EchoStar wins partial reversal of TiVo verdict on DVR infringement
A complex tangle of technological arguments ended up being untangled in EchoStar's favor, in an appeals court decision today that could lead to DVR service being restored to Dish Network.
A technically replete, yet still dramatic, decision handed down today by Federal Circuit Appeals Court Judge David Folsom has found that two of EchoStar lines of digital video recorders, including its own 50X line and another, using technology supplied by Broadcom, did not infringe upon two patents held by TiVo.
Gaming, electronics sales compensate for Sony's lagging music, movies
The keyword this morning for Sony is "up," especially with regard to its performance over the holiday quarter. The PlayStation brand would finally steal the show, if it weren't for Bravia hogging the spotlight.
The reason you build a corporation with highly diversified operations is because, regardless of the state of the global economy, no single market segment can ever be guaranteed to grow. Sony, in light of that fact, is a very smartly combined operation, and its careful balance of market segments helped it once again weather a year that at least seemed at the time to have been going badly.
FCC 700 MHz 'C-block' reserve price finally met
In what will certainly come as relief to advocates of open access rules for wireless services, someone this morning placed a bid for the jewel-in-the-crown "C-block" of spectrum just above the minimum reserve trigger price.
At approximately 11:00 am Eastern Time, the FCC's live auction database reported a bid during round 17 for the C-block of $4,713,823,000. That qualifies under FCC rules as a Potentially Winning Bid (PWB), over the $4.6 billion reserve price. This means if that ends up being the final bid, the winning bidder must promise to open any wireless services it offers on the C-block to the end user's choice of premise or handset equipment.
Visual Studio 2008 hits the streets one month early
Once again Microsoft redefines the concept of "launch," releasing today the retail edition of a suite that was said to have "launched" last November, though whose "launch party" remains scheduled for late February.
It's one of the guests of honor at a formal launch party still slated for February 27 in Los Angeles. But with one guest bowing out early -- specifically, SQL Server 2008, whose RTM may come as much as six months later -- Microsoft decided today to balance things out by moving up its retail release of Visual Studio 2008 to today.
ICANN may end grace periods, killing off 'domain tasting'
A practice used by scammers to siphon off hits from users who misspell URLs in their browsers could be rendered impossible this year, as the organization responsible for the Internet's domain name system may end the program that makes the practice possible.
Just a few days ago, Google got some attention for announcing a policy that would effectively give it credit for killing off the practice of "domain name tasting," or "domain tasting," by exploitative DNS registrants. But as it turns out, one of the Internet's principal governing bodies, ICANN, had been preparing since last summer to come out against the practice anyway, and it did so yesterday.
Microsoft's tardiness for documentation extends DOJ oversight to 2009
Scathing words yesterday from the federal judge overseeing Microsoft's compliance with its antitrust decree, accompanied an order that effectively extends the DOJ's oversight period into the next US presidential administration.
Apparently agreeing with the European Commission's assessment that Microsoft has yet to provide adequate documentation for its communications protocols, US District Judge Kathleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an order yesterday extending the Dept. of Justice's oversight period for the company by two years, until November 12, 2009.
Yahoo to cut 1,000 jobs, warns of an uncertain 2008
The bad news may not be over for the nation's #2 search provider, though some analysts yesterday were actually hoping the news would be worse, particularly in the jobs department, in order for things to get better over time.
Yahoo is staying afloat, which is not bad, given the direction it had been heading at this time last year. But with net income down 23.6% annually to $205.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2007 on 7.6% higher revenues of $1.83 billion, it's not exactly in good shape either.
Lackluster bidding for 700 MHz 'C' and 'D' blocks
With the first eleven rounds of bidding nearly complete in the FCC 700 MHz auction, the minimum bid for the prize package "C-block" that would trigger open access rules has yet to be met.
When the US Federal Communications Commission set forth its guidelines for bidders in its auction of spectrum presently occupied by UHF TV channels, it mandated that the winning high bidder open up any wireless services deployed on the prize "C-block" of that spectrum to the customer's choice of equipment. But it also made a curious rule stating that if the minimum bid of $4.6 billion had not been met or if no one bid, the mandate would be automatically scrapped and the rules revert to the original form.
EU court: ISPs need not always disclose subscribers' names
A European Court of Justice ruling this morning appears on the surface to reaffirm the rights of Internet users from having their data subpoenaed in civil trials. But a deeper read of the ruling shows the high court left the matter wide open.
The right of privacy among Internet users trumps the rights of copyright holders to pursue prospective infringers, at least insofar as civil matters are concerned. This was the finding this morning, Belgium time, of the European Court of Justice, in a ruling stating that member states need not compel a defendant ISP in a copyright infringement trial to turn over data on its members to an aggrieved plaintiff.
FTC decision favors standards over patent holder
In an historic decision that split the FTC almost down the middle, it has issued a complaint against a patent holding company allegedly that apparently sued computer and network manufacturers for having followed the Ethernet standard.
Where does a patented idea end and a standard begin? Judging from public forums alone, you'd think the two ideas would be polar opposites. But business deals between patent holders and standards groups tend to muddy the waters, and last week, one very important example of such an agreement came to a head before the US Federal Trade Commission.
New mobile browser enables Flash video through server-side rendering
While the mobile phone industry scrambles to adopt faster graphics platforms for rendering video, a startup may have bypassed everyone with an approach so simple, you wonder why nobody tried it already.
In a development that could very well turn the whole mobile rendering technology argument on its ear, a startup company founded just last June called Skyfire emerged from stealth mode this morning with a private beta of a Web browser for mobile phones whose graphics are rendered through a proxy located at the company's servers.
New Google policy will combat 'domain name tasting'
A controversial practice enables some domain name registrars to make short-term gains from registering domains that others might want. Now Google -- the vehicle for their revenue -- says it wants to do something about that.
The problem is somewhat serious, though Google is far from the first to point it out: Domain name registrars have displayed a tendency to register DNS names for themselves, based on recent searches conducted by users of their public WHOIS databases. They don't have any intention of keeping these DNS names longer than the typical five-day grace period, but during that time, they can deploy those fake pages that pretend to be search portals.
SQL Server 2008 to be delayed anyway despite February launch
In a bizarre and embarrassing development at the same time, Microsoft's server and tools division found itself announcing a delay for the RTM of SQL Server 2008 of up to six months. Despite that, its launch party will go on.
BetaNews had just gotten through saying Microsoft cannot afford another delay, now that its combination launch gala for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Server 2008 is set for February 27. But just a few hours later, one of its product managers found himself explaining why his product will be a no-show.
Warner Music sues MP3 search engine for infringement
One of the big four record labels, which just this week was part of a landmark deal for MP3 access through Last.fm, announced earlier it is suing a completely different firm that offers similar access though without any kind of compensation plan.
In what could essentially be the first case of its kind, as reported by Billboard magazine, Warner Music Group has initiated a lawsuit against a service called SeeqPod that maintains a public index of stored music tracks throughout the Internet. SeeqPod offers a search tool that helps people locate the music they're looking for, but then it also provides them with a player so they can listen to the music.
Vista SP1 'on schedule' for March RTM
With a major launch event next month serving as an unmovable anchor for Microsoft at this point, the ancillary launches for Vista Service Pack 1 and XP SP3 would probably raise suspicion if they were delayed.
A group of 15,000 private beta testers received what's being called "RC Refresh 2" of the release candidate for Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Microsoft confirmed to BetaNews this morning. Numbers for the actual release candidate or the beta number, judging from Microsoft's recent correspondence with us, are no longer being used, which could lead some to believe that this may not be the final "refresh" coming down the pike.
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