An Apple A Day Keeps Samsung Away

Last week Samsung was hit with a billion dollar fine for willfully lifting smartphone technology off arch rival Apple Inc. At the heart of the legal spat is a software technique that appears to make icons bounce at the edge of a phone and another that allows a user to 'pinch' and zoom in or out of a section on the phone screen.

Apple's i-devices are powered by iOS, an operating system based on a system developed by the Darwin Foundation. Android, an OS released by Google, drives Samsung smartphones. The ancestry of both operating systems can be traced back to open source software based on UNIX; FreeBSD in the case of iOS and Linux for Android. The software features in contention all rely on UNIX internals. No UNIX means no pinching and no bouncing.

Both Apple and Samsung should be eternally grateful to the University of California at Berkeley for releasing patent-free BSD Unix into the wild.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Free mobile-to-mobile calls

A mobile phone is a miniature telephone exchange. It accepts incoming calls, initiates outgoing calls and can act as a repeater by forwarding calls or as a switch through teleconferencing. These are the basic features of a telephone exchange. TerraNet , a Swedish firm, has exploited these features to facilitate free mobile-to-mobile calls. Using peer-to-peer technology, a cluster of mobile phones can communicate without the need to go through a base station (switch) provided they are within 1,000m of each other. This technology, being trialled in Ecuador and Tanzania, is perfect for developing countries where infrastructure is as limited as disposable income. Because mobile phones can forward calls, the effective communication distance can be extended from a 1 kilometer radius to about 20 kilometers. That is sufficient to cover most rural communities and, for example, university campuses. Like Skype , this is a subvertive, effective and disruptive technology. While manufacturers
Read more

Whose Shilling?

Image
Zimbabwe is Africa's Lazarus. The economy is in tatters, the citizenry of this great nation are despondent but Robert Gabriel Mugabe remains firmly in charge. For the time being. Many believe that only South Africa is in a position to determine the destiny of Zimbabwe. Yet President Thabo Mbeki, save for his quiet diplomacy, appears disinterested in employing enough downward pressure for Mr. Mugabe to repent his sins and thereby rid the Zimbabweans of their current economic woes. What exactly does Mr Mugabe have on Mbeki? In exile Mbeki lived, at different times, in the United Kingdom, Botswana and Zambia. He hardly was guest of the Mugabe's. On that score alone, Mbeki does not owe Robert a good turn. Of the two neighbours, Zimbabwe is most reliant on the other. Zimbabwe relies on South Africa's ports for her exports and imports. She draws electricity and routes her telecommunication traffic through her southern neighbour. South Africa is one of Zimbabwe's m
Read more

WhatsApp?

Mobile phone carriers have every reason to be afraid. Very afraid. WhatsApp announced its intention to enter the voice segment. With almost half a billion active users, WhatsApp boasts a subscription that is within spitting distance of Airtel, the second largest mobile network in the world. The prospect of cheap international voice calls will not go unnoticed by chat users. Operators have seen a sharp drop in text (SMS) revenues as users have shifted in droves to mobile chat applications. A similar migration to VoIP will be a deadly blow to many networks. Mobile terminated revenues will shrink. Lucrative international calls will all but disappear. WiFi originated calls will be difficult to block. Unlike skype, WhatsApp takes advantage of existing phone numbers and subscriber recruitment is almost automatic. New, affordable smart phones such as the one showcased by Firefox at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will allow emerging markets to skip traditional voice in favo
Read more