Hasta La Gadget!

At last, Barnes and Noble is defending itself against the Microsoft lawsuit filed back in March claiming that B&N’s Android-based “e-reader and tablet devices” are infringing upon Microsoft’s IP. A portfolio strengthened significantly thanks to that little Nokia partnership. We’re not going to pick apart B&N’s response in detail. However, we’d like to focus on this little nugget of FUD asserted by Barnes and Noble’s legal team:

On information and belief, Microsoft intends to take and has taken definite steps towards making competing operating systems such as the Android Operating System unusable and unattractive to both consumers and device manufacturers through exorbitant license fees and absurd licensing restrictions that bear no relation to the scope and subject matter of its own patents.

Grrrowel. But B&N does make a good point about Redmond’s intentions. Microsoft has been repeating the mantra that Android is not free for awhile now. In fact, Steve Ballmer told CNN just last year that, “there’s nothing free about android… there’s an intellectual property royalty due on that whether [Google] happens to charge for that software or not.” A tack Microsoft (and Apple) has been keen to pursue through litigation with Motorola and a licensing deal with HTC. And this is only the beginning. Android: free like a puppy. Relive Steve’s immortal words in the video after the break.

Continue reading Barnes & Noble says Microsoft trying to make Android ‘unusable and unattractive,’ has a point

Barnes & Noble says Microsoft trying to make Android ‘unusable and unattractive,’ has a point originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 07:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to know how the eventual, inevitable implementation of app multitasking on Windows Phone 7 will look? Wonder no longer: it’s cards, which seems to be the way a lot of guys are going after webOS showed how to do it right a couple years back, and it looks hot. To see this in action on WP7, simply hold the back button and you’ll get a card-like view of all running apps. Pick your app and you’re back where you left off in that one. You can multitask even in games, have Slacker playing in the background, and if you press a volume button while on the home screen you’ll get a quickie interface for changing track, pausing, and playing.

Microsoft indicated it didn’t previously allow for third-party multitasking due to battery life concerns, but those concerns have been mitigated — somehow. We’re not sure of the API-level details that’s letting all this magic happen, but we’ll look for those later. All we know right know is that it looks great and we can’t wait to try it out for ourselves.

Windows Phone 7’s multitasking uses zoomed-out cards to check on your apps originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though he wouldn’t give an exact date, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer whittled down the availability window for the company’s first big update to Windows Phone 7 at his keynote address to the crowds gathered at Mobile World Congress today. The latest message is that it’ll be available in “early March,” which puts us precious few weeks away — more or less on track with what we’d been anticipating — bringing support for CDMA radios, copy and paste, and performance improvements. Hopefully that clears the way for the 7 Pro on Sprint, eh?

Windows Phone 7 update with copy and paste, CDMA support coming in ‘early March’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Steve show just ended with both Elop and Ballmer hosting a very informative media Q&A following the reveal of Nokia’s plan to use Windows Phone 7 as its “primary smartphone platform.” Here are the highlights:

• No specific announcement for when we’ll see the first Nokia Windows Phone. Ballmer mentioned that the engineering teams have spent a lot of time together already.
• Elop also confirmed that Nokia is a Finnish company and always will be — they will not be moving to Silicon Valley or anywhere else.
• Ballmer said that the partnership is “not exclusive” but some things that Microsoft is doing with Nokia are “unique” allowing Nokia to differentiate itself in the market. Elop added that it’s important for the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem to thrive, which means that multiple vendors must succeed.
• Elop didn’t believe that Nokia could create a new ecosystem around MeeGo fast enough.
• Nokia will “substantially reduce” R&D expenditures while increasing R&D productivity moving forward.
• Nokia did talk with Google about adopting Android but decided that it “would have difficulty differentiating within that ecosystem” and the “commoditization risk was very high — prices, profits, everything being pushed down, value being moved out to Google which was concerning to us.” Microsoft presented the best option for Nokia to resume the fight in the high end smarpthone segment.
• Elop clarified that MeeGo will ship this year but “not as part of another broad smarpthone platform strategy, but as an opportunity to learn.” Something that sounds very similar to position Nokia took with its so-called “experimental” Maemo-based N900 last year. After the first (and apparently, only) MeeGo device ships this year, the MeeGo team will then “change their focus into an exploration of future platforms, future devices, future user experiences.” Trying to determine the “next disruption” in smartphones.
• Responding to “hope for a broad MeeGo-based ecosystem,” Elop said that Nokia simply wasn’t moving fast enough to effectively win and compete against Apple and Google. Windows Phone makes it a “three-horse race,” something that Elop says is pleasing to the carriers he’s been speaking with.
• Nokia has different options for its tablet strategy including using something from Microsoft or something that Nokia has developed internally.

Nokia Q&A reveals more MeeGo details and tablet plans — says Android ‘risk of commodification was very high’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 06:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bloomberg’s heard a couple whispers that Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer is looking to fill senior product executive roles with engineers. In other words, people who can really understand the products they’re planning, pushing, and promoting — a smart move, if it comes to pass. An announcement could reportedly be made as early as this month alongside a Courier resurgence. (Okay, not really, but let us dream a bit.)

Steve Ballmer looking for a few good engineers for Microsoft management? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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