Google takes on Facebook with latest social tweak

Google Inc will begin allowing users to personally endorse search results and Web pages, its latest attempt to stave off rival Facebook Inc while trying to jump onboard a social networking boom.
The so-called "+1" button will start to appear alongside Google search results for select users from Wednesday, letting people recommend specific search results to friends and contacts by clicking on that button.
Eventually, the feature may begin to influence the ranking of search results, though that is only under consideration. Results are now ranked via a closely guarded algorithm.
The world's leader in Internet search is battling to maintain its share of Web surfers' time and attention, which is increasingly getting taken up by Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. But it has struggled to find its footing in the nascent market.
Its last attempt to create a social network -- Buzz -- has not fared well. A flood of complaints about how Buzz handled user privacy cast a pall over the product. On Wednesday, Google announced it had reached a settlement with regulators under which it agreed to independent privacy audits every two years.
With the new +1 buttons, Google aims to counter one of Facebook's most popular features. The new feature comes nearly a year after Facebook began offering special "Like" buttons to websites, creating a personalized recommendation system that some analysts believe could challenge the traditional ranking algorithms that search engines use to find online information.
A LOSING BATTLE?
Maintaining its role as the main gateway to information on the Internet is key for Google, which generated roughly $29 billion in revenue last year -- primarily from search ads.
While Google remains the Internet search and advertising leader, Facebook is taking a larger and larger portion of advertising dollars.
Google said that +1 recommendations will also appear in the paid ads that Google displays alongside its search results. In its internal tests, Google found that including the recommendations boosted the rates at which people click on the ads, executives told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.
Eventually, Google plans to let third-party websites feature +1 buttons directly on their own pages, the company said.
Google's Matt Cutts, a principal engineer for search, said the +1 buttons were part of the evolution of Google's own social search efforts, rather than a direct response to Facebook's Like buttons.
"We always keep an eye out on what other people are doing, but for me the compelling value is just that it's right there in the search results," said Cutts.
Google introduced social search in 2009, and in February the company began displaying special snippets underneath any search results that have been shared by a person's contacts on Twitter, the popular Internet microblogging service.
Currently Google is not using +1 recommendations as a factor in how it ranks search results -- a user only sees that a friend recommended a search result if the result would have turned up in a search based on Google's existing ranking criteria.Google's Cutts said the company is evaluating whether to use +1 recommendations as a ranking factor in the future.
To use the new recommendation system, users must create a Google Profile page. Any +1 clicks that a person makes will be publicly visible to their network of contacts, which is based on existing contacts in Google products such as the company's Gmail email and its instant messaging service.
Google faced privacy criticisms last year when it launched Buzz, a social networking messaging product that automatically revealed people's personal contact lists to the public.
Cutts said that Google hoped to address any potential privacy concerns with the +1 service by making it clear that any +1 tags are public.
"As long as people have that mental model, they know what to expect, they're not surprised if they +1 something and it shows up in a different context," he said.
The feature will initially be available to a small portion of Google users in the United States on Wednesday, and the company plans to allow other U.S. users to sign up to try the +1 feature later in the day.

China's Baidu to shut e-commerce platform

Baidu Inc, China's largest search engine, will shut its online e-commerce store, Youa, and migrate its users to other platforms, it said on Thursday.
The shutdown will take effect in May and Youa's existing merchants will be migrated to Rakuten China and Yaodian100, Baidu said in a statement.
"This should not be seen as Baidu withdrawing from the e-commerce scene. In fact, we are in research and development on a new e-commerce platform product which will suit users better," a Baidu spokeswoman said.
The closure of Youa, which Baidu had set up to rival Alibaba's popular online shopping site, Taobao, cements Taobao's position as the leading e-commerce player in China.
Youa failed to gain traction with the majority of online users who preferred to use Taobao to buy and sell goods online. Based on gross merchandise value, Taobao commands more than 70 percent of China's e-commerce market.
China is the world's largest internet market with more than 450 million users. Web commerce in China has surged in recent years as buyers in the world's second-biggest economy switch to the internet for better deals from more reliable suppliers and reasonable price.
Rakuten China is a joint venture between Baidu and Japan's largest online retailer, Rakuten Inc.

Bank Of America Accounts Hacked

ROYAL OAK, Mich. -- Thousands of Bank of America customers' account information could be in jeopardy after a major security breach.

Christy Clark went to a Royal Oak drug store Friday, but when her debit card was declined, she knew something was wrong. “I was very embarrassed,” Clark said.

She went straight to the Bank of America branch near 12 Mile Road near Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak to report the problem.

When she arrived, she was surprised to see the lobby packed with customers who experienced the same issue. “When I entered the branch, that’s when I realized this was a bigger problem,” Clark told Local 4.

Bank of America told Local 4 this involves more than $100,000 worth of transitions. Bank employees told Clark they issued a number of temporary debit cards to customers who discovered money was missing from their account. Two bank staffers said they were also victims of this crime.

A spokesperson for Bank of America said they are trying to figure out exactly how widespread the problem is. The bank issued this statement to Local 4, “In the event that a skimming device has been used, we are reaching out to those customers to block their cards.” Christy Clarke is grateful the bank is taking action to protect customers’ money. “They could have cleaned out my account.”

It remains unclear if these accounts were hacked into internally, or if someone outside the company committed the crime. It is also unclear if this problem is limited to Michigan, or customers across the nation are impacted. Bank of America is investigating all possibilities to see where the money went.

Bank of America said if any suspicious activity is flagged on your account, it will be shutdown immediately.

NASA networks open to cyber attacks

Experts from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) are not satisfied.

Their audit of the computer networks on which NASA relies on to carry out its various missions has discovered that despite the recommendations for a consistent security policy and program they made after the previous audit back in May, the agency has yet to apply them.

Equally worrying is the fact that the networks are riddled with vulnerabilities that can be misused by attackers who might want to gain access and take control of critical systems, and that these flaws exist due to unpatched software.

The auditors' goal was to assess whether NASA adequately protected its IT assets from Internet-based attacks by regularly assessing risks and identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities.

"We found that computer servers on NASA's Agency-wide mission network had high-risk vulnerabilities that were exploitable from the internet. Specifically, six computer servers associated with IT assets that control spacecraft and contain critical data had vulnerabilities that would allow a remote attacker to take control of or render them unavailable," they state in the conclusion of thereport.

"Moreover, once inside the Agency-wide mission network, the attacker could use the compromised computers to exploit other weaknesses we identified, a situation that could severely degrade or cripple NASA's operations. We also found network servers that revealed encryption keys, encrypted passwords, and user account information to potential attackers. These data are sensitive and provide attackers additional ways to gain unauthorized access to NASA networks."

Hopefully, the Agency has moved to patch the vulnerabilities before the report was released. Whether or not they will heed the repeated recommendations remains to be seen.

FBI asks public to break a code, help solve a murder

An interesting request for help has been made public yesterday by the FBI: "Cryptanalists, help solve an open murder case".

The murder happened back in 1999. 41-year-old Ricky McCormick's dead body was discovered in a field, and in his pants' pocket were found two encrypted notes, which the FBI believes could shed a light on why and by whom he was murdered.



"McCormick was a high school dropout, but he was able to read and write and was said to be 'street smart'," says the FBI. "According to members of his family, McCormick had used such encrypted notes since he was a boy, but apparently no one in his family knows how to decipher the codes, and it’s unknown whether anyone besides McCormick could translate his secret language. Investigators believe the notes in McCormick’s pockets were written up to three days before his death."

The agency admits to have been stumped by the code used. "Despite extensive work by our Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit (CRRU), as well as help from the American Cryptogram Association, the meanings of those two coded notes remain a mystery to this day, and Ricky McCormick’s murderer has yet to face justice," they say.

“Standard routes of cryptanalysis seem to have hit brick walls,” noted CRRU chief Dan Olson. A variety of analytical techniques has been used, but they have not yielded results.

At this point, the analysts need either another sample of the code used by McCormick - presumably, they found none with his family or in his house - or a sample of a similar code in order to gain some context that would allow them to decipher the notes. The FBI is hoping that a member of the public might be able to look at the code with fresh eyes and discover the answer, and asks anyone who might know how to break the code or has any information about the case to contact them.

They also point out that there is no reward offered for solving the code, except for "the satisfaction of knowing that your brain power might help bring a killer to justice."

Even if it turns out that the notes contain no information regarding the murder, they are still interested to see how the code is solved. "This is a cipher system we know nothing about,” admits Olsen.

ICSA Labs reveals electronic health record testing program

ICSA Labs unveiled a new certification program for electronic health record systems and has certified the first three products in two domains under the program.


ICSA Labs certified the following products as Ambulatory EHR Modules:

• Design Clinicals MedsTracker version 5.0.
• Colonial Valley Software Lectronic Practice Suite version 2.02.0.1.
• OEMR OpenEMR 4.

The federal government, under the Department of Health and Human Services, requires the "meaningful" use of electronic health record systems to improve health care coordination, boost quality of care for patients and their families, and raise privacy and security of records.

The new program from ICSA Labs is aimed at providing verification that the EHR technology health care organizations adopt is technically capable of supporting their efforts to achieve meaningful use and helping health care organizations safeguard sensitive and private patient information contained within electronic records. As part of its rigorous testing, ICSA Labs verifies that complete EHR solutions meet all of the government's requirements.

The company is also testing modular solutions that are only required to meet a subset of the government's requirements and are generally targeted at specific functions, such as prescribing, scheduling and reporting applications.

"This year we are expanding our certification programs into health IT, a much-needed area of focus, to help modernize today's health care system," said George Japak, managing director for ICSA Labs. "With our new focus on safeguarding patient information within electronic health records, we are committed to helping accelerate the adoption of health IT."

Harvest geolocation user info with Creepy

Creepy is an application that allows you to gather geolocation related information about users from social networking platforms and image hosting services.

The information is presented in a map inside the application where all the retrieved data is shown accompanied with relevant information (i.e. what was posted from that specific location) to provide context to the presentation.


Map providers available:

• Google Maps
• Virtual Maps
• Open Street Maps.

Location information retieval from:

• Twitter's tweet location
• Geolocation information accessible through image hosting services API
• EXIF tags from the photos posted.

Social networking platforms currently supported:

• Twitter
• Foursquare (only checkins that are posted to twitter).

Image hosting services currently supported:

• flickr - information retrieved from API
• twitpic.com - information retrieved from API and photo exif tags
• yfrog.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• img.ly - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• plixi.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• twitrpix.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• foleext.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• shozu.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• pickhur.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• moby.to - information retrieved from API and photo exif tags
• twitsnaps.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags
• twitgoo.com - information retrieved from photo exif tags.

The need for data encryption in the cloud

Recent Microsoft research shows that almost two-fifths of companies will start paying for cloud services within three years. Cloud-using firms need to revisit their encryption needs.

According to Phil Lieberman, President and CEO of Lieberman Software, whilst the economic imperative of migrating data to a cloud resource is clear to see, organizations also need to revisit their data encryption resources before making the leap.

"Microsoft's research notes that 39 per cent of SMBs expect to be paying for cloud services by the time 2014 rolls around - and there's no doubt that many other firms will be using some of the free cloud resources that are now available," he said.

"Our observations suggest that organizations of all sizes - and not just SMBs - can overlook aspects of their data encryption needs for cloud data, as they focus on the cost savings that accrue from cloud migration. I would say that security accountability and transparency of how customer data and cloud system security are being handled by cloud vendors is also suspect.”

The important thing to realize with cloud resources, he went on to say, is that firms are effectively losing direct control over their own data and this makes the task of compliance - under an increasingly complex set of rules, such as PCI DSS - all the more complex.

It's also important to understand that, where cloud data storage is involved, businesses need to take a centralized management approach to data encryption, in order to give IT staff maximum control, with minimal impact on operations and productivity.

Lieberman said: “The challenges to the cloud users and providers will be the management of encryption systems including encryption key management. There are also potential issues with trying to index data that is in encrypted form in the database, so encryption approaches will have to examine not only data in flight (point to point encryption) as well as data at rest (databases and other forms of storage). For SMB and many others, this will be a new experience.”

The process of planning for migration of storage and allied systems to a cloud platform, he adds, should be welcomed and not regarded as a chore by IT staff as it is a clear opportunity to re-appraise their organization's data encryption systems. Unfortunately, SMB customers are unable to judge the competence of larger providers of cloud services, and applications for the cloud rarely have data encryption as either a base or optional offering. Consequently, the model of the future of cloud will be ‘trust me.’

This is because Lieberman's research amongst its customers suggests that they are taking the intelligent approach of re-investing some of the cost savings that the cloud brings to their data storage platform by enhancing the encryption of data at all points in their business.

"Put simply, this means implementing data encryption across any endpoint - desktops, laptops, handheld devices and removable media - and implementing full disk encryption where appropriate. This ensures that any and all data that flows to and from a cloud resource is fully protected," Lieberman said.

"Microsoft's research shows that SMBs are now joining a growing number of enterprises in adopting the financial benefits of the cloud. They should all, however, be cautious of adopting a solution that does not encrypt data on a centralised basis, as they might wind up failing to meet their compliance requirements as a result," he added.

European Parliament computer network breached

The computer network of the European Parliament has been targeted by a cyber attack that may or may not be linked to the attack against the European Commission and the External Action Service networks thattook place a week ago.

According to the Parliament's spokesmen, the attack was still ongoing yesterday morning and information technology services have put in place some security measures - such as blocking access to webmail.

“This is not a couple of teenage boys hacking into the [EU] institutions,” said an official. The Parliament and the Commission have separate networks, and so far it seems that they have been compromised in order to allow the attackers to snoop around and extract valuable information.

According to the European Voice, the attack on the Parliament's networks was detected on March 24 - two days after the start of the attack on the Commission and the External Action Service - which has led officials to assume that the attacks very likely coordinated.

Wether they attackers are the same ones that targeted French government computer networks in search for documents regarding to the G20 summit held in Paris in February, is difficult to tell. At the time, unnamed internal sources speculated about the possibility of the Chinese government being behind it, since some of the files were redirected to Chinese sites.

BP loses laptop with personal data of 13,000 claimants

A laptop containing personal information of some 13,000 people who filed claims for compensation after last year's big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been lost, announced the spokesman of oil giant BP.

The laptop contains the individuals' names, phone numbers, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers. According to the NPR, BP sent out written warnings to each of the affected claimants and offered them free credit monitoring services.

Law enforcement has been notified and an investigation is ongoing. So far, it is known that the laptop was lost by a BP employee while traveling. "If it was stolen, we think it was a crime of opportunity, but it was initially lost," said BP spokesman Curtis Thomas. He also noted that the laptop was password protected, but that the information was unencrypted.

Nearly a month has passed since the loss of the laptop, but so far, it seems that the lost information has not been misused. BP says that they notified the claimants only now since they had to keep mum about the incident so as not to jeopardize the investigation.

The claimants are obviously not pleased with the situation, and some of them have not yet received the e-mail notification from BP, which was sent out on Monday.

Lifecycle model for managing unknown vulnerabilities

Codenomicon released its Unknown Vulnerability Management (UVM) Lifecycle model, a security assurance process, which focuses on unreported vulnerabilities. The UVM model helps companies and organizations find and fix unknown vulnerabilities, before anyone has a chance to exploit them.
"Unknown vulnerabilities are the biggest threat to IT systems, because there are no defenses for attacks against them," says Ari Takanen, CTO of Codenomicon. "Thus, finding and fixing unknown vulnerabilities in in-house and third party software should be the number one security priority."

The most effective way to protect software is to fix critical vulnerabilities proactively. In all types of cyber attacks, the initial access is enabled by a vulnerability in an open software interface. Vulnerabilities also cause quality and interoperability problems.

Numerous solutions exist for handling known, reported vulnerabilities, but Codenomicon's Unknown Vulnerability Management Lifecycle is the first model for managing previously unknown vulnerabilities. The Codenomicon UVM solutions can not only be used to secure networks, devices and applications, but also the software used to protect them, namely firewalls, VPNs etc.

"Codenomicon's solutions are used by top governments and leading software companies, operators, service providers and manufacturers to secure critical networks and to provide robust and reliable products and services," says David Chartier, CEO of Codenomicon. "The launch of the Unknown Vulnerability Management Lifecycle makes proactive security testing accessible to a wider audience."

The core technology behind Codenomicon's UVM model is Fuzzing, a technique used by hackers to find unknown vulnerabilities. Unlike other testing tools, Fuzzers do not look for particular vulnerabilities. Instead, they use modified inputs to trigger vulnerabilities, thus they can discover both known and unknown vulnerabilities. Codenomicon's Defensics Attack Simulation Engine is the only state-aware Fuzzing platform.

It can interoperate with the tested system and target areas most prone to vulnerabilities, while maintaining broad coverage through automatic test generation.

The Unknown Vulnerability Management process consists of four phases: Analyze, Test, Report and Mitigate. The whole process is covered by automated testing tools. In the first phase, the Codenomicon Network Analyzer is used to form a comprehensive picture of the entire network with automatically created visualizations. Once all the open interfaces are identified, they can then be tested for vulnerabilities with Codenomicon's automated Defensics test tools.

All the expertise needed to carry out the tests is built into the tools. The Defensics tools also contain automated features for generating different levels of reports, reproducing vulnerabilities, performing regression testing and verifying patches.

Facebook investor joins funding round for 360buy.com: report

 Russian Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies, an investor in social network company Facebook, has joined a group of investors funding hundreds of millions of dollars to 360buy.com, China's largest online retailer, the Financial Times reported.

The Financial Times said the interest in 360buy underlines the vast opportunity for online commerce in China, one of the largest and fastest-growing internet markets.

DST and 360buy could not be reached for comment.

360buy, which was founded in 2004, has been described as the Amazon.com of China, the daily said.

DST already owns large stakes in some of the most successful US internet companies, including Facebook, Groupon and Zynga.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, was one of six strategic partners who invested a total of $500 million in 360Buy in December.

Twitter co-founder wants more mainstream website

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who returned this week to the company after a two-year absence, wants to make the microblogging site more approachable to the masses, he said on Tuesday.

"We have a lot of mainstream awareness but mainstream relevancy is still a challenge," Dorsey said during an event in New York hosted by the Columbia Journalism School.

Dorsey, who will oversee product development while serving as Twitter's executive chairman, acknowledged that the service is "something that people can't immediately get their head around."

Known for short messages limited to 140 characters called tweets, Twitter has emerged as one of the most popular social media companies. It counts among its users celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Conan O'Brien and Charlie Sheen.

Still, relatively few of Twitter's more than 200 million registered users are active on the site. Research firm eMarketer cited data showing that less than 25 percent of Twitter users generate about 90 percent of tweets.

Dorsey said he wants to concentrate on users "that don't really understand what Twitter is and see Twitter mainly as a consumption experience."

"We need to refocus on the value and that is my goal in the next few months," he said.

Dorsey started Twitter in 2006 along with Evan Williams and Biz Stone. He served as its first chief executive until Williams replaced him in 2008.

He returns as Twitter faces questions about competition from rivals such as Facebook, and its business model that includes advertiser-sponsored tweets. Even so, Twitter's perceived value among investors has grown by leaps and bounds.

In December, Twitter was valued at $3.7 billion in a $200 million funding round led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. An auction of Twitter shares on the secondary market earlier this month suggested investors were valuing the company at $7.7 billion.

Even with his role at Twitter, Dorsey will remain chief executive of mobile payment start-up Square, which he founded during his time away from Twitter's day-to-day operations.

He said he could handle wearing two hats at once.

"I structure my time in a very very disciplined way," he said. "It's not a large context shift to go back and forth between both companies."

Google to offer websites to Canada small business

Google aims to give away thousands of websites to small Canadian businesses to encourage them to establish an online presence, the search engine's Canadian head said on Tuesday.

Despite boasting the most plugged-in population in the world, Canada struggles when it comes to small businesses using the Internet to flag their products and increase sales, Chris O'Neill said in an interview on Tuesday.

"The numbers jump off the page," he said. "Two-plus million small businesses in this country and less than a million have a website."

Canadians spent an average of 43.5 hours a month online in the last months of 2010, far ahead of second-place South Koreans and almost double the global average, according to data from comScore, an online data measurement company.

The most likely reasons a Canadian business might ignore the Web are fears it is too costly or complicated, or is unnecessary. Yet one in five Google searches are for local content, O'Neill said.

"It starts with us seeing an untapped opportunity for small businesses and entrepreneurs in Canada," he said, adding that Google hopes to give out 100,000 websites in Canada this year.

He declined to put a dollar figure on the offer, which includes a year of free hosting for websites with the country-specific .ca top-level domain.

"It's not about managing the pennies on this one. It's about investing and seeing where it goes," he said.

Google makes most of its money by selling targeted advertising on its search portal.

Canadians interested in taking up the offer can visit www.gybo.ca to choose a domain name, upload information and photos and then publish.

Twitter co-founder named executive chairman

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is returning to the microblogging company to oversee product development, even as one of Twitter's other founding members cuts back his involvement, the company said on Monday.

Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006 along with Evan Williams and Biz Stone, and served as its first CEO until being replaced by Williams in 2008, will become Twitter's executive chairman, the company said on Monday.

Dorsey will also remain chief executive of Square, a separate mobile payment start-up that has also based in San Francisco.

The move represents the latest shuffle among the creators of the popular Web service, which has more than 200 million registered accounts and has been valued at nearly $8 billion by investors buying shares of the privately-held company in the secondary market.

In his new role, Dorsey will return to Twitter "in an everyday role to lead our product development," the company said.

Dorsey's role focusing on products comes about six months after Williams stepped down from the CEO job -- handing the reins to Dick Costolo -- so he could be "completely focused on product strategy," the company said at the time.

Twitter spokesman Matt Graves said in an emailed statement on Monday that Williams "decided a couple of months ago to be less involved day to day at Twitter."

Williams currently serves as a "key advisor" to the company, said Graves.

"He continues to have a close relationship with the company providing strategic advice and, of course, he remains an active board member," Graves said.

Twitter, which allows people to send 140-character text messages, or Tweets, to groups of so-called followers, is one of the Web's most popular social networking services, along with Facebook and Zynga.

The service has become a popular communications tool for celebrities, politicians and businesses, and has played a role in several geopolitical events, such as recent uprisings in the middle east.

In December Twitter was valued at $3.7 billion in a $200 million funding round led by venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. An auction of Twitter shares on the secondary market earlier this month, suggested investors were valuing the shares at $7.7 billion.

Square, the mobile payment company that Dorsey co-founded in 2009, said in a statement that it would remain Dorsey's top priority.

Google s’associe à MasterCard dans le NFC

Google vient de poser une nouvelle brique à son offre de paiement sans contact. Selon le Wall Street Journal, Mountain View aurait passé un accord avec MasterCard et Citigroup afin de mettre en oeuvre le paiement sans contact à partir du Nexus S grâce au NFC (Near Field Communication). Cette technologie autorise les transactions de données et l’exécution d’application entre deux appareils situés à courte distance l’un de l’autre. Elle est notamment intégrée au Nexus S, le téléphone de Google fabriqué par Samsung, transformant le terminal mobile en porte-monnaie électronique.

Toujours selon le WSJ, Google ne ferait pas payer son service au commerçants ou utilisateurs (sans pour autant supprimer les frais de transaction). En contrepartie, Mountain View exploiterait les données recueillies lors des achats pour enrichir les profils des utilisateurs au regard des annonceurs et commerçants « physiques » qui pourraient proposer des offres ciblées et autres promotions directement affichées sur le terminal mobile. Un marché gigantesque que Google compte bien conquérir pour assurer sa croissance au cours de la décennieCe smartphone compatible NFC (qui devrait rapidement voir arriver de nombreux concurrents,notamment chez BlackBerry) constitue la base d’une chaîne d’intermédiaires qui va du consommateur à sa banque en passant par les commerçants. Si Google a posé les deux premières briques, le smartphone NFC et les terminaux de paiement dans les boutiques (fournis par Ingenico et Verifone), il restait à faire la liaison avec les services bancaires. Liaison que Google est visiblement en train d’établir dans le cadre de son expérimentation NFC.

Web site to pay $950,000 for Beatles piracy

The owners of a California Web site that sold Beatles songs for 25 cents each before they went on sale legally through iTunes have agreed to pay the band's EMI Group label $950,000 to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit, court papers showed on Monday.

A federal judge ruled last December that Santa Cruz-based Media Rights Technologies violated EMI's copyrights by illegally selling the music of the Beatles and other acts such as Radiohead, Coldplay and Bonnie Raitt on its BlueBeat.com site in 2009.

Media Rights had claimed that BlueBeat.com wasn't posting the original material, but had re-recorded the music and inserted artistic touches based on a technique called "psycho-acoustic simulation."

U.S. District Court Judge Josephine Staton Tucker shot down that argument, labeling it as "obscure and undefined pseudo-scientific language (that) appears to be a long-winded way of describing 'sampling.'"

Apple Inc's iTunes store started selling Beatles songs last November, successfully concluding lengthy negotiations for the rights to arguably the most-prized catalog of the rock era.

Messages left with the attorneys for both sides were not immediately returned.

Cisco to buy newScale to boost cloud computing

Cisco Systems Inc said on Tuesday it plans to buy privately held software company newScale Inc, in a deal that would ramp up its cloud computing services.

Financial terms of the deal were undisclosed. Cisco said the deal would be completed in the second half of its fiscal year 2011.

NewScale, which makes portals for cloud computing, has more than 2 million users worldwide, including 20 percent of the Fortune 50 companies, according to its website. Some of newScale's customers are AT&T Inc, American Express Co and Siemens AG.

Cisco shares were trading 0.2 percent higher at $17.22 on Tuesday in premarket dealings on Nasdaq.

Samsung and Google Launch Nexus S

Vilvoorde, March 22, 2011 - Samsung and Google launched the Nexus ™ S ™ on the Belgian market. This mobile phone is the first to make Android ™ 2.3, the new version of the Android platform.The Nexus O is a powerful smartphone, equipped with latest multimedia features. The Phone House is the retailer's new Nexus S at launch.
The fastest Android smartphone
The Nexus O has the touch screen LCD Samsung Super for rendering exceptional images. This screen has a 4-inch ergonomic design, slightly curved, which facilitates the positioning of text on the ear. The ultra-fast Samsung processor 1 GHz handles files at high speed, lets you view multimedia content and HD-quality 3D graphics displays with great picture clarity.
Thanks to its internal memory of 16 GB, the Nexus S can store images taken with the exceptional 5-megapixel camera, the camera on the back and VGA camera on the front. The gyro sensor of the device ensures the smooth flow of games when the smartphone is tilted vertically or laterally.
Android 2.3
Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) - is the current version of the latest Android for smartphones. This new platform offers including a new keyboard that recognizes the simultaneous keystrokes, Internet telephony (VoIP / SIP) and a new user interface. Nexus S offers features Android well known, such as WiFi hotspot, the multitasking and mobile services such as Google Search Google ™, Gmail ™, Google Maps Navigation ™ and YouTube ™. Nexus S also benefits from access to more than 100,000 applications and widgets on the Android Market ™.
"Samsung Mobile and Google have collaborated closely to develop the best experience Android smartphone," said Serge Vandriessche, Country Manager at Samsung Electronics Mobile Belgium. "Our partnership with Google was responding to our desire to continue developing the Android platform and to create a highly functional smartphone, whose use is a thrilling experience.We are therefore delighted with the result of our collaboration with Google. "
Andy Rubin, Vice President of Engineering at Google said: "Innovation is one of our highest priorities. With the Nexus S, we can give more importance to this innovative strength and to benefit both the consumer and all the partners and the Android mobile communications sector. This device combines the hardware innovations of our partner Samsung and those of the Android platform that improves the user experience, by offering a more powerful mobile communications.
The Nexus O will be available from 1 April to suggested retail price of 549 euros, including VAT and Recupel. The device can be pre-booked until 31 March. The consumer receives a Bluetooth headset when pre-booking

Google pushes access to HoneyComb's source code

Open Source - The American giant delayed the opening of itsoperating system for tablets. Android 3.0, more known asHoneycomb, will not "open source " as it is not suitable for mobile.

Android is an open platform? In any case, this suggests thatGoogle by announcing that the source code HoneyComb will not be released immediately. With the release in February of the tabletXoom Motorola, the OS is already available and usable.

"HoneyComb was designed for devices that have large screensand improved widgets, multitasking, navigation, reporting andcustomization,"said Google spokesman, "although we are happyto bring new features the shelves, we have more work before they can adapt Android to other types of devices. In the meantime, wedecided not to release the source code HoneyComb.

Analysis

Strategically, the OS is the first direct attack against the iPad andthe dominance of Apple in the market shelves, but Google saysthat Android 3.0 is not yet ready to be fitted on Smartphone.

The line remains the same: HoneyComb is currently limited todevices for which it was designed. Beyond the technical argument,it would seem that Google and its partners do not want to see othermanufacturers take advantage of their sales shelves yet.

Bad faith?

Last October, Steve Jobs had described as "disingenuous" claimsas to whether Google's open-source Android. Andy Rubin, Googleproduct manager, had then responded via Twitter that open meansyou can use a command line to create a directory, download asource code and build its own operating system.

By definition, HoneyComb is still far from being an open system!

Kodak wins round in Apple-RIM dispute

A U.S. trade panel has agreed to review Eastman Kodak Co's claim that Research in Motion Ltd and Apple Inc are infringing on its patents in a case that could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.

The shares of Kodak -- a company once synonymous with home photography, but now struggling in a world of digital cameras and smartphones -- spiked about 20 percent in extended trading after closing 8.6 percent higher as the company moved closer to a possible payout.

The Washington-based International Trade Commission, which hears many patent cases involving imported products, said on Friday it would review an initial decision by an ITC judge in January that Research in Motion and Apple did not infringe on Kodak's patents.

Apple declined to comment on the panel's decision to review the case.

Kodak filed an ITC complaint against Apple and RIM in January 2010, arguing Apple's iPhone and RIM's camera-enabled Blackberry infringe on a Kodak patent related to a method for previewing images.

It is asking the ITC to bar the importation of Apple and RIM mobile phones and other wireless devices with digital cameras. A final decision is expected in May.

Kodak's campaign to protect its intellectual property follows years of expensive restructuring that have been slow to produce results.

Many investors see Kodak's value in its lucrative portfolio of intellectual property. It has more than 1,000 patents in its trove and in 2010, it made an estimated $630 million from its licenses, according to Argus Research.

Kodak settled similar patent disputes with LG and Samsung in 2009 and 2010. The two South Korean consumer electronics makers agreed to pay Kodak $400 million and $550 million, respectively, to license its technology.

In late January, Eastman Kodak Co reported a larger-than-expected quarterly loss and a 25 percent drop in revenue on poor digital and licensing sales.

Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross said Friday's decision makes it more likely the companies involved with reach a settlement. But she warned that Kodak would likely receive less in this case because fewer units are involved.

"We note that the vast majority of Kodak's IP settlements have been one-time payments for perpetual licenses and therefore Kodak has little recurring IP royalty revenue," she wrote in a note to clients.

She repeated concerns about Kodak's inkjet and entertainment film businesses.

Kodak call options volume exploded on Friday, with about twice the typical trading, according to Trade Alert. Investors were betting the ITC would stop short of finalizing the earlier ruling, thereby keeping Kodak's patent claims alive.

Apple's shares gained 1.9 percent in Friday's regular Nadsaq session and edged up slightly in after-hours trading following the panel's announcement.

RIM's stock dropped 11.23 percent during the session and were mostly flat in after hours trade.

The case at the ITC is 337-703