Google has finally intervened in a series of lawsuits against independent smartphone application developers and Lodsys, which saw app creators sued for utilising technologies within the search giant’s Android operating system,Wired has revealed. On Friday, Google filed a request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, calling for the organisation to reexamine two patents at the centre of legal disputes between Lodsys and application developers, to determine whether the claims within them were valid....

Afterreceiving a warningfrom the Taipei City Government earlier in the month, Google has suspended downloads of paid apps on the Android Market after the company was fined Tw$1,000,000 (S$42,842) for not extending trial periods on its app downloads. Smartphone users in the city had complained that they were unable to claim a refund when they deemed an app download as unsatisfactory. Taipei’s Law and Regulation Commission informed Google Taiwan, as well as Apple Asia, of the complaints in a formal letter, demanding an explanation and an outline of improvements by a June 23 deadline....

Google wants to force people to use their real names online, say many Google+ detractors. Yet, it’s precisely for defending three bloggers’ right to anonymity that its Brazilian subsidiary was fined this Thursday by a local judge. Let’s have a look at what happened. Varzea Alegre’s mayor vs. Google Brasil Varzea Alegre may be a small town of 38,000 inhabitants in the State ofCeara, in Northern Brazil, but the decision its local judge pronounced yesterday probably didn’t go unnoticed in Mountain View....

It wasn’t long ago that Google pulled the trigger by offering check-ins with the Latitude service. Now, the company is stepping up the game one more notch by offering rewards for those check-ins, starting in Austin for SXSW. Akin to what you see with Foursquare, Google is offering status gains (from Regular to Guru), depending on how often you check in with the service. There’s even a progress meter that will show how far away from your next rung of success....

Throwing caution to the wind and firing a shot over the bow of Yelp, Google has just announced that it has implementedHotpot recommendationsinto Google Maps for your desktop. While it’s not yet perfect, according to theGoogle Lat Long Blog, “we’ll be building it out over time, making it even easier for you to keep track of your friends’ activities”. Where will this get really interesting? Look at Google’snear-field communicationthat it has embedded into the Nexus S....