Hasta La Gadget!

As predicted, the Federal Trade Commission is suing Intel for, as they put it, “[engaging] in a deliberate campaign to hamstring competitive threats to its monopoly.” This isn’t going to end well for Intel.

Earlier this year, Intel was forced to pay a $1.45 billion fine by the EU, and last month they had to pay AMD a $1.25 billion settlement for anti-competitive practices. This new suit is for basically the same things.

The E.U.’s charges included paying computer makers to use Intel chips instead of AMD ones, and even threatening some companies if they went ahead and used AMD CPUs. The FTC notes that the public has been denied access to “potentially superior” chips as a result of the same bad practices. And it highlights what seems to be a particularly nasty one: Intel apparently designed compiler code so that it “deliberately stunted” the performance of the code when run on non-Intel CPUs, and then told the public the code simply worked better on Intel-made chips.

Ugly stuff. The first hearing is scheduled for September 8, 2010, so this is going to be a long and drawn out process. [FTC via FastCompany]

Heads-up, Roomba — your worst nightmare just waltzed into this space we like to call “reality,” and it looks fully capable of giving your dirt sucking powers a run for their money. Neato Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup, has just come clean with its very first home service product: the XV-11 robotic vacuum cleaner. The device is the first to sport the company’s own Room Positioning System, which utilizes an array of sensors to “intelligently map the entire floor space to choose the most effective path to clean the whole room, avoiding most obstacles other robots can only detect by impact.” It’s engineered to be used daily, whisking away dirt as you mind your own business and take even the smallest things in life for granted. We’re told that it’ll be cleaning up debris at CES early next month, though consumers at large won’t be able to snag one until February when it hits shelves for $399. Video’s just past the break.

Continue reading Neato’s XV-11 robot vacuum maps out your floor for efficiency, doesn’t ask for weekends off

Neato’s XV-11 robot vacuum maps out your floor for efficiency, doesn’t ask for weekends off originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Score another win for Apple’s lawyers. After a long legal battle, the company won a permanent injunction against Psystar. According to the ruling, the Mac clone manufacturer is no longer allowed to sell systems running Apple’s OS.

The ruling goes even deeper. Not only is Psystar banned from “copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works of Mac OS X without authorization from Apple,” it also has been barred from “intentionally inducing, aiding, assisting, abetting or encouraging any other person or entity to infringe Apple’s copyrighted Mac OS X software.”

Psystar must meet all of these guidelines by December 31st of this year.

We can’t say with any degree of certainty that AAXA‘s recently announced M1 “micro projector” truly is the brightness of the miniaturized bunch, but it’s certainly brighter than the vast majority we’ve had the displeasure of seeing ourselves. Most pico projectors pack between 8 and 12 lumens, and up until now, AAXA’s own P2 was widely consider the best for using in partially lit rooms due to its 33 lumen rating. The M1 doubles up on that figure, bringing 66 lumens to the table along with a native SVGA (800 x 600) resolution, 1GB of onboard memory, an SD card reader and optional iPod, PSP and DVD cables. Said display is up for pre-order as we speak for $299, while the M1 Plus — which supports VGA and composite AV inputs — will set you back $359.

AAXA cranks up the brightness on M1 micro projector originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What do you do when you’ve got two disused shipping crates, some photovoltaics, and a couple buckets of toxic green paint? Why, you make a solar electric vehicle charging station, the first in New York as it happens. It was created by Beautiful Earth Group, which whipped up this self-contained charging station to juice the company’s car, a similarly painted BMW Mini E that just so happens to fit nicely inside — so long as you don’t want to open the doors too wide. About three hours charges the little sucker up for its maximum range of 100 miles, which ought to be just enough to get you out to the Hamptons. Not that you’d want to go there this time of year.

New York gets its first solar EV charging station, you can’t use it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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