Tech Legal Week: Apple Sued, Siemens Settles, Polaroid Files, More

Hasbro drops suit against Scrabulous; Siemens settles Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecution and SEC suit for ten figures; SAP largely unsuccessful in getting parts of Oracle suit dismissed; Australia says that companies can deliver legal notices via social networks; Kodak to get ITC to investigate LG and Samsung for alleged patent infringements; U.K. slams EA ad; Apple sued over Apple TV; and Polaroid files for bankruptcy because of "apparent fraudulent acts" by its parent company.

• Dec 21, 2008

HP: A Look Under the 2008 Financial Covers [UPDATED]

HP released its 10K for fiscal year 2008 last night. Here are some highlights from a first digging into the document, including more efficient operations over the last two years, at least by some measures, and potential financial weaknesses going forward. They should be of interest to shareholders, competitors, customers, and vendors alike.

• Dec 18, 2008

Tech Roundup: Amazon Cracks Whip, Mahalo Pays Users, Businesses Want Apple, More

Amazon charged with playing Scrooge to U.K. employees; AMD has new cheap dual-core chips, but rumored to plan on additional layoffs in January; a lot of businesses are looking to let employees use Macs; and Apple comes out with critical security OS updates and Microsoft sees more attacks on vulnerable Internet Explorer.

• Dec 17, 2008

Yahoo Strengthens Privacy Protections

Yahoo said Wednesday that it will make its user logs anonymous within 90 days as it ups the ante on data retention policies. In a statement (Techmeme), Yahoo said it would also make user data on page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks anonymous as well as its user logs. The only exception...

• Dec 17, 2008

No Jobs at MacWorld: Apple Leadership Changes in the Wings?

Steve Jobs absence from Macworld's keynote this year is being taken as a sign. What signal Apple is actually sending is debatable, but some analysts are taking a strong hint that the company is ready to transition leadership. Apple said Tuesday that it will end its relationship with Macworld af...

• Dec 17, 2008

Apple's MacWorld Bailout: The Outlook for Trade Shows

I had already scratched CES off of my January calendar but was starting to book meetings for MacWorld, leaving time open for the Steve Jobs keynote speech, of course. But now that Jobs is sending in a second-stringer for the big spotlight event, I'm starting to wonder if I should even bother to sh...

• Dec 16, 2008

PC Sales Slow, But Haven't Tanked... Yet

November PC sales slowed in November, but haven't fallen off a cliff due to strong notebook and netbook unit growth, according to NPD data. NPD has released its PC sell-through stats and November unit growth was 6 percent from a year ago compared to 10 percent in October. While that growth isnâ...

• Dec 16, 2008

Desperation Marketing: Apple, Dell, HP, XM Sirius, and CES Just Examples

When an industry is feeling an economic pinch, you can feel it in the advertising. Yes, the amount of ad spending drops, as has been obvious in reports from those who track it. But the quality of the advertising itself begins to change, as companies try to close the business they need and fear won't appear. The signs are all over high tech at the moment, as all manner of organizations and companies wind up, trying to win over consumers by offering prices and terms that telegraph varying degrees of desperation.

• Dec 16, 2008

The 10 Most Influential Leaders in the Tech Business

Technology continues to be a powerful force for transforming business, when used wisely and correctly. Here is a list of the top 10 visionaries and executives who made the biggest contributions for the year. 10. Bill Gates, Microsoft At the end of June, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates stepped down f...

• Dec 15, 2008

Tech Legal Week: Apple, AT&T, and iPhones; FSF Sues Cisco; Yahoo Severance; More

Apple and AT&T ask a New York court to dismiss one of the lawsuits over iPhone 3G performance; Psystar tries shifting tactics in its countersuit against Apple's copyright infringement action; Yahoo changes executive severance plan as part of ending a shareholder lawsuit; Intel fights a fine from the Korean Fair Trade Commission; and the Free Software Foundation sues Cisco for alleged copyright infringement.

• Dec 15, 2008

AT&T Bolsters Wi-Fi Plans With Wayport Acquisition

AT&T said Friday that it has closed its Wayport acquisition, which allows it to build out its Wi-Fi network. In addition, the telecom giant said that it "is nearing completion" of its project to convert Starbucks locations to AT&T's Wi-Fi service. With Wayport, AT&T will have ro...

• Dec 12, 2008

Alcatel-Lucent's Big Layoffs: Does It Get Web 2.0?

Alcatel-Lucent on Friday unveiled its latest restructuring plan complete with layoffs and a rip off of Cisco's spiel about Web 2.0 technologies. The news out of Alcatel-Lucent was boilerplate stuff these daysâ€"it will be news when a company actually hires someone. Alcatel-Lucent sees the marke...

• Dec 12, 2008

Tech Roundup: Sony Ericcson, Vodafone Back Android; Nintendo Partners for E-books; More

House democrats take aim at FCC and chairman Kevin Martin; Sony Ericcson, Vodafone, and ARM back Google's Android; report says that U.S. approach to nanotech is inadequate; Nintendo partners with HarperCollins for e-book classics on DS portable; and Intel on track for 32nm chips.

• Dec 11, 2008

Holiday Cyber Spending: Numbers in Use Are Shaky

More details are coming out about spending on Cyber Monday. Although the event took place over a week ago, the numbers are interesting if for no other reason than they suggest how consumers are shopping and buying. Know how people make decisions, and you are closer to understanding what they might want from you. But it turns out that the sources of information aren't necessarily something you could statistically project to the buying public as a whole, and many executives may be making marketing, advertising, and promotional decisions based on unwarranted assumptions.

• Dec 10, 2008

Yahoo Shareholder Pushes for Microsoft Search Deal

Updated: Ivory Investment Management, a hedge fund that owns about 1.5 percent of Yahoo, is pushing the company to do a search deal with Microsoft, but the sticking point is valuation. Analysts say that Ivory's assumptions sound optimistic. In a letter reported earlier by CNBC, Ivory urges Yaho...

• Dec 10, 2008

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