HTC says they're willing to talk to Apple to settle lawsuits

So as some of you will know, Apple and HTC have been having patent wars for a while now. HTC CFO Winston Yung said “We’re open to having discussions.” in order to settle outside of court.
Yung also said that “We have to sit down and figure it out,” and that HTC is "open to all sorts of solutions, as long as the terms are fair and reasonable".

Microsofts marketplace expands to 19 more countries

 

Sorry, I have not been posting much recently. I have not found much very interesting.

Anyways, Microsoft has decided to expand the countries which can use their marketplace by 19 countries. When the marketplace was first opened for Phone 7, last year when Phone 7 devices were released, only a few countries were supported which left people whose countries were not supported having to fake their locations which only allowed them to download free applications.

There have been 19 countries included, so a total of 35 countries are supported by Microsofts Marketplace.

Nokia's first WP7 device not that special?

So despite the long wait for Nokia's first WP7 device, rumors are that the W9 (or whatever they decide on calling it) may not be as innovative as hoped for.

 In February Stephen Elop said that Nokia's contribution towards the Phone 7 platform will be worth billions and that Microsoft will be paying them billions for their contribution. They will introduce innovations that will have more people consider switching over - so far nothing of that sort has been seen or rumored.

Samsung plans on 300M phones sold in 2011

An interview with Shin Jong-kyun, president of Samsung's mobile communications and digital imaging told us what Samsung's plans are. Samsung aim and expect to surpass last years shipment of phones - 25 million smartphones out of a total of 280 million sold - with 60 million smartphones and a total of 300 million phones which is near 1 million devices a day!

The expected increase in smartphones is quite bold although the Galaxy S II has been taken very well in Korea, Japan, Europe and other regions. Samsung have some new

Samsung Galaxy Ace gets Gingerbread officially

So a few months back the Gingerbread ROM was leaked for the Ace, Samsung has decided it is now a good time to release Gingerbread officially.

SamFirmware have announced that Samsung have started releasing it over KIES, the first are for the Russian and Polish users. More will obviously follow shortly.

The update is a normal update which will simply update the Android OS to v2.3.3

Source

Apple's A5 chipset overheating, is this the reason for hte iPhone 5 delay?

There has been some online gossip that the Apple A5 chipset is causing the smartphone to overheat and since the iPhone 5 is meant to be even slimmer it means the components will be packed tighter so less space and harder to cool the components and since the new chip will be a dual core it will be producing even more heat.

According to the rumors they are still struggling to find a solution and if they are unable to find one soon

HTC Desire Z Gingerbread release

So after all the excitement the original Desire owners have had with them getting Gingerbread the Desire Z owners can get all amped as HTC has started rolling out the Gingerbread update for the Desire Z across the world.

HTC said a few days ago that Gingerbread will be rolled out within a few weeks although it has been confirmed by carriers that it has already started to be rolled out in certain countries. The update will roll out gradually, so soon you will probably get a notification asking you to update. The update is 104MB and the software number for this update is 2.42.861.6 and will update the Android version to 2.3.3 with Sense UI 2.1.

Hope all of you with Desire Z's get the update soon and enjoy it! :D

Apple and HTC at it again...

Apple have piled on more patent infringement allegations against HTC with the ongoing legal action between the two companies. This is the fourth lawsuit involving the two companies in the US alone. Apple have filed a few complaints previously and HTC are also suing their competitors for patents.

There are five patents included in the new suit according to Apples filing:

HTC unlocks their bootloader

So a while ago HTC started locking their bootloader which upset the developers in the modding community and HTC said they would revise their bootloader policy. Today HTC announced that they will be unlocking the bootloaders on their Android smartphones starting in August.

The first phones to be unlocked will be the global Sensation, then the Sensation 4G on T-Mobile USA followed by the EVO 3D on Sprint. The rest of the phones will eventually get unlocked through software updates.

I personally do not think HTC should have done such a thing although it is good they are listening to their users feedback, it would make sense to do so as after all it is us - the users - who purchase their phones and make them money.

Apple wants the Samsung Galaxy S banned

 
So you have gotta love patent wars at times as it is ridiculously hilarious how they go about things and what they expect.

Apple and Samsung are still at it, Apple have filed a complaint and want all of the Samsung Galaxy S's banned in the USA which may lead to Samsung dropping their complaint and wanting all of the iGadgets banned in the USA.

The reason for the ban request is due to the infringement of 6 patents - 4 technical and 2 design ones.
So the war is nowhere near  finished and will probably end up being settled with a huge amount of money.

Microsoft demands royalties for every Samsung droid made

So here is something to have a bit of a laugh about (well I did at least).

Microsoft are demanding that Samsung pay them $15 for each Samsung Android mobile which has been sold to date due to several Microsoft patents in the devices. HTC was the first company to give Microsoft claims.

Microsoft believe the Linux based operating systems are infringing its intellectual property in some way and Android OS is a Linux based OS. I am sure Microsoft has a well prepared case about what the Linux kernel infringement is, although I am not going to go into that.

Qualcomm's road map

So yesterday I should have posted this but got a bit lazy, sorry!

Anyway, Qualcomm's roadmap for 2011/2013 which reveals hardware details and approximate release dates about the upcoming 28nm dual-core Krait that shall be shipping soon.

NVIDIA's 28nm Tegra 4 "Wayne"

 

So the the NVIDIA Kal-El is not even out yet and we are already getting information on the next Tegra chip, Wayne, which will come in two versions as NVIDIA plan on targetting the smartphone, tablet, netbook and notebook market. The chip will be released in December 2011 to the software developers to get ready for the Windows 8 release in October 2012.

A long time gone

Ok, I know... I have not blogged in a loooong time.
I've been having problems with my internet so been unable to. Although it is now sorted so I am back and blogging!

While I have been gone I got a chance to play around on an HTC Trophy and WP7 is seriously awesome, really smooth and fluid. Android is a bit of a resource hog compared to WP7 in my opinion. I would really like to get a WP7, I think WP7 is going to be taking off soonish and becoming quite a tough competitor towards Android.

Lets do a quick update on some things which have happened and caught my eye.
So Nokia are planning on pulling out of Japan fully by closing down their Vertu stores. The main Nokia office in Japan will stay open until the end of the year to handle fee refunds.

Someone got their hands on a prototype iPhone 4 and it was put up on auction which started at $810 and went up to $999,999 (and possibly higher).

Samsung may be working on a WP7 version of the Galaxy S II, I really hope so as I think that would be super awesome! They will need to change to a Qualcomm chipset which shouldn't be a problem. Also the device should get the nice Super AMOLED Plus screen which the Galaxy S II has.

Nokia's first WP7 device which is code named Sea Ray and looks really sleek in my opinion, it is similar to the N9 although has a dedicated camera button and different LED placement.