Microsoft put out a press release last week announcing that it had struck a deal with HTC to receive royalties for HTC’s entire lineup of Android devices. CNet is reporting that the deal comes after Microsoft pointed out to HTC that they were using some disputed patents that ranged from the user interface to the Android OS itself. This is the first time Microsoft has publicly said that HTC was violating patents, but they have for years now been muttering about how Linux infringes on some of their patents and have tried to score licensing deals with other manufacturers using Linux.
“HTC and Microsoft have a long history of technical and commercial collaboration, and today’s agreement is an example of how industry leaders can reach commercial arrangements that address intellectual property,” Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft, said in the official statement. “We are pleased to continue our collaboration with HTC.”
HTC is also being sued by Apple for some other patent infringements on both HTC’s Android and Windows Mobile devices, so this deal with Microsoft must be a bit of a relief, at least on one front.
These lawsuits are the norm in the mobile industry and I’d be surprised if there was a single major player that wasn’t being sued and suing some other company as I type.It’s fresh of Microsoft to actually strike a deal instead of resorting immediately to litigation!
I read an interesting post over at PocketNow in which Chuong Nguyen looks at the likelihood of the new iPhone OS4 starting a fragmentation of the iPhone market. I say ‘Yay!’
Since iPhone OS3-and-under iPhones and iPod Touches won’t be upgradeable to iPhone OS4, Apple will inevitably end up with iPhone users wanting to run apps their devices don’t support, and possibly unable to re-install their OS or legacy apps after a crash or a hard reset. Chuong goes on to compare this to the fragmentation troubles that Android now finds itself facing and from which Windows Mobile has long suffered.
He correctly points out that the schism in Apple’s case comes from a software update, not hardware differences. In Android-land, the fragmentation comes not only by way of software updates (from both Google and the open-source community) but also from hardware differences between devices, like strange screen resolutions, differing CPUs, GPUs and form factors, touchscreen/not touchscreen, etc.
Are you a world class hacker looking to rake in some sweet pocket change? Well, for one I’d like to welcome you to our site (please don’t hurt us) and two, I’d like to introduce you to the Pwn2Own contest at CanSecWest.
Pwn2Own is currently running both desktop browser hacking challenges as well as mobile operating system hacking challenges. The big five platforms – Windows Mobile, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and Symbian – are all represented and willing to shell out $10,000 to the hacker that successfully breaks through their security barriers… in exchange for the code, of course.
We don’t know yet how good these mobile OS hackers are, but I’m betting several people will walk away swingin’ a big ol’ bag of cash. The browser hacking challenge has already seen one galant programmer break into Safari in 10 seconds! Nice work!
Totally useless? Or… totally awesome? I’m gonna go with somewhere in the middle — mostly awesome, arguably useful.
From the above screenshots it looks as though Marchin-PRV has successfully used DOXBox to emulate the x86-class processor on the Symbian handset in order to install and run Microsoft’s Windows 3.1 .
Ouch, Symbian. Ouch.
It’s blurry and hard to make out, but nevertheless – it’s a video and it’s the only one out there. What you’re seeing is the BlackBerry OS running on top of Windows Mobile.
BGR is saying that it doesn’t do wifi… or GPS… or even calling(!) but I’m not really surprised as it is just in Alpha or Beta, I’m sure. The fact that it’s missing such key features only tells me that it’s not finished yet, not that it has been left undone.
It does, however, look like it runs quite slowly, but the novelty is far too cool to not try out. When I get my hands on it, you’ll be the first to know.
ce22d: @jugglerKENTO 俺も前はiPhoneにしたくてしょうがなかったんだけど今みんなiPhone使ってて使いこなせてなさそうなやつもiPhoneにしててなんかいやになったから他のスマホあるいはWindowsPhoneにするかも iPhoneももっと何か変わったら考える 9 months ago from Chromed Bird
Are you a world class hacker looking to rake in some sweet pocket change? Well, for one I’d like to welcome you to our site (please don’t hurt us) and two, I’d like to introduce you to the 
