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Today’s topics include Google’s recent legal victory, Yahoo announces a new password-free email system, IBM takes Bluemix to China amid source code sharing reports, and manufacturers fail to eliminate vulnerabilities on mobile devices.
On Oct. 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Google’s massive project to make digital copies of tens of millions of books does not violate copyright laws.
The ruling, by a three-judge panel of the appellate court, affirms an earlier decision by a New York district court that had also rejected the copyright-infringement claims that the Authors Guild and three writers had brought against Google.
The dispute involves Google’s Library Project under which the company is scanning and cataloging book collections from major libraries so users can search for them via Google Books.
Yahoo announced a new version of its Mail service last week, promising users a new way to secure access that doesn’t require passwords. The cornerstone of Yahoo’s password-less approach to Mail access is a technology the company is calling Yahoo Account Key.
In a Tumblr post, Dylan Casey, vice president of product management at Yahoo, explained that Account Key makes use of push notifications on a mobile device to provide users with an easy way to access a Yahoo account.
Last week IBM announced that its Bluemix platform-as-a-service technology is now available in China. The company is providing it in collaboration with 21Vianet Group, a Chinese carrier-neutral Internet data center services provider.
Big Blue said this effort will usher in a new era of hybrid cloud-driven innovation and next-generation cognitive analytics app development for developers and enterprises in China.
IBM’s Bluemix move comes at a time when reports indicate that IBM is allegedly sharing technology with the Chinese government.
According to research published earlier this month by computer scientists at the University of Cambridge, the infrequent release of security updates for Android devices has left 88 percent of smartphones and tablets vulnerable to at least one of 11 critical security flaws over the last four years.
Using data from 20,400 devices and 40 different software projects that make up the majority of the Android code base, the researchers found that an average of 87.7 percent of devices were classified as insecure between July 2011 and July 2015.