UL (formerly Underwriters Labs) has a pilot program underway as part of an effort to eventually certify Internet of Things devices — including wearables — for safety, security and privacy. UL plans to launch the program early next year. “Because most wearables will be wireless, UL’s concerns include whether the personal data acquired by a smartwatch or other wearable that’s associated with a Social Security number or name is secure over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth,” explains Computerworld. UL, best known for certifying appliances for electrical safety, aims to “raise the bar for how security should be addressed… and establish a minimal baseline for what should be addressed much like we did with electricity 120 years ago,” said engineer Anura Fernando.

According to Piper Jaffray’s latest semiannual survey of American teens, the most important social networks among teenagers are Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, in that order. One-third indicated that they found photo-sharing app Instagram to be their most important social network, while 20 percent cited Twitter and 19 percent listed Snapchat. Only 15 percent said that Facebook was their most important social app. “The findings support the view that younger users are less engaged with Facebook and prefer alternate sites,” reports The Wall Street Journal. However, “this spring, Pew Research Internet Project found Facebook the site used most frequently by U.S. teens between 13 and 17.”

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which protects University of Wisconsin’s intellectual property and patents, won a lawsuit last week against Apple after a jury decided that Apple’s A7, A8 and A8X processors used in iPhones and iPads violate a WARF patent for improving chip efficiency. The same jury ruled on Friday that Apple would have to pay $234 million in damages for using the microchip technology without permission. Although the amount is less than the $400 million sought by the university’s patent licensing arm, “WARF praised the verdict and said it was important to protect the university’s inventions from unauthorized use,” reports Reuters. Apple said it plans to appeal the decision.

Amazon continues to combat the problem of fake customer reviews with a new lawsuit filed in Washington on Friday against more than 1,000 Fiverr.com freelancers who are offering to write phony product reviews for a fee. This spring, the e-commerce giant went after services that offered fake reviews. Now, after an investigation into Fiverr, the company is targeting individuals. “While small in number, these reviews can significantly undermine the trust that consumers and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers place in Amazon, which in turn tarnishes Amazon’s brand,” states the complaint, posted on GeekWire. Amazon is not suing the Fiverr site, but the individuals that are offering the service.

With Paper (originally named Notes), Dropbox is making the transition from file storage provider to all-in-one collaboration service. “The premise of Paper is simple,” explains Digital Trends. “It’s a place where you can create, edit, tag, and chat all in one document. It essentially combines the aesthetic of Medium with the collaboration features of Google Docs.” Paper has been in closed beta for a few months, during which Dropbox added new features, and cut down on the toolbars and settings clutter, in order for the service to better compete with established offerings such as Google Docs, Evernote, Slack and OneDrive. Dropbox Paper is now in open beta.

As part of its push to stream more video to Internet users in China, Alibaba has made a $4.6 billion offer to acquire the 81.7 percent it does not already own of YouTube-like video site Youku Tudou. Alibaba CFO Maggie Wu said the deal would be paid in cash. “Ownership of Youku Tudou would help Ma deliver U.S. films and drama series to more than a third of China’s population as Alibaba battles Baidu Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. for the attentions of Internet users,” reports Bloomberg. “The deal comes after he toured Hollywood to meet with studio executives, took control of a Chinese movie studio and invested in the latest ‘Mission: Impossible’ film.”

City-owned power utility Chattanooga Electric Power Board is introducing 10-gigabit municipal broadband connections for about $300 per month. The service is almost 1,000 times faster than the average U.S. broadband connection. Tennessee’s “Gig City” will also add 3- and 5-gigabit connections to its current 1-gigabit offering. EPB claims the new fiber optic network is the “world’s first” to offer community-wide 10-gigabit Internet service. “Chattanooga was one of the first cities to bypass large commercial Internet service providers and start offering city-run gigabit-speed fiber services for its citizens back in 2008 — about five years before Google Fiber brought comparable speeds to Kansas City,” notes Wired.

CBS chief exec Les Moonves says that discussions with Apple about TV programming for a streaming service will likely lead to a deal, but he does not know when. The tech giant pushed the launch of its planned live Internet TV service until 2016, reportedly due to stalled discussions with media companies regarding licensing agreements. Moonves indicated that his network is also having similar licensing discussions with companies including Facebook and Netflix. “CBS, with popular shows like ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and ‘Criminal Minds’ is one of the key elements to a live subscription service that Apple hopes to use to revolutionize TV,” according to Bloomberg.

A six-part docu-series titled “Sherman’s Warriors” will debut this Sunday following the “Sunday Night Football” telecast. Each episode of the series, which follows former Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman leading the Nauset Warriors high school football team, will run “6-8 minutes, accompanied by 1-2 minute behind-the-scenes clips,” explains Variety. “NBC Sports plans to launch about a half-dozen original series produced for digital platforms in the next year.” The various series will cover “different categories, including special packages of highlights and exclusive interviews.” Content will be made available for desktop, mobile, smart TVs, and via Yahoo and Comcast’s Watchable service.

Apple could be liable for up to $862.4 million in damages after losing a patent lawsuit to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), which protects the University of Wisconsin’s patents and intellectual rights. A jury in Madison, Wisconsin this week “found the iPhone maker used technology owned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s licensing arm without permission in chips found in many of its most popular devices,” reports Reuters. Apple denied any infringement regarding its A7, A8 and A8X processors used in iPhones and iPads, and argued that the 1998 WARF patent for improving chip efficiency was invalid. Earlier this year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected Apple’s bid to review validity of the patent.

The Department of Justice and FBI are investigating whether daily fantasy-sports sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel are operating in violation of federal law. FBI agents have reportedly been in contact with fantasy sports customers to begin the probe. “Congress in 2006 prohibited financial companies from transferring money to online gambling sites and several were shut down,” notes The Wall Street Journal. “But so-called games of skill were exempted.” While DraftKings and FanDuel have been operating under the exemption, government agencies are looking “to determine whether daily fantasy games are a form of gambling.” Major media companies are among the investors in the booming industry.

Snapchat has decided to permanently shut down its Snap Channel, which lunched in January as the company’s move toward self-generated original content. A number of employees will be impacted by the move, including former Fox exec Marcus Wiley, who was hired as head of programming. Snapchat removed Snap Channel from the Discover platform a few weeks ago with a promise to relaunch. “But upon careful examination of what that would entail money-wise, that plan has been scrapped,” reports Deadline, “with Snapchat hitting pause on its original programming efforts via Snap Channel and re-examining its overall original content strategy.”

The first version of music app Aurous, billed as the Popcorn Time for music, debuted this past weekend. The software allows users to stream pirated music for free. TorrentFreak applauds the Spotify-like interface and ad-free model, but criticizes the limited library and inability to create playlists. And while Aurous promised earlier to use the BitTorrent network, it is instead pulling MP3 files from external services. A player named TorrentTunes, on the other hand, is using the BitTorrent network and features more advanced discovery options, but is also lacking in content. Whereas Popcorn Time was able to compete with Netflix on the content front, Aurous and TorrentTunes reportedly fail to compete with Spotify.

Qualcomm, which has been soliciting bids for its Vuforia business in order to reduce costs and focus on mobile efforts, announced yesterday that it has sold its augmented reality platform to Massachusetts-based Internet of Things company PTC for $65 million. The deal is expected to close later this year. “Vuforia’s technology lets people use their smartphone or tablet to bring advertisements, toys and other real-world objects to life,” explains Re/code. “The effort has attracted a notable base of developers, but augmented reality remains more of a novelty than a big business.”

Google currently fields more than 100 billion searches per month. For the first time, mobile devices have surpassed PCs as the device of choice for performing Google searches worldwide. “The shift to mobile has prompted Google to rethink its core business, which places ads based on keywords typed into the company’s search engine,” explains The Wall Street Journal. “New types of devices, from phones to tablets to cars to wearables, will require new ways of searching.” Since many of these devices do not necessarily rely on typing text, Google is looking at technologies such as voice and image recognition moving forward.