Back in 2014, Facebook bought one of the most famous instant messaging apps in the world, WhatsApp. Over the course of three years, there have been many Facebook features which have trickled down to WhatsApp as well, WhatsApp Status being one of them. Being the parent company, Facebook started using the user data from WhatsApp to develop targeted advertising, security measures, and to gather business intelligence.

To tackle the free-sharing of personal user data among the two firms, France’s ultra-strict privacy watchdog CNIL has ordered WhatsApp to stop sharing user data with parent company Facebook. WhatsApp has a month to comply with the order, according to a public notice [...]

In December, 2015, Calif, San Francisco, became victim of a cold-blooded shooting incident orchestrated by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik. Fourteen civilians were shot dead before the couple was taken down by the police. It was later confirmed that Rizwan Farook’s phone, an iPhone 5c, was in custody with the authorities.

After two months of failed attempts of unlocking it, the court ordered Apple to provide an encryption code that would take down the security measures of the device. Judge Sheri Pym asked Apple to provide specialized software that would bring down the security, while also getting rid of the feature which erases all data from the phone [...]

In a very interesting twist of events, the Metropolitan Police (MPS) in the UK have declared riding of hoverboards in public illegal in accordance with a law issued in -brace yourself- 1835.

The law, which was passed 180 years ago and made taking a “horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle” on pavement illegal, has now also added a two-wheeled Segways to the list.

Users can now ride hoverboards only on private property with the landowner’s permission. The MPS Specials account tweeted on Sunday, declaring the “the self-balancing scooters,” banned from public pavements and parks.

Own one of these or thinking about getting [...]

Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are starting to wind down their global patent dispute. Smartphone giants announced in a joint statement that they will drop all patent lawsuits outside the U.S. However, the two companies still haven’t settled their patent disputes within the U.S.

The two companies have sued each other in Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, the UK, France, and Italy, and all these cases are being dropped, without being settled and without any cross-licensing agreements being negotiated. The companies disclosed the change in legal strategy in a joint e-mail. Apple and Samsung [...]

Really? A Parisian commercial court in France has fined Google to pay a fine of €500,000 for giving its maps for free.  Bottin Cartographes,  who was on the other side of the lawsuit claimed that the Company ( Google) has leveraged the market by giving away its Google Maps service for free, while others try to make a living off it. 

“We proved the illegality of [Google’s] strategy,” said the prosecution counsel. 

Google plans to Appeal the decision, and believes that the company has not eliminated competition in this segment and is purely giving away its services [...]

German judge Johanna Brueckner-Hoffman has ruled in Apple’s favor on Friday by banning Samsung from selling its GALAXY Tab 1o.1 tablets in Germany.

The court is of the opinion that Apple’s minimalistic design isn’t the only technical solution to make a tablet computer, other designs are possible

– Said the Judge

Apple has also blocked Samsung from selling its GALAXY Tab 10.1 in Australia until a court there rules whether or not the tablet infringes on 10 of Apple’s patents. Apple has also approached the Indian courts to seek ban on sales of the Galaxy 750 in India. The benefit for Samsung here is [...]

Apple has won the injunction filed in German Courts for the immediate halt in sales and display of the Samsung Galaxy Tablet. Several vendors in and across Europe have stopped selling the Galaxy Tablets launched this year. Samsung pulled its new Android tablet from both the IFA show floor and its German website on Saturday, in compliance with a Friday decision handed down by the same Düsseldorf Regional Court court that banned sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 last month. The 7.7-inch slate had previously been on display with a sticker that read “Not for sale in Germany,”.

Samsung said  that it “respects [...]

Anonymous, the name behind various recent cyber attacks including one in our own home, are finally under the scanner in a major way, Authorities in Spain say they have arrested three members of the organization that claims to be an Activist for morals. They also seized at least one computer used in the attacks on Sony. Those arrested are believed to have been important in coordinating the group’s activities in the country and to have distributed the Loic DDoS tool to others.

The group became infamous for hacking credit card companies, such as MasterCard and Visa, and PayPal in retribution for not allowing donations to be made to Julian Assange’s [...]

Apple was already in Battle with Microsoft for their “APP Store” Trademark infringement. Now Amazon is releasing its APP Store for the Android OS platform. But, Amazon’s Android Appstore seems to have been intentionally contracted to a single word to differentiate its name. Apple claims it reached out to Amazon on three separate occasions asking it to rename its software download offering, but when faced with the lack of a “substantive response,” it decided to take things to court.

“We have a long-standing practice of not commenting on pending litigation,” Mary Osako, a spokeswoman for Seattle-based Amazon, said late [...]

Nokia has been talking about the Tablet market since early 2010, and their latest patent filing suggests a N8 style tablet heading towards us. The question remains, if the device will actually run Symbian optimized for tablets or Windows Phone 7 for tablets.

The render Suggests a 9-10 inch tablets with a thickness around 12mm. The device also has sd card slots and 2 usb slots. Check out the patent images below.