Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 241

Apple and Samsung have been at each others throats for what feels like years now, and if you didn't hear, just recently Apple settled with HTC over patents - and now Samsung want the details of this settlement.

On Friday, the South Korean device maker asked a court to force Apple to provide them with a copy of the HTC deal, where they argued that the deal most likely covers some of the patents covered in their own case against Apple. Samsung wrote in their filing with the court:

As you know, the issue of Apple's willingness to license its patents was briefed in Samsung's opposition to Apple's motion for permanent injunction. This license has direct bearing on the question of irreparable harm and whether monetary remedies are adequate.

According to Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, Amazon's streaming service that comes with an Amazon Prime membership isn't anywhere near profitable. In fact, he pegs the yearly loss at an amount somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. That's an incredible price to pay to try and enter a market, but Amazon has the ability to do so.

The way Hastings has determined this estimate is by using the value of content deals that Amazon picked up when Netflix and Amazon were directly competing for them. Netflix is planning on spending over $2 billion on content over the next year, so the fact that Amazon is only losing $1 billion isn't such a big deal.

Both Amazon and Netflix charge the same amount per month for their services, $8, but Amazon also offers free two-day shipping and other benefits for that $8. Amazon spokesman Andrew Herdener, via email to All Things D: "We don't comment on our individual investments but it's correct that Prime Instant Video is an amazing value for customers. Not only do Prime members get unlimited streaming video, but they also get free 2-day shipping and the Kindle Owners' Lending Library as well."

The wireless service here in the U.S. is absolutely abysmal as customers and handset manufacturers are caught in a whirlwind of phone exclusivity, price increases and data throttling across the majority of our wireless networks. Something needs to change soon, and hopefully, that change could be a new wireless service between Google and Dish Network if recent reports turn out to be a true.

According to the WSJ, Google and Dish Network have been in talks over possibly partnering up to create their own wireless service. As of now, the talks are in their very early stages as Google currently isn't the only company Dish Network is in talks with, but seeing as Google has been moving ahead with its Google Fiber, it would be interesting to see the company also deliver a wireless network to its potential customers.

If the plan works out and Google and Dish Network partner up to provide a wireless network, it would be interesting to see what types of devices will be supported within the network. Android devices would certainly be a no-brainer, but I'm curious to see if iOS devices like the iPhone or iPad will be invited into the party or if it will be an Android-only network.

Google have just announced that they're investing $75 million into a 50mW wind farm in Rippey, which is around an hour outside of Des Moines. This latest investment sees the Mountain View-based company's total investment into renewable energy at "more than $990 million", edging close to that magical $1 billion mark.

The Rippey-based project is being done by RPM access, who are estimated to produce enough energy to power over 15,000 Iowa homes thanks to the turbines produced in Nordex USA. Google reiterate that both company's are based in the US, enforcing that Google are also an American company. Google are pushing for renewable energy in Iowa as they have a data center in Council Bluffs, and have been pumping money into the area since they opened the data center five years ago:

In 2007, we announced plans to construct a data center in Council Bluffs. Then in the spring of 2012, we announced that we would be building a second facility. Over time, we've invested over $900 million and have established a long-term commitment to the region and state. We've created over 130 jobs on site so far, and we work hard to support the communities in which our employees live and work.

One would think this rule would've been enforced on day-one, but another NASA employee's laptop was stolen from a locked car two weeks ago, containing "personally identifiable information". Officials are now concerned that NASA workers are at risk of identity theft.

The laptop's HDD that was stolen wasn't encrypted, and no top of that, neither were the included sensitive documents. The theft is being used as a wake up call for NASA to severely increase security standards on employees' laptops. This isn't the first leak, as in March of 2011 a laptop was stolen which contained - wait for it - control codes for the damn International Space Station and since, the space agency hasn't beefed up security, until now.

NASA Inspector General, Paul Martin, has told Congress that from April 2009 to April 2011 - a two-year period - that an estimated 48 laptops and mobile devices had been lost or stolen, and worse, just 1% of agency devices were encrypted. Associate deputy administrator Richard Keegan Jr. has, effective immediately, required that "no NASA-issued laptops containing sensitive information can be removed from a NASA facility unless whole disk encryption software is enabled".

This should really come as a surprise to, well, no one. The consumer tech world has changed, and gone are the requirement for desktops for productivity work or surfing the web - you can do all of this on a smartphone, or a notebook. Recent figures have pointed toward a decline for this year in relation to PC sales, a first in 11 years.

More and more consumers are grabbing smart devices, and while some analysts have hopes for Windows 8, Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes, isn't so sure on PC sales. Reitzes says that PC sales could decline "for years to come" and has now reduced his estimates for 2012, all the way up until 2016. Reitzes wrote in a research note that Forbes reported on:

We are lowering our 2012-2016 PC forecasts due to weak macro conditions, confusion around Windows 8, ongoing cannibalization from tablets, and an elongation in replacement cycles.

PayPal is about to get to know your face a whole lot better, with the company looking to use facial recognition technology in a trial in Australia for in-store payments. All you'll need to do is finish your shopping, "check-in" at a store on your smartphone, place an order, and have the sales assistant check your photo ID when it pops up on their terminal.

The facial recognition-based tech is said to ramp up over the next three years, as Australians become more and more technology dependant. They're becoming much more comfortable using them to shop, and online payment provider PayPal is jumping at the chance.

Nielsen's latest figures have shown that an estimate of annual purchases of goods and services using smartphones was just $155 million two years ago, that figure has now rocketed up to $5.6 billion. To say that this is a large jump would be a severe understatement. At the end of this week, PayPal's new technology will be unveiled at Sydney fashion outlet Glue Store's Pitt St flagship site, after which it will begin its rollout at other locations across Victoria, NSW and Queensland before the end of the year.

Apple must really be regretting some decisions made in the past, their stock prices are looking like they've been a stock market piñata and now main competitor and the receiving end of their nasty patent lawsuit, Samsung, are increasing the prices on the components that get baked into Apple's bread and butter, the iPad and iPhone.

Chosun Ilbo has said that Samsung have just increased the price of manufacturing Apple's application processors by close to 20%, where they also note that this is the first time that the South Korean Galaxy device maker has increased the pricing on processors to Apple, but with a lack of alternative options, Apple has had to agree.

Apple's A-series of processors are custom-designed by Apple, but they are actually built by Samsung. This relationship, as you can imagine, is beginning to really whither away. Apple have slowly been diversifying away from their reliance on Samsung, but unfortunately no one can match the production volume that Samsung has to offer - leaving Apple stuck for the time being.

A court in Australia has ruled that Google published defamatory content linking Milorad Trkulja with gangsters in Melbourne. The issue in question is whether or not Google publishing links to other sites constitutes publishing defamatory content, if the links point to sites where possibly defamatory content is posted.

In this case, the top links pointed to sites which linked Trkulja with references to Melbourne's gangs. Google of course denied that they published any material--after all, they didn't write these other websites. Google also argued that the material in question did not convey the defamatory implications that Trkulja said they did.

"What the court's said here is that this isn't just innocent architecture, what this is is human-designed software to showcase information in a certain way," Bond University media law expert Mark Pearson told AFP. "The judge has said that because you (Google) have designed (the search results) to appear in this way, you are the publisher of the material."

Uh oh, a group of US Navy SEALs have been disciplined over leaking out secret practices to Electronic Arts earlier this year. At least seven members of SEAL Team Six, an elite special forces group, have reportedly worked as paid consultants for EA over a two-day period this past spring and summer.

Four members have since left the unit, and are also under investigation. The soldiers reportedly talked to EA and their work in special missions, all as data for Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The report states that the SEAL members used classified information that may have been given to them by the Navy and that they voluntarily violated the understanding that SEALs are silent warriors that don't like the public spotlight.

But, given that SEAL Team Six were involved in the raid that assassinated Osama bin Laden last year, that whole "we don't like the public spotlight" thing, has been kinda hard. Hollywood have two movies locked and loaded, one regarding the rescue of the captain of a container ship that had been kidnapped by Somali pirates, and the other centered on the raid itself on bin Laden.