Shrinking share: People walk outside an Apple
store in Beijing. Apple’s market share in China in the third quarter of
2018 was around 9, and has dipped from above 14 in 2015, overtaken by
local rivals like Huawei, Oppo and Vivo. — Reuters
https://youtu.be/iJfCBqPUKHQ
SHANGHAI: Apple Inc’s chief executive Tim Cook has his work cut out in China this year: the iPhone maker faces the looming threat of a court-ordered sales ban, the uncertain outcome of trade war talks and the roll-out of a new 5G network, where it finds itself behind rivals like Huawei and Samsung.
The complex outlook raises a challenge for Apple as it looks to revive its China fortunes after weakness there sparked a rare drop in its global sales forecast, knocked US$75bil from its market valuation and roiled global markets.
Cook told investors that the main drag on the firm’s performance in China had been a sharper-than-expected slowdown in the country’s economy, exacerbated by the impact of trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
“We did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” he said.
Chinese shoppers told Reuters another element had been key: the high price-tag on Apple’s flagship phones.
Analysts said the firm faced a brewing storm of challenges: an economic slowdown, stronger rivals like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd bringing out comparable tech at lower prices and bubbling patriotic sentiment amid the trade war.
A Chinese court has also issued a preliminary injunction banning some Apple phones, part of a legal battle with chip maker Qualcomm Inc. This ban, potentially hitting iPhone models from the 6S through the X, has yet to be enforced.
Last Thursday a local industry body, the China Anti-Infringement and Anti-Counterfeit Innovation Strategic Alliance, called on Apple to heed the court order and not “trample the Chinese law by leveraging its super economic power and clout.” Apple declined to comment on the group’s statement but has previously said it believed its current phones complied with the Chinese court’s order.
“These are tough times for Apple in China,” said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint, adding the iPhone could see its market share slip to 7% this year in the face of stronger local rivals and worry about the sales ban.
Apple’s market share in the third-quarter of 2018 was around 9%, and has dipped from above 14% in 2015, overtaken by local rivals like Huawei, Oppo and Vivo.
Another question mark for Apple is its 5G strategy in China, where the US firm is not expected to have a 5G-enabled phone until 2020, behind rivals like Huawei, Xiaomi Corp and Samsung Electronics.
China is looking to push ahead with its rollout of a faster 5G network, with a pre-commercial phase this year and a commercial network in 2020.
Some are looking to make an early bet on the technology.
Huawei is planning a 5G phone mid-year, while Xiaomi is aiming for the third quarter. Samsung is expected to unveil a 5G phone in the first half of the year.
Industry insiders, however, said Apple would likely hold off until the fall of 2020 to have its own 5G-enabled phone, a strategy that would bypass the untested early period of the technology, but which could mean Chinese shoppers delay iPhone purchases or buy another brand that switched to 5G earlier.
“I’ll definitely be paying attention to 5G functionality when I buy my next phone,” said Wu Chengjun, a graduate student in Beijing who currently uses an iPhone X.
With the exception of Huawei, which makes it own 5G chips, Qualcomm is providing the technology to many of the major phone makers releasing 5G handsets this year.
“If you’re a (phone maker) looking for a ‘super cycle’ (of sales), if you don’t have 5G, your situation won’t get any better,” Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm’s president, told Reuters in an interview. ”
The carrier channel is going to be incentivised to start selling 5G phones in the second half of 2019, he said. — Reuters
5G connectivity promises faster Internet speeds and more efficiency to run complex tasks in the cloud. — 123rf.com
https://youtu.be/iJfCBqPUKHQ
https://youtu.be/6Pvp4Z07ftY
All the ways life could change with technology in 2019.
FASTER data connectivity, smartphones with a bold new look and more reasons to cheer for the national team at a sporting event? These are just some reasons we predict 2019 is going to be another exciting year in technology.
Bend and not break
We could be getting our hands on a foldable smartphone by Samsung very soon – the South Korean tech giant gave the world a glimpse of a working protoype at the Samsung Developer Conference in November.
According to Justin Denison, the senior vice-president of mobile product marketing at Samsung, the prototype measured at 18.5cm diagonally. The new design will give users the experience of having a pocket size device – with a 4.6in screen when folded – that can be unfolded to reveal a bigger tablet-sized 7.4in screen, a feature Samsung has dubbed the Infinty Flex Display.
A foldable phone by Samsung is coming our way in 2019. — AP
Sources told South Korea-based Yonhap News Agency that Samsung is planning to officially launch the device, tentatively known as the Galaxy F as Samsung has not given it an official name yet, at an event in March. Other companies looking to release a foldable smartphone include Huawei and Sony.
Samsung’s foldable device with Infinity Flex Display is a smartphone model that features a tablet-sized screen when unfolded and a smaller screen when folded like a book. — AP
Speaking of Galaxy phones, Samsung also has another highly-anticipated release in 2019 and it’s the flagship Galaxy S10. Some leaks suggest that we could be looking at a device with a bigger full screen bezel-less feature – reputable leaker UniverseIce claimed the model will have a 6.7in display – multiple rear camera setup and interestingly, a punch-hole screen design for the front camera. (Notch? What notch?)
Citing Yonhap News, The Verge reported that the South Korean tech giant is expected to unveil the flagship Galaxy S10 in February 2019, most likely at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Spain. Yonhap’s sources also say there are plans to showcase the Galaxy F at MWC ahead of its official March launch.
Gotta move faster
The dawn of 5G network connectivity is upon us. This new technology promises significantly faster data transmission speeds and capacity, less waiting around for an online task to be completed (also known as lower latency), and could connect more smart devices and sensors simultaneously than ever before.
According to Reuters, 5G is currently in the final testing phase and is poised to offer data speeds of up to 50 or even 100 times faster than current 4G networks. In theory, that is.
To test real-world 5G speeds, Qualcomm ran a simulation to approximate real-world 5G speeds in Frankfurt and San Francisco, taking into account various factors such as geography, user demands on the network as well as devices with varying levels of LTE and 5G connectivity.
As reported by The Verge, the tests yielded more down-to-earth but still vastly improved speeds – in Frankfurt, browsing speeds went up from 56Mbps for 4G users to 490Mbps for 5G users, with download speeds clocking in at 100Mbps for over 90% of users compared to 8Mbps on LTE. In San Francisco, browsing speeds jumped up from 71Mbps for the 4G user to 1.4Gbps for the 5G user, while download speeds clocked in at 186Mbps on 5G compared to 10Mbps on 4G.
As 5G is an entirely new technology, users will have to upgrade to new smartphones – to that end, one of the variants of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S10 is said to support 5G, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Apart from high speed mobile and data services, experts agree that 5G is essential for the next phase in developing technologies like self-driving cars and improving industries like healthcare, virtual and augmented reality and more.
Vodafone demonstrated how a young football fan could get Houghton (left) to teach her some football skills with a holographic 3D call on a 5G network. — AP
In September, Vodafone demonstrated how a live 3D holographic call is possible with 5G at the Vodafone Future Ready Conference in United Kingdom. In the demonstration, English footballer Steph Houghton appeared as a hologram to give an 11-year-old fan some game tips. This exchange showcases how the technology could potentially change the way people communicate with each other, with more chances for remote coaching, training as well as enabling more immersive interactions with famous personalities.
In Malaysia, Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo announced that Putrajaya and Cyberjaya as testing grounds for national-level 5G trials. The one-year trial began in November and the findings will help the government develop plans and policies on the use of 5G network in the country.
Game on
In 2019, brace yourself for the possible release of another Nintendo Switch. The WSJ reported that Nintendo plans to release a new version of the popular gaming console, with one possible upgrade being a better display.
One of the biggest news in 2018 is Sony announcing that it will not be attending the 2019 E3 Expo for the first time in 24 years. Instead, the company shared that it will be “engaging with consumers and the community in different ways”, with unconfirmed rumours swirling that the company might hold its own event to announce details on the PlayStation 5.
Companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo could all be announcing new gaming consoles in 2019. — AP
According to tech website T3, the PS5 console may include upgrades to support 60FPS (frames per second) at 4K resolution and it will be running on next-generation AMD graphics cards. Sony could also be announcing details about the PlayStation VR2 – upgrades may include better controllers, new built-in cameras and gloves for enhanced virtual reality experience.
One company that is not skipping E3 in 2019 is Microsoft. Speculation is rife that the company will be using the event to announce details about two new next-generation Xbox consoles, codenamed Anaconda and Lockhart. Users could also be looking at a cloud-based streaming-only disc-less version of the Xbox One S for 2019, which could be announced as soon as next month, according to The Verge.
Microsoft is also expected to reveal more details about its Project xCloud, a Netflix-style streaming service for Xbox games. Not to be confused with Xbox Game Pass, Project xCloud – currently in beta testing mode – is said to make Xbox games available across PCs, phones, and consoles.
Gamers can also look forward to major videogame releases in 2019 – there’s the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 3, The Last Of Us 2 and hopefully, Hideo Kojima’s star-studded and much-hyped Death Stranding.
For mobile gamers, there’s the 2019 release of the Harry Potter Wizards Unite AR game by Niantic, the same developer behind Pokémon Go. The game will allow users to encounter characters and creatures from the Harry Potter books, cast spells and solve mysteries.
Augmented Reality (AR) everywhere
AR technology is not exactly new to platforms like Snapchat and Instagram with its selfie filters, but we could be looking at more than just digital face masks in 2019.
In May, Facebook announced a new version of its AR developing tool AR Studio for content creators and developers. The tool is made for designing AR animations, visuals and interactions for the Facebook Camera. Along with existing features like AR Target Tracker and free-to-use sound files, Facebook said it will be adding other features like Body Tracking, Hand Tracking and analytics for AR effects. So you could expect more AR elements in the photos or videos your friends share on Facebook.
AR is likely to become a bigger part of the way we experience events in real life and consume content on social media platforms. Here, an attendee is trying out an AR baseball game at a trade show in Japan. — Bloomberg
AR could also be a part of more live experiences like concerts and sporting events in 2019. TechCrunch reported that rapper Eminem incorporated AR into his live performance at Coachella music festival in April.
Concertgoers could see added AR visual enhancements to the show by downloading the Eminem Augmented app.
In terms of gaming, something exciting is brewing at Niantic. The company announced that it is investing in holographic augmented reality display – technology developed by waveguide optics firm DigiLens, which specialises in wearable lightweight plastic AR displays. For users, it could mean that Niantic is looking to enhance game play interactivity with an AR device like smart glasses.
Cheer for Malaysia in eSports
Malaysia is beginning to embrace eSports as a mainstream sporting event. In the recent Budget 2019, the government announced a RM10mil budget for the development of eSports in the country.
In 2019, eSports will be a medal event at the South-East Asia Games (SEA) in Philippines. eSports Malaysia secretary-general Rinie Ramli said a national league will be held as the selection process for a squad to represent Malaysia at the SEA Games.
Get set to support a Malaysian eSports team at the 2019 SEA Games. — Bernama
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is going to be one of the titles contested at the Games, along with other shortlisted titles like Dota 2, StarCraft II, Tekken 7 and Arena Of Valor, according to a recent announcement by the Philippine SEA Games organising committee and its eSports partner, gaming hardware company Razer.
eSports is also currently being considered as a medal event for the 2022 Asian Games in China. However, the plan to announce eSports as an official medal event has been put on hold as the gaming committee does not want a violent or shooting-based game to be contested. Reuters reported that titles for the 2022 Asian Games may feature sports-themed games like Pro Evolution Soccer (PES). Whatever it may be, we’ll look to eSports as a way of getting everyone together to cheer for the same team.
This photo of Shanghai Bund is taken by Chinese Satellite with 24.9 billion
pixels of quantum technology. It's worth seeing! You can zoom in, zoom
out when you look at it. You can clearly see every gesture, even face of
pedestrians on the road. You can see the license plate. Photos can also
be moved up and down, left and right. It is said that this is the
latest development of China's military science and technology
achievements, hidden, indeed suffered harm!!! It can also be rotated.
Press'+'to zoom in and'-' to zoom out. Left and right rotation. It's too
clear!
Quantum
Technology will be used in 5G phone very soon. Europe and US are scared
to death now because this technology is monopoly in nature
Why did Canada arrest the CFO of Chinese tech giant Huawei? – Samsung surrendered its Chip IP right to US companies in order to survive
By Janus Dongye, Researcher at University of Cambridge
The detailed reason for this arrest has been revealed. Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng is suspected of conspiracy to defraud multiple financial US institutions. The US Judiciary found that there was a company called Skycom that traded with Iran during 2011–2014 and Huawei was suspected to control the company Skycom at that time.
So the accusation is about the old Iran sanctions 7 years ago. And you might wonder why someone brought this up at this particular time.
There is something else that you need to know to understand this incident.
Global 5G Battle
5G is the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications. It succeeds the 4G (LTE/WiMax), 3G (UMTS) and 2G (GSM) systems. 5G is the new critical node for the future global supply chain. This is the ultimate technology that determines the communication/mobile networks in the next 10 years. Therefore this is a big cake that everyone wants to get a slice from it.
The whole 5G framework can be divided into two key technology: the modem chipset and router infrastructure.
On one hand, the modem chipset is installed in your phones and other sensors that need to be connected to the Internet.
The current 5G modem chipset patent (IP) is held by:
Huawei (China), Qualcomm (US), Samsung (Korea), MediaTek (Taiwan), Intel (US), Apple (US) (rumoured).
On the other hand, the router infrastructure is placed in base stations all over the buildings and towers. It directly talks to the 5G modem in your mobile phones and translates your 5G requests to the Internet.
The current 5G router patent (IP) is held by:
Huawei (China), Nokia (Finland), Ericsson (Sweden), ZTE (China) Surprise Hah?, Cisco (US), Samsung (Korea).
There are two hidden traps from this 5G technology that other people might not tell you:
The router and the modem chipset must be compatible, and therefore a standard must be settled in order for them to talk.
The modem chipset is deeply coupled into the system on a single chip with CPU and GPUs. The system is normally shipped as a package.
If you hold the 5G modem IP in a SOC (System-on-chip), you can also bind your CPU and GPU IP in a package. That means whoever controls the 5G IP would also control the whole market of the CPU and GPU intellectual property. If you hold the 5G router standard, you can also control the modem standard and then control the whole system standard.
For example, if the US were to allow Huawei to sell its 5G router devices to Verizon or AT&T, then Huawei could make all of its base stations to only support its own modem standard. Then you could end up with the whole system package delivered by Huawei as well. Then the US might have to buy more devices made by Huawei in order to use 5G.
That’s how Qualcomm rose from a small company to the top simply based on its 3G patents. And you can see that Huawei and Samsung is the dominant player here that they both control the modem and router patents.
However, owing to the pressure of the US government, Samsung surrendered its chip IP right to US companies. This is the fundamental difference between Samsung and Huawei. Because the South Korean market is so small and therefore Samsung has to surrender to the US in order to survive.
Samsung Galaxy S10 Comes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC and 5G Service – Tech News Watch
You might wonder why Samsung does not use its Exynos processors in US but it has to use Qualcomm one? That is the pressure from the US government.
Meanwhile, Huawei gets the full cultivation in the Chinese market and does not fear the US government. It never intends to go to the US market as well. What it focuses on is the adoption in China and the rest of third-world countries. If you read the following recent news, you can get a feeling that China is really leading the global 5G battle in all three fields: technology, adoption and market.
Chongqing launches first 5G trial network
‘World’s first’ 5G call completed by Vodafone and Huawei
China Mobile and China Unicom to start 5G trials | TelecomLead
Briefing: China’s mobile operators granted nationwide 5G licenses · TechNode
The Chinese government said it would perform nationwide 5G adoption using Huawei technology around March 2019. Please note that this is a market of 1.4 billion people that is US population and Europe population combined. And the Chinese government is pushing this really hard, unlike the US stuck in legislation as you can imagine.
Meanwhile, the first adoption of 5G belongs to South Korea, which is four months ahead of China:
South Korean carriers set surprise commercial 5G launch for December 1 And compared to the US government, both Chinese and Korean government are very efficient in promoting 5G infrastructures. In this manner, US companies are really lagging behind. This could firstly cause wide-spread fears among the US companies. It is very likely that those companies would lobby the US Congress to ban Huawei at first. The arrest happens just before the Huawei 5G technology is going to be adopted commercially in China.
It is very likely that some people wanted to disrupt the growth of Huawei. Everyone talks about the Huawei arrest. But no one is talking about who initiated the investigation against Huawei and who filed the case in the US juridical system in the first place?
Another interesting side note during the incident:
Cisco temporarily bans employees from China
I suspect CISCO could be the one who actually filed the case to ban Huawei.
KUALA LUMPUR: About seven million smartphone users nationwide are exposed to threats from cyber hackers who make use of their gadgets to steal their money.
Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department director Datuk Syed Ismail Syed Azizan said lack of awareness on the risks of smartphone security made users easy victims.
“The modus operandi is to send short messaging service known as Trojans to users who unknowingly will be charged when replying to the SMS,” he said. “Consumers only realise this when they are slapped with high phone bills although they did not use the service.”
The scam was detected via applications such as “Type-On” which, when downloaded, would cause smartphone users to bear the cost although they had uninstalled the application.
Lookout Mobile Security was quoted by AFP as saying that worldwide, users lost millions of dollars last year via malware and toll fraud that attacked smartphone users for accessing applications from unofficial sources rather than trusted ones such as Apple or Google online shops.
Syed Ismail said police statistics recorded from January to September this year showed that losses incurred via SMS or phone calls totalled RM21.8mil.
The hackers target users of Internet banking or phone banking by hacking and abusing the network, including the online purchases of goods.
Online purchases recorded the highest losses of RM14.5mil (1,298 cases) followed by SMS or phone call with RM3.4mil (412 cases), hacking (RM3.3mil via 24 cases) and Internet banking and phone banking with RM590,000 (74 cases). - Bernama
I’ve no idea what the Korean is for “let’s stuff everything we can into a phone and ram it up Apple’s jacksie” but it’s a fair bet the phrase was used at the inception of the Galaxy Note 2. This Android handset is the feature-packed successor to the surprisingly successful Galaxy Note that I was quite taken with late last year.
Second draft: Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 Android smartphone
Just as the first Note followed the design language of the Galaxy S2, so the Note 2 follows the S3. I’m no fan of the S3’s looks but, writ large, the aesthetics come together far more successfully. The S3 looks like a too big phone but the new Note looks like a beautifully proportioned small tablet.
Size and weight are close to the original, so the new device will still fit in the back pocket of my jeans without issue. The smooth and rounded chassis goes some way towards mitigating the size and bulk, and I like the low profile volume and power controls.
Marginally bigger screen and higher capacity battery too
There have been a few notable physical changes not least a bigger 720p screen which is now 5.55in rather than 5.3in corner-to-corner and a larger battery that's 3100mAh, up from 2500mAh. The cameras have been improved too, although the basic specs – 8Mp back and 1.9Mp front – are much as before.
The larger screen means the front of the Note 2 is almost entirely taken up by the Super AMOLED panel – perhaps this why it looks a more resolved design than the S3? Made of Gorilla Glass 2 and avoiding any Pentile matrix silliness, the Note 2’s 267dpi display is quite simply a thing of beauty. Bright, vivid, sharp as a tack and colourful – I can make no criticisms.
With a 1.6GHz Exynos 4412 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, support for 4G LTE and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the Note 2 is as up to date and powerful as you could possibly want. In short, it goes like blazes and has a superbly sweet and fluid UI. The AnTuTu and Sunspider numbers speak for themselves.
Bonus points
Being a Samsung device Android is here overlaid with TouchWiz but I’m prepared to forgive it this foible even if it’s a bit like painting a moustache on Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix. Yet, with all the extra functionality built into the Note 2, there is at least a solid reason for messing around with Google’s mobile OS beyond the simply aesthetic or bloody minded.
Memo options: handwriting recognition and note taking
Make no mistake, Samsung has added a truly bewildering – perhaps even excessive – amount of extra functionality the Note 2. Gesture commands, floating video screens and context-aware home pages. There's also a funky auto-rotate feature that uses the webcam to judge the angle of a line between your eyes relative to the device, which is handy if you are using the Note while lying down. The list just goes on.
Lest we forget the S Pen which is the Galaxy Note 2’s party trick. With this stylus, you can write, sketch, doodle and grab the screen in all manner of useful ways. Damn shame though that screen video record function seems to have bitten the dust between Samsung’s video guide and the Note 2 hitting the shelves.
The new Pen has an oblong rather than round profile making it easier to hold and easier to slot into its bay the right way. There's no lanyard to connect S Pen to Note but if it detects you walking away without replacing the stylus it will start beeping which is useful.
The Note’s screen can sense the pen before it touches down, thanks to a feature called Air View. Hover over a gallery, video or e-mail with the stylus and a preview of the file opens. I have to admit this is not a feature I've been crying out for on a mobile phone but it is pretty cool. Handwriting recognition is also much improved over the original Note.
Under pressure
The new S Pen is also more sensitive compared to the original and can now distinguish between 1024 different levels of pressure. You can feel and see the difference this makes and you now get extremely fine control over line thickness.
Superb video player
How does it work as a phone? Superbly, thanks to a size that puts speaker and microphone closer to ear and mouth than smaller devices can manage and very good active noise cancellation. Also, that huge and removable battery proved capable of more than eight hours of HD video playback, and an easy 60 hours of call and data intensive general use.
To conclude on some peripheral features the loudspeaker is powerful and composed and put my Nexus 7 to shame when it came to listening to music or video sans headphones. The MicroUSB port supports HDMI-out and USB OTG and you get a very nice pair of earphones. To cap it all, the Note 2 also comes with 48GB of Dropbox storage free for two years.
Winning combination: the Note 2's mix of handset and tablet works out well despite being a large form factor
Verdict
For a pound less than a 16GB iPhone 5 with its piddly 4in screen, terrible maps app, dodgy Wi-Fi reception and scratch-prone body, the Galaxy Note 2 is something of a bargain if you are after the ultimate mobile phone. It has the physical presence of an A380, the power of Concorde and the stamina of a U-2, and is packed with more features than a Swiss army knife.
Here's what it is: a strong improvement to the iPhone 4S that offers up a larger screen, 4G LTE speeds, and a terrific camera. The iPhone 5 carries on the goodness that Apple excels at, like iTunes entertainment and cloud storage.
But however good the iPhone 5 is, it lacks the knockout, gasp-inducing feature that Apple followers have come to expect: perhaps double the battery life of any other phone on the market, or an innovative camera feature that lets you drag and drop subjects around the screen, or other far-out concepts come to life.
Instead, we see a lot of catching up: LTE support, panorama mode, and photo capture while a video records, maps with turn-by-turn navigation, and a slightly larger screen with the same pixel density as on the iPhone 4 two generations ago. And it still lacks certain other perks, like NFC, which is useful for mobile payments, and for sharing content from phone to phone.
For the first time in a long time, Apple has given its rivals room to bask in their own innovations.
Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 is the anti-iPhone.
(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)
The Nokia's Lumia 920 offers wireless charging, for example, a capability it'll pilot in coffee shops and airline lounges. Its camera is literally surrounded by springs, and the screen uses a very smart display filter that could match or even surpass the iPhone 5's display (we have to wait to see them side by side.
Meanwhile, Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 offers up an enormous 5.5-inch screen and a truckload of tricks with its S Pen stylus, and a new camera feature that will compile the best of a handful of group photos, increasing the chances that everyone's smiling. Its phone/tablet hybrid is the antithesis of the smaller iPhone screen.
On the battery front, Motorola's new Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD can't be beat; it features a powerful 3,300mAh battery that promises 21 hours of talk time to Apple's 8 hours of talk time over 3G on the iPhone 5.
Make no mistake that the iPhone 5 will sell like wildfire and bring delight to Apple fans everywhere -- in fact, I even think it makes for a great universal choice.
Yet its lack of a "gotcha" feature gives shoppers considering other powerful alternatives -- like the intriguing Lumia 920, the larger-than-life Samsung Galaxy Note 2, or even the won't-quit Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD -- fewer reasons to stick with Apple.
SEOUL: Samsung Electronics has suffered a crushing defeat in a landmark patent battle against Apple Inc. A US jury last Friday found that the Korean smartphone maker infringed upon a number of patents held by Apple, while the American tech giant did not violate any of its Korean rival’s intellectual properties.
The jury’s judgement is widely criticised here as unfair. But it is highly likely to be upheld by the California court, dealing a serious blow to Samsung, the world’s largest mobile device producer. Samsung accounted for 32.6% of the global market in the second quarter against Apple’s 16.9%.
The nine-member jury ordered Samsung to pay US$1.05bil (RM3.28bil) in damages to Apple. The damages – much larger than expected – could be doubled or even tripled by the judge overseeing the trial, given the jury’s scathing verdict that Samsung “willfully” infringed on Apple’s coveted patents.
Samsung also faces a US sales ban on its mobile devices. Following the trial win, Apple presented to the judge a list of Samsung products it wants barred. Apple identified eight Samsung smartphone and tablet models but did not include Samsung’s new flagships, the Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note. Consequently, the sales ban, even if accepted by the court, is unlikely to have a serious impact on Samsung.
The US court’s ruling could also negatively affect patent battles between the two under way in nine countries over four continents. Unfavourable rulings in these countries would pour cold water on Samsung’s ambition to cement its global market leadership.
Furthermore, the jury seriously wounded Samsung’s pride by slamming it as a copycat. This is an insult hard to swallow, as Samsung has worked hard to secure leadership in mobile technology.
Given the high stakes involved, it is only natural that Samsung has decided to file post-verdict motions to overturn what it saw as the jury’s one-sided judgement. It plans to take the case to the court of appeals if its motions are rejected.
This suggests that the patent war will not end any time soon. Samsung is determined to continue the legal battle to make its case that Apple did encroach upon its hard-won patents for mobile technologies.
At the same time, Samsung is seeking to turn the tables in the next round of the battle by utilising its patents for fourth-generation technologies called “long-term evolution.”
Samsung is betting that it would be able to use some of its LTE patents as weapons against its rival because they have not been made open as industry standards. It is wondering how Apple can produce its next-generation model, the iPhone 5, without using its patented LTE technologies.
In light of Samsung’s technological prowess and deep pockets, the company will be able to overcome the grave challenge it is facing now.
For instance, it won’t have much difficulty paying the US$1.05bil (RM3.28bil) damages set by the jury, given that its net profit amounted to US$4.5bil (RM in April-June alone.
Yet Samsung should learn a lesson from the costly patent war. It is imperative for the company to transform itself from a fast follower to a first mover. It needs to go back to the drawing board to make its products truly innovative both in design and functions. It might want to risk a radical design that can differentiate its products from others.
Apple, emboldened by last Friday’s triumph, may be tempted to expand the patent war to collect royalties from other smartphone makers that rely on Google’s Android operating system. Yet it should realise that no company has ever succeeded in establishing market leadership through patent litigations. A company can only become a market leader through competition in the marketplace.
Apple also needs to know that any attempt to drive Android-based smartphone producers into a corner could backfire in the long term, as it will spur their efforts to become more innovative. With their survival at stake, they will be compelled to change the game as they cannot beat Apple at its own game.
In this regard, we urge Apple and Samsung to reach a deal that can benefit both. Apple could set royalties for Samsung at a level that would not undermine the Korean company’s earnings too much. An early settlement of the dispute would also benefit consumers and the global mobile device industry as a whole.
A US jury decision against Samsung and a Japanese court decision for the Korean conglomerate raise questions over the entire patent issue
WOULD anyone have expected the Apple-Samsung case to be decided in favour of Samsung by a US court in a jury verdict and against Apple, which is by now even more American than apple pie? I certainly didn’t.
But there is an appeal on the cards and it is still anyone’s guess if Apple will be allowed to claim such things as shape and “pinch to zoom out” as its right. But if it is, then that’s a big setback for other smartphones.
Samsung, however, scored a victory in a Tokyo court which ruled yesterday that the Korean electronics giant, and supplier to Apple, did not violate any patents. That victory will no doubt raise questions as to how fair the US jury was in making an award in favour of Apple, including US$1bil in damages.
The US decision means eventually consumers there may have to pay more for Apple’s iPhone, iPod and devices because others may not be able to emulate features that may have made their devices a success. That will have repercussions on prices elsewhere as well.
In the motor industry there have been many trends in shape over the years, moving from angular to rounded designs. If some car company had decided to sue every other car manufacturer for a similar look and feel and succeeded, car shapes may have had great difficulty evolving.
But the best manufacturers of cars did not. In fact some of them deliberately did not register safety patents just so that others could use the innovations to increase passenger safety.
If Samsung is said to have infringed on shape, then there are a number of other manufacturers who are in trouble too. Rectangular faces with rounded edges are a natural evolution in the mobile phone industry. Certainly, other manufacturers are going to hope there will be a reversal on appeal.
Apple did not invent the touch screen. Thus, it seems strange that it has a patent to “pinch to zoom” which is basically one way of many ways to use a screen. That’s like patenting a particular method of driving a car!
Apple has already followed up on its US victory, seeking an injunction to prevent Samsung from selling eight of its smartphones in the United States including some in the best-selling Galaxy range.
However, hearing of the injunction will only be in December and some of Samsung’s models may be phased out by then, which offers some consolation for Samsung.
Some US commentators view the case as a proxy war against another US company Google which makes the Android operating system used in Samsung, HTC and other smartphones.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle says that the late Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was once a friend of Google’s co-founders but considered Google’s move into mobile a betrayal that demanded revenge.
“I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product,” he told his biographer Walter Isaacson. “I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
But despite the nice rhetoric, revenge from the grave it is not. Apple’s strategy seems quite clear cut. Patent everything. Then tie up competitors in court if there is any semblance of product infringement and keep its competitive advantage intact as long as possible.
Reports put its profit margins on its iPhone at as high as 50%, a huge mark-up in a cutthroat market which it has been able to achieve by parlaying an excellent product with some very deft marketing and public relations.
That made it the biggest company in the world. Many would say that the product, however, is not necessarily the best anymore if ever it was, especially since competitors are fast catching up with their own nifty designs and features. And marketing and PR too – Galaxy is getting a name for itself and no doubt the cases around the world will help.
Thus it makes much economic sense for Apple to prolong this by any legal means it can for as long as possible. Does Apple care that it may be stifling innovation, raising costs and hurting consumers in the process?
Probably not. And why should it? It is a company based on the profit motive. But it needs to remember that all publicity is not good publicity and if it gets a reputation as a bully, its entire image and that of its products could change.
American companies can carry this patent thing too far and they have. Recall a few years ago when some of them tried to patent the production of pesticides from neem trees. For thousands of years, extracts from the leaves of the neem have been used for precisely that.
The American jury system cannot but be expected to favour a US icon such as Apple which is seen as brash, innovative and successful, the very image of the US itself. But that’s not going to be the case in the rest of the world. And even in the US, if learned judges make the decisions instead of a jury, the results may well be different.
Really, no one is going to benefit and there may well be detriment, if we allow patents to get the better of us and stifle innovation and hinder the development of new products and services at lower costs. It would be a travesty of sorts and ironic indeed if Apple is now seen as a technology inhibitor instead. Beware!
A QUESTION OF BUSINESS By P. GUNASEGARAM starbiz@thestar.com.my
P Gunasegaram is an iPhone user but only because the service provider gave such a good deal.
Japanese court rules for Samsung over Apple
In this Aug. 25, 2011 file photo a lawyer holds an Apple iPad and a Samsung Tablet-PC at a court in Duesseldorf, Germany. The Duesseldorf state court ruled Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, that neither the South Korean company‘s Galaxy Tab 10.1 nor the Galaxy Tab 8.9 could be sold in Germany because they were in violation of unfair competition laws. A German appeals court has upheld a decision prohibiting Samsung Electronics Co. from selling two of its tablet computers in Germany, agreeing with Apple Inc. that they too closely resemble the iPad2. (AP)
Samsung wins one battle in the multinational conflict over patent and innovation
By Jeong Nam-ku, Tokyo correspondent
A Japanese court has ruled in favor of Samsung over Apple in a patent lawsuit. In the August 31 verdict, Tamotsu Shoji, the Tokyo District judge, declined Apple’s claim that “8 models of Samsung Galaxy series infringed on Apple’s patents.”
Apple had sued Samsung for infringing on its synchronization of music and other data with remote servers. It asserted that “Samsung’s products use Apple’s technologies of synchronization, which constitutes patent infringement,” and demanded both compensation of 100 million Japanese Yen (around US$1.27 million) and a block on eight Samsung products.
According to Jiji Press, judge Tamotsu stated, “Samsung’s products are technologically distinct from Apple and can’t be considered infringements.”
As a first trial, this does not hold much importance beyond being an indication of what the final verdict might end up being. However, because the verdict ordered a ‘dismissal’ on Apple’s injunction, there is only a slight possibility for an overturn in the final verdict.
Apple has also sued Samsung for infringing on its ‘bounce back (technology that springs back when the document has reached the end)’ patent, a claim that is still ongoing.
This verdict is the first ruling out of the 9 lawsuits Apple and Samsung Electronics have against each other. Samsung also filed lawsuits against Apple in April and October of 2011, arguing that Apple also infringed on 6 of Samsung’s patents.
Samsung and Apple have ongoing lawsuits in different 10 countries. In the US, a judge ruled that Samsung had infringed Apple patents, ordering the Korean electronics giant to pay $1.05 billion in damages.
Translated by Yoo Hey-rim, Hankyoreh English intern
Just like Microsoft, Apple's evolution from smart tech company to global uber-brand contains the seeds of its own destruction
The risk for Apple is that it focuses more and more on intellectual property rights – filing patents and litigating – than it does on product innovation. Photograph: Ahn Young-Joon/AP
Apple came close to destroying its business in the late 1980s by pursuing a suit against Microsoft claiming that Windows infringed the look and feel of the Mac desktop metaphor. Apple focused its hopes and business future on this lawsuit, while its market share dwindled. Rather than competing, it litigated. And lost.
The first justifiable conclusion might be that big companies get their way. The second might reasonably be that Apple doesn't change much: its business model remains aggressive self-righteousness. The third is what everybody knows: patent rules and philosophy are all screwed up.
As for the first point, Apple is not just a big company, but the biggest. And it is not just the biggest American company, but the most American company. It has entered a rarefied brand status in which it is now almost synonymous with American virtue: American as Apple. Its good design sense has become a major point of American pride, if not nationalism.
The brand is a national asset. Apple is AT&T in its pre-break-up from; it's GM, in its what's-good-for-General-Motors-is-good-for-the-country stage; it's United Fruit when it made US foreign policy; it's Microsoft when desktop computing was transforming the world.
Commercial omnipotence
This is about as close to commercial omnipotence as it gets. Its unassailability, its right to be preternaturally aggressive, is built into its share price. We believe in Apple. So let us briefly consider the chance for a Korean company defending itself against (or, perish the thought, challenging) the greatest American company of the age in the eyes of an American jury.
And then, there's the self-righteousness. Apple is one of the most aggressive intellectual property litigators of all time. Its major moves have not been about protecting precise technical innovations, but about claiming the much softer zone of look and feel.
It sues for brand rather than engineering. It has pioneered a new modern sensibility: taste is what's most valuable; identity is king. It's sued about the lower case "i"; it's sued about the word "pod"; it's sued New York City over the "big Apple"; it's sued over using the words "app store".
This fierce defensiveness might be rightly understood in a psychological sense: Apple itself is based on stolen iconography. There was first the Beatle's Apple and there was Xerox PARC's desktop design.
Apple's self-righteousness masks its guilt. (It may be sheepish, too, about being more of a marketing organization than a technology company.) What's more, it knows better than anybody that if you relax your vigilance, somebody can easily walk off with what you've done – and improve it.
And then, in the algebra of Samsung's loss and Apple's victory, there's patent hell. Or absurdity.
System of litigation
Patents are, arguably, no longer a system of protection; they are a system of litigation. Great numbers of patents are now filed, in an over-burdened system, to protect not innovations but the right to litigate over innovations. Indeed, any patent of value will ultimately be litigated.
What's more, as the system has become ever more over-taxed, as technology itself has become more complex, the ill-equipped and under-trained bureaucracy has increasingly taken to giving patents to wide-ranging abstractions.
Design concepts, behavior adjustments, and new approaches to problem solving are all patentable innovations. The system itself assumes that litigation is the check on the system. Which means, fundamentally, that the litigant with the most resources and greatest status wins.
But let us not argue the case that all this quite obviously impedes innovation and is part of a new unreal property land grab – not about technology at all, but about intellectual property: an effort to privatize much of what was once understood to be shared and public (indeed, not ownable, like the shape of the iPhone). But rather, for a moment, let's look at this as a form of hubris that has inevitable consequences.
The Apple that has won against Samsung is the same Apple that lost against Microsoft. In other words, it is the kind of company that, through sheer willfulness, discipline, and perfectionism, can achieve brand hegemony of a singular type. But it is, too, the kind of company – the exact sort of company – that becomes, perhaps inevitably becomes, the bete noire of consumerists, regulators and, of course, most of all, its competitors.
This is the story between the lines of its great victory and its further share price surge. On the one hand, there is this seemingly golden company. On the other hand, there is anybody with any sense of history knowing this is going to end badly. American capitalism
Companies that acquire the nation's imprimatur often, if not invariably, over-reach. It is a characteristic of American capitalism: the price of getting really big and overbearing is that you incur an inverse reaction. In the early 1990s, an ambitious department of justice (a Republican administration DOJ at that) commenced its assault on Microsoft.
For better or worse, by the time the feds were finished, the company, with its rotten operating system, besieged and beleaguered, had become just one of many not-very-adept players in the space – an unimaginable outcome if you remember the once God-like power and scorched-earth wrath of Microsoft.
Apple, and its rotten phone, have a ways to go. But karma should not be underestimated as a factor in this game.
Samsung’s foldable device with Infinity Flex Display is a smartphone model that features a tablet-sized screen when unfolded and a smaller screen when folded like a book. — AP 
Vodafone demonstrated how a young football fan could get Houghton (left) to teach her some football skills with a holographic 3D call on a 5G network. — AP
Companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo could all be announcing new gaming consoles in 2019. — AP
AR is likely to become a bigger part of the way we experience events in real life and consume content on social media platforms. Here, an attendee is trying out an AR baseball game at a trade show in Japan. — Bloomberg
Get set to support a Malaysian eSports team at the 2019 SEA Games. — Bernama
Second draft: Samsung's Galaxy Note 2 Android smartphone
Marginally bigger screen and higher capacity battery too
AnTuTu and 
Memo options: handwriting recognition and note taking
Superb video player
Winning combination: the Note 2's mix of handset and tablet works out well despite being a large form factor
