Routers World

Apple took a patent yesterday that could be very useful in today’s smartphone thicket of litigation relating to intellectual property.

The patent goes to the heart of what it means to be a smartphone these days: a user interface with a multitouch screen. Patent No. 7,966,578 is entitled “Portable Multifunction Device, method and graphical user interface to translate the advertisers.”

But what does it mean? ZDNet Asia sister site CNET takes a look at some of the issues raised.

First, what does the patent cover?
The patent covers some of the most basic things you can do with a smartphone touch screen to move the items displayed in it. That could be a tap of the finger, two fingers or more and the meat of how many patent issues. In particular, it has a lot to say about whether an act of sliding moves an entire page of content or just some elements within a frame.

“Depending on the number of fingers used in the gesture, the user can easily translate the page content or just translate the content into the content frame of the page,” the patent.

The patent abstract is as follows:

A computer-implemented method for use in combination with a portable multifunction device with a touch screen display with some of the content of the page with a calendar that shows a portion of frame content and also includes other content of the page, touch screen display. An act of translation N-finger is detected on or near the touch screen. In response, the page content, including the portion of the frame shows the contents and other contents of the page is translated to display a new portion of page content on the touch screen. An act of translation of M-finger is detected on or near the touch screen, where M is a number different from N. In response, the frame content is translated to display a new portion of frame content on the touch screen, without translating the contents of another page.

Wait, huh? My eyes glazed over.
OK, let boil a little. The patent governs how the contents of the screen moves when you touch the screen. A touch of a finger can move a whole page about, for example, but a touch with two fingers can move only in contained within a particular region in which the patent calls a frame. The smaller frame can be any number of things – a scrollable list of items, a portion of a map.

The patent begins with a claim involving web pages are displayed in a window fixed, but other claims specify other tasks: word processing, spreadsheets, email or presentation, maps, lists, scrollable elements.

The patent covers the technology in a “portable multifunction device,” describes broadly enough to include not only smartphones, but tablets and touch screen devices potentially others as well. And to be clear, the use of the patent the term “translate” means something to move left, right, up, down or diagonally across the screen, not to convert from one language to another.

Who has the patent?
The inventors are Richard Williamson Francisco Ryan Tolmasky, Chris Blumenberg, and Patrick Lee Coffman who requested demand in 2007. Apple is the assignee.

The four are in a long list of inventors granted patents multitouch Apple in 2009 – but this time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is not on the list.

Why should we care about Apple’s patents?
At this time the mobile phone industry is moving as fast as anything in the technology sector – although it is adorned with patent infringement lawsuits related to mobile technology. These demands have drawn on Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, HTC, Oracle, and Kodak. Patent infringement lawsuits are very expensive.

Patents, especially large ones, these companies provide a larger arsenal in such battles. Apple has just paid a lot of money with a suit Nokia Nokia launched in 2009. New Apple patent could possibly be added to existing games, time permitting process, but patents have a long life.

Many times companies avoid litigation by signing a patent cross-licensing deals that give each other access to the patent portfolio of the other. There are also patents can be useful: the company’s portfolio typically weaker end up paying the other in the cross-licensing agreement.

All this amounts to a very high cost of doing business. Branches corresponds to a large number of patents have an advantage over new ones – that HTC, the Taiwanese company jumped to the big leagues via Android and suffered a patent violation lawsuit from Apple.

That’s why Google is willing to pay U.S. $ 900million to Nortel Networks patents and patent applications in a bankruptcy court proceeding.

How big a firearm Apple did just get in your arsenal?
A very large, some believe.

A person is concerned about its implications Florian Mueller, who is closely following the current round of applications for patents for your blog free software patents.

“It encompasses the concept of basic user interface to move content touchscreen multitouch gestures – not only recognize a particular form of programming by a special gesture for this purpose, but any or all forms of it,” said Mueller. “This patent describes a solution to such a level that effectively establishes an exclusive right to the problem itself, and any solution to it.”

“Moving objects on a touch screen with multitouch gestures is a very essential,” he added. “I can not imagine that smart phones and tablets would be competitive in the future without multitouch moving objects.”

As Apple is being a big troll here?
Not if you ask the shareholders of Apple executives or ambitious. Sure, Jobs seems to have a personal interest to grind when it comes to smartphones that take ideas that first appeared on the iPhone. But businesses of any benefit is not a unique strategy for Apple.

Products Apple launched the current round of intelligent innovation, and would be a surprise to see a company as fiercely competitive and profit focused suddenly ignore patents in the heart of your business.

“Since Apple acquired FingerWorks in 2005, have been regularly filing patents for gestural interfaces. They have had a significant advantage over the competition in this regard, and that bodes well for Apple’s ability to defend its intellectual property, “said Raven Zachary, a former industry analyst who now advises clients on development IOS.

Some companies, like Microsoft and IBM enjoy the income from patent licensing agreements. Apple, however, shows a different behavior, he said.

“Apple seems that not only deals with patents as part of access to patents,” said Zachary. “If Apple were to defend its patent portfolio broadly gestural in emerging tablet market, which could actually stifle innovation in other technology companies. Does anyone really believe that Apple may choose to license its patent portfolio unless bilateral? ”

That does not bode well for small new players such as HTC. Patents grant a monopoly, and technology is essential to retaining a competitive product could harm a rival.

What Apple’s competitors?
We’re not saying. Samsung, Microsoft and Google declined to comment for this article.

CommunicAsia, Singapore – The mobile device provides a window of opportunity for marketers and advertisers not only for its potential to increase the delivery of smart phones and penetration, but also to act as a bridge between online and offline worlds. This, say industry experts, can help improve the return on investment (ROI) for trademarks.

“The opportunity [today] is actually moving around,” said David Ko, senior vice president of Zynga, during his presentation Wednesday at CommunicAsia 2011. He noted that as global shipments of smartphones are expected to increase, users Zygna also requires the optimal gaming experience on their mobile phones.

For this reason, ensuring that provides extensions Zygna moving its various games, he said.

“[Integration] mobile with traditional media [equal] greater return on investment for advertisers, endpoint,” says Suresh Narasimha, founder and CEO of Converged Communications Telibrahma, who also was a speaker at the fair.

Mobile can help brands achieve greater profitability of traditional media like newspapers and television as a bridge between online and offline worlds, Suresh said during his presentation.

Consumers have been “taught” digital experiences online, such as clicking on hyperlinks and do a search on the Internet, he said. With the mobile device, similar can be “committed” to an online medium, like a newspaper ad, he said.

Suresh gave an example of how Nike stores in India is advertising that buyers can view on their mobile phones from here, about the products on display will be pushed to the mobile screen when prompted.

The same scenario can be painted to go shopping in supermarkets or the display of movie posters in the newspapers when consumers flash your mobile device to interact with a static product or an ad in the real world, he said.

Suresh said: “This is the customization of the [digital] brochure based on the consumer interest.”

In addition, the mobile can run, “sharp” context due to the use of the device is at the discretion of the consumer, as well as providing enhanced user experiences through interactive and multimedia capabilities, he said.

Higher profitability can be achieved from traditional media when spending is interested in offering mobile rich-media commitments that focus on the customer, he said.

Christian Cadeo, Google mobile chief for Southeast Asia, said: “The mobile as a medium, is clearly material.” Using Singapore as an example, noted that 7 out of 10 Singaporeans surf the web their mobile devices every day, and 3 out of 5 use social media in your device. In addition, 1 in 10 Singaporeans have a tablet.

As Suresh, Cade told the “creativity” exploits to offer mobile user experience using the “singularity” of the mobile device. HTML5 also advocated as a platform to ensure that the mobile strategy is “open” and “cross-platform.”

He urged companies to build a mobile-optimized site that should be “designed for the thumb, not the mouse” and avoid “data dump” or simply dumping the data on the site.

“Mobile users hold grudges and move on if not satisfied [with the mobile experience that gives them],” said Cadeo.

Now that wireless carriers are rolling out faster, next-generation wireless networks, we will gradually start seeing connection speeds that are far faster and steadier than those of older 3G networks. The wireless carriers say 4G LTE and WiMAX networks produce data throughput that is ten times faster than 3G.

While that 10X speed increase is not yet realized in most of the US, by middle of 2012 the new higher speeds will have touched enough markets and enough consumers to establish a new baseline for wireless broadband speed in the US. We will no longer expect web pages to load slowly on our smartphones, and we will expect video to play smoothly and at high quality.

With network performance kicked up a few notches we’re naturally going to want to do some new things with them. The wireless carriers want very much to get as many customers connected to their new 4G networks, and to lure us in they’ll temp us with amazing apps than fully utilize the speeds of 4G. Consumers might begin to see these fast new apps as must-haves–like mapping apps in the 3G world.

The first wave of 4G apps being demonstrated by the wireless carriers are not wholly new things we’ve never seen before. They are simply apps that we traditionally use at home, now making their debut on mobile devices. These apps are always discussed and demo’d by wireless carriers during press conferences and private demos, and are often featured on web and TV ads. They are HD video, videoconferencing and online gaming.

HD Video

Watching video on a smartphone with 3G service is an experience that often includes pixilation, jerky movement and even screen freezes. The video does not have the look and feel of what we recognize as high definition on our big TVs at home. This is because 3G service cannot establish a large enough data pipe down to the end device to deliver a high number of video data packets fast enough and with minimum packet loss to create the high-definition experience on the small screen.

Another crucial issue is packet latency, or the time (in milliseconds) that it takes for a packet of video data (in this case) to move from a server up in the network down to the end device. With 3G service latency time can be around the 150 milliseconds, which is too much drag time for high-definition streaming media like video. Mobile HD video requires a fast and steady stream of packets moving down to the end device in order to remain “HD.”

In 4G networks latency time is much less. For instance, Verizon’s new 4G LTE service is showing latency numbers of around 40 milliseconds. That near instantaneous send-and-receive connection between the end device and the server, combined with much higher raw data speeds, creates a video image that looks rich in color, has obvious dimension, and handles movement in a smooth, liquid way. In short, it looks like what we know as HD video.

Videoconferencing

You will notice that many (if not most) of the new 4G handsets being announced today have front-facing cameras in addition to the camera on the back. We’re even beginning to see a move from one-megapixel front-facing cameras to two-megapixel cameras, to increase the quality of the video of the caller being sent upstream through the network.

Videoconferencing is a bit different from HD video streaming in that it is a real-time bi-directional application. Like HD video streaming, videoconferencing requires a certain threshold of download speed–preferably around 1 megabit per second–to pull down the moving image of the person on the other end from a server on the network. The real challenge, however, is upload speed. Because today’s networks are configured to serve up far faster download speeds than upload speeds, and because videoconferencing requires adequate downlink and uplink speeds, slow upload speeds are often the bottleneck in sub-standard videoconferencing sessions.

Thankfully, 4G networks not only offer higher download speeds but also higher upload speeds. Sprint’s and Verizon’s 4G networks, for example, can consistently deliver upload speeds of more than 1 mbps–enough to accommodate the uplink requirement of mobile videoconferencing.

Low latency is even more important to videoconferencing than it is to HD video streaming. In our in-person communications there is very little gap between one person’s talking and the other’s responses. We rely on quick verbal and visual clues to know when to talk and when to listen. When this is taking place over a network, even the slightest delay in communicating these cues can cause the callers to begin talking over each other.

But again, the 4G networks of today reduce the latency of 3G networks by about two thirds. Even at 4G speeds mobile videoconferencing may not be perfect, but it’s likely to be good enough for effective communication, and will probably only get better as network speeds increase and handset cameras improve.

Mobile Gaming

Gamers have long imagined a day when they can play high-definition games with their friends using their mobile devices. Their time has come. The advent of 4G networks will likely spur the first generation of real-time mobile games that operate on cellular networks.

The limitations of 3G networks have confined gaming to an “asynchronous” model. These are games like Scrabble, where one player takes his turn placing a word on the board, and then the other player is notified when the network is ready for the next move. Such games don’t require fast network connections or low latency rates.

But because 4G networks are able to deliver more data packets (upstream and downstream) at a more predictable rate and with less latency, a whole new class of games is becoming possible on mobile devices. The games we’re used to playing on a home PC with a wired broadband connection will become possible on devices connected on a cellular network.

You will notice that many (if not most) of the new 4G handsets being announced today have front-facing cameras in addition to the camera on the back. We’re even beginning to see a move from one-megapixel front-facing cameras to two-megapixel cameras, to increase the quality of the video of the caller being sent upstream through the network.

Videoconferencing is a bit different from HD video streaming in that it is a real-time bi-directional application. Like HD video streaming, videoconferencing requires a certain threshold of download speed–preferably around 1 megabit per second–to pull down the moving image of the person on the other end from a server on the network. The real challenge, however, is upload speed. Because today’s networks are configured to serve up far faster download speeds than upload speeds, and because videoconferencing requires adequate downlink and uplink speeds, slow upload speeds are often the bottleneck in sub-standard videoconferencing sessions.

Thankfully, 4G networks not only offer higher download speeds but also higher upload speeds. Sprint’s and Verizon’s 4G networks, for example, can consistently deliver upload speeds of more than 1 mbps–enough to accommodate the uplink requirement of mobile videoconferencing.

Low latency is even more important to videoconferencing than it is to HD video streaming. In our in-person communications there is very little gap between one person’s talking and the other’s responses. We rely on quick verbal and visual clues to know when to talk and when to listen. When this is taking place over a network, even the slightest delay in communicating these cues can cause the callers to begin talking over each other.

But again, the 4G networks of today reduce the latency of 3G networks by about two thirds. Even at 4G speeds mobile videoconferencing may not be perfect, but it’s likely to be good enough for effective communication, and will probably only get better as network speeds increase and handset cameras improve.

Mobile Gaming

Gamers have long imagined a day when they can play high-definition games with their friends using their mobile devices. Their time has come. The advent of 4G networks will likely spur the first generation of real-time mobile games that operate on cellular networks.

The limitations of 3G networks have confined gaming to an “asynchronous” model. These are games like Scrabble, where one player takes his turn placing a word on the board, and then the other player is notified when the network is ready for the next move. Such games don’t require fast network connections or low latency rates.

But because 4G networks are able to deliver more data packets (upstream and downstream) at a more predictable rate and with less latency, a whole new class of games is becoming possible on mobile devices. The games we’re used to playing on a home PC with a wired broadband connection will become possible on devices connected on a cellular network.

Steve Jobs has admitted Apple’s new handsets are dropping more calls than its predecessor.

At an impromptu press conference, Apple has taken the extraordinary step to offer free cases to all users to alleviate the reception issues plaguing the iPhone 4.
However, during the course of his presentation, Jobs admitted that the iPhone 4 dropped more calls than the 3GS, albeit less than 1 per 100 more.

“This is hard data… the iPhone 4 drops less than one additional call per 100 than the 3GS. Less than one.”

“Even though we think the iPhone 4 is superior to the 3GS antenna… it drops more calls per 100 than the 3GS. We’re being transparent. So how many more does it drop than the 3GS?

“This is hard data… the iPhone 4 drops less than one additional call per 100 than the 3GS. Less than one.”

Still, it’s odd that issue has come to light now – reviews of the iPhone 4 have shown that the device seems to drop fewer calls, so Apple coming out to say it’s being ‘transparent’ is weird.

But given the inevitable media fallout regarding the case issue, this is probably the least of Jobs’ worries, so Apple might as well mention it now.

Property services company Hamptons International have launched the first property search iPhone app for the Middle East.

The application allows users to search Hampton’s portfolio of local and international property, with support from multiple currencies and options to save search preferences; shortlist properties and email preferences to friends or family. Search results include full descriptions and images, with higher resolution images available for iPad.

“Today’s customers are tech-savvy and it is important to be innovative to reach out to them. The new iPhone application is aimed at enhancing their ease of access to our global property portfolio. The application will enable customers to locate their preferred property, go through prices and make an informed decision, wherever they are,” said a company spokesperson.

The application is free from the iPhone App store.

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