Post Article for 29-Aug-2012
This week it is time to look at the phone wars. Nokia and RIM the makers of the Blackberry are essentially out of the market leaving Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and a number of Asian providers. The biggest battle is currently between Apple and Samsung in both the phone and tablet spaces. Apple claims that Samsung has violated copyright by using rounded corners and copied their icon designs. Samsung has pointed out that others used rounded corners and similar icons before Apple did and in the greater scheme of things who really cares? That a rounded corner, something used since people bumped into a table with square ones, is even subject to copyright is absurd to start with. So far the battle lines have shifted back and forward between the two companies with different winners in different places. Now a new player has entered the fight, Google. They make the Android operating system that is so popular on Samsung devices. They also own all of the Motorola patents one of which is essentially the one that allows a SIMM to connect to a communications network. Guess which company whose products all start with a small i also connects to the communications network with a SIMM? An attack on Samsung is an attack on Android and by extension an attack on Google. Google has started the process of having all the 4s and iPad2 devices taken off the market because they are violating the Motorola patent. Note that they are not asking Apple to pay for the license just to get rid of their devices.
This would effectively halve Apple’s profits overnight and it is really Apple’s fault for starting this battle with Samsung in the first place simple because they were Apple’s biggest competitor and Apple has devolved into a rather anti-competitive company as Europe and other have pointed out recently. I’m not sure where this will all end up but I suspect that if Apple drops their suits and returns to an open competitive marketplace that Google will also back off. This is of course the best situation for the users and for common sense.
To help you find out if your new invention may be violating any “prior art” Google has developed a new tool their Prior Art Finder that looks at a variety of locations to see if someone else has done it before you. To get a patent your idea must be new, add something to the existing options and also be useful to industry. It works by taking key phrases in your submission and comparing it to what is already out there.
Some malware lingo for you. A “Black Hat” is a background hacker usually up to no good and typically for personal gain. In contrast the “White Hat” is usually a security tester or someone who works for a security organization and are sometimes called ethical hackers. A “Grey Hat” is somewhere in between and often break in just for fun. The term “Blue Hat” is used to indicate someone used to bug test a system but not part of a White Hat group. Now you know.
If like me you are a fan of future technology take a look at the web site http://leapmotion.com/ and run the demo. Then look at the price below. If your jaw didn’t unconsciously drop you are made of sterner stuff than I. This little box could revolutionize the future of input peripherals and bring us yet another step closer to the technology we say in the movie Minority Report.
With Windows 8 due out in October I suspect there are a few who will want to try it out. By all means do so. To my eye it looks a bit like Windows 1 as far as the design is concerned but there are some who will like and adopt it. According to Dell enterprises, not so much. Dell is expecting a continuation of the transition to Windows 7 for the next year or so and any new moves to other platforms will be at the server end with Windows Server 2012, with the possible exception of tablet users.
There are three things that do not tend to work well with each other phones, computers and cameras. The latest devices like the Samsung S3 combine a computer and a phone quite well and while the camera is nice it is nothing like the real thing. Enter the new Android powered Nikon Coolpix S800c. It is basically a nice 16MP point and shoot camera with a 25-250mm equivalent lens, built in GPS, 125-3000 ISO and HD 1080p video. Now add an Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system with access to all the usual Android functionality and apps with WiFi. This is the first camera with everything but the phone, probably the easiest thing to add in the next version. Still only two thirds the way there but getting closer.
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The Chinese underground is large and worth about $800 million. A recent analysis from the California University’s Institute on Global Conflict and Co-operation is probably way off as most Western analysis of Asian countries is typically poor. They claim a group of 90,000 people that have targeted an estimated 110 million internet users. They target banking information, online currency, spreading botnets and training others in black hat techniques mostly involving Trojans and a variety of phishing attacks designed to do ID fraud and identity theft.
They participants work using a loosely organized trading system. Web forums, chat clients, special slang based language and other tricks are used to mask activity from those who are watching. Baidu PostBar for example has over 5 million discussion areas. The administrators claim to be thankful for others pointing out how their services could be misused. Asians are polite like that. Tencent QQ is another service being used but not quite so helpful when it comes to shutting down the trouble makers.
Those familiar with Asia will not be surprised if the police in China are involved in some way either by working slowly or more actively involved.
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