Filed under: Tablet PCs

Earlier this month, Mr. Khalil Zaidan of Portland, Oregon, sued Acer, Gateway, Toshiba, HP, IBM, and Fujitsu for violating his 1996 patent “Hinge Assembly for Electronic Devices.” A closer reading of the patent indicates that Zaidan seems to have patented the basic principle behind a tablet PC, allowing a computer to perform “rotational adjustment.” Still, the case — filed in United States District Court, Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division — seems like a pretty easy way to milk these big companies for some cash, given that tablet PCs have been around well before November 2006. Nevertheless, while Zaidan is asking the court for damages on patent infringement be decided in a jury trial, we’re betting that this gets settled out-of-court pretty quick. We’re pretty sure that if Zaidan could actually build a Commodore 64-esque tablet (that’s what his diagram is supposed to represent, right?), he could just make money from that instead of going through all this legal nonsense.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Oh Transmeta, we remember you when you were the darling of Silicon Valley — yes, the same company that attracted Linus Torvalds and the attention of Microsoft. But apparently Transmeta’s designs were so good that Intel copied them (specifically some relating to such nebulous IP holdings as “computer architecture” and “power efficiency”) without asking first, resulting in Transmeta filing suit against Intel. According to an account in the EE Times: “The complaint charges that Intel has infringed and is infringing Transmeta’s patents by making and selling a variety of microprocessor products, including at least Intel’s Pentium III, Pentium 4, Pentium M, Core and Core 2 product lines.” Given Intel’s recent success, it seems like a possible legal ploy to get at Intel’s coffers — especially considering the bouts with restructuring Transmeta’s had in the past couple years.

[Via Slashdot]

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Gaming, Portable Audio

Ok folks, let’s do a little role playing: imagine you’re some big manufacturing company in Taiwan. Just for argument’s sake, call yourself Foxconn Technology Group. Now imagine that your company produces one of the world’s most popular gadgets (call it the iPod) for a company in California (call them Apple Computer), and then two Chinese journalists also investigate and then your company later sues them for $3.77 million. Then, a British journalist investigates your factory and confirms that your workers are working in erm, questionable conditions — and even Apple starts looking into the matter. Upon further reflection of the absurdity of your lawsuit your company rescinds the lawsuit and reduces the damages to one yuan (12 cents). So, here’s the question: what is the next logical step in this crazy sequence of events? After studying every successful business guide that we could get our hands on and consulting with everyone from Bill Gates to Steve Jobs, we’ve discovered that the only possible, rational and meaningful subsequent business move would be to start selling Joan Mirò-inspired NVIDIA graphics cards. Yes, we knew they were coming as of a few months ago — but no, we don’t think that makes it a good idea now.

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Filed under: Portable Audio

Remember that 14-year-old girl who is suing her friend over a missing iPod? An anonymous kind soul took it upon herself to buy Shannon Derrik a new iPod Nano, a pink case and a $50 iTunes gift card — but Melanie McCarthy, Derrik’s mother, who filed the lawsuit on her daughter’s behalf, is refusing the gift and is going ahead with the case. A package was dropped off for Shannon Derrik, the victim of this terrible, terrible situation, at the offices of The Naperville Sun, a suburban Chicago newspaper that has been closely following the case. The newspaper also reported that both Derrik, and Stephanie Eick, the girl who was entrusted with Derrik’s iPod, were invited to appear on the Judge Mathis show, which is taped in Chicago. The respective families had initially accepted the offer, but then McCarthy came to her senses and realized that she’d be ridiculed publicly for putting her daughter through such absurdity.

[Thanks, Ricardo G.]

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Filed under: Transportation

Ah, Segways — some love ‘em, some play polo with ‘em, and still others prefer to ban ‘em, courtesy of a 171-year-old highway law. That’s right, last month, the British Department of Transportation said “no, sir” to the good ‘ol go-go gyroscope. In fact, the DoT went so far as to issue “Regulations for Self-balancing Scooters”, citing non-compliance with European safety laws and with the Highway Act of 1835. Apparently riding your Segway on private property is cool, but on public sidewalks — or to use the British spelling, footpaths — is a big no-no. Upset about it? Go write your MP! Or better yet, hand-carry your letters direct to Parliament. Surely, as we write, Dean Kamen himself must be rallying the infuriated legions of British Segway riders to storm the Palace of Westminster — that is, assuming they’re not waiting to be armed with the intimidating power of the Centaur.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Way back in April a jury agreed with TiVo that EchoStar willfully infringed upon TiVo’s patent for a “multimedia time-warping system.” Then crickets for the last 4 months as the two battled it out in both the court of public opinion and at a bench trial where TiVo requested a permanent injunction against the provider of the DISH Network. Well, the ruling is in and EchoStar must pay TiVo an initial award of about $90 million and must disable all infringing DVR functionality within, oh, 30 days — we’re talking switching off the DVR functionality of four million users. Ouch! Oh, and EchoStar can’t sell new boxes, either. Is it just us or does little TiVo seem to be extra smiley this morning?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in, via Zatz Not Funny]

Update: EchoStar is definitely going to attempt to stay the injunction (they’d be fools not to) — more on that as it develops!

Read – Reuters coverage
Read – EchoStar’s response

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Filed under: Robots, Transportation

Robotic parking garages, albeit very few and far between, aren’t exactly new creations, but the original fully-automated deck in Hoboken, New Jersey has found itself the center of unwanted attention. For those unfamiliar with the process, bustling commuters follow computerized instructions to park (and exit) their vehicle on a steel slab, where the car is then hoisted upward and slid into an open bay until recalled. The robotic car shufflers can cram 324 vehicles into a 100- by 100-foot lot, which is more than double the amount traditional lots hold. But all has not been well for the automated car-lifters — the city of Hoboken has been locked in a bitter dispute with Robotic Parking, which owns the software that operates the garage, over a contractual violation dealing with the intellectual property owned solely by the company. After the city decided to change the deck’s management, they failed to stop using the proprietary software that was licensed to them, while succeeding in cutting off Robotic Parking’s royalties. As expected, legal blows starting flying as Hoboken reportedly claimed there were “booby traps” in the company’s software (but they kept using it?), while Robotic Parking demanded reparations for the unpaid use of their code. The dust has began to settle, at least somewhat, as both parties recently agreed to a deal in which the city shells out $5,500 / month for “licensure and support” of the software for the next three years, after which we assume Robotic Parking will promptly be kicked to the curb. This definitely isn’t the first time lawsuits have caused headaches in consumer electronics, and it’s presumably not the last, but it just goes to show that you should probably see if certain things are “reserved” before pulling on in.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Even though we’ve resigned ourselves to the fact that Windows Vista isn’t coming out until it’s good and ready, EU regulators aren’t as forgiving as us when it comes to Microsoft playing the delay game, and have hit the software giant with a $357 million fine based on that 2004 anti-competition ruling. What’s more, EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has decided to slap the company with a three million euro-per-day fine starting on July 31st if the document disclosure stipulation of the original decision — which requires Microsoft to make the Windows source code more accessible to rivals — has not been fulfilled. Redmond, for its part, claims that it has been fully cooperating with regulators; general counsel Brad Smith argues that the commission’s original demand was too vague, and therefore the issue is not one of compliance but clarity. In the end, Microsoft can complain all day and night about unfair rulings and unclear requirements, but if it wants to continue having unfettered access to the lucrative European market, it seems the company has little choice but to toe the line on this one.

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Filed under: Networking

Move over Verizon, ’cause Klausner Technologies wants a crack at the telecommunication whipping boy du jour, Vonage. In yet another claim of patent infringement, Klausner, a patent holding company with 25 VoIP voicemail patents to its name, is seeking $180 million in damages and royalties to compensate the suffering endured by their private investors. This, after failing to convince Vonage to sign a licensing deal back in January like they did with Time Warner in April for the technology behind AOL Voicemail. And just in case you’re taking odds on who’ll sue whom next, Vonage just announced that it had acquired three unrelated VoIP patents for the compression of packetized digital signals allowing them to go after, and collect licensing fees from competitors like Motorola, Time Warner, Qwest, Sprint, and you guessed it, Verizon. Oh what a tangled web we weave.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

Under heavy pressure in the form of a lawsuit filed by nearly all of TV land’s major content providers, industry giant Cablevision has announced that it will delay the rollout of its networked DVR offering until the service’s legality is confirmed in court. The lawsuit, filed by the four key networks and their parent studios, claims that Cablevision’s plan to store customers’ recorded swag on their own servers as opposed to local set-top boxes constitutes a retransmission of copyrighted material, and therefore violates pre-existing agreements the company has with its providers. Cablevision, on the other hand, argues that networked DVR services are only facilitating “fair-use” of their broadcasts by consumers, who have already paid for any programs they intend to record. The outcome of this suit will be closely monitored by other players in the cable industry as well, because a victory for Cablevision would allow Cox, Comcast, et al. to begin offering their own remote storage — good news for consumers, but perhaps bad news for our old friend TiVo.

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Filed under: Portable Audio

XM is firing back against the recording industry’s lawsuit over the Pioneer Inno‘s ability to temporarily store copyrighted material, stating rather boldly in an open letter to its customers that “we will vigorously defend these radios and your right to enjoy them in court and before Congress, and we expect to win.” Claiming that the record labels “don’t get it,” XM argues that consumers have always been free to tape over-the-air content from a variety of sources, provided that they restrict those recordings to personal use. What’s more, the Inno doesn’t even let you transfer recorded content to other devices, and deletes all of your tunes if you drop your XM subscription, so it’s already much more restrictive than the recording devices faced by TV and terrestrial radio broadcasters. Instead of actually expecting XM to pay $150,000 for each song recorded by Inno users (which would probably amount to at least several billion dollars), it’s more likely that the music industry is using this suit to coax XM into joining rival Sirius in coughing up additional licensing fees. Also, a note to XM PR: despite your suggestion that the record labels are attacking sat radio owners at the expense of a war on the “real” pirates, we think that the industry is both well-prepared and well-equipped for a multi-front conflict.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Culture

In a decision being touted by prosecutors as a major victory in the war on inmate cellphone usage, jurors slapped Texan Michael Manor with a surprising 40-year sentence for what they considered the very serious crime of possessing a cellphone in prison. Manor, who was already serving 32 years on auto theft charges, was not even charged with using the phone for criminal purposes; rather, the long sentence comes as a result of a new zero-tolerance cellphone policy in the Texas prison system, where the offense was recently given third-degree felony status. Corrections offers are also a target of the crackdown, with prosecutors promising to bring offenders in front of juries instead of offering them probation, although there are concerns that the stricter penalties may actually make smuggling appear more lucrative.

[Via textually]

Filed under: Portable Audio

So as the story goes, eight year old Shea was learning to write letters in her third grade class; Shea also happened to be really into her iPod nano. So she decided to hit up Stevie J. with a list of her ideas on how to improve the nano -- you know, standard stuff like "slip a little chip" in there to add support for lyrics, movies, etc. (what, don't you want to officially play Doom, too, or at least Pac-Man?). After three months Shea received a reply from Cupertino... signed by Apple's Senior Counsel, Mark Aaker, who put the little girl in her place by stating "please do not send" suggestions, and letting her know Apple doesn't accept unsolicited ideas. Said Shea, who went running to her room, "It was kind of like they were saying, 'Oh, we don't want your idea -- it's not good or anything.'" (Hey, don't feel bad, whenever we write about improving Apple's products we tend to get harshed on too.) While the story didn't exactly end happily, at least Aaker called the little girl to personally apologize, but not before holding a meeting to change policies regarding responses to letters from children. And just for that, all of our staff's children will be swarming Apple with letters on such varied topics from Apple's potentially increased market share with Boot Camp, to the mysterious video iPod -- replete with backwards Es and Ss.

[Via Cult of Mac]