The verdict is in and Samsung’s got a lot of work to do.  They need to do some hardware  and software work as well as write a big check.  Here’s my take on the trial results…

I really expected the trial deliberations to go a lot longer than they did.  The fact that the verdict came back so quickly speaks volumes about design, perception, and what the public believes when it comes to computing and the patent system. I’ve got a quick summary of the results and a couple of opinions on where the trial went south for Samsung.

The trial, in my humble opinion, was over once the following graphic was shown.

I’ve owned a number of Samsung smartphones – the Blackjack, the Blackjack 2, the i700 and the Vibrant (a Galaxy S phone).  Prior to 2007 and the introduction of the iPhone, all Samsung phones had a distinctive look. They were sharp edged, angular, and ran a version of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.  The Blackjack devices were “smartphones,” or the version of Windows Mobile that didn’t have a touch screen and they had 320×240 (landscape) resolution screens. These devices were Blackberry modeled devices and were rather successful, though they were different enough to not be considered infringing on RIM’s designs and patents. The i700 was Samsung’s very first PDA phone. It ran PocketPC 2002 and eventually got an upgrade to WM2003, but it was well into 2004 before that hit.  The other two devices in the infographic below, were modeled after it.  THAT design, was wholly original and all Samsung.  The i700 was a little bit before its time. It was a decent device, but really would have been much better without the stub antenna and definitely WITH UMTS/HSPA+.

Post iPhone, Samsung made two big changes – First: out with Windows Mobile and in with Android. Windows Mobile had unfortunately reached a point of non-growth and innovation and Microsoft never really stood behind it anyway.  Ballmer doesn’t understand mobility and the mobile operating system’s history clearly shows that.  Google’s Android is very Windows Mobile-like and went places that Microsoft clearly couldn’t go with their mobile OS. It was a much better choice for them.

Second: their phone designs took a drastic and radical shift. Despite Samsung’s claims that Apple doesn’t own a patent on a rectangle with rounded corners (and Samsung is right…they DON’T), its clear that AFTER the iPhone hit and was successful, Samsung’s phone designs changed. Those designs also look a great deal like the design of the iPhone.  Their UI, while built on top of Android, a drastically different looking and functioning OS, looks as much like the iOS home screens as they can.

Come back next time and I’ll give you the specifics on the damages as well as what I’d like to see Samsung do, post-verdict.

Next Page

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The long awaited apocalyptic game of the year 2012 Darksiders II was finally released, bringing into scene as the main character, the second horseman of the Apocalypse, Death, who wants to spare his brother from oblivion, War, and restore humanity.

The game continues the story of the first Darksiders, in a post-apocalyptic scenario of this world, and like in the previous chapter the hero is caught in the middle of the fight between heaven and hell, being forced to fight both sides, angels and demons.

While the original Darksiders was an action/adventure game, Darksiders II comes with some sort of role-playing elements, making the gameplay a bit different. In addition, your enemies drop coins, armors, and weapons. You can take the equipment, sell it to a merchant, or sacrifice it to level up rare possessed weapons, which you can customize at certain thresholds.

Some might say that Darksiders II is a combination of ideas and concepts borrowed from many other popular games like The Legend of Zelda, God of War, Prince of Persia, Legacy of Kain series, etc. But the think is that the game is still enjoyable to play, even if you find a mixture of common action elements in it.

Each level requires you to resolve a puzzle and to make you figure out how to get from one point to the next. You’ll have to scale walls, throw naturally occurring bombs you stumble upon, pull some levers, etc. You also get a phantom grapple hook that allows you to swing and you can extend your wall runs and jumps. Later, Death splits in three, petrifying your main form and using two doppelgangers to stand on switches and move platforms. Ultimately, you fire portals to travel across great ravines and even through time itself–and these are hardly the extent of the tools you use to make progress through Darksiders II’s clever self-contained puzzles.

Comparing with the original Darksiders, this one’s puzzles are more expertly created and you’ll have to really think harder and harder to unlock them (if you don’t see the youtube walkthroughs). But as much as you advance into the game you’ll find the controls more handy and you’ll learn how to resolve even the most complicated puzzles.

The combat movements and animations are looking quite similar to what the original Darksiders had to offer, but never mind, they are still looking gorgeous.

As a conclusion, I really hope that there will be one game for each Horseman of the Apocalypse as it’s now for War and Death!

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I’ve been using for a long time a very sophisticated and expensive software to create my own ring-tones for my phone with the parts that I want from a song or to edit any audio file that I want. Yes, it was expensive, and I can’t believe that now there is a FREE software almost as good as other PRO versions.

Free audio editors are everywhere, so it’s always hard to know which to use. Free Audio Editor is an award-winning audio editing tool, and it is easy to understand why. Free Audio Editor features editing capabilities, effects units, basic audio recording tools, CD authoring and basic audio conversion. Free Audio Editor, unlike many freeware audio suites, has evolved as Windows has been updated. There’s no aged-looking graphical user interface in Free Audio Editor, instead you have an Office-esque ribbon, with a logical and easy-to-navigate button setup. With this interface, Free Audio Editor rarely feels like a chore to either use or learn. Everything is exactly where you would expect it.

Free Audio Editor – it’s LIGHT, runs fast, has plenty of options that allows you to do whatever you want to any audio file, or something you’ve recorded! You can remove the background noise (the annoying noise that you hear when you record something at home in the background), add echo effects, amplify, apply restoration, and many other filters!

Another cool feature is that you can download anything from Youtube and edit the audio file immediately! Maybe you would like to record yourself singing an instrumental version of one song… you just download the song, and record your voice over the instrumental version! It’s never been that easy!

After you have recorded your tracks, you can use the mixdown option to merge them into one single track and get your final result! At the last, Free Audio Editor allows you to burn your audio files directly on a disk whenever you want, making your task even easier!

Download Free Audio Editor

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If you’re going to upgrade your Mac to OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, then you’re going to want to take a look at this article that will help you get ready for the upgrade…

Millions of Mac users all over the globe have been patiently waiting for the OS to be released so they can download it and upgrade their supported Mac to the new OS.  That last link is especially important for new upgraders, as it contains all of Mountain Lion’s Technical Specification Requirements, like supported models, RAM, disk space, etc.

A couple-three points on general requirements:

1. If you aren’t running at least OS X 10.6.8 (the latest version of Snow Leopard) or later on your supported Mac, you’ll need to upgrade to it before upgrading to Mountain Lion. Users of Lion on supported Macs don’t need to worry about this point.
2. Apple says you need a minimum of 2GB of RAM to run Mountain Lion. 4GB is better, 8GB or more is the sweet spot.
3. Apple says you’ll need at least 8GB of available disk space.  Mountain Lion is a 4.5GB download. It needs another 3.5GB of temp space to do the upgrade, and the upgrade file eats itself after it executes. Make sure you make a copy of it before it runs so you don’t have to download it again if needed.

Before you get started on your upgrade, you need to do a couple of important tasks. If you don’t do all of these, the world isn’t going to end. You’re still going to be able to upgrade; but if you don’t, and you run into trouble, you’re gonna wish you had.  So, while they may make the task a bit longer, they’re probably the right thing to do.

1. Bandwidth– It’s going to take a while to download the installer.  4.5GB takes a good while to pull down even on a good day, but ba-zillions of peoples are going to want to download Mountain Lion all at the same time. The best time to download is likely overnight.  So, you may want to wait…If you live in a bandwidth challenged area (like some rural area or back-40), you might want to make a trip to an Apple Store or a Starbucks or other free-Wi-Fi zone.  Apple isn’t going to deliver a Mountain Lion installer on a USB stick, like it eventually did with Lion.
2. Backups – If you use Time Machine, make sure you have a good backup if you plan to restore applications, music or other content on clean install systems.
3. Backups – Make a system backup of your boot drive (if you have a Mac with more than one hard drive). Super Duper is my new favorite, and WILL save your bacon if you need to start the upgrade process over again.

Once you have everything ready to go and you start the upgrade, your biggest obstacle is going to be patience.  The upgrade is going to take a while, likely 90 minutes or so from start to complete finish; and it will include three or more reboots, depending on your system.  Give yourself something else to do and let the upgrade run its course.  Rushing things is only going to frustrate you and jeopardize the integrity of your Mac later.

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Here’s some of the BEST advice when it comes to making system upgrades; and something that everyone should consider before taking the upgrade plunge

Apple released Mountain Lion OS X 10.8 yesterday.  Like many, I pulled down the OS update yesterday, but I haven’t pulled the trigger just yet. Some have scratched their heads when I relay that bit of news, others look me in the eye and see wisdom.  Let’s take a quick look at that and digest it a bit.

Mountain Lion is NOT the same kind of upgrade to 10.7 Lion that Snow Leopard was to Apple’s 10.5 Leopard.  OS X 10.8 is a HUGE upgrade, and there are a few considerations that you need to take into account before you perform the upgrade, because, “once you buy the prize, it’s yours to keep.”  In other words, with OS X 10.7 Lion now removed from the App store and Apple Store shelves, if you make a mistake, recovery will likely be a long, painful and difficult road at best.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I’d wait a bit before upgrading to Mountain Lion.  I’ve run the Developer Previews on my Mac and you need to know that there are a number of apps out there that do NOT play and work well under it just yet.

If you’ve got a critical legacy app that you’re concerned about, you need to check Roaring Apps for a Mountain Lion compatibility rating.  The site rates the compatibility of a number of different apps and app versions and let s you know which ones will run, and how well they will run, on both Lion and Mountain Lion.

The biggest point here is that 3rd party app developers have only had the final Gold Master code for just over two weeks.  This means that while they may have been developing, tweaking and fixing things under Mountain Lion Developer Preview releases, they’ve had less than 21 days to test, tweak, fix and resubmit bug app updates to Apple for all of their Mountain Lion compatible apps.

I’ve been a software quality and testing professional for more than 20 years. On an operating system update as large as Mountain Lion, this clearly isn’t enough time to work out all the kinks.

So, here’s my recommendation to most everyone wondering if they should take the plunge now, or if they should wait – I’d wait.

If you’re a regular consumer, I’d wait about a week or two, giving app developers additional time to submit updates to their apps not only to the Mac App Store, but their own web stores and other download sites, like Soft32.

If you’re a small business user, I’d give it a couple of months at least. Not only do you want 3rd party app updates to come through, you want Apple to have time to issue an update to the OS and make sure that there aren’t any other hidden pot holes or bumps in the road.

If you simply MUST be an early adopter and install Mountain Lion on a machine you’re going to be using pretty much every day, then you need to make certain that you provide feedback to both Apple as well as the vendors of the apps you are using so they know about the problems and challenges you’re bumping into.  It’s likely the only way the problems are going to get resolved quickly…

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This one act has probably done more to show the world that RIM is in it to win it than any other so far this year – RIM is staying out of China.

The Huffington Post had a really great article in it yesterday. The article described how Thorsten Heins, RIM’s CEO, has made an operational decision to stay out of China. Specifically speaking, despite the cheap labor and lax environmental laws, RIM’s manufacturing operations won’t be moving there… ever.

The immediate question is, “why is this important?” That’s really quite simple. Historically, it’s been very easy for Chinese companies to “acquire” intellectual property and produce like and/or competing products and services from companies operating within their borders. In many cases, government officials order, intimidate, cajole, or otherwise “make” Chinese workers cough up the information.

Shortly after that happens it’s not been unheard of for foreign companies to lose or be underbid for work because a Chinese organization introduces a like product and wins a contract or business with that illicitly gained information. This is a well-known occurrence for organizations with operations in China.

RIM is in butt-saving mode. Its cutting staff, cutting costs etc., trying to insure that it has enough staying power to release BB10 and the new devices that run it. The one thing it won’t be doing to save money on manufacturing costs.. ? Moving its manufacturing operations to China.

This is huge step in the right direction for RIM; and it may be the first thing they’ve done right this year. This decision protects RIM’s reputation, RIM’s current product line and most importantly, RIM’s customers from rogue Chinese government sponsored hackers running amok through RIM’s enterprise, or YOUR enterprise because the Chinese were able to hack through BIS/BES. It protects RIM’s most valuable asset – its security features. It also protects RIM’s value

Despite the fact that RIM could have saved a great deal of money on operating expenses, Heins has likely saved the company by keeping the company out of China.

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The release date for Apple’s new flagship, desktop operating system has been set…well sort of.

If Apple sticks to its previous behavior, I know exactly when OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will be released – 25, July 2012.

Apple’s Q3 2012 earnings call is set for 24-Jul-12, and the company is doing rather well. WWDC unveiled a new MacBook Pro with Retina Display and a refresh of the remaining notebook line.  It also introduced a new version of their mobile operating system – iOS 6, set to be released with their latest iPhone, currently anticipated to be released some time in, it’s expected, mid October 2012.

Last year, however, Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, was able to announce that OS X 10.7 Lion, would be available for purchase and download in Apples Mac App Store.  If Apple holds true to previous behavior, then I expect Mountain Lion to be released the following day, 25-Jul-12 for the advertised $19.99 USD.

If this is the case, I hope Apple’s got the bandwidth and server space set aside to handle the traffic. If I remember right, I had to wait about a week or so before I was able to get my copy of Lion due to server collisions and contention. Downloading the OS is great, but I’m not looking forward to having to wait and wait to get the OS upgrade, and I’m certain I’m not alone. I’m hoping that new data centers and other Apple infrastructure will help make the Mountain Lion release process smooth and easy for all.

Please look for a final review of Apple’s Mountain Lion here on Soft32 in the beginning of August 2012.

Apple stock (AAPL) was trending up over 18 points for the week at the time of this writing, at 604.72, up 18.41.

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There’s a lot of iOS based improvement going into Apple’s newest Operating System, OS X 10.8, code named, Mountain Lion. Let’s take a look at how it and iOS are converging.

Soft32 covered the recent release of Apple’s Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 earlier this month (Review). Shortly after the review was completed, Apple released Developer Preview 4. What you’ll see here is the analysis that we’ve been able to do on the changes between the two prerelease states of the latest Mac operating system.

Since the release of Mountain Lion Developer Preview 4, Apple has also released an update to it, via its new update mechanism in the Mac App Store. Here, we’re going to look at the changes between Dev Preview 3 and Dev Preview 4, as well as the changes that Apple released in Dev Preview 4 Update.

Hardware and Software Requirements
Mountain Lion won’t run on every Mac. You’re going to need to have one of the following supported models in order to run Mountain Lion.

• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• Xserve (Early 2009)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)

If you’re upgrading a supported Mac, you’re also going to need to be running a minimum of Snow Leopard 10.6.8. In some cases, you may need to purchase a Snow Leopard upgrade for $29.99, if you don’t already have it, before you upgrade to Mountain Lion at $19.99. Users running Leopard and have a MobileMe account need to upgrade to Snow Leopard in order to move to iCloud. Those users can get a Snow Leopard DVD for free, saving you the original $30 bucks.

Mac App Store
Apple is doing away with Software Update and relying on the Mac App Store to present appropriate OS updates to end users in Mountain Lion. Apple recently tested this new update process by offering a number of Mountain Lion Developer Preview 4 updates through the Mac App Store. Like in Software Update, you can choose which components to install and which ones to ignore. Its not an all or nothing deal. The components also come with release notes that allow you to click on them to display all of the notes for that specific update.

Reminders
iOS 6 is due to be released in the Fall with iPhone 5, or whatever they end up calling the new Apple smartphone. One of the big updates to Reminders in iOS 6 is Geofencing, or the ability to trigger system events after you cross a geographical location.

In Mountain Lion, Reminders allows you to create a task or to-do list, to set the date and time you want the reminders to go off. You get the the ability to push them to all of your iDevices. Having Reminders on your Mac also means you get the ability to search through and view them on your calendar.

The one feature that Reminders doesn’t do on your Mac is provide full geofencing support. Laptops don’t have built in GPS receivers, so reminders on the desktop aren’t triggered via a geofence line.

iCloud Integration
Mountain Lion is more complete in Developer Preview 4. The big change comes at the start of the OS, where you’re asked to provide your AppleID and password for the iCloud Preference pane so it can log you in and/or create your iCloud account.

Conclusion
Mountain Lion is not a revolution set of changes for desktop Mac users. Like its iOS mobile operating system, Apple is content to introduce carefully engineered and designed evolutionary change. This is a repeat of the same behavior Apple introduced with its Leopard to Snow Leopard based upgrade path. They didn’t introduce any further radical changes until they changed “cat families” with the introduction of Lion in July of 2011. However, this wasn’t too radical of a change, either.

While this desktop evolution doesn’t provide for huge innovative strides, it does insure that the current user base is smoothly able to nurture and navigate their usage habits through the changes Apple has made. As such, Apple maintains their, “it just works,” user perception. As they are making a push for the enterprise, this is a huge gain.

In contrast, Microsoft’s upgrade to Windows Vista from Windows XP in 2007 created a huge amount of panic in the enterprise, as users couldn’t understand the logic or reasoning behind the UI changes. With Mountain Lion, those users migrating from Lion won’t have too much trouble making the switch.

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