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Apple Faces Another Lawsuit
April 30, 2012 by admin
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Apple devices using touch technology infringe on a patent owned by the Pennsylvanian company FlatWorld Interactives, the company stated in court documents filed on last Friday. FlatWorld asked for a permanent injunction that Apple stop infringing, and for sufficient compensation for the infringements, the company’s attorneys said.
The Pennsylvanian designer of touchscreen systems for use in museum displays alleged that Apple knowingly infringed on its patent, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said. The infringing products are said to include the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad.
FlatWorld said Apple’s infringement has been on a massive scale and has caused it irreparable harm. The company demanded a permanent injunction enjoining Apple from continued infringement plus an unspecified amount of damages to compensate for Apple’s infringement. The company is seeking a jury trial.
FlatWorld was founded in January 2007 by Slavko Milekic, a professor in cognitive science and digital design at the University of the Arts in Pennsylvania, in order to commercialize his touch screen patent, the filing said.
Milekic filed a provisional patent application on August 28, 1997, claiming priority from that date in his definitive patent application, according to the court documents. He applied for his patent on June 12, 1998 and was granted it as U.S. patent 6,920,619 on July 19 2005, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
More Trojan Malware Found On Macs
Following the outbreak of the Flashback Mac Trojan, security researchers have identified two more cases of Mac OS X malware. The good news is most Mac owners have little reason to worry about them.
Both cases are variants on the same Trojan, called SabPub, Kaspersky Lab Expert Costin Raiu wrote on Securelist.
The first variant is known as Backdoor.OSX.SabPub.a. Like Flashback, this new threat was likely spread through Java exploits on Websites, and allows for remote control of affected systems. It was created roughly one month ago.
Fortunately, this malware isn’t a threat to most users for a few reasons: It may have only been used in targeted attacks, Raiu wrote, with links to malicious Websites sent via e-mail, and the domain used to fetch instructions for infected Macs has since been shut down.
Furthermore, Apple’s security update for Flashback helps render future Java-based attacks harmless. In addition to removing the Flashback malware, the update automatically deactivates the Java browser plug-in and Java Web Start if they remain unused for 35 days. Users must then manually re-enable Java when they encounter applets on a Web page or a Web Start application.
The second SabPub variant is old-school compared to its sibling. Instead of attacking through malicious Websites, it uses infected Microsoft Word documents as vector, distributed by e-mail.
Intel Goes ALL-IN On Windows 8 Tablets
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It appears that is working on a new type of NAND storage, offering higher data density and lower costs. The company believes the new triple-level cell ships are ideally suited for tablets and ultrabooks.
Samsung claims it is the first chipmaker to embrace triple-level cell (TLC) technology, but other companies are expected to follow suit. Unlike single-level cell (SLC) or multilevel cell (MLC), the new tech can store three bits per cell, greatly increasing density. The obvious offshoot is lower production cost, as TLC basically allows for more bits per wafer.
However, TLC also has some drawbacks. Due to its design, it is more prone to errors, less reliable and it is also slower than MLC. However, it still ends up significantly faster than hard drives and reliability issues can be worked out with a bit more digital signal processing.
Is Samsung Pursuing The Server Market?
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It is certain that Korean electronics giant Samsung will soon be entering the server chip market.
Reports are coming in that the company has been picking up key server personnel from Intel and AMD. Samsung has been focused on developing ARM chips and stayed clear of the x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD.
But the companies latest hires seem to indicate that might change.
Samsung’s latest recruits include veterans of the chip business like Jim Mergard, Frank Helms, who is a Fusion APU architect, Brad Burgess who designed the Bobcat APU and Patrick Patla (VP of AMD’s server business). Patla was behind the success of the Opteron chip set and has done well using the x86-server system.
Is E-Commerce Next For Facebook?
April 13, 2012 by admin
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A group of e-commerce start-ups, backed by some of the tech world’s most respected financiers, are hoping that Facebook Inc will become an e-commerce powerhouse to rival Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc.
As the world’s largest social network moves toward a $5 billion initial public offering, it will come under more pressure from Wall Street to generate new sources of profit growth and reduce its reliance on advertising, which accounted for 85 percent of its 2011 revenue.
Some entrepreneurs and investors increasingly think “f-commerce” – meaning e-commerce on Facebook – is the answer. Start-ups such as BeachMint, Yardsellr, Oodle and Fab.com are coming up with novel ways to persuade Facebook users to not just connect with friends on the social network, but to shop as well.
Backed by tens of millions of dollars from venture capital firms like Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, and other big investors like Goldman Sachs, these start-ups are pushing out shopping apps, hosting online garage sales and testing out new business models on Facebook.
“E-commerce is a huge category with very strong tailwinds and it’s a natural move for Facebook,” said Sam Schwerin of Millennium Technology Value Partners, which owns Facebook shares and has a stake in BeachMint.
Amazon revolutionized online shopping by crunching lots of customer and purchase data to come up with relevant, personalized recommendations. In the same vein, Facebook’s combination of data, analytics and payment technology could fuel the next generation of e-commerce, Schwerin said.
AMD’s Trinity To Have Fewer Cores
AMD’s soon to launch A10 5800K is a 100W quad-core Trinity 32nm CPU with 3.8 GHz base clock and 4.2GHz maximal clock possible with AMD turbo core dynamic overclocking technology.
The A10 5800K has 4MB of L2 cache, supports DDR3 1866, dual graphics configurations as well as AMD’s new FM2 socket. The fun part is new HD 7660D GPU that works at 800MHz and comes with 384 shader units. The current APU market leader A8 3870K that works at 3GHz has HD 6550 graphics with 400 cores running at 600MHz.
AMD claims that new Radeon cores from Trinity CPU including A10 5800K are more efficient and this is the main reason why you have fewer cores that can deliver superior performance. The other reason is that with 800MHz core clock they can probably process more data, meaning that HD 7660D of A10 5800K should end up quite a bit faster than the Llano A8 3870K.
All these Radeon cores are a key feature of the Vision Engine that accelerates GPU enabled applications. AMD also tells the world that Trinity is DirectX 11 compatible, supports Direct compute and the new A series of processors, including the A10 5800K all the way to dual-core A4 5300, should not have any issues playing Blu-ray 3D. The GPU part of Trinity supports AMD V, UVD3 as well as Open CL acceleration.
SanDisk Hurt By Weak Demand, Supply Glut
April 10, 2012 by admin
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Flash-memory maker SanDisk Corp warned that tepid demand from mobile phone manufacturers and a glut in supply that has led to lower prices are putting a dent its revenue margins.
The maker of NAND chips — used as storage memory in smartphones and tablets — has recently seen demand taper with some of its key customers scaling back orders.
Smartphones and tablets have caused a boom in NAND production, but SanDisk’s customers have not all done equally well from the explosion in mobile gadgets.
“Anybody who is not a Samsung or an Apple is burning through some (mobile) handset inventory,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Doug Freedman said.
“Until we get the PC market, tablet market and handset market back buying, we’ll see an oversupply situation.”
SanDisk’s weak outlook mirrors warnings from rival flash-memory makers, who have also blamed weak prices and demand for their disappointing results.
Late last month, Micron Technology said it was facing persistently low prices for memory chips and posted a wider loss. Toshiba Corp, Japan’s biggest chip maker, also posted a drop in quarterly sales at its electronics devices business, which includes semiconductors, hit by lower prices for memory chips.
SanDisk in January expressed concerns about weaker demand weighing on sales in the first half of this year and forecast lower-than-expected revenue for the first quarter.
The Milpitas, California-based company, which is set to report results later this month, said its gross margins for the January-March quarter will come in below its prior expectations of 39-42 percent, hurt by lower prices for its chips.
Yahoo Goes-DO NOT TRACK
April 6, 2012 by admin
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Yahoo websites worldwide will comply with users “do not track” settings starting later this year, Yahoo announced Wednesday.
Most major browsers are now able to send a message to sites visited, indicating whether users want their surfing behavior to be tracked by cookies for the purposes of displaying personalized ads. In February the last major hold-out, Google, announced that its Chrome browser will include do-not-track support by the end of the year.
That message, an HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) header accompanying a request to display a Web page, avoids the awkward paradox that to store a visitor’s preference not to be tracked by cookies, sites had to store a cookie containing that preference, and provides a consistent way to store and indicate such preferences across all Web sites that respect the do-not-track header.
Support for the do-not-track header has been in the works since last year, Yahoo said. All Yahoo sites will respect the header, including those of Right Media and Interclick, two Yahoo subsidiaries specializing in behavioral or data-driven advertising, the company said.
The company’s announcement comes the same day that the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade is set to hold a hearing on balancing privacy and innovation, and in the same week that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission called for creation of a do-not-track tool for Internet users.
In a statement announcing its plans for allowing visitors to opt out of tracking, Yahoo maintained that allowing advertisers to regulate themselves was the best and quickest way to introduce protections to the market place without sacrificing innovation or value creation.
Android Apps To Run On Windows
Software firm Bluestacks is on a mission to close the gap between Microsoft’s Windows and Google’s Android OS with its App Player application, which was released in beta earlier this week.
App Player is an emulator that allows Android applications to run on Windows 7, Vista and XP OSes. Users can install the software in Windows and then run around 450,000 Android applications, including Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja, the company said in a statement.
Beyond PCs, the App Player could also allow Windows tablets such as Hewlett-Packard’s Slate 2 and Dell’s Latitude ST to run Android applications. Bluestacks made headlines at last year’s Computex trade show in Taipei when Advanced Micro Devices showed off an x86 tablet with Android running on top of the Windows 7 software stack. Android applications are mostly written for the ARM instruction set, but the x86 tablet was able to switch between Android and Windows without any problems.
The emulator has new Layercake technology, which exploits hardware accelerators to improve the performance of Android games in Windows. The layer was not included in the previous Bluestacks alpha version. Android applications typically use hardware accelerators found in ARM’s Mali, Nvidia’s Tegra or Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR graphics cores, but Layercake is able to take advantage of hardware accelerators from companies like AMD found in x86 chips.
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Did HP Really Need Intel?
Back in the day HP said it chose Intel to co-develop Itanium due to its process technology, as it didn’t have the cash to fund next generation fabs.
Intel has often been the butt of Itanium jokes, but HP invested as much, if not more into the enterprise. Kirk Bresniker, CTO of HP’s Business Critical Systems told The INQUIRER that HP needed Intel’s manufacturing capability. Bresniker said HP’s decision to partner with Intel was due to the firm realising it couldn’t afford the VLSI manufacturing process iteration needed for developing competitive chips.
Bresniker said, “It is really an extension of the CISC processor that led us to partner with Intel on the Itanium. We knew we weren’t going to be able to maintain the investment levels neccessary to continue to fund deep sub-micron fabs.”
Until HP’s foray with Itanium, the firm was known for its PA-RISC systems, some of which Bresniker designed himself back in the early 1990s. Bresniker said, “We got to the point of microprocessor development and more importantly the economics of fabrication environments and realised we were facing transition to the deep sub-micron [fabrication processes] and potentially writing billions and billions of dollars worth of cheques for fabrication, and part of the impetuous for us to partner with Intel on the Itanium design was that we wanted to have access to the world’s number one microprocessor silicon fabrication.”
While HP continued with PA-RISC chips well into the new millennium, HP’s decision to offload the work of actually producing chips onto Intel could be seen as shrewd move, and one that firms such as AMD did a decade later. The cost of process node iteration is getting ever higher, which is something that Intel itself admits.
Not surprisingly, Bresniker wouldn’t be drawn on the demise of Itanium, though HP did announce Project Odyssey late last year, which effectively mixes and matches the firm’s Itanium kit with Intel Xeon servers. He did admit that the firm had to go towards x86 in the mission-critical market, Bresniker was quick to point out that while Intel is porting more features from the Itanium chip, not everything will be moved over.