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Samsung to Pay $290 Million More To Apple

A jury on thursday decided that Samsung will have to pay Apple a sum of $290,456,793 more for its patent infringement case. This comes after Samsung has already been asked to shell out 1 billion US $ to Apple. This amount is still less than what Apple had demanded, which was $390 Million.

The total money Samsung has paid or will pay to Apple has now reached approx. $930 million, just to let you get a fair idea it is approx. 5833,23,90,000 in Indian Rupee.

For Apple, this case has always been about more than patents and money,” Apple said in a statement. “It has been about innovation and the hard work that goes into inventing products that people love. While it’s impossible to put a price tag on those values, we are grateful to the jury for showing Samsung that copying has a cost.”

Samsung, said it is “disappointed by today’s decision, which is based in large part on a patent that the US Patent and Trademark Office has recently deemed invalid.”

While we move forward with our post-trial motions and appeals, we will continue to innovate with groundbreaking technologies and great products that are loved by our many customers all around the world,” the Korean company said in a statement.

During the session, Apple said that if Samsung did not use infringement devices they would have sold alot of iPhone’s throughout the world. Apple claimed that Samsung was the reason for the company to not earn more profits from iPhone’s, so Samsung should compensate it.

On the other hand, Samsung showcased reports of why people bought Samsung phones. Samsung showcased that all of its consumers got attracted towards bigger screens, better battery and alot more.

However, as said by the jury members: Samsung didn’t provide enough information to make its case. We hope this ends the lawsuit, and both the companies continue the innovation and stop the endless war.

Have something to say? Share your view below.

November 23, 2013
Google+ Update On iOS Now Gets Full Resolution Photos and Dedicated Search Box

The Google+ app for iOS has been updated, and finally brings some long missing features. The new update for Google+ adds features like full size backup of your photos and more.

The version 4.6 update for Google+ on iOS now alos lets users to upload images and videos at its original resolution, as long as there is enough cloud storage. Other features that add up with this update are location sharing (already available for Android users), inline translation of posts and comments and a single search box for posts, people, photos and communities. Update your app from the link below.

[App Store]

November 23, 2013
Microsoft Launches ‘Anti-Google’ Cups, T-shirts and More

Microsoft’s anti-Google campaign ‘Scroogled’ is started a few months ago, when in February Microsoft pointed a finger at Google for not respecting users privacy. It seems that Microsoft wants more revenge pie, as the ‘Scroogled’ campaign is back with a bang.

Microsoft has assigned a whole section of latest merchandise on its anti-Google campaign. The products, which range from caps to T-shirts to mugs, most of them saying Google is collecting personal data on its users. The prices vary, but for $7.99 you can buy a mug that has a moniker “keep calm while we steal your data.” This is a bold approach from Microsoft and another direct and odd attack at Google.

The description of the Anti-Google mug on the Scroogled section of Microsoft’s website said:

Put 15-ounces of your favorite beverage into this stoneware mug to let the world know that even though Google is trying to make money on almost every aspect of your digital life, you’re still calm. And fully caffeinated.

Most products include the logo for Chrome, Google’s popular web browser. Check out the gallery below and for more information on the product you can check out the source. Do not forget to tell us what is your take on this move from Microsoft ?

[Microsoft]

November 21, 2013
Qualcomm Announced The Snapdragon 805 Processor With Ultra HD Mobile Video

While many smartphones for India are still not powered by Qualcomm Snaprdragon 800 chipset, this hasn’t stopped Qualcomm from making a new and improved chipset.

Qualcomm has unveiled the next generation of the Snapdragon 800, dubbed the Snapdragon 805. Along with this new processor the company adds support for the Ultra High Definition video(UHD) playback on smartphones, tablets and televisions. This will have a new Adreno 420 GPU, which will provide up to 40 percent more graphic processing power than its predecessor.

Using a smartphone or tablet powered by Snapdragon 805 processor is like having an UltraHD home theater in your pocket, with 4K video, imaging and graphics, all built for mobile,” said Murthy Renduchintala, executive vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and co-president, QCT. “We’re delivering the mobile industry’s first truly end-to-end Ultra HD solution, and coupled with our industry leading Gobi LTE modems and RF transceivers, streaming and watching content at 4K resolution will finally be possible.”

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chipset features a Krait 450 quad-core CPU, to which the company claims is the first mobile CPU to run at speeds of up to 2.5 GHz per core. This will communicate with memory at 25.6 GB/second at the max, to make all apps run faster. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 805 also supports Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) for video post processing, and has hardware 4K HEVC (H.265) decoding for extremely low-power HD video playback.

The new processor will come with 28 nm Gobi MDM9x25 modem to support higher speeds for, 150 Mbps LTE. It will also have an option of a new LTE modem, 20nm Gobi MDM9x35 which will bring speeds upto 300 Mbps LTE advanced. Qualcomm says that both chips support “all carrier aggregation band combinations approved by 3GPP” while enabling manufacturers to bring LTE devices to market faster. Overall, when this will be available to the users in the smartphones they can expect smoother video recording and faster image processing.

As said by Vice President of Qualcomm “Using a smartphone or tablet powered by Snapdragon 805 processor is like having an UltraHD home theatre in your pocket”, but we will have to wait and see which smartphone will first support this processor, although we do have some suspects. The Snapdragon 805 processor is sampling now and expected to be available in commercial devices by the first half of 2014.

November 21, 2013
Search For Stories, Videos or Pictures With The New Twitter App Update on Android & iOS

Twitter has added new search features to its Apps on Android and iOS, which will help users discover the content they are looking for.

With the updated apps Twitter offers options to search for pictures, videos, or news stories. Previously, users were only able to search through usernames, tweets and hashtags. If you want to see photos, use the photo search filter to see Tweets with photos in a grid or list layout. To see what your friends are saying, you can filter the results to show only Tweets from the people you follow. Users can now also filter for videos in the same way.

This update is now available to download on Android and iOS.

[Android, iOS]

November 20, 2013
Now Facebook Will Tell You If Your Friend is Online Through Web Or Mobile

After updating its Messenger app recently Facebook is now updating the web chat. The social network giant is currently testing a new messaging feature that lets you know not just which friends are online at the same time as you are, but also if they are using the mobile or desktop version of Facebook.

Facebook is testing this new function, which will show green colored icons in front of your online friends. If your friend is online through mobile it will display “mobile” and in the same way if your friend is online from a desktop it will display “web”. Like others, this features is still not visible to everyone using Facebook. It might roll out once its official as a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to techcrunch:

We are testing a feature that gives you a better understanding of where your friend will receive your message,” a spokesperson said, who said she would keep us posted on when and if it rolls out more broadly.

[via]

November 19, 2013
Google To Pay $17 Million For Unauthorized Web Tracking in Safari

Google has agreed to pay $17 million to settle an investigation of unauthorized tracking software on Safari Web browsers. New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced the agreement on Google’s “unauthorized placement of cookies on computers using Apple Safari Web browsers during 2011 and 2012.”

The settlement includes 37 states and the federal District of Columbia. New York will receive $899,580, Schneiderman said. “Consumers should be able to know whether there are other eyes surfing the web with them. By tracking millions of people without their knowledge, Google violated not only their privacy, but also their trust,” Schneiderman said. “We must give consumers the reassurance that they can browse the Internet safely and securely. My office will continue to protect New Yorkers from any attempts to deliberately expose their personal data.”

A Google spokesperson confirmed the agreement and said in a statement: “We work hard to get privacy right at Google and have taken steps to remove the ad cookies, which collected no personal information, from Apple’s browsers. We’re pleased to have worked with the state attorneys general to reach this agreement.”

[wsj]

November 19, 2013
Microsoft Office Remote Lets You Control Excel, Word and PowerPoint From A Windows Phone

Microsoft has unveiled a new application which will help users to control some of the Microsoft Office products. Now, with the help of Microsoft’s Office Remote, users can control Word, Excel and PowerPoint presentations from any Windows 8 device.

The Office Remote application is a joint effort between Microsoft Research and the Office team, “We want to make sure that we continue to create tools that deliver the best possible experiences to presenters and audiences.” “The world is constantly evolving, though, and presentations need to evolve with it.” says Darren Edge of Microsoft Research.

The application is now available and works with all versions of Office 2013 except for Office 2013 RT. You will need a Bluetooth enabled computer to start with, as it will be the medium to connect these devices together. Moreover, users will also need to install a software in the computer, “add-in” to start using a Windows 8 phone as a remote.

For more information feel free to check out the source and watch the video here to know how it works.

[via]

November 19, 2013
Google’s Eric Schmidt Announces Search Result Ban On Child Abuse

Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman announced how his company is taking a big step to block child pornography from appearing in search results.

Eric says that he has broke down the measures in various categories, of which one is cleaning up and will clean out more than 100,000 search results. And will generate a warning that will appear on more than 13000 results that are on the same topic. The Google chairman said he hired a 200-strong team to work out a solution over the last three months and that their work has already fixed up to 100,000 potential queries.

Eric Schmidt says “There’s no quick technical fix when it comes to detecting child sexual abuse imagery.” Instead, Google will use humans to review the images to discern the difference between “genuine abuse” and “innocent pictures of kids at bathtime.”

For now, Google’s newest improvements are limited to few countries including the UK and US, although Google says it will roll out its adjusted search globally over the next six months, covering 158 more languages.

[DailyMail]

November 18, 2013
Report: Internet Users In India Is Expected To Reach 243 Million By 2014

The users of internet in India is expected to grow by 18.53 percent in the next few months, which will reach 24.3 crore by June 2014. With this, India is also expected to be the second largest Internet base in the world.

“The report estimates that by June 2014, India will have 243 million Internet users, at which point of time, it is expected to overtake the US as the second largest Internet base in the world,” the I-Cube 2013 report, released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International said.

At present, China leads the report with more than 300 million Internet users while the US has an estimated 207 million Internet users. The report said the number of Internet users in India has reached 20.5 crore till October 2013, and after applying some maths India is expected to reach 24.3 crore by mid 2014.

The Internet in India took more than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million and only 3 years from 100 to 200 million. From here on, we can hope to develop a robust Internet ecosystem with a multitude of local and global players and a thriving Internet economy,” said IAMAI Chairman Rajan Anandan.

The report showed, Internet access from mobile devices will see huge growth in the coming years. “Mobile Internet is going to be the next game changer for Internet in India.” it added. The report also included, that the number of mobile Internet users has witnessed a steady rise, with 11 crore users in October and is estimated to reach 13 crore by the end of December this year.

“Mobile usage and hence, mobile Internet usage has seen huge jump from the 2012 penetration levels. Compared to the 0.4 percent mobile Internet users in 2012, the penetration has grown to 2.4 percent, indicating a substantial growth in the mobile Internet user penetration levels,” the report said.

“Social Networking continues to be the rage with 75 percent of the users engaging in it actively while 69 percent use the Internet for entertainment,” it said. Every second active Internet user claims to have bought something or the other over the Internet,” it added. No doubt, this will further increase when we get good speeds in all part of India!

[IAMAI]

November 18, 2013
Apple Buys Kinect Co-Creator: PrimeSense

Apple has just acquired Kinect Co-Creator PrimeSense for a whopping sum of US $ 345 Million, according to Israeli news source Calcalist.

If the news is true, this could mean that Apple’s future devices may have motion sensing technologies. Alternatively it could mean that Apple could make displays with this technology built in. Maybe Apple’s rumored iTV will have this tech inbuilt to interact with the hardware. According to reports, the last time Apple tried to acquire PrimeSense, the deal was scrapped due to legal woes. However this time around the company was eager to acquire the ex-kinect maker to improve on the Apple TV.

[VIA]

November 18, 2013
Microsoft’s 3D Builder App Released For Windows 8.1

Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 was announced with 3D printer support into the OS and today the company is releasing a tool that will allow everyone to create objects of their own.

Microsoft has announced a new 3D Builder app, which includes a catalog of pre-designed templates that will help everyone to start printing right away.

“I get excited about 3D printing. Really excited. Like Tom Cruise on Oprah’s couch excited. So, I couldn’t be more thrilled that we are releasing a 3D printing app for Windows 8.1,” Microsoft consumer PR Kristina Libby.

“We’re entering an exciting new era in which everyone will be able to create and print three dimensional objects. Just imagine being able to print a spare part for a household appliance, or creating your own jewelry line of custom 3D-printed earrings.”

[Source,Download app]

November 16, 2013
Steve Ballmer on His Exit From Microsoft: “New Leadership Might Reshape The Company At a Faster Pace”

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer announced in August that he will retire from his post within 12 months of time span. A press release from the company declared that the executive has declared to retire, but was that true ?

Steve Ballmer’s announcement to retire from his post in Microsoft was a surprise to most of us and left some of us with a question, whether or not it was a voluntary retirement for him. Steve earlier, shared a letter with his staff saying that he will exit within 12 months of time span, you can check out the letter below:

[toggles]
[toggle title=”Steve’s Letter to his Staff “]Moving forward I am writing to let you know that I will retire as CEO of Microsoft within the next 12 months, after a successor is chosen. There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time. My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our transformation to a devices and services company focused on empowering customers in the activities they value most. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction. You can read the press release on Microsoft News Center.

This is a time of important transformation for Microsoft. Our new Senior Leadership team is amazing. The strategy we have generated is first class. Our new organization, which is centered on functions and engineering areas, is right for the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Microsoft is an amazing place. I love this company. I love the way we helped invent and popularize computing and the PC. I love the bigness and boldness of our bets. I love our people and their talent and our willingness to accept and embrace their range of capabilities, including their quirks. I love the way we embrace and work with other companies to change the world and succeed together. I love the breadth and diversity of our customers, from consumer to enterprise, across industries, countries, and people of all backgrounds and age groups.

I am proud of what we have achieved. We have grown from $7.5 million to nearly $78 billion since I joined Microsoft, and we have grown from employing just over 30 people to almost 100,000. I feel good about playing a role in that success and having committed 100 percent emotionally all the way. We have more than 1 billion users and earn a great profit for our shareholders. We have delivered more profit and cash return to shareholders than virtually any other company in history.

I am excited by our mission of empowering the world and believe in our future success. I cherish my Microsoft ownership, and look forward to continuing as one of Microsoft’s largest owners.

This is an emotional and difficult thing for me to do. I take this step in the best interests of the company I love; it is the thing outside of my family and closest friends that matters to me most.

Microsoft has all its best days ahead. Know you are part of the best team in the industry and have the right technology assets. We cannot and will not miss a beat in these transitions. I am focused and driving hard and know I can count on all of you to do the same. Let’s do ourselves proud.

Steve[/toggle]
[/toggles]

However, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Steve confirms his reason for exit from the company, Ballmer explains that the company board of directors has been pushing him to speed up Microsoft’s transformation into a devices and services company ever since January. By May, he decided that his own way of thinking was slowing down the transition; he was the pattern that had to break. New leadership might reshape the company at a faster pace, Steve says.

His decision is undoubtedly towards the growth of the company, but this will depend on who takes his place with time. What do you think ?

[wsj]

November 16, 2013
Adobe Reader Adds PDF Conversions and Multi Window Support For Android

Adobe Reader application on Android has updated with a bunch of much required changes, the update has added PDF conversion tools to Android devices.

This means with this new update, from within the app users can now create PDF files from mostly any other file types and also vice versa. However, Adobe like always wants its users to make in app purchases to take advantage of these new features, the ExportPDF add-on for turning PDFs into other files is priced at $1.99 a month. The PDF pack, which lets user make PDFs from other files as well as the reverse, is priced at $9.99 for a month.

Apart from these new ‘paid’ features the new update also has some changes, like the improved search, a new UI and the mutli-window support which are included in the update without any charge. Update your app from the link below.

[Play Store]

November 16, 2013
One Click Login For Facebook Coming To Windows Phone 8

Android and iOS users have been using their Facebook account for single click logging in to apps from a long time now, and soon Windows 8 and Windows Phone users will be able to do the same as well.

This feature on Windows Phone 8 is still in the early stages, Microsoft has announced that Foursquare, Adobe and iHeart Radio are the first to get in on this action. Just like the Facebook Login on other platforms, by using this it will be easier to share content from within the app, and to connect account information without the need to input anything again and again.

[via,via]

November 15, 2013