RapidShare lays off most of its staff as it struggles to find new business model
RapidShare used to be the world’s most popular one-click hoster, used by millions to store and share files. Now, it has to lay off 75 percent of its staff. Read more »
EU warns Motorola over standards-essential patent ‘abuse’
Europe’s antitrust authorities have invited Motorola to defend itself over its use of essential patents as legal weapons against Apple, despite Apple’s willingness to pay what it considered a reasonable royalty rate. Read more »
Salesforce finally solidifies European data center plans
The UK-sited data center, which should help settle the compliance worries of many of Salesforce’s European customers, will be completed in 2014. The firm is also running a €5 million Innovation Challenge for EU startups. Read more »
Google’s search concessions to the EU are now out and up for comment
photo: Getty Images / Justin Sullivan
The European Commission has formally revealed the concessions Google is offering to make in order to settle an antitrust investigation over its search practices. Interested parties have a month to comment. Read more »
European governments agree to open up public data
photo: Shutterstock/Ollyy
Good news for startups hoping to draw on public road traffic and weather data, among other types: changes agreed on Wednesday should allow the use of such data for free or at very low cost. Read more »
Netflix job offers hint at further international expansion: are India, Europe or Korea next?
photo: kcp4911
Netflix won’t expand to another international market until the end of this or early next year, but the company is already looking for help to translate its site – giving us some interesting clues. Read more at paidContent »
EU says Apple still not conforming with warranty laws
Apple’s warranty practices come under fire again in Europe as EU Justice Commissioner calls for better enforcement of current consumer protection laws. Read more »
Challenges emerge for making Europe’s data centers more efficient
Europe needs to do more to reduce wasteful energy consumption, and its policy makers are looking at how to green its data centers to help them achieve a 2020 energy efficiency goal. Read more »
EU digital chief throws €50M in 5G’s direction to help continent regain mobile lead
photo: Shutterstock / koya979
Europe used to lead the world in mobile technologies, but with 4G it’s fallen behind. Neelie Kroes wants to change that by funding 5G research and improving EU spectrum coordination. Read more »
Happy Valentine’s, Google — see you in court
A British man has found some sympathy in the courts because Google did not delete false comments about him made on Blogger fast enough. Does his case open a backdoor to internet regulation? Read more »
Not so fast: Budget cut wipes out €7bn European broadband fund
In a massive blow to Europe’s plans of getting everyone – even in rural areas – on at least 30 Mbps by 2020, a $9.36 billion fund for stimulating broadband deployment has been axed. Read more »
Wunderlist 2 arrives on Android tablets, with iPad version hot on its heels
photo: 6Wunderkinder
6Wunderkinder continues to churn out native versions of its task management app that are optimized for their respective platforms. The latest version, for Android tablets, includes widgets and inter-app sharing. Read more »
Think Europeans are more into data privacy than Americans? Think again.
A survey by the analyst house Ovum has found a similar antipathy towards online tracking on both sides of the Atlantic. And that, they say, could have big implications for big data. Read more »
Apple to stop Mac Pro shipments to EU ahead of promised 2013 update
Apple won’t immediately have a new model ready that meets new safety regulations. But CEO Tim Cook promised last year something “really great” is coming in 2013. Read more »
Why is OpenStack adoption slower in Europe?
photo: David Meyer
We all know Europe’s a bit behind the curve on cloud, but that’s not the only reason the fast-growing IaaS platform is finding the going tougher there than elsewhere. Read more »
With 1M contributors, OpenStreetMap claims most detailed maps in some countries
The crowdsourced mapping project has now chalked up more than a million contributors, although fewer than 20,000 are active on a monthly basis. Read more »
Do you always need real devices to test Android apps in the cloud? TestObject thinks not
The German outfit, which has raised $1.47 million in funding, offers Android testing on virtualized devices. In some ways it’s a stopgap measure, but TestObject intends to keep it up as a low-cost testing option. Read more »
What would AT&T gain from going multinational? Not much
photo: Flickr / ToastyKen
AT&T apparently is revving up the acquisition machine once again, this time targeting Europe mobile carriers. Buying an overseas mobile arm might be a good investment, but it does little operationally for Ma Bell. Read more »
Why startups shouldn’t shoot from the hip
Speed is important when you’re building a new company. But don’t think it’s the only thing that matters, says Philipp Moehring, one of the faces behind leading European accelerator Seedcamp. Read more »
Report: There are now 1.6 billion 3G/4G connections in the world
About 23 percent of world’s connections are now mobile broadband, according to new statistics compiled by Wireless Intelligence. 3G networks still predominate with WiMAX and LTE accounting for a mere 5 percent of the 1.6 billion total. Read more »
Not RIM’s fault this time: Router error downs BlackBerry services for Vodafone EMEA users
photo: RIM
Vodafone has fessed up to responsibility for the outage, which affected an unspecified number of BlackBerry users across Europe, the Middle East and Africa on Friday. Read more »
SAP marries transaction processing with analytics by putting Business Suite on Hana
SAP’s customers, used to running its enterprise software on the likes of Oracle, now have an in-house in-memory alternative. It’s a bid for relevance on SAP’s part and, according to chairman Hasso Plattner, mobile is the big driver. Read more »
Tableau guns for European growth, claiming economic woes favor cheaper analytics
Tableau’s new European VP James Eiloart reckons that Europe’s current belt-tightening phase should provide ample opportunities for his company’s analytics products, in spite of established local rivals. Read more »
Rocket brings in $13M for Stripe clone Paymill amid IPO rumors
The Berlin clone factory’s simple payments service, Paymill, has picked up €10 million from Holtzbrinck and Sunstone. With Rocket’s many operations pulling in tens of millions in investment each month, the flotation rumor comes as no surprise. Read more »
After a torrid 2012, Habbo changes CEO — but is it enough?
A child protection scandal and failure to innovate have left Habbo Hotel — once one of the most popular virtual worlds — reeling. Now with the departure of CEO Paul LaFontaine, it’s feeling increasingly like the Finnish company faces a do or die moment. Read more »
French ISP blocks online ads by default – just a beta feature glitch?
The latest firmware update for Free’s set-top box adds a beta ad-blocking feature, which turns on by default when the user resets the device. If this was deliberate, it’s an interesting development for an ISP already embroiled in a net neutrality investigation. Read more »
Austrian mobile operators consolidate, but a new player is on the horizon
The country’s smallest operator, 3, just grew significantly through the acquisition of number-three player Orange. However, regulatory approval was conditional on a new entrant taking hold later this year, and number-two player T-Mobile is also deeply unhappy about aspects of the takeover. Read more »
Another blow for handset subsidies as UK regulator mulls price hike controls
Ofcom wants to make it possible for consumers to pull out of their mobile contracts without paying a penalty, if the carrier raises the agreed contract price. But, as operators have warned, this may mean drastically reducing upfront hardware subsidies. Read more »
Belgian media planning shared digital content passport
Despite a new agreement with Google, Belgian media will launch their own shared user management and payment system, reducing the amount of free content on their sites. Read more at paidContent »
Can the French civilize Twitter? Should they try?
photo: Shutterstock/Vinicius Tupinamba
A string of offensive hashtag memes in France has spurred the government to announce a consultation on hate speech with Twitter. It could mark a watershed for the country’s approach to social media — but it’s not just Paris that has a problem. We all do. Read more »
Mail.ru kills its Twitter killer, wants a bigger slice of VK
photo: Red Square: yeowatzup (Flickr)
Mail.ru is quitting its ambition of building a Russian Twitter, having failed to build sufficient scale. Instead, it’s aiming to consolidate its ownership of a leading social network. Read more at paidContent »
Google’s legal and privacy chiefs have sentences overturned by Italian court
photo: Flickr / davekellam
David Drummond and Peter Fleischer, as well as former CFO George Reyes, had all been convicted over privacy offences relating to a bullying video. Their convictions have now been overturned on appeal. Read more »
UK copyright reform affects fair use, format-shifting and big data
It will soon become legal in the UK to copy music from a CD to an iPod, show copyrighted texts on an interactive whiteboard and use copyrighted works in a parody. In other words, this reform was sorely needed. Read more »
EU investigates super-dense networking and other “5G” technologies
photo: Shutterstock / higyou
A consortium of European technology companies and universities wants to identify the technologies beyond 4G. Given a broad mandate, METIS is investigating everything from super-dense small cell deployments to virtualizing the radio network in the cloud. In 30 months we’ll see its first recommendations. Read more »
Why France leads the IPTV world — but isn’t winning the race
photo: ainet
Sacrebleu! IPTV adoption in France is greater than anywhere in the world — and becoming more so. But that doesn’t mean the French consume the most internet video. Here is why its market is failing to take advantage. Read more at paidContent »
Last.fm revels in its scrobbles as radio bar is raised farther
photo: Dan Taylor
Five years after its $280 million acquisition, the music service is still struggling to turn a profit for CBS, if latest efforts to tactically abandon and charge for royalty-incurring personalised radio are anything to go by. Read more at paidContent »
How the cloud helped social gaming firm Wooga prepare for its Android invasion
Berlin’s highly successful games studio is moving into Android, starting off with a new version of the hit Diamond Dash. It seemed like a good time to get a snapshot developer perspective on coding for the big two mobile platforms. Read more »
Trustpilot takes €10 million to help consumers rate etailers
The Danish firm has been building a platform for consumers to review independent online retailers. Now it wants to break America. But does Trustpilot need to work hard on improving its own visibility, or just syndicate its reviews to Google? Read more at paidContent »
Why the battle over net neutrality isn’t getting settled anytime soon
The European Parliament has passed two resolutions in favor of net neutrality, just as the issue rears its ugly head at the WCIT summit. But neither the pro nor anti factions look likely to get their way. Read more »
European rights holders want levies on Dropbox, Google Drive
Consumers in Austria could be forced to pay rights holders for accessing cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive, if an authors’ rights group has its way. The plan is being vehemently opposed by a group of CE makers and internet companies. Read more »
