Hasta La Gadget!

It’s Friday once again folks, with most of you already enjoying the weekend. Today, the iPhone 5 launched in 22 additional regions around the world, setting Apple’s plan to have it in over 100 countries by the end of the year on track. Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized for the sad state of Apple Maps today (recommending some other Maps apps in the process), and we took a closer look at his words in a new column. Even more surprising is the fact that the iOS App Store now features a download page specifically for other Maps applications.

All of you Apple dissenters will definitely want to watch the iPhone 5 get destroyed by some powerful lasers, and Sharp reassured today that it’s making plenty of iPhone 5 screens, which are rumored to be the bottleneck on production. Today we got a closer look at the vibrator inside the iPhone 5, and learned that it costs less than $1 to charge your iPhone for an entire year. Microsoft has assured that it has tested Windows 8 thoroughly ahead of next month’s launch, and it seems that Kodak will soon be dropping out of the inkjet printer business.

Google now lets YouTube creators re-download their movies in their original format, and the FCC has approved an auction to reclaim broadcast TV spectrum. HP has launched Open webOS 1.0, and Amazon gave us a little video detailing the technology behind the Kindle Paperwhite. Good news for all of you Call of Duty fans: Modern Warfare 3 is free-to-play on Steam this weekend, and there are rumors floating around that HP will soon be jumping back into the mobile market.

Microsoft was spotted lamenting the lack of highly skilled technology workers today, and Notch is refusing to certify Minecraft for Windows 8, despite Microsoft’s requests. For the first time ever, Instagram has beat Twitter when it comes to daily mobile users, Sony has invested $640 million into slowly dying camera company Olympus, and a new BlackBerry 10 video gives us our first look at RIM’s new QWERTY device. Finally tonight, Chris Davies takes an up-close look at RIM’s Q2 results, which were posted yesterday, while Chris Burns has a new review of the movie LOOPER, starring Bruce Willis and Jason Gordon-Levitt. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, enjoy your weekend everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: September 28, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

More gloomy news from Kodak: the company just announced that it will stop selling consumer inkjet printers in 2013 and instead focus its efforts on commercial printing products. This decision hardly comes as a surprise: Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year and attempted to auction off a stockpile of patents valued at up to $2.6 billion. The company stated on Friday that it expects to take a $90 million hit due to its floundering inkjet business. Kodak’s garage sale attracted interest from unlikely alliances in the form of Apple and Microsoft versus Google and Samsung, but reportedly only reeled in disappointing offers under the $500 million mark. Hoping to rebound next year as a “lean,” mean, successful machine, we’ll just have to wait and see what develops for this fallen photography frontrunner.

Continue reading Kodak dropping out of the consumer inkjet printer business in 2013

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Kodak dropping out of the consumer inkjet printer business in 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday is here once again folks, and what a Friday it was. What started out as a relatively slow news day became very exciting later on, as the jury deciding the Apple and Samsung case delivered their verdict after only three days of deliberation. The verdict? Let’s just say that Apple’s lawyers will be having a celebration tonight. Samsung was found guilty of multiple patent infringements, and a lot of that patent infringement was found willful by the jury. To make matters worse for Samsung, the jury found that it wasn’t owed any damages by Apple. Needless to say, we think there will be an appeal.

This verdict comes on the same day that Tim Cook wraps up his first year as Apple CEO, and elsewhere in the world, a similar lawsuit between Apple and Samsung ended with both companies facing bans in South Korea. Ouch. After a bit of a shake up at the OnLive headquarters, things seem to have calmed down a bit, and Steve Perlman will be staying on as OnLive CEO. LG has teased an incoming smartphone with an S4 quad-core processor, and Google’s legendary I’m Feeling Lucky button has been given a pretty major update. It isn’t the same I’m Feeling Lucky button it once was, of course, but we think it’ll begin to grow on you after awhile.

The presidential campaigns will soon begin receiving donations through text messages, and the Nikon D600 full-frame DSLR camera may be getting a release in September. Speaking of cameras, beleaguered Kodak has come up with a new way to raise some quick cash after patent auctions left something to be desired. The much-rumored iPad Mini has apparently popped up in some photos for a pre-fab case, and it seems that Samsung has a new smartphone called the Galaxy Stellar coming to Verizon, which is all well and good, but Samsung actually has yet to announce the phone or release a list of specs.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 has beaten the iPad when it comes to profit margins, and for the third time this week, Rockstar has released a new batch of Grand Theft Auto V screenshots. Astronomers have discovered a pair of new spiral galaxies that have a lot in common with our own, and it would appear that Amazon has leaked its tablet plans through a new advertisement. Wrapping up the news tonight, Facebook is having its developers use the Facebook app for Android in order to get them motivated to fix it, or at least that’s what the rumors say.

As is usually the case here at SlashGear, we didn’t just have news for you today, as Chris Burns provides a review of SuperTooth DISCO 2 for you to check out. Have a good weekend everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 24, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Kodak is really closing out its era as a photographic monolith, opting to sell off its film business entirely. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Kodak will not only sell its print film production, but also its digital imaging kiosks, and the printers and scanners that go with them. More »

Photography giant Kodak has been conducting bankruptcy proceedings for a while. One cornerstone of emerging from bankruptcy as a viable company for Kodak has been to sell off a couple patent portfolios. So far, the patent auctions haven’t gone exactly as Kodak dreamed with lower than hoped for bids. Kodak has announced another tactic to help pay creditors and emerge from bankruptcy.

Kodak has now announced that it intends to sell its consumer film, photo kiosks, and commercial scanner businesses. Kodak will get assistance from Lazard Ltd as it tries to sell the units with the hope of completing the sales in the first half of 2013. Once the sale of Kodak’s personal imaging and document imaging units are complete Kodak will only have inkjet printers and commercial film units left.

Kodak’s commercial film unit sells film stock to the movie industry. Kodak is working on an extended patent auction as it attempts to raise money and interest in two different patent portfolios. So far, courts have prevented Apple from filing suit against Kodak over some of the patents Kodak wants to sell. Apple alleges that it owns some of the Kodak patents after it and Kodak worked together on a digital camera in the 90s.

The court previously ruled against Apple on two of the patents in question saying that Apple had waited too long to assert its ownership claim. The court has also previously denied Kodak a summary judgment on eight other patents stating that Kodak could renew its request with more details. Kodak says that 20 parties have signed agreements to view confidential information ahead of offering bids on the patent portfolios. Kodak and its creditors have agreed to extend the patent auction deadline beyond August 13. Apple expected the two patent portfolios to sell for around $2.6 billion. Sources claim that bids submitted so far have only been around $150 million-$250 million.

[via Bloomberg]

Kodak keeps patent pimping and plans to sell imaging units is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.