Facebook recently announced a sweeping change to profile pages with a new interface called Timeline. Timeline takes everything you and your friends have posted on your page and groups them in chronological order. Users can also choose to highlight certain posts to make them expand across the page. Timeline will be released to everyone on Facebook in a couple weeks, but it’s finding itself in the middle of a lawsuit right now. A company called Timelines Inc. is suing Facebook because it claims Facebook’s use of the word “Timeline” could put the company out of business.

The United States Department of Justice recently filed an antitrust suit against AT&T in an attempt to block its proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. The DOJ has presented AT&T with what is arguably its greatest opposition yet. Both sides will be able to state their cases in front of Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle on September 21, 2011.

Samsung is facing a lawsuit brought on by Apple. Last Friday, Apple filed a suit that accuses Samsung of trademark infringement and unfair competition due to Samsung’s Galaxy phones and tablets. Simply put, Apple believes Samsung copied the physical and software designs of the iPhone and iPad. Apple is seeking financial compensation and possible injunctions. If granted, Samsung may have to change the design of its phones and tablets.

A couple days ago, HTC filed a court document with the US District Court in Seattle over its right to use the HTC Inspire trademark. This filing was made in response to a letter Samsung sent HTC on March 3. Samsung claims that HTC’s use of the word “Inspire” for its smartphones would confuse costumers. Samsung was granted a trademark for the word “Inspiration” before HTC’s trademark for “HTC Inspire” was approved.

From Rosetta Stones point of view, Google is profiting from their trademarks. By selling keywords based on Rosetta Stone trademarks, Google is offering others the chance to sell their solution and as Rosetta Stone believes, it’s illegal. A US District court has dismissed Rosetta Stone’s trademark infringement lawsuit. “We are deeply disappointed that Rosetta Stone more »

A Maryland man, caught trying to meet a girl online who he believed was 13 years old, was sentenced to 30 years without use of a computer “for any reason.” The convicted man was formerly an applied systems engineer. A Federal Appeals court has ruled the original sentence was impractical in today’s society. Certain jobs, more »

Journalism isn’t like it was in the good ‘ole days where the reporter woke up, moseyed on down to the office for a cup of coffee and typed out his story on an old black Corona typewriter. No, now instead of a Corona, we’ve got Tweets.

While reporters have been able to use online streaming in a courtroom before, it’s been rare, especially in federal cases. But the latest feather in journalistic caps is one that was won by Ron Sylvester, a reporter for the Wichita Eagle. Sylvester was allowed to use Twitter to give constant, live updates on a big racketeering gang trial he is covering. (You can check out Sylvester’s tweets here).

Sylvester isn’t new to using Twitter in court, but this is his first time using it in federal court. Several lawyers raised some objections to using this type of media coverage, but U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten says that since jurors are instructed to avoid the newspaper as well as broadcast and online reports, he was allowed. As the Judge said, “You either trust your jurors to live with the admonishment, or you don’t.”

The messages sent on Twitter (known as “tweets”), are fairly short, being that they are limited to 140 characters. Because of this, the updates sent out via mobile phone or computer may not be especially long or detailed, but they do keep the public up to date in real time. Sylvester, as well as others in support of Twitter being used in all courtrooms maintain that “It does improve public access to the courts.”

This story has all the makings of a tragic soap: a vulnerable love sick teenager, a sick vengeful adult and death. Unfortunately this story is not confined to the pages of a book, but is a reality that took place in October 2006 and resulted in Megan Meier, aged 13 at the time, taking her own life. But why did she do it? What had happened before? Who caused it? And what does this have to do with technology?

It all started when Megan fell out with the daughter of her neighbor Ms Drew in St Louis, prompting Ms Drew to take it upon herself to spite Megan. She did this by creating a fictitious 16 year old boy, Josh Evans, who lived in the local area which she did by creating a fake MySpace account. This was then used to contact the unassuming Megan, and create a friendship, although the implication is that Megan believed it to be more serious than that. Contined . . .

The alleged takeover of the City by the Bay may sound totally rare, but, unfortunately, it has happened before that disgruntled employees take to modern technology as a means for revenge.

City tech employee Terry Childs, allegedly modified the city system so that he was the only one with top level clearances. The city is still in a tizzy trying to regain control of their new fiber optic municipal network that handles everything from the mayor’s email to electronic court records. Childs, who was arrested on Sunday, is still being held on $5 million bail, after allegedly refusing to hand over the passwords. He at first did supply some, but they turned out to be bogus.

It isn’t even clear why he did what he did, although it’s been said that in days leading up to his arrest, his behavior towards his colleagues was becoming erratic. A new security chief had been brought in to oversee the group’s security, and over the past few weeks some evidence of tampering had been found. It was escalated to the police, who in turn brought in their own forensics team to investigate their network.

It doesn’t look like the participants in the McAfee S.P.A.M. Experiment have received grand jury summonses in their inboxes yet, but it’s something they can look out for. According to the FBI’s press release about the email,

“At first glance, the e-mail appears authentic. It contains a court case number, federal code, name and address of a California federal court, court room number, issuing officers’ names, and the court’s seal. The spammer directs recipients to click the link provided in the e-mail in order to download and print associated information for their records. If the recipient clicks the link, a malicious code is downloaded onto their computer.The e-mail also contains language threatening recipients with contempt of court charges if they fail to appear. Recipients are told the subpoena will remain in effect until the court grants a release. As with most spam, the content contains multiple spelling errors.”