MS Paint - a homage

MS Paint is concidered to be one of the less useful programs for painting. Drawing things free handed with nothing else than the mouse is not very easy and professionals are used to more sophisticated CAD-programs. Nevertheless there are some really talented MS Paint-users out there. Check this out!



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Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision announce the “CELLULAR-BOOK”

TELECOM ITALIA through TIM will co-develop and market in Italy the world’s first rollable display enabled personal device for digital content distribution while Polymer Vision will market the device in the rest of the world.

Rome - Eindhoven - February 5, 2007 - Telecom Italia and Polymer Vision today announced an agreement which will see the leading operator of the Italian mobile industry and the pioneers of the rollable display industry join to develop and launch the world’s first rollable display enabled mobile device to market in 2007.

The innovative terminal will be presented to the Industry as a world first at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona from February12th (booth in Hall 2, D 06). The device uses the unique Polymer Vision rollable display technology which enables mobile devices to incorporate a display larger than the handset itself and offers a readability similar to printed paper. The product follows up on the rollable display technology based concept device Readius® presented by Polymer Vision less than 18 months ago at the IFA Consumer Electronics Trade Fair in Berlin.

While smaller than a typical mobile phone, the new device features a display which extends up to 5-inches and may simply be stored away after use by folding it, thanks to the flexibility of the polymer based display material. The device features the largest display available in the industry for the same form factor, the 16 grey levels combined with a high contrast and high reflectivity display for paper like reading experience enables comfortable reading, even in bright sunlight. Future developments include colour and moving image capable display.

The rollable display enables reading entire newspapers as well as books that can be delivered and bought through TIM’s mobile network via a regular SIM Card within the device - and then stored in the terminal’s memory which will be extremely large (starting from 4 Gigabytes available in the first models).

Combined with TIM’s mobile services, the device will permit instant access to personalised data, e-mail, news, information feeds and location sensitive maps wherever and whenever. The always-on user experience is made possible through an optimised combination of cellular (EDGE/UMTS) and broadcast (DVB-H IP data-casting) mobile functionalities as well as a mini-USB slot for PC and wired/wireless broadband data connection.

Together with superior text and graphic content, the new device will also download and play music, audiobooks and audio podcasts. Featuring single-handed navigation and control via an innovative touch sensitive LED user interface, as well as intuitively simple software, users will enjoy a new unique experience in managing, accessing relevant and personalized high value content. With the extremely low power consumption of the display, the new device will deliver an exceptional 10 days of average usage time between battery charges.

Telecom Italia will exclusively market the innovative terminal in Italy.

Polymer Vision News Desk
Gerdie Vlassak
+31 (0)40 2746637
info@polymervision.com

About Polymer Vision
Polymer Vision is the world leader in rollable displays, a unique solution allowing mobile displays larger than the device itself. The company, which is dedicated to put a rollable display in every mobile device, was founded in 2006 as a spin out of Royal Philips Electronics after a 1st round of investment by Technology Capital SA, Luxembourg.

For additional information visit the Polymer Vision website: www.polymervision.com

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Source: Polymer Vision Press release

Cisco, Claiming Ownership of ‘iPhone,’ Sues Apple

By JOHN MARKOFF, SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 10 — And now, iSue?

Maybe Steven P. Jobs should have named his new gadget the Apple Phone instead of the iPhone. Or maybe the real winners will be the intellectual property lawyers.

In any case, just a day after acknowledging that they had been discussing rights to the iPhone trademark with Apple “extensively” in recent weeks, Apple’s Silicon Valley neighbor, the computer networking giant Cisco Systems, filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in United States District Court against Apple, claiming rights to the iPhone brand.

On Tuesday, after Mr. Jobs had unveiled the iPhone to much fanfare, Cisco issued a statement saying that Apple had been in negotiations to obtain the trademark for several weeks and had been asking for “permission” to use it since 2001. Cisco recently introduced a WiFi-based phone with the same name.

On Wednesday, however, Cisco went to court to stop Apple, and its lawyer said the two companies had been unable to reach an agreement over several “principles” that Cisco had been demanding to permit Apple to use the trademark.

“The action we’ve taken is about protecting our brand,” said Mark Chandler, Cisco’s general counsel.

Cisco would have been willing to share the trademark, he said, if Apple had agreed to its terms, which involved a commitment to interoperability on Apple’s part and an agreement to differentiate the two products in the market.

On Wednesday evening, Apple fired back by noting that several companies besides Cisco were currently using the iPhone brand name. A quick Web search reveals that Comwave, Nuvio and Teledex are all using the brand in different ways.

“We believe that Cisco’s U.S. trademark is tenuous at best,” said Katie Cotton, Apple’s vice president for worldwide communications. “We are the first company to use the iPhone name for a cellphone and we’re confident we will prevail.”

In its lawsuit, Cisco said that the company had obtained the iPhone trademark in 2000 when it acquired InfoGear, a company in Redwood City, Calif., that developed consumer-oriented Internet appliances. Mr. Chandler said Cisco began selling an iPhone product last spring and introduced the product publicly at the end of 2006.

InfoGear began selling iPhone products as early as 1997. According to the lawsuit, the original iPhone was a device that combined a telephone and a dial-up Internet portal.

The lawsuit describes a “surreptitious” Apple attempt to obtain the rights to the iPhone name. In September 2006, a corporation calling itself Ocean Telecom Services filed an application for the trademark based on an earlier filing in Trinidad and Tobago. That same month, Apple separately filed an application to use the trademark in Australia.

In the lawsuit, Cisco states that it believes that Ocean Telecom Services is a front corporation for Apple. Ms. Cotton declined to comment on whether Apple is related to the company.

Apple decided to use the iPhone brand despite its earlier decision to switch the name of its digital video system from iTV to Apple TV. When asked during an interview if Apple Phone would have been a better brand choice for the new wireless phone, Mr. Jobs said he liked the iPhone brand.

Apple has prevailed in other sticky trademark disputes. Last May a British court ruled in Apple’s favor against Apple Records, the Beatles’ Apple Corps recording label.

On Tuesday, Mr. Jobs appeared to take a step toward consolidating his hold over the Apple brand when he shortened Apple’s name by dropping the word “computer.”

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Source: NY Times

New Mobile Phone Signals Apple’s Ambition

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 9 — Steven P. Jobs introduced an Apple wireless phone today that he said would lead to a new synthesis of communications, video, music and computing.

In an exclusive partnership with Cingular, the nation’s largest cellular phone carrier, Mr. Jobs brought his legendary product design sense to bear on one of the world’s most ubiquitous products. He said Apple had set the goal of taking 1 percent of the world market for cell phones, or 10 million phones per year, by the end of 2008.

Underscoring the transformation of a quirky computer maker that during the past half decade has come to dominate the world of digital music, and signaling his ambition to become a force in new markets, Mr. Jobs announced that the Apple was dropping the “computer” from its name and would henceforth become Apple Inc.

Repeatedly during his two-hour presentation before an audience of journalists, analysts, Apple employees and customers, Mr. Jobs drew parallels between the Macintosh personal computer, which had a vast impact on the computer industry when it was introduced in 1984, and the new phone.

Noting that there are occasionally new products that change everything, Mr. Jobs noted, “Apple has been able to introduce a few of these into the world.”

Apple’s stock price rose more than 7 percent after the announcement, climbing over $92. Shares of two companies that make competing smart wireless devices, Palm Inc. and Research in Motion, fell more than 5 percent.

Touting the fact that the new iPhone is powered by the same core OS X operating system that runs Macintosh computers, Mr. Jobs showed a series of applications including e-mail, advanced voice mail, photo collections and visually appealing Web searching all on a device that will be priced beginning at $499. That model will have four gigabytes of storage, and an eight-gigabyte model will be available for $599.

The iPhone will offer five hours of operating time and 16 hours of audio playback, Mr. Jobs said. The phone will be compatible with Cingular’s digital EDGE data network as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth networks.

Mr. Jobs defended the higher price of the new phone in a market where smartphone prices are rapidly plunging to $200 and below. He compared the iPhone, which has only one mechanical button on its surface, to smartphones from Motorola, Research In Motion and Palm. Rather than what he called “small plastic keyboards,” the iPhone will have a display that becomes both the keyboard and control panel, morphing to suit the current application.

“After today I don’t think anyone is going to look at these phones in the same way,” he said.

In addition to the Apple relationship with Cingular, which Mr. Jobs said was forged without offering even a peek at an early prototype, the iPhone will offer special applications from both Google and Yahoo. Users will be able to search use both services, receive mail from both Yahoo and Gmail as well as use a custom version of Google Maps.

Both Eric E. Schmidt, who is chief executive of Google as well as a member of Apple’s board, and Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, came on stage to endorse the new handheld.

“I’m not a board member of Apple, but I would like one of these, too,” Mr. Yang said.

Regis McKenna, the veteran public relations specialist and corporate strategist who originally tutored Mr. Jobs in the art of high-tech marketing beginning in the late 1970s, said: “This compares favorably with the launch of the Macintosh. The price is high, but it will come down.”

The new phone will not go on sale at Apple and Cingular stores in the United States until June of this year, Mr. Jobs said, noting that he had chosen to avoid early public disclosure on a Federal Communications Commission Web site.

The iPhone will be introduced in Europe during the fourth quarter and in Asia in 2008.The user interface of the iPhone rests heavily on a high-resolution touch screen that makes it possible to use a finger to control the phone. It also has several more subtle features, including sensors that track light and movement to prompt the phone to control screen brightness and physical orientation and other aspects of its operation. For example, when the phone is placed next to the user’s face, the keyboard is automatically turned off.

One of the immediate questions that analysts and industry executives posed about Apple’s new product was why the designers eschewed the higher-speed Cingular digital cellular 3-G network. Mr. Jobs said later models would support additional networking standards.

Apple chose to name the new phone iPhone despite the fact that Cisco Systems, the network and consumer wireless company, has recently introduced a Wi-Fi-based phone with the same name. Mr. Jobs had been negotiating with Cisco executives over the trademark in recent days. Both companies claim the name.

Before he introduced his new phone, Mr. Jobs said that Apple TV, the digital video system that he announced as iTV last year, would be available for $299 in February. The device will store up to 50 hours of video and permit wireless streaming of digital content from a computer to a television.

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Source: NY Times

Apple unveils cell phone, Apple TV

Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday unveiled a new mobile phone that downloads and plays music as well as a set-top box that allows people to stream video from their computers to their televisions.

Jobs said Apple’s iPhone would “reinvent” the telecommunications sector and “leapfrog” past the current generation of hard-to-use smart phones.

“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo. “It’s very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. ... Apple’s been very fortunate in that it’s introduced a few of these.”

Apple shares jumped 5 percent on the announcements.

Jobs demonstrated the phone’s music capabilities by playing “Lovely Rita, Meter Maid,” from the Beatles’ “Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

IPhone uses a patented touch-screen technology Apple is calling “multi-touch.”

“We’re going to use a pointing device that we’re all born with,” Jobs said. “It works like magic. ... It’s far more accurate than any touch display ever shipped. It ignores unintended touches. It’s super smart.”

The phone automatically synchs your media — movies, music, photos — through Apple’s iTunes digital content store. The device also synchs e-mail content, Web bookmarks and nearly any type of digital content stored on your computer.

“It’s just like an iPod,” Jobs said, “charge and synch.”

IPhone is less than a half-inch thin — less than almost any phone on the market today. It comes with a 2-megapixel digital camera built into the back, as well as a slot for headphones and a SIM card. Jobs did not immediately provide details on price or availability.

Jobs also said the company will begin taking orders Tuesday for $299 video box, called Apple TV. It will be available in February.

The gadget is designed to bridge computers and television sets so users can more easily watch their downloaded movies on a big screen. A prototype of the gadget was displayed by Jobs in September when Apple announced it would sell TV shows and movies through its iTunes online store.

The product could be as revolutionary to digital movies as Apple’s iPod music player was to digital music. Both devices liberate media from the computer, allowing people to enjoy digital files without being chained to a desktop or laptop.

“It’s really, really easy to use,” Jobs told the crowd at San Francisco’s Moscone Center before demonstrating the system with a video clip of “The Good Shepherd.” “It’s got the processing horsepower to do the kinds of things we like to do.”

Apple TV will come with a 40-gigabyte hard drive that stores up to 50 hours of video. It features an Intel Corp. microprocessor and can handle videos, photos and music streamed from up to five computers within the wireless range.

Jobs also said Apple has sold more than 2 billion songs on its popular iTunes music download service, catapulting the company into the top ranks of music sellers worldwide. Apple, which sells 58 songs per second, or 5 million songs a day, sells more songs than Amazon.com and ranks behind only Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target as a music retailer.
“We couldn’t be happier with the growth rate of iTunes,” Jobs said.

He said Apple will sell digital movies from Paramount. Apple has partnered with Disney for several months, offering about 100 movies on iTunes. With Paramount’s selection, it will have 250 movies available for downloading on the site.

With Tuesday’s launches, it remains to be seen whether the leading seller of digital music players can colonize an entirely new category of gadgets. Apple could use a megahit along the lines of its iconic iPod to divert investors’ attention from the stock options-backdating scandal that has tainted its reputation.


The backdating of stock options, which has been widespread among Silicon Valley companies, involves pegging stock options to favorable grant dates in the past to boost the recipients’ award. It isn’t necessarily illegal, but securities laws require companies to properly disclose the practice in their accounting and settle any charges that may result.

In a December filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple said Jobs was aware of, or recommended the selection of, some favorable grant dates but he neither benefited financially from them nor “appreciated the accounting implications.”

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Source: MSNBC

Doppelseitiges LC-Display von Samsung

Samsung hat ein doppelseitiges Display entwickelt, das in der Lage ist auf der Vorder- und Rückseite unterschiedliche Bilder anzuzeigen. Weil hierbei jedoch nur ein statt wie üblich zwei Panels benötigt werden fällt die Neuentwicklung dünner aus. Das TFT soll nächste Woche auf der CES in Las Vegas vorgestellt werden.

Bei der Konstruktion kommt Samsungs Doppel-Gatter-TFT-Architektur zum Einsatz, mit der sich zwei Pixel gleichzeitig steuern lassen und somit auf Vorder- und Rückseite des Displays unterschiedliche Bilder angezeigt werden. Zudem kommt das Panel mit nur einer Hintergrundbeleuchtung aus.

Die eine Seite des LC-Displays arbeitet im sogenannten "Transmissive Mode" und erreicht eine Helligkeit von 250 Candela pro qm. Die andere arbeitet reflektiv und ist dadurch nicht nur auf das Umgebungslicht angewiesen. Sie leuchtet selbständig mit einer Helligkeit von 100 Candela/qm.

Laut Samsung spart das neue Display bei mobilen Geräten gegenüber einer Lösung mit zwei Panels rund einen Millimeter ein. Das doppelseitige Display ist 2,6 Millimeter dick und verfügt über eine Diagonale von 2,2 Zoll. Die Auflösung beträgt 240x320 Pixel. Erste Geräte mit diesem Display sollen noch in der ersten Hälfte dieses Jahres erscheinen.

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Quelle: AreaMobile, Samsung

St. Gallen bietet gratis Internet für alle

St. Gallen - Ab März 2007 soll die gesamte Bevölkerung der Stadt St. Gallen einen kostenlosen Internetzugang erhalten: Die erste Testphase des Opensource-Netzwerkes in St. Gallen wurde am Donnerstag gestartet. Geplant sind drei Antennen. (ht/sda)

Das Projekt «Wireless St. Gallen» sei eines der ersten flächendeckenden Drahtlos-Internet-Angebote der Schweiz, das der Öffentlichkeit kostenlos zugänglich gemacht werde, hiess es an einer Medienkonferenz. Vergleichbare Projekte gebe es in Berlin, Leipzig und Wien.

Initiiert wurde das Wireless St. Gallen-Projekt durch Mitarbeitende des Organisations- und Informatik-Amts (OIA) der Stadt zusammen mit der Technischen Hochschule Rapperswil, der Studentenschaft der Universität St. Gallen, den St. Galler Stadtwerken und der Gruppierung «openwireless.ch St. Gallen».

«Weiterentwicklung der Infrastruktur»
Es ermögliche die Weiterentwicklung der Kommunikationsinfrastruktur der Stadt, sagte Stadtpräsident Franz Hagmann. Ein kostenloser Internetzugang sei ein Grundbedürfnis, sagte der Leiter der Stadtwerke, Ivo Schillig an der Medienkonferenz. Bis Ende Februar 2007 testen Studierende das Projekt.

Drei Sendestationen sollen auf dem Gebiet der Stadt St. Gallen ein Basis-Funknetzwerk verbreiten und den Internetzugang gewährleisten. Zwei Antennen sind bereits in Betrieb. Spezielle Wireless-Router empfangen das Signal der Antenne und verbreiten es.

Swisscom gelassen
Damit das System funktioniert, ist die Mitwirkung der Bevölkerung nötig: 20 Router wurden bereits bei Studierenden installiert. «Wireless St. Gallen» kann nur flächendeckend betrieben werden, wenn ein genügend dichtes Netz von privaten Routern in den Haushalten besteht, wie Projektleiter Urs Kofmehl erklärt.

Die Swisscom reagiert gelassen auf das St. Galler Pilotprojekt: Es herrsche Wettbewerb und der Wettbewerb sei ohnehin heftig, sagte Swisscom-Mediensprecher Josef Frey auf Anfrage. «Wireless St. Gallen» sei eine weitere Möglichkeit, Daten flächendeckend anzubieten.

Problematik Sicherheit
Offene Fragen ergäben sich bei der Problematik der Sicherheit und des Datenschutzes. So genannte WLAN-Router seien völlig offen. Jeder Benutzer müsse sich sehr gut überlegen, ob er davon Gebrauch machen wolle.

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Quelle: news.ch