The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has issued a ban on imports to the U.S. for certain Android-based Motorola Mobility devices.

It follows a judges ruling that a number of Motorola mobile devices infringe a Microsoft patent for generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device. U.S. Patent No. 6,370,566. Nine patents were listed in the original complaint originally filed  in October 2010.

The ruling is likely to come into effect in July unless Barak Obama the US president intervenes or Motorola decides to modify its devices.

Foss Patents writes:

“In order to continue to sell products in the U.S. market, Motorola Mobility will most likely modify its products by removing the related feature. That is also the way in which HTC reacted to an exclusion order Apple won last year based on one of its patents (and which just caused a delay of two HTC product launch dates). For patent holders defending their intellectual property, it’s also a good outcome if their enforcement activites require others to develop workarounds. Patents are, by definition, limited in scope. Non-standard-essential patents can always be worked around in some way, though the term “workaround” is often used as a euphemism for the removal of functionality.

I believe it won’t take too long before Motorola will join many other device makers who have taken a license to Microsoft’s many Android-related patents, such as Samsung (the undisputed market leader), HTC, and LG. According to Microsoft, more than 70 percent of all Android smartphones sold in the United States now have a license to its patent portfolio. Motorola is the only Android device maker to be embroiled in litigation with Microsoft at this stage. Microsoft recently settled an Android patent dispute with Barnes & Noble, which also resulted in a license agreement.”

via

It seems that Motorola is infringing on four patent claims that Microsoft has covering technology for scheduling meetings using your email. (Ie your Windows Live Calendar) This has prompted the ITC to ban Motorola products from US soil unless they remove this feature or pay Microsoft for the patents.

It is to be noted that almost every other manufacture that uses the Android OS already has a licensing agreement with Microsoft on these patents. David Howard (corporate vice president and deputy general counsel Microsoft) had this to say about it:

Microsoft sued Motorola in the ITC only after Motorola chose to refuse Microsoft’s efforts to renew a patent license for well over a year. We’re pleased the full Commission agreed that Motorola has infringed Microsoft’s intellectual property, and we hope that now Motorola will be willing to join the vast majority of Android device makers selling phones in the US by taking a license to our patents.

As of right now the only other thing that could save Motorola is the president of the United States he has a “60 day Presidential review period” in which he can over turn the ruling.  This is something that I highly doubt will happen being that the economy is still horrible and he is in full campaign for his re-election bid this November.

Naturally Motorola had statement on the matter:

Microsoft started its ITC investigation asserting 9 patents against Motorola Mobility. Although we are disappointed by the Commission’s ruling that certain Motorola Mobility products violated one patent, we look forward to reading the full opinion to understand its reasoning. Motorola Mobility will not experience any impact in the near term, as the Commission’s ruling is subject to a $0.33/per unit bond during the 60 day Presidential review period. We will explore all options including appeal.

I am thinking the outcome of this matter will be Motorola paying Microsoft licensing  rights again quickly. (Motorola was paying Microsoft for this patent and just stopped one day)   I can not see them letting the US supply of their devices dry up here stateside while they fight what is normally a three to five dollar a handset licensing fee.

VIA

Let’s face it…the tablet market is blah. Most tablets are just my phone but bigger. But this could change that….

It’s called Chameleon and it’s a homescreen for your Android tablet that stops all of the screen of ugly icons when you unlock your tablet and moves it toward an open useful screen of information. It uses information like current wifi networks, time of day, etc… to display the right information for you automatically!

Looking for a Home Screen for your Android Tablet? Introducing Chameleon. Chameleon replaces the standard Android Home Screens and App Launcher with one that isn’t just more useful. But more beautiful as well.

You can set up multiple Home Screens with your own layout of widgets and apps, giving you the most relevant information that you want, when you want it. So whenever you unlock your device, you are presented with the Home Screen that is immediately valuable to you.

Chameleon Home Screens can be set up based on GPS locations, WiFi networks and time ranges, allowing you to define which Home Screen is the most relevant for the situation.

Always relevant. Immediately valuable.

Want a video of it in action? Of course you do!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWZ7guxro2g

They are currently collecting money on Kickstarter in hopes of raising $50,000 by mid next month. Want to help out or get more information? Click here.

One of the worst things about today smartphones is battery life. With bigger screens, more social networking, and everything in between your battery drains pretty quick. The answer Power packs…

Everyone is looking for a good, inexpensive, convent power pack right now so I decided to do a quick hands on/review of my Anker 3200Mah power pack.   It is slim, lightweight and convenient. It has a micro usb baked right into it. (No need to carry a USB cable!)

You should be able buy one for around 20 dollars on Amazon or Ebay it seems like pretty good deal to me, but this post is more about introducing people not familiar with power packs to them.  They are a great idea for any smart phone user.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBJGwuoWIJU

With all the talk lately about the “cloud storage” and how wonderful it will make our lives as mobile users according to the “experts” I was wondering how does it work in real life?

Lets be honest here…for the most part there was very little need for cloud storage in the past most phones (expect for the iPhone, Thanks Apple for starting that trend.)  had a Micro Sd card slot. If you ran out of memory at anytime you could simply pop a higher capacity memory card in and magically you had room on your phone again!

Than somewhere in the last couple of years this slot went out of vogue with phone manufacturers and we were told you could now put all of “excess” music, photos, movies, etc… on the cloud and it could be accessed anytime you wanted to.  But the question remains why would these slots be pulled from phones? I am thinking that first it’s cheaper to build a phone without it, and phones could be made thinner too. (because 9 mm thick is just to unacceptability thick..lol)   My guess here is manufactures made a bet that most consumers would not use more than 16gb of memory on their phones and therefore most consumers wouldn’t care.

While this may be true for most consumers, there are a bunch of us out there who use their phone for EVERYTHING and love to put all of our music on it, pictures to show our friends/family, apps to push our phones to their limits, games to pass the time, and even a few books and movies.  For those who really use their smart phones 16gb (or 8gb more recently) just isn’t enough.

While the cloud is a reasonable answer to this problem it has a few major pitfalls.

1. Limited Data Plans: Just as the phone manufacturers decided to take away the Micro Sd Slot the carriers decided to take away the unlimited data plan. Now a limited plan of 2 to 3Gb is norm, This is fine for normal web browsing, email checking, social network check ins etc… but if you tack on hours and hours of streaming music, a few DVR’d TV shows, and perhaps a streaming a movie or two your data plan is shot.
2. No 3G,4G /EDGE Network Only: This may come as a shock to everyone that lives in the cities with 4G/LTE but there are still large sections of the country running on EDGE internet coverage only.  Streaming music of any type does not work on EDGE it can not be download fast enough to keep pace with the music. This translates into choppy music that stops to buffer every six seconds or so. You don’t even want to think about trying to stream video on it.
3. Spotty Coverage: Again once you get outside of major populated areas or major highways cell coverage tends to come and go which makes any type of cloud retrieval impossible.
4. Battery, Battery, Battery: With today’s modern smartphones getting thinner, the screens getting bigger, the background connections becoming more and more frequent just to keep apps up to date, the batteries on phones are getting pushed harder and harder to do “basic” functions.  While battery technology is advancing everyday it is not enough to keep up with the demand of today’s modern smartphone users.  Add the cloud into the equation not only will your phone have to play the music, or video you want, it will also have to use more power to download it while it’s doing it.

With all these problems that the cloud faces in mobile use it brings some immediate questions to mind.

Will these things I mentioned above affect a large portion of the phone buying population? No, probably not just because they will never use more  storage than is on their phone.

Does this mean that these items are not real long term issues that need to be addressed? No these issues are real problems that should be addressed and corrected so that the consumer can make the most out of cloud storage.

Will these these issues be addressed? My gut feeling is probably not.  If there is not a MAJOR outcry from the consumer the manufacturers will do what is best for their bottom line.  Which is produce the thinnest smartphone they can in the cheapest way possible and guess what?  Big milliAmp batteries and Micro SD slots fly in the face of both of those.  As for the carriers the days of unlimited data are all but gone and are not coming back.

The Bottom Line Here is This: Cloud storage can be a wonderful tool to sync your phone with your laptop, your tablet, your home computer, etc…  It could be a wonderful tool to get access to things on your phone that you would never have such ease of access to without it.  However, it being sold as something more than it was/is intended to be, it is being a sold as a storage replacement on your device which just for practical reasons it just can not be.

Motorola announced that the Motorola RAZR MAXX is coming to select markets in Europe and the Middle East from May 2012. UK retailer Clove Technology has today started listing the recently-announced Motorola RAZR MAXX for pre-order.

The phone is priced at 359 GBP without taxes, or 430 GBP ($682) including VAT. With every order placed for the Motorola RAZR MAXX at Clove, you will receive a free set of Motorola MOTOROKR EQ3 Wired Compact Folding Speakers.

The first stocks are expected in the middle of May.

via

Motorola announced that RAZR MAXX will be available in select markets in Europe and the Middle East starting from May 2012.

Check the promo video after the break

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq4D_j_12gM

One of the key features of RAZR MAXX is the long battery life, it has a massive 3,300mAh battery capable of up to 16 hours of talk time over 3G. Despite its large battery, the device is only 9 millimeters thick. RAZR Maxx comes with the Kevlar back and the Gorilla Glass, it’s powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display. No other specs were unveiled (camera, storage) but it’s expected to feature the same as his Droid sibling that was Verizon exclusive. The pricing has yet to be announced.

via

Google on their Android Google+ page announced that they have started to roll out Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich update for the UMTS/GSM Nexus S, Motorola Xoom WiFi and HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus.

We’ve started rolling out Android 4.0.4, Ice Cream Sandwich, to UMTS/GSM Nexus S, Xoom Wi-Fi, and HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus devices, and we’ll be rolling it out to more devices in the coming weeks. Some of you will be receiving Ice Cream Sandwich for the first time, while others will be receiving an update to your existing Ice Cream Sandwich experience with stability improvements, better camera performance, smoother screen rotation, improved phone number recognition and more.

This update should arrive to other devices in the coming weeks but no schedule was advanced. The Android community already started building ROM’s based on this release so those who can’t wait, will rejoice with the Custom ROMs.

via

Apple, no stranger to getting things their way, is at it again.  This time, they have their eyes set to standardizing the use of nano-sims, something they have already employed with their latest iPhones and iPads, sim-drawers notwithstanding.

Things aren’t looking easy for Apple though as they would need to deck it out with Nokia’s competing design, and if that isn’t enough, Motorola and RIM are both seemingly throwing their support to the Finnish giant on this one.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is on track to vote on the nano-SIM next week, and one of the main concerns which could turn things around is over Apple’s nano-sim requiring a sim-tray.  Nokia’s design is simple, fuss-free and thus offers “significant technical advantages” without adding further manufacturing costs.

Nokia is curently in control with 92 votes but Apple is not going to take things sitting down.  Apple is attempting to significantly increase its number of votes in the ETSI’s chambers by registering six different European subsidiaries as voting bodies, each of which can have as many as 45 votes, a move than can potentially change the voting outcome in a big way.

[via]

The original iPhone was the first smartphone shipped with an embedded non-removable battery. Well, they were removable, just not (officially) by the end user. A trend was born; nowadays numerous smartphone’s come with embedded batteries. The Nokia Lumia 900 and the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx are two high-end devices following this concept.

Personally, I hate the thought of limited access to my smartphone’s battery. It turns a device I use every day into a black box where replacing the battery is as easy as sending it back to the manufacturer… that thought alone sends shivers down my spine. Supporters and iPhone fanboys suggest embedded batteries allow manufacturers to experiment with design and produce smaller devices. The potential marriage of style and engineering genius (as quoted from one deluded individual).
It also allows manufacturers to leave their customers at the alter, especially when the batteries begin to fail. Remember iPod Gate, sometimes referred to as Battery Gate? When iPod users suffered battery failure after 18 months, they were told:

• Pay for an iPod refurbishment, costing $255 (plus a mailing fee).
• Buy a new iPod.