Apple sued over iPhone screen rendering tech

You've probably never heard of Picsel Technologies, but the Scottish company claims that its technologies are in over 250m handsets worldwide from manufacturers like Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Samsung and Sony Ericsson -- and, if a lawsuit it filed today is to be believed, Apple. Picsel says the iPhone infringes on a patented method of accelerated screen updating, and as usual, the answer is probably going to be for Uncle Steve to open his $25 billion piggy bank and dole out some cash. On the other hand, Apple legal might take a little batting practice before they start hunting the big game, but honestly, that's just us wishing for a little Friday night drama.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 14th 2009 9:02PM]

This is interesting. Picsel Technologies was responsible for the Picsel Viewer, which was bundled with many Sony Clie PalmOS PDAs. They also later enhanced this product to include web browsing capability, Picsel Browser, which was available on some Samsung PalmOS handsets, I believe.

Picsel Viewer/Browser operates with the smooth drag and pan, and zooming methods as the iPhone's browser does, albeit, it was available some five years ago, and operated with single touch rather than multi touch. Just, no one seemed to pick up on it.

It was probably the handsdown best Office Document, PDF and Web page rendering software for PalmOS ever available. And in my opinion, it even trumps some of the offerings available for modern mobile operating systems these days/

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 15th 2009 4:58AM]

Actually, it's still used in most Japanese non-smartphones for Office document and PDF viewing.