Google sues BT in patent battle

14 February 2013 Last updated at 07:24 ET

Google is suing BT, claiming the British telecoms group has infringed a number of its technologies.

The search giant has launched a series of legal actions against the London-based firm in California, claiming four of its patents have been violated, and has also filed a separate case in the UK.

BT had been expecting such action after it launched its own case against Google in 2011.

That dispute has yet to be resolved.

"We have always seen litigation as a last resort, and we work hard to avoid lawsuits," said a spokeswoman for Google.

"But BT has brought several meritless patent claims against Google and our customers - and they've also been arming patent trolls."

The term "patent troll" describes firms that acquire patents so that they can later extract settlements from companies on infringement claims.

In 2012, New Jersey-based intellectual property owner Suffolk Technologies sued Google and US internet service provider AOL over two patents it had acquired from BT.

In addition, Steelhead Licensing - another firm which owns patents but does not produce products of its own - has filed a case against 14 handset makers and mobile networks, including Google's Motorola unit, claiming infringement of a wireless technology which used to be owned by BT.

A spokesman for the British firm said it did not comment on pending litigation.

Google first

Google has struck back with claims that BT has infringed a method to allow PCs to use an internet-based telephone system based on a patent originally filed by Fujitsu.

And it says BT failed to license a system used to let computer servers prioritise data - an IBM invention now owned by the search firm.

Patent consultant Florian Mueller said this was the first clear case of Google suing another company over its patents.

Previous cases involving Motorola were filed ahead of Google buying the Razr handset maker.

BT and Google are next set to meet in court in Delaware in July for a mediation hearing about the 2011 case.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Luxury Android has £7,000 price tag

11 February 2013 Last updated at 23:27 ET

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Speaking to the BBC's Aaron Heslehurst, Vertu's chief executive Perry Oosting denies the handset is simply "a showpiece"

Luxury smartphone maker Vertu has launched its first Android-operated handset.

The Vertu Ti costs 7,900 euros (£6,994) and is made at the firm's headquarters in Church Crookham, Hampshire.

The device had a titanium frame and sapphire screen but was not 4G-enabled, said its designer Hutch Hutchison.

Until last year the company was owned by Nokia and specialised in highly priced handsets designed for the Symbian operating system.

Vertu had chosen Android over Windows as an operating system because it was more established, chief executive Perry Oosting told the BBC.

"You need to be part of an ecosystem," he said.

"Your device will have to integrate with other devices. I think the Windows phone will have success but it is still a relatively small market share. At the moment it doesn't have the global reach of Android - which is about 60% of the market."

Head of design Mr Hutchison said that Vertu was not interested in being a tech pioneer.

"Vertu will never be at the bleeding edge of technology," he said.

"It has to be about relevant technology and craftsmanship - it's not a disposable product."

Niche appeal

The firm is also not focused on the mass market, with just 326,000 Vertu smartphone owners worldwide after 10 years in the industry.

"We don't make massive numbers of phones and the price point is reflective of that," said Mr Oosting.

Each device is assembled by hand. The name and signature of the person who assembled the phone is laser inscribed onto the inside lid of the SIM card holder.

Vertu handsets can only be purchased in 500 retail outlets, 70 of which are the company's own boutiques, around the world.

Each device has a "concierge" button that connects the caller with a global team who can provide localised advice and help with events and restaurant bookings.

Weighing 180g (6oz), the Vertu Ti is heavier than most current generation smartphones - the Samsung Galaxy S3 weighs 118g and the iPhone 5 is 112g.

One reason for this is that it has been designed for intense durability. One handset - and its screen - remained intact and working after being accidentally run over by a delivery truck.

"People think sapphire is just posh glass," said Mr Hutchison.

"But sapphire is to glass what steel is to blancmange. The only thing that scratches it is a diamond."

Vertu does not release figures but says sales have increased every year for the past 10 - with the exception of 2008, when the bank Lehman Brothers collapsed.

It also says China is its biggest market.

Other luxury brands such as Tag Heuer and Goldvish are also now competing in the niche yet lucrative space for handsets costing thousands of pounds.

However some experts believe the wider market is moving towards lower-end smartphones.

Huawei has just launched a budget Windows device in Africa and there are rumours of a cheap version of the iPhone 5.

"We forecast that by 2016, 31% of the global overall handset market will be low-end smartphone," Ian Fogg, principal analyst at IHS, told the BBC last month.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Tesco trials new film and TV service

12 February 2013 Last updated at 09:55 ET

Supermarket giant Tesco is trialling a new TV and film streaming service called Clubcard TV.

The free on-demand service will allow the supermarket's 15 million loyalty card holders to access TV shows and films online.

Tesco is currently testing the service on its own employees before rolling it out "sometime this year", a spokesman told the BBC.

Clubcard TV will be powered by Tesco-owned online video provider Blinkbox.

"We're always looking for new ways to reward our customers' loyalty," the spokesman said.

"We're trialling Clubcard TV with colleagues to get their feedback before rolling it out more widely."

Tesco is not revealing the nature and extent of the content it will be offering, but titles listed on the promotional webpage include Superman Brainiac Attacks, Care Bears, and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

Competition in the on-demand space is already fierce, with free and subscription services from Netflix, Lovefilm, Virgin Media, BT Vision, YouView, BBC iPlayer and BSkyB already fighting for customers.

Jonathan Doran, analyst with researcher Ovum, said: "The market is already so crowded with on-demand services that Tesco will struggle to have any impact, especially if the service is only browser-based.

"Success will all depend on the quality of the content."

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Mobile phone sales 'go into reverse'

13 February 2013 Last updated at 06:21 ET

Global sales of mobile phones fell in 2012 compared with the previous year, according to a report from research company Gartner.

It said 1.75 billion handsets had been bought, marking a 1.7% decline.

Analysts at the firm suggested "tough economic conditions" had been partly responsible for the drop.

It follows official data from Spain indicating its number of mobile telephone and datacard subscriptions fell by 5% over the same period.

A report by the Spanish regulator CMT said there were nearly 2.8 million fewer such contracts at the end of the year than at the beginning, with Telefonica's Movistar unit and Vodafone bearing the brunt of losses in December.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 1.3% in 2012, according to its central bank.

Android gains

Gartner's data suggests weakening demand for feature phones - lower-end devices with limited functionality - led to the drop. It said that in the final three months of the year, 264.4 million such devices had been sold - 19.3% fewer than over the same period in 2011.

Although smartphones had seen a 38.3% year-on-year gain over the fourth quarter, they had still remained in the minority with 207.7 million units sold, the study said.

The firm added that Apple and Samsung had dominated the smartphone market, with a combined 52% share in the October-to-December quarter.

"There is no manufacturer that can firmly lay claim to the number three spot," said the company's principal research analyst Anshul Gupta.

"Their direct competitors, including those with comparable products, struggle to achieve the same brand appreciation among consumers."

He added that the overall fall in sales marked the first time the market had contracted since 2009.

Gartner's data also indicated that in the fourth quarter, Android had powered 69.7% of all smartphones sold, while iOS had accounted for 20.9% of devices.

For the year, that marked a gain in share for Google's operating system, but a decline for Apple's - although in terms of units sold, both firms made gains.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

'More accurate' sat-nav revealed

13 February 2013 Last updated at 06:48 ET

Researchers in Spain have developed a system they say can greatly improve the accuracy of car sat-navs.

It combines a conventional global positioning system (GPS) signal with those of other sensors - accelerometers and gyroscopes - to pinpoint a car's location to within 2m (6ft 6in).

It can be cheaply installed in any car and may eventually work on smartphones, the researchers say.

Such a system has the potential to help the burgeoning driverless car industry.

The system was jointly designed and developed by the Applied Artificial Intelligence Group and the Systems Intelligence Laboratory - both based at Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M).

"We have managed to improve the determination of a vehicle's position in critical cases by between 50 and 90%," said researcher David Martin.

According to the scientists, the margin of error of commercial GPS used in cars is about 15m in an open field, where the receiver has good visibility from the satellites.

However, in cities where the signal bounces off buildings and trees, the calculation of a vehicle's position can be off by more than 50m.

In certain cases, such as in tunnels, communication is lost completely.

At that point, the system reverts to essentially guessing the location. While this may be sufficient for in-car navigation systems, it would not be suitable for automated vehicles, which are currently being developed by the likes of Google.

"Cars are becoming increasingly connected," said Prof David Bailey from the Coventry University Business school.

"There is a lot of research into driverless cars and, for that, GPS needs to be as accurate as possible," he added.

The system developed in Madrid makes use of a unit comprised of three accelerometers and three gyroscopes, which keep track of the speed and direction of a vehicle at all times.

The data from these is combined with that from a conventional GPS unit to pinpoint a location of a car to within 2m in cities.

Using smartphones

The next step for the Spanish researchers is to develop a system that can work with smartphones.

Most are equipped with a range of sensors, including an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a magnetometer, GPS and cameras, in addition to wi-fi, Bluetooth and GSM communications.

"We are now starting to work on the integration of this data fusion system into a mobile telephone," said researcher Enrique Marti.

"It can integrate all of the measurements that come from its sensors in order to obtain the same result that we have now, but at an even much lower cost, since it is something that almost everyone can carry around in their pocket."

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

US pursues tighter cybersecurity

13 February 2013 Last updated at 09:32 ET

US officials have been ordered to draw up procedures to reduce the country's exposure to cybersecurity threats.

President Obama warned that the country's enemies were "seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions and our air traffic control systems".

He added that Congress also needed to pass related laws.

The House Intelligence Committee has said it now planned to revive its cyber threat information-sharing bill.

The legislation - known as Cispa - had previously been attacked by privacy campaigners and the White House itself had threatened to veto the bill if passed in its original form.

Executive order

The US president's executive order on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity was issued in conjunction with his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

It instructs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Nist) to work with the relevant government agencies and industry bodies to draw up standards and practices to combat cyber threats.

It also calls on officials to share both classified and unrestricted information about attacks with at-risk companies.

It adds that "strong privacy and civil liberties protections" should be incorporated into the new procedures.

President Obama told Congress the standards would "protect our national security, our jobs and our privacy".

But because the order does not amount to a new law it does not compel the private sector to take any action.

As a result, the president added that "Congress must act as well by passing legislation to give our government a greater capacity to secure our networks and deter attacks".

In response, the US Chamber of Commerce welcomed the emphasis on information sharing, but warned it would oppose any follow-up effort to impose new regulations on industry.

Privacy concerns

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) also said it was "encouraged" by the order's wording - but has made clear it would oppose any effort to reintroduce the House Intelligence Committee's Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (Cispa).

The proposed law would give permission to US companies to share cyber threat information with the government and others in the private sector. Firms would be offered "liability protection" if their conduct was later challenged.

Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, said: "This is clearly not a theoretical threat - the recent spike in advanced cyber attacks against the banks and newspapers makes that crystal clear."

The committee's senior Democrat, Dutch Ruppersberger, added: "We need to do everything we can to enable American companies to defend themselves... our bill does just that by permitting the voluntary sharing of critical threat intelligence."

However, the ACLU warned that exactly what counted as a threat remained "undefined" and the law "would trample on decades of privacy law".

It has suggested that once data was handed over it might "also be used for purposes completely unrelated to cybersecurity".

Second life

The House of Representatives passed Cispa last April. IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Facebook backed the bill, saying efforts would continue to address civil liberty concerns.

But the White House warned that the president might veto any resulting law unless it added "clear legal protections and independent oversight" to address privacy concerns.

However, the president later wrote an op-ed broadly supporting related legislation when it went before the Senate a few months later.

Despite this, the bill failed to clear the upper house after senators failed to agree on proposed amendments.

Congressmen Rogers and Ruppersberger now intend to reintroduce April's version of Cispa to the House next week.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Google challenges Russia video ban

13 February 2013 Last updated at 13:32 ET

Google has filed an appeal with a Russian court challenging the country's inclusion of a YouTube video on an official blacklist.

The clip shows a woman using make-up and a razor blade to make it appear that she has cut one of her wrists.

A Russian watchdog banned it on the grounds it provided information about how to commit suicide.

Google indicated it wished to use the example as a test case to help clarify the blacklist's rules.

Moscow introduced an amendment to its Information Act in November allowing sites to be taken offline in order to protect children.

Had Google not taken down the offending clip in Russia it could have faced local internet service providers (ISPs) blocking the whole of its YouTube site.

The video remains accessible in other countries.

Entertainment defence

The clip was originally uploaded on 18 January 2012 by Russia-based user SNEG0VA. It had been viewed fewer than 7,500 times when the blacklist came into effect. News of its deletion was revealed by the Russian newspaper Vedomosti.

"We will, at times, restrict content on country-specific domains where a nation's laws require it or if content is found to violate our community guidelines," said a YouTube spokeswoman.

"In this case, we have appealed the decision of Russian Consumer Watchdog because we do not believe that the goal of the law was to limit access to videos that are clearly intended to entertain viewers."

Roscomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision in Telecommunications, Information Technology and Mass Communications) - the agency in charge of running the blacklist - confirmed that the clip had been flagged by a second watchdog Rospotrebnadzor (Federal Service for Control in the Sphere of Protection Consumers' Rights and Well-Being of Humans) .

Russia's rules state that material can be banned for including any one of three kinds of forbidden material.

Rospotrebnadzor makes rulings about suicide and drugs while Roscomnadzor decides whether items featuring items relating to child sex abuse should be banned.

"The company [Google] fulfilled all requirements of the law (delete the video) and now it is necessary to wait for judgement results," Roscomnadzor spokesman V Pikov told the BBC.

The clip is not the only one Google has blocked on YouTube in Russia, but a spokeswoman for the US firm was unable to say how many videos it had hidden.

Censorship fears

The creation of the Russian blacklist has caused controversy.

Human rights groups have said it might increase censorship since sites can be forced offline without a trial.

The list is meant to be updated daily, and users can check if a site is banned via an online search tool.

The Russian version of Wikipedia, search engine Yandex and social network Vkontakte all protested against its creation warning that it posed a risk of "extra-judicial censorship".

Activists have subsequently raised concerns that LJRossia - a blogging platform "created to support freedom of speech" - was recently added following allegations that two posts on it had contained "child pornography elements".

Other sites associated with the net's subculture, including a Russian version of discussion and image post website 4chan, have also been targeted.

The Russian government has stressed that the aim of the law is not to enforce censorship, but rather to protect children.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Apple loses iPhone ruling in Brazil

13 February 2013 Last updated at 16:00 ET

Brazilian regulators have ruled that Apple does not have exclusive rights to use the "iPhone" trademark in the country.

But the US tech giant has already lodged an appeal against the decision with the Brazilian regulators.

The ruling is the result of a local company, Gradiente Eletronica, registering the name in 2000, six years before the US firm.

Apple can continue to sell iPhone-branded handsets in Brazil.

But the decision means that Gradiente has an option of suing for exclusivity in South America's biggest market.

The Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) told the BBC that its decision only applied to handsets, and that the California-based company continued to have exclusive rights to use the iPhone name elsewhere including on clothing, in software and across publications.

"I can confirm that INPI published today its decisions about eight trademark applications related to iPhone, from Apple: four applications were rejected and other four were approved," said the agency's spokesman Marcelo Chimento.

"Some were rejected because a Brazilian company, Gradiente, made an application for G Gradiente iphone in 2000 and it was approved in 2008. As Apple started its applications for iPhone in 2006, they were denied because Gradiente had a very similar register for cell phones applied some years before the American company.

"The trademarks approved today for Apple were related to other classes, such as education, software development and advertising. Since they are in other classes, different from communications and telephones, they could be approved."

Appeal

INPI added that Apple had argued that it should have been given full rights since Gradiente had not released a product using the iPhone name until December 2012.

Apple is asking the INPI to cancel Gradiente's registration through expiration - it is arguing that the Brazilian firm did not use the name within a five year limit.

The Manaus-headquartered company now sells its Android-powered iPhone Neo One for 599 reals ($304; £196).

Bloomberg previously reported that the chairman of Gradiente had said: "We're open to a dialogue for anything, anytime... we're not radicals."

Apple's most recent financial results revealed its cash reserves had grown to $137bn (£88bn).

The firm's manufacturing partner, Foxconn, currently produces iPhones and iPads among other equipment at its facilities in Brazil.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cisco quarterly profit jumps 44%

13 February 2013 Last updated at 18:00 ET

Profits at Cisco, the world's largest maker of networking equipment, have jumped by 44% on the same period a year ago as spending on technology picks up.

The company, seen as an indicator for the technology sector in general, made $3.1bn (£1.99bn) in the three months to the end of January.

The figure included tax credits and benefits of almost $1bn.

Cisco sells routers, switches, software and services. Buyers are both firms and governments around the world.

Cisco's chief executive John Chambers said that although economic conditions were challenging, demand for his company's products was strong.

He said in a statement: "Cisco delivered record earnings per share this quarter and record revenue for the eighth quarter in a row in a challenging economic environment"

Last year the company began a restructuring programme with the aim of cutting expenses by about $1bn.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More

Police hold 11 over ransomware scam

14 February 2013 Last updated at 08:21 ET

A complex cybercrime network spreading ransomware designed to extort money has been shut down, police have said.

Spanish authorities, working with the European Union's law enforcement agency, Europol, arrested 11 people, from Russia, Georgia and Ukraine.

Software planted on targeted machines accused the user of having viewed illegal content, such as images showing child sex abuse, Europol said.

It then told the user to pay a "fine" before continuing to use the machine.

A Europol statement said: "By dressing the ransomware up to look as if it comes from a law enforcement agency, cybercriminals convince the victim to pay the 'fine' of 100 euros [$130; £85] through two types of payment gateways - virtual and anonymous - as a penalty for the alleged offence.

"The criminals then go on to steal data and information from the victim's computer.

"Since the virus was detected in May 2011, there have been more than 1,200 reported cases just in Spain, and the number of victims could be much higher."

'One million euros'

Investigators from Europol's European Cybercrime Centre - which launched last month - said the network had infected "tens of thousands" of computers worldwide.

Estimated profits had been in the range of one million euros per year, the statement said. And the virus had been first discovered in May 2011.

The gang had been receiving the money in a variety of ways - including using virtual currency such as Bitcoin, Europol said.

They were also alleged to have used cash machines in Spain to withdraw money with compromised credit cards - one of which had been used to take out 26,000 euros prior to the suspects' arrest.

Europol believe the head of the operation was a 27-year-old Russian man who had been in charge of the "creation, development and international distribution of the various versions of the malware".

"He was arrested in the United Arab Emirates and is awaiting extradition to Spain," the statement said.

Six Russians, two Ukrainians and two Georgians were also arrested.

23.34 | 0 komentar | Read More