Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 262

It seems as though Apple is on track to pass Intel as the world's largest mobile device chip provider, if all things continue as they are, before the end of 2012. This is according to technology research firm, In-Stat. The continued success is thanks to Apple's amazingly popular mobile devices, as well as the selective use of manufacturing partners such as ARM and Samsung.

The study done by In-Stat included what are commonly thought of as "mobile" devices, this includes notebooks, smartphones, tablets, handheld gaming systems, e-readers and the iPod Touch. It completely excludes desktop computers and servers. By the end of 2011, Apple were already in second place, where they sat behind Intel, shy of 5 million processor shipments. Apple had a total of 176 million mobile processors shipped, compared to Intel's 181 million. This provided Apple with a 13.5-percent share of the mobile device market versus Intel's 13.9-percent.

Considering Apple seem to be unstoppable, one would think that Intel would eventually turn into a serious rival of Intel's, but that might not be the case. Intel has long held out the possibility that Apple would eventually switch over to its own mobile processors in the future, and has been spending big amounts of time and money on new smartphone, tablet and Ultrabook-capable chips in order to stake claim in some future market share. Intel hopes to compete head-to-head against ARM's processors with a low-power Atom chip called Medfield, which will roll out over the rest of 2012.

Bit of a strange one here, but I guess it can make sense, too. According to a leaked e-mail from Alain Crozier, the chief financial officer of Microsoft's Sales, Marketing, Services, IT, & Operations Group (SMSG), Microsoft may install a policy that prevents employees from using corporate funds to purchase Macs and iPads.

The e-mail was passed onto a ZDNet writer, in its entirety below:

From: Alain Crozier

This is just getting ridiculous. First, Apple sues for its "Slide-to-unlock" patent, and now Varia Holdings Inc. sues for a patent regarding using a menu to select an emoticon instead of typing it character-by-character. I mean, really? How did this even get a patent in the first place? Take a look at the picture below. "It is known that for many users, their email and instant messaging communications... often involve the use of emoticons, such as the 'smiling face' or the 'sad face,'" the patent says. "However, few email or instant messaging applications offer any assistance to a user to enter and use emoticons in their communications."

If this patent is true, they need to be suing more than just Samsung and RIM. Microsoft Live Messenger, AIM, and Skype all have menus for emoticon selection. So why just these two companies? It appears they have the most infringing devices. The lawsuit claims a long list of Samsung phones infringe along with Blackberry's Bold, Curve, Pearl, and Storm. If you would like to read the patent for yourself, you can view it here.

The courts really need to issue a smack down upon this lawsuit and develop some case-law regarding what technology can be patented. This is hardly a technology; this is just a user interface, and nothing revolutionary at that. People have been using menus ever since the GUI was invented. Take for example last year when an appeals court ruled that a patent on the concept of detecting credit card fraud was too abstract to merit patent protection. This is a similar idea here. Only time will tell what the courts actually do, though.

Google has come to the aid of Megaupload and Hotfile, surprisingly, where they filed a brief at a federal court in Florida, defending the file-hosting site Hotfile in its case against the MPAA. Google acuses the movie companies of misleading the court, arguing that Hotfile is protected under the DMCA's safe harbor. Google is also refuting claims being made by the US government in the criminal case against Megaupload.

It was back in February of 2011 that the MPAA announced a lawsuit against Hotfile, where the site's popularity is "a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes", the MPAA said. Two weeks ago, the movie studios asked the court to issue a summary judgement against Hotfile, and to shut down the site. The MPAA argues that Hotfile is a piracy haven, and should not be eligible for DMCA safe harbor protection.

This request did not pass the eyes and ears of Google, who have now filed an amicus brief in support of Hotfile, and according to Google, the movie studios are misleading the court by wrongfully suggesting that Hotfile is not protected by the DMCA. Google has pointed out that YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia are able to thrive thanks to the protection that the DMCA provides. Whereas, if the MPAA has its way, these and more services would be in quite serious trouble.

I'm having quite the laugh at this one. The Pirate Bay posted on their official blog that they are planning to experiment putting servers into low space orbit using radio-controlled drones to avoid being raided by ground-based police. While they will continue to only host the magnet links that they have been hosting terrestrially, this will make raiding and shutting down there servers much more difficult.

The front machines will still be located all over the planet, terrestrially bound, but all these machines do is forward you on to the secret locations of the actual servers hosting the data. These machines don't even have a hard drive. Right now they forward you to machines on the ground, but, if these experiments work, they may be sending your data into the last frontier: space.

A post on The Pirate Bay's blog says the following:

Today may just be Kim Dotcom's lucky day. I'm sure most of us remember that fateful day 8 weeks ago when his mansion was raided by police. Well, apparently, his house was raided on a court order that should have never been granted. A judgment from Justice Judith Potter on Friday declared the restraining order "null and void" and having "no legal effect" which means that the government may be forced to return his assets and property back to him.

Justice Potter has said that after the police found the mistake, they sought to correct the mistake after the raid by applying for the proper order, retrospectively listing assets already seized. This order has been granted temporarily, but Potter has said that she will rule on whether this means Mr. Dotcom should get his property back. The raid left him without any money or means to fight the charges that he was running the biggest criminal copyright operation in history.

Court papers show Akel stating Dotcom's belongings and fortune "must be released" because it was "unlawfully seized and restrained under the order". All of this does not guarantee Mr. Dotcom's property back, however. The law allows for mistakes, and for him to get his property back, his lawyers will need to show a "lack of good faith."

Minority Report fans, check in, please. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has started up a new initiative, Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), where it aims to use sensor technology to detect cues "indicative of mal-intent", as defined by the DHS, as intent or desire to cause real harm, "rapidly, reliably, and remotely". They would use it to, "fight terror".

What is the FAST system capable of? Well, it has the features to monitor physiological and behavioral cues without contact. This means it is capable of capturing data such as your heart rate and steadiness of gaze of passengers that are about to board a plane. With said cues, FAST can then run through algorithms in real-time to compute the probability than an individual is planning to commit a crime.

According to the science journal, Nature, the first round of field tests for the program was completed at an "undisclosed location" in the northeast several months ago, where in lab tests, FAST reported a 70-percent accuracy rate. Not too damn bad for what would be a first-gen attempt/device.

Apple have a very delicious kitty of nearly $100 billion in cash reserves right now, with $97.6 billion to be precise. Come 9AM Eastern on Monday, March 19, CEO Tim Cook as well as CFO Peter Oppenheimer will discuss the "outcome of the Company's discussions".

Apple will offer this discussion as a phone call and as a live stream with replays available for two weeks afterwards. Apple have actively been discussing what they should do with their cash reserves, where other companies would spend it, or acquire other smaller companies, or start-ups, Apple have just been saving, saving, saving.

Investment analysts have complained more than once that Apple should offer a dividend payout to shareholders despite the stock being the largest in the world, as well as one of the fastest growing, too. Apple have always been careful of its spending, which is at least attributed to the late Steve Jobs. Most believed that Jobs had recognized what happened to Apple previously in his absence from the company, and used it as a sign to build a cash reserve in the event of an unforeseen circumstance such as a sharp market drop, economic crisis, or something along those lines.

Here comes another blow to the search giant. Not only are they being investigated by both US and EU regulators, but they are now being sued. A lawsuit has been filed in California Superior Court that is seeking class-action status, damages, and attorneys' fees and costs. The lawsuit names California residents Dodd J. Harris and Stephen Sabatino. Harris is upset because he purchased the app "Learn Chinese Mandarin Pro" for $4.83 in December. He claims that the app did not work as advertised, but he was too late. It was already 20 minutes past his purchase. Google's return policy only allows 15 minutes.

Sabatino, on the other hand, bought "aBTC", a BitTorrent client for Android, for $4.99 in January. The product didn't work, however, he tried tinkering with it for an hour before attempting to unsuccessfully return it. In December 2010, Google lowered the return policy on apps from 24 hours to 15 minutes. They stated this was because "most users who request a refund do so within minutes of purchase."

In addition to the refund policy, the suit is challenging Google's app approval process, or lack there of. Google, unlike Apple, has previously allowed any app to be posted to the market. This has led to many apps on the market which contain malware. In response to this, Google last month added a new layer of security, dubbed Bouncer, which will attempt to scan apps for evidence of malware and bounce them.

US and EU regulators have launched an investigation into Google and the allegations that they bypassed the privacy settings of Safari users on both desktop and mobile iOS users. Google spokeswoman contends that these actions were unintended. She said, "It's important to remember that we didn't anticipate this would happen, and we have been removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers." Let's try to understand what happened in a little more detail.

Google has discovered that when they created a temporary link between the user's Safari browser and Google's servers, it allowed other ad cookies to be placed on the browser. Google has since been removing these files, but the damage for Google has already been done. These investigations could have Google on the hook financially for quite a lot. If they are found to have broken a settlement agreement FTC, they could be fined $16,000 per violation, per day. In addition, state attorneys general can levy fines of up to $5,000 per violation. And all of this is only state side.

The French Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertes, or CNIL levied a fine against Google last year which amount to around $136,000, and they have added the Safari circumvention technique to their existing pan-European investigation into Google's privacy-policy changes. Google has agreed to comply with any officials who have questions. In order for Google to be on the hook for the US FTC fines of $16,000 a day per violation, they have to prove that Google acted intentionally.