Hasta La Gadget!

Angry Birds-maker Rovio is the most recent target in Lodsys' patent trolling disputes. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

The mighty hand of Lodsys, a patent firm suing mobile app programmers, continues to come down on iOS and Android developers. Now it’s targeting a major and much-beloved player: Angry Birds.

In the lawsuit, Lodsys claims Rovio has infringed upon “at least claim 27” of their patent, which covers in-app billing technology. Lodsys wants 0.575 percent of any U.S. revenue obtained using the technology.

The lawsuit currently extends to 11 other defendants, including big league app developers like Electronic Arts, Atari, and Square Enix.

Lodsys began sending letters to iOS app developers in early May for including an “upgrade” button or allowing users to make purchases within the app using Apple’s in-app billing infrastructure.

Patent disputes are common among large technology corporations fighting to defend their intellectual property, including Apple, Google and Microsoft. However, it’s rare to see a small patent firm such as Lodsys go on a lawsuit spree against a laundry list of companies big and small.

Lodsys explained the reasoning for their actions in a blog post to Apple: “The scope of [Apple’s] current licenses does NOT enable them to provide ‘pixie dust’ to bless another (3rd party) business applications [sic],” Lodsys wrote. “From Lodsys’ perspective, it is seeking to be paid value for rights it holds and which are being used by others.”

Apple supported its developers with an official response from its general counsel Bruce Sewell (.pdf). In it he says, “Apple is undisputedly licensed to these patent and the Apple App Makers are protected by that license. Apple intends to share this letter and the information set out herein with its App Makers and is fully prepared to defend Apple’s license rights.”

The Texas-based Lodsys recently began filing lawsuits against Android developers for violating their patents, as well.

Many developers have responded to the company’s patent trolling by removing the offending features of their app (the in-app purchasing ability) or just plain removing their app from the market entirely.

The EFF explains that the patent system is intended to support innovation, but in instances such as this, it’s doing the opposite.

If you thought Lodsys was done making a spectacle of itself and dragging app developers to court, you were sorely mistaken. The king of the patent trolls has amended its original complaint against mobile devs, removing one company, but adding five new ones — all of them big names. Rovio, Electronic Arts, Square Enix, Atari, and Take-Two Interactive have been added to the list of defendants in the suit filed back in May. Vietnamese company Wulven Games has been dropped from the complaint, but Lodsys has more than made up for it by directly targeting possibly the largest mobile title out there — Angry Birds. You can find the completely amended filing at the source link and, if you’re in the mood for a bit of a refresher, check out the more coverage link.

Lodsys adds Rovio, Atari, EA and others to patent suit, makes birds even angrier originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What do you do the day after an arsenal of new Apple products are announced? Why, take them apart as soon as you can get your hands on them, of course! Wouldn’t ya know it, iFixit is at it again — this time, tearing down the new Mac mini. At first glance, the only noticeable difference is the inclusion of the powerful Thunderbolt port. Once under the hood, though, a second hard drive port was spotted, along with just enough space for a second storage device. Perhaps the only thing standing the way of a dual HDD welding compact desktop is your ability to secure another SATA cable. If you want to give it a shot, the updated mini scored a solid eight out of ten in the repairability category as the machine had no proprietary screws or glue. Moreover, easy access makes a DIY RAM upgrade a piece of cake, especially when you’re already in there adding that extra disk. So if you’re looking to get your teardown feet wet, swan dive right in.

Update: Sure, you can get dual HDDs straight from the Apple store, but you’ll pay dearly for it. As in, the base Mac mini will run you $1550 — and that’s for the only option: a 750 GB ATA and a 256 GB SSD. The other option is to splurge for the Lion Server model, where dual 500 GB or dual 750 GB options are available. Still, going this route will set you back at least $1000. Since these bad boys are so easy to work on, you’d put far less strain on your wallet by going the DIY route.

New Mac mini gets iFixit teardown treatment, leaves space for 2nd hard drive originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Warranties be damned, iFixit got its hands on the newly announced MacBook Air and immediately did its thing, digging into the super-thin laptop like a kid at Christmas. Not all that much to see from the outside of the device, save for that new Thunderbolt port and some shiny new keyboard backlighting. Things are a bit different inside, however, including an Intel Core i5 processor, a Bluetooth 4.0 chip, and a general lack of thermal paste. As for putting the thing back together again — the Air scores a four out of ten for repairability, so maybe don’t try this at home.

iFixit tears down new MacBook Air, beholds the miracle of backlighting originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Duncan Geere, Wired UK

Update: Wired.co.uk has independently confirmed store referred to in the story to be an unauthorized Apple Store.

Chinese counterfeiters have a long history of cloning hardware from major tech manufacturers, but now they’re going a step further by cloning entire stores.

A US blogger living in Kunming in Southwest China noticed what appeared to be an Apple store pop up in her town, complete with the store’s trademark spacious, airy interior, blue-shirted staff, products to play with, and upstairs seating area.

“We proceeded to place a bet on whether or not this was a genuine Apple store or just the best rip-off we had ever seen,” said the blogger, who hasn’t disclosed her identity but goes under the pseudonym BirdAbroad. It turned out to be the latter — a quick glance at Apple’s website shows that there are only stores in Beijing and Shanghai in China.

Even more curiously, the staff believed they genuinely were working for Apple. “I tried to imagine the training that they went to when they were hired,” says the blogger, “in which they were pitched some big speech about how they were working for this innovative, global company — when really they’re just filling the pockets of some shyster living in a prefab mansion outside the city by standing around a fake store disinterestedly selling what may or may not be actual Apple products that fell off the back of a truck somewhere.”

There is some debate as to whether the store in question is a “Premium Reseller” taking the job far too seriously. (Not any more there isn’t. See the above update.) The blog’s author addresses this in the comments, adding: “What these stores are doing is clearly different — they are trying to trick people into thinking this is an actual Apple store. The employees all think they actually work for the American company Apple, when they plainly do not.”

You can see plenty of images of the store on BirdAbroad’s blog, along with discussion in the comments.

It isn’t the first time cloning of this scale has been claimed. In 2006, for example, it was reported the whole of NEC, the electronics firm, was cloned.