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On Tuesday, Facebook was awarded a patent for “dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network,” according to AllFacebook.  The patent is #7,669,123 and is credited to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and a veritable who’s who of Facebookers.

The implications are pretty big, since this patent could mean Facebook could enforce their ownership and virtually shut down every other social network with a news feed.  Which is all of them.  So Buzz, FriendFeed, MySpace…  All had better be lawyering up.

As Mashable’s Ben Parr points out, the patent is all about the “stories.”  In other words, the patent isn’t about just displaying a list of status updates (ala Twitter), but is about displaying connected news updates in a story line, such as Google Buzz’s status and comment threads.  Here’s the legaleze that this is summarized in within Facebook’s patent:

“A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. The method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items, as well as limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further may further include displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers and dynamically limiting the number of news items displayed.”

Of course, Business Insider says not to worry.  It’s only money and, if Facebook enforces this patent, that’s what they’ll get: stacks of cash from their competition.  After they’ve hired a team of lawyers to enforce the patent, of course.

In a first of it’s kind move, Google’s Gmail has announced the mass graduation and retiring of Labs features all in one swoop.  Of the current roster of about 60 Gmail Labs test features, Google announced last night the graduation of six of those to full-blowing featurehood for Gmail users.  Five others didn’t make the grade and are being retired.

The six features that made the cut and moved their tassels are:

1. Search Autocomplete – simply fills in the Gmail search box automatically as you type, suggesting search terms based on your contacts, labels, and so forth; the same way Google search does.
2. Go To Label – combined with Search Autocomplete, this new feature allows you to ad “gl:” or “label:” as an operator in your Gmail search box and search your labels for specific terms.  So if you have a label titled “Gmail Info” and you use this operator to search “Gmail” it will auto-suggest “Gmail Info” and then return all of your emails with that label.
3. Forgotten Attachment Detector – a surprisingly popular feature, this one scans your email as you draft it, looking for keywords like “attached” and “included” and alerts you if you haven’t attached anything to your email.
4. YouTube Previews – an obvious feature that Gmail probably should have implemented as soon as they bought YouTube, this one embeds YouTube vids into your email whenever someone sends a link, so you can watch the vid directly from your Gmail inbox rather than having to click through.
5. Custom Label Colors – simply allows users to color code labels with any of 4,000 color combinations to give you the ability to make every label different.  For those of us who at least attempt to organize our Gmail inboxes, this is a life saver.
6. Vacation Responder – lets you preset your vacation days on a calendar so that Gmail will automatically send vacation responses during that time period.  So if you’ve already planned your big getaway for June 15-25, you can set that on your Gmail calendar and automatically set up an auto-response for that time period.

The five that were dropped were:

1. Muzzle
2. Fixed Width Font
3. E-mail Addict
4. Location in Signature
5. Random Signature

To find out about those dropped features, and which ones already have online petitions and calls for their return, check out Ian Paul’s roundup on PCWorld.

Overall, the new features are great and most Gmail users will probably find at least one or two of them useful.  Those who try out stuff from Gmail Labs are likely to have already been using these features and are no doubt glad to see them made permanent.

Google seems to be feeling the pains of becoming the world’s largest Internet business as it faces Microsoft-like opposition in Europe.  Three Google executives were convicted by a judge in Italy of failing to comply with Italian privacy code while the European Union begins investigating the search giant for monopolistic activity.

The Italian conviction is, to Google’s credit, a serious miscarriage of justice as an overzealous legal system attempts to convict all and sundry in an effort to win good PR.  Google calls this a Serious threat to the web in Italy on their blog.

The charges stem from a sad incident in 2006 in which a group of Italian students filmed themselves bullying an autistic schoolmate and then posted their deeds on Google Video.  When the video was seen by Italian authorities, they notified Google, who immediately removed the video.  The kids responsible were eventually tried and convicted and Google thought that would be it.

Then, in 2008, charges were brought against four Google employees for criminal defamation and failure to comply with the Italian privacy code.  This because the Google Video service was used to post the video online, not because the four Google employees had anything to do with the bullying video in any way other than to be in charge of keeping the service active – none of them had any responsibility towards the content on the site.

So the court in Milan convicts three of the four charged and justice is served, Italian-style, with the three convictions carrying sentences of six months in jail.  And you wonder why mobsters are always Italian in the movies…

Meanwhile, an investigation has opened against Google for unfair competition in the European Union.  The suite was brought by several EU-based companies who claim that Google is acting in a monopolistic manner (I think we call it “doing the Microsoft” here in the States).  The Telegraph reports that an anti-trust investigation has opened at the European Commission.

As usual, the charges against Google stem from supposed “search penalties” on businesses.  These allegations usually stem from businesses who don’t understand SEO and wonder why they can’t get towards the top.  There could be some questionable deeds happening, but it’s not likely.  Why would Google threaten their number one resource (consumer trust) with something this lame?

At least, that’s the way it appears for now, with the limited information available.  Surely there’ll be more to come.

Watch out Netflix, the Disneyland of retail is moving into streaming movies.  In a surprise move, Walmart announced the takeover of VUDU, a little-known provider of digital movie and entertainment content.  The company has been embedding itself over the past three years into HD-ready televisions and Blu-ray players while at the same time brokering licensing deals with major movie studios and distributors.

According to the New York Times on the issue, less than 5% of HD TVs can connect to the Internet directly.   Walmart, obviously, wants to change that and is one of the few companies with the clout to do it.  The report is that Walmart paid $100 million for Vudu, beating out Best Buy and Comcast, among others.  Of those who’d shown interest, though, Walmart is probably the only one with the supply chain control to dictate to their electronics suppliers that all devices be VUDU-ready.

For their own future’s sake, I hope NASCAR is HD and VUDU-ready too.  haha

The price tag on this little-known, 3-year-old startup was a lot larger than most would have expected, but Walmart is getting more than just another online streaming service.  VUDU has what PCWorld considers the best streaming quality in the business, coming in at 1080 pixels – far superior to competitor Netflix.

But that streaming tech is only part of what Walmart gets out of this deal.  Likely to be more valuable are the licensing agreements VUDU has with nearly every major movie studio and distributor as well as a large number of indie and international distributors.  About 16,000 movies so far, plus another 1,800 adult films (which will probably be dumped, given Walmart’s family-friendly orientation).

It’s definite that this deal could change the face of streaming entertainment and content, with Walmart having the muscle to integrate more than just movies into the future VUDU lineup.

Scandal has rocked the tech world blogosphere this weekend as two damning publications, involving the same person, revealed a lie that made could ruin a software company and tarnish the reputation of a popular tech publication.  Randall C. Kennedy, founder of Devil Mountain Software and blogger at InfoWorld, was exposed to be masquerading as Craig Barth, CTO of Devil Mountain, in interviews blasting Microsoft (which Devil Mountain was famous for).

InfoWorld broke the story Sunday morning, publishing a blog entry announcing their dumping of Kennedy and removing all of his past blog posts from their site.

Immediately after that, ZDNet published their expose of Devil Mountain Software, their fake CTO, Kennedy’s impropriety, and questions about the software company’s code and headline-grabbing findings.

Essentially, it appears that Kennedy has built a convoluted web of lies around his fake persona (CTO Barth), his column at InfoWorld, and his non-disclosure of his relationship with IDG (owner of InfoWorld and other publications) – usually the first news outlet to “quote” Barth on breaking news.  IDG has since also disavowed Kennedy and dumped all ties with him and Devil Mountain.  ZDNet’s sister publication, CNet News, mirrored the story.

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington had some rather scathing comments to say about InfoWorld’s handling of the Kennedy fiasco.  Pointing out that the public disclosure from InfoWorld came only after apparent prodding by ZDNet to get a quote on their story, Arrington (rather haughtily) points out that his own publication handled a similar situation much better, but gets his facts wrong on how InfoWorld handled it to start with – claiming that the ZDNet article published (“broke”) and forced InfoWorld’s hand.

In the end, however, the point is made that sheisters still exist and, while most aren’t likely to be as complicated as Kennedy’s, the plots created by these individuals can do serious harm to many organizations.  In this case, InfoWorld will probably recover, but their reputation has been seriously compromised.  Devil Mountain Software is, no doubt, now a dead horse and Kennedy (and his alter-ego Barth) are likely through in the tech world.

Funny, because had Kennedy not felt it necessary to create his CTO ego, all of this would have been avoided as only his company’s software would have been called into question by ZDNet.

The current buzz is that Apple has apparently begun removing sexual content apps from The App Store and is sending notices to their developers about those application removals.  At the same time, Apple has added SDK terms to the App Store that allow promotional sweepstakes or contests (read: lotteries).

According to TechCrunch, which published a copy of an email sent to the developer of Wobble iBoobs, the decision is due to numerous complaints about sexually-based content.  This despite the fact that the App Store labels these apps with a “17+” and requires users to affirm that they are over 17 years of age before download.

As PCWorld points out, this new decision doesn’t have to make sense, since Apple has a track record of making tweaks and decisions that leave developers wondering what the hell is going on.  Even applications such as Wobble iBoobs, which merely allows users to select a portion of a photo and make it “wobble” on the screen when the phone is shaken.  That’s not nearly as racy as other apps, such as Tera Patrick’s SlideHer.  CNet has done a long search of sexual apps to see what has and hasn’t been removed.

In the mean time, AppAdvice has discovered that Apple’s iPhone SDK terms are extremely tolerant of developers who wish to include contests, sweepstakes, lotteries, etc. in their apps.  These lottery-style applications are allowed in the App Store and one of the first apps to take advantage of this is Ka-Ching, a lottery wherein users can load the app, hit a button, and win a monthly contest worth $1,000.

So it appears that the puritans at Apple are worried about sexually-oriented apps, but have no problem with gambling.  Anyone see any hypocrisy there?