Showing headlines posted by BernardSwiss

There was only one question on the special verdict form, asking if Google's use of the Java APIs was a "fair use" under copyright law. The jury unanimously answered "yes," in Google's favor. The verdict ends the trial, which began earlier this month. If Oracle had won, the same jury would have gone into a "damages phase" to determine how much Google should pay. Because Google won, the trial is over.

It wasn't enough that Creative Labs/Creative Technology spent March 24th suing almost every big name in the cell phone business for patent infringement. These lawsuits, all filed in the East Texas patent troll playground, asserted the same thing: that any smartphone containing a music app (which is every smartphone produced) violates the patent it was granted in 2005 to use in conjunction with its mp3 players. "Venue is proper" because smartphones are sold in Texas, even if the plaintiffs are located in California and Singapore, respectively. That wasn't all Creative Technology did. It also filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission seeking to block the import of smartphones from manufacturers like Sony, LG, BlackBerry, Samsung, etc. under the theory that every imported phone contains patent-infringing software.

"This is a very important case, not only for Google but for innovation and technology in general," Van Nest told the jury. "What Google engineers did was nothing out of that mainstream. They built Android from scratch, using new Google technology, and adapted technology from open sources. Android was a remarkable thing, a brand-new platform for innovation."

Oracle's copyright lawsuit is all about one "very simple rule," the company's attorney told a jury today. "You don’t take people’s property without permission and use it for your own benefit," said Oracle lawyer Peter Bicks. "Google took a shortcut, and they took a shortcut at Oracle’s expense."

By now, hopefully, you've turned on multi-factor authentication on various social media/email accounts, where they either text you an extra code or you have an app like Authy that supplies you with an extra code. But another super handy mutli-factor authentication system is the YubiKey setup, which is a little USB key with a finger sensor. It's basically a bit of hardware that you can keep on you, which blocks anyone else from logging into your accounts if they don't have it.

Screven was asked about Apache Harmony, the open source product that Google relied on heavily in building Android. He saw a big difference between that project and Android.

On Friday, Oracle's lawyer had asked Bornstein about e-mails in which he had told his colleagues to avoid using any code from a project called GNU Classpath, "because it was covered by an incompatible license." Oracle's point seemed to be that Bornstein and other Googlers only followed licensing rules when it suited them.

This morning, Anderson pulled up the same e-mails about Classpath.

In the late morning, Simon Phipps took the stand. Phipps, who worked at Sun for 10 years before it was purchased, was the company's Chief Open Source Officer. He testified that no one at Sun ever took action to stop other projects that used Java APIs, including GNU Classpath and Apache Harmony.

New rules that affect open source firmware on Wi-Fi routers will be implemented on June 2, but not all network hardware will prevent the loading of third-party software.

During hours of unrelenting cross-examination today, Andy Rubin, Google’s former Android chief, was on the stand in the Oracle v. Google trial defending how he built the mobile OS. Rubin’s testimony began yesterday. He's another one of the star witnesses in this second courtroom showdown between the two software giants.......

Was the Java language, created by Sun Microsystems in the 1990s, "free and open to use," Google lawyer Robert Van Nest asked? "Absolutely, yes," Schwartz said. "Since its inception. Long before I arrived at Sun."

Schmidt himself used to work at Sun Microsystems after getting his PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley in 1982. Schmidt was at Sun while the Java language was developed. "Was the Java language released for anyone to use?" asked Van Nest. "There was no charge to use the language," Schmidt explained.

Oracle is making its case to a jury that Google should be forced to pay massive copyright damages, due to the search company's use of 37 Java APIs in its Android operating system. It's the second courtroom face-off for the two software giants. Google argued that APIs shouldn't be copyrighted at all, but lost on appeal. Now Google's only hope is that the jury finds that its use of the APIs was a "fair use."

A disappointing trend has become clear to Linux users in recent years. Whenever Canonical offers a new Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) release, it tends to be conservative in nature. (See our Ubuntu 14.04 review, which earned a "Missing the boat on big changes" headline.) Apparently no one wants to try to support a brand new, potentially buggy piece of code for half a decade.

Attackers have wasted no time targeting a critical vulnerability that could allow them to take complete control over websites running a widely used image-processing application, security researchers said.

Forbes, an organization with a website presumably built on the value of its content, also has made the unfortunate decision recently to try to block off access to anyone using adblocker software, apparently so that it could successfully allow malicious "ads" to infect its readers' machines. This set of circumstances would seem to be one that would have Forbes re-thinking its adblocker policy, assuming it wishes to retain the trust of its readership. And it turns out that Forbes is doing so. And then not! Or maybe? Allow me to explain.

Do you own the things you own? No, that is not a riddle being served up by the Cat in the Hat. Nor is it a rhyme spoken by the Lorax -- after all, he speaks for the trees, not for copyright laws.

It seems like every week there is a debate about a new topic involving ownership rights. Consumers are engaged in a constant tug of war with rights holders over what they can do with the products that they already purchased from them.

A large number of websites are vulnerable to a simple attack that allows hackers to execute malicious code hidden inside booby-trapped images.

Maintainers of the OpenSSL cryptographic library have patched high-severity holes that could make it possible for attackers to decrypt login credentials or execute malicious code on Web servers.

Patent reform advocates who were hoping to "shut down the Eastern District of Texas" face disappointment today, as the top US patent appeals court ruled (PDF) against a venue transfer in a dispute between two food companies.