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Google’s Motorola Mobility subsidiary said that a Wisconsin federal court has thrown out a lawsuit brought by Apple against the device maker. Apple is seeking to have the dismissal made “without prejudice,” -- a legal term that essentially means that the matter could be heard later.
Motorola Says Wisconsin Court Throws Out Apple Patent Suit Judge puts an end to Apple's patent license lawsuit against Motorola (ars technica)
Working up a holiday shopping list? New cell phone, iPad Mini, Netflix subscription - check, check, check. Now don't forget the wireless plan that makes all those family gifts work on the move. Pricing has changed dramatically since last year.
Phone calls and text messages come in unlimited quantities in the latest featured deals from the big four wireless phone companies - Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA. The competition lies in data. "Data" means the stuff consumers increasingly gobble up as they use wireless devices to browse the Internet, download or update apps, play online games and watch videos. Consumers have gotten used to buying a data plan for each device. Now, however, the wireless industry has split. Sprint and T-Mobile continue to pitch their offer of unlimited data plans for cell phones and other devices such as tablets. Verizon and AT&T have introduced shared data plans. These allow a household to connect up to 10 devices - phones, tablets, hotspots - to one pool of data that they share. The key: It is a limited pool. Shared data pricing means consumers have to pay more to use more data. It's just like the traditional cell phone plans that charged more for more minutes of voice time.
New wireless pricing: more data, bigger bill
Twitter has adopted a new policy for how it handles tweets that contain or link to copyright infringing material and will no longer delete them from its feed in an effort to shed more light on how it processes take-down notices from copyright owners. Instead, Twitter will flag to other users that the tweet in question is being withheld from the website's feed for copyright reasons after it receives a "valid" take-down notice from a copyright owner, a Twitter spokesman said. The tweet will be flagged by Twitter "until such time as we get (if we ever do) a valid counter-response from the user," according to the spokesman.
Twitter to flag tweets accused of violating copyrights
Little progress has been made toward implementing a “Do Not Track” button for the Web more than nine months after a highly publicized launch event at the White House. Advertisers, privacy groups and government officials came together in February to tout their agreement to give Internet users an easy way to opt out of online tracking. But stakeholders involved in the effort are "not really any closer to an agreement" to make the feature happen, according to Mike Zaneis, general counsel of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Jonathan Mayer, a privacy advocate and graduate student at Stanford University, said negotiations are at a "standstill," with the two sides unlikely to bridge their differences on core issues.
‘Do Not Track’ effort at a standstill
As the Internet adds valuable new domain names that are luring the likes of Google and Amazon, a little-known company called Donuts Inc. is making a grab that opponents say could fuel cybersquatting, the practice of stealing website identities.
Donuts, backed by more than $100 million in venture capital, is spending $56 million to bid for 307 of the 1,400 new so-called generic top-level domain names, or TLDs, that will shape how the Web will soon evolve. Instead of .com, the new names include suffixes such as .book, .app and .law. A lawyer who represents TLD holders is seeking to thwart Donuts’ efforts and is asking the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which authorizes domain name suffixes and is known as ICANN, to investigate Donuts’ links to Demand Media Inc. (DMD) That company’s clients have used domain names to masquerade as other businesses, the lawyer contends. The chief executive officer of Donuts came from Demand Media, and Donuts has an arrangement to sell Demand Media 107 of its TLDs if it chooses to release them.
Donuts’ Grab for Domains Raises Fears of Cybersquatting
CBS is taking its older content to streaming service Hulu's premium service Hulu Plus. Hulu is co-owned by all of CBS's major competitors; the content licensed is a mirror image of the shows covered by the deal signed with Netflix not long ago. The streaming service, co-owned by Disney, NBCUniversal, News Corp. and Providence Equity Partners, will now show library content including recent series like Medium, Numb3rs and CSI: Miami, as well as vintage shows including Star Trek, I Love Lucy and The Twilight Zone to paying customers (Hulu's free edition won't include the CBS library shows).
CBS Signs Deal With Hulu
Cars are becoming a platform for connecting their occupants to their data, their cloud services, to their auto maker, to other cars. If you think you’re car’s smart and connected now, just wait till you put it on your data plan.
If you think your car is smart and connected now, just wait
Apple is asking California's highest court to rule that a state law limiting data collection by merchants who accept credit cards doesn't apply to online retailers.
Imposing the Song-Beverly Act's requirements on Web retailers "threatens to produce unintended and absurd results," Apple argues in its legal papers. The 21-year-old privacy law bans retailers from requesting and storing the street addresses of consumers who pay by credit card. Apple argues that it doesn't make sense to apply the Song-Beverly law to online retailers, given that they can't verify identity by asking for a photo or comparing an in-store signature to the one on a card. California's Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments on November 7. The matter stems from a potential class-action lawsuit against Apple filed last year by David Krescent. He alleges that Apple violated California's law by requiring him to provide his address when he purchased media from the company.
Apple Says California Privacy Law Doesn't Apply To Web Retailers
Federal agencies were closed for two days as a result of Hurricane Sandy, but employees who hold telework agreements were required to work, provided they had power to do so. That was certainly the case at the Patent and Trademark Office, which is lauded for having a top-notch telework program. PTO Director David Kappos wrote that telework enabled PTO to operate during last week’s government shutdown with an average of more than 70 percent productivity. That percentage is a remarkable achievement, particularly given that many patent examiners could not participate due to widespread power outages, Kappos wrote.
Telework Allows 70 Percent Productivity at PTO During Sandy
US and foreign government officials, along with antivirus companies and banks, have formed a coalition to push for the adoption of certain electronic safeguards that could help them all avoid data breach lawsuits. Led by a 34-year veteran of the National Security Agency, the Consortium for Cybersecurity Action is proposing a set of 20 proven security controls for automatically immunizing computer systems.
“This is about priority,” said Tony Sager, who in June retired from NSA, the key Pentagon agency involved in network surveillance and code breaking. The 20 steps are “the most important defenses that every firm should put in place that are of greatest value.” He now works for the SANS Institute, a computer research and training center that helped develop the controls.
Governments and Companies Band Together to Push Cyber Protections