HTC has launched another lawsuit against Apple, claiming that Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, AirPort, Time Capsule, and the iPod infringe three of its patents.

As it is common for such suits, HTC wants Apple to be banned from violating its patents, which would include an order that would force Apple to halt making, selling, or importing any infringing devices. There is also the usual request for Apple to pay damages for willful infringement, as well as compensation for HTC’s attorney fees.

HTC lists three patents, two of which were granted in 2008 and one in 2010. The documents refer to (1) a circuit and operating method for integrated interface of PDA and wireless communicating system, (2) multipoint-to-point communication using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing and (3) a method for orderwire modulation. The suit is just another chapter in an ongoing smartphone patent war that was, in this case, started by Apple with a suit against Apple that affected a total of 20 Apple patents. According to the International Trade Commission, HTC may have infringed on two Apple patents and we were under the impression that HTC was in talks with Apple to settle the claims.

This most recent lawsuit suggests that Apple and HTC may be negotiating for quite a while.

SOURCE

QR codes may be turning up in more places than ever these days, but are people actually using them? According to market research firm Comscore, at least some of them are — 14 million in June in the US alone, to be specific, or about 6.2 percent of all smartphone users. As for who makes up that slice of the smartphone market, Comscore says that just over 60 percent are male, 53 percent are between the ages of 18 and 34, and 36 percent have a household income of $100k or more. Folks are also apparently more likely to scan QR codes at home than at a retail store, and magazines and newspapers edge out websites or product packaging when it comes to the top source of the QR code being scanned. So, not exactly an explosion in use, but still fairly impressive for a weird-looking barcode that was rarely seen outside of Japan until a few years ago.

SOURCE via ComScore

Thirty years ago today IBM officially ushered in what many consider to be the modern computing era with the 5150. What ultimately became known simply as the IBM PC was the first machine to run a Microsoft operating system (the recently acquired PC-DOS) on an Intel processor (the 4.77MHz 8088) and inspired countless clones. The bare-bones model, which cost $1,565, was cheap enough to become a serious commercial success, and spawned an entire cottage industry of machines that touted their IBM-PC compatibility. We won’t spend too much time recounting the story of how IBM’s decision to build a computer with off the shelf components and commercially available software forged a standard whose descent survives to this day in the form of Wintel.

SOURCE via IBM

IBM’s Mark Dean says that we’ve entered a Post-PC era. Microsoft’s Frank Shaw disagrees, calling it a PC-Plus era.

Mark Dean, the chief technology officer of IBM Middle East and Africa, claims that PCs are “going the way of typewriters.” You remember those things, right? They used to sit on desktops and allowed users to type letters directly onto a piece of paper via an ink ribbon without the need for an LCD screen or power outlet? They’re now considered “dinosaurs” and “antiques,” and apparently PCs are heading in that direction.

In a blog published on Wednesday, Dean reminisces back on the day when IBM first introduced the IBM 5150 personal computer in New York which celebrates its 30th anniversary tomorrow, August 12. “Little did we expect to create an industry that ultimately peaked at more than 300 million unit sales per year,” he said. “I’m proud that I was one of a dozen IBM engineers who designed the first machine and was fortunate to have lead subsequent IBM PC designs through the 1980s.  It may be odd for me to say this, but I’m also proud IBM decided to leave the personal computer business in 2005, selling our PC division to Lenovo.”

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Violence and looting has raged across London and spread to three other major British cities, as authorities struggle to contain the country’s most serious unrest since race riots set the capital ablaze in the 1980s. And yes, that’s a double-decker bus on fire.

Except those were race riots and seemed to have, you know, a reason to have happened. We’re still not even entirely sure why they’re rioting in London right now. We just know they’re destroying a lot of cars, and some Justin Bieber’s posters.

Two police cars and a double-decker bus were set alight, stores were looted and several buildings along Tottenham’s main street — 2.5 miles from the site of the 2012 Olympics — were reduced to smouldering shells. In, looting and police officers being pelted with bottles and fireworks, as groups of young people rampaged through neighbourhoods. And that’s just the third night mind you. We still haven’t got the full report yet. And apparently everyone’s looting and vandalizing around regardless of anything, even a millionaire’s daughter was looting around if you’re reading the news these few days. I guess everyone that has lost their sanity is joining in the fun. Guys, please stop this!

More than 99 percent of the suits were directly targeted at BitTorrent, while 1237 are aimed at users that allegedly used eD2k. More than 55,000 cases have been settled over the 20 months, which leaves the number of pending suits at 145,417 at this time.

Torrent Freak highlighted the download frenzy surrounding Hurt Locker, which triggered a massive wave of copyright infringement lawsuits – 24,583 against BitTorrent users. The publication notes that the copyright infringement trend could be turning into a significant business opportunity – not just for the lawyers drafting and submitting the filings, but also for the copyright holders themselves – especially those who are willing to settle for a few thousand dollars out of court to escape the threat of a $150,000 fine for each copyrighted title in question. This could be providing a decent windfall for the entertainment industry.

If that is the case, the RIAA may want to rethink its decision to curb illegal file downloading from sources such as BitTorrent. The organization announced in July that it is working with Internet Service providers to monitor the download activity of their users in an effort that is called Copyright Alert System. If you download copyrighted material, your bandwidth will be throttled. The RIAA calls this a mitigation measure to stop online content theft.

SOURCE via Torrent Freak

Increased security and reduced cost of implementation are key factors in the growth of Cloud services, according market researcher TechNavio, which projects the Private Cloud Server and Cloud Software Services sectors will expand at compound annual growth rates of 12.7% and 18%, respectively, through 2014 in a recent report.

Unlike Public and Community Cloud infrastructures, Private Clouds are intended, from a privacy standpoint, to serve individual companies. They can, however, be managed by a company itself or a third party and be hosted internally or externally. TechNavio’s impressive growth projection for the Private Cloud Server sector is due, in part, to the delivery of higher levels of security for customer applications by vendors such as IBM, HP and Dell.

Issues regarding performance and application availability may continue to hinder the market’s potential, however.

Cloud software services are the tools provided to organizations and individuals through the various types of Cloud platforms: Public, Community, Private or a hybrid of any of the three. Overall, they are expanding thanks to a general trend toward reduced corporate IT services. In addition, the cost of implementing these services has been reduced by a number of Cloud Systems Management Software vendors, further stimulating adoption in spite of ongoing concerns about data security, TechNavio said.

No surprise there, as security and privacy concerns should always be at the top of any IT professional’s checklist when a evaluating a software, hardware or service platform—Cloud-based or otherwise.

Foxconn’s employment practices often make the news and the company last week hit the headlines once again. This time, it’s the company’s intention to use robots to replace some of its staff that has chins wagging. Xinhua News Agency cites Foxconn founder and Chairman Terry Gou as saying the company plans to replace a portion of its staff with one million robots to cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency. According to Xinhua, Foxconn currently uses 10,000 robots. The electronics giant aims to up this number to 300,000 next year and one million in three years’ time.

Foxconn currently employs over 900,000 people in its factories. Gou says the robots will be performing simple tasks such as spraying, welding and assembling. These are all tasks currently carried out by human employees.

Reuters cites Gartner analyst C.K. Lu who says thanks to sharply rising employment costs, Foxconn essentially has no choice but to replace workers with robots.

“Rising salary costs should be the key reason why Foxconn is doing this. This year’s wage increase has been quite significant and I don’t expect the pace to slow down next year,” Lu said, adding, “If they don’t do this, they will have to move their factories elsewhere.”

SOURCE via Reuters

Scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of Bern in Switzerland believe that Earth may have had two moons up until four billion years ago.

Back then, the scientists say, a smaller moon with a diameter of about 750 miles may have crashed into the moon today and may have created the two very distinct sides of our moon. The far side has mountainous highlands while the near side facing Earth is rather low and flat and characterized by many large dark basalt seas. According to a paper published the Nature, the debris caused by the impact could have created the moon’s craters. The traditional theory is that gravitational forces are responsible for the lunar landscape.

If the scientists are correct, then the paper could be considered an expansion of the currently accepted “giant impact” model, which suggests that a massive impact of an object on earth eventually formed the moon. Erik Asphaug, from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Martin Jutzi of the University of Bern believe that the impact may have created a second, much smaller moon. Most of that smaller moon could have been absorbed by the moon we see today, which would explain the lopsided outer layer.

Money definitely doesn’t buy style. Billions of dollars mean nothing if one doesn’t have a sense of style or, as is the case of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, can’t be bothered to care about fashion. He’s just topped GQ’s worst-dressed list.

Taking a look at the men of Silicon Valley, the magazine comprised a top 15 of the worst dressed men, who don’t know the meaning of the phrase “dressed for success” – mostly because they don’t need to, they’re successful already.

In fact, they’re well beyond that: the top three (dis)honors go to three of the most powerful men today, Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates from Microsoft.

In the case of Gates, GQ describes his style as a combination of aging Harry Potter and lazy preppy, mostly because he’s too rich and busy to have the time (or inclination) to think about the clothes he’ll wear next day.

“Rather than swag out in Armani suits, Gates takes the lazy preppy approach, opting for a drawer full of V-necks in every hue. If only his proportions were on point…” the magazine writes.

Steve Jobs is also a classic example of “if it ain’t broke, why fix it.” While his company releases an iPhone “every 0.5 seconds,” Jobs seems to never step out the clothes he wears.

“Steve Jobs never gets an upgrade. The Svengali’s self-inflicted uniform (black turtleneck, dad jeans, Seinfeld kicks) rival Superman’s in its homogeneity – a style blunder no AutoCorrect can fix,” GQ writes.

However, it’s Zuckerberg who lands at the top position, presumably because he’s the youngest of the three and, thus, fashion lovers would have higher expectations of him.

“Oblivious to the fact that jeans and ties come in skinny sizes – or that suits exist – the father of Facebook (and we do mean father) loves to recycle the fresh-from-Stats-class look,” GQ says.

“Zuck’s style is so poor, it even inspired a mock fashion line, Mark By Mark Zuckerberg, which thankfully doesn’t sell any actual clothing,” the fashion magazine concludes.

But the main point is, do they even care? Probably not.

SOURCE via GQ