Which smartphone or tablet display does best in bright light?

Tired of squinting at your smartphone or tablet display on a bright sunny day? We may have the answer for you, then. DisplayMate Technologies president Dr. Raymond Soneira took a look at four tablets and four smartphones, gauging their performance in a wide range of lighting conditions from absolute darkness to indirect outdoor sunlight.

Apple and Samsung’s displays took top honors, with the iPhone 4, iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy S, and Tab 10.1 taking top honors. Doing much worse was Amazon’s Kindle Fire, while the HTC Desire, Motorola Xoom and Droid X also fared poorly. Overall, it appears by a slight margin Samsung’s displays are the best, while Dr. Soneira found the HTC Desire as the worst performer.

Soneira’s tests find that HTC has a lot of work to do on its displays. At a level of 20,000 lux, which is equivalent to full indirect outdoor sunlight, the display is unusable. Tablet-wise, the worst performer was the Kindle Fire, which shows similar readability problems at 20,000 lux and above.

“Other than jacking up the screen Brightness, manufacturers have done very little to improve screen readability and picture quality under high ambient lighting,” Dr. Soneira says. His company sells the software which he uses to judge the displays, which it says will also correct the problem. In other words? This guy has a vested financial interest in the results. Regardless, it’s a good look into what electronics manufacturers still need to do to improve displays.

We’ve heard a ton about Gorilla Glass, but in the end Corning was more focused on making thin, unbreakable glass than working on light reflectivity issues, where a lot of readability issues when it comes to ambient light come from. So that’s not the answer either.

Apple’s made a lot of hay over its Retina display and its advantages. While it has done wonders for the readability and clarity of these displays, it’s done jack for their readability in bright light — and DisplayMate has already said the display isn’t that great. Since we’re becoming ever more dependent on these devices, this is a problem that begs for a fix. “While Apple and Samsung are currently the best performers in high ambient light, it is possible to do substantially better with advanced scientific lab tests and analysis”, Soneira says.

I doubt for one second that Apple will reach outside of its bubble in Cupertino for help, but you have to think they would be interested in Soneira’s findings. Other companies like HTC and Amazon look like they could benefit greatly from this work — putting it bluntly their displays are pretty crappy. Then again, they do say you get what you pay for, right?

Read more at DisplayMate: Smartphone display results & Tablet display results

Source

Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter considering “nuclear option” to protest SOPA

The battle against SOPA reached fever pitch just before Christmas when a Reddit-led boycott of Go Daddy over the domain registrar’s support for the controversial legislation led to some 37,000 domains leaving the company for greener, freedom-loving pastures. Go Daddy, meanwhile, is now buried in complaints that it’s improperly blocking domain transfer requests to rival Namecheap.

With debate over SOPA’s future tabled until Congress reconvenes, you might think the issue would have entered a similar lull, butthat’s not happened. According to Markham Erickson, head of the NetCoalition trade association, there’s been talk of a so-called “nuclear option,” in which the likes of Google, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! would go simultaneously dark to protest the legislation to highlight thefundamental danger the legislation poses to the function of the internet.

There’s been no formal decision on the matter, and the companies in question obviously risk consumer anger and backlash over any suspension of services. There is, however, safety in numbers — and a few simple sentences identifying why the blackout is in place will ensure that the majority of the rage flows in the proper direction.

It’s a trump card that the likes of the MPAA and RIAA have no way of matching. There’s solid technical data behind the tech industry’s claims that implementing SOPA could damage the function of the internet, and plenty of evidence (some of it just weeks old) that copyright holders will abuse existing judicial processes to eliminate content they don’t like. The MPAA and RIAA are willing to talk about jobs lost to piracy in the abstract, but won’t (and can’t) promise that passing SOPA will allow them to hire thousands of Americans or create jobs in a statement they’d be held accountable for fulfilling.

There’s no information yet on when the blackout would occur, but the most likely date right now would be January 23. The Senate is scheduled to debate SOPA on January 24. Speaking in December, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid highlighted the importance of passing the legislation. “This is a bipartisan piece of legislation which is extremely important,” Reid said Saturday. “I repeat, it is bipartisan. I hope we can have a productive couple of days, pass this bill, and move on to other matters.”

Bring on the nukes.

Source

Apple flips from product defense to wholesale patent trolling

Apple spent much of 2011 attacking manufacturers like HTC and Samsung over their “slavish copying” (Apple’s words) of the iconic company’s products, but new information suggests the Cupertino-based manufacturer is willing to roll around in any degree of muck if it gets them an edge in court.

Meet Digitude Innovations. The company describes itself as “a consumer electronics licensing company focused on the acquisition and licensing of IP and technology.” Earlier this month, it sued [large PDF] Amazon, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, and Sony over alleged violations of four Digitude patents. In other words, it sued everyone — except Apple.

Out of the four patents DI claims world+dog infringe upon, two of them belonged to Apple until earlier this year. As TechCrunch reports, Apple transferred both patents to a shell company named Cliff Island LLC, which in turn gave them to Digitude Innovations. Apple has transferred a total of 12 patents to CI thus far. Investigation by TC strongly indicates that Cliff Island is nothing but a shell company that shares an address with Digitude Innovation’s chief investor, Altitude Capital.

Digitude doesn’t directly negotiate for cash settlements. Instead, it prefers to sign cross-licensing agreements and win access to fresh patents it can then use to troll more companies for still more cross-license agreements or alternately sue. So how involved is Apple in DI’s recent filings? It’s impossible to know for certain, but you don’t sue everyone but Apple and then claim you forgot the iPhone existed. There’s also mention of an agreement between Apple and Digitude Innovations.

The only reason to leave Apple off the docket is if the two companies have already negotiated a settlement as part of the initial patent transfer deal. Given that Apple has effectively given DI access to 12 patents, it’s hard not to see this as part of the company’s legal strategy for bringing pressure to bear against Android and the handset manufacturers that dare support it. Jobs’ own comments unambiguously stated he wanted to bury Android, and the no-holds barred legal strategy Apple is pursuing directly (and possibly indirectly, through shell companies like DI) seems par for the course.

Read more at TechCrunch

[Image credit: Bob MacNeil]

Source