This just in this morning.
Apple just sued HTC for infringing on 20 patents “related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.
They go on to describe the actual patents in question, including this nugget.
The ‘849 Patent, entitled “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,” was duly and legally issued on February 2, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘849 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit C.
For those of you that might not know, one of my specialities is Point of Sale systems. Every system that I have ever used since ‘95 has had the ability to ‘unlock a device by performing gestures on an unlock image’, in this case in particular, rendered Windows bitmaps in the form of keypad that the user is required to touch to unlock the terminal.
(That’s me trying to be fancy by saying the login screen on most POS terminals do this, and have for many years).
Apple did not invent touch screen tech, they only brought it to the masses in a form factor that fits in your pocket. While I can appreciate the fact that they need to protect their intellectual property and technological advances, I think for this particular patent they are wrong.
There is also this one.
The ‘949 Patent, entitled “Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics,” was duly and legally issued on January 20, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘949 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit B.
I’m not sure, but I think the old HSI Profit Series system used to do this, and it was user programmable. Touch here, it does this unless you touch there, which causes a different action. Sure the heuristics weren’t applied automatically, but this is still pretty close.
Finally, for the record; Re: touchscreen technology.
Touchscreens emerged from academic and corporate research labs in the second half of the 1960s. One of the first places where they gained some visibility was in the terminal of a computer-assisted learning terminal that came out in 1972 as part of the PLATO project. They have subsequently become familiar in kiosk systems, such as in retail and tourist settings, on point of sale systems, on ATMs and on PDAs where a stylus is sometimes used to manipulate the GUI and to enter data. The popularity of smart phones, PDAs, portable game consoles and many types of information appliances is driving the demand for, and the acceptance of, touchscreens.
Like I said before, Apple did not invent touch screen technology. It’s been around since almost forever. I wish them luck with HTC, but think they might have trouble with these 2 patents.
As everyone already knows by now, Google officially annouced the Nexus One Cellphone yesterday. They even said it would be coming to Verizon Wireless in the spring. Add to that Motorola rumored to be releasing a keyboard-less Droid on VZW as well makes me fairly excited.
I’ve had the opportunity to play with the Droid over the Christmas Holiday. And I really like it. I like the UI, the way it feels, the way it works. All that said, I don’t like the keyboard, don’t want the keyboard and, at least on that phone, don’t need the keyboard. One of the reasons I’m watching CES coverage closely this year.
We know that I’ve been using the Blackberry for a bit more than a year. I like the Blackberry because it’s a great communication tool. It has great call quality and for email and messaging, most would agree, it can’t be beat. However, it doesn’t do web. Ok, that’s a lie because it does have a “browser”, but it isn’t any good. It’s slow, barely supports HTML4 and the screen is really too small to be useful.
The only problem I have with this batch of new phones is that I am stuck without the ability for a cheap upgrade until 2011 due to issues with Blackberry Storm. So I’m going to start setting cash aside so I can upgrade when the selection of Droid devices increases at my local VZW store.
Or, do I save that money for a few more months to possibly get an iPhone?. I still don’t see this as happening but really would like to be surprised, which I also don’t see happening. Can you imagine if Apple were to announce a VZW iPhone for the summer? Sales would stop at VZW while people waited. Pretty sure that isn’t going to happen.
So, I’m holding out until March. More as it becomes available.
There are times when I do things just to get to you guys, you know that right? The toot above is a great example of that.
I guess the new Facebook app for the ATP was released this week. All over my Facebook page was post after nerdgasm post proclaiming how awesome it was. Twitter too. It was everywhere. One of the posts said it had to be installed twice, so I thought I would pick on that and run with it.
Holy crap.
You ATP fanboys sure love your phone. More than a few of you got 17 different kinds of defensive about that particular toot. I found it comical to say the least. At least it provided my fingers something to make the sound about today.
First off, it’s an application. For a telephone. That serves no other purpose than to help you access the time-suck that is known at Facebook. I have no doubt it is the raddest thing ever, but when I have to read that it is the raddest thing ever 50 times over, I just can’t sit by and watch.
So, I posted the above tweet.
One thing I already don’t like about it. You remember when you got your ATP, right? Every email was stamped ’sent from my iphone’ until so many people called douche that you turned it off. Now the new FB app has that ‘feature’. Please let me be the first.
Douche! Turn it off please.
As always, thank you for your time.
Woke up in the mood to write this morning. Luckily, I have something to actually write about.
Why I don’t have an iPhone
Regular readers of this particular blog should already be aware of the pain that was the Blackberry Storm. For me, it was a device that was nothing but trouble. It was slow, the screen wouldn’t completely redraw and it would become unresponsive at least once a day. As it was, I was doing a pseudo battery pull at 2:00am every night* as well as another full battery pull during the coarse of the day. Everyday. Most Blackberries require a battery pull on occassion, but not everyday.
After finally having enough of Storm 4 for the past two week, I finally decided to head into my local Verizon Wireless Store to find out what they could do for me. My plan was to ask them to not give me another Storm, but instead let me upgrade 3 months early to the device you see pictured above, the Blackberry Tour. (Read on…)
I keep getting ideas for a post, but then I decided against them for whatever reason. So you get this today instead.
The Sunday List Post, 2nd Edition
- My new favorite thing is Tweetie for Mac. Supports multiple twitter accounts, is sleek, lightweight and works very well.
- In case you missed it, windthefrog.net is back, pulling duty as a tumblr.
- I’m back on Vimeo. With Facebook support and about the best HD video experience, I had to. Might even go Pro fairly soon too.
- I wasn’t lying. The EeePC is for sale if anyone wants a deal. It’s a great machine, just not great for me. Too bad I realized it a week after I could return it. Contact me for more info.
- I have three Wordpress projects on the go right now. 2 are done, 1 is close. Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing them soon enough. One of them is a very nice blog theme that I’m going to make available for download.
- I almost have v2.5 of this sites theme ready to go. So far, it’s coming along nicely and I think you will really like it.
- The Blackberry is finally behaving and I can’t help getting excited about the possibility of an ATP on Verizon in the somewhat-near furture.
- I took the Canon down to the beach last week and got some pretty good footage. Plus I’ll be working on a new project for my Grandfather that is video related this coming week. Should be cool .
That’s it really. At least that’s it for now. Follow along at Twitter or the Tumblr for stuff I’m finding interesting on a daily basis.
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