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Amazon: Kindle Fire owns 22% of US tablet sales

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Amazon's Kindle Fire owns 22 percent of the US tablet market, the online retail giant announced Thursday. The figure comes as Amazon preps to likely announce a new tablet next week, along with girding to take-on Google's $199 Nexus 7 device.

According to Amazon, "in just nine months, Kindle Fire has captured 22 percent of sales in the US," PaidContent reports. Accustomed to being fed amorphous Kindle marketing stats like "a lot" and "most in our history," the concreteness of the announcement was surprising. However, after the initial shock, there began questions, like 22 percent of what?

Apple Jury Foreman: Judge ‘probably’ will ban Samsung phones

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated March 12, 2018

Some U.S. sales of Samsung smartphones will "probably be" banned, said Vel Hogan, the Foreman of the California jury in Apple's successful patent-infringement lawsuit against its South Korean rival. On Friday, the U.S. District Court awarded $1.05 billion in damages.

Although at first the jury was "inundated with evidence" and faced a stalemate, Hogan told Bloomberg TV momentum swung toward Apple after he had an "ah-ha" moment while considering the case at home.

Motorola and Apple reach patent licensing agreement in Germany

Cody Lee ∙ August 28, 2012

In addition to its worldwide patent battle with Samsung, Apple has also locked horns with Motorola in courtrooms around the globe. It's a familiar scenario: Apple has accused Motorola of stealing its innovations, and Motorola has used its large collection of wireless patents to fight back.

Motorola has actually won a handful of notable victories in the battle, mostly in Germany, successfully winning bans on products and knocking iCloud email push offline. But it looks like the two sides have called a ceasefire, as they've just reached a major patent license agreement...

Is Google Apple’s next courtroom sparring partner?

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Samsung's $1 billion loss to Apple last week may have widespread repercussions, including Google's Android software. What previously was a proxy cold war with cell phone makers, the stand-in soldiers, could heat up dramatically and place the Mountain View, Calif. firm squarely in the middle of Apple's legal radar and making Steve Jobs' threatened "thermonuclear war" over Android a reality.

That legal war "is drawing closer to Google's doorstep," reports the New York Times. The court ruling that Samsung violated Apple patents related to changing a screen's view or tapping to zoom closer are all part of Android. Indeed, Google just recently removed from Android a feature that bounces your iOS screen to indicate you've reached the bottom. Dumping that feature from Android was more out of "design reasons" than Samsung's courtroom defeat, a source told the Times.

Wall Street: Injunction or not, Apple wins fight against Samsung

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Whether or not Apple is granted an injunction preventing Samsung sales in the U.S. doesn't concern Wall Street. Following the iPhone maker's patent-infringement win against the South Korean company, the real question is whether this causes consumers to pause.

"The key question is whether operators/customers will be willing to buy infringing Samsung handsets/tablets if there is risk they may have to stop selling them in the future," writes Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um. Indeed, Um sees the only risk now facing Apple is whether they'll have enough iPhone 5 handsets to meet "unprecedented demand."

Google comments on last week’s Apple vs. Samsung ruling

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Just in case you missed out on the excitement last week, the high-profile Apple vs. Samsung trial ended with a bang. After 21 hours of deliberation, the jury ruled in Apple's favor, awarding the company some $1 billion in damages.

Since then, we've heard official statements from both companies. Apple, of course, is thrilled with the outcome, while Samsung says it's a loss for the American consumer. And over the weekend, Google finally commented on the verdict...

Apple stalls on approving Siri-like Google Search update

Cody Lee ∙ Updated March 12, 2018

It's obvious that Apple has a "my house, my rules" kind of approach to managing its App Store. And it's even more obvious that the company isn't very fond of Google at the moment.

So it's really no surprise that after three weeks, it has yet to approve the highly-anticpated Google Search update — you know, the one that adds the Siri-like Google Now feature...

Chrome updated with new social features and more

Cody Lee ∙ August 22, 2012

Great news for all of you Chrome fans out there, Google has just pushed out a nice little update for its popular third-party browser.

The new release features a handful of changes, including new sharing options, stability improvements, and bug fixes...

Former Googler Mayer wants iPhones for Yahoo

Ed Sutherland ∙ August 21, 2012

Ironies are everywhere in Silicon Valley. Take new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, for instance. Mayer spent 13 years at Google -- Ground Zero for Android -- yet now is considering buying every Yahoo employee an iPhone. Seems workers at the search company are a polyglot bunch when it comes to phones with many using BlackBerries, Android handsets and iPhones, of course.

It's not clear why Mayer settled on the iPhone instead of Android, but one unnamed source "familiar with Mayer's thinking" told BusinessInsider that the goal is to "get consistency across the company." However, early on Mayer professed interest in the iPhone, showing up at a press meet-and-greet with an Apple handset. She later went on to explain: "I use lots of phones."

Apple, Google and Samsung partner (you read that right) to buy Kodak patents

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 20, 2017

I bet you never though that sworn enemies such as Apple, Samsung and Google would ever go to bed together, especially given an erupting fight between Apple and Google over Kodak's patents. But anything is possible in this crazy word, chiefly when the benefits of such an unusual partnership include cost savings plus joint, harmless ownership of more than 1,000 Kodak patents related to digital imaging.

The odd bedfellows are joined by a few other firms (LG, HTC and more) and the usual suspects that specialize in IP transactions. The consortium is organized so no company could exclusively own the patents and assert them against other members in litigation...

Google+ app now opens links in Chrome if you have it

Cody Lee ∙ August 16, 2012

Google updated its Google+ iOS client yesterday with just a handful of changes. There were some bug fixes, performance enhancements, and the age limit for creating hangouts was lowered to 13.

But perhaps the most interesting change in the client is the new Safari workaround. For those of you who have it installed on your device, Google+ can now open web links in Google's Chrome browser...

Samsung designer: we didn’t copy Apple’s icons

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 14, 2012

Attorneys for Apple embarrassed Samsung last week by showing the jurors half a dozen images meant to prove that the Galaxy maker shamelessly ripped off the look of the iPhone's icons. Though Apple believes that Samsung’s TouchWiz interface makes it a copycat, that's ultimately up for the jury to decide.

Today, a Samsung designer took the stand to testify that she didn’t copy Apple when creating the icons for the Galaxy line of products. Call me stupid, but how the heck then she'd managed to come up with icon design that strikingly resembles Apple's?