A court in Tokyo has ruled that Samsung Electronics did not infringe on patents held by Apple, a victory for the South Korean company.


The patent was related to transferring media content between devices. It comes after Samsung lost a key patent case in the US last week and was ordered to pay more than $1bn (£664m) in damages. This is one of many cases brought to courts around the world by the two smartphone market leaders. "We welcome the court's decision, which confirmed our long-held position that our products do not infringe Apple's intellectual property," said Samsung in a statement to the BBC. Tokyo District Judge Tamotsu Shoji dismissed the case filed by Apple in August, finding that Samsung was not in violation of Apple patents related to synchronising music and video data between devices and servers. Sales ban On 24 August, a US court ruled Samsung had infringed Apple patents for mobile devices, including the iPhone and iPad. The company has vowed to continue to fight against Apple saying it will appeal against the US ruling. Apple is now seeking a ban on sales of eight Samsung phones in the US market. On 6 December, US District Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the initial trial, will hear Apple's plea for an injunction against the Samsung phones, although it does not include the most recent Samsung phone to hit the market, the Galaxy S3.










31 August 2012 Last updated at 07:24
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19433019

Humans are being asked to help robots recognise the multitude of objects found in the average home.

Swedish researchers are asking people to use their Xbox's Kinect sensor as a scanner to grab detailed 3D images of the stuff in their homes. The Kinect@home project requires mass participation to accumulate many examples of common household objects. The scans will build into a library of objects robots can consult as they navigate around homes. Slow scan Co-ordinator Alper Aydemir said: "Factory floors can be custom built and the tools the robots will use can be known precisely in minute detail. This is not the case with everyday living spaces and objects." While humans have no trouble recognising objects such as a tea mug even if it is a different colour, shape and size to those they have seen before, robots struggle to complete such a mundane task. "One of the best ways for robots to accomplish all these tasks is to make them learn how to recognise a sofa, a chair, or a refrigerator by feeding them lots of data," Mr Aydemir told the BBC.

Rather than building up the database of objects by themselves, the team from the Center for Autonomous Systems at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology have turned for help to the many people who have bought a Kinect game sensor for their Xbox console. The Kinect sensor uses a combination of an infra-red sensor, camera and customised computer chip to spot and interpret the movements of gamers, letting them play without a traditional hand-held controller. Mr Aydemir and colleagues Rasmus Goransson and Prof Patric Jensfelt have created software that uses information captured by the infra-red camera, and collected via the Kinect@home webpage, to create scans of objects. "This way, people get easy access to the ever improving state-of-the-art 3D modelling techniques for free and researchers gain insights as to what works and what doesn't by using the data," he said. The project has only been running a few days and already 141 objects , including shoes, mugs and guitars, have been scanned. Using the Kinect as a 3D scanner was as easy as making a video for YouTube, Mr Aydemir said. Those wishing to get involved would need to install an add-on for their web browser, he said, and take a little care when scanning objects. "When capturing data, one should move rather slowly and avoid big empty spaces," he said. "Aside from that, it's as easy as hitting a button on the recording page." The trio are planning to make their data widely available for robot and computer-vision researchers.














 31 August 2012 Last updated at 11:33
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19434922

A South Korean court has ruled that Apple and Samsung both infringed each other's patents on mobile devices.

The court imposed a limited ban on national sales of products by both companies covered by the ruling. It ruled that US-based Apple had infringed two patents held by Samsung, while the Korean firm had violated one of Apple's patents. The decision comes as a jury in California is deliberating on a patent trial between the two firms in the US. The sales ban will apply to Apple's iPhone3GS, iPhone4 and its tablets the iPad and ipad2. Samsung products affected by the ban include its smartphone models Galaxy SI and SII and its Galaxy Tab and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet PCs. The court ordered Apple to pay 40m won ($35,000; £22,000) in damages to the South Korean rival, while Samsung was told to pay Apple 25m won. The awards are dwarfed by the damages being sought by Apple in its case in California. It is seeking more than $2.5bn (£1.6bn) from Samsung, for allegedly violating its patented designs and features in the iPad and iPhone. 'Differentiated its products' A Samsung spokesperson told the BBC that the court had found the South Korean firm guilty of violating Apple's patent relating to the "bounce back" function. The function lets users know that they have reached the end of a screen that they may be scrolling through on the their devices.

Meanwhile, Apple has been found guilty of violating patents relating to telecom standards held by Samsung, including technology that makes the transfer and transmission of data between devices more efficient. However, the court ruled against Apple's claims that Samsung had copied the designs of its products. "There are lots of external design similarities between the iPhone and Galaxy S, such as rounded corners and large screens... but these similarities had been documented in previous products," a judge at the Seoul Central District Court was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. "Given that it's very limited to make big design changes in touch-screen based mobile products in general... and the defendant (Samsung) differentiated its products with three buttons in the front and adopted different designs in camera and [on the] side, the two products have a different look," the judge said.













24 August 2012 Last updated at 06:08
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19364875

26 teams from around the world are currently competing in the FIRA RoboWorld Cup They are taking part in a range of games, including football, basketball and weightlifting. It is the first time that the event has been hosted in the UK and organisers say that they have had a record number of entries. The robots have also smashed a few world records along the way. Marathon hopes The Usain Bolt of the robot world comes from Singapore. "The sprint world record was 42 seconds but Singapore has smashed that with 31 seconds," organiser Dr Guido Herrmann told the BBC. Unlike their human counterparts, the robots do not run 100 metres. "It is three metres [9ft 10in] forward and three metres back," explained Dr Herrmann. Homegrown pre-tournament favourites from Plymouth University will compete against Singapore in the sprint final on Saturday and "still have a very good chance", he said. It could be shaping up to be the robot equivalent of super Saturday. Another local team, from Bristol University's robotics laboratory, is competing in the final of the marathon. The event - a gruelling 42 metres - is going to be a challenge for Team Panther, as the entry is dubbed. "To be honest we'd just be happy to finish the race. At the moment our robot isn't walking very well," confessed team member David Pollard. The competition is made more difficult by the fact the teams have not been told in advance where the race will take place. "A table-top is easier than a floor or carpet but the surface is yet to be decided," he added.

Team Panther's robot has been built from scratch but it will be competing against shop-bought robots which, according to Mr Pollard, are currently outperforming the home-made versions. But he doesn't think this is unfair. "Essentially you should be able to build a better robot than one off the shelf but this is our first year," he said. Weighlifting DVDs The main focus of the competition is football, but competition in other disciplines has also been intense. The weightlifing record is one of several expected to fall. "The current world record is to lift 89 DVDs which is quite a bit for a small robot. But already in training a couple have lifted 100 DVDs," said Dr Herrmann. Many of the robots compete in multiple sports. The organiser described them as "decathletes" rather than single-event specialists. Fun is at the heart of the competition but all entrants must observe one important rule. "The robots must be autonomous. Once they start the humans must be hands-off," Dr Herrmann said. It is a coup for Bristol to have won the bid to host the event which has been running since 1996. But Dr Herrmann admitted that competition was "fierce". "I had to submit a bid in 2010 and go to Bangalore to present it," he said. "Putting the dates between the Olympics and the paralympics may have helped." The competition ends on Saturday.











By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19359372

Developers and users of Twitter have reacted angrily to changes made by the social network to restrict creation of third-party applications.

 Any new app that wants to serve more than 100,000 users must now seek the company's explicit permission. Apps which already have more than 100,000 users are allowed to expand by 200% before having to get Twitter's go-ahead to grow further. Critics said it would stifle the development of innovative products. Revoked key The changes came as part of Twitter's overhaul of its Application Programming Interface (API). An API allows different parts of a program to communicate together, as well as letting one application share content with another. In Twitter's case, its API has allowed for the development of extremely popular third-party services like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite and Twitpic. Twitter says the new rules, announced by its director of consumer product Michael Sippey, aim to "deliver a consistent Twitter experience". Mr Sippey wrote: "If you are building a Twitter client application that is accessing the home timeline, account settings or direct messages API endpoints (typically used by traditional client applications) or are using our User Streams product, you will need our permission if your application will require more than 100,000 individual user tokens." In this context, "tokens" are individual users.

 The guidelines also covered how tweets are displayed within apps. "If your application displays Tweets to users, and it doesn't adhere to our Display Requirements, we reserve the right to revoke your application key," Mr Sippey explained. 'Wiggle room' The changes are not expected to have an immediate impact on users. However, the announcement was heavily criticised by developers. Marco Arment, creator of popular reading service Instapaper, advised developers who were building on Twitter to "start working on another product". "Twitter has left themselves a lot of wiggle room with the rules," he wrote in a blog post. "Effectively, Twitter can decide your app is breaking a (potentially vague) rule at any time, or they can add a new rule that your app inadvertently breaks, and revoke your API access at any time. "Of course, they've always had this power. But now we know that they'll use it in ways that we really don't agree with. "I sure as hell wouldn't build a business on Twitter, and I don't think I'll even build any nontrivial features on it anymore." Twitter is not the only service to put such restrictions in place. Last year, Google announced that it would begin charging companies that made heavy use of its Maps product.












 17 August 2012 Last updated at 11:03
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19293793

An unexplained charge on a phone bill has led a mobile user to uncover a loophole in the sign-up system for some premium rate services.

Consultant Mark Hole found he could sign up anyone for some premium rate services from content maker Buongiorno. All he needed to know was a potential victim's mobile number and whether they used the Orange network. Buongiorno said it quickly closed the loophole once it was discovered and had no evidence it had been exploited. Browser spoof Mr Hole's suspicions were aroused when charges for a premium rate fortune-telling service turned up on the bill for the mobile phones linked to his computer consultancy business. "I went online, got the bill up and there were weekly charges coming up on it," he said. He complained to operator Orange about the charge but it said he must have signed up for it despite his insistence that he was "scrupulous" about keeping the numbers private and that they were only used for business calls. Mr Hole also contacted mobile content firm Buongiorno which ran the iFortune service he was being billed for. It asked him to send details of the disputed charge. At the same time Mr Hole looked for ways that the phantom charge could have applied.

He discovered that it was possible to convince the iFortune site it was being visited by an iPhone. Using add-ons for the Firefox web browser this let him sign up any Orange customer for the service. All he needed to do this was their mobile phone number. Mr Hole demonstrated the loophole by signing up a BBC correspondent's phone for a weekly fortune reading. Gareth Maclachlan, head of mobile security firm Adaptive Mobile, said the loophole arose because Buongiorno was not doing a good enough job of checking which net addresses were making sign-up requests. "There's a potentially criminal opportunity here," he said. If the loophole became widely known, he said, hi-tech thieves could set up a fake premium rate service, sign people up and then sit back and wait for cash to roll in. Information about Mr Hole's findings have been circulated to the GSMA security working group to ensure other operators are aware of the loophole. "There was a bug in the system," said a spokesman for Buongiorno. "When that was found out, we very quickly moved to pin it down, find out what happened and stop it from happening again." The spokesman added that exploiting the loophole required a "certain amount of technical knowledge". As far as Buongiorno could tell, he said, there had only been one "billed event" that had arisen as a result of the loophole. The money wrongly taken for this event had now been refunded, he said. What is not clear yet is how many people were at risk of being signed up for premium rate services. Buongiorno said it closed down the bug quickly but Mr Hole's investigations suggest it was open for perhaps as long as 14 days.














13 August 2012 Last updated at 09:34
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19210215

Adam Naisbitt wrote a computer program that checked the official Olympics ticket site to spot when tickets for events were released. He shared ticket information via Twitter and helped hundreds buy tickets to watch the games. A London 2012 spokesman said its ticket agent blocked all computerised polling of the site to foil touts. Ticket list Mr Naisbitt wrote the computer program after being frustrated by the official Olympics website which suggested tickets were available when they had all been sold. His computer program regularly looked at the ticket site to spot the most recent changes to it and reveal which events genuinely had seats available. Information gathered by the programme had been fed to the @2012ticketalert account on Twitter and, said Mr Naisbitt, the information feed had soon gathered followers. He estimated that the ticket information had reached about 250,000 people and hundreds sent messages saying they had managed to secure tickets with its help. But the feed of data was cut off on Thursday night as the Olympic website was changed to block any visits to the site done by anything other than web browser software.

 Talking to the BBC, Mr Naisbitt said he was left "shell-shocked" by the block. "I can't believe that something that was genuinely there to help people is being stepped on," he said. "We're not making any money we just want to help people get tickets." Mr Naisbitt said it was possible to circumvent the block but he was unwilling to take that step because of the potential legal trouble it could cause. Now, he said, all that those wanting tickets could do was keep re-visiting the official site and endlessly refreshing the page to see if they can spot when tickets were released. A spokeswoman for Locog said the block was not aimed specifically at the @2012ticketalert service. Instead, she said, the block was imposed by TicketMaster, London 2012's ticket agency, on all automatic scrutiny of the site in a bid to stop touts snapping up tickets and selling them for a profit.









3 August 2012 Last updated at 13:11
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19112520

Electronic Arts has revealed that the number of people paying to play its online video game Star Wars: The Old Republic has dropped below one million.
 The title is the US firm's biggest investment to date. Launched in December, it initially attracted more than 1.7m subscribers. The firm said the news was "disappointing" adding that it was switching to a new pricing plan which would allow users to access much of the content for free. The news coincided with the firm's first quarter results which showed net income of $201m (£128m), a 5% drop on the same period the previous year. Payment turn-off The President of EA Labels Frank Gibeau said the Star Wars game would still break even so long as it maintained 500,000 subscribers, but admitted that its current performance was "not good enough". "The message from players exiting the game is clear, 40% say they were turned off by the monthly subscription and many indicate they would come back if we offered a free-to-play model," he told analysts, according to a transcript of the conference call provided by the Seeking Alpha financial news site. "Our plan now is to pivot and provide a two-tiered pricing plan, which will make the game more accessible and grow the audience." The new scheme will allow users to explore the online title's first 50 levels at no cost, although they will not have access to all its features.

 Users must pay $15 (£9.50) a month for full access and a monthly allowance of in-game cash to purchase items or advance their progress. In addition the firm is cutting the price that it charges for the game pack that users must buy before being able to access the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). Online rivals EA's move comes just under two months before its rival Activision Blizzard releases an update to World of Warcraft. Mists of Pandaria is expected to help boost the title's subscribers above the current level of 10.2 million, securing its place as the most popular MMORPG. Other upcoming big name releases include Arenanet's Guild Wars 2 and Bethesda's Elder Scrolls Online. Competition is intense because analysts say most players are only likely to subscribe to one title at any one time. Other titles that offer free-to-play options include Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online and Entropia Universe. "Given the MMORPG landscape in recent years, where pure subscription is becoming a rarity, EA will have been planning to introduce this since before launch, but the drop in subscribers makes it a timely announcement," said Steve Bailey, senior analyst at IHS Games Digest. "It's not necessarily a portent of doom. The title's ongoing performance is now down to EA's ability to engage users with content refreshes, and other aspects of the service." Michael French, editor-in-chief of the games industry trade news site MCV agreed that the problem was not the title's gameplay, but rather convincing the public to keep paying for it. "There are distractions elsewhere and people have become used to playing online titles for free," he said. "What EA needs to do is to attract players back guilt-free by offering the title without charge, and then hope it is compelling enough to encourage them it is worth paying to unlock the additional content."








1 August 2012 Last updated at 10:40 GMT
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19077238