In today’s Bulldog roundup of science and technology news:

  • Justices raise doubts about $399M judgment against Samsung 
  • Amazon launches for-pay streaming music service
  • NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is back open for business
  • Ericsson shares plummet after it warns on profit and outlook
  • Comcast fined $2.3M to end probe into mischarging customers

The details:

  • Justices raise doubts about $399M judgment against Samsung

The Supreme Court raised serious doubts Tuesday about a $399 million judgment against smartphone maker Samsung for illegally copying parts of the patented design of Apple’s iPhone.

Justices hearing arguments in the long-running dispute seemed troubled that Samsung was ordered to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models, even though the features at issue are just a tiny part of the devices.

But some justices struggled over how exactly a jury should be told to compute damages if the case is sent back to a lower court.

“If I were a juror, I wouldn’t know what to do,” said Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Justice Stephen Breyer appeared to embrace a test proposed by a group of internet companies including Facebook and Google that would outline new limits on such damage awards. Other justices seemed to favor a different test proposed by the Obama administration.

The outcome could have ripple effects across the high-tech industry as the court balances the need to encourage innovation against a desire to protect lucrative design patents.

The case is part of series of high-stakes lawsuits between the technology rivals that began in 2011. None of the early generation Samsung phones involved in the lawsuit remains on the market.

  • Amazon launches for-pay streaming music service

Amazon is launching a paid streaming music service, the latest entry in an increasingly crowded field.

Amazon Music Unlimited is being positioned to compete against existing services such as Spotify and Apple Music. It will cost $8 per month, or $80 a year, for members of Amazon’s $99-a-year Prime loyalty program. Non-Prime members will pay $10 a month, the same monthly fee charged by Spotify and Apple Music.

Owners of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker, meanwhile, will be able to get the unlimited music service on one device for $4 per month.

The steaming service is one more perk — like two-day free shipping and Amazon Video — that the Seattle-based company hopes will attract people to its Prime program and thus encourage them to spend more on its flagship site. Amazon already offers AmazonPrime Music for free to Prime members, but that includes about two million songs, while the new service boasts a catalog of “tens of millions” of songs.

“Think of this as two different levels: Prime is now the introductory service and Unlimited is the full service,” said Steve Boom, Amazon’s vice president of digital music.

The service’s launch comes as the way people listen to music is changing. According to Nielsen , during the first half of 2016, digital purchasing of single tracks was down 24 percent and digital albums were down 18 percent, while streaming was up 59 percent, compared with the same period a year ago.

  • NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is back open for business

NASA is still tallying up all the damage from Hurricane Matthew — mostly ripped-off roofs.

Center director Robert Cabana said Tuesday that even though damage is in the millionsof dollars, it would have been much worse had Matthew not weakened and veered slightly offshore Friday. As he puts it, “We were definitely blessed.”

Among the buildings with roof and water damage: the 1960s-era beach house once used by astronauts for parties and barbeques before launch.

Industrial air conditioning units were rushed in from around the country, after the roof came off the building that serves as the electric room for air conditioning throughout the main launch area. The switching equipment ended up soaked.

Just over 8,300 people work at Kennedy.

  • Ericsson shares plummet after it warns on profit and outlook

Mobile networks company Ericsson saw its share price plummet by almost a fifth on Wednesday after saying that its third quarter earnings this year will be “significantly lower” than expectations and it predicts no improvement anytime soon.

The Swedish company said its sales fell 14 percent in the period compared to a year earlier due to weaker demand for broadband networks.

Ericsson CEO Jan Frykhammar says “current trends are expected to continue short-term.” He said that the Stockholm-based company “will continue to drive the ongoing cost program and implement further reductions in cost of sales to meet the lower sales volumes.”

After the announcement, Ericsson shares were down nearly 17 percent to 51.40 kronor in early Stockholm trading.

Last week, Ericsson announced 3,000 job cuts in Sweden, or nearly 20 percent of its local workforce, and said it will downsize operations at several plants as part of its global plan to cut costs by 9 billion kronor ($1 billion) in 2017.

  • Comcast fined $2.3M to end probe into mischarging customers

Government regulators are fining Comcast $2.3 million, saying the cable giant has charged customers for stuff they never ordered, like premium channels or extra cable boxes.

The Federal Communications Commission said the Philadelphia company must clearly ask customers before charging them for new services or equipment and make it easier for customers to fight charges they think are wrong.

Comcast said Tuesday that it’s been working to improve customer service and that the problems uncovered by the FCC stemmed from “isolated errors or customer confusion” rather than intentionally mischarging its 22 million cable-TV subscribers.