Ed Oswald

A federal grand jury has indicted an Apple supply manager and an individual involved in the company's supply chain on 23 counts including money laundering, fraud, and kickbacks. The two individuals set up an elaborate scheme involving several of Apple's suppliers.

Paul Shin Devine used his clearances within Apple to obtain information that was then shared with suppliers. This information was then used to negotiate contracts, and upon their awarding a kickback was paid to Devine.

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Former HP CEO Mark Hurd's move to settle with Jodie Fisher contributed to his firing, those close to the company's board told the Wall Street Journal on Monday. Sources say Hurd was told several times in the three weeks proceeding his ouster to settle Fisher's claims.

Board members felt that Hurd was not fully cooperating with their attempts to investigate the matter, and the settlement stopped their investigation prematurely. Fisher has said that there was no intimate relationship, however at the same time what exactly she had accused Hurd of has never been fully disclosed.

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After almost a week of criticism surrounding its announcement Monday that it had come to an agreement with Verizon over net neutrality, Google on Thursday attempted to defend itself. The Mountain View, Calif. company characterized the deal as progress on the issue, and done in the 'spirit of compromise.'

Since the announcement Monday, several companies have weighed in on the move. AT&T called the deal a 'positive step,' while Facebook criticized it over the fact that it excludes wireless traffic. Google took opponents to task for mischaracterizing some portions of the agreement, although it admitted that it didn't expect everyone to agree on the issue.

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Technology blog Engadget said Thursday that sources have confirmed mobile device manufacturer Sony Ericsson is working on an Android-based phone that would serve as the platform's first gaming-centric device.

Described as a cross between the PSP Go and the Samsung Captivate, the phone runs Android 3.0, otherwise known as "Gingerbread." It looks much like a slider phone, however instead of a keyboard the slider would pull out to reveal the gaming controls, the blog reported.

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Still stinging from a court decision in June which threw out its $1 billion suit against video site YouTube, entertainment company Viacom filed an appeal Wednesday in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.

The original suit was filed in 2007, and accused YouTube of being a willing participant in the piracy of Viacom's work on the site. The company is behind such networks as Comedy Central, MTV, and VH1. YouTube had made an effort to remove Viacom's content, as well as negotiate with the company, however those talks failed.

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Apple released iOS 4.0.2 for the iPhone and iPod touch, and iOS 3.2.2 for the iPad on Wednesday, effectively closing the PDF flaw which allowed hackers access to the internal code of those devices. The exploit was central to the jailbreakme.com hack released earlier this month. According to release notes with the updates, the PDF fix is the only change made to the code of the OS.

The jailbreak also made it possible for the iPhone Dev Team to release a version of its ultrasn0w carrier unlock for the iPhone 4 for the first time, which it did two days after the release of jailbreakme.com.

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AT&T and Facebook are the two latest companies to speak out on the net neutrality proposal put out by Google and Verizon on Monday, and their opinions of the deal appear to be on different sides of the argument.

At an investor conference, AT&T consumer and mobile chief Ralph de la Vega called it a "positive sign" and the right step forward to help the industry come to a reasonable agreement.

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Google confirmed Tuesday that police visited its Seoul offices to seize information related to an investigation surrounding its Street View product. South Korea is the latest in a series of governments probing the company's data collection methods.

Police were specifically looking for information surrounding how the Street View cars collect data. Law enforcement said that its seizures were related to the expected launch of the product later this year within the country. Officers with the Cyber Terror Center of the National Police Agency took hard drives and paper documents, the Korea Herald reported.

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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison sent an impassioned e-mail to The New York Times Monday, criticizing the HP board for their move to dismiss CEO Mark Hurd following an investigation into sexual harassment claims. While those claims have been disproven, it uncovered other questionable behavior surrounding his relationship with the claimant.

Hurd apparently falsified expense reports in order to conceal his relationship. This in turn was a violation of the company's code of conduct, which in turn led the board to ask for his resignation. Ellison focused on the sexual harassment claim, only briefly mentioning the board's actual reason for dismissal in his letter.

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While Craiglist's adult personals section has been the subject of a great many jokes, two alleged sex crimes as a result of the site may make you think more seriously about it. An interest group focused on human rights for women has blasted the site by taking out an ad in The Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle asking for the adult services section to be shut down.

The Rebecca Project's ad tells the story of "AK," who claims to have been raped as a result of the site, and "MC." who was forced into prostitution as a result of the site. The ad claims that Craigslist makes $36 million yearly by charging for ads in this space.

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While much of the speculation surrounding Google and Verizon's discussions adjoining net neutrality appeared to significantly diminish the idea's central precepts, it now appears that the concept may not be dead after all.

The two companies announced Monday a framework from which the FCC and legislators can work from. Proponents of net neutrality appear to have scored a victory in that one of the seven key principles of the agreement appears to be that wireline internet traffic can not be prioritized. At the same time, there also appears to be several loopholes which may weaken the agreement overall.

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Apple confirmed over the weekend that mobile phone head Mark Papermaster has left the company, and will be replaced by computer engineering chief Bob Mansfield. The company has declined to give further details on Papermaster's departure.

Speculation and blog reports indicate that he was likely was let go for reasons surrounding the iPhone 4's antenna, as well as problems related with hardware on other products that he had some influence over. Others reported that Papermaster had an increasingly strained relationship with CEO Steve Jobs.

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Dish will allow free access to its programming on subscribers' mobile devices under plans first disclosed by the Associated Press on Thursday. The content will include live streaming as well as programming saved to the consumer's DVR. The offering requires either a Slingbox or a Slingbox-enabled DISH DVR.

The service will launch in October and be available to users of iOS devices as well as the BlackBerry. It was not immediately clear how the functionality would differ from the standard Slingbox offering.

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Several news services including Bloomberg and Reuters are reporting that Google and Verizon have reached a deal which would regulate how Internet traffic would be handled. While generally upholding net neutrality principles, it does seem to offer Verizon considerable leeway.

Google defended itself on Thursday, claiming reports that it had paid Verizon for Internet priority were false, specifically the account provided by the New York Times was wrong. It did not refute reports that a deal had been reached, which was reported by other outlets.

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Wireless ISP Clear is the nation's biggest proponent of WiMAX. Along with majority shareholder Sprint, the two companies have repeatedly talked up the wireless technology as a solid option in the path to 4G.

That may now be in question. Clear said late Wednesday that it will be testing LTE in two different variations this fall in Phoenix, Arizona, with a decision to move forward coming by the end of the year. Given the company's massive spectrum holdings, it would be able to offer real world speeds far above any other LTE deployment.

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