Tech Industry

We told you a few days ago about ASUS launching a 31.5-inch 4k monitor, and predicted that today’s Macs would struggle to drive it. The Verge has now confirmed this, by briefly hooking it up to a 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Tangible lag was introduced when working in more demanding applications like Adobe’s Lightroom, while the mouse cursor also exhibited a troublingly low refresh rate …

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The WSJ reports that after years of worsening patent legislation in the US, the Obama administration has finally decided to try to do something about it.

The president has taken a dim view of certain patent-holding firms. In February, he said some firms “don’t actually produce anything themselves. They’re just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else’s idea to see if they can extort some money out of them.”

Apple, depending on who you ask, is sometimes the agressor in patent cases but is often the victim of  frivolous lawsuits that often earn these patent holding companies millions and millions of dollars. These companies aren’t really companies at all; instead they are just shell companies built around a patent or a portfolio of patents, which are often overly broad or were never intended to be used in a particular way.

These lawsuits often take place in courts in Eastern Texas, where judges are notoriously friendly to trolling interests.

Some examples of companies who’ve questionably sued Apple or its interests: VirnetX, Personal Audio LLC, Lodsys, Motorola? etc.

The administration’s plans in 5 steps:

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OtterBox President and CEO Brian Thomas

We’ve seen OtterBox frequent the headlines lately, most recently for announcing at CTIA that it acquired its competitor LifeProof, and we’ve served up several hands-on reviews of their products.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss OtterBox and its vision for the future with President and CEO Brian Thomas, who is a former high school teacher turned company leader.

OtterBox, for me, is the defacto hyper-protective case maker and king of their market, but Apple and Jony Ive have increasingly thrilled us with beautiful hardware design of iPhone after iPhone. I wondered if there is room for an OtterBox product in every user’s life, especially those who most admire Apple’s design aesthetic.
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Update: Pricing has just been announced, at $3,799. Pricey, but actually not bad value in a market that had five-figure pricing not so long ago.

ASUS today revealed that it will launch a 31.5-inch 4k monitor late next month, its 3840×2160 pixels allowing four 1080p HD videos to display full-size on the same screen without overlap. A 4k monitor in such a small package is made possible by using an IGZO panel, whose smaller transistors enable greater pixel density, and is likely to be in the same league (and possibly from the same manufacturer) as the 32-inch Sharp panel we saw at CES.

However, don’t rush out to buy one just yet: it’s unlikely that even a top-spec Mac from today’s line-up would be able to drive the resolution at a decent frame-rate. But the next-generation of Haswell-powered Macs almost certainly will. Indeed, as we mentioned earlier, it’s even possible that a next-generation MacBook Air could do so …
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Question is 36:38 in

With Tim Cook teasing the Jony Ive redesign of iOS 7 that we exclusively told you would be introducing a new flat design for iOS, we thought it would be interesting to get former Windows lead Steven Sinofsky’s opinion on the changes. While Sinofsky left Microsoft after 20+ years back in November of last year, he was involved in the latest releases of Windows 8 that many argue helped pioneer the flat UI design Apple is now moving towards. Our own Mark Gurman asked Sinofsky his thoughts on a new flat iOS 7 during his interview at the D11 conference earlier today. 
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We talked about the free Kuler app and website during our live Adobe MAX 2013 coverage but today the app is officially out for iPhone (and other iOS devices with a camera)…

Adobe announced the app’s availability [iTunes, Free] in a blog post with the palettes created with the iPhone’s camera synching via the Creative Cloud to your  Illustrator and Ideas CC applications.

The new Kuler iPhone app allows you to capture inspiring color themes anytime, using the iPhone camera. You can then sync those color themes to the Kuler website, which allows you to create and edit color themes and browse thousands of themes created by other users. All the themes you create with Kuler will be accessible in Adobe Illustrator CC and Ideas.

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Back in April we noted that the International Trade Commission had handed down a preliminary ruling that Samsung infringed an Apple patent related to a text-selection feature in a number of its Galaxy devices and other smartphones. Today, Reuters reports that an ITC trade panel will now reconsider the decision in a review of the previous ruling ahead of a final decision in the patent battle:

The International Trade Commission said late Tuesday it would take a second look at an ITC judge’s decision that Samsung had infringed one Apple patent for a text-selection feature in its smartphones and tablets.

Bloomberg adds that the panel is looking for “additional arguments on three of the four patents that Judge Thomas Pender said were infringed, and comments on how an import ban would affect the public.”

The panel will also reconsider a decision in the same case that Samsung didn’t infringe a different patent related to detecting when other devices are plugged into a microphone jack.

The ITC, which could impose an import ban on accused devices, is expected to deliver a ruling in Samsung’s case against Apple on May 31. A final decision in Apple’s case against Samsung is expected on August 1st. 
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Tim Cook noted during his interview at the D11 conference tonight that “Apple has no religious issue porting an iOS app to Android,” but was careful to point out that they would only do so “if it made sense.”

When asked about Facebook’s Android home screen replacement and whether such access would ever be available to developers on Apple’s platform, Cook noted that there are plans to allow deeper access to iOS, but such changes will only be allowed if they don’t impact the customer’s experience. Kara Swisher specifically asked about the possibility of Chat Heads becoming part of iOS, but Cook was quick to shoot the idea down:
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Market research firm IDC released new data today forecasting that tablet sales will grow “58.7% year-over-year in 2013 reaching 229.3 million units, up from 144.5 million units last year.”

With the PC market on track to see negative growth for the second year in a row, IDC predicts we’ll see more tablet shipments than portable computer shipments this year. More importantly, IDC predicts that 2015 will mark the first year tablets will outsell both notebook and desktop computers.

While Apple has been at the forefront of the tablet revolution, the current market expansion has been increasingly fueled by low-cost Android devices. In 2013, the worldwide average selling price (ASP) for tablets is expected to decline -10.8% to $381. In comparison, the ASP of a PC in 2013 is nearly double that at $635. IDC expects tablet prices to decline further, which will allow vendors to deliver a viable computing experience into the hands of many more people at price points the PC industry has strived to meet for years.

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If you’re fed up with Time Capsule and looking for a reliable, feature-filled NAS solution that also packs in some killer iOS companion apps and AirPlay support, we’re huge fans of Diskstation NAS Enclosures from Synology. We’ve reviewed the Synology NAS experience in the past, such as the two bay SD212 Diskstation, but today the company has announced its latest 8-bay unit with the launch of the new “DS1813+” model.

The new unit is similar to the 5 bay DS1513+ model it launched earlier this month, features the same screwless drive bays supporting 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives, but also includes four GbE ports and speeds up to 350 MBps reads and 200 MBps writes. On top of some nice iOS, web, and Android apps for managing all of your content, Synology also offers apps for printer sharing, VPN server, ERP software, mail server, web server, anti-virus, and network video surveillance built-in. 
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Photo: The Verge

HP appears to be taking its If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em design philosophy to something of an extreme with the new HP Envy notebook. A gallery posted by The Verge shows just how closely HP has copied Apple’s MacBook Air designs in almost every respect, from the wedge profile through the chicklet keyboard, trackpad and colors …
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Thanks reader Kory for screenshot

AT&T started this month charging an administrative fee of $.61/month/user for its mobile customers in addition to its current fees. While the fee may be small, as the Verge notes it adds ‘up to hundreds of millions of dollars’ over 24 month contracts and millions of customers. What gives?  An AT&T spokesperson told us:

Consistent with similar fees charged by other carriers, the monthly fee of 61 cents per line will help cover certain expenses, such as interconnection and cell site rents and maintenance

The fee applies to consumer mobility lines as well as IRU lines –  the kind of business lines where the employee pays the bill directly.

AT&T isn’t alone in this endeavor. Verizon charges admin fees of $0.91 and Sprint charges $1.99.  (Plus more for regulatory fees.)  T-Mobile’s combined regulatory programs fee is $1.61.  On this basis, AT&T’s is still the lowest of all carriers.  It still sucks though. “expenses, such as interconnection and cell site rents and maintenance” seems like it should be part of the current fees and that fee is easier to raise because it isn’t part of the publicized rate plan.

Update: TheTechBlock notes that you may be able to cancel your plan because of this fee. A nice way to slip out of your subsidized plan?
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Optical illusions? The iPad screen on the left is actually bigger

Earlier today Microsoft unleashed its second ad in what appears to be a new campaign focusing on directly comparing iPad to Windows 8 tablets side-by-side– not unlike Apple’s own very successful ‘Get a Mac’ campaign. However, it appears that some of Microsoft’s claims are turning out to be quite inaccurate.

To go along with the two videos posted to its YouTube channel and currently running on TV, curi.us (Via DaringFireball) points us to a comparison Microsoft has posted on its website pitting iPad against the ASUS VivoTab Smart Windows tablet. In the ad, Microsoft claims that the Windows tablet “has a bigger touchscreen,” but Elliot Temple from curi.us breaks down why it just isn’t true:

The iPad screen is 7.76 by 5.82 inches. The ASUS screen is 8.8 by 4.95 inches. ASUS is larger in one direction but smaller in the other direction, and has 3.55% less area than the iPad, not 36% more as Microsoft depicts. 

How can the screen with a larger diagonal measurement be smaller? Because it’s a different shape. Long and thin gets you a bigger diagonal but a smaller screen, for the same diagonal inches.

While Microsoft might not have all its facts straight on display size, it using the fact it still hasn’t delivered an Office app for iOS as major part of its new campaign…
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In case you needed some proof that the rumors of Apple switching from Corning glass to sapphire crystal are unlikely, Corning has posted a video on its website showing how its current Gorilla Glass is superior to sapphire for mobile devices.

Recently, speculation has arisen that manufactured sapphire crystal might become an alternative to Corning’s Gorilla Glass.  “Sapphire’s performance as a cover for high-end watches probably leads to the current speculation.  But those covers are much smaller than a mobile phone and are two to three times thicker than Gorilla Glass.  In one of our commonly accepted strength tests, sapphire breaks more easily than Gorilla Glass after the same simulated use.  Additionally, sapphire’s cost and environmental hit are huge issues,” Steiner said.

There have been a couple rumors floating around that smartphone makers are looking into using sapphire crystal as a replacement for other cover glass solutions. With Apple using the material as a cover for its camera lenses on iPhone 5 and the latest iPod touch, some have speculated it could use sapphire for other parts of its devices, such as the display’s cover glass or home button. However, that’s not likely, according to Corning, Gorilla Glass is “about half the weight”, requires 99 percent less energy in manufacturing, provides brighter displays, and “costs less than a tenth” of sapphire. 
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