Once more into the courtroom with The Pirate Bay
It seems as if the high-profile trial of The Pirate Bay's operators hasn't really changed much at all in the eyes of Hollywood, as thirteen studios have banded together to sue the site into closing down.
The case was filed in Stockholm District Court on Monday and requests that the site cease and desist from pointing to copyrighted material. According to a Swedish news site given access to the documentation, about 100 movies and TV shows are listed in the complaint. The complaint asks for an injunction to keep the site from operating and mentions compensation for court costs.
California, Arizona will get first Microsoft Stores
The first of Microsoft's planned retail stores will be opening in Scottsdale, Arizona and Missioin Viejo, California, according to reports today.
Images of Microsoft's potential in-store design were leaked late last week and later confirmed by Microsoft to be real, though they were dismissed as "early prototypes" of plans for their retail stores.
Microsoft issues emergency patches for Visual Studio vulnerability
Microsoft today issued security updates for the Active Template Library (ATL) which address a vulnerability that could allow remote code execution.
Libraries are collections of codes upon which software is built, and Microsoft's ATL is used by developers to create controls or components (such as Automation and ActiveX) in Windows. But any components or controls created with the vulnerable version of ATL may now become vulnerable due to how ATL is used or due to issues in the ATL code itself.
AT&T makes Barnes and Noble Wi-Fi free
To tie in with Barnes and Noble's increasing emphasis on eBooks, AT&T announced today that Wi-Fi connections at any of the 777 United States Barnes and Noble bookstores will be free for anyone to use. Previously, only AT&T subscribers had free access to the network.
Last week, Barnes and Noble launched a Web-based eBook store and free eReader apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch, BlackBerry, and Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS 10.1+. The bookseller is gearing up for the launch of its own eBook reader, made by Plastic Logic which will compete with the market-leading Amazon Kindle.
Chinese censorship extends to gang-themed games
Yesterday, the Chinese Ministry of Culture announced that gangster-themed online games have been banned in China as they pose "a serious threat to distort the rule of law and moral standards of society."
Games which promote "fighting, murder, robbery, rape, cheating, or other antisocial behavior" have been deemed illegal content. Web sites hosting, publicizing or linking to games that have organized crime as a major theme face severe punishment. The severity of punishment, however, was not explained by state media.
Sprint to acquire Virgin Mobile USA for $483 million
Sprint, the United States' third largest Tier 1 mobile carrier, will be acquiring mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Virgin Mobile USA for an estimated total of $483 million.
Sprint already owned 13.1% of Virgin Mobile USA, and the MVNO was the first prepay-only business to lease Sprint's mobile network. After the deal closes, Virgin Mobile USA's CEO Dan Schulman will lead Sprint's prepaid business, which already includes Boost Mobile.
Apple rejects Google Voice iPhone apps
The grand unveiling of Google Voice apps for BlackBerry and Android was two weeks ago, but an iPhone app for the service was conspicuously absent. Now it has come out that all Google Voice apps are being pulled from the iTunes app store on the familiar grounds of "duplicate functionality."
Apple has done away with a lot of notable apps that provide a service which the iPhone already presumably provides. The most famous instance of this happened in 2008 with Podcaster, which duplicated the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes. It also happened with Opera Mini, which duplicated Safari's functionality.
Could a standards body force the iTunes-Pre issue?
Palm's plea to the USB Implementers Forum -- the nonprofit group organized by the companies that developed the USB spec -- is an interesting but potentially dangerous gambit for the Pre's home team.
Engineers at Palm re-established via a firmware upgrade the Pre's ability to connect to iTunes late Thursday evening, to the continued annoyance of Apple's closed-source partisans -- especially, no doubt, since Palm's John Traynor made a point of prefacing the news with Steve Jobs' "and one more thing" catchphrase. As it did in the previous workaround, the Pre's firmware now passes to iTunes a Vendor ID indicating it's an Apple device, allowing the phone to download content legally purchased by its user.
Tenenbaum trial kicks off in Boston, sans fair use
A pre-trial ruling by the judge hearing the RIAA's case against Joel Tenenbaum -- only just pre-trial -- threw the defense's strategy in the copyright-infringement case into serious disarray just seven and a half hours before proceedings kicked off Monday morning.
The defense in Joel Tenenbaum's case, which is led by Charles Neeson of Harvard, has made it clear that they'd be arguing that Mr. Tenenbaum engaged in fair use when he shared on KaZaA the 30 songs at the heart of the trial. The RIAA moved to disallow that line of defense, and Judge Nancy Gertner agreed to think it over... which she did until early Monday morning. Concerned parties received an e-mail with her ruling at 1:37am.
Google sells $1 billion stake in AOL for $283 million
In anticipation of AOL's spin off from parent company Time Warner, Google has sold its 5% stake in AOL back to Time Warner for almost 75% less than it paid for it in 2006.
According to an SEC filing released today, Time Warner paid $283 million for Google's 5% share of AOL on July 8, which Google spent a billion dollars on in 2006.
Microsoft entices Windows Mobile developers with chance to win Surface table
As a run-up to the Windows Mobile Marketplace launch, Microsoft has officially opened submissions for the Race to Market developer challenge in 29 countries.
The contest will begin when the Marketplace opens and continue until the last day of 2009, at which time four apps will be selected to win a Developer Edition Microsoft Surface table each. Registered Windows Mobile devs and independent software vendors can now upload their apps for certification in the Marketplace and expect them to be ready within around 10 business days.
Australian ISPs give thumbs up to controversial content filtering, see no speed reduction
The Australian Federal Government's controversial plan to install ISP-level content filters has managed to make it to the widespread testing phase, and challenging the long-held criticism that such filters would slow down Internet speeds as much as 75% percent, ISPs testing the filters now report minimal slowdown.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority began testing the filters in February 2008 in Tasmania before open testing was slated to begin. In these tests, one of the filters tested registered 2% "network degradation," while three registered under 30% and two degraded network performance by more than 75%.
Mobile browser usage more than doubles, according to Opera
In its "State of the Mobile Web" report, which analyzes aggregated information from Opera Mini's servers, browser company Opera Software today said that in June 2009, 26.5 million users viewed more than 10.4 billion pages. In annual performance, that represents a 143% increase in users and a 224% increase in pages viewed.
Now it's well known that Opera is one of the most widely ported browsers in the mobile device realm, with more than 40 million phones shipping with the software built in, but where is it being used the absolute most, and on what devices?
Associated Press takes heat for article-tagging plan
A week in the blogosphere without a teapot-sized tempest is a week without... well, probably electrical power if not gravity. Last week's target for tumult was the Associated Press, which announced Thursday that it would implement a new system to detect unlicensed use of its content and promptly fell into a swamp of blogger fury, with all parties eventually screaming "fair use!" -- to the amusement and edification of absolutely no one.
The AP's news registry project, which is slated to roll out in November, will add an "informational wrapper" to its material, designed to alert the service to wholesale grabs by other web sites. Text content will be wrapped first, followed by photos and video.
After 9-year cookie ban, US Government wants to start tracking you online again
Nine years ago, the Office of Management and Budget issued a directive banning Federal agencies from dropping cookies on visitors' computers. On Friday, the White House called for public discussion about whether that policy should continue. Whether you see that as a nod to improved privacy protections and a smarter userbase, or sigh at the encroachments tracking tech has made in a decade, is perhaps a matter of perspective.
The announcement, blogged on the White House site by federal CIO Vivek Kundra and OMB associate administrator for information and regulatory affairs Michael Fitzpatrick and reproduced nearly verbatim in the proposal's listing in the Federal Register (PDF available), says that the point of the policy review is "to develop a new policy that allows the Federal Government to continue to protect the privacy of people who visit Federal websites while, at the same time, making these websites more user-friendly, providing better customer service, and allowing for enhanced web analytics."
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