Apple vs. Samsung - Apple gets $290m in damages

Another jury found that Samsung violated various patents that belong to Apple, according to reporters on scene.
Since most of the evidence presented was exactly the same as last year, where the jury again sided with Apple, the verdict isn't particularly surprising. However this time the jury only demanded $290 million, less than Apple advised but far more than Samsung said they owed.
With this recent development in the ongoing Apple vs. Samsung the jury has ruled in favor of Apple once again thus bringing the total damages owed by Samsung up to $890 million. But considering the nature of the legal process things may change.

[iFans]

Android Phone Roundup

So since I last posted, quite a few new android phones have made their way out to the market. The most notable of these are:

• HTC Rezound
• Samsung Galaxy S II
• Google Galaxy Nexus
• Motorola RAZR

HTC Rezound

     The Rezound is an impressive phone from HTC that resembles the HTC Thunderbolt. It packs a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor from Qualcomm, an Adreno 220 GPU, 1GB of RAM, an 8MP rear camera capable of taking 1080p video, a 2MP front-facing camera, 16GB of internal storage, a 720p HD 4.3" HD screen and integrated Beats audio. Of all its impressive specs, the screen is the most noteworthy. With a pixel density of 342ppi, it outshines even the iPhone 4S's screen with its sharpness, not to mention the fact that the screen is significantly larger. 

Samsung Galaxy S II

     The Galaxy S II is the successor to the widely popular Galaxy S, and at the time of its release it was one of the slimmest smartphones, weighing in at 8.49 mm thick. The Galaxy S II features a 1.2 GHz dual-core "Exynos" System on a Chip (SoC) CPU, 1GB of RAM, an 8MP camera capable of 1080p video in addition to a front facing cam, and a 4.3" Super AMOLED+ screen. The Galaxy S II is one of the first devices to offer a Mobile High-def Link, this allows up to 1080p uncompressed video output with HDMI while charging at the same time. 

Google Galaxy Nexus

     The Google Galaxy Nexus is one of the most anticipated android phones of the year. It boasts a 4.65" 720p Super AMOLED HD screen, a 1.2 GHz dual-core TI OMAP processor, 1GB of ram, 16GB of internal storage, an 8MP camera that can take 1080p video & front facing cam, and is the very first phone to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Motorola Droid RAZR

     The RAZR is an Android-based follow up to Motorola's iconic RAZR flip-phone that dominated the market years ago. The RAZR is the thinnest android smartphone on the market right now, being 11.1 mm thick. The RAZR is powered by a 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, has 1GB of RAM, has an 8MP rear facing camera that can take 1080p videos, a 1.3MP front facing cam, 16GB of internal storage, and a Super AMOLED Advanced 4.3" qHD screen.

Samsung DoubleTime

AT&T has announced the DoubleTime, a new entry-level smartphone from Samsung that should appeal to messaging fanatics. The DoubleTime has two touchscreen displays and a flip out QWERTY keyboard.

The DoubleTime has 3.2-inch, HVGA (320 x 480 pixel) touchscreen displays on both the inside and outside. The inside of the flip contains a four-row QWERTY keyboard and shortcut keys for menu, home, back, and search. The DoubleTime is powered by a 600MHz single-core processor, and has 260MB of internal storage. It supports microSD cards of up to 32GB in capacity, and comes with a 2GB card pre-installed. The back of the phone features a 3.2 megapixel camera with camcorder functions.

The DoubleTime runs Android 2.2 Froyo with Samsung's TouchWiz interface. It will be available later this year in a white and pink color scheme. Pricing has yet to be announced.

[MobileBurn]

What's New From Android?

Samsung is holding a Google flavored event on October 11th with the tagline “What’s new from Android?“. This is right around the time we expect the Nexus Prime/Ice Cream Sandwich combo to be released, so it’s only fitting to assume that the event will revolve around the next major Android update. The specs of the Prime are unknown, but if history tells us anything, it’s that Google won’t hold back in the hardware department. 4.5″+ screens and dual core processors are now standard on high-end Android devices, and we’re sure that the Prime will be able to keep up with anything that’s currently available.

Ice Cream Sandwich will merge Gingerbread and the tablet-optimized Honeycomb into one single OS capable of running on all form factors. Android has a major issue with fragmentation, and ICS should unify the experience and bring Android’s UI up to par with iOS.

[iFans]

Google Nexus S on Sprint

Samsung and Sprint have announced that the Google Nexus S 4G from Google will be coming to Spring on 5/8. Pricing will be the same as on other carriers, $199.99. It is currently unknown if Sprint will have both the black and white versions of the Nexus S available. Will you be getting one?

Eco plastic "Greenware"

You’ve heard of silverware and plasticware, but greenware or bioware?

That’s another story.

Green algae, the photosynthetic organism used as a biofuel, has now been put to use as sustainable bioplastic.

Sustainable plastic manufacturer Cereplast announced that it can turn algae into a sustainable bioplastic resin, to be put to use in water bottles, plasticware and other applications.

The company, which already manufactures plastic from corn, potatoes, tapioca and wheat, says algae-based plastic could replace up to 50 percent of petroleum content found in traditional plastic resin. That’s a big deal, since more than 15 billion pounds of plastic film are manufactured each year in the U.S. alone, a $12 billion industry.

The problem with all that plastic: it’s not biodegradeable and fills landfills, it relies on increasingly-depleted fossil fuels, it uses energy and increases greenhouse gas emissions. If a big company like ConAgra were to make the switch, the impact would be felt across the economy.

But algae must still be sourced. Cereplast plans to get it from companies that use algae to minimize carbon dioxide emissions from polluting smokestacks. In this case, the algae serves as a biopolymer on the opposite end of the manufacturing pipeline — instead of reducing pollution from the creation of traditional plastic, it’s helping create less-polluting plastic from the get-go.

“Based on our own efforts, as well as recent commitments by major players in the algae field, we believe that algae has the potential to become one of the most important “green” feedstocks for biofuels, as well as bioplastics,” said Frederic Scheer, founder and CEO of Cereplast, in a statement. “However, for our algae-based resins to be successful, we require the production of substantial quantities of algae feedstock.”

Cereplast’s algae-based bioplastic is still under development, but the company expects to make commercial algae bioplastic resin available by the end of next year. If a major company were to adopt the new material — which hopefully is at a cost that is competitive with traditional materials — you might find your beverages delivered in green, not clear, bottles.

[via] Pictured: Samsung’s E200Eco mobile phone, which is partially made of corn-based bioplastic.