Apple wins patent case that could affect future Samsung devices

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on Thursday that Apple should have been awarded an injunction barring Samsung from selling products that infringe on the iPhone maker’s patents.

In May 2014, a lower court denied Apple an injunction against Samsung after a jury ordered the South Korean company to pay $120 million for violating patents for the iPhone’s slide-to-unlock, autocorrect and data detection features. The Washington-based appeals court reversed this decision in a 2-1 ruling. It said that Apple’s proposed injunction is narrow because it does not want to ban the devices from the marketplace and that the patented features can be removed without a product recall.
"Apple does not seek to enjoin the sale of lifesaving drugs, but to prevent Samsung from profiting from the unauthorized use of infringing features in its cellphones and tablets," the court said. The case was sent back to a federal district court in San Jose, California, to reconsider the injunction.
It does seem that Apple’s win may be largely symbolic; Samsung told the court it had ceased selling nearly all of the products that were originally at issue in the case such as the Galaxy S2 and Note 2.
It also said it could design around the features, meaning the ruling is unlikely to have much of an impact on Samsung’s business.
         “We will pursue our rights to have the full Court of Appeals review today’s decision. We want to reassure our millions of loyal customers that all of our flagship smartphones, which are wanted and loved by American consumers, will remain for sale and available for customer service support in the US,” Samsung said in a statement.
Samsung had received the backing of some of Silicon Valley’s biggest players, including Facebook, Google, Dell and HP, in its patent infringements battle with Apple. The companies worry that the final outcome of the case could have far-reaching implications when it comes to patent violations in complex devices such as smartphones. It’s also thought that Apple could use an injunction on newer Samsung devices if they believe them to infringe on the patents at issue.

Check out this awe-inspiring scale model of our solar system

 

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NASA’s New Horizons mission has sparked a renewed interest in all things space. It also likely inspired a couple of filmmakers to dispel a common myth and build a scale model of our solar system… one that’s seven miles wide.

Virtually every model to date fails to relay just how expansive our solar system truly is and that’s something Wylie Overstreet and Alex Goros set about to change. Using a dry lake bed in the Black Rock Desert north of Reno, the duo built their solar system model complete with planetary orbits.
The project really puts into perspective just how tiny our home planet is compared to what’s around us

Malware discovered that lets hackers see online poker players' cards

Poker players using the Full Tilt Poker and Poker Stars online games are being targeted by a type of malware that lets hackers spy on their cards. The trojan, named Odlanor, was found within several pieces of software designed to help poker players improve their game, said the security firm that discovered it.
Once it has infected a computer, Odlanor monitors for when a user logs into one of the two aforementioned poker sites. When a player joins a session it will start taking screenshots and sending them back to the trojan’s creators. This allows them to identify the player’s ID, which room they are in, and what cards they’re holding – giving the hackers a massive advantage without the victim realizing.
As of September 16, several hundred users were infected with Odlanor, although it does seem to mostly target those living in Eastern Europe. "We have seen this trojan masquerading as a number of benign installers for various general purpose programs, such as Daemon Tools or uTorrent. In other cases, the spyware is installed through various poker-related programs," said Robert Lipovsky, senior malware researcher at ESET.
Some of the poker-related programs where the malicious software has been found include Tournament Shark, Poker Calculator Pro, Smart Buddy and Poker Office. Odlanor also targets other personal information on a victim's computer such as login names and passwords.
The news comes in the wake of PayPal quietly announcing yesterday that it was returning as an accepted method of payment for a limited number of gambling sites after a 12-year absence from the sector. Online gambling is still illegal in the majority of US states, but an increasing number are introducing bills that would legalize it.

Facebook wants to replace Slack as your office communications tool later this year

        Surprise! Facebook wants to replace yet another service in your day-to-day, this time with Facebook at Work, which has subsisted in closed beta since January of this year. To be clear, Facebook at Work is a communications app, employing the same user interface as the Facebook most of us use to exploit our political biases, but this time your friends list consists exclusively of coworkers.
        Now Facebook is reportedly launching it as a full-fledged product, utilizing a freemium business model, later this year, according to Re/Code. A specific release window, however, remains ambiguous.
      On the inside, Facebook's employees have been using Facebook for years, head of Facebook at Work Julien Codorniou told Re/Code. Then, nearly 15 months ago, it was revealed that the social media corp was developing an office productivity service for companies outside of Facebook.

How Facebook plans to convert users of existing business communication tools, such as Slack and Yammer, is also unclear. Veteran companies have been using these products for years, with a great deal of archived content at stake, including important messages and internal company documents. Nonetheless, Facebook is going to attempt the unthinkable, though perhaps it's not too farfetched.
Already, over 100 companies subscribe to the Facebook at Work beta, which continues to increase in its install base. And, of course, Facebook plans to make money from the new endeavor, but interestingly isn't opting for ad-based monetization this time around. Instead, like with Slack, a free version will be made available with additional features being issued at a fee, though distinctions between free and paid features are still being defined.

In the process of trying to pique the interest of companies looking to replace their communications utilities, Facebook is likely to make a few enemies along the way. That's because it'll put itself directly in competition with the likes of Slack and Microsoft, the proprietor of Yammer. And with ~$340 million in venture capitalist investments, Slack surely won't budge without a fight.
Current testers of the platform claim that Facebook at Work is characterized by "familiarity," which is among the social media giant's main talking points when trying to sway companies interested in adopting the product. That's because, while it may seem obvious, most of us know the ins and outs of Facebook.

Of course, this goes without saying, many companies will be hesitant to endorse Facebook at Work due to a potential loss in productivity. On the desktop edition of the platform, users will be able to choose between their at-work and at-home Facebook accounts while, on mobile, Facebook at Work exists on its own, as a standalone app.

While it's expected that the modern Silicon Valley-type tech startups will be quick to respond positively to Facebook at Work, it may be more concerning to businesses wary over social media usage by their employees.