Filed under: Desktops

As much as we were hoping to see Steve Jobs and… well, anyone from Psystar settle things in the squared circle, we suppose we’ll have to live with a much more peaceful end to this madness. Rather than spending wads of cash on lawyers for no good reason, the two outfits have agreed to use alternative dispute resolution in order to wrap this scuffle up and move forward. As you may know, ADR is a private process where both parties meet outside of a trial in order to reach some sort of agreement, though we imagine the outcome will be pretty public depending on Psystar’s ability / inability to continue fulfilling orders. We’re told that the process will get going before February of 2009, and the full fling (PDF) with the US district court in the Northern District of California is linked below if you’ve suddenly found yourself with entirely too much free time.

[Via The Mac Observer]

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Filed under: Gaming, Transportation

You know who Microsoft hates? No, not Apple. It really hates DHL. Apparently, the delivery service has hit the folks in Redmond where it hurts: in the Xbox. It seems that 21,600 consoles were totally messed over by “impact damage, wetting, pilfering and shortage” when one of the company’s freight trains derailed en route to Long Beach, California. The big M claims that DHL refuses to compensate for the lost goods, and has filed a complaint at a US District Court in Seattle, calling for $2 million in damages and stating that the shipper “negligently breached its duties as a common carrier, handler, bailee, warehouseman, agent, or in other capabilities.” Harsh words, but really, who’s to blame for this mess? Next time we suggest going with G.O.D.

[Thanks, Andrew S.]

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

AMD’s breakup into two separate companies is certain to have wide-ranging impact in the industry, and unsurprisingly, Intel’s among the first to react — it’s warning that it has “serious questions about this transaction” as it relates to its patent cross-licensing agreement with AMD and that it’ll will “vigorously protect” its intellectual property rights. That’s about as aggro a patent attorney can get without coming to your house and peeing on the lawn (or, uh, filing a lawsuit), so we’ll see how this shakes out — for its part, AMD says that it’s taken the deal into account, and that it’ll “continue respecting Intel’s intellectual property rights, just as we expect them to respect ours.” That’s a respect throwdown, right there — you gonna take that, Intel?

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It look like Hollywood’s won the first round in court against RealNetworks’ RealDVD DVD-ripping software — Judge Maralyn Hall Patel (of Napster fame, remember her?) ruled yesterday that a temporary restraining order blocking sales of the software will stay in place indefinitely until she decides whether it violates the DMCA. The central issue is whether or not making a bit-for-bit copy of a DVD constitutes circumventing copy protection: the studios claim the encryption keys must be read off the disk under the terms of the license agreement, and RealNetworks obviously disagrees. There’s a lot at play here, including the studios’ argument that fair use doesn’t serve as a defense to backing up DVDs, so we’ll be tracking this one closely — it’s sadly clear to us that Hollywood’s fight here is against consumers having flexibility with their media, since it lost the battle against actual piracy ages ago.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

We knew Hollywood wouldn’t let RealNetworks sell its RealDVD DVD-ripping-and-archiving software without a fight, and right on schedule, six major studios have filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent it from being sold. Of course, RealNetworks has been planning on hiding behind that Kaleidescape ruling all along, but straight CSS circumvention isn’t really what’s at the heart of the suit: according to the studios’ request for a restraining order, consumers won’t be able to contain themselves in the face of RealDVD’s voodoo magic and will start ripping rental DVDs en masse — seriously, the suit calls the incentive to do so “all but overwhelming.” Here’s a hint, guys: if you believe the temptation to do something is that strong, it probably means you can get people to pay to do it — and you should probably be working out a business model that embraces consumers instead of funding new BMWs for your lawyers while actual piracy tears down the fragile house of cards your entire industry is built on. Or you know, whatever.

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Filed under: GPS, Transportation

Though one may assume Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger would have, um, more pressing matters on his hands these days, the man has somehow found time to address a complaint put forth by a-many travelin’ Californians. Just this week Mr. Schwarzenegger signed into law a bill that was put forth earlier this year that will legalize windshield GPS mounting once more. Granted, stipulations are present, but at least you won’t be forced to point your retinas down at the cup holders in order to see your navigation system after January 1, 2009. In the new year, drivers in the Golden State will be able to suction their GPS unit in the “lower 7-inch corner farthest away from the driver or in the lower 5-inch corner closest to the driver.” If you go pressing your luck and throw it smack dab in the middle, be prepared for whatever fine you’re due.

[Via Gadling, image courtesy of GPS Tracklog]

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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Way back in December of 2006, NVIDIA and AMD were both pegged for potential price fixing, and nearly two years later it seems it’ll finally be paying the piper. A settlement agreement is detailed in a recently filed 8-K form, which asserts that NVIDIA would pay $850,000 into a total fund of up to $1.7 million, with AMD / ATI probably left to make up the rest. Of note, the 8-K filing does mention that all of this is still “subject to court approval,” but it’s likely that the green light will eventually be given. Outside of that, we’re also informed that NVIDIA will be handing over $112,500 to the individual plaintiffs who brought the case to court. Well, we’re glad that’s settled.

[Via CustomPC]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

We always thought that the RIAA’s first-ever filesharing trial victory against Jammie Thomas was a little suspect since the labels weren’t required to prove that Thomas even had Kazaa installed on her machine or was the person using the account in question, and it looks like the court agrees — it’s just declared a mistrial and set aside the $222,000 judgment on the grounds that simply making copyrighted works available for download does not constitute copyright infringement. That’s a huge decision — the “making available” theory is the basis for most of the RIAA’s legal arguments — and it means that the RIAA will now have to prove the unauthorized transfer of each song it wants to collect damages on at the new trial. We’ll see what effect this has in the broader sense — we’ve got a feeling we’re in for a slew of appellate decisions on both sides of the “making available” debate — but for now it looks like the good guys are finally starting to score some points.

[Via ZDNet, thanks JagsLive]

Read - Wired article
Read - Decision [PDF]

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Filed under: Cellphones

We could start off by telling you just how much this decision will hurt Qualcomm and just how celebratory the mood must be at Broadcom, but instead, we’ll key you in on this quote: “The appeals court also rejected Qualcomm’s request for a new trial.” At long last, we may have actually heard the end of what has seemed like a never-ending battle between the aforementioned parties. Today, a US Appeals court upheld an earlier ruling that Qualcomm had indeed infringed upon two Broadcom patents while ruling that a third patent in question was invalid. The ruling is obviously a huge win for Broadcom, who will soon be bathing in Benjamins as Qualcomm is forced to pay mandatory royalties for the chips it sells during the “sunset period” ending January 31, 2009.

[Via Reuters]

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Filed under: Transportation

If you had any urge whatsoever to try to your hand at drug trafficking over water while these “weird” economic times sort themselves out, uh, you may want to reevaluate your options. The ever-so-stealthy Stiletto has come to life after tracking down a remarkably quick drug-running boat near Florida; the bad guys were cruising at 42 knots, but that comic book-esque thing you’re undoubtedly peering at above can reach speeds of up to 60 knots. The double-M-shaped hull enables it to navigate in extraordinarily shallow waters without trouble, and a plethora of sensors and radars give it all the power it needs to track down goons. Oddly enough, it’s having a somewhat difficult time finding a government agency to truly call home, but if it continues to keep the coke out of our seas, we’d say it’ll win over some hearts soon enough.

[Thanks, Laz]

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Filed under: Gaming

Ruh roh. Those wildly flung patent infringement claims tossed out by Hillcrest Laboratories could have some merit, but even if not, it’ll be the ITC making the call. The US International Trade Commission has given itself the green light to investigate the allegations made by the aforesaid company, which state that Nintendo infringed on four of its patents in order to make obscenely large quantities of cash with the hot-selling Wii. There’s no telling how high (or low) this is in the agency’s priority list, but we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground for some sort of resolution, regardless.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

var digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/apple/Jobs_other_Apple_execs_settle_shareholder_backdating_lawsuit’; It looks like the Apple options backdating mess is finally drawing to a complete close, as the last of the shareholder derivative suits against Steve Jobs and other Apple execs will reportedly settle for $14M pending the court’s final approval on October 31. Apple has also agreed to reform parts of its options plan, but in the end all of this has basically come out to nothing — particularly since shareholders in a derivative suit sue on behalf of the company, meaning the $14M is being paid by Steve and the other execs’ insurance companies back to Apple, which doesn’t really need it. Oh well, at least we briefly got FSJ out of it, right?

[Via AppleInsider]

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Filed under: Cellphones

Ooh, Qualcomm you been naughty. You might remember that last year Qualcomm was banned from selling various 3G chips that infringed on Broadcom’s patents, but the big Q apparently believes that being in trouble is a fake idea, because it kept right on doing it — to the point where a judge yesterday found the company in contempt for violating the injunction and ordered it to pay up gross profits from sales of its QChat push-to-talk tech to Broadcom. The court gave Qualcom 30 days to figure out how much it owes — Sprint’s paid over $93M to use the tech since last December, so it’s not going to be peanuts. Qualcomm says it’ll immediately comply, but is planning on appealing the order, so we’ll how this all goes down.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

LG and Quanta have been going at it over patents for eight years now, with LG notably seeking an injunction against the importation of Quanta-built Apple, HP, Dell, and Sony laptops, and the Supreme Court ruling that LG wasn’t entitled to additional royalties, but it looks like the fight’s finally over — both sides say they’ve come to an agreement and will now negotiate royalty rates. No further details, but we’re told BMW sales near the offices of LG and Quanta’s law firms just skyrocketed.

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Filed under: Cellphones

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about iPhone 3G reception issues. Whether they exist or not is largely irrelevant in a world dominated by sound-bite driven perceptions. Nevertheless, some industrious Swedes decided to apply a little scientific method to the argument and found something interesting: the iPhone 3G performed just as well (or just as poorly, depending upon your mood) as a Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson P1 when compared head-to-head in a mobile communications test chamber. The test was conducted by real-life antenna engineers just like those camera-fumbling souls contracted by the FCC. Of course, who’s going to let a few facts stand in the way of contrary opinion and litigation, eh?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: GPS

Though not quite as bad as toting the GPS module around with you, one particular marijuana farmer had to be mighty embarrassed / wondering what he ever did to deserve such bad luck when a GPS-equipped turtle meandered into his crop. As the story goes, a close friend of the police — a box turtle with no fear of Big Brother — just happened upon a pot stash on US park property. Clearly, Mr. Isiah Johnson (the culprit) was heavily stoned when choosing US land to farm his ganja, and now he’s in custody until he’s “extradited back DC to face drug charges.” And you thought all you had to do was dodge those CCTV cameras…

[Via TechDigest]

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Filed under: Transportation, Wireless

No surprise here, but the kids from MIT were (presumably) right all along. The three students who were muffled just before presenting their case at Defcon have finally been freed; the now-revoked gag order had prevented them from exposing insecurities in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority ticket system, but during the same court setting, the MBTA fessed up and admitted that its current system was indeed vulnerable. Of note, it only confessed that its CharlieTicket system was susceptible to fraud, while simply not acknowledging any flaws in the more popular CharlieCard option. Pish posh — who here believes it doesn’t have dutiful employees working up a fix as we speak?

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, HDTV

You wouldn’t think that anyone in the market for a $3,000 handheld camera capable of shooting 3K HD at 100MB/s would somehow get confused enough to end up with a medicore LG plasma TV, but it seems like the folks at RED are worried — the company’s lawyers are preparing an opposition to LG’s filing for the “Scarlet” trademark, and they’ve filed for their own mark. It looks like RED is getting pretty serious about protecting its marks — president Jim Jannard is politely asking RED fans to include a trademark disclaimer when they post about the company’s products, and he says that the proceedings against LG are “just the tip of the iceberg.” Honestly, we think RED’s going to have a tough time selling a judge on the likelihood of confusion between a consumer-oriented HDTV and a decidedly pro-grade camera, but we’ve been surprised in the past — we’ll see how this one plays out.

Read - Jim Jannard forum post
Read - Request for extension of time to file opposition

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Good news, open source fans — copyleft licenses just got a big boost from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which ruled last week that the open source Artistic License is valid and enforceable, and that violating the terms of the license constitutes copyright infringement. (You might be familiar with the Artistic License — it’s what governs Perl.) That’s a big deal, as it’s the first open source license to get put to the test — while traditional EULAs have been upheld for years, open licenses hadn’t been directly litigated like this yet, and it means that similar licenses like the GPL and Creative Commons now stand on firmer ground. As you’d expect, OSS advocates like Lawrence Lessig and the Open Source Initiative are all pretty pumped about the ruling, with Lessig calling it “huge and important news.” We’d agree wholeheartedly, but here’s some food for thought while you celebrate in the comments: if you’re okay with FOSS software developers enforcing open-source license agreements, are you also okay with commercial software developers enforcing their own EULA restrictions? We can think of one in particular that seems to have people pretty ticked off.

Read - InformationWeek article
Read - Lessig blog post

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Filed under: Gaming

A select bunch of Transmeta investors may not completely agree with how the outfit is being managed, but one thing’s for sure: it’s bringing in some serious coin on this deal. During a brief timeout from counting those stacks of Benjamins handed over by Intel, it decided to license its Long Run and LongRun 2 technologies (among “other intellectual property”) to NVIDIA for a cool $25 million. Additionally, the agreement grants NVIDIA a “non-exclusive and fully paid-up license” to all of Transmeta’s patents and patent applications. Unfortunately, it’s still unclear how exactly this will end up affecting NVIDIA fanboys (and girls), but we’ll go out on a limb and suggest that a mobile GTX 280 with a remarkably low power draw is just around the bend.

[Via SlashGear]

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