Category: Biz Tech

By Andrew Chung | NEW YORKNEW YORK A federal jury in Texas on Friday night ordered Apple Inc to pay more than $302 million in damages for using VirnetX Holding Corp's patented internet security technology without permission in features including its FaceTime video conferencing application.The verdict came in a new trial in Tyler, Texas that had been ordered by the judge in the case, Robert Schroeder, who last August threw out VirnetX's $625.6 million win over Apple from a previous

 By Alexandria Sage | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO California will allow companies more leeway in testing self-driving cars on public roads while restricting how the nascent technology is advertised under revised draft regulations released on Friday.In one of the biggest changes, the new regulations would allow for the absence of a driver in some instances, provided there is two-way communication with the vehicle.The original draft regulations by the Department of Motor Vehicles were criticized by some tech companies, such as Alphabet

IT services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp (CTSH.O) said it was conducting an internal investigation into possible violations of U.S. anti-corrupt practices laws related to payments in India, sending its shares tumbling on Friday.The company also said President Gordon Coburn had resigned and would be replaced by Rajeev Mehta, the head of IT services.Cognizant, which gave no reason for Coburn's departure, did not respond to a query on whether it was linked to the probe.The company's shares closed down 13.4

 BEIJING Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world's biggest smartphone maker, said on Thursday more than 1 million people globally are now using Galaxy Note 7 smartphones with batteries that are not vulnerable to overheating and catching fire. Samsung on September 2 initiated a voluntary global recall of at least 2.5 million Note 7 smartphones due to faulty batteries causing some of the flagship devices to catch fire, a deeply embarrassing crisis for a firm that prides itself for its quality control.

By Edward Taylor and Eric Auchard | PARIS/FRANKFURTPARIS/FRANKFURT Alarmed by the threat posed by Silicon Valley firms to their businesses in developing autonomous driving systems, it was evident at the Paris Motor Show this week that carmakers are seeking to fight back by cooperating in areas of technology development where previously they might have tried to compete.Three big carmakers - BMW (BMWG.DE), Daimler (DAIGn.DE) and VW's (VOWG_p.DE) Audi - announced earlier this week they would launch new traffic monitoring services

MUMBAI/HONG KONG Wal-Mart Stores Inc is in talks to buy a minority stake in India's largest e-commerce firm Flipkart, two people familiar with the matter said, as the world's biggest retailer aims to break into a fast growing but highly competitive online retail market.One of the sources said the U.S. retailer was looking to invest between $750 million and $1 billion in Flipkart, but the final value and size of the stake would depend on the outcome of talks about

FRANKFURT Europe's biggest software maker SAP has earmarked 2 billion euros ($2.2 bln) for investments in products that help companies to connect everything from washing machines to cars to the Internet.The German company said it would invest that amount by the end of 2020, targeting what it estimates to be a 250 billion-euro market in the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), in which regular objects are connected to networks to send and receive data.Such functions are increasingly used in manufacturing

By Adam Jourdan and Tom Westbrook | SHANGHAI/SYDNEYSHANGHAI/SYDNEY Apple Inc fans from Sydney to Shanghai, the first customers worldwide to snap the new iPhone 7 off the shelves, cheered as they left stores on Friday brandishing their purchases, flanked by applauding sales staff.But underneath the usual fanfare, the crowds of enthusiasts and overnight campers were smaller than in past years. Some customers complained after the larger version and models with the new jet-black colour sold out.In part, online pre-ordering has

By Mark Hosenball and Joseph Menn | WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCOWASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO The Federal Bureau of Investigation is intensifying efforts to find enough evidence to enable the Justice Department to indict some of the Russians that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded are hacking into American political parties and figures, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials said on Thursday.Building legal cases is difficult, largely because the best evidence against foreign hackers is often highly classified, they said. Still, some White House and State

By Ankur BanerjeeSamsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) formally recalled 1 million Galaxy Note 7 smartphones sold in the United States, replacing or refunding the flagship phones, whose susceptibility to catching fire has damaged the image of the Korean powerhouse.Samsung received 92 reports of batteries overheating in the United States, including 26 reports of burns and 55 cases of property damage, the company said as it announced the recall in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).The recall is

 By Se Young Lee | SEOUL SEOUL Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's shares fell to their lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after the tech giant told customers to switch off and return their new Galaxy Note 7 smartphones due to fire-prone batteries. Investors had wiped 15.9 trillion won (14.3 billion) off the South Korean firm's market capitalisation as of 0303 GMT, as a series of warnings from regulators and airlines around the world raised fears for the future of the

 Amazon.com Inc and Pandora Media Inc are planning to launch new versions of their streaming music services in coming weeks, the New York Times reported on Sunday, citing several anonymous people with knowledge of the matter. Pandora could announce its plans this to expand its $5-per-month platform this week, with possible features including skipping more songs or storing several hours of playlists, the newspaper said. The company plans to launch a full-fledged on-demand platform by Christmas. Such a platform, priced at

FRANKFURT Volkswagen's luxury car unit Audi has agreed to deepen collaboration with Chinese internet technology groups to offer more digital services in the world's largest car market.Audi and FAW-Volkswagen, VW's joint venture with FAW Car Co Ltd, have signed letters of intent with Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, Audi said on Sunday. Financial terms were not disclosed.Parent Volkswagen has been hobbled by a scandal over the rigging of emissions tests, distracting it in a race with global carmakers to develop computer-aided

/By MAYA KOSOFF/Vanity Fair/Apple, which reportedly spends more than a billion dollars a year to outsource its cloud infrastructure to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, is working on a secret project to ditch its competitors. The internal initiative, code-named “McQueen”— yes, like that Steve McQueen—is Apple’s attempt to break its reliance on other cloud providers by creating its own platform,Re/code reports. Sources said Apple could break even on the project within three years, saving costs and avoiding the hassle of having

 By Se Young Lee and Jeffrey Dastin | SEOUL/NEW YORK SEOUL/NEW YORK A U.S. government safety agency on Friday urged all consumers to stop using Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones, which are prone to catch fire, and top airlines globally banned their use during flights. Following reports that the phones' batteries have combusted during charging and normal use, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said it was working on an official recall of the devices and that users should turn them off

 By Francesco Guarascio and Jason Hovet | BRATISLAVA BRATISLAVA Multinationals should refrain from tax avoidance practices and pay their fair share of taxes, the head of euro zone finance ministers said on Saturday, in a new endorsement to the European Union fight against tax dodging. In the wake of the 'Panama Papers' revelations of widespread tax avoidance practices, Brussels has toughened up its drive for tax fairness by tightening controls and adopting stricter rules. The recent shock multi-billion euro tax demand on

 By Terje Solsvik and Yasmeen Abutaleb | OSLO/SAN FRANCISCO OSLO/SAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc on Friday reinstated a Vietnam War-era photo of a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack, after a public outcry over its removal of the image including harsh criticism from Norway's prime minister.In a clash between a democratically elected leader and the social media giant over how to patrol the Internet, Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg said Facebook was editing history by erasing images of the iconic 1972 "Napalm

By Adam Jourdan and Paul Carsten | SHANGHAI/BEIJINGSHANGHAI/BEIJING Judging by the volume of online chatter, there's a lot less buzz in China ahead of this week's expected launch of the new Apple Inc iPhone, and people on the street say they're more likely to "wait and see" what the latest device offers than rush out to buy.Posts on China's popular Sina Weibo microblogging site show the iPhone 6, which took China by storm in 2014 with its new, larger screen,

By Laurence Frost and Gilles Guillaume | PARISPARIS Renault expects diesel engines to disappear from most of its European cars, company sources told Reuters, after the French automaker reviewed the costs of meeting tighter emissions standards following the Volkswagen scandal.The sober reassessment was delivered at an internal meeting before the summer break. It shows how, a year after VW admitted engineering software to cheat U.S. diesel emissions tests, the repercussions are forcing major European carmakers to rewrite strategic plans that

MasterCard Inc said on Tuesday it had expanded its deal with payment processor PayPal Holdings Inc, which would allow customers to use PayPal's payment services in stores.PayPal's partnership follows a similar deal with MasterCard's larger rival Visa Inc in July as the company looks to expand its payments network.PayPal will allow users to select a credit or debit card as the default payment method and share data on transactions made through MasterCard's tap-and-pay feature, which allows the shopper to wave

By Se Young Lee | SEOULSEOUL Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) will replace all Galaxy Note 7 smartphones equipped with fire-prone batteries and halt sales of the flagship product in 10 markets, a devastating blow for what had been a revival in the firm's mobile business.Koh Dong-jin, head of the South Korean company's smartphone business, spoke at a news conference jam-packed with reporters and cameras where he expressed regret at the recall, which will affect markets including South Korea and

By Tom Bergin | LONDONLONDON Apple CEO Tim Cook has said he will appeal the European Commission's ruling that his company received an unlawful 13 billion euro ($14.5 billion) subsidy when Ireland gave it preferential tax deals and that he was confident the decision would be reversed.But over a dozen lawyers, including three advising companies on appeals, told Reuters it was impossible to predict how EU courts would rule in an area that has not been tested before.State aid cases

By Julia Love | SAN FRANCISCOSAN FRANCISCO Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google has suspended Project Ara, its ambitious effort to build what is known as a modular smartphone with interchangeable components, as part of a broader push to streamline the company's hardware efforts, two people with knowledge of the matter said.The move marks an about-face for the tech company, which announced a host of partners for Project Ara at its developer conference in May and said it would ship a developer

BRUSSELS The European Commission rejected on Thursday Apple's criticism that an EU order to the company to pay back taxes to Ireland was political, noting the calculations were based on facts and Apple's own data.In an interview with the Irish Independent, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook on Thursday described the EU's imposition of a 13 billion euro ($14.5 billion) back tax bill as "total political crap" motivated in part by anti-U.S. bias.The European Commission's Competition chief Margrethe Vestager, asked if

DUBLIN The European Union's imposition of a 13 billion euro ($14.5 billion) back tax bill on Apple (AAPL.O) is "total political crap", Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a newspaper interview on Thursday, and anti-U.S. bias may have played a role.But in a separate radio interview he vowed to boost Apple's tax payments by repatriating billions of dollars in global profits to the United States next year.On Tuesday, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager questioned how anyone might think an arrangement

DUBLIN Apple expects to repatriate billions of dollars of global profits to the United States next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a radio interview on Thursday, but did not specify exactly how much would be returned.Apple was found to be holding over $181 billion in accumulated profits offshore, more than any U.S. company, in a study published last year by two left-leaning nonprofit groups, a policy critics say is designed to avoid paying U.S taxes.Asked about the level

By Charlotte Greenfield | WELLINGTONWELLINGTON An appeal by flamboyant German tech entrepreneur Kim Dotcom over a decision to extradite him to the United States began in New Zealand on Monday, with the Megaupload founder's legal team arguing the hearing should be livestreamed on YouTube.The High Court hearing opened in Auckland nine months after a lower court ruled Dotcom could be sent to the United States to face copyright infringement and money-laundering charges over the operation of file-sharing website Megaupload."US defends

 DUBAI Iran has detected and removed malicious software from two of its petrochemical complexes, a senior military official said on Saturday, after announcing last week it was investigating whether recent petrochemical fires were caused by cyber attacks. The official said the malware at the two plants was inactive and had not played a role in the fires. "In periodical inspection of petrochemical units, a type of industrial malware was detected and the necessary defensive measures were taken," Gholamreza Jalali, head of Iran's

By Yasmeen Abutaleb | SAN FRANCISCOSAN FRANCISCO Facebook Inc (FB.O) changed its popular "Trending" feature, which shows users the most-talked about topics of the day, to make it more automated and further eliminate the potential for human bias, the company wrote in a blog post on Friday.The update is Facebook's latest attempt in recent months to stress its neutrality as its influence grows.The feature came under scrutiny in May after a news report alleged it suppressed conservative news, which prompted

By Heather Somerville | SAN FRANCISCOSAN FRANCISCO Chinese powerhouse Didi Chuxing's acquisition of Uber Technologies Inc's China operations marked the biggest move yet toward consolidation in an industry that many investors and Silicon Valley pundits view as a winner-take-all game.On the day the Didi deal was announced earlier this month, Uber board member Bill Gurley said Uber's rivals in other markets had a slim chance of splitting the market with the dominant player, just as Uber struggled to erode Didi's

By Joseph Menn | SAN FRANCISCOSAN FRANCISCO Apple Inc issued a patch on Thursday to fix a dangerous security flaw in iPhones and iPads after researchers discovered that a prominent United Arab Emirates dissident's phone had been targeted with a previously unknown method of hacking. The thwarted attack on the human rights activist, Ahmed Mansoor, used a text message that invited him to click on a web link. Instead of clicking, he forwarded the message to researchers at the University of

By David Shepardson | WASHINGTONWASHINGTON Volkswagen AG has agreed to spend more than $1.2 billion to compensate its 650 U.S. dealers for their losses from the German automaker's diesel emissions scandal, two sources briefed on the matter said on Thursday.The company and a lawyer for VW dealers announced a tentative settlement at a court hearing in San Francisco, but declined to disclose the amount. The settlement, which followed talks that began in May, came as a judge ordered VW to

SEOUL South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Tuesday it will start selling its third smartphone powered by the company's own Tizen mobile operating system in India next week. The Z2 phone, equipped with a 4-inch screen and India-specific features such as a safety mode for motorcyclists, will be the cheapest Tizen phone Samsung has launched to date at 4,590 rupees ($68.44). The phone, the first Tizen-powered device that will run on 4G networks, will start selling in India

 TOKYO Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp said Tuesday it will review its TV brand licensing deals overseas in an effort to boost its global presence under the aegis of Taiwan's Foxconn. "We have decided to review our current brand licensing business in Europe and Americas, and are currently examining various possibilities," Sharp said in a statement. The comment follows a report by the Yomiuri newspaper that Sharp will dispatch officials next month for negotiations to buy back its TV business in the