Hasta La Gadget!

Vuzix has revealed its challenge to Google’s Glass, the Vuzix Smart Glasses M100, a wearable Android computer set to hit the market in early 2013. Resembling an oversized Bluetooth headset, the Ice Cream Sandwich-based M100 consists of a virtual display eyepiece, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth, a 720p HD camera, and head-tracking sensors, and can work in partnership with your iOS or Android smartphone for all manner of augmented reality applications.

That can include hands-free calling, photography, web browsing, and SMS messaging, as well as visual navigation using services like Google Maps. Any smartphone app which can output to an external monitor will be supported. The 3-axis head tracker is paired with a gyroscope, GPS, and a digital compass for pinning down your location, and there’s an earpiece and noise-canceling microphone for calls and speech commands.

The display itself runs at WQVGA resolution with a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, and gives the impression of looking at a 4-inch smartphone display viewed at a distance of 14-inches. It has more than 2,000 nits of brightness, essential for outdoor visibility when it will be competing with sunlight, and can be used with either the left or right eye.

As for the camera, that shoots widescreen video and images at 1280 x 720 resolution, and can save shots to up to an 8GB memory card. The whole thing runs a specially-fettled version of Android 4.0 on a 1GHz OMAP4430 processor with 1GB of RAM and 4GB of flash storage, with WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth, along with physical power, select, and volume up/down keys.

Vuzix says the battery in the M100 is good for up to 8hrs of handsfree use, or two hours of hands-free use with the display active. That unfortunately halves to just an hour if you want to use the handsfree, display, and camera simultaneously. Google hasn’t discussed battery life for Project Glass in any detail yet, but balancing power consumption, functionality, and portability is going to be a challenge for all wearable device manufacturers. Mounting is via either an over-ear hoop, an over-head band, or a band behind the head.

Vuzix will be offering an SDK for app developers to hook their software directly into the Smart Glasses M100, and since the wearable is a standalone computer in its own right it will readily work with both iOS and Android phones and tablets. It’s already caught the attention of CES, winning the “Best of Innovations” awards in design and engineering for 2013.

Exact pricing and availability for the Vuzix M100 haven’t been revealed, with the company telling SlashGear only that it’s due early next year. However, a developer kit – including the Windows-based emulator, sample code, access to a private coders portal with assistance from Vuzix, and the promise of an early production M100 when available – is priced at $999, with the software elements of the bundle expected to be available in December 2012.

Vuzix Smart Glasses M100 takes on Google Glass in 2013 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It would appear that HTC is now set up to pay two giant companies for the rights to use their patents rather than face their legal wrath: their newest being Apple for $6-8 USD a phone. The other company HTC is into for cash-per-device is Microsoft, revealed all the way back in 2010 as an industry changing agreement for $5 USD a phone. The difference between that fee and this are small for HTC and for Apple and Microsoft in the end, but for this one fact: it does still appear that Microsoft makes more from Android-carrying device patent license fees than it does from its own Windows Phone platform – though that may change in the oncoming Windows Phone 8 season.

This information on how much HTC is likely paying Apple comes from Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu, a man with vested interests in getting analysis right around these companies getting his own information from “conversations with industry sources.” As it stands, should HTC continue to sell 30-35 million Android smartphones annually, they’ll be paying $180-$280 million annually to Apple. HTC’s total per phone payed to Microsoft and Apple will soon be between $11-$13 USD per phone – tiny or giant, however you choose to see it.

HTC’s license fees here have more of an impact on the way Apple does business than it does on how it does business simply because Apple hasn’t recently been entering into agreements like this – quite the opposite. Instead, Apple has been entering into litigation with groups such as Samsung – grabbing millions from them after arduous legal processes. Prolonged as those fights inevitably are, it may be that Apple has found a better way to do business with settlements such as these.

Have a peek at the timeline below to see other recent Apple legal matters – and see if you can tell why Apple may just want to be out of the courtroom as much as possible into the future. HTC too may be finding itself in either a really terrible place at the moment (not likely) or a great place – with both Microsoft and Apple having enough confidence in their future to make long-lasting agreements, be they negative or not.

[via Business Insider]

HTC signs up for the Apple tax: $6-8 per Android phone is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple has been forced to pay for Samsung’s legal fees in the UK, after an appeals court decided the Cupertino firm’s first public statement on the tablet copying ruling was “false and misleading.” Having failed to convince a UK court that Samsung had copied its iPad design for its own tablets, Apple produced a passive aggressive statement that, while hosted on its UK site as per the judge’s instructions, also cited international court decisions that described Samsung products as “uncool” copies. Now, despite having replaced that original statement – which supposedly had more than 1m hits – with a toned-down version, Apple is being made to pay Samsung’s costs in penance.

“As to the costs (lawyers’ fees) to be awarded against Apple, we concluded that they should be on an indemnity basis. Such a basis (which is higher than the normal, “standard” basis) can be awarded as a mark of the court’s disapproval of a party’s conduct, particularly in relation to its respect for an order of the court. Apple’s conduct warranted such an order” Sir Robin Jacob, UK Court of Appeal

In addition to Apple’s layout of the statement, the judge also took issue with its phrasing around courtroom comparisons of Apple and Samsung products. Apple added “false matter” to its statement, he says, by implying those comparisons were of actual, physical devices rather than design patents.

“There is not and has never been any Apple product in accordance with the registered design” Justice Jacob pointed out. “Apple’s statement would clearly be taken by ordinary readers and journalists to be a reference to a real Apple product, the iPad. By this statement Apple was fostering the false notion that the case was about the iPad. And that the Samsung product was “not as cool” as the iPad.”

Moreover, the judge also deemed that Apple had been misleading of the UK court’s original decision, accusing the firm of comments “calculated to produce huge confusion” with “false innuendo that the UK court’s decision is at odds with decisions in other countries whereas that is simply not true.”

“The reality is that wherever Apple has sued on this registered design or its counterpart, it has ultimately failed. It may or may not have other intellectual property rights which are infringed. Indeed the same may be true the other way round for in some countries Samsung are suing Apple. But none of that has got anything to do with the registered design asserted by Apple in Europe. Apple’s additions to the ordered notice clearly muddied the water and the message obviously intended to be conveyed by it” Sir Robin Jacob, UK Court of Appeal

The appeals court also disliked Apple’s organization of the printed statement, which appeared in several newspapers and magazines as per the court’s original decision. However, that decision had also instructed that Apple should publish the statement as soon as possible, whereas Apple argued that it had opted to synchronize publication so that it all took place on the same day. Given magazines have longer lead-times than newspapers, the appeals court deemed that Apple had not arranged for publication as promptly as it could have.

Through its original actions, Apple lost its right to bracket the full statement with its own comments – though the judge points out that it does “not preclude it from making statements elsewhere – even untrue ones” – and the period for which it must be displayed was extended from a month to a period until December 15.

[via Engadget]

Apple must pay Samsung’s UK legal costs after iPad copy comment farce is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It would seem that the patent wars between Apple and HTC are no more as both camps have released a statement detailing a 10 year settlement between them. This is a monumental development for not just the two companies themselves, but for the legal universe surrounding technology and gadgets on the whole. As for HTC and Apple, they’ve made it clear that this agreements means they’ll be able to focus on product innovation for a long time to come.

The two groups reported from Taipei and Cupertino with news that today, November 11th, 2012 (depending on where you live, of course), they’ve reached a “global settlement” that will take them both out of battles between one another for a full ten years at least. The agreement they’ve made will be covering not just current patents, but past and future patents as well. Both HTC and Apple have sent out short comments on the matter as well.

HTC and Apple have reached a global settlement that includes the dismissal of all current lawsuits and a ten-year license agreement. The license at hand extends to current and future patents held by both parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.

“HTC is pleased to have resolved its dispute with Apple, so HTC can focus on innovation instead of litigation,” said Peter Chou, CEO of HTC.

“We are glad to have reached a settlement with HTC,” said Tim Cook, CEO of Apple. “We will continue to stay laser focused on product innovation.”

This agreement was accompanied by a note “All patent litigation between the companies dismissed.” Now we’ve got to wonder if this means that further agreements will be had between titans such as Samsung, LG, Microsoft, and the rest, or if this is simply one perfect storm for the betterment of these two companies. Specific details of the agreement are not (yet) public, but both groups have certainly made it clear that this is a very good thing for the future of device manufacturing and development.

As it’s not specified, we must also assume that this agreement fits both software and hardware patents, this possibly leading toward an agreement with Google in the future for their Android mobile operating system that HTC makes use of in their smartphone devices. As it stands, Google and Apple have not made any statement to substantiate such an assumption – stay tuned!

Apple and HTC reach global legal settlement is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung’s Galaxy S III ousted the iPhone 4S from the top-spot of world’s best-selling smartphone in Q3 2012, new research indicates, with vast distribution and hefty operator subsidies credited for its success. 18m of the Samsung smartphones were shipped in the July-September period, according to Strategy Analytics‘ count, versus 16.2m iPhone 4S models. However, when you factor in the iPhone 5, Apple’s duo does pip the Galaxy S III, with a total of 22.2m shipments in those three months.

Altogether, the analysts claim, the three devices made up 24-percent of the global smartphone market, an impressive combined win for Samsung and Apple. The two companies are unlikely to be celebrating together any time soon, however, given their ongoing courtroom spats and Apple’s continued attempts to reduce its reliance on components sourced from Samsung’s production branches.

Ironically, that competition – and the publicity around it – is believed to have helped, not hindered, Samsung’s performance in stores. The Galaxy S III saw a jolt in sales after Apple claimed it was a copy of the iPhone.

The interest in the iPhone 5, meanwhile, leaves Strategy Analytics expecting Apple to reclaim the global smartphone top-spot in Q4. “The Apple iPhone 5 has gotten off to a solid start already” executive director Neil Mawston said of the numbers, predicting that “Apple should soon reclaim the title of the world’s most popular smartphone model.”

It’s not the first time the Galaxy S III has had a temporary triumph over the iPhone in sales. Back in September, it was named the top selling smartphone in the US, again beating out iPhone 4S demand across the various US carriers. How that translates into actual use is another metric, however; in actual web use, iPhone owners are believed to be more active than their Samsung counterparts.

For Q3, customers holding back on upgrading because the iPhone 5 was believed just around the corner is again blamed for the iPhone 4S losing its record. “Consumers temporarily held off purchases in anticipation of a widely expected iPhone 5 upgrade at the end of the quarter” senior analyst Neil Shah concludes.

Samsung Galaxy S III world’s most popular smartphone in Q3 (but iPhone 5 will change that) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.