Mobile giants fight for patents

Apple, Nokia and Google are fighting for Nortel Networks' patent portfolio, to define the new mobile experience, states Rethink Wireless.

They are all said to be bidding in an auction that could generate $1 billion for Nortel's creditors. This comes just one remaining asset of Nortel Networks, its patent portfolio, is still left to be sold, almost two years after the Canadian firm declared bankruptcy. It could be a major battle.

Nortel separated many of its formidable pile of intellectual property assets from the sale of other units, notably its 4G, CDMA and GSM businesses to Ericsson.

Qualcomm is offering to refund customers who bought its portable TV sets, ahead of shutting down the broadcasts on 27 March, says TMC Net.

Qualcomm's FLO TV service is the only subscription-based broadcast TV service in the US designed for portable gadgets. It's been live since 2007, but has never garnered much interest from customers.

The San Diego-based company is offering full refunds for its battery-powered portable TV set, an Audiovox-branded portable DVD player/TV set and an in-car entertainment system. Running FLO TV cost Qualcomm $132 million in the latest quarter. It has said that shutting it down will reduce earnings next year by $125 million to $175 million.

Sony's PS3 gaming console not only allows users to access online gaming but also doubles up as a Blu-Ray disc player, writes Online Social Media.

To make the PS3 even more of a essential to home entertainment systems, it has been reported by Engadget that ITV and Channel 4, two of the UK's biggest commercial channels can now be streamed through the PS3 console.

As itproportal.com mentioned, BBC iPlayer, the video-on-demand service, will be the main competition. With iPlayer's success, this can only be a massive boost to Sony's command of the market.