parislemon:

Over the course of the next year, I’m guessing we see more and more Android partners get fed up with some aspect of the OS — be it the hardships making money, Google’s own intentions, lawsuits, etc. With that in mind, webOS remains a dark horse for something interesting. 

But, as Brian X. Chen points out, HP is putting fewer and fewer resources into it as the move to open source the software is nearly complete. Someone is going to need to step up to take control and keep development going. HTC? LG? Facebook?

thenextweb:

More to follow

infoneer-pulse:

The concept of privacy is undergoing a radical transformation, thanks to our continuing willingness to provide companies like Facebook and Google our data for free. If, before, we largely lived our lives in private, we now live our lives in public. In many cases, we no longer even know what is public and what is private, who has our information, and what they are doing with it.

It is increasingly the case that whatever we do online is now part of the public domain – even our so-called “private” lives on Facebook are now being opened up to public scrutiny on demand by employers and others. We are told, of course, that all of this tracking and monitoring by companies like Google and Facebook is helping to “personalize” the Web, to help us “filter” the right information and data, and to make our lives easier. However, is it the case that we no longer have a presumed right to privacy?

» via FutureLab

parislemon:

Yahoo should buy them to bolster their bullshit lawsuit against Facebook. There’s probably some patent in there about the use of the color blue within online systems. 

infoneer-pulse:

Facebook is trying to expand its trademark rights over the word “book” by adding the claim to a newly revised version of its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” the agreement all users implicitly consent to by using or accessing Facebook.

You may recall that Facebook has launched multiple lawsuits against websites incorporating the word “book” into their names. Facebook, as far as we can tell, doesn’t have a registered trademark on “book.” But trademark rights can be asserted based on use of a term, even if the trademark isn’t registered, and adding the claim to Facebook’s user agreement could boost the company’s standing in future lawsuits filed against sites that use the word.

“Unregistered marks are quite common in the US,” University of Minnesota Law Professor William McGeveran told Ars. “Rights arise from use, not registration (though registration does give you some other advantages). That’s how Facebook can try to claim ‘book.’” If you see a ™ next to a name, that indicates an unregistered, claimed trademark, whereas an R in a circle signifies a registered one, McGeveran notes.

» via ars technica