A California court has ruled in Apple’s favour in its patent-infringement case against Samsung. Slapped with a fine of US$1bn, and facing the possibility of having some of its products banned in the US, Samsung will almost certainly appeal against the decision. But with Apple’s own history of pilfering ideas, is an iron-fisted
The Apple-Samsung trial had been running in the San Jose, California, federal court for four weeks, although the saga has been brewing for a lot longer with the two companies going at each other hammer and tongs for years now. The verdict, handed down on Friday, is by far the
The move to digital terrestrial television isn’t simply a chance for set-top box manufacturers to make a quick buck. It presents a unique opportunity to introduce new competition in the broadcasting market where, until now, consumers have had precious little choice. In terrestrial broadcasting
It’s not often I find myself cheering when reading through government documents, but I did just that last week as I took in the plan’s revised proposals for the information and communications technology sector. Here, in black and white, a government commission has laid out many
It sounds trite, but in the growing litany of lawsuits between the world’s major consumer electronics manufacturers, the only real winners are the lawyers. Although patents have a place, particularly in the early days of any new technology, they’re ill-equipped to deal with one of the inevitable consequences of innovation: the best
US President Barack Obama’s former White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is reported to have said, when confronted with the 2008 financial crisis: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you
With hype building once again ahead of the launch of the next iPhone, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the world doesn’t revolve around the fruity company in California. The new iPhone — or whatever it’s eventually called — is guaranteed saturation coverage in the next few weeks leading up to a rumoured 12 September
Public enterprises director-general Tshediso Matona said last week that government has made no decision about what it plans to do about the vexing question of Telkom. Ruling-party politicians are debating whether the company will remain listed on the JSE or
It’s hard to think that just 15 years ago, Apple was staring bankruptcy in the face. What followed, under the leadership of Steve Jobs, has become one of the most celebrated turnaround stories in modern business. At more than US$550bn, Apple today is the biggest listed company on the planet by market value
If you pick up any tech magazine or read any technology news website you’ll see reams of content about “the cloud”. But is cloud computing really “the next big thing”? Is there enough substance to differentiate it from existing hosted offerings to warrant the hype? Is cloud a natural evolution in the IT
