Hasta La Gadget!

Despite the added risk brought on by Apple’s Find My iPhone feature, the iOS handset remains a frequent target for smartphone thieves, thanks to the device’s resale value and compatibility with networks around the world. There’s not much you can do to deter sticky fingers short of keeping your iPhone or MacBook in view at all times, but the issue does appear to have crossed the desks of Apple’s design team, which was just granted patent number 8,217,792 for a sophisticated anti-theft scheme. The acceleration-based system would detect a “known theft condition” based on acceleration characteristics, sounding an alarm and disabling the device. The smartphone or laptop would ignore vibrations from passing cars or those caused by items being dropped onto a nearby surface, instead focusing on undisclosed scenarios that likely involve direct movement. The device owner would use a GUI to configure and disable the system, at which point the handset or computer would return to its pre-disturbed mode. Overall, it sounds like a fairly straightforward hardware/software solution, with the added benefit of a technique to filter out regular motion in an attempt to reduce the number of false alarms. You’ll find the full patent at the source link below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops

Apple granted patent for accelerometer-aided theft-detection system originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MeeGo-rescuing smartphone start-up Jolla Mobile hasn’t just received incubator support from Nokia, the company has revealed, but a chunk of mobile patents from Nokia’s portfolio. The Finnish company from which numerous MeeGo engineers left to set up Jolla reportedly freed up several patents to establish the new firm with, founder Jussi Hurmola told ItViikko; rather than blasting Nokia for axing MeeGo and refocusing on Windows Phone, “I would like to thank Nokia” Hurmola says. [Updated after the cut]

Jolla is one of the products of Nokia’s Bridge project, set up to help employees leaving the company start up new businesses of their own. “Nokia will offer training, funding, and help identify business opportunities and partnerships for those interested in starting a new business or a company on their own,” the company said of the scheme, “which can fuel new growth for impacted communities.”

Exactly which patents Nokia has handed over to Jolla is unspecified, though presumably much of the IP in question was produced by the MeeGo team while working on projects like Nokia’s N9. The two companies have a “good and open relationship” according to Hurmola.

Jolla hasn’t confirmed exactly when the first of its devices are expected to hit shelves, though Hurmola says there could be something to see before 2012 is out. The team has been listening “to very strong signals coming from the market” about consumer tastes in smartphones, and has “considered a serious break” with what would traditionally be classified as a smart-device.

Update: Looks like something got lost in translation. According to a statement given to SlashGear from Nokia’s Mark Durrant, the company has not given Jolla any patents. ”We’re proud of the support from our Bridge program to start-ups founded by former Nokia people,” Durrant told us, “but we have not gifted Nokia patents to any of them, including Jolla.”

[via Stefan Constantine]

Nokia gifts MeeGo patents to Jolla startup [Update: Nokia denies] is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The United Nations defines the stereotype of a peace broker, so it’s not that far-fetched to hear that its International Telecommunication Union (ITU) wing is hoping to step in and cool down the rapidly escalating patent world war. The organization plans to convene a Patent Roundtable on October 10th — in neutral Geneva, Switzerland, of course — to have smartphone makers, governments and standards groups try and resolve some of their differences. Those mostly concerned about Apple’s actions won’t be happy with the focus of the sit-down, however. Most of the attention will surround allegations that companies are abusing standards-based patents, which will put the heat largely on a Google-owned Motorola as well as Samsung. Still, there’s hope when the the ITU’s Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré talks of desiring a “balancing act” between what patent holders want and what customers need. Our real hope is that we don’t have to hear talk of customs delays and product bans for a long while afterwards.

[Image credit: Patrick Gruban, Flickr]

ITU wants to bring smartphone makers to peace talks, hash out patent wars originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And so, the Facebook v. Yahoo! courtroom tussle has come to an end. The two Silicon Valley giants have agreed to a legal truce and cross-licensed a bit of each other’s IP, meaning that’s one less legal donnybrook we have to worry about upsetting consumer sensibilities. Not only have the two settled their differences over their respective advertising and social networking patents, but they’ve also agreed to an ad sales partnership, too. Now, if only all those other, myriad tech litigants could amicably settle their differences with such alacrity. Perhaps they should all take a gander at the PR after the break to see how it’s done.

Continue reading Facebook and Yahoo! friends again, agree to patent cross-license

Facebook and Yahoo! friends again, agree to patent cross-license originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Patents are the new ammunition for companies these days, and Microsoft has just announced that they have received a high performance touchscreen patent that relies a whole lot on a predictive system which will be able to think ahead of you as well as on your behalf, wondering just where your finger(s) is/are about to move next. Obviously, it will need its fair share of processing power underneath the hood in order to minimize the amount of lag. As a result? You get an extremely smooth moving user interface, and this works fine only if you do not spring surprises on the predictive algorithms.

I guess there will be a website that is created eventually that shows off just how one is able to trick the high performance touchscreen sometime down the road if it were to be a very popular device. This is still a patent, so there ought to be a fair number of years left before something like this eventually ends up on a smartphone or tablet.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Microsoft high-performance touchscreen technology patent filed, Microsoft co-operative touch pen input mechanism ,