Nokia, Microsoft bring Word, Excel and PowerPoint to Symbian phones
Microsoft and Nokia have announced that Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be brought to devices running Nokia's Symbian OS next year.
The productivity apps move is the latest fruit of an enterprise alliance announced between Nokia and Microsoft back in 2009 - before the pair agreed to collaborate at the OS level too.
Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 (WP7) OS - the smartphone platform Nokia is transitioning to as its primary OS - already supports Word, Excel and PowerPoint but compatibility will be extended to Nokia smartphones running the Belle iteration of the Symbian OS in the first half of 2012, the two companies said today.
The aim is to have a broad church of Nokia devices - both WP7 and Symbian-based handsets - supporting Microsoft apps, according to Nokia, in order to give busineses a wider choice of handsets. Nokia plans to support the Symbian platform until 2016. Read more...
Microsoft inks new patent pacts over Android…and Chrome
Microsoft has inked patent-licensing deals with Acer and Viewsonic that cover devices running both Google's Android operating and its browser-based Chrome OS.
The Acer deal covers smartphones and tablets running Android, while the Viewsonic pact applies to tablets and phones running Android as well as Chrome OS. Officially, Chrome OS is designed for notebooks, but Google has long discussed the possibility of moving the platform to tablets, and Viewsonic is reportedly considering a tablet based on the OS, which essentially moves all applications and data into the browser. Read more...
Blogger Finally Releases an iPhone App
Google has finally launched an iOS app for Blogger, giving the blog network's millions of users a simple way to write, manage and publish posts from their iPhones.
The app, available for iOS users 3.2 and up, is rather straightforward. It allows users to compose and publish blog posts complete with photos and geotagging. It also lets users view and edit their published and draft blog posts. It mimics the simplicity of the Blogger for Android interface, though. Users can also manage multiple blogs from the interface. Read more...
Judge wants Google and Oracle CEOs to sit down for mediation talks
The judge overseeing the dispute between Oracle and Google "strongly recommends" that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Google CEO Larry Page be ordered to attend mediation.
That means the judge wasn't happy with Oracle's suggestion that it would send its president, Safra Catz, or with Google's plan to send Andy Rubin, head of its mobile operation, to a court mediation session.
Judge William Alsup's recommendation, issued Thursday morning, follows Oracle's protest of Google's Rubin proposal. Read more...
Court: ISP Not Responsible When Subscribers Infringe Copyrights
In a case brought by EMI against one of Germany’s largest Internet service providers, a court has ruled that the ISP cannot be held liable when its subscribers infringe copyright. Music giant EMI wanted the ISP to block a certain file-sharing site but the court decided otherwise and dismissed the case.
After calls to the Russian host of a file-sharing site to shut down the service failed, in early 2010 a leading music label launched legal action against one of Germany’s largest ISPs.
Although the identities of the plaintiff, defendant and file-sharing site are redacted from court papers, the case reference (28 0 362/10) reveals a lawsuit between EMI Music and ISP HanseNet Telekommunikations. Read more...
DigiNotar hacker threatens to expand spy attacks using stolen certificates
The hacker with links to several breaches of SSL certificate-issuing networks this year admitted sharing stolen certificates with others in Iran, and threatened to extend future spy-style attacks to computer users in the U.S., Europe and Israel.
"I'll own as more as gateways in Israel, USA, Europe, as more as ISPs and attack will run there," the hacker said in a long, rambling statement today written in sometimes-fractured English.
Comodohacker, as he calls himself, also made new claims, saying that he stole sensitive data, including customer information, from two other certificate authorities, or CAs, the term for organizations of companies allowed to issue SSL (secure socket layer) certificates. Read more...
Apple’s App Store may be the biggest, but other stores offer more average downloads per app
It’s one of Apple’s biggest selling points for its mobile devices: more than 400,000 total apps, all screened by Apple. More than 1 billion total downloads to date. And more than 100,000 apps created with just the iPad in mind.
But while the iTunes App Store is definitely the most successful App Store around, greatly outpacing sales in the Android Market and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry App World, it’s not necessarily the best place for individual apps to make a mark. More developers flock to Apple’s iOS platform because there’s money to be made there – often more and more reliably than on other platforms – but new market research suggests if you want an app to be downloaded a lot, you should take it to one of the little guys. Read more...