Apple sues Samsung, says it copied iPad

Apple alleges that the Galaxy Tab and many Samsung smartphones violated its patents and trademarks

Apple has sued Samsung for allegedly copying the iPad, iPod and iPhone with its Galaxy Tab and Galaxy handsets.

Samsung copied Apple technologies, designs and even packaging with its Google Android-based products, according to a complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Apple is seeking a jury trial in the case.

"Instead of pursuing independent product development, Samsung has chosen to slavishly copy Apple's innovative technology, distinctive user interfaces, and elegant and distinctive product and packaging design, in violation of Apple's valuable intellectual property rights," Apple says in the complaint.

Late last year, Samsung became the first major consumer electronics maker to roll out a tablet to compete with the iPad. It is also one of the world's largest makers of mobile phones, especially handsets that use Android.

The complaint includes 10 charges of patent infringement, two of trademark violation and two of trade dress violations, plus unjust enrichment and unfair business practices. Apple named Samsung Electronics, Samsung America and Samsung Telecommunications America as defendants. The case was filed at the district court in San Francisco but is being transferred to Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler at the court's Oakland, California, location.

A spokesman for Samsung in the U.S. said the company had no comment on the lawsuit. Apple officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The allegations span a broad range of Samsung's mobile devices, including the Epic 4G, Captivate, Indulge, Nexus S and Galaxy S 4G smartphones as well as the Galaxy Tab. Apple singled out the Galaxy product line for criticism.

"The copying is so pervasive, that the Samsung Galaxy products appear to be actual Apple products -- with the same rectangular shape with rounded corners, silver edging, a flat surface face with substantial top and bottom black borders, gently curving edges on the back, and a display of colorful square icons with rounded corners," the complaint says.

Apple wants an injunction to stop Samsung's alleged intellectual property violations, along with actual and punitive damages, Samsung's "wrongfully obtained profits" and funds for corrective advertising about the allegedly confusing products.

Apple said Samsung continued the alleged violations despite repeated objections, leaving the company no choice but to sue.

In the complaint, Apple laid out several detailed design elements of the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad that it said Samsung copied. They include the rectangular case with rounded corners, the metallic edge and the thick, black bands that appear at the top and bottom of the iPhone and iPod Touch and all around the iPad. In addition to copying these, Samsung designed application icons for its devices that closely emulated Apple's icons for the phone, music player, notepad, contacts and settings functions, among others. Apple said those icons violate its trademarks.

Even the boxes for Samsung's products copied Apple, according to the complaint. For example, for the Galaxy S smartphone, Samsung uses a cleanly designed box dominated by an image of the phone, with the device cradled in the box so it appears as soon as the lid is removed, Apple said. Those packaging elements extend to the Galaxy Tab.

In addition to claiming protection for its "trade dress," Apple cited patents on several elements of its hardware and software design that it said Samsung violates. For example, the suit alleges Samsung infringed a patent on Apple's design for the slim buttons on the sides of its devices. It also says Samsung copied patented interface technologies, such as its method of making text messages between two people appear in bubbles on opposite sides of the screen.

Samsung's alleged copying has profited that company and hurt Apple by making consumers confuse its products with Apple's, according to the complaint.

"Samsung's marketing has played up the similarities between its Galaxy family and the Apple iPhone. ... Samsung's mobile phones were marketed as the phone that is closest to the iPhone," the complaint says.

The suit says Samsung engaged in "fraudulent and unlawful business practices" and unfair competition under California law. It also charges the company with "unjust enrichment" under federal law. "Apple seeks a worldwide accounting and disgorgement of all ill gotten gains and profits resulting from Samsung's inequitable activities," the complaint says.

The original iPhone was introduced in 2007, and the first iPad was announced in January 2010. Samsung introduced the Galaxy S in mid-2010 and the first Galaxy Tab late last year.

Comcast Screws Up Blazing Extreme 105 Service

Comcast offers a blazing fast 105mbps broadband service, but the cost and data cap make it a bad deal.

Comcast recently introduced Extreme 105--its new 105mbps high-speed broadband service. It sounds awesome at face value, but Comcast managed to screw it up in not one, but two ways that make it a horrible deal.

Would you like to have blazing fast 105mbps broadband? Sure, why not? It would be awesome to have high-speed broadband that is 10 times faster than what I have now. But, the combination of an astronomical cost, and a data cap quickly spoil the dream.

First, let's look at the cost. The Comcast Extreme 105 broadband service is $105 per month. $105? Granted, $105 for 105mbps is only one dollar per megabyte. It's less than twice what I pay now for service that is only about a tenth as fast--so bang for the buck it doesn't seem like a bad deal in comparison. But, it's Internet access, not a used car payment.

Still, there are more affordable broadband options for those who don't really need 105mbps, or can't stomach the $105 per month. The area where Comcast really drops the ball is by placing a 250GB monthly data cap on the service.

If you were streaming videos from Netflix , and actually maxing out that blazing 105mbps broadband speed, you could theoretically max out your data allotment for the month in a matter of hours. Like, five of them.

The Comcast press release for the Extreme 105 broadband service illustrates the benefits of the blazing speed. Comcast provides a little chart explaining that a 4GB HD movie that takes an hour and a half to download at 6mbps can be downloaded in a mere four minutes with Extreme 105, or a standard definition TV show that usually takes seven minutes can be downloaded in only 20 seconds.

What it doesn't go out of its way to clarify, though, is that the Extreme 105 service can also hit the 250GB data cap in a fraction of the time. And, Comcast is notoriously quick to take action when customers hit the data capacity.

Extreme 105 sounds awesome. It's no Google Gigabit broadband, but it's significantly faster than current broadband speeds. The cost might be justifiable for someone who needs the speed--it is a lower cost per gigabit than most other offerings. But, it just doesn't make sense to offer a blazing fast broadband service, expect users to pay a hefty premium for the privilege, and then cap its usage at 250GB.

Comcast should go sit in the corner and think about what its done.

Tablets continue to cannibalize PC sales

Gartner, IDC report sluggish PC sales in Q1, due to tablets, Japan disaster 

PC sales in the first quarter of this year suffered, and analysts are placing the blame on the tablet market and the disaster in Japan.

Global PC shipments dropped 3.2% in the first quarter compared to the same period last year, according to industry analyst group IDC. IDC analysts called the decline the first contraction in the global PC market since the end of the recent recession.

Analysts at Gartner also reported a decline, but gave a smaller drop of 1.1%.

"Weak demand for consumer PCs was the biggest inhibitor of growth," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner, in a statement. "Low prices for consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted buyers. Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and other consumer electronics."

Kitagawa said there was a direct connection between Apple's release of the iPad2 and the drop in interest in traditional PCs.

"With the launch of the iPad2 in February, more consumers either switched to buying an alternative device, or simply held back from buying PCs," he added. "We're investigating whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market."

IDC noted that the firm had previously made a conservative forecast for the first quarter, predicting only 1.5% growth in shipments. But their expectations ended up being too optimistic after businesses remained cautious about spending, consumers lost enthusiasm for PCs and the earthquake in Japan affected not only PC supplies but investments in PCs in that country, as well.

Key SaaS software executive leaving SAP

John Wookey, formerly of Oracle, is departing the company after three years

SAP executive John Wookey, who was charged with developing a SaaS (software as a service) strategy for large enterprises, is leaving the vendor after about two-and-a-half years, the company said Monday.

SAP executive Peter Lorenz, to whom Wookey reported, will oversee the large enterprise SaaS division until a successor is named, said spokesman Jim Dever.

Wookey is leaving for personal reasons, Dever said. "He actually is going to spend some time with his family and figure out what he wants to do beyond that."

"This certainly doesn't change our commitment to the on-demand business," Dever added. "We've hit a number of milestones."

Wookey, whose title at SAP was executive vice president of Line of Business On Demand, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

A high-profile hire for SAP, Wookey arrived at the company in November 2008 following a stint at rival Oracle, where he was an early driver of that company's long-gestating Fusion Applications. At SAP, Wookey had been working on a series of SaaS applications meant to serve as extensions to the company's flagship Business Suite.

One of the first products to emerge from Wookey's team was the CRM (customer relationship management) application Sales on Demand. More are expected to be discussed at SAP's Sapphire conference in Orlando next month.

His departure is "a significant loss for SAP," as he had put together a star team including ex-Oracle and ex-Salesforce.com employees, said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research. Wookey also "put together the right esprit de corps to move forward," Wang added.

"I definitely considered him in the top five most important people at SAP," said Jon Reed, an independent analyst who closely tracks SAP. "Wookey had a lot of creative ideas but his work wasn't done, so that's the concern."

While SAP's large enterprise SaaS strategy was probably not going to generate major amounts of revenue this year, it is key to positioning the company as something other than "a legacy vendor living off maintenance revenues and hoping for the best," Reed said.

Along with the large-enterprise SaaS strategy, SAP is selling Business ByDesign, an on-demand ERP (enterprise resource planning) suite aimed at midmarket companies as well as divisions of larger ones.

The applications for large enterprises are now based on ByDesign's underlying platform, after first being targeted for a different set of technologies.

What took Google so long to dump Google Video?

Cobweb-gathering service was made irrelevant when search giant bought YouTube in 2006

 Across the cyber world, video lovers are saying sad goodbyes to Google Video, which will be shut down on April 29.

Just kidding. While the plug really is being pulled on Google Video at the end of this month, no one really cares.

And why should they? Google ceased allowing users to upload videos to Google Video in May 2009, nearly two years ago. Which basically made Google Video like one of those blogs that someone eagerly starts and eventually abandons. The content is still there, but the site is floating in cyberspace like a ghost ship.

Google Video was a good idea when it launched in January 2005. But YouTube was a better idea -- or at least vastly more popular -- so Google did what all large companies do when it looks like they're losing to a smaller competitor with a popular offering in the same market: They bought it out. In November 2006, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Clearly that should have been the end of Google Video. After all, why compete with yourself?

But for some reason (no one noticed?), Google kept Google Video going for several years after. It made no sense then, and makes no sense now.

In an email last Friday to Google Video users (all 12 of them), the "Google Video Team" wrote:

We’ve added a Download button to the video status page, so you can download any video content you want to save.

Like anyone remembers which videos they may have uploaded to Google Video two or more years ago.

If you don’t want to download your content, you don’t need to do anything. (The Download feature will be disabled after May 13, 2011.)

Since users haven't done anything since May 2009, they are well-prepared for this step.

We encourage you to move to your content to YouTube if you haven’t done so already. YouTube offers many video hosting options including the ability to share your videos privately or in an unlisted manner.

Perhaps you've heard of YouTube, Google Video users. You should try it out!

When Google announced in October 2006 that it was acquiring YouTube, it said, "When the acquisition is complete, YouTube will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Google's own fast-growing video business."

Or maybe not.

Person Finder a personal success for one Google worker

Google has formed partnerships with some of Japan's biggest companies to promote service in wake of disaster

For Kei Kawai, the first few days following Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami were a frantic, stressful time. From his Mountain View, California, base, he managed to confirm the safety of family members living throughout the tsunami-hit area with one exception: his grandfather.

Kawai turned to Google's Person Finder for help and received confirmation of his grandfather's safety the next day. Kawai wasn't just another user -- he's a product manager at Google and had been working on deployment of the service in the aftermath of the disaster.

"That was a pretty powerful moment," he said in an interview. "We've had a lot of feedback from users, we know that it's working, but it's a little different for yourself to see it working."

Google's response to the earthquake and massive tsunami was fast. About two hours after the 2:46pm earthquake, while towns up and down Japan's eastern coast were still underwater and while the country was beginning to grasp the massive potential loss of life, the company launched Person Finder.

"We had employees on the ground who were experiencing the disasters first-hand and wanted to do something about it," said Christine Chen, a Google spokeswoman. "Our company mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, and information about crises is included in that."

Person Finder is an open database that tries to match requests for information about people with details on those affected. It was created in 2010 after the Haiti earthquake and grew out of the Google.org project, which seeks to use Google's reach and expertise to build products and advocate for policies that address global challenges.

After Haiti, the database was deployed for earthquakes in Chile, China and New Zealand, but it never achieved as much success in those disasters as it did this time in Japan.

In Japan, the database grew to more than 616,000 records, which was well past the 77,100 for the Chile earthquake and 55,100 for Haiti.

But the numbers only tell half the story. Google managed to form partnerships with some of Japan's biggest, most slow-moving and conservative companies and agencies to make the service the success it was.

The first came on March 16 when public broadcaster NHK began collaborating with Google. NHK goes to great lengths to remain neutral and generally does not mention company names in order to avoid appearing to play favorites. So it's alliance with Google was as unprecedented as the situation Japan found itself in.

NHK decided to work with Google to widen the dissemination of its own data to a wider audience, said Reiko Saisho, a spokeswoman for the broadcaster. "We believe it is of benefit to people searching for missing persons to have they information on various media, and we believe Google, which has huge servers, is a suitable partner."

The alliance meant the Person Finder address was regularly scrolled across the top of NHK's main domestic TV channel -- the single most trusted source of news during the disaster, according to a poll.

Within a few days, Google was also getting data from the National Police Agency and Asahi Shimbun newspaper. Then followed data from Fukushima prefectural government and the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

"It gradually became the de facto place," said Kawai.

A unique addition came with the acceptance of photographs of lists of missing people or survivors that were posted at evacuation centers. Google staff would enter names from the photos by hand. The project eventually grew to around 10,000 pictures and Google expanded the effort to get assistance from volunteers.

Google's success points to its growing strength in Japan. The company has never dominated the Japanese Internet market like it does in so many other countries -- that position is held by Yahoo Japan -- but Google has consistently plugged, established a large engineering and localization base here, and has been steadily winning friends and converts.

Last year it signed a major deal with Yahoo Japan to provide search results for use on the company's portal. The deal annoyed Microsoft, which signed a similar deal for its Bing service to be used with Yahoo in the U.S. and many other countries, but it was approved by Japan's antitrust regulator.

Google said the launch and success of Person Finder was independent of its commercial operations here.

"That hasn't been our focus," said Chen. "Our engineers started working within a few minutes of the earthquake hitting, and the focus has been on how to make relevant information accessible to the people who need it."

Kawai says his experience has left him with new admiration for his employer and the power of technology.

'It's an honor, as a company, that we can do something for people who are in dire need of information," he said. "We cannot really save direct lives, but we can fill the area of people looking for information."

"If it were not for technology and the Internet, I can't imagine [what I would have done]," he said.