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...and there will be a new HD DirecTV/Tivo, slated for next year.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/03/hell-freezes-over-new-directv-hd-tivo-on-the-way/

And don't forget that the dev phone has a cool pattern screened onto it, too.

and as for "a reputable and verifiable source for everything you said."

So, you don't watch the news, Old people and young or "special" children are the number one customers.
http://media.www.dailyvidette.com/media/storage/paper420/news/2008/02/18/News/Nintendo.Wii.Used.For.Rehabilitation.Purposes.wiihab-3215373.shtml
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2007/02/nintendos-wii-in-nursing-home.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260990,00.html
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/23/nintendos-wii-a-hit-with-the-geriatric-set/
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art58580.asp
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=65566
http://www.specialkids.com/my_weblog/2008/09/research-shows-rehabilitation-benefits-of-using-nintendo-wii.html
http://www.nypsystem.org/press/2008/04/st-marys-at-forefront-of-thera.html
https://www.mywii.com.au/NewsDetail.aspx?id=2150

Whether I can install that Mac OS X on a computer and then sell you that computer, is what's iffy here. It gets even iffier if I have patched it. The common-sense answer is that it should(*) be legal; the reality is that it might not.

(*) Or should it? If we're talking about GPLed software, some people's opinions might change.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/16/osx86-project-not-too-happy-with-psystar-either/ Uh-oh, it looks like wannabe Mac clone maker Psystar has more than one licensing issue with the Open Computer: the company didn't get permission from developers working on the OSx86 Project to sell their work. Netkas, who developed the EFI emulator Psystar is using, posted up a blog entry yesterday calling Psystar "liars" and has re-released his code under a license that specifically forbids commercial usage.

Even the latest EeePC models still come with XP (or Linux). Windows Business licenses allow installation of XP, and you still get the occasional non-netbook machine with XP pre-installed. However from the summary itself, if you really want to stay with XP, one option is just to buy a *used* XP machine. There are people still running Mac Classics out there.

Yes I completely agree. Folks who appreciate high refresh rate are hard to come by. So many people are brainwashed into thinking "your eye's can see more than 60 fps." Frankly, they can believe what they want but if they don't want to believe me I'll go enjoy my 150hz Thinkpad T61p, breathes new life into cs 1.6... I make a rebuttal here about this: http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/26/viewsonic-shows-off-a-120hz-lcd-display-for-computers/comments/13965576/

I forgot the links.

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/13/186217&from=rss
http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/13/arm-to-release-netbook-mid-chips/

what are their entirely specious or bizarre and untrue claims? sounds like you're just exhibiting a typical knee-jerk reaction to being told that something you use/enjoy is not perfect.

despite the inflammatory title on Gametrailers.com the Greenpeace commercial isn't railing against video games. in fact, they seem to be primarily trying to reach out to gamers and raise awareness about the environmental hazards involved in manufacturing electronics. the PTFE (teflon) and epoxy resin used in PCB manufacturing, and various dopants and other chemicals used in IC fabrication are in fact toxic and can be bad for the environment.

that doesn't mean you have to give up video games or throw away your computer, but disseminating such information encourages consumers to make more environmentally conscious decisions. and it's not just Greenpeace that's pushing for more sustainable development in the electronics industry. green computing is increasingly attracting the attention of more and more computer manufacturers.

thanks to Greenpeace, a lot of companies like Apple are starting to clean up their act and even taking the initiative to encourage more corporate responsibility regarding sustainable development.

but in the end, it's the consumers who have the most influence on manufacturers. it's only because consumers are demanding greener computers now that manufacturers are starting to pay attention to their environmental impact. so what's wrong with Greenpeace trying to encourage gamers to do the same? modern consoles are just very specialized gaming/media PCs. and pushing console manufacturers to be a little more environmentally conscious can only be a good thing.

People have been building HD projectors for a while using old laptops. (Also using old LCDs etc).

http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/17/how-to-build-your-own-hd-projector-part-1
http://lumenlab.com/projectors/

It already exisits

I don't get why this is news. This thing, or similar to it has been out for 3 years.

So what happens if the "hacked" firmware switches Apple's key with, say, the PS3's? Would Sony be stuck?

Part of their agreement to get a key is certain steps must be taken by the vendors when writing their firmware and making their hardware, to make the private key difficult to extract. Any vendor that "loses control" over their key simply requests another one. Sony revokes their old key, causing all new disks to not work with the old firmware. The vendor pushes a firmware update to their players (either by download/usb thumb drive or internet download) to get the new key which is embedded in the new firmware. This is why practically all bluray players have internet connections. It's not a convenience for you so much as it is to make it possible and practical for vendors to recover from getting their key revoked by Sony. No vendor wants their vendor key publicized, but they have to take that into account. If it does get released, and you don't have a way to update all your customers after you get a new key, you've essentially "bricked" all your previously sold units. (at least in the eyes of the consumer, being unable to play new content) And that may be enough RMAs to pull you under.

In your example, if someone managed to extract the PS3's key and embed it in a free bluray ripping software, (unlikely because they "wrote the book" on steps you should take to protect it, but certainly not impossible) they would simply revoke their own key and push a software update to your PS3, required for viewing new movies, like any other vendor.

The only way to beat sony at this game is to reverse engineer or otherwise break the encryption to recover en-masse the entire set of vendor private keys. If that list were to be made public, then Sony would have two options. (1) revoke ALL keys and start from scratch, (requiring all bluray players in the world to receive a firmware update) or (2) give up on it. Right now if a key is compromised, they have hundreds (thousands?) of as yet unassigned vendor keys in the dictionary on every disc being made, so revoking one and handing out another is not a problem because it's already on all the existing discs. But if you have to start over, it makes a bit of a mess because all the old discs only have the old dictionary, and so players would need to have two vendor keys, an old one to play old discs, and a new one to play new discs. I suppose they wouldn't mind that all so much but it may be enough deterrent to make them consider option (2).

That's why the vendors have to sign the agreement and take certain steps to protect their keys. There's a limited number of vendor keys available to be assigned from the start. (anyone happen to know the exact number?) So they can't just go revoking keys every week, they'd run out too soon.

I've read some recent information about "processing keys" being discovered, I don't know if that means someone has found a way to break the entire dictionary. Being able to break the entire dictionary is of course the best thing to see happen. It doesn't bring the whole system crashing down, but drags it down to the effectiveness that is presently on DVDs. (which is essentially non existent now with apps like Mac The Ripper and Handbrake out and about) - meaning open apps can be written to break any disc currently in production.

Ya I guess I am a bit behind the times here. Not sure if I'm getting this right but it appears that the "processing key" is the ONE key that encrypts the content of any bluray disc. The title key isn't actually required to decrypt the content if you know the processing key. Gee that stinks for them I guess. Makes pretty much all of the above a moot point. I'm surprised the bluray ripping apps haven't been popping up like dandelions already. Guess not enough people have bluray drives in their computers yet. Funny how THAT is what's causing this to not hit the fan very fast.

Spotted on Engadget a few months ago:
$89 laptop

It is extremely basic, but it is at least interesting to see what is possible at the low-end of the laptop market these days. Looks like it would be fine for very basic wifi browsing (wikipedia etc) email and document creation at least.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/11/plastic-logics-e-reader-vs-amazon-kindle-fight/

I have to say, they have a nice demo :-)

The question is, why the hell didn't universites see the RIAA's challenges for what they were(bullshit) and begin to fight against the RIAA for their students much sooner? Last I checked, students pay the tuition, not the *AA's. Here's the top-25 universities which handed out copyright infringement notices during the 2006 - 2007 academic year.Note the geographic locations of the majority of the list. 1. Ohio University - 1,287 2. Purdue University - 1,068 3. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 1,002 4. University of Tennessee at Knoxville - 959 5. University of South Carolina - 914 6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst - 897 7. Michigan State University - 753 8. Howard University - 572 9. North Carolina State University - 550 10. University of Wisconsin at Madison - 513 11. University of South Florida - 490 12. Syracuse University - 488 13. Northern Illinois University - 487 14. University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire - 473 15. Boston University - 470 16. Northern Michigan University - 457 17. Kent State University - 424 18. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - 400 19. University of Texas at Austin - 371 20. North Dakota State University - 360 21. Indiana University - 353 22. Western Kentucky University - 353 23. Seton Hall University - 338 24. Arizona State University - 336 25. Marshall University - 331 From the 2008 list we see that the RIAA seem to be bolder, but the trend as before remains the same, for the most part. Texas Christian university? Thou shalt not steal ;)

Go Big 10!

How about in an airplane? You have plenty of power and weight/space don't need to be an issue. I would think something like this could provide a higher precision alternative to the projectile weapons mounted in an AC130. The main issues that come to mind are stability (how long would you need to hold this steady on a target) and range.

Actually, a quick bit of googling reveals that is in the works,

The question is, why the hell didn't universites see the RIAA's challenges for what they were(bullshit) and begin to fight against the RIAA for their students much sooner? Last I checked, students pay the tuition, not the *AA's.

Here's the top-25 universities which handed out copyright infringement notices during the 2006 - 2007 academic year.Note the geographic locations of the majority of the list.

1. Ohio University - 1,287
2. Purdue University - 1,068
3. University of Nebraska at Lincoln - 1,002
4. University of Tennessee at Knoxville - 959
5. University of South Carolina - 914
6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst - 897
7. Michigan State University - 753
8. Howard University - 572
9. North Carolina State University - 550
10. University of Wisconsin at Madison - 513
11. University of South Florida - 490
12. Syracuse University - 488
13. Northern Illinois University - 487
14. University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire - 473
15. Boston University - 470
16. Northern Michigan University - 457
17. Kent State University - 424
18. University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - 400
19. University of Texas at Austin - 371
20. North Dakota State University - 360
21. Indiana University - 353
22. Western Kentucky University - 353
23. Seton Hall University - 338
24. Arizona State University - 336
25. Marshall University - 331

From the 2008 list we see that the RIAA seem to be bolder, but the trend as before remains the same, for the most part. Texas Christian university? Thou shalt not steal ;)

Hmm, lasers for the datacenter, i think these will do fine.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/14/northrop-grummans-weaponized-laser-on-sale-now-definitely-won/

Well, according to Engadget, ARM is getting into the netbook game. Think of it, a small laptop that is only used for document editing, web surfing, and other small tasks, with a very long battery life and a phenomenal standby time.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/13/arm-to-release-netbook-mid-chips/

As one who participated in the first G1G1 I can attest that they were totally unprepared to handle the orders. It was a huge mess. That said, it was eventually made right, the little green guy showed up, and although the initial software kind of sucked, the new build is a lot, LOT better.

And as a bonus it came with a year of T-Mobile Hotspot access free, which is nice.

I presume the new OLPC this year will not look like the 2.0 "all touch" dual-screen design previewed in May?

Actually somre more info re: the new G1G1 is here. From TFA, looks like Amazon will be handling the orders this time, which should be a major improvement. Is T-Mobile going to throw in like last time?

W

The 40gbps attack must have come from her.

reading the same news on Engadget is it what Super-Duper Mart looked like before?

Then get one of these http://www.engadget.com/2004/07/28/lgs-cellphone-for-the-elderly

They are selling a mobile phone + palm size projector

Review:
http://www.cheaa.com/Product/DH/HangQing/2008/11/37964152257.html
http://chinese.engadget.com/2008/08/26/epoq-egp-pp01-kirf-projector-phone-now-shipping/

just for 2000RMB (~285USD).

It claims to have 34-64 inches projected screen at 1-2 meter @ 640*480 resolution, does not mention the lumen though.

Better yet, looks like the speaker is much larger :P And after all it's a cell phone too.

They are selling a mobile phone + palm size projector

Review:
http://www.cheaa.com/Product/DH/HangQing/2008/11/37964152257.html
http://chinese.engadget.com/2008/08/26/epoq-egp-pp01-kirf-projector-phone-now-shipping/

just for 2000RMB (~285USD).

It claims to have 34-64 inches projected screen at 1-2 meter @ 640*480 resolution, does not mention the lumen though.

Better yet, looks like the speaker is much larger :P And after all it's a cell phone too.

It looks like Linux has got a place in the Sky

http://www.linux.com/feature/119544 (October 2007
"The Linux-based eX2 in-flight entertainment system (IFE) from Panasonic Avionics was the big winner at this year's Avion Awards, sponsored by an IFE trade group. The Best Overall IFE awards went to Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways, all running variants of eX2"

"About the awards

The World Airline Entertainment Association (WAEA), based near Washington, DC, sponsors the Avion Awards. This year's winners were chosen based on a worldwide poll of 36,000 air travelers, says Elinor Kinnier, public relations manager for WAEA. Poll-based awards were given for overall and regional excellence -- a change from prior years, when a panel of judges chose winners in a variety of specific categories as well as an overall winner."

Panasonic uses redhat as a basis of their in flight Entertainment Systems with over 3000 planes fitted with them and as you can see they have been getting better

http://www.panasonic.aero/innovation.html

Panasonic seems to be doing well, with their inflight systems as Quantas has ordered 4 more systems for airbus 380's

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5534592156.html

Virgin have an inhouse system called RED for trans atlantic flights.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/10/mega-hands-on-virgin-americas-airbus-a320-with-red-in-flight-e/ again Linux based.

Seems like Linux is taking off all over and a commercial success story.

Sharp Solar in Japan, for a total of 28,000kW of solar panels on the factory's roof.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/24/sharp-solar-panels-to-be-used-in-two-japanese-mega-plants/

Sanyo PV Manufacturing plant in Oregon.
http://solar1.org/2008/09/30/sanyo-announces-new-pv-manufacturing-plant-in-us/

GM powers 50% of some of their auto facilities with solar.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/gm-to-host-worlds-largest-rooftop-solar-array.php

Those are just a start. I designed and manage a PV array that provides 25% of my company's energy consumption and offer's an 8 year financial payback - in rainy Seattle. Many solar manufacturers place their panels on the roofs of their factories to offset a portion of their electrical consumption.

While most home burglars are not necessarily the most sophisticated, I have read a few reports of the ease of use of hacking the LaserShield. This basically involves breaking the communication between the base unit and sensors, such as by just having a two way radio turned to the same frequency and sending some noise over it to break reception. The base unit does not seem to regularly poll the remote sensors from what I can tell, and so is unaware of a break in communication. Engadget has a video demonstrating the hack here.

While little security is better than none, I still think its important to understand the risks of poorly designed wireless security system devices versus well designed ones or even more conventional wired security system devices.

Sorry, couldn't dig up it on their site. Just announced, no product page yet. Looks a lot like the mini 9.

But for images, here you go.

The app potential is wasted thanks to their draconian controls.

There are thousands and thousands of apps in the app store. You make it sound like there are none at all.

No, that isn't what s/he said at all... and whoever modded him/her troll only did so because they disagreed. Cowmonaut isn't trolling. Numerous apps have been killed by Apple because they compete with iTMS, or because they aren't G-rated enough, etc. I'm sure the number of apps on that page represent a tiny portion of apps that were killed or never even attempted because of Apple's lame policies. Other's like TomTom were simply aborted because of Apple's extremely lame policies toward developers. Sun was excited and ready to port a Java to the iPhone, but again, thanks to Apple's lame policies, Sun is not allowed to port Java to the iPhone.

Apple's policy is so extremely lame that you have to pay Apple just to write an app for their phone. You can't even write an app for your OWN phone without paying them a fee. You cannot distribute an app without distrubuting it through the app store and paying Apple about the same percentage as the US government's highest tax bracket. Apple's policy was so lame in fact that developers have only recently been allowed to discuss iPhone development with other developers openly and write books on the subject. Apple policy on the iPhone is tremendously, stupendously, colossally lame. If you aren't a developer... and you don't appear to be... there aren't words for you to grok how lame Apple policy truly is.

You make it sound like there are none at all.

No, s/he doesn't. But you seem to be spoiling for it.. so I will. I've been able to send faxes with my N95 since before iPhone 1.0. Can iPhone do that yet? I've been using speaker independent voice dialing since before the first iPhone's debut. Can iPhone do that? I can stream internet radio wirelessly through A2DP into my car stereo with my Nokia. Can iPhone do that? Too bad iPhone developers are hobbled by lame Apple policy. If they weren't, you might be able to do what the competition has been doing now for years. I'm still waiting for Apple to offer me a reason to 'upgrade' my 18 month old, already a generation out of date, phone.

iPhone? Fail.

[Asus' phone] will roll out sometime in the first half of 2009 (we're guessing late first half),

http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/13/gefen-hd-mate-scaler-and-switch/

I personally have one and I wrote an article on this thing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meantux/2188250245/

At home I got my PS3, my obsolete HDDVD player and my cable top Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD connected to my HDMate inputs.

I'd go with a web based system and integrate zone minder in as a security camera system to have a single application for everything. You could also include a Tivo Control or a media center like XBMC. Web based also gives you flexibility as more and more devices include built in browsers. You could control your house from a Wii or pull up a web page on the screen on your internet refrigerator.

I believe it's not multi-touch however. I think that was the intended criticism.

Where the hell do you get that?

It's all over the place, for example in Engadget's review:

First, there's the issue of multi-touch -- the G1 doesn't support it at this point.

The Wikipedia page for the G1 says:

There are rumours that the device is multitouch capable at hardware level but disabled at software level due to Apple patents on multi touch interface.

Regardless of the reason, the point is that the G1 is not, at the time, multi-touch capable (at least as the consumers get it).

What the hell is this? Or this? Or this? Or this?

Get the picture? These are all NASA robots with legs. Just because they haven't used one yet doesn't mean they aren't looking at them.

there's a not insignificant chance that the stress of constant reading has killed one of the remaining good drives.

You are assuming that "stress" (high use) is a contributing factor to hard drive failure. This may not be so.

AFAIK this was debunked almost immediately after being claimed. The only low power radio chips in the touch are there to support wifi in the 1/2 gen and the nike+ chip in the 2nd gen.

This is nuts: why can't portable products which are usable on their own be available?

As someone else said, this thing basically differs very little from a cell phone - except for its software and lack of connectivity. It's essentially useless on its own.

Personally, I want to see those yet-undelivered "$100 laptops" we've seen promised several times (and made available through bulk buy or self-import) which appear to be based on the Skytone Alpha 400/Hivision Mininote (the variant with built-in wireless) (seen here: link).

Yes, I want one; I want one very badly. They're basically 8-year-old technology, but with some newer additions such as wifi. You can run a fair amount of "modern" software on those old HPC computers, and the best of them only have 64Mb RAM. I'm currently running ion 3 as a window manager (matchbox-wm was an option, but it wasn't as intuitive) with dillo2, wordgrinder, irssi/bitlbee, and half a dozen xterms on a Mobilepro 780 without the need for swap. This is on NetBDS. Not "full featured" but well worth $100 - if I could get another one with twice the RAM. $200, well, that'd be cutting it a bit close to what an Eee costs given the feature set.

They are not, in any way at all, indicating that there were people sitting around pondering alien spaceships in the ancient world. Ever...

It would be hard to expect an ancient people to say, "we saw an aerodynamic craft of strange configuration approach at mach 12, capable of extreme delta-V acceleration, flying in formation with a mothership and several smaller ships, each with thrust powered by some sort of engine producing multi-spectral visible radiation," but we might hear things like:

Ezekiel:

4. And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

16. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.

17. When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went.

18. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.

19. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.

20. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

27. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.

28. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.

2 Kings 2:

11. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Isaiah 66:

15. For, behold, the LORD will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.

Jeremiah 4:

13. Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.

Zechariah 6:

1. And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass.

One might consider something like this a modern re-imagining of Ezekiel's wheels.

USB 3.0 will be out in another year, and with speeds of 4.8 Gbit/s (600 MB/s) and a new powering system Firewire would have been on its way out anyway.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/10/usb-3-0-in-the-flesh/

I saw this here earlier today.

Interesting gadgets, but the PC Authority page says they will be $399 for the one reviewed in TFA and $599 for the one that will play Blu-Ray backups. I don't think I'll be interested in that market anytime soon.

- angry over confusion
- angry over video card
- angry over southpark
- angry over upgrades
- angry over waiting in line

Greener? Ha. Thousands of noxious lithium-ion batteries and a car that burns > 1 MWh per year while parked is not my idea of green.

It doesn't need a reboot so it's (most likely) a software issue (stop the presses, Vista better than OSX at something) and we can hope that Apple will ignore the problem for a few weeks then deny that there is one and finally patch it just after Christmas.

From the Q&A:

10:57AM Q: What's up with the 17-inch?
A: Tim: It's being refreshed today as well.

According to the Apple Store, it already has a "New" flag, but the graphics card still is the old 8600M instead of the new 9600M.

Answering my own query:

11:01AM Q: Concern about the glossy screens. Are you going to offer another option?
A: Steve: We're going all glass -- we won't offer another version. Phil: You offset the reflection by the brightness, and consumers love it. One of the great things about a notebook is you can turn it however you want!

Uh, yeah. Great. Guess I'm keeping my matte for a while.

W

(What happened with PA-semi?)

Apple bought them. http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/23/apple-buys-chip-p-a-semi-chip-designer-intel-says-wha/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/18/broadcast-flag-rides-again-courtesy-of-nbc-and-microsoft/

Happy now?

Will this apply to AIM sent text messages as well (if not, expect these people to automate it that way)? To send a text message from AIM, just open an IM to +11235551212 (+1, then the phone number without dashes). Or messages sent from Verizon's website?

Direct and TIVO have inked another deal and there will be new HD hardware for Direct from TIVO coming in a year or so. FWIW - I left DISH for Direct to get TIVO and left Direct to FIOS to keep TIVO. Now I'm stuck on COX but I've got my TIVO!

Anyway, hang in there - relief from that POS "DVR" they provided you is coming!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/03/hell-freezes-over-new-directv-hd-tivo-on-the-way/

Don't really know, just did a bit of basic Googling and found the following references.

Engadget's report of the 2006 ruling says:

Considering their recent victory, CSIRO's pending cases against Intel, Dell, Microsoft, HP, and Netgear definitely have roots now, and if judges continue to rule in the Aussies' favor, the big boys could be shelling out "hundreds of millions of dollars" in back pay to cover their wrongs.

This suggests that the CSIRO already has cases pending against various manufacturers, and the Buffalo ruling added some legitimacy.

But, a CSIRO press release regarding the 2006 ruling says:

The court has said that patent cases brought against CSIRO by Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Netgear should be transferred to the court which is already familiar with the CSIRO patent infringement case in the Eastern District of Texas.

So apparently the CSIRO may have been on the receiving end of legal action from those companies, not the initiator of it:

[CSIRO Chief Executive] Dr Garrett said that the California cases started in May 2005 because Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Netgear sued CSIRO, asking the court to declare that their products did not infringe CSIRO's US WLAN patent and that CSIRO's patent was invalid.

I'm not sure whether CSIROs action against Buffalo was taken before or after the MSFT/Intel/Dell/HP/Netgear attempt. But I guess they're hoping the Buffalo case will give their claims some strong legal legitimacy which they can then use in the larger case.