How the Hashtag Is Ruining the English Language [Rant]

If Twitter is useful for anything beyond a flamethrower of breaking news and URL errata, it's forcing us to be considerate about language—we have to use space wisely. Unfortunately, the hashtag is ruining talking. #NotGonnaLie More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ic0fr4juOzI/how-the-hashtag-is-ruining-the-english-language

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M-Edge suit accuses Amazon of corporate bullying, patent infringement over Kindle cases

Case maker M-Edge filed suit with a Maryland court last week accusing Amazon of "unlawful corporate bullying" and patent infringement relating to the company's line of Kindle cases. According to M-Edge, the company signed a three-year agreement with Amazon in November 2009 for a 15-percent sales commission, only to have the retail giant demand a new contract with a 32-percent cut a mere two month later. A lawyer for M-Edge told The Wall Street Journal that Amazon punished the case maker over its refusal to play ball, after threats of burying the company's products on its site. According to the filing, M-Edge finally caved and signed a new contract in July of last year, given the fact that Amazon apparently drives nearly 90-percent of the small company's revenue. The suit also accuses Amazon of "knocking off" its reading light-packing covers with lighted jacket designs for the Kindle 3. Amazon, for its part, has refused to comment on the matter.

M-Edge suit accuses Amazon of corporate bullying, patent infringement over Kindle cases originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 11:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Geekwire, Geek.com  |  sourceWall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/TVlIQSsZcSU/

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Google bids $900 million for Nortel's patents to protect against litigation trolls

Nortel, once one of the biggest telecoms company in the world but now in the death throes of bankruptcy, has selected Google's $900 million bid for its patent portfolio as the stalking horse bid. This doesn't mean that Google will automatically win Nortel's massive array of telecoms patents, but it does mean that Google is the preferred buyer.

Google, which has a history of lobbying for patent law reform, has been the target of many patent litigation suits. Google's relative infancy means that it has a lot less patents in the vault than big-hitters like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, and buying Nortel's portfolio of 6,000 patents could provide better protection against patent litigation in the future. It's worth noting that both Apple and RIM have showed interested in the portfolio, too.

Mashable speculates that the patents -- which are nearly all telecoms-related -- will be used to defend against Oracle's attacks on Android's use of Java. We reckon that Google is simply looking to cover its future endeavors in the world of networking. In the absence of patent law reform, and continued threats to net neutrality, owning a bunch of telecoms patents sounds like a very sensible move.

Google bids $900 million for Nortel's patents to protect against litigation trolls originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/google-bids-900-million-for-nortels-patents-to-protect-from-li/

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Nikon D5100 Gets Hacked, Star Wars-Themed Firmware

Some Nikon owners can give themselves an unexpected, free and somewhat nerdy Christmas gift: A Star Wars-themed firmware update. Last month, Nikon’s D5100 firmware was decrypted, opening the way for custom tweaks and hacks. Now, just in time for the New Year, an unofficial firmware update has been created which tweaks the menus of the DSLR, [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/nikon-d5100-gets-hacked-star-wars-themed-firmware/

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Photographer Replaces Pellicle Mirror With Food Wrap

Most photographers, pro and amateur, are quite rightly terrified to fish around inside their digital cameras. Whereas little could go wrong with a film camera that couldn’t be fixed with a huff of breath and a handkerchief, the inside of a modern DSLR is a minefield of sensors and semi-silvered mirrors. But Sony A55 owner Dario [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/photographer-replaces-pellicle-mirror-with-food-wrap/

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EXOvault Belt Buckle and iPhone 4/4S Holster

Here’s a case for those who can’t carry their iPhone 4 or 4S close enough to their…  umm, let’s go with heart…  The EXO7 Belt Buckle and Holster for iPhone 4/4S can either clip onto your belt (or in a pocket) or can replace your standard belt buckle.  The case is machined of either solid [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/12/23/exovault-belt-buckle-and-iphone-44s-holster/

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China begins trial operations of home grown Beidou GPS system

The Russians have GLONASS, and the EU will eventually have Galileo, so China's probably been feeling left out of the GPS party so far. Not for much longer though, as the switch for its home grown Beidou system has just been flicked on, providing location and timing data to its home turf. There are ten satellites already in place and six more to follow next year, by which time, most of the Asia Pacific will be covered. The rest of the globe will be taken care of by 2020, once all of the planned 35 satellites are sent up. So, while we may not see something like iPhone support right away, it might be handy to study the Interface Control Document the Chinese government's put online anyway, y'know, just in case.

Continue reading China begins trial operations of home grown Beidou GPS system

China begins trial operations of home grown Beidou GPS system originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Engadget China  |  sourceReuters  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/27/china-begins-trial-operations-of-home-grown-beidou-gps-system/

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Air Dictate app brings Siri's voice control to Macs, makes you feel just a little more important

Well, this was probably inevitable. Given that we've already seen Siri respond to custom commands, replace your remote and adjust the temperature in your house, it shouldn't come as a surprise that someone, somewhere has figured out how to make her control Macs. That's what's going on with Air Dictate by Avatron, a new app that allows you to dictate memos and other Very Important Business so that it appears in your text editor, without you having to type it yourself. Once you download the $1 app, you'll need to visit Avatron's website, download the Air Dictate Receiver software for your Mac and make sure the two devices are connected to the same WiFi network. So far as we can tell, it should work with any application that accepts text input, though for now it's only compatible with Macs and the iPhone 4S (sorry, jailbreakers).

Air Dictate app brings Siri's voice control to Macs, makes you feel just a little more important originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Dec 2011 10:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PCWorld, The Verge  |  sourceiTunes  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/hczd96-u0No/

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Intel's 32nm Medfield SoC specs and benchmarks leak

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Intel's Medfield may still be a ways from breaking into the smartphone and tablet market, but we're finally starting to get some concrete details on its specs and capabilities. VR-Zone got the bitty gritty on Chipzilla's first true SoC and it looks almost ready to run with the big dogs. A reference tablet, running at 1.6GHz with 1GB of RAM (which also packs Bluetooth, WiFi and FM radio) was put through some Android benchmarks and held it's own against a Tegra 2 and a Snapdragon MSM8260 -- which pulled a 7,500 and 8,000 in Caffeinemark 3, respectively. The admittedly higher clocked Atom scored an impressive 10,500, though, power consumption on the pre-production chips was a bit higher than anticipated. At idle the fledgling Medfield was sucking down 2.6W and spiking to 3.6W under load. Ultimately Intel hopes to cut those numbers to 2W at idle and 2.6W while pushing out HD video -- not far off from current-gen ARM SoC. Lets not forget though, benchmarks only tell part of the story -- we'll be waiting to see working hardware before declaring a victor.

Intel's 32nm Medfield SoC specs and benchmarks leak originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Netbook News  |  sourceVR-Zone  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/L8vrZ9VKh6Q/

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DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android

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Dropbox offers a lovely client for Android, but it's lacking true "sync" functionality. You can merely browse your Dropbox, pull files into the device, and manually upload specific files.

DropSpace is a little Android app that makes Dropbox on Android work like Dropbox - that is, you get real folder synchronization in the background.

When you run the app you're prompted for your Dropbox credentials. After logging in to Dropbox, you get to select which device folders you'd like to sync to the cloud. It's a straightforward mapping process: You select a folder on the device, and then specify where in Dropbox it should go.

The interface is rather clunky, at least for now. The biggest annoyance is that you can't edit your "sync list": if you add a folder and then wish to remove it, you must delete the entire list of folders and start over.

In terms of functionality, it works quite well. I tested it with the camera folder, and it was nice to be able to take my photos using the lean default Camera app and have them sync up to the cloud instantly.

DropSpace adds real Dropbox sync to Android originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/04/dropspace-adds-real-dropbox-sync-to-android/

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