Oracle Vs. Google Gets Postponed

The US Court has postponed the trial that could see an agreement reached between Oracle and Google over the use of Java in the Android operating system.

The case has been in court for over a year and was expected to finish at the end of October, but yesterday US District Judge William Alsup put it on hold.

According to Reuters the decision had been expected, but perhaps less likely was the judge’s other bit of news, that he might hand the case over to another judge.

Perhaps no one expected the case to go on this long, or perhaps it was just whoever controls Alsup’s diary, as he explained that he has another criminal trial to deal with, one that might last until February next year.

“Your case is huge and needs the attention of somebody who can give it more time than I can,” Alsup said, despite his familiarity with the case.

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Google Search To Add Default Encryption

Google is implementing over the next few weeks default encryption using SSL on searches for users signing in with their accounts, the company said Tuesday.

The move comes over a year after Google made SSL the default setting for Gmail, and also unveiled an encrypted search service.

“As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver,” Google’s product manager, Evelyn Kao said in a blog post on Tuesday.

The encryption is expected to be particularly useful for people using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a Wi-Fi hotspot in an Internet cafe, Kao added.

With Google search over SSL, users get an end-to-end encrypted search channel between their computer and Google. The secured channel helps protect search terms and search results pages from being intercepted by a third party, Google said in a description of SSL search.

Over the next few weeks, users will be redirected to a secure search site when they are signed in with their Google Account. The change encrypts search queries and Google’s
results page.

Users can also navigate directly to the secure search site if they are signed out or don’t have a Google Account.

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Will Android Tablets Get Ice Cream Sandwich?

Google just held its Galaxy Nexus event in Hong Kong and we read just about every report and release in detail, only to find that Google didn’t even mention Ice Cream Sandwich Android 4.0 for tablets, which is somewhat surprising.

At this time, there is no official information if and when Android 4.0 comes to tablets. Since Android 4.0 looks like the lovechild of Gingerbread and Honeycomb and gets a few new options, it’s likely that we will see Android 4.0 on tablets, with a few tweaks of course.

Google just don’t want to talk about it, at least not yet. Since Google chaps already said that Android 2.3 capable phones should be able to run Android 4.0 this definitely applies to any Android 3.x tablets since most of them have dual-core processors and quite powerful hardware to back it up.

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SEC Asks Companies To Disclose Attacks

U.S. securities regulators formally asked public companies for the first time to disclose cyber attacks against them, following a trend of high-profile cyber crimes.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued guidelines on Thursday that laid out the kind of information companies should disclose, such as cyber events that could lead to financial losses.

Senator John Rockefeller had asked the SEC to issue guidelines amid concern that it was becoming hard for investors to assess security risks if companies failed to mention data breaches in their public filings.

“Intellectual property worth billions of dollars has been stolen by cyber criminals, and investors have been kept completely in the dark. This guidance changes everything,” Rockefeller said in a statement.

“It will allow the market to evaluate companies in part based on their ability to keep their networks secure. We want an informed market and informed consumers, and this is how we do it,” Rockefeller said in a statement.

There is a growing sense of urgency about cyber security following breaches at Google Inc, Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier, Citigroup, the International Monetary Fund and others.

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Will AOL Merge With Yahoo?

AOL is trying to engineer a merger with Yahoo in order to lower costs.

AOL’s CEO Tom Armstrong reportedly has been working hard to generate support from shareholders for a deal with Yahoo. According to Reuters, Armstrong is presenting the deal as an alternative to going it alone as an internet media company in order to reap cost and advertising reach benefits.

Apparently Armstrong is claiming that a merger with Yahoo, which itself is at the centre of acquisition rumours, would bring in savings of between $1bn and $1.5bn by combining datacentres and consolidating content on areas such as news, sports, entertainment and finance.

Since AOL was spun out of its disastrous merger with Time Warner, the firm has been trying to remake itself into an internet media company by buying popular websites such as The Huffington Post and Techcrunch. While many question whether that is a workable plan, the financials can’t mask the deep trouble AOL is in, with the company reporting a $11.8m loss for the second quarter.

While talk of AOL being bought up has cooled considerably in the last few months, the firm still has a few worthwhile assets. According to Reuters’ sources, shareholders like the idea of merging with Yahoo but are not convinced that Armstrong can pull it off.

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Will eBay Cozy Up With Facebook?

EBay Inc is attempting to strengthen its relationship with social network leader Facebook at a developer conference this week, a person familiar with the e-commerce company said on Tuesday.

EBay will also debut a new online identification service for shoppers named PayPal Access, the source added.

The company expects almost 4,000 people to attend its X.commerce conference in San Francisco on October 12, 13 and 14. The event marks the official launch of the company’s new X.commerce division, which will target e-commerce software developers.

EBay is trying to encourage outside developers to create applications for its e-commerce platforms and is making a particularly strong push in mobile commerce.

At the end of September, Katie Mitic, head of Platform and Mobile Marketing at Facebook, joined eBay’s board of directors, sparking speculation that the two companies were working on new partnerships.

Mitic is scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the X.commerce conference on Wednesday. Facebook Platform, which Mitic helps run, is the company’s developer unit, so any new partnership will focus on this area, the person said on condition of anonymity because the plans aren’t public yet.

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Motorola Being Dragged Into Patent Lawsuit

Intellectual Ventures has set its sights on Motorola with a new lawsuit alleging that the mobile device maker has infringed on six of their patents.

The patents cover a variety of technologies related to text messaging, docking stations and pushing software out to devices.

Intellectual Ventures, which owns 35,000 patents, said it approached Motorola in January about licensing patents, including several named in the case, according to the lawsuit. Motorola refused to license the patents, Intellectual Ventures said.

Motorola, which is the subject of several other patent lawsuits, declined to comment on the dispute.

The suit names a number of Motorola products as infringing, including the Atrix, Photon 4G, Milestone, Triumph and Brute i680.

Though Intellectual Ventures said it first approached Motorola in January, records at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office show that all but one of the patents were transferred to the company in July and September.

It’s up to patent holders to file documents showing transfer of ownership with the patent office, so the discrepancy of timing probably means only that the company was slow in doing its paperwork, said David Mixon, a patent attorney with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.

While patent lawsuits have become commonplace in the mobile industry, this one has a unique twist. Google, which recently announced plans to acquire Motorola, is an investor in Intellectual Ventures, patent expert Florian Mueller noted in a blog post Thursday.

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Mobile Security Threats Continue To Grow

According to industry analysts, mobile device shipments will exceed a billion devices in 2015 and will rapidly outrun PC shipments. That’s great news for end user convenience, mobility, and work-anywhere productivity. But it also means that enterprises must prepare for the fact that the criminals will target these devices with attack exploits, spyware,
and rogue applications.

And while IBM’s IT security research team, X-Force, predicts a modest 33 software exploits targeting mobile devices in the year ahead, that’s roughly twice the number of such attack code released in the past year.

The group also sees a number of other troubling mobile security trends. First, when software flaws do surface, many mobile phone makers do not rapidly deploy software patches to devices; malicious apps are often distributed through third-party app markets. Another troubling trend is that some mobile malware can collect end user’s personal information for use in phishing attacks.

An example of vulnerabilities that would make such attacks possible are the two recent Android security flaws that were reported to affect popular handsets including the AT&T Samsung Galaxy SII and various HTC devices.

The security find announced by security researcher Trevor Eckhart, called HTClogger (logging tools introduced by handset maker HTC) that could leak email account information, user location, phone numbers, and messaging logs.

Handset maker HTC said, in a statement, that it is working to quickly issue an update to its customers. “HTC is working very diligently to quickly release a security update that will resolve the issue on affected devices. Following a short testing period by our carrier partners, the patch will be sent over-the-air to customers, who will be notified to download and install it. We urge all users to install the update promptly,” the company said.

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Microsoft Goes After Yahoo

Just three years after a failed attempt to acquire Yahoo, Microsoft may be considering whether to give it another shot, Reuters reported today.

According to the report, Microsoft executives are split on whether the company should bid for Yahoo. A final decision has not been reached, the report noted.

Citing an unnamed “high-ranking Microsoft executive,” the report said Microsoft is evaluating whether to pull in a partner for a joint effort to buy Yahoo.

Microsoft said it doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation. Yahoo didn’t respond to a request for comment on the report.

“As long as Microsoft is committed to growing its online presence, this makes sense,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research. “Yahoo has a large number of subscribers and regular visitors, many of whom are not considering going elsewhere. And that would be a good boost for Microsoft.”

He also noted that Yahoo Mail, Yahoo’s popular free email service, would combine well with Microsoft’s own Hotmail service to create a very large base of email users.

In 2008, Microsoft tried to acquire Yahoo. Yahoo’s argument that the bid was tool low prompted Microsoft to finally give up.

Since then, Yahoo has been dealing with some significant problems.

No longer the high-flying Internet pioneer of its heyday, Yahoo last month fired Carol Bartz, who had joined the company as CEO with high hopes that she could return the company to its past glory.

Once Bartz was out the door, industry analysts began speculating that Yahoo’s board might be open to a solid acquisition offer.

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FCC Warns Against Jammers

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has issued warnings to 20 online retailers offeriing illegal mobile phone jammers, GPS jammers, Wi-Fi jammers and other signal jamming devices, the agency said Wednesday.

The sale and use of devices that jam the signals of authorized radio communications are illegal in the U.S., the FCC said in its enforcement action. The agency will “vigorously” prosecute violations going forward, it stated in a press release.

“Our actions should send a strong message to retailers of signal jamming devices that we will not tolerate continued violations of federal law,” Michele Ellison, chief of the FCC’s enforcement bureau, said in a statement. “Jamming devices pose significant risks to public safety and can have unintended and sometimes dangerous consequences for consumers and first responders.”

Jammers, sometimes used in classrooms, theaters and churches, are prohibited because they can prevent individuals from contacting police and fire departments or family members during an emergency, the FCC said. “Use of jamming devices can place you or other people in danger,” the agency said.

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