Apple Ordered to Pay $532.9 Million in Patent Trial Over iTunes

Apple Inc has been ordered to pay $532.9 million (roughly Rs. 33,040 crores) after a federal jury found its iTunes software infringed three patents owned by Texas-based patent licensing company Smartflash LLC.Though Smartflash had been asking for $852 million (roughly Rs. 52,825 crores) in damages, the verdict, which came late Tuesday night, was still a costly blow for the U.S. tech giant, the most valuable company in the world.

After deliberating for eight hours in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the jury said that Apple not only used the Smartflash patents without permission, but did so willfully.Apple suggested the outcome was another reason why reform is needed in the patent system to curb litigation by companies that do not make products themselves, such as Smartflash.

"We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system," an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement to Reuters.

A representative for Smartflash could not immediately be reached.Smartflash sued Apple in May, 2013 alleging the Cupertino, California-based company's iTunes software infringed its patents related to accessing and storing downloaded songs, videos and games.

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Microsoft to Discontinue Facebook, Google Chat Integration in Outlook.com

Microsoft on Tuesday in an email to Outlook.com customers revealed that within "the next couple of weeks" it will drop support for Facebook and Google chats in Outlook.com.

The Redmond giant in an email (via Twitter user Chris Lindhartsen) said, "Within the next couple of weeks, we will be discontinuing support for Facebook chat in Outlook.com." Unfortunately, the company did not mention the reason to discontinue the integration with Facebook chat.

In the case of Google, Microsoft cited discontinuation of chat protocol used by the Google Talk platform in the shift to Google Hangouts as the reason for dropping support. The email said, "And due to Google's decision to discontinue the chat protocol used by the Google Talk platform, we can no longer provide Google Chat in Outlook.com."

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Microsoft Offering Free Office 365 Subscriptions to Students Worldwide

Microsoft, after offering free Office 365 subscription to eligible students in the US, has expanded the program outside the country.The Redmond giant via its Office Blogs confirmed the news and said, "Millions of students around the world are eligible for free Office from their school and today [Tuesday] we are announcing that we've made it easy for all eligible students globally to sign up themselves to get Office 365 and install free Office." Countries and regions where the Office 365 subscription service is available can be checked on the list provided by Microsoft.

Under the scheme, students once signed up for their free Office 365subscriptions get the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access and Publisher, which can be installed on up to five PCs or Macs and even up to five mobile devices (such as iPad, Android and Windows tablets). With the free Office 365 subscription, Microsoft also offers 1TB of storage on OneDrive and Office Online access to eligible students.

The company in its blog notes that Hebrew and Arabic languages will be available mid-March while the self-sign-up will not available in China The self-sign-up is now available for students worldwide and can be done by visiting the Office 365 for Students (or Office 365 for Teachers) page and registering with a valid email provided by the school.

The company further adds, "Students getting Office at no additional cost to schools is a benefit Microsoft provides to education institutions that buy Office for faculty and staff. That means teachers can also sign up and enjoy all the benefits of Office connected to a cloud service."

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Mozilla Firefox 36 Adds HTTP/2 Support, Pinned Tile Syncing, and More

Mozilla, in the latest version of its Firefox browser has introduced support for the newly finalised HTTP/2 network protocol along with other features. Firefox 36 is currently only available for Windows, OS X, and Linux desktop systems.

For those unaware, HTTP/2 is the next version of the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) network protocol, the final version of which was announced last week by IETF HTTP Working Group Chairman, Mark Nottingham. The update is said to be the largest change after HTTP 1.1, which was adopted back in 1999. The new network protocol allows for faster page loads, longer-lived connections and more.

It is worth noting that Firefox is the first browser to come with a support for HTTP/2. Microsoft in May last year announced that it would too bring the latest HTTP/2 protocol in its next Internet Explorer browser version, which will now arrive with Windows 10. The Microsoft's Project Spartan browser might also support the protocol.

A couple of other additions in Mozilla Firefox 36 are syncing of pinned tiles on the new tab page and a new locale - Uzbek (uz). Firefox 26 also sees the removal of 'remote' option, display of crash report in case of shutdown hangs before the exiting of the program, and more. Changes to HTML5 support have been also made in the latest version besides some security fixes. A fix for the unexpected log out from Facebook or Google after restart was also implemented. The details can be found on the Mozilla's Firefox release notes page.

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Google Buys Facebook-Focused App Marketing Firm Toro

Google has acquired mobile marketing company Toro, a firm that helps developers market their apps on social media platforms like Facebook. The announcement came via Toro on Tuesday, but neither company has disclosed the financial terms of the deal. Announcing the acquisition via Toro blog, the startup company wrote, "With greater resources and distribution now available at our disposal, we're excited to join Google and continue our mission of making the lives of app developers easier."

The San Francisco-based startup Toro, which was originally known as Red Hot Labs Inc., is known for offering services and tools to help software makers boost their user numbers, and was best known for its Facebook ad campaigns. It was also a Facebook 'Preferred Marketing Developer' (PMD).

The company is led by Amitt Mahajan and Joel Poloney. The duo previously co-founded MyMiniLife, and is said (via TechCrunch) to have played a key role in the creation of FarmVille.Now after the acquisition, Toro blog notes that the company would continue to support existing customers, however new campaign creation has been suspended temporarily.

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Hackers Controlling Millions of PCs Targeted in Europol Sweep

A cybercrime ring that used 3.2 million hacked computers worldwide to steal banking information by seizing control of servers has been disrupted by European police and technology companies, officials said on Wednesday.

Europol's European Cybercrime Centre coordinated the operation out of its headquarters in The Hague, targeting the so-called Ramnit botnet, a network of computers infected with malware.

It worked with investigators from Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain and was assisted by companies Anubisnetwork, Microsoft and Symantec, which said 3.2 million computers were hacked. "We worked together to shut down the command and control servers for the network in various countries across the European Union," Paul Gillen, head of operations at the cybercrime centre, told Reuters. "The criminals have lost control of the infrastructure they were using."

Seven servers used by the cybercriminals were shut down overnight, officials said.The malware, installed through links on spam email or infected websites, enabled culprits to take control of the PCs and use them for criminal activities.

Computers around the world have been infected by the botnet, but most users have been infected in Britain, Gillen said. Ramnit has been infecting computers since 2012.

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Download.com and Other Sites Bundling Superfish-Style Adware: Report

Despite new security features being added on an almost daily basis, we are certainly not moving towards a more secure Internet - at least, this is what can be derived from recent findings.

After Lenovo was found to be installing the malicious adware Superfish in consumer machines, another report on Monday came out suggesting that it is not the only one doing it. It reported two names of the security firms that have added similar man-in-the-middle code in their software platforms. While one software is being said to be using vulnerable SSL-interception technology sold by Komodia, similar to what Superfish employed, the other using different technology achieves the same effect of bypassing SSL and HTTPS protection.

All this seems to have created panic in consumers, and researchers are taking concerns seriously. According to a new report by How to Geek on Monday, several freeware and software sites (including CNET's Download.com) are bundling HTTPS-breaking-adware nowadays.

The report notes that the adware like Wajam, Geniusbox, Content Explorer, and many others are following the same trend as seen with Superfish in Lenovo. These companies are installing their own certificates and forcing all your browsing (including HTTPS encrypted browsing sessions) to go through their proxy server. Not just that, the report claims that your machine can just get infected "by installing two [KMPlayer and YTD] of the top 10 apps on CNET Downloads." The two apps reportedly feature two different types of "HTTPS-hijacking adware".

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SIM Maker Gemalto Confirms Possible Spy Attacks, Denies 'Massive Theft'

European SIM maker Gemalto said Wednesday it had suffered hacking attacks that may have been conducted by US and British intelligence agencies but denied any "massive theft" of encryption keys that could be used to spy on conversations.

Investigative website The Intercept last week said the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart GCHQ hacked into the firm in 2010 and 2011 and stole the keys, with which they can secretly monitor communications over mobiles without using a warrant or wiretap.The website made the allegations based on a document leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

"In 2010 and 2011, we detected two particularly sophisticated intrusions which could be related to the operation," Gemalto said in a statement."During the same period, we also detected several attempts to access the PCs of Gemalto employees who had regular contact with customers," it added.

"At the time we were unable to identify the perpetrators but we now think that they could be related to the NSA and GCHQ operation."But the company denied that these attacks resulted in a large-scale theft of encryption keys.

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LinkedIn to Pay Premium Users $1 Each in Password-Leak Settlement

LinkedIn has agreed to pay about $1 each to up to 800,000 American users who paid for premium services of the career-focused social network between March 2006 and June 2012 - to settle a class-action lawsuit.

A LinkedIn premium user named Katie Szpyrka sued the company over the leaked of over 6.5 million LinkedIn password hashes back in 2012. Szpyrka alleged LinkedIn of violating various California state laws and for negligence, as per Ars Technica's report.

LinkedIn user privacy litigation settlement website notes, "A settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit against LinkedIn, which operates a professional networking service (website at www.linkedin.com). The class action lawsuit involves claims that LinkedIn did not adequately protect the passwords and personal information of the users of its premium services."

The settlement however clears that the $1 payout will be offered only to those premium LinkedIn users (between March 15, 2006 and June 7, 2012) who submit a claim. The website further adds, "If you are included in the settlement and can attest that you were influenced by LinkedIn's statements in its User Agreement or Privacy Policy about its security when you signed up for a LinkedIn premium subscription, you are eligible to submit a claim for up to $50 from a $1,250,000 Settlement Fund, after payment of the costs of administering the settlement and any award of reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses and plaintiff's incentive award approved by the Court."

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