Hasta La Gadget!

Davin Coppedge startled awake at 2am the night that Hurricane Sandy swept across New York City. He had a text message. It was his mother alerting him that the ground floor of his aunt’s home on the sliver of land known as the Rockaways had flooded all the way to the ceiling.

His aunt turned out to be fine, and his thoughts quickly shifted to his grandmother, Janie Brown, who lived nearby at Resort Nursing Home in Arverne, one of the lowest-lying neighborhoods in the Rockaways. He called the facility, but got no answer, just the rapid beep-beep-beep of a disconnected phone.

“There was no communication, no way to contact her,” said Coppedge, who lives in Boston — too far away to easily go and have a look for himself. “I didn’t know anything.”

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WASHINGTON — In the first major test of his post-reelection relationship with Israel, President Barack Obama and his administration have offered full-throated support for the sometimes-caustic ally as it prepares for a possible ground invasion of the tightly controlled Gaza Strip.

In his second phone call with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, since the conflict began, Obama backed “Israel’s right to defend itself,” while expressing “regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives,” according to a statement from the White House late Friday.

For three days, Israel has launched airstrikes into Gaza, a 20-mile stretch of land ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, in an attempt to quell a barrage of rocket fire landing in and around population centers in southern Israel. More than 1,000 rockets from Gaza have hit Israel this year, with civilian casualties in the single digits.

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Here’s the latest CPU cooler from Spire, the X2.9883. Supporting both Intel (LGA2011/1156/1155/1366/775) and AMD (AM2/AM3/940/939) processors, the cooler is packed with six 6mm direct touch copper U-shaped heatpipes, 46 stamped aluminum wide fins and a 120mm Nano-Tech bearing fan that operates at 600 to 1800 RPM. The X2.9883 retails for $64.95 MSRP. [Spire]

Meet Sharky the Beaver, Sphero‘s first augmented reality character for their little robotic spheres. Over the past few months, Orbotix has been developing many new ways to use the toy. With this new app, the company is making its first step into the world of augmented reality.

As a reminder, Sphero is a ball with an internal motor. You can control it using a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone or tablet. It also has a built-in gyroscope, accelerometer and compass.

Now they’re working on Augmented Reality with Sharky the Beaver. It will transform your sphere into a cute walking 3D character that you control with your phone or tablet. In order to see the character, you have to keep the sphere in sight and look at it through the camera of your device.

You can throw virtual cupcakes and the little beaver will run toward those cupcakes. In the real reality, the sphere will roll toward an invisible cupcake. The virtual character was really smooth and everyone seemed to love the idea, if not the toy.

Sharky is just the first augmented reality application, with new characters and games potentially coming soon. With regular firmware updates, more than 20 apps, and an SDK that fuels Sphero hackathons — and sometimes even result in a Kickstarter campaign – it looks like Sphero is here to stay.

This past weekend, Apple and HTC reached a settlement to end the legal squabble between the two companies. Now Samsung, who has been engaged in a series of lawsuits with Apple across the world, is poking around the deal. Earlier today, the Korean company submitted a formal request in court that, if granted, will require Apple to fork over a copy of the license agreement.

While the Apple – Samsung patent war has been getting the most attention, Apple has been engaged in other legal issues as well, including a two year fight over patents with HTC. Ending the battle was a 10-year licensing agreement between the two companies that encompasses both current and future patents on both sides. The issue started when Apple filed a complaint against HTC, alleging that the company had violated ten of its patents.

Specifically, Samsung is interested in information pertaining to what patents were included as part of the licensing agreement. Two of the patents that were part of the dispute may be part of the current lawsuit between Samsung and Apple, including the ’381 and ’915 patents, according to CNET. The company is also curious about whether Apple tossed in some of its unique patents that it doesn’t offer to other companies.

Samsung’s legal representative Robert Becher offered this statement. “As you know, the issue of Apple’s willingness to license its patents was briefed in Samsung’s opposition to Apple’s motion for permanent injunction. This license has direct bearing on the question of irreparable harm and whether monetary remedies are adequate.”

[via CNET]

Samsung requests Apple and HTC settlement details is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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