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Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: The Almost iPad III Edition

March 5, 2012 by 1 Comment

Apple is expected to deliver its heavily anticipated next generation iPad later this week. Rather than print all of the massive amount of rumors we are just noting at this point and will fill in the gaps when the company takes the wraps off its latest product.

It is likely that this week will mark the start of a number of tablet releases within the next month or so including a Toshiba offering expected the day prior to Apple’s announcement and we will try and stay on top of all of the noise and news.

Archos aims at kids market with Child Pad tablet
Speaking of tablets, Archos has unveiled the Child Pad, a 7-inch tablet running Android 4.0 that is designed for the children’s market. With a $129 SRP it is significantly lower than most tablets, aside from eReaders; the Child Pad has a number of features designed for the young consumer.

Archos is using what it calls a kid-friendly user interface and it will come preloaded with 28 kids’ apps and will have access to a Kids App Store that has 10,000 apps including games, entertainment and communications. No word on educational apps.

The tablet will feature a 1GHz processor and have 1GB of RAM and will feature parental controls. Archos said that it will be available by the end of March.

RSA Panel suggests enterprise ban smartphone BYOD
If an enterprise wants to truly have secure data it should ban the cost effective method of allowing employees to use their own phones and tablets as work devices. It said that the cost of supplying employees a smartphone that can be controlled by the organization is much smaller that the potential cost to the corporation if sensitive data is lost.

Security officials speaking at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco last week said that patches and bug fixes are hard to apply to a fragmented phone market and that it makes more sense to have control over the devices but that often execs and other individuals push back on IT.

AT&T caves in on ‘unlimited data’ plans-sort of
After a spate of negative stories around the nation about how its attempt to throttle back the top 5% of data users who had its unlimited plan, AT&T has relented and changed its policy, at least somewhat.

One of the complaints was that users with unlimited plans would get throttled, or have their data download speeds greatly reduced, well before they hit the level that was available to users of lesser plans from AT&T, 3GBs.

While it has retired the ‘unlimited plan’ existing plan members were grandfathered in, and they pay $30 more than the 3GB tiered level, but have often found that they would be throttled as the closed in on 2GB. A recent small claims court award of $850 to a member that had his plan throttled might have had some impact on this deal. However the company said it will continue to slow down data for users’ as they near 3GBs.


Patent News: It was a busy week for Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft and a host of lawyers

Apple wins latest round in German Patent ruling
Apple has won a preliminary injunction against Motorola Mobility that could force Motorola to recall smartphones that infringe on Apple patents. I think two weeks ago it was the exact opposite-maybe they will open the door to rivals as both companies phones will be banned?

Anyway a German Court has ruled that Motorola has violated an Apple patent that deals with “portable electronic device for photo management” which apparently is something that Motorola uses with its photo gallery implementation in its phones.

According to Foss Patents, Apple has the option of having the injunction enforced which would mean a ban on Motorola smartphones in Germany. Apple has won an injunction against Motorola two weeks ago on a different topic in Germany and won on this won in a Dutch court as well. Be interesting to see if Motorola changes its tune on licensing deals for its technology to Apple.

Apple and Samsung get a split decision
Also in Germany, the Mannheim Regional Court issued a pair of rulings involving Apple and Samsung regarding patents. The court threw out a Samsung vs. Apple lawsuit, the third in a row, which has to deal with 3G/UMTS patents.

At the same time it threw out one of the two slide-and-lock patent disputes that Apple has filed against Samsung, and a decision on the second of the two is expected within a few weeks. Samsung has said that it will appeal the ruling and it is expected that Apple will do so as well.


Microsoft/Motorola ruling to be reviewed
The U.S. International Trade Commission is undertaking a review of a judge’s decision that said that Motorola infringed a Microsoft patent in Android smartphones. The ruling comes from a complaint that was originally filed in 2010 claiming that a total of 9 patents were infringed.

Two patents were dropped from the case and the judge found that one of the remaining seven did in fact infringe on a Microsoft patent. A final decision is expected sometime this spring and both Microsoft and Motorola said that they look forward to the results.

For fans of Futurama only
A group of hackers from the University have broken into the e-voting system in Washington D.C. and gotten their write in candidate to the 2010 school board elected-one Mr. Bender Bender Rodriguez, the robot from the cartoon Futurama.

The effort, from a few years past, was not some group seeking to over throw the will of the people but rather to answer a dare to see if anybody could break into the system and so was engineered by a Professor and a team of students. They found that they could change all existing and future votes in the system.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, FTC, iPad, Motorola, Samsung, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Facebook makes Mobile Push at Mobile World Congress

February 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of the interesting things about the discovery period for Facebook’s initial public offering was that the social media giant reported that it had literally no income from the mobile environment. Since mobile is the top form of access this is surprising.

It is obvious that this is one of the most important market segments for the company to monetize as the opportunities are huge. And it has started to lay out its plans during a public speech by Bret Taylor, Facebook’s chief technology officer at this week’s Mobile World Conference in Barcelona.

In its push it is also striking a blow against a number of companies such as Apple that have been able to cash in on the markets demand for apps. Apple reaps as much as 30% of the revenue from app sales.

Taylor laid out a series of moves the company is currently working on that could tremendously enhance its position in the mobile market, including an effort to partner with mobile carriers for billing on Facebook transactions and the establishment of cross platform standards.

In the mobile payments market it is working with carriers to fix a process that it calls broken and fragmented. It is talking with a number of players including Vodafone, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, T-Mobile USA, Verizon, KDDI and Softbank.

It wants to streamline the process and reduce the number of steps needed to make mobile payments. App developers would sell their offerings from the carriers via Facebook, allowing carriers to garner some of the revenue for the apps that are often used on their networks and allow app developers to avoid paying Apple, Sony and others a portion of their revenue.

It seems to me that the issue here is that this is letting Facebook become a partner in this, how do you then later stop them from gaining a more controlling position and adding on revenue for themselves from the users and or carriers as well?

On the standards side Facebook is part of a workgroup called W3C Mobile Web Platform Core Community Group that is seeking to develop HTML5 standards for the mobile web. The recently formed group has 30 members that come from a wide spectrum of mobile players from carriers to web browser developers according to its web site.

The current members of the group have a very impressive lineup. Samsung, HTC, Sony Mobile Communications, Nokia, Huawei, ZTE, TCL Communication, AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Orange, Telefónica, KDDI, SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp., Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc., NVIDIA, ST-Ericsson, Intel, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, Mozilla, Opera, Microsoft, Adobe, Netflix, VEVO, Zynga, @WalmartLabs, Electronic Arts, Sencha and Bocoup.

Of course a prestigious lineup is no guarantee of a successful solution but it seems that it is the interest of these players to have a more efficient mobile web and as long as there are no hidden agendas in the group hopefully we will see a stead stream of updates from the W3C showing progress.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, AT&T, Facebook, Motorola, Samsung, Social Media Tagged With:

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: New Android Bug Found?

February 27, 2012 by 1 Comment

Proview now sues Apple in US
A week after being dealt a setback in court in Shanghai, Proview International has taken its trademark battle with Apple to US courts. The company is seeking to block Apple from shipping iPads into or out of China.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple purchased the trademark rights to IPAD from the company in 2009 and Proview is now seeking to have that sale canceled and has filed its case in California Superior Court, Santa Clara County.

Smartphone sales determined by age and income report says
Market researcher Nielsen has published a survey it conducted with 20,000 mobile consumers that gives some interesting insight into how the US smartphone market has grown broken down by age and income.

The report shows that overall smartphone penetration has reached 48% in January, but that the age group of 25-34 far outpaced the nation as a whole with 66% penetration. However when income is added into the equation the results start to change. Head over to take a look at the results.

AT&T loses data throttling suit
AT&T’s efforts to throttle, or slow down, data use by the top 5% of its customers has hit a minor bump as a California man has won a small court claim against the company. He was awarded $850 for his effort.

While he has an unlimited account AT&T the telecommunications company has started slowing down data downloads to heavy users, often despite the fact that they are using less that people with capped programs.
The judge ruled that it wasn’t fair for the company to purposely slow down his iPhone, when it had sold him an “unlimited data” plan. AT&T said it will appeal the ruling.

Motorola forces Apple to disable iPhone Push Email in Germany
As a result of one of the various rulings between Apple and Motorola Mobility, this one pertaining to a Motorola victory Apple will disable the push email function in its iOS devices in Germany. Apple is continuing to appeal the ruling.

The decision will affect users of Apple’s iCloud and MobileMe email. The programs have the ability to automatically send emails to the devices automatically when they are received at the mail servers rather than wait for the user to manually check for new mail.

LG in talks with Google on next generation Nexus device
Seeking to get a leap on its competitors and a prestigious title LG is in preliminary talks with Google that would enable LG to be the next device manufacturer to create a Nexus device. Rivals Samsung with its Galaxy Nexus and HTC with the Nexus One have already partnered with Google.

LG could use the partnership to burnish its faded image in the mobile phone market, whch has seen its once more prominent position fade a bit. According to Cnet which broke the story, the deal would also help assure other handset manufacturers that they would have a level playing field with Google’s Motorola holdings.

Panasonic developing virtual safe house for Android
With the growing concerns that app developers are intentionally stealing user data off of smartphones and other devices it was only a matter of time before someone developed an app to stop other apps. OK, there have been security programs in the past but the latest to join the herd is Panasonic which announced new technology to secure your mobile devices.

The company has teamed with Red Bend Software to develop a technology that prevents loss of data from smartphones both from apps seeking to exploit the phones and from outside users that might find a lost phone.

The core of the technology features a fold that is separate from the Android operating system and in which data, photos, emails and contact information can be stored securely. Panasonic claims that the technology, which utilizes Red Bend’s mobile virtualization software, will still allow Android apps to run normally.

New Android bug found?
It looks like there is a flaw in the Android operating system that could enable a hacker to take control of devices, according to a report from Reuters. The flaw was discovered by startup security firm CrowdStrike and they say that using the flaw they have found a way to take control of users Android devices

CrowdStrike said that it will be displaying its finding at RSA Conference in San Francisco later this week but said that the gist of matter is that by sending an email or text message that appears to be from a trusted source that urges the recipient to click on a link, which if done infects the device. I get emails like that from Nigerian princes all of the time- are they fake?

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Google, HTC, iPad, iPhone, Motorola, Smartphone, Startup Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Apple pays $50 million for Chomp

February 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

Apple buys app search engine company
Apple has purchased Chomp, a startup that has developed technology that enables users to search the iOS App Store in unique ways including searching for features that are not listed in any other search category.

The app has a very wide range of features including checking on what apps your Facebook and Twitter friends have reviewed. It also lists a free app of the day and shows which apps are currently trending

Apple paid $50 million for the company but has given no clear direction as to what it intends to do with the technology that it has acquired. The company recently noted that it has already had 25 billion apps downloaded from the store.

Nike takes a second step with Nike +
Mike has made another move into digital sports with a pair of products, the Nike+ Basketball and the Nike+Training, both of which are shoes. The Nike+Basketball is designed to provide digital feedback about a players game including how high a player jumped, how fast they are and how hard they play. The first shows will be the Nike Hyperdunk+.

The second is the Nike+Training will be a line of shows that also feature a training program that has a series of workouts designed to improve performance. The first shows in this lineup will be the Lunar Hyper Workout+ for Women and the Lunar TR 1+ for men.

The shoes use a new sensor technology from the company called Nike+ Pressure Sensor built into each shoe. The sensor collects data and then wirelessly transmits data to their phone. Additionally Nike has started shipping its NikeFuel Band.

Microsoft files antitrust claim against Motorola with the EU
Microsoft has filed a complaint with the antitrust regulators in the European Union claiming that Motorola and Google are seeking to block sales of Microsoft products by seeking unfair terms for licensing their technology.

The complaint is very similar to the one that Apple filed last week and comes at a time when the EU has already said that it is quite willing to look at not only present but past patent licensing efforts by Motorola.

Microsoft said that Motorola is attempting to block sales of Windows PCs, our Xbox game console and other products by refusing patents. I imagine this is a good time to be a patent lawyer.

The Ryan Braun story keeps getting better
Braun, the MLB MVP winner from last season was found to have huge amounts of testosterone in his body according to two tests, and he has not disputed this. The issue was with the chain of custody and that his sample was not handled properly. Of course it also does not mean that he is guilty since he was acquitted by MLB.

The flame wars have been a lot of fun, here is one with a good deal of common sense as well- more so that the author of the piece had. And just for fun here is a second, in case you did not get enough the first time.

Apple wins on a different front
Apple’s dispute with a Chinese company over the name iPad looked to prevent the company from selling the devices in the world’s largest market but a court in Shanghai has ruled in Apple’s favor. Proview Technology had been arguing that Apple infringed on its trademark rights.

The Shanghai Pudong New Area People’s Court ruled against Proview saying that there was a lack of evidence that iPad sales would be a trademark violation. It said there was no law or regulation that would prohibit Apple from selling iPads and terminated the litigation of the case.

Fun with Amazon
I recently received a survey request from Amazon saying it was part of the company’s ongoing effort to provide better services and support. It was supposed to take between 10-15 minutes. Looking for any excuse not to work I decided to give it a stab.

I only managed to get to about question 6. When I said that I was unlikely to buy an e-reader in the next six months or whatever the question was exactly, it terminated the survey and said that I did not fit the customer profile they were looking for. Now that is good customer service, saving me 9-14 minutes!

Teddy bear gone bad
A truly frightening gift for a baseball fan- or any fan for that matter. But pretty funny if real.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Baseball, iPad, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, Motorola, Nike, The Big Lead Tagged With: , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Apple Files New Complaint Against Motorola

February 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Congress approves spectrum sale
The US Congress has approved of the sale of spectrum that had formerly been allocated to television. The move will enable an increase in the amount of spectrum available for use by telcos in supporting greater bandwidth for mobile phones, especially smartphones.

Are Facebook’s numbers not what they appear?
Shel Israel over at Forbes does a nice takedown on Facebook’s claims that it has 850 million users that visit the site at least once a month. While he admits to a few potential flaws in his math, and points out Facebook may have the same flaws or slightly different ones and he does come to an interesting conclusion. Head over and see if your math is any better.

Mobile app platform developer July Systems lands $15 million in VC money

July Systems, a developer of a cloud-based mobile application platform has raised $15 million in equity investment. The round was led by Updata Partners and included both Intel Capital and WestBridge Capital.

July, which has already had three previous funding rounds including a $7 million Series C, said that the funds will be used to accelerate its product roadmap, boost the sales momentum, and increase the company’s market reach.


Will the lack of a single unified version of Android harm tablet market?
That at least is the point that James Kendrick makes over at ZDNet. He has a strong point and it was the fact that at the last minute Sun prevented Java from becoming fragmented that helped make that platform ubiquitous. Will Google do the same here?

This week in lawsuit news

Apple wins a round vs HTC
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has handed Apple a victory in one of its battles with Android handset manufacturers. The ITC ruled that Apple did not infringe on patented technology that is owned by HTC.

The complaint, filed two years ago alleged that Apple was infringing on five HTC patents that had to do with technologies related to power management and phone dialing. In its complaint HTC had requested that Apple be prohibited from importing some versions of the iPods, iPads and iPhones into the U.S.

Apple files competition claim against Motorola Mobility
Fresh off a victory in German court against Motorola, Apple has filed a filed a complaint with the European Union claiming that Motorola is violating a pledge to license industry-standard patents on fair terms.

According to a report from Bloomberg Motorola has said that it is willing to work with Apple to negotiate a patent license deal. Earlier reports have showed that Motorola was purportedly seeking 2.25% of Apple sales for a license.

This will be an interesting one to watch since that very topic was explicitly mentioned by the EU when it gave the Motorola/Google deal its approval. It said that it would be watching to ensure fair practices not only going forward but also looking at past practices as well.


Today’s foolishness

I will take that iPhone with a side of mace
Well not really mace but pepper spray. Piexon, A Swiss developer has created an iPhone case called the SmartGuard iPhone 4/4S that features a detachable canister of pepper spray, for emergency uses only, of course. I can see this going bad very quickly.

Technology at the Olympics
Here is an interesting look at how technology usage has evolved at the Olympics since the founding of the modern game. First radio broadcast was in 1924 for instance or that the 1956 games in Melbourne resulted in only three hours of footage shown in the US.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Intel Capital, iPad, iPhone, Motorola, Olympics, Smartphone Tagged With: , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Digitized Swimsuit Issue-Where do I sign up?

February 17, 2012 by 4 Comments


Ford to show at Mobile World Congress
At the Mobile World Congress there will no doubt be an array of interesting products and technologies introduced, and there will be at list one show first- Ford plans to launch a car at the show. The B-MAX to be exact.

Ford has one of the keynote speeches at the show and it has been revealed that it will take the wraps off of the car that has what it calls Easy Access Door System, but it claims that as yet unrevealed technology in the car is what it will be touting at the show.

ESPN to increase soccer coverage?
After ESPN lost in its bid to broadcast the upcoming 2018 and 2022 World Cups it seemed that all of the progress the network had made in its coverage of soccer would all go down the drain. However the Big Lead reports that in an interview with the World Wide Leader major changes are in the works to improve its coverage.

It reported that after this summer’s European Championships there will be a major effort to massively overhaul ESPN’s presence online. It currently has two separate sites that cover the sport so simply consolidating them would be a positive step forwards.

BlackBerry takes a hit as Government agency moves to rivals
Research in Motion, reeling from a bad year just got more unpleasant news as the U.S. Government’s General Service Administration, its primary procurement agency, has started issuing smartphones that run both the Android and Apple iOS operating systems.

Until recently RIM’s BlackBerry had been the only option available from the GSA. However it is not all dire news as the BlackBerry is still the most widely used device among the RSA’s 17,000 employees and currently the rivals’ only account for approximately 5% in a trial program that is just now starting. However once the camel’s nose is in the tent watch out for the rest of the beast.

Apple seeking blood from a stone?
Apple has asked a bankruptcy court for permission to sue Kodak for infringement. That is just the tip of the iceberg according to Cnet, which reports that Apple is also seeking to file a patent infringement claim with the International Trade Commission and plans to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Manhattan.

Apple is already a two time loser in regards to taking Kodak in front of the ITC, which has ruled that Kodak did not infringe on Apple’s patents. Kodak has returned fire and last month filed a suit against Apple saying it violated some of Kodak’s patents.

Apple wins round in Germany vs Motorola
Apple has won a major round in its ongoing patent disputes with Motorola Mobility when the Munich I Regional Court ruled in favor in regards to patent # EP1964022. Not familiar with that one, are you? Well it has to do with unlocking a device using a gesture on an unlock image.

Apple will now have the opportunity to defend the side and lock patent as Motorola has already appealed the decision. The court looked at three different implementations of the technology and Apple won on two, losing on the third, which is used by Xoom tablets.

Apple is also asserting the same patent against Samsung sop expect to hear more about this issue going forward.

Looking for a more digital Sports Illustrated? It is here.
One of the coming of age items for high school students was squirreling away the annual Sports Illustrated Swim Suit issue before the parental units could confiscate it. Well now you can view it, and all of the magazines content, in a growing array of digital formats.

The latest is available for iPads, with horizontal and vertical views available as well as for the iPhone for the Apple fans and then it’s also available for Android smartphone and tablet users. All for the low, low price of $6.99.

However there is also a range of video options as well including much that is exclusive to the tablet market. Then a user could simply also head over to SI.com for additional video, as well as YouTube and Facebook.

Google fixes Wallet Security Hole
Your digital pocket can no longer be picked, according to Google, which has issued a fix for the security flaw that was reported in its Google Wallet. While there are still threats to the security, the simply method that required almost no hacking skill has been resolved.

Along with putting in a fix for the security gap Google has made some additional enhancements to the Wallet, head over to Pocketnow for a run down.

Camping stove boils water and charges smartphones
Looking forward to the backpacking season but worried that your smartphone’s battery will not handle three days in the great outdoors? Well BioLite has just the tool for you, a stove that burns wood for cooking and can also generate electricity.

The CampStove does both by using the thermal energy created when a fire is kindled in it to run a thermoelectric module that is built into the side of the stove. The module runs a fan that blows air onto the fire to improve combustion but also has excess energy available.

That energy can be used to charge small electronics devices such as a mobile phone, a GPS or lights. Of course if you backpack with back to nature types the stove might not help you stave off attack from your friends for using your phone.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, ESPN, Facebook, iPad, iPhone, Motorola, Samsung, Smartphone, Soccer, Sports Illustrated, Sports Photography, Tablets, The Big Lead, YouTube Tagged With: , , , ,
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