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The bitter end is that Oracle was ordered to lower its damages claim against Google in the case, from as much as $6.1 billion to a starting point of $100 million, according to Computerworld. On the sweet end, the software maker learned it could depose Google CEO Larry Page for up to two hours to help the court determine if the search engine willfully infringed on Oracle's patents.

Google announced the program on Tuesday after discovering what it called an unusual pattern of activity while doing maintenance on a server. The unusual traffic was being routed to Google through a small number of proxy servers. "After collaborating with security engineers at several companies that were sending this modified traffic, we determined that the computers exhibiting this behavior were infected with a particular strain of malicious software, or 'malware,'" Menscher wrote in the blog. "As a result of this discovery, today some people will see a prominent notification at the top of their Google Web search results."

In less than 24 hours Apple’s new operating system has reached over 1 million downloads. OS X Lion has over 250 new features including Launchpad, which allows the user to find and view apps in a set up that resembles the iPad or the iPhone, and Mission Control, which shows everything running on your Mac at once. There is also a security upgrade which includes an auto-save and a new feature called AirDrop which allows users to quickly transfer files wirelessly.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Woodlock in Boston dismissed the case on Friday. The Winklevosses abandoned an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last month. Instead the Winklevoss twins and their business partner Divya Narendra asked Woodlock for permission to investigate whether Facebook had suppressed instant messages and other evidence during settlement talks.

According to the company's latest quarterly disclosure report, AT&T spent $4.9 million to lobby the federal government in the second quarter of 2011. That's an increase of 58 percent from the amount spent during the same time period last year, $3.1 million. While it's a brief drop from AT&T's $6.8 million spending on lobbying during the first quarter of the year, that figure is itself a 15 percent increase from the company's first quarter lobbying spending in 2010.

More than any other social network I’ve used, Google+ has the feeling of having been birthed fully formed, having learned from what came before it. And it’s not just Google that’s learned from experience: Tens of millions of people are already using Google+, and these users are quite familiar with how social networks work, and how they’re often more interesting when you are connected to more people.

The website is a perfectly good delivery mechanism for the content and takes better advantage of the medium. These apps tend to set aside those benefits that users have already said that they want for this illusory benefit of being able to control the typography and the layout and being able to make things look more print-like.

Sort of. The so-called “Community Standards” say, “Use the name your family/friends/colleagues know you by”. I am abiding by the rules as stated, though I admit that I am doing so in the knowledge that policy that’s actually enforced by Google differs from what they have published.

Created by Josh Mandel, who says he coded it with a broken arm, Speakable Textareas works pretty well! With just a few clicks, you can install the script in your browser and it will insert a little microphone icon you can click on to invoke the Google Chrome speech-to-text API. It's quick and dirty but it's still pretty cool.

What I'm about to share is the ultimate in creepy Google stories. One editor opened up a Google+ account to explore it as part of her job as a technology reporter. When it asked for her phone number, she put in Network World's phone number. Network World is based in Framingham, Mass. Google+ rejected the phone number. It then initiated an automated phone call TO HER HOME NUMBER. That phone call asked her to verify her plus account. Is Google matching our names with public telephone records and helping itself to correlations that we did not authorize -- or even know -- it was making?

resident Obama tonight called on Americans to voice their support for a balanced approach in the debt celing debate. Apparently that resonated with Americans as Congressional websites started crashing left and right. I saw reports that this was happening and I didn't believe it so I gave it a shot myself. I tried to visit over 50 different congressional websites and had trouble getting on just about all of them

Researchers over the weekend uncovered a Facebook app for Apple's iPad, and showed how "jailbroken" tablets could run the still-unreleased software. But by Monday afternoon, Facebook had blocked log-ins through the iPad app, according to Marvin Bernal, a Toronto computer engineering student who earlier tweeted how to unlock the new software.

Microsoft needs to concentrate on a different kind of search: finding a buyer for Bing, its online search business. Bing is the industry’s distant No. 2 after Google. It has become a distraction for the software giant — one that costs shareholders dearly. The division that houses Bing lost $2.6 billion in the latest fiscal year. Facebook, or even Apple, might make a better home for Bing. A sale would be a boon for Microsoft’s investors.

Reed Hastings seems to indicate that some of the shortfall is because of its recent price hike, which is meant to push subscribers away from DVD rentals and toward streaming: “Because of the timing of the price change, revenues will only grow slightly on a sequential basis”. Hastings does say that he won’t completely abandon DVDs, though, noting that he’ll start marketing the DVD-only service in the last three months of the year, “something we haven’t done for many quarters.” By the end of Q3, he says, Netflix will have 10 million streaming-only customers in the U.S., 3 million DVD-only customers, and another 12 million who will get both formats.

Google's Street View cars collected the locations of millions of laptops, cell phones, and other Wi-Fi devices around the world, a practice that raises novel privacy concerns, CNET has confirmed. The cars were supposed to collect the locations of Wi-Fi access points. But Google also recorded the street addresses and unique identifiers of computers and other devices using those wireless networks and then made the data publicly available through Google.com until a few weeks ago.

BGR has exclusively learned that AT&T has begun communicating launch plans internally for Apple’s next-generation iPhone 5 handset. We have been told that AT&T has begun informing employees across the company, and those who work in retail locations, to finish any sort of employee training as soon as possible. AT&T is asking managers to finish training in order to have employees available for the influx of foot traffic expected in September, a proven source has shared with us. Other reports indicate that Apple is looking to hire additional Apple Store staff to be on hand for “new product launches” during the same period of time, further supporting our information. Apple is expected to announce the company’s next-generation iPhone at the end of August, with a launch to follow in the first half of September.

While the Kindle app has always redirected users to a Safari web app for purchasing, it has until now prominently featured a button to allow users to quickly navigate to the store from the app. Users will now have to manually load the store in Safari when they wish to purchase new content.

Reuters now reports that officials in the city of Kunming where the fake Apple stores were publicized have discovered five such stores and have shut down two of them. The shutdowns were due to a lack of proper permits, however, rather than for any sort of infringement of fraud related to mimicking Apple's store designs as investigations on that front continue.

The Wall Street Journal reports that it will be removing subscription links from its iPad application, deciding to satisfy Apple's new in-app purchasing and subscription rules by removing the purchase links rather than offering subscriptions through the app with Apple taking a 30% cut.

According to Netflix’s second quarter briefing to investors, Facebook integration–which shares what you’re watching with your friends–will launch this year for Canadian and South American users only because of US privacy regulations. The Video Privacy Protection Act prevents a company from making someone’s viewing habits public without his or her written and exclusive permission.

“It looks like plates of spaghetti,” Walker says of the current patent situation, noting the everyone is suing everyone else. “This is new in the Valley. This has happened in the past 15 years or so. Now it’s a mess,” he says. “A patent isn’t innovation. It’s the right to block someone else from innovating,” he continues. This is something Walker brings up again and again in our talk. Clearly, he thinks that patents, at least the way they’re being enforced right now, are a bit of a joke.