Corporate and legal

Microsoft unifies programs to boost startups

Just a day ahead of the kick-off of its Build 2013 conference in San Francisco, Microsoft announced on Tuesday the consolidation of a number of its startup outreach programs into a single Microsoft Ventures unit.

Microsoft Ventures will offer mentorship, technology guidance, seed funding, joint selling opportunities and other benefits globally. The new unit will incorporate the BizSpark accelerator program, the Bing Fund, and other existing "accelerators" Microsoft has been operating in various countries.

Microsoft's message, as it prepares to host its first major developer conference in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area since 1997, is it … Read more

Sprint shareholders approve SoftBank acquisition

The fight for ownership of Sprint Nextel is drawing to a close, as Sprint shareholders overwhelmingly voted to approve an offer from Japan's SoftBank to buy the company.

Approximately 98 percent of the votes cast on Tuesday supported SoftBank's offer. The deal must still be approved by the Federal Communications Commission. But Softbank said it believes the deal should close in early July.

"Today is a historic day for our company, and I want to thank our shareholders for approving this transformative merger agreement," Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said in a statement. "The transaction with … Read more

China targets U.S. products, calls them 'terrible security threat'

China's government-friendly media outlets have taken aim at Cisco and other U.S. companies after NSA leaker Edward Snowden revealed sensitive information on alleged spying on Chinese networks.

According to IB Times, which earlier reported on the claims, Chinese daily Sina cited eight companies, including Cisco, IBM, Google, and Apple, as the firms that are used by the U.S. government to spy on China. Another news outlet, Global Times, said that the country should reduce its reliance on American companies, adding that they pose a "terrible security threat."

The U.S. companies, of course, have never … Read more

Klout partners with Microsoft's Yammer in social business push

Your co-workers will now be able to see how influential you are through a new partnership between Klout and Microsoft's Yammer.

Klout, which gives users an influence or Klout score based on their presence on social media and the general Web, will now allow users to show their Klout score and topics of influence in their Yammer profiles, the company said Tuesday in a blog post. Klout also is beginning the process of ingesting data from Yammer to create a Yammer-specific Klout Score.

Here's the example Klout gave for how this could work:

Imagine your graphic designer is … Read more

Samsung scores another win versus Apple, this time in Japan

Score one for Samsung in the company's long-running patent battles with Apple.

A Japanese high court upheld a lower court ruling that Samsung did not infringe on an Apple patent related to synchronizing music and video on Galaxy smartphones and tablets with servers, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The Intellectual Property High Court in Tokyo backed an August decision by Tokyo District Court that Samsung's mobile devices don't infringe on Apple technology. Following that ruling, Apple filed paperwork in October to appeal the decision.

Samsung gave us the following statement:

We welcome the court's decision, … Read more

EU court lawyer backs Google in 'right to be forgotten' case

Google cannot be forced to remove "damaging" material from its search engine that was legally posted elsewhere, according to an adviser to the top court in Europe.

The senior adviser to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), whose job it is to present a public and impartial opinion on cases the court receives, also said there is no general "right to be forgotten" under existing EU data and privacy laws.

In an opinion published on Tuesday, advocate-general Niilo Jaaskinen said that Google cannot be considered the "controller" of personal data from other Web sites … Read more

Woman sues doc for revealing her nose job on clinic site

Before, she didn't like her nose. After, she was happy.

Before, she had a nose job. After, she sued.

What happened in between was that 24-year-old Catherine Manzione's nose job was there for all to see on the Modern Contours Web site of Dr. Grigoriy Mashkevich.

Manzione had her surgery in 2010. It was only this year, however, that she discovered that her "before" and "after" contours were displayed to the general public.

You might have heard the following word before (it's a favorite of those suing for unlawful use of their images): … Read more

ITC launches pilot program to cut down on patent troll suits

The International Trade Commission is looking to curb the amount of cases it gets from patent trolls.

According to Reuters, the commission said Monday that it plans to start requiring companies to prove they are well established in the U.S. before they file patent infringement complaints. Currently, companies don't have to prove this until after the case is over.

This requirement will come via a pilot program launched by the ITC that is led by its six administrative judges. These judges will determine whether companies suing over patent infringements have sufficient U.S. production, licensing, and research to … Read more

AT&T hopes to bolster mobile life with new innovation centers

AT&T said on Tuesday that it plans to open two "innovation centers" as it looks to make good on its initiative to pursue more avenues of the mobile business beyond smartphones and tablets.

AT&T plans to open what it calls a "foundry" in Atlanta near Georgia Tech and focus on its Digital Life play, or connecting everything from homes to cars with cellular gadgets. The company plans to open a second facility in Plano to focus on machine-to-machine connected devices, such as ATM machines or digital billboards.

The two innovation centers are … Read more