Samsung is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to cut more money off the $930 million Apple won in a patent lawsuit. The company is arguing that the appeals court’s earlier ruling is still unfair, even after successfully convincing the panel to chop off $382 million already.
The Apple Watch’s heart-rate monitor is pretty damned cool, but it’s the one piece of the new smartwatch that’s seeing the most updates and tweaks since the hardware launched seven weeks ago.
A new patent suggests that Apple has even more changes in store for the health tech.
In an effort to prevent rivals from stealing its ideas, Apple patents everything it invents — from the iPhone and the iPad, to app icons and even “magic” tactile gloves. But compared to its biggest competitors, Apple’s patent portfolio from 2015 looks surprisingly bare.
Microsoft, Sony, Google, and LG have all outrank Apple in the patent department this year, while arch rival Samsung has absolutely crushed it.
Samsung works in a lot of areas besides smartphones and, according to a recently published patent, one of those could soon be… Edge of Tomorrow-style soldier exoskeletons?
As described, Samsung’s wearable robot would be affixed to the legs of a user and would greatly enhance the strength of its puny human users by generating an auxiliary torque for assisting muscle power.
Well, at least this is one idea they probably didn’t borrow from Apple!
There have been plenty of rumors about the refreshed Apple TV set to arrive at WWDC, but two of the biggest concern the fact that it will feature a revolutionary gesture-based user interface and a new focus on gaming.
Possibly tying into that is a newly-published patent from Apple, which describes a pattern projector which would use laser beams to map the 3D space between the device and a user — thereby allowing a person to carry out motions as a way of interacting with specific apps.
And, yes, that includes games.
Apple filed a patent application today that could someday help you use Touch ID to run everything on your iPhone or iPad without covering the screen with your fat digits.
You can add all the high-tech features you want, but ultimately one of the best ways to make people buy gadgets is to ensure that the devices are the same ones already used by their friends.
That’s the concept behind a newly-published patent application, titled, “Collaborative Location-Based Search Results.” It describes a way in which multiple iPhone users in different locations can search for shared information — say, finding a restaurant or movie theater that’s equally convenient for every member of a group of friends to reach.
Apple could introduce its own iOS-exclusive social network, according to a patent application published today.
Described broadly as “Lifestyle-Based Social Groups,” the application may be used to set up real-world childcare groups, lift-sharing, dining clubs etc., by automatically determining your interests and then pointing you toward similar people.
The high-tech “magic wand”-style controller rumored to ship with the refreshed Apple TV this summer may be the culmination of close to a decade’s R&D on the part of Apple.
Is this the “simplest user interface you could imagine” that Steve Jobs told Walter Isaacson about when he claimed he had “finally cracked” the way to build a perfect TV?
If so, we’ve combed through the patents to reveal how it might work.
Apple still hasn’t owned up to inventing USB-C, the brand new connector featured on its 12-inch MacBook — but Apple patents have all but tied the technology to Cupertino. The latest describes how a do-it-all connector that fits USB-C’s description is going to make every other port you’re using obsolete.