The bad news, if you’re an Apple fan: Just like Apple’s other recent Siri ads, these don’t make Siri seem very cool.

In the first one, there’s at least the suggestion that Siri will help Malkovich find a restaurant where he can get some sausage. So that’s something, at least.

But the second one, where Malkovich is sitting around by himself, just killing time with his iPhone, without any discernible purpose?

That’s pretty realistic, actually. But it’s not fun to watch:

But, like I said, Malkovich really is cool. There are a gazillion furniture-chewing scenes I could pick to illustrate this, but for some reason I’ve always been partial to his preposterous Russian poker heavy, from “Rounders”:

Spence, RIM’s head of global sales and a 14-year company veteran, “will be taking on a leadership position in a different industry,” RIM said in an email to AllThingsD. His last day will be June 15.

“The sales function will report directly into Kristian Tear, our newly appointed COO, when he starts this summer,” RIM said in a statement. “In the interim, the sales function will report to Thorsten Heins.”

Spence is the latest RIM executive to depart the company in recent months, following January’s appointment of Heins as CEO. In March, the company announced the departures of software CTO David Yach and Chief Operating Officer Jim Rowan.

The company has also announced two key hires — Tear, and new marketing chief Frank Boulben.

Spence’s departure was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

It was, in a word, creepy.

WhosHere, another social discovery application used primarily for dating, is trying its hardest to fight that stereotype.

“We’ve put a tremendous amount of effort into not being creepy,” CEO and co-founder Bryant Harris told me. Users can fill out profiles however they wish, using a pseudonym or an avatar that isn’t a shot of their face. If two people are interested in one another, they can communicate via text or VoIP call within the app itself, without requiring phone numbers.

But there comes a point in e-dating where two people must take things to the next level. And texts and even phone calls can only tell a person so much.

In-app video chat, a feature that WhosHere is launching on Wednesday, is the next natural step for the app. It’s a way of moving forward in connecting with others without the peskiness of having to take the full leap of meeting in person. It’s also a way to verify someone is who they say they are before meeting in the flesh. After all, you never know who’s actually on the other end of a profile.

“Just like in the real world, you go through a progression of how you interact,” says COO Stephen Smith.

I’m not entirely convinced that the world is ready to move to dating via smartphone. But the app has garnered more than five million iOS installations since 2008, so at least some folks are smitten with the premise.

That’s why Sonar, one of the few apps in the category that has been around for a few years, is trying something new. Up until now, Sonar has acted much like its name would suggest: Walk into a room, and using publicly available data pulled in from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the app tells you who’s nearby, and what you may have in common with one another.

Sonar’s new tack, then, is honing in on relevance. The company launched an update to its app on Wednesday, focused on putting users in touch with others nearby that they want to see. Setting the new Sonar Status feature, for instance, is like sending a tweet out to your nearby connections, but no further. So if you’re, say, sending status updates about how awful the beer lines are at a music festival, that status will actually show up for others in your proximity — you know, the people who would actually care about that status update — but no further.

To boot, the company is also flipping on the ambient location switch, adding features that aren’t terribly different from recent competitors like Highlight, Banjo and Glancee. Essentially, the app will run in the background, sharing your location and status with those nearby without having to open the application.

Sonar insists, however, that its app will only send you push notifications if you’re near someone you actually know — in other words, a Facebook friend, or someone you follow on Twitter — instead of people you should know, a la Highlight or Banjo. And if you want to chat with someone nearby without broadcasting it to the world via Twitter, Sonar now lets users send private messages.

It’s an attempt to tackle a glaring issue in the social discovery space: How do we connect with relevant people, especially when relevance changes on a contextual basis? While I may not want to talk with someone I don’t know at a coffee shop, it may prove helpful to connect with other, less familiar people in your extended network when you’re both at a tech conference.

The great unknown at this point is Facebook, the behemoth that has its sights set on improving its mobile experience. Facebook just recently acquired Glancee, one of the competing apps in the social discovery space. It’s anyone’s guess as to how — or when — Facebook will use the technology.

Bloomberg News is reporting that the jury has been dimissed, and that there will be no third phase of the trial, which was to have focused on damages in the event that Oracle prevailed.

The win for Google in the patent phase comes on top of a narrow but hollow victory for Oracle, in which the enterprise software giant won a part of its argument, but failed to make it stick in a way that would make any difference to either company.

Asked to decide whether Google had infringed upon Oracle’s copyrights to certain parts of the Java programming language, the jury — the same jury that came out in Google’s favor today — agreed that it had. Then asked to decide on four specific examples of that infringement, jurors could agree on only one that cracked the threshold of being sufficiently egregious to warrant any damages. And in that case, the damages amount to no more than $200,000, probably less than it cost to litigate in the first place.

Google shares rose slightly by $2.09 to $602.89 or less than 1 percent. Oracle shares fell slightly by 6 cents to $26.30.

Oracle put out this statement:

Oracle presented overwhelming evidence at trial that Google knew it would fragment and damage Java. We plan to continue to defend and uphold Java’s core write once run anywhere principle and ensure it is protected for the nine million Java developers and the community that depend on Java compatibility.

Meanwhile, here’s Google’s statement, which reads like a victory lap:

Today’s jury verdict that Android does not infringe Oracle’s patents was a victory not just for Google but the entire Android ecosystem.

The company said it is contacting customers on its older 2G network and providing upgrade offers in an effort to get them onto one of the newer networks.

“Dedicating more capacity to our advanced wireless networks will help more of our customers in New York City have a better experience overall,” AT&T regional general manager Tom DeVito said in a statement. “By re-allocating network resources from our 2G network to support our newer, advanced networks, we’re moving capacity to support the voice and mobile internet services our customers want.”

New York and San Francisco, in particular, have long been trouble spots for AT&T customers.

AT&T has been doing a number of things to improve service in those cities and in other areas. Adding cell towers is one option, but doing so typically requires approval at the local level for each new tower. Carriers are also pursuing other new tricks, including the use of smaller cells as well as building up Wi-Fi “hot zones” to help off-load traffic.

Image by Joy of Tech

Samsung officials tell the Korea Times that the two companies were unable to come to a clear agreement resolving their differences. Sources close to Samsung confirmed to AllThingsD that this was indeed the case.

Evidently the talks — which ran for about 16 hours over Monday and Tuesday — began and ended at an impasse, with Apple continuing to insist that Samsung “slavishly” copied the design of its iPhone and iPad, and Samsung demanding that Apple pay royalties on the wireless patents it believes the company infringed.

Given the level of animosity between the two companies at this point, it was really hard to imagine any other outcome. Locking Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung into a room for two days and hoping they’d emerge bosom buddies brandishing a settlement was always a bit of a pipe dream. Note that Apple last Friday filed a motion for injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, angling to have the device yanked from U.S. shelves as soon as early June. And the week before that, it accused Samsung of destroying email evidence.

Not really the behavior of a company that’s looking for two days of easygoing mediation talks and an amicable resolution to the legal issues at hand.

As FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller recently told Reuters, “This dispute isn’t ripe for settlement. Under the present circumstances, the two companies’ delegations should spend a couple of fun days in Yosemite Park or Napa Valley, rather than meet in court only to pretend they’re being constructive.”

Apple declined comment on the outcome of the talks.

The case heads to trial on July 30.

(Image courtesy of Joy of Tech)

Sources say Rubicon paid around $10 million for the two-year-old company.

Rubicon helps publishers manage and optimize their display ads via “real time” buying, and the pitch is that they’ll now be able to do that with mobile ads, too — though the still-nascent mobile ad business has yet to fully embrace that kind of technology.

Rubicon’s rivals include Pubmatic and Google’s AdMeld. In September 2010, it picked up ad tech assets from News Corp., which also owns this site. Mobsmith raised a reported $575,000 in July 2010.

According to NPD, Apple shipped 17.2 million mobile PCs* worldwide during the first quarter of 2012, enough to capture a 22.5 percent share of the market — more than double that of its closest rival, Hewlett-Packard. During the same period, HP shipped just 8.9 million mobile PCs for an 11.6 percent market share.

How did Apple manage to dominate PC leader HP in the mobile PC market? The iPad.

Of the 17.2 million “mobile PCs” Apple shipped, 13.6 million were iPads. And in that particular segment of the market — tablets — Apple’s domination is unrelenting. In the first quarter, Apple claimed a stunning 62.8 percent share of the tablet market, dwarfing every single one of its rivals. Samsung, its next closest rival, shipped just 1.6 million tablets during the quarter, for a share of 7.5 percent. Amazon followed with 900,000 tablets shipped and a 4 percent share. Bringing up the rear: Research In Motion and Asus, which sold 500,000 tablets each, for a 2.3 percent market share.

*NPD defines mobile PCs as tablets and laptops.

The biggest changes made on Tuesday were at the top of Motorola’s organizational chart. In addition to the exit of CEO Sanjay Jha, several other Motorola executives are leaving the company. Among those on the way out, we’re told, are strategy chief John Bucher, Senior VP Alain Mutricy, supply chain head Mike Fleming, chief marketer Bill Ogle, HR head Scott Crum, operating chief Juergen Stark and CFO Marc Rothman.

Also leaving is well-regarded enterprise unit head Christy Wyatt, a former Apple and Palm executive. Responsibility for the corporate push will shift to Mahesh Veerina, the senior VP of software and services.

Beyond that, though, Google is holding back with the drastic changes. Motorola remains
a separate subsidiary, employees are keeping their same email addresses and the iconic Motorola logo will remain.

Naturally, the first day of business consisted of lots of “get to know you” town hall meetings with Motorola employees learning about life under Google and meeting some of their new leaders. To give Motorola’s conference rooms a bit of that Mountain View vibe, a few Googlers brought along lava lamps.

Google is making its presence felt in other ways. In addition to new CEO Dennis Woodside, Google has brought in a new HR head, financial chief and marketing lead. Google also said that Regina Dugan, the recently recruited former DARPA head, will lead a new advanced research unit within Motorola — a move that some employees are taking as a sign that Google is committed to serious R&D at its newest unit.

Google did hint that Motorola’s future could be more narrow than the broad array of devices it makes today.

“Motorola Mobility will have a simpler, more focused strategy,” Googorola said in a statement. “You will see fewer, but bigger launches.”

Although Google didn’t mention job cuts in its public statements or in its meetings with employees, layoffs are expected. Fewer products likely means fewer people needed to develop and manufacture those products.

Also unclear is the fate of the TV products unit that makes set-top boxes. Some see this as a natural fit with Google TV, while others say much of the unit could be sold if the right buyer can be found.

First, a successive series of ups: The app scored tens of millions of users via Facebook over a period of no longer than a month and soared to the top of the iTunes App Store.

Then, a few downers. Members of the press (including yours truly) started sniffing around after Socialcam (and rival app Viddy) rose so high up in the ranks in such a short time. Socialcam’s viral growth was due — in part, at least — to successfully gaming the system by incorporating YouTube videos designed to spread like wildfire.

I posed the question then: Now that Socialcam has millions of Web video users and at least a few million app installs, how will the company keep those users around?

The team’s answer is starting to trickle out. As TechCrunch reported earlier, Socialcam released a new design to it Web interface Tuesday morning, an update focused squarely on the social experience. It features everything you’d expect in a modern social Web interface: Friends-to-follow suggestions, user popularity leaderboards and recent friend activity.

But make no mistake: This is more than just a tacking on of better social features.

Think of it this way: With Socialcam’s initial Open Graph integration, Web traffic flooded into the Web app. Yes, that drove installs on the mobile phone, but what Socialcam realized is that it needed to keep its Web experience in top shape to keep its users coming back. That’s entirely unlike Instagram, the photo-sharing app to which Socialcam is compared almost ad nauseum.

“Ultimately, Instagram had an app-focused strategy,” Socialcam CEO Michael Seibel told me in a telephone interview. “Instagram was trying to get people who were using other photo apps to use their app.”

Why? It’s because photos are different; we “consume” them easily with our phones, requiring no more than a flick of the thumb to scroll through scores of snapshots. And if you nail the mobile app like Instagram did, you don’t need to worry about the Web interface (which Instagram, for the most part, clearly ignores).

Video, on the other hand, is a different animal entirely. We’re used to watching video via the Web interface, not our mobile devices. Over the seven-year rise of YouTube, Google has trained us in our streaming video viewing habits.

So as Seibel sees it, the challenge for Socialcam isn’t to compete against other mobile social video apps. It’s to compete against the Web.

“This is really a social video and mobile video vs. YouTube narrative,” Seibel said. “Theoretically, YouTube owns this space. But as our phones have grown into powerful devices for capturing video, YouTube has done virtually nothing to keep up.”

“We’re the first ones to attack YouTube’s flanks,” Seibel said.

Ground zero was getting the user base. Whether or not you agree with Socialcam’s user acquisition strategy is another matter entirely. The first step after that, according to Seibel, is nailing your Web experience — hence Tuesday’s timely update.

And it’s only after mastering the Web that apps like Socialcam can convert its users to a mobile-centric video world. If we enjoy watching mobile videos through our Web browser, Seibel hopes that will inspire us to start shooting our own. After enough of us do that, perhaps they’ll slowly transition to the mobile app.

It’s rather ironic that Socialcam seeded old YouTube videos in its plan to lure us away from YouTube and into fresh, user-generated content. But I guess they had to start somewhere.

So says Samsung design VP Chang Dong-hoon, who today took exception with claims that the Galaxy S III is “the first smartphone designed entirely by lawyers.” According to Dong-hoon, the Galaxy S III boasts a design that has gone through hundreds of iterations, all quarterbacked by Samsung’s market-leading design team. “Our change in smartphone design is part of a five-year plan, not a sudden turnaround,” he told reporters at the 2012 Seoul Digital Forum.

So the aesthetics of the S III are the result of a natural evolution and not the intervention of Samsung’s legal team. If you’ve got an issue with its design, blame Samsung’s designers, not its lawyers. Or, better yet, buy a different phone.