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Google, PayPal tussle over mobile payment secrets (AP) : Technet |
- Google, PayPal tussle over mobile payment secrets (AP)
- Skype says some users had problems signing in (AP)
- Sony starts to restore PlayStation service in Asia (AP)
- Tecca TV: TechLife on iPad apps for cats, tweeting Toyotas, an invisible phone and more (Yahoo! News)
- Just Show Me: An overview of Google Music Beta (Yahoo! News)
- Can Crowdsourcing Make Any Dream Come True? (Mashable)
- Napa Valley blends wine and Internet for charity (AFP)
- PayPal Says Google Wallet Steals Trade Secrets (NewsFactor)
- Microsoft rewards young Irish hacker for Xbox shenanigans (Digital Trends)
- Making money from paid apps in Android Market a challenge for app developers (Digital Trends)
- Twitter chief picked as Obama telecom advisor (AFP)
- Amazon Challenges Apple With New Mac App Store (NewsFactor)
- OpenFeint bringing 3 million players to Android per month (Appolicious)
- FCC asks AT&T about spectrum claims (Reuters)
- Dish slashes Blockbuster prices (Investor's Business Daily)
- Teen faces court suits from Apple for White iPhone conversion kits (Digital Trends)
- Google, Facebook lose social network patent ruling (Reuters)
- Cuba announces tax break for private businesses (AP)
| Google, PayPal tussle over mobile payment secrets (AP) Posted: 27 May 2011 01:01 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc.'s ambitious plan to supplant credit cards with smartphones has thrust the Internet search leader into a legal tussle with online payment pioneer PayPal, which contends Google stole its ideas by hiring away two key executives. PayPal painted a picture of betrayal and corporate espionage in a lawsuit filed late Thursday in a California state court, just hours after the unveiling of the "Google Wallet" payment service in New York. The 28-page complaint alleges the service evolved from research that eBay Inc.'s PayPal had been working on for the past decade. PayPal fingers two central culprits in the intellectual heist — one of its former executives, Osama Bedier, and former eBay executive Stephanie Tilenius. In its response Friday, Google contends it merely identified talented candidates to run its mobile payments service and then made them offers that proved too tempting to refuse. "Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, a principle recognized by both California law and public policy," Google spokesman Aaron Zamost said. "We respect trade secrets, and will defend ourselves against these claims." The civil complaint alleges Google spent more than two years discussing a partnership that would have relied on PayPal to process payments for an application market set up for Google's mobile phone software, Android. Google cut off the Android talks earlier this year after it had poached enough PayPal employees to set up its own mobile payments service, according to the suit. The suit doesn't directly connect the application markets system with the technology behind Google Wallet. Google recruited Bedier, a PayPal executive for nine years, while the two companies were in talks about their alliance. After initially waffling, Bedier left PayPal to become Google's vice president of payments four months ago. Before leaving, Bedier transferred some of PayPal's secrets to his computer and also uploaded other sensitive information to an Internet storage locker called DropBox, the suit alleged. Bedier also began lobbying for Google to hire other PayPal employees working on mobile payments before he took the new job, the suit said. Google wanted to hire Bedier so badly that Eric Schmidt, then Google's CEO, and company co-founder Larry Page got involved in the recruitment last fall, according to the suit. Page replaced Schmidt as Google's CEO last month. Tilenius, now Google's vice president of commerce, began the wooing of Bedier with a Facebook message on July 15, 2010. As part of an agreement when she left eBay in October 2009, Tilenius had agreed not to recruit eBay employees until March of this year, the suit said. Google, Tilenius and Bedier are all named as defendants in the suit filed in Santa Clara County. It seeks to a court order protecting PayPal's trade secrets, punitive damages and royalties from any revenue generated by Google Wallet. It's not unusual for a company to go to court when a rival hires away a key executive. Google also was sued six years ago when it hired a top Microsoft Corp. executive to oversee its China operations. Before the case was settled, both companies filed documents that revealed colorful details about their rivalry. Google, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., also was among six Silicon Valley employers who got into trouble with the U.S. Justice Department for agreeing not recruit each other's top engineers and other workers with specialized skills. The companies settled the allegations last fall by agreeing not to enter into "no-solicitation" agreements for five years. Neither eBay nor PayPal were among the employers involved in that settlement. |
| Skype says some users had problems signing in (AP) Posted: 27 May 2011 02:07 PM PDT NEW YORK – Internet phone service Skype says a small percentage of its 170 million users have been unable to sign in to its service, a problem that it expects to fix with a software update. Skype said on its website the trouble stemmed from corrupted data affecting computers using Windows, Linux or Macintosh operating systems. The company, which is based in Luxembourg, said it released a new version of Skype for Windows late Thursday to deal with issue. On Friday, it released a version for Mac. Linux users were told to delete a file manually. Skype said individuals using its service on cellphones, televisions or other non-computer devices were unaffected. Skype's service, which allows users to make voice or video calls for free or for low rates, has become a popular way to lower calling costs. Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, is buying Skype for $8.5 billion in a deal expected to close by the end of the year. Microsoft believes Skype will help it sell more digital advertising and offer more popular conferencing tools to help businesses save money. Skype's services also span hot markets — online socializing, mobile phones and digital video — where Microsoft has been struggling to catch up with Facebook, Apple Inc. and Google Inc. |
| Sony starts to restore PlayStation service in Asia (AP) Posted: 27 May 2011 11:13 AM PDT NEW YORK – Sony has begun restoring access to its PlayStation Network and Qriocity movie and music service in Japan and elsewhere in Asia. The company shut down the services in April after a massive security breach that affected more than 100 online accounts. The company started restoring service in the U.S. and Europe on May 15. Sony Corp. said Friday it is beginning a phased restoration of the service in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia on Saturday. Video game consoles such as the PlayStation are effectively banned in China. Sony says it has added "considerable" security enhancements to its service. In the first phase of the network restoration, the PlayStation online store and any other service that involves a credit card transaction won't be available. |
| Posted: 27 May 2011 06:40 PM PDT
This week we discuss the new Barnes & Noble Nook eReader, Toyota's social network for your car, iPad apps for cats, trading cards going high-tech with video screens, and a system for mapping your phone's touchscreen to the palm of your hand. Be sure to check out the detailed show notes below to find more information on all the stories we covered. And of course as always, we would love your feedback on this edition of TechLife! Please let us know your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to tune in next Friday for another episode of TechLife on Tecca TV! Show notes
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| Just Show Me: An overview of Google Music Beta (Yahoo! News) Posted: 27 May 2011 06:39 PM PDT
Welcome one and all to Just Show Me, where we give you short tips and tricks for getting the most out of your gadgets. In our last episode we showed you how to download apps to your iPad, and today we've got an episode especially for music fans. Check out the video above for a first look at Google Music, the search giant's new cloud service that lets you access your tunes from anywhere. If you already know all about Google Music, why not pass this on to the music fan in your life? If you want to know more about the service, be sure to check out our full review. And if you've already tried out the service and decided it's not for you, why not check out 6 alternatives to Google Music? Plus as always, be sure to let us know what you'd like to see Just Show Me cover in a future episode!
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| Can Crowdsourcing Make Any Dream Come True? (Mashable) Posted: 26 May 2011 06:22 PM PDT When's the last time you got something just because you asked for it? That's the premise behind Wish Upon a Hero, an online platform that allows anyone to post — or grant — a wish. It's an interesting experiment in crowdsourced social good. After registering, anybody can post a wish for anything, whether it's for a positive goal like sending a terminally ill child to camp or simply asking for help with rent. It is then up to the community at large to decide if and who it should help. [More from Mashable: 10 Fascinating Facebook Facts – And What They Say About Us] So far, the results have been overwhelmingly positive. Since Wish Upon a Hero launched in 2007, more than 77,000 wishes have been granted. These include paying for a leukemia patient's "dream wedding," an appliance retailer that donated a refrigerator to a single mom with a newborn, a man who bought uniforms for a local little league team, a group of eighth graders that helped a fellow student whose home was lost in a fire, and a plastic surgeon who helped an uninsured breast cancer survivor.
[More from Mashable: The Atlantic Launches Twitter-Based Book Club]
While many of the wishes have a financial element, even more are about connecting people with unique skills. For example, a wish to throw a ball in Yankee stadium could be fulfilled with buckets of cash, or by a kind stadium groundskeeper. Anyone can search through a list of wishes by category such as "need" versus "want," "disabilities," "cause supported" and more. Wish granters can choose to help anonymously or to be recognized on the website. What do you make of the platform? And how much can we trust the crowd to make the best decision? Let us know in the comments below. Image courtesy of Flickr, bibendum84 This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| Napa Valley blends wine and Internet for charity (AFP) Posted: 27 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Internet technology will blend with coveted vintages next week to open a premier Napa Valley wine country charity auction to the world. Oenophiles from anywhere on the globe will be able to bid in real-time against rivals at the Auction Napa Valley site for lots featured online at napavintners.com/anv. "We like to say you can have a virtual Napa Valley experience from wherever you are in the world -- you could bid in your pajamas if you want to," said Andy Schweiger of Schweiger Vineyards, who heads the auction's online component. "It's a never-before-seen, really amazing global outreach that brings together the best of Napa Valley, all for great causes that support healthcare, youth services and affordable housing non-profit programs." Online bidders will get to duel with rivals lucky enough to be able to take part in auction festivities that start June 3 and culminates during the weekend in a live auction at the prestigious Meadowood Napa Valley resort. Bidders able to make it to the Napa Valley venue will be able for the first time to use smartphones to access information about lots by snapping pictures of "QR codes" that automatically connect them to data hosted online. Online bidding gets under way on May 29 and will continue into the evening of June 5 in California. "I don't know of any charity wine auction that engages the wine-loving community so broadly," said Linda Reiff, executive director of the Napa Valley Vintners Association trade group behind the event. "The discussion on social media has been fantastic and the excitement is gaining momentum every day." This is the 31st year for the annual charity event, which has raised a total of $97 million, according to Reiff. "This is our chance to take this venerable charity auction to the next level," Reiff said of opening the event to the world using Internet technologies. |
| PayPal Says Google Wallet Steals Trade Secrets (NewsFactor) Posted: 27 May 2011 02:26 PM PDT While Google was outlining Google Wallet for mobile payments, PayPal was readying a lawsuit against the search giant. eBay-owned PayPal filed suit against Google and two executives for allegedly stealing trade secrets that helped Google develop Google Wallet and push for a piece of the multibillion-dollar mobile-payments pie. PayPal sued Google in the Superior Court of the State of California in Santa Clara County. The suit names Google and former PayPal employees and now Google execs Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius. Bedier previously was vice president of PayPal's mobile platform and came aboard as Google's vice president of payments in January 2011. Tilenius served in various executive roles at PayPal and eBay, including vice president of PayPal Merchant services, from 2001 to 2009, when she joined Google as vice president of commerce. "Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, an idea recognized by both California law and public policy," Google said in a published statement. "We respect trade secrets, and will defend ourselves against these claims." PayPal's Beef The PayPal complaint argues that Bedier had intimate knowledge of PayPal's capabilities, strategies, plans and market intelligence regarding mobile payments and related technologies -- information constituting in part PayPal's trade secrets. "In the course of his work at Google, Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google to major retailers," the complaint alleges. PayPal also asserts that Tilenius solicited and recruited Bedier to Google. By doing so, PayPal argues, Tilenius violated her contractual obligations to eBay. PayPal said Bedier also violated his obligations to eBay by soliciting and recruiting PayPal employees to jump ship to Google. "In addition, from 2008 to 2011, Google and PayPal were negotiating a commercial deal where PayPal would serve as a payment option for mobile-app purchases on Google's Android Market. During that time, PayPal provided Google with an extensive education in mobile payments," PayPal said in the complaint. "Bedier was the senior PayPal executive accountable for leading negotiations with Google on Android during this period," it added. "At the very point when the companies were negotiating and finalizing the Android PayPal deal, Bedier was interviewing for a job at Google -- without informing PayPal of this conflicting position. Bedier's conduct during this time amounted to a breach of his responsibilities as a PayPal executive." Wrongdoing? The movement of executives and other workers from company to company is hardly big news in Silicon Valley, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund IT, but if Tilenius sent Bedier an alleged Facebook note before she left PayPal, he's not sure how that could violate an order enforceable after she left PayPal for Google. "The note could suggest that Tilenius was acting for Google prior to actually joining the company. But the reality of the workplace is people who are working for companies are actively talking about working for other companies before they leave. A lot of that has to do with the dates of when these events occurred and whether or not the no-solicitation order was enforced at the time that she sent this Facebook note." The bottom line: Talk of electronic wallets and portable payments has been around for the better part of a decade. No company has made a truly viable business based on the concept so far, but PayPal has made its moves and is clearly intent on protecting its intellectual property. "As Google expands its area of interest and expertise beyond online advertising to enable electronic purchases of one sort or another, it's going to be touching live wires with any number of competitors with a major footprint in this area," King said. "It would be hardly surprising if future suits related to different kinds of electronic payments were filed against Google." |
| Microsoft rewards young Irish hacker for Xbox shenanigans (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 May 2011 09:21 PM PDT
Some of you may remember the Xbox support page having an alert about "potential phishing attempts" for anyone playing Modern Warfare 2 last month. The alert was overshadowed by the latest PlayStation network breach since the Xbox 360 problems were restricted to one title and were centered around the multiplayer matchmaking. Still, Microsoft officials were concerned about player's personal information being compromised. What originally started as a problem for the PlayStation network ballooned into a catastrophe which compromised 100 million players their personal information — including credit cards — and costing Sony $170 million; as well as a loss in reputation the company may never recover. The phishing scam, which sent a worldwide alert to millions of gamers, was apparently the work of a 14-year old Irish school boy from Tallaght in Dublin, Ireland. Deciding to go a different route than Sony's with George Hotz, Microsoft has decided to recruit the teenager's skills. Paul Rellis, General Manger of Microsoft in Ireland stated in a keynote address at the Bank of Ireland Business Week that Microsoft plans to work with the Dubliner, saying they will "develop his talent for legitimate purposes", though Microsoft's PR company Q4 has responded with contradictory statements. No word on how exactly Microsoft will be working with the teen — whether he will be put to work in a paying network security job right away or if Microsoft simply means to mentor him. Who says crime doesn't pay? |
| Making money from paid apps in Android Market a challenge for app developers (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 May 2011 07:44 PM PDT
A study published this week shows that among paid apps in the Google Android Market, 80% have been downloaded less than 100 times. Distimo found that it's "more challenging for developers in the Google Android Market than in the Apple App Store to monetize using a one-off fee monetization model." Big sellers in the Android market (ie. paid apps downloaded more than half a million times) number just two. In the Apple App Store, in contrast, six paid apps have been downloaded as many times, and that's just in a two month time frame, and in the US alone. Looking more closely at Google's app store, we are told by the Netherlands-based analytic company that there are 96 apps which have been downloaded more than 5 million times. There's one free app that really stands out from the crowd, with more than 50 million downloads – Google Maps. Among paid games in the Android market, there are just five which have been downloaded more than 250,000 times. As for the Apple App Store, in the space of just two months, there are ten paid games that have generated more than 250,000 downloads â€" and that’s in the US alone. Distimo points out that one reason for Android paid apps being downloaded so few times is because "the top charts in the Google Android Market change very little over time. This is caused by the fact that Google also takes long-term performance of applications into account in order to rank applications." Compared to the app charts in the Android store, apps in the Apple charts change more frequently and so a wider variety gain exposure, resulting in a broader spread of sales. This is clearly illustrated when looking at apps at the top of the charts in the month of April: “The top 10 free and top 10 paid together have seen only 26 applications in the Google Android Market, while there have been 94 applications in the top 10 free and paid in the Apple App Store for iPhone,†With the one-off fee monetization model proving challenging, many Android app developers are opting to put out ad-supported apps. Distimo cites Rovio's Angry Birds as an example. "All the Angry Birds series in the Google Android Market are free and feature ads, while in the Apple App Store, these same applications are all paid applications with far fewer ads." Apps with ads are doing just fine, according to Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka. "We're very happy with the monetization that it provides us with," he says. As for Android app developers with decent apps languishing in the depths of the charts, they'll be hoping that Google changes the way it calculates the rankings. Pair that up with some creative marketing and people might start digging into their pockets. |
| Twitter chief picked as Obama telecom advisor (AFP) Posted: 27 May 2011 03:25 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – US President Barack Obama named Twitter's chief and a high-ranking Microsoft executive among a handful of technology veterans to be appointed as telecommunications security advisors. "I am proud to appoint such impressive men and women to these important roles, and I am grateful they have agreed to lend their considerable talents to this administration," Obama said in a White House press release available online Friday. "I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead," he continued in reference to those he picked to join his National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. The list of appointees included Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo; Microsoft vice president of trustworthy computing Scott Charney; McAfee computer security company president David DeWalt, and Lisa Hook, head of global communications technology firm Neustar. The final appointee to the committee was Jamie Dos Santos, chief of the group that handles federal government information technology at Terremark Worldwide. Costolo replaced Twitter co-founder Evan Williams as chief executive in October in a move that gave the San Francisco-based firm's helm to a Google veteran with a mandate to help the microblogging sensation make money. Microsoft's trustworthy computing unit specializes in identifying Internet threats and protecting systems operated by the Redmond, Washington-based technology firm's widely used software. |
| Amazon Challenges Apple With New Mac App Store (NewsFactor) Posted: 27 May 2011 02:25 PM PDT Even before a court decides whether Amazon.com can sell apps for Android devices and call it an app store, the biggest U.S. online retailer opened a second front this week by offering downloadable software for Apple's Macintosh computers. That's a direct challenge to Apple's own Mac App Store, first announced in October at the company's Back To Mac event and opened Jan. 6 with 1,000 offerings, mostly games, compared to about 250 for Amazon's store. Incentives Needed The Mac offerings aren't new but were assembled without fanfare as a Mac Software Downloads section of the site on Thursday, with another section for games, but Amazon avoided calling it an app store -- a phrase Apple wants to trademark. In March Apple filed suit against Amazon, alleging that its App Store for Android software is used illicitly to solicit developers. Amazon insists "app store" is a generic term. Amazon told news media the "Mac download store features an install-less download process where the customer gets just the product without any unwanted extras, making for faster and easier purchases. Plus, downloads are conveniently backed up in your Games and Software Library where you can download an unlimited number of times for personal use." The Mac download store's initial offerings include Office Mac for home ($115) and businesses ($199), Aspyr's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare ($24.95), Individual Software's Logo Designer ($19.99), and H&R Block At Home Deluxe Federal and State eFile for 2010 ($31.98). Visitors can "celebrate the grand opening with a $5 discount on game or software products through June 1st." Amazon, which had more than $34.2 billion in sales last year, will need to give loyal Mac customers an incentive to shop there. The company kicked off its Android store by offering one free app per day for visitors, regardless of whether they buy anything. Let the Battle Begin "It's going to be interesting to see how consumers are going to react to this app store," said Michael Gartenberg of Gartner Research. "Perhaps they'll try to undercut Apple's prices with promotions." He said the emergence of the Mac download store "came as a little bit of a surprise. There was certainly no advance warning, it just kind of appeared, and now we're seeing Mac apps in direct competition, although they can't sell anything for the iPhone because that's a closed ecosystem." After reporting more than a million downloads on the first day of the Mac App Store, Apple can probably expect some continued loyalty, but Gartenberg said Amazon's move is bound to be watched closely. "It's something that if you're Apple, you don't want to ignore; you want to pay attention because Amazon has a lot of credit cards and it's fairly easy to purchase there," he said, referring to cards that award points toward gift cards for the site. "But their music sales haven't taken much business from iTunes. So [Apple] may not lose a lot of sleep, but they probably want to keep an eye on it." |
| OpenFeint bringing 3 million players to Android per month (Appolicious) Posted: 27 May 2011 01:05 PM PDT |
| FCC asks AT&T about spectrum claims (Reuters) Posted: 27 May 2011 03:06 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal telecommunications regulators have asked AT&T Inc for more information on its planned merger with T-Mobile USA, including claims on spectrum shortages, coverage overlaps and plans to close facilities. AT&T's plan to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG for $39 billion has been attacked as a bad idea because it would further reduce the number of wireless carriers. The Federal Communications Commission, in a filing posted on its website on Friday, asked the companies for all analyses and plans it had drawn up to deal with spectrum shortages. AT&T, the second largest wireless carrier, had cited spectrum shortages as the key reason for its decision to buy T-Mobile USA, the fourth largest U.S. mobile provider. The deal would vault AT&T over current market leader Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc. The FCC, which must approve the deal for it to go forward, asked for information about under-used capacity, and the companies' future plans. It also had questions about whether subscribers who changed to another company did so because of pricing issues or service quality. The agency asked for a list of areas where AT&T would no longer need to arrange roaming agreements. The FCC said it wanted AT&T and T-Mobile USA to provide any plans it had drawn up to raise prices or change other terms for providing "backhaul" -- the wired network that connects cellular towers -- to small carriers. This issue has been hotly discussed as smaller carriers say they fear that a bigger AT&T would charge them more for leasing wired connections to their cellular towers -- potentially pricing them out of the market. AT&T has sought to allay those worries by saying that also must buy backhaul, and that it is good business for them to continue selling it. Among other points, the FCC asked for information about coverage overlaps between AT&T and T-Mobile USA's network -- where cell sites or other facilities would be consolidated and or decommissioned as a result of the merger. In addition to the FCC, the Justice Department must approve the deal. AT&T notified five states about it. Louisiana has said it will open an investigation of the deal while California is also mulling a review. If approved as proposed, the deal would concentrate 80 percent of U.S. wireless contract customers in just two companies: AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. Additionally, critics say the loss of discount carrier T-Mobile USA could lead to higher prices for consumers. Critics of the deal include No. 3 U.S. mobile provider Sprint Nextel. (Editing by Richard Chang) |
| Dish slashes Blockbuster prices (Investor's Business Daily) Posted: 27 May 2011 03:18 PM PDT The satellite TV company said its recently acquired Blockbuster movie rental business will expand its 99-cents-a-day rate to thousands more films and cut prices on new releases. Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH - News) bought the video chain for $320.6 mil after Blockbuster entered bankruptcy proceedings. The discounting will increased competitive pressure on Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX - News) and Coinstar's (NASDAQ:CSTR - News) Redbox kiosks. Dish climbed 1.6% to 30.13, Netflix edged up 0.3% to 264.51 and Coinstar fell 0.8% to 52.82. |
| Teen faces court suits from Apple for White iPhone conversion kits (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 May 2011 02:36 PM PDT
Pretty impressive for someone who hasn't even graduated high school. Unfortunately, Apple wasn't quite as taken with Lam's success. Mac Rumors reports that though a private investigator has had his eye on Lam and his site, WhiteiPhone4Now.com, no longer exists, Apple isn't stopping there and has filed suit against the teenager and his parents. The litigation states Lam infringed upon Apple patents as well as violated its trademark and used "deceptive practices" by creating and selling the kits. Apple said these sales could confused customers, and also claimed Lam's parents were involved since he is a minor. Luckily, it seems like Apple is more intent on scaring Lam than actually suing him for all he's worth. At the same time it filed to sue Lam, the company's legal team filed a "dismissal without prejudice," which means Apple can sue in the future should it choose to. But this probably means an out-of-court settlement has been reached. Had an agreement not been reached, the Lam family would have had to turn over all profits from the kits, paid Apple back for everything it spent on pursuing this case, and halted sales. In an instant message interview with Fast Company, Lam revealed he wasn't entirely sure what the status of the case and its dismissal were and that he will be meeting with Apple's legal team in New York within the next month. He also mentioned he's working on a new startup, SimilarInterests.org, a site that connects you with people who have the same interests as you do. Given Lam's innovative track record, we'll be keeping an eye on it. |
| Google, Facebook lose social network patent ruling (Reuters) Posted: 27 May 2011 11:37 AM PDT CHICAGO (Reuters) – Google Inc and Facebook Inc failed to win dismissal of a lawsuit by a New York company related to software designed to let people take part on social networks through their mobile phones. Wireless Ink Corp, which runs the Winksite service, may pursue claims that Google Buzz and Facebook Mobile infringed its October 2009 patent, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan wrote in a ruling made public on Friday. The patent related to a method to help novice mobile phone users create mobile websites that other phone users can see. Wireless Ink is seeking a halt to the alleged infringement, and compensatory and triple damages. Jeremy Pitcock, a lawyer for Wireless Ink, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Facebook and Google did not immediately return requests for comment. According to an amended complaint filed in December, Wireless Ink's application for its so-called '983 patent became public in January 2004. It said this was three years before Facebook, the world's most popular social networking website, launched its first mobile website, and six years before Google launched Buzz to compete with Facebook. "If two of the most resource-rich, patent-savvy and technologically advanced companies leading the Internet were not aware of the '983 patent, despite its potential ramifications upon a major segment of the defendants' business," Wireless Ink wrote, "this was solely due to a deliberate indifference on the part of defendants." Wireless Ink said Winksite had more than 75,000 registered users, while Facebook Mobile has tens of millions of users, and Google said tens of millions of people had "checked Buzz out" in the service's first two days. In his ruling, Castel said Wireless Ink "does not allege any facts that are inconsistent with the existence of a viable claim." He also dismissed counterclaims seeking to invalidate the Wireless Ink patent. Facebook is based in Palo Alto, California, and Google in Mountain View, California. Analysts now generally consider Google Buzz a failure. Google raised privacy concerns when it at first used email lists from users' Gmail accounts to build social networks of Buzz contacts. It later changed the settings so that Gmail contacts are kept private by default. The case is Wireless Ink Corp v. Facebook Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 10-01841. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Editing by Richard Chang) |
| Cuba announces tax break for private businesses (AP) Posted: 27 May 2011 08:43 AM PDT HAVANA – Cuba announced new measures Friday to spur the island's push into private enterprise, instituting a moratorium on payroll taxes for small business owners and loosening limits on the size of private restaurants. Under the new guidelines, anyone who hires between one and five workers will not be subject to payroll taxes during 2011. The measure was adopted at a recent Cabinet meeting chaired by President Raul Castro and announced in Friday's issue of the Communist Party newspaper Granma. It applies to all small business owners, but is likely to have its greatest effect on private restaurants and cafes that employ waiters and cooks. The government said it will allow such establishments to serve up to 50 diners at a time, up from the 20 that had been permitted previously. Many private restaurants — known as "paladares" — already openly skirted the size limits. Dozens of new restaurants, some with chic decor and first-world prices, have opened in Havana and other cities since Castro's government began overhauling the economy last year, and more than 222,000 Cubans have taken out licenses to work for themselves since permission for such activities was liberalized in October. Castro is also seeking to reduce state subsidies and trim a bloated government payroll, though his plan to lay off half a million state workers has stalled indefinitely. Economists say creating jobs in the private sector is crucial to getting that plan back on track. Cuba's Communist government still employs about four in five Cuban workers, and the state controls virtually all means of production. According to Granma, authorities are also studying whether state-controled real estate could be put to better use by renting it out to private restaurant owners, a measure that could dramatically increase the size and marketability of the new establishments. Most of the new restaurants have been set up in homes and back yards for lack of commercial space. The Granma article also laid out rules that make it easier for the self-employed in several areas to claim tax deductions, and to receive a temporary suspension of their business licenses if they don't plan to work. The economic overhaul aims to pull Cuba out of a deep fiscal morass while preserving the Communist system ushered in by Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. More changes appear on tap as well, though it is not clear when. Delegates to a key Communist Party summit in April approved a long list of guidelines for economic changes including legalizing the sale of real estate and cars and expanding the ranks of private cooperatives that could morph into mid-sized companies, though neither measure has yet been passed into law. The party is also studying ways to grant small-business loans to would-be entrepreneurs, create a wholesale market and improve the spotty supply of raw materials. |
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