Samsung execs may have peeked at secret Apple info

Samsung's lawyers may have provided their clients access to highly confidential information such as Apple's patent licensing agreements with Nokia, Ericsson, Sharp and Philips, according to a court document.

The disclosure raises questions whether Samsung and its outside counsel may have broken a "protective order" that is meant to prevent confidential information from falling into the hands of competitors.

The documents had been provided as part of a fact discovery between August 2011 and March 2012 in a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung.

As fact discovery turned to expert discovery, Samsung's outside counsel sent it a report prepared by an expert about damages to be awarded for Apple's alleged infringement of Samsung's declared-essential patents. The distributed report however contained, intentionally or inadvertently, key terms of each of the four license agreements, according to the court.

Samsung's outside counsel posted the report on an FTP (file transfer protocol) site that was accessible by Samsung staff, and emailed instructions for accessing the site, which over 50 Samsung employees including licensing executives are said to have accessed. In a hearing earlier this week, Samsung's counsel repeatedly "denied even one violation of the protective order, asserting that such a violation can only occur willfully."

"Samsung is unable to provide evidence on even the most basic questions, such as: who has now had access to the confidential licensing information? For what purpose? When? Where? How?," U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose division wrote in his order.

"Has Samsung relied on any of the confidential information in taking any position before any other court or jurisdiction? Exactly what steps has Samsung taken to prevent dissemination and use of the confidential information in the future? In each instance, the only response available seems to be, 'We're working on it,'" Grewal wrote.

The court decided Wednesday that letting Samsung and its counsel investigate the issue without any court supervision is unlikely to produce satisfactory results. "Rarely is the fox is permitted to investigate without supervision the disappearance of chickens at the henhouse," Grewal wrote.

Samsung is to produce to Apple no later than Oct. 16 the documents and witnesses that could establish whether Samsung and its counsel could be sanctioned for their conduct. Samsung could not be immediately reached for comment.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Bitcoin forum goes offline after hack

A popular Bitcoin forum, Bitcointalk.org, remained offline Wednesday night as it investigated a cyberattack.

Bitcointalk.org uses forum software made by Simple Machines, a nonprofit organization. According to a video of the hack posted by a Reddit user, the attackers call themselves "The Hole Seekers."

Users were greeted with classical music and animated explosions followed by the message: "Hello friend, Bitcoin has been seized by the FBI for being illegal. Thanks, bye," according to the video.

The hack occurred just after the U.S. Federal Bureau of investigation seized US$3.6 million worth of the virtual currency as part of its shut down and arrest of the alleged operator of the Silk Road, an online market of mostly illicit goods.

It was unclear whether the attack was aimed at compromising the site's users. A Bitcointalk.org administrator, who goes by the nickname "Theymos," wrote on Reddit that password hashes were probably not compromised and that the JavaScript injected into the site appeared to be harmless.

"If you used the same password on Bitcointalk.org as on other sites, you may want to change your passwords," Theymos wrote, adding that Bitcointalk.org will be offline for a while, but several people have backups of the forum.

The attackers also uploaded a PHP script and other files into an avatars directory. Theymos said a 50 BTC reward, worth about $6,500, is being offered to anyone who can figure out how the site was compromised.

"The forum won't go back up until I know how this was done, so it could be down for a while," Theymos wrote.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Patent firm Lodsys backs out of dispute with Kaspersky Lab

Security firm Kaspersky Lab said patent firm Lodsys had withdrawn its claims rather than face the verdict of the court in a patent dispute.

"Kaspersky Lab paid no money to Lodsys, and did not agree to any settlement terms," it said Wednesday.

The outcome is seen as a key win for technology companies fighting in court with patent companies, popularly known as patent trolls because they extract royalty and damages for the patents they own, but do not make any products.

Lodsys wanted to avoid a ruling on the merits of its claims, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in a blog post. "While it has sued some big players, most of its targets have been tiny app developers who lack the resources to defend patent litigation," it said.

Kaspersky was the only one of 55 companies sued by Lodsys that decided to fight on and demanded the case be brought to trial, rather than settle with the patent firm in a lawsuit filed in a court in Texas in May 2012, the security company said.

Lodsys claimed that each of the companies was infringing on one or more of four patents, that pertain to collecting user's perceptions about the product, including purchases, and upgrades with computer applications.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall division, passed an order earlier this week dismissing with prejudice all claims and counterclaims between Lodsys and Kaspersky. Attorneys' fees and other expenses were to be borne by the party that incurred them. The two companies had earlier moved the court for the dismissal.

Symantec, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics recently settled with Lodsys, according to court records.

"Our lawyers in the court reported that Lodsys has withdrawn its lawsuit and the judge dismissed the case 'with prejudice', meaning they can't bring a similar case against us again," said Eugene Kaspersky, chairman and CEO of the company in a blog post. Lodsys could not be immediately reached for comment.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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Toyota expands electric vehicle sharing program

Toyota added a new concept electric vehicle to its Hamo car sharing project, which lets users rent electric cars by the minute.

See the car in a video from the Ceatec expo in Japan.

The company's Harmonious Mobility Network or Hamo has been underway in Toyota city since October 2012. The new concept vehicle called the i-Road weighs 300 kilograms and can fit two passengers. It has dual two-kilowatt motors that can propel the car at speeds up to 45 kilometers per hour for up to 50 kilometers on a single charge of its lithium-ion battery.

Toyota plans to expand Hamo later this month with 45 additional electric vehicles added to the current fleet of 10. It will add 13 new vehicle stations where users can rent, return and charge vehicles. Toyota also hopes to increase membership from 100 to about 1,000.

"When someone wants to use this car they first have to reserve it and they can do that through a smartphone," said Chikara Abiko assistant manager of Smart Community Planning at Toyota. "They can check the availability of cars in real time."

Renting the cars starts at 200 Yen for the first 10 minutes then 20 Yen for every minute after that. Renting the car for an hour would cost 1,200 Yen or about US$12. That's similar to car sharing services in the U.S. like Zipcar, which charge about the same rates, but for full size, gas-powered and hybrid cars.

Toyota is trying to sell the cars and the system to other cities, but wouldn't say which ones.

Nick Barber covers general technology news in both text and video for IDG News Service. E-mail him at Nick_Barber@idg.com and follow him on Twitter at @nickjb.

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Office Store app developers can now charge subscriptions

Microsoft is adding subscription pricing for apps in its Office Store, besides opening eight new store fronts.

Developers will be allowed to charge a monthly recurring fee for their applications which they can promote and distribute globally or within the 31 individual selectable markets where the Office Store is available.

The company said it was adding stores in Russia, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy and Brazil "starting this spring," besides supporting Chinese, Russian, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese and Italian language apps.

"Developers will have an even greater choice between free, trial, paid and subscription versions of their apps, broadening their reach to entirely new users, customers and segments," Microsoft said in a post.

Developers can submit updated or new apps to support subscription from this month. Starting in November, Office Store users will be able to purchase the subscription apps, though the new local language apps will be available to customers only in spring, Microsoft said.

Office users have already downloaded well over 1 million apps from the Office Store, Microsoft said.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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SAP ramps up venture capital efforts

SAP's venture capital arm has raised US$1 billion over the past year as the company tries to land stakes in hot startup companies, both to generate profit down the road and to align itself with the industry's newest technologies.

In total, SAP now has $1.4 billion under management in its various venture funds, according to Wednesday's announcement. As part of SAP Ventures' expansion, the organization is also creating a new 10-member business development team, SAP said.

SAP is expecting to have a total of 13 exits for its portfolio companies this year, said Nino Marakovic, CEO of SAP Ventures, in an interview. Five of the companies, including Marin Software and Violin Memory, have gone public, with another seven acquired by other vendors. One of the most significant in the latter group is marketing software ExactTarget, which SAP rival Salesforce.com bought for $2.5 billion.

There's a reason for SAP's installed base, as opposed to SAP shareholders, to care about what the Ventures group is doing, Marakovic said.

"We're kind of a good pipeline into the things that are to come," he said. "We want to show customers SAP is forward-thinking."

In addition, SAP's involvement could give customers more confidence in working with the very smallest startups in the portfolio, which may have only a handful of initial customers, he said.

SAP has made efforts, including a special venture fund, to get startups interested in its HANA in-memory database platform, in hopes of quickly developing an ecosystem of partners and applications for HANA.

Overall, SAP looks to invest in mostly enterprise-themed startups, but about 20 percent of its portfolio concerns more consumer-oriented companies, he said. It is particularly interested in companies that span both markets and reflect the consumerization-of-IT trend, according to Marakovic.

It's not unusual for tech companies to have venture capital arms. Intel runs one of the better-known ones, as does IBM.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

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Apple can push iOS email across German borders again

Apple switched on its push email services for iOS devices in Germany again after posting a bond of €100 million (US$135 million).

In February 2012, Apple was forced to switch off push email services for iOS devices in Germany after it lost a patent lawsuit brought by the now Google-owned Motorola Mobility.

Motorola decided to enforce an injunction granted by the Regional Court of Mannheim, meaning that users of iOS devices in Germany were only able to receive mail when they opened the Mail app, or when the app is set to check for email. 

Apple appealed the case and on Aug. 29, the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe, Mannheim's appeal court, lifted the injunction in an interim decision, according to a Karlsruhe court spokesman.

Because the interim decision is not final, Apple had to post a bond of €100 million to lift the injunction and switch on push email for Germans, he said.

Apple apparently got round to posting the bond since iOS push email is available in Germany again since Oct. 1, according to an Apple support note concerning the matter. "Customers in Germany can now receive push email delivery for iCloud, Yahoo!, AOL, QQ, and NetEase," Apple said in the note.

The appeals court will now take a closer look at the matter in order to reach a final decision, the spokesman said.

Apple declined to comment.

Loek is Amsterdam Correspondent and covers online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at @loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com

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Fake AdBlock Plus app removed from Google's Play store

Google has removed an application from its Play store that purported to be AdBlock Plus, a well-known application that blocks online ads.

The bogus application actually delivered more advertisements to users, wrote Dmitry Bestuzhev, who is head of Kaspersky Lab's research and analysis team for Latin America.

"This is one of those scenarios where the user looks for protection but only finds problems," Bestuzhev wrote.

Google has become more vigilant in keeping malicious applications out of the Play store, but security experts frequently find rogue ones that have slipped in. Security vendor Symantec said in July it had found more than 1,200 suspicious applications in the Play store since the start of the year.

The malicious application appears to have been registered with RevMob, a mobile advertising network based in Brazil. RevMob pays application developers a per-install fee based on the number of users who have downloaded other applications that are displayed in the advertisements, according to its website.

RevMob is a spinoff of a gaming company founded in 2009 called "Best, Cool & Fun Games," which developed mobile games titled "Ant Smasher" and "Bunny Shooter," the website says.

Advertising networks often have automated sign-up processes, so it may be possible for a rogue developer to try and monetize an application with advertisements before it is detected.

The AdBlock Plus impersonator, which Kaspersky calls "HEUR:AdWare.AndroidOS.Starsys.b," has other potential risks. Bestuzhev wrote it gains a variety of permissions, including access to SMS messages and a person's contacts as well as ability to open up the device to incoming Bluetooth connections.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Intel to acquire network security firm Sensory Networks

Intel has signed a deal to acquire Sensory Networks, a provider of software pattern matching technology for network security applications.

Chris Kraeuter, a spokesman at the chip maker, said he could confirm that Intel has signed an agreement to acquire Sensory Networks, but couldn't comment on the deal terms. Some reports said Intel paid about US$20 million for the company.

Sensory Networks, with headquarters in Mountain View, California, also has a research and development office in Sydney, Australia.

Its HyperScan pattern matching engine can match large groups of regular expressions against blocks or streams of data, making it useful for applications that need to scan large amounts of data at high speed, such as intrusion prevention, antivirus and deep packet inspection systems. It runs entirely in software and has been deployed on a wide range of different processors and operating systems, Sensory Networks said on its website.

Sensory Networks already has partnerships with Intel and its embedded and mobile software subsidiary Wind River, besides alliances with other semiconductor companies such as ARM, Broadcom and Freescale Semiconductor.

Intel subsidiary McAfee acquired in July another security company, Stonesoft, for $389 million. Intel said that technology from the Helsinki, Finland, maker of firewall software would be integrated with McAfee's products. Intel acquired McAfee in 2011.

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Alps imagines the car dashboard of the future

When you sit in the car of the future, you won't need to worry about keys or adjusting your seat and you'll even get a quick health check when you sit in the driver's seat.

At least, that's the dream of Japan's Alps Electric. The company has built a futuristic dashboard and a driver cabin that's packed with the company's sensor technology and realizes these features. It's on show this week at the Ceatec expo in Japan.

The keys are gone because the car features a facial recognition system. If the driver isn't registered to use the car it won't start. And don't think about drinking while sick. A line of sensors checks basic vital signs, such as heart rate, and won't let the car start if it judges the driver isn't fit enough to drive safely.

An NFC (near-field communication) sensor in the dashboard provides a path between the car's IT system and a smartphone, which in turn connects to the Internet. If the driver needs to adjust any controls on the cell phone while driving, all that's required is a wave of the hand. A gesture recognition system means drivers don't have to use the phone's screen while driving -- something that's illegal in many countries.

When in motion, the same facial recognition system keeps watch on drivers to ensure they remain looking ahead while in control of the vehicle.

The demonstration is designed to highlight Alps' sensors, but many of the same technologies are already being developed by automobile makers. Cars have gotten much more high-tech in the last few years as safety and entertainment systems become an increasingly important part of vehicles.

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com

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