Showing headlines posted by BernardSwiss

A few months ago, John Oliver did an amazing job making net neutrality into a mainstream issue, by reducing it to its core element: that it's all about "preventing broadband provider fuckery." That was a great segment that truly went viral. But, still, the TV folks have remained pretty quiet on the issue. However, it appears that another late night comedian has jumped into the game as well, with Jimmy Kimmel doing a segment last week trying to explain the fast lane/slow lane issue in rather graphic form:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140916/16330528540/jimmy...

No company has gone to greater lengths than Verizon in trying to stop the government from enforcing network neutrality rules. Verizon is the company that sued to overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet Order from 2010. Verizon won a federal appeals court ruling this year, overturning anti-discrimination and anti-blocking rules and setting off a months-long scramble by the FCC to get enforceable rules into place.

There are hundreds of so-called "patent trolls," but MPHJ Technology became one of the most well-known when it sent thousands of letters to small businesses around the country suggesting they should pay around $1,000 per worker for using basic "scan-to-email" functions.

A bug quietly reported on September 1 appears to have grave implications for Android users. Android Browser, the open source, WebKit-based browser that used to be part of the Android Open Source Platform (AOSP), has a flaw that enables malicious sites to inject JavaScript into other sites. Those malicious JavaScripts can in turn read cookies and password fields, submit forms, grab keyboard input, or do practically anything else.

In its ruling, the appeals court did not rule that any of VirnetX's patents were invalid, and it only reversed the finding of infringement on one claim pertaining to a VPN On Demand patent. The court also said that the Texas District Court had not correctly defined a term that appeared in two of the patents, and it sent the decision back to Tyler, Texas so the court there can reassess the patent claims based on the appeals court's new term construction.

Last week, we showed how the Verizon court decision made it clear that without Title II reclassification, the internet would be open to discrimination, paid prioritization and exclusive deals. This week, we're looking at how FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler's claims back that up, despite his attempts to argue otherwise.

To hear Tom Wheeler and most of the big broadband players explain the net neutrality situation, the appeals court decision back in February laid out a "roadmap" for the FCC to continue to use Section 706 for its open internet rules. But that's not actually true. It's a clear misrepresentation of what the court actually said.

The language of the Verizon decision by the DC Circuit court is pretty clear: unless the FCC rests its rules in Title II of the Communications Act, the FCC must permit the carriers to engage in discrimination, charge access fees, cut exclusive deals, and perhaps block websites. Despite this, the FCC is proposing to use Section 706 (again), rather than Title II, and the court already ruled that Section 706 does not authorize network neutrality in January.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140912/06281128502/court...

We've mentioned in the past how Comcast has been pretending to support net neutrality, with ad campaigns stating that it does -- clearly in an attempt to confuse the public. Yesterday, Comcast even put a thing on its own front page claiming that the company is "committed to an open Internet and Net Neutrality."

Four years ago, Google teamed up with Verizon to argue that most network neutrality rules should not apply to cellular networks. The companies got much of what they wanted, with the Federal Communications Commission passing rules that let wireless operators discriminate against third-party applications as long as they disclose their traffic management practices. Wireless companies were also allowed to block applications that don't compete against their telephony services.

Thirty-three companies that make equipment used by Internet service providers today called on the US to avoid regulating Internet service as a utility. IBM, Cisco, and Intel signed the letter to US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, along with Alcatel-Lucent, Arris, Broadcom, D-Link, Ericsson, Panasonic, Sandvine, and others.

“The Administration must act to protect against calls for utility-like common carrier regulation that would threaten demand for Internet infrastructure, reduce incentives for investment, hinder innovation and jeopardize [the Internet’s] success,” the companies wrote.

Amazon has stopped holding out on the platform powering its Kindle Fire.

Next week, some of the biggest tech companies will lead a symbolic “Internet Slowdown” to protest the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality proposal.

Back in 2012, we wrote about how The Washington Post and some other big name media outlets were claiming that a guy named V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai had "invented email" in 1978. The problem was that it wasn't even close to true and relied on a number of total misconceptions about email, software and copyright law. Ayyadurai and some of his friends have continued to play up the claim that he "invented" email, but it simply was never true, and it's reaching a level that seems truly bizarre.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140901/07280928386/huffpo...

Android 4.4, KitKat was released on October 31, 2013, or at least, that's what you can say about one device: the Nexus 5. For the rest of the ecosystem, the date you got KitKat—if you got KitKat—varied wildly depending on your device, OEM, and carrier.

Another day, another story of stupid software patents getting stomped out of existence thanks to the Supreme Court's Alice v. CLS Bank ruling. As we've been noting, this ruling is looking like it's going to invalidate a ton of software patents (and that's a good thing). The latest one dumped was an attempt to patent bingo online. Yes, bingo.

Good news everyone! The Patent Office has granted a patent on a cure for cancer...

The majority of patent lawsuits today are brought by "patent trolls" that do nothing but sue—but suits between actual competitors do still happen. Case in point: AT&T has sued Cox Communications, saying that Cox has infringed seven AT&T patents covering everything from DVRs to methods for hiding "packet loss or frame erasure" over a network.

Earlier this year, we wrote about Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, maker of the infamous Keurig single cup coffee makers, and its plan to DRM its next generation coffee pods. The original pods were going off patent, and competition was rising. So, of course, the solution is to come up with something new... and lock it down to make it less useful for consumers...

Over at Popehat, there's a fascinating story about the depths to which patent trolls will go to "protect" their business models. The story involves Landmark Technologies, a troll we wrote about earlier this year for its rather aggressive take on patent trolling. Landmark holds patent 6,289,319: 'Automatic Business and Financial Transaction Processing System.' Or, as the EFF puts it more succinctly: paying with a credit card online. eBay recognized that Landmark's trolling was bad news, and filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a re-exam of three patents.

Neowin reports that internal builds of the operating system currently sport a one-click upgrade feature to update from one build to the next. While there's no guarantee that such a feature will necessarily ship, it would be consistent with Microsoft's move to more rapid releases and continuous improvement rather than infrequent major updates.