I’ve seen the future, and its name is … whatever the name of its phone is.
Today, the AP ran a sponsored tweet. Here’s the backstory about the tweets, which the Associated Press will run throughout the week, as part of Samsung’s pitch during the Consumer Electronics Show.
“We got a call from Samsung India saying ‘You can either be a part of this and wear the uniform, or you’ll have to get your own tickets back home and handle your hotel stay from the moment this call ends…
A few minutes later, we got a call from the Samsung India guy who said that our flights on the 6th have been cancelled, and that they’re bringing us back on the 1st instead. But this is only if, and only if, we agreed to wear at least the samsung branded shirt at the unpacked event, and not blog about any of this incident.
“None of this should leave Berlin. Or Reach India” – Clinton Jeff
It sounds like Samsung frayed some wires, considering that the bloggers were decked in full Samsung swag and expected to demo products all day — when they were really there to actually cover the conference itself. As TheNextWeb’s Brad McCarty puts it: “So take care, bloggers and those hoping to be. The next time that you’re offered a trip in exchange for coverage, you might find yourself being fitted for a uniform, signing NDAs and demoing products upon which you’re supposed to be reporting.”
(Side note: Accepting tickets/gifts for things like this would be a no-no for many journalists — a noted political columnist recently got publicly reprimanded for this very type of thing — but bloggers who scrape by may work under different rules.)
» Why the jury favored Apple: Jury foreman Velvin Hogan, in an interview with the BBC, says that the evidence strongly showed that Samsung was infringing on Apple’s patents. “When we went into deliberation in the jury room we not only had all the physical evidence of everything that was presented,” he said, “but we also had sealed source code in its entirety from both sides, we actually had the memos that were talked about in the trial … and there was a piece of evidence after a piece of evidence that just clearly stacked up.”
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» Feeling the burn: While the company appears to have prevented a market value free fall, with shares back up by about one percent today, a $12 billion loss certainly won’t be ignored by investors. To add insult to injury, Apple also set a new record-high for a company’s market value thanks to the same news, opening at $680 per share on Monday, but closed around the $675 mark. Do you think Samsung will be able to recover from the iPhone/Galaxy ruling?
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It will lead to fewer choices, less innovation, and potentially higher prices. It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies.
The jury in the landmark Apple-Samsung trial announced moments ago that Samsung infringed on patents for ’381 “bounce back” scrolling functionality on all devices.
On the ’915 patent, relating to one finger to scroll, two to pinch and zoom navigation, all but three Samsung devices (Ace, Intercept and Replenish) infringed.
For Apple’s ’163 patent (tap to zoom) all Samsung devices except Captivate, Indulge, Intercept, Nexus S 4G, Transform and Vibrant infringed.
The jury then answered a question about inducement, regarding whether Samsung made its U.S. arms infringe: yes for the ’381 “bounce back” patent on all devices, yes for ’915 “one finger scrolling” for all devices except Replenish and yes for ’163 “tap to zoom” for all except Captivate, Continuum, Gem, Indulge, Nexus S 4G.
The decision came quickly, despite the fairly complicated Q&A-style verdict forms given to the jury. On the other hand, Samsung did score a victory against Apple earlier today — but in South Korea.
EDIT: The jury has awarded damages of $1.05 billion to Apple.
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
Apple and Samsung’s back-and-forth lawsuits against one another are reaching a head this week, as a jury decides which company has the stronger case about screwing over the other company on the patent front. And rather than make it easy, both companies have submitted serpentine verdict forms which make you wince to look at, with the kind of questions no human being should be forced to answer. But no — a jury of our peers is taking a close look, living the kind of low-rent technological nightmare designed for terrible Stephen King movie adaptations. Hope they at least got to answer these questions on an iPad — or as the case may be, a Galaxy Tab.
One important thing you need to know about the S Pen is that it is not a stylus. “Make no mistake, this is not a stylus,” said Travis Merrill, Samsung’s director of tablet marketing, during the same presentation. “Our competitors have nothing like it. The S Pen looks and feels like a pen, yet it’s packed with advanced technology.”
To be fair, it’s a pretty cool stylu—er, “S-Pen.” For one, it uses electromagnetic technology to wirelessly sync with the screen, which helps accuracy. If you increase pressure on the S Pen, for instance, the line will be thicker on the screen. The screen distinguishes between more than 1,000 levels of pressure sensitivity.
Samsung’s escape plan if the Apple lawsuit goes the wrong way.
Samsung Electronics defeated Apple in the latest spat in the rivals’ patent wars when a British judge ruled Samsung’s Galaxy tablets did not infringe the U.S. company’s designs for the iPad because they were “not as cool.”
In Monday’s High Court judgment Judge Colin Birss said that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets belonged to the same family as the Apple design when viewed from the front, but the Samsung products were “very thin, almost insubstantial members of that family with unusual details on the back.”
“They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design. They are not as cool,” he said. “The overall impression produced is different.”
READ MORE: Samsung wins court case against Apple because it’s “not as cool”
Defeat disguised as victory.
Samsung Galaxy Note ad (feat. The Darkness): I believe in a thing called pens.
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