The latest in Apple versus Samsung patent trial, is the tide turning for Samsung?

The patent trial between Apple and Samsung resumed earlier today, and while testimony hasn't yet finished for the day, already we're seeing signs of what's to come.

Yesterday Apple secured a significant step toward victory when Judge Koh barred the designer of Samsungs F700 phone, which predates the iphone yet is similar in style, from testifying.

Why is this good for Apple?

Apple had originally included the F700 in its list of Samsung devices that infringed on Apples patents but, on realising that it was designed prior to the iphones release and therefore could not have been a copy, they dropped the phone from the court case.

This makes sense as it would have helped Samsung show that it had an iphone like design prior to Apples and that the features Apple claim are infringed, such as the rounded corners for example, were selected as part of the natural evolution of a products design rather than by slavishly copying the competition as Apple claim is the case for the remaining Samsung products.

By barring Samsungs designer discussing the F700 and its design process Judge Koh has prevented them from introducing a key piece of evidence that would show, with little room for doubt, that Samsung really did have similar products to the iphone before Apple released any details of it, swinging the case a little more in favour of an Apple win.

Judge Koh ruled that, because it was no longer accused of infringing Apples patents the F700 was irrelevant to the current case and therefore discussing its design is also irrelevant. This seems to ignore the fact that such evidence would help the jury more easily reach a conclusion were they to be aware that such a design predated Apples but unfortunately the Judges decision is final.

Apples damages expert, Terry Musika, testified that despite his estimation that damages should be set at $2.5 billion he personally believes $2.7 billion is what they should really be as he took the jury through the way he had calculated the damages amount and explains that Apple paid him and his team $1.75 million dollars to help them come up with computer models and calculations, saying that it was not an easy thing to do despite just fifteen minutes earlier saying it was a fairly straightforward process of "sliding" money from a sale that would normally go to apple over to samsung if it wasn't an apple sale.

Samsung are, as the days legal action draws nearer its end, asking the Judge to end the case today based on their argument that Apple have not convincingly proven their case. Koh gave Samsung just five minutes to explain their arguments merit. Samsung argued that this was not long enough to respond to claims worth $2.5 billion in damages but tried their best to do so.

Judge Koh has, at the time of writing, just dismissed the case against three of the accused Samsung products because they were not sold in the United States. However she does allow these same products to be used against one of Samsungs subsidiaries and so in practice they are still part of the case but in respect to subsidiary companies rather than Samsung itself.

In fifteen minutes Samsung will call their first witness who will testify on examples of prior art. If Samsung have done their homework well his testimony could be a turning point in the case which has, in general, shifted more in favour of apple.

Gloves come off in Samsung vs Apple

People who want to buy an ipad or iphone are mistakenly ordering Samsung products instead, or at least this seems to be the crux of Apples legal argument.

Forgetting the fruity logo emblazoned on Apple products, the Samsung name right on the front of Samsungs or the fact that unless you blindly walk into a shop and just pick something up (in which case, shame on you) you will have an idea of what you want and purchase accordingly, Apple believe you will confuse their products with Samsung despite their admission early in the trial that Apple products are always on a seperate display to non Apple products (which makes it much harder to confuse them with those from other companies).

Of course Apple could be seen as arguing, unintentionally, that the kind of person who buys an Apple product does so based solely on its looks and not on its features, price, etcetera, which would mean that Apple considers it's customers are somewhat stupid and need protecting from themselves by removing any other product that has any similarities.

A large part of Apples attack on Samsung relates to the fact that Apple products are often rectangular in shape, have rounded corners, a centred screen and a speaker grill.

This was highlighted yesterday when Samsung cross examined Apples expert witness on design yesterday. Displaying four different cases of prior art Samsung asked the witness, Peter Bressler, whether these designs that came out before the iphone had a flat screen, a speaker, grille on the front, rounded corners and so on.

Bressler had to admit they were but then argued that it was unfair to only consider the front or back of a device without looking at every side and accused Samsung of being misleading.

Of course the argument that Apple make is that customers see a device from Samsung and think it is really an Apple product, that they then purchase it and this loses Apple money as a result.

In such a situation the front would likely be all the customer really looked at or could see on display in a store but were all possible viewpoints of a product considered Apple would no doubt be in a slightly stickier situation as the Apple logo would pretty quickly give away that, wait a minute, this is an Apple product.

Unfortunately Apples defence team are doing their best to avoid the fact that the design of certain things tend to evolve so that they have a lot of similarities, for example your car probably has four circular wheels, a steering wheel with a horn in the centre, exterior mirrors, airbags at the front and so on just as your television is probably rectangular, flat, thin, dark black or grey with two speakers hidden at the side or bottom of it.

With phones for example it feels nicer using something with rounded corners rather than sharper square edges, you need a speaker at the front to hear who you are talking to, buttons at the side for volume control, a head phone socket at the top etcetera.

These are common sense directions that smartphone designs were already moving in before the iphone was released. Indeed in the picture below you can see a 2006 Samsung design that predates the iphone (meaning it did not copy it because no one had seen the iphone at that time because the iphone was unveiled in 2007).

The gloves were off this week with Samsung highlighting just how much money each Apple expert was being paid to say that Samsungs products were copying those of the fruity giant (for those who are curious Peter Bressler, mentioned earlier, received $75,000) and by spending much of their time grilling Apples experts on the finer points of the design, pointing out a number of significant differences.

Samsung went into often minute detail about the Samsung devices accused of being copies, going so far as to point out that the Infuse 4G for example does not have a bezel but a case and that, were the casing to be considered a bezel it would still not be a copy of the iphones which not only has a distinct bezel but is also much slimmer than the casing / bezel from Samsung.

An interesting point the jury in the trial won't get to know is that Apple also accused Samsungs F700 of copying their look but quickly dropped it from the case when they realised it was in development before the iphone.

Why is that interesting? Because by that action Apple have clearly shown that the F700 looks like an iphone, so much so they wanted to prosecute, but that was in fact designed independently and without copying the iphone. Because of this they can't sue over that particular model, but unfortunately for Samsung they are niot allowed to use this evidence in court against Apple.

After all it would damage Apples claims of Samsung copying them if they had to admit they knew of a Samsung phone with many of its patented design features that predated their own. They couldn't then expect a jury to believe Samsung copied Apples.

But once you see some of the design "features" Apple have patented you begin to see that most modern smartphones can be seen as violating them. Here are some of the more unbelievable design elements at dispute in the current trial:

• rectangular hand held mobile device with rounded edges
• the colour black being used for the front of a device
• use of the colours black, blue, brown, brown-grey, grey-green, green, orange, red, silver, tan, white and yellow as part of the products design (used in display elements such as icons)

Apple also claim, despite not having patented the following, that they are original to Apple and Samsung are copying them by using the following non patented features:

• a rectangular box for packaging
• minimal lettering
• front view of the product displayed on top of packaging box
• a two piece box where the top nestles over the bottom
• a tray within the box that cradles the product
• being able to see the product immediately upon opening the box

Apple hit back with a Samsung document from 2007 that praised the iphones in several areas and stated that Samsung needed to compete with the iphone, and that the iphone was now the phone all others were being compared to.

Unfortunately it didn't say Samsung should copy any of the design in any way but that they should build a better product to compete. And that is exactly what the tech industry does, a good product comes out and then others improve upon it. This is the very reason why cars look like cars (with the accelerator, gear stick etc in the same place within the vehicle, having a steering wheel and so on), why laptops look like each other,  etcetera.

It remains to be seen who will win the trial but with each side having a set number of hours allotted to them, and with Samsung using a lot of theirs in just cross examining Apple witnesses, they may have to start cutting back on lengthy cross examinations that elicit a few small victories in favour of their own presentation of witnesses which, hopefully, will yield them more significant victories.

(Boxing gloves image used courtesy of Generationbass)

Perfectly clear hits Android [REVIEW]

Athentechs ios app "perfectly clear" hit android this week, with some users seeing it more as a hit to their wallet thanks to the use of in app purchases but we'll get to that later.

Perfectly Clear is a clever photo enhancement application that uses some clever code to analyse your photo's and automatically adjust them so that they look better, a kind of automated photoshop.

It does a fairly good job of automatically adjusting images (as can be seen in the picture below which is the automated version of the picture, not a manually tweaked version, and which shows the difference even totally automatic adjustment can make) but perhaps its greatest feature is that you can manually adjust settings to tweak a picture until it's just right for you and then share it in various ways or simply save it.

Pictures can be saved at the original size or at various alternate resolutions, this caused problems in testing as with an average of a hundred megabytes of ram free it could only save large pictures (such as a fourteen megapixel image) at 2048 by 1536 resolution, telling me that it required fifty two megabytes of ram which it could not allocate.

On devices with more free memory this won't be an issue of course and even at 2048 by 1536 pixels images are detailed enough for everyday use, with a little more ram you can save at higher resolutions which makes the app equally useful for those with high resolution images.

For an in app purchase of  under a pound you can unlock additional features which include teeth whitening, face smoothing, skin tone correction and making eyes more noticeable.

This has annoyed some users who feel cheated at the use of in app purchases and claim it makes the application unusable, but in this case their annoyance is misplaced.

All the automatic correction and a number of manually adjustable settings work with no additional payment needed. The only features you pay extra for are those specifically targeted at improving pictures of faces, something you may find useful for enhancing a facebook profile picture for example but even without the in app purchase the software still performs well on a variety of different pictures (including faces of course).

Indeed the ios version has this same use of in app purchases, and charges a small one time fee for certain features that are more specialised.

In app purchases can be annoying when they make an app almost unusable without spending out more money however this is one case where everything works without these purchases and unless you're planning on editing pictures of faces where you want to to whiten teeth or make eyes look sexier than you aren't going to need those features in the first place.

But should you want them, are they worth the extra money?

Surprisingly yes. The eyes can be made clearer larger and more defined (in what some would call a cute way, almost like becoming a human version of an anime character) and the teeth can indeed be whitened should you really have a need to do so.

Clearly there is some clever calculation going on to target specific areas of faces within pictures, and clearly if it is something only certain users will find useful an argument could be made that it makes sense to sell the app for less and simply charge extra for those who need those more specialised features.

At its introductory price of just over sixty pence (sixty three at the time of writing) it makes sense for budding photographers, or even those with a habit of taking not so good pictures, to get Perfectly Clear while it's on offer.

The use of in app purchases is of course always going to remain a sore point for some users, and rightly so, but at least in this instance it doesn't interfere with the intended use of the application and isn't going to stop your photo's looking better if you don't want to pay more for those more specialised extras.

If you want to know more, or to buy the app yourself, head on to the Play store and, as is recommended with any app purchase, check the user comments there before making your decision.

Budget gaming handheld promises old school thrills

Tablets can be great but when you fancy a gaming session it's nice to have a proper controller, like those we get with our favourite games consoles. Now you can have both thanks to a new handheld (or should that be tablet?) called the Wikipad that debuted at CES earlier this year and which is set for release soon.

The finalised specifications for the new tablet / handheld were revealed yesterday and while not entirely groundbreaking they promise a decent experience.....

A 1.4 gigahertz quad core Tegra 3 processor partnered with one gigabyte of ram, Android version 4.1 (JellyBean), two cameras (eight megapixel rear and 2 megapixel front facing), a 10.1 inch IPS screen (with a 1280x800 resolution) and a minimum of at least sixteen gigabytes of internal storage space certainly makes this an attractive tablet in its own right but unlike most tablets the Wikipad has a special treat in store for those who love their games.

What treat?

The tablet becomes a self contained handheld gaming system thanks to a clever controller bundled with it that makes the tablet screen function as a large handheld display while allowing game and menu control with a joypad type interface that include two sets of triggers and bumpers, two analog sticks, four buttons as well as a start button and a select button and of course a d-pad.

As you can see from the pictures it transforms the already decent tablet into a proper Tegra 3 powered portable gaming system that will run all your favourite high end Android games, let you use a proper joypad to control them as you'd expect from a handheld gaming console, and yet can revert back to your everyday tablet should your inner adult feel the need to come out for a while and get some work done.

Aside from the obvious possibilities this offers there is also the less obvious one of being able to play all those old school favourites from your Playstation or arcade gaming days thanks to the use of emulators. Now you can play them as you remember, with proper controls, uninterrupted by the outside world or of course just use the controller to blast away at zombies.

But the fun doesn't stop there for hardcore gamers. Want to play your favourite PS3 or XBox 360 titles on your new Wikipad? Well thanks to their partnership with Gaikai (a games streaming service that rivals OnLive) you can do just that.

That's right, without ever needing to buy another console title you can still play the top games on them using the Wikipad.

Okay, okay, so it sounds great but what's it going to cost?

Originally the price was set to be $250 but at the time it had a glasses free 3D display and eight gigabytes of internal storage. The change in specifications means it should still hit that target price and retail at $250 (£160).

At that price it promises to steal away potential buyers of tablets such as the Nexus 7 and even Asus Transformer series, offering a fun gaming experience combined with the everyday benefits of a decent tablet.

PS43E490 - Brand name 3D TV a budget price?

Samsung have made a concerted effort to get people watching tv in the third dimension with this budget priced 3D tv that sells for £400, but does it do the job?

The 43 inch Plasma screen produces deep rich colours with excellent black levels and a good sharp picture. On a 1080p high definition source, such as a BluRay or the BBC HD channels, the picture quality is impressive and looks better than rival LCD televisions.

The tv is NOT (as some claim) full HD, it is in fact a 720p HD set.

This is quite common for large screen Plasma sets (particularly 3D models) because at a typical viewing distance the difference between 720p and 1080p is difficult for most people to notice, and because the majority of broadcast material is actually in 720p as are most high definition console games (XBox 360 games, for example, are upscaled to display at 1080p resolution but are in reality rendered in 720p resolution).

But, getting back to the tv and on a 1080 source it performs its magic to reduce the resolution to 720 very well, to the extent that you'd be hard pressed to find a noticeable difference in quality between this and a 1080p model, good news for those after a big screen on a small budget.

If you just want a decent high definition tv without 3D you might want to stop reading now because you can get a similar sized tv without 3D for less, the key reason to buy this set or something similar is the addition of 3D, which we'll discuss in a moment.

The only real drawback to this television is the sound. It can be loud when needed, that's a good thing, but it never quite sounds perfect. It lacks something, it can be heard and it's not annoying but the sound quality is sub par when compared to the picture and although it's fine for everyday use, and easy enough to get used to, you may find yourself wanting to plug in a surround sound system when watching your favourite movies.
That said however this tv really comes into its own when it enters the third dimension.

This tv uses Active Shutter glasses, some people love these types of glasses and some don't. Yes that's right there are two types of 3D in the tv world (but don't worry, your 3D games and videos will work with whichever you prefer).

There are passive glasses which halve the resolution of your 3D tv when in 3D mode and then there are active shutter glasses, the method the Samsung uses and which retain the full resolution which produces a clearer more defined and better quality image.

They take what you see on screen and feed the left eye view to your left eye and the right eye view to your right one. They send these views to each eye so fast that you can't tell they are sent seperately and your eyes merge them together so they are a true 3D image.
Some people find this to be a problem, some glasses are said to flicker or cause nausea. The truth is that the glasses with this set are very good and even though I am sensitive to flickering (some flourescent lights and strobing for example) I have not found any flickering evident with the tv in 3D mode.

If you stare really hard at a paused image with lots of bright white in it then flick your view from one side of the screen to another you can make yourself have a sort of flicker effect momentarily as your eyes refocus but you have to go out of your way to do so.
The only flicker issues I have found actually come from buying additional glasses that were rechargeable, for some reason the rechargeable set had a tiny flicker noticeable when looking quickly from one part of the screen to another which while only noticed in such a situation was notable enough that the rechargeables are relegated to be a backup should the batteries in the glasses shipped with the television run out.

So flickering, what's it like? The fact is the 3D flicker just is not noticeable except on the rechargeable glasses and if you stare at a particular image with bright elements and shift views very quickly. Watching 3D content you really don't notice anything but is the 3D itself any good?

The answer is yes. Avatar, for example, really shines in 3D. Not a fan of the two dimensional version I have to say that watching it as it was filmed, in the third dimension, is like watching a completely different movie and serves as an excellent demonstration of the sets 3D prowess.

If you're a fan of the Olympics then you'll want to check out the BBC's 3D coverage of the Judo, volleyball and gymnastics which add a definite sense of depth, and in some cases a feeling of almost being there, to the events shown in their nightly 3D highlights broadcast but remember that when it comes to films some 3D titles are better than others.

For example the latest Transformers is somewhat underwhelming in 3D because as with a number of big budget films it plays it safe and doesn't really utilise the full power of 3D in case it causes some of its viewers to feel nauseous which is a shame, but of course not the fault of the tv you watch it on.

Most of the big Hollywood releases try and go more for a feeling of depth in 3D but don't be too concerned as there are still plenty of well made 3D films out there including the love them or hate them final destination movies (it's quite hard not to wince when you see a sailing mast thrust out of the screen toward you as it impales a helpless victim dropped on it from a bridge that's breaking apart).

The television can view side by side (sbs), above and below and of course BluRay 3D content but it also has a clever party trick that increases the amount of 3D you can find to watch by converting two dimensional video into that of the third.

Using it's closely guarded technology, widely acknowledged as superior to that of other manufacturers, it guesses at what should be nearer the viewer, and what should be further away, by deconstructing every frame of video and then analysing every pixel that makes it in such a way that it can guess quite well where to place things on screen relative to the viewer.

I still have no idea quite how they do it but it is different to how other tv sets convert 2D content and does produce more effective results. Of course it can never beat content filmed in 3D, and some things don't convert very well, but in general it does do a good job of converting and it adds another string to the sets 3D bow.

One type of conversion it excelled at was the first test I threw at it, Top Gears Stig driving a supercar round their track, surprisingly effective so whatever Samsung are doing they certainly seem to be doing it well.

Other than 3D video what else does this set offer?

It lets you play a wide variety of different video formats from either a usb stick or a networked dlna device including those in avi, mp4 and mkv containers whether they use the Xvid, DivX, H264, X264 or WMV video codecs which a lot of tv sets have trouble playing.

It also plays music files and allows you to view pictures of course and if you happen to use an Android phone or tablet you can download a free app from the Play store that lets you use your touch screen android device to control the tv (if the tv is connected to the same wifi network as your android at the time).

It only has two hdmi inputs, which might put potential buyers off, but if you're in the market for a good all round high definition tv that can play films off a usb stick, or dlna device, but can also play 3D content as it was meant to be seen then this is definitely one set to consider and certainly the best 3D set at this price range.

BBC 3D Olympics begin tonight

If you have a 3D tv you might want to tune in to BBC HD tonight where you'll be treated to over three hours of the opening ceremony of the Olympics in side by side 3D starting at ten to nine this evening (27th July).

Every night at eleven, through out the Olympics, there will also be a recorded 3D highlights show for one hour every day with the mens 100 metres final at half past eight (through to ten pm) on August fifth, and the closing ceremony (nine pm to twelve thirty am) on August twelfth being broadcast live.

At the start of each evenings coverage you might be interested to see the sixty second films of atheletes in action, filmed with a phantom camera, which Kim Shillinglaw (head of 3D at the BBC) promises to be breath taking.

For those who don't have a 3D tv but are thinking of getting one, the 3D broadcasts are unecrypted and completely free so you might want to record them and play them back at a later date. There are a variety of 3D televisions out there but for the highest definition you will need the type that use active shutter glasses as the other type, commonly known as passive 3D, halves the resolution.

I won't wade in to the "active 3D versus passive 3D" debate here, each have their merits, my own 3D set uses active shutter glasses and is definitely a good option but it's really down to personal choice.

MK802 - Android on a TV stick

The MK802 isn't, as it's name may imply, part of a Milton Keynes postcode but is in fact a full blown android computer packed into a case the size of a usb stick that turns any HDMI equipped television into a smart one that runs the popular Ice Cream Sandwich version of the Android operating system.


It features a one gigahertz single core processor, one gigabyte of ddr3 ram (there are 512 megabyte versions available but this article concerns the higher ram one gigabyte model), a Mali 400 gpu (despite some sellers listing it as an AMD gpu it is actually the better quality Mali that is actually used), 802.11 b g and n wifi, micro sd card slot (supporting up to thirty two gigabytes of additional storage space) and two USB ports (one standard and one smaller usb port for USB On The Go devices).

Using the stick is easy enough, attach the hdmi cable between the stick and your tv, then plug a controller into the usb port (ideally a wireless keyboard and mouse, although you can buy some remote controls that will also work). After this you simply plug in the power lead and about a minute later the mk is up and running and ready for use.

You will no doubt have heard that this is a perfect way to make a "dumb" tv into a "smart" one but just what does that mean in practice?

Well it means that your tv can now, thanks to the stick, do all the things that a high priced internet enabled smart tv can do and surprisingly, despite the fact that you can buy one of these for less than fifty pounds, it does so quite well. It's not without its problems however, and there are drawbacks. The biggest of which is the lack of a power button. Yes, that does mean you can only turn it on or off by connecting or disconnecting the power lead.

However while disconnecting the power suddenly can, in theory, damage the device (because it doesn't give time to close down the operating system first) you can in, reality, get round this by using a free app such as "real reboot" which will tell the device to reboot.

Using this, when the screen goes off and is about to restart (some tv's will also say "no signal") you pull the power and it has the same effect as performing a proper shutdown, meaning there is then no chance of it causing problems.

Another drawback is the small size of the unit. Because it generates heat this can build up and after three or four hours watching movies this could be a worry for some, although in practice it shouldn't be much of a problem unless you plan on say a twelve hour movie marathon or gaming session. Certainly after a good four hours of solid use it does get very warm but never to a point that it causes any problems and it's the price you pay for having a lot of power in this form factor.

But don't assume this Android stick is bad, there is a lot to like about the MK802. It runs all the expected apps that a decent smart tv would run (NetFlix, Ebay, Amazon for example) but also a lot more that they couldn't, which makes it a handy thing to have around.

Email, web browsing, streaming media from YouTube Netflix or Hulu, this will do all of these with ease but it will also play pretty much any file format you can think of thanks to the use of android apps such as VLC or the built in media player which easily copes with a wide range of tasks such as playing full hd 3D video for example.

It comes with Angry Birds Space installed, should you fancy playing a game or two, and will handle similar casual games (such as TileStorm HD) but the single core cpu is not going to be enough for serious gaming fans, so don't buy this expecting to play DeadSpace or Nova 3 any time soon although some people are running Dead Trigger quite well on it so some higher end games clearly are more ok with it than others.

Speaking of games, it runs the MAME emulator app (available free from the Play store) very well. You can use a wireless mouse or keyboard to control MAME, or use a usb joypad plugged into a usb hub, and I have to admit that playing your favourite arcade games on a big screen is definitely one of the perks of owning the MK802.

Of course another perk is that, being portable, you can take this with you. An Android computer that fits in your pocket isn't something you expect to find, at least not for a low price, but thanks to advances in technology (and mass production) it's here to stay.

Should you mess anything up on the 802 (which you won't unless, like me, you decide to poke around with system files) it's a breeze to put right. In less than five minutes you can re install the whole operating system using a Windows computer connected via usb, you can also simply install updates over the top of the existing operating system when they are released in the same way so that you keep everything intact (your apps and settings, for example) but still get the benefit of updated features from new firmware updates.

And that is one more good thing about the MK802 over similar devices, it is supported with updates whereas many android pc sticks are simply sold and then abandoned with no updates. Only this week an update added features such as a 3D video player and full 1080p output while fixing a few software bugs along the way.

The MK802 runs apps well, including some emulators, and plays a wide variety of decent Android games. It comes pre installed with the official Android app store as well as a very good media player that supports a surprisingly large number of video and audio formats and of course the aforementioned 3D video player. 

If you fancy getting your hands on one you can do so here or if you want to know more, or get help with the MK802, you can always check the forum at the Rikomagic website.