Hasta La Gadget!

We figured Apple’s firm response to Lodsys earlier this week regarding its claims against iOS devs would prompt the patent holder to move on to its next target, and sure enough, it looks as if said target has been selected. Unfortunately, a group of Android app devs have now found themselves in the Texas-based company’s crosshairs, which is citing the same patent infringement that Apple recently addressed, relating specifically to in-app upgrade purchases. As was the case with the last round of letters, Lodsys is demanding licensing fees from small, individual developers, who don’t have the resources to fight back. Lodsys appears to be maintaining its trend of ignoring media requests, so we’re keeping an eye on the patent troll’s blog to see if anyone comes up to the surface to defend this latest round of allegations. In the meantime, plugging your ears while humming and ignoring the mailman might not be such a bad idea… you know, if you do this kind of thing for a living.

Lodsys shifts in-app purchasing target to Android devs following Apple response originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 14:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 02, 2007 by CyberNet.

It looks as though Seagate has dug themselves a small hole, and is having a hard time getting out of it. On the packages of their hard drives they used to state the storage space in terms of gigabytes, which isn’t anything out of the ordinary. The problem lies within how they specify what a gigabyte actually is. They say that 1GB is equal to 1 billion bytes, but any computer savvy person knows that isn’t the case. In fact, 1GB is equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes which turns out to be a difference of over 70MB.

Seagate didn’t just make that error in the specification either. The hard drives themselves were shortchanged 70MB for every 1GB of space they were said to have, that’s a difference of about 7%! That may not seem significant, but purchasing an 80GB hard drive would mean that you would really get less than 75GB of space.

As you can imagine a lawsuit has resulted from this, and if it gets approved on February 7, 2008 a lot of people will be getting small refunds. If you bought one of the millions of hard drives sold between March 22, 2001, and January 1, 2006 you can go ahead and submit a short claim form. If it ends up getting approved you’ll receive 5% cash back on the purchase price of the drive.

Note: This is for U.S. customers only who purchased the hard drive individually. If the hard drive came with a computer you are not eligible for the refund.

Source: Computer World

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Just this morning we reported on the rather jovial atmosphere at Google’s big mobile payment announcement — well, it looks like PayPal’s prepared to bring an end to the celebration. According to Bloomberg, PayPal filed a suit against Google today in a California Superior Court, alleging that former PayPal executive, and one of this morning’s MCs, Osama Bedier misappropriated the company’s trade secrets. The suit further fingered Stephanie Tilenius, also formerly with PayPal, of violating the terms of her contract in recruiting Bedier. Though we’ve yet to get our hands on any clear details about which trade secrets PayPal’s pointing to, we’d say the timing speaks volumes.

PayPal swiftly slaps Google with mobile payment suit originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 May 2011 00:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The developers targeted by Lodsys’s patent infringement accusations last week have been in a sleepless holding pattern, awaiting response from Apple before making their next moves. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) staff attorney Julie Samuels says that Apple legal is likely hard at work reviewing the patent in question, however, and should be in touch soon. Though it’s very unlikely that Cupertino won’t offer assistance, devs will also be able to turn to EFF for advice, where they may even be paired with pro bono patent attorneys. Besides offering this bit of good news, Samuels was able to help us dig deeper into Lodsys, and the dirty business of patent suits. To get some perspective, we reached out to Lodsys CEO Mark Small and EFF (which tends to side with developers). We have yet to hear back from Mr. Small, but EFF was kind enough to give us its take on the situation. Click through for the full rundown.

Continue reading Lodsys vs. Apple Devs: EFF helps us dig deeper

Lodsys vs. Apple Devs: EFF helps us dig deeper originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We thought Clearwire might have had a chance at legal victory against Sony Ericsson, but the wireless carrier has apparently dropped out of the ring. Clearwire told a federal court it no longer plans to produce a smartphone — which basically nullified Sony Ericsson’s worry that upcoming Clearwire handsets would oh-so-similar swirling orb logo. As a result, Sony Ericsson’s reporting today that it’s dropped the trademark infringement lawsuit, which sounds good for all involved, except it leaves Clearwire not producing much of anything now.

Clearwire ditches plans to produce phones, satisfied Sony Ericsson drops logo lawsuit originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 May 2011 18:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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