Google wants to buy your unwanted patents with their latest initiative

Are you brilliant enough to have come up with a patented idea but don’t have the means to utilize or protect it? Tired of people infringing on your ideas and having to deal with expensive legal fees and extensive court procedures to battle it out?

If all of that headache moves you to sell your patent, Google wants to make the process of selling it somewhat easier. Instead of dealing with the strenuous process of finding a buyer for a patent on your own, Google is creating an open submission platform that’ll allow you to submit your patents to them for review. Should Google want to snag it (for whichever price you’re asking) they’ll contact you and whisk you through the process to take it off your hands. You get some good money, they get their technology — everyone’s happy.

Google will open a patent submission form from May 8, 2015 through May 22, 2015. Once the portal closes, they’ll undergo a review process to identify which patents they want to buy. You’ll get an email by June 26th, 2015 letting you know whether Google decided to bite the bullet and buy your patent, and payments are expected to be made to lucky souls by the end of August.

Google says this is to be considered an experimental program and attributed its existence to the result of the lawyer equivalent of their “20% time. If you’re not aware, 20% of a Google engineer’s work time each week can be spent on experimental projects that they’re interested in pursuing. Some of Google’s best apps, services and platforms — such as Gmail and AdSense — are the result of 20% time.

What’ll happen if this takes off? Who knows — perhaps Google will find themselves with a very effective and solid foundation for a Craigslist-like patent marketplace. Whatever the case may be, it’s great that Google is giving people who want to ditch their patents an easy out (even if Google’s biggest reason for doing it is because they simply can’t get enough of them).

[via Google]

WhatsApp voice calling now enabled for anyone and everyone who wants to use it

WhatsApp had previously given select lucky users the ability to place voice calls before, but a vast majority of the userbase was left out. That ends today — the company has flipped the server side switch that allows everyone to make voice calls.

As long as you’re on WhatsApp version 2.12.5, you’ll start to see a new tab named Calls where you can initiate calls to anyone on your contacts list, or simply press the dialer button you’ll find in a chat window.

Both users need to be on the latest version of WhatsApp for it to work, though that shouldn’t be a big issue as the latest update has been out for at least two weeks now. Give it a try the next time you prefer to grace your friends and families’ day with your voice rather than text.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Cyanogen CEO wants you to “calm the f*$! down” regarding delayed OnePlus One Lollipop update

OnePlus made some lofty promises for those who opted to buy their phone: Lollipop would be here by March 27th for those wanting OxygenOS, and March 31st for those who wanted CyanogenMod 12S. Looking at today’s calendar shows that it’s April 1st and neither updates are out, meaning they weren’t able to meet those goals.

So when are they coming? We still don’t know. The hold up isn’t that the firmware isn’t ready to go — OnePlus says things are mighty stable right now — but they have to wait for lengthy certification processes to be completed before they can get the green light, and it’s something they didn’t foresee taking such a long time.

And you think they’ve had a hard time dealing with the backlash due to the missed promise? Cyanogen has it even worse: they’re being bashed for the delay even when they weren’t the ones who promised it. CEO Kirt McMaster even went as far as using his brash tone to get the point across:

@Mark_SC_ @Paddietastic @CyanogenMod @cyngn @getpeid @oneplus guys… calm the f down… it’s coming soon… when ready!

— Kirt McMaster (@cyanogenone) March 31, 2015

While we might have preferred something a bit more politically correct, it’s true: Cyanogen has always gone by the “it’s ready when it’s ready” mantra, and they probably don’t deserve the flood of hate rushing their way.

This was simply another case of a young company (OnePlus) learning a tough lesson — never, ever, give an ETA on the OTA. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take more than a couple of weeks to get everyone the goods they were hoping to enjoy by now.

Samsung wants to steal Apple’s iPhone 6S thunder by announcing the Galaxy Note 5 in July [RUMOR]

Samsung typically waits until summer months come to a close to announce the latest Galaxy Note phone each year, but new rumors suggest they could be pushing the announcement and launch of the device much sooner. Korean outlet WhoWired claims to have knowledge of plans for Samsung to announce the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 in July, a full two months sooner than their usual launchpad of September’s IFA event in Berlin.

“Why,” do you ask? Well, Apple’s refreshed iPhone 6 — which should be called the iPhone 6S if history is anything to go by — will be out by then, and you can bet Samsung doesn’t want to give Apple a two month window to reveal and launch a new smartphone without having something of their own to show off.

The source suggests Samsung has already finalized specs for the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, though there’s still no clear idea of what we can expect. We can at least expect it to one-up the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge as Samsung typically uses the Note series’ launches to introduce their latest ideas and innovations. If word of its impending announcement is true then it won’t be much longer before we’re let in on all the juicy details.

[via PhoneArena]

OnePlus wants you to get on their hype train, makes no apologies about marketing tactics

Love it or hate, there’s probably only reason you’ve even heard of OnePlus and much of that has to do with their grass roots marketing. When the smartphone startup and brainchild of former OPPO exec Carl Pei joined Google+, they used it as a way to generate buzz amongst Android’s most die hard users without pouring countless ad dollars into online or television marketing campaigns like the big guys. So far, it’s worked. Except when it hasn’t.

The company’s motto of “Never settle” had a way of backfiring on them at times, especially when it came to faulty devices, customer service issues, or the company’s insanely frustrating invite system. Despite all this, the OnePlus is set to do it all over again with their next flagship device, the OnePlus 2.

OnePlus has been teasing the phone for the better part of a few weeks now and if you thought maybe they’d tone down their “marketing” or do things differently this time around — think again. Lately they’ve been trickling out details on the device’s specs as they near its inevitable launch and tomorrow, they’ll unveil another component in an effort at keeping the hype train rolling. Don’t like the way OnePlus is doing things? Too bad. That’s the sentiment OnePlus is conveying in their latest blog post.

According to OnePlus, their marketing budget is extremely small (outside of Google+, it’s virtually nonexistent) and in order to stay relevant they need to be loud. Really loud. It’s the only way they can go head-to-head with the Samsungs and LGs of the world who have already gotten off to a great start with their 2015 flagships. In other words, OnePlus is going to continue doing what they’ve always done, because it worked out so well for them the last time. If that takes you and your wallet elsewhere, then so be it.

We can’t help but wonder if a company’s marketing — even OnePlus’ — has ever really turned someone away from buying an Android device. In Android circles, we typically find it’s more about hardware and specs than anything else (customer service, software, support, etc.). Even though OnePlus’ #neversettle hashtag was hijacked, we’ll find out soon enough if their phone is worth the hype.

[OnePlus]

Google wants to help you find the perfect Android phone

Because the hardest part in choosing Android over iOS is figuring out which, out the hundreds of Android phones available, you should pick next. Google wants to help make that decision making process a little easier. The search giant has just launched a new landing page on Android.com that compares various devices with a handy online web tool.

It’s actually pretty basic. You basically answer a variety of questions like how you plan on using your Android device the most, followed by a few followup questions (how often do you plan on using your camera per week?). Google will continue prying, asking how what about the camera is most important, and when you’re all done, Google will pull up some matches based on your carrier preference.

Once they’ve presented their results — along with specs and software features — you can further filter down results by size, price, or “latest phones.” We’re not going to lie, we hit a few snags in the tool already, with the pictures of the devices not matching their name or descriptions. In either case, you can give it a try for yourself, or simply recommend it to friends and family looking for a new smartphone that isn’t the iPhone 6. Hop on over with the link down below.

[Android]

LastPass wants you to change your master password after security breach

It’s not a major breach, but after LastPass “discovered and blocked suspicious activity” on their network last Friday, they’re requiring everyone update their master passwords. Announced on their blog and in email sent to users, LastPass says they didn’t find any evidence that actual stored passwords were stolen, but they did notice user email addresses, authentication hashes, password reminders, and server per user salts were “compromised.” LastPass said in a blog post:

“We are confident that our encryption measures are sufficient to protect the vast majority of users. LastPass strengthens the authentication hash with a random salt and 100,000 rounds of server-side PBKDF2-SHA256, in addition to the rounds performed client-side. This additional strengthening makes it difficult to attack the stolen hashes with any significant speed.”

In order to ensure hackers aren’t attempting to access your account, LastPass is now requiring that any and all users logging in from a new device or IP verify their accounts by email. That is, those that don’t already have multi-factor authentication enabled (and you should and you and you can learn more about that here). Lastly, anyone using weak, dictionary-based passwords or using the same password as their master on other sites… yeah, don’t do that. Update.

[LastPass]