Hasta La Gadget!

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A state-run insurance company of last resort agreed Thursday to settle two remaining class-action lawsuits tied to claims handled after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The board for the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. voted unanimously to settle the long-running lawsuits for $61 million. Policyholders sued the company over the slow handling of claims after the hurricanes struck in 2005.

The board also authorized company CEO Richard Robertson to place caps of $4,500 per claim, $150,000 for court costs and $750,000 for administrative expenses.

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More on Hurricane Katrina

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are attending the return of the remains of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed in an attack of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, this week.

Obama and Clinton were to go to Joint Base Andrews in suburban Maryland for the return ceremony.

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More on Hillary Clinton

Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) campaign released a new ad on Friday that touts the candidate’s “pro-choice” values and support for equal pay, despite the fact that Brown has voted in favor of anti-birth control legislation and against the Paycheck Fairness Act.

In the ad, a Massachusetts woman discusses her support for Brown. “Scott Brown is pro choice, and he supports a woman’s right to choose,” she says. “I like that Scott Brown is independent, he really thinks for himself. His record shows that he supports women, he supports families. When my daughters grow up, I want to make sure that they have good jobs with equal pay, and I know Scott Brown will fight for that.”

The ad is somewhat misleading. Scott Brown voted with his GOP colleagues to block the Paycheck Fairness Act in June. He supported the controversial Blunt amendment, which would allow any employer to deny contraception coverage its to workers, and he was recently endorsed by Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

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More on Elections 2012

The Sony Xperia V was first announced to the world at the end of last month at IFA 2012, and while we await the device to arrive at our shores, here is a quick sneak peek at one of the features that the Xperia V will carry that has never been spotted before in prior Xperia devices, known as “Clear Phase”. This feature is highly visible in the user interface of the Xperia V, where it was seen carrying the following description: “Automatically adjust the sound quality of the internal speaker”.

In the past, Clear Phase technology did make an appearance on Vaio notebooks, so it makes perfect sense if Sony wants the rest of their device family (or at least, another member) to be on the receiving end of this particular function. No idea on whether Clear Phase will also make an appearance on the Sony Xperia T, but that would be just a matter of time (in a few weeks, in fact) when the smartphone arrives in the market. Just how much better do you think your audio experience on the Xperia V will be with Clear Phase enabled? I would say that the impact on its battery life is minimal.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sony Xperia ion to get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update next week, Sony Xperia V announced at IFA 2012,

Boy, don’t you think that everything is moving a little bit too quickly? I mean, Amazon has just rolled out their spanking new 7” Kindle Fire HD and the first update is already out, now how about that? Let me not even talk about how some other older smartphones (one year old thereabouts) are still waiting for their respective software updates, and nothing has happened except for some cobwebs forming around the room. There is not much word on what Amazon has fixed with the first software update for the Kindle Fire HD, but it’s support page does mention that this update ought to “optimize its performance and functionality”.

When translated to plain English, it could mean that Amazon has plans to offer fantastic software support to their new tablet, or the initial batch of Kindle Fire HDs have some sort of software gremlin running about that needs serious and immediate attention. I would gun for the former, considering how we have yet to hear from Kindle Fire HD owners about potential issues with their tablet. Make sure your Kindle Fire HD is updated to software version number 7.1.5 if you want to remain ahead of the bunch.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Kindle Fire HD Hands-On, Amazon Kindle press event round-up,