Slashdot Mirror

Since when?

With the MotoACTV: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/motorola-announces-motoactv-the-ultimate-fitness-device/

Better hardware overall, better functionality, lower price.

Still more than I would pay, but I'm nerdy enough I would like one if I didn't have to pay for it.

This one seems custom-made for Hallowe'en

Except in April, they said they'd have the email client in 60 days: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/rim-playbook-email-client-very-very-soon-3g-model-this-summe/

Here is a comparison:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/26/nokia-lumia-800-vs-nokia-n9-the-tale-of-the-tape/

Also, 4 S40 cellphones (The Asha series) and another Budget WP7 (Lumia 710) cellphone were also announced, and discreetly, a white version of the N9 was also displayed.

The way the N9 was displayed. it was almost like Nokia was embarrassed or something, most sites didn't even notice it was there.

Most of the specs were released by Nintendo.

Information on the GPU was released on Engadget.

Didn't their CTO just go on record recently saying the unlimited plans weren't going anywhere? http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/sprints-unlimited-data-plans-arent-going-anywhere-cto-confirm/

REMEMBER what the Iphone looked like pre-LG Prada.

So, do you want to admit that:

1. Ideas develop simultaneously.

or

2. Apple stole the LG Prada designs.

Either way, it proves your point is full of crap.
 

Bullshit.

Here is a detailed review of the prada:
http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Page=4&Id=3415

Simple touch screens have been around for decades - microwaves had them in the 70s.
Tell me where the prada has multi-touch, inertial scrolling, etc etc etc. Heck you couldn't even click on a web link with the prada!

Before the iPhone no phone looked and behaved like the iPhone. Now ALL smart phones try and copy the iPhone.

O RLY? I didn't actually know about it until someone posted it earlier in this article, but the LG Prada came out shortly before the iPhone and they look very similar. In fact LG accused Apple of copying their phone since they revealed it as part of a design competition (and won) several months prior to the announcement of the iPhone.

So it seems to me either that Apple stole the idea and polished it up, or as has often the case in history, technology was headed in a certain direction and several people came up with similar ideas at the same time, and Apple just made the most popular implementation of that idea.

REMEMBER what the Iphone looked like pre-LG Prada. So, do you want to admit that:
1. Ideas develop simultaneously.
or
2. Apple stole the LG Prada designs.

Either way, it proves your point is full of crap.

I'm sorry that you're upset that Android it better, but please you're just embarrassing yourself here.

Isn't available in any product?
Galaxy Nexus?
Yes, you cannot buy one today, but it is a real product. Coming next month I believe.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/20/behind-the-glass-a-detailed-tour-inside-the-samsung-galaxy-nexu/

The 3.0.4 Update was released today (Oct 18).

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/hp-touchpad-gets-webos-3-0-4-update-now-able-to-answer-calls-fr/

Check the Software Manger for OTA update.

Lots out there, Google harder I guess.

August after 3.02 release -
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/30/hp-touchpad-will-receive-ota-udpate-for-added-functionality/

Today, 3.04 release -
http://gizmodo.com/5850862/hp-touchpad-gets-a-webos-upgrade-from-beyond-the-grave

Samsung's patent that they're now saying apple doesn't have a license for is required to implement 3G, because of this, they were legally obliged to put it into the patent pool.

Once again, there is no single "3G patent pool" to license. When you deal with these FRAND patents, you have to license the patents of each patent holder individually.

That's where they failed at negotiating –they didn't disclose the existence of the patent

No, you are mixing up two things here. The "failure at negotiating" that the judge referred to is regarding the negotiations between Apple and Samsung in the last year. It is a completely unrelated issue to Samsung's dealings with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute who defined the 3G wireless standards a decade ago.

Another relative here, in the USA. :-) Send me an email if you want, my address is easy to find.

She was my father's aunt IIRC. I only met her once that I can recall, when my father and I visited her home around 1985. But she might have been at some get together or other other times we visited that does not stick out in my mind. I don't remember her speaking English and I do not know that much Dutch. They talked and I went for a walk around the area. I was overdressed in a overcoat and hat, and some neighborhood kids pointed at me and said "gangster" and chased me a bit, and I went into a store to avoid them. So, that's mostly what I remember of that visit. :-)

I feel diet and lifestyle (and the extent to which genes may interact with interests and habits) have a lot to do with this though. So does very early life experiences. Even being born premature might have had some value, in that the slower we grow perhaps the slower we age? Not having kids may have been a factor too? Also, there is a lot to be said for a positive outlook on life however you get that.

Related resources on healthy diet:
http://www.amazon.com/Food-Revolution-Your-Diet-World/dp/1573244872
http://www.amazon.com/Diet-New-America-John-Robbins/dp/0915811812
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

Fasting (like for lent) which often connects to religion (and eating less in the past from being less wealthy) can also help:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-food-dr-fuhrman-on-fasting.html

And on getting enough vitamin D (and she was out and about plus maybe got some from herring she liked):
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-to-get-your-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-supplementation/
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/recommendation
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vitamin_D_recommendations.aspx

Understanding about good and bad fats:
http://peakperformance.runnersworld.com/2011/05/may-9-the-great-fat-debate-does-the-total-fat-in-your-diet-matter.html
http://nutsci.org/2011/05/04/the-great-fat-debate/
http://www.adajournal.org/article/S0002-8223(11)00291-4/fulltext

Mental health:
http://books.google.com/books?id=bCuC2H-6k_8C
http://books.google.com/books?id=RKZreNYKNHQC
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-makes-us-happy/7439/
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene

Treadmill workstations for computer users (but be sure to get vitamin D being indoors so much):
http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/08/the-treadmill-workstation/
http://www.squidoo.com/walkingwhileworking

Community level ideas for health:

So, let's back up a bit here. What did 'smartphones' look like before the iPhone? Various screen sizes, clunky thinkness/form factor and a alpha numeric keyboard of some sort. We all know history, iPhone comes along, all touch based and it sets the precedent for things to come. Apple invented that. No one else did, especially not Samsung.

The full-touch design was first introduced by LG, with the LG Prada. So LG invented that. Apple must have copied it.

Then the iPod Touch follows about 8 months after. Note around this time, if you search everywhere on the web, for Samsung's tablets or anyone else's (like Archos, etc) all look like something between a Sony PSP and a Nokia 770. Yes, all rectangle, but just not the Apple glass touchscreen with a black bezel and metal band around the edge.

Archos tablets looked this way in 2008, two years before Apple introduced the iPad. Apple must have copied it.

Now, let's look at the packaging of a Galaxy Tab. White box, picture of device on it. Gee, where have I seen that? Open it up, same unpacking experience as the iPad/iPhone - device up front, other stuff underneath. Btw, Apple patented their packaging - all the way back in 2007!

Then they copied the Nokia packaging from 2006. My N73 comes in a package with device up front - with a nice "here's your N73" writing - and other stuff underneath.

search around the web a few weeks ago for the picture of the Samsung store. Look hard - pictures of Apple's app store and Safari icons on the wall. That's pretty blatant - even Microsoft doesn't do that

It's a shop-in-a-shop in a small city of Sicily. It's impossible to believe that Apple execs from South Korea have a say over what stickers the sicilian clerks attach to the walls of the shops they run. And even if they did, what would their plan be? Putting a Safari icon, amid hundreds of Android icons, attached on a wall to improve the sales of, say, the Nexus S because of the beauty of the Safari icon?

They all copy from the iPhone, which is Apple's design.

Oh? Then how do you explain this design from 2006? (That's pre-iPhone. Thanks to user Solandri for finding that.)

And neither the JooJoo nor the HP Slate actually existed before the iPad.

Check your dates. The HP Slate was at CES 2010 -- at least two weeks before the Apple showed off the iPad for the first time.

Samsung came out with this baby 4 years before the iPad.

How can Samsung be so ill equipped at defending themselves, One quick google search and I can find prior art made by Samsung that looks exactly like the ipad yet was released by samsung 4 years prior to the ipad 1 http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/09/samsung-digital-picture-frame-stores-pics-movies-music/ Front on display (like the court case) this looks exactly like an ipad, dimension wise it could be rather different, but apple isn't complaining about the size are they? Its the look and feel they 'claim' to have developed.

Last time I looked at a Kindle, it took about a second to refresh the display. That kind of kills the idea of video. And the whole display flashes while refreshing, which kills the idea of basic animation. Again, this isn't a problem with LCD.

Not sure what these guys are doing that Kindle isn't, but low-motion video does seem possible. Looks like it's around 15-18 frames per second:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/bookeen-shows-off-fmv-on-a-standard-e-ink-pearl-display-video/

And that's on a standard pearl e-ink display.

bad news
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/21/hp-molds-itself-an-entry-into-the-3d-printer-market/

I can agree to this (and was there too - as a former member of the Digital Home Group) - The Canmore project for instance had some serious potential, but the thing was somewhat hobbled from the start (NDA prevents opinions as to exactly why, but let's just say that IMPO it could've done a lot more than it actually did).

The biggest problem was that they interrupted everyone on the Oregon side with a physical move (From CO to JF), and after that began the whole 'let's be a part of Viiv!' bullshit (Viiv? Yeah, that little bastard really should have been strangled in the crib, but more than a couple upper management types had a little too much political capital invested in it). Either way, that in turn caused more than a few key PMs to jump to other groups (one even jumped right into the pool - didn't give a damn) and DHG imploded shortly thereafter.

Kinda sad, too... the whole thing ran its dev on Linux, and the SDK/PDK delivery setup was hella cool. :(

By Thunderbolt committee, do you mean Intel? They developed and own the technology and AFAIK, nobody else had any input. It was brought to market in a collaboration with Apple, but that was mainly for Apple's mini DisplayPort technology, which Intel thinks will help broaden adoption because it is well suited to laptops.

Sony, OTOH, appears to be implementing the Intel prototype from a couple of years ago, which is essentially a modified USB 3.0 (or very early 4.0?) with an added optical channel for Thunderbolt. See http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/24/video-intels-light-peak-running-an-hd-display-while-transferri/

10 billion USB connectors wouldn't surprise me in the least - my PC has 8, my wife's PC 6, my old PC, my 10 year old mac and my laptop 4 each, the add-on card for my old PC 4 (USB 2.0 vs 1.0 because the 1.0 controller flaked out on the Mobo, but everything else worked), my cell phone 1, my wife's cell phone 1, each of my last 3 cell phones 1 each, each of my four cameras 1 each, my satellite TV 1... I probably missed many more - USB is basically being shoved into everything.

It's worse than that... The operating systems from Redmond for these machines are limited to 1GB RAM by Redmond itself. You can't call it a Netbook and get the cheapest version of 7 if it has more than 1GB RAM. See for yourself. Of course, the OEMs can ship Home Premium if they want, but that's going to cost them more which is annoying on the razor-thin margins that netbooks have.

It would still be pretty intensive to fully de-encapsulate all the way up to layer 6/7 to see the type of traffic though. Although I had seen some routers demo'd a few months ago which only look at the first packet or two in a dialog, determine the type of payload, and then let the rest of the stream pass unmolested. That might be possible? Not sure if they had intended to do something like this with them. (source)

Actual quote: "The sharpest, most vibrant, highest-resolution phone screen ever." I don't know what "production phone" means, but the iP4 does have a higher pixel count. A google search reveals the LU1400 is an LG phone. It has a 800 x 480 display while the iPhone 4 has 960 x 640. Looks like Apple wasn't lying.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/28/lgs-lu1400-swivels-right-into-your-heart/
http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

Where else is there to get tech specs besides marketing materials? You say that like it's an insult. Am I supposed to count the pixels manually? It is Apple's job to put their products in a good light, but they've never lied. I check-out a lot of their claims. Whatever your opinion on what "resolution" means, I can see them not knowing about some LG phone only sold in South Korea. Still, they were not lying.

If Apple wants to pay in cash, Samsung are required to take it

Yes, but how do you assign a dollar value to a patent pool?

Apple already has a licence - it has paid for the use of the 3G patents. Samsung is trying to claim that one of the "essential" patents has not been covered.

The patent system is not as simple as you think. Purchasers and licensers of technology can be sued for patents that are infringed by components that they use in their product (see, for example, Sco suing Red Hat customers rather than Red Hat). If the 3g chipset infringes, then Samsung has the lawful right to sue any customer using that chipset. They do not have to sue the manufacturer or designer of the chipset.

So if they win, they have successfully Trojaned the 3G standard

Again, the patent system is not as simple as you think. I recommend reading this 2009 writeup by a patent lawyer. Because of patent cross-licensing, and the fact that there is no independent examination of potential FRAND patents during the standardisation process, the result is that a) nobody really knows which patents are (or should be) considered FRAND, and b) there is no "fixed price" for licensing FRAND patents. "In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a 'fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory' license actually is."

and everyone who uses 3G in their product will owe them whatever Apple ends up paying

Everybody already does. That's how the patent system works. There is no "dollar value" assigned to Samsung's patents, and determining what other corporations have "paid" is hard because everybody cross-licenses patent pools. If the courts assign a dollar value to the patents, then yes, everybody will have to trade either cash or patents of a similar value. That is exactly what is supposed to happen. But if the court decides that the dollar value is, say, $1 trillion, then obviously that will be too much for Apple, and they will have to trade their own patent pool instead of paying cash. How much are essential wireless patents actually worth? If the patents really are essential, it could be several billion dollars.

In actual fact, Nokia was the one that petitioned the court for a cash settlement: "since all Nokia's asked the court to do is set a price, it's clearly willing to simply accept cash and move on." - Engadget.

Many of the communication patents are related to the GSM/CDMA standards, and thus do require FRAND licensing, but not all of the hardware patents.

Even with the FRAND patents, it is not so clear cut. What one person believes to be "fair and reasonable" may differ from another person's interpretation. Because of patent cross-licensing, and the fact that there is no independent examination of potential RAND patents during the standardisation process, the result is that a) nobody really knows which patents are (or should be) considered RAND, and b) there is no "fixed price" for licensing RAND patents. "In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a 'fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory' license actually is." - Engadget.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/07/the-motorola-rokr-e1-apple-itunes-phone/

Yes. Yes it is. It's a motorola phone with an embedded iPod.

So what is the solution?

Well, there are several solutions.

First, stop the patenting of the obvious. For example, multi-touch on a touch screen. Or a patent for a rectangle smart phone with icons.

Next, stop patenting how people use things. The multi-touch (above) is an example. Could you imaging what the GUI would be like if Apple were able to patent the double-click?!!? How about if Ford patented where hands were placed on a steering wheel? Could Gibson patent a guitar chord or method for rock stars to bash a guitar on stage? Or how about "A handheld computing device is introduced comprising a motion detection sensor(s) and a motion control agent. The motion detection sensor(s) detect motion of the computing device in one or more of six (6) fields of motion and generate an indication of such motion. The motion control agent, responsive to the indications of motion received from the motion sensors, generate control signals to modify, one or more of the operating state and/or the displayed content of the computing device based, at least in part, on the received indications." Also known as an accelerometer. Yes, this patent was granted.

Stop patenting evolution. If I were to patent the web browser, someone else shouldn't be able to patent using graphics in a web browser. If were to hold the patent to the TV, someone else shouldn't be able to patent the wide-screen.

Stop patenting conventions. If something is accepted as an industry standard with the patent holder's blessing, USB for example, the patents should immediately expire. This would prevent patent holders like Apple, Intel and Rambus from pushing their patented solutions over better, open ones.

Stop overly-broad or vague patents. Patents should include a proposed use for the idea. For example, if I were to make the language vague enough, I could easily get the patent for the automobile. Someone could have seen the PAD on Star Trek and grabbed a patent for that. "Flat, rectangular, electronic device used to hold and present information". I've seen examples of patents filed years ago that were violated by products that were not what the patent holder was thinking of when he got the patent.

There are more. These are just off the top of my head.

Let's not forget about Engadget's liveblog as well as the dozens that are out there. I really don't know why Apple just doesn't stream it live; the media can still do their live commentary on how awesome or boring something is.

So it sounds like you're looking to buy a smartphone.

In that case, arguably one of the best smartphones on the market, and also one of the cheapest without a contract, is the Xiaomi phone, released by a Chinese startup. It's only sold in China, but it is pretty much the geekiest Android phone around. Given that it's hard to get outside of China, I wouldn't be surprised if you could re-sell it and recoup most or all of its cost when you get back to America.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/xiaomi-phone-review/

In many places, it's not that easy. Money for towers is just a part of the problem. I imagine that people screaming, "Oh NOES! Radiaaashun!", are probably the major obstacles these days. For example, as much as people like to whine and moan about AT&T coverage in San Francisco, here is one small example of what AT&T has to deal with (yes, it's a bit old, but likely still 1000% valid): http://cdn.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/06/BAT01E8QTQ.DTL

Other examples:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/15/west-virginias-quiet-zone-becomes-refuge-for-those-on-the-run/
http://gawker.com/372440/?tag=television (this is for wifi, but I'm sure the sentiment extends to cellular)

The "Linux syndrome": idiots who don't know the first thing about X shouting down X because they prefer the imaginary gloss of competitor Y. ASUS is visionary, has better hardware, yet you specifically come to a thread about the best, best selling and most original Android tablet to bitch about how they are nothing but cheap knockoffs. Fuck you.

Keyword here is "Netbook". Look at the "desktop" Atoms, they are really, really different. You don't get dual cores at all in Netbooks (They almost all are Hyperthreaded, but that's not a second core. However so many people mistake it for one.). This is mainly due to how Microsoft sells 7 Starter, which comes with most, if not all, netbooks. So you most likely tested an N270 (Most common Atom in low-end netbooks).... Look the passmark up for that one. I also said "future" Atoms, currently we're not there yet.

If it weren't for the artificial limitation that Microsoft put on 7 Starter, I could easily see a D525 in a netbook. There were some Atom 330 netbooks with ION chipsets too.

Around here => Luxembourg. We are known to have more money, which explains the difference.

Personally, I'd prefer a single device that can do just about everything I'd want it to, andthe Fire approaches, but not quite attains that.

That being said, The Fire comes in at $199, and by the reviews I have read is an extremely easy device to use, and has a consumer friendly interface, similar to the Blackberry Play Book (the 16GB version of which sells for $499, somewhat more than the $199 Fire), runs on Android (even if it's heavily overlaid by Amazon's interface).

To Paraphrase Monty Burns: Release the Hackers !

Their is nothing to stop an OEM from first charging for the PC, then charging for the unlock of the bootloader. Furthermore, said OEM can threaten those who "jail break" their own PCs with voiding the warranty.

Yet after all these years no-one actually does such a thing, furthermore even the tablet makers who originally locked down their bootloaders are reversing such policies so you can take off your tinfoil hat because there is nothing to support your conspiracy theory.

According to Engadget, it has a 1GHz TI OMAP dual-core CPU. It's not underpowered by any measure.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/28/amazon-fire-tablet-unveiled-7-inch-display-199-price-tag/

It's not an e-book reader primarily, it'll play back any movies, music, and Android games/apps just fine.

If you're receiving cable internet service, you will most likely have access to all of your local OTA channels over the cable as well, since the FCC mandates that they carry any "broadcast" channels on their wire-line service such that they can be viewed by any TV in your house. So, unless they're using an electronic filter on your cables since you're an internet-only customer, you can use any ClearQAM-enabled TV tuner to get your local stations and generally have higher reliability than OTA, especially if you're in a fringe area. I've been doing this for years and the only thing I "miss" is watching The Daily Show as it airs, since I have to wait until the next day to see it on Hulu.

Here's a random article about some of the ClearQAM stuff: http://hd.engadget.com/2009/08/28/clear-qam-hd-isnt-going-anywhere/

What if a government employee loses one? :)

Will cyanogen and XDA support it? :P

kinda like..
http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/14/international-atrix-unlocked-bootloader-uncovered-hackers-aroun/

Can you prove that you did that?

Here is an example ok ... Microsoft recently got this patent:
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/09/23/microsoft_contemplates_mobiles_with_interchangeable_accessories/

Now, go to http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/26/how-would-you-change-sony-ericssons-xperia-x1/2#comments and do a find in page for the word "bottom" or "pop out" ... ok read that description .. now if you scroll up to the top of the article you can see a photo of the Xperia X1 which is being talked about .. notice that a combination of the Xperia X1 and the comment exactly fit the patent of microsoft? If you read the actual patent it becomes even clearer they stole the idea from that engadget comment.

Sorry if this is confusing .. if you disagree let me know.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/26/how-would-you-change-sony-ericssons-xperia-x1/2#comments

Do a find in page for the word "bottom" or "slide" or "pop out"

Btw I am sure I made the same comment other places and also with and without the LCD aspect .. however engadget doesnt have an easy way to wade through or search through comments to find the earliest one..

Sure $35 without a case or power supply, and you still need a display, keyboard and mouse.

The $100 XO 1.75 looks like a much better deal. http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/09/marvell-powered-olpc-xo-1-75-only-draws-2-watts-of-power-finall/

It even comes with a touchscreen display, wifi, USB, keyboard, battery and handcrank. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO-1.75

To me it isn't THAT they fail it is HOW they fail that has me avoiding them. With HDDs I can't remember the last time I had an HDD that failed without plenty of clear warnings something was up. Windows delayed write fails, or SMART errors, temp going nuts, there was ALWAYS a clear warning that there was trouble in HDD town. With both of the gamers there was NO WARNING with the SSDs, they just flipped the switch and....nothing. With the HDDs I was always able to get the data off before they bought the farm, minus a few bad sectors of course, but with the SSDs it was like they didn't exist, it was just...nothing.

Storage failures are nothing new... Google claims most HDD failures don't show any signs on SMART before going off. Add to this the fact that anyone not running with a bootable up-to-date backup (all OSs have cheap or free backup tools that create bootable backups) is asking for trouble. I've had HDDs fail without any warning (mostly on corporate systems). I've also had systems stolen (laptop), and the up-to-date backup was a life (and work) saver.

I own 3 SSDs now that work well and have yet to fail (surprisingly 2 of them are OCZ also). Comprising about 3 total disk-years of service. However, if they do, I just boot from my firewire backup drive, sync dropbox, git and IMAP and I would very likely have lost no work at all.

Apple settled for what Apple was supposed to pay in the first place if Nokia had honored the RAND terms. The cash payment to Nokia was back RAND royalties.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. There is no way you can know what Apple was supposed to pay, or what it did pay, or what it was actually paying for.

It was a complete win for Apple and a loss for Nokia, which had to pay all those lawyers and still only got the same RAND rate Apple was already prepared to pay before the suit.

You are completely ignoring the fact that the settlement also included patent cross-licensing. And since the settlement terms are confidential, we have no idea whether they included non-RAND patents on Nokia's side, or which patents Apple agreed to cross-license.

Engadget had a patent lawyer write on the Nokia/Apple case in 2009. It isn't as simple as you suggest. Because of patent cross-licensing, and the fact that there is no independent examination of potential RAND patents during the standardisation process, the result is that a) nobody really knows which patents are (or should be) considered RAND, and b) there is no "fixed price" for licensing RAND patents. "In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a 'fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory' license actually is." Also, note that Nokia actually wanted to settle for cash - Nokia requested that the court determine a "fair" price: "Nokia isn't even really asking for money damages beyond interest on past due royalties, it just wants a fair license rate for its patents." The point of the dispute was that Apple's idea of "fair" was different to that of Nokia's. Because there is no list of the actual RAND patents, and there is no cash valuation of the patents on either side, it is possible for two sets of experts to come up with two completely different sets of necessary patents and valuations.

Are you serious? The guy is complaining about a notebook that looks *completely different than Macbooks".

Sony is more guilty of ripping off Macbooks.

Sony laptops have looked like that for at least 10 years, if not more.

Actually you're right, this is a 2006 story:
Sony rips off MacBook design
Sony's MacBook Pro, the VAIO VGN-N17L

It's been done - http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/27/beware-cheap-nikons-on-ebay-22-stolen-from-nyc-red-light-camera/

Engadget has pretty good coverage

Netflix's CEO also made clear that his company was "evolving rapidly," and his goal from here on out is to move "too fast," if anything. So why, might you ask, did Reed just make a 180-degree turn, slam down the pedal and throw his entire DVD business in reverse? Because that's exactly what needs to be done. Creating a completely unmemorable web address with a totally unmotivated mantra reeks of idiocy... but it all seems to make a bit more sense when you're proactively ridding your company of a business that will do nothing but nosedive in the years to come.
 
Like it or not, physical DVD distribution isn't an area that most sane folks would categorize as "primed for growth," particularly not when bumped up against streaming. Netflix admitted in October of last year that it was now "primarily a streaming company," so the shrill sound of shock resonating around the tech universe today is a bit hard to grok. Did we all really forget the direction Netflix was already moving in? All that happened with the introduction of Qwikster was a scorching beeline towards the end result: a thriving business devoid of physical movie delivery options.

Despite what the man on the street thinks, Netflix KNOWS what their customers are paying for, and even though we may HEAR a loud outcry about them getting out of the disk-by-mail business, it's entirely possible that 80, 90% of their customers do not care. Remember, too, that there's a LOT more cost on the mailing-physical-things side of the market, so even if they're losing, say, 20% of their customers, that might only equate to 5% of their income.

I will change a bit the order of quoting

As for the Zune, it's clearly a media player UI. That Metro has that style is unsurprising, but the original Zune in no way portends Metro.

How can say so it's beyond my comprehension. Have a look at this side-by-side picture of Zune V1 and V2: http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/13/zune-2-0-update-ready-for-your-first-generation-zune I'm pretty sure everyone can recognize traits of the same design language.

Metro and WP7 before it were a striking change from the Windows GUI and Windows Mobile. The changes that they made were similar to the ones Apple made of getting rid of much of what makes a PC OS a PC OS.

TBH, I think this is simply a common belief coming from Apple marketing department and channeled through Apple fan boys. If anything, I'd say that Microsoft GUIs are exactly what were already under change. Apple simply pushed the changes to happen (far) more quickly.

For example, have a look at these:

1. Zen Portable Media Center (announced 2003, release 2004). This is probably the most stretched example. However, it's the first one I could trace back regarding the shift to typography based GUIs as Metro. Interface example here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Media_Center
2. Windows Media Center (around 2006). This is the first clear example of where MS was hading to with GUIs for devices that were not regular PCs. Early interface examples here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Media_Center_Edition and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn_WwstUIlE
3. Zune device and software (around 2006-2007). The first generation already headed to typography based UI, later generations are clearly Metro styled. Examples of the device OS here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune and here http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/13/zune-2-0-update-ready-for-your-first-generation-zune example of the software here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune_Software
4. XBox 360 (around 2008). Again, first generations (of the Dashboard) were only seminal, the new one is clearly Metro. Examples are here http://news.cnet.com/hands-on-with-the-new-xbox-360-dashboard and the new one here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1home30rock0531.JPG
5. Windows Mobile 6.5 (around 2010). With 6.5 you can clearly see similarities with Metro. Then again, the real Metro was around the corner. Still, you can see there's a continuity from the Zune (2007). Examples here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_mobile

Save all pictures somewhere, review the Metro design language article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_(design_language) and then tell me again that Microsoft started changing GUIs after Apple push.

MS was already undertaking changes in various GUIs and I can clearly see the Metro design behind those changes. They may have not spelt out a name for it, and/or formally defined design rules, but I can clearly see the common roots. They already had the grounds and simply came up with the concept of tiles that was new.

Prior to the iPhone, MS's answer to tablets and phones was to shoe-horn in Windows. Apple was the first to make a tablet OS designed specifically *for* the tablet, and no