Hasta La Gadget!

Remember the massive patent lawsuit leveled at Apple, Google, AOL, Facebook, ebay, Netflix, and a number of other companies by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen? Well, it’s now hit something of a snag — a federal judge dismissed the case on Friday, stating that Allen’s suit “failed to identify the infringing products or devices with any specificity,” and that the court and defendants were basically “left to guess what devices infringe on the four patents.” For his part, Allen apparently plans to persevere with the patent fight, and said through a spokesman that the dismissal was merely a “procedural issue,” and that “the case is staying on track” — Allen now has until December 28th to file an amended complaint.

Judge throws out Paul Allen’s massive patent suit, Allen plans to continue originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 12:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Watching Google destroy Cr-48 laptops for fun can’t have been easy for any of you, but it turns out that the wily geeks of Mountain View had a clandestine purpose to their malevolence after all. An equation, scribbled out in old school chalk in the background of one scene, attracted the attention of a Sylvain Zimmer, who, together with a group of like-minded geeks, set about trying to solve it and discover its meaning. A full day’s worth of cryptographic work later, Sylvain was left with a set of numbers he was able to convert into letters, which in turned spelled out “speed and destroy.” Appending goo.gl, Google’s URL shortener, to the front of those words got him to a screen congratulating him for being “first to figure out our MENSA-certified puzzle” and promising to send him a Cr-48 laptop as his prize. Kudos to Sylvain… and to Google for being such irrepressible geeks.

Continue reading Google hides mathematical puzzle in Cr-48 video, rewards its solver with a laptop

Google hides mathematical puzzle in Cr-48 video, rewards its solver with a laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 07:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It happens every December. You head home for the holidays only to be accosted by parents who need help fixing their computers. This year, it looks like Google will be lending a hand with its unannounced Teach Parents Tech series of public service videos. The Google-registered website teachparentstech.org still shows a “coming soon…” graphic and the videos remain unlisted on YouTube, but that shouldn’t stop you from sending the source link below to your parents right now. At the moment, we’re counting 54 cross-platform how-to videos hosted by real live Google employees. The videos are brief (less than a minute) covering topics as simple as “how to copy and paste” and “how to attach a file to an email” to more advanced sessions covering “how to setup an email autoresponder” and even “how to find cheap flights.” Unfortunately, even Google can’t explain to parents how to create a FAT32 hard drive partition. See what we mean after the break.

Update: And it’s live. Might as well get in the gift-giving spirit, eh?

[Thanks, Nathan G.]

Continue reading Google’s Teach Parents Tech site to help mom and dad find the ‘any’ key this Christmas

Google’s Teach Parents Tech site to help mom and dad find the ‘any’ key this Christmas originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 02:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By now you’re probably familiar with this slate, seeing as how Google’s Andy Rubin recently unveiled it on stage, but we’re willing to bet you’ve never seen the top edge — you know, the part now bearing a front-facing webcam and a conspicuous Verizon tattoo. Yes, this is Motorola’s 10-inch Honeycomb tablet, and it’s playing for Team Red just as foretold, though the tipster who obtained these images isn’t sure whether it will bear the name Stingray, Everest or even potentially “Trygon.” Spec-wise, we’re told our previous tipster was right on the money, and it’ll have a 1GHz Tegra 2 T20, a gyroscope and 32GB of storage underneath that 1280 x 800 multitouch screen, as well as 512MB of RAM and a slot for an up-to-32GB microSD card. It also sure looks like there’s a micro-USB jack, a mini-HDMI port and a 3.5mm headphone socket, as well as some contacts for a likely dock, though as always Mr. Blurrycam’s handiwork is such that we can’t quite tell. No matter — see for yourself in the gallery below.

Update: What’s that button on the back of the unit, right next to the speaker and dual LED flash? Why, it’s the power toggle, of course.

[Thanks, wnrussell]

Motorola’s 10-inch Honeycomb tablet meets Mr. Blurrycam, shows off Verizon logo originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Dec 2010 19:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on December 14, 2006 by CyberNet.

The above image was taken from the PDF for the patent that Google just received for their search interface. I’ll warn you right now that there isn’t much content in the PDF and the screenshots don’t get any clearer from what I have pictured above. Somehow after being submitted for more than two years Google got the patent approved, but I wonder if there are any sites that they are going to try and target for copying off them?

What’s even more intriguing, and unexpectedly a lot of fun, is their new Patent Search Engine. You can obviously do searches for patents and the advanced features let you search by patent number, title, inventor, assignee, classification, and date. How could something so boring be so fascinating? Simple, on the homepage of the Patent Search they will show you five random patents…just sit there and keep refreshing the page to look for interesting ones. Pictures are worth a thousand words so I’ll just link to the fun results that I found:

• Jumping snail (Pictured to the right, no explanation necessary.)
• Device for cooling an infant’s brain (I need one of these for me.)
• Candy forming machine (Don’t we all have one of these?)
• Computer (I think Sony’s computers have come a little further since then. I wonder if their batteries were just as dangerous back then? Oh yeah, this thing probably wasn’t battery powered. )
• Zipper (Doesn’t look as easy as you would think.)
• Pocket protector (Wowsers, this goes back to the early 1900′s! Who knew nerds were so geeky even back then.)
• Shark protector suit (Carry one of these with you at all times.)
• Finger puppet (Yes, a finger puppet.)
• Toupee (For those that have a hair management problem.)
• Underwear (We all wear it don’t we? Well, at least I hope so.  Note that this was just filed in the year 2000.)
• Beer Faucet (Way better than tapping a keg!)

Hope you got as much amusement out of those as I did! Leave any other funny or interesting ones in the comments below.

News Source: SlashDot

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