Google has warded off an antitrust investigation from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission by agreeing to license certain patents to its rivals in the mobile phone business.

The FTC announced on Thursday that Google has agreed to license “essential” patents to competitors such as Apple, some of which were acquired in its acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

“The changes Google has agreed to make will ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of competition in the online marketplace and in the market for innovative wireless devices they enjoy,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said. “This was an incredibly thorough and careful investigation by the Commission, and the outcome is a strong and enforceable set of agreements.”

Google will allow competitors fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory access to patents essential to smartphones, tablets, laptops, and gaming consoles. The search giant also agreed to give advertisers more flexibility to manage their ad campaigns with Google’s AdWords along with rival ad platforms. And Google also agreed to stop lifting content from “vertical” websites, which focus on categories such as shopping or travel, and presenting it in its own vertical offerings.

Time will tell to see whether Google does carry out its promises. Something tells me this is far from over.

Apple has a free music video of One Direction .

I expect a mass rush of people downloading this.

Sammobile have leaked shots of the new S4.

The rumoured specs are –

– Exynos 5450 Quad-Core CPU clocked at 2.0GHz
– Mali-T658 GPU
– 2GB of RAM
– 4.99” SuperAMOLED FULL HD resolution (1080×1920) Display
– 13 Megapixel Rear Facing Camera
– 2 Megapixel Front Facing Camera
– Android 4.2.1 (Out of the box)
– Possible S-Pen

The S4 is the device Samsung believes will crush the new iPhone. It certainly doesn’t seem dramatically different than the S3, other than a spec bump on processor, ram, camera and possibly S-Pen. If the home button has gone this is a very good move. I never liked the S3 home button. Also, I just wonder how many people will want such a large object in their pocket or bag. It does seem though that 5 inch or higher devices are all the fashion. For me, the killer aspect of the S4 needs to be the manufactured material. Samsung needs to use aluminium or something sexy looking. Otherwise it’s just another plastic device that’s the same as every other plastic made phone

Of course, the leak could be a fake but we can only hope.