Monday, 1 August 2011
Google Could Run Into Patent Issues Over WebM
Google is likely to face fire from as many as 12 separate companies. The issue seems to be with the WebM Media format for audio and video that was designed for the HTML5 format. Currently, most video streaming services use H.264 standard, which isn’t royalty-free and that’s probably the reason as to why it hasn’t been integrated into the HTML5 web format so far.
Google has been pushing WebM as the future of streaming media and one of the key points is that the format is royalty-free. MPEG LA, the firm responsible for licensing patents first put out an invitation for patent submissions for the VP8 specification, back in February. According to an interview with Streamingmedia.com, it turns out that 12 companies have responded to the call and submitted patents that are necessary for the VP8 standard.
Rough waters up ahead...
How things pan out for Google is yet to be seen? Some of the other companies supporting WebM are Adobe, Opera and Mozilla. Google was the one that actually bought On2 for a sum of $106 million. While the firms that file the patents could sue the users of the WebM, it’s Google, who’ll probably stand their ground, if it comes to that. Some of the other larger companies although supportive, have not implemented WebM in their products.
Samsung Stops Revealing Phone and Tablet Sales Data
According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung Electronics Co. on Friday, released an announcement saying that they will stop reporting sales data for their mobile phones and tablet computers. According to Samsung, competition in this segment has intensified and this step has been taken to potentially reduce the risks attached to divulging figures, which could eventually affect Samsung’s own businesses. In their earnings release, Samsung have simply noted that, ‘shipments of mobile handsets increased in the high-single-digit range quarter-on-quarter’. When asked for a further explanation, Samsung declined the request.
Samsung stops reporting phone sales data
Samsung was recently entangled in a legal battle with Apple; with the latter accusing Samsung of copying the iPhone’s hardware, software, design, packaging and marketing. There could be a chance that this might have influenced Samsung's plans of hiding their sales data. Because the rate at which Samsung’s smartphone sales are increasing, they will be stiff competition for Apple. Samsung’s phone sales may not have reached the number they were expecting to, this quarter, which might have led them to believe that it would be best to cease reporting phone and tablet sales data.
It's Official. Research Proves Internet Explorer Users Are Dumb
Have you been using Microsoft Internet Explorer to surf the web lately? If the answer is 'yes', then according to a report from the AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting Co., you may have a deficiency of intellectual acuity, or in simpler words, you have a low IQ!
Of course, no one wants to be labeled 'unintelligent' for no reason, and rightly so. But here’s what the researchers down at AptiQuant did to arrive at this result: A Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (IV) test was given to 101,326 people over a period of four weeks. All the subjects were randomly chosen from English-speaking countries over Internet search engines. These subjects then had to undergo a Verbal, Performance and Full Scale IQ test. From the results that were computed, it was observed that most of the individuals who obtained a low IQ score were found to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The proof
All IE (Internet Explorer, we mean) users out there, undoubtedly are up in arms after this apparent insult to their intelligence but wait; the humiliation doesn't end there. According to the same report (see graph above), the lower the version you’re using, the lesser your IQ level, with IE version 6, users being the least smartest in the lot. Clicking the upgrade button already? Talk about adding insult to injury or vice versa. Firefox, Chrome and Safari users seem to be well in a league above IE users. Those using Opera, Camino for Mac OS and plug-ins on their IE with the Chrome Frame seem to have the smartest of IQs.
Does this really mean IE users are unintelligent?!
The second analysis calculated the results in a different dimension. An assessment was made to see how the choice of browser changes, as we go from one end of the IQ scale to the other. The percentage usage of all the top ten browsers was also calculated. It was seen that at the lower end of the IQ level, the number of IE users were maximum. In contrast, barely anyone with a high IQ level used Internet Explorer. Also, Camino and Opera users started off with a relatively high IQ level, as compared to the other browsers.
A simple cross correlation between these two findings simply seemed to confirm that Internet Explorer users didn't seem to express the same amount of intelligence as those using other browsers.
The test was conducted in person and only through invites. If you're looking to prove these guys wrong, you'd either need to be invited or you could opt to pay a fee, which run into hundreds of dollars to take the tests. Whether or not this data can be taken for granted is left up to you. The tests were quite conclusive, though and the bottom line was simply: a majority of those with lower IQ tend to use some version of Internet Explorer.
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