Hasta La Gadget!

We did say it’d take an Act of Congress to lower the volume on televisual commercials and, shockingly enough, that’s exactly what we’ve got now. The House of Representatives has given its nod of approval to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act, which, having already cleared the Senate, is now on its way to President Obama’s desk for final validation. Once signed into effect, the new legislation will require that all advertisers modulate their volume down so it’s no higher than that of the program you’re watching, and it’ll be the FCC‘s duty to ensure that they all adhere to the new rule. A year’s leniency will be allowed for all those who struggle with figuring out how to turn it down from 11, but after that we should all be able to watch the dying medium that is live television without dreading the commercial breaks.

CALM Act approved by Congress, should make TV commercials slightly less obnoxious originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 04:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rambus, which modestly describes itself as “one of the world’s premier technology licensing companies,” has meekly asked the International Trade Commission to block import and sale of an amazing array of products from companies including Broadcom, Freescale, LSI, MediaTek, NVIDIA, and STMicroelectronics — the latter of which was sued by Caltech only yesterday. But wait, there’s more! Rambus also indicates that other “companies whose products incorporate the accused semiconductor products” have also been named, selling things like “personal computers, workstations, servers, routers, mobile phones and other handheld devices, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, motherboards, plug-in cards, hard drives and modems.” That should just about cover 95% of what’s available at your local electronics store, and certainly puts our holiday wish lists in legal limbo.

This is a follow-up to earlier disputes involving the company, particularly with NVIDIA, which will continue via patent infringement lawsuits filed in US District Court against those corporate entities mentioned above. Beyond that, Rambus is hoping that the ITC stops import and sale of any and all infringing products post-haste. That seems awfully drastic, but for its part Rambus indicates it has been trying with all its might to negotiate licenses with these supposedly dirty dealers and that it was told “the only way they would get serious is if we sued them.” So, place your bets because here we go.

[Thanks, Antonio]

Continue reading Rambus files ITC complaint against just about everyone, wants to stop sale of just about everything

Rambus files ITC complaint against just about everyone, wants to stop sale of just about everything originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 13:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been quite a few months since we’ve seen any major developments in Microsoft’s patent battle with Toronto-based i4i Inc over Microsoft Word, but it looks like things are now about to change in a big way. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the US Supreme Court has today agreed to hear Mircosoft’s appeal in the case that dealt it $290 million in damages and prevented it from selling versions of Word that contained the allegedly infringing technology. That could not only have some pretty big ramifications for Microsoft in this particular case, but for patent law in general, as it gets to the very heart of the legal standard for determining the validity of a patent. Needless to say, we’ll be watching this one very closely — the court is expected to hear the case sometime next year.

US Supreme Court agrees to hear Microsoft appeal in Word patent case originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not sure what the humble DSLR has ever done to offend the Kuwaiti government, but, according to the Kuwait Times, the recreational use of Digital Single-Lens Reflex cameras has now been outlawed in the country. The Ministries of Information, Social Affairs and Finance (hello, 1984!) have collectively decided to ban the use of the chunky shooters in public places, except where it can be shown that it’s for journalistic purposes. This decision has left a lot of people scratching their heads, not least because every self-respecting smartphone nowadays can pump out screen-filling images. And then there’s also the matter of determining where the line between compact cameras, which are still allowed, and DSLRs resides — for example, is the Lumix G2 an illegal shooter just because it looks like one?

Kuwait bans DSLRs, leaves Micro Four Thirds question hanging in the air originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 05:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since 2004, Roger Davidson’s basically been living in a twisted Dan Brown novel. It all started when a computer repair guy informed him that a virus on his computer was linked to Opus Dei, Polish priests, and death threats. More »