Corporate and legal

A record 3.2 million iPhone activations helped boost AT&T's second-quarter earnings 26 percent year over year and prompted the company to increase its outlook for the full year.

On Thursday, the carrier reported earnings of $4 billion compared with $3.2 billion in the prior year's quarter. Sales inched up 0.6 percent to $30.8 billion from a year ago.

The company attributed the surge in earnings to the 3.2 million iPhone activations during the quarter, with around 27 percent of those from customers new to AT&T. Preorders of Apple's … Read more

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Paul Misener's bio below.

The Net neutrality debate remains polarized, with broadband network operators opposing consumer groups and Internet content providers. Even the current discussion of legal authority for regulation elicits hyperbole, and many observers assume that final resolution of the issue will entail a win for one "side" in the debate and a loss for the other.

Although such a zero-sum game existed when Congress was considering competing versions of Net neutrality legislation a few years ago, there now is a real opportunity for an outcome in which … Read more

The U.S. war on terror may have inadvertently stripped as many as 70,000 people of their blogs, but those bloggers may get their work returned to them.

Blogetery.com, a small blogging platform based in Toronto, was abruptly shut down on July 9 by Burst.net, its Web host, after FBI agents alleged Blogetery was home to links that led to bomb-making tips and the names of Americans targeted for assassination by al-Qaeda. Joe Marr, Burst.net's chief technology officer, said Wednesday that the company is considering its options and there's a chance executives there could … Read more

The Federal Trade Commission has extended by two weeks its deadline for reaching a settlement with Intel.

The FTC said Wednesday that the extension "allows the Commission more time to consider a proposed settlement." The original order was issued on June 21 and was set to expire this coming Friday. This action extends the withdrawal until 12:01 a.m. on Friday, August 6.

On December 16 of last year, the FTC filed a complaint alleging that Intel had illegally used its dominant market position in microprocessors--also referred to as CPUs or central processing units--for a decade to … Read more

A first crack at Netflix' Q2 earnings: The movie rental company recorded revenue of $520 million and earnings per share of 80 cents. I don't believe that latter number includes any one-time charges, which would mean it represents a big beat: The Street was looking for $524 million and 70 cents a share. But investors are bummed out about the revenue miss, and they're pushing the stock down 9 percent in after-hours trading.

The company said it ended the quarter with 15 million subscribers, which is up 42 percent year over year and up 7 percent from Q1. … Read more

The rumors of the death of Hewlett-Packard's slate computer may be greatly exaggerated, at least if a few HP Web pages are any judge.

One page on HP's Web site provides a few details on the once-thought-to-be-demised tablet device.

Touting the HP Slate 500, the page describes the device as powered by Windows 7 Premium and sporting an 8.9-inch screen with Internet access and two cameras (still and video). Like the iPad, you can adjust the screen either horizontally or vertically. But unlike the iPad, you can also use a pen to write or draw on the display. The page says that headphones are included in the box but is mum on any other details.

That page's parent actually lists six different model numbers for the Slate 500, while a PDF on Energy Star devices dated July 12 on HP's Web site notes the HP Slate 500 as Energy Star compliant.

HP's Slate device was demoed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at January's CES, along with tablets from other vendors. But any buzz about those devices was soon overshadowed by the debut of the iPad in early April.

A scant few days after the iPad hit the stores, details on HP's Slate were leaked. The specs at the time match some of those on the HP's Slate 500 page--an 8.9-inch display, Webcam, and still camera. Other details revealed a 1,024x600 capacitive multitouch display, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, and a five-hour battery. The Slate was designed to come in two flavors at that point--a $549 model with 32GB of flash storage and 1GB of non-upgradeable RAM, and a $599 edition with 64GB of storage.

Not long after that, HP announced its acquisition of Palm, leading to speculation that its Window 7-based slate was dead and being replaced by a Palm-OS-based tablet.… Read more

U.S. President Barack Obama isn't the only government official who wants to smack down copyright infringement and counterfeiting.

During a hearing before the House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs, some congressional lawmakers on Wednesday said they want the U.S. government to retaliate against countries that turn a blind eye to online piracy, as well as people who peddle knockoffs of American products here and abroad.

The Obama administration has made copyright enforcement a priority, but Wednesday's hearing made it clear that thwarting piracy and counterfeiting has bipartisan support. The film and music industries have claimed … Read more

A small number of Motorola's Droid X smartphones are experiencing display issues, Verizon Wireless has confirmed. However, Motorola has resolved the problem and is replacing affected units with new glitch-free models.

Reports had emerged, including on Engadget, that some Droid X users were seeing vertical banding and flickering on their screens, as one unhappy owner demonstrated in a video on YouTube. But the defect apparently affects only a small number of phones--around one tenth of 1 percent, according to Verizon.

A statement issued by Verizon Wireless on Tuesday and sent to CNET on Wednesday briefly describes the issue and … Read more

While Yahoo executives and analysts were on a conference call to discuss the company's second quarter earnings, the folks working to integrate Microsoft's search platform into Yahoo said they have started testing listings from Microsoft for about a quarter of Yahoo's U.S. search traffic.

For the users, it shouldn't make much difference to what they actually see. In the image below, the boxed areas are those that come from Microsoft, while the rest is from Yahoo. Microsoft's mobile organic and paid search listings will also be integrated into Yahoo Mobile in the coming months … Read more