Samsung requests Australian court to reconsider tablet ban

UPDATE: A response has come to Samsung's appeal before an Australia appeals court. A report in Bloomberg Businessweek confirmed that Federal Court Justice Lindsay Foster, at a hearing in Sydney stated, “the result looks terribly fair to Apple and not terribly fair to Samsung." The hearing held, in the wake of Samsung's appeal to the court stating that the ban decision on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 be reconsidered. 

South Korea-based, Samsung Electronics is really hoping hard that the Australian ban on the sales of its ambitious Galaxy Tab 10.1 gets lifted off giving the tablet a new lease of life. If you've been closely following our reports in this respect, then you would remember that Cupertino-based, Apple, with whom Samsung has been battling it out in over 10 countries, globally had managed to get the latter's Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in Australia. Now, Samsung has approached an Australian appeals court with a request to reconsider the ban decision on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, confirms a report in Bloomberg Businessweek. The report quotes Samsung as stating that the judge who had "granted Apple Inc.’s request for the ban misunderstood the law."

Will the ban be off? 

It was Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett who had issued the injunction on the 13th of October, this year, putting the Galaxy Tab 10.1 completely out of the Australian market, thus adding to Samsung's woes. The report quotes Neil Young, Samsung's lawyer as stating that, "Bennett failed to consider the “dire consequences” of the injunction on Samsung, which has been “entirely shut out” from marketing the device."Samsung is now hoping that the court reviews Apple's patent claims and pull the ban off Galaxy Tab 10.1's back. 

Apple, however rubbishes claims put forth by Samsung's lawyers, stating that, "Bennett made no errors in principle in her ruling and the injunction should remain in place." Both Apple and Samsung are scheduled for a hearing in the March of next year, and it is only then that the picture would become clearer.

Aakash may come at a lower price, with additional features

Pre-orders of the commercial version of Aakash by Datawind have crossed the three lakh mark. An upgraded version is also speculated for early 2012. The company now states that in about six months, the company could lower the price of the tablet and also add in some new features, reports The EconomicTimes. 

Suneet Tuli of Dataind said that the tablet will hit markets in January, as it is now being made available for the students at a subsidized price of Rs.1,500. He said, "Processing power, battery life many such things can be increased over a period of time and we hope that every six months there would be something new in the Aakash tablet.”
Datwind has joined hands with manufacturing companies in Cochin and Noida to meet the increasing demand for the world’s cheapest tablet. It has also initiated a national contest of innovative and useful apps for the tablet.

"We hope to create entrepreneurial instincts among the student community. Several money-spinners like Facebook etc were started by students still in college. Students think unconventionally unlike large corporates. If they design a useful application which is selected by the jury it would be pre-burned in millions of tablets to be shippe

Nokia Drive not coming to Windows Marketplace

The Nokia Drive, which was expected to be a navigation feature exclusive to Nokia smartphones was earlier hacked to run on other Windows Phones. This was quite a head turner, as Nokia is struggling to sustain a position in the market with the stiffening mobile competition. Phone makers are striving to offer features that would help distinguish their handsets from those offered by others. According to reports by Engadget, there’s confusion over the future of Nokia Drive coming to the Windows Phone Marketplace and Nokia doesn’t plan it for other Windows phones as yet.

 Reportedly, it the Nokia Drive was supposed to arrive at the Windows Marketplace for certain amount as per a tweet by a third party and later retweet by Nokia India. However, the Finnish firm has now reportedly confirmed that Nokia Drive will come pre-installed only with its Lumia range.

Sony Tablet P gets a price tag, finally

Sony had announced two Honeycomb running tablets, earlier on this year, the Sony Tablet S and the Sony Tablet P. These were the first tablets to be announced by the Japanese consumer products manufacturer. The Sony Tablet S was recently launched in India at a price of Rs.29,990, and many people expect this Sony slate to fare well in the market. Though Sony announced two tablets, the price of the only the Tablet S was revealed and until now, there has been no word on the pricing of the Tablet P, be it locally or internationally. Sony has now updated their UK site revealed the pricing of the uniquely shaped Tablet P.

The 5.5-inch Sony Tablet P is quite expensive

Here is a quick glance at the specifications of the Sony Tablet P:

• Operating System - Android Honeycomb
• Processor - NVIDIA Tegra 2
• Resolution - 1024 x 480
• Screen Size – 5.5-inch
• Camera front – Face focus VGA
• Camera rear – 5.0 Megapixel
• External Memory - Full-size SD Card slot (for media exchange only)
• Internal Memory – 4 GB
• MicroUSB – 1
• Secure Digital (SD) Slot – 1
• Bluetooth Technology - Bluetooth version 2.1 + EDR
• Wi-Fi - IEEE802.11b/g/n

Sony has priced the tablet at £499 (approximately Rs.40,300), which is a bit expensive for a tablet. The tablet is available for preorder through Sony’s UK website.