Samsung patents perfume-packing cellphone... again

Seriously, Samsung, what the heck is with the scented cellphone patents? This isn't the first, or even the second time you've thought to put pockets of perfume in a handset. This latest patent is slightly different from earlier concepts, we suppose. We see this one has a scent refilling station built into the charging dock. So, when you set the phone down to charge the battery, it also "charges" the aromatic sponge in the body. It's also notable that this isn't a passive scented strip or a spraying mechanism. Instead the "absorbant material" is heated, either by the battery directly or by circuitry triggered as part of an alert. So, every time your hippy buddy calls, your phone could blast Phish and fill the air with the scent of patchouli (or, something else...).

Google gets patent for eye tracking-based unlock system, shifty looks get you access

Look up. Now down. Back up here again? Imagine having to do that every time you wanted to unlock your phone, as this granted Google patent for "Unlocking a screen using eye tracking information" possibly suggests. Okay, it actually looks more like it's intended for the firm's super spectacles -- which given their general hands-free nature -- makes more sense. The claims are fairly straightforward, unlocking of a device would be granted based on "determining that a path associated with the eye movement substantially matches a path of the moving object". As long as those moving objects aren't moving too fast, we think we can work with that.

Mobile internet demand boosts

Allot Communications (ALLT.TA) (ALLT.O), which supplies technology that allows telecoms operators to monitor and allocate bandwidth, posted a forecast-beating rise in quarterly profit as revenues rose more than 40 percent, helped by surging demand for fast internet on mobile devices.
However, the initial positive reaction that sent Allot's Tel Aviv shares 2.7 per cent higher by the close was tempered by concern over deal flow and the company's simultaneous announcement of its second acquisition in four months.
Allot's Nasdaq-listed shares slid 7 percent to $22.96 in early trading after Chief Executive Rami Hadar told a conference call that while deal flow was healthy, the deal-closing process is taking longer because of pricing issues in a challenging economic environment.
"They had a great quarter," said Northland Capital Markets analyst Catharine Trebnick, who rates Allot as "market perform" with a $28 target. "But investors are confused."
She cited worries over longer contract negotiations as well as the announcement that it plans to buy Israeli start-up Oversi Networks for $16 million in cash.
Traditional telcos and mobile operators are experiencing high demand for bandwidth because of strong sales of iPhones, iPads and Android-based mobile phones and devices, but providers are seeing revenue declining as unlimited data plans have grown more popular.
"Allot is benefiting from growth in mobile data and growth in data traffic in general," Nachum Falek, Allot's chief financial officer, told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that much of the rise in investment in expanding networks' bandwidth comes from streaming movies and video clips.
Video, Falek said, is likely to account for 60 to 70 percent of traffic in the next few years, up from 42 percent currently.
Allot's equipment allows telecoms providers to monitor data traffic and allocate bandwidth to where it's needed most - users streaming video at the expense of a slightly longer wait for another customer expecting a large file via email, for example.
"You want to see streaming video without buffering, but you don't mind getting an email a second later," Falek said.
Europe is Allot's largest market, and it also sells to Asia and Latin America. However, the company sees the United States as a key growth driver after a U.S. court ruling two years ago that allowed Internet service providers to slow traffic to sites such as YouTube or Hulu.
"The United States is a huge market in terms of opportunity," Falek said.
Allot earned 15 cents per diluted share excluding one-off items in the second quarter, compared with 10 cents a year earlier. Revenue rose 43 percent to $26.4 million.
The Israeli company was forecast to earn 14 cents a share on revenue of $25 million, according to Thomson Reuters IBES estimates.
Its planned purchase of Oversi, a provider of media caching for Internet video, follows its acquisition of Ortiva Wireless in May and is expected to close in the third quarter.
In addition to cash, Allot will pay up to $5 million based on Oversi's performance in 2012. Oversi is expected to contribute $2 million to Allot's quarterly revenue and reduce earnings per share by 2 cents in the fourth quarter before breaking even by the first quarter of 2013, Allot said.

Opera reaches 200M active users

The mobile browser company says it has reached the milestone of 200 million users, a massive increase year over year, as users in Africa reach out to social networks and more.

The combined number of mobile users around the world using the Opera Mini mobile Web browser has hit 200 million users per month for the first time, the Norway-based company said today.
At the same time, users in Africa are leading the uptake in mobile browsing thanks to Facebook, despite the social network's monthly active users remaining mostly flat month-on-month in the past quarter at 955 million.
The makers of the Opera browser have released their monthly State of the Mobile Web report, which looks at its product usage across more than 50 countries.
Out of the 200 million users, Opera Mini -- for non-smart devices or "feature" phones -- has 92 percent of all users at 183 million, while Opera Mobile -- designed for smartphones -- has the minority 8 percent at 17 million.
Opera Mini users alone accounted for more than 115 billion pageviews in 2012, an increase of more than 55 percent year over year.
Opera said it reached its milestone in June, thanks to a surge in users in Africa. Facebook tops the charts in all African countries where Opera has a presence, with the exception of Algeria, Angola, and Guinea, where Google stands at the top of the charts.
While Africa continues to develop, slower mobile networks still make loading pages a tedious process. Opera changes this by using data compression technology, similar to how BlackBerry devices work when browsing and sending and receiving e-mail.
Opera Mini is famed for its data compression, which squeezes data by as much as 90 percent -- a highly useful function in areas of the world, such as Africa, that have limited mobile connectivity over vast spaces. In June, Opera Mini users generated over 2.01 billion megabytes of data, but would have stood at 20 petabytes if the data were uncompressed.
The firm showed in May that usage of Opera Mini and Opera Mobile users grew steadily, despite a couple of dips in the process. Compared to May 2011, usage was up from 47 percent on last year's report. However, Opera Mini retains the lead over its smartphone counterpart with 36 countries on the continent more than doubling their use of the data-squeezing browser.

Number of Opera mobile product users

(Credit: Opera)

Since the 2011 revolution in Libya, Opera said that north African country has grown the most out of any country in Africa in user numbers, page views counted, and data consumption.
The country, which suffered through Internet shutdowns and online oppression and censorship, saw a 323,000 percent increase in mobile users, a 1.8 million percent boost in page views, and a 1.5 million percent jump in data usage.
Mobile remains an important medium for those in politically troubled areas of Africa, such as the Ivory Coast, which showed a massive growth in users; a 600 percent rise in users in one year, while page views grew by 744 percent. Data outpaced the growth in pageviews by 760 percent, which as Opera noted, shows that Africans are browsing larger, richer, and more advanced pages.
"For many of them, a browser is more than a tool to 'browse the web'. Sometimes it's a school when you can afford none, sometimes it's the only line to an outside world shut off by an oppressive regime," said Opera chief executive Lars Boilesen. "We want to make a difference in the world, not only on the web."

 

Apple, Google reportedly in rival groups to buy Kodak patents

Kodak might be cleared to sell its patents, but it's likely no fan of the companies lined up to make a deal. The Wall Street Journal's best friends, "people familiar with the matter," assert that Apple and Google are part of separate coalitions hoping to buy the 1,100 patents up for grabs. Apple's camp supposedly includes Microsoft and controversial patent holder Intellectual Ventures; Google's team reads more like an Android Justice League, with HTC, LG, Samsung and "patent risk solutions" provider RPX all playing a part. Real or not, there's still much that's up in the air. Kodak's not talking, and even the touted insiders warn both of new challengers and allegiances that could be in flux over the next few days. If there's meat on this rumor bone, however, it could make the August 8th auction another patent war spectacle rather than a mere ticket back to solvency for Kodak. Break out the popcorn.