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Apple's $930 million legal win over Samsung gets partially reversed

RT @Techmeme: Apple, Google, leading cryptologists urge Obama in letter to reject backdoors in smartphones

RT @Techmeme: Apple, Google, leading cryptologists urge Obama in letter to reject backdoors in smartphones

Apple had searched for breakthrough features to justify building an Apple-branded television set, those people said. In addition to an ultra-high-definition display, Apple considered adding sensor-equipped cameras so viewers could make video calls through the set, they said.

I have a better idea, journalists. Figure out what the voters want the candidates to talk about. (And when they’re ready to listen.) Persuade the voters that in your coverage you’re on their side— so many of them that the campaigns have to take notice. Then leverage your superior connection to the people the candidates want to reach. (That’s what Univision and Jorge Ramos plan to do, I’d bet.) It’s a power game, not a frozen process in which you are granted some role by the mighty hand of James Carville or Ed Rollins.

“Many 19th-century newspapers are comprised primarily of content from other newspapers,” he said. “They were more aggregators than producers of original content. And often they were created by very small staffs, and scholars such as Ellen Gruber Garvey have shown that this aggregation is what allowed newspapers to spread as rapidly as they did in the 19th century, because you didn’t have to produce the whole thing.”

First, this is an acknowledgement that the world has changed. Twitter is now a place a President needs to be if he or she want to respond to events, make news, and talk to the public. Faking it through signed tweets and screen shots of statements is no longer enough. Obama has been involved in a lot of Presidential communication “firsts” — first late night comedy interview, first daytime talk interview, first online news interview and so on. Each of these firsts is like a mile marker shows just how far we have come in the transformation of media. This is just the latest.

Google, operator of the world’s biggest Web search engine, has been seeking new ways to bolster its product lineup as it battles Facebook and other rivals for users. Greater autonomy would give Google’s photo tool more freedom to take on rivals. For example, Facebook, which acquired mobile photo-sharing service Instagram in 2012, has given the business independence within the company, and seen its user base grow to more than 300 million users.

Facing slowing growth for the first time since the iPad’s 2010 debut, Apple is working on several significant software and hardware updates to reinvigorate the tablet over the next year. Apple is developing a dual-app viewing mode, 12-inch iPads codenamed “J98″ and “J99,” as well as support for multi-user logins, according to sources briefed on the plans. First planned for debut last year, the split-screen applications feature for the iPad could be introduced as soon as June at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, while multi-user login support and the 12-inch iPads will apparently arrive later…

Clearing the rights to show local programs and commercials takes some time — ABC, for instance, spent two years getting the rights to show live programming via its Watch ABC app, and its live streams remain limited to viewers in eight cities. Also, some executives say that providing digital feeds of the programming from dozens of affiliates will also require the broadcasters to build new streaming infrastructure.

Google is likely to release the software under the Android brand, as the group developing the software is linked to the company’s Android unit. The lower memory requirements for devices running the new software would mark a sharp drop from the latest versions of Android, which are primarily aimed at mobile phones with at least 512 megabytes of memory.

The website, which lists over 63 million global users, is one of the largest dating and casual hook-up platforms online – Tinder trails the service with an estimated 50 million users worldwide. An investigation has now found that an approximate 3.9 million members’ accounts had been hacked more than two months ago, and leaked online. The data continues to diffuse in spreadsheets across internet forums.

The Interoperable Telesurgery Protocol (ITP) contains a flaw as it does not use any form of encryption or authentication. By intercepting / replaying or spoofing packets, an attacker with the ability to intercept network traffic (e.g. MitM, DNS cache poisoning) can control any device based on it. This could allow an attacker to completely control a telesurgery robot, causing physical harm to a patient during a procedure.

Google Maps' new features work in two ways. The first is when you input your destination, it will immediately inform you if there are blockages and suggest a different route if possible. And while you're already on the road, it will also alert you to congestion up ahead and will even offer an estimate of how long you will be stuck, along with a suggestion of an alternate route.

The second vehicle also crashed into the guard rail, Williams said. The taxi driver was extricated from the vehicle and flown to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick with non-life-threatening injuries. He was identified as Tark Girgis, 46, of Elizabeth. A passenger in the Chrysler was treated for neck pain.

Until now, Ive’s job title has been Senior Vice President of Design. But I can reveal that he has just been promoted and is now Apple’s Chief Design Officer. It is therefore an especially exciting time for him.

Alan Dye will now be VP of User Interface Design, which covers both desktop and mobile devices. He was a key player in iOS 7’s major redesign as well as the work on the new Watch OS interface. Both of these executives were mentioned as key Apple employees during the New Yorker and WIRED Apple Watch profiles earlier this year.

All your files and content will be magically available on your PC and your phone: With the OneDrive app setup correctly on your phone, every photo you take on your phone will show up automatically in the Photos app on your Windows 10 PC. With the latest upcoming version of the Music app, you’ll be able to store and access your music from OneDrive not only on your PC but now also play it anywhere, for free, on your iOS or Android phone (this already works on Windows phones). This means the music playlists you spend hours putting together on your Windows 10 PC will now show up and be playable on your phone, automatically. Take a note wherever you are—notes you write on your PC in OneNote will show up on your phone. And any note you tweak on your phone will get synced to your PC. And you can work on your Office documents from any of your devices, without worrying about moving files around.

As noted by Linux blog LWN.net on the final demise of Mandriva: "It is a sad end for a company that has been pursuing the desktop Linux dream since 1998."

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong gets a special bonus for the deal called a “Founders’ Incentive Award,” which amounts to 1.5 percent of the company’s market value at the time the acquisition is complete. The company is currently trading at about $3.9 billion, roughly translating to $59 million.

Earlier this month, Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal handed down a six-page decision to Michael Robertson, finding that he does not have the right, under the California Public Records Act (CPRA), to access records of his own license plate as scanned by members of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG).

Comcast and Level 3 fought as early as 2010 over the amount of Netflix traffic that Level 3 was sending into Comcast's network. Level 3 agreed to pay Comcast for network interconnection at the time "under protest." Level 3 and Comcast announced another agreement in 2013 in a brief press release containing no details, but there was apparently still some tension between the companies.

The catch, of course, is that for all my previous arguments to the contrary — all of which make perfect sense, I might add — the level of orchestration around this announcement augurs something far more significant than a changed title (i.e. why should the stock market be nervous about this move?). And this bit from Stephen Fry’s piece in The Telegraph, which actually broke the news, is more important than it first appears:

Assuming the on-sale dates listed here are accurate, small system builders will have access to Windows 10 before Labor Day. But if you were looking forward to a price break, think again. These prices are actually $10 higher than the corresponding prices for Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro when they were launched.

Here’s the short story. Android Pay will be for users to make online, in-app, and retail purchases using their Android device. Google Wallet will be for friends and family with a U.S. debit card to send money using their Android and iOS device.

And those 17 million devices are getting used, a lot: Chromecast users have cumulatively hit the cast button 1.5 billion times, said Chromecast VP of product management Mario Queiroz during a recent interview. That’s up from one billion casts in January. Active Chromecast users are now watching 66 percent more content than at launch, and YouTube alone has seen viewing time go up 45 percent after a user activates a Chromecast device.