Clinton in BlackBerry talks

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will hold talks with the UAE over the ongoing BlackBerry dispute, reveals The BBC.

The United Arab Emirates has said it intends to prevent the phones sending e-mails, accessing the Internet, and delivering instant messages.

Authorities are unhappy that they are unable to monitor such encrypted communications via the handsets.

Salesforce and Microsoft have agreed to an out-of-court settlement on a patent conflict concerning software used by CRM applications, says Computing.co.uk.

Microsoft had sued Salesforce regarding certain menu and interface components, claiming they infringed on Microsoft's intellectual property. Salesforce counter-sued, arguing that .Net and SharePoint infringed on its patents.

The two companies have now agreed to a deal under which the disputed patents will be licensed to each other. In addition, Salesforce will pay an undisclosed sum to Microsoft to reflect the strength of its patent portfolio.

The US Defence Department on Thursday formally demanded that Wikileaks return all military records that it possesses, saying they are the "property of the US government", reports CNET.

Geoff Morrell, the department's press secretary, said the military "demands that Wikileaks return immediately to the US government all versions of documents obtained directly or indirectly from the Department of Defence databases or records" and permanently delete them.

In addition, Morrell said the Wikileaks.org Web site "constitutes a brazen solicitation to US government officials, including our military, to break the law" by claiming that leaking confidential or classified information is legal.

Indonesia has joined Middle Eastern states to put pressure on RIM to provide authorities with BlackBerry interception capabilities, writes The Register.

Today its communications regulator toned down earlier rhetoric, however, saying "so far there is absolutely no plan" to follow the UAE and Saudi Arabia in threatening to restrict BlackBerry services.

Indonesia said it had appealed to the firm last year to establish a local data centre to assist law enforcement, but insisted it was "only a plea and there is no legal sanction". In most international markets, RIM routes encrypted BlackBerry communications via its facilities in Canada, avoiding interception laws (although large corporates typically run their own local servers).