Hasta La Gadget!

The software bloat that leaves Samsung Galaxy S 4 owners with roughly half of the available storage their 16GB smartphone promises on the box is set to earn the handset a blasting on TV, with one UK consumer affairs show readying an investigation into missing memory. Samsung blamed the inevitable room value-added features on the Galaxy S 4 take up for around 8GB of the user storage being already occupied out of the box, when questioned about the paucity of space new owners discovered. That doesn’t appear to have satisfied the BBC’s Watchdog, which will apparently cover the controversy on May 15.

“Samsung: it claims that its brand new Galaxy phone has an extra-large memory, but what did it forget to mention?” notoriously outspoken Watchdog host Anne Robinson teased at the end of the program on Wednesday this week, while graphics of the Samsung product page highlighting the storage variants were flashed on-screen. Watchdog, which hit UK television in 1980, has a track-record of investigative journalism, which has seen consumer rights complaints taken up and even laws enacted or modified as a result. As UK Mobile Review points out, the show also waded into the iPhone 4 “antennagate” saga back in 2010.

In the case of the Galaxy S 4, Samsung’s problem will likely center on how much available space a new owner has the right to reasonably expect, given the amount of memory listed on the box. All smartphones generally monopolize some of the internal capacity to add in preloaded apps and features, but the extent of the customizations and tweaks Samsung has made to the Galaxy S 4 has seemingly overstepped even those expectations.

Samsung’s argument is that users can opt to expand with a microSD card if they want more capacity, since unlike many other recent flagship devices there’s a memory card slot lurking under the Galaxy S 4′s removable back cover. Up to 64GB cards are supported at present.

Nonetheless, that does have limits of its own: apps can only be installed to the internal storage, not to a microSD card, for instance, which means that the latest generation of big game downloads could find themselves out of room. Samsung also offers 32GB and 64GB versions of the Galaxy S 4, though availability of those models has struggled, versus the more affordable 16GB entry-level handset.

The likely outcome of any investigation is better labeling, with clearer indications of exactly how much space is on offer printed on the box, rather than left as an unpleasant surprise once you turn the phone on and check the settings page. That’s not an issue that will solely affect Samsung, however, and the Galaxy S 4 may simply be the device that broke the camel’s back.

[via Clove]

Galaxy S 4 app-bloat earns Samsung a BBC Watchdog investigation is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple began using the term “iBook” quite a few years ago, having applied it to various computers in days-gone-by that are now obsolete, only recently shifting to a slight variation of the word for its digital books app. Such a change prompted John T. Colby, a New York publisher, to file a lawsuit against Apple alleging trademark infringement. The case was initiated in the summer of 2011, and after nearly two years of a back-and-forth legal battle, Apple has won.

Colby filed the lawsuit under the DBA name Brick Tower Press, having purchased a variety of assets from multiple entities previously owned by another New York publisher – Byron Press – in both 2006 and 2007. The issue at play involves Byron Press’s use of the term “ibooks” to publish many paperback and hardback books, a process that began in late 1999, long before Apple began using the term for its digital books app.

According to the lawsuit, Apple’s shift to using the term for books-related purposes in 2010 following the launch of the iPad could spell the end for the publisher’s ibooks mark, making them effectively worthless. A quick look at the two logos used by the respective companies shows that – visually speaking – they are quite different, with Brick Tower Press’s displaying a picture of a lightbulb above the term and Apple using a distinctly iOS icon next to its own.

It is important to note that neither Byron Press, nor Brick Tower Press after purchasing the assets, registered the trademark, something both had ample time to do before Apple eventually registered it in 2010. Such would end up being one of the problems for the publisher, with U.S. District Judge Denise Cote stating that on its own the term “ibooks” was generic in nature, a descriptive term for digitally-sold books.

Because the term itself isn’t enough, the logo as a whole comes into play, with Cote saying that the publisher only retains any sort of meaning in the use of the word in conjunction with its lightbulb logo. As we mentioned, Brick Tower Press’s logo is quite different from the one used by Apple, and that ultimately lead to the ruling in the latter company’s favor. Said the court in its ruling, “[Brick Tower Press has] offered no evidence that consumers who use Apple’s iBooks software to download ebooks have come to believe that Apple has also entered the publishing business and is the publisher of all of the downloaded books, despite the fact that each book bears the imprint of its actual publisher.”

Because those buying books aren’t likely to mistake the publisher for Apple based on the differences in their logos, and because the term “ibooks” alone isn’t sufficient with the Press failing to register the trademark, the court has ruled in Apple’s favor.

[via Gigaom]

Apple’s use of “iBooks” isn’t trademark infringement, says court is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Domain retailer Name.com has been hacked, the company has informed customers today, with usernames, email addresses, and encrypted passwords and credit card details all stolen from the company’s servers. The hack, Name.com said in an email to registered users, is believed to have targeted “information on a single, large commercial account” with the company, with the other stolen data being taken along for the ride.

However, Name.com is also keen to point out that, even though the data has fallen into unauthorized hands, the most important parts are encrypted. Credit card details, stored at the site for easier domain registration renewals, had their private encryption keys “stored physically in a separate remote location that was not compromised,” Name.com insisted.

Meanwhile, the EPP codes needed for domain transfers are also safe, since they too are stored in a different location to the bulk the user registration data. “We have no evidence to suggest that your data has been used for fraudulent activities” Name.com concludes.

Nonetheless, all Name.com subscribers will have to change their password before they can log back into their account, even if their information wasn’t among that extracted. The company also suggests changing your login credentials if you use the same username and password combination with other sites and services.

Data hacks have become more commonplace in recent years, as databases of consumer information become increasingly tempting to spammers, those committing credit card fraud, and other criminals. Last month, Amazon-owned daily deals site LivingSocial admitted that its servers had been compromised, with data of 50m users extracted.

Name.com hacked: Encrypted card details and more stolen is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The ongoing legal battle between Apple and Samsung is heating up yet again. This time around, Apple is turning to Google and has requested that they hand over various Android source code documents. Apple claims that Google is withholding information relating to Android, and says that Android is used in all of Samsung’s infringing products, which “provides much of the accused functionality.”

The report comes from Bloomberg, which notes that Apple attorney Mark Lyons says that all of this basically deals with “transparency,” and he argues that Google is beating around the bush with delivering evidence that is requested by either Apple or the court. However, Google lawyers argue that the company was to be kept off of the case in the initial court filing, so they don’t have the same legal rights as Apple or Samsung in this case.

Google is concerned that if they eventually do hand over the source code documents, Apple may discover other information that Google believes Apple isn’t entitled to, which could give the Cupertino-based company further “ideas about how to proceed that they wouldn’t have had” in the first place.

This second patent lawsuit comes after Apple was awarded $1.05 billion payable by Samsung after the court ruled that the Korean company infringed on Apple’s patents. However, that award has since been lowered to $639.4 million, and a new trial is set for November to re-evaluate some of the products involved in the downgraded award.

[via Android Community]

Apple demanding Android source code in Samsung lawsuit is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The US Department of Justice and FBI can read your email, Facebook and Twitter messages, and other electronic content without needing a warrant first, government documentation reveals, in what’s being seen as another slap at due process and privacy. Internal guidelines from US Attorney offices in multiple locations and acquired by the American Civil Liberties Union apparently suggest that investigators need not go through regular legal channels to arrange search warrants to dig in American’s electronic communications. Instead, CNET reports, agencies are seemingly taking the easiest route they can to access email and messaging records, bypassing approval from a judge.

In one case, in Houston, the US Attorney’s office apparently acquired “contents of stored communications” from an ISP, identity unspecified, without a warrant. The US Attorney’s office in Manhattan issued guidelines to staff that it could achieve the same results with a subpoena rather than a full warrant.

It’s not the first time this year that investigative methods followed by US governments have come in for criticism. Back in March, a California court criticized the FBI for violating First Amendment rights by using so-called “National Security Letters”; by citing national security considerations, the FBI could bypass getting warrants in the traditional manner, and the subject of investigations would not be informed that their data had been shared.

Here, it’s the Fourth Amendment which privacy advocates like the ACLU argue the DOJ and FBI are trampling over. Digital information held by cloud services like Gmail, Dropbox, Facebook, or Twitter should be just as protected as a hard-drive physically located in a suspect’s home, they claim.

One confusing factor is that in many cases email and non-email digital content is treated differently. A 2010 ruling by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, US v. Warshak, left many of the big names in webmail – Gmail and Outlook among them – insisting full warrants for access to emails they store. However, while the Justice Department appears content to comply with that, it has proved less concerned with following full warrant procedures with files such as those stored in Dropbox or Google Drive, or direct messages and IM chat on Twitter and Facebook.

“We really can’t have this patchwork system anymore,” ACLU staff attorney Nathan Wessler concludes, “where agencies get to decide on an ad hoc basis how privacy-protective they’re going to be.” However, moves to pin down the exact legal expectations of the DoJ and FBI have met with opposition, and other proposals to heavily fine companies like Google who do not comply with wiretap orders are also underway.

DOJ docs reveal Facebook and email digging without a warrant is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.