» Why the jury favored Apple: Jury foreman Velvin Hogan, in an interview with the BBC, says that the evidence strongly showed that Samsung was infringing on Apple’s patents. “When we went into deliberation in the jury room we not only had all the physical evidence of everything that was presented,” he said, “but we also had sealed source code in its entirety from both sides, we actually had the memos that were talked about in the trial … and there was a piece of evidence after a piece of evidence that just clearly stacked up.”
The complaint at the U.S. International Trade Commission claims infringement of seven Motorola Mobility patents on features including location reminders, e-mail notification and phone/video players, Motorola Mobility said today. The case seeks a ban on U.S. imports of devices including the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. Apple’s products are made in Asia.
“We would like to settle these patent matters, but Apple’s unwillingness to work out a license leaves us little choice but to defend ourselves and our engineers’ innovations,” Motorola Mobility said in an e-mailed statement.
Just a reminder of how crazy the current patent war is.
Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it’s a song previewed on NPR’s music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify.Google Senior VP of Engineering Amit Singhal • Regarding changes to Google’s search algorithm that will favor sites that post legitimate content that hasn’t received copyright removal notices. Despite this change, Singhal claims that the company will keep those sites in the engine, though they may rank lower. “So while this new signal will influence the ranking of some search results, we won’t be removing any pages from search results unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner,” he says. “And we’ll continue to provide “counter-notice” tools so that those who believe their content has been wrongly removed can get it reinstated.” (thanks Andrew Hart)
For nerds only: Here’s a fully-functioning Twitter client … inside a Google Docs spreadsheet, using the client’s scripting language. (via Hacker News)
Wasting little time, Mayer has added a weekly Friday afternoon all-hands meeting, which kicked off this past week at the company’s Sunnyvale HQ.
Just like it has been done at the search giant for eons.
And, at the 4:30 pm PT confab, she announced — to the shock of some bean counters at Yahoo, worried about the cost, but to the thrill of hungry engineers — that henceforth the food in Yahoo’s URLs Cafe — but only in Silicon Valley for now — will be free.
Just like it has been done at Google for eons.
(Until now, only the coffee-bar drinks for Yahoos have been paid for by co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo.)
And, several sources note, Mayer is also prepping major changes to the layout of the work spaces and buildings of Yahoo to make it feel more collaborative and cool, as well as upgrading swag in its stores.
Just like, well, you get the idea.
All this stuff has to help: Yahoo has gained a reputation over the years of having a toxic, idea-stifling corporate culture, something Mayer could help fix.
» But before you move to Kansas City … It’s worth noting that there are a few notable holdouts on the cable front — for example, there isn’t any AMC, CNN, the Disney Channel, HBO or ESPN, so “Game of Thrones” is off the table in the Google household. But on the other hand, if you download an episode of said show on The Pirate Bay at gigabit speeds, it’d take you less than five seconds. Seems like some major companies didn’t think this through …
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Speaking of Marissa Mayer, seems like people are already pinning their hopes and dreams on the new Yahoo CEO.
As for maternity leave, Mayer, who recently joined the board of Walmart (WMT), expects it to be speedy. “I like to stay in the rhythm of things,” she says, referring to the CEO job that she is starting tomorrow. “My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I’ll work throughout it.New Yahoo CEO Mayer is pregnant - Postcards (via thecallus)
nedhepburn says: hey girl
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YouTube comments, as you might have heard, are kind of terrible. Would a push to getting people to use their full names help? That’s what Google appears to be banking on.