Xbox 360 IS Radeon based, which is AMD ^.^ Nvidia with their 8 series and ATi/AMD with HD2000 series introduced unified shaders, AMD went the extra mile and added tessellation engine to their offerings for many many years before Nv cried like a baby and MSFT caved to them to FORCE AMD to "redesign" it to give Nv the "upper hand" instead of doing the honorable thing and saying "quite your whining, you had PhysX for how many years, along with many other things that you keep locked away for your own benefit, they spent thousands if not tens of thousands of man hours and millions of dollars design this, so, figure it out, because we are going with AMD implementation"
but nope, Nv gets "their way" even if a good chunk of the time they get to emulate things in software when everybody else has to do it in hardware..........currently AMD is the one that has the distinct advantage in DX11 and 12 because they kept most of the hardware to do things at full speed instead of taking a "loss" performance wise to emulate things.
AMD for many many years has pretty much smoked Geforce silly when pushed to the limit and properly coded for....take mining or code cracking as an example, the radeons are massive brute force potential, the Geforce offerings have slowly but surely stripped a good chunk of what they were once able to do only because they get developers on board to "bend over" TWIMTBP (the way we screw you all equally tm)
anyways lol....if AMD was the first one to "patent it" even if it was earlier than everyone else, and someone else decides to infringe on this IP which is a patent protected thing, it sucks to be the infringer and good for AMD IMO because for many many many years they have been held by the short and curlies while Intel, Nv and others run roughshod over them and developers and OS maker basically give the "go ahead, its ok" not to mention the multiple countries which are protected grounds for Intel or Nv to sell at steep bargain prices while AMD/ATi are marked up significantly (even when they are and were BETTER)
hard to win a war when others control all the guns an ammo.
Exactly! Any time a company uses their patents to protect themselves everyone gets their pants in a twist because OMG... PATENTS ARE BAD! Give me a break!
If you want to make any money, that kind of idea won't work. Do you know what money is? It's that stuff that makes the world go round, allows you to put food on the table, a roof over your head. You know, silly things like that.
"If you want to make any money, that kind of idea won't work. "
well... not necessarily. much/most of the basic research leverage by PhARMA, for free as in public domain, is by the Damn Gummint. mostly the USofA. so yeah, socialism works perfectly when exploited by lazy and cheap capitalists. "every new drug approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2016. The authors found that each of the 210 medicines approved for market came out of research supported by the NIH." here: https://other98.com/taxpayers-fund-pharma-research...
the same thing could be done in tech. in fact, a lot of what exists today in modern society was born in the space programs of the 60s to 80s. paid for by taxpayers.
Patents in pharma is killing people in develped countries. When a company have a monopoy to develop and sell a certain type of medicine (exclisive rights means monopoly) and make the price skyrocket, they can't afford the drugs. If generic versions of the drug would have been available at a reasonable price, many would have been saved. Both from suffering and death. The same goes for patent on GMO crops where if they even spread from one farm to another by air, the farmer may get sued!
So patents aren't only bad for competition and the market as a whole (if you are for a free market then you should be against patent in this modern age). It is bad in so many respects that it should be scrapped of totally. Look at the very PC we use today. IBM choosed not to patent the general design of it. Cloes apperaed. Did it kill the market? No! Without the open architecture for PC:s, the rapid development in that area would have been stifled. It was extremely good for competition. Being open is always good. Patents was maybe a good idea in the 1800:s, but in todays world with fast paced development cycles where software is at the central for many products, it has no place at all!
Open source hardware is not and cannot be free (free as in beer) like free and open source software (FOSS), because it is one thing to donate your spare time to develop, test and debug FOSS and quite another to design, develop, manufacture, test, debug and sell for free hardware. The ISA and the basic design of the CPU or GPU are free, not their hardware implementations. Open source hardware simply means patent-free hardware.
Now, depending on the license that might be also apply to hardware derivatives and modifications (with a sort of hardware-GPL) or it might not (with a less restrictive open source license). To my knowledge RISC-V employs a less restrictive license, so modifications of the ISA and the basic design can be made proprietary and thus patented, along with adding proprietary extensions and blocks.
This was in order to entice companies to adopt RISC-V, and apparently it has worked (Western Digital's upcoming SSD controllers will be RISC-V based, for instance, while others have developed prototypes or plan to release RISC-V hardware). Companies can potentially make more money out of RISC-V, since they do not have to license the ISA and the basic design, while they can also protect their modifications and extensions from being copied by competitors.
The main issue at heart is this: patents protect companies for far too long. 20 years, especially in the field of electronics, is unreasonable. Especially on technologies that can be seen as natural evolution of design. It holds back humanities progress towards technological evolution.
I do agree with DigitalFreak on this one. AMD should be hitting on ARM and Imagination Technologies but decided to hit on the lowest hanging fruit which will affect the consumers rather than the companies who license this kind of stuff.
ARM and IT did not do anything illegal. It is legal to sell designs that rely on other's IP, and it is legal to do so without licensing or indemnifying their customers. In that business model, the OEM is responsible for securing the licenses required. This is not uncommon at all.
What is wrong with protecting one's intellectual properties? This is nothing at all like what happens in a certain court in the middle of Texas, this is AMD doing their due diligence in protecting their patents like any other company would do.
Patent trolls don't build anything. They just own patents and litigate with them. AMD is protecting the IP that they developed and actively use in their own products.
Correct, they buy IP's and sue other people. As actually described patents involved hire are both with acquisition of ATI not developed by AMD which technically makes AMD a patent troll in this case.
That's ridiculous. They didn't buy ATI to sue anyone. They bought ATI for its products. AMD is ATI's current reincarnation so to speak. Patent troll is Apple(and others) buying Nortel to sue other companies.
WOW the problem with what you said here is wrong.Yes they bought ATI but they also made products from the tech ati owned and still are doing that today. A patent troll buys patents then does nothing with them but sues everyone else that builds stuff that might come close to infringing on a patent but the troll don't care they hope to settle out of court most times and make millions from it.
So they both ATI, first two patents are from that time and the third one is actually the first one on the given structure which AMD still calls "APU" while SoC is much wider term. They fundamentally didn't improve anything, they are selling their own products on their own branding pretty much the same as QC did which has nothing to do with ATI expect fundamental design base's. They are suing smaller third party manufacturers like all patent trolling britches do hoping for fat financial gain, they aren't suing anyone from who they might lose like actual vendors or Apple. They can't sue QC as after all they both the same teach from ATI before AMD did, they won't sue ARM as tomorrow they might need it's IP portfolio. They won't sue Apple as Apple would ruined them in court. If that ain't patent trolling I don't know what is even patent troll of all times Rambus would be ashamed.
AMD's hasn't improved over ATI's products that existed when they were bought? If that's the case why would anybody buy an AMD card? It would be 10x or more slower than modern Nvidia cards.
Since when is LG ($11 billion market cap) or Vizio (private, $3.5 billion revenue 2017) meaningfully smaller than AMD? LG has over half the market cap AMD has and Vizio has over half the revenue.
They wont sue Apple because they exclusively use AMD discreet GPUs. They won't sue ARM because they are an ARM licensee and already include some smaller ARM CPUs in their products. ARM also doesn't sell any products, only licenses designs.
@DigitalFreak: you have a very personal and creative definition of a patent troll. That basically refers to entities that don't use the patent for anything other than litigation. AMD is a tech powerhouse. If defending your IP is trolling then everybody's a patent troll.
Why is this stuff even IN a TV? Is this part of some smart TV BS? That would be such poetic justice — if Vizio had stuck to a pure TV (which is what many customers WANT) they would be fine, but by forcing unwanted crap on the customer, they get shut down. Ha ha!
Smart tvs when done right arent so bad. I wasn't a fan until i got my 2018 samsung and love the built in plex, netflix, twitch and BBC apps. Its just handy to have all these things on the tv controlled from a single remote without messing with 3,4 devices attached to the tv
I've read enough people whining about their outdated smart TV apps to try and stay away from it, personally. I'd much rather have a 30 to 100€ thing attached to any display that can act anyway I want to.
I have a smart TV, it's disconnected and I have a third-party smart device connected to it instead. Why? Because if Samsung treats my smart TV like they do their Android devices (lack of proper updates) my smart TV will be vulnerable before you know it.
Best to keep it disconnected and leave the smart devices up to the companies that know how to handle them (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.) instead of a company (like Samsung) that just wants you to buy a new TV every stinkin' year.
You're both right. The security on smart TVs is garbage and gets worse as they age. Plus the apps are just tolerable and get worse with time. On top of that, there's a price premium. Unfortunately, sometimes you're forced to pay it even if you don't want to - if the model you desire happens to be a smart TV, it's an unnecessary tax.
The best way to go is to plug in a Roku, Fire, etc. If they get outdated, you can keep your TV and just swap the cheap little box. Another alternative (which I personally use on my primary TV) is a console. For example a One S can be had pretty cheap (especially on sale) and has HDR 4K BD support plus all the streaming apps, VLC, gaming, etc. Good affordable all-in-one.
What I do not understand is why they - AMD - do not sue Imagination and ARM. And Vizio Mediatek and Sigma designs should sue them - Imagination and ARM - too for licencing IP that is not owned by them.
I read once that it was easier to sue someone who actually produces things that are sold to the common consumer. So they go after the people who implement infringing technology into their products, rather than go after the people who think up the infringing technology. Of course, Vizio and the like will likely turn around to their supplier and demand compensation. But that sort of news is not public facing.
Maybe there are already licensing deals in place for the much more mature smartphone and tablet market and their manufacturers. And the smart TV market is newer with the players in it younger and not into the licensing game so far.
I'm a bit baffled by that too. Mediatek Helio P10 has arm Mali-T860 MP2 gpu(i.e. Samsung Exynos uses mali gpu). Or maybe it just that when arm does not make any of those them selves, it's up-to SOC maker to get proper IP licenses from different IP holders.
This. I imagine there's a lot of companies that license from GPU patent holders, either directly or indirectly. Mediatek obviously does not take care of any of this, and just leaves it up to the manufacturers. That doesn't mean the situation is the same for Qualcomm or Samsung SoCs.
ARM does not make a product. Nothing illegal with selling a design that incorporates other IP so long as you do not represent yourself as the owner of that IP.
True. ARM has no requirement to negotiate with AMD. That doesn't mean there is no merit in negotiating, though. It is possible that AMD can convince ARM that there is value to be had in licensing their IP. For instance, AMD and ARM could settle on a cost for a transferable license. ARM could then use the fact that the customer no longer needs to get a separate license (and other improvements made during that cycle) to justify a higher price on their IP. Also, depending on how the deal is struck, ARM could end up well ahead here. As an example, if AMD were to charge a flat fee or a fee that grew less quickly with quantity than ARM licensing model, then there would be a quantity of sales beyond which ARM would be making a profit on the license. ARM could raise or lower their licensing fee based on where they want that crossover to be.
There really is no motivation for ARM to license, however. ARM sells designs into markets that do not care about AMD or anyone else's IP (China for instance), having to pay a global license that would only benefit a portion of ARM's customers is bad business. It is a better deal for both ARM and the customers who don't sell in the west to just let those who need a license to acquire a license and those who do not, avoid it.
Neither ARM nor Imagination Technologies make actual products. It is not illegal to license a design that incorporates other IP, what is illegal is building a product based on that design and selling it without licensing the IP included in it. This applies to the ARM and IT designs themselves as well, anyone could make their own derivative and license it, but the licensee would need to pay not only them but also ARM and IT.
This model is legal but it is in contrast to how other vendors do it. For instance, Microsoft and Intel both offer patent immunity, if anyone is sued for selling a product based on their designs or technology, Microsft or Intel will step in and litigate the case for the OEM, including paying any penalties and licensing fees. Of course thier products cost more, but this is part of what you are buying.
I am a little surprised Mediatek does not have a patent agreement with AMD by now. That seems strange. Or has Mediatek left the vendor to pact with AMD themselves?
I find these 3 patents so vague in definition that it would be hard justify it in court - I would not doubt there will be counter suits like the Samsung/NVidia
The problems is not with Patent system directly - but the fact the lower uses especially when a company buys another company for patent and then sues. I am not sure if this every happen - but if Company A lets Company B uses a patent on device and then Company C by Company A and then sues Company B - that surely should be illegal.
To me it only seems that dirty lawyers win.
One thing I do believe in if Company A credit a chip and specifically that a specific software on it and then Company B copy Company A so the same software can run it - then Company B is in violation.
These patents are licensed by others in the industry. Including nVidia and Intel. AMD/Ati were original players in the graphics space (as was nVidia and Imagination Technologies) and as such, they own patents on many fundamental concepts to modern GPU design. The same is true for the other early players, and that is how it works in most industries.
@HStewart: "I find these 3 patents so vague in definition that it would be hard justify it in court"
Did you read the whole patent or just the abstract? While I do agree in general that most patents are a little too broadly applicable for my liking, this one is far from the worst offender I've seen.
@HStewart: "I am not sure if this every happen - but if Company A lets Company B uses a patent on device and then Company C by Company A and then sues Company B - that surely should be illegal."
If I understand your statement correctly, then this is illegal in most circumstances. If Company C is buying Company A (and not just certain assets of Company A), then they are also buying Company A's current obligations at the time of sale. In the case of Company A declaring bankruptcy, Company C may only be buying a subset of assets, which complicates things a bit. In any case, I don't believe the license Company B acquired from Company A would be considered invalid until it expired.
There is also the trap where people look at prior patents and decide they are too broad, vague or obvious. In the world of IP that is irrelevant, what matters is whether or not it was broad, vague or obvious *at the time*. That is important as by definition anything that becomes the popular way to do something will eventually seem obvious, broad or vague.
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Cogman - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
The last two patents look a lot like prior art, considering the Xbox 360 had a unified graphics shader back in 2005.seamonkey79 - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
Which used a GPU design by ATI, now owned by AMD.Makaveli - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
Bingo!Dragonstongue - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
Xbox 360 IS Radeon based, which is AMD ^.^Nvidia with their 8 series and ATi/AMD with HD2000 series introduced unified shaders, AMD went the extra mile and added tessellation engine to their offerings for many many years before Nv cried like a baby and MSFT caved to them to FORCE AMD to "redesign" it to give Nv the "upper hand" instead of doing the honorable thing and saying
"quite your whining, you had PhysX for how many years, along with many other things that you keep locked away for your own benefit, they spent thousands if not tens of thousands of man hours and millions of dollars design this, so, figure it out, because we are going with AMD implementation"
but nope, Nv gets "their way" even if a good chunk of the time they get to emulate things in software when everybody else has to do it in hardware..........currently AMD is the one that has the distinct advantage in DX11 and 12 because they kept most of the hardware to do things at full speed instead of taking a "loss" performance wise to emulate things.
AMD for many many years has pretty much smoked Geforce silly when pushed to the limit and properly coded for....take mining or code cracking as an example, the radeons are massive brute force potential, the Geforce offerings have slowly but surely stripped a good chunk of what they were once able to do only because they get developers on board to "bend over" TWIMTBP (the way we screw you all equally tm)
anyways lol....if AMD was the first one to "patent it" even if it was earlier than everyone else, and someone else decides to infringe on this IP which is a patent protected thing, it sucks to be the infringer and good for AMD IMO because for many many many years they have been held by the short and curlies while Intel, Nv and others run roughshod over them and developers and OS maker basically give the "go ahead, its ok" not to mention the multiple countries which are protected grounds for Intel or Nv to sell at steep bargain prices while AMD/ATi are marked up significantly (even when they are and were BETTER)
hard to win a war when others control all the guns an ammo.
Klimax - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
That's some red glasses rewrite of history. Aka: How it is everybody else faul(t)/conspiracy that AMD never reigned supreme.seamonkey79 - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
shh, you sound like Alex Joneslmcd - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
Dude AMD literally admitted their tesselation design sucked from that era and was entirely experimental.piroroadkill - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
ATI's tesellation efforts go way back before the HD 2000 series, they started with TruForm on the Radeon 8500.stephenbrooks - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
Patent for a "Unified shader" :/ These can't expire soon enough, roll on 2023.DigitalFreak - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
AMD's turned into a patent troll. Nice.PixyMisa - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
Patent troll? They've been building and selling products described by this patent for more than a decade. (Counting ATi.)trparky - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
Exactly! Any time a company uses their patents to protect themselves everyone gets their pants in a twist because OMG... PATENTS ARE BAD! Give me a break!stephenbrooks - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
Patents are so last century. Open source hardware will win in the end.Manch - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Let me know when an open sourced GPU that performs is available. LOLrocky12345 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Yea that's it lets just have a free for all in the hardware industry that should go over well.../s & lmaotrparky - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
If you want to make any money, that kind of idea won't work. Do you know what money is? It's that stuff that makes the world go round, allows you to put food on the table, a roof over your head. You know, silly things like that.FunBunny2 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
"If you want to make any money, that kind of idea won't work. "well... not necessarily. much/most of the basic research leverage by PhARMA, for free as in public domain, is by the Damn Gummint. mostly the USofA. so yeah, socialism works perfectly when exploited by lazy and cheap capitalists.
"every new drug approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2016. The authors found that each of the 210 medicines approved for market came out of research supported by the NIH."
here: https://other98.com/taxpayers-fund-pharma-research...
the same thing could be done in tech. in fact, a lot of what exists today in modern society was born in the space programs of the 60s to 80s. paid for by taxpayers.
Magnus101 - Wednesday, August 29, 2018 - link
Patents in pharma is killing people in develped countries.When a company have a monopoy to develop and sell a certain type of medicine (exclisive rights means monopoly) and make the price skyrocket, they can't afford the drugs.
If generic versions of the drug would have been available at a reasonable price, many would have been saved. Both from suffering and death.
The same goes for patent on GMO crops where if they even spread from one farm to another by air, the farmer may get sued!
So patents aren't only bad for competition and the market as a whole (if you are for a free market then you should be against patent in this modern age).
It is bad in so many respects that it should be scrapped of totally.
Look at the very PC we use today.
IBM choosed not to patent the general design of it.
Cloes apperaed.
Did it kill the market?
No!
Without the open architecture for PC:s, the rapid development in that area would have been stifled.
It was extremely good for competition.
Being open is always good.
Patents was maybe a good idea in the 1800:s, but in todays world with fast paced development cycles where software is at the central for many products, it has no place at all!
Santoval - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
Open source hardware is not and cannot be free (free as in beer) like free and open source software (FOSS), because it is one thing to donate your spare time to develop, test and debug FOSS and quite another to design, develop, manufacture, test, debug and sell for free hardware. The ISA and the basic design of the CPU or GPU are free, not their hardware implementations. Open source hardware simply means patent-free hardware.Now, depending on the license that might be also apply to hardware derivatives and modifications (with a sort of hardware-GPL) or it might not (with a less restrictive open source license). To my knowledge RISC-V employs a less restrictive license, so modifications of the ISA and the basic design can be made proprietary and thus patented, along with adding proprietary extensions and blocks.
This was in order to entice companies to adopt RISC-V, and apparently it has worked (Western Digital's upcoming SSD controllers will be RISC-V based, for instance, while others have developed prototypes or plan to release RISC-V hardware). Companies can potentially make more money out of RISC-V, since they do not have to license the ISA and the basic design, while they can also protect their modifications and extensions from being copied by competitors.
Morawka - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
The main issue at heart is this: patents protect companies for far too long. 20 years, especially in the field of electronics, is unreasonable. Especially on technologies that can be seen as natural evolution of design. It holds back humanities progress towards technological evolution.pugster - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
I do agree with DigitalFreak on this one. AMD should be hitting on ARM and Imagination Technologies but decided to hit on the lowest hanging fruit which will affect the consumers rather than the companies who license this kind of stuff.Reflex - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
ARM and IT did not do anything illegal. It is legal to sell designs that rely on other's IP, and it is legal to do so without licensing or indemnifying their customers. In that business model, the OEM is responsible for securing the licenses required. This is not uncommon at all.trparky - Friday, August 24, 2018 - link
What is wrong with protecting one's intellectual properties? This is nothing at all like what happens in a certain court in the middle of Texas, this is AMD doing their due diligence in protecting their patents like any other company would do.Stuka87 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Patent trolls don't build anything. They just own patents and litigate with them. AMD is protecting the IP that they developed and actively use in their own products.ZolaIII - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Correct, they buy IP's and sue other people. As actually described patents involved hire are both with acquisition of ATI not developed by AMD which technically makes AMD a patent troll in this case.Death666Angel - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
No.id4andrei - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
That's ridiculous. They didn't buy ATI to sue anyone. They bought ATI for its products. AMD is ATI's current reincarnation so to speak. Patent troll is Apple(and others) buying Nortel to sue other companies.PixyMisa - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Bullshit. They bought ATi to build and sell ATi products. They are the opposite of a patent troll.rocky12345 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
WOW the problem with what you said here is wrong.Yes they bought ATI but they also made products from the tech ati owned and still are doing that today. A patent troll buys patents then does nothing with them but sues everyone else that builds stuff that might come close to infringing on a patent but the troll don't care they hope to settle out of court most times and make millions from it.ZolaIII - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
So they both ATI, first two patents are from that time and the third one is actually the first one on the given structure which AMD still calls "APU" while SoC is much wider term. They fundamentally didn't improve anything, they are selling their own products on their own branding pretty much the same as QC did which has nothing to do with ATI expect fundamental design base's. They are suing smaller third party manufacturers like all patent trolling britches do hoping for fat financial gain, they aren't suing anyone from who they might lose like actual vendors or Apple. They can't sue QC as after all they both the same teach from ATI before AMD did, they won't sue ARM as tomorrow they might need it's IP portfolio. They won't sue Apple as Apple would ruined them in court. If that ain't patent trolling I don't know what is even patent troll of all times Rambus would be ashamed.grahad - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
Pass me what you're smoking cause it's sure some good stuff.ZolaIII - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
It's a Troll Weed. Sure thing, just stand in circle.https://cannasos.com/strains/hybrid/troll
hecksagon - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
AMD's hasn't improved over ATI's products that existed when they were bought? If that's the case why would anybody buy an AMD card? It would be 10x or more slower than modern Nvidia cards.Since when is LG ($11 billion market cap) or Vizio (private, $3.5 billion revenue 2017) meaningfully smaller than AMD? LG has over half the market cap AMD has and Vizio has over half the revenue.
They wont sue Apple because they exclusively use AMD discreet GPUs. They won't sue ARM because they are an ARM licensee and already include some smaller ARM CPUs in their products. ARM also doesn't sell any products, only licenses designs.
close - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
@DigitalFreak: you have a very personal and creative definition of a patent troll. That basically refers to entities that don't use the patent for anything other than litigation. AMD is a tech powerhouse. If defending your IP is trolling then everybody's a patent troll.name99 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Why is this stuff even IN a TV? Is this part of some smart TV BS?That would be such poetic justice — if Vizio had stuck to a pure TV (which is what many customers WANT) they would be fine, but by forcing unwanted crap on the customer, they get shut down.
Ha ha!
milkywayer - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Smart tvs when done right arent so bad. I wasn't a fan until i got my 2018 samsung and love the built in plex, netflix, twitch and BBC apps. Its just handy to have all these things on the tv controlled from a single remote without messing with 3,4 devices attached to the tvDeath666Angel - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
I've read enough people whining about their outdated smart TV apps to try and stay away from it, personally. I'd much rather have a 30 to 100€ thing attached to any display that can act anyway I want to.trparky - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
I have a smart TV, it's disconnected and I have a third-party smart device connected to it instead. Why? Because if Samsung treats my smart TV like they do their Android devices (lack of proper updates) my smart TV will be vulnerable before you know it.Best to keep it disconnected and leave the smart devices up to the companies that know how to handle them (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.) instead of a company (like Samsung) that just wants you to buy a new TV every stinkin' year.
Alexvrb - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
You're both right. The security on smart TVs is garbage and gets worse as they age. Plus the apps are just tolerable and get worse with time. On top of that, there's a price premium. Unfortunately, sometimes you're forced to pay it even if you don't want to - if the model you desire happens to be a smart TV, it's an unnecessary tax.The best way to go is to plug in a Roku, Fire, etc. If they get outdated, you can keep your TV and just swap the cheap little box. Another alternative (which I personally use on my primary TV) is a console. For example a One S can be had pretty cheap (especially on sale) and has HDR 4K BD support plus all the streaming apps, VLC, gaming, etc. Good affordable all-in-one.
valinor89 - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
"i got my 2018 samsung" Let me know in 2-3 years how well all those apps are still working/supported...mitcoes - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
What I do not understand is why they - AMD - do not sue Imagination and ARM.And Vizio Mediatek and Sigma designs should sue them - Imagination and ARM - too for licencing IP that is not owned by them.
Or am I lost in translation?
Death666Angel - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
I read once that it was easier to sue someone who actually produces things that are sold to the common consumer. So they go after the people who implement infringing technology into their products, rather than go after the people who think up the infringing technology. Of course, Vizio and the like will likely turn around to their supplier and demand compensation. But that sort of news is not public facing.wintermute000 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Surely if it's ARM SOCs then the massive smartphone market is affected, or why do the patents only affect Smart TVs?Death666Angel - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
Maybe there are already licensing deals in place for the much more mature smartphone and tablet market and their manufacturers. And the smart TV market is newer with the players in it younger and not into the licensing game so far.jabbadap - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
I'm a bit baffled by that too. Mediatek Helio P10 has arm Mali-T860 MP2 gpu(i.e. Samsung Exynos uses mali gpu). Or maybe it just that when arm does not make any of those them selves, it's up-to SOC maker to get proper IP licenses from different IP holders.Alexvrb - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
This. I imagine there's a lot of companies that license from GPU patent holders, either directly or indirectly. Mediatek obviously does not take care of any of this, and just leaves it up to the manufacturers. That doesn't mean the situation is the same for Qualcomm or Samsung SoCs.Outlander_04 - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Have you considered AMDs next step is to start negotiating directly with ARM for royalty payments for the tech it seems to have borrowed ?Reflex - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
ARM does not make a product. Nothing illegal with selling a design that incorporates other IP so long as you do not represent yourself as the owner of that IP.BurntMyBacon - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
True. ARM has no requirement to negotiate with AMD. That doesn't mean there is no merit in negotiating, though. It is possible that AMD can convince ARM that there is value to be had in licensing their IP. For instance, AMD and ARM could settle on a cost for a transferable license. ARM could then use the fact that the customer no longer needs to get a separate license (and other improvements made during that cycle) to justify a higher price on their IP. Also, depending on how the deal is struck, ARM could end up well ahead here. As an example, if AMD were to charge a flat fee or a fee that grew less quickly with quantity than ARM licensing model, then there would be a quantity of sales beyond which ARM would be making a profit on the license. ARM could raise or lower their licensing fee based on where they want that crossover to be.Reflex - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
There really is no motivation for ARM to license, however. ARM sells designs into markets that do not care about AMD or anyone else's IP (China for instance), having to pay a global license that would only benefit a portion of ARM's customers is bad business. It is a better deal for both ARM and the customers who don't sell in the west to just let those who need a license to acquire a license and those who do not, avoid it.Reflex - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
Neither ARM nor Imagination Technologies make actual products. It is not illegal to license a design that incorporates other IP, what is illegal is building a product based on that design and selling it without licensing the IP included in it. This applies to the ARM and IT designs themselves as well, anyone could make their own derivative and license it, but the licensee would need to pay not only them but also ARM and IT.This model is legal but it is in contrast to how other vendors do it. For instance, Microsoft and Intel both offer patent immunity, if anyone is sued for selling a product based on their designs or technology, Microsft or Intel will step in and litigate the case for the OEM, including paying any penalties and licensing fees. Of course thier products cost more, but this is part of what you are buying.
BurntMyBacon - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
This.Though, it does leave ARM's customers in the position of figuring out what IP they need to license to cover ARM's designs.
Reflex - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
Yes, but again that's part of why ARM designs are cheap.iwod - Saturday, August 25, 2018 - link
I am a little surprised Mediatek does not have a patent agreement with AMD by now. That seems strange. Or has Mediatek left the vendor to pact with AMD themselves?HStewart - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
I find these 3 patents so vague in definition that it would be hard justify it in court - I would not doubt there will be counter suits like the Samsung/NVidiaThe problems is not with Patent system directly - but the fact the lower uses especially when a company buys another company for patent and then sues. I am not sure if this every happen - but if Company A lets Company B uses a patent on device and then Company C by Company A and then sues Company B - that surely should be illegal.
To me it only seems that dirty lawyers win.
One thing I do believe in if Company A credit a chip and specifically that a specific software on it and then Company B copy Company A so the same software can run it - then Company B is in violation.
Reflex - Sunday, August 26, 2018 - link
These patents are licensed by others in the industry. Including nVidia and Intel. AMD/Ati were original players in the graphics space (as was nVidia and Imagination Technologies) and as such, they own patents on many fundamental concepts to modern GPU design. The same is true for the other early players, and that is how it works in most industries.BurntMyBacon - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
@HStewart: "I find these 3 patents so vague in definition that it would be hard justify it in court"Did you read the whole patent or just the abstract? While I do agree in general that most patents are a little too broadly applicable for my liking, this one is far from the worst offender I've seen.
@HStewart: "I am not sure if this every happen - but if Company A lets Company B uses a patent on device and then Company C by Company A and then sues Company B - that surely should be illegal."
If I understand your statement correctly, then this is illegal in most circumstances. If Company C is buying Company A (and not just certain assets of Company A), then they are also buying Company A's current obligations at the time of sale. In the case of Company A declaring bankruptcy, Company C may only be buying a subset of assets, which complicates things a bit. In any case, I don't believe the license Company B acquired from Company A would be considered invalid until it expired.
Reflex - Monday, August 27, 2018 - link
There is also the trap where people look at prior patents and decide they are too broad, vague or obvious. In the world of IP that is irrelevant, what matters is whether or not it was broad, vague or obvious *at the time*. That is important as by definition anything that becomes the popular way to do something will eventually seem obvious, broad or vague.