A New York man has sued security software maker Symantec for automatically renewing his subscription to Norton Antivirus, alleging that the company did not notify him before charging $76 to his credit card.The lawsuit comes seven months after the New York Attorney General’s office fined Symantec $375,000 for the practice and ordered it to give notice before renewing any subscription.

According to the lawsuit filed Jan. 19 in a New York County court, Kenneth Elan of Port Washington, N.Y., purchased a copy of Norton Anti virus in 2007 and later early in November 2009, Symantec told him that it had automatically renewed his license to the software for one year, and charged his credit card $76.03.Elan said he was not notified prior to the charge hitting his card.

Symantec’s security software typically comes with a one-year license, which includes a subscription to new malware signature updates.When that initial signature subscription expires, consumers must renew to continue to receive anti-malware updates.Many antivirus vendors enroll customers in automatic renewal programs when they purchase or activate the software, claiming that it’s the only way to guarantee that users stay protected against new threats.

But last June, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that his office had reached a settlement with Symantec and McAfee over consumer charges that the companies didn’t get users’ approval to automatically bill them, and had made it difficult for customers to opt out or obtain refunds. Symantec and McAfee paid $375,000 each in penalties, and said they would clarify subscription renewal costs, and refund fees to consumers who asked for them within 60 days of being charged.

Symantec and McAfee also agreed to “provide electronic notification to consumers before and after renewal of the subscription,” Cuomo’s office said at the time.The 2009 deal did not ban automatic subscription renewals, however,Elan’s lawsuit claimed that Symantec had not abided by the settlement. “Prior to the automatic renewal, defendant failed to offer plaintiff an opportunity to decline to renew the license for another year,” the lawsuit maintained. “If plaintiff had notice of an opportunity to decline the automatic renewal, plaintiff would not have renewed the license.”

Last July, Cuomo said the settlement with Symantec and McAfee meant that they could not longer “hide the ball with renewal fees.”Elan charged Symantec with deceptive business practices and unjust enrichment, and asked the court to make the company refund all fees generated by automatic renewals. He also asked the court to grant the lawsuit class-action status, which would open the case to a potential pool of thousands.Symantec has not yet responded to Elan’s lawsuit, according to court records.Lets hope this mistake of auto renewals doesn’t happen with you.

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Just got some awesome news about Michael Dell showing the Dell Mini 5 Android in action.This would run Android and features 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor with a 5 ” LCD, 3G , 5 Megapixel camera at the back as well as a one at the front to support video conferencing.This would also support flash and multi tasking , multi touch.Nothing much is known about the storage capacity, battery and the price but the launch would be somewhere near Mid 2010.One more awesome feature is that of Dual Micro SD slots so more storage.Below are features summarized.Check out the video of Dell Mini 5 Android.

• Screen: 5 inch LCD
• OS: Android
• Browser: Android Browser
• Ebook Client: Yes
• Adobe Flash Player support: Yes
• Apps: Android Market
• Multitasking and Multi touch: Yes
• Camera: 5 MP; Might have a second front facing camera to enable video conferencing.
• Processor: Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon
• Storage: Unknown
• Expandable memory: Dual Micro SD slots
• Connectivity: Wifi, 3G (HSPA/GSM), Bluetooth
• Availability: Mid-year
• Price: Unknown
• Battery Life: Unknown

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Hardly weeks were done after announcing the iPad tablet which faced heavy critics because of the lack of Flash support and other disadvantages, chief executive officer of Apple Steve Jobs told the company’s employees that Adobe Flash was too buggy, Blu-ray software was a mess, Google wanted to kill iPhone and the future of Internet video was HTML5. The comments seem to be rather offensive, but they may clearly mean that Apple has no plans to support certain technologies.

“They are lazy. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it is because of Flash. No one will be using Flash. The world is moving to HTML5,” said Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, report Wired and Macrumours web-sites, during a meeting with Apple employees.

Clearly, Adobe Flash is not the best technology available today, however, HTML5 is still not here and it will take a long time before it will be able to replace Flash, meanwhile, Apple’s products do not support Flash right now.

Even though Google Android-based phones are hardly seriously popular, Mr. Jobs still believes that the ultimate goal of Google is to “kill the iPhone”.

“We did not enter the search business. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them.This ‘don’t be evil mantra’: it is B-ullshit,” Mr. Jobs is reported to have said.

“Don’t be evil’ is believed to be an unofficial motto of Google, which is meant to stop the company from maximizing short-term benefits with actions that demolish long-term image and competitive position. It is not completely clear how the creation of Android platform can destroy Google’s positions in the long term and why does Mr. Jobs think that Android was created by 47 companies to destroy iPhone.

During the meeting Mr. Jobs reiterated his attitude towards Blu-ray high-definition video format. According to the chief executive officer of Apple, Blu-Ray software is a mess, and Apple will wait until sales really start to take off before implementing it into their personal computers. Still, the new Macintosh systems in 2010 would take Apple to the next level, indicated the CEO.Lets see how it moves on.

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In the war of the giants,over Apple’s new iPad reaches a fever pitch, Google is not standing idly by.The search giant has already unveiled concept designs for its own version of a tablet, though it’s unlikely that a Google tablet will hit store shelves until at least 2011.Developers of Google Chrome OS, an open-source operating system that is set to debut in the second half of 2010, recently posted a mock tablet design on the developers’ Web site chromium.org.

The design was actually unveiled two days before Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave the world its first glimpse at the iPad. But it wasn’t widely noticed until this week.According to chromium.org, Google’s operating system would be optimized for a tablet that has a 5-inch to 10-inch screen, but it could work on larger devices.

“Google Chrome OS is still in development and we are constantly experimenting with various user interfaces to determine what designs would produce the best user experience,” said a Google spokesman.Google probably won’t design the tablet hardware itself. Instead, as with its Nexus One smartphone, which is made by HTC but runs Google’s Android operating system, Google would probably look to partner with one or more hardware makers.

With a Chrome OS launch slated for the the holiday season, it is unlikely that a Google tablet would be released until next year at the earliest.Now who is gonna win in this tablet war ? Well at present i can say Google can overtake iPad considering its running the chrome OS which is much more snazzier than the OS running on the iPad.This can be compared after the move to Android which is gaining market share like wildfire after the Motorola Droid.

“Google has tremendous momentum in software…and it certainly isn’t running away from Apple,” said Laura DiDio, principal analyst at ITIC.Though price, ease of use and hardware functionality will certainly be important factors in who wins the tablet battle, the most important determinant of who comes out on top may be the variety and quality of applications available for the devices.

Applications are what will help tailor the tablet to your use and make it relevant,” said David Krajicek, managing director of market research firm GfK Technology. “If we’re going to have tablet mania, Apple can use Safari and Google will try to convince everyone else to use Chrome.”

There is also news of HTC with Sense UI and MSI tablet too coming up soon and also the Joo Joo tablet.If you are not familiar with what is Sense UI.Sense is a UI, not an OS. Think of it as a layer running on top of your OS which helps you customize your various menus with a widget based interface and puts up multiple side-scrolling homescreen panes.So basically, it snazzed up Windows Mobile as well because it’s a UI which has been ported to both the operating systems.

Actually, Apple’s marketshare has dropped despite stellar sales. Between the third and fourth quarter of 2009, Apple had to face a 1.5% drop in market share, even though Apple sold 18% more iphones in the fourth quarter compared to the third one. This is because of the competitors. The overall smartphone market did better than what Apple did. With Android coming in headstrong, 2010 will be an interesting year, specifically after the MWC in Feb. I wonder if iPad will help them rake some greens up.

Apple touted the iPad’s ability to run all of the iPhone’s 140,000 apps. Though a tablet running Chrome OS wouldn’t likely be able to run the tens of thousands of apps available on Android phones, a “Google tablet” would be optimized to run Google’s host of Web applications like Gmail, Google Docs and Picasa.

Tablets with Chrome OS would also likely integrate Google Books to compete with the iPad’s iBookstore and other e-reading devices like Amazon.com’s Kindle.In the end, it won’t be about the most apps but the best apps, Krajicek argued. He said the winner of the tablet wars will likely be the one that integrates multimedia and Web browsing the best, but will not necessarily the one with the most bells and whistles.If a Google tablet can run e-mail, browsing, media and word processing better than the iPad, it could ultimately win out.

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