Delhi court asks Home ministry to serve summons to Google, Facebook

The Ministry of Home Affairs(MHA) was asked by a Delhi court to get its summonses served to various foreign-based social networking websites, including Facebook and Google, accused of promoting class enmity and undermining the national integrity. 

The court asked MHA that the summonses issued against the websites should be returnable by September 22. 

"Let the accused (social networking websites) be summoned through the assistance of the MHA, Government of India. The summonses shall be returnable on September 22," Metropolitan Magistrate Jay Thareja said. 

These websites named in the complaint filed by Vinay Rai includes -- Facebook, Orkut,YouTube, Yahoo, Blogspot, Google and Microsoft. 

Besides this, the court discharged two accused websites, Shyni Blog and Exbii after the complainant's counsel S P M Tripathi told the court that they do not want to proceed with the complaint against the two websites as their addresses have not been found despite all efforts. 

"In view of the statement made by the advocate for the complainant, the complaint is dismissed against accused Exbii and Shyni Blog," the magistrate said. 

The court, on the last date of hearing, had told Rai to come out with the modalities of serving the summonses to the foreign-based websites. 

As the day's proceedings began, advocate Tripathi said they could send the summonses served to the websites through courier service.
Source:TOI

Facebook, Microsoft looking for office space in Manhattan

Facebook and Microsoft are shopping for more office space in Manhattan, sources say, underscoring New York's stature as a must-have location for top tech companies who need to be "book-ended" on both the west and east coasts. 

Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, has browsed several locations in the city including the former New York Times Building at 229 West 43rd Street, two people familiar with the search said. 

The social-networking company's New York staff is primarily in sales, although there are also some marketing and engineering personnel in the city. Last year, Facebook said it planned to hire more engineers in New York. 

Facebook, which currently occupies about 40,000 square feet of office space at 335 Madison Avenue near Grand Central Station, is shopping for 100,000 square feet to 150,000 square feet of office space, one source familiar with the matter said. 

Microsoft, also has looked at the former Times building and at a new building at 51 Astor Place, two sources said. Microsoft is looking for about 200,000 square feet, the source said. It currently occupies 174,000 square feet at 1290 Avenue of the Americas near 52nd Street, another source said. Microsoft, the world's biggest software maker, based in Redmond, Washington, declined to comment, as did Facebook. 

It is unclear how far along either company is to committing to a new location and they could opt to stay at their current New York offices.

Facebook is still sending out requests for proposals. It signed a 15-year lease at 335 Madison in December 2010.

Microsoft's lease expires in 2014, two sources said. New York, chiefly Manhattan, is a growing incubator for technology. In the fourth quarter of 2011 it ranked No. 2 behind California as the top destination for technology venture capital funding, according to CB Insights data.

In the last five years, information technology jobs in the city have increased nearly 29 per cent to 52,900, according to a report issued last month by the Center for an Urban Future. The report identified 486 digital startups created in New York since 2007 that have received angel, VC or other outside funding.

Many of those companies are located south of 34th Street in Manhattan's Midtown South office market, the New York home of internet search and advertising powerhouse Google.

Source:TOI

Nokia: Android phones have major patent issues

Nokia struck back at Google over its accusation that the cellphone maker was colluding with Microsoft to make money out of their patents. 

"Though we have not yet seen the complaint, Google's suggestion that Nokia and Microsoft are colluding on intellectual property rights is wrong," Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant said on Friday. 

"Both companies have their own intellectual property rights portfolios and strategies and operate independently." 

He also said that some Android devices had "significant (intellectual property) infringement issues" relating to Nokia's patents. 

Google, in a formal complaint to the European Commission, said Microsoft and Nokia had transferred 1,200 patents to MOSAID, a so-called "patent troll" which makes money by taking legal action over patent infringements. 

Nokia and Microsoft cooperate on smartphones that compete with Google's Android devices. The Finnish phone maker shifted from its own Symbian software in favor of Microsoft Windows in February 2011. 

Google's accusations highlight current cut-throat competition in the mobile phone business where companies, including Nokia, are fighting to assert intellectual property rights over wireless technologies. 

Nokia's patents have become valuable and stable assets for the company, particularly at a time when falling handset sales and a loss of market share threaten its future. Nokia has already sued Android device makers HTC and ViewSonic for infringing its patents and is expected to go after others. 

Nokia already earns 500 million euros ($618.22 million) a year from its patent royalties in key areas of mobile telephony and some analysts have said a more determined application of its patent rights could boost its income by hundreds more millions of euros a year. 

Microsoft said earlier that Google's complaint about antitrust in the smartphone industry was a "desperate tactic" from a company that controls more than 95 per cent of mobile search and advertising.

Source: TOI.IT

Microsoft asked Google to remove 500,000 links

Software giant Microsoft requested Google to remove over 500,000 links from its search index in April, new figures published by the search giant have revealed.

Google's data showed that most of these links would direct users to websites that sell pirated Microsoft software. Some of the links, which Microsoft asked Google to remove are, however, still live via its own search engine Bing, The Telegraph reports.Google recently released a report in the U.S. to provide a better understanding of the intellectual property abuses on the internet, after Microsoft faced copyright infringement problems by other websites.

The new report, released by the internet search giant, includes a breakdown of all requests Google has received since July 2011 to remove copyright-infringing content from its search index.

According to the paper, Microsoft's removal requests significantly outnumbered those registered by the British Phonographic Institute, which represents record labels.

Music body the BPI and the media company NBC Universal respectively made the second and third largest number of requests in the last four weeks, the report said.

Google's transparency report showed that the number of requests to remove links has risen steeply over the last 12 months.

Source:TOI.IT

Microsoft's social network So.cl now open to all

Microsoft has opened up its So.cl social networking service to the general public, which lets users share and comment on interesting search results and connect with "like-minded" people. 

It is targeted at students and had earlier been restricted to invitees at universities and schools in the US. The service integrates with Facebook and is being pitched as an "experiment" rather than a rival to other networks. 

Microsoft revealed that the product was developed by its Fuse Labs unit as a "research project... focused on the future of social experiences and learning." Members are invited to create "collages of content" using the firm's Bing search engine technology and external links, which they can, then share with others. 

Users can then identify people who are interested in the same topics, monitor their associates' feeds and take part in "video parties" during which members watch online videos together, commenting on them via chat function. Members can sign in using their Facebook login details, however, their So.cl activities do not show up on Facebook's pages unless the option is activated. 

The move to open up the service to the general public was taken over the weekend with little fanfare, prompting some analysts to speculate that Microsoft only had limited ambitions for the project. "The fact that So.cl is targeted at students echoes Facebook's beginnings and has made many assume it is a Facebook clone," the BBC quoted Eden Zoller, principal analyst at technology consultants Ovum, as saying. 

"But So.cl is, as Microsoft stresses, an experiment designed to be a layer on existing social networks. "Microsoft is being sensible in positioning So.cl in this way - the opposite approach of Google, which entered social networking all guns blazing with a full on service, and is having modest success," Zoller said. 

Zoller added that the project could also help Microsoft further improve Bing's search capabilities. A study by Comscore suggested that Microsoft had a 15.4 percent share of the US search market in April compared with Google's 66.5 percent lead. Earlier surveys have suggested that the gap is even wider in the UK and parts of Europe.

Source:TOI.IT

Apple: We are turning Green, not rotten

When Greenpeace went to town with its " Rotten Apple" accusation last week in India, the maker of best-selling gadgets iPad and iPhone was not amused.

Particularly because it had already refuted what it called was the Green guerrilla warrior's "over the top" hysterics in the US.

The latest accusation followed by demonstration in six countries, including India, in which Greenpeace singled out Apple for some environmental stick drew Cupertino, US-based Apple out of its usual shell to refute the charges.

An Apple spokeswoman was at pains to explain how before the survey Greenpeace representatives had been told their premise was erroneous. And yet, Greenpeace chose to focus on Apple, perhaps because using Apple's name would get it the required attention.

The American environmental NGO's report, 'How Green is your Cloud' pertains to the use of energy in running the data centres of top technology companies. The campaign - like most Greenpeace campaigns - was signed by lakhs of online users.

The Greenpeace report also castigated Microsoft, Amazon and Twitter with poor ranking.

"We love our iPhones, they make our lives better; but they shouldn't make the planet worse," a Greenpeace spokesman was quoted as saying.According to Greenpeace report, Google, Facebook and Yahoo were among those who got a good ranking. Apple was given a 'D' ranking based on efficiency of datacenters, sharing information about power use, and lobbying utilities to provide clean energy. But the company got 'F' grading in terms of location of its datacenters in places where electricity to power them still comes largely from coal.

Two of Apple's data centres located in Maiden, North Carolina and Prineville, Oregon which were mentioned in the Greenpeace report, are being used to host its iCloud service.


"Our data center in North Carolina will draw about 20 megawatts at full capacity, and we are on track to supply more than 60% of that power on-site from renewable sources including a solar farm and fuel cell installation which will each be the largest of their kind in the country. We believe this industry-leading project will make Maiden the greenest data center ever built, and it will be joined next year by our new facility in Oregon running on 100% renewable energy," the Apple PR spokeswoman told The Times of India.


The world over, the mushrooming of data centers has led to huge electricity consumption by them. Organisations like Greenpeace keep tab on them every year in a bid to force them to use renewable sources of power.Normally media reticent Apple refused to share exactly how many data centres it runs, citing competitive reasons, but claimed its other facilities located in Cork, Ireland; Munich, Germany; Austin, Texas; and Elk Grove, California are using 100 percent renewable energy resources.


In its 'Facilities Report,' Apple also talks about a tiered, three-step approach to achieving a 'net zero' goal including: ensuring its facilities are as energy efficient as possible; generating clean, renewable energy onsite and meeting the remaining need."In terms of the crucial off-site renewable energy, Apple pursues grid-purchased renewable energy from newer projects to provide energy developers with incentives to create more renewable energy resources. We also favour projects located within the same state or grid region as our facilities, to positively influence local renewable energy development," according to the report.


Interestingly, Apple pointed out that the 2011 grid mix for Duke Energy, its utility provider in North Carolina, showed coal usage at 45%, rather than 61% as reported by Greenpeace. It claimed it was the first company to report its total carbon footprint and that its facilities only accounted for 2% of that while the product lifecycle accounted for 98%.Apple is building what it said is the largest directly-owned, onsite solar array in the US. When completed, this 100-acre, 20-megawatt facility will supply 42 million kWh of renewable energy annually.


It is also building a fuel cell installation that goes online later this year and will be the largest non-utility fuel cell installation in the US. This 5-megawatt facility will be powered by 100% biogas, and provide more than 40 million kWh of 24x7 baseload renewable energy annually. 

However, many industry observers say that hydrogen fuel cells and even solar energy tech are yet to mature as a full-fledged alternative to non-renewable fossil fuels that currently power most of the world's humongous power-hungry facilities. This is obviously not the first, nor likely the last, skirmish between the world's best known Green warrior and the world's best-selling gadgets maker.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes

Nokia's woes might call for Microsoft aid

Addressing Nokia Oyj employees in January 2011, chief executive Stephen Elop - at that point only four months into the job - dramatised the company's predicament by comparing it to standing on a burning platform. 

Nearly a year and a half on, and with Nokia's Lumia mobile phone range failing so far to revive sales, its position still looks frail. Its shares have lost 90 percent in five years and its debt is rated junk by two of the three major ratings agencies. 

Might Microsoft Corp, Elop's former employer and whose software Lumia is based on, have to step in to help Nokia out, seeing the Finnish company as a valuable point of entry into the cellphone market? Analysts have attributed Nokia's decline in large part to its late response to Apple Inc whoseiPhone redefined the smartphone market in 2007, and some see a marriage with Microsoft as possibly a last chance to turn the group around. 

For Microsoft the relationship is important, because Nokia was its first major break into the smartphone market after a decade of heavy investment. During that period other cellphone makers either chose to use their own software - as did Apple - or favoured Google Inc's Android. 

"If Nokia ends up in financial difficulties I believe the helping hand would be there," said Sami Sarkamies, an analyst at Nordea. 

Nokia and Microsoft declined to comment. 

MORE SUPPORT 

Microsoft is already paying Nokia $1 billion a year to use its software on Lumia smartphones. And investment bankers familiar with the technology sector said the support could extend well beyond that amount, if Nokia's problems intensify.  "I don't see Microsoft owning Nokia, but it would definitely provide financing to the tune of a couple of billion dollars," said one veteran technology banker. 

Any Microsoft support for Nokia would be more likely to take the form of an inter-company loan, or an equity stake, rather than a full takeover, a second banker said. 

Even though Microsoft has nearly $60 billion of cash on its balance sheet, the company has traditionally steered clear of the hardware business, because it does not want to compete with the manufacturers that use its software. 

Yet other priorities may override that consideration. 

At the same time, some bankers said they thought Nokia, which has a market value of 9.3 billion euros, was an unlikely target for other cellphone manufacturers because of its deep integration with Microsoft. 

"I don't see it as a target for private equity either. It is still too expensive and too volatile," said a third banker. "You would have to be prepared to catch a falling knife." 

With a full takeover of Nokia seeming unlikely, some bankers and analysts were equally sceptical about asset spin offs as a way for the company to raise some much-needed liquidity. 

OTHER ASSETS 

Nokia is in talks to sell its British luxury subsidiary Vertu, which makes some of the world's most expensive mobile phones, a source familiar with the company's strategy told Reuters previously. 

Yet Vertu is expected to generate only a few hundred million euros if it is sold to private equity firm Permira. And bankers said Goldman Sachs' mandate to sell the business did not extend to any other Nokia assets.  "Banks are pitching ideas to them like they always do, but I'm not aware of any other mandates to sell Nokia businesses or any wider mandate to advise the company on options," the first source said. 

Nokia's other assets that could be of interest to potential buyers include its intellectual property portfolio, which a fourth banker described as "the best in the industry". 

Yet Elop told the company's shareholders' meeting on May 3 he was not planning any wider patent sales. He also said he saw the location and mapping business, built on the $8.1 billion acquisition of U.S. firm Navteq, as a core asset the firm would aim to keep, despite some expectations it could be sold. 

The fourth banker said Microsoft was likely to urge Nokia not to put its patents on the block in any case, because it would not want them to fall into the hands of Google. 

The only other asset of any size that Nokia could potentially sell would be its half of Nokia Siemens Networks. 

Yet its parent companies Nokia and Siemens tried to sell NSN last year to private equity, a process that collapsed over price, and there seems no obvious reason why they would be more successful now. 

For Elop, there remain painful decisions to secure his legacy as head of what once ranked as one of Europe's biggest technology success stories. 

"Elop was not hired as a boss for a burning platform," said John Strand, founder and CEO of Danish consultancy Strand Consult. "He put the platform on fire."

Via:timesof india.indiatimes

Microsoft voted ' the most attractive employer ' in India

Microsoft India today bagged the Randstad Award 2012 for the 'most attractive employer' in the country for the second consecutive year followed byOracle India and Tata Consultancy Services. 

The Randstad Award 2012 was also given to Volkswagen India and Nokia India as special recognition in the auto and consumer durables industry sector, respectively. 

The award, instituted globally by leading HR services provider Randstad, aims to encourage best practices and to identify the best 'employer brand' in the country. 

Global research agency ICMA International surveyed 8,500 respondents from over 150 big companies in the country to find the most attractive employer. 

"With more and more global companies entering India, we see a healthy competition not only in establishing brands but also in attracting the best skills to work for them," Randstad India Managing Director and CEO E Balaji said at the award function here. 

The findings clearly suggest that the uncertainty in the market still has an impact on the industry, due to which, financially healthy companies, long-term job security and competitive salary seem to be the top priority factors for the Indian workforce while choosing an employer, he added.


Via:- economictimes.indiatimes.