Chinese Court Rules Against Apple in Siri-Related Patent Dispute [iOS Blog]

Apple today faced a setback in it efforts to overturn a speech recognition patent held by Shanghai-based Zhizhen Internet Technology. According to Reuters , the Beijing First Intermediate Court ruled in favor of Zhizhen, upholding the validity of the patent and paving the way for Zhizhen's existing infringement case against Apple to continue.





Apple said in a statement that it would appeal this decision with the Beijing Higher People's Court.

"Apple believes deeply in protecting innovation, and we take intellectual property rights very seriously," said a spokesman.



"Apple created Siri to provide customers with their own personal assistant by using their voice.



"Unfortunately, we were not aware of Zhizhen's patent before we introduced Siri, and we do not believe we are using this patent.



"While a separate court considers this question, we remain open to reasonable discussions with Zhizhen."

This patent is an integral part of an intellectual property infringement lawsuit first filed by Zhizhen against Apple in 2012. Zhizhen claims that Apple's Siri voice assistant infringes upon patents that cover its own Xiaoi Robot voice assistant system for messaging clients.



The Xiaoi bot originated as a chat bot for MSN and similar networks, but has moved on to a number of platforms, including Android and iOS [App Store]. It has evolved to bear a striking similarity to Siri.



Zhizhen first introduced the Xiaoi Robot in 2003, filed for the related voice recognition patent in 2004, and was awarded rights to the technology in 2006.

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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, July 09

Aerial Photo Shows Outline of Apple's Spaceship Campus Taking Shape

Construction on Apple's Campus 2 is continuing to progress and a new aerial photo courtesy of Ron Cervi, KCBS news and traffic reporter, shows that all of the buildings on the site have now been demolished in order for new work to begin.



The area where the circular-shaped building will be constructed is cleared out, allowing us a glimpse at where the campus itself will be located. Apple has moved quickly with this project, having first begun working on the project just a few months ago after receiving unanimous approval for the project in November.

The spaceship! #ApplesNewHQ beginning to take shape. http://bit.ly/1hejruZ

— Ron (@Sky1Ron) April 30, 2014

Street-level photographs back in December revealed several buildings still standing, but another aerial photo from February suggested a large portion of the work had been completed. During construction, Apple has closed off sidewalks and built a large green privacy fence to keep the area hidden.



Apple's second campus is located near the company's existing Infinite Loop campus. The first phase of construction will include the famous 2.8 million square foot ring-shaped main building with an underground parking facility capable of accommodating approximately 2,400 cars.



A 100,000 square foot fitness center and a 120,000 square foot auditorium will also be built, and during a second phase of construction, Apple will build an additional 600,000 square feet worth of office, research, and development buildings.



Apple hopes to finish the first phase of the Apple Campus 2 construction by 2016.

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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, April 30

Microsoft unveils Windows 8.1 Update 1

As expected, Microsoft on Wednesday announced the Windows 8.1 Update 1, a software update that Windows users who still prefer mouse and keyboard input over touch – or who don’t have touch-enabled devices in the first place – will certainly appreciate. “"We've improved its enterprise support and we focused on making it smoother and easier to use with people who have a mouse and keyboard focus," Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore said.

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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, April 02

Are we going to see iPhone-like shortages when the Galaxy S5 launches?

Tick-tock, tick-tock... Samsung doesn't have a lot of time left to meet its Galaxy S5 production targets before the phone officially launches on April 11th. And now G 4 Games has spotted yet another report out of Korea claiming that Samsung is still having trouble getting Galaxy S5 production up to speed with less than three weeks to go before its release.

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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, March 26

Ask the right questions and Siri will tell you her entire backstory

Want to know Siri's backstory? All you have to do is ask the right questions. The engineers responsible for creating Apple's virtual personal assistant Siri built in a number of fun Easter Eggs, or hidden features that can be discovered by asking specific questions or giving certain commands. Apple has continued to add even more fun new features as it continues to develop Siri, but perhaps one of the most interesting Siri Easter Eggs is one that has been present since the very beginning — but has yet to be uncovered.

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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, March 11

Galaxy S5′s specs confirmed one week before launch

We pretty much know everything there is to know about the Galaxy S5 as far as its basic specs are concerned but it's still nice to get some confirmation. An unnamed source tells Bloomberg that the Galaxy S5 will indeed feature a 5.2-inch display with a "sharper" resolution, although the source doesn't indicate whether the display will be a 2K display as we've heard in previous leaks. Bloomberg's source also says that the new device will have "an improved battery and camera," which is pretty much a prerequisite for new smartphones and not at all surprising.



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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, February 18

Here’s why Google succeeded in mobile while Microsoft is floundering

Outgoing Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the failure of Vista was his biggest regret as CEO because it meant he had to devote more resources to fixing it and had fewer resources to devote to making a better mobile operating system. Daring Fireball's John Gruber, however, thinks that Microsoft's struggles in the mobile world go far beyond this and are instead fundamentally about the company not understanding the importance of the iPhone back when it launched in 2007.



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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, February 05

Here’s how desperate BlackBerry really is

Amid reports that BlackBerry’s market share in the U.S. has reached an unbelievable 0% there’s also a rumor (backed up by a leaked apk) that the company is going to soon launch a BBM build for devices that still run Gingerbread, an Android version that was launched in late 2010. N4BB (via MobileSyrup ) reports that BBM for Gingerbread is already available unofficially, providing a link to the apk file that can be sideloaded on compatible devices.



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Posted in 2014 at 04:34PM, January 31