Samsung seems to have checked Nokia as the largest seller of mobile phones worldwide, but the company recorded strong sales of smartphones in the quarter just reported, despite a fall in operating profit.

The South Korean company reported 3.75 trillion won ($ 3.6 billion) operating profit for April-June quarter, narrowly beating analysts' forecasts. That was 18% of 5.01tn won a year ago, as the unit of the company reported a second quarter flat screen business and loss of main chips struggled.

Technology conglomerate joins a host of global companies in warning that weak consumer demand is hurting sales of televisions, flat screens, computers and semiconductors.

"The earnings momentum for Samsung will revive in Q3, but the recovery will not be strong due to weak economies in the U.S. and Europe," said Lee Dong-Jin, a fund manager at KTB Asset Management . "Also, no new applications that can boost demand as the iPhone and iPad did."

Operating profit in its telecommunications division to more than double 1.67tn livestock, 630bn won a year ago, helped by strong sales of a new version of its flagship intelligent S Galaxy, of which 5 million to date have been sold.

Samsung did not provide sales figures for their phones, but said that shipments increased by high single-digit percentage of the units of 70m in the previous quarter. That would put a maximum of about 77 million units behind the Finnish company Nokia struggle, which sold 88.5m handsets in the second quarter.

But analysts still think they could have surpassed both Nokia and Apple in the field of smartphones - Apple has sold just over 20 million iPhones in the same period. Complete figures are expected to analysts in late July.

Samsung is locked in a battle with Apple in the U.S. by the appearance of some of their smart phones and tablets, which Apple says the violations "trade dress" rules to make them look much like its iPhone and iPad.

Falling chip prices are a major concern for the company in South Korea, winning half of their earnings from semiconductors in the second quarter. Display your business reported a second consecutive loss of 210bn won quarterly operations, little has changed from 230bn won loss in the previous quarter.

On Thursday, Sony and Panasonic also warned of weak TV sales, especially in the U.S. and Europe, following Philips and Corning to highlight anemic demand.

Samsung is betting big on its mobile phone business by launching new versions of the tablets and phones, helping to capture market share BlackBerry maker RIM and Nokia.

Shares in Samsung, which reached a record in late January, have lost 12% so far this year.

The company has a market capitalization of $ 134bn (£ 82bn), larger than the combined value of rivals Sony, Nokia, Toshiba, Panasonic and LG Display.

"It will be difficult to dramatically increase revenue in the third quarter demand for memory chips and televisions will remain low," said Song Myung-sup, analyst at HI Investment and Securities. "His loss of business flat screen also report breakeven at best."

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According to the latest statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $ 73.8 Wednesday billion. That's still a lot of money, but less than Steve Jobs has lying around.

Technology giant Apple had a whopping $ 76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June, according to its earnings report earlier. Unlike the U.S. government, which is struggling to avoid defaulting on its debt, Apple gets more money than it spends.

This feat symbolic - the world of technology most valued company exceeding the fiscal strength of the most powerful nation in the world - is only the latest summit of Apple, which has been an unprecedented role.

U.S. Debt: How we got here?

Their Macs, iPhones and iPads be hot sellers, its stock has soared beyond $ 400 a share and Apple just became the biggest selling smartphone in volume.

There has been much speculation about what Apple could buy with their piles of cash - Facebook and Sony are two of the most prominent examples - but the company seems in a hurry to make a move.

"Do not let the money burn a hole in your pocket or acquisitions stupid," said Jobs, chief executive officer last fall. "We would continue to keep our powder dry, because we believe that one or more strategic opportunities in the future."

Uncle Sam offers a short term loan is unlikely any of them. 

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In a significant test case achieved by the six major Hollywood studios, the UK High Court has forced BT to block access to their customers to the site Newzbin2 called "pirate". This was seen as a victory for the creative industries. But it was a defeat for the web and free speech in Britain. Now we have the tools for state support of Internet censorship.

As always, the way the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has sold the verdict was that it ensured the future development of new content. The prospect of the death of the film industry is greatly exaggerated. After all, this decision comes just days after the last of the Harry Potter broke a dramatically new box office record.

The idea that at a time when growth is weak and the income of ordinary people squeezed disposable being there is an untapped revenue stream are larger than simply does not hold. I'm sure the chancellor, George Osborne, I would like to know where the missing millions are actually said to come from the economy. One of the unsubstantiated claims about Newzbin2 was that it was about £ 1.40 per user per year. This is not enough to save an industry.

I do not think there can be no doubt that the creative industries play a vital role in our cultural and economic life, and we all want to see them continue to flourish. But the real question presented by a decision of this type is whether it is fair and proportionate.

A worrying aspect of this case is the new burden imposed on Internet service providers. Clearly the defense that they are a "mere conduit" is no longer acceptable, essentially, are now responsible for what the British want to access in their own homes. One unanswered question is who will pay for this action to force the blocking of websites, is likely to fall at least in part, from the ISP themselves, and by extension all of our bills whatever our habits of discharge. Not surprisingly, the answer in a protected area of ​​the Association of Internet Service Providers "not welcome the decision, noting" the blockade is not a silver bullet to stop the violation of copyright online. "

One of the absurdities of this ruling is the inefficiency that is actually to achieve the stated objectives of the MPA. After all, it only affects customers of BT, and a specific website. Other sites pop-up, we seem condemned to a perpetual legal blow round-a-mole. The only industry that is very likely that growth through the lock case Newzbin2 get-around, such as virtual private networks.

The wording of the statement leaves no doubt that the property rights of the creators of the triumphs of human rights and freedom of expression. Politicians have been quick to condemn the blockade of the Internet abroad. But make no mistake, the result leaves us with a central control of what can and can not do on the Internet, none of us individually having nothing to say on the matter. Certainly in a democracy can not be a proportionate response, whatever the vision of sharing files.

There is no reason to believe that this will result in compliance with copyright, for example, fans of libel, no doubt, this result is looking forward to. One of the most depressing part is that the blockade must be passed through the system established to address the issue of child abuse images on the network. This system was not just made for a mission extremely broad, and frankly the use of Cleanfeed seems awfully cynical. Guarantees, as it would only ever be used to address this most heinous of crimes now seem futile.

The ruling also raises serious doubts about the direction of government policy on the Internet coalition. Strongly criticized the Digital Economy Act remains steeped in difficulties. It seems that the technical measures for the "three strikes" law does not apply until 2013 now. The Department of Culture Media and Sport, seems determined to build a web blocking scheme with lobbyists for the entertainment industry, and caused controversy with secret meetings. Ed Vaizey very public host on Twitter Newzbin2 result calls into serious doubt the sincerity of his offer with a series of political groups on the digital.

The film industry has been so impatient for results that has taken the road of the commandments. Hollywood is now she is teaching digital rights agenda, not the parliament. 

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Hollywood movie studios won a landmark ruling High Court UK on Thursday to force BT to block access to illegal file sharing website accused of operating "on a large scale."

The Motion Picture Association, the trade body whose members include Warner Bros, Fox, Disney and Paramount Pictures, has been awarded an order requiring BT - UK's largest, the Internet service provider - to block access of their customers to the website Newzbin2.

Thursday's verdict will be available to creative industries as a milestone that could set a precedent for blocking websites widespread illegal file sharing by the ISP, helping to stop the flow of digital piracy in the UK.

"In my view, it appears that BT has a real knowledge of other people using the service to infringe copyright: known to users and operators Newzbin2 copyright infringement on a large scale, and in particular, infringes the copyright of the studies in a large number of movies and television, "Arnold said in his ruling Justice in High Court in London.

"[BT] knows Newzbin2 users include BT subscribers and meets users to use their services to receive illegal copies of copyrighted works available to them Newzbin2," said Arnold.

BT had argued that forcing the prohibition of its 6 million customers in the UK have access to a website would be the beginning of a new wave of online censorship.

However, the creative industries website blocking claim could save hundreds of millions of pounds in illegal downloads.

AMP backs Newzbin2 said illegal TV shows and movies, and receives over 1 million pounds a year from its 700,000 users.

"This ruling Justice Arnold is a victory for millions of people working in the creative industries in the UK and demonstrates that the law of the land must apply," said Chris Marcich, managing director of AMP, Europe, Middle East and Africa. "This lawsuit was not an attack on the ISP, but we need your cooperation to address NewzBin page that continually tries to evade the law and judicial sanction."

The struggle of the film industry to block NewzBin dates back to March last year when the high court ordered the site to end all its pirated material and pay damages to the studios.

The three men behind NewzBin Ltd - Chris Elsworth, Thomas Lee Hurst and Skillen - sold all its shares in the company of David Harris, shortly before trial. NewzBin Ltd went into administration shortly after the sentence and avoid huge payments.

Months later a clone operation site anonymously from Sweden. Rights holders said they had no choice but to force BT to block access to users from the UK to the website, saying that all other legal avenues had been exhausted.

Simon Milner, policy director of industry group BT said the last trial of the holders of rights means that now have to prove in court that a Web site violates copyright before it is locked.

Milner added that the trial puts the Digital Economy blocking scheme voluntary act, made in the round tables of industry earlier this year with Ed Vaizey, Minister of Culture, in an uncertain position.

"[The decision] is really useful and we welcome because it clarifies a complex question of law and shows that rights holders can use the copyright laws in this country. This means they have to show a vulnerable site before [a] court and obtain a court order, "he said.

Milner did not reveal how much they cost ISPs such as BT to block offending websites.

Other ISPs, including Virgin Media and Talk Talk, refused to join the battle against BT film studios, the court was told in June.

Speaking after the ruling Thursday, a spokesman for TalkTalk said the ruling "has no direct or immediate" impact on the ISP, the second largest in the UK but would consider any similar injunction filed by the movie studios against him.

The association of Internet service providers, which represents UK ISPs, said: "The concern about over-blocking, ease of circumvention and encryption are widely recognized to increase meaning that the blockade is not a bullet Silver to stop the violation of copyright online. " 

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The chief of the U.S. responsible for combating cyber attacks has resigned unexpectedly after a series of online attacks in the CIA and other government agencies.

Randy Vickers, team principal emergency preparedness team USA (US-CERT), resigned Friday, according to a DHS-mail obtained by Reuters news agency.

According to Reuters, the email does not show any reason for the resignation of Vickers. The Department of Homeland Security declined comment. Vickers, director of US-CERT since 2009, will be temporarily replaced by deputy director of Rock Lee.

Vickers resignation follows a series of online attacks on government websites, including the Senate, the CIA and the FBI. William Lynn, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary, revealed earlier this month that a foreign intelligence service had stolen up to 24,000 computer files from one supplier to the Pentagon in March - one of the most successful cyber attack on a government agency of the U.S. ..

The collective of anonymous hackers targeted web pages after the U.S. state LulzSec intelligence agencies pledged to crack down on groups, resulting in a series of arrests around the world.

Sixteen suspected members of the group Anonymous were arrested last week as part of the investigation. Two British teenagers, 19-year-old Ryan Cleary and an anonymous 16-year-old were arrested last month accused of involvement in the attacks.

The unnamed teenager in south London - thought to be in line with the alias "Tflow" - was released on bail Friday following his arrest on Tuesday.

Washington-based US-CERT is responsible for the protection of U.S. networks government team, including the Pentagon and the Senate.

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Rovio, the Finnish manufacturer of game birds without mercy, is being sued by a licensing company for infringing its patents.

Lodsys has said that Rovio and other developers violated their patents with games IOS Apple and Google's Android platform.

Lodsys is involved in lawsuits with other big technology companies like Apple.

Rovio, said he had not received any contact regarding the complaint.

"As soon as we receive more information, we will take appropriate action," a spokesman said.

Angry Birds is one of the most popular game.

Rovio marketing Vesterbacka Peter said last week that the game has surpassed 300 million downloads.

Lodsys, a company that licenses the patent, but has no other business, added five new defendants to a lawsuit filed in May with a U.S. district court in Texas.

Along with the Rovio, was named Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, which makes Grand Theft Auto, Atari and others in the list of companies it says are violating its patents.

Take-Two declined comment. Electronic Arts and Atari were not immediately available for comment.

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Google announced Wednesday it will slowly shuttering Google Labs, the experimental site for projects that are not all the products.

That news prompted fears and press reports that the popular "experimental" features of Gmail and other products also would be killed.

Great Gmail users have come to rely on features such as laboratories "Undo," which gives you a few seconds after hitting send to revoke the order, to the extent that they now feel as permanent features .

However, Google spokesman Jason Freidenfelds Wired.com says the labs into products such as Gmail and maps are not scheduled to be eliminated in the new push to limit and focus the search advertising giant.

(The blog post announcing the closure of laboratories is titled "More wood behind the arrow under").

"We have no plans to change product channels such as Gmail Labs experiments or laboratories maps," said Freidenfelds. "We will continue to experiment with new features in each of our products."

However, a number of software projects in Google Labs properly retired, and some will graduate to full function / status of the product, according to the blog post from Google.

Wired: sharing memories with Google Creative Labs

Google also says that most of the products of the laboratories have become Android - Google Goggles, for one - are still available on Android Market. As for the timing of those changes?

"We have no specific details to share yet, but we will update our users as we move into the Google Labs site," said Freidenfelds.

So if there is laboratory projects you like: Swiffy say something like Google, which converts Flash files to HTML5, or whiz-bang Body 3D Google, get the most use of them as possible now and pray that they are allowed to graduate.

As for why Google Labs is off, Freidenfelds suggested paying some attention to the CEO, Larry Page's comments recent earnings call about the company's concentration of resources:

"Greater attention has also been another important feature for me this quarter - more wood behind the arrow under last month, for example, Google announced that we will be closing PowerMeter Health and Google ..

"We have also made substantial internal work simplification and rationalization of our product lines. While much of that work has not become visible from the outside, I am very happy with our progress here.

"The focus and priorities are crucial given the incredible opportunities. In fact I see more opportunities for Google now more than ever. Because believe it or not we are still in the early stages of what we do."

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How big is the phenomenon of mobile gaming "Angry Birds"?

Slingshotted Players have over 100 billion birds in many versions of virtual game, the more birds that actually exist on the planet.

That's according to Peter Vesterbacka, head of Rovio, the Finnish developer behind the game blockbuster. Speaking Thursday at the Fortune Brainstorm conference panel Tech Vesterbacka said the game has surpassed 300 million downloads and has set his sights on becoming the first entertainment franchise with 1 million fans around the world.

To achieve this goal, the game makers are expanding beyond their pigs spray commodities, which has a superior application for iPhones, iPads and Android devices for over a year. "Angry Birds" toys and stuffed birds have been hot sellers, and a board game hit stores this spring.

Also in the works are a series of cartoons, a movie possible, and even a series of books, including a cookbook of recipes for eggs.

"We have said time and again that is not supposed to make movies, television and toys," said Vesterbacka with his now trademark red sweatshirt with "Angry Birds" design on the front. "We sold something like 8 million toys. If you have a strong brand can do anything."

Players of "Angry Birds" try to move the game to new levels by sending birds from crashing into the forts built by his nemesis: the pigs who have stolen the eggs of birds.

In game design, developers Rovio has tried to find a balance between challenging and frustrating for players with levels that were very difficult.

"It's very important not to punish the player," said Vesterbacka. "There is a great sense of accomplishment when you finally clear the level that has been trapped for days."

Games like "Angry Birds" to be addictive, but not in an unhealthy way, Vesterbacka said. "It must be like smoking."

Panelists agreed today that it is difficult to predict when a video game captures the public. But Vesterbacka said that people do not just chalk the success of "Angry Birds" to chance.

"Angry Birds" was built to be a success. We were very analytical about it, "he said." We have built 51 games before 'Angry Birds ", so it was not an overnight success."

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We know that Google's financial results were impressive stellar last week with record sales of $ 9 billion for the second quarter of year.

And  we all know that google 97% revenue  is came from advertising, but what type of advertising?

If you've wondered where Google gets money from all that - apparently the answer is primarily the financial services sector. Searches for "cheaper homeowner loans" or "remortgage with bad credit" can bring up to $ 50 per click for the search giant. That is $ 50 per click - which does not necessarily even a web user is going to be a customer.

An analysis conducted by Internet marketing specialists WordStream identified the top 20 industry sectors of ads most popular keywords on Google Search with surprising results.

However, radical and innovative techniques Google might want to be your public profile, is the industry plain old insurance represents, these calculations, a whopping 24% of the 10,000 keywords - and pay an estimated $ 54.91 per click for competitive keywords. Loans come in second with 12.8%, with a cost per click of $ 44.28, and the mortgage of 9% and $ 47.12. As Larry WordStream Kim wrote in a blog, is because "these industries can afford to pay much to acquire a new customer." 

 

Infographic Google advertising CPC

 

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Google+, the product of social networks from the google, is aimed at users of 20 millions in the coming days, just three weeks after its launch, according to the calculations.

Paul Allen, the founder of Ancestry.com, said Wednesday that its growth model that estimates the prevalence of surnames, on Monday indicates that the site had beaten the 18 million users and was growing by 750,000 per day.

The Google+ iPhone app, which was released earlier this week, was the top free application from Apple iTunes Store.

Allen said the growth rate has declined slightly since last week, when there were a million people joining each day.

Google+, which is constructed as a social network that uses the idea of ​​"Circles" - user-generated groups of people to contact. The idea is like Twitter, to allow a wider social group can be created on Facebook, without reciprocity "friends" of the system requires, in addition to allowing people to post length limit instead of Twitter 140 characters.

Allen says the growth potential is enormous .. "Google has not started marketing Google+ through any of their other channels, however, more than one billion people around the world use Google products, including the top rated search engine, YouTube, Blogger and president Eric Schmidt says that the vision is to integrate the circles and share with all other Google properties. When that happens, you will likely see millions of people joining Google+ every day for a period of time. "

Larry Page, Google's chief executive, expressed satisfaction with the growth of the following services of the company record profits and revenue last week. At the time said that Google had spent 10m + users. Allen says his own model at the time was 13m users, indicating that it is probably generally accurate.

Allen explains his method: "I have no access to log files or from a panel of consumer I'm just measuring the number of Google users + no different surnames are randomly selected every day last week increased the sample of the surnames .. I see 100 to 1,000.

"Over a period of four days, the sample of 100 names showed Google+ growth rate of 28.4%. The name shows 1000 growth rate was 28.5%. [It] is statistically insignificant. So I'm not sure whether to keep running 1,000 consultations per day name or just stay with 100. Yesterday, the number of people with surnames fell from 23 922 1000 (all have the hand) to 24,990, an increase of 4.47%. I tried to get the count of a full day after the original account, but there is no way to ensure that my staff can input the exact time. The account can be off by several hours, cutting accuracy. "

• Meanwhile, Google is killing the Google Labs, the experimental area which unleashes the potential of products to see how users like it.

The move is part of a new approach to product releases are tighter, and depart from the practice at random times for the release of their software.

In a blogpost, the company says "we are prioritizing our efforts to products" and that "we believe that greater concentration is essential if we maximize the tremendous opportunities ahead."

Google Labs has a wide range of products and ideas, some incipient form. Among engineers who work there are Andy Hertzfeld, a former Apple employee who worked on some of the first designs of Macintosh and has actively participated in the design of Google+.

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It is latest financial results for the second quarter of 2011 showed declining revenues and profits were in large part to its display advertising business stagnation.

Trace the history, all this begins to look terminal. Total revenues have not been this low since the second quarter of 2005, and covered it with Yahoo strategic moves away from technology to media, technology and back then back to the media again more recently - and Ross Levinsohn said. This graph shows the relative decrease.

Google vs. Yahoo earnings

Display advertising business was once central to Yahoo, and one could rely on the farm. Repeated deck executive, low morale and a revenue sharing agreement in pursuit of Microsoft have absorbed the company's success. Yahoo now faces sit and watch their rivals benefit from growth in display advertising - not just a serious effort at Google, which now outsells Yahoo on the screen, but also Facebook, which has increased their exposure ad cost per click by 74% in the last 12 months. (We can not draw income from Facebook here because it is a private company, but you can be sure it is another place that the loss of revenue from Yahoo's gone.

Yahoo shares fell on the final day, the U.S., but increased again after hours.

Second quarter 2011:

• Revenues excluding traffic acquisition costs [the amount Yahoo has to pay sites to send traffic] was $ 1.076bn, up 5% year on year.
• Net income was $ 237m, up from $ 213m in Q2 2010.
• Display advertising revenue increased 2% from Q2 2010, although he had seen a 6% growth in Q1.
• Search Revenue fell to $ 371m, up 15% year over year.

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A 16 year old boy was arrested in London on Tuesday night, when the FBI arrested at least 14 people after raiding homes in the United States as part of an international effort by activist groups and anonymous LulzSec piracy.

The arrests and raids were conducted in Florida, California and New Jersey and the objectives pursued suspected members of the collective hacking has hit the headlines in recent months a number of high-profile attacks. Computers and other equipment were seized at various addresses in New York and local agents executed search warrants in New York and Long Island, but - not arrested.


"These raids are being executed in the context of an ongoing investigation of the FBI," said an FBI spokesman in New York. More arrests could follow, legal sources said.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed the arrest in London was related to the U.S. operation. He added: "The E-crime officers from the Met computer unit arrested a 16-year-old male in the afternoon on Tuesday on suspicion of violating the abuse of computing. He was arrested at an address in the South London and remains in custody at a central London police. "

The actions on both sides of the Atlantic, followed raids targeting members of Anonymous that have taken place elsewhere in the world, including Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. More than 30 people believed to be related to the group have been arrested.

Anonymous hit the mainstream headlines in December when they joined the support of Wikileaks founder Julian Asanga. Has an agenda of sympathy for the freedom of information and attacked the websites of companies such as Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to protest companies cut ties with Wikileaks and making it difficult for Assange to raise money from supporters.

Since then, piracy has become a hot topic in the U.S. and other computer attacks have been members or supporters by Anonymous on objectives such as the CIA and Fox News and the Arizona Department of

Corrections. The latter was the subject of anger in Arizona's efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Often, after successful attacks, people claiming to be part of the group to post on the Twitter service and social messages boasting of attacks or showing that achieve their goals.

Piracy comes in many forms but a common method used by Anonymous was a "distributed denial of service" attack in which members create a computer network that bombard a website with information requests and, finally, that overwhelms traffic. This type of attack is illegal.

Another group of hacking, called LulzSec has also been the target of the wrath of law enforcement in America. Last month, FBI agents raided an address in Iowa and asked a woman about possible links with the group. LulzSec made headlines Monday when the site was cut from The Sun. He later claimed to have obtained information from password to the email accounts of senior executives from international news including former CEO Rebecca Brooks, who is in the center of the storm phone-piracy around the company.

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Apple has won a preliminary ruling from a judge of the U.S. trade panel that Taiwanese handset maker HTC Corp. infringed on two patents from the California company.

The victory may mean that Apple can go after other Android phone manufacturers licensing fees, although the decision still must be ratified by a full panel. It could also allow Apple to demand a ban on imports to the U.S. against HTC by the end of the year.

HTC, which uses Google's Android operating system for its smartphones, said it "vigorously fight" the infringement found.

The risk for Android handset makers it is very likely that all Android devices infringe the patents, which were presented in 1994 and 1996, said Florian Mueller, an expert in many patent battles swirling around the smartphone business .

Apple has also filed complaints against Samsung and may be able to attack Motorola on the same basis.

The patents in question cover "system and method for performing an action on a generic data structure," U.S. Patent No. 5,946,647, filed in 1996 and awarded in 1999.

In essence, it allows elements such as email addresses or phone numbers to be recognized so that when activated by a mouse or a smart phone with a finger activates the program.

Apple implemented this idea as "data detectors", implemented by the Advanced Technology Group of Apple - Steve Jobs, which was dissolved when he took over as CEO in 1997.

Apple said the breach in detail, considering that Android has a "server analyzer" to "detect structures in data" and other details that align exactly with the outline of his patent.

The second patent, "real-time signal processing for transmission of serial data," U.S. Patent No. 6,343,263.

The patent was filed in 1994 and expires in 2019, and Apple provides a detailed breakdown of why vulnerable in court documents filed with the ITC.

The ruling came from an International Trade Commission judge on Friday, but the full committee would vote on Dec. 6 whether to keep or reverse it.

Though preliminary, the decision will be closely dissected as it is one of the first Apple and other smartphone manufacturers that use Android.

HTC and Microsoft is believed to pay $ 5 per phone licensing rights after its accession to the claims of the application of their phones, "Android infringed a number of Microsoft patents.

Microsoft has also demanded - and received - payments of at least three other companies to build products around Android in the last month.

Asked for comment by Reuters, Apple reiterated an earlier statement of work that "competitors should create their own original technology, not our stealing." In an emailed statement, HTC lawyerGrace Lei said: "We are confident that we have a strong case for the appeals process and the ITC are fully prepared to defend ourselves by all possible means."

Smartphone technology has led to a lot of patent litigation. Apple has also filed complaints against Samsung Electronics, which also uses Android software platform. Apple recently settled a case against Nokia.

Android-based smartphones have surpassed Apple's iPhones worldwide, but is preparing to launch a new iPhone this year, is likely to give a big boost.

Apple HTC initially charged with violating 10 patents, but six were withdrawn from the case for several reasons. The ITC judge ruled that HTC infringed two of the remaining four.

ITC is a popular venue for patent disputes, as they can prevent the importation of devices manufactured using offenders. Often the demands are parallel in the district courts to try to recover financial damages.

The case is in the International Trade Commission, No. 337-710.

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More Americans people than ever are going to buy Tablet PC and smart phones this year, driving consumer electronics revenue up 5.6% to a record $ 190bn (£ 119bn) in 2011, according to a forecast of U.S. trade group Consumer Electronics Association.

The CEA said sales in the U.S. the Tablet PC and the Apple iPhone - that the financial analysts estimate the company sold 8 million worldwide in the last three months, and 4.7 million in the first three months of the year - and its rivals will reach 26.5m units, resulting in $ 14 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, sales of smartphones will increase by 45% to U.S. $ 23BN, the study said. Unit Sales of electronic readers such as Amazon.com 's Kindle, double, bringing in $ 1.8 billion.

However, revenue growth - 5.6% more than twice as fast as U.S. GDP growth, expected 2.4% for the year - indicates a slowdown since 2010, when global growth hit 6%. And the CEA forecast for 2012 indicates that only 3% expected growth next year as prices of tablets and smartphones extends fall and penetration.

"A year ago, the tablets were a new and unproven market. Now, along with other connected mobile devices, including smart phones and e-readers are leading the industry as a whole to positive growth," said Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis,.

The forecast of total spending is up by $ 4 billion from the forecast made by the CEA in January, when the association said it expects 3% growth.

Mobile products are driving revenue growth for the industry in other types of consumer electronics such as flat-screen TVs show a decrease, Koenig said.

The study found that 88% of U.S. households has at least one digital television. Because of this high rate, TV sales are set to fall this year, with revenues of over $ 18 billion.

TVs that are connected to the Internet is likely to be a growth area, with over 10.4 million units of transportation to stores this year. Despite the slow adoption of 3D TVs that have this feature is 3.6 million units shipped, up from 1.9 million units last year.

Apple will release quarterly results on Tuesday, and the sales figures of the two new iPhone will be thinner in the center of attention. Wall Street estimates that Apple sold about 8 million in the quarter Cases and 16.9m iPhones.

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Within minutes of Alain de Botton announced before a packed audience in Edinburgh that secularism is necessary to learn the lessons of religion and reintroduce the concept of sermon, Chris Anderson, director of TED, needed to fill a few minutes and asked the questions from the floor. "TED is a new religion?" Someone asked. "I can answer that," he said quickly. "Absolutely not."

And yet, TED has brought back the concept of the sermon - 18 minutes of talks given by experts in their fields absolute. Five years ago, when YouTube started, is supposed to be where he was looking for cats that look like Hitler, or people falling off skateboards, but TED Talks, with short digressions on everything from neuroscience to creativity, held only 500 visitors on the site. At the end of next year, that figure is expected to reach one billion. In the month that the News of the World folded, Anderson has shown that there is enormous untapped appetite and largely the real news of the real world.

But then, as the media moguls go, it's about as far from the president of News Corp as you can imagine. He founded and made his fortune with not one but two media empires - first with Future Publishing, Bath-based company he founded in the 1980's exploding appetite for computer and hobby magazines, and later in U.S. with Imagine Media, which once had 130 titles and 1,500 employees - but is in many aspects of the anti-Murdoch. Among other things because, apart from anything else, few people have heard of him.

However, as the owner of TED and its self-proclaimed "conservative," has become a kind of global "meister ideas." Appearing at a TED conference, and over 70 speakers last week at TEDGlobal in Edinburgh, can have a transformative effect on an academic career. "We tried our speakers seem to rock stars," says June Cohen, director of TED Talks. To a large extent, they succeed. A talk by Ken Robinson, a rather obscure anyone's standards, a professor of Liverpool's old art education at the University of Warwick, has seen eight million times.

Is it a religion, though? Not yet, although it has its rituals - conference attendees to check their cynicism at the door, standing ovations at TED seem, at times, as obligatory acts of obedience rather than spontaneous moments of gratitude - and not far from Botton's description of the Catholic Church: "collaboration, multinational companies, brand and very disciplined." Anderson himself is the son of missionary parents, born in Pakistan and educated in India. No, he says, "a series of doing good," but Bruno Giussani, European Director of TED TEDGlobal scheduled, says he can not hide their nature optimistic.

Giussani TED got his job after sending an e-mail Anderson of nothing suggesting that some speakers. "He responded within minutes. It says a lot about Chris.'s Just very open to new ideas. Make decisions quickly and has the courage to do things that others do not," says Giussani.

Things like the decision in 2005 to reveal the contents for free. For what is most remarkable TED and its transformation into an international media and a global force for the diffusion of knowledge is that it happened almost by accident. When Anderson bought TED in 2001 on behalf of Sapling Foundation not for profit, it was more like a supper club of elite to masters of the universe.

It was the place where Bill Gates came to rub shoulders with Al Gore and Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and the annual conference of California has yet to feel. It is not cheap: the 850 attendees had paid almost TEDGlobal £ 4,000 each. But in 2005, Anderson listened to their speakers - people who had spoken of the Creative Commons and how the Internet can be a force for good - and put all the online conversations.

"TED 800 went from once a year, half a million each day in an incredibly short space of time," says Anderson. "And instead of destroying the business model, which is what many people believe, because it is essentially giving away the crown jewels, which actually increases as more people have heard of it."

Online video, he says, is the beginning of a revolution. He calls it "a multitude of accelerated learning" and its latest initiative, TED Ed, it's about creating a database of educational resources that can be used in any classroom in the world.

"Thanks be to God has not gone to his head," said John Lloyd, the veteran producer of the comedy Blackadder and co-creator of the MC, who was in Edinburgh this week. Anderson called him in 2005 and asked if he would speak in the first TEDGlobal.

"Of course I had never heard of him, but he liked immediately thought it was brilliant and now TED has become as Comic Relief: .. If you get a call, you can not say no." The old media is in crisis, says Lloyd. "Television just assumes people are stupid, but if you're motivated there all these incredible things out there. Mobility is where it's intellectual, rather than social mobility. And in this the power of TED is almost limitless. You kick ass. "

TOP TOPICS AT TEDGLOBAL

Are algorithms over the world?

Yes, quite possibly, says game designer Kevin Slavin. The world has become a place where algorithms to fight each other for supremacy. He cites the example of "Flash Crash" last year when, at 14:42 on May 6, 9% of the Dow Jones just died, "and nobody knew where he was." It's just a lot of computational algorithms battling against a host of other computer algorithms, without the mediation of man. Who's who runs this world we live in? Nobody.

Why does the world need an Internet police force

Forget about teenage hackers, there are all the criminal networks that is dedicated to stealing bank details and take over your computer. According to Mikko Hypponen, a cybersecurity expert from Finland, are impossible to find, and even if found, the local police tend to act. We need an Internet Interpol says, and back up safely and securely. The dust of your fax machine, he says, just in case.

It is "Facebookistan" the most powerful country on the planet?

Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices network of international online bloggers said it is starting to act like one. Private companies, she said, are beginning to behave like governments. Censorship is being applied or the response to the requests of the schemes and the creation of what she calls "a new layer of private sovereignty." In the old days, there were nation-states in the new world order, there are supranational corporations exercise power without restraint. We have to exert pressure, he says, a "consent of the network."

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No, a flying car, although according to one of the engineers who worked on it, Anna Mracek Dietrich is not so much a car that flies like a plane that drives. However, the transition is a "light sport airplane roadable" and will be in a store near you executive jet late next year. It is perhaps the most technologically advanced ever, but apparently is out of Thunderbirds and is almost certainly inspired an episode of Top Gear coming to a TV near you soon.

Watch out for the next big thing

Technology does not necessarily mean progress, according to writer Malcolm Gladwell. As U.S. drones have become more accurate and efficient, the Afghan people more angry, he says, the casualties have increased tenfold. New inventions are merely new inventions, but not necessarily going to save us from ourselves.

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Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, is the most followed in which Google has launched Google+ - putting it ahead of Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

The CEO of Facebook has more than 184,000 followers in the service, while the page is only half, to 95,000.

The service has grown rapidly in the two weeks since its launch, with one estimate saying that it has between 5 and 10 million members. In addition to Zuckerberg, Page and Brin, Google senior engineers are among the names more often.

But unlike Twitter, where celebrities and big names have used their visibility to interact directly with the audience, Zuckerberg has not posted a single comment about the service. Page, Google CEO and co-founder, the last published in late June. Sergey Brin, the other co-founder, is much more active, publishing photos of three or four times a day - although it says: "I think a lot of people are under the misimpression that I am posting photos of exotic places at a furious pace to Google+. Actually, I have had a bunch of albums public for some time on my picasaweb page. However, people only started to take note recently thanks to Google+ and when they comment on those photos they end up in the streams of people who have me in their circles."

At one point this week Zuckerberg increased their privacy settings so that you could not see who followed him - he was hiding and the names of those that followed - but relented then, according to social statistics, website Scraping the Google+ service to collect data on it.

With a clear way to measure growth or Google+ members, social statistics still the best way to keep track of evolution, although it is only tracking about 27,000 profiles. The show that the vast majority of Google users + - 87% - are men.

The estimate of between 5m and 10m users comes via Paul Allen, of genealogical business FamilyLink who called himself the "unofficial statistician" for Google+: he based his estimate on the predominance of unusual names compared to the US census.

Early mistakes with the service, making it difficult to register and upload the images have been removed. However, the service seems to have grown much faster than expected Google: at some point over the weekend the system ran out of disk space, which means that emails were sent registration and follower several times because there was no way to record that had been sent.

Educators believe that Google+ may have significant advantages over Twitter and Facebook in particular: "No friend of my students, because the ability to share is so clumsy on Facebook,"I don't friend my students, because the ability to share is so clunky on Facebook," Jeremy Littau, an assistant professor of journalism at Lehigh University, told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "This gives us ways to connect with people that we can't do on Facebook." He noted that the power of Google+ Hangout, which offers video chat conference: "I can hold chats several nights a week," Littau said the Chronicle.

Using Google+ "circles" to limit the groups and the fact that discussions are archived on Twitter does not offer great flexibility. Littau notes in a blogpost: "This tool will change education."

Google has also adjusted other service elements, including the ability to set privacy settings on their kind, and the prevention of re-distribution of seats in which the author does not want to be dealt.

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