Cyberculture roundup: Twitter’s Innovator Patent Agreement… Googe abandoning Open Standards for Instant Messaging

Twitter builds internal guidelines for handling legal battles over patents

Twitter officially patented its ?pull-to-refresh? technology for streaming on its mobile app today, The Verge reports. But Twitter also has an original, internal approach to patent applications.

Twitter Launches Innovator?s Patent Agreement

With patent trolls and patent wars creating a massive drag on innovation, a number of companies have investigated ways to navigate the patent system while still promoting openness and competition. Twitter has been especially active in this space?both byfighting back against patent trolls and in giving its own developers a voice through itsInnovator?s Patent Agreement (IPA).

Privacy, public health and the moral hazard of surveillance

My new Guardian column, “Privacy, public health and the moral hazard of surveillance,” discusses the way that the governments’ reliance on social networks for intelligence purposes means that they can’t intervene to help their populations get better at trading their privacy for services.

Kim Dotcom to Google, Twitter, Facebook: I Own Security Patent, Work With Me

While the United States Government paints Kim Dotcom as some kind of international super criminal, the Megaupload founder sees himself rather differently.

RIAA: 20 Million Piracy Takedowns Sent to Google, Still No End in Sight

A few times each year the RIAA looks back on proceeding months and tries to assess whether its anti-piracy actions are bearing fruit.

Twitter Launches Two-Step Account Verification

Twitter is rolling out two-step verification. The two-factor authentication sends a six-digit code to a user’s mobile phone for an extra authentication measure in addition to the email and password login. TechCrunch notes that large organizations may have problems with the new security features as they may have multiple people using a Twitter account and only one person has the phone.

Top Charts in Google Trends?The most searched people, places and things

Ever wonder what the world is searching for? With Google Trends, you can see what’s hot right now, and also explore the history and geography of a topic as it evolves. Today you’ll find new charts of the most-searched people, places and things in more than 40 categories, from movies to sports teams to tourist attractions. You’ll also find a new colorful visualization of real-time Hot Searches.

Google Abandons Open Standards for Instant Messaging

In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing “Talk” platform with a new one called “Hangouts”that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users.

Bitcoin Hits the Big Time, to the Regret of Some Early Boosters

The first major conference for the digital currency suggests it is gaining legitimacy, but in a manner disappointing to some early enthusiasts.