS, iPad, Kindle, Lenovo, Microsoft, Nook, Samsung, Surface, Tablets, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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