Hasta La Gadget!

TiVo has revolutionized TV watching in much the same way that cable did, back in the 70s/80s. But contrary to popular belief, the company didn’t pioneer the DVR. Motorola is claiming that title, and now the company is suing TiVO to prove it.

The company claims that TiVo violated the patents on the Motorola DVR that came out in 94. There’s some speculation that the move is payback to TiVo lawsuit against Verizon. You see, TiVo sued Verizon over similar claims, leading Motorola filing a suite to protect the assets under Motorola. However, it gets sticky here for both parties. Verizon uses Motorola DVR technology, which TiVo sued Verizon for. Now with Motorola suing back, all cases could be thrown out of court if the connection proven.

Motorola issued a statement saying that TiVo is making false claims against Verizon, which uses Motorola DVR technology under the patent that was filed under Motorola. No word on how either of the lawsuits are doing, nor how much they are asking for in return.

Via Hot Hardware

Staring is not only polite when using this prototype machine, it’s what triggers actions like pointing, shooting, and selecting.

There’s really no telling what could happen tomorrow at Apple’s little event. Sure, the company could talk about its success with iOS devices, how well the iPad has sold, and then introduce a brand new version of the wildly popular tablet… but maybe there’ll be surprises too. We can’t say for sure at this point, but that’s okay, because come 10AM PST (1PM EST), we’re going to be delivering all the news as it happens with the industry’s best liveblog right here on Engadget.

If you want to follow along with the action, tune into this URL right here at the times below tomorrow. Just make sure you’ve got the popcorn and sodas ready — this is going to be a fun one.

08:00AM – Hawaii
10:00AM – Pacific
11:00AM – Mountain
12:00PM – Central
01:00PM – Eastern
06:00PM – London
07:00PM – Paris
09:00PM – Moscow
11:30PM – Mumbai
03:00AM – Tokyo (March 3rd)
05:00AM – Sydney (March 3rd)

We’re liveblogging from Apple’s iPad 2 event tomorrow… be there! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unless you’re eagerly anticipating your IT department handing one of these to you, something tells us the Stylistic Q550 isn’t the tablet you’re looking for. Why’s that? Everything about the experience screams “corporate,” starting with our time at Fujitsu’s booth earlier today where business dealings to deploy the tablet in some corporate environment were literally happening before our very eyes. There was only one unit in the vicinity — and the suits were relentless in trying to get their paws on it — but we spent just long enough with it to figure out that there are far, far better-suited consumer options out there; as far as we can tell, that’s exactly how Fujitsu wants it. That opinion was further reinforced by the presence of a smart card reader on the side (for secure logins), a fingerprint scanner on back, and old-school pen input, which Fujitsu tells us that legacy tablet users (read: medical personnel and field data entry folks) still want. It can take fingers, too, but we felt like the quality of the display is compromised a bit for the dual-mode support. Interestingly, there’s no place to store the pen in the tablet anyway; you’ll need the accessory case for that.

The company is talking about its custom Windows 7 skin as a key differentiator. The build they had on the demo unit was a little buggy, but at any rate, we came away with the impression that it’s basically just a finger-friendly view to launch apps; fortunately, the full Windows experience — which is just as non-touch-optimized as ever — is just a tap away. We were hoping the Oak Trail guts would keep everything snappy, but the pre-release code here was actually lagging pretty badly as we navigated from screen to screen. Don’t get us wrong: we’re sure these are precisely the specs that some enterprise customers are looking for… but as an individual, gadget-loving, tablet-wanting human being, we’re pretty sure they aren’t the specs that you’re looking for.

Fujitsu Stylistic Q550 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon’s made no secret of the fact that $30 unlimited smartphone data wouldn’t last forever, but CFO Fran Shammo just made things a little more interesting today at the same Morgan Stanley conference Sanjay Jha rocked yesterday: turns out they’re targeting “mid-summer” to rearrange the carrier’s data pricing. Interestingly, Shammo says they’re still working through the details and that they don’t yet know whether the tiers will be based on speed, bit buckets, or some combination of the two. Of course, Verizon’s already dipped its toes in the tiered game with a $15 / 150MB option that evaporated around the time that the CDMA iPhone launched. Speaking of the iPhone, Shammo notes that the unlimited data plan was kept around to draw users into the iPhone fold — iPhone users tend to consume a lot of data, after all — so it’d seem that they might comfortable with that one-time conquest before parting ways with unlimited for good.

Verizon targeting mid-summer for tiered data plans, doesn’t yet know what kinds of tiers they’ll be originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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