(AFP/DDP/File) - Passengers crowd the platform of the main train station in Frankfurt in 2007. Fare dodgers in Germany are now using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to warn fellow travellers of the presence of public transport inspectors on buses and trains.(AFP/DDP/File/Thomas Lohnes)
NEW YORK – Tech heavyweights Microsoft and Google are acting like a couple of feuding starlets in a public online spat over — wait for it — patents.
It's not the first time Microsoft and Google have gone at each other's throats, nor is it likely the last.
But with Twitter and blog posts, the dispute is playing out in public in a way that wasn't possible in 2005, when lawsuits over an employee Google hired from Microsoft revealed the bitter rivalry between the two.
Now, Google is accusing Microsoft, Apple and others of launching a "hostile organized campaign" against its Android operating system, which runs smartphones that compete with iPhones, BlackBerrys and Windows-based mobile devices.
At issue are thousands of patents from Novell Inc., a maker of computer-networking software, and Nortel Networks, a Canadian telecom gear maker that is bankrupt and is selling itself off in pieces. Last month, a consortium that includes Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. prevailed over Google Inc. with a $4.5 billion cash bid for the Nortel patents.
Google lost out after a strange bidding process that included what published reports said was an offer for a billion times the mathematical constant "pi."
"Their response seems to be to whine about the process," technology analyst Rob Enderle said.
Enderle was referring to a scathing blog post by Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, who wrote on Wednesday that Microsoft was banding with others to acquire "bogus patents" to make sure Google can't get to them.
"They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices," Drummond wrote. "Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation."
Not so fast, says Microsoft, which brought the feud to Twitter. There, Microsoft's communications chief, Frank Shaw, posted an image of an email from Google's general counsel, Kent Walker, declining to join Microsoft in the consortium to bid for the patents.
The email was sent to Microsoft's own general counsel, Brad Smith, who also chimed in. Smith wrote to his 2,000-plus Twitter followers that "Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no."
Shaw offered a reason in another Twitter post: "Why? BECAUSE they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else."
Enderle says it's no secret that Microsoft and Google don't like each other.
Microsoft has banded with another Google rival, Facebook, to include data from the online social network in Microsoft's search engine, Bing. Google can't do that because Facebook erected barriers preventing Google's search engine from indexing all the data on its network.
And earlier this year, Microsoft complained about Google to the European Commission in its first formal antitrust complaint against a rival. Microsoft accused Google of abusing its dominance of online search and advertising.
Then there was the 2005 incident, in which, according to court documents, Microsoft's boisterous CEO, Steve Ballmer, threw a chair and vowed to "kill" Google in an obscenity-laced tirade over the online search leader's hiring of Kai-Fu Lee. Lee helped develop Microsoft's MSN Internet search technology, including desktop search software rivaling Google's. He left the company that July after Google offered him a $10 million compensation package. He has since left Google, too.
So far, the patent feud has lacked obscenities, at least in public.
But the verbal tirade continued Thursday when Drummond updated his blog post to say that Microsoft is trying to divert attention from the real issue and push a "false `gotcha!'" instead.
"Microsoft's objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners," he wrote.
Enderle says Google needs to grow up, and part of that process is that "they've got to get through the whining stage."
Google had the chance and refused to participate. Now, it is calling the process unfair, Enderle said, "which is something you can do as a little company but probably not when you yourself are a multinational."
Google did not immediately respond to a message for comment. Microsoft's Shaw didn't have a comment beyond what he tweeted.
original content on yahoo
NEW YORK – Now playing: Movies at Walmart.com.
The world's largest retailer on Tuesday started streaming many movies the same day they come out on DVD, in a second bid for a share of popular movie rental and streaming website Netflix Inc.'s business and just two weeks after Netflix announced new price increases.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. bought video-streaming service Vudu.com 18 months ago and now offers 20,000 titles that can be viewed on almost any device with Internet access, from computers to televisions to Sony's PlayStation3 and other Blu-Ray disc players.
Movies are available at Walmart.com to rent for $1 to $5.99 or to purchase for $4.99 and up. Wal-Mart is not offering subscriptions, making its service more similar to Apple Inc.'s iTunes, which charges $3.99 to rent newly released movies and $14.99 to buy a movie.
In addition to Netflix, another competitor streaming movies and TV shows by subscription is Hulu.com, which now offers a premium service for $7.99 a month with more back-season shows and more movies. Without a subscription, Hulu viewers can watch shows and movies free in exchange for watching advertising.
The movie offering fits with the Wal-Mart website's strategy of offering a "seamless continuous shopping service," said Steve Nave, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart.com.
Wal-Mart's announcement comes on the heels of Netflix saying it will raise rates and charge separately for streaming and rental DVDs. Its second price hike in eight months, Netflix's planned increases could amount to 60 percent for existing customers, starting Sept. 1. New subscribers have to pay the new prices immediately.
Netflix plans to charge $16 a month for services that used to cost $10 a month when bundled together, for example. It's still changing $8 a month for streaming, which it launched late last year. But instead of charging $2 more for a plan that includes one DVD at a time by mail, the company will charge $8 and up for DVD plans.
Customers have taken to social media sites Facebook and Twitter to vent their anger over Netflix's increases, but executives said they anticipated the reaction. The company's willingness to risk alienating subscribers signals it needs more revenue to cover rising costs.
As of March, Netflix had 22.8 million subscribers in the U.S. — about 34,000 more than the number of households subscribing to Comcast Corp.'s cable-TV service.
Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., has tested the movie-rental waters before. It previously offered a DVD-by-mail service that cost $12.97 per month for two titles and $17.36 per month for three titles. But it ceded that program to Netflix in February 2010, letting customers continue their subscriptions with Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix without a rate hike. Apple is based in Cupertino, Calif.
original content on yahoo
WASHINGTON |
Thu Jul 21, 2011 3:31pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After a brief hiatus and an FBI takedown of several alleged "hacktivists," two groups that have claimed responsibility for a recent wave of cyber vandalism say they are back.
A statement was posted online on Thursday jointly by the groups, Anonymous and Lulz Security, after U.S. authorities arrested 16 people earlier this week for several attacks, most prominently Anonymous' attempt to cripple eBay's PayPal site after it stopped accepting donations to the WikiLeaks organization.
The arrests allowed a peek into the lives of those alleged to be hacker-activists -- cyber-criminals who shut down or break into computer systems to make political points or defy authority, rather than to steal credit card numbers or commit espionage.
Some did not seem to have sophisticated technology-oriented jobs. The group included a former janitor, a landscape foreman and a college student, ranging in age from 20 to 42.
"We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea," the hacker groups said in the statement, which could not be independently verified. Lulz Security had previously suggested it was disbanding.
The groups said their statement was a response to comments by Steven Chabinsky, deputy assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, who told National Public Radio it was "entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts."
The groups promised to continue attacks on governments, which they accused of lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror by "dismantling their freedom piece by piece."
They also said they would focus on companies as well for working with governments and taking billions of dollars in contracts, but failing to deliver.
"These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies," the statement said.
The FBI declined to comment.
Anonymous and LulzSec also have claimed responsibility for attacking websites in Syria, Tunisia, Egypt and India for political reasons, as well as the public websites of the CIA and the Senate.
ARRESTS AROUND THE COUNTRY
The response came after FBI agents arrested more than a dozen people in nine states and the District of Columbia on charges they participated in cyber attacks on corporate and government websites.
According to the indictment, Mercedes Haefer said on her Facebook page she was a college student in Las Vegas working multiple jobs. She also went by "No" and "MMMM" when she allegedly helped with the attack on PayPal last year.
During her initial appearance earlier this week in federal court, a judge ordered her to stay off any computers except for her pizza job, and to surrender her laptop computer, according to court records. Her public defender was not available for comment.
Vincent Kershaw, 27, who has a day job as a foreman for a Colorado landscaping company, is accused of using the pseudonyms Reaper, Trivette and Triv to participate in the attacks. His public defender declined to comment.
The indictment accused them of using a program dubbed "Low Orbit Ion Cannon" -- a name that harks back to a video game and a Star Wars movie -- to send huge amounts of data to PayPal in a bid to overwhelm it and render it unavailable for legitimate requests.
Scott Arciszewski, 21, a University of Central Florida student and former janitor, was arrested for a separate cyber attack, allegedly uploading malicious files to the website of Tampa Bay InfraGard, an FBI-sponsored group. He then informed LulzSec about the vulnerability, according to court papers.
His public defender was also not available for comment.
The question remains whether the charges of conspiracy and trying to damage a protected computer as well as the related potential prison sentences of up to five and 10 years respectively, will serve as an adequate deterrent.
One cybersecurity expert raised the possibility that the PayPal attack was "just a bunch of kids" messing around, particularly since the threshold to participate was low.
"So many people spend so much time online now, the threshold to becoming a political activist has dropped to close to zero," said James Lewis, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
"If we're lucky the arrests send a signal that will tamp down on this kind of thing, but if there's some deeper underlying tension that's driving people to do this or some other external cause we're just going to see more of this," he said.
(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Warren Strobel and Mohammad Zargham)
original content on reuters
(AFP/Fille) - Malaysian police blast protesters with tear gas during a mass rally calling for electoral reform in Kuala Lumpur on July 9. A Facebook petition has seen more than 170,000 people back a call for the country's Prime Minister Najib Razak to quit, days after the rally was violently broken up by the police.(AFP/Fille/Saeed Khan)
