In response to Apple’s request, the local judicial authorities have postponed acting on the court ruling until after a more significant case has been dealt with later in the month. The claim Apple is making is that it received rights to the name iPad worldwide as far back as 2009. However, Proview has petitioned the court to force the iPad off of Shanghai shelves, not excluding Apple’s own stores. It is only a provisional request, but includes three Apple stores throughout the city. They claim to have registered the name in 2000, long before Apple manufactured their first iPad. Proview has even tried to scare Apple, by threatening to take it to court in the U.S. As well.

The battle is feverish in the courtroom. The judge gave warnings to lawyers from both sides of the battle as they pitched their tempers at each other. The ruling will only provide a brief respite.

There are two views to the struggle. The first sees a failing company, Proview, making one last strike to survive, by attacking the world’s most valuable tech company. The other sees Apple at fault for failing to fully investigate the naming rights in China and Taiwan. Apple is not giving in and this may give rise to large court costs.

The Taiwanese affiliate of Proview registered the name in many countries, then sold the worldwide rights to Apple. However, Proview argues its affiliate was not empowered with the right to sell the name for China. The temporary result is that the iPad by Apple has been removed from shelves in parts of China. Proview is making a move to prohibit either the import or export of iPad to and from China.

The news is even worse for Apple. They have already lost the same case against Proview in Shenzhen, Proview’s home city in the South. Apple will certainly appeal the ruling. The final decision on Shanghai will await the ruling on the appeal in Shenzhen.

The lawyer representing Apple, Qu Miao, argued that Proview lacks any business with the name iPad. “There are no sales, they have no customers, they have not obtained any stance in any market anywhere. They have nothing at all.” He also pointed out that Apple’s iPad contributes to job creation and tax revenues in China.

The lawyer for Proview, Xie Xianghui, rebutted that these issues were irrelevant to name rights. What you do with the name is not important for determining who has right to it. He is requesting the courts force Apple to cease sales of iPad in China. He argued that iPad could be sold under a different name and achieve the same economic benefits for China, regardless.

Apple officially stand firm on its purchase of the name in 10 countries worldwide. Although Proview refuses to acknowledge the sale, in Hong Kong the court sees it differently. Apple has won there.

Monday was the decisive day, where the High Court cast its ruling on copyright infringement. The next blow comes in June, when the court decides whether or not ISPs will be obligated to block the site from the ISP’s customers. The Pirate Bay, in response claimed that it would seek alternative methods for getting their content out while not being tracked.

The entertainment giants are on the hunt again, believing they are losing too much money from people looking for a free lunch. Their stance is that the people who download free pirated versions of the movies and music are lost sales. What they refuse to acknowledge is that many of these people do not have the money to see these movies or to buy the music. Those who do have the money to, would not normally spend it on these things anyway. So their claims are bloated, much like the melodramatic script of a Hollywood film.

Right on the heels of a successful battle that closed the doors on Newsbin 2, a famous movie distribution site, the entertainment industry leaders requested UK ISP’s set up a roadblock against Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay refuse to let them hijack their ship, though. The end of this month may very well see Pirate Bay shifting to a new method of file distribution.

The Pirate Bay Facebook page announced they would transition from torrents to magnets on the 29^th February. It will be business as usual. Magnets reduce Pirate Bay’s costs and complicate their enemy’s tactics to stop them. While magnets will not change the aspect of the files being illegal, it will allow for a more difficult encryption for sharing files. The location is not shared in a magnet, but only information regarding the file itself.

It is true that Pirate Bay does not host any illegal materials on their own servers, they do in fact freely allow users to share copyright protected files, such as TV serials, movies, games, and music. It has been argued that this sharing has stolen money from the hands of artists, but it has yet to be seriously proven how little has been lost.

The Swedish courts in 2009 determined that Pirate Bay’s founders had broken the law by assisting their visitors in circumventing copyright controls. This is only one of many legal battles Pirate Bay has faced. However, they have continued sailing freely on the high seas of the Internet.

The new UK Communications Act is designed to cut off the hydra’s head by blocking searches for Pirate Bay materials at the search engine level. Serious users will certainly find other ways to ferret out the files, though these measures may stop the masses from accessing the copyrighted materials. It seems highly unlikely any government agency can completely snuff out Pirate Bay.

About six days before Siri and iCloud were launched by Apple, Google was hurrying to apply at the US Patent and Trademark Office for a patent on their new Google TV remote/app. This app would use voice commands for all of the necessary Google TV functions (much like Siri and the iPhone 4GS), pattentlyapple reports.

Unfortunately for Google, Samsung has already announced a new TV remote that has voice controls and even a touch pad. So the battle between the new Google TV remote and the Samsung TV remote has already begun, but which is better? Let’s take a look at the various features for each next generation remote below!

Next Gen. Google TV Remote

The Google engineers state that the idea behind their new remote is based on the fact that people are interacting with various types of computers and now people are working more with smart phones, TV’s, DVR’s, and various other devices. Since computers and technology itself have evolved a lot it only made sense to integrate a UI.

The Siri-like UI Google is integrating into their TV remotes will have a variety of capabilities that will certainly set it apart from competition. One such feature is the ability to tell your Android Phone to get your TV show ready before you are home (yes even if the TV is off!). The future Android phone will be able to turn on the TV and control it when the user is within a certain distance from home. Apparently you can command your phone to do this…from the office, then when you are about a fourth mile from home, your Android will just turn on your TV and have it all set for you.

Additionally, the Android will also display information that is not very suitable for larger screens. Such information like show listings, won’t strain your eyes anymore when it’s on the big screen; now you can simply look down and see it right on your phone!

Another interesting thing about the new Google TV remote is that the voice command system will be entirely cloud based. Cloud storage is used to store information on a remote server so that space is saved on devices. In the case of the remote and the Android, the information shared between the two devices will be sent to the cloud where the other device will come and retrieve it.

Next Gen. Touchscreen Samsung TV Remote

Voice recognition technology is growing by leaps and bounds and Samsung’s new TV remote with a touch pad and voice recognition demonstrates that. It will be released sometime this year and will have a microphone on the remote that will allow the user to change channels, sound and even input functions.

Samsung demonstrated their new technology at the CES earlier, however it has since been vastly improved thanks to Bluetooth and infrared integration.

So, which is the next generation TV remote that will blow our mind later this year? We have to wait a little, but for now the touch pad remote from Samsung may have a leg up on the Google remote!

Nvidia calls the segment they are targeting the “1,000 RMB phone” in China. They will launch their phone with a 3G modem and the Tegra 2 dual-core chip, or so says Jen-Hsun Huang, Chief Executive Officer. At this price, the phone turns out to be 75 percent cheaper than the 4,988 RMB iPhone 4S.

Huang admitted, “This is a great chance for us to break into a market and offer stiff competition against the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer. This is clearly our time to shine.” And Huang was not talking from a mental institution. He might be completely sane, despite his insanely wild ideas.

Analysts had anticipated 19 cents per share and they were not disappointed. Nvidia posted fourth-quarter net at $116 million, in contrast with $172 million the previous year. That is 19 cents per share, or 10 cents per share lower than the previous year. Nvidia’s revenue of $953 million beat out its revenue from the previous year, at $886 million. So there is some improvement, though whether it is enough, remains to be seen.

Huang highlighted the fact that Nvidia is in direct competition with Qualcomm, through their LTE chip. While Qualcomm has an application processor, which is in fact the primary ARM chip, that is loaded with the LTE 4G modem built into the processor, Nvidia will release the Nvidia Tegra and integrated LTE modem soon. This was a surprise to all, since Qualcomm is currently the only processor manufacturer who does this. This is a huge step for Nvidia, but if they can pull off more, they might succeed.

Nvidia is anticipating a growth of more than 50% per quarter with their Tegra chips. HTC is set to release a quad-core Tegra 3 phone. Also, leaks have made it to the public regarding the LG X3. These are only the beginnings of Nvidia’s plans to dramatically increase quad-core Tegra 3 acceptance and integration with phones and tablets, though they are not insignificant ones.

The so-called “28-nanometer yield storage” is the next gen chip arising from 28 nanometer processor fabrication, but for Nvidia, this has been a bear to break through. They do expect to make it to the other side soon, but the sluggishness of the process development has been a quagmire for the chip manufacturer since its beginning.

Meanwhile, Samsung and Apple are capturing a larger share of the market. Samsung used to use Nvidia chips, but no longer. Apple never has. And Nvidia has complete faith in its competition against phones depending on the quad-core Tegra 3, Windows 8 oriented gadgets, any Android tablet with the ICS 4.0, and the RMB 1000.

Not too long ago Jessica Vascellaro, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was able to score an exclusive interview with Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Executive. The interview shed light on how Apple was going to take the ever popular functionality of the iPhones and integrate it with boxes. “We see that people are in love with a lot of apps and functionality here. Anywhere where that makes sense, we are going to move that over to Mac”, Cook said in the interview. This interview was a huge hit for the New York Times and all was well between Apple and the Wall Street Journal until a new story was published.

The story that really severed a lot of ties between Apple and the Wall Street Journal was an explosive report on the conditions of China workers that were employed at a factory making Apple products. The post, which was extensively detailed, had accounts of multiple workers (some well underage) that were working in harsh and brutal conditions. Employees were forced to work excessive amounts of overtime and often times they would work every day of the week. The dorms that they lived in were overcrowded and they were forced to work so long that their legs would swell up from excessive standing.

On top of the horrific conditions that the workers were subjected to Apple’s suppliers have also disposed of hazardous waste improperly and falsified reports to cover their tracks. The people who did the investigations on the suppliers were done by independent and reliable monitors within China.

This story done on the Apple facility enraged thousands and shed light on a much darker and more sinister light on Apple. In retaliation Apple, like some pouting child who just got caught, decided to give New York Times the silent treatment.

This deliberate shunning of information to the Wall Street Journal came in the form of an exclusive interview of Philip Schiller (Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing). Instead of New York Times getting the scoop like they normally do, Apple deliberately ignored them and gave the exclusive interview to a blogger named John Gruber who writes for the Daring Fireball.

The interview was done in Manhattan in New York Times’ “backyard” and a source at the renowned journal stated that they heard from some people inside Apple that “you guys are going to get less access based on the iEconomy series.”

This power play on Apple is just a tantrum and Apple should own up to their mistakes rather than punish others for finding them.

The look and feel of Windows on ARM is fashioned to provide an identical experience to that of Windows 8 x86/64. Logging in, starting and stopping applications, using Windows Store, the new Start Screen, MSIE, Metro Styling, peripherals, and the desktop are all still part of the user’s experience. What is not clear, is whether there is anything different than a build of Windows 8 on ARM.

The ultimate goal was to make Windows available to a new set of partners and expand the sphere of influence of Microsoft into a new set of devices. Windows on ARM is not finished yet. Coders will be terrified to learn that existing Windows apps cannot be ported to Windows on ARM. They must rewrite their code to target the WinRT that underlies both Windows on ARM and Windows 8 x86/64.

This is a team effort. Not only has the Microsoft engineers been working on Windows on ARM, but ARM licensees, PC manufacturers, and component and peripheral developers have been involved as well. The whole system has been designed and built from the start in all aspects, including firmware, hardware, and Windows on ARM software.

Office 15 is a special version of Microsoft’s famous suite, fashioned specially for Windows on ARM. It include a touch-engineered and power/resource conservative version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. All Windows on ARM software will only be available on that device, not sold separately. More importantly, service packs and improvements will on last as long as Microsoft determines that your PC is still useful. Even if you think it is still useful, Microsoft may say it is the end of the road and stop providing updates. This is how it works already with the company too big for its shoes.

They are making special PC’s available to developers and hardware engineers who partner with Microsoft, but soon there will be a public beta available freely to all, called the Windows Consumer Preview. You can find it in many languages. The entire process is involving Microsoft more intimately. While this spells bad news for Linux, it bodes a better experience for the end-user. Windows will be more tightly bound to the hardware. From chipset to firmware, to hardware, to operating system, to applications, and finally to the end-user touching the device, Microsoft will be engineering the entire stream. Of course, Microsoft claims this is a benefit to the user and opens up choice, but the Linux community certainly would disagree. The most likely result is that it will more effectively lock out Linux from being one of those choices, or from being hundreds of those choices – there are hundreds of Linux operating systems to choose from. In the end, Microsoft is trying to lie to us that we will have more choice, while they take tighter control of our freedom and our physical gadget. Buyer beware!

Governments across the globe have been constantly fighting the persistent online privacy and piracy issues however their biggest target, our beloved search engine, is still causing them problems. In this article we will examine the three various stances that Google is taking in opposition to various claims and what holes there are in Google’s arguments.

1. Google is not a monopoly and should not be held to any special obligations under the antitrust law

Google is currently in a heated battle with multiple governments and unions on antitrust issues however it still hasn’t been ruled yet by the European Union on whether or not Google is a monopoly. In other countries, specifically South Korea, Google is facing somewhat different antitrust violations.

Before a raid done by South Korea Google deleted all relevant files, removed Internet access to the offices, and also stated that all employees work from home on the day of the raid. This defiant move by Google has greatly angered the South Korean government and now the government is debating on charges and fines against Google for their noncooperation.

In other countries there are also allegations that Google is ranking their properties top in searches while ensuring that competitor’s properties are buried deep in the search ranks.

2. Google‘s new privacy policy revisions are not ultimatums to users.

Google has a privacy policy that some think is a monopoly because it is a “take it or leave it approach” that doesn’t properly serve users. Since Google refused to comply with the European Union’s request (EU represents 27 countries) to delay their privacy policy, the EU and others are working on investigating this policy because if users do not comply with the policy then there is no other choice but for them to drop all of Google services.

3. Google is not threatening with their patent enforcement policy.

Ever since Google acquired Motorola many feared that Google would then “abuse” Motorola’s patents. However patents are in place to protect intellectual property so if Google were to protect their newly acquired property then I’m not sure why that’s of particular concern. Their real concern is the fact that Google will merge Motorola’s patents and use them in conjunction with Android’s patents.

Overall Google has been facing fierce battles on all fronts on a variety of different issues. Whether its privacy issues or even issues on their services, governments around the globe are working against Google in an attempt to bring them to justice. Despite the continued pressure Google has maintained their composure, stood up against various unions and governments, and continued to strive ahead without missing a step.