Hasta La Gadget!

Samsung may have convinced Judge Koh to toss a few international handsets out of Apple’s lawsuit, but the Korean firm still has Cupertino’s patent licensing accusations to contend with. Their tactic? Convince the court that Apple’s claim to the inventions are invalid, and that the technology was developed prior to the disputed patent’s filing. It’s called showing “prior art,” and Sammy’s done it before — famously showing a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey in an attempt to put Apple’s iPad design claims to rest. Today’s examples were more grounded in reality, focusing on debunking Cupertino’s claim to the “bounce back” effect that happens when a user reaches the end of a page and common multitouch zoom / navigation gestures.

Samsung pitted the famous “bounce back” feature against an old PocketPC interface called LaunchTile, which allowed users to navigate through 36 applications by zooming in and out and a panning across a grid-like “world view” of said apps. Movement between grids snap to each zone, marking the end of a page. Apple shot back, noting that LiveTile’s snapping navigation didn’t work on diagonals, and cited other differences as well. Samsung wasn’t deterred, however, and brought out DiamondTouch, a projector based multitouch table that utilized both one touch scrolling and pinch-based zoom gestures. The table even takes aim at the aforementioned bounce-back patent with a technology called TableCloth, which bounces back images that are pulled off screen. DiamondTouch’s creator, Adam Bogue, told the court that he had demoed the technology to Apple privately back in 2003, noting that it was also available to anyone who visited the Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratories’ lobby.

If the jury takes to Samsung’s claims of prior art, it could severely cut Apple’s claims against it. Even so, Cupertino’s lawyers aren’t going down without a fight, and still have a number of navigation and design claims that Samsung hasn’t addressed. The two parties are expected to keep up the fight for about a week, we’ll keep you posted on the inevitable revelations as they come.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs

Samsung’s defense against Apple patents begins with DiamondTouch table, LiveTile UI prior art originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 23:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For Cris Rubio, there wasn’t much suspense about what came after he graduated high school in 2003. Rubio had been second in his class for much of his four years — he eventually finished fourth — and under the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan, any student in the top 10 percent of their high school class, by grade-point average, was given automatic admission to any state public university. Rubio knew he would leave San Juan, Texas, his overwhelmingly Latino hometown near the border, to head to the University of Texas at Austin, the state’s sprawling, flagship university more than 300 miles away.

“It’s a really good school but that kind of hurts it because everyone wants to go there,” said Rubio, who graduated UT in 2007 with a mathematics degree. “When it comes to choosing a school, everyone’s in the state is kind of” leaning toward UT. Eight out of every 10 students admitted as freshman to UT-Austin in 2008 got in under the rule.

The state adopted the 10 percent plan to bolster diversity after the university’s previous affirmative action policy was struck down in court. State leaders said they hoped that pulling in the best students from schools that are predominantly black or Latino would achieve diversity with a race-neutral policy.

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Laptops gets stolen, hard drives fail, and thumb drives disapparate with unrelenting regularity. But with the Kisai Upload, you can keep your most precious power point presentations (read: porn) safely strapped to your wrist. More »

Do you happen to be David Beckham or Toyota? Well, congratulations — you now have a Google+ vanity URL. The rest of us looking for the football star or car manufacturer need only type “google.com/+davidbeckham” or “google.com/+toyota” to reach those respective pages, enabling easy access to that must-see picture in front of a private jet, or a vehicle recall notice. Sadly, you’re probably not eligible for a custom shortcut of your own — here’s the word from Google:

At first, we’re introducing custom URLs to a limited number of verified profiles and pages. But over time we plan to offer custom URLs to many more brands and individuals, so please stay tuned!

So, for now, you better get comfy with “plus.google.com/108326689306432447266,” or whatever the good Goog has granted.

Filed under: Internet

Google+ offers custom URLs for verified accounts, other profiles to come ‘over time’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s a good week to be a Disney star turned songstress. Hot on the heels of Miley Cyrus’ rumored guest stint on “Two and a Half Men,” Deadline is reporting that “Lizzie McGuire” star Hilary Duff is headed back to TV, thanks to a talent and development deal with 20th Century Fox TV.

The one-year deal, as confirmed by Celebuzz, would see Duff star in a half-hour comedy that she would also produce. If that project failed to progress for any reason, 20th TV could also cast her in another comedy or drama but, according to Deadline, “the focus of the deal is on finding a half-hour idea and tailoring it to Duff’s comedic sensibilities.”

Duff took to Twitter on Monday afternoon to confirm the news:

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