Month: March 2016

(credit: Electronic Arts)

Without comment, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to side with Electronic Arts' contention that it had a First Amendment right to use professional football players likenesses without their permission in one of the world's most popular video games, Madden NFL.

EA's petition to the Supreme Court had attracted widespread interest from academics, digital rights groups, (PDF) and others. The dispute was at the intersection of the right-of-publicity claims balanced against modern technology allowing for virtual, realistic portrayals of people—in this case, professional athletes who want a piece of the financial pie.

In its petition to the justices, the game maker claimed it should not be allowed to be sued simply because it made a game that looks too real that it nearly mirrored reality. The company wanted the high court to accept its assertion that its life-like depiction of the virtual gridiron was covered by the First Amendment.

(credit: Neil R)

If Apple was finally feeling like it had a solid win after getting paid $548 million in patent damages by Samsung—well, now it shouldn't be so sure.

The Supreme Court said today that it will consider what kind of damages should be warranted when a design patent is found to be infringed as the court takes up the blockbuster Apple v. Samsung case.

After a 13-day trial in 2012, a jury held that Samsung's phones infringed Apple utility and design patents. Apple was originally granted $1.05 billion, but that number was slashed down on appeal. Samsung paid $548 million late last year, but the company didn't give up its right to one last appeal. A Supreme Court win could result in Samsung getting much of that money back.

"Freeform Window Mode" running on the Android N Developer Preview.

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Last week we wrote about the "Freeform Window" mode in the Android N Developer Preview. Brief mentions in the developer documents and hints in the code pointed to Android someday displaying apps in resizable floating windows, just like a desktop OS. Freeform window mode isn't normally accessible in the current dev preview, but shortly after the post, we were contacted by reader Zhuowei Zhang with instructions on how to make it work.

We'll get to the instructions, but first let's talk about what's actually here. Freeform Window Mode is just what we imagined. It's a dead ringer for Remix OS—multiple Android apps floating around inside windows—and it might be the beginnings of a desktop operating system. It works on Android N phones and tablets, and once the mode is enabled, you'll see an extra button on thumbnails in the Recent Apps screen. To the right of the "X" button that pops up after a second or two, there will be a square shape—the same ugly placeholder art Google used for the split screen mode in the Android M Developer Preview.

Press the square symbol for an app and you'll be whisked away to a screen showing that app in a floating window that sits on top of your home screen wallpaper. The windows aren't floating above the Android desktop; the background is just a blank wallpaper without any of your icons or widgets. The floating apps all have title bars like in Recent Apps. You can drag the apps around by the title bars or use the close and maximize buttons. Apps can be resized exactly how you would expect—press or hold on the edge and move your finger, and you'll see the app change shape. Just like in split-screen mode, apps will auto-switch between their tablet and phone layouts (with some apps dealing with this better than others). You can only resize in one direction at a time, though; there doesn't seem to be a corner hotspot that will let you adjust the width and height.

Apple's widely used iMessage communications platform contains a currently unpatched flaw that allowed attackers to decrypt a photo stored on the company's iCloud backup system, according to an article published by The Washington Post.

The vulnerability was discovered by a team of researchers from Johns Hopkins University. According to the Post, the researchers were able to exploit the bug by mimicking an Apple server and then painstakingly chipping away at the encryption protecting the photo, which was sent as a link over iMessage. They eventually were able to obtain the encryption key used to protect the photo by guessing each of its underlying 64 digits in what's known as a brute-force attack.

The vulnerability came to light as the FBI is trying to force Apple to write software that defeats security features built into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Apple, joined by many security and privacy advocates, has bitterly opposed the move and warned such action can ultimately diminish the security of smartphones everywhere. This iMessage flaw is probably of little benefit to FBI in pulling data from the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farouk, who along with his wife took part in a shooting rampage that killed 14 people. Still, the bug underscores what security people have long known—cryptography is excruciatingly hard to get right, and common bugs often leave an opening for law enforcement agents and criminal hackers.