Mobile Technology News

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The keyword for the introduction of Mozilla Firefox 3.5 was speed. That helped start a whole new race in which Firefox led early, but fell soon behind Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and later even Opera. Now with even Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 looking to erase the speed gap, and then some, a newly published Mozilla developers’ page characterizes Firefox 4 — whose first public betas may be only a few weeks away — as feature-laden.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Whether the “Windows era” is genuinely over for PCs is a matter of some debate; but the last week in both US and international markets is making clear that the dominance of PCs as technology platforms is now fully challenged by mobile devices. Today is premiere day for Apple’s iPad in Europe and Asia, and though early sales numbers have yet to be tabulated, when China Daily touts the success of the premiere as an event, it looks pretty likely that sales will live up to expectations.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a move that may end up drastically scaling back what Facebook had hoped last month would be a redefinition of the Web itself, the social service will soon begin rolling out simplified privacy controls, according to a blog post today from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The new controls may make it easier for Facebook users to limit the extent to which the system shares their personal information with others, especially including other Web sites.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

When a massive Microsoft corporate reorganization on September 20, 2005 vaulted Robbie Bach into the role of President of the Entertainment & Devices division, the explanation at the time was to enable the company to focus on devices where the goal was to promote devices, and on platforms where the goal was to promote devices. Xbox was a device, whatever MP3 player the company would decide to produce was a device, and obviously cell phones are devices should Microsoft ever choose to enter that business in earnest.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

If a user would rather that Facebook not share her personal information with other services unknowingly, then there should be a simple switch that turns off Facebook’s ability to do that. This was the message delivered by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in an op-ed piece published in Sunday’s Washington Post.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a cautiously worded notice to customers this afternoon, AT&T advised that it will be raising its early termination fee (ETF) for wireless service for smartphones and netbooks, evidently including Apple’s iPhone. Beginning June 1, the base rate for ETFs from two-year service agreements will be raised from 5 minus per month of tenure, to 5 minus per month.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Prior to Google’s announcement earlier today of its open sourcing the VP8 video codec, a spokesperson for MPEG LA — the licensing agent that manages the patent portfolio for multimedia technologies relating to the H.264 codec, among others — agreed to answer ten questions submitted to the agency in advance. Those questions regard how it licenses the codec that Microsoft and Apple consider the best solution for HTML 5, the next markup language for the Web.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a pair of blog posts released simultaneously this afternoon, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer General Manager, Dean Hachamovitch, walked on eggshells in explaining why his group is staying the course with respect to its decision on the H.264 codec in IE9. This in the wake of Google’s historic move today to release the VP8 video codec it acquired under a full open source license under the umbrella title WebM, even though it could mean legal action against Google down the road.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

It has been said that a win is a win. That notion was effectively proven false today, as the US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals granted EchoStar’s and former sister company Dish Network’s motion to throw out its own decision last March.

In that decision, a three-judge panel voted 2-1 to rule that a fix to EchoStar software that TiVo claimed infringed upon its patents, was not so broad that it mandated a new and separate trial of TiVo’s complaint. Now, the Federal Circuit will meet en banc, with as many as 12 judges seated instead of 3, to rehear EchoStar’s argument.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

In a decision handed down in US District Court in New York this afternoon, representatives of the recording industry won summary judgment against P2P file-sharing software maker LimeWire, in a patent infringement suit first filed in 2006.

Though the case took almost four years to resolve, as Judge Kimba Wood wrote in her decision today, LimeWire may very well have sealed its fate in July 2008. At that time, Greg Bildson, the company’s CTO/COO met with plaintiffs’ attorneys to discuss a potential case settlement.