Apple to pay Nokia license fees to end patent dispute
Apple has signed a patent license agreement with Nokia, bringing years of litigation to an end. There's no indication of how much Apple will be paying Nokia in order to make use of its protected technology features, although we do know that the tech giant will be paying Nokia a one time fee as well as on-going royalties. "We are very pleased to have Apple join the growing number of Nokia licensees," crows Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, an ex-Microsoft executive who's no doubt in raptures over the agreement. "This settlement demonstrates Nokia's industry leading patent portfolio and enables us to focus on further licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market."
TechRadar

Games co Epic resets passwords after hack attack
Games developer Epic Games has reset user passwords following the discovery of a hack attack against its websites.Criminal miscreants made off with email addresses and encrypted passwords of forum users after breaking into Epic's forum site. Epic's main web site was also hit, according to an email sent by the firm over the weekend and forwarded by readers to El Reg. The Unreal Developer Network (UDN) was not affected by the breach, according to a statement on the hack by Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games Inc. Numerous Twitter users report received the warning emails, which has acted as the basis of several news stories on specialist games forums.
The Register

Symantec research has found that nervy CEOs are resisting attempts to move to the cloud.
Nervous chief executives are putting the block on moves to the cloud, even when their IT staff believe it’s the best way forward. So claims research from Symantec, which found most CEOs are wary of moving critical applications to the cloud, citing concerns about security and performance, More than half (53 per cent) of British CEOs are less than somewhat open to the concept of moving to a private cloud this compares starkly to the responses from IT personnel, 72 per cent of whom are looking to move to private cloud implementations.
IT PRO

News Corp's "Sky" brand offers full TV on phones and tablets
For years News Corp has often tried out its tricks first in the UK and if it works there, it spreads it around its kingdom, but this week it has perfected its tablet and mobile video strategy elsewhere in Germany, before bringing it back to the UK. It was just back in May that Sky Deutschland first showed off its launch of its Sky Go service, which it said would forms a core part of its TV vision in the years to come. Sky Go allows Sky programming to be viewed in a second room, on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, or over the internet on a PC or laptop.
Rethink Wireless

HP management reshuffle sees Livermore out and focus on India and China
HP has announced a series of management changes aimed at removing layers of management and reflecting a new focus on the Chinese and Indian markets. Ann Livermore, head of HP's Enterprise Services division, is to step down from the job, once a successor can be found, and take a seat on the board. Livermore, who has been with HP for 29 years, has been tipped for the top job at HP for over a decade, but ill-health is thought to have ruled her out. Ann's distinguished role as a leader of our largest business, deep relationships with our most important customers, institutional knowledge of the company and its employees, and insights on the technology industry will be tremendous assets to our board of directors," said Ray Lane, non-executive chairman of HP's board of directors.
V3

Google Maps tops UK connected mobile apps list with 6.4m users
More than 6.4 million people in the UK used the Google Maps mobile app in April 2011, according to new research published by comScore and mobile industry body the GSMA. That made it the most popular connected app in the UK, with Yahoo Weather (3.6 million) edging Facebook (3.5 million) into third place. A Yahoo app more popular than Facebook? Actually, this should come as no surprise. Google Maps is preloaded on iPhone and Android handsets, while Yahoo supplies the data for the embedded weather app on iPhone. For Facebook to run the latter so close despite lacking such preload deals is pretty impressive.
The Guardian

Facebook sees drop in monthly user growth
Social networking site Facebook has experienced a drop in users in some regions, mostly the USA and Canada, according to new data from Facebook monitoring site Inside Facebook. According to a June 12 report by Inside Facebook, the social network is continuing to grow, reaching around 687 million monthly active users by the start of June. The majority of new users are late adopters and come from countries such as India, the Philippines and Indonesia, for example.  However in terms of users, the site has experienced lower than normal monthly growth over April and May. Whereas over the past 12 months Facebook grew at a rate of around 20 million new active users per month, in April that number was reduced to 13.9 million, and in May it fell to 11.8 million.
Independent

BlackBerry patches PlayBook OS to block Flash Player problem
A new version of the BlackBerry Tablet OS will soon be available to all BlackBerry PlayBook tablet users, to address a security issue raised by Adobe about its Flash Player, Research In Motion said. The new version of the operating system, version 1.0.5.2342, will contain an updated version of the Flash Player, according to RIM. Adobe issued an update last week for its Flash Player to deal with a cross-site scripting vulnerability. The problem could be exploited to perform actions on behalf of a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet user on any website or mail provider, if the user visits a malicious website that loads Adobe Flash content, RIM said on a support page.
ComputerWorld

Brazil passes 15mn broadband subscribers
Brazil has seen its number of broadband subscribers increase 150-fold over the past ten years to reach 15.5 million accesses by the end of 2010, with 19.2 per cent growth last year alone, according to the annual report from the country’s National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel).
The agency ascribes this strong growth to the migration of other services (such as voice telephony) to IP delivery, as well as to the large number of licences it has granted to small and medium-sized companies to provide local loop unbundling services, and (predictably) to the agility with which Anatel has responded to these requests for licences.
Telecoms

Airbus shows off transparent plane concept for 2050
Airbus has shown off its latest concept plane, which features a glass membrane fuselage to give you a real magic carpet feel.  The plane, which Airbus is speculating could be a reality in 2050, features a whole host of future tech but it will be the see-through walls that strike both awe and terror. According to Airbus, the transparent membrane will apparently mimic the efficiency of bird bone and will help regulate temperature within the plane. Airbus is also talking up virtual gaming rooms, head up displays and a smart-tech business space for those who need to work rather than play virtual golf. 
TechRadar