Syber News

My, how the tables have turned. Earlier this week, we learned that Apple had suddenly begun to pull third party iPhone applications for Google Voice, citing the unconvincing rationale that they “duplicated” some of the iPhone’s functionality. We then broke the news that Apple had also rejected Google’s own official Google Voice application submitted six weeks prior, sparking a din of complaints from developers and users alike over the arbitrary and possibly anti-competitive restrictions being imposed by Apple. AT&T, too, has been a target of frequent criticism as many of us believe it may have also played a part in the decision. Of course, nobody really knows who is to blame — AT&T has hinted that it was ultimately Apple’s decision, and Apple continues to remain mute on the issue. But now we may get our answers: the Dow Jones newswire reports that The Federal Communications Commission is looking into Apple’s rejection of Google Voice, and has sent letters to AT&T, Apple, and Google to find out what’s going on. We’ve obtained copies of the letters and reprinted them below.

Facebook’s legal woes just won’t stop coming. Last November a company called Leader Technologies, which makes business communcation tools, filed suit against Facebook alleging that the social network had infringed on a patent that “relates to a method and system for the management and storage of electronic information.” The case is still ongoing, and it sounds like it has some legs — earlier this week Facebook was ordered by a Magistrate Judge from the District of Delaware’s District Court to give Leader Technologies access to its entire source code. As reported at Law360, Facebook has until the end of this week to hand over a hierarchical map of the source, and has until August 21st to share its entire codebase with the company.

Of course, Facebook is going to fight tooth and nail against this, and is sure to appeal the ruling.

Facebook has given us the following statement regarding the case:

While we respect the magistrate judge’s opinion, we disagree with it on this point and plan to appeal. Generally, this suit is without merit and we will continue to fight it aggressively.

Image search is an area of intense competition between Google, Yahoo, and now Bing. Today, Google Images added some search options to make it easier to filter a search by color, type (face, photo, clip art, line drawing), and file size.

Most of these filters were available before in advanced search, but now they are available in the left-hand column. (A similar option column was introduced to the main search page in May, 2009). You can choose more than one option to automatically narrow down your search. Another option Google could add is sorting by images with a Creative Commons license. It already does this in its advanced search options, but it is hidden there.

The first Twitpocalypse was one of those events that you’re going to tell your children about one day. I remember where I was when it hit: On my way to Napa Valley with some friends as we heard sirens race by, likely signaling the end of the Twitter world as we knew it.

Okay, it didn’t end up being that bad. But it still was a pain in the ass for many third-party developers, especially the iPhone Twitter app developers, who had to wait in the App Store line like everyone else for their fixes to go through. And now it’s set to happen all over again!