Apple Sued for Infringing on Touch-Screen Patent

Apple this week was hit with a patent lawsuit over the use of touch-screen panels in products like the iPad Air. Hilltop Technology on Wednesday filed suit in Texas district court, alleging that Apple is infringing on a patent it owns for a "capacitive type touch panel." The patent was first filed in April 2008 and issued in Jan. 2011, according to Hilltop. The company alleges that "all Apple products having a capacitive type touch panel, including...

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Social engineering attack on GoDaddy and PayPal to blame in Twitter hijacking

Naoki Hiroshima lost access to his unique Twitter handle after being pressured by the criminal responsible for compromising his PayPal and GoDaddy accounts. Update: GoDaddy confirms the social engineering aspects of this Twitter extortion scheme. Update 2: Added commentary from Chris Hadnagy and Michele Fincher, from Social-Engineer Inc. Leverage. That's what the criminal had when he contacted Naoki Hiroshima. Until recently, he had one of the highly prized single letter Twitter profiles; his was @N, but now it's @N_is_stolen. The...

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Wikipedia and many other wiki sites contained critical vulnerability

A vulnerability affecting 'wiki' websites put nearly a hundred million Wikipedia users at risk. Wikipedia is one of the most highly visited sites on the Web with over 94 million unique visitors per month. A recently discovered vulnerability could have put those users at risk of malware exploits had it not been discovered. Check Point researchers found a critical vulnerability in MediaWiki (versions 1.8 and up)—an open source Web platform...

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Happy privacy news even paranoids could love

Perk up, buttercup -- the Blackphone and MIT researchers offer glimmers of hope amid our NSA- and hack-filled landscape When you're a journalist, tips pour into your inbox nonstop. Some concern current events, like BloomNation.com's breakthrough as the first online florist to accept bitcoins in time for Valentine's Day, but the rest hammer home the message that our lives are about as private as Justin Bieber's arrest record. Waste enough hours...

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Office 365 turns one, but success is tough to tally

Beware of misleading numbers, says one analyst; look at Office Web Apps' progress, argues another A year after the launch of Microsoft's ambitious Office 365, it's almost impossible for outsiders to get a grip on how the software-by-subscription program has done, analysts admitted today. Microsoft kicked off Office 365 -- a revamped program for businesses and a new attempt to convince consumers to subscribe indefinitely rather than buy the software every few years -- on Jan. 29, 2013. Since then, Microsoft has disclosed very few...

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Twitter buys 900 IBM patents, dodging a potential infringement suit

Twitter has acquired over 900 patents from IBM, a move likely intended to settle IBM's claims that Twitter was infringing on at least three of its patents. IBM said Friday that Twitter acquired the patents in December, and that the companies had entered into a patent cross-license agreement covering other technologies that might be shared between the firms. The deal will likely allow Twitter to continue to operate without facing a copyright infringement suit from IBM, which is one of the largest U.S. patent holders with an active portfolio...

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