Smartphone handset: build it yourselves

 

Build-your-own Google handset reconstructs smartphone

Barcelona (AFP) - With a smartphone that slots together piece by piece like Lego, US Internet giant Google is trying to reinvent the mobile as most phone makers are honing sleeker handsets.

The company aims to challenge its rival Apple's thin iPhones with the Google Ara project, giving smartphone aficionados the option to build their phone themselves.

Analysts say tech boffins will love it but remain cautious about how popular it may be compared to polished conventional smartphones that sit snugly in the palm.

Google says the Ara phone is part of its bid to widen Internet access to users in developing countries and could create a new industry for assembly-ready handset parts.

Google's associate, US firm Yezz, presented a prototype of the build-your-own device this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world's biggest wireless telecom trade fair.

The phone consists of a base structure on which various square, magnetic modular parts can be attached: screen, battery, camera, speakers and more. Google plans to release it in three sizes.

 

Build-your-own Google handset reconstructs smartphone

Ara would allow users to replace individual components rather than throwing the whole thing away and buying a new handset. It says the base unit will last at least five or six years.

"That is good for the environment," said Annette Zimmermann, a telecom specialist at German consultancy Gartner.

- Emerging markets -

Ara "could reshape the mobile landscape," said Paul Eremenko, director of the Ara Project, in a presentation to experts in January.

He said it aimed to gain six billion potential clients -- the current billion people who currently use smartphones "and five billion future users", most of them in emerging markets.

Google says a mid-range Ara phone could cost between $50 and $100 to produce, but has not given details of the likely sales price, leaving questions marks over how sustainable such a product would be.

"Google is not looking to make money directly with Ara," said Jerome Colin, a telecom expert at French consultancy group Roland Berger.

"It is basically looking to spread smartphones in countries with low purchasing power, and to unify the telecom world around its Android system."

- 'Paradox of choice' -

Tech fans and bloggers queued up to see the prototype presented in Barcelona, but analysts were sceptical.

"The trend in mobile phones is to have small, thin, really integrated products. If you make a product modular it immediately means that you're going to have to make compromises on that," said Ben Wood, head researcher at consultancy CCS Insight.

"The other question mark I have is: beyond geeks, who really knows" about components? he added.

"If I said to you, which processor do you want in your smartphone, I think you could stop people in the street and they'd just look at you like you'd landed from Mars."

Eremenko acknowledged that consumers risked being overwhelmed by too many technical options when it comes to choosing components.

"We need to resolve the paradox of choice," he said in January.

Google plans a test launch of the device in Puerto Rico by the end of this year.

"We will have to see if the public takes to it," said Zimmerman.

Google dominates the world of Internet searches and its Android operating system can be used on 80 percent of the world's smartphones. It also holds a large market share in wireless tablet devices.

Its senior vice-president Sundar Pichai said in Barcelona on Monday that it was in talks with telecom companies about possibly using their networks to operate its own mobile phone services in the United States.

AFP

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Smartphone users exposed to threats from cyber hackers

KUALA LUMPUR: About seven million smartphone users nationwide are exposed to threats from cyber hackers who make use of their gadgets to steal their money.

Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department director Datuk Syed Ismail Syed Azizan said lack of awareness on the risks of smartphone security made users easy victims.

“The modus operandi is to send short messaging service known as Trojans to users who unknowingly will be charged when replying to the SMS,” he said. “Consumers only realise this when they are slapped with high phone bills although they did not use the service.”

The scam was detected via applications such as “Type-On” which, when downloaded, would cause smartphone users to bear the cost although they had uninstalled the application.

Lookout Mobile Security was quoted by AFP as saying that worldwide, users lost millions of dollars last year via malware and toll fraud that attacked smartphone users for accessing applications from unofficial sources rather than trusted ones such as Apple or Google online shops.

Syed Ismail said police statistics recorded from January to September this year showed that losses incurred via SMS or phone calls totalled RM21.8mil.

The hackers target users of Internet banking or phone banking by hacking and abusing the network, including the online purchases of goods.

Online purchases recorded the highest losses of RM14.5mil (1,298 cases) followed by SMS or phone call with RM3.4mil (412 cases), hacking (RM3.3mil via 24 cases) and Internet banking and phone banking with RM590,000 (74 cases). - Bernama

iPhone 5 opens the door for Nokia, Samsung

There's no doubt that the iPhone 5 is going to be a great, fast-selling smartphone, but it's out-innovated by Nokia and Samsung.

  (Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

 

News flash: The iPhone 5 is not the end-all and be-all of the smartphone universe, a fact that should thrill Nokia and Samsung alike.

Here's what it is: a strong improvement to the iPhone 4S that offers up a larger screen, 4G LTE speeds, and a terrific camera. The iPhone 5 carries on the goodness that Apple excels at, like iTunes entertainment and cloud storage.

But however good the iPhone 5 is, it lacks the knockout, gasp-inducing feature that Apple followers have come to expect: perhaps double the battery life of any other phone on the market, or an innovative camera feature that lets you drag and drop subjects around the screen, or other far-out concepts come to life.

Instead, we see a lot of catching up: LTE support, panorama mode, and photo capture while a video records, maps with turn-by-turn navigation, and a slightly larger screen with the same pixel density as on the iPhone 4 two generations ago. And it still lacks certain other perks, like NFC, which is useful for mobile payments, and for sharing content from phone to phone.

For the first time in a long time, Apple has given its rivals room to bask in their own innovations.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 is the anti-iPhone.

(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

 

The Nokia's Lumia 920 offers wireless charging, for example, a capability it'll pilot in coffee shops and airline lounges. Its camera is literally surrounded by springs, and the screen uses a very smart display filter that could match or even surpass the iPhone 5's display (we have to wait to see them side by side.

Meanwhile, Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 offers up an enormous 5.5-inch screen and a truckload of tricks with its S Pen stylus, and a new camera feature that will compile the best of a handful of group photos, increasing the chances that everyone's smiling. Its phone/tablet hybrid is the antithesis of the smaller iPhone screen.

On the battery front, Motorola's new Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD can't be beat; it features a powerful 3,300mAh battery that promises 21 hours of talk time to Apple's 8 hours of talk time over 3G on the iPhone 5.

Make no mistake that the iPhone 5 will sell like wildfire and bring delight to Apple fans everywhere -- in fact, I even think it makes for a great universal choice.

Yet its lack of a "gotcha" feature gives shoppers considering other powerful alternatives -- like the intriguing Lumia 920, the larger-than-life Samsung Galaxy Note 2, or even the won't-quit Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD -- fewer reasons to stick with Apple.

 by Jessica Dolcourt 

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Put an end to patent battle

An early settlement of the dispute between Samsung and Apple would benefit consumers and the global mobile device industry as a whole. 

An Apple Inc. iPad 2 and iPhone 4S smartphone, left, and a Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer and Galaxy S III smartphone are arranged for a photograph in Seoul, South Korea, On Tuesday. (Bloomberg)

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics has suffered a crushing defeat in a landmark patent battle against Apple Inc. A US jury last Friday found that the Korean smartphone maker infringed upon a number of patents held by Apple, while the American tech giant did not violate any of its Korean rival’s intellectual properties.

The jury’s judgement is widely criticised here as unfair. But it is highly likely to be upheld by the California court, dealing a serious blow to Samsung, the world’s largest mobile device producer. Samsung accounted for 32.6% of the global market in the second quarter against Apple’s 16.9%.

The nine-member jury ordered Samsung to pay US$1.05bil (RM3.28bil) in damages to Apple. The damages – much larger than expected – could be doubled or even tripled by the judge overseeing the trial, given the jury’s scathing verdict that Samsung “willfully” infringed on Apple’s coveted patents.

Samsung also faces a US sales ban on its mobile devices. Following the trial win, Apple presented to the judge a list of Samsung products it wants barred. Apple identified eight Samsung smartphone and tablet models but did not include Samsung’s new flagships, the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note. Consequently, the sales ban, even if accepted by the court, is unlikely to have a serious impact on Samsung.

The US court’s ruling could also negatively affect patent battles between the two under way in nine countries over four continents. Unfavourable rulings in these countries would pour cold water on Samsung’s ambition to cement its global market leadership.

Furthermore, the jury seriously wounded Samsung’s pride by slamming it as a copycat. This is an insult hard to swallow, as Samsung has worked hard to secure leadership in mobile technology.

Given the high stakes involved, it is only natural that Samsung has decided to file post-verdict motions to overturn what it saw as the jury’s one-sided judgement. It plans to take the case to the court of appeals if its motions are rejected.

This suggests that the patent war will not end any time soon. Samsung is determined to continue the legal battle to make its case that Apple did encroach upon its hard-won patents for mobile technologies.

At the same time, Samsung is seeking to turn the tables in the next round of the battle by utilising its patents for fourth-generation technologies called “long-term evolution.”

Samsung is betting that it would be able to use some of its LTE patents as weapons against its rival because they have not been made open as industry standards. It is wondering how Apple can produce its next-generation model, the iPhone 5, without using its patented LTE technologies.

In light of Samsung’s technological prowess and deep pockets, the company will be able to overcome the grave challenge it is facing now.

For instance, it won’t have much difficulty paying the US$1.05bil (RM3.28bil) damages set by the jury, given that its net profit amounted to US$4.5bil (RM in April-June alone.

Yet Samsung should learn a lesson from the costly patent war. It is imperative for the company to transform itself from a fast follower to a first mover. It needs to go back to the drawing board to make its products truly innovative both in design and functions. It might want to risk a radical design that can differentiate its products from others.

Apple, emboldened by last Friday’s triumph, may be tempted to expand the patent war to collect royalties from other smartphone makers that rely on Google’s Android operating system. Yet it should realise that no company has ever succeeded in establishing market leadership through patent litigations. A company can only become a market leader through competition in the marketplace.

Apple also needs to know that any attempt to drive Android-based smartphone producers into a corner could backfire in the long term, as it will spur their efforts to become more innovative. With their survival at stake, they will be compelled to change the game as they cannot beat Apple at its own game.

In this regard, we urge Apple and Samsung to reach a deal that can benefit both. Apple could set royalties for Samsung at a level that would not undermine the Korean company’s earnings too much. An early settlement of the dispute would also benefit consumers and the global mobile device industry as a whole.

 
By EDITORIAL DESK

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Apple patent claims stifling innovation; Japan court rules in favour of Samsung

Is Apple stifling innovation?

A US jury decision against Samsung and a Japanese court decision for the Korean conglomerate raise questions over the entire patent issue

WOULD anyone have expected the Apple-Samsung case to be decided in favour of Samsung by a US court in a jury verdict and against Apple, which is by now even more American than apple pie? I certainly didn’t.

But there is an appeal on the cards and it is still anyone’s guess if Apple will be allowed to claim such things as shape and “pinch to zoom out” as its right. But if it is, then that’s a big setback for other smartphones.

Samsung, however, scored a victory in a Tokyo court which ruled yesterday that the Korean electronics giant, and supplier to Apple, did not violate any patents. That victory will no doubt raise questions as to how fair the US jury was in making an award in favour of Apple, including US$1bil in damages.

The US decision means eventually consumers there may have to pay more for Apple’s iPhone, iPod and devices because others may not be able to emulate features that may have made their devices a success. That will have repercussions on prices elsewhere as well.

In the motor industry there have been many trends in shape over the years, moving from angular to rounded designs. If some car company had decided to sue every other car manufacturer for a similar look and feel and succeeded, car shapes may have had great difficulty evolving.

But the best manufacturers of cars did not. In fact some of them deliberately did not register safety patents just so that others could use the innovations to increase passenger safety.

If Samsung is said to have infringed on shape, then there are a number of other manufacturers who are in trouble too. Rectangular faces with rounded edges are a natural evolution in the mobile phone industry. Certainly, other manufacturers are going to hope there will be a reversal on appeal.

Apple did not invent the touch screen. Thus, it seems strange that it has a patent to “pinch to zoom” which is basically one way of many ways to use a screen. That’s like patenting a particular method of driving a car!

Apple has already followed up on its US victory, seeking an injunction to prevent Samsung from selling eight of its smartphones in the United States including some in the best-selling Galaxy range.

However, hearing of the injunction will only be in December and some of Samsung’s models may be phased out by then, which offers some consolation for Samsung.

Some US commentators view the case as a proxy war against another US company Google which makes the Android operating system used in Samsung, HTC and other smartphones.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle says that the late Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was once a friend of Google’s co-founders but considered Google’s move into mobile a betrayal that demanded revenge.

“I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product,” he told his biographer Walter Isaacson. “I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

But despite the nice rhetoric, revenge from the grave it is not. Apple’s strategy seems quite clear cut. Patent everything. Then tie up competitors in court if there is any semblance of product infringement and keep its competitive advantage intact as long as possible.

Reports put its profit margins on its iPhone at as high as 50%, a huge mark-up in a cutthroat market which it has been able to achieve by parlaying an excellent product with some very deft marketing and public relations.

That made it the biggest company in the world. Many would say that the product, however, is not necessarily the best anymore if ever it was, especially since competitors are fast catching up with their own nifty designs and features. And marketing and PR too – Galaxy is getting a name for itself and no doubt the cases around the world will help.

Thus it makes much economic sense for Apple to prolong this by any legal means it can for as long as possible. Does Apple care that it may be stifling innovation, raising costs and hurting consumers in the process?

Probably not. And why should it? It is a company based on the profit motive. But it needs to remember that all publicity is not good publicity and if it gets a reputation as a bully, its entire image and that of its products could change.

American companies can carry this patent thing too far and they have. Recall a few years ago when some of them tried to patent the production of pesticides from neem trees. For thousands of years, extracts from the leaves of the neem have been used for precisely that.

The American jury system cannot but be expected to favour a US icon such as Apple which is seen as brash, innovative and successful, the very image of the US itself. But that’s not going to be the case in the rest of the world. And even in the US, if learned judges make the decisions instead of a jury, the results may well be different.

Really, no one is going to benefit and there may well be detriment, if we allow patents to get the better of us and stifle innovation and hinder the development of new products and services at lower costs.
It would be a travesty of sorts and ironic indeed if Apple is now seen as a technology inhibitor instead. Beware!

A QUESTION OF BUSINESS By P. GUNASEGARAM starbiz@thestar.com.my

P Gunasegaram is an iPhone user but only because the service provider gave such a good deal.

 Japanese court rules for Samsung over Apple

In this Aug. 25, 2011 file photo a lawyer holds an Apple iPad and a Samsung Tablet-PC at a court in Duesseldorf, Germany. The Duesseldorf state court ruled Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, that neither the South Korean company‘s Galaxy Tab 10.1 nor the Galaxy Tab 8.9 could be sold in Germany because they were in violation of unfair competition laws. A German appeals court has upheld a decision prohibiting Samsung Electronics Co. from selling two of its tablet computers in Germany, agreeing with Apple Inc. that they too closely resemble the iPad2. (AP)

Samsung wins one battle in the multinational conflict over patent and innovation

By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent

A Japanese court has ruled in favor of Samsung over Apple in a patent lawsuit. In the August 31 verdict, Tamotsu Shoji, the Tokyo District judge, declined Apple’s claim that “8 models of Samsung Galaxy series infringed on Apple’s patents.”

Apple had sued Samsung for infringing on its synchronization of music and other data with remote servers. It asserted that “Samsung’s products use Apple’s technologies of synchronization, which constitutes patent infringement,” and demanded both compensation of 100 million Japanese Yen (around US$1.27 million) and a block on eight Samsung products.

According to Jiji Press, judge Tamotsu stated, “Samsung’s products are technologically distinct from Apple and can’t be considered infringements.”

As a first trial, this does not hold much importance beyond being an indication of what the final verdict might end up being. However, because the verdict ordered a ‘dismissal’ on Apple’s injunction, there is only a slight possibility for an overturn in the final verdict.

Apple has also sued Samsung for infringing on its ‘bounce back (technology that springs back when the document has reached the end)’ patent, a claim that is still ongoing.

This verdict is the first ruling out of the 9 lawsuits Apple and Samsung Electronics have against each other. Samsung also filed lawsuits against Apple in April and October of 2011, arguing that Apple also infringed on 6 of Samsung’s patents.

Samsung and Apple have ongoing lawsuits in different 10 countries. In the US, a judge ruled that Samsung had infringed Apple patents, ordering the Korean electronics giant to pay $1.05 billion in damages.  

Translated by Yoo Hey-rim, Hankyoreh English intern

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Apple's rot starts with its Samsung lawsuit win

Just like Microsoft, Apple's evolution from smart tech company to global uber-brand contains the seeds of its own destruction

The risk for Apple is that it focuses more and more on intellectual property rights – filing patents and litigating – than it does on product innovation. Photograph: Ahn Young-Joon/AP

Apple came close to destroying its business in the late 1980s by pursuing a suit against Microsoft claiming that Windows infringed the look and feel of the Mac desktop metaphor. Apple focused its hopes and business future on this lawsuit, while its market share dwindled. Rather than competing, it litigated. And lost.

Last week, it litigated against Samsung over its iPhone design and won.

The first justifiable conclusion might be that big companies get their way. The second might reasonably be that Apple doesn't change much: its business model remains aggressive self-righteousness. The third is what everybody knows: patent rules and philosophy are all screwed up.

As for the first point, Apple is not just a big company, but the biggest. And it is not just the biggest American company, but the most American company. It has entered a rarefied brand status in which it is now almost synonymous with American virtue: American as Apple. Its good design sense has become a major point of American pride, if not nationalism.

The brand is a national asset. Apple is AT&T in its pre-break-up from; it's GM, in its what's-good-for-General-Motors-is-good-for-the-country stage; it's United Fruit when it made US foreign policy; it's Microsoft when desktop computing was transforming the world.

 Commercial omnipotence

This is about as close to commercial omnipotence as it gets. Its unassailability, its right to be preternaturally aggressive, is built into its share price. We believe in Apple. So let us briefly consider the chance for a Korean company defending itself against (or, perish the thought, challenging) the greatest American company of the age in the eyes of an American jury.

And then, there's the self-righteousness. Apple is one of the most aggressive intellectual property litigators of all time. Its major moves have not been about protecting precise technical innovations, but about claiming the much softer zone of look and feel.

It sues for brand rather than engineering. It has pioneered a new modern sensibility: taste is what's most valuable; identity is king. It's sued about the lower case "i"; it's sued about the word "pod"; it's sued New York City over the "big Apple"; it's sued over using the words "app store".

This fierce defensiveness might be rightly understood in a psychological sense: Apple itself is based on stolen iconography. There was first the Beatle's Apple and there was Xerox PARC's desktop design.

Apple's self-righteousness masks its guilt. (It may be sheepish, too, about being more of a marketing organization than a technology company.) What's more, it knows better than anybody that if you relax your vigilance, somebody can easily walk off with what you've done – and improve it.

And then, in the algebra of Samsung's loss and Apple's victory, there's patent hell. Or absurdity.

 System of litigation

Patents are, arguably, no longer a system of protection; they are a system of litigation. Great numbers of patents are now filed, in an over-burdened system, to protect not innovations but the right to litigate over innovations. Indeed, any patent of value will ultimately be litigated.

What's more, as the system has become ever more over-taxed, as technology itself has become more complex, the ill-equipped and under-trained bureaucracy has increasingly taken to giving patents to wide-ranging abstractions.

Design concepts, behavior adjustments, and new approaches to problem solving are all patentable innovations. The system itself assumes that litigation is the check on the system. Which means, fundamentally, that the litigant with the most resources and greatest status wins.

But let us not argue the case that all this quite obviously impedes innovation and is part of a new unreal property land grab – not about technology at all, but about intellectual property: an effort to privatize much of what was once understood to be shared and public (indeed, not ownable, like the shape of the iPhone). But rather, for a moment, let's look at this as a form of hubris that has inevitable consequences.

The Apple that has won against Samsung is the same Apple that lost against Microsoft. In other words, it is the kind of company that, through sheer willfulness, discipline, and perfectionism, can achieve brand hegemony of a singular type. But it is, too, the kind of company – the exact sort of company – that becomes, perhaps inevitably becomes, the bete noire of consumerists, regulators and, of course, most of all, its competitors.

This is the story between the lines of its great victory and its further share price surge. On the one hand, there is this seemingly golden company. On the other hand, there is anybody with any sense of history knowing this is going to end badly.
  
American capitalism

Companies that acquire the nation's imprimatur often, if not invariably, over-reach. It is a characteristic of American capitalism: the price of getting really big and overbearing is that you incur an inverse reaction. In the early 1990s, an ambitious department of justice (a Republican administration DOJ at that) commenced its assault on Microsoft.

For better or worse, by the time the feds were finished, the company, with its rotten operating system, besieged and beleaguered, had become just one of many not-very-adept players in the space – an unimaginable outcome if you remember the once God-like power and scorched-earth wrath of Microsoft.

Apple, and its rotten phone, have a ways to go. But karma should not be underestimated as a factor in this game.

• • By Michael Wolff
  • guardian.co.uk

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