Corporate and legal

Justice Dept., Microsoft agree to extension of oversight

Microsoft reportedly is juggling two extensions involving its antitrust woes with regulators in the U.S. and Europe.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that Microsoft has agreed to remain under its watch for up to another 18 months, designed to allow antitrust regulators to continue monitoring the company's efforts to share interoperability information with its rivals, who develop products that use the software giant's Windows operating system.

The Justice Department is exercising its right to extend its monitoring ability through May 12, 2011, rather than letting it expire on November 12 of this year.

According … Read more

Apple patent filings hint at iPhone evolution

Apple could be providing a glimpse into some new features for future iPhones in a couple of patent applications the company recently filed.

The blog MacRumors.com reports that Apple has published two patent applications in the past few weeks that focus on features that incorporate motion and gesture user interfaces. One patent was published two weeks ago. And the other one was published Thursday.

The iPhone already has an accelerometer that allows users to shuffle songs on the iPhone by shaking it. And the motion-detecting technology has also been widely used by application developers who have incorporated the functionality into games and other kinds of apps for the iPhone. But Apple appears to be moving a few steps further in making motion an even bigger part of interacting with the iPhone.

Apple notes in the first of the patent filings that interacting with mobile devices while also engaging in another activity, such as jogging or running, can be dangerous as users might be distracted while they're trying to advance to another song or answer a phone call. The new gesturing technology would try to solve this issue. According to the patent filing:

There is a need for providing a user interface in a personal media device that minimizes either or both a user's physical and visual interactions with the personal media device, especially while the user is performing other activities that require, for example, the user's visual senses.

Sun to IBM: Please come back

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Sun Microsystems will reportedly be willing to resume takeover talks with IBM if Big Blue says it will commit to closing the deal.

Bloomberg reports the news based on two people familiar with the matter. The two companies currently aren't talking and each one is waiting for the other to make a move.

Gee, I wonder why Sun would be so willing to talk to IBM again...

Fairly obvious, eh? But it's not all about the stock chart. There's another little problem: Sun doesn't have any … Read more

Sun shares settle back, after premarket pop

Update at 7:25 a.m. PDT: Updated stock information added and headline updated.

Sun Microsystems shares soared more than 10 percent in premarket trading on Thursday, following a Bloomberg report that the struggling hardware maker was interested in resuming merger talks with IBM.

Sun climbed nearly 10.8 percent to $6.79 a share in premarket trading. But as the markets opened for regular trading, Sun's shares settled back to a more modest uptick of 2.77 percent to $6.30 a share. The broader markets were mixed.

Either way, its stock remains a ways off from the $… Read more

Nokia's net profit falls 90 percent

If you were wondering how bad things have gotten for the mobile handset market, just take a look at Nokia, the world's largest maker of cell phones.

The company on Thursday reported a 90 percent fall in first-quarter net profits as the global recession took a big bite out of demand for mobile devices.

For the first quarter, which ended March 31, Nokia said that net profits fell to 122 million euros ($161.3 million). A year earlier the company reported net profits of 1.22 billion euros. Analysts had expected the company to report net profits of about … Read more

Waiting on the Pirate Bay verdict

The four defendants in the high-profile Pirate Bay trial face year-long jail terms if found guilty when the verdict gets announced in Stockholm, Sweden, on Friday. But even if prosecutors get their way, it's less evident whether a legal victory would also translate to a broader deterrent against illegal file sharing.

Clearly, this case is being viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as a potentially landmark decision in the heated controversy surrounding unauthorized Internet file sharing. The prosecution accuses the four men standing trial--Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom--of making copyright-protected material available through … Read more

eBay buying out Gmarket, as Yahoo exits

eBay announced an agreement Wednesday to acquire Gmarket for a price of up to $1.2 billion, and Yahoo has agreed to sell its 10 percent stake in the South Korean e-commerce site in a move that would raise about $120 million.

Gmarket's board unanimously approved eBay's tender offer, in which the online auction and commerce site will pay a cash price of 31,767 Korean won, or $24, per share for all common shares and all American Depository Shares. eBay said it's assured of owning at least 67 percent of the company, and if it acquires … Read more

Microsoft to allow on-campus pub after all

It won't be last call for Microsoft's pub after all.

Less than a week after pulling the plug on plans to have a bar as part of an expansion of its Redmond campus, the software giant surprised the bar owner by reversing that decision, according to a report on TechFlash. Microsoft on Friday cited the sensitive business environment as canceling plans for the pub, which was planned as part of a collection of restaurants and stores that were due to open this week at the company's new Entertainment and Devices unit headquarters.

A compromise decision allows beer … Read more

Virgin to migrate customers onto Google Mail

Virgin Media plans to move all its home broadband customers onto the Google Mail platform, the company said on Wednesday.

Google's Web-based e-mail service is known as Google Mail in the UK and Germany, and Gmail in the rest of the world.

According to the Internet service provider, the Web-mail rollout will extend to all of its 4 million home broadband customers, but there will be a delay before it reaches everybody. While the customers will be moved off Virgin Media's existing e-mail platform, they will be able to retain their existing e-mail addresses.

The company said the rollout will be one of the largest deployments to date of Google Partner Edition Apps, which lets businesses and individual customers use Google's communication and collaboration applications under their own domain names.

"New customers signing up will get it now and we will start to roll it out to all our customers but it will take time for everyone to get it," a spokesperson for Virgin Media told ZDNet UK.

The service, which will provide each user with 7GB of e-mail storage, will be piloted by the first 20,000 new customers, Virgin Media said in a statement. The full launch to all new customers will follow "shortly," the company said, after which existing customers will be migrated across to the new service. They will be able to keep their existing @blueyonder.co.uk, @ntlworld.com, or @virgin.net e-mail addresses, or sign up for new @virginmedia.com e-mail addresses. … Read more

Virgin offers free service to laid-off customers

Virgin Mobile USA is offering laidoff consumers a little relief in this tough economy.

The cell phone operator is offering a "Pink Slip Protection" program that essentially picks up the tab for three months of service for customers who have lost their jobs. To qualify for the three free months of service, users must subscribe to one of the company's monthly service plans, which cost $29.99, $39.99, and $49.99. New subscribers will be automatically enrolled in the program and existing customers can also enroll for the program.

Virgin said it will pay bills up … Read more