Should Apple’s Patents That Have Become Standards Be FRAND Patents?

Google argues that the valuable mobile patents that Apple owns which makes the iPhone an “iPhone” should be fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory and subject to standard essential patent rules. I can’t say that I agree or disagree because of the patent system, which essentially lets anyone’s grandmother patent just about anything without really looking into the background of these so-called patents and whether they really are worth patenting.

I do know that companies that patent just about everything and everywhere do spend billions upon billions to patent them.  So, who is to say what patent, hence, which features should be licensable by the patent holder’s competitors.  Furthermore, what if a patent holder simply says its ball can only played on its court and nowhere else, it is no one’s rights, a corporation or government, to come and force the patent holder to open up.

I don’t know Google’s strategy in this.  Intellectual properties are essential for innovation.  Apple suing folks is within its rights to do that just as Google, Microsoft, or anyone else should be allowed to do the same.  I’ve always contend that if anyone finds Apple ripping them off, sue them.  And if one company runs into a patent roadblock, innovate around it.

On the other hand, Apple is very stingy about its patents and it has thrown its weight around the world in various legal jurisdictions on mundane things like product designs.  I’m not a patent or trademark attorney so I don’t know how firm a legal footing Apple has had.  Judging by its win-loss record, not very.

At the same time, one has to wonder if patents, trademarks, or other intellectual property rights mean anything to Google at all.  Sure, its competitors have used patents to try and stifle Android advances (not very successful) in the mobile market but Google continue to disregard them through its partners.  On top of that, Google bought Motorola largely for its patents and it realized much of what Motorola owns are essential standard patents, not like those that Apple owns that makes the iOS devices singularly unique from the rest of the market.

Hence, Google now wants Apple’s patents invalidated if possible but barring that, it wants the government to force Apple and others to label their patents as FRAND.

Why this now?  Well, Google is very late to the patent game regardless of whether it’s the video or mobile market.  And it has tried to use its own technology to build its own standards, albeit with much success.

Having said that, Google does have a point but I don’t think they’re arguing it correctly.  They need to attack the issue at its core which is the broken patent system.  Until then, everyone should play by the same rules regardless of which end they’re on.

Google’s argument is a very big danger to innovation.  My guess is that if the shoe was on the other foot, Google would not be making this argument.  If that’s the case, since Google owns a large portion of the search market, it should be forced to open up its search patents as well? Bottom line is this:  innovate, innovate, innovate regardless of the state of the patent system.  Learn to change the rules of the game all you want but you still have to bring your best to the market.

Mobile: Billions In Charity From Gates & Google, Should We Buy Them Over Others?

I happened to venture onto this Reuters post via Huffington Post about how the super-rich amassed as much as $32 trillion in offshore havens to avoid taxation.  That's quite a lot of money. If you consider just how much taxes various government entities missed because of this over more than four decades.  But this is an issue that will never get resolved but I that's not why I mentioned it.

It got me started thinking about the hundreds of millions in Google's case and billions in Microsoft's Bill Gates' case that were spent to help better the human condition, I kinda asked myself if we should do more to support their goods and services.

Should consumers ally themselves with a company's products and services that does more to better the world than those of competing companies that doesn't?


More at Clouding Around.

iPod touch Will Still Be Around Even With iPad mini Is Released

I love my iPod touch and do so millions of touch fans.  So, there is no reason to think that Apple will abandon it in favor of the iPhone and/or the iPad mini that is supposed to have about an eight inch screen.  Here's why:  millions upon millions of users opt for it who either don't want to buy the iPhone or cannot afford it and Apple needs it more than ever to fight the mobile market war and the coming living war.

I started thinking about this long before I read this iMore post about it.  I guess now is as good as any other time to consider it.  And the iMore post made many points with the writer concluding that the iPod touch will in deed stick around.  

For those reasons, I think not only will the iPod touch be around for a long, long time and likely won't go anywhere, it probably will continue to occupy the $200 price point, even experience a slight price drop while the iPad mini will likely start around $250.  There, no $200 iPad mini, at least not this year to start.  Maybe in 2013 if Apple follows its iPhone and iPad practice and drop the price of the previous year model.

As for the iPod touch, I love mine.  It's been with me almost as much as the iPhone has been.  And it's decent battery life give me an additional life line that the iPhone along cannot.  I end up using both in tandem - this was made easier with iCloud especially when I work with apps with iCloud support.

One other consideration also in support of the likelihood of Apple keeping the touch around is it can serve as a low cost remote for Apple's television aspirations.  Right now, I use the touch as a remote for the Apple TV when I cannot find the remote or when I want better control over media apps in Apple TV.  

With a growing Apple TV market and quite possibly more functions and apps with each upgrade, Apple may require and iOS enabled device like the iPod touch to control them.  Right now, the remote app for iOS is very basic.  

On top of that, I also believe the iPod touch will be upgraded this year if only for this one reason alone:  Airplay.  The current iPod touch only supports Airplay in limited Apple specific apps.  Third party apps with Airplay support only works on the iPhone 4S, iPad 2, and the 2012 iPad (certain newer model Macs with Mountain Lion will also support Airplay mirroring - the potential of this will be left for another post on another day).  

It makes sense that Apple will modernize its iPod line to support Airplay.  The iPod touch with an upgraded A5 chip or better from the current A4 chip should do the trick.  On top of that, I'll go even a step further and say that future iPod nano updates may also gain Airplay support as well.

I'll conclude the post by bottom-lining this:  before the iPad, it was just the iPhone and the iPod touch as the sole iOS devices.  The iPod touch expanded the iOS ecosystem beyond what the iPhone could do on its own.  The touch spread Apple's influence into the schools, hospitals, gyms, and even enterprises.

The touch also helped decimated incumbent competitors, Nintendo and Sony, in the portable gaming market and gave notice to game developers that Apple was for real this time around.

The mobile war isn't over yet.  Apple still needs the iPod touch at its $200 price point, maybe could be lower, to fight its war against Android and a potentially revitalized Microsoft.

Reconciling Science Fiction And Reality In Mobile And Social: Siri, AI, and Search

Our devices are already smaller and easier to use than a lot of what Captain Kirk or the guys on Star Wars had.  Sure, our "communicators" are not able to communicate with a starship but we could link up with the ISS.  And certainly, with its communication devices or tablets, our devices definitely look sleeker.

At first, I could have steered this post towards how we have come science fiction tech here already today but I would like to examine just we are we are from technology that have not been realized yet today that exists only on TV or movies.

Let's start with voice commands.  Google voice search is very enticing as is Siri but neither is anything close to Hal or the Enterprise's computer (but Siri does have a better personality than the computer or Hal).  And while Apple likes to talk about the artificial intelligence behind Siri, I really don't know if we are really that close to Hal, the Enterprise computer, or even the computer in War Games as far as the sophistication and intelligence.

I'm not expecting Siri to be like Data in Star Trek or the droids in Star Wars that has even the most rudimentary level of awareness but as far as true learning, we are far, far away still.  However, given our ingenuity, we can disguise it so well that end users could potentially be fooled into thinking that future voice interactive systems are actually conscious and capable of learning.  In reality, it's still human engineers upgrading hardware and tweaking codes.

In this instance, we can quite possibly come close in the next four to five years as competition between Apple, Google, Microsoft, and even IBM heats up.  Today's Siri and Google Now will look like the idiot children in the realm of AI compared to what's to come.  As a matter of fact, I really think IBM has a huge role to play in all this - its Deep Blue that was followed by Watson.  And work on the sucessor to Watson has continued.


Enough about Siri.  What about Google and Microsoft's answers and will they also have awesome apps like Siri?  I've mentioned this in the past:  Google isn't likely to have an app that works like Siri because of the nature of its business model.  Siri could potentially put a big dent in Google's ad search revenue and coming out with a Siri competitor will only exacerbate the situation.


That really leave Microsoft.  I think it really has the ability to copy, improve, and even innovate a bit on works on top of its Bing search engine with a bit of Siri-like features.

So, the march towards true AI-like abilities looks rosy, I still wouldn't call anything we'll be using a few years from now having real awareness but enough that it can fool us into thinking that a little person truly lives in our  mobile devices.

Google's Voice Recognition Advantage Over Siri

Source:  MacDailyNews.

Here's an interesting post from NYT regarding voice commands and recognition and Apple's Siri.  As we well know, Apple's Siri is a significant addition to the mobile experience even if it's not ready for prime time.  I've used it often and it's good enough for the most part.

However, many have suggested that Google, which doesn't have a direct competitor to Siri (yet), offers a better voice recognition advantage.

The reason is simple:  Google offered a free Google-411 service and voice search that essentially allowed Google to capture tons of voice requests years before Siri came onto the scene, even before Apple bought Siri.

It'll be interesting to see if we'll see Siri evolve with better artificial intelligence that what we have now and what we saw at Apple's WWDC demo when iOS is released.  Right now, there is a lot of apps in both Google Play and iOS app store that compete with Siri that delivered results that is just as good as Siri (in some cases, better).

Mobile Gaming: Dark Knight Rises

Source:  9to5Mac.

For a number of us mobile warriors who are also scifi and comic fans, we’re looking at a weekend of bats – as in Batman, the Dark Knight, Bane of Gotham’s underworld.  This week is when Dark Knight Rises will be released, the final saga to the current arc of Batman story.

And you can get that Warner Brothers is going all out to make sure DKR has Avengers like numbers at the box office.  But before we get to that, part of any superhero movie release will be games.  And while traditionally, the consoles and PC get all the fun, today, it’s vastly different as mobile gaming has taken the video game realm by storm.

Hence, the Dark Knight Rises game, by Gameloft, is here.  Look for it in your respective app stores. By that, I mean Android and iPhone users only.

Here’s a video teaser for the game.

What do you think?  For $7 for the movie of the summer, yeah, definitely worth it.  It's unlikely we're gonna get the full movie experience or the console. It is $7 but hey, this is Batman we're talking about.  

I eagerly await its availability in the US app store. 

Mobile: Is E-Mail Still Relevant? Probably Not Anymore

For the rest of the month and, maybe through August, I'm gonna get rid of e-mails on my mobile devices - phones, tablets.  Every device that I've got and only check e-mail at work via webmail for iCloud and Gmail and on the Macbook Air at home.  I think I can save myself quite a bit of space this way.

More and more communications are taking place via texts, group messaging apps like Whatsapp, and social networks like Twitter and Google+.  Once in a while, I will get an important e-mail but they are usually not something that requires my immediate attention.  A lot of the more interesting ones that I get daily are from Groupon and Livingsocial.

I get notifications about monthly bills and what new comics are out and like the Groupon/Livingsocial e-mails, they can wait.

I do occasionally get a mass e-mail for birthdays and evites. These group of mails, too, do not need me to deal with them right there and then.

In doing so, I avoid a lot of needless distractions while save battery life when no mail is being pushed to me.  Also, I'm saving memory space allocated for e-mails and attachments that I don't need right away.  And speaking of attachments, there are ways for me to send them without having to use e-mails.

All in all, I don't think I will miss e-mails all that much when I'm on the move.  I think for a lot of mobile warriors who do not use their e-mails for work or business, you likely won't miss them much either.  I, two to six weeks, I should know if e-mails play the big roles it once did.