HTC wrote a press release (finally) addressing the HTC/Apple legal battle. The news surfaced earlier this month, and has since taken a back seat to other happenings including SXSW 2010 lineup and multitasking on iPhone OS 4.0. Yesterday HTC outlined their disagreement with Apple’s legal actions and reaffirmed their commitment to the smartphone industry.

There is one slight glimmer of hope left for HTC in their upcoming legal battle.  Google has publicly announced their support for HTC.  At first this may seem a bit strange, but it really shouldn’t be that surprising.  Not only have Google and Apple been feuding and taking potshots at each other for quite a while, but given the precedents at stake the Apple HTC suit is more of an attack on other smartphone providers as a whole than it is about HTC in particular.  What then happens if HTC successfully defends itself (perhaps with the help of Google)?

What sort of precedent would an Apple victory set for the world of smartphone technology? Given the fact that Apple apparently is now revealing that they have patents to technology used by every smartphone on the market, things could be looking bleak for everyone who isn’t them. Heck, if you want to use a proper touch screen or even icons, you technically have to ask Apple’s permission. If they are successful in this lawsuit, the precedent will be set that every remotely user friendly smartphone on earth would be made illegal to produce or sell, except by Apple of course. Even the pundits in the video below agree.

It’s official, smartphones are to 2010 what PCs were to the mid 90’s.  Apple is formally suing HTC for patent infringement.  They are claiming that the touch-screen interface of the HTC’s phone line is too similar to the apple iPhone.  Technically they are right; HTC phones and their Windows Phone OS interact with users very similarly…but this is because it’s a smartphone.  There are only so many things that can be done with a touch-screen and a cell-phone sized computer interface, but somehow apple has managed to enumerate and patent most of them.

Whether you support the increased security of the Digital economy bill or oppose its reduction of freedoms, you can’t deny that it’s a game changer.   In addition to setting a precedent of security over freedom within the internet, which was its intent, there may well be some other effects of the bill that were certainly less than intentional.  The most revolutionary and potentially disastrous of these would be an increased demand for genuinely anonymous ISP providers.

Every Cloud has its silver lining, and the Data Economy Bill is no exception.  Yes it will prevent businesses and individuals from creating free wireless hotspots.  Yes it creates an unpleasant environment for those who cannot afford their own internet.  Yes it is an affront to the entire premise of the internet and free communication. Like many Draconian measures, it will bring with it a great deal of security.

Well, it had to happen sometime, somewhere, but it is still disappointing when it does.  With the passing of the three strikes law in France last year, it was inevitable that other European countries would jump on the web restriction bandwagon.  Unfortunately sometime is now, and somewhere is the UK.  Serious deliberations have recently begun to bring the Digital Economy Bill into effect.  The bill is a massive collections of regulatory measures on the internet. The most publicized of which, is a regulation that would make free public internet hotspots illegal.

This last wireless merger facilitator is perhaps more subtle in it's revolutionary nature, but is no less of a step towards a single datastream than the rest. The HSTI Wireless Media Stick is a wireless data sharing tool that makes great leaps and bounds both towards datastream singularity AND piracy. This device functions and looks like a run of the mill USB, albeit with one important additional feature: it broadcasts and/or streams its contents to any device capable of picking up it's independent wireless signal.

The battle over carriage fees was previously deferred by the addition of supplemental cable properties, such as FX, Fox Sports, and Fox News. This strategy has become less feasible in recent years, as many providers have reached their limits on the sheer number of channels. This puts the industry back at the position of networks demanding extra cash infusions from providers, and many fear this episode will be repeated ad nauseam. Though financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, it was generally considered a victory for Fox, and Time Warner subscribers will likely see their rates go up as a result.

This will probably also draw additional scrutiny from politicians and regulators, who weighed in on the Fox vs. Time Warner spat. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), said he would request the FCC "to intervene and mandate continued carriage and arbitration." FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski then weighed in, saying "Companies shouldn’t force cable-watching football fans to scramble for other means of TV delivery on New Year’s weekend."

image courtesy of screenrant.com

The duel of Fox Broadcasting Company and Time Warner Cable seemed like a Quixotic struggle to rule obsolescence, until an 11th hour deal staved off disaster. The agreement reached in the late hours of Jan 1 prevented Time Warner Cable subscribers from losing all Fox shows, ending a protracted dispute over carriage fees. The disagreement began with negotiations for a new contract, with the old one expiring as the ball dropped on 2009. Fox demanded a rate of $1 a month per subscriber, for each of its TV networks.Time Warner responded with an offer of no more than 30 cents. An act of brinkmanship ensued, where the two mammoth corporations launched dueling PR campaigns about who would be responsible if roughly 4 million homes lost the ability to watch Fox programming.

Some business analysts feel the statements made by Amazon signal a new digital revolution, where e-book sales will maintain strong growth trends and potentially hurt the sales of physical books. Tom Taulli of Blogging Stocks writes "this is not necessarily a sign that traditional books will vanish and everyone will be lugging a Kindle. However, visionary people [...] realize that the future will increasingly be digital. So, why not get started now? What's more, this trend will be another hit to mainstream publishers. Selling books will become more about using digital marketing, not getting shelf space at the local book store. Of course, this is certainly good news for Amazon.com."

Alex Pham of The Los Angeles Times cautions that while the Kindle is selling faster than McDonald's can make Hot Cakes, consumers should wait until next year to buy any competing products. "Next year will bring a wider array of choices, fancy features and, very likely, lower prices, analysts predict. A number of companies are holding off their product launches until next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. One company, Plastic Logic, said it would show at CES a shatter-resistant touch-screen reader that's the size of a sheet of notebook paper." This is just the icing on the cake for Amazon, whose press release trumpets "The last Local Express Delivery order that was delivered in time for Christmas, was placed by a Prime member and went to Seattle. It was a Kindle that was ordered at 1:43 p.m. on Christmas Eve and delivered at 4:57 p.m. that evening."

Asian news site Khabrein also predicts a strong future for the Kindle abroad, saying "for readers E-books are easy to read and handle and thus its popularity is going pay with each passing day. With more competitors hitting the market it is expected that it will penetrate further to developing countries."

Here's a page-turner: Amazon.com's Kindle is the company's most gifted product for the American market this Christmas, and the most gifted product in the company's history.
They did not provide any quantitative sales data, but founder and CEO Jeff Bezos credits the Kindle's massive library, which contains over 390,000 titles, many of them best sellers and new releases. Bezos went on to say "We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history. On behalf of Amazon.com employees around the world, we wish everyone happy holidays and happy reading!"

AdMob won't provide exact revenue figures, but claim they're approaching $100 million this year. That's a drop in the bucket for Google, but they're counting on the acquisition to post a rapid growth rate. This has attracted attention from the FCC, whose antitrust officials have asked Google for additional information on the deal. Google is already the largest Internet advertiser, and this deal would give them ownership of the company many feel is at the forefront of cell phone advertising. Now federal authorities wonder if the company has become too big for the good of the business. "The fear is Google and AdMob together will flatten the mobile advertising landscape," says The Business Insider, though Google insists the deal is purely calculated for extra revenue, and group product manager Paul Feng says "the rapidly growing mobile advertising space is highly competitive with more than a dozen mobile ad networks."

Four years ago, Omar Hamoui was just a grad student trying to add a project to his resume. Now he's $750 million richer, and his advertising network AdMob has been labeled by many as "Google's secret weapon."
Hamoui was a student at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School when he launched the network; a husband and father in his late 20s, burdened with financial hardship and an uncertain future. Now 32, he is a cell phone advertising pioneer, and his distribution system is a watershed. His deceptively simple concept established a method for advertisers to reach customers across multiple cell phone platforms and networks. The trick was creating a way for AdMob to circumvent the strict content controls that wireless carriers placed upon their networks, managing all data and images that customers saw. Hamoui's trick was the creation of "walled gardens," which allowed independent programmers to create for-profit applications, targeted for consumption by cell phone subscribers. Growth was slow at first, but that changed when Apple launched the iPhone.