Google: Microsoft, Nokia illegally colluding with mobile copyrights - Silicon Valley

Google: Microsoft, Nokia illegally colluding with mobile copyrights - Silicon Valley

Google (GOOG) on Thursday accused Microsoft and Nokia of conspiring to use their patents against smartphone industry rivals, and said it has filed a formal complaint with the European Commission.

In its complaint, Google claimed Microsoft and Nokia, which cooperate on smartphone technology and production, transferred 1,200 patents for assertion to a group called MOSAID, which the company called a "patent troll" -- a term referring to a holder of patents that litigates them aggressively.

"Nokia and Microsoft are colluding to raise the costs of mobile devices for consumers, creating patent trolls that side-step promises both companies have made," the Mountain View Internet search leader said in a statement, adding that the complaint was filed "recently."

"They should be held accountable, and we hope our complaint spurs others to look into these practices."

Nokia was not immediately available for comment. A Microsoft representative said the company had not seen the complaint, and declined comment.

Paradigm Shift: As RIM, Nokia Plunge Could Windows 8 Be Too Late To Save Them? - International Business Times

Are RIM and Nokia extinct? Victor Alboini, the Canadian activist investor who's shaking up RIM thinks so. "Split the company in half and sell the smartphone business," he said in an interview. That could go to an Asian maker like Samsung Electronics (Seoul: 5930) or HTC, he said. Maybe to Facebook (Nasdaq: FB), the No. 1 social network.

RIM's BlackBerry messenger service, essentially an enterprise software platform, could interest International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) or maybe Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company, which bought Skype for $8.5 billion last year.

At Jefferies, analyst Peter Misek is skeptical any buyer for RIM will emerge, despite the company's hiring of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) and RBC Securities, an arm of Canada's Royal Bank (NYSE: RY) for strategic advice.

"Microsoft will to see how Windows 8 fares before possibly buying RIM," he said. The Redmond, Wash., software giant is betting the company on Windows 8, not just for PCs and servers, but tablets and smartphones, too.

Nokia, now managed by a former Microsoft senior VP, Stephen Elop, already threw out its Symbian OS in favor of Windows 7 and is betting the whole company on Windows 8. Indeed, its Lumia phone line has received a good reception, but the transition may take too long.

Both RIM and Nokia were market leaders whose market shares have been pruned disastrously by competition. RIM, under prior management, was blindsided by the first iPhones, as was Nokia. So too was Motorola Mobility.

Besides selling smartphones, all three platform makers had growing consumer recognition in the so-called BRICS countries  -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - but lost much of their profitability in them.

When it reported a first-quarter loss on sales that plunged 29 percent, Nokia's Elop said, "We have faced greater than expected competitive challenges."

Now that both RIM and Nokia are encountering these challenges, their only financially acceptable courses could be to sell themselves, or their intellectual property, for the highest price.

Then they'll enter the graveyards already populated by Nortel Networks, Palm, Eastman Kodak (Pink: EKDKQ) and several smaller players.

Or maybe they'll make it. Perhaps the investment bankers will attract takeover candidates that could include Sony (NYSE: SNE), the consumer electronics giant; Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), which has said it's awaiting Windows 8 or cash-rich Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM), which is another Windows 8 partner.

For Heins at RIM and Elop at Nokia, time is short.

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Size matters for Nokia's 41-megapixel smartphone camera - CNET Asia

The optical sensor and camera module on the Nokia 808 PureView (far right) is magnitudes larger than that of a typical 8-megapixel camera (middle) and 5-megapixel sensor and module (left).
(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

I admit to having a certain fascination with the Nokia 808 PureView smartphone camera, which employs a much larger sensor than usual in order to take pictures up to 41 megapixels in size. Just how much larger that sensor is compared to the typical 5-megapixel and 8-megapixel smartphone sensors will impress you.

Yesterday I sat down with Juha Alakarhu, the head of camera technologies at Nokia for smart devices, who happens to be visiting the US from Finland. After letting me tinker with the camera some more, he pulled out a felt-lined card studded with a trio of camera sensors and two camera modules, into which the sensors ultimately go.

The 8-megapixel sensor is larger than the 5-megapixel sensor, but not by much. The PureView's 41-megapixel sensor, however, dwarfs the other two. The two modules, by the way, match up to the 5- and 41-megapixel sensors.

Although Alakarhu didn't proffer an 8-megapixel camera module, my eyeballs estimated that you could fit at least eight 8-megapixel modules into the PureView's 41-megapixel camera module.

As much as the astounding megapixel count and lens size capture my attention, it's Nokia's philosophy behind the PureView camera that cements my admiration. Take a photo in the full-resolution mode (and your choice of two aspect ratios) and suddenly, zooming in and cropping a photo never looked so good. (CNET Editor Joshua Goldman explains why.)

And if you're wondering, I did indeed shoot the photo of the 808 PureView's camera parts using another PureView's full 41-megapixel resolution, then zoomed in and cropped to get what you see here. How's that for meta?

Via CNET.com