RIM settles patent lawsuit, agrees to pay Dolby royalties


Dolby sued RIM in June for using their digital audio compression technology that’s found in the speakers of PlayBook and various smartphones (Storm, Tour, Pearl, Curve and Torch), requesting the court to “to halt sales of the many RIM products that infringe Dolby’s patents”. Now, a few months later and miraculously avoiding a legal battle, RIM has agreed to pay patent royalties to Dolby. The details were were not disclosed but it’s supposed to be “standard terms”, Bloomberg reported that Dolby was estimating on getting a $15 million worth of royalty from previous years – which really isn’t a big number for the amount of revenue RIM has brought in over the past several years.

Dolby General Counsel Andy Sherman said “We are pleased to welcome RIM into Dolby’s family of mobile-technology licensees… We believe in and will continue to protect the value of our intellectual property.”

Source: Bloomberg
Via: N4BB

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Fusion Garage hacks $200 off of Grid 10 tablet, aims to play the undercutting game

Looks like we’re all indebted to HP in one way or another. Since the TouchPad fire sale began, we’ve seen a noticeable southward shift in tablet pricing — it’s as if iPad rivals finally figured out that battling on price was just about the only way to make a dent in Apple’s enviable market share. Now, we’re seeing Fusion Garage wipe a full $200 from its Grid 10 tabletbefore the thing even ships. If you’ll recall, the outfit was aiming for a September 15th release date here in the States, with initial pricing for its 16GB model set for $499 (WiFi-only) / $599 (WiFi + 3G). Out of the blue, those pre-order rates have plummeted to $299 / $399 this morning, giving prospective Grid OS adopters entirely more motivation to buy in. It seems that Amazon hasn’t received the memo quite yet, so those hoping to get in the low-cost line should scurry down to the source link. Naturally, we’ll be bringing you a full-on review as soon as we procure one, and we’re guessing that just became a lot more relevant to your interests.

Update: A Fusion Garage spokesperson told Engadget that the company had planned to launch with the lower price all along, but negotiations with an ODM made it impossible to announce the price earlier. The company also added that the Grid 10 will experience a slight shipping delay, being pushed back to October 1st due to a “new criteria in [the] Adobe Flash Player (FP) 10.3 approval process.”

Update 2: Looks like UKers can also get in on the fun! Those prices are listed at £259 (WiFi-only) / £359 (WiFi + 3G).

[Thanks, Jeff]

Fusion Garage hacks $200 off of Grid 10 tablet, aims to play the undercutting game originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Infograph: Psychology of the Angry Birds addiction


Rovio has made one of the most popular mobile games on the planet – Angry Birds has swelled to over 300 million download and estimations are that they’ll be hitting the billion mark soon. The company itself is worth $1 billion and they’ve made to game available on several platforms but most of the revenue comes from both iPhone and Android. A new infograph was created by AYTM that goes deep into the psychology of our Angry Birds addiction: over 200 minutes played per day, 76% download the free version, 23% feel relaxed when they play Angry Birds and 52% feel joy. In total there’s been over 100 billion Angry Birds thrown. Check out the full image below

Source: Mashable
(Thanks Cam!)

Related posts:

  1. Angry Birds passes 250 million downloads, has a goal of reaching 1 billion by end of next year
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  3. Angry Birds for Windows Phone 7 updated with 90 new levels

Devastated KHL team will not play this year: reports

Yaroslavl Lokomotiv will not play in the Kontinental Hockey League this season. The news was announced by team president Yury Yakovlev on Saturday, multiple media reports say, after a public viewing for the 36 players, coaches and staff of the club who were killed this week.

Now showing: Netflix 1.4 brings playback to ‘all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices’

You heard right, film aficionados — Netflix has just updated its Android app in order to bring one major, major change: “expanded support for phones.” Previously, the app only worked on a smattering of smartphones, but as of today, v1.4 brings playback to “all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices.” Congratulations — your weekend just got a lot better. Hit the source link to get your download on, or just visit the Market for an update if you’re already in the door. So much for those “hardware DRM requirements” we heard about at MWC, huh?

Psst… all is well at Engadget US, but our colleagues in Canada aren’t seeing the update yet.

Update: Seems T-Mobile’s G2x is left out of the “all.” Anyone else having issues with a particular handset?

[Thanks, 3vil and Brett]

Now showing: Netflix 1.4 brings playback to ‘all Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceAndroid Market  | Email this | Comments

Xbox Live Fall 2011 Dashboard update preview: Bing search, voice control, and a Metro overhaul

Autumn is fast approaching — and you know what that means: it’s round about time for an Xbox Dashboard update. Sure, we got a peek of Microsoft’s upcoming harvest back at E3, but the good folks from Redmond invited us to take a closer look at what they’re calling the “most significant update to the Dashboard since NXE.” Senior project Manager Terry Ferrell was on-site to walk us through an early engineering beta and show us how an updated Metro UI, Bing search and deeper Kinect integration is going to change the way folks manage their entertainment content.

Continue reading Xbox Live Fall 2011 Dashboard update preview: Bing search, voice control, and a Metro overhaul

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Xbox Live Fall 2011 Dashboard update preview: Bing search, voice control, and a Metro overhaul originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 8 to feature drastically reduced boot time, shown off in video


Watch the above video closely, because you might just miss the moment: according to the latest post on MSDN’s Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft’s next-gen desktop OS will see a hugely improved boot time thanks to a clever technique. Rather than closing both the user session and the kernel session like in a traditional shutdown, Windows 8 will preserve the kernel session on the disk, thus creating a “hiberfile” that’s much smaller than that of the usual Windows hibernation — see the diagram after the break for a clearer idea. The result? An amazingly fast system bootup — even with the battery removed to begin with — that claims to be 30 to 70 percent faster than most systems tested by Microsoft. We’re itching to test this feature on an SSD ourselves, but until then, you can head over to MSDN’s blog for the full technical explanation.

Continue reading Windows 8 to feature drastically reduced boot time, shown off in video

Windows 8 to feature drastically reduced boot time, shown off in video originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Sep 2011 03:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Next Web, WinRumors  |  sourceMSDN  | Email this | Comments

Nvidia CEO confirms quad-core Android tablets coming this year

The year is almost over, but there is apparently plenty of time left for Nvidia to release its first quad-core mobile chips, based on ARM technology. President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said that, in order to get a leg up on its main competitor Qualcomm, the graphics company will release a quad-core mobile System-on-a-Chip, or SoC, before the end of the calendar year.

Code-named Kal-El, the successor to the prolific Tegra 2 chip, which powers over 70% of Android tablets and 50% of high-end smartphones, will not only be significantly faster, but also bring many of the ARM instruction sets such a NEON that are currently missing from the dual-core Tegra 2.

Huang said that by 2015 the mobile division at Nvidia will be worth more than its dedicated GPU divison, currently worth $4.5 billion. Their goal is to ship 1 billion mobile processors by then, too, an ambitious goal considering as of 2011 they have only produced around 100 million chips.

Earlier this year the GPU giant acquired mobile baseband company Icera, whose technology will be integrated into future Nvidia chips starting next year. The inclusion will allow for them to rely less on separate component manufacturers when developing mobile processors, ultimately lowering costs and increasing profits. This will be necessary to reach their goal of a $20 billion mobile chip business by 2015.

As for the quad-core chips, it’s unlikely we’ll see any of them in smartphones by the end of this year; initial yields will be low, with heat and power consumption being the major hurdle to overcome in the production process.

Source: Forbes Online
Via: Phandroid

Related posts:

  1. Samsung rumoured to release 2GHz Dual Core smartphones “by next year”
  2. LG announces the Android Optimus 2X (first smartphone with a dual-core processor)
  3. Motorola XT860 4G officially coming to Bell “this summer” (dual-core Android 2.3)