This Day in Tech: Microsoft plans to press Android patent case

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Too busy to keep up with the tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Friday, August 19.

• In a hearing Monday before the International Trade Commission, Microsoft plans to press its case that Motorola's Android-powered devices violate its patents. The hearing will focus on the validity of Microsoft's patents and on whether Motorola infringed on them. The hearing should last 10 days.

• What are the risks of wireless medical devices? One security researcher discovered that he could hack his wireless insulin pump and remotely control it. "The second reaction was one of maybe sheer terror, to know that there's no security around the devices which are a very active part of keeping me alive," security researcher Jay Radcliffe said. U.S. lawmakers are looking into the situation.

• HP's shares dropped 20 percent after the company announced its plan to ditch its PC business. Meanwhile, stocks of U.K. software company Autonomy shot up 76 percent, after HP announced that it was acquiring Autonomy for $10.25 billion.

• Apple allegedly messed with an image of the Galaxy S smartphone to make it look more like the iPhone 4, a sister site of Computerworld reported. The site also claimed that Apple touched up pictures of the Galaxy Tab to make it look more like the iPad. The fight between Apple and Samsung is one of the more heated disputes going on in tech these days.

• The FTC tweeted that it will not pursue Ashton Kutcher for failing to disclose his investments in many of the tech companies profiled in a special online issue of Details magazine he guest edited.

• Mozilla hopes to help Web apps match phone apps, so developers have to write only one, cross-platform application. Mozilla, developer of the Firefox Web browser, plans on doing this through a project called WebAPI.

• Germany doesn't like Facebook. The "like" button on Facebook has been declared illegal in Germany. CNET reports, "the state of Schleswig-Holstein has ordered all government offices to remove the button from their Web presence and shut down any Facebook 'fan' pages, on the grounds that these things violate German and European data privacy laws." If the sites don't comply, they could pay a fine of up to 50,000 Euros.

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Boonsri Dickinson is a multimedia journalist who covers science, technology, and start-ups. She is a contributing editor at CBS SmartPlanet, and her work has appeared in Wired, New Scientist, Technology Review, and Discover magazine. E-mail Boonsri.

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