Apple boss takes 'medical leave'

17 January 2011 Last updated at 10:25 ET

Apple boss Steve Jobs has announced that he is to take "medical leave" from the company.

In an e-mail to employees he said he was taking the break to focus on his health.

He said he would continue as chief executive of Apple and be involved in any major decisions. Day-to-day running of the company will pass to Tim Cook.

In late 2008 to mid-2009 Mr Jobs was absent from Apple for six months to have a liver transplant.

It was part of the series of treatments he has undergone for pancreatic cancer. He was first diagnosed as suffering from the cancer in 2004 and underwent surgery later that year to remove a tumour from his pancreas.

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There is no other technology firm - probably no other major business - whose shape and direction is so much in the hands of one man as Apple.

Steve Jobs is not only the public face of the company, at the launches of new devices like the iPad, he is involved in every minute detail of Apple products.

So for the last half dozen years every hint, every rumour about his health has sent shockwaves through the investment community and caused Apple's share price to plummet.

Each time he has returned to work after treatment, the company has tried to reassure its investors that its chief executive is now in good shape.

Then the gaunt appearance of the man in the trademark black sweater and jeans has started the rumour-mill turning again.

Apple's many fans will feel deep sympathy for Mr Jobs when he pleads for privacy for himself and his family - but its investors will be demanding more detail when Apple unveils its latest results on Tuesday

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In his e-mail Mr Jobs said he would be back at work as soon as he can.

"At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company," he said in an e-mail.

"I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple's day to day operations."

Mr Cook is currently the firm's chief operating officer. He has run the company day-to-day before now during previous times when Mr Jobs has been dealing with his health problems.

The announcement was made on a public holiday in the US when there is no trading in company stocks and shares.

However, Apple shares closed down 6.4% on the Frankfurt stock exchange. Year-on-year, they areup 79% and over 24 months up 328%.

The news comes ahead of Apple's first quarter results, due on 18 January.

Mr Jobs is an iconic presence at Apple and is widely credited as the architect of its current run of success based around products such as the iPad and iPhone.

The absence comes as Apple is rumoured to be preparing to launch the second version of its iPad - the successor to the tablet computer it launched in 2010.

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&#39;Euro-GPS&#39; boss falls in Wiki row

17 January 2011 Last updated at 17:43 ET By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

The chief executive of one of Germany's leading space companies has lost his job because of the Wikileaks saga.

OHB-System's Berry Smutny was reported in a cable to have told US diplomats that Europe's Galileo satellite-navigation project was a "stupid idea".

Bremen-based OHB-System is part of the consortium that will build Galileo's first 14 operational spacecraft.

Although Mr Smutny has denied the cable's contents, OHB's board has decided to remove him from his post.

A statement from the company on Monday said its supervisory board had "passed a unanimous resolution to revoke Mr Smutny's appointment", adding that it "disapproves these conversations and the quotes attributed to Mr Smutny".

Controversial project

Berry Smutny was alleged to have told diplomats at a meeting in Berlin in October 2009 that Galileo, a flagship space programme of the EU, was a waste of taxpayers' money.

The cable, which was published by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten last Thursday, quoted the OHB-System chief as saying, "I think Galileo is a stupid idea that primarily serves French interests", and, in particular, French military interests.

Mr Smutny was further reported to say that Galileo was "doomed for failure" or would "have to undergo drastic scalebacks for survival".

When approached by Aftenposten to comment on the cable, the executive conceded he had met US officials but rejected the notion that he had made any such remarks, adding that he was a supporter of Europe's proposed sat-nav system.

Galileo is a mutil-billion-euro venture which will complement - but also compete with - the US Global Positioning System (GPS), providing very accurate timing and location data that can be used in a host of applications from landing planes to co-ordinating financial transactions. The endeavour is controversial because its deployment is long overdue and significantly over-budget.

OHB-System and UK-based company Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) were awarded a contract valued at 566m euros (�465m) in January 2010 to start the production of the Galileo constellation.

Surrey will assemble the electronic payload for each satellite in Guildford before shipping it to Germany to be incorporated in the spacecraft bus, or chassis, prepared by OHB.

Year of success

The consortium's contract win was a spectacular achievement for the two firms which beat off the combined bid of Europe's two biggest satellite manufacturers, EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space (TAS).

OHB-System then followed this triumph by winning the other high-profile European satellite-manufacturing deal of 2010 - the 1.3bn-euro contract to produce the next generation of weather satellites for the continent. In this case, the contract is shared with TAS.

The statement from the OHB-System supervisory board said Mr Smutny had to be removed from his position in order to avert any further damage to the company on the part of customers, political representatives and the public at large.

It thanked the outgoing chief for the work that he had performed over the past 18 months, "particularly stressing the fact that last year had been the most successful in the company's history".

Marco Fuchs, who is currently the CEO of the parent company OHB Technology, will be assuming the position of CEO of OHB-System.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Risks of cyber war &#39;over-hyped&#39;

17 January 2011 Last updated at 05:33 ET

The vast majority of hi-tech attacks described as acts of cyber war do not deserve the name, says a report.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development study is part of a series considering incidents that could cause global disruption.

While pandemics and financial instability could cause problems, cyber attacks are unlikely to, it says.

Instead, trouble caused by cyber attacks is likely to be localised and short-lived.

However, it warns that governments need to plan for how it could mitigate the effects of both accidental and deliberate events.

'Great confusion'

Attempts to quantify the potential damage that hi-tech attacks could cause and develop appropriate responses are not helped by the hyperbolic language used to describe these incidents, said the OECD report.

"We don't help ourselves using 'cyberwar' to describe espionage or hacktivist blockading or defacing of websites, as recently seen in reaction to WikiLeaks," said Professor Peter Sommer, visiting professor at LSE who co-wrote the report with Dr Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute.

"Nor is it helpful to group trivially avoidable incidents like routine viruses and frauds with determined attempts to disrupt critical national infrastructure," added Prof Sommer.

The report acknowledged the risk of a catastrophic cyber incident, such as a solar flare that could knock out satellites, base stations and net hardware, but said that the vast majority of incidents seen today were almost trivial in comparison as they did not last long and only hit a few people or organisations.

Attempts to decide how to deal with the wide variety of potential attacks and attackers were being hampered because words used to describe incidents meant different things to different groups.

For instance, it said, an "attack" could mean phishing e-mails trying to steal passwords, a virus outbreak or a concerted stealthy attempt to break into a computer system.

"Rolling all these activities into a single statistic leads to grossly misleading conclusions," said the report. "There is even greater confusion in the ways in which losses are estimated."

The report also played down the risk of a conflict between nation states being played out over the net.

"It is unlikely that there will ever be a true cyberwar," said the report, most likely because no aggressor would stick to one class of weaponry. Also, it said, existing defences and the unpredictable effects of such an attack could limit its effectiveness.

However, it noted, that even if a cyberwar is unlikely to ever happen, there was no doubt that the weapons used in such a theatre of war were becoming ubiquitous and would likely be used in the future alongside conventional weapons as "force multipliers".

Under the heading of cyber weapons the report included viruses, worms, trojans, distributed-denial-of-service using botnets and unauthorised access to computers ie hacking.

Finally, it said, while the net may be a vector for attack it might also help in the event of a large-scale event.

"If appropriate contingency plans are in place, information systems can support the management of other systemic risks," it said.

"They can provide alternate means of delivering essential services and disseminate the latest news and advice on catastrophic events, reassuring citizens and hence dampening the potential for social discontent and unrest."

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�98 PCs target UK digital divide

17 January 2011 Last updated at 06:48 ET

Low-cost computers are to be offered as part of a government scheme to encourage millions of people in the UK to get online for the first time.

Prices will start at �98 for a refurbished PC, with subsidised net connections available for �9 a month.

The 12-month trial is part of the Race Online 2012 scheme, which aims to reach out to the 9.2 million adults in the UK who are currently offline.

Distributor Remploy hopes to sell 8,000 machines in the next 12 months.

"Motivation and inspiration are still two of the biggest barriers [to using the internet], but clearly perception of price is another big deal for people," Martha Lane Fox, the UK's digital champion, told the Financial Times. "A good price point is certainly part of what helps people get online."

Web barrier

Race Online 2012, which aims to "make the UK the first nation in the world where everyone can use the web", estimates that of the more than nine million adults in the UK who are currently not online, four million are socially and economically disadvantaged.

The cheap computers will run open-source software, such as Linux, and will include a flat-screen monitor, keyboard, mouse, warranty, dedicated telephone helpline and delivery.

The packages will be sold through 60 UK online centres which offer IT training and Remploy, an organisation that specialises in helping disabled and disadvantaged people find work and which runs the computer recycling scheme e-cycle.

Race Online 2012 has also negotiated cheap internet packages using a mobile dongle, costing �9 a month or �18 for three months, to help people access the web.

Its research suggests that going online can save people around �560 a year and that thousands of jobs are offered exclusively online.

But the cost of owning and running a computer and net connection is often seen as a barrier for many people.

As a result, there have been several previous government-sponsored initiatives that offered cheap PCs.

The �300m Home Access Scheme began to distribute free laptops to pupils from poor backgrounds in January 2010. It was scrapped by the coalition government eight months later.

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Wikipedia &#39;too tough for many&#39;

13 January 2011 Last updated at 19:05 ET By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, BBC News <!-- Embedding the video player --> <!-- This is the embedded player component -->

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Wikipedia boss Jimmy Wales: "We point to the results"

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Wikipedia is too complicated for many people to modify despite billing itself as "the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit", its founder has said.

Jimmy Wales told BBC News the site wants a new generation of contributors, including more women.

The online encyclopaedia, which is 10 years old on 15 January, is the world's fifth most popular site.

It aims to increase its users from 400m to 1bn by 2015. But growth requires a new interface, said Mr Wales.

"We have to support our old power users because they build the site," he said. "But we also need to have a ramp for new users."

He said a lot of people were "afraid" to contribute to the site by the sometimes complicated code - known as Wiki mark-up - needed to format entries.

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People thought: 'let's give the guy the money so he'll go away'"

End Quote Jimmy Wales

"If you click edit and you see some Wiki syntax and some bizarre table structure - a lot of people are literally afraid.

"They're good people and they don't want to break something.

As well as initiatives such as "adopt a user", that allows experienced Wikipedians to take a new user under their wing, he said his for-profit company Wikia had been doing a lot of work designing simple "what you see is what you get" editing tools.

"We're releasing all of that open source and Wikipedia will probably adopt some of that."

'Ugly mug'

However, Mr Wales said that one change he would not make would be to the site's financial model.

It currently operates as a not-for-profit organisation funded by donations from its users.

"We have just finished our fundraiser for the year - we raised $16m (�10m) faster than we have ever done it before," he said.

For many, Mr Wales' face will be familiar from banners that have been running on the site promoting the appeal.

Mr Wales said that he had tried to resist using his picture, but user testing had shown the organisation received more money by using his face.

"Those banners outperformed the other ones two-to-one," he said. "I think maybe because no-one wants to see my ugly mug anymore. People thought: 'let's give the guy the money so he'll go away'."

He said the donation model was "very stable" but admitted it did "constrain" what the site could do.

"We don't have a lot of money - we are running a website with 408m visitors on just over $20m," he said. "I think we're the most efficient charity there is by a long shot in terms of the number of people we impact for a small amount of money."

However, he said that he was not tempted to turn it into a commercial venture to pull in more money.

"If you look at pressures that commercial ventures would be under - suddenly there is a need to produce quarterly results, suddenly there is a need to bring in money."

He admitted the site could run as a non-profit supported by advertisements, but again said that there were no plans to make changes.

"Our view has always been we can always do that if we need to."

'Defensive move'

Mr Wales also used the interview to clear up the organisation's perceived association with the whistle-blowing organisation Wikileaks.

"The core of their work is not about Wiki at all - Wiki is a collaborative editing process, it's a group of people coming together to collaboratively write something. And what Wikileaks is doing is getting documents and leaking them."

However, he said, many people get confused - including airport security, he said.

But the two still have a loose association.

Technically, the Wikia company has until this week legally owned domain names including wikileaks.net, wikileaks.com and wikileaks.us.

"We transferred the domains to them but they never completed the technical part," said Mr Wales. "All they needed to do was sign in and complete the transfer but they have never done it."

He said the domains had been registered "defensively" when Wikileaks launched in 2006.

"When they first launched they put out a press release that said the 'Wikipedia of secrets', which would have been a trademark violation.

"So someone in the office registered two or three domains."

He said that he regularly tries to prompt Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange to complete the transaction, to no avail.

"I saw someone else say that he's prone to saying 'I'm busy fighting superpowers' and that's exactly what he said to me."

Mr Wales said the domains would expire "this week".

"I'm not renewing them," said Mr Wales.

"We may ping them and say they are loose."

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Pioneering computer to be rebuilt

13 January 2011 Last updated at 06:12 ET By Mark Ward Technology correspondent, BBC News

The first recognisably modern computer is to be rebuilt at the UK's former code-cracking centre Bletchley Park.

The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Edsac) was a room-sized behemoth built at Cambridge university that first ran in 1949.

Creation of the replica has been commissioned by the UK's Computer Conservation Society (CCS).

The three-year re-build will be carried out before visitors to The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley.

Digital help

Edsac was one of several early British computers that pioneered the practical use of such machines.

It was conceived and created by Sir Maurice Wilkes as a machine that could carry out many different kinds of calculation for Cambridge researchers and scientists.

"Edsac was the first to go into regular service to help the people Sir Maurice saw in Cambridge, researchers struggling with computation using desk calculators," said Dr David Hartley, chairman of the CCS.

During its nine-year lifespan, Edsac helped two Cambridge researchers win a Nobel and aided many more try out approaches and get results impossible to even conceive without the machine.

The �250,000 cost of the re-build will be paid for from funds raised by a consortium led by entrepreneur Hermann Hauser. Dr Hartley said the project had been given the nod to proceed as the consortium has already received pledges to provide all the funds needed.

The early work of the re-build will involve scouring archives and talking to the remaining Edsac engineers to get a better idea of how the machine worked.

Relatively few parts of the original machine remain, said Dr Hartley, though Cambridge university does have one chassis though it has largely been denuded of valves, a critical part of all early machines.

"We're building up a good picture of what it was like," he said. "But there comes a point at which we have to guess what was in the designer's mind at the time."

Computer conservationist Chris Burton, who was involved in re-creating the Manchester Mark I, is helping to source parts that can be used to build a faithful replica of the original.

"He's making contact with all sorts of suppliers and is optimistic that we will get there," said Dr Hartley.

However, one part of the original Edsac that is unlikely to be re-created is the 1.5m (5 feet) long tubes of mercury used as a memory store. Modern health and safety regulations preclude the use of mercury, said Dr Hartley.

He added that experiments were already being carried out to use different materials to act as a "delay line" memory as in the original.

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Test looms for net address scheme

13 January 2011 Last updated at 10:26 ET

A global trial of the net's new addressing system is being planned for 8 June.

The test is being held to raise awareness about the imminent change from version 4 of the addressing scheme to version 6.

Net giants Google, Facebook, Akamai and Yahoo have committed to taking part in the "test flight" of IPv6.

Net firms are being encouraged to switch to IPv6 as addresses in the old scheme will run out by November 2011.

"The good news is that internet users don't need to do anything special to prepare for World IPv6 Day," said Lorenzo Colitti, a network engineer at Google in a blog post.

"Our current measurements suggest that the vast majority (99.95%) of users will be unaffected. However, in rare cases, users may experience connectivity problems, often due to misconfigured or misbehaving home network devices."

The World IPv6 Day is being co-ordinated by the Internet Society, a non-profit group which educates people and companies about net issues. It has provided a webpage through which people can test their Ipv6 readiness.

On 8 June, those who sign up will make their pages available via IPv6 for 24 hours to help show up and iron out problems created by the switch to the new addressing scheme.

"By providing an opportunity for the internet industry to collaborate to test IPv6 readiness we expect to lay the groundwork for large-scale IPv6 adoption and help make IPv6 ready for prime time," said Leslie Daigle, chief internet technology officer at the Internet Society in a statement.

Google already offers an IPv6 version of its search site as does Facebook.

The addressing scheme used by most sites now is defined in version 4 of the Internet Protocol. This has an address space of about four billion entries.

While this figure was considered to be enough in the late 1970s when IPv4 was being developed it has proved to be wanting as the net has grown in popularity and more and more people and devices use it.

At current estimates the pool of IPv4 addresses will run entirely dry in early November 2011.

Many net authorities and organisations have been calling for net firms to switch to IPv6 which has an effectively unlimited address space, but progress has been slow.

In November 2010 Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, warned that the net faced "turbulent times" if it did not move quickly to adopt IPv6.

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Palin e-mail intruder imprisoned

13 January 2011 Last updated at 05:52 ET By Bobbie Johnson Technology reporter, BBC News

A man who broke into Sarah Palin's e-mail has been imprisoned - despite being told he might be spared jail.

David Kernell, 23, was found guilty last year of illegally accessing Mrs Palin's e-mail during the 2008 presidential campaign.

At the time, a judge suggested he should serve his year-long sentence in a halfway house.

But after intervention from US government officials he is now in federal prison, the BBC has learned.

Officials confirmed that Mr Kernell reported on 10 January to begin serving his time at a federal corrections institute in Ashland, Kentucky.

That is not the situation that his friends and family were hoping for, however.

During a hearing in November, Judge Thomas Phillips indicated that Mr Kernell's sentence of one year and one day should be served at a halfway house to reflect the case's "unique circumstances".

"Even if the defendant serves his sentence at a halfway house, this combined with a criminal conviction is significant punishment," he said at the time, adding that it would mark "a sufficient restriction of the defendant's liberty".

The US Bureau of Prisons, however, has decided to make Mr Kernell serve out his term in the low-security prison camp nearly 300 miles from his home in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The move comes more than two years after the virtual break-in took place, at the height of the former Alaska governor's failed campaign to win the US vice presidency.

Using the online pseudonym "rubico", Mr Kernell - a student whose father is a senior Democrat politician in Tennessee - answered a series of security questions that gave him access to her private inbox, and then shared the details online.

A copy was retained by Wikileaks, the whistle-blowing website currently at the centre of a controversy over leaked US diplomatic cables, and details of her messages were published in several media outlets.

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"Start Quote

The state gives power to the Bureau of Prisons to determine the nature of incarceration."

End Quote Professor Robert Weisberg Stanford University

As a result, Ms Palin's family received abusive emails and phone calls. A subsequent FBI investigation led to Mr Kernell's arrest five days later.

Although he was eventually charged with four crimes - including identity theft and fraud - a court in Knoxville, Tennessee, only found him guilty of two lesser counts after a two-week trial last May.

The US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) would not comment on why Judge Phillips' recommendations had not been followed, but said decisions concerning inmates took into account a number of factors.

The BOP is not bound by judicial recommendations, one legal expert said federal sentencing was often "arbitrary".

"The judge can give either incarceration or probation, but if it's incarceration the state gives power to the Bureau of Prisons to determine the nature of incarceration," said Professor Robert Weisberg, director of the criminal justice center at Stanford University in California.

"There is not a general or uniform US rule," he added. "There is huge local variation."

Ms Palin - now seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2012 - has been in the headlines again after the fatal shootings in Arizona that left six dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords fighting for her life.

Critics have singled out aggressive political rhetoric as a possible aggravating factor in the shooting - particularly focusing on fliers distributed by Ms Palin's office during last year's mid-term elections, which included a picture of Giffords in the cross-hairs of a gun.

In a video posted online, the former governor said such suggestions constituted a "blood libel".

"Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own," she said, rejecting claims that the flier and her "don't retreat, reload" slogan were an incitement to violence.

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Sony takes PS3 hackers to court

12 January 2011 Last updated at 06:00 ET

Sony has launched legal action against hackers who uncovered and published security codes for the PlayStation 3.

The hack potentially allows anyone to run any software on their machine, including pirated games.

Sony's lawsuit argues that this constitutes copyright infringement and computer fraud.

But George Hotz, one of the hackers at the centre of the controversy, told BBC News that he was "comfortable" the action would not succeed.

"I am a firm believer in digital rights," Mr Hotz said.

"I would expect a company that prides itself on intellectual property to be well versed in the provisions of the law, so I am�disappointed�in Sony's current action.

"I have spoken with legal counsel and I feel comfortable that Sony's action against me doesn't have any basis."

The twenty-one-year-old, who rose to prominence for breaking the iPhone's security, is named in the lawsuit alongside more than 100 people associated with a hacking group known as fail0verflow.

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Already, pirate video games are being packaged and distributed with these circumvention devices."

End Quote Court filing

In the filing, submitted to the Northern District Court of California, Sony asks for a restraining order that bans Mr Hotz from further hacking and prevents distribution of the software produced as a result.

"Working individually and in concert with one another, the defendants recently bypassed effective technological protection measures employed by Sony," the document states.

"Through the internet, defendants are distributing software, tools and instructions that circumvent the [protection measures] and facilitate the counterfeiting of video games. Already, pirate video games are being packaged and distributed with these circumvention devices."

Secret codes

The controversy centres around a series of secret codes that Sony uses to protect its system from being used for unauthorised purposes.

Among them is a number used to "sign" all PS3 games and software as a way of proving that they are genuine.

Once the key is known, however, it can be used to sign any software - including unofficial software and, potentially, pirated games.

The PlayStation's protection had remained impenetrable for several years, but members of fail0verflow demonstrated the first breakthrough in December when they presented a security exploit at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin.

Mr Hotz then revealed that he had uncovered the secret signing number using a similar method.

fail0verflow's website was taken down overnight, replaced with the message "Sony sued us" and a brief statement.

"We have never condoned, supported, approved of or encouraged videogame piracy," it says.

"We have not published any encryption or signing keys. We have not published any Sony code, or code derived from Sony's code."

The group has said in the past that it is vehemently against games piracy and that it had worked on the hack so that users could install other operating systems and amateur software on the console.

Sony had indicated previously that it would try to fix the hack by updating the PS3's software over the internet.

Console hacking and online copyright infringement is a contentious topic, frequently ending in high-profile court cases as technology companies seek to prevent their systems from being copied or modified.

While most cases in recent years have involved music and video file-sharing services like Napster, Grokster and Kazaa, a growing number of cases have involved the hacking of video games consoles.

Last year, a team released a piece of hardware called PSjailbreak that allowed gamers to play homemade and pirated games on the PlayStation 3.

Although the company has issued software to block the device and launched legal action, it has not prevented it entirely - with a Spanish court ruling that the gadget is not illegal.

In December, meanwhile, federal prosecutors dropped their case against a student accused of pirating games for Microsoft's Xbox 360.

The case against California resident Matthew Crippen was dropped after the judge said that he had "serious concerns" about the legality of the evidence collected against him.

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Microsoft opposes Apple trademark

12 January 2011 Last updated at 09:52 ET

Microsoft has said that it has asked US officials to block Apple's attempt to trademark the words "App Store".

Apple submitted an application for the phrase - used for its iPhone, iPad and Macintosh download services - in 2008.

But Microsoft has now told BBC News that it is has asked the US Patent and Trademark Office to reject the application.

The company says the term is too generic and competitors should be able to use it.

"An 'app store' is an 'app store'," said Russell Pangborn, Microsoft's associate general counsel. "Like 'shoe store' or 'toy store', it is a generic term that is commonly used by companies, governments and individuals that offer apps."

"The term 'app store' should continue to be available for use by all without fear of reprisal by Apple."

It is not clear why Microsoft has filed papers now, more than a year after the USPTO opened up Apple's original application for opposition.

However the move comes just days after Apple launched its latest App Store, for computer software.

Since the iPhone and other high-end mobile handsets emerged over recent years, downloadable applications - or apps - have become commonplace.

Microsoft runs its own application store for Windows phones, while Google and Nokia also have their own equivalents. Amazon, meanwhile, recently announced plans to open its own retail channel called Amazon Appstore.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment, but it is not the first time the company has found itself on the end of a trademark dispute.

After the iPhone launched in 2007, it emerged that technology rival Cisco owned the trademark, used for a range of internet-based telephone handsets. The two companies eventually settled and have now agreed to share rights over the name.

In addition, the Californian company took nearly 30 years to completely settle its conflict with Apple Corps, the record company founded by the Beatles.

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