News from category ‘Hardware’

California-based company MicroUnity System Engineering filed a lawsuit against Apple, Acer, HTC, LG, Google, Nokia, Motorola, Palm, Samsung, Spring, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and AT&T. It accuses these companies in infringement of 14(!) separate patents about mobile processors.

The lawsuit was filed few days ago in a District Court in the Eastern District of Texas, a place where patent complaints are filed commonly in hopes to get a favorable outcome. The devices named in the document are iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch (32 Gb and 64 Gb versions), Motorola Droid, Google Nexus One, Palm Pre and Nokia N900.

The patents that were named in the suit are listed below:

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Here is a new concept for the iPhone 4G created by user JCross:

In some ways we can consider it as a small version of the iPad. However it looks more like an iPhone. The screen is slightly larger and there is also space for the front camera. Do you like it?

It seem like Apple have always been concentrated on Macs and iPhones/iPods/iPads, so their Apple TV product may be considered more like a hobby. But the company's main rival thinks of  it as of another field to work on.

Intel, Sony and Google created a team to work on the device called GoogleTV. The latter already has its prototype. The New York Times says it consists of Intel's Atom processor and Android OS with Chrome web-browser. The project has been under development for a few months and there is still a work to do, but preliminary the device will be introduced this summer. To test their set-top box Google cooperates with Dish Network.

The NYT's source say:

“Google wants to be everywhere the Internet is so they can put ads there.”

It sounds plausible, because GoogleTV device is planned to allow users to browse the Internet, watch YouTube videos, check out Hulu content and even run Web apps and games.

Here is a new commercial of Sprint that has recently offere iPhone users a new way to connect to their 4G network. As it is announced on its site:

"The Overdrive from Sprint can connect an iPhone to the Sprint 4G network to give it the advantages of 4G without switching carriers."

Overdrive allows connecting up to 5 Wi-fi enabled devices at the same time with a single 4G connection 10 times faster than 3G.

Do you like remote controlled cars? Dave has a very special one - his Pontiac GTO 1969 is controlled by the iPod Touch.

Take a look at the video:

Dave is using an accessory called RedEye, a remote WiFi.

Here is a humorous look at the iPad's capabilities produced for a Comm 340 class and posted on YouTube by Brian Johnson.

The video is an assignment for our Comm 340 class. The goal was to make a media product with the highest consumption as possible. We completed it March 2, 2010. Our professor is Dr. Warnick, and our group members are: Brian, Justin, Laura, Mike, and Rashel.

Take a look:

For some time people interested in the iPad's tech specs were wondering where the Dvorak keyboard support is. With iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 5 released on Tuesday developers finally found it. But on the evidence above it is clear that there is a hardware support, but not software (so you can connect external keyboard, but there is still no way to change iPad layout to Dvorak's).

It is interesting that though the hardware support is developed, there are no Bluetooth Dvorak keyboards produced at the moment to connect to the iPad (on the other hand you can always take usual keyboard and apply stickers to its keys).

To know more about Dvorak keyboard layour read here.

Macworld reports they have information from vendors who wish to stay anonymous that Apple will no longer sell screen protectors (and any other adhering products) for their devices. Some sources say the reason is an installation difficulty that leads to a higher rate of returns. Another explanation is that Apple tries to reduce the impression that its products require screen protection.

It is interesting that ban is related to any films, even anti-glare and those for the laptops, so many case vendors are looking now for the best and quickest way to repackage their products.

Apple hasn't yet commented on this situation.

Almost twenty years ago Scientific American posted an article of Xerox PARC. Its authors were thinking about the future technology and decided the next stage of it will be the ubiquitous computers.

"Ubiquitous computers will also come in different sizes, each suited to a particular task. My colleagues and I have built what we call tabs, pads and boards: inch-scale machines that approximate active Post-It notes, foot-scale ones that behave something like a sheet of paper (or a book or a magazine), and yard-scale displays that are the equivalent of a blackboard or bulletin board.”

They were right - tabs are the iPhones and iPods Touch and pads are iPads. But does it mean that we can expect from Apple something really huge like big-screen hubs? Such devices have already been developed (the best example is Microsoft's Surface table, the other one is Samsung MultiTouch Board shown on the picture), but they are still too expensive because of a flat-screen TV components.

When Apple started accepting iPad pre-orders it was announced the iPad Case will be shipped April 3rd and iPad keyboard Dock - April 20th. But as we see from the screenshot above both of these accessories are delayed. What is it, another manufacturing delay?

For the last few months we have been witnessing the competition between Google and Apple that becomes more and more significant. We tried to analyze some facts and made a conclusion that the confrontation is more personal than corporate.

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BK_FCXcyrk

iDongle is a new device that lets you to jailbreak your iPhone/iPod Touch or reboot it on the go. It is very easy to use - just plug it in and wait. The only problem is that it supports only iPod Touch 2G/3G and 3.1.2 iPhone 3GS.

At the moment there is only a dozen of this devices, but the developer says he collects money at the moment to build up a full-fledged production.

Members of AAPL Sanity Board at Investor Village resource decided to study the iPad order numbers. By 11:05am EST they received fifteen confirmations about 74,000 orders (the device went up for pre-order at 08:30 am EST).

But there were other who became interested in the dynamics of iPad sells. Valcent Financial Group says about 51,000 orders in 2 hours, Silicon Alley Insider reports about 20,000 devices reserved per hour.

Fortune predicts Apple may have only 300,000 iPads available for sale right now. It also reports 91,000 devices were sold in six hours since 08:30 am.

Another cool stuff was released by the Jailbreak Collective. It is a set of  iCon Magnets for your refrigerator (or any magnet surface). The authors say these are the icons for the old-school tasks where the usual iPhone apps are coming up short.

The price for 18 magnets is $13 plus shipping. It is available for purchase here.

In a week after the story about the lawsuit Oppenheimer analyst Yal Reiner wrote a research note, where it is said that Apple started warning Motorola and HTC in as early as January 2009. The Cupertino's company was not so happy to see that rivals' new products look like iPhone (or at least use the same concepts).

Apple COO Tim Cook even commented on this situation:

"Apple will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we'll use whatever weapons that we have at our disposal".

The words were presumably about Samsung, LG and Nokia (Palm is not mentioned as its sales numbers are not so considerable).

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