This week, a court ordered Samsung to fork over $15.7 million to a company called Rembrandt Wireless Technologies, ruling that the mobile phone maker has violated Rembrandt patents in using the Bluetooth wireless standard to transmit data. Samsung is also required to pay ongoing royalties on all its Bluetooth 2.0 products for the life of Rembrandt’s patents.
Rembrandt is a patent assertion entity—or, in the popular vernacular, a patent troll. These companies buy up patents, and rather than put these patents to use building new products, they sue companies for infringement. Recently, after many years of seemingly egregious patent troll wins, the tide shifted against these companies, with a big ruling from the Supreme Court and big moves from Apple and others. But clearly, the patent wars are far from over.
Last June, the Supreme Court ruled on Alice vs. CLS, deciding that ideas alone can’t be patented, only specific implementations of those ideas. And in December, a coalition led by Apple, Microsoft, and other tech giants sold off a portfolio of patents that it had previously used to sue Google and its partners, including Samsung, bringing an end to a particularly ugly patent battle.
But while Alice vs. CLS may help prevent the most egregious cases of patent trolling, the Rembrandt ruling—along with the recent ruling against Symantec—shows that there’s still ample room for trolls to operate. Though sometimes patents cases are clear cut, many are more ambiguous.
The Bluetooth case revolved around patents filed by inventor Gordon Bremer in 1997. The jury decided that certain features introduced in Bluetooth 2.0 in 2004—specifically Enhanced Data Rate—violated those patents, which are now owned by Rembrandt. The company also sued BlackBerry for infringement, and settled out of court.
Ars Technica reports that although Bremer didn’t market any products based on those patents himself, he did shop the ideas around to various technology companies.
Companies like Rembrandt, which will pay Bremer a percentage of the settlement, claim that they’re helping small time inventors get fair compensation for inventions being exploited by large technology companies. “Justice was done here,” said Demetrios Anaipakos, a partner the law firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos Alavi & Mensing, which represented Rembrandt, in an announcement this week. “The Rembrandt inventions are at the heart of Samsung Bluetooth capabilities.”
But critics argue that they’re harming innovation by filing frivolous lawsuits and making it difficult to create new products without fear of litigation. “This is a classic example of patents as an attack on innovation,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Daniel Nazer. “There’s nothing to suggest that this guy contributed anything to the [Bluetooth] technology we used today.”
What makes this case particularly troublesome, Nazer says, is that it’s hard enough for companies to converge on an industry wide standard like Bluetooth without companies from outside the standardization process stepping in with lawsuits. “When [companies] create products and put them on the market—even if they haven’t copied someone else’s work—they’re going to be subject to all sorts of suits,” he says.
The good news for Samsung is that it can still appeal the decision.
Dick Tracy, talking into his wristwatch radio, from the 1930’s comic strip. Everett Collection
When he announced the Apple Watch, CEO Tim Cook called it “the most personal device we’ve ever created.” As he paced the stage, a wide grin on his face and a white-strapped Watch on his wrist, he elaborated how that means more than personalized bands and a customizable face. He mentioned “digital touch” and how the Watch will allow people to do more than talk. “These are subtle ways to communicate that technology often inhibits rather than enables,” he said.
The best thing the first version of the Apple Watch will do is act as the world’s most powerful and expensive messaging app. When it launches in April, the Watch won’t be a great fitness device. It won’t have a huge app store. It won’t run for a week or let you leave your phone at home. That may come later, but it won’t be what decides the Watch’s fate. No, the success of the Watch may well come down to things like haptic feedback, and whether you want to share your heartbeat with another person.
Those features may be a lot more powerful than we realize, with lasting importance for Apple and every other gadget maker.
This week, a court ordered Samsung to fork over $15.7 million to a company called Rembrandt Wireless Technologies, ruling that the mobile phone maker has violated Rembrandt patents in using the Bluetooth wireless standard to transmit data. Samsung is also required to pay ongoing royalties on all its Bluetooth 2.0 products for the life of Rembrandt’s patents.
Rembrandt is a patent assertion entity—or, in the popular vernacular, a patent troll. These companies buy up patents, and rather than put these patents to use building new products, they sue companies for infringement. Recently, after many years of seemingly egregious patent troll wins, the tide shifted against these companies, with a big ruling from the Supreme Court and big moves from Apple and others. But clearly, the patent wars are far from over.
Last June, the Supreme Court ruled on Alice vs. CLS, deciding that ideas alone can’t be patented, only specific implementations of those ideas. And in December, a coalition led by Apple, Microsoft, and other tech giants sold off a portfolio of patents that it had previously used to sue Google and its partners, including Samsung, bringing an end to a particularly ugly patent battle.
But while Alice vs. CLS may help prevent the most egregious cases of patent trolling, the Rembrandt ruling—along with the recent ruling against Symantec—shows that there’s still ample room for trolls to operate. Though sometimes patents cases are clear cut, many are more ambiguous.
The Bluetooth case revolved around patents filed by inventor Gordon Bremer in 1997. The jury decided that certain features introduced in Bluetooth 2.0 in 2004—specifically Enhanced Data Rate—violated those patents, which are now owned by Rembrandt. The company also sued BlackBerry for infringement, and settled out of court.
Ars Technica reports that although Bremer didn’t market any products based on those patents himself, he did shop the ideas around to various technology companies.
Companies like Rembrandt, which will pay Bremer a percentage of the settlement, claim that they’re helping small time inventors get fair compensation for inventions being exploited by large technology companies. “Justice was done here,” said Demetrios Anaipakos, a partner the law firm Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos Alavi & Mensing, which represented Rembrandt, in an announcement this week. “The Rembrandt inventions are at the heart of Samsung Bluetooth capabilities.”
But critics argue that they’re harming innovation by filing frivolous lawsuits and making it difficult to create new products without fear of litigation. “This is a classic example of patents as an attack on innovation,” says Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Daniel Nazer. “There’s nothing to suggest that this guy contributed anything to the [Bluetooth] technology we used today.”
What makes this case particularly troublesome, Nazer says, is that it’s hard enough for companies to converge on an industry wide standard like Bluetooth without companies from outside the standardization process stepping in with lawsuits. “When [companies] create products and put them on the market—even if they haven’t copied someone else’s work—they’re going to be subject to all sorts of suits,” he says.
The good news for Samsung is that it can still appeal the decision.
Dick Tracy, talking into his wristwatch radio, from the 1930’s comic strip. Everett Collection
When he announced the Apple Watch, CEO Tim Cook called it “the most personal device we’ve ever created.” As he paced the stage, a wide grin on his face and a white-strapped Watch on his wrist, he elaborated how that means more than personalized bands and a customizable face. He mentioned “digital touch” and how the Watch will allow people to do more than talk. “These are subtle ways to communicate that technology often inhibits rather than enables,” he said.
The best thing the first version of the Apple Watch will do is act as the world’s most powerful and expensive messaging app. When it launches in April, the Watch won’t be a great fitness device. It won’t have a huge app store. It won’t run for a week or let you leave your phone at home. That may come later, but it won’t be what decides the Watch’s fate. No, the success of the Watch may well come down to things like haptic feedback, and whether you want to share your heartbeat with another person.
Those features may be a lot more powerful than we realize, with lasting importance for Apple and every other gadget maker.
Fitbit is one of a shrinking number of health and fitness companies that hasn’t yet shared its data through HealthKit, Apple’s health and fitness platform. Back in October, the company’s decision to delay integration was explained in a statement saying Fitbit wanted to explore partner options that served not just iOS, but all of its users. It made sense, but it still raised eyebrows. Fitbit, with millions of users who have years of their data stored in their user accounts, perhaps had more to lose than other companies should those users fling their Fitbits aside for a new Apple Watch. Was Fitbit going to take a stand, going head-to-head against Apple in the wearables space?
Lo and behold, in late 2014 Fitbit announced a trio of new fitness wearables, including a smartwatch: the Surge. Billed as a “fitness superwatch,” it tracks the usuals like steps, distance, calories, flights climbed, sleep, and active minutes, as well as continuous heart rate monitoring. It has built-in GPS tracking—something Apple’s watch will lack. The Fitbit also displays bits of information from your phone on its LCD screen: caller ID, app notifications, and music player controls.
But, as Fitbit’s product billing and the Surge’s feature set would suggest, it’s not really a smartwatch. There are no third-party apps. Notifications are limited. More than anything, it’s a souped-up version of the Charge HR wrist band, a Fitbit with an always-on watch face.
The Surge has a monochrome touchscreen display that’s easy to read in regular light or sunshine. When interacting with it, the screen lights up blue, making it even easier to read. There’s a power button on the left side. Two additional buttons on the right side are used for navigation, but most onscreen interactions can be handled with swipes and taps. Touch response is generally swift. A green LED-based heart rate monitor sits on the underside of the watch where it pulses light into your skin to constantly take measurements. There’s also a USB charge port on the bottom, and the battery generally lasts more than three days per charge.
While I’ve had issues with other large screen smartwatches, the dimensions and fit of the Surge is quite comfortable. The face is similar in size to a Pebble, and the band wraps around in a loose wrist-conforming shape. It’s made of the same rubbery, textured material as the smaller Fitbit Charge HR. I like this material, except that it gets grabby when you’re wearing a long sleeved shirt or jacket. I wore the watch close to 24 hours a day, usually only taking it off for showers (it’s water resistant, but not waterproof). If your mattress is hard, you may find the Surge pinches and presses your arm while you’re trying to catch some zzz’s. This happened to me one night in a hotel bed, forcing me to take it off, but otherwise sleeping with the Surge just became habit; I didn’t notice it.
I had a terrible time trying to get the watch to pair with my iPhone 6 in order to relay notifications. I would restart the phone, restart the watch, restart the app. No dice. Apparently, I needed to do these in a specific order, as outlined in Fitbit’s Help forums. Once you’ve got this working (other people seemed to have little to no issue with this), incoming text and call notifications are delivered to your wrist, grabbing your attention with a momentary vibration. You access your recent messages by tapping the upper right button on the watch, and then swipe right or left to navigate through them. It does not relay any other app notifications, though. On one hand, that’s kind of bunk—it might be nice to get Facebook or Instagram notifications, too—but on the other, it limits the notifications you do get on your wrist to ones you’re most likely to want to respond to, and that’s refreshing.
The Surge is less of a direct shot across Apple Watch’s bow and more of a souped-up fitness tracker that provides minimal notifications from your smartphone.
This lack of notification noise means that, for the most part, the Surge feels like more of just a watch. I’d glance at it to check the time, or check my heart rate. Continuous heart rate monitoring is an almost gimmicky attraction. “Oh my god I’m so stressed out right now, what’s my heart rate? I bet it’s like 130. Oh, it’s only 70. OK I guess I’m not that stressed out.” But by wearing it all day, you can get an accurate reading of your true resting heart rate—useful for assessing your overall fitness—as well as more accurate calorie-burn estimates for when you hit the gym or the trails.
For runners, the Surge’s larger display is great for checking real time stats like your distance, time, and your pace. The watch also tracks your run using GPS, so you don’t need to have your smartphone on you to track your session. The watch can monitor around a dozen different activities, including yoga, spinning, weights, golf, kickboxing, and tennis.
I compared the calorie burn report from the Surge to a Garmin paired with a heart rate strap. For me, the Fitbit’s estimates erred on the low side for a spin session. However, this could be due to my high maximum heart rate—as I mentioned in my review of Fitbit’s Charge HR, a device that uses the same flashing LEDs to measure heart rate, a high max HR can cause inconsistent readings.
The Surge did a better job than the Charge HR, picking up some high intensity efforts in the 180 BPM range, but otherwise generally topped out around 160 BPM, a good deal below my actual max heart rate. If you know that your max heart rate is below 170 BPM, you should not have issues with the watch’s beat tracking. If it’s higher, you’re probably better off wearing a heart rate strap during workouts.
Some other features I liked: you can set a silent alarm to remind you to get up and walk around, and your watch to vibrate every hour as a prompt. There are four default watch faces to choose from, and you can switch them using the smartphone app. You can also select which exercise shortcuts you want to swipe through on the touchscreen—like if you’re never, ever going to step onto the elliptical machine, one of the watch’s default activities, you can remove it from the menu.
The person who will get the most out of the Surge is someone who wants the constant fitness tracking Fitbit is known for, and also wants to wear a more traditional digital wristwatch. This gives you both in just one device. The notifications helpful too, but are also lightweight enough that the simplicity of the watch’s experience remains intact.
Maybe this says it best. I began testing the Surge close to a month ago. In the weeks spent on my wrist, it hasn’t transformed the way I communicate with friends or interact with my phone. But it hasn’t ended up abandoned in a drawer, either.
DJ Patil speaks at a conference in San Francisco, California, Nov. 29, 2012. Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images
It’s finally official: The White House has named DJ Patil its first ever Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy.
Yes, that’s a mouthful. Even as an acronym, Patil’s new title is ten letters long: CDCaDCTODT. But the gist is that Patil—who has worked inside several big-name Silicon Valley operations, including LinkedIn, eBay, PayPal, Skype, and venture capital firm Greylock Partners—will now act as an evangelist for new applications of big data across all areas of government, with a particular focus on healthcare.
President Obama recruited him personally, and Patil will work in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, reporting to US Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith.
He joins a growing number of technology executives defecting to Washington to apply their tech smarts to government. Earlier this month, Obama appointed former VMWare executive Tony Scott as the country’s chief information officer, responsible for modernizing and improving the country’s tech tools. And former US Chief Technology Officer Todd Park is leading a Silicon Valley-based effort to recruit top talent to help the federal government to overhaul its IT.
There is arguably no one better suited to help the country better embrace the relatively new discipline of data science than Patil. He is often credited with coining the term. In 2012, he co-authored the Harvard Business Review article that called out “data scientist” as the sexiest job of the 21st century. At the time, he was the data-scientist-in-residence at Greylock Partners, where he shared with me his life’s mantra: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it.”
Over the course of two decades of work in the private and public sectors and in academia, Patil has pioneered new ways for institutions to benefit from data. As a doctoral student and faculty member at the University of Maryland, Patil used open datasets to improve weather forecasting. He worked briefly for the Department of Defense, advising on efforts to use social network analysis, for example, to anticipate emerging threats to the United States. Most recently, he was the vice president of product at enterprise software company RelateIQ, which was acquired by Salesforce last July.
Patil is moving his family to Washington where he’ll play a role in helping the United States government maximize its investments in big data and advise on policy issues and technology practices. And like his tech peers, he’ll be recruiting others to the cause. Patil will also be devoting time to the Administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative, which focuses on giving clinicians new tools, knowledge, and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients, while protecting patient privacy.
Patil will have more details on his new role tomorrow when he speaks at the Lollapalooza of big data conferences, the Strata +Hadoop World event put on by O’Reilly Media and Cloudera, in San Jose.
DJ Patil speaks at a conference in San Francisco, California, Nov. 29, 2012. Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images
It’s finally official: The White House has named DJ Patil its first ever Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy.
Yes, that’s a mouthful. Even as an acronym, Patil’s new title is ten letters long: CDCaDCTODT. But the gist is that Patil—who has worked inside several big-name Silicon Valley operations, including LinkedIn, eBay, PayPal, Skype, and venture capital firm Greylock Partners—will now act as an evangelist for new applications of big data across all areas of government, with a particular focus on healthcare.
President Obama recruited him personally, and Patil will work in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, reporting to US Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith.
He joins a growing number of technology executives defecting to Washington to apply their tech smarts to government. Earlier this month, Obama appointed former VMWare executive Tony Scott as the country’s chief information officer, responsible for modernizing and improving the country’s tech tools. And former US Chief Technology Officer Todd Park is leading a Silicon Valley-based effort to recruit top talent to help the federal government to overhaul its IT.
There is arguably no one better suited to help the country better embrace the relatively new discipline of data science than Patil. He is often credited with coining the term. In 2012, he co-authored the Harvard Business Review article that called out “data scientist” as the sexiest job of the 21st century. At the time, he was the data-scientist-in-residence at Greylock Partners, where he shared with me his life’s mantra: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it.”
Over the course of two decades of work in the private and public sectors and in academia, Patil has pioneered new ways for institutions to benefit from data. As a doctoral student and faculty member at the University of Maryland, Patil used open datasets to improve weather forecasting. He worked briefly for the Department of Defense, advising on efforts to use social network analysis, for example, to anticipate emerging threats to the United States. Most recently, he was the vice president of product at enterprise software company RelateIQ, which was acquired by Salesforce last July.
Patil is moving his family to Washington where he’ll play a role in helping the United States government maximize its investments in big data and advise on policy issues and technology practices. And like his tech peers, he’ll be recruiting others to the cause. Patil will also be devoting time to the Administration’s Precision Medicine Initiative, which focuses on giving clinicians new tools, knowledge, and therapies to select which treatments will work best for which patients, while protecting patient privacy.
Patil will have more details on his new role tomorrow when he speaks at the Lollapalooza of big data conferences, the Strata +Hadoop World event put on by O’Reilly Media and Cloudera, in San Jose.
Every year I look back to see how well I looked ahead. During my time at eCollege and then Pearson, I wrote a trend piece every January. What shiny new thing might capture people’s eyes or what big, over-arching concept was top of mind for educators.
Looking back, I think I have about a 75-80% success rate. Not that I can brag too much as over those twelve years I likely spoke to or with about a quarter of a million educators, at all levels. My “premonitions” were much more about following the patterns presented to me as problems, opportunities, or simple exuberance.
So, for example, I called the trend of “MOOC fever” at the right time (although who didn’t?). I also noted the heavy push toward Competency Based Education (CBE) seemingly on target. But, when you hear first -hand from the Department of Education that CBE will be a strategic and dedicated push, it’s not hard to predict a soon-to-follow trend.
With that back drop, what is in store for 2015? After all, last year was no different. Even though my family and I moved to Florida so I could take the position of Chief Innovation Officer at Saint Leo University, I still spoke to or with 25,000 people at various levels of education, from K-12 to HE to researchers to vendors to faculty to admins and politicians in 2014. But what did they say?
The ironic (and pleasant) surprise to me was that the conversations seemed….well, less about the shiny and new and more about effectiveness and execution. I heard less about acquisition and more about integration than I ever have before. I heard less about the sky falling and more about bridge building than in past years. I think I might characterize it with a single word: Breathe.
I believe that 2015 will be a year of pausing to finally stitch some things together better, if not correctly. Education has seen a ton of initiatives, experiments, and products / services that will “revolutionize” the industry over decades. Yet no real revolution has taken place. At least not yet.
At the same time, people have seen some fantastic ideas come and go, not because the ideas weren’t solid, but because implementation was bad. Whether it’s politics (internal or external), technology limitations, or even a lack of appropriate experimentation options, some of the great education ideas of our time just languish in anonymity or make their amazing difference for only a handful of students.
Take learning analytics, coming from “big data” warehouses. In the past 5 years, I’ve read and heard the phrase, “I don’t believe in big data” from people in very high places numerous times. Why? Because the promise of data leading to transformative change of education process (be it teaching & learning, enrollment, retention, etc) missed the mark for so long. Systems would not (or could not) speak to one another; owners of data were miserly and protective; analytic engines weren’t nearly as smart as marketed; etc. So, while we are likely finally at a place to cash in on those bets, we have a problem. The problem is that the gamblers went home years ago.
And data is not the only initiative fall short of its promise. In the 35 conferences I attended in 2014, I heard regularly that OER is just too hard to edit, technology doesn’t change classroom quality as it never gets above the “Substitution” level of Puentedura’s SAMR model (or the ‘R’ of the RATL model, etc), MOOCs are more trouble than they are worth, etc.
And so it seems that 2015 might finally be the year to put together, fix, build up, or otherwise empower education with solutions of old. This is not to say new initiatives or products won’t emerge. People will certainly keep working on CBE, breaking the $10,000 Baccalaureate, and it excites me greatly to see both acceptance of and usage for gamification. And groups will keep financing initiatives that play to their strengths too. (Will LinkedIn, Mozilla, and others finally put ‘badging’ into a mainstream, significant conversation in 2015?) But generally speaking, I think 2015 and likely some of 2016 will be a year to reset. Educational institutions have spent a lot on solutions that have not hit the appropriate ROI levels yet. But many still have promise.
Take technology in the classroom up to the “Modification” or “Redefinition” stage of SAMR – now you have something transformative to look at. Want your “rigor” initiative to work for all – consistent professional development may be the answer. How about a meaningful OER solution – perhaps it’s time to bolster some middleware or change the instructional design in the first place. And on and on…
So, don’t be surprised when you start hearing about some amazing “leaps” forward for our industry in the next couple of years. Once the infrastructure is finally right, some of these initiatives will revolutionize… OK, not that strong. They will markedly improve some of the big issues education has been dealing with for a long, long time.
Good luck and good teaching.
Dr. Jeff Borden is Chief Innovation Officer at Saint Leo University.
