Displaying items by tag: Android

Not that long ago (when Microsoft was still hammer out the details of their Office 15 offering) there was a small stir on the internet about the possibility of Office for the iPad and for Android based tablets. At the time Microsoft completely denied the rumors and stated that they were not working on working on office for iPad and that the pictures floating around were faked.

Although we have reported on many patent trials and covered quite a few legal messes (Samsung and Apple come to mind). There are not really that many that we have felt very strongly about one way or the other. We have our opinions about all of them, but in the end most suits are about money and leverage so even the losers will end up getting concessions. However, the Oracle Vs. Google patent/copyright case was one that had us more than a little interested.

In other Google news, the advertising giant is now the proud owner of a maker of smart (and dumb) phones. The buyout of Motorola Mobility finished today with the replacement of the former CEO with Google Americas President Dennis Woodside (Dennis there’s some lovely filth over here). The former Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha is stepping down and will leave the company after a short transition period. This is not an unusual situation and it is very common for the purchasing company to replace the top person at the very least.

At CES this year we saw a few very interesting gadgets. One of them was a computer on a USB stick that went by the name of Cotton Candy. We saw them not only during Show Stoppers but also a later at Last Gadget Standing. This small device featured a dual core 1.2 GHz ARM CPU, 1GB of RAM, Wireless connectivity and more. The only problem is… you cannot get them yet.

Ok, we love the Judge in the Google V Oracle trail. This is a judge that has not drunk any of the Kool-Aid that either Google or Oracle has offered him. He has kept things pretty straight and even cautioned both sides on making what appear to be foolish decisions. If you remember Oracle is claiming that Google copied nine lines of code that were used to develop Android. They are claiming that Google benefited from this and also that they did this intentionally due to deadlines.

Kingston enjoyed some success with their WiDrive wireless storage device when it was launched and it is easy to see why. Who would not want 32GB of storage space to carry movies, music and other information in instead of clogging up your iPhone or iPad… The problem was that it was only for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This left many people a tad annoyed at Kingston for doing the WiDrive “Apple First”. Well Android users have another reason to be happy today. Along with a leaked version of Flipboard for Android we have news that Kingston is opening up their WiDrive to Google’s Android as well.

So the Jury in the Oracle V Google trial has reached a partial verdict. The headlines for this are all over the place ranging from Google found guilty to Google trial moves to the next step. As usual the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. In fact Google was found to have infringed on Copyright for the Java API, but not for Java Documentation. The Jury reached no conclusion on Google’s fair use claims or the claim that APIs cannot be copyrighted.

There are some things that just should not be allowed. One of them is a judge should never, ever have the power to remove a person or company’s right to defend themselves. Unfortunately that is what has happened one of the lawsuits between Apple and Samsung. You see Samsung has not produced code requested by Apple. This was a request that the judge allowed and ordered Samsung to produce. As we mentioned before, Samsung refused, but we have a feeling they did not expect to receive the consequences that came with it.

In another installment of our “and that is why you fail” byline we come to the small dispute between Google and Oracle. On the table is not if Google use Java APIs or not, but the basic question of “are Java APIs free to use for development?” This issue is a huge one as a Google loss could set precedent for Oracle to go after ANYONE that is using the Java API without paying royalties to Oracle for their use.

In our continuing coverage of life after Steve Jobs at Apple (and our preparation for that new website Sh*t Tim Cook Says) we are bringing in a few new links and other fun items today. It seems that a typical Apple earnings call brings more pleasure to the press than almost anything else. While researching this article we found so many different versions of “Apple is wonderful” articles that we lost count (and almost our lunch). The fawning over Apple was a tad on the overkill side. So let’s sum up the earnings call for you.