Judge concerned that Apple wants to use Motorola offer for FRAND patent fee as a negotiating tool

With the Apple-Motorola Mobility FRAND patent trial set to begin Monday at 1pm, Judge Barbara Crabb responded negatively to Apple’s stated willingness to enter into a licensing agreement with Motorola Mobility for the right to use the latter’s standards-essential patents, only if it didn’t have to pay more than $1 per Apple iPhone. The judge noted her thoughts in an “Opinion and Order” entered with the court on Friday. Judge Crabb does not want to order Motorola to make an offer to Apple if the Cupertino based firm is going to use that offer as a negotiating tool, and she now “believe[s] it would be inappropriate to grant Apple’s clarified request for specific performance”. She added that if ordering Motorola to make an offer to Apple would end all of the patent litigation or extended negotiations, she would have granted Apple’s request for specific performance, but “it is now clear that specific performance would not resolve those concerns”.

Judge Crabb is not happy with Apple

Microsoft’s Ballmer calls Apple a “low volume player” in all markets except tablets

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sat down with the Wall Street Journal to touch on a few things including smartphones and the recent launch of Windows 8 and theMicrosoft Surface tablets. He said that numerically, there is nothing interesting to report following the launch of the new OS or the tablets. He did say that retailers would say that the two products are off to a good start and that some stores are out of stock on the Microsoft Surface tablet.

“We like our model, as we are evolving it. In every category Apple competes, it’s the low-volume player, except in tablets. In the PC market, obviously the advantage of diversity has mattered since 90-something percent of PCs that get sold are Windows PCs.

LG Nexus 4 gets lost in a bar , Here are the leaked Images and Videos of Nexus 4

The LG Nexus 4 is following in the footsteps of the Apple iPhone 4 and Apple iPhone 4S. No, it has nothing to do with sales or popularity or anything related to the performance of the phone. But just like Apple’s iconic smartphone back in April 2010 and again in August 2011, the LG Nexus 4 was accidentally left behind in a bar. In April 2010, the stakes were higher because the Apple iPhone 4 had not yet been seen by the public and the design was all new. No one knew if the device was really the next iPhone or just some fake. Of course, it did turn out to be the real thing. The device ended up getting purchased byGizmodo, allegedly for $5,000, and the cops raided  the editor’s home. Eventually, the device was returned to Apple.

Darned if the same thing didn’t happen the next year with the Apple iPhone 4S. This time, Apple joined the cops in raiding a person’s home and the device was never found. Instead, the cops did a thorough investigation of their role in the whole event and an Apple security chief ended up resigning.

Quality test analysis shows Apple iPhone 5 display beating out the Samsung Galaxy S III

A quality test analysis of the displays on the two hottest smartphones of the year gives an edge to the 4 inch screen on the Apple iPhone 5 over the 4.8 inch display on the Samsung Galaxy S III. The analysis was done by DisplayMate which says that the reason that the iPhone screen is better has to do with the 20 year refinement of the IPS LCD screen used by Apple as opposed to the OLED display, developed in-house by Samsung.

The two hottest smartphones on earth

The extensive report (which can be fetched by clicking on the source link) gives the Apple iPhone 5 kudos for having the highest Contrast Rating for High Ambient Light score on any mobile device DisplayMate has ever tested. Of course, the subject of the Pentile Display on the Samsung Galaxy S III came up and the testing showed that power limits inherent with OLED screens make the display on the Samsung Galaxy S III half as bright as the one on the Apple iPhone 5.

Apple tries again to take Motorola Mobility to court to protect its 3G/4G devices

Will Apple have better legal luck this time around against Motorola Mobility? The Cupertino based firm has a fear of having to remove from its online store, those devices using a Qualcomm broadband chip for use in 3G/4G connectivity. That would include the Apple iPhone 4S, the 4G version of the Apple iPad and the upcoming Apple iPhone 5. To prevent this from happening, Apple had previously tried to take Google’s wholly owned subsidiary Motorola Mobility to court to legally cement its position as a third party beneficiary of a Motorola-Qualcomm product license agreement, giving Apple the right to use certain Qualcomm patents.