Apple Inc. has asked a telecommunications standards body to set basic principles governing how member companies license their patents, an increasingly contentious topic for rivals in the smartphone industry. In a letter to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, Apple said the telecommunications industry lacks consistent licensing schemes for the many patents necessary to make mobile devices, and offered suggestions for setting appropriate royalty rates that all members would follow.
A hacker released the source code for antivirus firm Symantec’s pcAnywhere utility, raising fears that others could find security holes in the product and attempt takeovers of customer computers. The release followed failed email negotiations over a $50,000 payout to the hacker calling himself YamaTough to destroy the code.
Google Inc., the largest maker of smartphone software, plans to send a letter to standards organizations reassuring them it will license Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. patents on a fair and reasonable basis, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. The move would come after a deadline passed for Google to submit remedies to the European Commission, which is evaluating the plan to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.
Who owns a Twitter account — the person who used it or the company for which he worked at the time? That question has yet to be resolved, but a federal magistrate judge has allowed several claims by PhoneDog LLC against a former independent contractor over a Twitter account to move forward.
Police in the German state of Lower-Saxony will soon use their networks of Facebook “friends” to find missing persons and hunt out suspected criminals, according to the state’s interior minister. The decision to use social media in manhunts follows the completion of a pilot scheme in the northern city of Hanover last year which drew sharp criticism from data protection groups.
