A German Court found a number of Apple’s products to be infringing back in December, but Motorola Mobility (the consumer hardware arm of Motorola that is in the process of being taken over by Google) is now enforcing that ruling and Apple has had to pull the products.

The patent in question relates to a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system” and is normally licensed to competitors under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) conditions as it is crucial to GPRS data transmission – but Apple failed to license this patent in the past, and whilst has agreed to pay going forward, Motorola wants Apple to pay a penalty for the past transgressions – and they have the courts on their side.

Apple Forced To Pull Some iPhones And iPads From German Store was originally published on TechFruit

Samsung has already moved into damage control mode in the Middle East after the ad caused, with their Dubai office condemning the ad, after the Iranian parliament said in an official statement that they thought it was “insulting” and described Iran as a “primitive society” and the emergence of Facebook and Twitter comments complaining about its depiction of the country.

Whilst Samsung has apologised to Iran, there is little more the company can do at this point as it is stuck in the middle of escalating tensions between Iran and Israel after the recent unexplained deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists – with the HOT ad making fun of Iran’s nuclear security.

[via Al Arabiya]

Iran May Ban Samsung Products After Israeli TV Ad was originally published on TechFruit

A couple of days ago, an app called QuasiDisk got past the App Store moderators with a function that allowed users to tether their iPhones – allowing users to use the modem in their iPhone to connect to the internet with their laptop or other device without incurring extra fees. Once news of this hidden feature spread – the app suddenly became very popular but it wasn’t long before Apple pulled the plug. This is not the first time such an app has slipped through the net and appeared on Apple’s App Store with the hidden feature, and you can be pretty sure it won’t be the last.

Some phone networks have been listening to users, however, and started to include tethering support for free with their monthly tariffs. O2 in the UK announced nearly a year ago that they were starting to include tethering as part of their monthly plans – but it is about time the others started following suit!

Apple Removes Free iPhone Tethering App (Again) was originally published on TechFruit

The Kodak M200 comes packing a 10-megapixel sensor, a 3x optical zoom, and a 2.5-inch LCD display, as well as coming bundled with Kodak’s Easyshare software that makes uploading your photos to Facebook or Flickr a breeze. It may not be a competitor for your digital SLR, but at an almost disposable price this is the sort of camera that is perfect for taking to some rather boozy or muddy occasions.

[BUY] Kodak Easyshare M200 for £25 from Asda Direct

[Deal] Kodak Easyshare M200 Mini 10 Megapixel Camera £25 was originally published on TechFruit

Whilst at the same time as promoting its “Be Bold” tagline where people “need tools, not toys” from their phones, with celebs like musicians the Martinez Brothers, and food buyer extraordinaire Jon Hansburg fronting the videos, RIM was actively shooting itself in the face with a social media campaigns of superheroes launched on Twitter. This may be just “a bit of fun”, but for a company trying to push the idea that phones are functional devices and not play things – a position that obviously works well to promote BlackBerry – the long held device of professionals around the globe, this is the exact opposite. They’ve called the characters Gogo Girl (The Achiever), Max Stone (The Adventurer), Justin Steele (The Advocate), and Trudy For Real (The Authentic) – I’ve embedded the graphic below.

Even more of a problem than their marketing mis-haps, however, is that the first BlackBerry device running the new BlackBerry 10 OS, known as BlackBerry London, will not be available until late 2012. The good people over at CrackBerry have got hold of a legitimate looking copy of RIM’s 2012 roadmap, and a render of the BlackBerry London to give this story some credence – and that tardiness is not good news.

I actually quite like the look of the next-gen BlackBerry London, but running just a 1.5GHz dual-core processor and a large-ish screen it will be blown out of the water by the like of the Samsung Galaxy SIII which will be coming out before it. After a 2011 that saw their business and security prowess dismantled by outages and their phones slipping behind competitors in terms of specs and abilities – BlackBerry needed something special and this looks like it will be too little too late.

RIM/BlackBerry Is A Joke was originally published on TechFruit

Google Currents is a social magazine that is available for iOS and Android both, unlike most other apps like Flipboard, that are available just for iOS. This makes Google Currents one of the strongest contenders in the social magazine market. All it takes is a swipe on your device and you can explore through thousands of online magazine content. The advanced Google search technology tracks the trending content in various categories such as entertainment, sports, news and presents it on your device through an array of articles, videos and photos.

Google Currents work similar to Flipboard and lets you add all the content that you want from a number of different sources. It then presents you everything in the form of a single online magazine that is attractive and easy to read. A number of sites like Forbes, Cnet are already featured so that the user will have content ready from these sources. User can also add the blogs from his Google Reader account, which would also be transformed into magazine editions so now reading the blogs would be even more fun. Google Currents also enables the user to personalize the format of the magazine and adjusts the size of the magazine depending on the size of the device you are using. The Google Current’s Producer allows many independent publishers to create content on various niches for this platform that could be accessed through smartphones and tablets.

We have already mention, how Google Current is being called as Flipboard killer. But there have been some negative reviews on this as well. There are lots of bugs being reported by the customers which Google is trying to sort out as soon as possible. Interface, although good, is still being considered pretty much inferior to the Flipboard. So If Google wants its app to be a Flipboard killer, it sure needs to take care of this issue quick. Main advantage Google Currents has is that it is available across multiple platforms and since Android market is growing at an exceptional pace, Google Currents reader base would definitely outnumber Flipboard’s.

From a reviewer’s point of view, the Google Current is very much recommended. Given that Google is working on fixing its bugs, we hope that the app would become far smoother in the coming days and hopefully we would be able to see some more exciting features in Google Currents.

Google Currents: A Magazine App From Google was originally published on TechFruit

This looks like a classic case of double dipping, and whilst I am impressed by Sky’s obvious prowess in its negotiating, with the BBC being funded by the license fee and therefore effectively public owned, we as consumers should not have to pay twice for the same content. Yes the BBC’s remit is to be accessible on various channels to inform and entertain the British public, but how is it that Sky is managing to charge such high fees to broadcast ad-free content that is paid for by the British public?

In the US, Murdoch-owned Fox Networks charges cable companies to be able to rebroadcast its content in deals that are the polar opposite of the UK situation – so why is it that in the UK the BBC is paying Sky, not Sky paying the BBC? Part of it is to do with Sky being broadcast by satellite which means that it is available to even the furthest flung areas of the UK – places where BBC content should be available, but may not have been through traditional television masts, analogue or digital. Therefore, when Sky was launching Sky Digital and could offer this service, the BBC was almost obliged to be on the service giving Sky the better hand in negotiations. This situation has, however, changed.

Whilst Sky was the first digital satellite television service in the UK, and should be respected for pioneering that market and the pay-TV market in general – there is now a competitor in FreeSat. FreeSat is a digital satellite service from the BBC and ITV and runs on the same satellite service as the Sky service – meaning that everywhere that Sky reached that terrestrial television and Freeview could not, can now be reached by this service – and it is already part-owned by the BBC. The BBC, then, no longer needs to be available on Sky to reach the whole British population – something which should change the balance of power in the upcoming renegotiations on the deal.

The BBC still produces the most watched television content in the UK, and as such should be holding most the cards in renegotiating with Sky. Whilst commercial broadcasters like ITV may need to worry about any temporary loss in viewership (and therefore advertising viewers) by holding the Sky rebroadcasting deal to ransom – the BBC is paid by the license fee and as leaving the Sky EPG for a few days to show their strength of hand is an option. The volume of complaints Sky would receive if it no longer was able to show BBC content on its service would have the company changing tack and offering to stream the BBC content for free or even pay for doing so quite quickly. The BBC just needs to show its teeth.

The deal is being renegotiated by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in the coming days, and he has shown his appreciation for Sky and distaste for the BBC in the past. So if you would like to see BBC license fee money being invested in new content and not going into the coffers of Rupert Murdoch and the other Sky shareholders (who have shown themselves uninterested in producing new content over the years and instead preferring to just buy it cheaply from the US after a terrestrial channel has introduced it in the UK and built the audience), then write to Mr Hunt such as via this form on Avaaz.

Why Is The BBC Paying Sky To Broadcast Its Channels? was originally published on TechFruit

No-one can deny that file sharing and large scale copyright infringement is a major issue for the content industries, but that does not mean that the public should have their freedoms eroded in return for securing corporate profits. It will come as no surprise when one reads the draft agreement that the vast majority of those brought in to give their input to the negotiations were intellectual property trade groups and organisations such as the RIAA and MPAA. The theory is that the politicians are there to represent the public’s views, and yet as with every negotiation to change intellectual property law – it is the people who give up rights and freedoms and the corporations that gain longer lasting, stronger rights that result in increased and secured profits.

To understand quite how far the politicians are selling citizens’ rights down the river, Aaron Shaw, Research Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, argues that

ACTA would create unduly harsh legal standards that do not reflect contemporary principles of democratic government, free market exchange, or civil liberties

In an open letter signed by many organizations, including Consumers International, EDRi (27 European civil rights and privacy NGOs), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), they state that

The current draft of ACTA would profoundly restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy

It is, then, a significant threat to every internet user across the globe. The European Parliament managed to reduce a few of the most onerous terms in the original drafts in 2010, but the majority of the threats remain in much the same form as they were before that resolution. And yet ACTA has been signed by 22 EU member states including the UK. This signing was after “never-before-seen manoeuvres” by officials preparing the treaty – causing issues so severe that Kader Arif, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for ACTA, resigned over them to keep his conscience. In a statement Mr Arif said

I condemn the whole process which led to the signature of this agreement: no consultation of the civil society, lack of transparency since the beginning of negotiations, repeated delays of the signature of the text without any explanation given, reject of Parliament’s recommendations as given in several resolutions of our assembly

ACTA supporters may claim that the agreement doesn’t change existing laws – but it does create an entirely new and more onerous framework for dealing with intellectual property issues that involves imprisonment. Unlike SOPA and PIPA, ACTA does not affect the underlying infrastructure of the internet – and so it is not for sites like Wikipedia and Reddit to highlight this battle – this is a battle that citizens need to understand and fight for themselves.

European Parliament Rapporteur Resigns Over ACTA was originally published on TechFruit

Last week, Apple turned heads by hosting an education-focused event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The event was billed as an opportunity for Apple to introduce school and learning ventures, announce new plans, and indicate its desire to actively engage with the education community — and to do so largely through the iPad tablet. All people wanted to know, however, was one thing: what new products or services will the company announce?

Speculation ranged from digital textbooks to publishing software to new iPad applications. Normally, the rumors swirling around the next Apple announcement rarely turn out to be true (remember the anticipated launch of the iPhone 5 this autumn?) but this time they were spot on. In New York, Apple unveiled a new application for using digital textbooks on an iPad. It reintroduced and expanded the iBookstore resource. It launched a new publishing program, iBooks Author, and it enlarged the offerings and applications of iTunes U. In short, the company backed up its commitment to the education sector by fully embracing a variety of digital learning tools. If this investment proves fruitful, we may soon come to see Apple as more than simply a tech company best suited for buying a slick phone, conducting a reverse phone lookup, or picking out a high-performing laptop, even if they may not be working within open formats.

Here’s a quick rundown on the services and programs that Apple announced in New York:

iBooks 2 Application

The central unveiling of Apple’s education event, the iBooks 2 application is specifically designed for reading a textbook on the iPad. This is part of Apple’s initiative to make the cost of iPads more justifiable for universities and school districts. The application offers a range of features geared towards textbook reading, including among them a fast navigating interface, the ability to take notes, a variety of interactive study cards, and comprehensive lesson reviews.

iBookstore

The previously-announced iBookstore gained a new legitimacy at the education summit when Apple offered more specifics about its textbook content. Textbooks will be published digitally in the iBookstore in conjuction with publishing partners that include McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt –three companies that together control over 90% of the market – and all books will be priced under $15. This would reflect a steep and highly attractive discount over current texting costs.

iBooks Author

The iBooks Author program, initially only available for Mac users, will give individuals the ability to write and publish their own digital textbook. This means that teachers, textbook writers, and even parents could gain access to the textbook market, potentially spurring added competition and driving prices even lower.

iTunes U Expansion

Apple added several updates to its iTunes U program during the New York event. Chief among them is an attempt to transform iTunes U into a teaching tool. Teachers can now use the program to make, assemble, and present lesson plans.
All these new programs stand to alter not just Apple as a company but the education sector as a whole. If Apple’s efforts are successful, the textbook market will become far more competitive and digital, thereby resulting in lower costs and lighter backpacks – and, in the process, new modes of learning. Technology has already transformed the way our students are taught. Apple, with its recent event, looks to only continue and accelerate this trend.

Apple Looking to Remake the Education Landscape? was originally published on TechFruit

They have teamed up with ChillingEffects and will let the censored user know they’ve been censored, as well as making it clear to others that the content has been censored – but this is a serious political issue for the service that had a great impact on sharing information in the recent Arab Springs. Twitter may have given the historical/cultural Nazi-censorship in Germany and France as their example of when this tool may be used, but it will be countries like China where it will see most action.

The question now is, however, whether expansion into these territories is worth putting up with the censorship and effectively ruling yourself out of any future ground-breaking social events. I for one am hugely disappointed by the move, and I am certainly not alone with press freedom group Reporters Without Borders preparing an open letter to Twitter’s CEO with their concerns about the action.

Whilst Twitter is a commercial entity and now having to generate profits to justify its valuation, I can;t help thinking that this would not have happened under the management of the founders – those who pioneered to make this platform of instant and easy global communication work.

Twitter Embraces Censorship was originally published on TechFruit