Remember that lawsuit Nokia filed against Apple claiming that the consumer electronics giant was infringing its wireless patents with the iPhone? That alone might well have cost Apple a billion bucks, but today it gets even worse.

Nokia has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging that Apple infringes Nokia patents with almost every product it produces — from the iPhone to the iPod and all the way into its line of computers.

The Finnish cellular juggernaut lists seven different patents in the complaint, relating to innovations in user interface, camera, antenna and power management technologies. The company’s General Manager of Patent Licensing Paul Melin said in a statement: “This action is about protecting the results of such pioneering development. While our litigation in Delaware is about Apple’s attempt to free-ride on the back of Nokia investment in wireless standards, the ITC case filed today is about Apple’s practice of building its business on Nokia’s proprietary innovation.”

Ouch. If we thought the gauntlets were thrown down last time, this would be equivalent to tossing some Power Gloves. Of course, Apple doesn’t exactly seem to be shaking in its boots thus far, having filed a countersuit against the first round of allegations. We’ll be watching this industrial patent version of a tennis match closely to see how Apple responds to this latest volley. Care to wager on a winner?

[via All Things D]

[img credit:Thomas Roche]

Tags: apple, complaints, computers, IP, iphone, ipod, ITC, lawsuits, legal, Nokia, patents

Loopt was one of the first applications to socialize location-sharing from mobile devices. As of late, however, its service has been eclipsed by the buzz generated by relative newbies like Foursquare and Gowalla, who’ve thrown a social gaming twist into the location mix.

To compensate, Loopt is migrating more towards these apps in functionality: A new tool —Tips — was included in an update to their iPhone app [iTunes link] last night.

Tips is fairly straightforward — and almost a direct replica of Foursquare in terms of function — allowing users to add their personal recommendations to places.

Tips appear in a few different touch points, so you can add a tip to a place page and your Loopt check-in message can double up as a tip as well. While convenient at times, the “share your check-in publicly as a tip” option is default for Loopt check-in messages, which means that tips could easily be diluted with less-than-helpful status updates.

The thing about Foursquare tips that make them so handy is that they’re location-aware. Say someone entered a tip about the amazing salad at the restaurant next door to you, when you check in on Foursquare, you’ll be greeted with a push notification that includes that tip. Clearly there’s an advantage to discovering a tip as opposed to having to search for one, but for now it looks as if Loopt’s tips are static to place pages.

Loopt still lacks the gaming features that the new kids on the location block boast, but in our Foursquare and Gowalla head-to-head we noted that CEO Sam Altman has previously stated, “It’s probably a safe assumption that we’ll add some gaming elements.”

Should Loopt want to compete with Foursquare and Gowala on a gaming front, it definitely has its work cut out for it.

Tags: location-based service, loopt, Mobile 2.0

Evidence continues to mount that the Google Phone, a.k.a. Nexus One, will make its debut during the first full week of the new year. The latest: an update to an internal T-Mobile website that says, “Google, with support from T-Mobile, is scheduled to launch a new Android device in early January.”

This confirms earlier reports that suggested the device would launch on or around January 5, which makes sense given CES is also taking place that week. The update also confirms that the phone will be sold directly by Google via the web, with T-Mobile offering “billing, coverage, features and rate plans.”

Other key details, like Google’s retail pricing and potential discounts that might come with a T-Mobile contract remain to-be-determined. What appear to full specs of the device, however, were leaked on the web last week.

Update: Google appears to be sending out invites for a January 5th “Android press gathering” at its headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Presumably, this is where we’ll see Nexus One make its debut.

Tags: Google, google phone, nexus one, T-Mobile

With the turn of the decade, the news media are seeing shifts from hyper competition to collaboration. News organizations are partnering to produce the news, while journalists are working with the audience to bring them content that they demand.

Media mavens too are hoping for more collaboration in the coming year, perhaps with more action from media executives as well. And though old media may be slow to change, there are a few glimpses of tools, partnerships and models that show how news media are becoming more collaborative.

1. Curating and Filtering the Stream

We’ve already talked about the importance of journalists being curators and contextualizers using collaborative tools like Publish2. News consumers have created a social link economy from sources that they trust: their friends. The editor has been replaced by a friend on Facebook or someone you trust and follow on Twitter.

Lyn Headley and Steve Farrell developed The Hourly Press, which uses Twitter’s API to track popular stories of the hour based on link sharing from a “publisher’s” or user’s select group of “editors” that they follow on Twitter. It helps filter the noise and see what the people of your choosing find important.

“We’re at the intersection of a more traditional, top-down editorial model and a direct democracy or crowd-edited approach,” Headley said.

The Hourly Press also gives the user a way to catch up on news they might have missed without having to read a lot of tweets, Headley said. Because “editors” are selected by a user, it lets people know who the influential people are in a community. Right now Hourly Press is available per request.

2. Working With the Audience

Journalists are relying on the former audience more than ever to create content and curate the news stream. But perhaps a move toward creating a more established collaborative relationship with the audience is in order.

Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at NYU, sketched out an idea for ExplainThis.org, where readers ask questions that can be answered by journalists through reporting. This isn’t just a search or a Yahoo! Answers kind of service, but ones that take “real journalism” to answer the question well, Rosen said in his outline. Users would not only be asking the questions, but part of the process. This is also content that is completely based on what users want and are looking for.

3. Collaborative Tools like Google Wave

Google Wave is beginning to change the way newsrooms create news and the way we consume it. But it is also allowing the ability for news organizations to collaborate with the “former audience.” Robert Quigley, the social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman, said he sees comments on stories becoming a “living, breathing thing with people jumping into a breaking story with live updates and thoughts.” He said he’s big on Google Wave, in part, because waves can be embedded and have the potential to serve as live wikis.

Mathew Ingram, the communities editor at the Globe and Mail, said Google Wave is another tool that makes it easier for people “formerly known as the audience” to take part in the news gathering process.

To drive collaboration as a point, I used Google Wave to collaborate, interview and discuss some of these ideas (and others) with most of those mentioned in this post. I outlined some starting discussions of trends that are emerging, which served as a launching point for discussion. The Wave generated more than 100 wavelets, or messages. The format worked well (aside from Wave crashing several times).

4. Social News Partnerships

One form of collaboration that is becoming more prevalent is news organizations partnering with other companies or institutions, including social sites. We’ve seen this with the MSNBC deal with the @BreakingNews Twitter account and a partnership between Fark and USA Today.

These partnerships, in part, stem from news organizations realizing what they do well and collaborating on the rest, said David Cohn, founder of Spot.Us.

“Could USA Today build its own Fark-esque site? Yes. Would that be ‘doing what it does best?’ No. Hence, they should work together,” Cohn said.

Andrew Nystrom, social media editor at the Los Angeles Times, said that Fark partnered with their news organization too because they decided they weren’t very good at reporting “straight, hard news,” and so they worked with the LA Times on a custom feed of the funniest LA Times headlines.

5. Large News Partnering With Blogs

We’re also seeing more larger news organizations partnering with smaller organizations that cover specific subjects or communities really well. News organizations are hungry for more content and are trying to move further into covering local communities.

Paul Bradshaw, course director of the MA Online Journalism program at Birmingham City University noted the example of the Guardian’s move to build up its local news coverage by hiring local bloggers and sites like MySociety.

6. Local News Organizations Team Up

Local news organizations are also beginning to work together as they cut back on budgets and look for ways to fill in the gap in content. We’ve seen this between local TV stations and newspapers, but now there are examples of longtime newspaper competitors sharing sports coverage and news organizations sharing one another’s space and resources. There’s also the example of the Miami Herald creating a network of community news sources and republishing the stories on one another’s sites.

In some cases news organizations are even pooling resources to contribute to social media. Eleven international news media, for example, joined to collaborate on updating a Facebook page dedicated to covering United Nation’s climate conference in Copenhagen.

7. University Partnerships

University journalism programs are also playing a bigger role than just educating journalists, but producing content creators while they are still in school. Carrie Brown-Smith, assistant professor of journalism at the University of Memphis, also points to the collaborative efforts between universities and news organizations, such as the Bay Area News Project, a partnership between Berkley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a public radio station.

“However, I’ve found that, understandably, ceding even a modicum of control to students/professors does not come easily, even when news organizations are facing down a situation in which there are a serious deficit of boots on the ground,” Brown-Smith said.

More journalism resources from Mashable:

- 10 News Media Content Trends to Watch in 2010
- 8 Must-Have Traits of Tomorrow’s Journalist
- 10 Ways Journalism Schools Are Teaching Social Media
- The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter
- Why NPR is the Future of Mainstream Media
- Social Journalism: Past, Present, and Future
- Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I learned in J School
- 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Warchi

Tags: business, collaboration, journalism, media, News

Soon almost anything will be possible — in your car, that is. Ford recently revealed that in 2010, SYNC-equipped vehicles will become Wi-Fi hotspots, and today they’re announcing new HD Radio technology with iTunes Tagging for the year ahead as well.

Ford is the first automaker to release this technology, which will not only elevate radio quality to a near-perfect CD-like audio experience, but will also enable users to simply hit a “TAG” button on the radio display to mark songs — heard on HD Radio — for future purchase.

The SNYC system can store 100 tags at a time, with data transferred to connected iPods. Once an iPod is synced with the user’s iTunes, that individual will be able to view the songs they tagged in the car, listen to previews and purchase songs via iTunes.

HD Radio promises a hiccup-free listening experience, and iTunes Tagging should eliminate memory lapses around tracks first heard on the radio. These features, combined with a car capable of doubling as a Wi-Fi hotspot, means that Ford is focused on building the car of the future, and we’re ready to take it for a ride.

Tags: automotive, ford, media, social media

Just in time for the end of the holiday season: We’ve received multiple reports that a new worm that promises the gift of more followers is spreading quickly on Twitter. Unfortunately, the only thing that the sites involved seem to do is use your account to spam your followers.

One of the sites involved asks for your Twitter username and password and appears to be associated with the Twitter account @GetFreeFollowers, which has been suspended by Twitter. Another that I came across may be far more damaging, as it appears to be spreading malware through what look to be YouTube videos (but actually work like Koobface). A similar scam also seems to be fairly widespread in Portuguese.

We’re still digging to get to the bottom of this scam, but with “Twitter Followers” hitting trending topics, it’s clear many people are falling for something today. We’ll update when we know more — in the meantime, be sure to keep your credentials safe and be dubious of video links.

Tags: koobface, security, twitter

When you look at a list of top 10 websites in the world, or the U.S., which site do you expect to see on top? Google. Although Google still dominates the list most of the time, with 6.7 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2009, on Christmas day another site was on top: Facebook.

According to Hitwise, this was the first time that Facebook was the most-visited U.S. site. It’s logical: On Christmas day, everyone wanted to connect with their friends and family, which pushed the largest social networking site to the top.

But it’s still a testament to how huge Facebook really is; and it’s still growing. Add to that the fact that “Facebook” was the top search term in 2009, and its 350 million users, and it’s clear that Facebook is dominating the web in a way very few web services have done before.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Norebbo.

Tags: facebook, social networking

William Gibson once said that the future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed yet. Those words ring very true to us when we see an experimental Google feature — Google Goggles — demoed on a yet-to-be-released phone, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10.

Google Goggles, in case you forgot, is a visual search app for Android-based mobiles. Take a photo with your phone, and Google will process the data on the image — such as brand names and bar codes — and return search results. It’s all very Minority Report-ish, and looks really nifty on Xperia X10’s huge screen. Check out the video after the break.

Tags: google goggles, Mobile 2.0, Sony Ericsson, visual search, Xperia

Yesterday, Facebook announced that it’s redesigned its help center, making it more accessible and easier to use.

It doesn’t look all that different from the old help center, but it’s definitely an improvement. Filters on the left have separated help for specific applications, help discussions, sheer Facebook basics and safety information from the rest of the help.

Furthermore, the new search interface displays related help pages and helps you find help in other languages (if there is no result in your language). Perhaps most importantly, specific topics now have unique URLs, which means you can easily share them with others.

While we’re on the subject of Facebook help centers, you can check out our recently released Facebook Guide Book, which explains some of the more complex Facebook-related tasks, with an emphasis on using Facebook for business and brands.

Tags: facebook, social networking

The best thing to do after you break out of jail is to set up a Facebook profile to taunt the police. That’s exactly what “Craig ‘Lazie’ Lynch” has become infamous for over the past three months. Craig broke out of jail in early September and has been taunting cops since then. Now Craig is even doing interviews with journalists and his popularity has hit a new level with numerous media outlets covering the story. One would assume that cops are getting even more aggressive in tracking down the criminal.

Craig Lynch is now updating his Facebook Page multiple times a day. Given that Facebook has worked with authorities in the past, I’d imagine that it’s only a matter of time before Craig Lynch gets caught. At this point the authorities are in hot pursuit of Lynch and there’s a good chance that he’ll be caught in a matter of days. Then again, Craig may understand technology better than we’d expect and is avoiding leaving any tracks.

Craig’s popularity has surged in the past few hours alone and he’s eating it up. One of his latest updates reads:

i’m messaging you all to tell you to check out channel 5 news uk at 19.30 uk time i just gave them an exclusive phone interview so all you supporters and HATERS out there tune in thank you all love your favourite facebook fugitive Lazie

He also spent most of Sunday interacting with his Facebook fans. He also appears to be going on dates with women based on the status updates posted by Gawker. Despite running from the law, it appears as though Craig is enjoying himself. How he’s paying for everything, I have no idea. Given that he’s a convicted burglar, one would only expect him to be doing the same thing to pay for his current lifestyle. It will be interesting to see how long Craig can avoid the police.