AT&T is a serious company and it will not stand being made fun of. Sure in this case being made fun of means actually losing a few million dollars. AT&T has filed a suit in San Francisco against LG, Samsung, Chunghua, AU Optronics and others claiming that they all conspired in order to raise cell phone LCD prices exactly when the carrier purchased 300 million handsets. That’s surely not nice and if AT&T were to win, we can expect the defendants to pay a lot of cash to the carrier. After all, it’s not the first time LCD price-fixers would pay for their wrong doings!

via Phone Scoop

Tags: At&T, lcd, LG, LG, Mobile News, Price-Fixing, Samsung, Samsung, trial

We can’t say we’re surprised to see that someone else is suing Apple over iPhone issues. This time the matter in question is the lack of MMS support or better said AT&T’s approach to this new iPhone functionality. Deborah Carr is the name of the disgruntled consumer that filed a lawsuit in Ohio against Apple and AT&T for “violating laws against deceptive trade practices and with breach of contract.”

And it looks like MMS support is very dear to this particular customer. Deborah Carr wants $5 million from Apple. What do you think happens next? Will Apple settle the trial and pay? Or will we see AT&T finally allow iPhone owners to send and receive as many MMS messages as they choose to?

In Apple’s and AT&T’s defense, MMS is supposed to be available in late summer so we have about a month left to see what happens.

via informationweek

Tags: Apple, Apple, At&T, At&T, mms, trial

Verizon seems really eager to launch that LTE network! We’re not sure if the company will manage to roll it out in the first quarter of 2010 but Big Red is planning to launch trials in Seattle and Boston later this year. If everything goes well, and we hope it does, Verizon will launch the new 4G network in up to 30 markets in 2010. That’s not exactly nationwide but it’s a healthy start. By 2013 Verizon plans to have 100 points of presence by 2013. Whether the whole LTE rush is related to Apple’s future tablet or not remains to be established later on. In the mean time, if you live in Boston or Seattle and if you’re a Verizon customer, then you might enjoy some LTE action later this year!

via Phone Scoop

Tags: 4G, Boston, LTE, Mobile News, Seattle, trial, Verizon, Verizon

We have a new trial for you and this time it involves Tsera which claims that it has invented the touchpad and hence everyone else using it will have to pay for the privilege. Tsera says that Apple, Microsoft, LG, Philips, Bang & Olufsen, iriver, Coby, Cowon and Meizu are all in violation of a patent owned by the company. The patent is called “Methods and apparatus for controlling a portable electronic device using a touchpad.” And nobody has paid any money to Tsera for using the technology. Given the big names involved in this huge trial we should expect Tsera to walk away with lots of settlements cash in its pocket.

via The Register

Tags: Apple, Apple, bang & olufsen, coby, cowon, iRiver, LG, LG, Meizu, microsoft, microsoft, Mobile News, Philips, Philips, trial, Tsera

Fractus is a Spanish company which you haven’t really gotten to know so far. Now it’s time for it’s moment of glory! Fractus has decided to sue not one, not two, but ten mobile phone manufacturers which apparently have infringed not one, not two, but nine different patents which concern internal antennas.

These manufacturers are: Samsung, LG Electronics, Research In Motion, HTC, Palm, Pantech, Sharp, Kyocera, Sanyo and UTStarcom. And Fractus is a company which holds more than 80 patents worldwide, 30 of them right in the United States. The suit was filed in the USA and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. Fractus’s lawyer said:

It is very brave of Fractus to fight against these cell phone companies, many of whom knew about Fractus and its technology yet still continued to infringe. Fractus’s inventions have added tremendous value to both the cell phone user and manufacturer.

Tags: Fractus, HTC, HTC, Kyocera, LG, lg-electronics, Mobile News, Other Brands, Palm, Palm, Pantech, Pantech, Research In Motion, Research In Motion, Samsung, Samsung, Sanyo, Sanyo, Sharp, Sharp, trial, UTStarcom

Apple and AT&T will keep getting sued over and over for that 3G service. No matter how hot or not the iPhone is, as long as the two companies keep emphasizing its capabilities and especially data speeds there are always going to be some unhappy customers. Like Damone Dickerson from New Jersey who has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. He says he hasn’t been able to connect to the 3G network more than a “fraction of the time”. Whenever he has connected to it it did not provide “full and continual service.” Will he make AT&T and Apple change their advertising messages? Will he “recover compensatory, statutory and punitive damages?” Apple and AT&T failed to comment so far but we’ll keep you updated.

via Yahoo

Tags: Apple, Apple, At&T, At&T, iPhone, lawsuit, Mobile News, trial

If you purchased a Kindle 2 recently, watch out what you’re doing with it. It’s being reported that Amazon threatened a site that offered instructions on how to trick the Kindle ino reading other types of files.

A Russian hacker found a way to view non-proprietary files on the Kindle and that’s why Amazon came in strong, talking DMCA at the wrongdoers. The software wasn’t even hosted on the site in question. Who will Amazon go after next? Will the company sue everyone taking advantage of the Kindles in a way they shouldn’t?

via Mobile Read

Tags: Amazon, Kindle 2, Mobile News, Portable Devices, trial

A 10-year old kid got some second-degree burns after his pants caught on fire when an iPod touch exploded in his pants. The MP3 player was turned off at the time of the fire but his pants did catch fire:

Plaintiff A.V. immediately ran to the bathroom and took off his burning pants with the assistance of a friend. On said date and at said time, the Apple iTouch had burned through Plaintiff A.V.’s pants pocket and melted through his nylon/spandex underwear, burning his leg.

Well is that possible at all? Will nylon melt at temperatures less that 374 degreees? How much will Apple pay for all this?

via Ars Technica

Tags: Apple, Apple, Fire, iPod Touch, Mobile News, MP3 Players, trial

Picsel Technologies is a Scottish company that decided to take Apple to court for the iPhone screen. They say that Apple is using its technologies which are already available in 250 million phones around the world. Manufacturers like Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung and Sony Ericsson are using and it looks like Apple is doing it too. The technologies we’re talking about concern screen updating. Picsel says Apple is infringing a patented method of accelerated screen updating. Is Picsel right? How much money will the two settle for?

via Yahoo

Tags: Apple, Apple, iPhone, Mobile News, patent, Picsel, trial

By now you should all be familiar with Apple’s trial against Apple. And it looks like we have news from the front. Psystar has managed to both win and loose a little against Apple. An 8-page order filed last week gives Psystar the consent to answer Apple’s suit by using copyright misuse in the defense.

Psystar tried to use anti-trust violations which judge William Alsup rejected. Then it said that Apple “wrongfully extended the scope of its Mac OS copyright” through that End User License Agreement which will force users to install the software only on Apple machines. Psystar’s 17-page filing has received quite well by the judge. Here’s what the judge said about copyright misuse:

This order is unconvinced, however, that misuse may never be asserted as a counterclaim for declaratory relief. Psystar may well have a legitimate interest in establishing misuse independent of Apple’s claim against it, for example, to clarify the risks it confronts by marketing the products at issue in this case or others it may wish to develop.

While Apple contested Psystar’s last claim, the judge was favorable to it, but not entirely:

[Psystar] fails to explain, however, how this conduct constitutes harm to competition or a violation of the spirit of the antitrust laws. [Tying copyrights to computer hardware] requires monopolization. Psystar has identified none.

Well Psystar might defend itself against Apple but it can’t seem to prove Apple did anything wrong with its OS. The trial date has been established. That’s November 9, which is a long way to go from now. I wonder how many Psystar systems will be sold in the mean time.

via AppleInsider

Tags: Apple, Desktop PCs, Laptops, Mobile News, Mobile Software, Psystar, trial

Are we ready for those new Motorola handsets? We know that Motorola and Verizon have planned quite a few phones for 2009 and some of them look great in pictures. The phone here is the Motorola Inferno or Torch. We’re not convinced they’re holding to either name since some people refer to it as the Blaze 2 or Krave 2. Whatever their going to call it, it’s still the sequel of the Krave ZN4.

Hardware trials are going to start next week and we hopefully by then we’re going to get some feature details and prices for the Torch.

via BGR

Tags: Hardware, Inferno, Mobile News, Motorola, Motorola, Torch, trial, Verizon, Verizon

We have a new development in the Apple-Psystar saga. It looks like a judge in California has granted Apple’s motion to dismiss Psystar’s counterclaims. You should remember how Apple has filled a suit against Psystar’s Mac clones followed by a countersuit a month later. Well that countersuit has just been rejected by Judge William Alsup and Psystar has less than a month to improve its argument through an amended complaint.

In a 19-page document Judge Alsup explained that Psystar’s allegations regarding Apple’s violation of the common law of unfair competition, the Cartwright Act, and the California Business and Professions Code aren’t backed up by enough facts. Psystar failed to prove the Mac OS is an independent, single-product market and in fact they have proven the contrary, therefore Apple’s motion was granted. What will follow next? We’ll keep you updated with this soap opera as it moves along.

Tags: Apple, lawsuit, Mobile News, Psystar, trial

Think you have missed the whole Psystar-Apple trial? Well think again, the game is on and there’s no winner yet. But it looks like Psystar isn’t that interested in the whole Apple trial thing as they have just launched new Mac clones. The computers come equipped with Blu-rays and NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT graphic cards. The Blu-ray upgrade will cost you $310 more while the 512MB GeForce 9800GT will cost you $200 more than the usual Open Computer price. Probably you’ll get your money back when you will have to return the product! Oh yeah, that’s what I think about the Psystar-Apple predicament so far!

via MacUser

Tags: Apple, Blu-ray, Desktop PCs, Mac clone, Mobile News, nvidia, Psystar, trial

Apple and Psystar battle in court is something we are expecting with some kind of interest. If Apple should loose, then we’re going to see more companies starting to sell PC rigged to run on Apple’s OS.

The two company might not let us indulge our pleasure to see them fighting to the death in court. They are going to settle the case with Alternative Dispute Resolution. That’s a process that will involve non-binding arbitration, early neutral evaluation and mediation. Wow! Does that mean that no one will bleed to death? We won’t see any of that since everything will go on behind closed doors.

Everything that’s going to be said will be private. That pisses me off. But in case you’re going to read some posts of us describing the new Psystar Mac-PCs, then you’ll know who was the real winner!

Tags: Apple, lawsuit, Mobile News, Psystar, software, trial