58264179
submission
itwbennett writes:
U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh on Sunday overruled Samsung Electronics' objections to showing jurors a recent instructional video on how patents work, ahead of a trial in a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung. The new video, called "The Patent Process: An Overview for Jurors," was developed by the Federal Judicial Center to provide jurors with an introduction to the patent system. Samsung's objection is to several scenes in which Apple products are depicted and used (and, by extension, seen as patentable and innovative).
58263121
submission
itwbennett writes:
Creighton University professor William Duckworth has released a report finding that kill-switch technology that remotely makes a stolen smartphone useless could save American consumers up to $2.6 billion per year — mostly from reduced insurance premiums. Duckworth estimated that Americans currently spend around $580 million replacing stolen phones each year and $4.8 billion paying for handset insurance. If a kill-switch led to a sharp reduction in theft of phones, most of the $580 million spent on replacing stolen phones would be saved. And a further $2 billion in savings could be realized by switching to cheaper insurance plans that don't cover theft.
58262663
submission
jfruh writes:
Facebook and Google only make money from people when they can access the Internet, so it stands to reason that they're working to make sure everyone can access the Internet. While Google's Project Loon seeks to use balloon-borne equipment, Mark Zuckerberg envisions a system of drones and laser beams.
58262539
submission
jfruh writes:
In Japan, everything from escalators to trucks issue automated voice warnings to users or people nearby, and so humans need to be able to grasp which robotic speech is most urgent to listen to. Fujitsu is working on technology that will autmatically add emotional tones to auto-generated voice messaging — for instance, a warning system could inform factory workers about a mechanical failure in an increasingly urgent tone of voice.
58193861
submission
itwbennett writes:
A little-known U.S. space plane quietly broke its own space endurance record this week as its current unmanned mission surpassed 469 days in space. What it was doing up there for so long is a secret closely held by the Air Force, but Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an authority on satellites and launches, thinks it's serving a similar role as the space shuttle by carrying a science or intelligence payload. 'I believe it's testing some kind of experimental sensor for the National Reconnaissance Office; for example, a hyperspectral imager, or some new kind of signals intelligence package,' said McDowell. 'The sensor was more successful than expected, so the payload customer asked the X-37 folks to keep the spacecraft in orbit longer.'
58192457
submission
jfruh writes:
The functionality that allows users to share data from one Android app to another is incredibly powerful, with many more options than its iOS equivalent. But it's also overwhelming, confusing, and hard to customize. Blogger Kevin Purdy has some suggestions on how to tweak Android sharing so that users can get the most out of it, by allowing user customization and giving more scope for app devs to guide users to show them what they're missing.
58191813
submission
jfruh writes:
You will probably not be surprised to learn that Chinese search giant Baidu censors a wide range of content, particularly political material deemed to be pro-democracy — and does so for users everywhere, not just in China. A group of activists filed suit against Baidu in New York for violating free speech laws, but the judge in the case declared that, as a private entity in the United States, Baidu has the right to provide whatever kind of search results it wants, even for political reasons.
58190035
submission
alphadogg writes:
Attorneys say they're making progress toward a possible settlement in Silicon Valley's employee poaching case, in which Google, Apple and other companies are accused of conspiring not to hire employees from other tech giants. During a hearing on Thursday in a San Jose court, attorneys on both sides said they were working daily with a mediator to resolve the dispute, which involves alleged secret agreements among the firms not to poach each other's workers. Those agreements would violate federal antitrust laws. The case dates back to 2011, when Silicon Valley software engineers alleged that Adobe Systems, Apple, Google, Intuit, Intel, Lucasfilm and Pixar engaged in an "overarching conspiracy" to fix and suppress employee compensation and to restrict employees' mobility. The class covered by the suit is estimated at 60,000 workers.
58157495
submission
jfruh writes:
The latest developments in the sad saga of Mt. Gox's missing bitcoins: the exchange has announced that it's working with Japanese police to try to determine who (if anyone) stole the bitcoins entrusted to Mt. Gox, resulting in the company's collapse. There are serious doubts as to Japanese law enforcement's abilities to deal with the technical issues involved. Meanwhile, Mt. Gox creditors Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles offer to testify in their lawsuit against him from Taiwan, and have demanded that he come to the United States.
58133073
submission
itwbennett writes:
A new variant of the Gameover computer Trojan is targeting job seekers and recruiters by attempting to steal log-in credentials for Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com accounts. Like the Zeus banking malware on which it is based, Gameover can steal log-in credentials and other sensitive information by injecting rogue Web forms into legitimate websites when accessed from infected computers. 'A computer infected with Gameover ZeuS will inject a new 'Sign In' button [into the Monster.com sign-in page], but the page looks otherwise identical,' security researchers from antivirus firm F-Secure said Tuesday in a blog post.
58121829
submission
jfruh writes:
The venerable Nortel Networks may have vanished into bankruptcy five years ago, but thanks to U.S. patent law, it can strike back at its old rival Cisco from beyond the grave. Spherix, a Virginia-based 'research company' that bought Nortel's patents in 2009, has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that Cisco has been knowingly violating 11 Nortel patents. 'The vast majority of Cisco's switching and routing revenue from March 2008 until the present is and has been generated by products and services implementing technology that infringes the Asserted Patents,' the lawsuit claims.
58121675
submission
jfruh writes:
Security vendors like Trustwave can make big bucks when major companies decide they don't have the internal resources to handle their cybersecurity needs. Unfortunately, when taking on security chores, you also take on security liabilities. In the wake of Target's massive credit card security breach, Trustwave in on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit, in part backed by banks that had to issue thousands of new credit cards. You'd think Target would want to get in on this lawsuit too.
58096425
submission
itwbennett writes:
Google has made sizeable price cuts across its storage, compute and BigQuery analysis services (e.g., Google BigQuery on-demand prices have been reduced by up to 85%). Google has also introduced a number of new services, including managed virtual machines, an extension of BigQuery for live data and the ability to run copies of the enterprise-ready Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Suse Linux and Windows Server 2008 R2. Collectively, these announcements show that Google may be coming to understand that 'they really need to step it up' in the market for cloud computing services, said John Rymer, Forrester Research's principal analyst covering application development and delivery
58091045
submission
itwbennett writes:
One of the Ouya micro-consoles's selling points has been that you can sample every game for free. That requirement is going away soon. In a blog post Ouya's Bob Mills said 'In the coming weeks, we’re going to let devs choose if they want to charge up front for their games. Now they’ll be able to choose between a free-to-try or paid model.' Good news for developers, perhaps not as good for customers. 'Maybe this new policy will attract new developers that can offer something compelling enough to be a system seller,' writes blogger Peter Smith.
58058947
submission
itwbennett writes:
Researchers from Trend Micro have warned that a vulnerability in Android that was publicly disclosed in mid-March could be exploited by malicious applications to force devices into an endless reboot loop. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by tricking users into installing a maliciously crafted app that includes a large amount of data in an Activity label, the equivalent of the window title on Windows. For example, the app could include a legitimate Activity that's used by default and a hidden, malicious one that's triggered based on a timer to crash the device, the Trend Micro researchers said. 'An even worse case is when the malware is written to start automatically upon device startup,' they said. 'Doing so will trap the device in a rebooting loop, rendering it useless.' Android versions 4.0 and above are affected.
