We’d already reported on some Android-related problems this week, but concerns over a few nasty botnets will be a pale in comparison to how Google will feel today after news arrived that the tech giant Oracle is suing the search kingpins over its mobile OS.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison has said he views the Java software as a key asset.

Oracle is alleging patent and copyright infringement in the development of the popular smartphone software.

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Godzilla couldn’t get the better of New York, and now some of the big green fella’s Far East compatriots are in trouble with the Big Apple. New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo has filed a lawsuit that alleges major suppliers of LCD screens – including Sharp, Hitachi, as well as South Korean duo LG and Samsung – engaged in price fixing that lasted a decade and ended up costing public institutions within his district potentially millions of dollars in overcharges.

The suit is seeking damages from makers of screens used in devices ranging from televisions to mobile phones. One can only assume that a guilty verdict could have major repercussions for the companies involved and possibly open the floodgates to multiple lawsuits. Continue Reading

Google will be forced to once again defend against claims that it is an ageist organisation following a lawsuit by a former employee. Brian Reed claims that he was let go from the company’s California offices for being too old.

One of Reed’s colleagues at the Mountain View offices accused him of being "slow," "fuzzy," "sluggish" and "lethargic".

When Reed was fired in 2004, he was 54 and he had his initial compliant of ageism dismissed but a California Court has ruled that he does in fact have a case against the search giants. Hired in 2002 as a director of operations and engineering, and fired less than two years later, he was apparently told at the time that he was not a good “cultural fit.”

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After a much publicised legal battle, the USA’s Federal Trade Commission and tech giants Intel have announced that they have agreed to settle charges of anticompetitive behavior that the agency claimed “stifled competition” in the market for computer processing and graphics chips.

AMD should benefit heavily from today's ruling.

The New York Times reveals that the settlement prohibits Intel from the practice of paying customers to buy its computer chips exclusively or to refuse to buy chips from other manufacturers. It also prohibits Intel from redesigning its chips purely to harm a competitor. Intel also agreed not to retaliate against computer makers if they do business with non-Intel suppliers. Continue Reading

Teenagers who claim that parents just don’t understand them – in between playing The Smiths or Avenged Sevenfold at ridiculously high levels and reading ‘Catcher in the Rye’ (can I fit in any more clichés… probably) – will wake up today slightly jealous of the teens of the Chongqing province in south-west China.

It’s not often that western kids would envy their Chinese counterparts but Chongqing has just passed a law banning adults from searching their children’s computers or indeed their phones.

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Facebook’s lawyers may be calling it a frivolous claim but a lawsuit by New York man, Paul D. Ceglia has resulted in the company’s assets being (temporarily) frozen. Ceglia claims to own 84% of the company, all based on a contract he supposedly signed with Mark Zuckerberg in 2003.

The suit was actually filed on 30 June, with Facebook now demanding that the case be taken to a Federal Court. Ceglia claims he signed a contract with Zuckerberg on 28 April, 2003, to develop and design a website, paying a $1,000 fee but getting a 50% stake in the product. The contract stipulated that Ceglia would get an additional 1% interest in the business for every day after 1 January 2004, until it was completed.

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Six smartphone heavyweights are watching their backs this morning after NTP – a company referred to in legal circles as a ‘patent troll’ – launched a barrage of patent infringement lawsuits. Four years ago NTP won a €475 million settlement from BlackBerry makers RIM over a patent breach and now they’re setting their sights on Apple, Google, HTC, Microsoft, Motorola and LG Electronics

NTP has plenty of cash to get a legal team worthy of taking on Apple et al.

They claim that all six companies have infringed upon patents on wireless email technology. If this has an air of familiarity about it, it’s due to the fact that it was the exact same patents that were at the heart of the NTP case against RIM.

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A week or two ago people were getting pretty excited about the lightsaber-esque ‘Spyder III Pro Arctic Laser’, which was described as the “most dangerous laser ever created”. Most people had a look, thought they didn’t want to seriously hurt people with it and moved on with their lives. Not so, George Lucas.

Yeah, we’re guessing this won’t be on the market much longer.

It’s not that he wants to use it for the cause of good or evil though, he just wants makers, Wicked Lasers to stop producing them altogether.

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The likelihood of this being repeated in Ireland is eh… well incredibly unlikely, but Finland has just made broadband a legal right for every citizen. To be fair, the Finns are the first nation in the world to do this and from 1 July every Finn will have the right to access a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection, though the Government there has vowed to connect everyone to a 100Mbps connection by 2015.

Speaking to the BBC, Finland’s communication minister Suvi Linden gave them a little background to the move: “We considered the role of the internet in Finns everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment. Finland has worked hard to develop an information society and a couple of years ago we realised not everyone had access,” she said. Continue Reading

Newly unearthed documents from a lawsuit filed three years ago against Dell have confirmed that the company knowingly sold flawed PCs. According to the documents, some company employees had prior knowledge that the OptiPlex PCs Dell was selling to customers were likely to fail within three years.

As a report in the New York Times notes, about 12 million OptiPlex desktops were shipped between 2003 and 2005 with mainboard capacitors that, according to company e-mail messages, Dell employees knew were faulty. Says the NY Times, “The employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk.” Continue Reading

Maybe it comes from watching ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ a few too many times but I have a soft spot for stories about upper class conmen. As such, I have grudging admiration for a 36-year old Dutchman who recently conned thousands of pounds out of show jumpers and horse riding fans by claiming to be the son of a major player at IBM.

Schouten can’t have been as charming as Caine and Martin, but he still managed to separate some of the horse set from their trust funds.

George Carlo Schouten, originally from Holland but now living in Berkshire, claimed his IBM-minted father was helping him out by sponsoring his new show jumping team, a Reading court heard yesterday. He convinced one of Britain’s best female riders to join the fictional team and persuaded others to spend thousands of pounds on providing IBM-branded clothes and other kit for the team. Continue Reading

Google has won a landmark victory today as a Manhattan federal judge threw out Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit which accused the search giant of allowing copyrighted videos on its YouTube service without permission.

Viacom alleged that copyrighted works uploaded illegally included ‘South Park’, ‘The Daily Show’ and others.

Viacom claimed “tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views,” had been posted based on its copyrighted works, and that the defendants knew about it but did nothing to stop illegal uploads. However, in a 30-page ruling, US District Judge Louis Stanton said it would be improper to hold Google and YouTube liable under federal copyright law merely for having a “general awareness” that videos might be posted illegally.

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