Apple, Samsung Face Off Again in New Patent Dispute Trial

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Smartphone rivals Apple and Samsung returned to a federal courtroom this week to resume their long-running patent dispute.

The latest trial kicked off in San Jose, Calif., after a judge last year found the jury instructions in the original 2012 trial misstated the law and ordered a new trial.

The 2012 case resulted in a jury ordering Samsung to pay more than $1 billion in damages to Apple for infringing on patents for the iPhone. But the award was curbed by a retrial the following year, and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a portion of the damages after ruling that they could reflect either individual components of a product or the entire product itself.

Read More from Wireless Week Here

Los Angeles to Be Among First Four Cities with Verizon’s Fixed Wireless 5G

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Verizon plans to introduce commercial 5G service in four U.S. cities this year, including Los Angeles, CEO Lowell McAdam told CNBC Tuesday.

The nation’s top carrier initially set a target of “three to five” markets with 5G service by the end of 2018; Los Angeles, meanwhile, is the second city to be disclosed by Verizon, which named Sacramento as the site of its launch of fixed wireless 5G service.

McAdam also referenced Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as one of the local elected leaders with whom “we’ve had some great partnerships.”

“We want to really be able to show the scale of 5G and the impact that it’ll have on people across all the applications,” McAdam said.

He said Verizon’s acquisition of fiber and spectrum assets would be able to deliver a full suite of 5G services and push into new markets “at a good cost that we’ve never been able to do before.”

McAdam noted that the carrier will have more than 1,000 cell sites operating on global 5G standards late this year, which will shift into a “mobile environment” as 5G devices enter the market early next year.

Read More from Wireless Week Here

Is a Dumber Phone a Better Phone?

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If all goes according to plan, in April of next year, thousands of people will receive a package containing a device called the Light Phone 2. The project was funded on Indiegogo, and many Light Phone customers will have been waiting for an entire year by then. It’s the second iteration of the device, but by modern standards, the phone will be primitive, with a colorless screen and none of the familiar apps. This lack of functionality is spun as a benefit; the Light Phone is marketed as “a phone that actually respects you.” It’s a manifestly absurd series of words, but I suspect more than a few of us understand perfectly what it’s supposed to mean.

If you’re one of those people, it seems likely that your smartphone doubles as your alarm clock, meaning it’s the very first thing you hear every day, rousing you from your sleep before spilling a night’s worth of inbound information into view the moment it is silenced. From that point, it is hungry for attention: In the bathroom, in the kitchen and at the table, it is a constant accomplice, as helpful or unhelpful as you want or allow it to be.

In the car, it is a navigator, a radio, a nagging distractor and a ready accessory to manslaughter; at work, it is both a vigilant assistant and an eager fellow shirker. It funnels all types and degrees of information through a few common interfaces, supplying a delirious new channel alongside your inner monologue: An important security update regarding your account. I love you, and I can’t wait to see you. Reminder: Call back the eye doc. The identity of the Golden State Killer was discovered using a genealogy database, investigators said. Your credit score has changed. Three missed calls from “SCAM LIKELY.” One missed call from “BOSS’S BOSS.”

Read More from The New York Times Magazine Here

Top intelligence official says Chinese ZTE cellphones pose security risk to U.S.

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The nation’s top counterintelligence official told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday that penetration of the U.S. market by the Chinese telecom firm ZTE could pose a national security risk to the United States.

His comments come two days after President Donald Trump tweeted that he was working with the president of China to help ZTE, which has been sanctioned by the Treasury and Commerce departments for doing business with Iran and North Korea.

 Bill Evanina, who is facing a confirmation vote to head the newly created National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said he was not up to speed on the sanctions against ZTE, and he declined to say whether lifting them would be a good idea.

But under questioning by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Evanina said U.S. intelligence agencies are on record as assessing that Chinese telecommunication firms are used as a vehicle by the Chinese government to conduct espionage.

And, answering a question from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., he said he would never use a ZTE phone.

“President Xi of China, and I, are working together to give massive Chinese phone company, ZTE, a way to get back into business, fast,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Too many jobs in China lost.”

As NBC News reported Monday, ZTE ran afoul of the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments when it sold hardware incorporating American technology to Iran and North Korea in violation of U.S. sanctions against those countries. In March, ZTE agreed to pay $1.2 billion, but when Commerce Department officials discovered a month later that ZTE had rewarded rather than punished the company officials responsible for the violations, it implemented a”denial order” prohibiting U.S. companies from selling their goods to ZTE for seven years.

Read More from NBC News Here

Distracted driving: Study offers look at how common cellphone use is while driving

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A survey, administered between Oct. 14 and Nov. 17, 2017, asked drivers from across the United States about their driving behaviors, including distracted driving, drinking and driving and speeding.

The results, published in the 2017 Traffic Safety Culture Index, showed that about 97 percent of those surveyed view texting or sending emails while driving to be dangerous, yet about 35 percent of respondents said they had sent a text or email while driving in the past 30 days. About 45 percent admitted to reading a text or email while behind the wheel.

About 61 percent of respondents reported that they talked on a hands-free cellphone within the past 30 days, and about 49 percent said they had a conversation on a handheld cellphone while driving.

Drivers surveyed viewed texting and sending emails while driving as more dangerous than talking on the phone, and they were more accepting of using hands-free devices versus handheld phones.

 

Read More from WDIV ClickOnDetroit  Here