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Spock: "Fascinating"

Ah I see it is possible if you catch it in time, and then just never update the app again:

http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-hacking/60623-cydia-fix-reinstall-older-version-app.html
http://ismashphone.com/2011/01/how-to-revert-to-old-app-versions.html

At some point these "unnamed patents" that are allegedly being infringed need to see the light of day.

It took a surprising amount of searching to find it, as most of the stories did not list the patents, but I found a couple of sites ([1], [2]) that have them. Here's the list from [2]:

• U.S. Patent No. 5,579,517 ("the '517 patent") entitled: "Common name space for long and short filenames." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to data processing systems and, more particularly, to a common name space for long and short filenames.
• U.S. Patent No. 5,758,352 ("the '352 patent") entitled: "Common name space for long and short filenames."
• U.S. Patent No. 6,621,746 ("the '746 patent") entitled: "Monitoring entropic conditions of a flash memory device as an indicator for invoking erasure operations." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to flash memory devices, and more particularly, monitoring when to perform an erase operation in a flash memory device."
• U.S. Patent No. 6,826,762 ("the '762 patent") entitled: "Radio interface layer in a cell phone with a set of APIs having a hardware-independent proxy layer and a hardware-specific driver layer." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to application programming interfaces (APIs) and, even more particularly, relates to a Radio Interface Layer comprising a set of APIs." Only this patent within the group relates to the product known as the "Motorola Charm."
• U.S. Patent No. 6,909,910 ("the '910 patent") entitled: "Method and system for managing changes to a contact database." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to mobile computing, and more particularly to updating a contact database within a mobile computing device."
• U.S. Patent No. 7,644,376 ("the '376 patent") entitled: "Flexible architecture for notifying applications of state changes." Microsoft states in their patent that "Briefly described, the present invention is directed at unifying state and notification architecture across devices."
• U.S. Patent No. 5,664,133 ("the '133 patent") entitled: "Context sensitive menu system/menu behavior." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates "to the field of user interfaces for computer systems, and more particularly to graphical user interfaces wherein a user selects from a collection of graphical representations displayed upon a video screen corresponding to actual computer resources."
• U.S. Patent No. 6,578,054 ("the '054 patent") entitled: "Method and system for supporting off-line mode of operation and synchronization using resource state information." According to Microsoft, the patent generally relates to "to the support of on-line and off-line transmission and synchronization of data. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods that eliminate redundant data transmission and allow multiple copies of data to be synchronized so that incremental changes made to one copy of the data can be identified, transferred, and incorporated into the other copy of the data, regardless of whether the incremental changes are made on-line or off-line."
• U.S. Patent No. 6,370,566 ("the '566 patent") entitled: "Generating meeting requests and group scheduling from a mobile device." Microsoft's patent abstract describes the patent this way: The present invention includes a mobile device which provides the user with the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself. The mobile device creates an object representative of the meeting request and assigns the object a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object. In addition, the mobile devic

I doubt they are jealous of Apple iAnything.

Then I doubt you've seen Apple's profit share of the cellular industry. Last I heard it was 32% for Apple vs 22% for RIM. http://www.ismashphone.com/images/Apple_and_The_Cell_Phone_Industry_Infographic.png

What if everything was not stolen?

http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/12/stella-artois-le-bar-guide-3d-augmented-reality-app.html

I think the main problem is the fact that there is nearly no real competition among the big cell phone providers. Look at AT&T, yeah, they are willing to do smear ad campaigns against Verizon and Verizon is willing to do the same to AT&T yet both seem more hell-bent to screw their customers more than actually change anything. Verizon seems to insist on castrating their phones, yeah, things have gotten better, yeah, they got the Droid which is perhaps one of the best phones of the year and one of the most open phones, but at the same time they screw their BlackBerry customers by trying to integrate Bing in there rather than whatever search provider the customer wants ( see http://jkontherun.com/2009/12/17/verizon-bing-make-google-go-boom-on-blackberry/ )

If a single telecom could get A) Amazing coverage B) Fast networks C) Good phones D) Openness it would be great. But instead we get AT&T the overpriced carrier with good coverage, a fast 3G network and decent phones. Verizon, another overpriced network with good coverage, a -huge- 3G network, and phones that are castrated. T-Mobile which has good support (look at how they supported unlocked iPhones http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/05/tmobile-tech-support-hearts-unlocked-iphones.html ), open phones, but has a tiny 3G network and generally spotty coverage. And Sprint which is nice and cheap and has unlimited plans, has decent phones, but coverage just isn't quite there yet.

By crippling the phone. But a lot of savvy users (e.g.., /.ers) will avoid phones like that. Unless it's an iPhone. They'll eat that up, crippled free tethering and all.

The easiest and simplest use for augmented reality would be to label the real world ...

This is where we are at right now. You are correct in that there is a ways to go, but the foundation (of software) is catching up, and the hardware isn't far behind (mainly a cost issue now)

http://www.ismashphone.com/2009/07/innovative-examples-of-augmented-reality-on-the-iphone.html

Apologies for the iPhone specific link, but there are multiple examples of apps that use the display/camera to do exactly that. Label the real world, and share your labels with your friends.

Really exciting stuff!