Germany

Facebook’s controversial WhatsApp data collection policy is causing big problems

May 12th, 2021

Chris Smith

Facebook’s WhatsApp privacy policy problems are far from over, as regulators in Europe are looking to curb the company’s ability to collect user data from WhatsApp. The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (HmbBfDI) in Germany announced this week that it has issued an injunction preventing Facebook from processing personal data from …

Politics

Germany has 3 strategies to stop the second coronavirus wave

October 1st, 2020

Chris Smith

The second wave of the coronavirus pandemic is hitting Europe, as the number of new daily cases has been increasing considerably for a few days. Germany plans to use three strategies to reduce the COVID-19 spread in fall and winter, with Chancellor Angela Merkel vowing not to instate a nationwide lockdown that would hurt the …

Science

Germany wants to track coronavirus outbreaks with smartwatches

April 7th, 2020

Chris Smith

Germany is looking to analyze data from smartwatches and fitness devices to track the emergence of new coronavirus outbreaks in the country. Pulse, temperature, and sleep data would be collected anonymously from participating citizens to map the potential spread of new COVID-19 hot zones in the future. Germany has conducted extensive coronavirus testing, which allowed …

Science

Restaurant cake mix-up results in a bunch of very surprised, stoned customers

October 29th, 2019

Mike Wehner

A group of funeral-goers in Germany found themselves getting very, very high after a cake mix-up at a restaurant threw a wrench in an otherwise somber day of mourning. The bizarre incident took place near the city of Rostock, with over a dozen members of a funeral party stopping by a local restaurant for cake …

Science

A professor and his students turned an observatory into a giant R2-D2, and it’s amazing

March 31st, 2019

Mike Wehner

People who study science day in and day out usually have some fondness for science fiction, and Professor Hubert Zitt is no exception. Zitt, who lectures at Germany’s University of Kaiserslautern, happens to be a huge fan of Star Trek and Star Wars, and when he looked at the Zweibrücken Observatory he clearly saw what …

Science

Newfound species of ancient piranha-like fish would have made a meal of you, very slowly

October 19th, 2018

Mike Wehner

It goes without saying that you could find some pretty dangerous animals if you were to travel back in time tens of millions of years ago, but not all of the creatures that lurked in prehistoric times were dramatically different from what we can still find on Earth today. A newly-discovered species of ancient fish …

Tech

Facebook ‘extorts’ users to agree to privacy policy, German watchdog says

July 4th, 2017

Chris Smith

Facebook’s legal problems in Europe are far from over, and if Germany has its way with its newest inquiry into Facebook’s business practices, we may see the first case where a watchdog builds an antitrust case based on a tech company’s privacy policy.

Tech

France and Germany latest countries to want magical backdoors in encryption

August 24th, 2016

Chris Smith

The recent NSA hack just proved to the world that no system is hack-proof if attackers have what it takes to break the access door. Regardless of whatever protections guarded that NSA server, hackers found a security hole to get in and steal critical documents. The same thing could happen to encrypted services that would …

German court throws out two suits in Apple-Samsung patent spat

March 2nd, 2012

Dan Graziano

A German court has thrown out a third lawsuit Samsung recently filed against Apple regarding a 3G patent, along with one of two slide-to-unlock suits Apple filed against Samsung, FOSS Patents reported on Friday. Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court ruled that Samsung’s standard-essential patent covers a method of computing a certain mathematical …

Apple wins injunction against Motorola devices in Germany [updated]

March 1st, 2012

Dan Graziano

Apple on Thursday won an injunction in Germany against all of Motorola Mobility’s Android devices, according to FOSSPatents. The ruling comes on the heels of another victory Apple scored in a German appeals court on Monday. Judge Dr. Peter Guntz ruled that Motorola infringed Apple’s patent for a “portable electronic device for photo management.” Motorola smartphones apparently …