Google is already on record as a proponent of devices that make use of empty TV broadcast space for wireless data services. Now in a proposal to the FCC, the company admits it could put its Android platform to use for that purpose.

Bucking strong opposition from the National Association of Broadcasters, Google has sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission arguing for use of its proposed "Android" platform in controversial activities around making "white space" -- or unused airwaves -- available for wireless online access across the US.

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If you're sitting on a coffee shop patio with your laptop, and you find out later that you happen to be accessing the Wi-Fi from the attorney's office upstairs by accident, should you go to prison? A Maryland legislator says no, but his bill is facing opposition.

A bill introduced by a Maryland state delegate that would hold users innocent when they accidentally access the Wi-Fi services of portals other than the one they think they're logged onto, faces trouble today after an unfavorable report to the state's House Judiciary Committee.

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Contract notebook manufacturer Quanta has announced it has partnered with ooVoo to create a prototype HD video conferencing unit which it expects to put into production this year.

Quanta Computer Inc, Taiwanese OEM that manufactures notebooks for Dell, Apple Gateway, HP, Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and even OLPC's XO-1, intends to break into the video conferencing market by producing a device that can support HD displays.

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The US Justice Department has approved the merger between XM and Sirius satellite radio services, stating that it could not find any evidence that the combination would substantially reduce competition.

In what has seemed like an eternity, the first steps towards a single satellite radio entity began Monday as the DOJ approved the $13 billion deal.

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When a patent dispute gets so entangled that the parties involved can't quite agree upon what it is that's in dispute, maybe it's time to call it quits. Today, two of the sides in a notorious three-way dispute admitted they're thinking about it.

The big question that remains up in the air today is this: Is Nokia a licensee of InterDigital technology or not?

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Mozilla CEO John Lily says that Apple's decision to use its Windows software update application to push downloads of its Safari browser on iTunes users was bad for the security of the Web.

Lily's claim may strike some as a bit of sour grapes -- since Apple could viably eat into Mozilla's own market share of those looking for a alternative to Internet Explorer. However, he argues that it is a breach of user trust.

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Network Solutions, a Web hosting and domain name registration company based out of Herndon, Virginia has temporarily suspended a site for anti-Islamist Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

A 15-minute long film made by Wilders and promoted on the site has not yet been released, but has already been met with public outcry as the lawmaker's position in the political spectrum is far enough to the right to be called reactionary. The botched blocking of a preview for Wilders' video was cited as a potential cause of a YouTube outage in February.

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A few weeks after a security laboratory found what it claimed to be an unchecked relationship between an old database provider and Word, Microsoft indicated that someone out there may still be trying this old attack vector.

It's such an old style of attack that you might rationally wonder why anyone would still be targeting specific computers with it, unless they're really trying to prove a point about their old software. But late Friday, Microsoft said it was informed of a targeted buffer overflow attack that involves the Jet database engine and any version of Microsoft Word dating back to Word 2000 Service Pack 3, on up to Word 2007, running on older operating systems: Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 SP1.

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Guitar makers Gibson, who recently filed patent infringement suit against Activision for the Guitar Hero game series has taken the same suit to the makers of Rock Band, MTV Networks, Harmonix, and Electronic Arts.

The guitar maker whose brand was made famous by axe-slingers from Jimmy Page to B.B. King recently sued Activision for patent infringement, claiming that the Guitar Hero concept was property of the guitar company.

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While some WiMAX players, such as Sprint, are still just dipping their toes into the waters, others are already gaining an early advantage by diving in to this wireless market, with innovative platforms that include supplemental ads.

Early deployments of WiMAX are now unfolding, but how do operators expect to monetize these 4G broadband wireless networks going forward? Although Sprint is indecisive so far about what to do with its Xohm WiMAX network, NextWave has already formulated a monetization model for MXtv, a recently unveiled mobile WiMAX platform aimed at 2.5 GHz wireless broadband networks such as Xohm, 2.3 GHz alternatives such as NextWave's own network, and regional wireless providers in both the 2.3 GHz and 3.4 to 3.8 GHz spectrums.

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In numbers that differ markedly from those cited by the US government and other sources, the European Commission is reporting that eight European countries all have higher household broadband deployment rates than in the US.

Although studies by the UK-based Point Topic also point to higher deployment for some countries in Europe, the deployment rates cited by the EC are much lower across the board.

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It's even shaped like a little lifeboat, and it's supposed to bring the Palm brand out of the doldrums and back into people's pockets. The Centro may be doing so, but the problem is, it's doing so at a cost.

Quarterly earnings releases typically focus mainly or entirely on the good news, and let the analysts out there do the math. But when the math is something as simple as determining gross margin -- a little detail quite obviously omitted from yesterday's printed earnings report from Palm -- the result is that it becomes the center of attention.

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Sprint's traditional CDMA network, the iDEN architecture inherited through Sprint's Nextel acqusition, and the future 4G WiMAX network known as Xohm, may all be implemented under an IP-based "unified service architecture."

In a keynote speech at the VON.x conference in San Jose, Sprint officials were talking in the direction of building an IP-based "Unified Service Architecture" to act as the basis for all three of the company's wireless networks.

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With a few victories already under her belt, a celebrated physicist seeks to leverage those wins in a contest to reclaim her legacy. The other side of the story is that everything with a blue laser diode in it has just come under suspicion.

A fifty-six-year veteran physicist who is currently Columbia University's Howe Professor Emerita of Materials Science and Engineering, will have her patent infringement case heard by the US International Trade Commission. If Judge Paul J. Luckern concurs, an injunction could be placed on the import of all electronics containing blue-laser diodes manufactured using a certain patented process.

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3:40 pm ET March 21, 2008 - In response to consumer feedback on the issue, Sony will drop the $50 added fee for "Fresh Start" beginning tomorrow.

"Starting March 22, Sony will offer Fresh Start free of charge. We want VAIO users to have the best experience possible with our PCs, and we believe Fresh Start will help ensure that happens right out-of-the-box," the company said in a statement to BetaNews.

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