Hasta La Gadget!

This wonderful 53-minute movie, released for free on Vimeo and produced with no budget, tells the story of of a high schooler obsessed with experiencing the world through technologically created sound bites. More »

Tesla Motors CEO and founder Elon Musk definitely isn’t the best guy to try to pull a fast one on. The visionary entrepreneur set Twitter a titter when he claimed earlier this week that New York Times writer John Broder had fudged details about the Tesla Models S car’s range in cold weather, resulting in what he termed a “fake” article. Musk promised evidence, and now he has delivered, via the official Tesla blog.

In keeping with his brief description of what was wrong with the review from his original tweet, Musk laid out how vehicle logs (standard practice after Tesla ran into issues with Top Gear, which dramatized a breakdown where none actually existed) showed that the car Broder was driving for his article was improperly charged, took an unscheduled side trip and essentially seemed to have been set up to fail.

Musk breaks down what went wrong in a number of bullet points, but basically Broder’s car never ran out of juice completely; was charged to a level which he knew wouldn’t be enough to get to his destination at one point; actually exceeded its anticipated range; was driven past charging stations which could’ve helped it finish the journey; and was taken for a lengthy detour through Manhattan not included in the original trip plan.

Other problems add to the reported deception, including climate control settings that run counter to Broder’s stated claims in the article about what he did with in-car heating (turned up the temp when he said he turned it down). The smaller details aren’t necessarily the most consequential, but the fact that Musk has record of even these smaller contradictions in his test vehicle’s logs helps to paint a picture of a writer who seems to have been blatantly gunning for Tesla from the start.

Musk says that Broder altered details and the conditions of the test to help fit with his pre-existing opinion, which he arrives at thanks to a quote from Broder in an article published in 2012. Broder essentially attempts to deflate the sunny image of a future filled with electric cars, claiming that “the state of the electric car is dismal, the “victim of hyped expectations, technological flops, high costs and a hostile political climate.” To be fair, in that article Broder also goes on to give plenty of space to electric car supporters, too, and even gives the last word to Chris Paine, the documentary filmmaker behind Who Killed the Electric Car?, ending on Paine’s implied accusation that the oil and gas industry are behind stalling the electric future of car transport.

But overall, Musk’s evidence is pretty damning, especially backed up as it is by solid data from the Model S itself. He ends by calling for the NYT to launch an investigation into the article and its writing, and after an attack like this, I’d guess the NYT would have to do just that in order to be able to come up with a satisfactory response.

Although the UltraViolet common file format (CFF) was supposed to offer the promise of download once, play anywhere sometime in 2012, that year is behind us. There is some hope that 2013 will indeed be the year your UltraViolet Digital copies, that were bundled with a disc or upgraded via a disc-to-digital program, as Dolby has proudly announced that three of the major studios have chosen Dolby Digital Plus (aka E-AC-3) as their audio codec of choice for their CFF encodes. Essentially this means the most efficient surround sound codec will give them the ability to deliver high quality downloadable versions of your movies with up to 7.1 surround sound. The following press release stops short of specific dates and titles, but we are promised thousands of movies and TV series from Sony, Universal and Warner when UltraViolet CFF launches later this year.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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In ongoing legal proceedings in California, Apple has added six new devices to its patent infringement claims against rival Samsung, getting them in late Friday evening ahead of a deadline on changes to the scope of the complaint. The new additions essentially cover just about every piece of Samsung hardware now available in the U.S. market, with modifications that also account for recent software updates.

The new hardware added to the suit late on Black Friday includes the Samsung Galaxy S III with Android Jelly Bean, the Samsung Galaxy Note II, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 Wi-Fi with Ice Cream Sandwich, the Samsung Rugby Pro and the Galaxy S III Mini, which we reported last week is available via Amazon in the U.S. despite not being officially released with any carrier partner as of yet.

This latest addition of products comes after Samsung had requested to add the iPad mini, 4th generation iPad and 5th generation iPod touch to the mix. The judge in the case had set a deadline of Friday, November 24 for amendments made to the complaints for the trial, which is set to be heard in March, 2014. Both sides clearly wanted to be their complaints to be as wide-reaching as possible, despite the fact that any of these devices likely either won’t be on sale when a decision comes down, or won’t be all that important to either company’s product line. There are other benefits to be had, here, including setting broad precedents and ensuring that both companies can claim more in retroactive damages should a decision go their way.

Apple was awarded $1.05 billion in damages this past summer, as compensation for infringement by a number of devices that were likewise not central to Samsung’s business at the time. Apple’s clearly hoping for a repeat performance this time around, and is casting as wide a net as possible to help increase the impact of a ruling in their favor.

In an ongoing California court case between Apple and Samsung, a judge on Thursday granted the requests of both companies to add recently released hardware to the suit. The iPhone 5 is now included, as well as Samsung’s U.S. Galaxy S III, the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean (specifically as it pertains to the Galaxy Nexus, and not beyond). The judge in the case also hinted that if Samsung requests it, Apple may see its latest tablets, including the iPad mini and fourth generation iPad, added to the patent lawsuit as well.

“Given the early stage of this litigation and the reasoning of this order, the court notes that Apple should think twice before opposing similar amendments reflecting other newly-released products — e.g. the iPad 4 and iPad mini — that Samsung may propose in the near future,” Judge Grewal wrote, according to IDG News Service. The deadline for amendments in the case is next week, November 23, which means that if Samsung would like to also target Apple’s latest products, it has until then to request to do so.

Apple recently requested to have the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Jelly Bean added to the lawsuit, after Samsung quickly added the iPhone 5 to its own list of products in violation of its held patents following its release. Clearly, the judge isn’t sure that this kind of arms race in this case necessarily benefits either party, but both Samsung and Apple want to illustrate that the transgressions they see coming from the other side are pervasive and consistent, not just isolated to individual products. That’ll be key if either one emerges a clear victor, in a case that still isn’t set to go to trial until 2014, since to have an impact on devices currently shipping at the time the ruling will have to be used as precedent for securing injunctions against future hardware.

Apple so far has scored only one truly decisive victory, with the ruling in August that held Samsung responsible to the tune of $1.05 billion as a result of patent infringement. Samsung is appealing that ruling. Apple last week announced a resolution to its ongoing patent disputes with Android OEM HTC, but there’s little reason to believe a similar outcome is imminent for Apple and Samsung, a point which a Samsung executive recently drove home with his own statement on the matter.