Since none of us have seen the private docs and license agreements, all we really know about the above is that's how Apple has spun the PR on it. Qualcomm says that's not the case and spins it differently, to make themselves look like the aggrieved ones. Which specific patents are the each accusing, etc.

Who's telling the truth?? That's probably why the ITC actually agreed to dive in and try to figure it out. Potential merit according to both stated positions, need a neutral party to look and decide.

Nope, she invented frequency hopping spread spectrum (FHSS), not direct-sequence (DSSS) as used in CDMA. Totally different technologies.

FHSS as invented by her was better for anti-jam and anti-detection than single-carrier systems, and for RF (which she wasn't proposing) it has good multi-path performance. But it doesn't actually improve frequency reuse at all, it actually can be worse because in high-density you will have collisions.

DSSS by comparison has great reuse, as evidenced by CDMA and GPS stacking multiple users on the same frequency with only spreading-code separation. It has poor multi-path performance though, since you need to coherently de-spread the signal, so phase variance requires complex equalizers for wide-ish bandwidth, including the >1MHz chunks UMTS uses. Potentially better anti-detection, if high spreading ratios are used, and roughly equivalent anti-jam to FHSS overall.

That's one of the most cluelessly ignorant things I've heard in a while...

Like them or not, Qualcomm has been the driver behind much modern wireless tech, and their chips are in pretty much every high-end phone. Only recently have any competitors been remotely close to matching their performance and battery efficiency - something Intel still failed at by the evidence Apple had to downgrade the iPhone 7S to be as slow as the 7S+. Samsung has finally gotten close, and for application processors Apple does beat them, but Qualcomm is the undisputed king of the wireless modem.

They also invented CDMA, which is the entire underlying tech of 3G networks and indisputably deserve those royalties. And invented good portions of the LTE spec too.

Now, are they charging unfair royalties for patent-essential things? Maybe so. But Apple sued first, and said effectively "we're gong to keep selling iphones with both your actual chips, and your IP, and we're not going to pay anything anymore, even thoug you're charging what we contractually agreed to.". So heck yeah Qualcomm is right to sue back in that case and ask for an injunction.

This is the sort of dispute the ITC should definitely examine, from all sides.

Why else wouldn't you announce it? Especially if it's the size of a cubesat but can manuever, that's a breakthrough.

At least the US admits the X-37B is there, even if nobody has a clue what it's doing...

Yeah, like that horrible SELinux thing they developed...

Wow, now fully in namecalling mode... Argument Won!

BTW, when you were panning the one *possible* COTS solution I provided, amidst the Anti-Samsung tirade, you missed the point that it was just Skype - all the famlies could use whatever they want.

in all seriousness though, when dealing with self-supporting users, KISS principle applies. I get you were advocating that with the "maintenance-free" kiosk, but you were totally overlooking the server maintenance (patches, etc, not physical maint.), and the same to the kiosk.

And with the rate of change of some sadly-named standards, one security-driven library update could break the whole thing. Then OP gets the 2am call, or they pay someone $100+/hr to troubleshoot the bugs. Thus why fully-COTS is best in this scenario

I know I'm gonna get modded down for this - so be it:

Typical /. radical evangelism for open source, at all costs (metaphorically, not $$), without regard for the whole of the circumstances.

If there was a dedicated IT team, fine. If this was just OP and his grandma only, fine. Any of several circumstances, fine. But that's NOT the case!

Here we have lot of users, you MUST have dedicated support, and OP can't (trust me, I've been in this situation) provide that 24/7 long-term. And keep that server running, but that can be outsourced very cheaply is a delusion. Who's gonna pay for the next X years?? IT Consultants aren't cheap, and any upgrades that break things will be costly to repair, while being an outage for the users.

In a situation like this, COTS, with consumer support available and used to dealing with non-technical users (you know, the helpdesk script monkeys that piss US off...), is the way to go.

Build a fixed mounting kiosk so it doesn't walk, use the MDM to lockdown apps, etc, and it's golden.

Actually, my suggestion is in a separate comment down the page...

But to answer why the above is still a bad idea, it leaves OP on the hook for regular/recurring maintenance. Moreover, it creates a single point of failure if he gets hit by a bus, or just goes on vacation.

When dealing with highly nontechnical users, especially under a high-stress environment such as distant family wanting to talk to failing relatives before they die or can't usefully communicate anymore, any delay or breakdown leads to massive tension- and gets OP called at 2am on Sunday!

Therefore, a 100% COTS soltution is ideal.

Fronkly OP needs to learn to use freakin' google, I found COTS solution, in stock at Best Buy, in ~45sec... There are still supported, stable solutions out there

Wow, epic fail at actually reading and meeting the requirements. Including the implied ones!

You're dealing with nontechnical folks at both ends... You want ease of use and commercial customer support

Easy answer: Smart TV w/ Skype camera. Here's Samsung's version