Apple loses Dutch appeal for Samsung Galaxy Tab ban

Apple has lost its appeal in the Netherlands over its attempt to get the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the primary rival to its iPad tablet computer, banned in the country.

A lower Dutch court originally dismissed Apples case in October, but Apple was hoping to change their mind with an appeal. The appeals court, however, decided that there was no basis for an injunction banning sales of Samsungs products, as it deemed that the products were sufficiently different to negate accusations of copying.This is a big win for Samsung, which needs to prevent sales bans similar to that secured by Apple in Germany. Samsung lost its own case there against Apple for one of the patents it claimed the Cupertino, California-based firm infringed, and Apple has upped the heat by filing fresh German complaints against Samsungs smartphone range.The two companies have been at each others throats over the past year, suing and counter-suing in multiple countries, resulting in bans, appeals, reversals of bans, and a general mockery of the patent system.The legal war has shown an ugly side of the technology industry, where healthy competition is replaced by lawsuits and complaints to antitrust regulators. While the giants of the smartphone and tablet arenas battle it out, its the little guys, the consumers, that ultimately lose out.Source: Reuters

TBI - The Binding of Isaac annoncé sur console

En voilà une bonne nouvelle, Edmund McMillen - créateur de Gish ou Super Meat Boy pour ceux ne le connaissant pas encore - vient d'annoncer que sa dernière production verra le jour sur console. Actuellement exclusive au PC, The Binding of Isaac aura droit à une refonte pour son arrivée sur téléviseur.

En effet, devant porter le code sur d'autre formats que le flash, les développeurs en profitent pour apporter quelques améliorations ainsi que du contenu supplémentaire. En plus d'être fourni avec le DLC Wrath of the Lamb, le jeu offrira de nouveaux objets, ennemis, boss et mode de jeu, soit autant d'ajouts qui deviennent impossibles avec la version flash. En effet, le moindre patch prenant des proportions hallucinantes, les développeurs ont décidé laisser tomber la version flash pour se concentrer sur le remake.

C'est avec impatience que l'on attend de voir les nouveautés qui seront apportées à ce titre déjà excellent, et l'on espère qu'un mode co-op sera bien de la partie comme l'indiquent les premières rumeurs. Cependant, il faudra être patient car le jeu n'est pas attendu avant 2013 et les plateformes encore à préciser. Pour le moment, on peut quasiment être sûr de le voir débarquer sur Xbox 360, PS3 et PC, mais une version Ouya n'est pas à exclure, si leur éditeur accepte. Pour ceux qui l'attende sur WiiU ou PS Vita, il ne reste plus qu'à prier.

· Forum The Binding of Isaac

ATi Crossfire X Logo amp; Performance Scaling

CJ showed us how the ATi Crossfire X logo looks like and boards will use thislogo if they are certified for multi-GPU (Tripod or Quad). AMD revealed theperformance scaling for Crossfire X as below :

1 GPU = 1 x performance
2 GPU = 1.8x performance
3 GPU = 2.6x performance
4 GPU = 3.(?)x performance

ASRock launches its AMD 900-series chipset motherboards

The launch of AMD 900-series chipset motherboards appear to have been more or less up to the motherboard manufacturers and ASRock seems to have been a little bit behind Asus, Gigabyte and MSI, but has today announced two new models. What were looking at is one 990FX board and one 970 board.

First up we have the 990FX Extreme4 which is an updated version of the 890FX Deluxe 4, but with a few tweaks here and there. For starters ASRock has changed the capacitors to a fancier looking kind with a silver and gold packaging, but its unlikely that theres any major functional difference, but its very visible. Of course the CPU socket and retention mechanism has changed as well, but the power phases, chipset location and most of the heatsinks remain the same. The southbridge have been kitted out with an updated heatsink though.

Other changes include a pair of Etron USB 3.0 host controllers in lieu of the Renesas chips on the older board. ASRock has also kitted out the board with a Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet controller which should be seen as an upgrade over Realtek. The final change we noticed is a move to UEFI away from BIOS, but this was a fairly predictable move as well.

The second board is the 970 Etreme4 which is very similar to the 870 Extreme3 2.0, but not quite the same board. The rear I/O is identical of the two boards, but some of the on-board features differ, some quite significantly. As both models support AM3+ CPUs there are no changes around the CPU or PWM area, but the 970 Extreme4 has gained support for ASRocks multi-media remote via a USB 2.0 with a CIR connector right next to it.

ASRock has also changed USB 3.0 host controller supplies to ASMedia and in this case we have both rear and front ports. The only downside here is that the front pin-header has replaced a couple of fan headers. The slot layout has been improved ass well with a second x4 PCI Express slot tacked on at the bottom of the board and ASRock is claiming that the board works in dual x8 for the topmost two slots, something the 970 chipset isnt supposed to support, but the switches are there suggesting that it works. Finally ASRock changed the Ethernet controller, in this case a move from Atheros to Realtek.

No word on availability or pricing as yet, but wed expect both boards to be available shortly.

Source: ASRock

Apple in iPhone talks with China Mobile

Apple is in talks with China Mobile, the worlds largest mobile phone network, to offer the iPhone to millions of Chinese consumers.

Xi Guohua, chairman of China Mobile, confirmed that the two companies had entered discussions, indicating that both sides are keen to ink a deal.China Mobile rules a whopping 67 percent of the Chinese telecommunications market, with over 660 million customers, but lack of support for the iPhone is seen as a contributing factor to a steady drop in customers, who are going to China Unicom and China Telecom, both of which offer Apples flagship device. This deal is therefore extremely significant for the long-term success of the company.However, there are problems with compatibility between the iPhone and China Mobiles 3G network,which employs the unique TD-SCDMA standard. This means Apple will be forced to offer only 2G on its devices.This problem is expected to be resolved with the introduction of the next iPhone and LTE in China, but the latter is unlikely to happen until 2014 or later, according to analysts.Source: BBC