Mubarak and Other Officials of His Former Egyptian Government Gets Fined By the Court for Communications Cut

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The Egyptian administrative court has made the decision of fining the expelled former President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, along with his two closest former officials. A total sum of 540 million Egyptian pounds ($91 million) was fined to three officials of the former government on Saturday, for misusing their powers and ordering to halt the mobile and Internet services in the time of protests which took place in January. This is the first court ruling against Mubarak after his resignation, on 11^th February, due to one of the world’s largest civil protest. Mubarak will be facing even more brutal charges and might be even be given a death penalty as he defends against charges like ordering the killing of protesters.

According to the sources in the Egyptian judicial system, the administrative court has fined a total of 200 million Egyptian pounds to Mubarak personally, and the fine imposed to his former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli is 300 million pounds, while the rest 40 million pounds were fined to former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. Officially the fine is imposed to Mubarak, Nazif and Adli, because they were found guilty of "causing damage to the national economy,” as these fines are supposed to return that money to the country’s treasury.

Making money from paid apps in Android Market a challenge for app developers

It has been revealed from the study conducted by app analytics firm, Distimo, that it is relatively more difficult for the app developers to earn money by developing their apps in Google Android Market rather than putting it in Apple App Store, using the one-off fee model. The finding of the study were revealed publically this week illustrating that, evaluating all the paid apps in the Google Android Market, almost 80% of them are only downloaded less than 100 times.

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Distimo also revealed that it’s “more challenging for developers in the Google Android Market than in the Apple App Store to monetize using a one-off fee monetization model.” The actual big sellers in the Android market are only two, whereas if we compare Apple paid apps downloaded, it accounts more than half a million. Moreover Apple App Store has almost six total big sellers of paid apps, only accounted for two month time period and within US alone.  Moreover, if we consider the stats, there are almost five paid games in the Android market which are downloaded more than 250,000 times. But if we consider the same for Apple App Store, again in two months time period only, there twice as many, i.e. ten, paid games which have been downloaded more than 250,000 times within U.S.

A Former Nvidia Analyst Confesses To the Charges of Insider Trading Charges

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A previously employed financial analyst of Nvidia Corp has confessed of being guilty to a punishable criminal offence on Friday. 39-year-old Sonny Nguyen was being investigated in a U.S. probe of insider trading at expert networking firms and hedge funds. He confessed in front of the U.S. District Judge, Jed Rakoff, in New York that he provided illicit information to a former Primary Global Research consultant, Winifred Jiau, secretly in 2007 and 2008. He disclosed that this information was related to chipmaker Nvidia's quarterly financial situation, before it was actually announced publicly.

Jiau is a former technology consultant at Primary Global, in California, and has now been summoned by the court to stand by the same judge on 1^st June. Nguyen has now been released after acquiring a bail for $100,000, and is now likely to testify at the trial, according to the records of the court. Nguyen is one of the fourteen people who are suspected and being critically examined in the investigation of expert networking firms which matches the investment managers with public companies.

Nguyen has pleaded guilty to the charges of conspiring and conducting wire fraud and securities fraud, he stated that "I provided material nonpublic information to my co-conspirators ... about Nvidia Corporation quarterly financial results and in exchange I received similar stock tips." Nguyen indentified to the judge, that his top two co-conspirators in this illegal activity were Winifred Jiau and Stanley Ng. Being unclear whether Ng is a name or a nickname.

After Being Challenged By Apple, Lodsys Now Decides To Threaten the Android App Developers

Lodsys went after several iOS app developers last week, for supposedly utilizing their patented in-app payment technology without permission, and had to face threat from Apple Inc. Apple gave an official statement claiming that it has all the licensed rights for the technology it has extended to its developers.

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Hence, when Lodsys feared a legal confrontation with Apple Inc., it deviated from its goal and has now sinisterly lodged similar complaints against the Android app developers. A group of Mac users identified in a public forum thread that an Android developer has also mentioned that he was contacted by Lodsys over the same issue. A user with a screen name “Markusn82” wrote in the forum: “We recently implemented in-app purchases for our Android application and several weeks later we received a letter from Lodsys, claiming that we infringed on their patents.” The post further also makes an inquiry asking fellow Android app developers, if anyone has also received such notification or have fallen victim to this incident. Furthermore, the more important inquiry was made asking whether or not shall they expect Google to step in and do something to help its developers, like Apple had done.

Google, Facebook lose social network patent ruling

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Both Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. have failed to get a lawsuit dismissed, which was filed by a New York company, Wireless Ink Corp, putting the service of letting users to take part on social networks via mobile phones into question. Winksite, the title service of Wireless Ink Corp, now has the rights to pursue its claim accusing both Google Buzz and Facebook Mobile to be infringing its patent of October, 2009. This verdict was announced by a U.S. District Judge, Kevin Castel, in Manhattan who gave a public ruling on Friday.

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The patent is linked to the method of helping beginner mobile phone users to create mobile websites which other phone users will be able to visit. Wireless Ink is expecting the court to not only freeze the activities which infringe on their patent but also hoping to get a triple compensation of all thr damages. It was written in latest amended version of the complaint filed in December, that Wireless Ink's application for its so-called '983 patent was first disclosed publically in January 2004.

It was not until 2007 when the mobile website of Facebook was lunched, and the mobile version of Google Buzz was released even later in 2010. Wireless Ink has written that "If two of the most resource-rich, patent-savvy and technologically advanced companies leading the Internet were not aware of the '983 patent, despite its potential ramifications upon a major segment of the defendants' business," than "this was solely due to a deliberate indifference on the part of defendants."