Gambling Commission figures show that gambling industry in UK rakes huge profits and while some gambling forms are legal, the government is worried that gambling is now turning into a new addiction problem.

While there is help available in combating gambling addiction, this time, a new way to combat this form of addiction has been presented by the University of Cambridge Engineering department and its spin-out corporate Futurespace. They’re using technology.

How is it done? Futurespace has developed a machine that uses behavioral data in analyzing if a person is showing signs that he’s a potential gambling addict. With learning techniques, the machine could identify patterns that are suggestive of gambling addiction. Such data are useful indication if the person needs to go and consult professional help and also serves as a preventive measure.

Where will the data come from? It is a regular procedure in gambling sites such as those offering bingo games to collect betting patterns of their players. This data indicates the time of day, the frequency and bets, and the type of game a player plays.

How is the data analyzed? With the collected data, Futurespace would be able to come up with a series of patterns that are indicative of normal or some risky behavior suggesting the person is inclined to develop gambling problems.

How the idea takes it form? Futurespace used to work as a consultant to provide fraud-solutions to the gaming industry. While working, they have collected huge volume of data and seeing how customers are going out of control, they begun turning to using the collected data to help customers of gambling companies take control of their gambling. David Excel, who works as CTO and founder of Futurespace, explained that their work emerged from the point of view of a responsible gambling corporation. So they started developing a technology that will help bingo players to take control of their gambling behavior or, in other words, prevent beforehand his being addicted to bingo sites like this one wheretoplaybingo.org.

Who will benefit with the idea? Initially players themselves will benefit from this new way of combating gambling addiction. It is a form of a preventive measure and Futurespace sees this as a public service. However in general assessment, the gambling business benefits more if gambling addiction is controlled.

When a player starts developing gambling problems, the chances would be that he will turn to self-exclusion. Hence, when he does, this kind of player ceases to be a source of revenue to gambling sites. So in effect, Futurespace is doing more service to the gambling business as they can now take necessary steps to keep their players in a healthy gambling state.

David Excel maintained that when a gambling business was able to sustain a long-term relationship with their players, the better the business is. He further explained that when gambling problems increases in any location, the less favorable it is for business. Gaming commissions on some locations come up with strict regulations when there is an alarming statistic of gambling problem and this may include gambling addiction.

Futurespace’s new technology works through knowing the habits of players and learning the patterns each individual creates through his playing habits. When such patterns show that a player is in control, it is conclusive that his playing patterns are regular and normal. However, factors such as who the player is and the frequency he plays are still valuable before concluding there are signs of addiction.

How can the technology combat gambling addiction? After indentifying and concluding that the problem really does exist, the next steps become crucial. It is when gambling sites should take the necessary measures such as limiting playing sessions, imposing deposit limits as well as loss limits. It is only through these measures that players could be in control of their gaming habits.

Gambling business gets ample help from technology in order to keep up with new trends and demands and ironically they’re using technology to combat gambling addiction. It only shows that gambling industry has sense after all.

(The above article is a subsidized submission.)

I understand why some of my colleagues didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the latest legal skirmish between Apple and Samsung. It did get a lot of play in the mainstream media, but I understand why the rest of us have become very bored at this never-ending process.

Now in case you’ve just tuned in, the verdict last week was somewhat mixed. Apple won some, lost one. Samsung was ordered to pay almost $120 million in damages, and Apple was ordered to pay Samsung a pittance for violating a patent that the company only recently bought from Hitachi. In other words, Samsung had to buy something to get even a token victory.

That result ought to be sufficient to bring this sorry intellectual property war to a close. Samsung has had no notable victories, and Apple has won most times, but has yet to collect any money. Isn’t it time for saner, calmer heads to prevail?

Instead, Samsung is simply going to appeal, believing that the award was too high. Indeed, during the trial before Judge Lucy Koh and a jury of eight in a California Federal Court, Samsung didn’t argue so much against violating any patents, only that the patents really weren’t worth anything. So I suppose the verdict, awarding just 5.5% of the $2.2 billion that Apple sought, was a reasonable compromise.

Or simply logical, since the violations consisted of individual features that could hardly be valued at more than a few dollars for each unit sold that infringed on the technology. I mean is Apple Data Detectors really worth anything more despite being a really useful feature? That’s just one example.

Some members of the media regarded it as a hollow victory for Apple, since Samsung wasn’t assessed billions of dollars. But that doesn’t mean the jury’s award can’t be changed. The violations were, they ruled, “willful,” which means Judge Koh could triple the damages. But her conduct during the entire affair was focused on restricting the number of patents to be tried, and the amount of time the two sides could spend in presenting their cases.

That, to me, says “let’s just get this over with, please!”

But there’s more. You see, the jury foreman, Tom Dunham, whose work experience included working on patent-related issues at IBM, said that Apple should be suing Google, not the handset makers. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Dunham said, “If you really feel that Google is the cause behind this, as I think everybody has observed, then don’t beat around the bush. Let the courts decide. But a more direct approach may be something to think about.”

Maybe, but it’s also true that Samsung earns far more money from selling Android gear than Google earns from offering the free OS. The latter’s revenue stream is all about ad clicks. But it’s also reported that Google apparently agreed to pay some of Samsung’s legal expenses. This is indeed a proxy war, and maybe the message here is that, where the violation involves an Android-specific feature — and that was only true for two of the infringed patents — Apple should ask Google to make good on paying for the violation. This doesn’t mean that an Android licensee isn’t also responsible, simply because the feature is used in the OS shipped with the handset, but it may take this fight directly to the source.

You wonder why Apple hasn’t made that move, and I don’t think it’s about not having the courage to fight Google directly. Indeed, Google still earns a lot of money from Apple’s desktop and mobile platforms, so I suppose it’s possible that a direct legal battle between the two might just be the ticket to resolve these disputes once and for all.

Meantime, Samsung is evidently going to fight this war until the end whenever that is, which seems a foolish move. How long do they expect to continue to hold off a final decision before it no longer makes sense? Well, that point has probably already been reached. HTC, which doesn’t have near the resources of Samsung, took the sensible approach and made a deal. Apple and Samsung were ordered to negotiate by Judge Koh, but no settlement was reached, though I wouldn’t presume to guess which party was responsible. Maybe both.

As many of you know, Apple and Microsoft settled their long-term intellectual property disputes long ago. They are frenemies, competing in some areas, working together in others, and the association has been productive for both. Office for the iPad, for example, appears successful, and the iPad platform has more credibility in the enterprise as a result.

Samsung, however, has a hard-won reputation has being ruthless and not always above board in dealing with others. So maybe that’s part of the corporate DNA. But with billions of dollars of component sales with Apple at stake, you wonder what purpose is served in dragging this out yet again. Maybe if Judge Koh does grant triple damages, Samsung will change its tune, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The high-definition TV revolution resulted in tens and tens of millions of you buying new sets. As advertised, they delivered often superb widescreen pictures, assuming you fed it HD content. That was a good thing, for customers at any rate. But for manufacturers, it meant that these customers were off the market for five to ten years, unless they perhaps needed more sets for other rooms.

Once that market became saturated, TV makers needed a second or third act to move product, but what could they do? Well, the James Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster film, “Avatar,” made 3D, an essentially dead technology, relevant again. With the great success of the film, TV makers trotted out their own 3D variations, and tried hard to convince you to buy the more expensive and higher-profit gear.

3D came in two versions. One, “passive,” used the same polarized glasses as the 3D system at your local movieplex, and hence extra glasses were really cheap. The second technology, “active,” put decoding circuitry in the glasses, making them very expensive and sometimes a little on the heavy side. Either way, however, you had to use the glasses and put up with diminished picture quality, dimmer and not as sharp. The novelty quickly wore off.

These days, manufacturers are cutting back on 3D models. Even though the prices have dropped to the point where the additional technology is only slightly more expensive than regular sets, customers aren’t lining up to buy them. Although major movies that were filmed — or modified — in 3D format are available in Blu-ray 3D, it doesn’t seem customers are willing to pay $10 or more extra to buy them. So the technology has become essentially stillborn, and it’s certainly not increasing TV sales.

The latest technology scheme is 4K, also known as Ultra HD, which means four times as many pixels on the screen; twice as many horizontally, twice as many vertically. In theory, this means a much sharper picture, assuming you have the source material to go with it — and don’t sit too far from the set. The new models also do upscaling, so traditional high definition fare, up to 1080p in resolution, theoretically looks noticeably better. For the most part, the new sets are much more expensive, and thus offer the opportunity for much higher profits in an industry where profits are traditionally slim because of cutthroat competition.

The TV industry is making huge bets on 4K. Netflix has announced plans to stream 4K content, although the actual advantage in picture quality is debatable. There is no 4K Blu-ray format yet, but there will be, and perhaps TV networks will jump into the fray, assuming the cable and satellite companies have the bandwidth, and modified set-top boxes can decode the high resolution broadcasts.

So if you go to your favorite consumer electronics store, you’ll find a few 4K sets with such brand names as Samsung and Sony. Some months back I even had a brief chance to look at a first-generation Samsung 4K set, with a 55-inch display, at a local Sam’s Club. But all it was doing was looping some still photos. Everything was sharp all right, too sharp, almost artificial. I wasn’t pleased.

But this week, having a little time on my hands, I journeyed into a nearby Best Buy store to give it another go. I got a chance to spend some face time with two sets, one from Sony, the other from Samsung. The screen size of both was 65 inches, a sweet spot for 4K. The Samsung had a curved display, which seems to favor a limited viewing angle to get a decent picture. I couldn’t get into it, and thus I concentrated on the Sony that sported a traditional flat panel design.

With a sales person next to me, I stood about eight feet from the set, which was sufficient to actually see the supposed Ultra HD advantage. Again, the demonstration consisted of, first, a set of still pictures, and I could see the inner details of a stone outcropping and plant life in a way that a standard HD set couldn’t resolve. But the difference was at best subtle. A brief clip of a football game also seemed a tad sharper, but nothing I’d care about even if I cared about the ins and outs of the game, which I do not.

Alas, there were no film trailers or clips to see how it delivered the sort of content I’d normally watch on TV, which was unfortunate. But the few minutes I spent essentially confirmed the problem with 4K in the home.

You see, unless you or your family sit real close to a set, you will see little if any difference in picture quality on a set with a screen below 60 inches. Beyond eight for ten feet, the 4K advantage will essentially vanish. Consider the Retina display on your iPhone, iPad, or a MacBook Pro with Retina display. If you’re using them at a normal viewing distance, the quality improvement is amazing. You go farther away, there’s no visible difference at all.

So the larger question is whether customers will understand this distinction, and will buy up those huge sets in abundance, and the answer is probably not. Well, at least until prices come down to reasonable levels, which is below $2,000.

Sure, there are cheap 4K sets, but they generally offer subpar pictures. However, VIZIO, a huge player in the TV market for value-priced sets, announced the affordable “P” series of 4K sets at the CES in January. There is the promise of state-of-the-art picture quality, and when they ship later this year, the 60-inch VIZIO P602ui-B3 will retail for $1,799.99. The 50-inch version is $999.99, although that size is a little too small to feel the full impact of 4K.

Will it take off? Well, VIZIO has offered me the chance to review a “P” series set once they ship, which is expected sometime this fall, so we’ll see how such gear fares in a real world setup. And by the way, the preliminary specs apparently do not mention 3D.

So let’s cover the basics: On Friday, May 2, an eight-member jury in a Northern California Federal Court decided that Samsung was guilty of infringing on three Apple patents. The total cash award was $119,625,000. It sounds like an awful lot of money, except that it’s a mere fraction of what Apple wanted — some $2.19 billion — though obviously still a substantial figure.

The verdict involved three patents covering “647,” or data detectors, “721,” or slide-to-unlock, and “172,” for predictive text. But the jury needs to return to court on Monday, because they did not award any money for the “172” patent violation, and thus the figure may increase.

In turn, Apple was found guilty of violating the so-called “449” patent, about an “Apparatus for recording and reproducing digital image and speech,” which Samsung actually acquired from Hitachi. Perhaps it was meant to have something to defend. But the award? A mere $158,400. It was hardly worth the effort.

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