Apple drags Samsung patent fight to Korea

The legal spat between Apple and Samsung escalated Friday as the iPhone-maker filed yet another patent lawsuit against Samsung.

However, unlike Apple’s previous filings against Samsung in the U.S., today’s motion was filed in South Korea’s Central District Court.

Full details of the dispute have yet to be disclosed, but Apple spokesman Steve Park tells the AP that the suit is intended to “protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal [its] ideas.”

Though the announcement … Continue Reading

Twitter getting ready for in-stream ads?

Ready for more ads in your Twitter feed? To boost revenue, Twitter is planning to get more aggressive about ads on its site, making promoted tweets more prominent in the main stream of updates, reports the Financial Times.

The company introduced “Promoted Tweets” last year, modeling it on Google’s search ads. Right now, they only appear in Twitter’s search engine results. Advertisers pay Twitter to promote their own tweet messages based on relevant search terms.… Continue Reading

BioWare latest game company hit by hackers

BioWare, the game development studio behind triple-A titles like Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, said hackers were able to crack into the forums for one of its old video games and might have stolen sensitive information about the site’s users on Friday.

This really is not a good quarter for video game developers, which have faced a lot of security issues. BioWare marks the fourth high-profile game developer that has … Continue Reading

Google responds to FTC inquiry: Antitrust? What antitrust?

Yesterday we wrote that the Federal Trade Commission was readying a large-scale Google antitrust probe, and today Google confirmed that it has received notification of an investigation from the regulatory agency. Google Fellow and key search engineer Amit Singhal responded to the situation in a blog post today, entitled “Support choice, ensuring economic opportunity.”

Singhal notes (hilariously) that “it’s still unclear exactly what the FTC’s concerns are” — even though it’s not difficult to see … Continue Reading

Solar panel micro-inverter maker Enphase looking to raise $51.5M ahead of IPO

Solar panel micro-inverter manufacturer Enphase Energy is looking to raise $51.5 million in a funding round and has raised around $14 million of that so far, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Solar panel micro-inverters transform a direct current generated by the photovoltaic cell on the panel into an alternating current. The alternating current is fed into a power grid, which can’t accept a direct current. Micro-inverters are built into … Continue Reading

Biofuel producer KiOR sets IPO price at $15

Biofuel producer KiOR has priced its initial public offering at $15 per share, down from $19 to $21 that the company originally announced on Wednesday.

A lot of media and Web 2.0 companies filing to go public, such as LinkedIn and Pandora, have ramped up their IPO price ahead of their trading debuts this year. KiOR’s latest move could be a signal that there is some concern regarding clean technology IPOs that have not reached … Continue Reading

Apple may ship 8M MacBook Airs in Q3, double all of last quarter’s Mac sales

Apple’s sexy ultrathin MacBook Air is expected to lead the way for Mac sales. The company may ship over 8 million MacBook Air units in this quarter, double the 3.76 million combined Mac sales it had in the second quarter, Taiwanese news site Digitimes reports.

Sources in the Taiwanese Apple supply chain tell the site that their production lines will be running in full gear throughout July to keep up with demand. The MacBook Air … Continue Reading

Right idea, wrong time: Twitter in the pre-Twitter days

Twitter’s a ubiquitous service these days, but 11 years ago it was just the beginning of an idea rolling around in Jack Dorsey’s head. Dorsey, in this Entrepreneur Thought Leader Lecture given at Stanford University, tells of the days he first tested the idea – broadcasting his notes and thoughts to friends and family via an email list from his then-revolutionary Blackberry. Things didn’t go quite as smooth then as they did when he launched … Continue Reading

Game on: Winklevoss twins resume Facebook legal dispute

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have resumed legal disputes against Facebook concerning their $65 million cash-and-stock settlement with the company, reports CNET.

The original settlement centered on claims that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole the Winklevoss’s idea for a social network while working for them. The legal dispute was thought to be over after statements by the Winklevoss brothers, in a filing with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, indicated that they would not ask … Continue Reading

Critically acclaimed shooter Team Fortress 2 goes free-to-play

Team Fortress 2, a colorful team-based online first-person shooter game, will be free to download and play and will generate revenue through in-game transactions, game developer Valve announced today.

That means the game will use the “freemium” model, which is usually designed to tease players with a free game and then encourage them to buy more powerful items. Team Fortress 2 is the first high-profile console and PC first-person shooter (FPS) game to go free-to-play. … Continue Reading

New Facebook design keeps ads and menus visible when scrolling

Facebook is testing a new homepage design that keeps advertisements and menu navigation visible when you scroll up or down the page, reports Inside Facebook.

The design is a departure from all previous incarnations of Facebook’s homepage and borrows design elements found on Twitter and Gawker Media blogs.

The top navigation bar, sidebar, footer and ad spots are now stationary portions of the page. The only parts of the page that retain the scrolling movement … Continue Reading

LulzSec aims big: leaks Arizona police documents as payback for immigration law

In what may be its biggest hack ever, the hacker collective LulzSec has released hundreds of private documents from Arizona law enforcement as payback for the state’s controversial immigration law.

The hack, known as “Operation Chinga La Migra” (or “fuck the border patrol”), has been confirmed by Arizona police. LulzSec says that the files contain “private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, personal email correspondence, names, phone numbers, addresses and passwords.” The files are readily available on … Continue Reading

Archos tablets makes nice paperweights, but Seagate is still cool

Hard drive and storage company, Seagate, announced today that it is putting its super slim notebook hard drives to new use. The drives, aimed at ultra-portable devices can now be found in Archos‘ G9 8-inch and 10-inch tablets, Android powered devices.

The problem is, it’s a spinner hard drive circa iPod generation one.

With the new hardware, Archos G9 users will have 250GB of space as opposed to the 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB options available … Continue Reading

iOS legal disclaimer hints Apple is working on Maps improvements

The map rumor mill is spinning.

Some digging done today by Arnold Kim at MacRumors.com into Apple’s legal disclaimer for iOS 5 reveals licenses from third-party companies that provide mapping data and services. Could this be evidence that Apple is working on its own mapping solution, despite a renewed partnership with Google Maps?

Apple hasn’t publicly announced any major developments for iOS’s Maps app, but Kim reports that while Apple is obviously developing it’s own … Continue Reading

Facebook reaches 750 million active monthly users

Massively popular social network Facebook has reached a total of 750 million active users per month, reports TechCrunch.

Facebook has yet to make a statement on the current number of total users. Some speculate that the company is holding off an official announcement until reaching a billion users, but it’s just as likely that Facebook is still waiting to achieve the 750 million mark.

The last time the company made an official announcement about its … Continue Reading

Netherlands becomes second country to make net neutrality a law

The Dutch Parliament on Wednesday passed a law that prohibits Internet service providers from slowing down any kind of Internet traffic unless it’s to ease congestion, preserve security, or block spam.

The practice of treating all Internet traffic equally—whether it’s text, e-mail, audio, or video—is commonly referred to as net neutrality. This move makes the Netherlands the second country in the world to put net neutrality into law, after Chile.

The concept of net neutrality … Continue Reading

Israeli Minister to Steve Jobs: Apps shouldn’t incite violence

Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Minister, wrote a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs objecting to iTunes’ sale of the ThirdIntifada app. According to the Jerusalem Post, the app “gives information about protest activities, some of them violent, planned against Israel.”

The app, launched on June 15, was pulled from iTunes. As of Thursday, a search for the app in the App Store now reveals an error message.

Apple pulled the free app … Continue Reading

Starcraft developer Blizzard interested in making games for iPhone, iPad

Activision-Blizzard’s Greg Street, a lead designer behind the company’s highly successful World of Warcraft online game, told Eurogamer that his company was interested in making games built for the iPhone.

That would give Activision-Blizzard access to millions of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners that aren’t necessarily interested in playing a game on a typical computer. While World of Warcraft and Blizzard’s other games aren’t that resource intensive and don’t require a powerful graphics card, … Continue Reading