Galaxy S III dumps universal search, tries to dodge Apple's sueballs Samsung has rolled out an Galaxy S III update that disables the universal search function on its handset – a result of the ongoing patent dispute with Apple. The 27MB SGS3 update is said to remove the facility that allows users to search the web as well as the device from a single search bar, Android Central reports. While …
I seem to recall a similar feature on the Windows Vista start menu where you could search both files and programs. Does it not seem like a logical step to be able to search phone content and internet content?
(And I also seem to recall that there was a Google thingie to do something similar, extending it to searching the internet too, but I'm less sure about this)
>
Prior art?
I seem to recall a similar feature on the Windows Vista start menu where you could search both files and programs. Does it not seem like a logical step to be able to search phone content and internet content?
(And I also seem to recall that there was a Google thingie to do something similar, extending it to searching the internet too, but I'm less sure about this)
<
Ban Microsoft and Google?
" Does it not seem like a logical step to be able to search phone content and internet content?"
It is. That's why Apple a jumping all over it, to protect *their* invention! The same invention which has been available on multiple platforms for ages now.
Typical Apple, they invented the world don't you know.
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This hasn't stopped R&D in the past and it's not going to stop now.
The reality is that Google started very late in the game and now feel entitled to the industry's best ideas for free or next to nothing. It's nothing new either, they've done it since the very start when they copied Overture's keyword advertising model.
They paint themselves as the oppressed ones but ask them something about their main product: Search. For example ask them what changes have they made in the latest Search update that they deployed yesterday? You'll get nothing.
It's a black box and no one can peek inside, all locked away in Google's data centres. Why don't they let the world borrow their search techniques, like they borrow everything else?
Boo hoo Google, this isn't academia where you "pay" in citations and money drops from the sky, this is industry where development time means money. Universal search? Someone paid to create that.
Unless I've missed something, in the post thats been deleted, what exactly has Google got to do with this other than supplying the underlying OS. Is it not Samsung that added the "Universal Search" function? Is Google, and their practices, the subject of an entirely different rant in an entirely different article?
"Universal search? Someone paid to create that."
Not really. In the programming world picking up a bunch of objects and doing a simultaneous query as opposed to a single query on one object is a trivial less-than-an-hour-to-implement problem. It's such an obvious idea as a step forward that the only thing this patent succeeds in doing is showcasing the skill & knowledge of the Patent Office involved.
This sort of patent litigation harms us all, Apple, Android users & others. Patents were never supposed to protect the bleeding obvious, they were never supposed to stop competition either. Patents are supposed to be a fair way for individuals and companies to be reasonably rewarded for genuinely new ideas and designs ahead of their time.
Apple is a patent rapist, but don't blame Apple, blame the patent system.
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'Citation please'.
Federated search. Worked on an early relational database for IBM research in the mid 70s, based on Ted Codds early work, precursor to sql. Applying searches to multiple databases and aggregating results was done then so the idea goes back at least 37 years. The term federated search was coined more recently but a new name doesn't change anything except perhaps to confuse an inexperienced patent clerk. Nobody dreamed of patenting these matters back then. Research the background yourself if you have nothing better to do, IBM is a good place to start.
@hmb totally agree.
A patent should only protect the way of doing something not an end result. For example, holding paper together both the paperclip and the staple achieve the same result using the same material. The method of doing so are totally different but the result the same.
So in the example above Apple are trying to uphold the rights to holding paper together. And that is what is wrong in this case IMHO.
Oracle has had database links since version 6, which was in the 1980s. This allows a query in a single interface to select data from multiple sources. I'm not sure if apple's patent includes having a way for 3rd parties to add modules to the search, but if so then prior art would be harder to find. Google's universal search does do this - an app can present some kind of programmer interface which allows the search box to get results from the IMDB, Notepad, Wikipedia apps etc.
However, I doubt that many developers would bother to patent something this simple. I certainly wouldn't. Nor would I think of looking in the patent library to see if it was infringing anything (and If I did then I'd assume it would be found invalid on the grounds of obviousness). It would only be when one of the Big Bucks Boys took me to court that I'd find I'm a nasty copycat and not the innovator I believed myself to be :-(
"Universal search? Someone paid to create that."
You've missed a massive point here: the patent (like other software patents) doesn't cover /how/ you do universal search just /if/ you do it. Compare this to, for instance, real patents that specifically cover the invention itself and not the purpose of it, allowing others to do their own R&D to come up with alternative approaches.
One of these promotes innovation, one stifles it.
In short:
1. Imagine something useful that could be done with a computer (or event a specific form-factor of a computer);
2. Patent the idea, nothing more, you don't need to prove it or think about it too much;
3. Profit when someone actually does it.
"The reality is that Google started very late in the game and now feel entitled to the industry's best ideas for free or next to nothing"
Have you been living under a rock for the last 6 years?
"Universal search? Someone paid to create that."
BOLLOX, end users were wondering why the feature hadn't been available for ages.
Stop your pathetic attempt at supporting Apple's hypocrisy
Argh, another fool who doesn't understand what FRAND is all about. Only the patent owner can make their patent FRAND, by voluntary submission as part of a standard - it's the price of entry for having your technology become part of the standard. No one can just decide someone else's patent is "worthy of FRAND licensing" and make it so.
BTW, if you're waiting for the day when R&D slowly stops due to the ridiculous patent stuff, you probably missed it by a couple decades. Companies have to do their R&D defensively, so many won't let their engineers attend conferences where they might be exposed to others' patented ideas, and pretty much 100% of them prohibit their engineers from reading patents. If you violate a patent you had no idea exists, it's just a simple violation. If you violate a patent you were aware of you're subject to triple damages. So this stance makes a lot of sense in the world we currently live in, even though it would tend to slow down technological progress by limiting the spread of ideas.
This may be the case. However, consider a phone with a dedicated search button (like, I don't know, and Android phone). Which is quicker: Clicking the icon for the particular search you want, which may be hidden in menus/app drawers, may be on a different homescreen etc, or just pressing the search button. A unified search allows you to press the search button, no matter what you are searching for, type a few letters and you probably have the result. It doesn't matter that you already know which DB you want to search, it's quicker* to let the device search everything than to choose what to search youself.
On the subject of this patent, I have seen (and created) such unified/federated search features many times in the past, well before the iPhone, so I really can't see why the patent should be valid (or even exist in the first place). Even google have probably been doing this on their search engine since before this patent, throwing up image/shopping/discussion results (and ads) based on a single search term. Just because it is now related specifically to a smartphone should not make it valid (IMHO)
*I will qualify that with "most of the time". Devices are mostly fast enough to that trawling several DBs for info is quicker than the user selecting which DB.
The Palm Pilot had unified search across all apps way back in the early 2000's. I remember writing an app that exposed data through their search API's.
Also seem to remember that it was mobile, touchscreen and had installable apps - all remarkably similar to Apple's supposed innovation.
The law is an ass and software patents are a joke.
Almost as stupid as the rounded rectangle thing, but more sinister.
I had "global search" in all the Palm devices I used. My first one was made in 1996.
In my opinion Smart Dial (as seen in all Nokia dumbphones and all HTC dialers) and Global Search are the sine qua non of the phones I carry.
On a side note -if you are using Android- I would suggest the Aurora global search and (if it is a non-HTC phone) one of the numerous smart dialers apps in Google Play.
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