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davek writes with news that Google is removing results related to the Confederate Flag from Google Shopping, the company's online marketplace. They're also blocking advertisements involving the flag. They say, "We have determined that the Confederate flag violates our Ads policies, which don't allow content that's generally perceived as expressing hate toward a particular group." At the same time, Apple is removing from the App Store any games or other software featuring the Confederate Flag. This, of course, follows the recent shooting in South Carolina, which triggered a nationwide debate over whether the flag should be flown at government buildings (or anywhere). Major online merchant websites like eBay and Amazon have already taken the step of banning merchandise relating to the flag.

elegie writes "In the US, a District Court has ruled that the Tetris clone "Mino" infringes the Tetris Company's copyrights with regard to elements of the Tetris game design and gameplay. On one hand, a lawyer said that 'a puzzle game where a user manipulates blocks to form lines which disappear' would be noninfringing. At the same time, the Mino game's reuse of such Tetris elements as the dimensions of the playing field and the shape of the blocks constituted infringement. In addition, the Tetris game's artistic elements were not inseparably linked to the underlying mechanics and replicating an underlying idea and/or functionality (which would likely be uncopyrighted) would not justify copying visual expression from an existing game."

theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO granted a patent to Apple for Portrait-landscape rotation heuristics for a portable multifunction device (USPTO), which covers 'displaying information on the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on an analysis of data received from the one or more accelerometers.' Perhaps the USPTO Examiners didn't get a chance to review the circa-1991 Computer Chronicles video of the Radius Pivot monitor before deeming Apple's invention patentable. Or check out the winning touchArcade trivia contest entry, which noted the circa-1982 Corvus Concept sported a 15-inch, high-resolution, bit-mapped display screen that also flipped between portrait and landscape views when rotated, like our friend the iPhone. Hey, everything old is new again, right?"

theodp writes "If you could change the way wireless companies did things, what would you do?' asked Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. How about stopping the use of Sprint's firmware updates to download apps that aren't wanted and can't be removed, Dan? Sprint confirmed to CNET's Elinor Mills that those strange apps she was shocked to find on her Android phone — sci-fi shooter N.O.V.A. and Blockbuster — with a long list of permissions that couldn't be uninstalled had been sneakily downloaded onto her phone during a firmware update. 'Sprint does offer a variety of partner applications that are optimized for use on our wireless phones,' a Sprint representative explained in an e-mail. 'From time to time, we will provide new apps to our customers in conjunction with a software maintenance release. Also, Sprint, in conjunction with Google, is taking steps to develop a technical solution that would allow customers to remove any unwanted applications that have been preloaded or pushed in an over-the-air software update.'" Asking first would be a nice non-technical solution.

tlhIngan writes "Recently, Apple changed their App Store ranking algorithm to stop ranking apps by download counts and instead use something else, akin to the recent Google changing of their Marketplace ranking algorithm to give more weight to apps' actual usage. As a side effect, Apple has also started rejecting pay-per-install apps ('freemium' apps that request the user to install companion apps to earn in-game currency). These apps were often used to game the charts by artificially inflating the download count and raising the ranking of the app in the App Store. No word on how companies like TapJoy (one of the largest 'culprits') will react."

tlhIngan writes "Recently, Apple changed their App Store ranking algorithm to stop ranking apps by download counts and instead use something else, akin to the recent Google changing of their Marketplace ranking algorithm to give more weight to apps' actual usage. As a side effect, Apple has also started rejecting pay-per-install apps ('freemium' apps that request the user to install companion apps to earn in-game currency). These apps were often used to game the charts by artificially inflating the download count and raising the ranking of the app in the App Store. No word on how companies like TapJoy (one of the largest 'culprits') will react."

andylim writes "Several mobile gaming companies are developing cross-platform multiplayer games allowing Android and iPhone users, for example, to play games against each other. Last month touchArcade reported on a cross-platform baseball game developed by Com2Us called Homerun Battle 3D. Unlike turn-based multiplayer mobile games, Homerun Battle 3D allows players to compete against each other instantly, but you don't see the other player — instead you only get to see your competitor's score being updated. Pushing cross-platform multiplayer games even further, a company called Bulky Pix has created a table-football-style game that displays the action as it happens — both players see the ball moving around. This hopefully suggests that cross-platform, multiplayer mobile shooters aren't far behind."

Miasik.Net writes "A fully licensed Commodore 64 iPhone emulator has been rejected from the App Store. The excuse Apple used is a clause in the SDK agreement which doesn't allow for applications that run executable code. It seems Sega is exempt from that clause, because some of its games on the iPhone are emulators running original ROM code."