The Apple vs. HTC patent war may be the tech story of the week, but it’s not the only patent fight involving Apple. The company is also involved a patent dispute with Nokia in which both companies accuse the other of violating their intellectual property. That fight is on pause after a federal judge in Delaware issued a stay in order to let the U.S. International Trade Commission settle the dispute.
Nokia filed a complaint against Apple in October 2009, alleging that the iPhone infringes on 10 patents held by Nokia. Apple soon responded with similar claims that Nokia’s devices violate patents that held by Apple. Both companies filed complaints with ITC, which agreed to investigate each party’s claims. The ongoing investigation made court proceedings redundant, so it makes sense for the judge to issue a temporary stay until the ITC releases its findings. The hold on the case applies to both Nokia’s claims and Apple’s counterclaims.
The laptop used to compose this blog post is running one of the 90 million copies of Windows 7 sold since Microsoft released its latest operating system last fall. In an entry posted to the Windows Team Blog, Brandon LeBlanc claimed that Microsoft has sold 90 million licenses to Windows 7. That’s one license for nearly a third of current U.S. population.
The announcement came courtesy of Microsoft CFO Peter Klein. While Klein was attending the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, he released the sales figures and showed off a few PC’s running the software. As LeBlanc described them:
the Sony VAIO X which is so sleek and portable it could fit inside a MacBook Air, the Dell Adamo XPS which is the thinnest PC in the world, and the HP Envy 13 which combines breakthrough industrial design with tons of power.
Windows 7 earned very solid reviews from the tech community and is clearly off to a better start than Microsoft Vista, which featured several complains of major bugs, flaws, and incompatibility issues with software and peripherals. Considering that 7 has proved to be a much better successor to XP, you’ll probably see more companies and regular consumers willing to upgrade and push those Windows 7 sales totals even higher.
Google announced a new app for Android that brings a bit of handwriting recognition to searching. The app allows users to create a gesture on the screen for searching for contacts, apps, bookmarks or song. Even better, the app learns as you use it.
What isn’t so great is this app only runs on Android 2.0 and higher. So users who just purchased say a Droid Eris (*ahem, our Editor Robert Nelson), you can’t have it. Even worse, only those in the US are getting this app so far.
I am sure Google is working to bring the app to more devices and more areas, but Android owners around the globe are finding ways to get around the practice. Folks from India, Australia and the UK chimed in with disappointment that their country was not supported. Today, there are still companies launching new devices that run sub 2.0 Android OS; is Android becoming a 3 month handset ownership max then dump to keep up with Google and the latest and greatest? If so, being an Android supported will become an expensive proposition.
All right, that’s out of my system. The app looks great, seems to work well and gets smarter each time you use it? That’s pretty sweet.
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Nokia and T-Mobile announced the Nokia 5230 Nuron smartphone will be released in the coming weeks. Nokia’s produced a reasonably priced smartphone that is packed with many of todays in-demand features. The phone will sell for $69.99 (after a $50 mail in rebate).
What sets the 5230 apart? The Nuron is the first Nokia device that comes pre-loaded with Ovi Map which offer free turn-by-turn GPS navigation and the first to have the Ovi Store preloaded with access to games and other apps. Overall, it’s a smart, slim, touchscreen device that comes ready to please.
The Nuron features a 3.2” screen, runs on T-Mobile’s 3G network, a 2 megapixel camera, 4GB microSD card (included) - expandable to 16GB, an accelerometer and touchscreen with tactile feedback. Video is 640x480 (nHD) at up to 30fps.
Lenovo has recently added another notebook into the available category. This time it is the IdeaPad Y460 and it is priced at either $999 or $1,199 depending on the configuration you choose.
In terms of what you can expect to get for your money. The $999 model comes equipped with a 14.0-inch LED backlight (1366 x 768) display, 2.13GHz Intel Core i3-330M processor, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, dual-layer DVD recorder, 6-cell battery and Windows 7 Home Premium 64.
Moving up the the $1,199 model you will see a few bumps in specs which include a 2.40GHz Intel Core i5-520M processor, 500GB hard drive and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card.
Both models are currently available for purchase and are noted as being able to ship within 13 business days.
It looks like the Sony Vaio M netbook has been revealed, and unfortunately for Sony it was not revealed by them. But putting that aside, its out in the open and with that comes a complete set of specs.
Overall the Sony Vaio M netbook is pretty close to the existing Vaio W series but putting that aside, here is what you can expect to see in a Vaio M netbook;
10.1-inch LED backlight display (1024 x 600)
1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor
1GB DDR2 SDRAM
250GB 5400rpm hard drive
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Built-in webcam
Additionally the Vaio M series netbooks look to be available in both black and white. As of now we are still missing a release date and pricing.
Yesterday we saw some of the first images of a BlackBerry slider style handset, which was appropriately dubbed the BlackBerry “Slider” and today brings a follow up with a few more images. Shockingly this second set of images does actually make the handset look a little nicer. Of course, that could just be the fact that the initial shock of ugliness has worn off. That said, this latest round of images shows the new slider style handset both open and closed. Its also sitting next to an existing BlackBerry 8900 just to give an idea of overall size. But sadly as with any sets of leaked images we are generally left waiting for specs as they slowly come to light. And this is the case here, nothing, zip, zero, nada, zilch. Well, other than it has a disappointingly small 1050mAh battery. Anyway, in the meantime hit up the BBLeaks link below to check out a few more images.
The Facebook app for the Zune may have experienced some problems but the latest version of Facebook for webOS devices looks solid as a rock. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that the thing is drop dead gorgeous.
With its beautiful interface and easy to navigate set-up, Palm’s official Facebook app is the app that Pre and Pixi owners should have had all along. It also upgraded the under the hood stuff by adding new features like updating a status from anywhere, viewing Facebook profiles, improved inbox functioning, photo uploading, photo albums, and auto-filtered search. Increased speed sweetens the pot even more.
Palm tipped its hand that an update would appear soon when a Pre advertisement featured the updated app. Version 1.1.0 of the Palm Facebook app is available in the update function. Below is a video from PreCentral highlighting the new features.
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It seems Nexus One developers didn’t spend enough time working out the bugs and rushed the release of its multitouch capabilities. Rumors and random oddities had surfaced before but no one was ever able to recreate the glitch effectivly until Robert Green of Battery Powered Games came around. He too had experienced these bugs but unlike the others, he worked to prove it.
To do that, he created a simple application called Multitouch Visible Test. Using raw data, the application would draw two circles where the phone thought your fingers were. In simple, easy-going tests of the basic uses of multitouch, everything seemed to be normal. But once your fingers get too close together, the Nexus One starts to forget where you are and messes everything up. The phone begins to think your fingers are on opposite sides of the phone; you can’t get much more wrong than that.
Just to prove it wasn’t glitches in his own code, another user recorded himself testing the application out on a Droid and a Nexus One to demonstrate its legitimacy. Hopefully if the developers didn’t realize by now, this application will really bring it up to eye level. Now that it is concrete, more and more blame will be placed until the problem is fixed. So lets hope for this in the next software update.
The Apple vs. HTC patent war may be the tech story of the week, but it’s not the only patent fight involving Apple. The company is also involved a patent dispute with Nokia in which both companies accuse the other of violating their intellectual property. That fight is on pause after a federal judge in Delaware issued a stay in order to let the U.S. International Trade Commission settle the dispute. 
The laptop used to compose this blog post is running one of the 90 million copies of Windows 7 sold since Microsoft released its latest operating system last fall. In an entry posted to the Windows Team Blog, Brandon LeBlanc claimed that Microsoft has sold 90 million licenses to Windows 7. That’s one license for nearly a third of current U.S. population.
Google announced a new app for Android that brings a bit of handwriting recognition to searching. The app allows users to create a gesture on the screen for searching for contacts, apps, bookmarks or song. Even better, the app learns as you use it. 
Nokia and T-Mobile announced the Nokia 5230 Nuron smartphone will be released in the coming weeks. Nokia’s produced a reasonably priced smartphone that is packed with many of todays in-demand features. The phone will sell for $69.99 (after a $50 mail in rebate).
It looks like the Sony Vaio M netbook has been revealed, and unfortunately for Sony it was not revealed by them. But putting that aside, its out in the open and with that comes a complete set of specs.
The Facebook app for the Zune may have experienced some problems but the latest version of Facebook for webOS devices looks solid as a rock. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that the thing is drop dead gorgeous.
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