Update: PayPal, eBay sue Google over mobile payments secrets
PayPal and parent eBay have filed a suit against Google and two former executives alleging that they have misappropriated their trade secrets in the area of mobile payments and point-of-sale strategies.
The suit filed Thursday before the Superior Court of the State of California in the County of Santa Clara also charges two former employees, Osama Bedier and Stephanie Tilenius, who now work with Google, of breaching their obligations to PayPal and eBay.
Google unveiled on Thursday its Google Wallet, that will let people with special phones pay for goods in retail shops by tapping the phones against a payment terminal. Read more...
Oracle offers JavaFX 2.0 beta
JavaFX 2.0, an upgrade to the Java-based rich client platform that originated at Sun Microsystems, was made available in a beta form this week by the Java team at Oracle.
In its road map for JavaFX 2.0, Oracle cites introduction of Java APIs that open JavaFX capabilities to all Java developers without them having to learn a new scripting language. Previously, JavaFX Script has been proposed as scripting language for using JavaFX capabilities. The download page for the JavaFX 2.0 beta release features an SDK, a runtime, and a plug-in for the NetBeans IDE. Read more...
Forrester calls Google’s Chromebook ‘corporate idiocy’
Let's begin this story the same way a murder mystery starts -- with a few bare facts. The victim is Google's Chromebook. The crime scene is Forrester's IT Forum in Las Vegas, and the alleged suspect is George Colony, chairman and CEO of the research firm.
In the opening scene, there is the Chromebook computer, our victim, trapped with no place to hide or means to defend itself.
The Chromebook has no intelligence, no local storage, and only works when connected to the Web. Having sized up his victim, Colony then moves in. Chromebooks, based on Google's new Chrome OS, will be available next month. Read more...
Microsoft chief says China piracy very costly: WSJ
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has said rampant software piracy in China has eaten into his company's revenue in what is soon to be the world's top PC market, a report said Friday.
Ballmer said the world's largest software maker's revenue in China was only five percent of that in the United States, even though personal computer sales in the two countries are nearly equal, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The comments underlined the challenges faced by Western firms in protecting their copyrights in China, the largest counterfeit and piracy market in the world. The issue has long been a sticking point in Sino-US relations. Read more...
Obama Names McAfee, Microsoft, Twitter Execs to Advisory Committee
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo may get appointed to Obama's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
President Obama has announced that he has appointed executives from Microsoft, McAfee, Twitter to his National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.
Dick Costolo, the chief executive of Twitter, joined Scott Charney, the corporate vice president of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group, and David DeWalt, the president of Intel's new McAfee division, as the new appointees.
Jamie Dos Santos, the current president and chief executive of Terremark Federal Group, and Lisa Hook, the president and chief executive of Neustar, were also named. Read more...
Google, Facebook lose social network patent ruling
Google Inc and Facebook Inc failed to win dismissal of a lawsuit by a New York company related to software designed to let people take part on social networks through their mobile phones.
Wireless Ink Corp, which runs the Winksite service, may pursue claims that Google Buzz and Facebook Mobile infringed its October 2009 patent, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan wrote in a ruling made public on Friday.
The patent related to a method to help novice mobile phone users create mobile websites that other phone users can see. Wireless Ink is seeking a halt to the alleged infringement, and compensatory and triple damages. Read more...
Facebook is Building a Desktop Software Team, Despite Lack of iPad App
Need a job? Give Facebook a call. The company is seeking engineers for a new desktop software team.
TechCrunch pointed out a posting on the jobs page titled "Software Engineer, Desktop Software" at Facebook's recently-opened Seattle office
The description reads: "The desktop software team is a new team at Facebook based out of Seattle, WA. We will be working on new products that we expect to deliver to millions of users' computers to help make their entire computing experience more social. Facebook is seeking experienced software engineers in Seattle to join this team." Read more...
New malware scanner finds 5% of Windows PCs infected
One in every 20 Windows PCs whose users turned to Microsoft for cleanup help were infected with malware, Microsoft said this week.
Microsoft cited that statistic and others from data generated by its new Safety Scanner, a free malware scanning and scrubbing tool that re-launched May 12.
The 420,000 copies of the tool that were downloaded in the first week of its availability cleaned malware or signs of exploitation from more than 20,000 Windows PCs, Microsoft's Malware Protection Center (MMPC) reported Wednesday. That represented an infection rate of 4.8%. Read more...
Mobile phones are great for phishers, researchers find
Computer users seem to be getting better at spotting fake websites that are trying to steal their passwords, but when it comes to mobile phones, the deck is most definitely stacked against them.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, recently took a look at 100 mobile applications, written for Android and the iPhone, and then thought up 15 techniques that scammers could use to write malicious programs that steal the victim's user name and password on websites such as Facebook or Twitter.
Their research underscores a thorny issue that promises to demand more attention as users increasingly reach to their mobile phones when they want to go online. Read more...
Lockheed Martin acknowledges ‘significant’ cyberattack
Lockheed Martin Saturday night acknowledged that it its information systems network had been the target of a "significant and tenacious attack", but said that its security team detected the intrusion "almost immediately and took aggressive actions to protect all systems and data."
No data from customers, programs or employees was compromised, the top U.S. defense contractor said in a brief statement. Read more...
China admits existence of a cyber-warfare team called “Blue Army”
China has admitted for the first time that it had poured tens of millions into the formation of a 30-strong commando unit of cyberwarriors called The Blue Army. The team is reportedly trained to improve the security of the country’s military forces and to protect the People’s Liberation Army from outside assault on its networks. Read more...