November 12 Tech Update

On this week’s World Tech Update Intel and AMD settle all antitrust litigation and patent disputes, CEA holds its annual CES preview in New York, Australian iPhones get Rick Astley wallpaper, Fujitsu breaks a phone in two, HP plans to acquire 3Com, the European Commission issues a formal statement of objections over Oracle’s planned acquisition of Sun, Nokia recalls mobile phone chargers, Intel launches a new e-reader and an MIT robot acts as driving com

Nick: Intel and AMD settle all antitrust and patent disputes, HP acquires 3com and a cellphone splits in two, all that news and more on this week’s World Tech Update. Thanks for joining us here on World Tech Update, I’m Nick Barber, we’ll start our news this week with AMD and Intel who announced Thursday that they have settled all antitrust litigation and patent disputes. Under the terms of the deal, Intel will pay AMD 1 and a quarter billion US dollars and has agreed to a set of business practice provisions. On its part, AMD has agreed to drop all regulatory complaint worldwide and all pending legal disputes, including a case in US district court in Delaware and two cases in Japan. That doesn’t mean Intel’s legal fights are over though, last week we told you about the antitrust lawsuit filed against Intel by the New York attorney general’s office, that will still stand. The Consumer Electronics Association held its annual CES preview in New York this week. There are gadgets galore like JVC’s ultra slim edge lit LED TV coming out at the end of this month for 3500 US dollars. Or the renews solar panel to charge devices via USB. There is even something for gaming on the go, like the rear seat entertainment system from Audiovox that includes a built in Playstation 2. A CEA economist said that he believes the recession is over, but that the consumer electronic industry will still have its ups and downs. Shawn: We believe the recession has ended, that it ended in July, we get the official word here soon, but that certainly doesn’t mean that we’re out of the woods, if you will. Still a very difficult environment, consumers continue to retrench, we believe what we are in an extensionary period now, and it will be a mediocre slow recovery, where jobs continue to be hard to come by. With that all industries will suffer, certainly, consumer electronics will have its ups and downs, the good news is, certainly, consumers continue to gravitate towards technology. Nick: Some iPhones in Australia got a surprise this week. Victims with gel broken iPhone were susceptible to a worm that changes users wallpaper to a photograph of 80’s singer Rick Astley. Astley’s best known for his hit Never Gonna Give You Up, the worm doesn’t affect most iPhone users though, only those with gel broken iPhones that are currently running a unit utility called SSH with the iPhones default password alpine still in use. SSh let’s someone connects to the iPhone remotely over the internet, so installing the software with the default password in place is a keen to adding an unlock backdoor to the device. A new phone from Fujitsu marks a break with the usual literally. The FO4B which will go on sale in Japan around April next year splits in two, the top half contains a 3.4 inch touchscreen display and all of the electronics needed for the handset, including the radio module and antenna. The back half has qwerty keyboard and a slide out numeric keypad. A Bluetooth link keeps both halves in touch up to about 10 meters. On its own, the top half of the cellphone is fully functional, thanks to the touchscreen display, so users can leave the keypad at home if they want a lighter handset sometimes. The keypad part includes a mic and speaker so can be use to answer calls while the top half of the phone is in a bag of pocket. Unfortunately, there are no plans to sell the phone overseas. We have a couple of items for you on our news and brief this week, HP will acquire networking vendor 3Com in a deal valued at 2.7 billion US dollars. The deal’s already been approved by both company’s board of directors. HP said the deal illustrates the company’s data center strategy which is focus on convergence of servers, storage, networking management, facilities, and services. The European Commission on Monday issued its formal statement of objections over Oracle’s planned acquisition of Sun Microsystems, saying that the deal would harm competition in the data base market. Oracle responded that it would vigorously oppose the commission. The US department of justice, which has already approved the deal also wait and saying it studied the deal carefully and concluded that it is unlikely to be anticompetitive. Nokia’s recalling a number of mobile phone chargers after it was revealed that the devices are faulty. It said that the plastic cover on the charger could come loose and separate exposing the internal components and leaving the user open to an electric shock. You’ll see here the effected models and anyone with one should go to chargerexchange.nokia.com for more details. On Tuesday, Intel started selling a new eReader that can snap pictures of books and newspapers and then read them back to people who have a hard time reading the printed page. Called the Intel Reader, the almost 1500 dollar device helps people who are blind, dyslexic, or have weak vision. It combines a 5 megapixel camera with a Linux powered optical character recognition system and software that converts text in the spoken word. With two gigs of storage, it can store about 600 snapshots of scanned pages. Intel estimates that there are as many as 55 million people in the US who could use this device. Researchers at MIT are working to develop a set of algorithms and a robot to help with everyday errands. In about two years, the researchers hope to have the Ieta robot mounted in the dashboard of cars. Carlo: So Ieta will learn about your goals about your mood, he knows what time of the day it is. So after a week for instance it could have figured out by itself where home and where work is, and then it will make in a very unintrusive way possible suggestions. So you might know there is a big traffic jam or there’s a street fair on the street that you every day, every morning take to work. Nick: According to researchers the idea is to go beyond inputing a destination on a GPS, but to act as a driving companion. After a month for example, Ieta will know that when you’re leaving work on a certain day, that you like to go to the grocery store, on that day, if it notices that your fuel level is low, I will reroute you to a gas station along the way and then leaving the grocery store it will divert you around a street fair that’s going on downtown. Ieta will be first installed on Audis within the next two years, but pricing hasn’t been finalized. Well that’s our show, thanks for joining us here on World Tech Update, follow us on Twitter and check out our Facebook fan page to find out what’s coming up on every weeks show. As we head out this week, we’ll leave you footage from Germany in the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I’m Nick Barber, and from all of us here at the IDG News Service, thanks for watching, and we hope to see you next week.