A court in California rejected Oracle’s bid to use a fraud claim to undo an agreement to support the Itanium processor, that it is said to have made with Hewlett-Packard.

“The alleged fraud did not prevent Oracle from participating in the negotiations or deprive Oracle of the opportunity to negotiate,” Judge James P. Kleinberg of the Superior Court of California, Santa Clara County said in a 21-page ruling on Monday.

The Judge was referring to HP’s settlement agreement in 2010 with Mark Hurd, former CEO of HP, who later joined Oracle as president. Although Oracle was not a party to the previous litigation by HP against Hurd, its participation in the Hurd litigation settlement negotiations was extensive, he added.
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Users of Megaupload - including the law-abiding - are set to lose all their data as early as this week.

The popular file-sharing site - one of the 100 most-visited websites on the internet - was closed down nearly two weeks ago by the Department of Justice. The DoJ claimed it had generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds for its owners through violation of copyright.

According to reports, federal prosecutors have said that data could start being deleted on Thursday, according to several reports. Because Megaupload’s assets have been frozen, it’s no longer able to pay Carpathia Hosting and Cogent Communications, the companies that store data on its behalf.
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The largest-ever Android malware campaign may have duped as many as 5 million users into downloading infected apps from Google’s Android Market, Symantec said today.

Dubbed “Android.Counterclank” by Symantec, the malware was packaged in 13 different apps from three different publishers, with titles ranging from “Sexy Girls Puzzle” to “Counter Strike Ground Force.” Many of the infected apps were still available on the Android Market as of 3 p.m. ET Friday.

“They don’t appear to be real publishers,” Kevin Haley, a director with Symantec’s security response team, said in an interview today. “These aren’t rebundled apps, as we’ve seen so many times before.”
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In less than a year, famed PS3 hacker George Hotz has gone from trending news topic to the “Where Are They Now?” files.

To some, he was the guy who managed to crack the PS3’s security and in essence set of a chain that led to the collapse of the system’s entire online network.

To others, he was an idol in the world of iPhone hacking, making the term “jailbreak” a household word and enabling countless people to manipulate the otherwise iron-clad device.

But to a much smaller group, he was a coworker. At the end of June, it was reported that Hotz accepted a job at Facebook, although no details were ever spilled about what his role was at the social networking giant. For a while, though, it was as though he was a normal guy with an office job, making an honest living.
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Microsoft does seem as though they are embarking on a quest to transform their upcoming desktop operating system, Windows 8, into a platform that will conquer mobile platforms as well. After all, who is to be blamed for thinking that way, as the company continues to introduce improvements as well as features to the Windows 8 ecosystem that seem to target upcoming tablets by making them competitive with Android and iOS-based rivals? Apart from throwing in mobile broadband tools into the operating system, Microsoft is now looking at how the integration of sensors will be able to change the face of mobile computing with a desktop-based operating system.
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Apple’s reported its highest ever quarterly revenue and earnings, largely thanks to the iPhone 4S, launched in October.

Revenue hit $46.33 billion, with a quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share - both nearly double the figures for the same period last year.

Gross margin was 44.7 percent, compared to 38.5 percent for the same quarter last year.

International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue - and, announcing the results, CEO Tim Cook said the company had underestimated demand for the iPhone 4S in China. “We didn’t bet high enough,” he said.
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A hacker who claims to act in defense of Israel has released 100,000 credentials of allegedly Arab users of Facebook in an ongoing row between Israeli and Arab hackers.

The hacker, who goes by the name Hannibal, posted the credentials in four parts on Pastebin on Saturday as well as making the details available on 14 file-sharing sites.

In a note introducing the data, the hacker claimed to have 30 million email account details, 10 million bank accounts and four million credit card accounts belonging to “Arabs from all over the world.”
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