Tag Archives: against

Microsoft submits dispute against Xbox One domain squatter

Domain squatters are pesky folks who strive to nab up as many domain names as they can that take advantage of another entity’s trademark for the purpose of profiting from it. For example, Facebook scored a victory against domain squatters on May 1, and certainly isn’t the first company to do so. Now that the

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SlashGear

Google reportedly considering bid against Facebook to buy Waze

Waze is a navigational app that offers crowdsourced information on things such as traffic conditions, with the information and map updates coming from users themselves. The app has long been the source of acquisition rumors, with word having surfaced back in January that Apple was looking into buying the company, something that was later denied

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Chinese rival bolsters search engine against Baidu with Alibaba partnership

China's Baidu has long dominated the country's search market. But a local rival to the company is bolstering its own search services with the help of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.
Computerworld News

Android has become a hedge against Microsoft and Windows

HP, in a way, is putting Microsoft and Windows on notice with its new Android offerings. [Read more]

    




CNET News

Life-Tracking App Expereal Is Your Personal Weapon Against Cognitive Biases

Expereal logoEmotions play tricks on our memories, making our recollections of events much happier or heart-wrenching than they actually were. Smartphone app Expereal seeks to cut through those cognitive traps by allowing you to rate your day on a 10-point scale and organizing that data into easy-to-read charts.
TechCrunch

Canada Courts, Patent Office Warns Against Trying To Patent Mathematics

davecb writes “The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has recently published two notices for patent examiners relating to patent interpretation, and in particular computer-related/business method type patents saying: ‘for example, what appears on its face to be a claim for an “art” or a “process” may, on a proper construction, be a claim for a mathematical formula and therefore not patentable subject matter.’”

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Slashdot

Three major carriers join “It Can Wait” campaign against texting while driving

On March 28, we reported on a survey conducted by AT&T, which revealed that just under half of all drivers in the United States admit to texting while driving, despite 98-percent of those individuals reporting that it is dangerous and something they shouldn’t do. Likewise, according to that survey, 43-percent of all teenage drivers say

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U.S. carriers line up against texting while driving

The major U.S. mobile operators are all putting their weight behind a campaign against texting while driving that will include a blitz of advertising and a driving simulator touring the country this summer.
Computerworld News

Nokia Teases Lumia 928 In Low Light Camera Test, Pits It Against Galaxy S3 & iPhone 5

lumia 928Nokia is teasing the Lumia 928 — a phone it has not officially announced yet, despite all the leaks, rumours and, er, magazine ads — in a camera comparison video posted on its U.S. website. All this teasing smells like a new strategy for Nokia to try to manufacture a little hype for the forthcoming Windows Phone 8 flagship, which is apparently heading to Verizon.
TechCrunch

Nokia pits the Lumia 928 against the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III in low-light video shootout

Nokia pits the Lumia 928 against the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III in low-light video shootout

Now that the Lumia 928′s mere existence is official, Nokia’s posted a video comparing its footage-shooting chops against the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S III in low-light conditions. The folks in Espoo also revealed that the handset will be toting an 8.7-megapixel camera, matching the Lumia 920. Naturally, the film showcases just what PureView tech, paired with a Carl Zeiss lens and proprietary OIS can do. After letting the 928′s footage do the talking for roughly 50 seconds, Elop and Co. turn to side-by-side comparison shots, pointing out better color saturation, sharper image focus and less noise. Head past the break to catch the shootout in its entirety, and get a sense of deja vu.

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Source: Nokia

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Iterations: A Youthful Rebellion Against The Permanence Of Facebook’s Walled Garden

feather

Facebook’s mission is to make the world more open and connected. Indeed, great things can come from this, and for many of its one billion users, Facebook isn’t just on the web — it is the web. It is where images, biographical data, and every speck of a connection to a person, place, or thing lives, both the dream of a doting family spread miles apart and a marketer close by. It is a place where generations of people now reside, hang out, fawn over public statuses and peek into the lives of others. Ironically, while Facebook’s aim is to make the world more open, they themselves are building a new web within their own closed garden, inaccessible and (mostly) unexportable to all. As the saying states, “what goes on the Internet is written in ink,” so what goes onto Facebook is etched in stone walls.

TechCrunch

The Coming War Against Personal Photography and Video

Lauren Weinstein writes “Are you ready for the imagery war — the war against personal photography and capturing of video? You’d better be. ‘In some cities, like New York, the surveillance-industrial complex has its fangs deeply into government for the big bucks. It’s there we heard the Police Commissioner — just hours ago, really — claim that “privacy is off the table.” And of course, there’s the rise of wearable cameras and microphones by law enforcement, generally bringing praise from people who assume they will reduce police misconduct, but also dangerously ignoring a host of critical questions. Will officers be able to choose when the video is running? How will the video be protected from tampering? How long will it be archived? Can it be demanded by courts? … All of this and more is the gung-ho, government surveillance side of the equation. But what about the personal photography and video side? What of individual or corporate use of these technologies in public and private spaces? Will the same politicians promoting government surveillance in all its glory take a similar stance toward nongovernmental applications? Writing already on the wall suggests not. Inklings of the battles to come are already visible, if you know where to look.”

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Slashdot

HTC: Nokia did not obtain an injunction against the HTC One

HTC has released an official statement regarding a recent press release stating that Nokia was granted a preliminary injunction against the HTC One. HTC stated that Nokia did not obtain an injunction against the HTC One, but instead obtained an injunction only against STMicroelectronics. STMicroelectronics is being sued for breaching an exclusivity agreement with Nokia

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RCMP Says Terror Plot Against Canadian Trains Thwarted

An anonymous reader writes “Two men were arrested in Canada, accused of conspiring to carry out an ‘al-Qaeda supported’ attack against a VIA passenger train in the Greater Toronto Area. The arrests were products of ‘extensive’ co-operation between Canadian and US intelligence agencies, who had been investigating the plot since August 2012.” From this article, it’s not clear whether any actual al-Qaeda support was forthcoming, or whether the accused plotters merely thought there was, by means of an FBI sting operation, as in the 2006 case in Florida.

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Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents

New submitter Rideak writes with this excerpt from CNet about an ITC ruling against Motorola in their case against Apple for violating a few of their proximity sensor patents: “The U.S. International Trade Commission today ended Motorola’s case against Apple, which accused the iPhone and Mac maker of patent infringement. In a ruling (PDF), the ITC said that Apple was not violating Motorola’s U.S. patent covering proximity sensors, which the commission called ‘obvious.’ It was the last of six patents Motorola aimed at Apple as part of an October 2010 complaint.”

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Slashdot

ITC rejects Motorola touchscreen patent complaint against Apple

The U.S. International Trade Commission has found no evidence that Apple infringed on a Motorola Mobility patent covering a touchscreen function.
Computerworld News

YouTube Wins Against Viacom Again

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “Once again YouTube has defeated Viacom and other members of the content cartel; once again the Court has held that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act actually does mean what it says. YouTube had won the case earlier, at the district court level, but the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, although ruling in YouTube’s favor on all of the general principles at stake, felt that there were several factual issues involving some of the videos and remanded to the lower court for a cleanup of those loose ends. Now, the lower court — Judge Louis L. Stanton to be exact — has resolved all of the remaining issues in YouTube’s favor, in a 24-page opinion. Among other things Judge Stanton concluded that YouTube had not had knowledge or awareness of any specific infringement, been ‘willfully blind’ to any specific infringement, induced its users to commit copyright infringement, interacted with its users to a point where it might be said to have participated in their infringements, or manually selected or delivered videos to its syndication partners. Nevertheless, 5 will get you 10 that the content maximalists will appeal once again.”

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Slashdot

Google to roll out new Chrome safeguard against malicious extensions

Google is mighty proud of Chrome‘s security, something it has taken a proactive stance on. Back in December, the Internet giant put the kibosh on silent extensions, which are the sleeper-cell kind that slip in unnoticed and unwanted, installing by default. This move has been expanded on, with the company announcing earlier today a new

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SlashGear

Wide-scale attack against WordPress blogs reported

Unidentified hackers are said to have have launched a large-scale attack against WordPress blogs and any hosts using weak passwords are urged to update them immediately.
Computerworld News

Rackspace Goes On Rampage Against Patent Trolls

girlmad writes “Rackspace has come out fighting against one of the U.S.’s most notorious patent trolls, Parallel Iron. The cloud services firm said it’s totally fed up with trolls of all kinds, which have caused a 500 percent rise in its legal bills. Rackspace was last week named among 12 firms accused of infringing Parallel Iron’s Hadoop Distributed File System patents. Rackspace is now counter-suing the troll, as the firm said it has a deal in place with Parallel Iron after signing a previous patent settlement with them.”

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Slashdot

DHS warns of spear-phishing campaign against energy companies

The Department of Homeland Security has a warning for organizations that post a lot of business and personal information on public web pages and social media sites: Don’t do it.
Computerworld News

Apple: Patent we used against Samsung isn’t dead yet

Apple says it still has plenty of chances to fight to keep its rubber band patent, which it used against Samsung, alive and well. [Read more]


CNET News

China slams U.S. for discriminating against nation's tech vendors

China has slammed a new U.S. funding law that will tighten scrutiny of information technology purchases from the country, and said it could severely damage the mutual trust between the two nations.
Computerworld News

Adviser recommends MetroPCS shareholders vote against T-Mobile merger

It looks like T-Mobile will be facing an uphill battle come April 12th. On April 12th, the shareholders will be voting on whether or not MetroPCS should form a merger with T-Mobile USA. T-Mobile needs the shareholders to vote for the merger in order to complete the deal. It has already received the go-ahead from

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Uniloc Patent Case Against Rackspace Tossed for Bogus Patents

netbuzz writes “A federal judge in Texas, presiding over a district notorious for favoring patent trolls, has summarily dismissed all claims relating to a case brought by Uniloc USA against Rackspace for [Linux] allegedly infringing upon [Uniloc's] patents. Red Hat defended Rackspace in the matter and issued a press release saying: ‘In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc’s claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter.’” You can’t patent floating point math after all.

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Slashdot

Chinese Consumers Scoff At The State-Run Media’s Heavy-Handed Swipes Against Apple

Image (1) chinapple2.jpg for post 335615Tim Cook has said that China will soon become Apple’s biggest market, but the government is not as besotted as Chinese consumers. China’s state-run media has taken several swipes at Apple this month, moves which may be part of a (heavy-handed) public relations strategy to pave the way for locally grown operating systems as the Chinese government seeks to move its IT industry away from Western software. But if popular response to the anti-Apple articles is anything to go by, Chinese consumers and their iOS devices won’t be so easily parted. Earlier this week, People’s Daily, the Chinese government’s official newspaper, published articles calling Apple’s customer-service practices arrogant. The People’s Daily article followed a story earlier this month by official government press agency Xinhua, which blamed Apple for an increase in high-interest loans taken out by students to buy “fancy electronic products, most Apple devices.” And just a few days prior to the Xinhua story, China Central Television’s investigative program “3.15″ criticized Apple’s warranty practices, saying that the Cupertino company discriminates against Chinese iPhone owners by offering shorter guarantees than in other countries, using refurbished components, and refusing to honor after-sale obligations. China observer Gordon G. Chang wrote in a Forbes opinion piece that “executives in Cupertino should get worried that the 3.15 show is not a one-off.” What’s at stake for the Chinese government is its efforts to decrease dependency on foreign software by upping the profile of locally developed operating systems. Apple is just one of several foreign tech companies targeted by the Chinese government. Earlier this month, for example, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a white paper declaring that China is too reliant on the Android smartphone operating system (though it overstated Google’s power in China). The Chinese government is building its own Ubuntu-based open-source OS in partnership with Canonical and Chinese developers. The Linux-based OS, called “Ubuntu Kylin,” is set for release next month, and a China-specific version of Ubuntu Touch for smartphones and tablets may also be in the works. Most of Huawei and ZTE’s handsets are Android-based, but both Chinese companies are working on their own smartphone operating systems. Huawei Device CEO Wan Biao told Reuters last September that the company is “devoting resources into coming up with a phone operating system based on our current platform in case other companies won’t let us use their system one day.” Though ZTE’s operating system was built with Mozilla, it’s also meant
TechCrunch

DDoS attack against Spamhaus later targeted Tier 1 providers

A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack of unprecedented scale that targeted an international spam-fighting organization last week ended up causing problems for Internet users around the world, experts say.
Computerworld News

USPS Discriminates Against ‘Atheist’ Merchandise

fish waffle writes “Suspecting that their strongly branded ‘Atheist’ products may be treated differently by more religiously-oriented postal regions, Kickstarter success Atheist Shoes conducted an experiment. They sent 178 packages to 89 people in different parts of the U.S., each person receiving one package prominently branded as ‘Atheist’ merchandise, and one not. The results: packages with the atheist label were nearly 10 times more likely to be ‘lost,’ and took on average 3 days longer to show up when they did. Control experiments were also done in Europe and Germany — it’s definitely a USPS problem.”

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Slashdot

US censorship lawsuit against Baidu dismissed

A U.S. judge dismissed a lawsuit that sought to punish Chinese Internet company Baidu for blocking pro-democracy works on its search engine. One legal expert said the case was more of a publicity stunt than an actual legal challenge to China’s online censorship.
Computerworld News

HP eyes $4B damages claim in Itanium case against Oracle

Hewlett-Packard may seek damages of US$ 4 billion to $ 4.2 billion from Oracle in its lawsuit over support for Itanium server architecture.
Computerworld News

Chinese Government Suspected of Unleashing Astroturfers Against Apple

An anonymous reader writes “A piece attacking Apple’s treatment of Chinese consumers that aired on official government TV last week was followed by a wave of anti-Apple posts on Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter) by Chinese celebrities. On the China-watching site Tea Leaf Nation, Liz Carter reports that sharp-eyed Weibo users noticed something funny about one such post from an actor and singer named Peter Ho: ‘Cannot believe Apple is playing so many dirty tricks in customer service. As an Apple fan, I feel hurt…Need to post around 8:20 pm.’ What was this ‘need to post at 8:20 pm’ business? After Weibo lit up with sarcastic tags such as #PostAround820, Ho claimed (rather unconvincingly) that someone must have hacked his account and posted the anti-Apple ‘Weibo’. Mike Elgan at CultOfMac notes a parallel with the Chinese government’s rough handling of Google in 2009, which led to Google’s closing of its mainland operations. Google claimed that government commissioned hackers had apparently stolen search engine source code, Gmail messages and other user data. An earlier article by Elgan on Datamation notes the uneasy business relationship between Apple and China.”

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Slashdot

Retailer faces uphill battle in $13M lawsuit against Visa, analyst says

Specialty retailer Genesco faces an uphill battle in its precedent-setting $ 13.3 million lawsuit against Visa USA Inc., a Garner analyst said.
Computerworld News

Apple asks to appeal patent-infringement case against Google

It looks like Apple is looking to stir up some old issues with Google. Apple has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to reinstate the patent-infringement claims it had filed against Google’s Motorola Mobility unit. Apple stated that Google, and several companies, infringed on its touch-screen patents. Apple said

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SlashGear

Judge says Apple’s Siri case against Samsung can proceed

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh had said last month that a second patent case pitting Apple against Samsung in Northern California might be put on hold. Now she says otherwise. [Read more]


CNET News

Apple gets greenlight for Siri patent lawsuit against Samsung

Today, Judge Lucy Koh, a familiar name to those who have been keeping up on the Apple/Samsung patent war, has just ruled that she will not suspend Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung that involves its Siri digital assistant. This lawsuit, which differs from the one that went to trial in 2012, concerns patents that Apple uses

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SlashGear

US missile shield defends against ballistic threats

Using space-based satellite sensors orbiting the Earth, the Navy’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System — the first line of defense against incoming missiles — recently achieved its first live-fire intercept.


FOX News

Rand Paul Launches a Filibuster Against Drone Strikes On US Soil

Hugh Pickens writes “The Washington Post reports that at about 11:45 am today, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul took the floor of the Senate to launch one of the chamber’s rarest spectacles: a genuine filibuster. Paul says he is ‘alarmed’ at the lack of definition over who can be targeted by drone strikes. He called Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to rule out drone strikes to kill an American on U.S. soil ‘more than frightening,’ adding, ‘When I asked the president, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It’s an easy question. It should have been a resounding, an unequivocal, “No.” The president’s response? He hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’re supposed to be comforted by that.’ Any senator can opt to hold the floor to speak on any matter, but the practice of speaking for hours on end is rare, especially in the modern-day Senate, where the chamber’s rules are used more often to block legislation or to hold show votes on trivial matters. Paul has since been joined in his symbolic effort by Republicans Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Saxby Chambliss (Ga.). He has also gotten some bipartisan support from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.). Paul suggested that many college campuses in the 1960s were full of people who might have been considered enemies of the state. ‘Are you going to drop a Hellfire missile on Jane Fonda?’”

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Slashdot

Tesla Motors Loses Appeal Against BBC’s Top Gear

TrueSatan writes “In a highly detailed decision, the UK Court of Appeal has rejected Tesla’s appeal against an eartlier ruling by a lower court that, too, rejected Tesla’s case. Reading through the decision it is clear that the judge saw Tesla’s case as lacking sufficient detail and specific instances of proof to support each claim. The judge stated that that Tesla’s chances of a successful appeal, should the case have gone to trial, were insufficiently high to justify holding a trial. He stated that Tesla’s case had no real chance of success and in many notes picked appart Tesla’s legal team’s arguments. That said, he did not say that Top Gear were right or justified in portraying Tesla’s vehicle in the way they did — merely that there wasn’t a legal case for an appeal. One of the key flaws in Tesla’s case, according to the judicial decision, was Tesla’s inability to show that actual pecuniary harm, with detailed financial figures, had occurred.”

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Slashdot

Judge Cuts $450M From Apple’s $1B Damages Decision Against Samsung, Orders Second Trial

apple-samsungApple’s landmark $ 1 billion damages award over Samsung has been partially vacated by presiding judge Lucy Koh, FOSS Patents reports. The judge has orders just north of $ 450 million be struck from the $ 1 billion total, an amount which relates to 14 Samsung products involved in the case, pending a new trial to determine appropriate damages for those specific devices.
TechCrunch

EU privacy taskforce plan to take action against Google

European privacy authorities approved a plan to come up with measures to curb Google’s collection, combination and storage of its users’ personal information before the summer.
Computerworld News

Cablevision files antitrust lawsuit against Viacom over package deals

Cablevision Systems has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Viacom for allegedly making the company carry 14 channels that it deems as “lesser watched” than the rest. Viacom doesn’t agree, however, stating that the channels are part of a contact signed two months ago, and that Cablevision is trying to alter that contract by going through

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SlashGear

Massive, orbital laser blaster could defend against asteroid threats

Could a “Deathstar” someday defend Earth against incoming threats from space?


FOX News

Samsung, LG Display Feud Winding Down As LG Drops Sales Ban Request Against Galaxy Note 10.1

galaxy tab 10.1The War of the Korean Tech Giants: Battle Display is approaching a detente. LG Display has dropped its request for a domestic sales ban on rival Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1, reports Yonhap News Agency. The world’s two top display makers (Samsung is in the number one spot) have been warring over organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel patents by slapping each other with lawsuits since September. LG had sought the sales ban in response to an injunction Samsung filed against LG’s products based on Samsung’s confidential OLED tech.

TechCrunch

Evidence implicates Chinese government in hacking attacks against U.S.

You’ll have to be living under a rock to have missed the hoopla this year about alleged Chinese hackers attacking – and sometimes infiltrating – American media companies and other such businesses. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal have all stated this year that they were the target of attacks that

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SlashGear

EU regulators threaten privacy crackdown against Google

Web giant may face “repressive action” before summer if it does not respond to a dozen recommendations related to how it manages user data. [Read more]


CNET News

Facebook wins court battle against German privacy watchdog over ban on using fake names

Facebook has won a court battle against a German privacy watchdog that challenged the social networking site’s policy requiring users to register with their real names.
FOX News

Cyber Attacks Against Journalists Are On The Rise, Says Advocacy Group

Image (3) Newspaper-Stand.jpg for post 346648More journalists are now the target of cyber attacks, said the Committee to Protect Journalists. CPJ deputy director Robert Mahoney said cyber attacks on individuals and news organizations have increased notably over the past few years and that the practice serves as easy and inexpensive censorship. In a press conference with reporters, Mahoney cited the recent attacks on The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal by Chinese hackers, but said other news organizations and journalists in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and other regions had also been subjected to cyberattacks.
TechCrunch

Apple fights back against iPhone ruling in Brazil — report

The company’s challenge now forces its opponent, Gradiente, to provide in the next 60 days that it used its trademark between January 2008 and January 2013. [Read more]


CNET News

YouTube Files Appeal Against Regulator In Russia Over Content Blocked By New Firewall

YouTube russia screen shotGoogle this week fired off one of the first high profile tests of Russia’s controversial new firewall — erected November 1, 2012 to block child porn, drugs and suicide content; but seen by critics as a route for the government to block whatever else it chooses. Google’s YouTube operation in Russia has filed an appeal against the Russian regulator for blocking YouTube content. The appeal, filed on February 11 by YouTube LLC, concerns the blacklisting of a video that showed how to apply Halloween makeup: because it shows how to make a wound, Roscomnadzor (Russia’s consumer watchdog) also deemed that it encouraged suicide and suicidal tendencies. The video is embedded below.

TechCrunch

Tim Cook reportedly opposed patent suits against Samsung

Apple’s chief executive was against the lawsuits because of Samsung’s role as a key supplier of components for the iPhone and iPad, Reuters reports. [Read more]


CNET News