We look back at the biggest patents filed and acquisitions made this month including Apple, Uber and Twitter
Innovation is one of the most important facets of the technology industry. In terms of the day-to-day news that we at TrustedReviews cover, that innovation tends to manifest itself in two main ways: patents and acquisitions.
Whether they’re coming up with a bright idea themselves, or purchasing smaller companies that have had those bright ideas, all the big guns are active in these two key areas. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung - they’re all at it.
With that in mind, we'll be taking a look back at the most interesting patents and acquisitions launched each month, and how they might impact the services, products, and apps we use each day.
SEE ALSO: Best crowdfunding campaigns we'd invest in this month
Twitter buys Periscope
There was much hoo-ha at the beginning of March when app-of-the-moment Meerkat found that it had been, to put it politely, screwed over by Twitter. As it turned out, the reason Twitter withdrew its passive support for the live video streaming app was because it had purchased its own.
Mid-way through the month, Twitter confirmed that it had acquired Periscope, a live-streaming video app that allows users to broadcast live video from their mobiles.
While there was no Periscope app on the market at the time, Twitter has now launched Periscope onto the Apple App Store for now - and very slick it is too.
It marks the beginning of a new phase of social networking, where you don't just tell people what's happened - you show them what's happening, as it happens.
SEE ALSO: What is Meerkat?
Samsung patents flexible phone design
There's been talk of flexible phones for several years now. The technology for bendy screens has been out there - it's just the rest of the components that pose a practical problem.
This month saw some advance on that with news of a patent application from Samsung. It showed that the Korean manufacturer has been working on a handset that pairs a flexible screen with a body that can be freely flexed both forwards and backwards.
It seems this phone's body could feature a series of interlocking panels that would render the phone rigid when straight, but which could unlock and slide when placed under pressure.
As is often the case, this patent is actually fairly old - it dates from a year ago - so Samsung may well have made progress on this concept in the intervening months.
PayPal acquires Paydiant
Right at the beginning of March, it emerged that PayPal had acquired Padiant - a company that provides mobile wallet technology for a number of major banking apps and financial services.
With it, PayPal instantly made itself a major player in the mobile payments war - albeit a background schemer rather than a frontline slugger like Apple Pay.
PayPal's intention with this purchase is to enable its retail partners to continue creating their own branded wallets, whether that incorporates mobile payments, store cards, or loyalty cards.
In other words, PayPal wants to facilitate mobile payments, building the core technology to support them, rather than offering a complete solution.
It could well prove to be a smarter course than Apple's, which only seems to be causing friction and drawing opposition from those powerful financial institutions.
Apple's light-splitting camera patent
One of the strongest components of any iPhone these days is its camera. Most smartphone rivals simply can't get close for all-round photographic chops.
That excellence looks set to continue, as news recently emerged of an interesting Apple patent for a "Digital camera with light splitter."
The technology uses a cube to split light into three separate beams - green, red, and blue. Each colour is then received by a separate image sensor.
The purpose of this would be to gather more information than single, mixed image sensor can handle (especially one so small as a smartphone example) and to allow more pixels to be packed in without having to shrink them.
According to the patent, Apple would also use OIS to account for image blur, and movable lenses would also allow for optical zoom.
SEE ALSO: iPhone 6 camera tips and tricks
Uber acquires deCarta
This one rather slipped out early in the month, but it's an interesting one. Uber, the maker of the self-titled smart taxi app that has taken the world by storm of late, has acquired a small mapping company called deCarta.
The acquired mapping company will continue to offer its local search and turn by turn navigation services as a subsidiary of Uber, but it's what it might do for Uber that will be of interest.
Currently, Uber relies on Google Maps for pricing up fares and directing its drivers. While Google Maps is good for a lot of things, it's not the most precise navigation tool.
Uber is known to be investing in mapping, with ambitious things like multi-fare routes. So, this could all be part of an effort to go with its own, more precise mapping tool.
