Hasta La Gadget!

Online file-sharing is considered illegal and an infringement of intellectual copyrights of the content that is being shared, if it is not available publicly and for free. However, very few cases related to online file sharing have surfaced in the U.S. so far. Among them is the case of Jammie Thomas, the first case that involved unauthorized file-sharing.

The case has been around since 2007 and has since lingered on between multiple courts and hearings. Initially, Jammie Thomas was asked to pay $222,000 for sharing 54 unauthorized copies of songs on Kazaa. In later trials, the damages that were to be paid were bumped to $1.92 million and then subsequently reduced to $1.5 million. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Censorship List Now Includes Pirate Bay Domains, Android is designed for piracy, developer says,

President Barack Obama put new meaning to the cliche “wide-ranging interview” while speaking with DJ Laz of Miami Latin station Romance 106.7 FM Tuesday morning.

“DJ Laz!” said Obama.

“O-BAMA” said DJ Laz back, who is also known as the Pimp with the Limp.

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More on Barack Obama

It’s hard to get into the habit of exercising unless you’ve got some sweet incentives waiting for you at the finish line. That’s probably what Janko Hofmann and Fabian Pammer were thinking when they came up with the Arduino-powered Personal Energy Orb. It’s basically a device that measures your ‘virtual energy level,’ which gauges how much time you spend in front of your computer versus other activities that will actually require you to move.

This energy level goes down with every minute you spend using your computer, but you can push it back up by going out for a ride on your bike. Aside from turning red when your virtual energy is dangerously low, the orb works in conjunction with an app that’ll decrease your cursor speed until it barely cross across your screen.

So if you want to keep using your computer, you can’t really do anything except go for a ride so your cursor will go back to its normal speed.

[via The Verge]

Proving you can literally fix and improve anything with tape, physicists at the University of Toronto have developed a simple technique to give semiconductors superconducting properties with a bit of clear Scotch tape. And you thought duct tape was the hero of the adhesive world. More »

The next-generation Samsung Galaxy Note II is bringing on some new powerful features in its international version in the form of Airview, a brand new user interface that appears when you pop your S-Pen from its slot! Though we’ve still got no confirmation on when, if, or how this device will be appearing in the Untied States on US carriers, we can see here that Samsung does, once again, intend on bringing the device stateside soon enough. This device is next in line in Samsung’s Note branded family of devices with a 5.5-inch display and a brand new bit of S-Pen hardware as well.

This device once again has a slot inside it where your S-Pen can rest while it’s in your pocket. As an added bonus, it’s got a special alert that notifies you if you’re leaving the area without your pen in its dock, this a great feature for those that are forgetful. This S-Pen and the technology that surrounds it is able to detect interaction between the pen and the display even before they physically touch, shown here in the hands-on video at right about the 1 minute mark.

The Airview user interface shows a new homepage which you can customize for special S-Pen friendly apps. You’re able to work with preview video with picture-in-picture as you were with the Galaxy S III, here called Pop Up Play with full resizability available as well. With the S-Pen you’re able to highlight items in the web browser and scroll through webpages too. Essentially there’s a whole lot of hovering going on.

Have a peek at our full Samsung Galaxy Note II coverage in the timeline below and be sure to check out all of our hands-on experiences, too. We’ve also got reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the original Galaxy Note for your perusal. While we wait for this device to pop up on the shores of the USA in carrier iterations, we’ll be rolling hard with the Samsung Galaxy S III and debating whether or not it makes sense to join the LG team for their competing phablet device, the LG Intuition – stay tuned!

Samsung Galaxy Note II shows off hovering S-Pen hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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