A federal judge on Friday significantly lessened the blow from Apple’s legal victory in a patent case against Samsung, lopping more than 40 percent off the damages a jury awarded Apple last year.
In her review of the jury’s decisions, which originally awarded Apple more than $1 billion for patent violations by Samsung in its mobile products, Judge Lucy Koh of the United States District Court in San Jose, Calif., knocked those damages down by $450 million, to $599 million.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.
LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.
Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.
HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.
“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.
“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.
Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”
Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.
LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.
HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.
The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.
HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.
WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.
(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
One day after Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told a United Nations forum the world should consider Islamophobia a crime against humanity, “just like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism,” his Israeli counterpart lashed back. “I strongly condemn the remarks made by Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, comparing Zionism to fascism,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replied on Twitter.
I strongly condemn the remarks made by Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey, comparing Zionism to Fascism.This is a dark and false statement,
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) 28 Feb 13
Video of Mr. Erdogan’s complete address to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations forum in Vienna was posted online by the United Nations with simultaneous translation into English.
In his remarks, Mr. Erdogan bemoaned “a lack of understanding between religions and sects” and said that the way ahead was “emphasizing the richness that comes from diversity.” After he praised “countries which see cultural and ethnic differences not as a reason for division or conflict but as a richness,” he complained of what he called the world’s indifference to the suffering of Muslims in Syria and elsewhere.
About seven minutes into the video, Mr. Erdogan said:
Unfortunately the modern world has not passed the test when it comes to Syria. In the last two years, we have seen close to 70,000 people lose their lives, and every single day we see innocent children, women, civilians, killed. And the fact that the world has not reacted to this situation seriously injures the sense of justice. In the same way, rising racism in Europe is a serious, problematic area, vis-à-vis the Alliance of Civilizations project.
In addition to indifference vis-à-vis the Muslim countries, we also see harsh, offending, insulting behavior towards Muslims who live in countries other than their own, and this continues to be an inconscionable act that has been ongoing around the world. We should be striving to better understand the beliefs of others but instead we see that people act based on prejudice and exclude others and despiuse them. And that is why it is necessary that we must consider — just like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism — Islamophobia as a crime against humanity.
Mr. Erdogan immediately went on to condemn those, including politicians, who use “the media or mass communication vehicles” for “provoking the sensitivities of a religion or a sect or a society.”
The Turkish prime minister has expressed his anger with Israeli policies in blunt terms at international forums in the past, most notably at Davos in 2009. He stormed off the stage at the end of a heated discussion of Israel’s Gaza offensive, after telling President Simon Peres, “When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.”
Video of an argument between Turkey’s prime minister and Israel’s president at Davos in 2009.
Relations between the countries suffered another blow in 2010, when Israeli commandos killed nine Turks during a bloody raid on the ship leading an effort to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza organized by a Turkish aid organization.
CHICAGO — As part of her campaign to curb childhood obesity, Michelle Obama on Thursday announced an ambitious plan to increase physical education in the country’s public schools with the help of private companies.
Michelle Obama spoke in Chicago on Thursday about her plan to increase physical activity in schools.
Under the $70 million program, the first public-private partnership of its kind, schools will be able to apply for grants to assess and improve their health and physical education programs, with the goal of getting children to exercise an hour a day.
“This is an earth-shattering awesomely inspiring day,” Mrs. Obama said in an emotional speech announcing the program in her hometown. “I grew up just a few miles from where we are today, over on the South Side.” She said that even though “my family certainly wasn’t rich, our neighborhood was barely middle class,” back then “being active was a way of life.” She recalled doing double Dutch on jump-ropes and going to summer camp.
“Where would I have been without those activities that kept be busy and safe and off the streets?” she said.
The program is supported by Nike, which will provide $50 million over five years to help schools and communities set up programs and spaces to get children to exercise. Other groups, including the GENYOUth Foundation, ChildObesity180, Kaiser Permanente and the General Mills Foundation, will give a combined $20 million for grants, training and other resources to help develop exercise programs and other health programs in schools.
All the money will be offered through Let’s Move Active Schools, Mrs. Obama ‘s new initiative. It will be administered through the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.
“This is a huge deal for me,” said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who appeared with Mrs. Obama. “When students have a chance to play and be active, they do better academically. This needs to become the norm.”
Mr. Duncan said he hoped the initiative would spread to 50,000 schools over the next five years. Schools will be able to sign up at LetsMoveSchools.org, where they will be directed to training programs.
Mrs. Obama, who is on a three-city, two-day tour to promote her Let’s Move initiative to reduce childhood obesity, was joined in Chicago by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as well as the athletes Serena Williams, Gabrielle Douglas, Allyson Felix, Bo Jackson, Colin Kaepernick, Sarah Reinertsen, Ashton Eaton, Paul Rodriguez and Dominique Dawes, and the personal trainer Bob Harper. Ms. Williams said the program “has Serena written all over it.”
Mr. Duncan said that Mrs. Obama’s support would help bring a similar attention to exercise that she had to school lunches. “She brings voice, she brings power, she brings tremendous personal passion,'’ he said. “She speaks from experience.”
CHICAGO (AP) — Struggling online deals pioneer Groupon said Thursday that it ousted founder and CEO Andrew Mason amid worries that people are tiring of the myriad of online restaurant, spa and Botox deals that Groupon built its business on.
Shares jumped following Thursday's announcement, which had been anticipated for months. Executive Chairman Eric Lefkofsky and Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis were appointed to the Office of the Chief Executive while a replacement is found.
"Groupon will continue to invest in growth, and we are confident that with our deep management team and market-leading position, the company is well positioned for the future," Leonsis said in a statement.
Groupon said Mason was not available for interviews.
The announcement came one day after online deals company Groupon Inc. reported a bigger-than-expected loss and gave a weak revenue outlook for the current quarter. The guidance had fueled investor worry that people are getting fatigued with the online deals flooding inboxes daily and that the company's efforts to broaden into an e-commerce powerhouse haven't been paying off.
Groupon Inc., which went public in November 2011, makes money by taking a cut from the online deals it offers on a variety of goods and services. Investors have questioned whether that business model is sustainable and leads to growth over the long term — and whether the company can not only grow its customer base but make more from each subscriber.
Groupon has the advantage of being first. This has meant brand recognition and investor demand, as evidenced by its strong public debut. But the model is easy to replicate. It has spawned many copycats after its 2008 launch, from startups such as LivingSocial to established companies such as Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Chicago-based Groupon Inc. also has faced scrutiny about its high marketing expenses, enormous employee base and the way it accounted for revenue.
Groupon's stock has lost about 77 percent of its value since the IPO after losing $1.45, or 24 percent, to close Thursday at $4.53. After the announcement of Mason's ouster, the stock gained 4 percent in after-hours trading following the announcement.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it will sell the webOS operating system to South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, unloading the smartphone software it acquired through a $ 1.2 billion acquisition of Palm in 2010.
LG will use the operating software, used in now-defunct Palm smartphones years ago, for its “smart” or Internet-connected TVs. The Asian electronics company had worked with HP on WebOS before offering to buy it outright.
Under the terms of their agreement, LG acquires the operating software’s source code, associated documentation, engineering talent, various associated websites, and licenses under HP’s intellectual property including patents covering fundamental operating system and user interface technology.
HP will retain the patents and all the technology relating to the cloud service of webOS, HP Chief Operating Officer Bill Veghte said in an interview.
“As we looked at it, we saw a very compelling IP that was very unique in the marketplace,” he said, adding that HP has already had a partnership with LG on webOS before the deal was announced.
“As a result of this collaboration, LG offered to acquire the webOS operating system technology,” Veghte said.
Skott Ahn, President and CTO, LG Electronics, said the company will incorporate the operating system in the Smart TV line-up first “and then hopefully all the other devices in the future.”
Both companies declined to reveal the terms of the deal.
LG will keep the WebOS team in Silicon Valley and, for now, will continue to be based out of HP offices, Ahn said.
HP opened its webOS mobile operating system to developers and companies in 2012 after trying to figure out how to recoup its investment in Palm, one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry.
The company had tried to build products based on webOS with the now-defunct TouchPad tablet its flagship product.
HP launched and discontinued the TouchPad in 2010, a little over a month after it hit store shelves with costly fanfare after it saw poor demand for a tablet priced on par with Apple’s dominant iPad.
WebOS is widely viewed as a strong mobile platform, but has been assailed for its paucity of applications, an important consideration while choosing a mobile device.
(Additional reporting By Paul Sandle and Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Tim Dobbyn and M.D. Golan)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
BERLIN — The president of Italy canceled a dinner meeting Wednesday with Peer Steinbrück, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s challenger in the coming September elections, after Mr. Steinbrück referred to two prominent Italian political figures as “clowns.”
Mr. Steinbrück, the candidate for the Social Democratic Party, made the comments at an event in Potsdam on Tuesday that was part of a nationwide tour for his own campaign, said his spokesman, Michael Donnermeyer.
During the event, Mr. Steinbrück described former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as “a clown with a special shot of testosterone.” At another point, he extended his remarks to include Beppe Grillo — a former comedian whose Five Star Movement won more votes than any other party in the Italian elections that ended Monday — saying that “to a certain extent, I am upset that two clowns have won.”
German leaders have not sought to hide their dislike for Mr. Berlusconi, who they say dragged Italy into the euro zone debt crisis. Before the Italian vote, several allies of Ms. Merkel made clear in public remarks that they supported Prime Minister Mario Monti and his program in Italy.
But Mr. Steinbrück’s comments appeared to hit a nerve with President Giorgio Napolitano, who is overseeing the delicate negotiations to form a new government after the Italian vote failed to produce a clear governing majority in both houses of Parliament.
“We deeply respect Germany for its successes,” Mr. Napolitano said Wednesday in a speech to the Italian community in Munich. “Germany was capable of resurrecting from its own ruins and rebuilding a new Europe together with Italy. We respect, but naturally we demand respect for our own country.”
He is scheduled to meet with Ms. Merkel in Berlin on Thursday.
Both Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Grillo were highly critical of Ms. Merkel in their election campaigns, blaming the German government for having pushed Italy to enact painful economic austerity under Mr. Monti’s government.
Steffen Seibert, the chancellor’s spokesman, said the German government rejected the view that the outcome of the vote in Italy was a rejection of the austerity program that Ms. Merkel has championed as the best way for Europe to pull out of its financial crisis. He also said Ms. Merkel would work together with the new Italian government, “whatever it may be.”
Mr. Steinbrück spoke with Mr. Napolitano by telephone later Wednesday to “clarify” the situation, Mr. Donnermeyer said. But the remarks drew criticism from other politicians in Berlin, where comments that can be viewed as meddling in other countries’ affairs are considered undiplomatic.
Michael Meister, deputy leader of Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in the lower house of Parliament, said via Twitter that Mr. Steinbrück “behaves like a bull in a china shop.”
It is not the first time that Mr. Steinbrück has angered one of Germany’s European partners. In 2009, while serving as finance minister in Ms. Merkel’s first government, he joked about Switzerland’s fear of the German cavalry in the midst of a disagreement with the country over tax havens.
“With such comments, Mr. Steinbrück proves he is qualified for a TV talk show, but not for the chancellery,” said Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the justice minister and deputy leader of the Free Democrats, Ms. Merkel’s coalition partner.
Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting from Rome.
Alex Smith is headed to Kansas City, the first major acquisition by the Chiefs since Andy Reid took over as coach.
A person with knowledge of the trade told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the Chiefs have agreed to deal for the 2005 top overall draft pick who lost his starting quarterback job in San Francisco to Colin Kaepernick last season.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the trade does not become official until March 12, when the NFL's new business year begins.
Another person familiar with the deal said the 49ers will get a second-round draft pick in April, No. 34 overall, and a conditional pick in the 2014 draft.
Fox Sports first reported the deal.
Smith sustained a concussion Nov. 11 and Kaepernick played well in his place. Coach Jim Harbaugh stuck with him even when Smith got healthy, and Kaepernick led the 49ers to the NFC championship and a close loss to Baltimore in the Super Bowl.
The 28-year-old Smith struggled for most of his career in San Francisco, plagued as much by coaching and coordinator changes as by his own indecisiveness. But when Harbaugh became coach, Smith blossomed. He was among the league leaders in passer rating (104.1) with a 70.2 completion percentage when he was injured in a 24-24 tie against St. Louis.
Smith never started again for the 49ers, but now will replace Matt Cassel in Kansas City.
The Chiefs went 2-14 in 2012, earning the top pick in April's draft. But with no standout quarterbacks coming out of college this year, they quickly turned to finding a veteran.
Reid was fired by Philadelphia after 14 highly successful seasons, although the Eagles went 4-12 last year. Kansas City made him the first coach hired to fill a vacancy in January — there were eight of them — and the Chiefs also fired general manager Scott Pioli.
Now Reid has found his quarterback, and Smith has found another starting job.
Kansas City also has Brady Quinn on the roster, and he started eight games last season, going 1-7.
The 49ers, meanwhile, will be searching for a veteran to back up Kaepernick, their second-round draft choice in 2011.
The thalidomide disaster of the early 1960s left thousands of babies with deformed limbs because their mothers innocently took a sleeping pill thought to be safe during pregnancy,
In its well-publicized wake, countless pregnant women avoided all medications, fearing that any drug they took could jeopardize their babies’ development.
I was terrified in December 1968 when, during the first weeks of my pregnancy, I developed double pneumonia and was treated with antibiotics and codeine. Before swallowing a single dose, I called my obstetrician, who told me to take what was prescribed, “reassuring” me that if I died of pneumonia I wouldn’t have a baby at all.
In the decades that followed, pregnancy-related hazards were linked to many medicinal substances: prescription and over-the-counter drugs and herbal remedies, as well as abused drugs and even some vitamins.
Now, however, the latest findings about drug use during pregnancy have ignited new concerns among experts who monitor the effects of medications on the developing fetus and pregnancy itself.
During the last 30 years, use of prescription drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy, when fetal organs are forming, has grown by more than 60 percent.
About 90 percent of pregnant women take at least one medication, and 70 percent take at least one prescription drug, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since the late 1970s, the proportion of pregnant women taking four or more medications has more than doubled.
Nearly one woman in 10 takes an herbal remedy during the first trimester.
A growing number of pregnant women, naïvely assuming safety, self-medicate with over-the-counter drugs that were once sold only by prescription.
While many commonly taken medications are considered safe for unborn babies, the Food and Drug Administration estimates that 10 percent or more of birth defects result from medications taken during pregnancy. “We seem to have forgotten as a society that drugs pose risks,” Dr. Allen A. Mitchell, professor of epidemiology and pediatrics at Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, said in an interview. “Many over-the-counter drugs were grandfathered in with no studies of their possible effects during pregnancy.”
Medical progress has contributed to the rising use of medications during pregnancy, Dr. Mitchell said. Various conditions, like depression, are now recognized as diseases that warrant treatment; drugs have been developed to treat conditions for which no treatment was previously available, and some conditions, like Type 2 diabetes and hypertension, have become more prevalent.
Misled by the Web
Now a new concern has surfaced: Bypassing their doctors, more and more women are using the Internet to determine whether the medication they are taking or are about to take is safe for an unborn baby.
A study, published online last month in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, of so-called “safe lists for medications in pregnancy” found at 25 Web sites revealed glaring inconsistencies and sometimes false reassurances or alarms based on “inadequate evidence.”
The report was prepared by Cheryl S. Broussard of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with co-authors from Emory, Georgia State University, the University of British Columbia and the Food and Drug Administration.
“Among medications approved for use in the U.S.A. from 2000 to 2010, over 79% had no published human data on which to assess teratogenic risk (potential to cause birth defects), and 98% had insufficient published data to characterize such risk,” the authors wrote.
But that did not stop the 25 Web sites from characterizing 245 medications as “safe” for use by pregnant women, which “might encourage use of medications during pregnancy even when they are not necessary,” the authors suggested.
Furthermore, the information found online was sometimes contradictory. “Twenty-two of the products listed as safe by one or more sites were stated not to be safe by one or more of the other sites,” the study found.
The question of timing was often ignored. A drug that could interfere with fetal organ development might be safe to take later in pregnancy. Or one (for example, ibuprofen) that is safe early in pregnancy could become a hazard later if it raises the risk of excessive bleeding or premature delivery.
Fewer than half the sites advised taking medication only when necessary, and only 13 sites encouraged pregnant women to consult their doctors before stopping or starting a medication.
Doctors, too, are often poorly informed about pregnancy-related hazards of various medications, the authors noted. One woman I know was advised to wean off an antidepressant before she became pregnant, but another was told to continue taking the same drug throughout her pregnancy.
“In many instances the best bet is for mom to stay on her medication,” said Dr. Siobhan M. Dolan, an obstetrician and geneticist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She said that if a woman is depressed during pregnancy, her risk of postpartum depression is greater and she may have difficulty bonding with her baby.
Dr. Dolan, who is author, with Alice Lesch Kelly, of the March of Dimes’ newest book, “Healthy Mom Healthy Baby,” emphasized the importance of weighing benefits and risks in deciding whether to take medication during pregnancy and which drugs to take.
“In anticipation of pregnancy, a woman taking more than one drug to treat her condition should try to get down to a single agent,” Dr. Dolan said in an interview. “Of the various medications available to treat a condition, is there a best choice — one least likely to cause a problem for either the baby or the mother?”
She cautioned against sharing medications prescribed for someone else and assuming that a remedy labeled “natural” or “herbal” is safe. Virtually none have been tested for safety in pregnancy.
Among medications a woman should be certain to avoid, in some cases starting three months before becoming pregnant, are isotretinoin (Accutane and others) for acne; valproic acid for seizure disorders; lithium for bipolar disorder; tetracycline for infections, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin receptor antagonists for hypertension, Dr. Dolan said.
“Many medications that are not recommended during pregnancy can be replaced with low-risk alternatives,” she wrote.
Dr. Broussard, who did the “safe lists” study, said in an interview, “We’ve heard about women seeing medications on these lists and deciding on their own that it’s O.K. to take them. “Women who are pregnant or even thinking about getting pregnant should talk directly to their doctors before taking anything. They should be sure they’re taking only what’s necessary for their health condition.”
A reliable online resource for both women and their doctors, Dr. Mitchell said, are fact sheets prepared by OTIS, the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists, which are continually updated as new facts become available: http://www.otispregnancy.org.
NEW YORK (AP) — J.C. Penney is reporting massive losses and plunging sales for its fiscal fourth-quarter as the department store chain's plan to scale back most coupons and sales events has continued to turn off shoppers.
The results mark a full year of massive losses under CEO Ron Johnson, who took on the role in November 2011 to overhaul every aspect of Penney's business.
The company, based in Plano, Tex., says it lost $552 million, or $2.51 per share, for the period ended Feb. 2. That compares with a loss of $87 million, or 41 cents per share in the year-ago period.
Revenue dropped 28.4 percent to $3.88 billion.
Analysts were expecting a loss of 23 cents on revenue of $4.08 billion.
Revenue at stores opened at least a year dropped 31.7 percent.
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