Apple Looking Into Wireless Charging, HTC’s Profit Declines

Today’s Top Stories: Apple Looking Into Wireless Charging, HTC’s Profit Declines
by Stan Schroeder on Mashable

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. Today, we’re looking at three particularly interesting stories.

Twitter Sues Five Major Spammers

Twitter has filed a suit against five web tools and providers that allegedly make it easier to spam people on Twitter. Facebook, Google and Yahoo have filed similar lawsuits in the past, and Twitter claims the lawsuits send “a clear message to all would-be spammers that there are serious and costly consequences” to violating Twitter’s rules.

Apple Interested In Wireless Power Charging

Apple has filed a patent application for a system that would enable wireless charging of the devices in its stores, AppleInsider has learned. The patent application proposes a special packaging for products such as iPhone or an iPad, which could act as a RF power transmitter.

HTC Posts Huge Profit and Revenue Drops

HTC’s quarterly results are in, and they’re not pretty. The company’s profit in Q1 2012 was $151 million, a 70% drop from a year earlier, and revenues were $2.3 billion – a 35 percent decline. HTC’s CFO Winston Yung has described the situation quite candidly in a conference call: “We simply dropped the ball on products in the fourth quarter,” he said.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mattjeacock

Twitter Sues Five Major Spammers

Twitter Sues Five Major Spammers
by Kate Freeman on Mashable

Twitter’s had it with spammers and wants to send a message with the help of law enforcement. On Thursday, the company filed a suit against five separate web tools and providers that allegedly make it easier to spam people on Twitter.

“Twitter now has more than 140 million active users, and we continue to grow at a record pace,” Twitter said in a statement. “As our reach expands, we become a more attractive target for spammers. Even though spam is a small fraction of the content you can find on Twitter, we know just how distracting it can be.”

The defendants in the suit are TweetAttacks (tweetattacks.com), TweetAdder (tweetadder.com), TweetBuddy (tweetbuddy.com), James Lucero (of justinlover.info) and Garland Harris (of troption.com), and are allegedly in violation of The Twitter Rules.

View the suit here.

“Taking legal action sends a clear message to all would-be spammers that there are serious and costly consequences to violating our Rules with their annoying and potentially malicious activity,” notes the statement.

Twitter is not the first social network to get the law on its side to combat spammers. Earlier this year, Facebook and the Attorney General of Washington state teamed up to file two lawsuits against “clickjackers” who worked to spread spam on Facebook. In 2009, Google fought “Google money” schemes and the following year targeted illegal online prescription pharmacies.

Twitter’s made a move to tackle security issues and user fraud recently with its acquisition of security firm Dasient earlier this year, and what it says is its continuously -expanding anti-spam engineering team.

What do you think about Twitter’s lawsuit against these websites? What do you think the outcome will be? Tell us in the comments.


Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, courtneyK