Apple's pinch-to-zoom patent meets its second end, Samsung could benefit

Thought the Apple vs Samsung dust was starting to settle? Think again.

Apple has lost another patent relevant to its perpetual twilight war with Samsung, again related to the ways users interact with touchscreen devices.

This time it was U.S. Patent No. 7,844,915, which describes the way a user can "pinch-to-zoom" and differentiates that function from scrolling.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office declared that the function was predicted by Patent No. 7,724,242, relating to gestures on touch screens and filed by W. Daniel Hillis and Bran Ferren in 2005.

The jury in the Apple-Samsung case previously ruled that 21 of 24 Samsung devices in question violated Apple's pinch-to-zoom patent, so this could have huge ramifications in that fight.

History repeats itself

This shouldn't come as a surprise - the USPTO "tentatively invalidated" this same Apple patent late last year, and this most recent announcement appears to just be confirmation of that decision.

And this isn't the first time this has happened. Last year the USPTO ruled that an Apple-owned patent relating to the "rubber band" function of scrolling touchscreen devices was invalid too.

That certain described the way the display bounces when customers achieve the end of a page or papers, and the judge discovered 21 of Samsung's gadgets infringed on it.

But that operate no longer connected to The apple company either, launching yet more question on the already unclear legal fight between Apple and Samsung.

Even more confusing is the fact that the certain obviously still appears in some nations, as a Japanese people judge discovered just last 30 days that  Samsung infringed on it.

Modern warfare

The big decision in the case of Apple vs. Samsung came last year when the jury awarded Apple more than $1.05 billion (about £688m, AU$1.15b), but the battle rages on nonetheless. That sum was later chopped down to around $598.9 million (about £386m, AU$651m) after the judge in the case found the jury awarded the difference improperly.

With the USPTO throwing all kinds of wrenches in Apple's holdings is it any wonder the two companies have been allowed to keep chipping away at each other in court?

Apple reportedly has two months to respond to the USPTO's most recent decision, and Apple can choose to appeal the decision and/or seek judicial review.

The two are due to return to court to settle the improperly calculated damages.

Why Nexus 7 Is Still the Best Damn Android Tablet, Period

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To look at just one aspect, the screen of the new Nexus 7 is an extremely sharp full HD display with 1,920 x 1,200 resolution. The iPad mini, which costs $100 more, has a 1,024 x 768 screen. That's even before you consider the 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor and 2GB of RAM, good specs for any tablet.

On top of that, the new Nexus 7 is the first device to run Android 4.3, letting owners take advantage of features like restricted profiles, which lets you limit the apps that specific users can access (handy if you have kids) as well as compatibility with low-power Bluetooth Smart Ready devices such as fitness monitors and smart watches.

Designed for Success

The first Nexus 7 was significant for its outstanding style and the new style is even better... mostly. Although its specifications are enhanced (and is still ranked at 9 time of battery power life), the 2013 Nexus 7 is a little bit slimmer and less heavy than the past one. It's actually just a bit higher and less extensive, and the sides are less curved, providing the product a somewhat sophisticated experience.

Google also modified the rear from the pierced "driver glove" content of the first Nexus 7 to something a little more like the flat "soft touch" on BlackBerry mobile phones. The move is actually more of a restrict since the unique content was a little more grippy, but it still seems a level up from, say, Samsung's plastic material supports.

The ports amount to a microUSB port on the bottom and a headphone jack up top. There's no microSD slot, but there are perforations for stereo speakers on the sides as well as a microphone hole. Google lent us the Wi-Fi version for review, so there's no SIM card slot (an LTE version is coming soon).

Like some other Nexus devices, there's a small round light within the lower bezel that lights up for a second or two when you get a notification or the tablet is charging. The way it lights up is actually way cool — quickly growing from a small white dot to a slightly larger circle, giving the feeling of a pulse. It's also almost impossible to see if its dim, adding to the chic factor.

Easy on the Eyes

The star of the Nexus 7 is its ultra-high-res screen, which, at 323 pixels per inch, Google claims is the sharpest tablet display on the market. It's a beauty, rendering details such as text on magazine pages with incredible clarity — I had to take off my glasses (I'm nearsighted) and get about 3-4 inches away to discern individual pixels.

The improved display is means video playback is noticeably better than its predecessor. Not only does its sharpness render details you'd otherwise miss, but contrast and color are improved as well.

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In side-by-side viewing with last year's Nexus 7, I could see just how much of an upgrade the new screen is. Details like the individual metallic shards of Megatron's damaged face in the climactic battle of Transformers: Dark of the Moon (from Google Play Video) was better rendered on the new model, and the color of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's face looked more natural (if its possible for a supermodel with several layers of makeup to look "natural").

Viewing the movie trailer for Man of Metal on YouTube, I could see that the new Nexus 7 didn't clean out the display nearly as much when A super hero, backlit to the excessive, comes out from his Castle of Isolation. His outline became noticeable about a second before the old display, with its more restricted evaluation, captured up.

For sneakers, I examined out how the new Nexus 7 in comparison to another complete HD product, the Microsoft company Area Pro. The Pro has a 10.6-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display and excellent handling energy to the Nexus in an Apple Primary i5 processor. However, Google Nexus was winning, with more natural-looking activity and better shade. It wasn't as evening and day as the evaluation to last seasons Nexus, (and the Blockbuster online app for Microsoft windows 8 is probably a problem here), but the new Nexus 7 display is clearly videos clip champion.

So we know that the Nexus 7 is a great primary screen, but what about a second screen? Tablets from Samsung and Sony seemingly have an edge there, since they have pre-loaded remote-control apps and built-in infrared blasters for controlling your TV and set-top box. However, paired with a Chromecast or a Google TV, the Nexus 7 is a capable entertainment companion. Still, it would have been nice if Google threw in an IR port, too.

Performance and More

The Nexus 7's quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, along with a hefty 2GB of RAM, provides a smooth overall experience. Apps — even graphics-intensive ones — launched extremely fast on the new Nexus. Magazine pages in the Google Play app loaded almost instantly as I scrolled, where they took a second or two on the old model. Everyday scrolling through visual apps (such as Pinterest) didn't result in any painful "waiting for the thumbnails to load/everscroll to catch up" moments.

I ran a Vellamo, an Android benchmark tool developed by Qualcomm, to see how well the Nexus 7 stacked up to other Android devices. For the HTML5 "browsing" test, the Nexus scored near the top of the list, better than the Samsung Galaxy S III and Galaxy Nexus, although it was a hair's breadth under the HTC One X (the list includes mostly Qualcomm-powered devices).

For the app's "Metal" test, which measures overall performance, the Nexus 7 was the top dog, beating the HTC One X by a significant amount. The original Nexus 7 didn't do so well on either test, scoring a little above the middle of the pack on HTML5, and below on Metal.

The Vellamo tests are shown below, with the new Nexus on the left, and the first-gen model on the right.

One extra bit of hardware the second-gen Nexus 7 bestows is a 5-megapixel rear camera. Considering the number of people I see using iPads as their camera, it's a welcome addition, although it's not particularly remarkable. It's also not particularly bad, so it's good to see Google didn't scrimp. Also, as a stock Android device, the Nexus 7 can capture photo spheres — a special kind of panorama — and the larger screen is perfect for immersing yourself in them.

Battery life was excellent. Starting with a full charge in the morning, the Nexus 7 still had a small reserve after a day of heavy use — many downloads, a few hours of video playback, and multiple accounts synced with push notifications enabled.

Tired of stubborn app permissions? Android 4.3 has a fix for that

It can be hard for Android operating program customers to keep a record of what exactly their applications are doing, but it looks like that's about to modify with Android 4.3.

Android Police captured breeze of a operate known as "App Ops" in the newest Android upgrade that allows you management exactly what applications can accessibility, be that routing, information, telephone calling or something else.

That way if particular applications are performing up and, for example, using your cell phone's GPS while you don't want to convert routing off system-wide, you can go into App Ops and limit the difficult app's authorizations.

It seems the function isn't completely prepared yet, but there are various methods for amazing Android operating program customers to stimulate it.

You have my permission to die

TechRadar asked Google to clarify whether users were meant to access these controls and whether the App Ops feature will ever be implemented more fully in the OS. We haven't heard back from the company yet, but we'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, it seems the easiest way to access individual apps' permissions on Android 4.3 is to open the app and navigate through the settings menu to "App Ops."

But to get the full App Ops experience you can download a third party called Permission Manager app from Google Play.

The app was released last night, though it looks like these features weren't yet intended to be utilized in this way, so use at your own threat.

But if you do boot it up, it should display a list of all your apps with the specific functions each use and a time stamp showing the last time they used them. It's divided into four categories based on permissions related to "messaging," "location," "personal" and "device."

Selecting an app shows a full list of permissions for it with easy on/off toggles, though it seems those permissions won't show up there until the app has tried to use them at least once.

That indicates at this factor you'll never know if the record is finish, since place authorizations for Facebook or myspace won't appear there until Facebook or myspace has tried to use place solutions at least once. It's a minor irritation that may be aspect of the purpose this function isn't 100 % there yet.

Moreover, if you convert off place solutions for, say, Facebook or myspace, then ignore that you did so, the program won't emphasize you if you try to use geotags in Facebook or myspace and the app can't accessibility the GPS. It basically won't perform.

So again, use at your own threat, and hopefully "App Ops" will get more formal in a upcoming Android operating program upgrade.

6" Nokia Lumia phablet front panel pictured

Speculation have been circulating lately indicating Nokia will increase its range of Lumia Windows Mobile phones with a system to straddle that range in the sand between smart phone and product.

Could this be our first glance of what's to come?

This supposed front screen board element baring the Htc braning, exposed by ICTech today, looks like it could sit on the 6-inch (at least) system thought to be in the works.

Judging by the rubberized safety gloves this indicates the picture has been taken by a sly employee on the development range (or a dentist's surgery treatment, who knows?).

More to come

Any release of a 6-inch Lumia system would likely come before the season is out as the Finnish organization looks to develop on enhancing revenue numbers for its Windows Cellphone gadgets.

At the release of the Nokia Lumia 1020 photographic camera phone recently, the organization guaranteed more big releases before the end of the season.

It's unlikely that, in his feedback at the time, embattled CEO Stephen Elop intended the more cost-effective Lumia 625 system, which revealed itself to the world previously this 7 days. This implies there's more to come.

Nokia is also rumoured to be plotting a tablet running Windows RT. Back in May the company admitted to being "very interested" in tablets, while apurported image of said device appeared on the web earlier in July.

HTC and Samsung both confirm Android 4.3 plans

Google has just revealed its newest edition of Android operating system, an repetitive upgrade to Jelly Bean known as Android operating system 4.3 - and both HTC and Samsung are eying it with attention.

Unfortunately, HTC couldn't tell us if or when Android operating system 4.3 would come to the HTC variety, nor which devices would be in range for the upgrade, despite Search engines itself verifying that the Google Edition HTC One would be getting the update "soon".

But HTC's mature international on the internet emails administrator Jeff Gordon informed us, "We're examining Android operating system 4.3 to see how this upgrade suits into our programs."

HTC Dream

The company hopes to have more info for us soon - and we hope that info will be, "Yeah, sure, we'll be bringing Android 4.3 to the whole line-up... tomorrow!"

Samsung is unfortunately being more immediate on a timescale, and it's not great information. It informed TechRadar: "Samsung UK will validate update programs to Android 4.3 to chosen Galaxy devices in the coming months".

This implies that it could be 2014 until we start seeing Samsung Galaxy S4 Android 4.3 up-dates...we just can't hold out for the tons of experiences about the speculation of this upgrade arriving.

What we do know is that the new Nexus 7 will be the first new device to come with Android 4.3, while the Neuxs 4, old Nexus 7 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus handsets should be receiving the update from today, with the Google Edition Samsung Galaxy S4 and Google Edition HTC One next in line.

Here's a round-up of the new features of Android 4.3:

Multi-user ability was added to 4.2, but with the new version you can now customise things on a user level, allowing parental controls and a lock on apps if needed through 'personal spaces'.

Applications have to be optimized to work in this way, but parent control will be much more strict with the new edition of Jelly Bean.

Bluetooth intelligent technological innovation (Bluetooth low energy as it's also known) is now reinforced, enabling apps to get connected to the low-power receptors that are all the anger in health and health and fitness technological innovation these days.

Open GL ES 3.0 is supported in Android 4.3, which means a massive update in the graphic ability in any device using the platform. This means detail and speed in games is now massively enhanced, and will see a greater level of photorealism and effects.

DRM APIs will also make it easier for media companies to show off their content to users - for instance, Android 4.3 will allow 1080p streaming of Netflix content on the go, with more apps to follow.

Other features include background Wi-FI locations (meaning the connectivity can be used for location even when turned off) and a new and updated keyboard - stay tuned for more updates on that.

The Future Is Here: 5 Mind Blowing Things Phones Can Do Today

Watch TV Live, Anywhere

Your smart phone is able of excellent achievements, but one covers them all—streaming stay TV. Trapped at manchester international terminal or in a cab in traffic? Turn to one of your preferred sitcoms or check out the ranking of your winning super bowl group. Yes, you can still capture a alarm sounds defeating shot—in real-time. That is worth every penny of your mobile phone invoice.

Several apps let you stream live television: Watch ESPN, Zenga TV, and MunduTV are just a few. Check your favorite channels for apps that stream TV shows as well.

Manage Mobility on an Enterprise Scale

Today, many organizations give all workers a smart phone so they can stay cellular and linked, with the ability to create, deliver, and modify new excel spreadsheets, demonstrations and suggestions from anywhere. But organizations need to securely handle these cellular resources.

BlackBerry business flexibility management gives organizations control over worker phones—from a single cellular cellphone. Supervisors can closed off a cellphone or an application, upgrade and set up new applications, and handle robbery with just a few faucets on their screen.

Shut the Front Door (and Lock it)

Another things your smartphone can do is unlock your front door, as well as your car door. With a single tap of the touch screen, you can unlock your front door for a friend, or a family member if they forgot their key, even if you’re in another state, using Lockitron. You can also lock the door remotely. Another great feature of Lockitron is that you can see who is at your door if you have a webcam. Many security systems include apps to arm and disarm the system and view security camera footage.

Start Your Car

Certain car producers, such as Mercedes Benz, provide you with fobs to start up gates, pop start the back area, and honk the horn slightly. But with Viper Smart Start, you have the capability to slightly start your car by in contact with your smartphone’s display. You can also identify your car with your cellphone to create sure it is securely left.

Brew Up Some Joe

Many apps give you more control over your home. For instance, INSTEON Hub, MobiLinc, and Conductor let you turn on lights and adjust your home’s temperature. You can even get alerts from motion detectors.

However, AllJoyn, a networking concept by Qualcomm, lets you control appliances like your coffee maker from your phone. Yes, you can finally start a cup of coffee before you get out of bed. Now, if they could only devise a way to control your smart phone without reaching over to the nightstand to pick it up.

All of these apps give you more control in life. Look for even more creative apps that will open new doors in the years to come.

What If Your Smartphone Could Bend Into a Smart Watch?

As technology developments, the list of devices we own develops longer: notebooks, music players, mobile phones, pills, intelligent TVs and Google Glass — it's limitless. Now, with fashionable around intelligent wrist watches, you may be thinking whether you want yet another system to charge, synchronize and bring around.

Earlier this year, Southern Japanese developer Jeabyun Yeon presented his idea for a versatile intelligent phone that could convert into a watch. At 6.1-millimeters dense, the "Limbo" intelligent phone would be able to bend, so you could install the 4.3-inch show on your hand.

Yeon creates that the cell phone's body could be made out of TPU (a nasty and rubber hybrid) and high-polymer components. The product would have three hard and two versatile segments.

With a multipurpose smartphone like "Limbo," you wouldn't have to compromise with a trimmed-down smart watch that sacrifices full smartphone functionality. The device, however, may end up feeling bulky or looking strange.

Samsung is reportedly working on producing displays that could be made from flexible plastic instead of glass. A recent job listing for a "display specialist" suggests that Apple could also be working on its own flexible screens.

Analyst: Apple iPhone 5S to start production this month, launch this fall

According to Jefferies specialist Chris Misek, the The apple company iPhone 5S will begin going through manufacturing later this 30 days. This dovetails with a review that we approved along to you the other day about Foxconn going on a choosing exercise. While this details is sure to heated the center of any iOS fan, we still have a while before the cellphone is actually released.

Misek sees Apple releasing the Apple iPhone 5S in the fall and expects 25 million to 30 million units to be shipped in the third quarter. That, says the analyst, will be followed by shipments of 50 million to 55 million Apple iPhones for the holiday quarter. The Apple iPhone 5S should bring a faster processor, an improved camera with a longer lasting battery and according to one of sources, it will support NFC.

The specialist also mentioned that manufacturing has began on the The apple company iPhone Lite, the low-cost edition of the cellphone for growing marketplaces. Despite the obvious location of the cellphone, Misek pegs the price of the device at $300 to $400 and says it is more like a mid-range design at that price. If the The apple company iPhone Lite is price in that variety, "it will not be aggressive in growing marketplaces," he says. 

We wouldn't actually take Misek's feedback to center and certainly wouldn't take them to the lender. It seems predicting manufacturing of the next iPhone is a every quarter habit for the specialist who also said returning in Goal that he predicted manufacturing of the cellphone to begin that very 30 days with a This summer or This summer release. The great information for the specialist is that gradually, he might be right.


Parts for the iPhone 5S have leaked quite a few times before, and now we have another batch of what seems to be chassis waiting to be stuffed with internal silicon.

The more exciting aspect here are the stated specifications associated with them, which say that we'll get a 4" 1136×640 p IGZO show, significance great lighting at economical battery power intake, the same A6 SoC like in the iPhone5, but clocked greater, and a quad-core PowerVR SGX544MP4GPU, instead of the tri-core device we have now. 

The resource also verifies 2 GB of RAM, NFC at last and the challenging finger marks scanning device we've been listening to about for a while, connected to cellular transaction program of types, though we have to see the two jobs of RAM detailed formally to believe them. As for the photographic camera, it gets reduced a bit with regards to quality from the last leaking, stated to be 12 MP instead of 13 MP now, but a double LED display program is verified.