Apple to pay $838 million for infringing CalTech's WiFi patents.

The California Institute of Technology (CalTech) has won a $1.1 billion jury verdict against Apple and Broadcom, according to Reuters and other sources. In a case that first hit federal courts in 2016, CalTech accused Apple of using Broadcom WiFi chips that violate four of its patents in all iPhones, starting around 2012. The jury reportedly ordered Apple alone to pay $838 million, or about $1.40 per device -- which works out to about 598 million gadgets that used the infringing chips. 

Apple told Reuters that it plans to appeal, having previously said that it was merely a "downstream party" because it didn't develop the chips, but merely purchased them from Broadcom. The technology is vital to the 802.11n and 802.11ac WiFi standards, though its inventor said that the patents (related to data transmission tech), weren't originally designed for WiFi. 

Broadcom remains a major Apple supplier, having recently signed a $15 billion agreement to furnish chips for upcoming iPhones and other products. It remains to be seen if CalTech will go after other device manufacturers, but told Reuters that it is "committed to protecting its intellectual property in furtherance of its mission to expand human knowledge."

Source: Reuters

Have you heard? Emoji selection will become more gender-inclusive this year.

The Unicode Consortium has revealed 117 new emoji for 2020, and they will make your emoji arsenal more inclusive than ever. a number of the upcoming additions have the ability to make conversations with friends extra fun, such as the smiling face with a unmarried tear and the hand with pinched palms known as the "Italian hand gesture." This batch also provides new skintone and gender-inclusive alternatives for present emoji, together with the veil, the tuxedo and the feeding child emoji. for the time being, those emoji only portrays a woman, a man and a female, respectively.

The transgender flag and symbol also are coming to gadgets as a part of the new batch. Google and Microsoft sponsored the inspiration to feature the trans flag and symbol last yr, and in it the tech giants wrote: "[We] agree with that including an emoji illustrative to our lifestyles reviews isn't always just about developing era that should be on hand to each person -- it is approximately fostering lifestyle that is including users around global."

other first rate additions are the ninja emoji, the practical looking coronary heart and lung emoji and the bubble tea emoji. it is nonetheless unclear while the new batch is making its way to customers. simply take be aware that they will look special from the samples visible here, depending in your tool and the platform or internet site you are using.

Source: Unicode, Engadget.

Chinese hackers stole undersea warfare data from US Navy contractor

Hackers associated with the Chinese government have broken into a US Navy contractor's systems and stolen data about undersea warfare. According to The Washington Post, these include secret plans to create a new anti-ship missile usable on US submarines by 2020.

The contractor had been working for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, an R&D organization dedicated to submarines and underwater weaponry based in Newport, Rhode Island. The Chinese hackers breached the contractor's systems in January and February and made off with 614GB of data on signals, sensor data, cryptographic info, the Navy's electronic warfare library and material on a project known as Sea Dragon. The latter remains secretive: The only information released by the DoD is that it will integrate an existing weapon system with an existing Navy platform.

The data was highly sensitive despite being located on the contractor's unclassified network; When aggregated, it could be considered classified, sources told The Washington Post. The Navy is reportedly investigating the breach with help from the FBI.

This is the latest in a string of attempts by Chinese hackers to US data. The last big government breaches were in 2015, when cyberattacks from that country targeted the Office of Personnel Management and Woods Hole Institute, an oceanographic research organization that sometimes partners with the US Navy. A report last month indicated that a long series of seemingly-unrelated cybersecurity incidents were actually part of a Chinese hacking campaign stretching back to 2009 that mainly targeted US companies. All in all, this successful raid secured yet more information for China, this time on US underwater warfare, potentially chipping away at an advantage America's military has over the East Asian country.

Source: Engadget

Gmail's major redesign will be available to all in July - You'll have no choice but to use it three months later.

Google made it clear from the outset that it was merely matter of time before the new Gmail design reached everyone, and now we know when that's happening. The internet giant has promised "general availability" of the reworked Gmail in July, with G Suite administrators having options to stagger the transition by either letting users opt-in on their own schedule or making them wait four weeks. Don't think you can cling to the old ways forever, though.

Google notes that it'll automatically transition users to the new Gmail about eight weeks after the general release. You'll still have an opt-out choice for another four weeks, but after that it's lights out -- you'll switch to the new version with no choice to revert to the old client.

We wouldn't call the schedule a shock, as it was always going to be a question of when Google demanded a migration rather than "if." However, the roadmap makes it apparent that Google doesn't want to waste time or split its user base. You'll be using the new Gmail before the year is out -- it's just a question of how quickly you embrace it.

Source: G Suite

Virtual testing ground helps autonomous drones fly faster - It offers all the challenge of real tests, but none of the crashing.

It's not easy to teach drones to fly quickly and safely. You usually have to create an elaborate proving ground with real obstacles, and a single mishap could prove very costly. MIT's solution? Have the drones fly around imaginary objects. The school's engineers have created a virtual testing ground, nicknamed Flight Googles, that has drones flying through a simulated landscape in the safety of an empty room. Motion capture cameras around the space track the orientation of the drone and help the system send realistic, customized virtual images to the drone to convince it that it's flying through an apartment or another obstacle-laden environment.

The drone needs to carry a "powerful" embedded computer, a camera and an inertial measurement sensor on its back (shown above), but it's effective -- the drone can practice as much as necessary without smacking into something real. The results aren't perfect when the drone still ran into trouble six times out of 119 real-world flights, but that beats crashing relatively early.

While safety is clearly important here, the training environment is ultimately focused on speed -- the team took its inspiration from drone racing, where pilots frequently have just a split second to dodge fellow fliers or unexpected hurdles. However, its applications go well beyond that. Researchers imagine this helping drones learn to fly real-world buildings at speed, or even to dodge around moving humans. This could be useful for everything from rescue missions to the battlefield, or even just follow-me sports drones that could stay close to a fast-moving human without fear of a collision.

Source: MIT News

YouTube Music subscriptions shake up Google Play Music and YouTube Red

YouTube execs have finally announced the long-awaited  revamp for YouTube Music that they say will eventually replace Google Play Music. In interviews with Recode, CNET and USA Today, they revealed the new YouTube Music will soft-launch next Tuesday with a $10 subscription packages (you can sign up now for updates right here).

Similar to its previous iteration, the focus here will be on personalization that tries to learn what music you like, but this time it's pushing music videos to the background in favor of audio. The personalization will naturally tie into Google Assistant AI, and pull from a subscriber's YouTube history to serve up suggestions. Google Play Music will remain for now, but the plan is to "close gaps" between services like YouTube Music's lack of a music locker for users to upload their tunes before GPM goes away at some unspecified point in the future -- YouTube exec T. Jay Fowler told USA Today it could as far away as 2019.

Meanwhile, the YouTube Red section will transition into YouTube Premium -- a paywalled, ad-free video experience available only as a $2 add-on for YouTube Music. That means accessing originals YouTube is spending "hundreds of millions" on like Cobra Kai, will mean shelling out $12 per month.

Source: YouTube Music

NISSAN: A triple whammy hit

Nissan North America took a triple market blow in April, with U.S. sales slumping 28 percent to 87,764 cars and light trucks.

The company simultaneously pulled back from its normal volume of fleet deliveries and began easing the pressure off dealer sales-incentive programs -- at the same time the overall U.S. light-vehicle market softened.

Only one Nissan nameplate -- the newly redesigned electric Leaf -- posted a sales gain, with deliveries of the EV up only 108 (to 1,171 units) over April 2017 levels.

Nissan officials were not available to discuss the April results. Two top U.S. sales executives for Nissan and Infiniti brands both transitioned into new roles on April 1.

Nissan North America instead issued a statement on Tuesday about the 28 percent downturn:

"April was an extremely challenging month with intense competition in the U.S. market," the statement said. "Reduced retail sales along with a pullback on fleet volume contributed to lower performance from the previous year.

"We expect the situation to improve in the coming months as more new vehicles such as Nissan Kicks and the all-new Altima come into the pipeline," it said.

Brands: Nissan down 29 percent to 78,804, Infiniti down 17 percent to 8,960.

Notable nameplates: The Nissan brand's U.S. car sales fell 34 percent to 36,963 units. Altima sales dropped by nearly half to 10,400 as the brand prepares to launch a new generation of the model. The Maxima declined 62 percent for the month. Infiniti's newest model, the redesigned QX50 crossover, delivered one of the automaker's only bright spots, an 18 percent increase to 1,413.

Incentives: $3,788 per vehicle in April, down 2.9 percent from a year ago, according to ALG's forecast for the Nissan and Infiniti brands combined.

Average transaction price: $27,256, a 0.4 percent increase from a year earlier, ALG estimates.

Did you know? April 1 was the beginning of Nissan's fiscal year and marked the start of a long-term campaign to take a new approach to retailing in the U.S. market. Company officials, including Nissan Motor CEO Hiroto Saikawa, say the automaker will focus less on fleet sales and volume targets and more on dealer profitability and improved customer satisfaction.

Source: Autonews

Didi alliance eyes 10 million EVs by 2028

Didi Chuxing is the force to reckon with in Chinese ride-hailing. First for locals, who can't seem to crisscross a city here without it. And now for international auto industry companies.

The ultrapopular company kicked off last week's Beijing auto show by saying it has forged an alliance of 31 auto industry companies — including Toyota, Volkswagen and the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance — to develop cheap, electrified vehicles for new mobility in China.

The Didi Auto Alliance's ambition befits the size of its mammoth home market.

The goal is to have 1 million electric vehicles in Didi's network by 2020 and 10 million by 2028. That's up from some 260,000 EVs in 2017. It also seeks to quadruple the number of Didi users to 2 billion people worldwide over the next 10 years. Didi has 450 million users now.

Didi CEO Cheng Wei unveiled the plan Tuesday, April 24, saying it will help position China at the fulcrum of change sweeping the global auto industry. It could also strengthen Didi's hand as it muscles in on U.S. rival Uber in markets outside China. A day earlier, Didi announced it was entering Mexico.

"China could play a pivotal role in transforming the existing automotive and transportation structure that has been in place for over 100 years," Cheng said.

"The alliance is a gateway for our transportation industry to elevate itself from a global leader in scale to a global leader in innovation."

Uber found it so hard to compete against Didi in China that it packed up and sold its local operations to Didi in August 2016. Didi took a minority stake in Uber, and Uber received an 18 percent stake in its erstwhile Chinese rival.

But these days, Didi is turning up the heat on Uber in other markets too, as its overseas ambitions grow.

Didi launched its overseas service in early 2016 by introducing a roaming product that allowed Didi owners to use Lyft in the U.S.

Since then, it has expanded international operations to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Latin America. It also has a broad international alliance, spanning partnerships with 99, Brazil's largest local ride-hailing company; Grab, which is popular in Southeast Asia; India's Ola; and the popular European service Taxify. It also has the Middle East and North Africa covered through a strategic partnership with the local ride-hailing app Careem.

And Didi has powerful backers. Investors include China's big three Internet giants: Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu. And Apple made waves by taking a $1 billion stake in Didi in 2016.

Microsoft defends conviction of e-waste recycler over piracy - It claims Eric Lundgren knowingly set out to mislead customers.

Many were upset that e-waste recycling pioneer Eric Lundgren was going to prison for creating his unofficial Windows restore discs, and in some cases pointed the finger at Microsoft for its role in the conviction. Microsoft, however, doesn't think he's a hero... and thinks it's getting a bad rap. The software giant has posted a response to critics that characterizes Lundgren's piracy as fully intentional while simultaneously washing the company's hands.

The company noted that Lundgren received a customs seizure notice warning him that his activity wasn't legal, for starters. He appeared to have had a chance to back out and continued regardless. He told his co-defendant to "play stupid" with customs officers, for example. Lundgren also went out of his way to make the discs seem authentic, while evidence suggested that he was interested in profit, not just in reducing e-waste by helping people restore their PCs. There are already programs in place to support PC refurbishing and recycling, Microsoft said -- Lundgren's effort to supply discs was supposedly unnecessary.

Microsoft also stressed that this wasn't its own action. While the tech firm did offer an expert witness and a letter of support, it was US Customs who referred the case. Lundgren also pleaded guilty, the Windows developer said.

Of course, this is Microsoft's take on events. It didn't mention that Lundgren pleaded guilty in part because he couldn't afford to appeal the case, and glossed over the ostensible reason he was creating these discs in the first place: that people were sending their PCs to refurbishment and recycling facilities when they'd lost or thrown out their discs. Microsoft's response provides important context, but it's evident the situation is more complicated than either side would suggest.

Source: Engadget

The World's Largest Tech Companies 2017: Apple And Samsung Lead, Facebook Rises

Despite pressure from Asia, American companies dominate the tech scene. Forty-nine of the world's largest tech companies in 2017 hail from the United States.

Apple AAPL -1.22% took the top spot in the tech group weeks after shares hit a new record high, reaching over $147 per share for the first time on May 2 despite disappointing iPhone sales. For the past year, Apple saw $217 billion in sales, $45 billion in profit, $331 billion in assets and a market cap of $752 billion.

Apple is not only the largest tech company in the world, but also also the 9th largest company in the world. Though the company returns to the global top ten, Apple sits one spot lower than it did it 2016, where it ranked as the 8th largest company in the world.

With representatives from 17 countries, tech companies account for 118 spots on Forbes' Global 2000, our annual ranking of the world’s largest public companies.

Fifteen of the top 25 largest tech companies are from the United States, with eight in the top 10: Apple, Microsoft MSFT +0.98%, Alphabet , IBMIBM -0.22%, Intel INTC -5.29%, Cisco Systems CSCO +1.02%, Oracle andFacebook FB -1.06%, which rose 69 spots on the Global 2000 list.

Yet again, South Korea-based Samsung took second place, with $174 billion in sales, $19 billion in profit, $217 billion in assets and a market cap of $254 billion. Hon Hai Precision Industry was the the only other company to break into the top 10 from the Asia-Pacific region.

Microsoft MSFT +0.98% took the number three tech spot, with $85 billion in sales, $16.7 billion in profit, assets of $224 billion and a $507.5 billion market value.

New to this list this year is Snap, Inc., the biggest social media IPO since Twitter went public three years ago. The company recently went public in March and is ranked the 101th largest tech company, and 1,693rd largest company in the world. Other tech newcomers include South Korea's  SK Holdings Co., Ltd. (a top 25 tech finisher), Dell Technologies , industrial growth company Fortive and semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices AMD +0.27%, Inc.

This list also saw big moves from the likes of NVIDIA NVDA +0.36%, which jumped up 379 spots in the global list and ranked 41st in the tech list, and Nokia , which fell 248 spots from the global list but still managed to grab the 33rd largest tech company spot. Switzerland semiconductor company STMicroelectronics NV had one of the largest jumps, moving 816 spots from the 2,315th largest company in the world to 1,499.