Newspapers Online. 08-02-2013 | ScienceTechn

It follows a High Court ruling in June that the name infringed the broadcaster's trademark.

The judge had said there was evidence Skydrive's name had caused confusion among the public.

Microsoft had originally said it would appeal. The tech company said it has now agreed to change the name worldwide after a "transition period".

In a joint statement, Microsoft and BSkyB said: "The settlement of this case reflects the desire of both companies to focus on joint projects to benefit their customers."

UK owners of Microsoft's Xbox 360 can access Sky's channels via the games console and there have been reports that the two are in talks for a deeper tie-up with the forthcoming Xbox One.

Mistaken belief

Although BSkyB ended its Store & Share cloud storage service at the end of 2011, it had argued that Microsoft's use of the word "sky" in its brand posed a problem since it still ran other digital services including its Sky Broadband and Sky Go video streaming products.

In her ruling, the judge noted that customers having problems with Microsoft's product had ended up calling the broadcaster's helpline in the mistaken belief it was responsible for the service. It marks the second time in recent months that BSkyB has successfully defended its trademark against a tech company.

At the end of last year Livescribe - the US maker of products that record a digital version of their owner's handwriting - pulled its Sky pen from UK stores after receiving a legal challenge from the broadcaster.

In February it announced that it was rebranding the device as the "Livescribe wifi smartpen" and had agreed to recall stock using the old name.

Microsoft had to make another name change to one of its products recently.

It had originally called its Windows 8 tile-based user interface Metro to distinguish it from the more traditional desktop option.

However, last August it began calling it the "Windows 8-style UI" instead. There were reports that the German retailer Metro AG had objected to the name.

Russia's decision to help the American, and ignore U.S. requests to send him home to face trial for leaking details of government surveillance programs, is sure to anger Washington and increase doubts that a summit between presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin will go ahead in Moscow in September.

After 39 days avoiding hordes of international reporters desperate for a glimpse of him, Snowden managed to give them the slip again, leaving the airport in a car.

"Over the past eight weeks we have seen the Obama administration show no respect for international or domestic law but in the end the law is winning," Snowden, whose first leaks were published two months ago, was quoted as saying by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group which has assisted him.

"I thank the Russian Federation for granting me asylum in accordance with its laws and international obligations."

Grainy images on state television showed the 30-year-old's document, which is similar to a Russian passport, and revealed that he had been granted asylum for a year from July 31.

A Russian lawyer said he had handed Snowden a document from Russia which enabled him to leave the airport for a safe location which would remain secret, and that he could now work and travel freely in the country of 142 million.

State television also showed a picture of him getting into a grey car at the airport driven by a young man in a baseball cap. Snowden wore a backpack and a blue button-up shirt.

"He is the most wanted man on planet Earth," Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told Reuters. "He has to think about his personal security. I cannot tell you where he is going."

"He can live wherever he wants in Russia. It's his personal choice," he said.

OTHER OFFERS OF ASYLUM

Snowden, who had his U.S. passport revoked by Washington, fled to Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 and had stayed at a hotel at the airport, Kucherena said, but was "psychologically exhausted".

"Imagine yourself daily (having to listen to) 'Dear passengers, the flight to New York, the flight to Washington, the flight from Rome'," the lawyer said.

Snowden, whose revelations have fuelled a debate in the United States about civil liberties and national security needs, was accompanied by Sarah Harrison, a WikiLeaks representative.

The United States made three-quarters of the 1,157 data requests during the six-month period, according to the San Francisco-based company's report. (Report: transparency.twitter.com/)

Governments usually want the emails or IP addresses tied to a Twitter account.

In one well-known case, a French court ordered Twitter in February to turn over information about an anonymous account that posted anti-Semitic tweets. Twitter, which had initially resisted by arguing that the data was stored beyond French jurisdiction in its California servers, ultimately complied in June.

Efforts to censor Twitter content have also risen sharply, the company said.

"Over the last six months, we have gone from withholding content in two countries to withholding content (ranging from hate speech to defamation) in seven countries," said Twitter legal policy manager Jeremy Kessel.

Twitter was censored the most in Brazil, where courts issued orders on nine occasions to remove a total of 39 defamatory tweets.

The report did not include secret information requests within the United Sates authorized under the Patriot Act, a law enacted after the September 11 attacks. U.S. companies are prohibited from acknowledging the existence of data requests made under those statutes.

Transparency reports such as the one published semi-annually by Twitter have been a particularly contentious issue in Silicon Valley in the wake of a series of leaks in June by former security contractor Edward Snowden, who alleged that major service providers including Google Inc, Facebook Inc and Microsoft Corp systematically pass along huge troves of user data to the National Security Agency.

The companies, which have denied the scope of Snowden's allegations, have asked the U.S. government for permission to reveal the precise number of national security requests they receive in order to publicly argue that their cooperation with the government has been relatively limited. The negotiations between the companies, which include Twitter, remain ongoing, but firms including Microsoft and Facebook released in June some approximate figures of how many users have been affected by the data dragnet cast by U.S. intelligence.

The update has been prepared in response to research that created malicious chargers that could upload code onto devices plugged into them.

The work by computer scientists at Georgia Tech in the US can compromise iOS devices in about 60 seconds.

Apple's pending update warns users to be sure they are using a trusted charging point when they plug in.

The custom built chargers include a small computer alongside the electronic components that pipe power into an Apple iOS device.

The tiny computer interrogates an iPhone or tablet and copies a unique ID number that identifies that phone.

This is then used on an Apple website to take advantage of an uploading tool usually used by developers to test their software on an iOS gadget.

Instead of uploading a program in development, the trio of researchers, Billy Lau, Yeongjin Jang, and Chengyu Song, managed to upload an application that stole data.

The malicious chargers and their associated data-stealing application were demonstrated at the Black Hat hacker conference currently under way in Las Vegas.

In the demo, the trio showed off a fake Facebook app that could grab screenshots of passwords and make calls on behalf of an attacker.

The limited nature of the attack, which requires phones to be unlocked and for attackers to be a registered developer with Apple, were noted by tech news site Ars Technica.

The researchers from Georgia Tech's Information Security Center gave some details about their attack in June and this prompted Apple to prepare an update for devices running version seven of its iOS operating system. The update is currently part of the beta release for iOS 7. The final version of iOS7 will be released in the Autumn.

The update asks users if they are sure they can trust the device they are using to charge their phone or tablet.

The Saudi Arabian government believes they can and is backing its belief by investing $22 billion into a public transport mega-project in the capital Riyadh. Set to begin construction early next year, a new metro network will encompass over 176 km (110 miles) of train lines and 85 stations, linking the city center to universities, the airport, a newly built financial district and commercial areas. The first trains as slated to run in 2019. During construction, it will be the world's biggest public transport project, employing tens of thousands of people, developers say.

According to the High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh, all carriages will be air-conditioned and divided into first, family and single class. Buses and trains take a distant second to personal cars in Riyadh and according to FCC Construction only 2% of commuters in the Saudi Arabian capital take public transport.

It's no surprise because gasoline is highly subsidized -- a gallon at the petrol pumps costs around $0.50. According to Bloomberg, the world's largest oil producer ranks only second to Venezuela for the world's cheapest gasoline. According to reports, the Saudi government is weighing up increasingly the cost of fuel to give public transport a boost.

Chronically underdeveloped until now, the expansion of public transport in the Saudi capital will also cope with the projected boom in the local population. It has more than doubled since 1990 to 5.3 million and is set to top 8 million by 2030.

"Riyadh today is one of the world's fastest growing cities and our citizens deserve a world-class public transport system to enhance their quality of life... it will also help to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality," said Ibrahim Bin Muhammad Al Sultan President of Arriyadh Development Authority and Member of the High Commission for the Development of Arriyadh.

Of the six lines to be built, three will be constructed by Spain's FCC Construction company, working in partnership in a consortium including Samsung and Alstom. U.S. Firm Bechtel and Italian company Ansaldo STS lead the other two construction consortia.

As well as an extensive network, it is hoped that the stunning look of some the new stations will help to tempt locals away from their cars. Zaha Hadid Architects will build the King Abdullah Financial District station, one of the flagship interchange stops along Line 1. With six platforms spread over four floors, and linking three of the new lines, the architects hope it will provide a multi-function public space.

"The ones that hit us in the face were the Iraq logs," retired Brigadier General Robert Carr said in a Fort Meade, Maryland court on Wednesday, a day after a military judge found Manning guilty of 19 charges over the leaks in 2010, the biggest breach of classified data in U.S. history.

"No one had ever had to deal with this number of documents," Carr said.

A prosecutor told the sentencing hearing that the leaks caused military intelligence officials to rethink how much access to allow low level intelligence analysts like Manning.

Judge Colonel Denise Lind began hearing arguments on Wednesday on how long a sentence he should face, with the soldier's lawyers expected to argue for leniency.

While Manning, 25, was acquitted on the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, sparing him life without parole, he could still face decades in a military prison.

The slightly built Army private first class was in Baghdad in 2010 when he was arrested and charged with leaking files including videos of a 2007 attack by an American Apache helicopter gunship in Baghdad that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff, diplomatic cables, and secret details on prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

TALIBAN TIE

Carr testified that the leaks allowed Taliban militants in Afghanistan to track down a citizen of that country who had worked with U.S. intelligence.

"The Taliban killed him and tied him to the disclosures," Carr said. He said that would deter other intelligence sources.

Manning's lawyers were expected to argue that the Army private was not trying to jeopardize U.S. national security. He did not testify during his trial or during the first day of his sentencing hearing.

A prosecutor, Major Ashden Fein, said Manning's leaks "have impacted the entire system" for granting defense analysts access to classified information.

Some observers pointed out that the case of Manning, as well as that of former CIA security contractor Edward Snowden, illustrated the risk inherent in granting security clearance so broadly. Snowden last month released to media documents detailing U.S. programs to monitor phone and internet usage.

Speaking at the headquarters of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a downbeat Tsvangirai said Wednesday's vote should be rejected as invalid because of polling day irregularities and vote-rigging by 89-year-old Mugabe's ZANU-PF party.

"This has been a huge farce," he told reporters. "In our view, that election is null and void." He did not take questions, leaving it unclear whether he or his party will mount any kind of legal challenge.

The conflicting claims from the two main competing camps came before Zimbabwe's Electoral Commission had issued any official results, and raise the prospect of an acrimonious post-election dispute.

There are fears that this could spill over into violence, as happened after the last election in 2008 when 200 MDC supporters were killed in the wake of a first-round defeat for Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980.

Wednesday's poll was peaceful but the largest independent observer group said it was seriously compromised because of voter registration problems that may have disenfranchised up to a million people - a fifth of all Zimbabweans of voting age.

Releasing unofficial results early is illegal, and police had said they would arrest anybody who did this.

However, a senior source in Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, who asked not to be named, told Reuters less than 15 hours after the polls closed that the result was already clear.

"We've taken this election. We've buried the MDC. We never had any doubt that we were going to win," the source said, but gave no vote numbers.

If confirmed, Mugabe's victory is likely to mean five more years of troubled relations with the West, where the former liberation fighter is regarded as a ruthless despot responsible for serious human rights abuses and wrecking the economy.

Asked on the eve of the polls if he was fit enough to last in office until the age of 94, Mugabe joked about the reports of his imminent death that occasionally surface in the media.

"According to Europe and perhaps America, I died. I don't know how many times I died," he said. "But never would they say I have resurrected. I'm not dead yet."

CONTRADICTORY ASSESSMENTS

Eli Lilly said it had also been visited by officials in the same city of Shenyang as part of a "routine" probe which had started earlier this year, while the CEO of AstraZeneca, which has a sales executive in detention in Shanghai, warned of short-term "turmoil" in the sector.

The latest developments suggest a series of probes into over-pricing and alleged bribery in the industry may have a broad impact, in a market that has been a particular bright spot for Western pharmaceuticals who face slowing sales at home.

"In the short term, there could be some ups and downs because this issue will create turmoil. It may well be that the industry experiences more intense price revisions," AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot told Reuters on Thursday.

"But even if this happens, in the mid- to long-term China is a growing market - there is no doubt about that in my mind," Soriot added, stressing his company had no plans to cut back investment in the country.

Chinese police have detained four Chinese executives of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and questioned at least 18 other staff amid allegations the drugmaker funneled up to 3 billion yuan ($489 million) to travel agencies to facilitate bribes to doctors and officials.

At the same time, the powerful National Development and Reform Commission is examining pricing by 60 local and international pharmaceutical companies.

Sanofi said its office in Shenyang - one of 11 regional offices in China - had been visited by officials from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) on July 29.

"We are not really aware of the purpose of the visit, we are working with SAIC," CEO Chris Viehbacher told reporters on Thursday as he presented the company's second-quarter results.

Viehbacher added that the French group's local head office in Shanghai had not been contacted by Chinese authorities.

A spokeswoman for Eli Lilly said SAIC officials had also visited its office in Shenyang, adding that the visit was a regular business inspection and not related to the GSK case, which is being handled by the Ministry of Public Security.

SAIC is one of China's anti-trust regulators in charge of market supervision, which also looks into low-level bribery cases.

COMPLIANCE SCRAMBLE

The meeting with China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua in Beijing was to discuss matters of cooperation, the Chinese firm told Reuters in an emailed statement. It gave no further details.

The talks could pave the way for a long-awaited deal for China Mobile to distribute Apple products on its vast network, benefitting both companies.

Apple said last week that its April-June sales in Greater China, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, slumped 43 percent from the previous quarter. Greater China accounted for 13 percent of Apple's quarterly sales, or $5 billion, down from nearly 19 percent in January-March.

Fewer than a fifth of China Mobile's customers have adopted 3G, lagging rivals China Unicom's 38 percent and China Telecom Corp's 50 percent, according to data from the three carriers. Analysts say China Mobile would attract higher-end 3G users if it strikes a deal to carry Apple's iPhone.

Low 3G adoption crimps China Mobile's profits as mobile users shift away from SMS messaging to data-reliant apps such as Tencent Holdings' WeChat, which now has more than 300 million users in China.

China Mobile's homegrown 3G technology - TD-SCDMA - is inferior to what is offered by China Unicom and China Telecom, which are based on international 3G standards.

Any deal between China Mobile and Apple, combined with the Chinese government issuing 4G licenses later this year, could turn around both companies' fortunes with wider product distribution and faster Internet speeds attracting new smartphone adopters.

Apple was not immediately available for comment.

Morgan Stanley estimates China's mobile Internet market could more than treble to around $30 billion by 2015, driven by a surge in demand for mobile gaming, advertising, and e-commerce.

Currently, 78.5 percent of Chinese Internet users access it through their mobile phones, according to data from the China Internet Network Information Centre. The total number of mobile netizens reached 464 million by the end of June, up 10 percent from the end of 2012.

By a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said EA had no First Amendment defense against former football and basketball players, including onetime Arizona State University quarterback Samuel Keller, over the use of their images in its NCAA Football and NCAA Basketball video games.

The majority said EA "literally recreates Keller in the very setting in which he has achieved renown," and therefore violated his right of publicity.

In a separate decision, the 9th Circuit upheld the dismissal of Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown's lawsuit against EA over the use of his likeness in its Madden NFL video game.

The under secretary of defense for acquisitions, technology and logistics will meet officials at the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, a spokesman for the U.S. military said. He will also visit the foreign affairs and defense ministries.

The three ministries are together considering guidelines on what weapons, and to whom, Japanese defense contractors could sell arms.

Almost half-century-old export restrictions have isolated Japan's defense contractors, keeping the industry small, fractured and cost heavy.

While dual-use equipment such as cameras, that are also sold for civilian use, are exempt, such devices are rarely sold directly to armies by their Japanese makers.

The U.S. military, for example, uses Panasonic Corp's rugged laptop computers to guide drones, but buys them through a third-party vendor.

Kendall's visit to the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, which regulates exports, could help the U.S. Defense Department build deeper ties with industry officials who will play a key role in formulating rule changes that may allow companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the maker of the World War Two-era Zero fighter, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd, which builds submarines, become suppliers to the United States.

"We see the possibility of joint development as a major step," Tatsuhiko Nojima, executive vice president at Mitsubishi Heavy told a news briefing in Tokyo to announce the company's results for the quarter that ended on June 30.

"This represents a big business chance."

Kendall, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in October 2011, wants to visit the ministry because it regulates Japan's defense industry, said an official at the ministry, who declined to be identified. The meet-and-greet may include discussion of the export restrictions, he said.

GOING FOR JOINT DEVELOPMENT

Japan's government on Friday published a policy paper, its latest step away from the constraints of its pacifist constitution and part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's review of defense posture in the face of perceived threats from China and North Korea.

In it, the government said it would "aggressively promote joint international development production with the United States, Britain and other countries".

Dell shares fell 3 percent to $12.48, their lowest level since news of the takeover broke on January 14, highlighting uncertainty among shareholders about the deal's prospects.

The special committee, set up by Dell's board to assess whether shareholders were getting the best deal, refused to change the voting rules but said it would be willing to move the vote's record date forward.

Earlier, a person familiar with the matter said Michael Dell and Silver Lake expect their deal to collapse unless there is a change in how shareholder votes are counted.

At present, the buyout must be approved by a majority of all Dell shares, excluding those held by Michael Dell. The buyout group last week raised its offer by 10 cents per share on the condition that the deal goes through if approved by a majority of the shares that are actually voted.

This followed two adjournments of shareholder meetings, on July 18 and July 24, after it became apparent the buyout group did not have enough votes supporting the deal.

The consortium estimated that in the latest tally, about 27 percent of Dell's shares had not been voted and were therefore counted as "no" votes under the current voting standard.

Alex Mandl, the special committee's chairman, wrote in a letter to the buyout group, "The committee is not prepared to accept your (voting rules) proposal. We are, however, willing to establish a new record date for a vote on a $13.75 per share transaction under the existing voting standard."

The record date determines which Dell shareholders are entitled to vote on the deal. A person familiar with the matter said the special committee would be willing to push the record date to August 10 for the vote to be held on September 10.

A shareholder meeting to vote under the current system is scheduled for Friday.

The source familiar with the matter said the buyout consortium believes that changing the record date is not good enough. Unless the voting standard changes, this is the end of the road for the deal, the source said.