Apple said it would ask for a stay of execution on the verdict in a trial where a jury awarded $626 million to Mirror Worlds Technologies, for patent infringement. Apple says there are still issues with two of the three patents in question. The patents belong to Mirror which was founded by Yale professor David Gelernter. The three patents cover technology used to display files on Apple’s popular iPod, iPhone and Macintosh computers and allow users to quickly scroll through displays of music, photos and other files. The suit has been pending since 2008.
A report in the New York Times says that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is planning to buy Adobe and has been in talks with has the Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen. The logic is seen as them joining hands to combat Apple. They are said to either want to partner or merge, but there is little room for Adobe technology within Microsoft, which has spent the past 5 years chasing Adobe Flash video with Silverlight. There has been no confirmation that the talks ever happened and of course they may have just been talking about porting Flash to Windows Phone 7.0.
Microtune, soon to be owned by Zoran, this week said that AVM in Germany will deploy its DOCSIS 3.0 tuner chipset in its new FRITZ!Box 6360 Cable Modem. The top-of-the-line device is a wireless router cable modem based on the EuroDOCSIS 3.0 standard .
US researcher ABI Research says that all forms of set tops, including tough to track free to air and satellite devices – will grow from 205 million in 2010 to 226 million in 2015. Shipments in North America and Western Europe are falling after digital transition, while Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe all expect significant growth. Set-top boxes in China will grow at nearly 10% per year (CAGR).
Comcast has launched its Xfinity WiFi which allows broadband Xfinity Internet customers to access thousands of outdoor and indoor WiFi hotspots for no additional fee, in the greater Philadelphia area and its suburbs, in New Jersey towns from Union to Cape May and in northern Delaware.
Two German public broadcasters, Bayerische Rundfunk and ZDF have managed to launch services which will rely on the HbbTV OTT set top standard, said the IRT institute. The IRT, the technical institute of the German public broadcasters, has already shown HbbTV working at IBC in Amsterdam and these DVB-T signals now have the HbbTV elements added, which allows access to additional content through the Red Button on a remote control.
Widevine says that it has signed a global agreement with LG Electronics to distribute Widevine’s adaptive streaming, virtual DVD controls and DRM on LG connected products. This follows a similar deal with Samsung. Widevine’s DRM and adaptive streaming is already included in 2009 models of LG Blu-ray players in the United States. This agreement enables LG to expand distribution to more devices, on a worldwide basis.
Sardinian ISP Tiscali will use China’s ZTE equipment to launch a superfast fiber based broadband service in Tiscali’s native Italy. The two companies will deploy a FTTH network in Sardinia working with the local gas network, as it is upgraded in the major city of Cagliari. This will give it 50,000 lines of local loop unbundling coverage. This is how rival Fastweb got off the ground, working with Electricity suppliers in one city and last year Fastweb said it would do the same again, and work with Vodafone and Wind Telecommunications to launch a FTTH initiative worth €2.5 billion across the country’s 15 largest cities over five years.
There are rumors that French IPTV set top maker Netgem is trying to buy rival Pirelli Broadband Solutions. Netgem has 3 million set tops installed, with SFR in France being its largest customer.
There are reports circulating this week, started on Bloomberg, that US WiMAX operator Clearwire wants to sell 40 MHz of its spectrum which it says it doesn’t need to complete its build out, and which is estimated to raise between $2.5 billion and $5 billion. AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile are all supposed to be interested as well as Clearwire investor Time Warner.
US researcher In-Stat said this week that Bluetooth will go from strength to strength, making significant gains in mobile PCs and in a low power format, in medical and consumer segments, taking shipments of Bluetooth enabled devices to over 2 billion by 2013.
In-Stat also says that portable entertainment devices (PEDs) which are connected to cellular networks will grow significantly over the next five years, based mostly around WCDMA, except for digital photo frames where GSM will be dominant. Much of the activity will be confined to the US and unit shipments will pass 5 million by 2013. Out of all the portable devices In-Stat sees e-readers as the only one to use 4G technology during the next four years.