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Apple has asked a federal court to temporarily delay a patent infringement lawsuit against Motorola Mobility pending the completion of Google's takeover.

Apple's lawyers claim the acquisition agreement with Google results in Motorola Mobility losing their standing to sue because they have already given up control of the patents in question, as well as their right to negotiate binding legal settlements. They say this means any decisions or settlement in the case could be challenged by Google.

According to a report from FOSS Patents, the filing states "[W]ere Apple to prevail in this case, it risks an attack on its victory on appeal by a third party, whether Google or another Android smartphone manufacturer, contending that the judgment should be overturned due to a lack of prudential standing."

Among other arguments, Apple lawyers cite a case in which Google lawyers argued against the standing of a shell company suing for patent infringement damages. In that case Google argued the company which controls the patents must bring the suit.

Open Rights Group says music copyright extension term from 50 to 70 years in Europe is a cultural disaster.

In a blog post, ORG Executive Director Jim Killock said the change means it will be harder to publish older works, and many will simply remain out of print. He also said research shows that 90 percent of the cash windfall from copyright levies will fall into the hands of record labels.

"Despite the rhetoric, small artists will gain very little from this, while our cultural heritage takes a massive blow by denying us full access to these recordings for another generation," Killock writes.

He references the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property, an independent review of Intellectual Property in the UK, and the Hargreaves Report, an independent review of how the Intellectual Property framework supports growth and innovation in the UK, and how both were highly sceptical of the need to extend the copyright term.

The Hargreaves Report had said that copyright policy needed to be based on hard evidence, and that for copyright term extension, the evidence just wasn't there to support it.

Nintendo hopes a big push in 3DS software will help to pick up disappointing sales.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata promised an unprecedented range of games at an event held two days before the Tokyo Game Show. Some of the games will feature Nintendo's adored Mario character, while others will take aim at female gamers.

"From the end of this year to the beginning of next, we are planning the kind of extensive line-up that has probably never been seen before in the history of video games," Iwata told reporters and guests at the event. "We will make an all-out effort to see that the 3DS sells enough to become the successor to the DS."

Earlier Nintendo DS models have sold a staggering 148 million units to the end of June this year. The 3DS has been underwhelming in comparison, selling just 710,000 units in April - June of 2011, forcing Nintendo to slash the price of the handheld. It had sold 3.6 million units in the first month after its launch.

Nintendo's handheld is now also competing with Apple's iPhone, iPad and dozens of devices that run the Android mobile operating system.

Sir Brian Souter fuming over "mysterious" disappearance of his website in Google search results.

The Scottish businessman accused Google of stopping links to his website appearing when people search for it. He claims that on August 13, his site "mysteriously disappeared" from results returned for a search on "Brian Souter".

He has vowed to launch a campaign to stop search engine censorship. "It's not Google's place to decide which sites we can see and those we can't," he said in a statement. He asked Google in late August why his site disappeared from search results, and claimed they "mumbled" something about algorithm changes.

"Our search algorithm relies on more than 200 signals to help people find the answers they're looking for, and and last year alone we made more than 500 improvements to our algorithm, while experimenting with thousands more," Google said in a statement, reported by BBC.

Belgian firm finds no conclusive evidence of major breach.

Earlier this month, Dutch certificate authority DigiNotar was breached, resulting in the creation of hundreds of false certificates. Some of these were used by rogue entities in Iran, prompting major browser vendors to act to protect their users.

An anonymous post from "ComodoHacker" claimed to have breached four certificate authorities, naming GlobalSign. In response, GlobalSign temporarily ceased issuance of all Certificates while it carried out an investigation. It brought in help from Fox IT, a security firm that investigated the DigiNotar hack.

While GlobalSign did find evidence of an attack on one of its web servers, it found no hard evidence that its systems had been compromised. It said it would resume issuing Certificates on Tuesday.

Hundreds of certificate authorities around the world provide certificates to web services, verifying that they are legitimate and are what they appear to be. They are used to provide secure access, mainly through SSl, to privacy-conscious users.

App developers who advertised that their Apps could treat Acne told to stop making "baseless claims."

The Applications were available via the Apple App Store and Google's Android Marketplace. AcneApp and Acne Power told users to hold their smartphone screens to their face for several minutes every day while the screens emitted Acne-terminating colors.

"Smartphones make our lives easier in countless ways, but unfortunately when it comes to curing acne, there's no app for that," said FTC Chairman, Jon Leibowitz. There were approximately 3,300 downloads of AcnePwner, which was offered for 99 cents in the Android Marketplace, and 11,600 downloads of AcneApp from the iTunes store, where it was sold for $1.99.

“This app was developed by a dermatologist. A study published by the British Journal of Dermatology showed blue and red light treatments eliminated p-acne bacteria (a major cause of acne) and reduces skin blemishes by 76%," AcneApp's description read.

The FTC charges that the claims made by both developers / marketed were unsubstantiated, and charged the marketers of AcneApp for flasely claiming that the study in the British Journal of Dermatology proves that blue and red light therapy, such as the type provided by AcneApp, is an effective acne treatment.

Payout will settle criminal case in software theft case.

SAP AG has agreed to pay $20 million to resolve a criminal probe, a source familiar with the matter as told Reuters. An investigation was launched into allegations that SAP AG illegally downloaded millions of files from rival Oracle.

SAP's defunct TommorrowNow Inc. was charged with 12 criminal counts by the U.S. Department of Justice last week, for illegally retrieving the Oracle data.

SAP had agreed to settle the case, but the public court documents did not include how much it had agreed to cough up.

Copyright protection extended in European Union from 50, to 70 years.

The Directive extends the term of protection for performance and producers of musical works to 70 years, closer to the protection that is offered to authors and composers, which is life + 70 years. It also narrows the gap between the term of protection in Europe and that of other countries and regions, where term of protection can range from 70 to 95 years.

It was adopted on Monday by the EU Council of Ministers in Brussels after a vote in the European Parliament in 2009. Governments of member states will implement the Directive to national law over the next couple of years.

Plácido Domingo, chairman of IFPI:
"The decision to extend the term of protection for recordings in Europe is great news for performing artists. Artists at the start of their careers will benefit from an increased pool of revenue that will be available to invest in new talent. Established artists can benefit from their work throughout their lifetimes. This is especially important today when licensed digital services make music widely available online. Extension of protection also reflects the important role performers play in the success of songs by narrowing the gap between the protection offered to recorded performances and that offered to compositions."

Adobe will push out update for security issues that effect several of its products.

The updates are pushed out in response to recent revelations that a hacker compromised Dutch certificate authority (CA) DigiNotar (now under control of the Dutch government). The DigiNotar Qualified CA root certificate is part of the Adobe Approved Trust List (AATL) program.

The AATL is designed to make it easier for authors to create digitally signed PDF files that are trusted automatically by Adobe Reader and Acrobat versions 9 and above, and includes many certificates from around the world.

Based on the nature of the breach, Adobe is now taking the action to remove the DigiNotar Qualified CA from the Adobe Approved Trust List. This update will be published Tuesday, September 13.

The issue affects:

• Adobe Reader X (10.1) and earlier 10.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Reader 9.4.5 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Reader 8.3 and earlier 8.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Acrobat X (10.1) and earlier 10.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Acrobat 9.4.5 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows and Macintosh
• Adobe Acrobat 8.3 and earlier 8.x versions for Windows and Macintosh.

Last month, "TabCo" was revealed to be Fusion Garage. FG created the unsuccessful "joojoo" tablet in 2009 which the CEO admits could not live up to the hype surrounding it.

The company launched the Grid10 at their TabCo event, calling the device such because it uses the new "Grid" OS. Grid is built from scratch on top of the Android kernel.

Today, CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan confirmed they will be delaying launch a few weeks but also, on the bright side, dumping the price massively to $299.

The price drop was a direct result of "lengthy negotiations with our supply chain partners," says the CEO.

Featuring a Tegra 2 processor, 1366x768 resolution, Grid 1.0 and 16GB the tablet uses a number of new features. Grid Desktop is syncing program and brings all content directly to the Grid10. Coolest feature shown off is the Grid homepage, which is one full page, not separate home pages for "Clusters" of apps (social, music, movies, business) etc. GridStore and Amazon Android store for apps, native email, gallery and more with split-screen capability in the browser. All of it looks very sleek, including movie playback.

A popular Samsung-focused tech blog seems to think so.

SamFirmware via their Twitter page have started the speculation that Samsung will dump Windows Phone 7 at the end of 2012. Says the tweet: "Samsung will support Windows phone till end 2012." (Excuse the grammar, they are from Amsterdam)

The site went on to say, "Samsung will check what the status is end next year. Samsung Will support till end 2012 for sure," leaving the conclusion open as to whether the company will continue support past next year.

Samsung currently has its own Bada operating system, available in Europe and Africa, and has said it will be placing more funding and focus on the smartphone OS.

Regardless, Samsung is releasing two new WP7 devices for AT&T with the updated Mango 7.5 firmware.

IBM's supercomputer will now help save lives.

After beating up on lowly humans on 'Jeopardy,' IBM's supercomputer Watson will now help Wellpoint Inc., the health insurer with 34 million members, to diagnose medical problems and authorize the correct treatments.

By integrating Watson's database into its own existing patient information, Wellpoint says they should be able to find the best treatment and remedies in the quickest time.

Says IBM: "This very much fits into the sweet spot of what we envisioned for the applications of Watson." Wellpoint agrees: "It's really a game-changer in health care."

More specifically, the databases being integrated are Wellpoint's patient charts/electronic record, the insurance company's history of medicines and treatments, and Watson's vast database of textbooks and medical journals.

IBM says it will only take seconds for Watson to sift through all the data and provide several diagnoses or treatments.

THQ CEO talks benefits of eliminating physical media from games industry.

Chief Executive Brian Farrel predicted that the industry will soon abandon physical media entirely for games consoles, favouring cloud computing solutions instead. He made his comments at the Cloud Gaming USA Conference while making a presentation.

He argued that the lack of physical media could save money for hardware makers, since they would not have to include an optical drive in their consoles. For developers and publishers, it would cut costs associated with producing, storing and shipping inventory.

"The box, ship, and done model is transitioning to observe, measure, and modify," Farrell said, adding that the industry is moving to "a games-as-a-service model where direct consumer feedback allows the ability to operate in this always on, always connected environment."

Farell acknowledged that the content of the game matters more to consumers than the way in which it is delivered to them.

HMV Group chief executive Simox Fox insists he is still optimistic about the future.

The High-Street store has seen a 12.8 percent drop in total retail sales. "Trends in HMV Retail were broadly unchanged during the Group's first quarter, with like for like sales decline at 15.1%," said Fox in an official statement.

"Total HMV Retail sales, including the impact of 29 store closures, were down 21.8%, and including HMV Live, the Group's total sales declined by 19.4%." The chain is now looking toward the Christmas market for a boost, with Fox saying big name game releases are likely to provide it, giving special mention to FIFA 12, Batman: Arkham City, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and more.

Newer HMV stores that have a stronger focus on tech products such as headphones, MP3 player docks and so forth were also mentioned by Fox. 150 HMV stores are to make a transformation to a new Apple Store-like appearance. "We're very encouraged by what we've seen in our technology stores," said Fox.

"The business has been through a very tough time, and the line up of the products looks very good, the technology offer that we've got we feel very confident about it. I'm certainly more optimistic now then I was when we last spoke in May."

Updates to be pushed out Tuesday, September 13, address Windows and Office flaws.

Microsoft does not rate any of the five bulletins as critical, which might appear to be a good thing on the surface, but the five "Important" bulletins address some serious vulnerabilities. One in particular patches an undisclosed remote code execution bug affecting Windows.

Another code execution flaw affects the Microsoft Office from 2003, to 2010.