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Associated Press | Taiwanese cell phone maker HTC Corp. said it
filed a legal complaint against Apple Inc., saying its iPhone, iPod and
iPad devices infringe on HTC patents.
The move escalates a patent dispute between the two electronics
companies, as Apple tries to maintain the iPhone’s supremacy against
Android, the increasingly popular mobile software upstart from Google
Inc.
Tribune staff | Hiring demand for information technology professionals in Illinois was up 27 percent in April from a year earlier, as companies were seeking almost 7,600 workers, according to Wanted Technologies, a company that tracks job postings.
Where are there the most IT jobs this spring? It’s in New York City, where April IT job postings were up 74 percent from a year earlier, twice that of California’s growth rate.
McClatchy-Tribune Newspapers | Verizon Wireless said it is working with Google on a new tablet computer to compete with
Apple’s iPad, whose early success has sent rival tech companies
scrambling to catch the next big wave in mobile computing.
Dell and Toshiba have also said they’re working on tablets that would
run on Google’s Android software. Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, recently
announced plans to buy Palm and use that smart-phone maker’s software
in its own line of tablets and similar devices.
By Alejandra Cancino |
It started with the smartphones. Last year, Kraft Foods Inc. offered a
stipend to employees who wanted to use their own iPhone, Android or
BlackBerry and ditch their company-issued phone.
That idea gave way to the creation of the “Bring Your Own Computer”
program, in which the company gives some employees a “substantial”
stipend to buy a computer of their choice, said Ana Paula Cruz, a Kraft
spokeswoman. In turn, employees will solve their own problems with help
from blogs and discussion boards written by the company’s information
systems department.
Cruz said the program will give flexibility to thousands of U.S. salary
employees who don’t deal with sensitive or confidential information and
use a computer to perform their job.
Google’s new search results page will feature a tool bar on the left. (Google handout)
By Wailin Wong | Google has tweaked its search results pages, providing a panel on the left-hand side that allows users to further refine their query.
The changes address the ongoing challenge of “how do we get users to their answers as fast as possible,” said Patrick Riley, a senior staff software engineer who is the technical lead on Web search. “It’s not just about the search result page, but the whole process.”
By Bruce Japsen
| Though a much-touted Chicago appearance today of former Presidents
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton will not be open to the public or the
press at the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s annual meeting, the group
has offered up former Vice President Al Gore for five minutes tomorrow.
BIO said the first “five minutes of the Vice President’s keynote address
will be open” to registered media. Gore’s keynote address is sponsored
by California-based biotech giant Amgen Inc. The fees being paid to Gore for his
appearance are not being disclosed, BIO said.
Dow Jones Newswire | Apple Inc. on Friday began selling a
version of its iPad tablet computer with cellular capabilities, and
consumers had cleaned out many stores by Sunday. Apple put its iPad 3G
on sale in the U.S. late Friday afternoon at prices starting at $629,
compared with the $499 bottom price for the version without cellular
connectivity that launched a month ago.
Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co., estimated Apple
sold 300,000 iPad 3Gs over the weekend, including preorders and online
sales. While that would be about the same as the original iPad’s first
weekend, he said, the original version had a shorter preorder period
and went on sale on a Saturday rather than a Friday.
By Wailin Wong |
Motorola Inc. is no longer one of the top five mobile phone makers
worldwide, according to a new ranking by research firm IDC.
The Schaumburg-based technology company has been in the top five since
IDC began its quarterly reports in 2004, and was in the No. 2 spot that
year. But Motorola’s well-documented woes of recent years — failing to
follow up the Razr with more hit products, and missing out on the
industry’s initial shift into sophisticated, Web-connected devices –
caused the company to slip in the rankings. Research In Motion, the
maker of the BlackBerry, replaced Motorola in the list for the first
quarter of 2010, according to IDC.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a Q&A session during an Apple special event in early April, 2010. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Associated Press | Apple CEO Steve Jobs is going on the offensive
against Adobe’s Flash technology. He says it has too many bugs, drains
batteries too quickly and is too oriented to personal computers to work
on the iPhone and iPad.
In a statement Thursday, Jobs laid out his reasons for excluding Flash
– the most popular vehicle for videos and games on the Internet — from
Apple’s blockbuster handheld devices.
Associated Press | Microsoft Corp. says it has patents covering
phones that use Google Inc.’s Android software — but unlike Apple Inc.,
Microsoft has reached a licensing deal rather than suing over the
software.
Microsoft said Wednesday that it has reached an agreement that will give
HTC Corp., a Taiwanese company and major maker of Android phones, the
rights to use technology covered by Microsoft’s patents. Financial terms
were not disclosed.
By Kathy Bergen | Saudi Arabian commerce officials will sign a series of cooperative
agreements with two U.S. corporations, as well as two Chicago
organizations, at an economic development summit under way in Chicago.
The
international trade committee of the Saudi Chambers of Commerce and
Industry will sign a memo of understanding today with the Chicagoland
Chamber of Commerce and World Business Chicago, agreeing to promote
economic activity between the two regions. The focus will be on
industry, trade and technology.
By Wailin Wong | Illinois ranks seventh in the nation for jobs
in the high-tech sector, according to a new report from the TechAmerica
Foundation.
The Foundation is the non-profit arm of industry association
TechAmerica and releases a yearly “Cyberstates” report about trends in
high-tech employment and wages. According to the national report,
high-tech employment slipped 4 percent in 2009, with the country losing
245,600 jobs during the year. TechAmerica counted 5.9 million high-tech
workers in the U.S. last year.
By Wailin Wong |
Motorola Inc.’s Droid smartphone accounted for the most traffic out of all mobile devices running Google’s Android operating platform worldwide, according to an industry snapshot released Tuesday.
AdMob, a California-based mobile advertising network, compiles monthly statistics on mobile Web traffic based on data it collects from its network of more than 18,000 mobile websites across platforms such as Android and the iPhone’s operating system. The company is able to pinpoint the handset model from which it receives an ad request.
From MarketWatch | Google Inc. said Monday its Nexus One service is not in the cards right now for Verizon Wireless customers.
Read the full story: MarketWatch.com
