Showing headlines posted by BernardSwiss

Almost 300 million phones running Google's Android operating system are vulnerable to a newly developed drive-by attack that can install malware and take control of key operations, a security firm has warned.

A proof-of-concept exploit dubbed Metaphor works against Android versions 2.2 through 4.0 and 5.0 and 5.1, which together are estimated to run 275 million phones, researchers from Israeli security firm NorthBit said. It attacks the same Stagefright media library that made an estimated 950 million Android phones susceptible to similar code-execution attacks last year.

Gwyther runs a community website for LARPers called Larping.org and has a side business selling foam-tipped arrows that are popular with LARPers. He got sued in October by a company called Global Archery, which claims that Gwyther's arrows business violates two patents it owns and also illegally uses its trademark. Last month, Gwyther, strapped for cash, went public with the dispute.

In 2014, no company filed more patent lawsuits than eDekka LLC, a Texas-based company with just one asset—US Patent No. 6,266,674. Fully 168 patent lawsuits came to a sudden halt in October, when US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap stopped the litigation campaign in its tracks.

"With its new Universal Windows Platform (UWP) initiative, Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10, as the first apparent step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem," said Sweeney. "Microsoft has launched new PC Windows features exclusively in UWP and is effectively telling developers you can use these Windows features only if you submit to the control of our locked-down UWP ecosystem."

Yesterday, Big Blue filed a lawsuit (PDF) against Groupon, saying the company has infringed four IBM patents, including patents 5,796,967 and 7,072,849. Each of those relates to the Prodigy service. IBM inventors working on Prodigy "developed novel methods for presenting applications and advertisements," and "the technological innovations embodied in these patents are fundamental to the efficient communication of Internet content," according to the company...

The '567 patent describes a system that presents "interactive applications (such as home, local, goods, etc.) on a computer network," using a monitor, a "first partition" (a webpage), and a "second partition" with command functions (like a menu bar).

"Personalized content" is a phrase so vague that it could mean just about anything. That quality makes it just about perfect for use by a patent troll. This month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's patent lawyers have honed in on a patent describing a way of "presenting personalized content relating to offered products and services," owned by Phoenix Licensing LLC, a patent-holding company controlled by Richard Libman, an Arizona man who's sued more that 100 companies.

Apple's second high-profile patent win against Samsung was appealed, just as the first was. And in an opinion (PDF) published today, a panel of appeals judges entirely wiped out Apple's victory and its $120 million verdict. The new decision found that out of three different patents Apple became famous for winning with, one wasn't infringed and two of them are invalid.

In parallel with Microsoft's efforts, an open source version of .NET named Mono was created by Ximian, an open source company founded by Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman. Ximian was acquired by Novell in 2003, and Novell was bought by Attachmate in 2011. Attachmate laid off all Mono staff shortly after the acquisition, and de Icaza and Friedman founded Xamarin later that same year to continue their work with Mono.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Chelsea Manning supporter recently attempted to mail Manning a series of printed EFF articles about prisoner rights. Those materials were withheld and not delivered to her because, according to the EFF, the correspondence contained “printed Internet materials, including email, of a volume exceeding five pages per day or the distribution of which may violate U.S. copyright laws.” Other materials, including lengthy Bureau of Prisons documents, were allowed through, and so the EFF concludes that "it was potentially copyright concerns that resulted in Manning’s mail being censored."

Cyanogen Inc. has announced a new feature for the upcoming Marshmallow version of its commercial Android skin, Cyanogen OS. The company is launching the "Mods" platform, a way to build apps "directly into the OS." The platform's biggest participant is none other than Microsoft, which has built Skype, Cortana, OneNote, and Hyperlapse apps for Cyanogen's platform.

When Jordan Gwyther started Larping.org, a website that promotes his favorite hobby, he didn't expect it would lead to him being sued for patent infringement over foam arrows. And when he spoke out about the lawsuit, neither he nor his attorney saw what was coming next: the patent-owner filed papers in court last week asking for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would keep Gwyther quiet.

During this year's CES conference in Las Vegas, some members of the press witnessed a surprising scene. US Marshals raided the booth of a Chinese company selling one-wheeled "hoverboards," packing up their merchandise and forcing them to close up shop.

The raid was prompted by legal action from Future Motion, a California startup that sells a similar looking one-wheeled "hoverboard" called the Onewheel. Future Motion says that the Chinese competitor, Changzhou First International Trade Co., was violating two of its patents.

Researchers have discovered a potentially catastrophic flaw in one of the Internet's core building blocks that leaves hundreds or thousands of apps and hardware devices vulnerable to attacks that can take complete control over them. The vulnerability was introduced in 2008 in GNU C Library, a collection of open source code that powers thousands of standalone applications and most distributions of Linux, including those distributed with routers and other types of hardware.

Specifically, Wikimedia notes that, as a US company, it's under the jurisdiction of US law, and the DMCA includes a provision on "red flag" knowledge, that says if you are aware of infringing material, and you do not take it down, you may be liable. Thus, it removed it, even though it did not receive a specific DMCA takedown notice.

This is indeed a large payoff, one that indicates Warner/Chappell is not willing to test the merits of its case in front of a jury. The merits of the case, of course, are pretty much some random assertions with little documentation to back them up, but assertions that have, nonetheless, allowed Warner to obtain an estimated $50 million in licensing fees over the years. The $14 million Warner will pay is roughly in line with what it expected to make during the remaining years of the copyright term.

On Wednesday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) introduced a new bill in Congress that attempts to halt state-level efforts that would weaken encryption.

The federal bill comes just weeks after two nearly identical state bills in New York state and California proposed to ban the sale of modern smartphones equipped with strong crypto that cannot be unlocked by the manufacturer. If the state bills are signed into law, current iPhone and Android phones would need to be substantially redesigned for those two states.

The public will soon be free to sing the world's most famous song.

Music publisher Warner/Chappell will no longer be allowed to collect licensing royalties on those who sing "Happy Birthday" in public and will pay back $14 million to those who have paid for licensing in the past, according to court settlement papers filed late Monday night.

Repair groups from across the industry announced that they have formed The Repair Coalition, a lobbying and advocacy group that will focus on reforming the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to preserve the “right to repair” anything from cell phones and computers to tractors, watches, refrigerators, and cars. It will also focus on passing state-level legislation that will require manufacturers to sell repair parts to independent repair shops and to consumers and will prevent them from artificially locking down their products to would-be repairers.

A T-Mobile USA executive yesterday urged the Federal Communications Commission not to take any action against the carrier's "Binge On" program, which throttles nearly all video content and exempts certain video services from data caps.

Among the many bizarre and stupid mistakes Microsoft made with Windows 8.x was the decision to require screens to have resolution of at least 1024 x 768. That decision meant that hordes of Netbooks, the very small laptops popular in the late noughties, had no obvious upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 8.x.

Back in November 2013 I therefore tried to figure out how to extend the life of my own Netbook. Along the way I confirmed that Windows 8 was indeed a terrible idea for Netbooks, especially my Lenovo S10e and its 1024 x 576 screen. That Netbook's been gathering dust since that 2013 story, but a few weeks back I found myself in need of a spare computer to serve as a data mule carrying data to the cloud. Microsoft seemed only too happy to let me upgrade the Netbook to Windows 10, so I gave it a try.