Hasta La Gadget!

Nissan seems keen to give Google a run for their money in the autonomous vehicle technology category, and the Japanese giant is working hard at creating functional robot vehicles for 2020 and beyond.

Nissan has recently been able to pick up an official Japanese license plate to start testing smart driving systems in real world driving environments.

The car’s brains have been stuffed into an all-electric Nissan Leaf. Some of the features include automatic lane centering as well as adaptive cruise control. The vehicle will also support automatic exiting for freeways, automatic lane changes, and the ability to overtake slower or stopped cars as well.

Soon enough, we won’t even have to drive our cars, and maybe texting and driving will be okay.

[via Wired]

It’s not often that events of a patent tiff transcend the humdrum noise we’re all too used to, but the most recent judgement of a Munich court has declared an Apple patent invalid based on prior art from, well, Apple. As Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents explains, Cupertino has racked up a couple of decisions going against both Samsung and Motorola based on a patent for “portable electronic device[s] for photo management,” which describes a bounce-back aka rubber-banding effect specifically within the iOS photo gallery app. Now, Apple’s lawmen successfully argued the UI feature was different from previous concepts presented by AOL and Microsoft (which could benefit Cook & Co greatly in other cases, Mueller says). However, there was one piece of prior art they couldn’t dispute: the feature in question being shown off by Steve Jobs at the OG iPhone keynote back in January 2007. (We’ve embedded video of the keynote below, but you’ll need to jump to 32:40 to catch the gallery bounce-back bit.)

You see, even though the rubber-banding feature was demonstrated by Apple, on an Apple device, it still counts as prior art that invalidates its own patent — in Europe at least. That’s because documents describing the feature weren’t filed until June 2007, almost six months after Jobs took to the stage. A similar, first-to-file situation is now part of the US system, of course, ever since the America Invents Act was signed into law in 2011. As the first-generation iPhone keynote came years before that, however, it’s unlikely to hold any weight in future US court decisions. Well, you can’t win ’em all Apple, especially when you’re up against yourself.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Apple, Samsung, Google

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Source: FOSS Patents

To date, it has been rather challenging for third party developers to roll out apps for Google Glass, but it seems that things are set to change with the introduction of the upcoming Google Glass XE10 update. This particular Google Glass XE10 update will offer code jockeys the necessary tools required for a third party developer to begin writing third party Glassware apps for the Google Glass platform. With this update, developers would have the doors opened up to them so that they can access the sensors as well as features on Google Glass.

If you are a developer yourself, you can certainly look forward to the update’s rollout sometime next month, where it should also pave the way for more interesting games in addition to more functional apps. There is still some feeling of consternation among certain quarters as to whether Google Glass is able to make a huge splash when it finally arrives, but I guess everyone will just have to wait for 2014 to come around before a more concrete view on the situation can be assessed, right? Not only that, the introduction of the Google Glass XE10 update will most probably make sure that more than an adequate number of apps will be available by the time the pair of smart glasses arrive.

Google Glass XE10 Update Touted To Offer 3rd Party Glassware Apps original content from Ubergizmo.

If you picked up Chromecast earlier this summer, there’s a good chance you’ve been exploring Google’s digital content library. Now the company is trying to make it a little easier for you, updating its Google Play Movies & TV app to present television content in a more straightforward, linear manner. Gone is the app’s episode-focused browsing experience, for instance, replaced by a more organized list of television programs that filter into sequential lists of episodes. Each show’s card is smaller too, allowing more to fit on a single screen. Diving into a program’s folder shows not only the purchased episodes, but now also prompts the user to buy the next episode in the series. Content that has been pinned for download can be accessed more quickly as well, and can be filtered through a new On Device menu for offline viewing.

The changelog also notes that the update brings “several bug fixes,” which seems to have disabled screenshots on some devices (according to Android Police.) Holding power + volume down still managed to snap an image on our HTC One, however. A mild disappointment, to be sure, but it’s hard to argue with a cleaner, more efficient interface. Snag the update for yourself at the Google Play link below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google

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Via: Android Police

Source: Google Play

Google is taking Glass on tour, offering curious would-be wearables users the opportunity to try out the coveted headset as well as talk it over with the development team. The first stop for the Android wearable will be Durham, NC, on October 5th, though Google says it intends that to be just the first of […]