42387071
submission
Dupple writes:
France, seeking fresh ways to raise funds and frustrated that American technology companies that dominate its digital economy are largely beyond the reach of French fiscal authorities, has proposed a new levy: an Internet tax on the collection of personal data.
The idea surfaced Friday in a report commissioned by President François Hollande, which described various measures his government was taking to address what the French see as tax avoidance by Internet companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook.
These companies gather vast reams of information about their users, harnessing it to tailor their services to individuals’ interests or to direct customized advertising to them. So extensive is the collection of personal details, and so promising the business opportunities linked to it, that the report described data as the “raw material” of the digital economy.
42321015
submission
Dupple writes:
The head of French telecoms operator Orange said on Wednesday it had been able to impose a deal on Google to compensate it for the vast amounts of traffic sent across its networks.
Orange CEO Stephane Richard said on France's BFM Business TV that with 230 million clients and areas where Google could not get around its network, it had been able to reach a "balance of forces" with the Internet search giant.
Richard declined to cite the figure Google had paid Orange, but said the situation showed the importance of reaching a critical size in business.
Network operators have been fuming for years that Google, with its search engine and You Tube video service, generates huge amounts of traffic but does not compensate them for using their networks.
There is an interesting editorial piece at gigaom
It turns out that Google, the great proponent of net neutrality, is paying Orange to handle its traffic on the carrier’s mobile networks. That’s an unwelcome development, and here’s why...
42028329
submission
Dupple writes:
US regulators have ordered a review of the 787 Dreamliner plane after a series of incidents put a question mark over the safety of Boeing's flagship plane.
The review by the Federal Aviation Administration will look at the design and manufacture of the planes. It is not clear whether the planes in the air at the moment will be grounded.
An electrical fire, a brake problem, a fuel spill and cracks in the cockpit's windshield have affected Dreamliner flights in the past week.
"We are absolutely confident in the reliability and performance of the 787," Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said. "We are working with the FAA and our customers to ensure we thoroughly understand any introductory issues that arise. "While we take each issue seriously, nothing we've seen in service causes us to doubt the capabilities of the airplane."
However, a spate of technical issues has hurt its image.
Problems with the brakes
A fire in boston
There is a longer list and some interesting analyses at the source
41994957
submission
Dupple writes:
It looks like the EU is coming close to a decision regarding its investigation of Google according to the FT and Search Engine Land
While saying he’s “still investigating,” the head of the European Union’s antitrust regulatory body has told the Financial Times that he’s convinced Google is “diverting traffic” and that it will be forced to change its results.
From the FT interview:
“We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google] are diverting traffic,” Mr Almunia told the Financial Times, referring to Google’s preferential treatment of its own vertical search services.
That’s Joaquin Almunia, who has been leading the EU’s investigation into charges that Google is acting anti-competitively with its search listings. Alumnia also said he felt there was an “abuse” of Google’s dominant position in search.
41937353
submission
Dupple writes:
Science may be getting closer to explaining those prune-like fingers and toes we all get when we sit in a hot bath too long.
UK researchers from Newcastle University have confirmed wet objects are easier to handle with wrinkled fingers than with dry, smooth ones.
They suggest our ancestors may have evolved the creases as they foraged for food in wet vegetation or in streams.
Their experiments are reported in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
These involved asking volunteers to pick up marbles immersed in a bucket of water with one hand and then passing them through a small slot to be deposited by the other hand in a second container.
Volunteers with wrinkled fingers routinely completed the task faster than their smooth-skinned counterparts.
41835141
submission
Dupple writes:
A few days ago Google blocked access to it's maps on WinPhone claiming that it "worked best" on WebKit based browsers — effectively excluding WinPhone users. Despite Google Maps working fine on Desktop versions of IE that uses the same rendering engine and users being able to spoof the user agent string on their WinPhones to gain access.
Now it appears that Google has backed down and is now allowing WinPhone users access.
41796505
submission
Dupple writes:
Insight Public Sector selected to deliver licensing agreement aimed at reducing IT costs while offering advanced mobility, collaboration and cloud computing capabilities to personnel.
In an effort to modernize technology infrastructure, reduce costs and foster new levels of cross-agency collaboration, the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) are expanding access to Microsoft solutions by entering into a transformative three-year Joint Enterprise Licensing Agreement for enterprise licenses and software assurance. The agreement provides all three organizations with a single vehicle for accessing the latest Microsoft technologies in support of top IT priorities around datacenter consolidation, collaboration, cybersecurity, mobility, cloud computing and big data.
This is the most comprehensive licensing agreement Microsoft Corp. has ever established with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), covering nearly 75 percent of all DoD personnel. The net new contract was awarded to Insight Public Sector, a division of Insight Enterprises Inc., one of the largest global Microsoft Large Account Resellers.
41605545
submission
Dupple writes:
According to the Dow Jones News Wires,., LG has filed an injunction in its home territory of South Korea, seeking to ban the sale of the Galaxy Note 10.1, alleging the panels inside the tablet infringe LG patents.
The injunction follows a lawsuit filed by Samsung . on 7 December, which alleged that LG infringed seven of Samsung's liquid crystal display patents. LG, which filed the injunction with the Seoul District Court on Wednesday, is aiming to block the sales of the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet computer.
41597823
submission
Dupple writes:
Craig Mundie, who famously thought tablets computing a fad, is set to leave Microsoft in 2014.
Microsoft said Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie, 63, plans to retire in 2014 after two decades at the software company and has shifted to a new role as a senior adviser to CEO Steve Ballmer.
Eric Rudder, chief technical strategy officer, is taking over some of Mundie’s duties overseeing research, privacy and security, as well as technology policy, Ballmer said in an email to staff Dec. 14 that Microsoft made public Monday.
Mundie’s job switch marks the second change to the senior leadership team within the past two months. On Nov. 12, the company announced that Windows chief Steven Sinofsky was leaving.
41568909
submission
Dupple writes:
US chipmaker Marvell Technology faces having to pay one of the biggest ever. patent damage awards.
A jury in Pittsburgh found the firm guilty of infringing two hard disk innovations owned by local university Carnegie Mellon.
Despite Marvel claiming that the CMU patents weren't valid because they hadn't invented anything new, citing that a Seagate patent. 14 months earlier described everything the CMU patents claimed, the jury found that Marvell's chips infringed claim 4 of Patent No. 6,201,839 and claim 2 of Patent No. 6,438,180. "method and apparatus for correlation-sensitive adaptive sequence detection" and "soft and hard sequence detection in ISI memory channels."
It said Marvell should pay $1.17bn (£723m) in compensation — however that sum could be multiplied up to three times by the judge because the jury had also said the act had been "wilful".
Marvell's shares fell more than 10%.
The maximum penalty would be close to the $3.96bn value of the company, based on its market capitalisation.
Marvell makes a range of chips which includes processors which power devices including Blackberry smartphones, Sony Google TV internet video boxes and LED lighting controllers, as well as hard disks.
41563861
submission
Dupple writes:
Samsung Electronics has sought a ban on the import and sales of some Ericsson products in the US which it claims infringe its patents.
In a complaint filed with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), Samsung has accused Ericsson of breaching seven of its patents.
The move counters Ericsson's complaint to the ITC, made in November, seeking a sales ban on some Samsung products.
Ericsson has also claimed that Samsung infringed some of its patents.
The Swedish firm had a licensing deal with Samsung under which the South Korean manufacturer was allowed to use various technologies patented by Ericsson in its products.
41462803
submission
Dupple writes:
On Friday, the High Court of London issued a ruling that said that one of Motorola’s patents covering technology to synchronize messages across several devices should be invalidated. Originally, the patent covered the synching of messages across multiple pagers, but recently Motorola has used the patent in lawsuits against Apple and Microsoft for using similar message-syncing services in iCloud and on the Xbox, respectively.
The presiding Judge Richard Arnold declared Motorola's patent invalid and said it should be revoked because the patent (which has a priority date from 1995, but was issued in 2002) contained technology that “was obvious to experts. in the field at the time.”
41403155
submission
Dupple writes:
The European Commission charged Samsung Electronics on Friday with abusing its dominant position in seeking to bar rival Apple from using a patent deemed essential to mobile phone use.
The Commission sent a "statement of objections" to the South Korean group, with its preliminary view that Samsung was not acting fairly.
"Intellectual property rights are an important cornerstone of the single market. However, such rights should not be misused when they are essential to implement industry standards, which bring huge benefits to businesses and consumers alike," Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in statement.
41244599
submission
Dupple writes:
Microsofts user data shows that users are getting used to dealing with Windows 8 user interface from this article on MIT technology review.
Despite some of the more scathing reviews of Windows 8, ordinary users are getting along with it just fine, according to Julie Larson-Green, the Microsoft executive who leads Windows product development. Data collected automatically from some Windows users, she says, show they are adjusting to some of the new operating system’s controversial features without problems
“So far we’re seeing very encouraging things,” Larson-Green says of the large volume of data that Microsoft receives every day from people using Windows 8 who have chosen to join the company’s “customer experience improvement program.” All users are invited to enroll in that program when they first log into the new operating system. If they do so, anonymized information about how they are using the operating system is sent to Microsoft. Referring to complaints from some quarters, Larson-Green says: “Even with the rumblings, we feel confident that it’s a moment in time more than an actual problem.”
41144603
submission
Dupple writes:
The Australian reports that South Korean government says that there was a link between working at a Samsung factory and a cancer case of one of it's workers.
A SOUTH Korean government agency says that working at a Samsung Electronics factory caused the breast cancer of a worker who died earlier this year, only the second time it has recognised a link between cancer and Samsung's chip plants.
The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service, which is part of the labour ministry, ruled earlier this month that there was a "considerable causal relationship" between the woman's cancer and her five years of work at a semiconductor plant near Seoul.
The ruling didn't become public until Friday when the agency announced compensation for the woman's family.
