4G technoloy & smart glasses:

FRANCE 24 Tech 24 - Mar 9, 2013 : Digital technology is now at the centre of many important world events, impacting everything from politics to economics to culture.

Samsung bites back after Apple victory

Published on Aug 26, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish : South Korean technology giant Samsung says consumers will now face fewer choices, less innovation and higher prices. That is after a US jury ordered the company to pay more than one billion dollars to Apple for stealing its technology. It is only one of the many international legal battles between the two, all of which could change the industry.

IP- a threat to knowledge for human benefit & free market?

Samsung ordered to pay Apple $1bn

Published on Aug 24, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish : A California jury has found that Samsung, the Korean electronics giant, deliberately copied elements of Apple's iOS-based product line.

The jury ruled that Samsung willfully infringed at least three of Cupertino-based Apple's patents, including navigation, zoom features and icons.

Microsoft Unveils a New Look

In advance of one of the most significant waves of product launches in Microsoft’s history, today we are unveiling a new logo for the company.

It’s been 25 years since we’ve updated the Microsoft logo and now is the perfect time for a change. This is an incredibly exciting year for Microsoft as we prepare to release new versions of nearly all of our products. From Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8 to Xbox services to the next version of Office, you will see a common look and feel across these products providing a familiar and seamless experience on PCs, phones, tablets and TVs. This wave of new releases is not only a reimagining of our most popular products, but also represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning.

The Microsoft brand is about much more than logos or product names. We are lucky to play a role in the lives of more than a billion people every day. The ways people experience our products are our most important “brand impressions”. That’s why the new Microsoft logo takes its inspiration from our product design principles while drawing upon the heritage of our brand values, fonts and colors.

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Apple-Samsung Patent Case : Consumers the real losers?

Published on Aug 22, 2012 by AssociatedPress : Jurors began deliberating Wednesday in a multibillion dollar patent infringement case pitting Apple against Samsung over the design of iPhones and iPads, but few experts were expecting a quick verdict. (Aug. 22)

Gmail : What is 'Last account activity'?

Last account activity shows you information about recent activity in your mail. Recent activity includes any time that your mail was accessed using a regular web browser,  a POP1 client, a mobile device, a third-party application etc. We'll list the IP address that accessed your mail, the associated location, as well as the time and date.

To see your account activity, click the Details link next to the Last account activity line at the bottom of any Gmail page.

How to understand this data

Access type

If you're concerned about unauthorized access to your mail, you'll be able to use the data in the 'Access type' column to find out if and when someone accessed your mail. For instance, if the column shows any POP access, but you don't use POP to collect your mail, it may be a sign that your account has been compromised.

Location (IP address)

In this column we list the last 10 IP addresses your mail was accessed from, and the associated locations. 

Original here 

Internet ‘doomsday’ virus caused ‘no significant outages’

Topics: DNS Changer ♦ internet service providers

The so-called Internet doomsday virus with the potential to black out tens of thousands of computers worldwide appeared to pose no major problems Monday in the first hours after a fix expired.

Security firms reported no significant outages linked to the DNS Changer virus, as many Internet service providers have either implemented a fix or contacted customers with steps to clean their computers.

The problem stems from malware known as DNS Changer, which was created by a cybercriminals to redirect Internet traffic by hijacking the domain name systems (DNS) of Web browsers.

The ring behind the DNS Changer was shut down last year by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Estonian police and other law enforcement agencies, after infecting some four million computers worldwide.

Nearly 300,000 computers appeared to be still infected as of June, according to experts monitoring the problem.

On Monday, temporary servers set up by the FBI to direct Internet traffic normally, even for infected computers, were shut down.

But security specialists said most Internet users and providers have had time to work around or fix the problem.

FBI wants to ban new Internet protocol?

With the recent unveiling of the newest Internet protocol system, trillions upon trillions of devices are being paved access to the Internet for the unforeseeable future. And right on cue, the FBI is already up in arms over IPv6.

With computing devices around the globe already switching from the current Internet protocol system, IPv4, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation is predictably picking a fight with the biggest names in cyberspace to ensure that the FBI and other agencies across North America will be able to inch themselves into the personal Web surfing habits of citizens across the world. Now requests from the FBI to ready a system to easily snoop through Internet traffic has proponents of IPv6 and industry reps alike scrambling to make sense of the feds’ demands.

Under the original and quickly antiquating Internet protocol system, IPv4, only 4.3 billion computers, modems, smart phones and other wired devices can send and receive information through cyberspace. When the latest rollover to IPv6 is complete, however, 340 undecillion addresses (that’s a lot) will be able to be assigned. On the plus side, trillions of more devices will able to be delivered information over the Internet. The FBI, however, wants to make sure that they can still catch cyber criminals and suggest that they might have to insist that the private sector aids them in their future endeavors.

According to report filed this week by Cnet’s Declan McCullagh, the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials have jointly asked Internet representatives that traceability features be enabled with IPv6 that will allow federal agents to identify suspected cybercriminals with the same kind of ease evident with IPv4. Given that the government is already having trouble trying to find alleged cyberterrorists over the Internet as is, though, they might seriously have their work cut out for them. That’s where McCullagh reports, “The FBI has even suggested that a new law may be necessary if the private sector doesn't do enough voluntarily.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an official with the FBI clues Cnet in on just why the agency is against the next-generation Internet protocol:

“An issue may also arise around the amount of registration information that is maintained by providers and the amount of historical logging that exists. Today there are complete registries of what IPv4 addresses are ‘owned’ by an operator. Depending on how the IPv6 system is rolled out, that registry may or may not be sufficient for law enforcement to identify what device is accessing the Internet.”

If hunting for cybercriminals is comparable to searching for a needle in a haystack under IPv4, with IPv6 it will be on par with scouring the stratosphere for a single molecule of oxygen.

John Curran of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) tells Cnet, "We're looking at a problem that's about to occur," and adds that, “as service providers start to roll out V6,” that’s exactly what they’ll receive. The answer, according to the FBI, might be a whole new set of legislation that will let them scour cyberspace for the answers for federal inquiries into alleged Internet crimes.

"We're hoping through all of this you can come up with some self-regulatory method in which you can do it," FBI supervisory special agent Bobby Flaim said at an ARIN meeting earlier this year, reports Cnet . "Because otherwise, there will be other things that people are going to consider."

Original report RT | 19 June, 2012

Facebook's patent spree:

When a company with nearly limitless resources shows itself ready to spend whatever is necessary to beef up its intellectual property portfolio, patent challengers have added incentive to seek out easier fights elsewhere.

So it is that Facebook is again putting its very deep pockets to work, adding a new clutch of patents from Microsoft to an earlier trove it acquired from IBM. The message to Yahoo and beyond is clear: Do you want to get into a spending war with a company whose deep pockets are about to get a lot deeper? In other words, there's a lot more where that came from.

All this marks a rapid turnaround for Facebook. The announcement earlier today that Facebook would spend $550 million to buy patents held by Microsoft was the second big patent purchase by the social networking company in as many months.

At the end of 2011, Facebook had only 56 U.S. patents. But it received the proverbial wake-up call when Yahoo sued the company, claiming that Facebook infringed upon several of its patents. Rejecting the allegations,Facebook has since countersued.

Then in March, Facebook acquired about 750 patents held by IBM, covering software and networking, for an undisclosed sum. And now this agreement to purchase a portion of the patent portfolio Microsoft recently agreed to acquire from AOL. As of today, the company is estimated to have 775 granted U.S. patents and approximately 100 pending U.S. applications, according to Erin-Michael Gill, a managing director and chief intellectual property officer at MDB Capital Group.

source 

IP : Apple faces $600m damages claim

The row covers technology used in iTunes, Time Machine and Spotlight

Apple has asked a court to reconsider an impending decision that could cost it more than $600m (£379m) in damages.

On 1 October, a US jury found in favour of Mirror Worlds in a patent wrangle over technology to display documents on computer screens.

Mirror Worlds alleged that Apple had infringed four of its patents.

After weighing evidence the jury said three had been infringed and awarded the company $208.5m damages for each one.

BBC News :  5 October 2010