Mobile Phone Patent Lawsuit Wars

You would think that many of the worlds large phone developers would have the understanding of patent law that prohibits the use of another persons patented technology idea or product. Well truth be told it seems that many of the mobile phone developing powerhouses are all of a sudden throwing patent law suits at each other by saying they are infringing on patent copyright.

Google has been one of the first to fall foul of this mobile phone patent issue as they were found guilty in recent weeks of illegally using the Linux kernel code. Google did this on its servers and also in its Android mobile phone system.

Google faced a jury that found them guilty of infringing copyright law, but the outcome was a five million dollar fine which to a massive company like Google is nothing.

Next we see the massive war developing between Samsung and Apple.

Apple first put forward 16 claims against Samsung in court documents, these range from technology to trademark infringement. Apple said in its court documentation: “...Samsung has made its Galaxy phones and computer tablet work and look like Apple’s products through widespread patent and trade dress infringement... By this action, Apple seeks to put a stop to Samsung’s illegal conduct and obtain compensation for the violations that have occurred thus far,”

Samsung retorted to the claims by putting their counter law suits forward saying: “Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business,”

Interestingly Samsung is actually a microchip provider for Apple Ipads and other systems so this will really strain their relationship. Many believe the move by Apple is because Samsung has grown rapidly in the Smartphone market and is seen as Apple's closest rival.

It is interesting that these patent lawsuits between big name mobile phone companies is growing rapidly. Is it that the patents are not robust enough and too general in their terms or is it that mobile phone patent lawsuit wars are the new way of beating your closest competition?

Hologram Use in Airports

Manchester Airport in England has now launched its new meeter and greeter to help customers when they visit Terminal 1. The interesting thing about this meeter and greeter is that she is a one centimetre thick hologram.

Many in the UK will remember H from Red Dwarf, the comedy TV series, but this hologram is a true reflection of what you would expect a hologram to be. This new innovation has been launched to try and reduce security queues as the hologram can explain to customers what they need to do without taking airport staff away from the work they are carrying out.

For those unaware, Holography was first invented back in 1947 by a Hungarian-British physicist called Dennis Gabor, since this time inanimate objects have been able to be made into holograms but it is only in recent times that moving objects have been able to be created.

A hologram works by beaming scattered light onto a certain area where it is reconstructed and shown as a holographic form.

Global Spam Decline

The last four months have seen a massive decline in the amount of spam sent globally but analysts are unsure as to the reason why this may be the case.

At the start of August 2010 there were roughly 200 billion spam messages sent out per day but by the end of December this number declined to under 50 billion messages per day.

Rumour has it that three of the largest spam companies Rostock, Lethic and Xarvester, the companies that send out the main bulk of the worlds spam, have silenced their operations in the past few months. This silence is not due to any system issues at it seems that their harware and software are still in operational use.

The main reason behind this move could be to regroup and start a new spamming strategy through a new project. The reasons for spamming is to make as much money as possible, but if the returns are not as high as a spammer would want then its time to stop the spam and think of a new spamming project that could yeild higher returns.

This is not the first time that spam messages have reduced by such drastic numbers and it is for this reason that analysts believe this is simply the lull before the storm as the numbers pick up again.