Spring Design, which recently released its Android-based Alex e-reader, has sued Barnes & Noble over the Nook e-reader, claiming B&N “misappropriated trade secrets” and “violated a non-disclosure agreement surrounding Alex technologies.”
The company says it started filing patents for Alex in 2006 and was holding conference calls and meetings with B&N execs beginning in 2009. Alex’s feature set was discussed confidentially with those execs under a non-disclosure agreement
Says Eric Kmeic, Sprin Design VP of Sales and Marketing: “Spring Design unfortunately had to take the appropriate action to protect its intellectual property rights. We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes & Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market.”
There is no word on what damages Spring is hoping for or expecting. B&N denied comment.
Result for: dual screen
Panasonic has announced they have developed the world’s first single-chip processor that can handle all of Blu-ray’s latest Profile 2.0 standards.
By using this latest chip, dubbed the UniPhier3, Panasonic promises smaller sizes, lower power consumption, and cheaper prices for BD players using the chip.
According to the press release, the chip has full “support for the latest BD standards, and functions including dual-screen simultaneous video playback, high-quality audio playback, and network compatibility achieved on a single chip.”
It will also allows for “50% reduction in mounting surface area and 25% reduction in power consumption, compared to current Panasonic products.” That is a huge plus in my opinion as most current BD players are large and obtrusive, compared to many slimline DVD players.
The chip also supports “video playback for BD, DVD, and CD media, and standards including MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and VC-1; high-quality audio playback compatible with lossless coding”.
Samples of the chip are set to be released to manufacturers beginning next month. Maybe one day, using this chip, there will be a player with a better value than the PlayStation 3.
