Corporate and legal

Obama: NSA spying doesn't mean 'abandoning freedom'

News about the National Security Agency's classified surveillance programs has been abundant the past few days, and to top it off, President Obama is now giving a 45-minute interview about the issue with Charlie Rose on Monday evening.

Buzzfeed published a partial transcript of the interview before tonight's airing of the show. While Obama goes over the topics of the two NSA spying programs with more detail, it appears he's reiterating much of the same when it comes to the White House's stance on the programs and document leaks. Essentially, it did nothing wrong.

"What … Read more

Sprint sues Dish, Clearwire to prevent $6B takeover bid

Sprint Nextel has filed a lawsuit against Dish Network and Clearwire seeking to prevent Dish's takeover of the wireless broadband provider.

The No. 3 wireless carrier filed a lawsuit Monday against the two companies in Delaware Court of Chancery, alleging that Dish's tender offer violates the rights of Sprint and Clearwire's shareholders and the laws of the state of Delaware. The lawsuit seeks to prevent Clearwire from accepting Dish's tender offer, as well as other injunctive and compensatory relief.

"Dish has repeatedly attempted to fool Clearwire's shareholders into believing its proposal was actionable in … Read more

Ex-HTC execs can't quit phone game, create startup Kazam

Two former HTC executives are hoping for a fresh start with their own company.

Michael Coombes, former head of U.K. sales at HTC, and James Atkins, former U.K. marketing head for the company, said on Monday that they are launching smartphone manufacturer Kazam. The two executives are promising smartphones that are about "stunning design, robust hardware, and intuitive technology, underpinned with improved customer service. Kazam will focus on the European market.

Coombes will serve as CEO, while Atkins will be the chief marketing officer. The two executives left HTC in March, part of an exodus of several … Read more

AT&T's 4G LTE wins award for 'fastest mobile network'

AT&T has been crowned the leading mobile network provider in a new study from PC Magazine.

The news outlet on Monday posted the results of its mobile network research to determine which company -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or Verizon -- had the fastest speeds in the United States. PC Magazine, which analyzed results across 30 cities, found that AT&T had the top 4G LTE network with average download speeds of 16.7 megabits per second and average upload speeds exceeding 7.4 megabits per second.

Although Verizon and AT&T are considered the … Read more

Kroes: Unify the mobile market or Europe will fall farther behind

Neelie Kroes, the European Commission vice president in charge of the digital agenda, sketched out several steps toward the unified mobile-network market she believes is necessary to keep Europe's economy from falling behind.

In a speech Tuesday, she called for several steps to lower barriers that today make it hard for carriers to expand from one country to another and for customers to use mobile devices outside their home countries. Among the steps she suggested:

A "passport" that let a carrier, once certified to operate a mobile network permission in one country, operate in other countries, too. … Read more

Is cable holding back superfast broadband adoption on purpose?

The cable industry insists that it's ready and able to compete with Google Fiber when it comes to delivering ultra high-speed broadband.

Indeed, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts last week showed off a 3Gbps cable broadband connection at the industry's annual trade show in Washington, D.C. That's three times faster than Google Fiber, which itself is nearly 150 times faster than the current average broadband connection in the U.S. Armed with that capability, he confidently welcomed Google's challenge to deliver ultra high-speed broadband to consumers.

"I hope there's a demand for (Google Fiber),&… Read more

NSA leaked documents reveal U.S. spied on Russian president

In addition to targeting suspected terrorists, it appears the National Security Agency also spent time spying on foreign heads of state.

A leaked document from the explosive NSA document deluge shows that the U.S. government was spying on former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during the London G20 summit in 2009, according to the Guardian.

Apparently, the NSA document shows that U.S. spies got their hands on top-secret communications between Medvedev and his delegation and then shared the information with government officials from the U.K., Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

The NSA document, titled "Russian Leadership Communications … Read more

Thomas Penfield Jackson, judge in DOJ-Microsoft case, dies at 76

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, the former U.S. District court judge who ruled in 2000 that Microsoft was a monopoly that should be broken up before his decision was overruled, died Saturday at age 76.

Jackson died at his home in Compton, Md., from complications of transitional cell cancer, his wife, Patricia King Jackson, told The New York Times.

Unusually vocal in his public and private criticisms of Microsoft, Jackson ruled in June 2000 that the tech titan should be split into two companies: one that would sell office software and a browser, and another that would be responsible for … Read more

White House pushes for sharing of government spectrum

President Barack Obama has ordered federal agencies to find ways to share their wireless spectrum with commercial providers. But wireless operators say they'd still like slivers of this spectrum all for themselves.

On Friday, Obama signed a memorandum in which he directed the nation's chief technology officer and the director of the National Economic Council to form a Spectrum Policy Team that will work with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) with guidance from the Federal Communications Commission to come up with a plan to identify and test government held spectrum that can be shared with the … Read more