.::REALITYRECALL::.

A suspicious device that had been attached to a Sydney teen's neck contained no explosives and appeared to be part of an elaborate extortion hoax, Australian police said Thursday.

I have worked in the tech sector for over two decades. Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on. Here is what’s happening:

Android is on fire. More than 550,000 Android devices are activated every day, through a network of 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers. Android and other platforms are competing hard against each other, and that’s yielding cool new devices and amazing mobile apps for consumers.

But Android’s success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents.

They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Phone 7; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.

A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a “tax” for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation.

This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth. The winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.

We’re not naive; technology is a tough and ever-changing industry and we work very hard to stay focused on our own business and make better products. But in this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we’re determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it.

We’re looking intensely at a number of ways to do that. We’re encouraged that the Department of Justice forced the group I mentioned earlier to license the former Novell patents on fair terms, and that it’s looking into whether Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for anti-competitive means. We’re also looking at other ways to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening our own patent portfolio. Unless we act, consumers could face rising costs for Android devices — and fewer choices for their next phone.

UPDATE August 4, 2011 – 12:25pm PT

It’s not surprising that Microsoft would want to divert attention by pushing a false “gotcha!” while failing to address the substance of the issues we raised. If you think about it, it’s obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer. Microsoft’s objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners. Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android — and having us pay for the privilege — must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn’t fall for it.

Ultimately, the U.S. Department of Justice intervened, forcing Microsoft to sell the patents it bought and demanding that the winning group (Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, EMC) give a license to the open-source community, changes the DoJ said were “necessary to protect competition and innovation in the open source software community.” This only reaffirms our point: Our competitors are waging a patent war on Android and working together to keep us from getting patents that would help balance the scales.

Posted by David Drummond, Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer

For better or worse, Instagram’s taken the iOS-capturing world by storm. And if you’re wondering what our qualification for “by storm” is, well… let’s just say The Biebs blasted out his first image on the service last month. As the story goes, four young lads with a fistful of dollars and boundless imaginations started up the famed app on October 6th, 2010. Today, there’s still only four employees, but the user base has expanded just a wee bit. The outfit just saw its 150 millionth photo uploaded (shown after the break!), with the current rate clocking in at around 15 images per second. Naturally, we took the opportunity to ask one of those four what this meant for a future Android release, and while he confirmed that he had nothing to announce right away, he did mention that the (still free) iOS build is just “the beginning of what’s to come.” So, how’s about dropping a link to your favorite Instagram down in comments below? Best one wins!

Continue reading Instagram hits 150 million uploads in nine months, still won’t talk about Android plans

Instagram hits 150 million uploads in nine months, still won’t talk about Android plans originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Aug 2011 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Charges have been laid over an incident in the summer of 2010 when a truck was caught up in rising river water near Springside, Sask., and two men died, RCMP say.

Chrome: Google’s Instant Pages feature, previously available to Chrome beta users, is now available in the latest stable version of Chrome to load Google search results much faster. You can see the side-by-side speed comparison in the video above. More »

Hot diggity dog! Remember the “Donald Glover for Spider-Man” Twitter campaign that started on the very site you’re reading and eventually led to Glover donning the web-slinger’s pajamas on Community? More »

This is the first image of what’s going to become the tallest building in the world by the end of the decade: The 3,280-foot (one kilometer!) Kingdom Tower. It will dwarf the 2,717-foot (828-meter) Burj Khalifa. Take a look. More »

Samsung has put out a distinctly unafraid-looking statement declaring that a “Galaxy Tab 10.1 for the Australian market will be released in the near future,” despite Apple’s attempt to halt sales through the Aussie Federal Court. It explains that Apple’s underlying patent complaints only relate to the US variant of the tablet, which Samsung had no plans to sell Down Under anyway. In a particularly emboldened finale, the missive adds that “Samsung will continue to actively defend and protect our intellectual property.” That’s the croc-fighting spirit.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Samsung will release Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia despite Apple complaint originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 04:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SaskTel was one of the lucky Canadian carriers who recently launched the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy S II, the others were Bell and Virgin Mobile. As for prices, the Bell and Virgin no-contract came in better by $20 as SaskTel was on the high side with $619.99. However, if you dwindled down to the 3-year term it was regional carrier SakTel that simply dominated with a short promo price of $79.99 (Bell/Virgin has is for $169.99)… simply a stellar price point for this device. Now the party is over and price has unfortunately increased – but the good news is that it still comes in cheaper than their competitors at $149.99.

Source: SaskTel

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3. SaskTel to release the Samsung Galaxy S II at $79.99 on a 3-year

RCMP in Yorkton, Sask., say they are investigating the death of a 14-year-old boy who was on his bicycle when he was hit by a car on Sunday evening.

Falling Skies started out as an admittedly cheesy show about lovable people surviving the aftermath of an alien invasion. But it’s grown into something a bit more interesting, and last night’s episode showcased a lot of what’s good about it. More »