Gearor Tech Magazine

Apple has lost a preliminary injunction filed by Motorola Mobility over a wireless-related patent. That’s not something we’re hearing a lot of these days, but it seems to be the case over in Germany, where a judge in the Mannheim Regional Court has ruled that the iPhone and iPad (3G versions) infringe European Patent 1010336, covering a “method for performing countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system.”

By now all this patent litigation has likely become tiresome to you, as it has most of us, but this is actually a pretty substantial win for Motorola, and an equally substantial loss for Apple. The loss means that an injunction on all the old iPhones, (probably the 4S, as well) and 3G-capable iPads is preliminarily enforceable against Apple Sales International, which is Apple’s Ireland-based subsidiary.

Motorola has already secured a similar ruling before, but it neglected to give Apple the chance to present its case. This ruling, however, came after both Apple and Motorola presented their full arguments. That said, Apple has very few options to stop the ban. They will likely try to get a stay to appeal the ruling, but it’s unclear whether or not that suspension will be granted.

The ruling also allows for Apple to remove the allegedly infringing technology from its products, but that seems impossible. The patent in question covers technology that seems to be crucial to the functionality of the phone. Even if it wasn’t, it’s probably not commercially viable for Apple to remove it.

But it gets trickier than that. For one thing, enforcing this injunction is a bit of a risk for Motorola. The judge has allowed for Apple to receive a €100 million bond, which would go toward damages sustained during the injunction, should Cupertino find a way to overturn this ruling down the road.

Then there’s the matter of FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licensing, which comes into play here since the patent in suit falls under the GPRS data standard. But Germany deals with FRAND issues a little differently. Basically, if a company is found to be using FRAND-style patented technology in its products, the court can only allow that company a FRAND defense if it’s made “an irrevocable, binding offer” to license the patents on FRAND terms and also post a bond for ongoing royalties, reports FOSS Patents.

Apple did make an offer, to license all of Motorola’s FRAND-pledged patents, but threw in a clause that drifts away from the idea of “irrevocable” and “binding.” The issue is that Apple wants to argue the validity of the patent in question, which would mean those royalty payments would fly out the window.

The court in Germany agreed with Motorola when it argued that the offer Apple made to license the patents was shy of what is needed to cover damages. That said, Motorola can license these patents to Apple moving forward, but Apple will have to cough up the dough for past infringement.

Here’s a full copy of today’s ruling (but brush up on your German first):

With all the hype around the Kindle Fire it’s easy to forget about the Nook Tablet. The other budget Android tablet is zipping along nicely according to industry watchdog Digitimes. The outlet, citing upstream component suppliers, is reporting that B&N has shipped (note: not sold) one million units since the Nook Tablet’s mid-November launch. Plus, due to strong initial sales, ol’ B&N is increasing its order countering earlier estimates that predicted demand for a B&N tablet would decrease.

The Amazon Fire might be the wunderkind of the Android world, but the Nook Tablet isn’t a slouch either. Both the Fire and Nook Tablet are built using the formula of the original Nook Color. By skinning Android with a much more consumer-friendly interface, Amazon and B&N successfully are successfully chipping away at the iPad’s mountain. A much lower price helps as well.

The Nook Tablet will never likely eclipse the Kindle Fire in retail sales volume. The Fire already has a massive lead. But the sub-iPad tablet market is largely untapped and the impressive initial sales numbers show consumers want a $200-ish tablet. For example, if this report is correct (it seems very likely), B&N shipped a million tablets in roughly a month while CE giant Asus is predicting to ship just 1.8 million tablets for all of 2011.

The iPad has effectively already won the first several rounds of the tablet war. But much like the PC battlefield, there is plenty of room for more than just one vendor. Barnes & Noble is officially a top player.

Amid talks of a Groupon acquisition, the smart local recommendations app Alfred has arrived on Android. Alfred serves up personalized suggestions for nearby restaurants, coffee shops, bars and nightclubs using a combination of artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms to develop personal “taste graphs” for its users.

Previously an iOS-only app, the big news for Alfred’s second platform launch is not just the expanded reach, but also how the team at Clever Sense has approached the Android port.

Instead of simply reproducing the familiar Alfred interface using different code, Clever Sense created a second native app specifically designed to take advantage of features and interactions found on the Android platform. On Android, Alfred looks totally different.

Immediately after the app’s installation and launch, a screen asks you if you want to save the app to your homescreen. Having used Android for over a year myself, I’m surprised more Android apps don’t do this. (Android apps are hidden away by default in most cases, allowing users to customize multiple homescreens with their own selection of apps and widgets.)

After launching Alfred, the app walks you through the “getting to know you” quiz which asks you to teach it about some of your preferences. You can opt out of the quiz, but that wouldn’t be a great idea. Alfred’s algorithms get better the more you train them, so it’s worthwhile to give the app’s smarts a kickstart via the quiz.

When you arrive on Alfred’s main screen, this is where you’ll see the most startling departure from the iOS user interface. Instead of thumbnail photos you tap (e.g., lunch, dinner, etc.) to swipe through place recommendations, there are colored circles for “Ideas,” “Profile” and “Teach.” The Ideas circle, when tapped, take you through a list you scroll through up and down to choose the category. And when you’re in a category (e.g. “coffee and tea”), there’s a toolbar at the bottom that lets you view the recommendations as cards like on iOS, on a map or as a list. It allows you to apply filters to the recommendations.

The end result is a bit more of a geeky take on Alfred, which, frankly, is perfect for the Android user base. Android users are often interested in things like tweaks, customizations, and heavy personalization, thanks to the platform’s openness. There’s an enjoyment of apps, in many cases, as tools that help you get the job done, instead of “experiences” like on iOS. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, but it’s different.

To date, Alfred has served up 21 million recommendations to users, up from 7 million in October. And users have liked 4.6 million places, up from 2 million. But the company won’t disclose the actual user base numbers at this time.

Clever Sense had previously said that restaurants and the like was just the first step for the use of Alfred’s technology. It was looking into delivering personalized deal recommendations from sites like Groupon and LivingSocial in its next phase. That would explain Groupon’s interest in the matter. But while that would be likely be a nice exit for the company, it would be a shame for Alfred’s happy users to lose this app, especially now that it came to Android.

Alfred is live on the Android Market here.

Every time Sean Parker goes onstage, someone asks him the inevitable question, “Where is the social web going.” Today at Le Web, where he was interviewed alongside VC Shervin Pishevar by TechCrunch’s Alexia Tsotsis, he decided to talk about politics. “I don’t think politics have been figured out yet,” he says.

The Obama campaign created financial relationships with voters online but, not deeper political relationships. Parker thinks that will change in 2012. “This election, social media will determine the outcome,” he predicts.

Wait. Didn’t it determine the last election? Obama’s victory in the last U.S. presidential election is often attributed to his mastery of Web campaigning and social media. After all, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes ran the Obama campaign’s social media efforts. But Parker, who himself was the first president of Facebook, says “a lot of it was a mythology. In truth the social media elements of the Obama campaign, while extremely innovative, did not produce a lot of results. Obama did raise hundreds of millions online, but not through social media.” Rather, it was through old-fashioned mailing lists and field outreach that pushed people online to make that final donation.

In his view, social media can trump other forms of political outreach (mass mailings, canvassing, political rallies). “At the end of the day,” he concludes, “money is just a proxy for votes. That is what makes politics so vulnerable to social media. Social media can deliver a relationship much more effectively than these field techniques.”

Amazon Prime Video just got a shot of show tunes in the arm as the retailer just announced an extended licensing agreement with Twentieth Century Fox Television Distribution. Exact terms of the deal including the length of the agreement were not released. But that doesn’t really matter. Glee! Amazon now has Glee!

Starting today, Prime members have access to season one and two of FOX’s Glee as a well as the first two seasons of FX’s Sons of Anarchy (season three will be available on Christmas day). Future seasons of both shows will hit the service once they’re available.

Amazon is on a roll propping up its Netflix competitor. The addition of these very popular shows adds to Prime Instant Video’s growing collection of videos available to watch instantly on a number of devices including the Kindle Fire and several set-top boxes. Plus, with WhisperSync, viewers can pause the content on one device and resume watching it on another — a big selling point for the Kindle Fire.

The Prime Instant Video plan is priced slightly differently than Netflix. Users must sign up for the $79 per year Amazon Prime plan, which includes access to the library of more than 13,000 movies and TV shows, but also nets the buyer free two-day shipping on most Amazon items and a discounted rate for overnight shipping. The company also just announced that Kindle owners who are also Prime members can borrow a book a month through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. As a Prime subscriber myself, I can profess that it’s an amazing service and for better or worse, will make you addicted to Amazon’s service. Plus now there’s Glee! Lots and lots of Glee!

(Full disclosure: I haven’t watched Glee in over a year and my life is better because of it.)