Latest news

ITC judge sides with Apple, RIM.

Kodak sued both companies in January 2010, and sought an import ban on BlackBerrys and iPhones from the International Trade Commission (ITC). It accused both companies of patent infringement.

In January 2011, an administrative law judge found no violation of the patent by either of the firms, but the commission later decided to review the judges decision. Now, administrative law judge Thomas Pender found that while the two companies did infringe on one claim within the patent, it should be considered invalid "for obviousness".

Kodak's claim included "Electronic Camera for Initiating Capture of Still Images while Previewing Motion Images."

This preliminary ruling now needs approval from the full ITC commission.

Dolby has announced that the HQ music download service e-onkyo music will be the first online music storefront to feature Dolby TrueHD 5.1-channel surround sound.

The upgrade to the music service will occur on May 30th in Japan and in September for the rest of the world.

There will not be too many tracks available, with only 100 albums (1,000 tracks) available in the HQ format at launch.

Onkyo started the e-onkyo service in 2005 and updated the HQ DRM-free formats in 2010.

Shinsuke Yamashita, President and Representative Director, Onkyo Entertainment Technology Corporation, adds: "We are very happy that e-onkyo music will start distribution with Dolby TrueHD lossless audio, thanks to the cooperation of Dolby. The evolution of network audio and PC audio means that users can enjoy high-resolution sound with data volumes greater than those that are possible on a CD. And we are aiming to achieve even further growth in our music distribution business. Through the collaboration between our two companies, we intend to increase our breadth of content and improve the user's listening experience, in a way that only high-quality surround sound distribution can."

The U.S.' major ISPs have announced they will be making more free Wi-Fi hotspots available to customers.

Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, Bright House and Cox are all part of the deal. The companies are five of the nation's largest cable and Internet providers.

The agreement will allow any subscriber of those ISPs to use free Wi-Fi from the other ISPs, no matter where you are. For example, Cablevision is only New York City based, but if you were to travel to Philadelphia, you can use Comcast's free Wi-Fi hotspots there despite not being a customer of theirs.

Over 50,000 "CableWifi" hotspots will be made available in the next few months to competitor's customers.

"We believe that WiFi is a superior approach to mobile data," says Kristin Dolan, Cablevision's head of project management. "Cable providers are best positioned to build the highest-capacity national network offering customers fast and reliable Internet connections when away from their home or business broadband service."

A similar service has been available to TWC, Comcast and Cablevision subscribers since 2010, but only in the northeast.

According to multiple supply chain sources, Apple is testing the iPhone 5 with a larger display.

The new device will feature a 3.9-inch display and have 1136 x 640 resolution, much larger than the 3.5-inch screen seen on the current generation Apple phones that feature a nice 640 x 960 Retina Display.

Currently floating around the Apple campus in disguised cases, the prototype phones are "in the PreEVT stage of development and are codenamed N41AP (5,1) and N42AP (5,2)", says 9to5.

The screen will still be 1.94-inches wide, but will grow another 3.45-inches tall. The new resolution will be close to 16:9, moving away from Apple's standard 3:2.

If accurate, the reports say iOS 6 will be custom built to take advantage of the new display. The home screen will get a fifth row of icons in addition to the stationary app dock and an updated user interface.

Spike TV has proudly announced that it will be live streaming the upcoming Nintendo E3 press conference.

The gaming company will unveil an almost completed model of the Wii U, alongside some game play.

Spike will play the entire conference without commercial interruption starting at 12:00 PM EST on June 5.

Sony and Microsoft are not expected to reveal any new hardware, but both companies will focus on first-party games and upgraded online services that better integrate movies and music.

Earlier this week, a QA tester at Traveller's Tales Games posted a picture of the updated Wii U controller on Twitter before quickly removing it. In the updated controller, Nintendo has added actual analog sticks, upgrading from the "nubs" showed off last year and seen on the 3DS handheld.

Microsoft has said today it expected 350 million devices running Windows 7 to be shipped this year, alone.

The figure comes just as Microsoft prepares to release the final version of its Windows 8 operating system, expected to hit in October.

If the shipment number is correct, "it makes Windows the most popular single system," says CEO Steve Ballmer.

Windows 8 will be the company's first true try at the current media tablet market, and will work on ARM-based devices. With its new "Metro" interface, designed for touch devices, the company hopes to take share away from market leader Apple.

Thanks to Windows 8, research firm IDC believes global PC shipments will break out of their current "funk" and grow 5 percent in 2012 compared to just 1.8 percent last year.

The MPAA's CEO Chris Dodd has finally admitted that the group's tactics of comparing piracy to stealing is a bad choice.

Over the last decade (or longer), the media industry has used the word "theft" to describe piracy and "thieves" for those that engage in the copying or unauthorized sharing of movies.

As we have posted here on Afterdawn many times before, the following video has been a mainstay of the MPAA's video archives:



Dodd appears to have softened his stance in that regard, however, stating: "We're going to have to be more subtle and consumer-oriented. We're on the wrong track if we describe this as thievery."

As you can tell, the MPAA may still believe it is stealing to pirate a movie, but they just won't use that term anymore.

Popular music streaming service Spotify has expanded to Australia and New Zealand.

Spotify's full offering of 16 million tracks will be available to both new markets as it aggressively expands internationally.

The service launched in the summer of 2011 in the U.S., and has been extremely successful in turning free users into paying subscribers.

More notably, unlike in other nations, Aussies and Kiwis will have unlimited free access to the tracks. In the U.S. and other regions, the unlimited access only lasted 6 months before moving to a capped streaming plan, usually just 10 hours per month.

There are two premium accounts, as is standard. For $4.99 per month, you will have unlimited desktop access with no ads and for $9.99 you get full mobile access as well, including offline caching.

One of the richest men in the world has just gotten a little bit poorer.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's fortune fell $2.2 billion today after investors and Wall Street sold off shares in Facebook, dropping the company's stock 11 percent just one day after it went public.

After today's fall, the company is valued at $93 billion and Zuckerberg has a 24 percent share, making him the 26th richest person on the planet.

Other co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin saw their shares depreciate, as well, with Moskovitz's $4.5 billion in shares down $580 million and Saverin's $1.8 billion stake was down $230 million.

The company has been quick to spend its newfound capital, purchasing social gifting app Karma and paying $1 billion for the ever-popular iOS and Android photo editor Instagram.

The case of Joel Tenenbaum continues.

Tenenbaum, the former doctorate student who was convicted of illegally sharing 30 tracks via P2P has had his Supreme Court petition declined, sending the case back to the district court from which it came.

The alleged pirate was originally fined $675,000 for sharing the tracks, but the fine was reduced to $67,500 in 2010, after a judge deemed the original penalty unconstitutional and "excessive." Seeking an even further reduction, Tenenbaum tried unsuccessfully in 2011 to petition to the district court and actually had his reduction reversed back to $675,000 after the major labels and RIAA appealed.

In this case, the trial will go on, bouncing between appeals.

Says the lawyer defending Tenenbaum (pro-bono): "This is where we feel we're being pushed down a rat hole. The award is lowered but the plaintiffs, the recording companies, are given the option of whether to accept the award or go through another trial. It's like a way of keeping us in litigation forever."

Hulu has announced today that it will premiere three new original shows alongside seven "exclusively licensed" television shows that had not been available to U.S. consumers.

As the company explains, the new series are each 30 minutes long and "include Richard Linklater's "Up To Speed;" a travel series hosted by Timothy "Speed" Levitch; Kevin Smith's "Spoilers," a 10-episode movie revue that combines animated shorts and group chats and "We Got Next" A scripted comedy that follows a four-man pickup basketball team."

Each series has a budget that matches their cable equivalents.

"We've got less nighttime hours to work with," adds Andy Forssell, senior vice president of content at Hulu. "That means we were searching for quirky, really well-done shows that can stand up next to last night's TV."

Hulu has said they will spend $500 million this year on licensing and producing shows.

According to the latest figures by StatCounter, Google's Chrome browser is now the most popular in the world, knocking Internet Explorer from the throne after more than a decade.

For the week ended May 20th, Chrome took first, just edging out IE and gaining more share on rival Firefox.

In the U.S., IE is still the big dog, and in Europe, Firefox is king. However, in Asia and South America, Chrome
is the clear leader with the browser taking 50 percent share of the entire South American continent.

Globally, for the week, Chrome is on top at 31.88 percent share, followed by IE at 31.47 percent. Firefox remains in third at a respectable 26.42 percent, gaining for the month, as well.

Safari continued to gain a snail's pace, taking 7.37 percent.

Full chart:

Frequent flashers rejoice.

Google Music allows you to authorize up to ten devices to use with the service. That sounds like enough devices for most people, but there is one problem for users who like to flash custom ROMs on their Android phones.

Every time you flash a new ROM, Google will recognize the device as new. Once you hit the ten limit, you have no choice but to deauthorize devices, which isn't really a problem since there are now technically dupes on the list anyway.

However, Google recently attempted to enforce limits on the amount of times you could deauthorize a device within a year. This led to a lot of Android phone users getting a warning message that they had deauthorized too many devices and cannot do it right now.

After complaints from many Android phone users, Google has reversed its decision and now users will be able to simply deauthorize dupes on their list of devices as they had before.

The BlackBerry Developer Team has announced today that PlayBook tablet owners will be getting an upgrade to the BlackBerry 10 operating system expected to hit later this year.

Unfortunately for current phone owners, the Team confirmed that anyone with a BlackBerry 7 smartphone will have to buy a new phone if they want the BB10 "goodness."

While the BB10 news is a positive for PlayBook owners, it comes with a catch. The update will not be released until after the first BB10 smartphone is released.

The much-anticipated OS will bring a better on-screen keyboard, a cascading user interface for multitasking and other features that should have been on past versions of the OS.

RIM says the new OS will be released in the fall.

Please stop doing that!

There have been some questions raised about the strength of the glass used on some smartphones. Nokia wanted to show the strength of the "Gorilla Glass" on the front of the Lumia 900 handset, using a hammer and some nails.

The guy in the video first uses the hammer to smack some nails against the screen, and then uses the handset itself as a hammer to push the nail into some wood. Pretty impressive, even though you can't exactly see clearly if the screen wasn't marked.. but taking a beating like that and not shattering is impressive itself.

Take a look..