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Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes. (credit: Max Morse for TechCrunch)

Amid the looming possibility of federal sanctions and criminal charges, Theranos is now facing two lawsuits by patients who say they were duped into using the company’s blood testing services. Apparently, Walgreens also feels hoodwinked.

The pharmacy chain, which signed a blood testing deal with Theranos back in 2013, failed to vet claims about the company’s proprietary testing devices prior to getting into bed with the unproven startup, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Walgreens made moves to try to get out of the deal after quality and accuracy problems at Theranos came to light last October. But, fearing breach-of-contract litigation that could open the door to Theranos getting billions in damages, Walgreens has yet to nix the partnership. They have, however, shelved plans to expand Theranos testing in Walgreens pharmacies. Currently, Theranos runs 45 “wellness centers” in Arizona and California, including 40 in Walgreens stores.

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As Microsoft pats itself on the back for its crackdown on easily cracked passwords, keep this in mind: a quick check shows users still have plenty of leeway to make poor choices. Like "Pa$$w0rd" (excluding the quotation marks).

As a Microsoft program manager announced earlier this week, the Microsoft Account Service used to log in to properties such as Xbox Live and OneDrive Azure has been dynamically banning commonly used passwords during the account-creation or password-change processes. Try choosing "12345678," "password," or "letmein"—as millions of people regularly do—and you'll get a prompt telling you to try again. Microsoft is in the process of adding this feature to the Azure Active Directory so enterprise customers using the service can easily stop employees from taking security shortcuts, as well.

But a quick check finds it's not hard to get around the ban. To wit: "Pa$$w0rd1" worked just fine. And in fairness to Microsoft, Google permitted the same hopelessly weak choice.

SAN FRANCISCO—Following a two-week trial, a jury has found that Google's Android operating system does not infringe Oracle-owned copyrights because its re-implementation of 37 Java APIs is protected by "fair use."

The verdict was reached after three days of deliberation.

The verdict in Google's favor ends the trial, which began earlier this month. If Oracle had won, the same jury would have gone into a "damages phase" to determine how much Google should pay. Because Google won, the trial is over, although the result will surely be appealed.

The Falcon 9 rocket with its Thaicom payload on the launch pad in Florida. (credit: SpaceX)

Fresh off two straight launches and unprecedented water landings of its Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX will try for a third sea-based landing this evening after it launches a 3,000kg Thaicom communications satellite to a supersynchronous transfer orbit. The two-hour launch window opens at 5:40pm ET (10:40pm BST). Weather is 90 percent "go" for a launch today.

Like a similar launch three weeks ago, the Thaicom mission will require the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket to reach a high velocity relative to the Earth's surface before separating from its payload. "As with other missions going to geostationary orbits, the first-stage will be subject to extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing challenging," the company stated in its mission overview.

SpaceX has now shown it can land in relatively benign reentry conditions, as it did in April after delivering a payload to the International Space Station and in "hot and fast" conditions as it did earlier this month. A successful landing tonight would prove that the company has taken a big step toward making sea-based rocket landings—if not routine—at least something that can be attempted with a reasonable expectation of success.

Apple's popular iMessages as used on an iPad. (credit: Robert S. Donovan)

Patent troll VirnetX, fresh on the heels of a $626 million FaceTime and iMessages patent victory over Apple, now wants a federal judge to permanently turn off those popular features.

VirnetX on Wednesday also asked the judge presiding over the litigation to increase the damages the East Texas jury awarded in February by another $190 million or more. Apple wants a retrial, claiming that VirnetX's lawyers misrepresented evidence to the jury and that the evidence presented at trial didn't support infringement. The gadget maker said it also should not have to pay royalties, according to Law360 (subscription required), which attended Wednesday's hearing (PDF).

Apple "argued that VirnetX is improperly trying to secure an overly broad injunction so that it can be used to extract a massive licensing fee," Law360 reported. Apple's documents connected to the issue are lodged under seal. However, VirnetX's post-trial demands (PDF) are in the public record.

An annual customer experience survey of 10,000 US consumers has rated broadband service and pay-TV as the least-liked industries, with Comcast being the lowest-rated company among the Internet and TV providers.

"Of the 20 industries covered in the 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings, TV service and Internet service providers tied with healthcare providers for the lowest average ratings," the Temkin Group said yesterday. "These industries have been at the bottom of the ratings for the past four years, and their scores hit an all-time low this year. The poster child for poor customer experience in these industries—Comcast—was not only the lowest-scoring TV service and Internet service provider, but was also one of the lowest-scoring companies in the entire Ratings. It ranked 289th overall out of 294 companies for its TV service and ranked 284th overall for its Internet service."

The free report can be downloaded here. The ISP and pay-TV industries ranked just below auto dealers, airlines, major appliance vendors, and rental car agencies.

Back in February, researchers at LIGO made the historic discovery of gravitational waves, predicted a century earlier. The waves were generated by a pair of black holes in their final in-spiral before an inevitable collision and merger.

Now, a group of researchers is investigating the possibility that the discovery may have been even more historic than we thought. Last week, Physical Review Letters published a paper titled “Did LIGO detect Dark Matter?” It explores the possibility that dark matter could really be black holes, such as the pair seen by LIGO, provided enough are distributed throughout the halos of galaxies. If so, in addition to finally observing the long-sought gravitational waves, we may have simultaneously discovered dark matter.

But we shouldn’t break out the champagne just yet. Black holes aren’t among the leading candidates for dark matter, and there are good reasons for that.