Newspapers Online. 07-11-2013 | ScienceTechn

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan found "compelling evidence" that Apple violated federal antitrust law by playing a "central role" in a conspiracy with the publishers to eliminate retail price competition and raise e-book prices.

The decision could expose Apple to substantial damages. It is a victory for the U.S. Department of Justice and the 33 U.S. states and territories that brought the civil antitrust case.

Apple was accused of pursuing the conspiracy to undercut online retailer Amazon.com Inc's e-book dominance, causing some prices to rise to $12.99 or $14.99 from the $9.99 that Amazon charged. Amazon once held a 90 percent market share.

"Apple chose to join forces with the publisher defendants to raise e-book prices and equipped them with the means to do so," Cote said in a 159-page decision. "Without Apple's orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did."

Wednesday's decision was not a total surprise, given that Cote indicated before the 2-1/2 week non-jury trial began on June 3 that Apple's defenses might fail. Cote ordered a trial to set damages.

"This result is a victory for millions of consumers who choose to read books electronically," Bill Baer, head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, said in a statement. "This decision by the court is a critical step in undoing the harm caused by Apple's illegal actions."

APPLE PLANS TO APPEAL

In a statement, Apple maintained that the plaintiffs' allegations are false and said it will appeal Cote's decision.

"Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said. "When we introduced the iBookstore in 2010, we gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. We've done nothing wrong."

Last year, Apple settled a separate antitrust case over e-book pricing with the European Commission, without admitting wrongdoing.

The alleged collusion began in late 2009 and continued into early 2010, in connection with the Silicon Valley giant's launch of its popular iPad tablet.

Only Apple went to trial, while the publishers agreed to pay more than $166 million combined to benefit consumers.

NATO's cyber defense nerve center, operating from the alliance's operational headquarters at Mons in southern Belgium, monitors potential attacks on NATO computer systems installed at 55 locations around the world.

"Our intrusion detection systems handle something like 147 million suspicious events every day," director Ian West told reporters during a visit to NATO's computer incident response capability technical center on Wednesday.

Attacks on NATO's systems range from hacking, attempts to implant malicious software and so-called denial of service attacks where a computer is bombarded with so much data that it collapses.

NATO analysts dealt with around 2,500 confirmed serious attacks on its computers last year, West said.

In an era where weapon systems and military operations increasingly depend on computers, there is a risk that hacking attacks could have fatal consequences for the alliance.

"The worst case scenario of a cyber attack for us could be loss of life ... If intelligence doesn't get through about an ambush, if notification doesn't get through about a security situation, then our troops' lives are at risk," West said.

Some attacks against NATO's computer networks have been successful, he said, although he declined to say whether hackers had succeeded in stealing confidential data.

The threats come from hacking activists, criminals and "hostile nation states", although West declined to say which countries are suspected.

In May, the Pentagon said China was using espionage to acquire technology to fuel its military modernization, for the first time accusing the Chinese of trying to break into U.S. defense computer networks. Beijing denied the allegation.

China hit back after fugitive spy agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked details of U.S. cyber spying, accusing Washington of hypocrisy.

SPEAR PHISHING

Analysts among the cyber defense centre's 130-strong staff from 15 nations say the attacks on NATO defense systems are growing in number and sophistication.

"The majority of the attacks are conducted by 'spear phishing' emails," said Andrzej Dereszowski, a Polish engineer at the center, referring to attempts by hackers to get hold of passwords or other confidential information by posing as a legitimate organization.

Icahn opposes the proposal from Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake, arguing it undervalues the PC maker, and has put forth a number of alternative options in concert with fellow Dell shareholder Southeastern Asset Management.

Earlier this week, however, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services, Glass Lewis and Egan Jones threw their support behind Michael Dell's offer.

In his latest effort to derail Michael Dell's plans, Icahn wants shareholders to vote against the buyout and then ask a court in Delaware, where Dell is incorporated, to appraise the fair value of the shares.

"We believe if you seek appraisal, you will receive more," Icahn said in a letter to Dell shareholders.

Icahn said Dell shareholders could change their minds about the appraisal up to 60 days after the merger.

During that time "we believe Dell may wish to negotiate with those that sought appraisal and possibly pay a premium over $13.65 to get them to settle and drop their appraisal claims," he said.

Should shareholders change their minds they can still sell for $13.65, Icahn said in the letter, adding "you can have your cake and eat it too."

Dell shareholders are scheduled to vote on the buyout offer proposed by Michael Dell and Silver Lake on July 18.

On Tuesday, Yacktman Asset Management, which owns about 0.85 percent of Dell stock, said it favored Icahn and Southeastern's proposal that would see shareholders tender 1.1 billion shares at $14 each.

For that bid to be put to a vote, shareholders must reject Michael Dell's proposal and then elect a new slate of directors put up by Icahn.

Undertexter had provided fan-made translations of film and TV show dialogue, which could be merged with video files to provide on-screen text.

A spokesman for the police told the BBC they had acted after investigating a complaint by copyright holders.

Undertexter's managers insisted they had not broken the law.

Critics have suggested the raid marked an escalation in Hollywood's efforts to protect its intellectual property.

However, the Rights Alliance - the organisation that prompted the police to act - said it was not the first case of its kind in Europe.

Forensic tests

The national co-ordinator of the intellectual property crime division at the Swedish Police Service said that it had carried out the raid after tracking computers using Undertexter's internet addresses to buildings in Stockholm and Helsingborg.

"Our copyright law doesn't allow people to make a transcript from a film that is copyright-protected without the copyright owner's permission and certainly not to make it public," said Paul Pinter.

"The investigation is still in its early stages. Our forensic experts will now go through the material on the seized computers and there will be follow-up interviews."

He added that potential penalties ranged from fines to up to two years in jail.

The Rights Alliance said its members had been concerned that Undertexter had "a lot of" adverts on it, suggesting the owners were profiting from "the work of others".

"There were several reasons for us to act against the site," said Sara Lindback, a lawyer for the group.

"The movies they put subtitles on have often not yet reached Sweden or are still in cinemas. The translations have not been cleared by the rights-holders."

She added that the move followed the trial of a man in Norway last year who had run Norsub, a similar service.

A judge fined the 26-year-old 15,000 kroner ($2,450; £1,640) after hearing he had not profited from the site and had shut it down shortly after being warned he was breaking the law.

'Free country'

A post on Undertexter's Facebook page indicated its managers intended to fight on.

"Hollywood... we will never give up, we live in a free country and Swedish people have every right to publish their own interpretation of a movie/series," they wrote.

They added that they had never charged for the service.

Yochai Benkler, a Harvard University law professor and expert on media law, testified for the defense that a 2008 Defense Department report on WikiLeaks had said that a U.S. enemy could theoretically use the site to gather information.

But the Pentagon report, which had been based on publicly available material, said there was no sign that that had happened, said Benkler, the co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

The Pentagon report came out before Manning, 25, is alleged to have leaked more than 700,000 classified files, combat videos and State Department cables while serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.

Benkler is the 10th witness called by chief defense lawyer David Coombs since he started his case on Monday. Coombs has not divulged a customary list of witnesses, but Benkler could be the last called by the defense.

The 21 charges against Manning include espionage, computer fraud and, most seriously, aiding the enemy by disclosing material that could be used by the al Qaeda extremist network.

Manning, a native of Crescent, Oklahoma, could face life in prison without parole if convicted of aiding the enemy.

In other testimony, a specialist at the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, said in a sworn statement that the center had not recommended changes, such as in training or tactics, because of the WikiLeaks disclosures.

The center, which focuses on adapting operations to changing conditions, also had not been requested to do so, said the witness, whose name was not disclosed.

The defense has sought to portray Manning as a naive but well-intentioned soldier who wanted to show Americans the reality of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense lawyers also have contended that much of the material Manning is charged with leaking had been available from public sources before the WikiLeaks disclosure.

The release of the White House report signaled a new outspokenness by Obama, who made immigration a top legislative priority but stayed on the sidelines of the debate that raged in the Senate in May and June. The report said passing reforms would grow the economy by 3.3 percent by 2023 and reduce the deficit by almost $850 billion over 20 years.

Obama also was scheduled to meet with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus as he launches an offensive to pressure hesitant Republicans in the House of Representatives to act on comprehensive immigration legislation this year.

Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner invited all 233 of his fellow House Republicans in his chamber to a two-hour meeting on Wednesday to discuss the bipartisan Senate bill that would give legal status to around 11 million undocumented residents and eventually allow them to apply for U.S. citizenship.

Boehner knows he will have a tough time convincing conservatives that the Senate approach is anything but amnesty for people who have broken the law after entering the United States illegally or overstaying their visas.

According to one House aide, Republican leaders will listen to ideas from members on how to proceed. The main question for now, the aide said, was whether any narrow immigration bill should be put to a vote by the full House before the August recess, when lawmakers will be home, facing their constituents.

Previewing Wednesday's meeting, Boehner told reporters on Tuesday that he would pursue a "step-by-step approach" to immigration and "the first big step is you have to have a serious border security" plan.

The comprehensive Senate-passed bill contained tough security measures with $46 billion in spending over 10 years to place 20,000 more agents at the U.S. border with Mexico and buy high-tech surveillance equipment.

Nevertheless, only 14 of the Senate's 46 Republicans voted for the bill and many House Republicans complain that the 11 million illegal residents would be mainstreamed into American society before the southwestern border is fully secured.

Last November's presidential election, in which Obama captured more than 70 percent of the growing Hispanic vote, was a wake-up call to Republican leaders that their party must do more to appeal to minorities.

Vice President Joe Biden launched the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue by stressing the shared stakes. "The next steps that China needs to take for its own economy happen to be in the interests of the United States as well," he said as the two-day talks opened in Washington.

"Your own plans call for the kinds of changes that have to take place, that are difficult, like here, but if they do, they will benefit us both, including free exchange rate, shifting to a consumption-led economy, enforcing intellectual property rights and renewing innovation," said Biden.

But Biden did not mince words when he raised the hot-button issue of theft of intellectual property through hacking of computer networks, a conversation complicated by the fugitive spy agency contractor Edward Snowden's revelations of U.S. electronic surveillance around the world.

"Outright cyber-enabling theft that U.S. companies are experiencing now must be viewed as out of bounds and needs to stop," said Biden. U.S. officials say all countries spy on each other, but China is unique in its theft of foreign technology.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew are hosting a Chinese delegation led by State Councilor Yang Jiechi and Vice Premier Wang Yang for a fifth round of annual talks that cover both economics and wider geopolitical issues.

The talks were launched in 2008 with aim of managing an increasingly complex U.S.-China relationship and avoiding competition between the world's two largest economies from turning into destabilizing conflict.

Wang's remarks to open the forum avoided specific issues and highlighted China's desire - voiced by Chinese President Xi Jinping last month in an informal summit with President Barack Obama - to build a "new type of great power relationship." "Our job in this round ... is to turn the important agreements between the two presidents into tangible outcomes, and add substance to this new model of major country relationship," he said.

"We need to raise our strategic mutual trust to new heights," added Wang. Lew echoed Biden in welcoming reform plans circulating in China under the new administration of Xi, who took office in March.

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany found that the birth rate in 28 European countries dropped as unemployment rose.

People under 25 have been particularly affected, along with those living in southern European countries like Spain.

The relationship between the economy and fertility has long been discussed, but remains controversial.

Researchers at the MPIDR said their study proved that "the extent of joblessness in a contemporary European country does in fact have an effect on birth rates".

Weathered the crisis

"The financial crisis hit Europe at a time when birth rates in many countries had just began rising again," said demographer Michaela Kreyenfeld. She said upward trends in some countries had come to a halt while in others, birth rates declined.

In Spain, the total fertility rate - the number of births per woman - fell nearly 8% between 2008 and 2011 as unemployment went from 8.3% to 11.3%.

A setback also occurred in Hungary, Ireland, Croatia and Latvia, the study said.

Formerly growing birth rates slowed in countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and the United Kingdom.

But in Germany and Switzerland, where labour markets have weathered the crisis comparatively well, there was almost no change in the number of children born.

Europeans under the age of 25 have especially restrained from having children in the face of rising unemployment rates, the research shows. However it notes that many may be postponing having a family rather than deciding not to have one at all.

The study says a 1% increase in unemployment rates causes fertility to fall by nearly 0.2% among those aged 15 to 19, and 0.1% between 20 and 24.

But rising unemployment did not cause birth rates to change for those over 40.

In today's world, there are multiple ways for cybercriminals to make money long before cash is actually transferred out of a bank account. Robbing a bank has become one of the last cogs in a much broader operation.

Online theft is almost always part of a much grander scheme. Though sometimes a high-skilled individual or single group of cybercriminals will handle all parts of an operation, most cybercrime is split up into several steps, each handled by a different player, according to Vikram Thakur, a principal manager at Symantec Security Response.

Most bank account thefts begin with a single malware developer who sells malicious software on an underground black market to hackers.

On those dark channels of the Internet, criminal hackers can buy tools to steal users' bank account credentials, services to bring down websites, or viruses to infect computers.

"There's more variety and more choices than me going to my local Costco," said Raj Samani, a chief technical officer at the security company McAfee.

It is easier than ever before to find and use these services, Samani said. Hiring a criminal hacker is easy, because today's malware requires hackers to have little technological knowledge to infect hundreds or thousands of computers. And some services are fairly cheap. For instance, getting a hold of 1 million email addresses can cost just $111. That means there are more and more cybercriminals hoping to get in on an operation.

Once unsuspecting victims' credentials or bank account information has been collected, hackers may resell that data to someone who repackages it in a useful way and redistributes it on the black market.

Not all information has equal value. Often criminals are looking for credentials of wealthy individuals with accounts at financial institutions where they are familiar with the security systems.

"All the mature, smart criminals sell the goods to somebody else and cut themselves out of the operation, out of the cross hairs," said Thakur. Up to this point in the operation, no money has been stolen -- but thousands or millions of dollars have already exchanged hands.

The Socialist government of Francois Hollande published an official decree on Tuesday to erase the provision in the law that allowed courts to deprive copyright violaters of their internet connectivity if they transgressed on three occasions. However, other sanctions, such as fines, will remain in place.

The tough anti-piracy law championed by previous president Nicolas Sarkozy was embraced by the music and movie industries but came under fire from critics who said it threatened civil liberties.

"This measure is necessary because it ends a penalty that is not suited to today's world, and because it illustrates the new orientation of the government's efforts to fight online piracy," Minister of Culture Aurelie Filippetti said in a statement on Tuesday.

She added that France would now focus its efforts on websites that profit from illegal downloading rather than individual users.

France was one of the first countries to adopt a "three-strikes" law to protect artists and intellectual property owners from copyright violations. But the law, passed in 2009, has barely made a dent in online piracy as consumers moved to new technologies such as the streaming of video or music instead of downloads.

Only one person actually had his Internet access cut off in a ruling that came in June.

The French law was similar to those in place in Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. Users are sent a series of notifications to warn them that they have allegedly infringed copyright and information on legal alternatives. Repeat offenders then face fines or the removal of their internet access.

Free apps such as MyFitnessPal track diet and weight and can connect with apps like RunKeeper, which monitors fitness, to adjust calorie intake based on the speed and duration of a run.

Sleep 101, for the iPhone, and Sleep Bot, for Android devices, monitor sleep patterns and quality.

Now there's Argus, a free app for iPhones released last week. It combines multiple factors to take detailed snapshots of sleep, diet, activity and vital signs such as heart rate. It also shows how each factor relates to the others.

"People are getting more health conscious and lifestyle diseases are an increasingly large problem, especially in the last two decades," said Peter Kuhar the chief technology officer of Palo Alto-based Azumio, the company that developed the app.

"This is where mobile technologies can help to guide you to a healthier lifestyle and with that help reduce the risk," he said.

Using built-in sensors, Argus can determine whether a person is walking or running. It also pairs with the company's Sleep Time app to track sleep patterns. Heart rate is measured when a finger is placed on the device's camera.

"The importance of tracking the data is that we can increase users' awareness of their health-affecting habits and help steer them on the right path," said Kuhar, adding that the app is also useful for observing trends over time.

By correlating the data the app can show, for example, how water consumption affects sleep and how caffeine impacts heart rate.

Other apps connect with wristbands to track activity, sleep and diet. They include the Jawbone UP, for iPhone and Android, and Fitbit and Larklife, both for iPhone. The wristbands cost between $60 and $150.

Kuhar said apps that connect to devices such as wristbands may be more accurate because they are worn on the body.

MyFitnessPal also integrates with Withings, a WiFi-enabled scale; Runtastic, a fitness tracking app; and Fitbit, a wearable wristband that tracks sleep and activity for automatic logging of weight, sleep and activities.

Last month the company MyFitnessPal teamed up with RunKeeper, the iPhone and Android app that tracks running speed and duration.

"When we started MyFitnessPal we tackled nutrition first, and as we've grown, we've set our sights on other pillars that are crucial to health and wellness," said Mike Lee, co-founder of San Francisco-based MyFitnessPal.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California, on Tuesday ordered that the case be dismissed at the companies' request, averting a trial that had been scheduled for August 19.

This came after Apple issued to Amazon a covenant not to sue over the online retailer's use of the term, eliminating the need for Amazon to pursue a counterclaim seeking permission.

Apple began selling applications for mobile devices via its App Store service in July 2008. Amazon launched Amazon Appstore for Android in March 2011. Apple began the lawsuit that month.

"We no longer see a need to pursue our case," Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said. "With more than 900,000 apps and 50 billion downloads, customers know where they can purchase their favorite apps."

Martin Glick, a lawyer for Amazon, said in an interview, "This was a decision by Apple to unilaterally abandon the case, and leave Amazon free to use 'appstore.'"

"We're gratified that the court has conclusively dismissed this case," Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said. "We look forward to continuing our focus on delivering the best possible appstore experience to customers and developers."

In its lawsuit alleging trademark violations and false advertising, Apple accused Amazon of misusing the "app store" name in connection with the sales of apps for Android devices and the Kindle Fire, a tablet that competes with Apple's iPad.

Amazon countered that the term "app store" had become so generic that using it would not mislead customers.

It said in a court filing that even Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook had used the term generically, in discussing "the number of app stores out there," while his predecessor Steve Jobs had talked about the "four app stores on Android."

Hamilton dismissed Apple's false advertising claim in January.

Later that month, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously barred a small company, Already LLC, from trying to void Nike Inc's trademark for a line of basketball sneakers, after Nike issued a covenant not to pursue its own infringement lawsuit.

The court said allowing Already's counterclaim could encourage litigation and discourage innovation.