Tag Archives: patents

Your future iPhone or Samsung Galaxy screen could touch you right back

What if, instead of touching your phone, tablet or TV and feeling glass, you felt fur? “Touch is the one sense you can’t turn off,” said Greg Topel, the CEO of Tanvas, a company working to make glass feel like cotton, paper or anything other than glass. “That’s what we’ve been doing in the digital …

Read More »

iPhone 8 screen, Touch ID changes hinted at in new patents

Speculation about the newest iPhone is never in short supply, and a pair of new patents just added more fuel to the rumor fire. In a wave of Apple patents published by the US Patent and Trademark Office Tuesday, and spotted by Patently Apple, two could potentially relate to the iPhone 8, which is expected later this year. The first …

Read More »

MP3 isn’t dead, it’s just sleeping

The tech industry says the lapse of the licensing program for MP3s doesn’t mean that the format is now dead. Industry research body Fraunhofer IIS, which began developing the MP3 format in the late ’80s, recently said it had ended the “licensing program for certain mp3 related patents and software” as of April 23, 2016. While several sites have surmised …

Read More »

FTC says Qualcomm is a monopoly, case should proceed

And so continues the battle over Qualcomm’s licensing practices. The US Federal Trade Commission on Friday defended its antitrust lawsuit from January, saying in a legal filing with the US District Court in San Jose, California, that the court shouldn’t dismiss its complaint against Qualcomm. The group has accused Qualcomm, the world’s biggest mobile chipmaker, of forcing Apple into an …

Read More »

Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon chips make cheaper phones better

The gap between midrange and premium phones is about to get smaller. That is, if those midrange phones come packing Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 630 and 660 chips. Announced Tuesday local time at a company event in Singapore, the two new system-on-chip (SoC) are the successors to the Snapdragon 625 and 652 processors, which are used in devices such as the …

Read More »

Apple stops paying Qualcomm’s patent royalties

The buck apparently stops with Apple. The iPhone maker has stopped paying royalties to contract manufacturers for phone patents owned by Qualcomm, starting with devices sold during the March quarter. Those manufacturers, like Foxconn, then pay Qualcomm for the intellectual property that’s essential for connecting phones to a wireless network. The move, the latest in a heated licensing battle between …

Read More »

AR is like your phone: Soon you’ll feel naked without it

Remember life without your phone? No, neither do I. And in a few years, you’ll feel the same way about augmented reality, or AR. You’ve already had a taste of AR if you’re one of the 500 million who downloaded Pokemon Go — it’s what made it possible to see a Charmander on your desk or a Dratini on your …

Read More »

iPhone 8 may move fingerprint reader to the back, similar to Galaxy S8

Alleged iPhone 8 schematics surfaced online today, opening up the possibility that Apple’s next phone could feature dual cameras stacked vertically and a fingerprint sensor on the back. If true, these would mark a notable change from the iPhone’s usual appearance. Apple is rumored to be planning to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the device by releasing a drastically redesigned …

Read More »

Qualcomm fires back at Apple lawsuit, makes claims of its own

Qualcomm’s put on the boxing gloves in a patent spat with Apple. The chipmaker on Monday, in a 134-page redacted filing, responded to an Apple lawsuit about patent licensing and made some counterclaims of its own, including breach of contract. It also asked for an unspecified amount in damages. “Over the last 10 years, Apple has played a significant role …

Read More »

Samsung to pay Huawei $11M for patent violations, court rules

Huawei has scored a victory over rival Samsung in its home market of China. A Chinese court has ordered the South Korean giant to pay Huawei 80 million yuan (around $11.6 million) for patent violations, reports ZDNet. Both companies have been notified of the court’s decision. In a string of claims filed in California and Shenzhen, China, Huawei alleged that …

Read More »