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Sunday, October 16, 2011

Time zone database has new home after lawsuit (AP) : Technet

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Time zone database has new home after lawsuit (AP) : Technet

Time zone database has new home after lawsuit (AP)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 10:02 AM PDT

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Technology Writer Anick Jesdanun, Ap Technology Writer – Sun Oct 16, 1:02 pm ET

NEW YORK – The organization in charge of the Internet's address system is taking over a database widely used by computers and websites to keep track of time zones around the world.

The transition to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, comes a week after the database was abruptly removed from a U.S. government server because of a federal lawsuit claiming copyright infringement.

Without this database and others like it, computers would display Greenwich Mean Time, or the time in London when it isn't on summer time. People would have to manually calculate local time when they schedule meetings or book flights.

The Time Zone Database allows people to set clocks simply by choosing a city. Select New York, for example, and the computer will know that it is normally five hours behind London, but four hours during a brief period when the U.S. is still on summer time and Britain is not.

The database is updated more than a dozen times a year and is used by a range of computer operating systems including Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, Oracle Corp., Unix and Linux, but not Microsoft Corp.'s Windows.

It's also used by several websites that tell people what the current time is around the world, or what time it will be in Sydney or Moscow next Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Los Angeles. Some non-Internet functions, such as calendar software, also incorporate the database.

Although those functions continued to work after the database disappeared from the government's server, computer systems couldn't get updates to reflect changes in time zones and in the duration of summer time.

Kim Davies, a technical manager at ICANN, said that because much of the Internet depends on the database, its management by ICANN is consistent with the organization's mission to maintain a stable Internet.

One of ICANN's main functions is to coordinate Internet domain names — the suffixes such as ".com" and ".org" in Internet addresses. Those are key for allowing computers to find websites and route email.

ICANN has been in discussions for months about taking over the database with the impending retirement of its longtime coordinator. Arthur David Olson, an employee of the National Institutes of Health who volunteered as coordinator as a side project, began looking for a new home for the database in 2009.

ICANN accelerated those discussions and took over management Friday after the database was removed from NIH's server on Oct. 6, following a lawsuit over historical data used.

Astrology software company Astrolabe Inc. argues that Olson and another volunteer at University of California, Los Angeles should have paid royalties for including data from its software. The defendants have insisted that the data are in the public domain and not subject to copyright. Their employers were not named as defendants.

The federal lawsuit, filed Sept. 30 in Boston, does not affect current time zone information, which comes from tips sent by volunteers through an email list.

However, ICANN is keeping the historical information in the database.

"We are aware of the lawsuit," Davies said. "We believe it's important to continue the operation of the database. We'll deal with any legal matters as they arise."

___

Time zone database: http://www.iana.org/time-zones

Security heavy at private service for Steve Jobs (AP)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 09:06 PM PDT

By JOHN S. MARSHALL, Associated Press John S. Marshall, Associated Press – 33 mins ago

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Security is heavy at Stanford University as some of Silicon Valley's elite gather for a private memorial for Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs.

It was unclear when the event started or how many were in attendance but reporters saw dozens of people walking from a church to another building. Soft music could be heard coming from there later.

Apple spokesman Todd Wilder tells reporters he's been there since 2 p.m. PDT. He says it's a private event and he can't release any details about it. Stanford has also declined comment.

Earlier, guards directed the handful of reporters to a parking lot several hundred yards away from Stanford's Memorial Church where the service was held.

Additional personnel behind steel barricades allowed only a smattering of vehicles to enter the area.

Jobs was the mastermind behind popular gadgets such as the iPhone and iPad. He died Oct. 5 at age 56 after struggling for years with pancreatic cancer.

Activision jumps into kids' game with 'Skylanders' (AP)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 10:05 AM PDT

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Sun Oct 16, 1:05 pm ET

NEW YORK – To impress kids these days, it's not enough to make another video game. Mere action figures won't do, either. So Activision is merging the two.

With "Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure," Activision is using some of its "Guitar Hero" technology in a new venture that's part handheld toy, part digital entertainment. Aimed at kids, "Skylanders" is among the latest and most ambitious game in a growing genre that blends a child's physical world with a video game and online media.

The new game marks Activision's latest stab at a must-have holiday hit, less than a year after it killed off its iconic "Guitar Hero" franchise. Although Activision Blizzard Inc. still has hit titles such as "Call of Duty," people are increasingly turning to free or cheaper games on mobile devices and social networks and buying fewer expensive video game discs that account for a large chunk of Activision's business.

"Skylanders," available for $70 beginning Sunday in North America, comes with three 2-inch-tall action figures — Spyro, the fire-breathing purple dragon, of course, along with others, such as a guy made of tree trunks, or Eruptor, the lava man. Extra figures cost $8 each.

Using a plastic platform about six inches in diameter, the figures connect wirelessly to your video game system, the same way plastic instruments connect to on-screen musicians in "Guitar Hero."

As with other games, you still control their characters on the screen. But you need the figures, which store data and transmit characters' histories to the nearest game console. Each works like a wireless thumb drive for data storage. Connect it to the system, and the game recognizes all that the character has been through.

So you can start playing the game at home on a Wii, grab the Spyro figure and head to a friend's house. There, you can continue playing the game on the PlayStation 3 without losing all you've accomplished on the Wii version. This hasn't been possible before.

Sure, there's stuff like Webkinz, the toy animals that come with secret codes that kids type into a website to play with an online version of their pet. The "Skylanders" figures, though, become an integral part of the game because they store their characters' entire history inside.

"It's DNA-level play," says Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. "How many times have you wished you could bring toys to life?"

Hirshberg calls it the "first true cross-platform game." That means you can play the game on the Wii, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo 3DS, online and on the iPhone and the iPad.

Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at M2 Securities who follows video games, said the concept is "very risky, but if it pays off, it's going to pay off big."

It's risky, for one, because there's no real way to tell what will drive kids and parents to a holiday feeding frenzy in the way Tickle Me Elmo did in 1996 and the Nintendo Wii did a decade later. It's also a relatively new foray into the world of kids' games for Activision, best known for its "Call of Duty" warfare shooters and the grown-up fantasy fighter "World of Warcraft."

Jeff McKinney, video game editor at Time to Play Magazine, said he played the game extensively over the summer and liked it. "It's a cool concept but if the game wasn't good, it was going to be a novelty."

Spyro has been around since the late 1990s, having gotten its start on the Sony Corp.'s PlayStation console. Activision is trying to breathe fire into the series by combining it with real-life toys.

It helps that Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, two of the screenwriters for the original "Toy Story," are the writers of the latest game. As the story goes, Spyro and nearly three dozen other characters have been shrunk and frozen by an evil creature called Kaos. Their task: Battle, collect treasures and solve puzzles to save the world from Kaos.

"It's important that the toys were alive," says Yale Miller, producer at Activision. "Not just a piece of plastic manufactured somewhere."

Activision is also throwing its full marketing blitz behind the game. Although it won't say how much it's spending, analysts estimate it's at least in the tens of millions of dollars. Toys R Us has included it in its list of 15 "best toys" for the 2011 holiday season alongside Air Swimmers, the helium-filled, radio-controlled flying fish, and Leapfrog's LeapPad Explorer.

The toys use RFID technology, used by retailers, drug makers and shipping companies to track goods, to store information.

The game is rated E10, meaning it's suitable for everyone over 10.

If it succeeds, other game companies will likely follow. Nintendo, with its beloved Mario characters — not to mention Pokemon — is a likely candidate.

"I'm surprised they haven't done it yet," McKinney says.

Top 10 Tech This Week [PICS] (Mashable)

Posted: 15 Oct 2011 11:12 AM PDT

Charlie White Charlie White – Sat Oct 15, 2:12 pm ET

In a week dominated by the iPhone 4S and its accompanying iOS 5 operating system, we gather up those highlights and add even more techo-goodness in this week's edition of Top 10 Tech. [More from Mashable: AT&T and Sprint Say iPhone 4S Launch Ignites Record Demand]

This story originally published on Mashable here.

LivingSocial launching exclusive food events (AP)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 09:24 PM PDT

By RACHEL METZ, AP Technology Writer Rachel Metz, Ap Technology Writer – 15 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Online deals site LivingSocial is launching an invitation-only service aimed at food fans, offering experiences such as a visit to a sustainable farm or a meal served in a restaurant's kitchen.

LivingSocial Gourmet's events will be more expensive — and less common — than the food-related deals currently available on LivingSocial. There, you might pay $20 to get a voucher good for $40 worth of food at a local pizzeria. The Gourmet deals will be with fine-dining restaurants and other businesses in the food industry and will range from around $100 to $200 per person. The service will also offer group packages.

The service will be available first to select LivingSocial members in Washington, D.C. LivingSocial hopes to offer it in other 10 cities by the end of the year.

Egypt's Mobinil says customer boycott subsides (Reuters)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 06:34 AM PDT

– Sun Oct 16, 9:34 am ET

CAIRO (Reuters) – The number of subscribers cancelling their Mobinil subscriptions has tumbled from a peak earlier this year when some customers took offence at a cartoon posted online by the company's founder, its chairman said on Sunday.

The Egyptian mobile company suffered a boycott after Christian business tycoon and politician Naguib Sawiris tweeted a cartoon of Mickey Mouse with a long beard and Minnie Mouse veiled in black in June.

Some customers took it as an offence to Islam.

"Certainly the impact of the tweet has diminished drastically since the peak," Mobinil Chairman Alex Shalaby told Reuters. "We will feel it in this quarter which will be announced shortly."

He said the number of "porting out" requests by subscribers reached around 20,000 a day at the peak of the boycott, compared to 1,000 or less per day before the incident.

"Today we are way below that figure, a fraction of that figure for sure," said Shalaby.

Mobinil, a venture of Sawiris's Orascom Telecom and France Telecom, competes with Vodafone's Egyptian unit and Etisalat Misr, the Egyptian arm of Abu Dhabi-based telecoms group Etisalat.

Shalaby, speaking at the launch of an initiative to give users better access to government services, said Mobinil was "fully ready" to begin talks with the government to bring fourth-generation (4G) telecommunication services to the country.

The number of mobile phone users in Egypt grew to 78 million at the end of July from 71 million at the end of 2010 but analysts say the market is reaching saturation and providers need to focus on data services to keep revenues expanding.

Egypt suffered a sudden exodus of investors in the wake of the uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak and many are hesitant to return.

Shalaby said Egypt's interim government needed to boost security on the streets and more actively engage in dialogue with the private sector to improve the investment climate.

"(The main step) is security, to give confidence to investors that Egypt is secure, that the streets of Egypt are secure, that the rule of law prevails," Shalaby said.

(Reporting by Shaimaa Fayed; Writing by Tom Pfeiffer; Editing by Sophie Walker)

Sirius XM touchscreen-enabled Lynx receiver outed by Best Buy (Digital Trends)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 10:43 AM PDT

Adam Rosenberg Adam Rosenberg – Sun Oct 16, 1:43 pm ET

sirius-xm-lynx

Sirius XM has a new radio receiver coming soon called the Lynx SXi1, a touchscreen-powered device that runs a modified version of the Android operating system. We know this because a now-removed Best Buy product page revealed the device to the Internet's teeming masses before the retailer could pull the listing down.

The product page included an image (above) as well as a full set of details about the receiver (via Music Sink). It sports a micro SDHC slot, so you can bring along some of your own music as well as listening to Sirius XM content. There's also a built-in wireless chip and multitouch support for the touchscreen display. The rechargeable battery delivers 30 hours of operation on a single charge, according to the product documentation.

Unfortunately, the one thing that was missing from the Best Buy page was a release date. Though with the product shot looking so final, "soon" is probably a safe bet. It looks like the Lynx will retail (at Best Buy at least) for $249.99.

Android tablets finding their niche as market heats up (Appolicious)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 07:00 AM PDT

Facebook campaign may herald deeper changes in Bhutan (Reuters)

Posted: 15 Oct 2011 11:48 PM PDT

By Alistair Scrutton Alistair Scrutton – Sun Oct 16, 2:48 am ET

THIMPHU (Reuters) – For a sign of things to come with isolated Bhutan's young democracy, look no further than a draconian smoking law, some bar talk, and a Facebook page.

For decades, Bhutan has been the world's most reclusive kingdom, with conservative villagers living under an absolute monarch. The introduction of parliamentary democracy in 2008 by the then-king was forced on many reluctant subjects who still look to the monarch as the final arbiter of justice.

But earlier this year Kinley Tshering, then a media consultant in the capital, Thimphu, discussed with friends over drinks the jailing of a Buddhist monk for three years for possessing $3 worth of tobacco, one of the first to be prosecuted under a new law banning public smoking.

More than 50 people have been jailed over the law, which allows police with sniffer dogs to raid homes in search of illegally imported tobacco and makes holding as much as a carton of 200 cigarettes a jailable offence.

Angry, Tshering decided to form a Facebook page, a digital protest unheard of in this Himalayan kingdom of 700,000 people wedged in between India and China.

Within months, the page had several thousand followers and was the talk of the town, signaling how a younger generation is embracing social media and democratic rights, confidently challenging an established order of elderly and mostly conservative leaders.

"Facebook was important. It opened the floodgates for open criticism of the government," said opposition leader Tshering Tobgay. "People feel the need to be more vocal. Only two years ago, criticism - constructive or not - was quite anonymous."

It is not just social media but traditional newspapers - the first private ones appeared in 2006 - that are becoming increasingly aggressive in probes into the government.

No one expects any revolution in Bhutan, where the king is revered. There is broad support for the kingdom's cautious embrace of globalization and its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), the idea that personal well-being and the environment are as important as GDP.

ALIENATED YOUNGER GENERATION

But, tentatively, Bhutan is becoming a country where its first-ever democratic government - elected in 2008 - may have to increasingly take into account its people, especially its younger and modern, urban and wired generation.

For decades, criticism and grievances were aired among families and close friends.

"There are a lot of speeches about GNH. It sounds like we are doing a lot," said Tashi Choden, a senior researcher at the Center for Bhutan Studies in Thimphu. "But there is a different reality on the ground. The youth are increasingly alienated. We could lose what we have if we are not careful."

The predominantly Buddhist Bhutanese are mindful of the fate of other Himalayan kingdoms: the monarchy in Nepal was abolished after a civil war, Sikkim was absorbed by India and Tibet by China.

The marriage of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck on October 13 to a young student may cement the future of the popular monarchy that acts as the checks and balances on an unsure democracy, funneling grievances through the ancient rights of subjects to appeal to the king.

But there is far more skepticism about its elected leaders.

"The next election (in 2013) will be fascinating," said Francoise Pommaret, a French anthropologist and historian who has lived in Bhutan for three decades. "I have no idea what will happen, but there are profound social changes. Our leaders will have to listen to a new generation."

Bhutan's government faces a slew of challenges.

Most glaringly, there is a massive generation gap between an elderly conservative elite and young people who pose problems for the government that range from unemployment, urban gangs and drug abuse.

There is also a growing disparity in wealth. Bhutan is not one of the world's poorest countries - its GDP per head puts it in the league of lower middle-income nations - and yet more than a fifth of the population lives on less than $0.70 a day.

Increasing expectations of better lives are fed by television, which was only introduced to the country in 1999, as well as the ever-more-frequent sight of expensive land cruisers plying Bhutan's roads.

"Is there is one thing that keeps leaders awake at night, it's the growing disparity between the haves and have-nots," said one senior government official, who asked to remain anonymous.

TIDE TURNING SLOWLY

It is a change that goes to the far reaches of a kingdom roughly the size of Switzerland.

In the south, lower-caste villagers with historical Hindu roots are suing their upper-caste neighbors for discrimination, saying it is illegal under the new constitution. Pommaret calls it "a landmark in Bhutan's history."

In Thimphu, some 200 people carried out Bhutan's first-ever street protest in 2009 against the slow official reaction to the drowning of seven youngsters in a monsoon-swollen river.

A highway through a national park connecting eastern Bhutan with the central part of the country has sparked national debate on television, and protests to the prime minister.

The new taste for popular debate is not restricted to an urban, educated elite: village migrants studying in college towns are embracing Facebook. And the government is smoothing the way, setting up computer centers in many rural areas.

Dupthob Tashiyangtse, a lawmaker from a remote rural region in the east, recounted how, after he was elected, villagers started making all kinds of demands including asking him to charge their mobile phones or pick up their groceries.

"When we campaigned we told them we were here to help them," Tashiyangtse said. "They took us literally. People are now coming forward. They are more demanding."

And everyone talks about the Facebook page.

"People are coming out," said Tshering, who is now managing editor of Business Bhutan, a newspaper that has spearheaded investigations into the government. "We were really surprised by the reaction, quite scared actually. We were unsure what the government would do."

In fact, the prime minister signed up on the Facebook page, a signal that the leaders of this country may see the tide cannot be turned.

But it is not without tension and fear.

Organizers say the street protest was photographed by plain clothes police. A normally assured prime minister angrily accused a newspaper of playing to foreign interests over an investigation into a state lottery scandal.

There is a long way to go. Many people are still reluctant to talk openly. Change will probably come hesitantly.

Asked if he had any more plans for protests, Tshering smiled, and said: "That was enough, for now."

(Editing by John Chalmers and Sanjeev Miglani)

IPhone 4S Benchmarked, Faster Than All Android Phones (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 10:20 AM PDT

Jared Spurbeck Jared Spurbeck – Sun Oct 16, 1:20 pm ET
Contribute content like this. Start here.

Apple does not even list the new iPhone 4S' internal technical specs -- RAM, graphics performance, and processor speed -- on the iPhone's "Tech Specs" page. Reports have surfaced, though, which suggest it's basically the same on the inside as an iPad 2. Arnold Kim of MacRumors notes it has the same Apple A5 processor and 512 MB of RAM as an iPad 2, but "is likely underclocked" to 800 MHz compared to the iPad's 1 GHz speed. The underclocking may be necessary in order to fit such a powerful processor into a smartphone chassis (and have reasonable battery life).

So how does an iPad in an iPhone's body stack up to the current crop of Android smartphones and "superphones?" As it turns out, unbelievably well. According to benchmarks compiled by Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug of Anandtech, a stock iPhone 4S outperforms pretty much every phone on the market out of the box.

Graphics -- Rendering Egypt offscreen

The 2.1 version of an app called GLBenchmark forces smartphones and tablets to render graphics onto an offscreen canvas, roughly the size of a laptop monitor. The original iPhone 4 was at the bottom of the benchmarks, rendering the scene at only 11.2 frames per second -- slowly enough to be noticed as choppy. Slightly above it was the Nexus S -- a single-core superphone -- then the LG Optimus 3D, the 10.1 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the Motorola Droid Bionic. The Samsung Galaxy S 2 was the only real standout from the Android pack, but the iPhone 4S beat it handily, rendering the scene at over 70 frames per second compared to about 40. Only the iPad 2 beat it, due to its higher clock speed.

Browser performance

The "Sunspider" Javascript test is a measure of how well a device can handle (non-Flash) interactive web pages. Older smartphones like the original Nexus One and the iPhone 3GS took about 5 seconds to render the test page, while the iPhone 4 beat out even the Galaxy S 2 at 3.5 seconds. The iPhone 4S, on the other hand, took only 2.2 seconds, and was just barely beat out by the 8.9 inch Galaxy Tab (the iPad 2 did not appear in the test results).

Processor speed

Processor benchmarking seemed to confirm the theory that the iPhone 4S is clocked at 800 MHz. Its dual-core processor was benchmarked as having almost double the power of the old iPhone 4, though, which had a single-core 800 MHz processor.

Android devices were not compared in the processor speed benchmarking, but the iPhone 4S beat them all by a mile in every other measurement.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

In iPhone 4S speed marathon, Sprint finishes last (Appolicious)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 11:00 AM PDT

U.S. wireless initiative stalls new billing rules (Reuters)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 09:16 PM PDT

By Jasmin Melvin Jasmin Melvin – 23 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. wireless industry is rolling out more consumer-friendly billing practices, fending off a plan by communications regulators to impose new rules against unexpected charges.

Guidelines to be unveiled on Monday by the wireless trade association, CTIA, will see companies send alerts to customers when they near and reach monthly limits on voice, text and data services, and before they incur international roaming charges.

Similar to rules the Federal Communications Commission was contemplating, the regulator is backing off its plan for now.

"Consistent with the FCC's ongoing efforts, these actions harness technology to empower consumers, and ensure consumers get a fair shake, not bill shock," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.

The FCC has found that one in six mobile phone users have experienced bill shock, or unexpected fees tacked onto their monthly bill, and 23 percent of those users faced unexpected charges of $100 or more.

The FCC proposed rules last October that would make mobile phone companies send text or voice alerts to customers before charging them for services not covered by their plans.

Consumers should begin receiving warnings about their bills faster under the industry initiative than the FCC would have been able to require through the rulemaking process.

CTIA, representing companies serving 97 percent of wireless customers, will announce the voluntary guidelines, including disclosure of tools that make it easier for customers to track and control their service usage.

The trade group expressed concern last October that prescriptive and costly rules could threaten practices in the industry that have already led to fewer wireless complaints and lower average monthly bills.

The FCC intends to leave its bill shock proceeding open. If wireless carriers fail to comply with the industry guidelines, the agency can still move ahead with enforceable rules, an FCC official said.

"Our phones shouldn't cost us more than the monthly rent or mortgage," said President Barack Obama in a statement, applauding the wireless industry's efforts to work with the administration.

CTIA Chief Executive Steve Largent called the initiative an example of how federal agencies and the industries they regulate can work together to avoid burdensome rulemakings, as directed by a recent executive order from Obama.

Wireless carriers are to provide at least two of the four alerts -- voice, text, data or roaming -- within 12 months and the rest within 18 months, under the industry initiative.

The FCC said the alerts will require substantial investment from wireless companies as they must make upgrades to their billing systems.

The majority of Americans get their wireless service through major providers such as AT&T Inc (T.N), Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N), Deutsche Telekom's (DTEGn.DE) T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L).

(Reporting by Jasmin Melvin; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Nicki Minaj Surprises 8-Year-Old YouTube Star on "Ellen" (Mashable)

Posted: 15 Oct 2011 07:37 AM PDT

Brian Anthony Hernandez Brian Anthony Hernandez – Sat Oct 15, 10:37 am ET

Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

A homemade video uploaded to YouTube last month recently went viral, attracting almost 11 million views and landing its star -- 8-year-old British girl Sophia Grace Brownlee -- a segment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show this week. In the video (below), Brownlee performs a fierce a cappella version of Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" as her younger cousin Rosie Grace McClelland provides cute background vocals and even cuter dance moves.

[More from Mashable: My Blackberry Is Not Working! [VIDEO]]

Ellen Degeneres flew the girls to be on Ellen and surprised them (above) when she brought out the blonde-and-blue haired Minaj, who later performed "Super Bass" with the pint-sized duo.

"I'm the second Nicki Minaj," yelled Brownlee after Degeneres plopped a wig on her head.

[More from Mashable: Occupy Wall Street Protesters and Police Clash [VIDEO]]

Degeneres often features YouTube stars on her show. In 2010, she even launched a record label and immediately signed YouTube sensation Greyson Chance, who was 12 at the time and became famous for a middle school performance of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi."

SEE ALSO: YouTube Cover Song Face-Off Series

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Samsung expands sales ban requests against Apple iPhone (Reuters)

Posted: 16 Oct 2011 09:29 PM PDT

– 10 mins ago

SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) said on Monday that it has filed preliminary injunction motions in Australia and Japan requesting the courts stop the sale of Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone 4S in an escalating legal battle between the two technology giants.

Samsung said earlier this month that it would seek sales bans of the latest iPhone in France and Italy less than a day after the device was unveiled, claiming the product infringed upon its patents.

"In light of these (patent) violations, Samsung believes the sale of such Apple devices should be banned," Samsung said in a statement.

Since April, Apple and Samsung have been locked in an acrimonious legal battle in 10 countries involving smartphones and tablet computers as they jostle for the top spot in the fast-growing markets. Apple is also Samsung's biggest customer, buying mainly chips and displays.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Chris Lewis)
at 9:49 PM

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