Google has been ordered to pay €500,000 to Bottin Cartographes, a French company that filed a lawsuit against Google France after it began providing its free Google Maps services to customers. Google is also responsible for paying an additional €15,000 in fees. The court found Google “guilty of abusing the dominant position of its Google Maps application,” Economic Times said Thursday. ”We proved the illegality of [Google's] strategy to remove its competitors… the court recognize...

Microsoft will reportedly not launch the highly anticipated follow-up to the Xbox 360 this year. Cedrick Delma, Microsoft’s marketing director in France, recently told Le Point that he was “certain” the Redmond-based company would not release a new Xbox this year. Gamers shouldn’t give up all hope on at least getting a glimpse at Microsoft’s next-generation console this year, though. BGR exclusively reported last June that Microsoft has plans to unveil its Xbox 360 successor d...

Whether or not competing products do in fact infringe on Apple’s patents, Apple may have another reason to attack its rivals so aggressively in France and Germany: the company is losing ground. New data from Kantar Worldpanel released on Thursday shows that while the launch of the iPhone 4S was a huge hit in the United States and the United Kingdom, smartphone users in key markets like France and Germany were seemingly not as impressed with the handset. Read on for more. (more…)

Samsung on Monday confirmed that it recently filed a new complaint against Apple in France, alleging that the Cupertino-based company’s iPad and iPhone devices infringe on three Samsung-owned patents. Unlike the case that recently saw a German judge ban sales of Samsung’s GALAXY Tab 10.1 tablet by the company’s local arm, Samsung’s complaint in France covers patents rather than the physical design of the devices in question. The suit targets Apple’s iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPhon...

In May the World Health Organization published a report that said cell phones are “possibly carcinogenic.” Last month The Economist published a different report suggesting it simply wasn’t possible for the radio waves emitted by a cell phone to cause cells to mutate. Now, another group of research experts from Britain, the United States, and Sweden — who have studied the WHO report — are also arguing that there’s no connection between cell phones and cancer. “Although there r...

1PlusV, a French search company, has filed a lawsuit against Google asking for 295 million euros ($421 million). “Between 2007 and 2010, no less than 30 vertical search engines created by 1plusV were black-listed, some of which showed significant business potential,” the company said in its lawsuit. According to Reuters, 1PlusV plans to file the official complaint on Tuesday or Wednesday with the Paris commercial court. Google has been taking a lot of legal heat recently. In the United States, Google rece...

Yankee Group is set to release its European Mobile User Study next month and the research firm has just provided a quick glimpse into its early findings. Reportedly, 40% of European smartphone buyers plan to purchase an iPhone as their next device. 19% plan to purchase an Android powered device, 17% have their eye on a BlackBerry, and 15% plan to buy a Nokia smartphone. “These findings highlight the continued strength of Apple in the European smartphone market and, in particular, its phenomenal brand ap...

Nokia has announced that it will hold its annual Nokia World conference from October 26th through the 27th in London. Given Nokia’s recent announcement that it’s still on-track to launch a Windows Phone this year, it’s entirely plausible that Stephen Elop will take the stage during Nokia World and do just that. An October announcement could mean that the new phone will land on store shelves right in time for the holiday season, too. Nokia has listed France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, E...

According to AllAboutPhones, Nokia will launch its first Windows Phone handsets in six European countries this year. Oddly, Finland will not be one of them. The Finnish phone maker has said that it plans to launch the new devices by Q4 2011, and the first six countries named include France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands. If your country isn’t on that list, fear not. Nokia has said that it plans to launch as many as a dozen Windows Phones throughout 2012, some of which will pack dual-core processors. W...

Following a report issued late last month by the World Health Organization suggesting cell phones may be carcinogenic, The Economist has published a response column dismissing the report as overblown. According to the report, low-frequency microwaves such as those emitted by cell phones simply do not have enough power to produce anything but extremely low levels of heat. ”No matter how powerful the transmitter, radio waves simply cannot produce ionising radiation,” the column reads. “Only g...

RIM has announced that the company’s first BlackBerry tablet will go on sale in sixteen new countries over the next month, including Australia, France, Germany, India, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. Its unclear if RIM has any carrier partners lined up or how much the device will retail for abroad. In the United States, Sprint most recently announced that it will begin selling the Wi-Fi PlayBook, and it also has plans to sell a 4G WiMAX version of the tablet this summer.  (more…...

According to a new report from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, “radio frequency electromagnetic fields” are “possibly carcinogenic to humans based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer associated with wireless phone use.” The agency met with with 31 scientists from 14 countries from May 24th through May 31st, 2011 to assess the potential carcinogenic hazards of cell phone usage. The report said that the resu...

Apple has reportedly submitted a proposal for a new industry stand for SIM cards that would drastically reduce their size. According to Reuters, Apple’s new SIM design is even smaller than the micro-SIM the company currently uses in its iPhone 4 smartphone and iPad tablets. The new SIM card, which has already been backed by France’s Orange and other carriers, would allow cell phone manufacturers to build devices that are much thinner as a result of the smaller, thinner SIM readers that could be in...

An image procured by French site FrAndroid suggests that HTC’s unannounced — but well documented — Pyramid handset may be scheduled for a European release in very the near future. This site’s source indicated that the 1.2GHz, 4.3-inch handset should be landing on French carrier SFR sometime in “late-May.” HTC recently announced an April 14th media event, and the Pyramid is popular announcement prognostications from technology pundits. It does seem unlikely that this particular h...