Well, at least in these tough economic times, lawyers can still make money.  There have been rumors swirling, but today it finally happened:  Apple is suing Palm for patent infringement for multi-touch and other technology associated with the iPhone.  Apple has also petitioned the court to issue an injunction stopping Palm from releasing the Pre.  After hearing this news, all I could think is ‘David vs. Golliath’, but in this case, I think David loses.  Apple has more than enough resources to win.  However, in an interesting twist, Microsoft has joined Palm in their defense, and is supporting Palm’s counter-suit.  Palm is suing Apple for using the touchscreen in the first place.  They claim they were the first true touchscreen device, and Apple has pirated their technology.  In addition to Apple, Palm is also suing RIM, Google/Android, and Nokia.  Google also has issued a suit against Microsoft over their dominance in the netbook market.  Google is claiming that MS has made it impossible for any other OS to break into the market, and they want them to be labeled an illegal monopoly.  There are additional rumors that MS is planning a takeover of RIM in order to have a larger smartphone market-share.  Steve Ballmer, CEO of MS, stated that MS is always looking to ‘remove any roadblocks to the advancement of technology, and that anything that was bad for Apple made him smile.’  Ok, so he didn’t really say that last part, but you know he has to be thinking it.  To get a clearer picture of all the legal battles, check out the complete details after the break.

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Seemed that earlier today, Expansys had the new BlackBerry Flip phone available for pre order. Brighthand had a post revealing the new device for order in the UK, but as far as I can tell now, the links over at Brighthand aren’t going anywhere any more. Did they catch some pre release website tweaking, or is an order option available for the BB 8210 and 8220. Well all searches end up in the same place, lot’s of sites picked this up and it seems Expansys have rectified the problem, I wonder if they got a smack from RIM?

More about the BlackBerry 8210 and 8220

Like most clamshell devices, the 8200 series will have a small external display, which in this case will have a 160-by-128-pixel resolution.

When the clamshell is opened, a SureType keyboard will be exposed, as well as a 2.6-inch QVGA main screen. Above the keyboard will be the trackball that has become standard on BlackBerries.

Tell us if it’s available?

Everyone knows that women have dainty little hands and fingers and in fact, we are genetically designed to use keyboards on devices like the Blackberry. Men, on the other hand, have giant fingers making it almost impossible to press one key at a time. This means that discussions around mobile devices often centre around how easy it is to type. Now, no-one has ever said I have dainty hands – nor do I think they ever would! However, I never struggle that much using keyboards on devices either. In fact, all I ask for a is a keyboard laid out in QWERTY style with one button for each letter and an easy way to switch to capitals and symbols – and of course a spell checker. I often wonder what I did before the introduction of red squiggly lines in Word…spelt badly I guess!

Anyway, it appears that RIM has patented a new keyboard style with angular keys. This seems to have the advantage of making the keys individually much bigger – although on the diagram I saw, it also seemed to portray the Blackberry as much bigger too – definitely not a good thing! I don’t know how well this would work – when Microsoft took a similar radical step with their keyboard it worked really well but stopped you from ever being able to type on a regular keyboard again. I guess that would not be as much of an issue on the Blackberry – after all, anything that makes it easier to type on a device that is used predominantly for email has to be a good thing. What I like about this is that it is a forward step from a company that seems to have spent the last few years playing catch-up. Apart from the wheel interface, which was very unique to the Blackberry, everything else has appeared to be one step behind the market. Maybe we are actually reaching the point where they are moving ahead of the market in design?

Via: Gizmodo