Mike Beasley

Photo: npr.org

Google has been fighting yet another patent lawsuit, this time against Intellectual Ventures. Today the jury in this trial decided that it would not be able to come to a unanimous decision, resulting in the court declaring a mistrial, reports Reuters.

“Mistrials are an occasional fact of life, and it is disappointing,” said Melissa Finocchio, chief litigation counsel for Intellectual Ventures. IV is looking forward to a retrial, she said.

The suit involved three patents that covered mobile technologies held by Intellectual Ventures. There is no word yet on what the company will do following the jury’s decision (or lack thereof).

Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox browser, showed the first preview of its Android launcher during the InContext 2014 conference today.

Firefox Launcher for Android makes it easy to discover the content you want in any moment and is optimized for the way you use your phone. The app integrates the contextual adaptive app search from EverythingMe with the Firefox for Android Web browser to offer users a personalized and customizable Web experience that is fun and intuitive

Mozilla previously released its own mobile operating system, Firefox OS. It appears Mozilla repurposed some of the aesthetic and technological ideas from the operating system when creating the Android launcher.

Firefox Launcher is still in development, but Mozilla has promised to make more details available as the product moves into its beta testing phase. The full preview is available below the break.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon is planning to get into the mobile payments game with a new service for retailers. According to the report, a few different routes for this offering are being considered. The company could provide retailers with credit card scanners and Kindle hardware paired with software to accept payments.

The WSJ also reports that Amazon could be preparing to offer other services, such as website development, to businesses using its payment service. Other potential services being considered would allow physical retailers to offer special discounts through Amazon’s web store and other properties.

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9naxeHGIaRY]

Google has released five new mini-games for Glass in the hopes that developers will be inspired to create games for the system. The games include Tennis, Balance, Clay Shooter, Matcher, and Shape Slicer. The games use the built-in sensors, camera, and microphone in Glass to control simple sets of colored shapes.

Balance uses the motion sensors to manipulate a stack of blocks that move with the player’s head. The object is to keep the blocks balanced by keeping your head as steady as possible. Clay Shooter uses voice controls and the various motion sensors to allow players to shoot down simulated clay discs without the need for a trap range. Shape Splitter resembles the popular Half Brick Studios game Fruit Ninja. In the Glassware version, players slice colored shapes by waving their hands in front of the Glass camera.

Developers can download the games from the Glass Mini Games page.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eneEmDtSvzI]

Google unveiled four new frames for Glass today—dubbed “The Titanium Collection”—that are compatible with prescription lenses. The frames will come in several different colors and styles to suit most users’ tastes. The actual Glass hardware attaches to the side with a single screw. Two different clip-on sunglasses will also be available.

The frames are, as the name implies, manufactured from titanium to make them as light as possible in order to counter the weight added by the Glass hardware attached to the right side. All of the designs are created in-house by a team at Google led by Isabelle Olsson.

Perhaps even more impressive, the New York Times notes that all of the frames will be covered under plans from VSP, the nation’s largest optical insurance provider.

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First they created self-driving (and maybe flying) cars. Then they created a new robotics division and put Android’s Andy Rubin in charge. And who could forget that they recently bought Boston Dynamics, the firm responsible for several DARPA-funded robotics projects?

Now, Re/code reports that Google is planning to purchase DeepMind, a London-based AI company that specializes in games and e-commerce algorithms. While Google could possibly put the company’s work on e-commerce to good use, Re/code indicates that Google is likely acquiring the firm for its talent, not so much for its technology. The site pegs the purchase price at round $400 million, but The Information says the number is actually closer to $500 million.

Just what does Google plan to do with all of these purchases? Some have previously speculated that the company is working on an intelligent delivery system to rival Amazon’s futuristic delivery drones. Andy Rubin has said that he has an interest in revolutionizing industries that have not yet been impacted by the precision of robotics technology, such as the assembly of electronics.

Or maybe they just want an army of terminators. But hey, who wouldn’t?

Samsung announced in a press release today that the South Korean company has signed an agreement with Google to mutually license one another’s existing patents as well as all patents filed over the next decade.

The agreement follows countless patent lawsuits between Samsung and Apple regarding hardware implementations of various cellular technologies as well as mobile software design and features.

“This agreement with Google is highly significant for the technology industry,” said Dr. Seungho Ahn, the Head of Samsung’s Intellectual Property Center. “Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes.”

Since Google and Samsung don’t typically engage in patent battles with each other, the contract doesn’t seem poised to actually prevent many lawsuits. The move will likely prove to be more symbolic of the companies’ commitment to collaboration than an attempt to quell disputes.

KGI Research has issued its predictions for Samsung’s next flagship Galaxy device. The document suggests that the phone will be available in two different configurations. The standard version will come equipped with 2 GB of RAM, a quad-core Qualcomm MS M 8974AC or 8-core Samsung Exynos 5422 processor, 2 GB of RAM, a 2 MP front-facing camera, a 16 MP rear camera, and a massive 5.2-inch full HD AMOLED display.

A second, “prime” configuration will feature an upgraded 8-core Samsung Exynos 5430 processor, a quad-HD AMOLED panel, and 3 GB of memory. The other components will be the same between devices.

The big story here, however, is the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner no doubt designed to rival the Touch ID sensor found in Apple’s iPhone 5s.  The document also indicates that the phone will have “3D gesture support,” which we suspect may point to an expansion of the existing air-gesture system.

A new report from Bloomberg indicates that Samsung’s global market share losses can be attributed to Apple and others pressuring the company to cut its profit margins. As the rising popularity of cheaper smartphones erodes Samsung’s profit margin, the company continues to struggle to meet industry estimates. According to the report, Samsung also faces a new threat from Apple in China. Following the Cupertino company’s deal with China Mobile, Apple is expected to make tremendous gains in that country, further pressuring Samsung to drop prices in order to maintain any hope of competing in the market. This, in turn, will drive the Korean manufacturer’s profits even lower. Analysts are hopeful that the inbound Galaxy S5 can help balance out the company’s losses, but don’t expect that it will help Samsung regain its lost market share.

Redditor JasonBored reportedly reached out to Google’s Vic Gundotra today about the company’s views on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. According to Jason’s Reddit posts, Gundotra responded by saying that Google is “paying attention to the issue” and looping Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP of Ads and Commerce, into the conversation.

Jason says that Ramaswamy followed up with him and said that Google is currently investigating ways to bring Bitcoin into its payment services. Jason also said that he was asked by Ariel Bardin, the Vice President of Google Payments, to gather feedback through Google’s Moderator service to find out what users want to do with Bitcoin. The results will supposedly be personally reviewed by Bardin and the Payments team.

If the idea of Google’s executives personally responding to a single user regarding something of this much importance seems unlikely, maybe that’s because it is. Google said in a statement to TheNextWeb that the company has “no current plans regarding Bitcoin.” Looks like users will have to keep waiting for the day they can purchase Android apps and music from Google Play using the increasingly-popular virtual currency.

With rumors of Apple’s upcoming iWatch and its focus on fitness, it’s not a stretch to think that Google couldn’t also be exploring a similar use for its own devices. Now, as spotted by the unofficial Google Operating System blog, it seems we have our first glimpse at a fitness API for Android.

Whether this API will become available in a future Android update or will require new hardware or sensors to fully operate is not yet known. The company has already included some fitness sensors with its Nexus 5, but there’s currently no way for other devices to take advantage of similar data natively. A system fitness API could open up new doors, not just for Google’s own software, but for third-party developers like Nike.

Google published a blog post today detailing its newest project: a smart contact lens that can monitor glucose levels for diabetic users. The lens uses a small embedded sensor to measure the glucose in tears and a set of LED lights to signal when levels reach certain thresholds. Google says it has experimented with prototypes that can take readings up to an incredible once per second and completed several clinical trials.

Earlier this month, Google X employees met with the FDA staff responsible for biosensors and medical apps, and it was speculated that the company could be working on a smart contact lens. Google has said it is still discussing the future of such a product with the FDA, and that it will take time before a product like this is mature enough to release to the general public. When the time finally comes for this project to go to market, Google plans to work with unnamed partners to manufacture the devices and get them into the hands of patients and doctors.

And if you think Google is going to stop at glucose monitors, check out the Solve for (X) video below with one of the heads of Google Glass discussing putting the hardware in your contact lens…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6g581tJ7bM]

Cybersecurity software company Impermium has “joined Google,” according to a notice on the company’s website (via TechCrunch). Google’s Bradley Horowitz has indicated on his Google+ page that the Impermium employees will be added to to Google’s anti-spam and abuse team.

Impermim has said that it will stop offering its services to third-parties. The full notice from Impermium is below:

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