Samsung vice president Kevin Packingham has said that his company intends for the batteries in all of its 2012 smartphones to be able to last at least a full day, from wake-up until bed, with average to moderately Tweet Vote on HN ...
HTC offers bootloader unlock tool for more smartphone models
HTC recently announced that the bootloader unlock tool that allows users to load custom versions of the Android operating system on their devices is now available for more smartphones in the HTC family. The new phones added to the compatibility list for the tool are the HTC Desire Z, ChaCha, Aria, DROID Incredible, Status, and T-Mobile G2. As before, use of the tool requires the Android SDK and will void the device’s warranty. Tweet Vote on HN ...
LG Pays Microsoft for Android
Microsoft today announced that LG has signed a patent licensing agreement covering Android products. Microsoft holds a variety of patents that it claims Android infringes on. HTC, Samsung, and eight other companies have already signed similar agreements with Microsoft. With the addition of LG, Microsoft now has agreements with companies that account for over 70 percent of all Android phones sold in the U.S. Tweet Vote on HN ...
Nokia Unloads Some GSM Patents
Nokia has sold a total of 450 patents to a European patent licensing company called Sisvel. The patents include some “essential” telecommunications technologies, such as GSM, UMTS/WCDMA and LTE. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tweet Vote on HN ...
ITC Gives Motorola Preliminary Win Over Apple
Motorola is not infringing on three Apple patents, according to a preliminary ruling issued today by the U.S. International Trade Commission. Apple sued Motorola in October 2010 over three patents it believed devices such as the Droid, Droid 2, and Droid X were violating. Motorola later responded with a suit of its own, covering 18 patens related to smartphones. Today’s preliminary decision in Motorola’s favor will need to be reviewed and approved by the full Comission. Apple had asked the ITC to file an injunction and prevent Motorola from importing the offending devices into ...
Samsung to Merge Bada with Intel’s Tizen
Samsung and Intel are working together to blend parts of Samsung’s in-house bada smartphone operating system with Intel’s open-sourced Tizen project. “We have an effort that will merge bada and Tizen,” said Tae-Jin Kang, Senior Vice President of Samsung’s Contents Planning Team, in an interview with Forbes. The goal of the project is to make it easier for developers to create applications that will work on both platforms. Once the integration is complete, developers will be able to use the same SDK and the same APIs to write applications that will run on either ...
Samsung to Raise Cash for Texas Plant Via Bond Sale
Samsung Electronics’s U.S. operations today indicated that it is preparing to sell up to $1 billion in five-year bonds so that it can raise the funds it needs to operate its chip plant in Austin, Texas. Samsung needs financial institution support to run the sale and has sent proposals to several banks. Reuters reports that this would be Samsung’s first major debt sale in more than 10 years. Samsung wants to increase its ability to produce chips and OLED screens for mobile devices. ...
HTC Offers More Bootloader Unlocking Tools
HTC recently made the tools that allow users to unlock their device’s bootloader available to more smartphones via its developer web side. The new handsets include the Desire HD, Wildfire, Desire Z, T-Mobile G2, Aria, ChaCha, and Status. HTC has already made the same tools available for most of its Android smartphones released since September 2011. Once unlocked, owners will have more freedom to install custom software on their Android smartphones. Tweet Vote on HN ...
Samsung to partner up with Olympus?
A Samsung source has said that the company is open to the possibility of an alliance with rival manufacturer Olympus.Although Samsung has previously declared it isn’t interesting in buying up the Olympus camera business, it is considering a partnership with the company in other areas.Olympus is currently considering an equity tie-up with five candidate companies which include Sony and Panasonic, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.Recently, times have been troubled for Olympus, which has been rocked by scandal over the past few weeks. Starting with the dismissal of its CEO ...
LG licenses Microsoft
Microsoft has once again flexed its Intellectual Property muscle, having signed a new patent licensing agreement for LG that covers the Korean manufacturer’s Android smartphones and tablets as well as its Chrome OS based devices.Microsoft has signed many such deals over the past year, including an agreement with Samsung in September 2011, and, after signing a deal with Compal in October, announced that it receives royalties from over 53 percent of the Android devices sold in the ...