Microsoft, Samsung settle Android dispute; Apple's electric car; US$900m cyber bank heist

Apple is secretly working on creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

The WSJ cited anonymous people “familiar with the matter” as saying that Apple has several hundred employees working on the electric vehicle project, which is apparently code-named ‘Titan’.

The vehicle in question is said to resemble a minivan.

But even if Apple is working on creating an electric car, that car may never see mass production. As the WSJ points out, Apple sometimes creates prototypes for potential products that never reach stores.

The WSJ’s sources insist Apple is serious about its electric vehicle, however.

Apple CEO Tim Cook approved the project almost a year ago and assigned product design vice president Steve Zadesky - a former Ford engineer - to run the project, the WSJ said. Zadesky’s team is apparently working at a private location just a few miles from Apple’s HQ in Cupertino, California, and is said to be researching robotics, metals and materials consistent with automobile manufacturing.

Apple has recently hired several people familiar with designing cars, including Johann Jungwirth, previously president and chief exec of Mercedes-Benz R&D in North America, and Marc Newson, who previously created a concept car for Ford, the WSJ reported.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that Apple has been trying to poach Tesla employees, and that the iPhone manufacturer has offered US$250,000 signing bonuses and 60% salary increases in order to lure talent away from the electric car manufacturer.

“Apple tries very hard to recruit from Tesla,” Musk was quoted as saying. “But so far they’ve actually recruited very few people.”

According to Bloomberg, Apple has been interested in developing a car for some time, reporting that Phil Schiller, senior VP of marketing at the company, said in 2012 that Apple executives discussed building a car even before it built the iPhone.

Cybercrims steal up to US$900 million from banks

A gang of cybercriminals has stolen between US$300 million and US$900 million from banks around the globe, according to The New York Times.

The Times' story is based on a report from information security company Kaspersky Lab.

The gang is said to have targeted more than 100 banks across 30 nations including Russia, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the Netherlands.

“This is likely the most sophisticated attack the world has seen to date in terms of the tactics and methods that cybercriminals have used to remain covert,” the Times quoted Chris Doggett, MD of the Kaspersky North America office in Boston, as having said.

The gang reportedly placed surveillance software on the computers of system administrators and monitored them for months.

The Times’ story has a detailed blow by blow of how the crims gained access to bank employees’ computers and how they got their hands on the stolen funds.

Microsoft and Samsung drop Android patent fight

Microsoft and Samsung have ended their contract dispute over Android patent royalties, Reuters has reported.

According to ZDnet, Samsung agreed in 2011 to pay Microsoft a royalty for every phone and tablet it sold that used Google’s Android OS.

Why would Samsung pay royalties to Microsoft for a platform that Google owns? The Wall Street Journal explained that Microsoft claims that some of its patents are included in Android technologies. As such, various smartphone manufacturers that sell phones based on Android pay royalties to Microsoft to cover their use of those patented elements.

Microsoft sued Samsung in a US federal court last year, alleging that Samsung breached a collaboration agreement between the two companies by refusing to make royalty payments after Microsoft announced it intended to buy Nokia’s handset business, Reuters said.

Samsung reportedly claimed that Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia breached part of the agreement between the two companies.

Now, the two companies have settled their dispute over the licensing agreement. Microsoft has declined to comment on terms of the settlement, according to ZDnet.

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