October 3, 2013
Written by Dave Mark
From Florian Mueller’s patent blog:
Three months ago I saw a filing by Nokia that related to some discussions with Samsung considered so secretive that it wanted even the very title of a document to be sealed. It was clear that Nokia and Samsung were talking about something that also related somehow to the 2011 Nokia-Apple settlement, about the terms of which nothing was known except that Apple described it, at a very high level, as “merely a ‘provisional license’ for a limited ‘standstill’ period”. One could figure that Nokia and Samsung wouldn’t talk about some other patent agreement without talking about some sort of patent deal between them — a license or an outright purchase.
On Wednesday evening local time, Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, whose writing style is well-liked by various patent litigation watchers including me, entered an order that finally sheds light on this. The order came down after a hearing held yesterday on a request by Apple (and possibly also one by Nokia) for sanctions against Samsung (and/or its outside counsel) for violation of a protective order, i.e., for illegal disclosure of (in this case, extremely) confidential business information.
I must say that I’m shocked.
The big question here is this:
So how did Samsung’s executives get access to contracts that were meant to be used only by its outside counsel (marked as “Highly Confidential — Attorneys’ Eyes Only”) for the purposes of litigation with Apple and absolutely positively not for the pupose of gaining unfair advantages in licensing negotiations with anyone (not with Apple, and much less with third parties like Nokia), when such disclosure would constitute an unbelievably serious violation of court rules?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. These are pretty serious accusations.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Apple is even hand-selecting oak trees to plant. That’s detail oriented.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
31x Limited has announced the release of Transport Tycoon, the first mobile version of the classic PC game. The game’s been completely redesigned for the mobile experience, though it retains many of the classic elements that made Transport Tycoon such a beloved hit.
Good news for iOS gaming.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
You may have noticed that the .com button is missing from the iOS 7 keyboard. Kirk McElhearn found out that it’s still there.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Fraser Speirs offers a voice of reason about kids supposedly “hacking” their iPads in Los Angeles.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Sonoma Wire Works is holding its annual RiffRumble competition and are giving away thousands of dollars in prizes. This time the RiffRumble theme is Metal and I will be judging the top five songs, after public voting has been completed.
OK, maybe I just am not ready to let go of Breaking Bad yet, but this is great advice and goes for any craft that is judged by others, like writing or building an app. Just focus on your craft and do what you can do.
Written by Dave Mark
Big days of change are clearly ahead for Microsoft. The Board of Directors has some big decisions to make as the largest activist investors are applying pressure to see their particular agenda enacted.
The main issue is that Ballmer himself is leaving Microsoft in the next 12 months — he offered a tearful goodbye to employees at last week’s annual companywide meeting — and finding a new CEO to execute such a dramatic shift in the company’s strategy while maintaining its existing 16 billion-dollar businesses will be no easy task.
That task has been made substantially more difficult in recent days by activist investors — reports surfaced last week that a group made up of “three of the top 20 investors” was pushing for Ford CEO Alan Mulally to take over the top spot, and yesterday news leaked that Microsoft’s board was seriously considering him. At the same time, “three of the top 20 investors” were also credited yesterday with pushing to remove Bill Gates from the Microsoft board, which he currently chairs. That would include his removal from the CEO search committee, which is presumably moving forward on the Mulally recommendation at the same time. None of that feels particularly suited to a smooth transition.
Every time I hear someone complaining about Apple’s lack of innovation or pending doom or the crime of having too much cash, I just think about Microsoft, Dell, and Blackberry and thank heavens for Tim Cook and the rest of the team.
Written by Dave Mark
Apple added a setting for iOS 7 to display short names (Lynn) or full names (Lynn Fullerton) at the top of your Messages window. This change to a short name default can be an issue, especially if you’ve got more than one Lynn in your life. Good tip.
Written by Dave Mark
Seems like something in iOS 7 is stripping the filters that schools set up to prevent students from accessing adult content.
“Apple did not realize that installing iOS 7 would remove our (and thousands of organizations across the country) safety protection measure, which now makes the iPad devices unfiltered when accessing the Internet away from school,” said a memo from the Manitou Springs (Colo.) School District 14 to parents, verified by AllThingsD. “In the short term, the district will be collecting iPad devices at the end of each day until the safety protection measure is reinstalled.”
And Manitou Springs School District 14 is not an isolated case. According to Apple’s support forums and some external IT discussion boards, schools across the United States are grappling with the issue, which is causing a lot of angst and frustration for administrators.
Hopefully, Apple can get this fixed quickly, before it injures their reputation with schools.
October 2, 2013
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Personally, I trust Mercedes more than Google.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Great quote. I actually stopped and thought about this one for a few minutes.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
I love this. Expensive, but you pay for great design.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug uncover just how bad companies are cheating in benchmark tests. Personally, I’m shocked that such reputable companies would do this. What’s next, are they going to rip off Apple’s UI?
Written by Shawn King
The New York Times:
I visited Steven A. Witherly, a food scientist who wrote an insider’s guide, “Why Humans Like Junk Food,” and we raided his lab to taste and experiment our way through the psychobiology of what makes Nacho Cheese Doritos so alluring.
Anyone else love these things but feel dirty inside after scarfing down a bag?
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Isn’t this like admitting you’ve gone too far?
“Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he’s a Mac user, he’ll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?” – Tom Clancy
Author Tom Clancy has passed away at age 66, according to TMZ. Clancy’s military thrillers – especially his Jack Ryan books – became fodder for great action movies, and Clancy’s name is also attached to hit video game series like Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
Sam Radford talks about Apple’s 5GB of iCloud storage space and how the company has to increase the limit. I agree with Sam. Years ago 5GB was a lot of space, but if Apple wants users to utilize iCloud and all of its services, they are going to have to increase the limits.
Written by Dave Mark
Part of me marvels at the coolness of this water slide. But the other side of me is just plain scared.
Written by Dave Mark
Click on the link and a web page with a piece of cloth (looks like a piece of graph paper) will appear. Click and drag across the cloth and you’ll rip it. The simulation is very realistic, complete with gravitational physics.
Even better, if you right click (hold down the control key), your mouse turns into a cutting tool.
And as a pièce de résistance, all the code is there to play with and learn from, including the HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Absolutely brilliant.
Written by Dave Mark
Twitter has been a bit of a thorn in the side of the Iranian government, giving the world a seldom seen view of the political unrest in the country, especially during the 2009-2010 election protests, the so-called Green Revolution.
Social media is still banned in Iran, which made the Twitter exchange between Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and newly elected President Hassan Rouhani so newsworthy.
Dorsey first tweeted, “Good evening, President. Are citizens of Iran able to read your tweets?” And, in response, Rouhani said, “Evening, @Jack. As I told @camanpour, my efforts geared 2 ensure my ppl’ll comfortably b able 2 access all info globally as is their #right.”
Social media still banned. Will this exchange signify coming change? To me, this is a perfect litmus test. Turn on the social media for the people, or it’s just words.
Written by Dave Mark
There’s a reported fix that works for some, though not 100%:
AppleInsider reported on Monday that a simple procedure has successfully eliminated the bug for many users:
• Disable iMessage in Settings -> Messages
• Reset the iPhone’s Network Settings under Settings -> General -> Reset
• Reenable iMessage.
While the method worked, and continues to work, for most iPhone owners afflicted with the iMessage bug, some have reported that the message failures reappeared after a few hours, forcing them to repeat the steps above.
There’s conjecture that the upcoming 7.03 update will contain this fix. Let’s hope so.
October 1, 2013
Written by Shawn King
Gizmodo:
This video shows the culmination of the work being funded mainly through public donations, including the massive, yet-to-be-finished 564-foot tower at its center.
The Sagrada Familia is probably the most famous unfinished building in the world and its design is fascinating whether you like it or not. This video of the finished building shows even more radical changes in the future.
This is just great marketing. If nothing else, skip to 3:51 to see the awesome lions. Wow.
Written by Shawn King
The New York Observer:
Colin Powell makes the case: pissing people off is both inevitable and necessary. This doesn’t mean that the goal is pissing people off. Pissing people off doesn’t mean you’re doing the right things, but doing the right things will almost inevitably piss people off. Understand the difference.
I piss people off on a regular basis. It’s rarely my goal but I honestly don’t care if it happens. This article explains it well.
Remember back in July when Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug at AnandTech caught Samsung cheating on benchmark tests by making the CPU on the Galaxy S4 run higher when it detected benchmark apps? That was terrible, right—but they got caught and probably wouldn’t do it again.
Wrong.
Now Ars Technica caught Samsung cheating on Galaxy Note 3 benchmark tests.
We noticed an odd thing while testing the Samsung Galaxy Note 3: it scores really, really well in benchmark tests—puzzlingly well, in fact. A quick comparison of its scores to the similarly specced LG G2 makes it clear that something fishy is going on, because Samsung’s 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 blows the doors off LG’s 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800. What makes one Snapdragon so different from the other?
After a good bit of sleuthing, we can confidently say that Samsung appears to be artificially boosting the US Note 3’s benchmark scores with a special, high-power CPU mode that kicks in when the device runs a large number of popular benchmarking apps.
So what’s a company like Samsung to do when people continue to catch them cheating? Stop cheating, perhaps?
No, not Samsung. They are going to make their own benchmark tools for testers. Yeah, we’ll definitely believe the tests that come from that app.
Written by Jim Dalrymple
If you were wondering how to use the information collected by the M7 chip on the new iPhone, you can download a new app from David Smith that turns your iPhone into virtual Pedometer.
