frouman.net

"I believe that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books, and that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the agreements, will confirm that," Cote said.

Orin Snyder, a lawyer for Apple, said in a statement, "We strongly disagree with the court's preliminary statements about the case today."

The Justice Department declined to comment. - Reuters

For its part, Apple has filed its own Notice of New Authority and New Facts Relevant to the Issues on Review with the ITC in Inv. No. 337-TA-794, where the Commission's Final Determination is due by May 31. Apple argues that the situation between it and Samsung is "strikingly similar" to the facts that gave rise to the Realtek-LSI injunction. Apple argues that prior to filing its ITC complaint, Samsung never made a license offer that was limited to its FRAND-encumbered SEPs - and Apple also argues (as it has in the past) that Samsung's use of the end product price as a royalty base and its efforts to seek injunction relief are further evidence of its FRAND violations. Finally, Apple accuses Samsung of making contradictory arguments in defending itself from SEP infringement allegations in its district court case against Ericsson. Apple argues that this shows that it would not be in the public interest to issue an exclusion order in the -794 case. - The Essential Patent Blog

On Monday, I profiled asylumbooter.com, one of several increasingly public DDoS-for-hire services posing as Web site "stress testing" services. Today, we'll look at ragebooter.net, yet another attack service except for one secret feature which sets it apart from the competition: According the site's proprietor, ragebooter.net includes a hidden backdoor that lets the FBI monitor customer activity. - Brian Krebs, Krebs on Security

The new two-factor authentication mechanism is a step in the right direction, but it remains questionable whether the measure will actually solve the problem for the targets of the latest hacks. News organisations tend to have multiple people, often on different continents, that need to access the organisation's Twitter account. In these cases, having one mobile phone in the organisation registered to the account presents a problem and will probably prevent the use of the login verification feature. - The H

It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian "sid" at the time of the Debian "wheezy" release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release.

The installation ISO images can be downloaded from Debian Ports in the usual three Debian flavors: NETINST, CD, DVD. Besides the friendly Debian installer, a pre-installed disk image is also available, making it even easier to try Debian GNU/Hurd. - Bits From Debian

The law should not allow trolls to prey on end users. Period. We hear some policy makers are considering proposals that would immunize these users. This is precisely the kind of reform the system needs.

Take for instance Innovatio, the troll who targets those who provide access to Wi-Fi networks in public spaces, like coffee shops and hotels. There's Lodsys, who targets app developers for using technologies to perform in-app upgrades-a feature that companies like Apple and Google provide to those developers. Or the infamous scanner troll, MPHJ Technology, who claims to own the technology covering scan-to-email and demands that companies pay up nearly $1,000 per employee for using it. And we can't forget Personal Audio, the troll who demands licenses from podcasters for, well, podcasting, despite the fact that most of those podcasters use off-the-shelf technology to distribute their podcasts.

There is a trend here. These trolls are targeting consumers who use widely available products to conduct their businesses efficiently and effectively. Most, if not all, did not develop, manufacture, or sell the allegedly infringing technology. Most, if not all, had no idea that any patent existed that might prohibit how they use those products. - Julie Samuels, EFF

In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing "Talk" platform with a new one called "Hangouts" that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users. - Parker Higgins, EFF

The RIAA has submitted its latest Form 990 tax filing to the IRS, which details the organization's precipitous shelving off in budget and employees (though the execs gave themselves fat raises) - Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

If it exists, the patent heat in Congress right now is focused on "curbing abusive patent litigation." A variety of bills have been introduced, including the SHIELD Act that would introduce a one-way fee shifting system that would require losing plaintiffs to pay the attorney fees of successful defendants. H.R. 845. The Bill also requires that the patentee plaintiff (or DJ Defendant) post a bond early in the lawsuit to ensure that the fees will be paid. Under its current structure, the bill is limited to cases where (1) the party asserting the patent is not the original inventor or original assignee; (2) the party asserting the patent is not exploiting the patent "through production or sale of an item covered by the patent" and (3) the party asserting the patent is not a University or the US Government. If the patentee meets any one of those prongs then they escape the fee shifting. At the conclusion of the case if the patentee loses then the court must award the prevailing party "full costs ... including reasonable attorney's fees."

Senator Cornyn this week introduced another bill - the Patent Abuse Reduction Act of 2013 (S.1013). According to Cornyn's press release, the bill "would require plaintiffs to disclose the substance of their claim and reveal their identities when they file their lawsuit; allow defendants to hale into court interested parties; bring fairness to the discovery process; and shift responsibility for the cost of litigation to the losing party." - Patently O

The U.S. International Trade Commission has turned down a request for a ban on Microsoft's Xbox after finding that the gaming device did not infringe a patent owned by Google's Motorola Mobility unit.

The ITC's ruling Thursday has essentially confirmed an initial ruling by administrative law judge David P. Shaw in March that the Xbox did not infringe a Motorola patent relating to wireless peer-to-peer communications.

"We're disappointed with this decision and are evaluating our options," Motorola's spokesman William Moss said in an email on Thursday. - PC World

In fact, it took the uber-popular Android phone just 26 days to reach the 10 million-sold milestone. The impressive feat makes the Galaxy S 4 $199.99 at Let's Talk Samsung's fastest-selling smartphone to date.

[PJ: And now we know why Apple would like to add the S4 to its patent lawsuit against Samsung, so it can try for an injunction. But there are at least 10 million people who want that phone and despise Apple for trying to make it impossible to buy one.] - Min-Jeong Lee, WSJ

Today we're introducing a new security feature to better protect your Twitter account: login verification.

This is a form of two-factor authentication. When you sign in to twitter.com, there's a second check to make sure it's really you. You'll be asked to register a verified phone number and a confirmed email address. To get started, follow these steps:... - Twitter

Before Wednesday, all users was logging in to Twitter the same way - those with two followers and those with 2 million. Now, Twitter added a security method called login verification, which is essentially like double-locking your door at night to decrease the chances of an intruder breaking in.

The two-factor authentication is SMS-based, which means Twitter sends a code in a text message to users' phones each time they want to log in. The code is generated when someone tries to log in; the code changes after each login attempt. - Samantha Murphy, Mashable

The Parallella project is the brainchild of Adapteva, a semiconductor company that has developed an incredibly energy-efficient microprocessor architecture named Epiphany that is capable of scaling to thousands of cores on a single chip....

The Parallella project was funded via Kickstarter, raising just short of $900,000 and with those pledging $99 or more being rewarded with at least one board with a 16-core Epiphany device.

Having met and exceeded the funding goal on 27th October 2012 the project is now working to a challenging delivery timescale. With the first prototype boards having gone out on 31st December 2012, the beta version of the board due 28th February and release 1.0 to ship 31st May. - Andrew Back, Design Spark

The explosion struck a chord with 18-year NASA veteran Homer Hickam, a former lead astronaut training manager for Spacelab, and later for the International Space Station.

In the late 1950s, Hickam had a brush with law enforcement for allegedly starting a forest fire. State police came to his high school and led him and his friends away in handcuffs, but his high school physics professor and school principal came to the rescue, clearing him of wrongdoing. Back then, schools did not have zero tolerance rules. Kids could make their mistakes without the threat of a criminal record, or serving time in jail.

"I couldn't let this go without doing something," Hickam said. "I'm not a lawyer, but I could give her something that would encourage her. I've worked closely with the U.S. Space Academy, and so I purchased a scholarship for her." Learning of her twin sister, Hickam raised enough money so Kiera and Kayla could attend space camp together. - ABC News

Kim Dotcom has announced that he is the inventor of the so-called two-step authentication system and has a patent to prove it. The Megaupload founder says the security mechanism, which has just been introduced by Twitter, is being used by U.S. companies more than a billion times every week without permission. Dotcom says he doesn't want to sue, but might if the likes of Google and Facebook don't help fund his legal battle with the U.S. Government. - TorrentFreak

The mayor is calling on Chang's eventual jurors to send a message.

"It's time, like with Prohibition, to step back and say this was a stupid thing to do," Filner said outside the courthouse. "Let's step back, and juries ought to take the lead and say that to the federal government...and if the federal government isn't listening to the mayor, maybe they'll listen to the jury."

[PJ: Wow. You don't see a mayor calling for jury nullification every day. Here's what jury nullification is. Lawyers are not allowed to tell juries about it.] - NBC 7 San Diego

However, these additions to Chrome pale in comparison to the change that the update brings to Google Search: The new version of Chrome enables conversational search, a partial implementation of search innovation discussed last week at the company's annual developer conference. Specifically, the latest desktop version of Chrome lets Google speak answers back, which Chrome already does on mobile devices. This interface enhancement accompanies ongoing backend changes to Google Search that makes Google's responses seem smarter.

"Conversational search has started rolling out on Google.com in the latest version of Chrome," a Google spokeswoman confirmed in an email. "You can just click the mic in the search box, ask your question in a natural way, and get spoken answers." - Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek

Today, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced the Patent Abuse Reduction Act, a wide-ranging bill targeting abusive litigation tactics-a favorite tool of the patent troll. ...

The not-so-good news is that these reforms are all litigation focused and, thus, limited. We believe the problem is much bigger. The bill does not address patent quality and fails to consider what the Patent Office could do to help those facing lawsuit threats. It does not include protection for end users, consumers who find themselves staring down patent trolls over widely available technologies. And it fails to address the very root of the problem by not considering whether we should be able to patent software to begin with. - Julie Samuels, EFF

This is a form of two-factor authentication. When you sign in to twitter.com, there's a second check to make sure it's really you. You'll be asked to register a verified phone number and a confirmed email address. - Twitter