big win for apple.

The most important lawsuit in the tech industry of the decade just reached a very definite point. After only about 21 hours of deliberations the jury decided that Samsung did copy Apple's products and infringed on their patents.
You can read the whole coverage on The Verge. We should learn if any of Samsung's devices will also get an import ban on September 20th, when this will be discussed in court.

iOS 6 on a 4-inch screen scales to add a fifth row of icons.

Shit. This is not looking good for me.

why patents are awesome.

One of the most interesting turns in public opinion has been the view of patents in technology. I don't really know when it started happening, but I feel like an awful lot of people went from "uh, I don't really care" to straight up "I hate patents, they should not exist".

apple vs samsung.

I am (of course) talking about the ongoing patent trial between Apple and Samsung. The Verge has it covered really well (plus I shared my own view of it here). The number one line of thought I hear: going from "Apple's patents are not valid" to "Why do patents exist, anyway?". This is the time when I come in.

the role of patents.

To be clear, most of the following thoughts have been in my head for a long time and I just couldn't formulate them in a publishable manner. Then I listened to one of the latest Vergecast shows and Nilay Patel, a lawyer and a tech journalist pretty much said what I had been trying to: the reason why patents exist and why they're a great thing.

what is a patent?

Wikipedia defines patent as:

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention.

Yeah, so patent is the state giving you the exclusive rights to something you invented, for the exchange of public disclosure of the invention. So when a company invents a new piece of technology, for instance, it gets to decide what they do with it - sell it, use it, forget it. They get these rights for a couple of years, after which this invention becomes a public property (anyone can use it).

what the world would be like without patents.

The world w/out patents: The same company invents a new piece of technology. Again, they decide what they do with it - sell it, use it, forget it. But they could hide this invention from the rest of the world for unlimited period of time - even for tens or hundreds of years. Which naturally causes other companies to eventually invent similar stuff. So instead of the human society building upon what other individuals built in the past, many companies would be stuck on the same problems. Which would slow down innovation - even to a halt. Companies would keep all of their know-how to themselves and the world would only slowly become a more educated place.

thank god, i mean our ancestors, for patents.

Let's travel back to our 'patent-full' reality. Companies invent amazing new stuff which they later patent (protect from competition). This enables them to sell products based on this invention and get back the money they had to invest into research (without which there wouldn't be any inventions). There would be no motivation to invent, if they only invested into research and never received the money back. No company can work like this.

In the patent application, though, they have to describe in detail, how to assemble/build/create the invention in a language that any regular person could understand. These companies (through patents) are creating this amazing library of well-explained inventions (and how anyone can follow their lead and assemble/create/build the same things for themselves).

One huge library of human knowledge. Companies building upon what the other had invented. Just for a couple of years of exclusive rights on the patent. Isn't that pretty cool?

got it?

The next time you hear someone complaining about patents, just calm them down and tell them to go read more. Because people that criticise patents are usually the same people that don't really understand how inventions and society works.

Let's be a better generation through education and knowledge. Let's not wine about stuff, let's just make things better.

attaching the patent application of Thomas Edison's most famous invention.

iOS 6 beta 4 is out.

Just FYI, fellow developers, another release of iOS 6 beta is out. Available to download at developer.apple.com or OTA on your testing devices. Let's watch the spinning wheels again. That's pretty much all I'm allowed to say according to the NDA.

microsoft stops using 'metro' name.

So Microsoft just got rid of the best part of their new Windows products (Windows 8, Windows Phone 8) - the name "Metro" UI. Ars technica reports that this is the reaction to a threat from some German retailer called Metro AG.

This is the official comment from Microsoft:

"We have used 'Metro style' as a code name during the product development cycle across many of our product lines. As we get closer to launch and transition from industry dialog to a broad consumer dialog we will use our commercial names."

And by commercial names, they mean "Windows 8-style UI" for Windows 8 apps and "New User Interface" for all their new software products (one of which is the new web mail interface I previewed). I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. I can't really see them calling it "New User Interface" in 10 years. This is the perfect example of how not to future-proof your marketing strategy.

What the heck?

Call me crazy, but this reminds me of Apple settling with the Chinese company named Proview over the iPad trademark. Apple found a way to hold on to their competitive advantage (easily memorable name which fits into their product portfolio). But if Apple had Microsoft's management, their next year' product would be called the iPad "Big Touchscreen Device Kinda Like the iPhone".

iphone & ipad prototypes.

At least one good thing has come out of the Apple vs. Samsung trial: we get to see all the cool stuff that eventually morphed into the iPhone and the iPad. Check out the prototypes provides by The Verge here:

• iPhone prototypes gallery
• iPad prototypes gallery

Amazing, huh? Considering that Apple might have chosen any of those not-so-great (and that's euphemism) prototypes and just released it without the extra years of development. They didn't. They waited for the best thing to be ready. And that's what this trial is all about. Greatness vs Money. Apple vs Samsung.

phelps got 19 olympic medals. best olympian ever.

The Wall Street Journal published a pretty nice article about Michael Phelps today.

why.

Well, Michael Phelps' name was written into the Olympic history four years ago, when he won 8 gold medals at one Olympics in Beijing. This year, he became the most decorated Olympian in history by winning his 19th medal yesterday.

why it matters.

Since swimming is my sport, it is expected of me to consider Michael Phelps to be the best athlete of all time. He really is. Many of my friends argue that it's much easier to win that many medals in swimming than in, I don't know, track and field. They say that it's all just swimming. But the difference between 400 IM and 1500 free is as huge as the difference between 110 hurdles and the long jump. Michael swam the maximum number of races that any swimmer is allowed to (8) - and he won all of them (+ broke the world record in 7 of them).

try it.

If an athlete ran in the following races: 100, 200, 400, 800, 4x100 and 4x400, you can already win 6 gold medals. Find two more and you can make history, too.

I'm not saying it's easy, I'm just saying that it's possible in other sports too, not just in swimming. The problem is, nobody like Michael has ever appeared in other sport.

apple vs. samsung in trial.

Reuters reports on the just-started trial over the copyrights and licensing fees between the two biggest rivals in the technology industry. It is a great introduction into the trial. What I found disarming, though, is this picture:

Seriously, how is Samsung even supposed to defend its case after the jury sees this? Go, Apple. No reason why you should invest your money into inventing the designs that others will steal, sell & get away with it.

microsoft's new web mail: outlook.com

Microsoft launched a preview of its new web mail interface today. I tried it out myself, because I was curious. Here are my thoughts.

new domain

If you want to use the new interface and you don't have a hotmail account, you need to register for a @outlook.com email address. Microsoft is following Google's @gmail.com and Apple's @icloud.com/@me.com as a new signature domain. Everyone knows that nowadays your email domain is a part of the first impression you make. Microsoft finally gave their customers a chance to feel fresh and modern again with their @outlook.com suffix.

fast interface

What I really like about the interface is speed. It's Metro-styled, so it will fit into Windows 8. It seems faster than Apple's iCloud, Yahoo!'s yahoo.com and even Google's Gmail interface. It's very usable on low broadband (which is something that both Apple and Google suck at). It's very simplistic, which is something I feel like a webmail interface should be (sorry Gmail, all those flags, labels and groups make me dizzy).

contacts, Skype

Even though I didn't play with the contacts too much, it seems capable of everything you need to do. Skype integration is pretty cool, but they're already late to this game since Microsoft should have used Skype better for over a year (they did pay a couple of billion dollars for it).

preview

It's just a preview, so we can be sure Microsoft will try to make it even better in the future. Let's just hope they won't pack it with useless features while trying to improve it.

My call is that is has a bright future. Try it out for yourself.

the internet. the news. the hoax.

Speaking of easily and fast spreading news, I took the liberty of putting together a little graph. It shows how this particular piece of information has been traveling around the internet.

Who was the first one?

From most of the articles, I figured out that iMore.com's was the first one. Then allthingsd.com picked it up. And then all the Apple news servers such as theverge.com, macrumors.com, cultofmac.com and appleinsider.com just copy-pasted it. (Which is kind of pathetic). Feelings aside, this would look like a solid, credible information flow.

Source of the source.

The weird part is that even though allthingsd.com used the original iMore.com article as their source, in an edited version of the post, iMore.com sourced back to allthingsd.com. So, it's as convincing of an argument as agreeing with your own opinions.

Credibility?

Even though this particular piece of news is probably true, I can't imagine an easier thing to do than to make up something ridiculous (such as a 4-inch iPhone) and then make sure I send slightly alternated piece of this junk to news-hungry journalists without mentioning my name every week. Or I could just make one up. Then, after a couple of months of hearing a lie, it just becomes a truth and later, a dogma. That could be how we got to those many "sure thing" Apple products that have never seen the surface of the Earth (two Easter Eggs in there), but were supposed to come out years ago.

So again, I might be wrong about the new iPhone. But that doesn't change anything on the fact that these news sites work with such vague information which they sell through ads, that it's actually genius. They make up news, people read it. The crazier news, the more readers they get.

the iPhone '5' is coming in September.

The Verge and other major news sites published a story today saying that the new iPhone is coming soon:

"The rumor cycle this time around for the next iPhone has been a bit unusual — multiple leaks have all depicted the exact same components — but it looks like we'll be seeing what Apple has up its sleeves come Wednesday, September 12th."

We soon shall see whether I was right or not.

I don't have a reason to not believe this story, early September seems logical. We should get both the new iPhone and iOS 6 in that announcement. The last iPhone (4S) was released on October 6th, 2011 along with iOS 5.

science by a weirdo.

If you are interested in science, check out my other blog science by a weirdo…. I started writing that blog last year and discontinued it after a couple of months, but now I'm going back to it. You can find more about artificial intelligence, advanced physics, mathematics etc there. I plan on posting on both these blogs and no worries, I'll add the links to new posts there both on Twitter and here.

google fiber.

I honestly wish I lived in the Kansas City (either one) right now. Google bringing a super high speed internet there is enough of a reason to move, I think.

Facts

Google has been working on the Fiber project for a couple of years and chose the Kansas City as the first place to launch it. You pay $300 to get your place wired up and then there's like a $70 monthly payment for a 1000 Mbit down and 1000 Mbit up. Yeah, amazing speeds.

Future

This is still a new project of Google's, though. We know how Google likes to kill successful projects for no reason (R.I.P., Google Wave), so let's hope that Fiber lives on to provide the fastest internet connection in the world.

Fuzzy

Even though I support this project, there's still something strange about it. Google is losing millions of dollars on this (the customer-payed fees don't cover pretty much anything, they're basically giving it away for free). There are clues flowing around that Google want to gain political influence in the USA. Maybe they will only enable Google Play store and block Apple iTunes Store over the connection (see: net neutrality). Or they will be able to track your search/web surfing habits better. I don't know. And to be honest, I don't think that Google knows, either. Right now they are building a huge competitive advantage and I am sure that they will use it really well when their time comes.

Because I just don't believe that Google is giving away free internet for no reason. It's still great that they are doing it. And by my observations and experience, these kinds of speed will get to the Czech Republic in about 15 years. Yup. Bummer.

iPhone '5'.

The Verge published today another article about the new iPhone 'five'. I am not a big fan of this news, if it's a true leak and the new iPhone will look like that. But there's so many things that are wrong with this whole situation.

The name

We read tens or hundreds of posts about the iPad 3 before Apple released the new device this March under the simple name new iPad. It makes so much sense - especially for future-proofing Apple's strategy. Who will want to buy an iPad 6 in 2015? I think it makes a lot of sense to call it the iPad and then specify the year it was released in. Works for Macs, should work for iPads. And I think Apple will use this strategy in the upcoming iPhone, too. My guess is - Apple is releasing the new iPhone this fall. So I don't really get why the tech journalists still use the name iPhone 5. (Plus, extra confusion is added when you remember that the iPhone 4S was too called '5' before launch last year).

The design

I love the design of the iPhone 4S. I own one and it's still the best looking phone out there, even though the design is two years old. But I don't think the new iPhone (yes, using the new terminology) will have such a similar looks to the 4/4S. Apple already got under attack after releasing the 4S (people wanted a change in form factor and the visual concept), but they agreed that it's just a tweaked 4. I don't think they can get away with releasing such highly anticipated device with the good ol' design.

The screen

Cut the crap. I DON'T BELIEVE THE WHOLE 4-inch SCREEN iPHONE BULLSHIT! I might be wrong. I probably am. I am also an iOS developer. Even after releasing auto-layout in iOS 6, Apple can't change the aspect ratio. Technologically, they can, of course. They're the most valuable company in the world. The developers would get pissed off, though. It's enough to tweak the apps for 4 types of devices:

1. up to iPhone 3GS: 320 by 480 at 163 pixels per inch
2. iPhone 4/4S: 640 by 960 at 326 pixels per inch
3. up to iPad 2: 768 by 1024 at 132 pixels per inch
4. iPad (3rd gen): 1536 by 2048 at 264 pixels per inch

Seriously, try adding another aspect ratio and the quality of customisation for each device will get worse. The developers just don't have the time and money to spend their time on tweaking their apps for each device category. Which is also the reason why most Android apps just suck (the fragmentation doesn't allow devs to have their app look great on every device out there). Maybe not content-wise, but definitely visual-wise.

The end

I just really hope this is not the next iPhone. I want to see something new. Jony Ive needs to show us that he hasn't been chilling for the last two years. It's your turn, Apple.

bad journalism?

I myself am not a great writer. I would say it out loud anytime, anywhere. I make typos, I get off topic at times and my style might not be the most catching one out there. But at least my writings are based on thoughts from my head.

Let me clarify what I'm trying to say. There's a big difference between reporting on facts and reporting on opinions. Both are OK, if you mention the source. I can't wrap my mind around the fact that some (most) journalists (especially in the tech industry) don't have a problem giving credit to the source of facts, but often forget to do the same with opinions.

I am of course talking about the suspicious uniformity of opinions in the tech industry. The one example for all, that actually forced me to write this article and formulate my thoughts that have been flying around my mind for a long time, happened today. Apple released three new commercials today (link). My opinion? They're not their best ones so far, but I find them rather humorous.

But let's look the major tech sites and how they handled this story.

• theverge.com - Apple's new Mac ads are embarrassing

"They all star a single actor who portrays an Apple Genius Bar employee, and stupidity appears to be the other unifying theme."

"From the famous '1984' ad for Macintosh, 1997's 'Think Different,' the 2006 John Hodgman / Justin Long 'Get a Mac' series through to today's iPhone ads, the work of TBWA/Chiat/Day has been consistently simple and clever, …"

• tech.fortune.cnn.com - Apple's Olympic TV ads: One funny one, two not so much

"The quality falls off when the same genius (who apparently sleeps in a blue Apple T-shirt and puts on his name tag to answer the door) interacts with increasingly silly customers, one whose wife is about give birth and another who bought a PC thinking it was a Mac."

• jablickar.cz - The New Apple Commericals are Awful

"The three commercials are related by the stupidity - and the naivety of the company that made the commercials."(translated from Czech)

So we can see that a certain number of the tech news sites have this opinion (that they are entitled to). It might be the majority of the articles published on this topic today that is negative. The weird part is that when you look into the comments on these websites - it seems like the readers have a different opinion. By my count, with readers, it's about 60 % pro and 40 % con. But the tech news sites? About 10 % pro and 90 % con.

I ask myself, is it different people? Is it one world, where the readers live and the technology they use affects their life in some way - and then a different world, where the writers and publishers live, where everything is awful? I say, no way.

I call copycat bullshit. If you read a few of these articles, you can see that most of them link to about five original stories. Are the writers nowadays so lazy that they not only re-write articles to get readers (money from ads, of course), but they even copy opinions? The same thing happened a couple of months ago with the realistic designs of Apple apps. One influential article published on theverge.com and suuuudenly, everyone hates skeuomorphism.

I don't know guys. I understand that the readers pay for the ads that pay your bills. But seriously, you should not publish at all cost. Source facts of course, but please, make your own opinions. I'm fed up with reading the same exact opinion on ten different sites.

Imagine a world, where there wouldn't be one/two sources and the rest wasn't full of copycats. Imagine a world, in which everyone created something new. Can you imagine how cool that would be?

'sports' day.

Last Christmas I got a very thoughtful present from one of my best friends: a voucher for four laps on a racing circuit in a sports car. Even though I drive regularly, I had not been the typical fan of fast cars. Not that I disliked them, I just had no special interest in them. That changed today.

We finally set up the time and place with the firm that offers these cars for rent and I was originally supposed to drive a Chevy Camaro this morning. After we arrived, though, I was told that they couldn't get hold of one. Instead they had four other sports cars parked outside the hangar (it was a circuit set up at an old airport). There was a BMW of some sort, a Porsche 911, a white roofless Ferrari and one Nissan GT-R. Since I wanted to drive a Camaro and the GT-R's looks are the most similar with its, I couldn't not have picked it. My other friend who knows much more about sports cars than I do (not surprisingly, I don't really know much more than I need to) told me, that I made the right choice. In fact, the GT-R was the only car not designed, but computed. The Nissan dev team just tried to find the most aerodynamic shape for a car and the GT-R is what the got (see pic here).

I love this approach, it's just so … strait forward. You need a car to be fast? Cut down the friction. Done.

The actual ride was amazing, the straight parts of the circuit with that 500 horse power pushing me ahead were - surreal. Cannot be described to someone who has never tried it or hasn't ridden a roller coaster.

The outcome of this? I want to know more about this car. I want to know more about cars in general. This is a thing I never though I would be interested in, now I am. I want to go drive on a circuit again. Same thing, never thought I would like to do it again.

And this is just one interesting field I came up by by accident (pun intended). Who knows how many more there are still waiting?

Let's go and explore.

some cool reading.

The first thing I should do is mention the sources on the Internet that create content. And that I like to follow. Since I mentioned technology, of course I follow Apple, Google, Facebook and others.

Great (the best by my measures) technology website is theverge.com by Josh Topolsky and his team. You can find anything from the latest gadget reviews to breaking news on regular culture (non-tech culture).

An awesome blog (or whatever he prefers to call it) is written by gentleman John Gruber and it's at daringfireball.net. John has a deep insight into Apple, on which he focuses. As the co-creater of markdown, he is very well known in the tech industry and I myself am his big fan.

If you have ever liked any picture created on a computer (which I suspect you have), you must check out abduzeedo.com. For me, Fabio Sasso is one of the best designers/artists on the Internet.

I will add more of my bookmarked information sources later. In the meantime, you might want to follow me on Twitter. That is probably the best way to get 'in touch' with me and I might send links to the new additions here into the 140-character world.

my way of thinking.

Do you know the moment in life when you just can't take one more postponed dream? And you just explode and start taking shots at all these goals? I do. It has just happened to me.

Welcome to predatorspot. This is the place where I will post my thoughts on things that I find interesting. Interesting, you say?

I find technology, science, literature, psychology and life in general, interesting! And these will be my topics. Poor me, trying to markdown a couple of sentences from time to time, usually followed by a link to some good reading that someone smarter than me wrote. But my way of thinking is that I don't have to be the one creating all the best stuff. I just need to be able to tell it apart from the shitty stuff.