An Oracle notary cited emails among top decision-making at Google as major verification that Google took its reasonable belongings to increase an edge in the profitable smartphone market, at the begin of a high stakes assessment between the two tech giants. 

Opening statements between Oracle Corp and Google Inc began on Monday in a San Franciscofederal court. Oracle sued Google in August 2010 over patent and copyright claims for the Java programming language.

According to Oracle, Google’s Android operating system tramples on its intellectual property rights to Java, which it acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. Google says it does not violate Oracle’s patents and that Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java.

The trial before US District Judge William Alsup is expected to last at least eight weeks.

Oracle attorney Michael Jacobs said Google took copyrighted Java “blueprints” to harness the creative power of millions of Java software developers, so they then could write applications for Android. However, Google never obtained the proper license, he said.

“You can’t just step on someone’s IP because you have a good business reason for it,” Jacobs said.

Google’s opening statement is scheduled to take place on Tuesday morning. Spokesman Jim Prosser said Google is confident in its defenses, and that Oracle’s legal claims threaten the broad goal of making software systems work together smoothly.

Jacobs displayed several Google emails to the jury, which were relayed to the courtroom gallery on a high definition screen. In 2005, Android chief Andy Rubin sent one to Google co-founderLarry Page proposing to take a license to Java.

“We’ll pay Sun for the license,” Rubin wrote.

But according to Jacobs, a May 2007 email from Rubin to then-CEO Eric Schmidt shows that Google consciously decided against taking a license. Some spectators in the packed courtroom strained to read the email, displayed alongside photos of Rubin and Schmidt.

“I’m done with Sun (tail between my legs, you were right),” Rubin wrote to Schmidt. “They won’t be happy when we release our stuff.”

Google’s Prosser said Java inventors cheered Android when it was released. But Jacobs told the jury that Sun executives were not happy behind closed doors, regardless of what they said publicly.

Before jury selection began, Alsup warned both companies that they should not expect to keep sensitive financial information secret.

“This is a public trial,” he said.

Jacobs did not divulge any financial details about Android during his presentation on Monday.

Early on in the case, estimates of potential damages against Google ran as high as $6.1 billion. But Google has narrowed Oracle’s claims to only two patents from seven originally, reducing the possible award. Oracle is seeking roughly $1 billion in copyright damages.

A retired teacher, a US postal worker and a store designer for Gap Inc were among the jurors selected on Monday to decide the case. The seven-woman, five-man jury also included a retired photographer, an avid hiker and a nurse.

Jacobs told Alsup that Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison, would likely be Oracle’s first live trial witness. Ellison could take the stand as early as Tuesday. Oracle also said in a court filing on Sunday that it expected Google CEO Larry Page to be among its first witnesses.

Ellison will testify about the importance of Java to Oracle’s business and the harm Android has caused the company, according to the witness list.

The testimony from Page, a relatively reclusive figure, could include details about Google’s business plan and marketing strategy for Android, including the company’s recent acquisition ofMotorola, the witness list shows.

The trial will have three phases: copyright liability, patent claims, and damages. Page could also testify about revenue and profit projections for Android, including advertising revenue, the witness list said.

The case in US District Court, Northern District of California, is Oracle America, Inc v. Google Inc, 10-3561.

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Google Inc is scheduling to open an online store to trade tablet PCs straight to customers, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. 

Google to open online tablet store: Report

The online store would offer tablets made bySamsung Electronics Co and Asustek Computer Inc based on Google’s Android software, according to the report, which cited anonymous sources and which Reuters was not able to confirm. Google declined to comment.

Google briefly sold a specially-designed Android smartphone – the Nexus One - directly to consumers in 2010, but closed the store after four months saying it had not lived up to expectations.

Google now relies on retail and carrier partners to sell Android smartphones made by a variety of handset makers and Android has become the world’s No.1 smartphone operating system, ahead of iPhone-maker Apple Inc.

But Apple still dominates the market for touchscreen tablet computers with its two-year old iPad. Amazon.com’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet is based on open-source Android computer code, but the device features a customised interface that does not use many Google services.

Google may co-brand some of the tablets sold through the store and has considered subsidizing the cost of future tablets to make them more competitive with the Kindle Fire, according to the Journal report. It is unclear when Google plans to open the store.

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A rising displeasure amid office workers with the clunky computers their employer  oblige them to use, in contrast to the lustrous Apple gadgets many have at home, could yet advantage serving suppliers like Dell, a top Dell executive said. 

Dell to competitor iPad with Windows 8 table

As Apple’s third-generation iPad went on sale on Friday, accompanied by the now traditional scenes of fans queuing round the block, Dell’s chief commercial officer Steve Felice said thetablet market was still wide open.

Dell ditched its previous attempt at cracking the global tablet market, the Streak, last year. It was based on Google’s Android operating systemsoftware.

Now Dell is planning a fresh assault with the advent of Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating platform, which is expected later this year and will have a touch interface that works across desktop computers, tablets and smartphones.

“We’re very encouraged by the touch capability we are seeing in the beta versions of Windows 8,” Felice told Reuters in an interview in London, adding that Dell may also make Android tablets again.

“We have a roadmap for tablets that we haven’t announced yet. You’ll see some announcements.. for the back half of the year,” he said. “We don’t think that this market is closed off in any way.”

Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and possibly Nokia are also planning Windows 8 tablets.

Felice said that Dell’s relationships with its thousands of business customers gave it an advantage over Apple, whose gadgets can cause headaches for IT departments because they operate on different systems.

As iPads and iPhones have become popular from the boardroom down, corporate technology chiefs have been increasingly forced to accept the fact that employees will use their own devices.

“On the commercial side there are a lot of concerns about security, interoperability, systems and device management, and I think Dell is in the best position to meet those,” Felice said.

He added that iPads also left much to be desired in terms of processing power and ease of typing. “When people put their computer to the side and take their iPad with them to travel, you see a lot of compromises being made.”

Dell has also just launched a so-called ultrabook, a high-end notebook that is light and thin but still at least as powerful as a regular laptop. The XPS 13 costs about $995.

“The demand has been excellent since we launched this product just a week ago,” Felice said. “It is a fantastic product and shows our commitment to the PC space. We like the PC space. We are extremely committed to it.”

Dell, the world’s third-biggest computer maker after HP and Lenovo, has also been expanding its services offering to reduce its dependence on sales of computers, where margins are being squeezed and growth is slowing.

Taking Mac and iPad sales together, Apple sold more computers last year than any of the top PC makers.

Asked whether he envied Apple’s ability to produce such coveted objects, Felice said: “We come at the market in a different way … We are predominantly a company that has a great eye on the commercial customer who also wants to be a consumer.”

“In the areas where we come at the market, we think we are a coveted brand.”

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Cyber security specialist have naked a fault in a component of the operating system of Google Inc’s extensively used Android smartphone that they say hackers can develop to expand organize of the devices. 

Researchers at startup cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said they have figured out how to use that bug to launch attacks and take control of some Android devices.

CrowdStrike, which will demonstrate its findings next week at a major computer security conference in San Francisco, said an attacker sends an email or text message that appears to be from a trusted source, like the user’s phone carrier. The message urges the recipient to click on a link, which if done infects the device.

At that point, the hacker gains complete control of the phone, enabling him or her to eavesdrop on phone calls and monitor the location of the device, said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and co-founder of CrowdStrike.

Google spokesman Jay Nancarrow declined comment on Crowdstrike’s claim.

Alperovitch said the firm conducted the research to highlight how mobile devices are increasingly vulnerable to a type of attack widely carried out against PCs. In such instances, hackers find previously unknown vulnerabilities in software, then exploit those flaws with malicious software that is delivered via tainted links or attached documents.

He said smartphone users need to prepare for this type of attack, which typically cannot be identified or thwarted by mobile device security software.

“With modifications and perhaps use of different exploits, this attack will work on every smartphone device and represents the biggest security threat on those devices,” said Alperovitch, who was vice president of threat research at McAfee Inc before he co-founded CrowdStrike.

Researchers at CrowdStrike were not the first to identify such a threat, though such warnings are less common than reports of malicious applications that make their way to online websites, such as Apple’s App Store or the Android Market.

In July 2009, researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner figured out a way to attack Apple’siPhone by sending malicious code embedded in text messages that was invisible to the phone’s user. Apple repaired the bug in the software a few weeks after the pair warned it of the problem.

The method devised by CrowdStrike currently works on devices running Android 2.2, also known as Froyo. That version is installed on about 28 per cent of all Android devices, according to a Google survey conducted over two weeks ending February 1.

Alperovitch said he expects to have a second version of the software finished by next week that can attack phones running Android 2.3. That version, widely known as Gingerbread, is installed on another 59 per cent of all Android devices, according to Google.

CrowdStrike’s method of attack makes use of a previously unpublicized security flaw in a piece of software known as webkit, which is built into the Android operating system’s Web browser.

Webkit is also incorporated into other software programs, including Google’s Chrome browser and the Apple iOS operating system for the iPhone and iPad.

CrowdStrike said it had not attempted to create software to attack iOS devices or the Chrome browser.

Manufacturers of Android devices include HTC Corp, LG Electronics Inc, Motorola MobilityHoldings Inc and Samsung Electronics Co.