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Apple pulls iPad and iPhones in Germany

Motorola has dealt a double-whammy to Apple in Germany. Following a December ruling by a German court that Apple failed to license one of Motorola’s wireless intellectual properties and the ruling’s subsequent patent injunction, the Cupertino-based company has now begun to pull older iPad and iPhone models from it German online store. In a separate lawsuit, Motorola also won a permanent injunction against the push email service of Apple’s iCloud and any devices that can access the services in Germany. The sales ban relates to a Motorola-owned patent for a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system.” The separate push email ban would only come into effect if Motorola decides to enforce the judgement, which deals with a patent relating to two-way communications between pagers and other devices. Apple isn’t taking the news sitting down, however, and has vowed to appeal the rulings and to keep its products available elsewhere for its German customers.

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Apple pulls iPad and iPhones in Germany

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Android Market gets a Bouncer

Google has released an automated service for the Android Market to help detect malicious apps when they are uploaded. The new service – code-named Bouncer – “provides automated scanning of Android Market for potentially malicious software without disrupting the user experience of Android Market or requiring developers to go through an application approval process,” VP of Engineering Hiroshi Lockheimer wrote in a blog post . “Once an application is uploaded, the service immediately starts analysing it for known malware, spyware and Trojans. “It also looks for behaviours that indicate an application might be misbehaving, and compares it against previously analysed apps to detect possible red flags.” Once scanned, if the app has been identified as malicious it will be scanned manually for confirmation.

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Android Market gets a Bouncer

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Samsung denies RIM rumours

Samsung has gone into denial – at least in terms of denying the company was ever interested in buying Research in Motion. The world’s second largest handset maker, Samsung Electronics Co, has firmly stated it is neither interested in acquiring the ailing BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion, nor licensing its operating system. “We haven’t considered acquiring the firm and a not interested in (buying RIM),” Samsung spokesman James Chung said. He also added that Samsung had not been approached by the Canadian-based firm for a takeover.

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Samsung denies RIM rumours

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Yahoo co-founder steps down

In the latest management shuffle, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has stepped down from the board of executives and resigned his post as ‘Chief Yahoo .’ “The time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo ,” Yang said in a statement . “As I leave the company I co-founded nearly 17 years ago, I am enthusiastic about the appointment of Scott Thompson as chief executive officer and his ability, along with the entire Yahoo leadership team, to guide Yahoo into an exciting and successful feature.” Yang served as chief executive at the flagging internet giant from June 2007 to January 2009 before being replaced by Carol Bartz. He is widely criticised for turning down a lucrative deal from Microsoft to purchase the company for $44.6 billion (

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BlackBerry profits slump

BlackBerry makers Research In Motion has released its third quarter fiscal numbers, revealing a 6 per cent slump in profits compared with the same period last year. The flagging company reported profits of $265 million (

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Skip all you like with Spotify Radio

The good folks of Spotify are certainly changing things up. Last week they announced the addition of music based apps to their service, and now they’re taking on Pandora. “We’ve built a radio app on top of our platform,” said Spotify co-founder and Chief Executive Daniel Ek during his announcement at LeWeb. “It’s kind of like Pandora, but with unlimited skipping and unlimited stations.” Up until now, Spotify has only allowed subscribers to play the specific songs or albums they chose. With stations, users can now choose a category and let Spotify do the picking. And, the unlimited skipping is likely to be a big draw. In contrast to Pandora – where skipping is limited due to the fact that they pay music labels by the song – if subscribers dislike the Spotify song choice they can skip to the next one as many times as they like. According to the company’s official blog post: “Starting a radio station is easy. Click ‘Start Artist Radio’ at the top of any artist page or just drag a track to ‘Radio’ in the left sidebar

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Skip all you like with Spotify Radio

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Timeline lands in New Zealand

The tides of change have arrived at the social network, as Facebook officially debuts its Timeline feature to users in New Zealand. “Starting today, we are making Timeline more widely available as we measure speed and other types of performance. We’ll begin by making it available to people in New Zealand and then roll it out more broadly in the near future,” product manager Samuel Lessin wrote on the Facebook blog . Following the announcement of the social network’s new look and feel at the f8 developer conference in September, Facebook rolled out the Timeline feature to a test group of developers and users – promising to eventually roll out gradually to its 800 million users worldwide. The timeline will reorganise the way information is presented and allow users to set custom photos on their profile pages, hide stories and share others widescreen, listen to music and share ‘apps’ with their friends. “Back in the early days of Facebook, your profile was pretty basic – just your name, a photo, where you went to school…

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Timeline lands in New Zealand

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Kodak Gallery app makes for snap-happy users

Snap-happy users can now create their own temporary social networks to share photos. The newly launched Kodak Gallery app allows users to create ad-hoc networks to share their photos with others. “It’s the temporary social network that we’re trying to solve for,” said Mark Cook, vice president of products at Kodak Gallery. For example, when parents want to share photos of their child’s school play they can create a network on the spot to share with the other parents also snapping photos. Users can send invitations to let others join specific networks, giving them an opportunity to upload their photos as well. And, they won’t have access to other albums or networks without permission – offering a user a new method for sharing photos with acquaintances without adding them to their social network permanently. Kodak Gallery hopes this will help address the growing issue of people oversharing information on social network sites. Photos can be manually added to the network via the Internet, and Kodak Gallery users can set up as many networks as they like free of charge. Currently the app is only available to iPhone users, but an Android version is coming soon.

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Kodak Gallery app makes for snap-happy users

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Apple names new chairman

In the first significant boardroom shuffle since Steve Jobs’ death, Apple has named Art Levinson as chairman and added Bob Iger to its board of directors. Levinson – who replaces Jobs as chairman – had been co-lead on Apple’s board alongside Bill Campbell prior to his new role. In the weeks leading up to the announcement, there was some speculation that Campbell would be named chairman, however Levinson’s appointment as chairman puts that to rest. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement : “Art has made enormous contributions to Apple since he joined the board in 2000. He has been our longest serving co-lead director, and his insight and leadership are incredible valuable to Apple, our employees and our shareholders.” Also joining the board of directors is Disney CEO Bob Iger – bringing the two companies even closer together. Prior to his death, Jobs served on the board of directors for Disney following their acquisition of Pixar in 2006. Their close relationship also helped bring ABC television shows to Apple’s music service iTunes – the first company to sign a video deal

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Apple names new chairman

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Renaming Wi-Fi networks stops Google snooping

Users who want their Wi-Fi hotspot locations ignored by Google now have that option. Google recently announced a way for owners of Wi-Fi networks to be removed from Google’s crowdsourced geolocation database. To opt out, users must visit their access point’s settings and change the wireless network name (or SSID) so that it ends with “_nomap.” For example, if the SSID is “HeyGetOffMyNetwork,” it would need to be changed to “HeyGetOffMyNetwork_nomap.” “As we explored different approaches for opting-out access points from the Google Location Server, we found that a method based on wireless network names provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse,” Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, wrote on the Google blog . “Specifically, this approach helps protect against others opting out your access point without your permission.” The opt-out scheme is meant to address privacy issues raised by Google’s location tracking as part of their Street View services. When Google’s camera-cars were sent out to take photographs they also logged the location of every Wi-Fi hotspot they passed. That data was used as part of the search company’s location-based services for mobile devices. The controversial program that didn’t just map Wi-Fi networks, however, but also gathered personal information transmitted over those networks. Since the practice was made known, Google has faced mounting pressure, particularly from European officials, to either kill the mapping service or let people opt out.

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Renaming Wi-Fi networks stops Google snooping

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