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A burst of 9 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
NVIDIA launches patent suits focused on Samsung Galaxy phones, tablets >> NVIDIA Blog
This is an important day for NVIDIA. For the first time since starting this company 21 years ago, we have initiated a patent lawsuit.
This afternoon, we filed patent infringement complaints against Samsung and Qualcomm with both the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and the US District Court, in Delaware. You can see our press release here, and the complaints here and here.
We are asking the ITC to block shipments of Samsung Galaxy mobile phones and tablets containing Qualcomm's Adreno, ARM's Mali or Imagination's PowerVR graphics architectures. We are also asking the Delaware court to award damages to us for the infringement of our patents.
Claims Samsung and Qualcomm are using Nvidia technology without a licence. Apple, Microsoft, and now Nvidia: who else is suing Samsung?
Google to refund consumers at least $19m to settle FTC complaint it unlawfully billed parents for children's unauthorized in-app charges >> US Federal Trade Commission
Google has agreed to settle a Federal Trade Commission complaint alleging that it unfairly billed consumers for millions of dollars in unauthorized charges incurred by children using mobile apps downloaded from the Google Play app store for use on Android mobile devices. Under the terms of the settlement, Google will provide full refunds – with a minimum payment of $19m – to consumers who were charged for kids' purchases without authorization of the account holder. Google has also agreed to modify its billing practices to ensure that it obtains express, informed consent from consumers before charging them for items sold in mobile apps.
Apple had to repay $32.5m in January.
Why Google just abandoned the 'Enterprise' brand >> CITEworld
Google for Work security director Eran Feigenbaum told the story of how he joined Google in 2007, and it reflects this shift perfectly.
"I was previously the chief security officer of a very conservative financial organization. All of a sudden we're getting these calls from the support team, everybody's installing Google Desktop Search. They're saying it's a violation of our security policy, it gives all this data to Google."
He continued, "A week later, I called a friend of mine who was the CIO of Google at the time, I told him 'You're killing us with this product, we have to go around and kill this on people's machines.' He replied, 'If you think I'm killing you now, wait until you see what's coming next.' He was talking at that point about Gmail for your domain."
A year later, Feigenbaum joined Google to help drive that shift.
Feigenbaum admits that Google's approach to enterprise security was pretty rudimentary at the beginning - "trust us, we're Google" was the company's mindset -- but over the last 7 years Google has added a ton of enterprise security features, including various certifications (like FISMA for its government customers) and encryption at rest.
How should we program computers to deceive? >> Pacific Standard
Kate Greene:
Just outside the Benrath Senior Center in Düsseldorf, Germany, is a bus stop at which no bus stops. The bench and the official-looking sign were installed to serve as a "honey trap" to attract patients with dementia who sometimes wander off from the facility, trying to get home. Instead of venturing blindly into the city and triggering a police search, they see the sign and wait for a bus that will never come. After a while, someone gently invites them back inside.
It's rare to come across such a beautiful deception. Tolerable ones, however, are a dime a dozen. Human society has always glided along on a cushion of what Saint Augustine called "charitable lies"—untruths deployed to avoid conflict, ward off hurt feelings, maintain boundaries, or simply keep conversation moving—even as other, more selfish deceptions corrode relationships, rob us of the ability to make informed decisions, and eat away at the reserves of trust that keep society afloat.
How do you get your computer to pretend that the cheque is in the post? A wonderful piece of research and writing.
Intellectual Ventures: patent troll funds startups, new products >> Businessweek
Google, Apple, and Intel, among other companies, have gritted their teeth and paid IV about $6bn so far. "I think IV is basically a parasitic tax on the tech industry," says Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder who's also a Facebook board member.
Having earned billions in payouts from powerful technology companies, IV is setting out to build things on its own. Rather than keeping its IP under lock and key, the company is looking to see if its ideas can be turned into products and the basis for new companies. The first wave of products includes an ultra-efficient nuclear reactor, a waterless washing machine, self-healing concrete, and a giant squeegee for sucking up oil spills. One country has asked IV to help lower its temperature, and another wants it to create robots that can replace migrant workers.
Might want a long spoon with that one.
A future fuelled by phablets – worldwide phablet shipments to surpass portable PCs in 2014 and tablets by 2015 >> IDC
Worldwide phablet shipments (smartphones with screen sizes from 5.5in to less than 7in) will reach 175m units worldwide in 2014, passing the 170m portable PCs expected to ship during the same period. Next year, total phablet volumes will top 318m units, surpassing the 233m tablets forecast to ship in 2015.
While phablets are a relatively new category of device, first picking up volume in 2012, the pressure that the category has placed on the tablet market has already been clearly observed as the growth of smaller, 7in tablets has begun to slow. IDC expects more consumers to shift back toward larger-sized tablets with their next purchase. However, that trend hasn't made up for the decreased shipments of smaller sizes, which has resulted in lower overall expectations for the tablet market in 2014 and beyond.
"With Apple expected to join the space in the coming weeks, we anticipate even more attention on phablets as larger screen smartphones become the new norm," said Melissa Chau, Senior Research Manager with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
IDC expects phablets to grow from 14.0% of the worldwide smartphone market in 2014 to 32.2% in 2018.
Of course, they won't be used for real work.
The people camping outside the Apple store want more than the iPhone 6 >> Quartz
Zach Wener-Fligner:
Four people have already lined up to buy the next versions of the iPhone, which aren't expected to go on sale for another 16 days. But they aren't really there for iPhones: They are being paid by companies hoping to glom onto the expected frenzy.
Joseph Cruz and Brian Ceballo arrived in front of Apple's glass cube on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Sunday, August 31. They brought tarps, chairs, sleeping bags, and lots of T-shirts for BuyBackWorld, an online electronics retailer. BuyBackWorld is picking up their food bill for the three-week urban campout. The company is also paying for the iPhone 6 of their choice, assuming that's what Apple unveils at its event next week and begins selling, as expected, on Friday, Sept. 19.
Intel and opening ceremony collaborate on MICA, a stylish tech bracelet >> NYTimes.com
Nick Bilton:
Isabel Pedersen, the author of "Ready to Wear: A Rhetoric of Wearable Computers and Reality-Shifting Media," said that until now, companies have been treating the design of wearable computers as, well, the design of computers. In contrast, fashion designers think about style, age, taste and a number of other criteria when they make clothing and jewelry for consumers.
"Today's wearables are ugly and clunky because tech is a very male-centric industry, and as a result wearables are too ugly for most people," Dr. Pedersen said. "A wearable can't really hope to become part of everyday culture until these companies consider more than just the technology."
For most wearable makers, it would be in their best interest to stop worrying about the gizmos inside, and start worrying about the look and feel of their products. Research firms predict that companies that crack the tech-meets-fashion code could sell hundreds of millions of accessories in the coming years.
Start with something you want to wear, and then put a computer in it? How many tech companies are you going to persuade to do that?
Apple iWatch still under EVT despite components already in production >> Digitimes
Despite related components already entering into production, Apple's iWatch is still unlikely to become available until 2015, as the device is still under engineering verification testing (EVT) stage and has to still go through production verification testing (PVT), according to sources from the upstream supply chain.
The sources pointed out that a product will need to first pass the PVT stage before entering to mass production, and between the EVT and PVT stages, Apple could still be change its design.
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