Software News

from the circle-of-litigation dept. An anonymous reader writes "Ordered to tell Samsung all of the company's HTC secrets, Apple throws a tantrum and adds a bunch of new products to the never-ending list of products Samsung has infringed on. Apple's tantrum stems from a ruling on Thursday that could have a large effect on the Apple lawsuit. The Apple lawsuit, which was filed in February, alleges that Samsung violated Apple patents related to user interface, technology and style. The first decision was found in favor of Apple to the tune of $1 billion, but Samsung is trying to get that ruling thrown out. But as the Apple lawsuit has gone on, the Apple lawsuit has gotten fiercer, and because of a ruling on Thursday, Apple throws a tantrum and is trying to add even more products into the lawsuit."

from the or-as-it's-now-called-the-iTurn dept. An anonymous reader sends this quote from the NY Times Bits blog: "If you want to know just how broken the patent system is, just look at patent D670,713, filed by Apple and approved this week by the United States Patent Office. This design patent, titled, 'Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface,' gives Apple the exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application. ... Apple argued that its patented page turn was unique in that it had a special type of animation other page-turn applications had been unable to create." The article doesn't really make it clear, but this is for the UI design of showing a page being turned, not the actual function of moving from one page to another. That said, the patent itself cites similar animations in Flash from 2004.

Your choices all have the same outcome. It is not the number of american jobs that is important to the economy, it is the number of american jobs that provide a livable wage.

In a robotic plant, most of the workers are the ones who box things up at the end of the process. Usually the minimum qualifications are a high school diploma, if that. How is that a well paying job?

Unless Apple intends to pay a livable wage to its employees at these plant(s), which would mean either a significant price hike in products or a reduction in profits, all they are doing is pandering to the populus notion of buy American.

Well, manufacturing is an unskilled job for the most part. In fact, factory jobs tend to be some of the worst around because they're utterly dull, boring and uninspiring work putting tab A into slot B and doing so in 750 milliseconds or less.

Other unskilled jobs include janitorial, housekeeping, etc. These are unskilled because anyone who graduates high school has all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually perform them, and they pay low because well, anyone who walks off the street can do it.

Robotic factories require far more skilled labor - you have to have technicians who can repair the robots, highly paid engineers who have to figure out how to make the product manufacturable by robots, supervisors to handle robot emegencies (and to manage human-robot interactions), engineers or techs to program the robots, etc. These require specialized training and as such, are much higher paying jobs. But of course there are far less of them - a robot tech can service multiple robots each work shift, likewise a manufacturing engineer designs the whole thing out before production begins, etc.

It's why the average American is far more productive than their Chinese counterpart - you cannot simply move manufacturing from China to the US without redesigning your product around that fact. Because all that happens is you're replacing low-skill jobs in China with low-skill jobs in the US (most of which would actually be fulfilled by illegal immigrants and such - just like in other low skill jobs).

Apple probably will pay just over minimum wage, because really, that's all the job demands. Unless you think putting stuff in boxes demands more pay than flipping burgers, cleaning toilets or other stuff.

And knowing Apple, if you're making tons of the stuff, they probably won't have a human hand touching it - just robots all the way into sealing the box. The only humans in the actual line are probably there to keep it going - receiving parts into inventory and stocking the part carriers for the robots, and shipping out the finished pallets of product.

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For those too lazy to follow a link, here is the gist:

"Earlier this month Samsung asked that the court force Apple to turn over its settlement agreement with HTC, and today US Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal granted that requested. According to Samsung, the document could play a vital role in determining whether it will need to take any of its products off the market in the wake of the $1.049 billion verdict Apple won back in August. If Apple licensed some of its unique user experience patents, Samsung argues, then Cupertino is clearly fine with competitors using that IP as long as it receives money in return â" and since Apple will be receiving a payout in connection with the verdict, the extra step of an injunction isn't justified."

In plain text: Apple: no injunctions for you and drop the damages you ask to what you can actually negotiate in the marketplace.

Want to bet that Apple isn't at all happy about this?

View the original article here

you didn't read the list.

tea: "A supply of tea with milk and sugar would be nice. If it is tea I
really like, I like it without milk and sugar. With milk and sugar,
any kind of tea is fine. I always bring tea bags with me, so if we
use my tea bags, I will certainly like that tea without milk or sugar. ...if he brings his own tea all the time, WTF milk and sugar? if he brings his tea with him, why even mention this?

audio: It is best to provide audio recordings in the original recorded sample
rate, up to 44100Hz. Monophonic is generally adequate for speech
recordings and saves a lot of space over stereo.

HOW to pay for his tickets? you're getting a free ticket why do you care HOW i pay for it?
If you buy bus or train tickets for me, do not give my name! Big
Brother has no right to know where I travel, or where you travel, or
where anyone travels. If they arbitrarily demand a name, give a name
that does not belong to any person you know of. If they will check my
ID before I board the bus or train, then let's look for another way
for me to travel. (In the US I never use long-distance trains because
of their ID policy.)

Don't give them your name either: please pay for the ticket in cash.

hates breakfast:
I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about
what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up.

don't be polite: So please don't ask me "Where do you want to eat?" or "What kind of
restaurant do you want to go to?" I can't make an intelligent
decision without knowing the facts, and unless I am already familiar
with the city we're in, I can only get those facts from you. ..i can see him storming out of a room because someone asked him a friendly question.

coke vs. pepsi - sure state your preference.. but I don't give a shit WHY
If I am quite sleepy, I would like two cans or small bottles of
non-diet Pepsi. (I dislike the taste of coke, and of all diet soda;
also, there is an international boycott of the Coca Cola company for
killing union organizers in Colombia and Guatemala; see
killercoke.org.) However, if I am not very sleepy, I won't want
Pepsi, because it is better if I don't drink so much sugar.

it's MY EVENT. STFU:
If you plan to restrict admission to my speech, or charge a fee for
admission, please discuss this with me *personally in advance* to get
my approval for the plan. If you have imposed charges without my
direct personal approval, I may refuse to do the speech.

I'm not categorically against limiting admission or fees, but
excluding people means the speech does less good, so I want to make
sure that the limitations are as small as necessary. For instance,
you can allow students and low-paid people and political activists to
get in free, even if professionals have to pay. We will discuss what
to do.

Another method, which works very well in some places, is to allow
people to attend gratis but charge for a certificate of attendance.
If the certificate is given by an educational institution, many will
find it useful for career advancement, while the others could enter
gratis. Whether this would be effective in your country is something
you would need to judge.

can I have your couch? are you kidding me? - I do not have the ability to maintain a sleeping environment temperature +/- 2 degrees
But please DON'T make a hotel reservation until we have fully explored
other options. If there is anyone who wants to offer a spare couch, I
would much rather stay there than in a hotel (provided I have a door I
can close, in order to have some privacy). Staying with someone is
more fun for me than a hotel, and it would also save you money.

REALLY? would YOU stay in a place that doesn't card people?
Please call the hotel and ask whether they will demand to see my
passport, and whether they report all their guests to the police. If
it has thi

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from the american-made dept. whisper_jeff writes "A number of newly-purchased standard units are showing an "Assembled in America" notation. While the markings don't necessarily mean that Apple is in the midst of transferring its entire assembly operation from China to the U.S., it does indicate that at least a few of the new iMacs were substantially assembled domestically."

from the listen-up dept. First time accepted submitter yvajj writes "According to a techcrunch interview, Woz believes that Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple. Per the interview, it seems as though Apple is now just doing newer versions of the iPhone, and are potentially headed into a rut. Another gem from Woz is the fact that he treats all new hardware as something new to learn from and does not approach it with any preconceptions (irrespective of who the manufacturer is / what OS etc.). A great short interview from Woz."

from the not-fixed-enough-for-me dept. Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Washington Post reports that Apple has finally unveiled their new version of iTunes, overhauling its look and feel and integrating it more closely with the company's iCloud Internet- storage service with one of the biggest upgrades Apple has made to the program with 400 million potential users since its debut more than a decade ago. The new design of iTunes moves away from the spreadsheet format that Apple has featured since its debut and adds more art and information about musicians, movies and television shows. It also adds recommendation features so users can find new material. According to David Pogue of the NY Times Apple has fixed some of the dumber design elements that have always plagued iTunes. 'For years, the store was represented only as one item in the left-side list, lost among less important entries like Radio and Podcasts. Now a single button in the upper-right corner switches between iTunes's two personalities: Store (meaning Apple's stuff) and Library (meaning your stuff).' Unfortunately, Apple hasn't fixed the Search box. As before, you can't specify in advance what you're looking for: an app, a song, a TV show, a book. Whatever you type into the Search box finds everything that matches, and you can't filter it until after you search. It feels like a two-step process when one should do. 'Improvements in visual navigation and a more logical arrangement of tools are good, but for me the biggest positive within iTunes 11 remains its vastly improved performance on all three Macs I've tested it on, including a relatively ancient five-year-old MacBook,' writes Jonny Evans."

from the puts-the-cancer-right-in-your-ear dept. GabriellaKat writes "Via El Reg: 'Apple is trying to patent wireless charging, claiming its magnetic resonance tech is new and that it can do it better than anyone else. This would be cool if its assertions were true. Apple's application, numbered 20120303980, makes much of its ability to charge a device over the air at a distance of up to a meter, rather than requiring close proximity. The Alliance For Wireless Power, which also touts long-range juicing, will no doubt be comparing Apple's designs to its own blueprints.'"

from the slashdot-trademarks-news dept. An anonymous reader writes with this bit of trademark absurdity from geek.com: "Ravensburger is a German gaming company that specializes in jigsaw puzzles, but has also expanded into other areas such as children's books and games. The company owns the trademark to a board game called 'Memory' and has demanded Apple stop offering apps that have the word 'memory' in their title or as a keyword associated with an app. It may seem ludicrous such a common word can be trademarked, but apparently this is a valid claim as Apple is now serving notices to app developers. The choice an infringing app developer has is to either rename their app or remove it from the App Store."

Look, the problem here isn't the jury, or the decision. Samsung did infringe that patent.

It's the BLOODY STUPID PATENT THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ISSUED. A patent that fails basic common sense tests of invention, prior art and obviousness, because the patent office has gotten so far away from reality that it gives patents for existing stuff simply by adding "on a handset".

So you may have wished the jury was just normal people, who would see the stupidness of it, and reject the claim regardless of the patent, but instead you got a person who FOLLOWED THE PATENT LAW, the insane stupid, nonsensical law, and promptly issued a $1 billion penalty that was appropriate, if we all lived in a lunatic asylum where this patent regime makes sense.

IMHO, the fix for this decision is for Korea to issue a patent infringement case against Apple for $2 billion, and make it clear to everyone that this is just protectionism disguised as an 'innovative' curved corner design, and a camera icon that looks like a camera.

View the original article here

They let hatered of Google get in the way of day-to-day business here.

Actually the opposite is true. They let reliance on Google go on for too long, using it as a crutch that hurt day-to-day business for years.

Android had built-in turn by turn for years; not only could Apple not provide it in iOS, but developers could not write apps that provided turn-by-turn directions on top of the built in iOS mapping framework (it was against Google's TOS). So the whole platform was limited for years by Google restrictions on not just what Apple could do, but what any developer could do.

Now that Google is out of the picture iOS users have turn by turn directions. They have vector maps. iOS developers can do whatever they want with the built in mapping framework now, without arbitrary Google limitations like limits on reverse geocoding per day, or having to avoid covering up the Google logo on the map, or (as stated) being able to show turn by turn directions on a map.

Apple should have ditched Google maps much earlier before it got more painful for more users. But the fact is they had to do so, and at least now that it is done Apple can clean up the map data (the hardest part of mapping) and within a year should be essentially caught up for most areas. Already they have better satellite data in many areas than Google does, and they work better in China/Japan for native users (not as well for english users).

View the original article here