Nintendo loses $21m case over controllers

Last Wednesday Nintendo Inc. was ordered to pay a small East Texas gaming company $21 million for infringing on a patent while designing controllers for its popular Wii and GameCube systems. A federal jury found in favor of Anascape Ltd. in the lawsuit that was originally filed in 2006. Nintendo spokesman Charlie Scibetta said the company will seek an appeal and expects the court to reduce the award “significantly.” The jury found that Nintendo infringed on Anascape’s patent while designing its Wii Classic, WaveBird and Gamecube controllers.

Scibettra said Nintendo was pleased no infringement was found with the motion-sensing technology used in its wandlike Wii and Nuncheck controllers, which mimic movements by users in games such as tennis and boxing. Attorneys for Anascape did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tyler-based Anascape also sued Microsoft Corp. for patent infringements on game controllers but reached an agreement with the company before the start of the trial against Nintendo, The Lufkin Daily News reported. Microsoft said in a statement that terms of the settlement reached May 1 were confidential.

Source: CNN

One Laptop Per Child with Windows XP

Microsoft has joined forces with the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project in a bid to provide inexpensive portable PCs to schoolchildren in developing countries. The announcement means that the XO laptop will run Windows as well as the OLPC’s home grown Linux-based operating system. OLPC will be hoping that the partnership with Microsoft will help kick-start demand from education ministers for its XO laptop, which has thus far received orders for just 600,000 systems. The project has also struggled to drive down the price of its laptop to the highly publicised $100 mark; the current version is priced at $188.

OLPC and Microsoft said in a joint statement that trials of laptops loaded with Windows will begin in “four to five” countries from next month, with a broader release in August or September. “Transforming education is a fundamental goal of Microsoft Unlimited Potential, our ambitious effort to bring sustained social and economic opportunity to people who do not currently enjoy the benefits of technology,” said Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft. “By supporting a wide variety of affordable computing solutions for education that includes OLPC’s XO laptop, we aim to make technology more relevant, accessible and affordable for students everywhere.”

Source: Vnunet

Fedora 9 (Sulphur) has been released

“Fedora 9 has been released as of 10 AM Eastern Time this morning. Release notes can be found here. Some of the more interesting new features include a new package management system, which can be used as an alternative to pup and pirut, known as PackageKit. This release also includes GNOME 2.22 and/or KDE 4.0.3, and Firefox 3 beta 5. Overall, there are a lot of improvements worth looking at, and the Bittorrent seeds are already feeding the release fairly effectively.”

AMD moves to 12-core server processors

Advanced Micro Devices plans to release processors with 12 cores, which changes its product road map and kills earlier plans to release 8-core chips. The 12-core processor, code-named Magny-Cours, will be targeted at servers and is due for release in the first half of 2010, according to the company’s updated road map announced Wednesday. The chip will include 12M bytes of L3 cache and support DDR3 RAM, according to the road map. AMD is jumping from a 6-core chip code-named Istanbul, due for release in the second half of 2009, straight to a 12-core chip the following year, an AMD spokesman said. Until last month, AMD officials repeated plans to ship the 8-core server chip, code-named Barcelona, in 2009.

Montreal has now been replaced by Istanbul, followed by a 12-core product in 2010, the spokesman said. AMD is also planning to release a 6-core chip code-named Sao Paulo in 2010. The chip will include 6M bytes of L3 cache and support for DDR3 RAM. Sao Paulo chips could meet the need of systems that don’t require 12 cores, Allen said. The new chips will be more power efficient as they will be manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, an upgrade from the 65-nm process currently used to manufacture Barcelona. Even with AMD’s altered road map, Intel will remain formidable. Intel shipped 78.5 percent of chips in the first quarter of 2008, while AMD held a 20.6 percent market share, a slight gain from the 18.7 percent market share it held in the first quarter of 2007.

Source: NY Times

Πανικός με το Service Pack 3 των Windows XP

Μερικες ωρες μετα την κυκλοφορια του service pack 3 των XP εκατονταδες χρηστες αντιμετωπισαν προβληματα με την εγκατασταση του.

Συμφωνα με το Information Week εκατονταδες ειναι τα παραπονα για κατεστραμενα windows και μηχανηματα που επανεκκινουν συνεχεια, ενω περιπτωσεις με δισκους που αρνουνται να bootαρουν και drivers που κρασαρουν τα συστηματα ειναι εξισου σημαντικες. Επισης αλλες πηγες αναφερουν πως εκτος του οτι με την εγκατασταση του sp3 ο ΙΕ 6 δεν ειναι πια δαθεσιμος και πως η υπηρεσια Network Access Protection η οποια ειναι “δανεικη” απο τα Vista αφηνει αρκετα κενα ασφαλειας απ’οσα ηδη υπαρχουν στα ΧΡ.

HTC unveils Touch Diamond, competition for iPhone

High Tech Computer on Tuesday launched a more powerful version of its popular Touch smartphone, hoping to lure consumers from better-known rivals such as Apple’s iPhone. The Touch Diamond, which supports carriers’ 3G broadband-like networks, includes features that focus on Web browsing and checking e-mail. The device, which runs on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, includes a 2.8-inch VGA touch screen that the company claims provides near-print-quality viewing. The smartphone’s Web browser can zoom and pan Web sites. In addition, turning the device sideways automatically rotates the page view from portrait to landscape.

HTC has also developed its own YouTube application to watch video from the popular site. The software also optimizes the use of Google’s mobile mapping service for accessing street maps and getting traffic data. The Touch Diamond weighs less than 4 ounces and includes a 3.2-megapixel camera. The device comes with 4 GB of storage, and supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technologies. Talk time is up to four hours on a fully charged battery, according to HTC. Its size is roughly 4 by 2 by 0.4 inches. HTC plans to offer the Touch Diamond through all major European carriers in June, and later this quarter in Asia and the Middle East. The device is scheduled to ship in North America and Latin America in the second half of the year.

πηγη: Coolest Gadgets