Ebay Sues Google

 This court battle is going to be one of the most watched out for court battles in Internet history as online shopping and auction website giant eBay sues web search engine giant Google.

Image via CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

eBay sued Google when Google hired or “poached” two of eBay’s employees, under its wholly owned subsidiary company online payment system PayPal, in a desperate effort of Google to understand better PayPal’s trade secrets. 

eBay, who filed the lawsuit on Thursday, May 26, painted a colourful, 28-page picture of betrayal and corporate espionage just hours after Google launched “Google Wallet” payment service in New York.

In a formal response released on Friday Google defended itself by stating that they hired two former PayPal employees based on their talent to run Google’s mobile payments service.  “Silicon Valley was built on the ability of individuals to use their knowledge and expertise to seek better employment opportunities, a principle recognized by both California law and public policy.  We respect trade secrets and will defend ourselves against these claims.”

The lawsuit specifically mentioned Google’s more than two years discussion with eBay that would have the search engine rely on PayPal to process payments for an application market set up for Google’s mobile phone software, Android.  The lawsuit also states that Google was said to have cut off this “Android” talks with eBay earlier this year after poaching enough PayPal people to set up its own mobile payments service.

Osama Bedier, one of PayPal’s former executives, was involved in these “Android” talks when he was still with PayPal.  He left the company to become Google’s vice president of payments merely four months ago.  It was said that Bedier transferred some of PayPal’s secrets to his computer and even uploaded sensitive information to Internet storage locker DropBox before leaving PayPal. 

One of eBay’s former executives, Stephanie Tilenus, got also involved in wooing her former colleague to go over to Google.  As part of Tilenus’ agreement with eBay in October 2009 when she left she agreed not to hire eBay employees until March of this year.  Bedier had been with Google for four months already.

Internet history would show that this isn’t Google’s first time to go to court when it comes to hiring a rival company’s employee/s.  It was sued six years ago when they hired a top Microsoft Corp. executive to oversee Google’s China operations. 

Read more: http://webupon.com/search-engines/ebay-sues-google/#ixzz1NmTqFGzw

Kate Middleton, Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron Fashion Face-off

With America’s First Lady Michelle Obama politically visiting U.K. for three days this week much anticipation by fashionistas were set into high gear as three of the world’s fashion icons, with husbands as world leaders and a future king, are bound to meet face to face. 

 Imagine Michelle Obama meeting with the British prime minister’s wife, Samantha Cameron, known for being a fashionista.  Also how is Mrs. Obama going to dress herself in meeting the newly married Duchess Kate Middleton and jive with her accessible style?

It was definitely a classic fashion picture history pages for the books.

    

 Michelle Obama, Mobama as she is popularly and fondly called in the U.S., is known for her love of baring her arms, donning high street J. Crew, wearing oversized pearl necklaces, brooches, costume jewelry and belts.  She can mix American designers’ works (which includes that of up and coming designers), like Thaakon, Isaac Mizrahi, Michael Kors and even the Olsen twins’ The Row with affordables from Talbots, H&M and Banana Republic.  This earned America’s first lady the reputation of being the queen of high-low dressing.  She wears designer looks with off-the-rack pieces that made Vogue Editor Anna Wintour comment that every look Michelle Obama comes up with is her very own.  The former lawyer is known to generate $2.7 billion in fashion sales and naturally inspires an army of knockoffs and copycats. 

 Meeting with the newly titled Duchess of Cambridge for a mere 15 to 20 minutes in the 1844 room in Buckingham Palace Michelle Obama wore a shiny, icy-blue Barbara Tfank dress and a swingy pink bolero jacket with a gun-metal slingback stilettos.  Kate, whose first official duty since marrying into the British royal family, is this meeting with the Obamas chose to wear a sand-colored fitted bandage-style dress priced at $340 made by Reiss Schola.  This dress which sold out in minutes is with a box neckline, asymmetric overlays and a panelled band across the waist.  More encounters between these two beautiful and stylish ladies are set to transpire in July when Prince William and Kate visit California.

   

 As with Kate’s fashion biography she already captured the world’s attention with her fashion choices way before she wed Prince William (though her name being with associated with the prince definitely paved the way for this).  This fascination on her fashion choices is proven by her being on the Best Dressed List of every imaginable magazine since 2006.  The future queen of England had famously favoured designer brands like Issa and Mulberry and is also known for wearing high-street fashion brands like Topshop giving off a simple, stylish look that many designers famously frown at for being not fashion forward. 

 For a BBQ in the British Prime Minister’s garden Michelle Obama wore a black-and-white belted dress from Tracy Reece’s pre-fall collection which she finished off with matching bracelets.  The sparkling detail at the waist provided a nice touch.  Samantha Cameron wore a pastel frock by Jonathan Saunders nipped by a bright green belt.

  Samantha Cameron is Britain Prime Minister’s 39-year-old wife known for her love of bright sheaths, cinched waist and platform pumps.

 For the usual, mandatory English tea with Samantha Cameron at the Cameron’s private apartment at Downing Street Michelle Obama wore New Yorker’s Narciso Rodriguez cobalt-blue coat was she momentarily had taken off to show her vibrant purple wool-crepe by London-based Roksanda Ilincic dress.  Michelle Obama accessorized this ensemble with a black belt and black kitten heels.  Samantha Cameron had British Peter Pilotto embroidered floral silk dress.  Grey pumps completed her look.

Read more: http://beyondjane.com/fashion/kate-middleton-michelle-obama-and-samantha-cameron-fashion-face-off/#ixzz1NmOIwIoT

Can The Middletons’ Social Climbing Ways Get Pippa a Nice, Rich, Titled Husband Also?

After Kate Middleton took the royal plunge officially last April 29 reports are now naturally centering on her aptly-named middle class family – the Middletons.  On the hotseat is the Duchess of Cambridge’s younger sister and her seamlessly natural and somehow selective way of getting boyfriends with double-barrelled last names bound to either inherit a title or a fortune and sometimes even both. 

Much as the degrading “doors to manual” murmurs were the only thing the media was able to dish out (prior to the royal wedding) as the by-line whenever the born rich, titled and influential would see the mother of William’s bride, former air stewardess – Carole Middleton, it does seem a little bit kinder now in comparison with what the media turned up with concerning the other members of Princess Catherine’s family, specifically, her best friend and strongest ally who also happens to be her sister, Pippa.

  This quest of the media was fuelled when Pippa Middleton almost stole the spotlight on her sister’s wedding.  Albeit both sisters were wearing creations of Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen it was Pippa’s figure-hugging dress that spelled the end of whatever privacy the “vulgar try-hards” Middletons were hoping for.  The wedding of the heir to the British throne was then dubbed “All about Philippa Charlotte’s bum”.

   Much as it was already known by royal watchers that “bold and brazen” loo-paper-wearing Pippa is the total opposite of her older demure sister the media was able to dig up a history of Pippa doing very calculated moves and showcasing an inherent talent of acquiring boyfriends that normally would be out of reach from such commoners-rags-to-riches like her family.

It was said that the great orchestrator of everything and everyone that gets acquainted with the Middleton daughters is none other than Prince William’s mother-in-law.  It was said that it was she who urged Kate to enrol in St. Andrews University when she heard that Prince William would study there.

Carole Middleton is known for her networking skills that made their online party accessories Party Pieces a success that eventually made her and her husband millionaires. It is said that of the two sisters it was Pippa who inherited this networking talent evidenced in her having rich, titled boyfriends.

 Pippa’s presence during William and Kate’s courtship had been a proof of the power of how close a sister Pippa was to Kate: always protectively holding her older sister’s hand, always leading the way, while at the same time being more tanned and smiling more than ever than  her sister. 

Known as the other half of the ‘Wisteria Sisters’ due to her and Kate being “highly decorative, terribly fragrant and having the ferocious ability to (socially) climb” Pippa, a party planner, has once beaten supermodels, actors and aristocrats in being named Britain’s most eligible person in the society magazine the Tatler.  Pippa beat the other 199 coolest young people with society connections, who love parties, and have good physical and financial attributes.

Being able to go to a lot of parties (“but most of the time as the caterer”) Pippa is known humiliatingly as the “Big Dipper”.

 Pippa’s current boyfriend is Etonian Alex Loudon who works as a stockbroker and stands to inherit a sizeable fortune.

 

 Known for her success in attaching herself to well-heeled classmates, in her third year in college, Pippa lived in with George Percy, the eldest son of the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Ted Innes-Ker, the second son of the Duke of Roxburghe.  She also dated Jardine Paterson who is an heir to aHong Kong industrial fortune.  Scottish aristocrat Billy More Nesbitt and diamond heir Simon Youngman also didn’t escape “Wisteria sister” Pippa’s grips.