Hasta La Gadget!

Looks like HTC and Samsung are taking some aggressive steps to protect themselves from Android patent litigation — in the past week both companies have entered into long-term patent licensing agreements with Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures. (Mhyrvold was once Microsoft’s chief technology officer, but he’s arguably more famous for Intellectual Ventures.) Both HTC and Samsung now have access to IV’s entire portfolio of “more than 30,000 IP assets” to wield against current or potential legal opponents — like, say, Apple or Oracle — and IV also plans to help them manage their existing patent portfolios. It sounds to us like HTC and Samsung decided that they needed more patent muscle in order to survive in the now crazy-litigious smartphone market, and indeed, the PR announcing the HTC deal flatly says the smartphone maker is “working with IV to mitigate its patent risk.”

Of course, this is also a bit of a deal with the devil — Intellectual Ventures might be the most infamous patent troll in history, and HTC and Samsung have essentially decided the risks and cost of doing business with IV are more favorable than the risks and cost of going to court. Either way, we’ll see how this all shakes out — and we’ve got a feeling that the Apple / HTC lawsuit is about to get seriously interesting.

HTC and Samsung license entire Intellectual Ventures patent portfolio, gear up for war originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Nov 2010 19:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Despite being hamstrung by an operating system designed for the smaller screen of a smartphone, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab has sold an impressive 600,000 units in less than a month. That’s pretty close to the iPad’s initial sales, which reached one million in 28 days.

It’s important to remember that the iPad’s first month was largely confined to the domestic U.S market, whereas the 7-inch Tab has been available all over the world since launch. In fact, according to the Korea Herald, Samsung has shifted just 30,000 Tabs in its own home market of Korea.

Remember, too, that a large proportion of these sales will have been subsidized by telcos, lowering the ~$600 price-tag in exchange for a data-contract.

But these numbers are impressive by any standards, and show that there is a huge demand out there for super-portable computers with the battery life and connectivity of a cellphone. It seems that the Galaxy Tab really is a real rival to the iPad, just like we thought.

Galaxy Tab global sales top 600,000 units [Korea Herald]

Photo: Jon “Michelangelo’s David” Snyder

See Also:

• Samsung's Galaxy Tab: iPad's First Solid Contender
• Samsung Galaxy Tab Garners Favorable Reviews
• Samsung Galaxy Tab: Cheaper Than iPad, But Not Really

Samsung says it’s sold 600,000 Galaxy Tabs worldwide originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dmitry Medvedev reportedly got his hands on Sumsung’s new Galazy Tab during a trip to South Korea. The Russian president was in the country to talk trade opportunities. Thus far Medvedev doesn’t seem to have all that much to say about the device, though he did take the time to tweet the fact that he’s not a huge fan of the device’s GT-P1000’s camera in melancholy prose fit for a Dostoyevsky novel,

Winter comes to Moscow. Picture taken with a Samsung Galaxy Tab. It’s convenient, but the quality isn’t great 🙁

For the record, he also got his presidential hands on a Leica M9, so the bar might be a little high for him, insofar as picture quality is concerned, at the moment.

We assume that the Russian government is opening an inquiry into the use of presidential emoticons as we write this.

Yahoo! has been building its Connected TV widget platform up since debuting at CES 2009 and opening up its SDK in 2010, and it’s already getting started on a new push for 2011 – paid apps. Right now the various TVs from Samsung, Sony, VIZIO, Toshiba and LG based on its platform only offer free widgets but the Connected TV Store is expected to launch in March, letting developers hawk their wares at the remote-wielding masses for anywhere from 99 cents to $99, with Yahoo! receiving a 30 percent cut for its trouble. Kadoo, PlayJam, Virtual Nerd, ScreenDreams, Accedo Broadband and Mycast weather are already testing the waters and the company promises a full demo at CES 2011. Since we figure it’s only a matter of time until Apple works its app store into the Apple TV, Google has already announced its plans to add the Market to Google TV next year and everyone from Samsung to Boxee is actively courting developers in the living room, 2011 should be a very interesting year.

Yahoo! Connected TV store will let developers start charging for apps in March 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 20:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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