Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility unit filed separate appeals of a federal judge's June 22 order dismissing their mutual patent- infringement claims.
US Circuit Judge Richard A Posner threw out the companies' claims about two weeks after he rejected each mobile-phone maker's damages theories and cancelled a jury trial that had been set for June 11 in federal court in Chicago.
The appeal notices , which also involved earlier rulings, were filed there on Sunday. That trial would have been the first between Apple, the maker of theiPhone and Google, creator of the Android smart phone operating system, since the California-based company completed its $12.5-billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility in May.
The company behind everyone’s favourite desktop email client, Sparrow, was bought up by none other than Google over the weekend, with Sparrow staff, IP and executives set to be folded into Google. The question on everyone’s lips though is will Google kill-off the Sparrow client apps?
Sparrow is a start-up software firm based in France that outed Sparrow for Mac OS X and iOS in February of last year. Sparrow took off thanks to its seamless operation with Gmail at a desktop level on Mac and iOS, and scored high praise for its clever integration with services like Facebook and Dropbox.
Following the acquisition, we could see one of two things happen: we could see the branding of the Sparrow client apps change into “Sparrow From Google” or “Sparrow For Gmail”, or we could see Google strip the software of its original Sparrow branding and relabel it as a straight Gmail client.
What’s the difference, you ask? It’s subtle, but it’s there.
Rebranding Sparrow as a pure Gmail desktop client means that Google puts the now-great piece of desktop email software at risk of being spoiled by Google injecting a whole bunch of crap into it. What kind of crap? Well, you’ve seen its awful web interface…
Apple is the epitome of vertical integration owning the end to end supply-chain including the consumer touch point and Google is the epitome of crowd-sourced development: throwing stuff on the walls and letting users vote with their time & money on what sticks and what does not.
I am a big fan of both Apple and Google and from the distance see two very different DNAs that are good at solving a very distinct set of problems. Apple is the epitome of vertical integration owning the end to end supply-chain including the consumer touch point. Google is the epitome of crowd-sourced development: throwing stuff on the walls and letting users vote with their time & money on what sticks and what does not.
In this post I am going to make some predictions on what kinds of products and services each company will win at and what might be tough for them.
Procter & Gamble Co., the world’s largest consumer-products company, sued a manufacturer of private-label products for patent infringement.
The suit, filed July 20 in federal court in Cincinnati, accused Team Technologies Inc., of Morristown, Tennessee, of infringing three patents related to tooth-whitening products.
Procter & Gamble said the “Oral Care Whitening Dental Strips” Team Technologies sells to Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) infringe patents 5,891,453, 5,894,017, and 7,122,199. Another allegedly infringing tooth-whitening product produced by Team Technologies is sold to CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS), the company said in its pleadings. Neither CVS nor Rite Aid is named as a defendant.
Team Technologies didn’t respond immediately to an e-mailed request for comment. According to the company website, Team Technologies produces a range of dental-related products including toothbrushes, denture adhesives and cases for orthodontic appliances.
EU regulators, investigating Google for alleged anti-competitive behaviour, want the internet search giant to offer concessions that cover all platforms, including computers, tablets and mobile devices, two people familiar with the issue said on Friday.
If Google is not able to provide satisfactory concessions, it will face charges and potentially severe fines, the EU's competition commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, has said.
Almunia wants remedies for all computing devices that have access to the Internet and provide a search capability, one of the people said.
Mobile devices and tablets are increasingly becoming gateways to the Web and Web-based content such as movies and music.
Earlier this month, the world's most popular search engine proposed concessions in a bid to settle an 18-month long investigation fueled by complaints from rivals including Microsoft . Neither Google nor the EU have said what those concessions were.
Australian corporates have paid 1.7 billion Australian dollars (US$1.75 billion) — or 13% of a A$13 billion advertising spending pool — to global media players such as Google, Facebook and LinkedIn, according to Morgan Stanley.
“By 2020 we estimate global players will extract A$5.7 billion or 33% of a total A$16.7 billion ad spend pool,” Sydney-based Morgan Stanley Andrew McLeod said in a note to clients, describing the structural shift as “global leakage.”
As a result, the broker is cautious on Australian media stocks across print, television and radio, and has an Underweight position on the sector, which is facing a shrinking advertising market.
“Facebook is not a substitute for Seven, Nine and Ten, but it is an alternative, and more choice for building brands lessens the traditional strong pricing power of TV,” Mr. McLeod said, adding that Facebook will also compete with online offerings such as Yahoo!7 and Fairfax Digital.
Morgan Stanley doesn’t expect total advertising as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, to exceed its current level of 1%, reflecting the fact Australia is a relatively mature market.
Have you heard the one about Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) being the banking hot spot of tomorrow? Very recently, the news got out that Facebook has teamed up with theCommonwealth Bank (ASX: CBA) to develop a banking app for the social media site. Within days, Citigroup (NYSE: C) got into the act by asking its fan base if they would do their banking via Facebook. Social banking, it seems, is coming of age.
Maturing attitude toward financial transactions
With nearly one billion registered users, it’s not surprising that the social media giant would be interested in courting banking institutions to offer services via Facebook’s platform. The concept is still gestating, but the instantly piqued interest of a banking heavyweight like Citi speaks volumes as to the importance of the idea.
Over the past several months, Facebook has been taking financial transactions on its site more seriously. The company recently updated its formerly clunky mobile payment system for its third-party developers, noting that annoyance with the old system was costing app and game developers money. It has also instituted a subscription billing system for developers, in an effort to help these companies tap into a customer base that’s willing to spend more for fine-tuned services.
Channel Seven has apologised to a mother who lost her teenage daughter in a quad-bike accident almost two weeks ago after her criticism of its news crew was removed from its Facebook page.
Linda Goldspink-Lord wrote of her anger on the Seven News Sydney Facebook page in a post that attracted more than 32,000 "likes" before it was removed.
She alleged the news station filmed her with the body of her 13-year-old daughter Molly Lord from a helicopter above a property at Kembla Grange, near Wollongong on July 11.
"I would just like to let everyone know of the pain and harassment we suffered as a result of channel 7," she wrote.
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"A reporter was on our private property very soon after the accident and whilst Molly was still on the ground. He walked up to the house down to the stables anywhere looking for a story. I went outside at some point to go to her horse for some comfort when the channel 7 helicopter flew above me trying to get footage. My husband was overseas at the time of the accident but footage of myself sitting with my deceased daughter was put on the channel 7 website for the world to see see before I had even told all my family.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/seven-sorry-after-quadbike-mothers-facebook-criticism-removed-20120723-22j2r.html#ixzz21QZzJx1f
Whether it is the iPhone 4G, the iPhone 4GS, the iPhone 5 or simply the ‘new iPhone’, the most ridiculously weird rumour thus far is the one that suggests the iPhone 5 will be named after Steve Jobs.
When iPhone 5 rumours pop up, they often come with links to the source of the rumour, but when they don’t, you have to wonder whether the articles have much more credibility than your typical gossip magazine.
The latest whacky rumour comes from Emirates 247, which gives the game away by not linking to any sources, thus putting into grave doubt its “emerging” claim of “unofficial sources” stupendously suggesting that the 5 in iPhone 5 “will be stylised to look more like an S – as in Steve”.
Look, unless Apple really is going to go after the symbolism of Steve, which potentially includes launching the iPhone 5 on October 5, the anniversary of the iCEO’s passing last year, the whole idea of an iPhone 5 being name after Steve just sounds… well… unlikely.
Zeebiz Bureau
The iPhone 5 -- the next gen iPhone may just find itself in a store near you, sooner than expected.
Numerous blogs are doing their rounds about the iPhone 5 after the ‘Know Your Mobile’ website stated that the phone is ready and will be shipped in August.
For all of you Apple enthusiasts and those who aren’t -- it’s not too late. The date for the launch of iPhone 5 has been set within three or so weeks from now, on August 7.
The iPhone 5 is expected to be thinner, with a massive screen and fine-tuned search features. The iPhone 5 will feature the next version of Apple’s iOS operating system, iOS 6. The new OS is set to give a good amount of competition to fellow competitors, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 and Android Jelly Bean 4.1.
Rumour also has it that this launch is marked by Apple’s answer to the pressure laid down by rival tech giant’s third iteration of its fast-selling series — the Samsung Galaxy S III.
These findings are from the State of Mobile Advertising report, which is based on insights from the second quarter of 2012 and summarises the mobile ad platform’s results from serving more than 9,000 global customers with more than 35 billion ad impressions per month and driving more than $240 million (US) of revenue to mobile publishers in 2011.
Based on these results, Opera inferred that devices with better usability and features that allow more interaction between the advertisement and the device’s functionality have better monetisation potential than less user-friendly devices.
“We also see the importance of device market share in encouraging advertisers to target particular devices. Windows phones have most if not all of the advanced features of Android and iPhones, but low levels of user adoption stifle its performance,” said the report.
Opera also found that the iPad delivered an average 3CPM of US$3.96 across the mobile opera ad platform. This further illustrates the point as the iPad epitomises user-friendly devices and is achieving significant user adoption in user groups that are highly desirable to advertisers. For example, 40 per cent of physicians own or plan to own an iPad or tablet by the end of 2012, according to Nielsen projections.
The study recommends that advertisers make tablet ad executions an important part of their strategy in the next six months.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 22 (Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) faces an unusual phenomenon when reporting earnings this time around: low expectations.
Few are expecting the world's most valuable technology company -- which surpasses Wall Street expectations with near regularity -- to deliver a bumper quarter once more on Tuesday.
The main reason: consumers holding out for the new iPhone.
Apple may still surprise market watchers, but many Wall Street analysts and investors remember how chatter over the launch of a new iPhone last year caused Apple to miss quarterly expectations in the fall, for the first time in years.
The iPhone 5 is only expected to hit store shelves around October -- just in time for the holidays -- with a thinner, larger screen and fine-tuned search features. Couple that pre-launch lull with slowdowns in Europe and China, Apple's biggest markets outside of North America, and sentiment on the Wall Street darling is more muted than many can remember in a while.
"No longer is Apple the company that beats every time," said Tim Lesko, portfolio manager at Granite Investment Advisors, which owns Apple stock. "I expect Apple to beat Apple's guidance, but I don't know whether they will beat Wall Street's guidance."
Tony Sacconaghi, analyst with Bernstein Research, sees a reasonable chance Apple will miss expectations on revenue, citing "macroeconomic weakness in China and Europe, a product cycle lull in the iPhone, a later than expected introduction of the new iPad into China, and the late quarter introduction of new Mac notebooks."
As iPhone fans await the release of a new model, they are delaying purchases and may cause Apple Inc. (AAPL) (AAPL), the world’s largest company by market value, to post its slowest sales and profit growth in more than two years.
With a redesigned model probably arriving by October,analysts (AAPL) estimate that sales of iPhones -- Apple’s biggest source of revenue (AAPL) -- slid in the fiscal third quarter from prior periods. While analysts predict that the next iPhone will be the best-selling smartphone yet from Cupertino, California-based Apple, the purchasing delays will probably weigh down results until the device hits stores.
“People are waiting,” said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Oregon. Apple will sell about 25.4 million iPhones, he estimates, compared with 35.1 million in the previous quarter. “It’s going to be bad now, but great later.”
A similar slowdown occurred ahead of last year’s iPhone 4S release in October, causing Apple’s shares (AAPL) to slide when the company reported profit that fell short of analysts’ estimates for the first time since 2003.
