The latest tech news from Bloomberg:

  • Alicia Keys Out at Blackberry

BlackBerry is parting ways with Alicia Keys after the R&B singer failed to rekindle consumers’ love affair with the company’s smartphones.

Keys, who was hired as global creative director in January 2013, will be leaving the company after their yearlong collaboration, according to a statement today. The Grammy-winning artist came on board as the smartphone maker was unveiling its BlackBerry 10 operating system, a product rollout that ultimately flopped with shoppers.

  • Pozen Promotes Executive

Dennis McNamara has been promoted by Chapel Hill-based Pozen to the roole of senior vice president and chief business officer. His previous position was vice president, business development.

The announcement:

Pozen,  a pharmaceutical company committed to transforming medicine that transforms lives, today announced the promotion of Dennis McNamara to Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer. Mr. McNamara is responsible for leading corporate development, alliance management and intellectual property efforts at POZEN. Prior to this appointment, Mr. McNamara held the position of Vice President, Business Development at POZEN, where he has been instrumental in successfully licensing POZEN’s products and product candidates to major pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca AB, sanofi-aventis U.S. LLC, Horizon Pharma US, Inc., and Cilag GmbH International.

“The Board of Directors and I are pleased to appoint Dennis as Chief Business Officer,” said Dr. John Plachetka, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of POZEN. “He has been an exceptional employee throughout the years and we look forward to working with Dennis in his new and expanded role.”

  • Hyundai Goes Google Glass

Hyundai Motor says owners of its new Genesis sedan will be able to use Google’s Glass for “pre-drive” operations such as remote starts and route planning as automakers add more technology to lure buyers.

Hyundai will offer an application designed for Glass and other “wearable” electronic devices starting with the 2015 Genesis, South Korea’s largest automaker said yesterday in a statement. The feature is an extension of Hyundai’s current Blue Link in-car system that provides diagnostic and maintenance services, the Seoul-based company said.

The Glass application is only “for pre-drive operations — not when you’re behind the wheel,” Miles Johnson, a company spokesman, said in a telephone interview. “The goal is that when you get to the car to start your trip, the drive is less stressful.”

  • Facebook Sued in Privacy Dispute

Facebook has been sued over allegations it systematically intercepts its users private messages on the social network and profits by sharing the data with advertisers and marketers.

When users compose messages that include links to a third-party website, Facebook scans the content of the message, follows the link and searches for information to profile the message-sender’s Web activity, violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California privacy and unfair competition laws, according to the suit.

The practice compromises privacy and undermines Facebook’s promise of “unprecedented” security options for its messaging function, two Facebook users said in the complaint filed in federal court in San Jose, California.

Lawsuits against Internet companies and social networks are multiplying as use of the Web balloons and users become more aware of how much personal information they’re revealing, often without their knowledge. Google Inc. (GOOG), Yahoo! Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) also are facing accusations of intercepting communications for their profit at the expense of users or non-users.

  • Google Wins Social Network Cartoon Patent

Google has received a patent on a method of creating comic strips on social networks.

Patent 8,621,366, which was issued to the Mountain View, California-based company on Dec. 31, covers a technology making it possible for people on social networks to create comic strips through a simplified user interface that is formatted for display on the network.

Google said in the patent that while many social-network users enjoy sharing jokes, a text-only gag tends not to be noticed given the abundance of audio, video and animation being shared.

Absent the technology embodied in the patent, users must go to a different website to create comic strips and import them into the social network.