Apple‘s legal row over its iPad trademark in China creates a window of opportunity for rivals such as Lenovo Group and Samsung Electronics as they try to chip away at the U.S. firm’s dominance of the potentially vast Chinese tablet market.

Apple [AAPL  511.04    8.92  (+1.78%)   ], the world’s most valuable technology company, is fighting lawsuits brought by debt-laden Chinese electronics maker Proview Technology (Shenzhen), causing retailers and resellers in more than 10 Chinese cities to take iPads off their shelves, according to media reports.

Apple’s iPad enjoys a huge lead over rival tablet PCs in China with a 76 percent share. Lenovo [0992.HK  7.20    0.27 (+3.91%)   ] and Samsung trail a distant second and third with about 7 percent and 3 percent respectively, data from research firm IDC showed.

“Apple’s loss could be Lenovo and Samsung’s gains,” said Jonathan Ng, an analyst with CIMB in Singapore.

Samsung likely has most to gain, because its Galaxy tablet competes in the same price segment as the iPad.

“Samsung will probably benefit more from Apple’s ongoing lawsuit because both of them are after the same higher-end consumers given their price points,” said Dickie Chang, an analyst from IDC in Hong Kong.

“The impact on Lenovo may be less because Lepads are lower priced and are aimed more at entry-level users.”

A basic iPad 2 typically costs 3,688 yuan ($585), roughly the same price as 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, while some models of Lenovo’s Lepad were selling at roughly half that price on online retail sites.

IDC said in the third quarter Apple sold about 1.3 million iPads in China, while Lenovo, the world’s second largest PC maker, sold around 120,000 Lepads in its home market and South Korea’s Samsung sold 58,000 Galaxy Tabs.

The Lepad and Galaxy Tab both run on Google‘s [GOOG  613.845    9.205 (+1.52%)   ] Android operating system.

CONTINUED at CNBC.

Android: We’ve discussed several ways you can stay on top of the fight against SOPA, and ways you can get around it, but Boycott SOPA is an Android app that turns your smartphone into a powerful tool to speak with your dollars, and avoid financially supporting companies that support the bill.

Once installed, use Boycott SOPA to scan the barcodes of books, CDs, magazines, DVDs, and other media to see if the producer or publisher is a member of the RIAA, MPAA, the BSA, or another organization that’s publicly supported SOPA. As Extremetech explains, It’s no surprise that most media will trigger a positive, considering how many media companies are part of the RIAA and MPAA, but the app does give consumers a way to check if their money is going to the companies that support this bill before they spend it.

Much like the No SOPA Chrome add-on, Boycott SOPA is designed to warn you if you’re about to support a company or product that in turn supports the bill. The developers behind the app promise that the list of supporting organizations—currently about 800 brands and companies—will be regularly updated as positions change, and invites users to help curate the list on their web site. The Android app is completely free, and available now in the Android Market.

Source: Lifehacker.

*Taken from the Telegraph.

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*Taken from Bloomberg.

Google Inc. (GOOG), maker of the Android mobile-phone software, agreed to buy smartphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in its biggest deal, gaining mobile patents and expanding in the hardware business.

Motorola shareholders will get $40 a share in cash, the companies said in a statement today. That’s 63 percent more than Motorola Mobility’s closing price on the New York Stock Exchange on Aug. 12. Both boards have approved the takeover.

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder who took over as chief executive officer in April, is transforming Google into a smartphone maker to take on Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s iPhone and gain more clout in the wireless business. Motorola Mobility, under pressure to seek strategic changes by activist investor Carl Icahn, gives Google more than 17,000 patents the company can leverage in negotiations with competitors such as Apple.

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*Taken from ZD Net.

There was plenty of excitement in San Francisco’s Moscone Center as a giant on-screen clock counted down the final seconds until execs would take the stage to kick off the annual developers conference, called I/O.

Not a bad reception,. considering expectations for big headline announcements is small.

Google – like most companies that take to a keynote stage – kicked off with a recap, a look back to highlight their successes, notably Android. They talked momentum with devices and apps. Nothing new. We already knew this.

And before we jumped into the widely-expected news – a music announcement – there was some announcements about Honeycomb updates. Version 3.1 is being rolled out for the Motorola Xoom tablets today – and with it comes some new developer tools and features, such as the ability to resize widgets. And the company offered a sneak peek at the next Android OS – codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich.

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