California pushes for phone ‘kill switch’
SAN FRANCISCO - Legislation unveiled Friday in California would require smartphones and other mobile devices to have a “kill switch” to render them inoperable if lost or stolen.
State Sen. Mark Leno, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and other elected and law enforcement officials said the bill, if passed, would require mobile devices sold in or shipped to California to have the anti-theft devices starting next year.
Leno called on the wireless industry to step up as smartphone robberies have surged to an all-time high in California.
Leno and Gascon said they believe the bill would be the first of its kind in the U.S. Gascon has given manufacturers a June deadline to come up with solutions to curb the theft of smartphones.
The CTIA-The Wireless Association, a trade group for wireless providers, said a permanent kill switch has serious risks, including potential vulnerability to hackers who could disable mobile devices and lock out not only individuals’ phones but also phones used by entities such as the Department of Defense, Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies.
The association has been working on a national stolen-phone database that launched in November to remove any market for stolen smartphones.
Almost one in three U.S. robberies involve phone theft, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Lost and stolen mobile devices - mostly smartphones - cost consumers more than $30 billion in 2012, the agency said in a study.
Google announces videoconference tool
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Google is introducing a videoconferencing tool designed to make it easier and less expensive to hold face-to-face business meetings even if the participants are scattered in different locations.
The device, called “Chromebox For Meetings,” costs $999 in the United States and will be available in the coming weeks in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, France, Australia and New Zealand.
The $999 price includes technology support for the first year. Customers needing support after that will have to pay $250 annually. Chromebox For Meetings is being sold by Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and AsusTek Computer Inc., all of which already sell an assortment of gear to corporate customers and government agencies.
Google Inc. said the box contains everything needed to set up a videoconferencing system that can connect people in up to 15 different locations. The company said someone simply needs to connect the device to a display screen and follow the instructions step by step.
The videoconferencing kit relies on several existing Google products: the Chrome operating system based on the eponymous Web browser; the technology running Google’s free Hangouts video chat system; and a suite of applications that the company has been selling to businesses for several years.
The introduction of the new Chromebox also underscores Google’s commitment to continue stamping its brand on a variety of gadgets, just a week after announcing plans to sell its Motorola Mobility smartphone business to Lenovo Group Ltd. for $2.9 billion. Google bought Motorola in 2012 with aspirations of building it into an influential player in the growing smartphone-maker, but the deal turned into an expensive mistake.
- The Associated Press
Motorola Mobility faces patent retrial
Google Inc.’s Motorola Mobility will face a new trial against patent-licensing firm Intellectual Ventures over mobile-device technology after a jury said it couldn’t agree on a verdict after two days of deliberations.
U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson in Wilmington, Del., dismissed the panel of five men and five women Wednesday after sealing the courtroom from the public. Robinson declared a mistrial and called for a retrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous decision, Bellevue, Wash.-based Intellectual Ventures said in a statement on its website.
The impasse leaves unresolved claims that Motorola Mobility infringed on three Intellectual Ventures patents covering mobile-phone technology. Google, whose Android operating system is the most popular platform for smartphones, has also fought claims that it uses technology belonging to Microsoft Corp.
Last month, Google announced plans to sell the Motorola phone business to China’s Lenovo Group Ltd., the world’s largest personal-computer-maker, for $2.91 billion. Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., will retain a majority of Motorola Mobility’s patent portfolio, with Lenovo receiving a license to the intellectual property.
Intellectual Ventures, co-founded by Nathan Myhrvold, a former chief strategist at software giant Microsoft, filed the suit against Motorola Mobility in October 2011, two months after Google said it would acquire the company for $12.5 billion, in the process picking up more than 17,000 patents that could be used to defend its Android software.
Intellectual Ventures said in its original complaint that it owned more than 35,000 intellectual property assets, with 3,000 of those patents and patent applications coming from the company’s own efforts in what Myhrvold has characterized as invention sessions.
Business, Pages 20 on 02/10/2014