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An anonymous reader writes with this quote from an article at TechCrunch: "Honeywell filed a multi-patent infringement lawsuit against Nest Labs and Best Buy yesterday. The suit alleges that Nest Labs is infringing on seven Honeywell patents. Honeywell is not seeking licensing fees. The consumer electronic conglomerate wants Nest Labs to cease using the technology and is actually looking to collect damages caused by the infringement. Damages? Bull****. This is about killing the competition."

theodp writes "Testifying before Congress in 2007, Google's HR chief stated: 'We make great efforts to uncover the most talented employees we can find.' But according to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, Google actually went to some lengths to avoid uncovering some of tech's most talented employees, striking up agreements with Apple, Intel, and other corporations to avoid recruiting each other's employees. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh ruled that Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Disney, Pixar, Intuit and Lucasfilm must face a lawsuit claiming they violated antitrust laws by entering into no-poaching agreements with each other. 'I don't want to see any obstruction on discovery,' Koh told lawyers during a hearing. According to the head attorney representing the plaintiffs, the total damages could exceed $150 million if just 10,000 entry-level engineers were affected."

CSHARP123 writes "The Department of Justice launched an investigation into the 'No Poaching' agreement between Apple and Google in 2010, but details of the case were only made public for the first time yesterday. TechCrunch was the first to sift through the documents, and has uncovered some ostensibly incriminating evidence against not only Google and Apple, but Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe, Intel, and Intuit, as well. According to the filings from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, these companies did indeed enter 'no poach' agreements with each other, and agreed to refrain from soliciting employees. The documents also indicate they collectively sought to limit their employees' power to negotiate for higher salaries."

SharkLaser writes "Microsoft's Bing search engine has overtaken Yahoo for the first time. While both Bing, Yahoo and a bunch of meta-search engines like the privacy-oriented DuckDuckGo use Bing's back-end, it clearly shows Yahoo's declining market share. comScore has also released its search data for 2011 — overall, Bing gained 3.1% of market share while Yahoo lost 1.5% and Google lost 0.7%. Yahoo's new CEO Scott Thompson has lots of work to do."

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from an article at ZDNet: "As expected, Facebook has started displaying ads in users' News Feeds. You may not be seeing them yet as the company is rolling them out gradually, like it does for all its changes. ... Last month, a Facebook spokesperson said the company hoped to 'show people no more than one Sponsored Story in their News Feeds per day.' This is no longer the case, as Facebook now says you may see more Featured stories 'if you visit your News Feed a lot.'"

SharkLaser writes "Google is today launching an update to their search engine. This update is intended to bring you personalized search results based on your Google+ friends, sharing, pictures and likes. They're calling it 'Search plus Your World,' and the update is going to automatically personalize all search results to a greater degree than before. These personalized matches will appear along your normal search results. For example, if you are searching for images of babies, Google will now personalize your search results and give high preference to baby photos from your Google+ circles. TechCrunch is speculating that over time they will also start adding search results from all the other Google services, including Google Docs, Gmail, Contacts, Music, Voice, wallet and so on. Today's launch also uses Google+ data for another purpose: helping you search for information about people on Google+. For example, if you are searching Google for 'music,' Google will now display relevant people and pages from Google+, like Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and Snoop Dogg." Update: 01/10 18:40 GMT by S : Changed the summary to reflect that the idea of adding search results from other services was speculation from TechCrunch, and not something Google said.

Computerworld is one of many publications heralding the expected arrival next week of the long-awaited OLPC tablet, and making much of one very cool feature: the price. The initial XO laptops from OLPC never quite made it to the hoped-for under-$100 level. But at least with an ordinary LCD screen, says project founder Nicholas Negroponte, the new XO-3 actually has. (An optional daylight-readable Pixel Qi screen bumps the price up, but it's not clear quite how much.) Both OLPC and Pixel Qi will be at next week's CES; hopefully I'll get a chance to provide some first-hand details, and ask whether there will be another round of the Buy One Give One program, so users outside the reach of big government buying programs can both further the project and play with the product; so far, the word is that these will only be available for large government buyers. (TechCruch has better pictures of the new device.)

symbolset writes "ASUS, maker of the popular Transformer Prime Tegra 3 tablet, announced via their Facebook page that Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) will be available January 12th. In addition they are developing a boot unlocker which will void the warranty and break Google movie rentals, but will allow modding. They said, 'based on our experience, users who choose to root their devices risk breaking the system completely. However, we know there is demand in the modding community to have an unlocked bootloader. Therefore, ASUS is developing an unlock tool for that community. Please do note that if you choose to unlock your device, the ASUS warranty will be void, and Google video rental will also be unavailable because the device will be no longer protected by security mechanism.' They also announced an intermediate software update to improve the camera and touch experience, and they're dropping GPS from the feature list for poor performance." Another article argues that the Transformer Prime is an example of ASUS struggling while breaking into a new market.

SharkLaser writes "Fake antivirus scams have plagued Windows and Mac OS X during the last couple of years. Now it seems like such scams have spread to Android. Fake antivirus scams on Android work the same as they do on PC's — a user with an Android phone downloads an application or visits a website that says that the user's device is infected with malware. It will then show a fake scan of the system and return hard-coded 'positives' and gives the option the option to buy antivirus software that will 'remove' the malware on the affected system. Android, which is based on Linux, has been plagued with malware earlier too. According to McAfee, almost all new mobile malware now targets Android. Android app stores, including the official one from Google, has also been hosting hundreds of trojan applications that send premium rate SMSes on behalf of unsuspecting users."

SharkLaser writes "It turns out that Google has started to remove Google+ pictures that have persons giving the middle finger in it. 'Our policy page states, "Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content." Your profile photo was taken down as a violation of this policy.' Google+ is supposed to be a universal social network and 'identity service,' and to allow sharing like in real life — a public venue for free expressions. Since the middle finger is such culturally-specific issue, will Google+ also start to remove things like showing the palms of your hands to people (considered an insult in Greece), showing the soles of your shoes (insult in the Middle East), and patting someone's head (an insult in Buddhist countries)? A good number of Google+ users have started to change their profile picture to include the middle finger to show support to MG Siegler, who got his profile picture removed by Google."

Hugh Pickens writes "A car-seat identifier developed at Japan's Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology by Associate Professor Shigeomi Koshimizu can recognize a person by his or her rear end with 98 percent accuracy when the person takes a seat in his car. The bucket seat's lower section is lined with 360 pressure sensors that measure pressure on a scale from 0 to 256, sending information to a laptop, which aggregates the information, generates the key data and produces a precise map of the seated person's rear profile. Researchers say traditional biometric techniques such as iris scanners and fingerprint readers cause stress to people undergoing identity checks, while the simple act of getting seated carries less psychological baggage. Koshimizu wants to see his work available commercially as an anti-theft product in two to three years if automakers agree to collaborate. He sees possibilities of this device being used beyond auto-theft identity protection to a device for security identification in office settings, where users log on to their PCs as they sit down."

New submitter dell623 writes "A patent lawsuit (PDF) by patent licensing firm Digitude Innovations curiously targeted all mobile manufacturers except Apple. A TechCrunch story has revealed that the patents used were transferred from Apple via a shell company to DI, and appear to cover features found in virtually all smartphones. The lawsuit even extends to companies that don't make Android phones, like Nokia and RIM, and to Android OEMs that Apple have not directly sued yet, like Sony. The business model of DI clearly implies that Apple would benefit financially from the lawsuit as a company that contributed patents to DI's portfolio."

Frankie70 writes "Starting Sunday, December 11th at 6:00 p.m. Central time, 16GB and 32GB Touchpads will be available on HP's ebay store. A $79 accessory bundle will also be available, which includes a case, charging dock and wireless keyboard. The caveat with this deal is that these are refurbished TouchPads rather than the brand new models sold during the first firesale."

TechCrunch features an article (the first of three, actually) outlining the development of a clever hardware keyboard for the iPad. It's hard to write about Kickstarter projects, because there are so many cool ideas that seem to deserve funding it's simply overwhelming. The TouchFire keyboard is one of those cool ideas, too, but it's far surpassed the founders' original funding goals and is nearing production. The TouchFire isn't wired, but it isn't wireless, either, in the conventional sense, because it provides no signal of its own: it's a transparent overlay that provides a tactile interface to the iPad's on-screen keyboard, and — the tricky part — is thin enough to actually swipe through when you're not using it for text-entry. The keyboard takes advantage of the iPad 2's built-in magnets for stability, though it works with the original iPad, too. (Hopefully an Android version will come soon, but the variety of screen resolutions and on-screen keyboard shapes makes that harder.) I talked with co-creator Steve Isaac (it's his account at TechCrunch, too) a few weeks back, and he said that the hardest part of the development work has been producing the complex mold shapes that form each collapsible key. The resulting tablet-with-keyboard reminds me superficially, and pleasantly, of the TRS-80 Model 100. (The Tandy actually had much better battery life than an iPad, but could do far less. It also weighed 3.1 pounds and cost more than a thousand dollars in 1983, which means nearly $2400 today; such is progress.) Prototypes are tight (and I don't have an iPad), but I hope to give an in-person report on the TouchFire soon.

mikejuk writes "Are we getting closer to really effective volumetric 3D display technology? A new display, designed in Russia, uses cold fog and a laser projector to create a volumetric 3D image that you can touch. A tracking device (no, it's not a Kinect) is used to detect the user's hand and moves the virtual objects in response. There have been cold fog 3D displays before, but this one has a reasonable resolution and looks near to being a finished product that could be on sale soon. Estimated price? Between $4000 and $30,000."

destinyland writes "Black Friday has touched off a three-way price war between Apple, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble. Kobo readers dropped their price to just $99 to compete with the Nook, only to discover that Barnes and Noble was lowering the price on their touchscreen Nooks to $79, to compete with the new $79 Kindle from Amazon. And meanwhile, Apple has announced aggressive pricing on all Apple products for Black Friday, reportedly including $100 off on MacBook and iMac products, and a $61 discount on the iPad 2."

phaedrus5001 writes "Tech Crunch is reporting that one of the co-founders of Diaspora, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, has passed away. He was only 22. At the moment, the cause of his death is unknown."

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook has reached an agreement with the FTC to make all future changes to privacy settings opt-in, presumably including new features with their own privacy controls. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the social network was nearing a settlement on the issue and now its Marketplace editor Dennis K. Berman says that settlement is for new privacy controls to be opt in. The agreement could limit Facebook's ability to drive adoption of new features, as they won't be able to immediately go viral. Users rarely visit their privacy settings, so Facebook will need to devise a way to get them to do so."

karthikmns writes with news that Google is rolling out Google+ Pages, integrating businesses and brands into its social network. When Google+ launched, it asked businesses not to create user pages, which upset many companies who had grown accustomed to interacting with customers on Facebook. Today's update closes the gap between the two social networks in this regard, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how annoying you find social marketing. "If you’ve established a personal Google+ profile before, then the features offered through a Page will be familiar. You can place people into Circles, which lets you share content with specific sets of users. You can launch video hangouts, which lets you have face-to-face conversations with your followers. And the Pages work through the site’s mobile app. ... But Google has made some key tweaks. The first is that a Page cannot add someone to a circle until that user has already added the page to one of their circles. In other words, a Page can’t start sending you messages until you’ve elected to add them to one of your circles. Another key change: the content on a Page defaults to public (as opposed to ‘My Circles’ for personal profiles) and Pages can’t share with extended circles."

New submitter trunicated writes "Everyone on Slashdot seems to know about PROTECT-IP Act — how it will push responsibility for the contents of the internet onto the search engines that index it, how it will give even more power to the *IAA industries, and, worst of all, how it will provide the U.S. government with a kill switch they can use at their discretion. However, this write up may provide you with a bit more information and help you explain the issues to those that won't be able to get around the poisoned DNS entries that this bill will allow."

MBCook writes "After seeing the announcement that Nexus One users won't get ICS, Michael Degusta made a chart to show how current the OS version on Android phones was over time... and the results are not encouraging."

The first of a few submitters, szo sent in an early report that John McCarthy passed early yesterday. Paul Graham (among others) confirmed: the news was true. And so, shortly after a fellow founder of countless language descendants, goes the founder of the Lisp tree at the age of 84.

Of all the upgrades that distinguish the new iPhone 4S from its predecessors, probably the feature that's gotten the most attention is the voice-based personal assistant app called Siri, which allows a user to accomplish certain tasks almost entirely by voice. A few days ago, as reported by TechCrunch, a team of Android developers came up with an Android equivalent to Siri called Iris (spell that backwards). It took them only 8 hours to have a working, if imperfect, app to play with and submit to the Android Market. This quick video review of Iris says the app is unpolished, but shows promise. For now, it generates some accurate results, and some amusing ones.

sydneyhype writes "Facebook's recently announced Timeline feature is up against legal action from an online social-scrapbooking company that has been in business since 2008. The company, Timelines.com, filed a trademark-infringement suit yesterday against Facebook, claiming it is to prevent being 'rolled over and quite possibly eliminated by the unlawful action by the world's largest and most powerful social-media company, Facebook.'"

itwbennett writes "The patent licensing agreement between Microsoft and Samsung this week set off a firestorm of childish tit-for-tat between Microsoft and Google. But more telling is what Samsung had to say about its relationship with Google: 'Samsung knows it can't rely on Google. We've decided to address Android IP issues on our own,' a Samsung official told The Korea Times. The only good news to come from all of this, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is that we may be headed for a courtroom showdown over just what patents Microsoft believes are in violation, which really is what should have happened to begin with." Update: 09/30 20:05 GMT by S : As it turns out, the so-called "Samsung official" cited by The Korea Times turned out to be patent blogger Florian Mueller.

Following up on our digital wallet discussion yesterday, CWmike writes "Google officially launched its Google Wallet application today for NFC-ready Sprint Nexus S 4G phone users. The application launches initially for Citi MasterCard credit card holders, but Google also said today that Visa, Discover and American Express will be able to add their cards to future versions of Google Wallet. The application, first announced in May, was described in an official blog post. Visa said in a separate statement that it has licensed Google to use Visa's PayWave technology, used in 'hundreds of thousands' of terminals worldwide. But Visa didn't describe a timeline for when that function would be enabled. Google said it will allow users to add any bank card to a Google Prepaid Card and they will receive $10 to try the service." Reviews of the service are popping up, and many seem to say the same thing; when it works, it's great, but your real wallet isn't going anywhere.

Frankie70 writes "Netflix CEO Reed Hastings just dropped a bombshell. In the wake of a rapid decline in Netflix's stock price last week, Hastings is taking a bold step by separating the DVD and video streaming services. The DVD-by-mail service will now be called Qwikster, and the streaming service will maintain the Netflix brand."

theodp writes "Fourteen years ago, Microsoft Wallet promised 'secure, convenient purchasing on the Internet.' That was then, this is now. TechCrunch reports that the first commercial for Google Wallet has been unveiled, and it stars Seinfeld's George Costanza and his overstuffed, exploding wallet. At launch (TBD), Google Wallet will allow you to use a Google Nexus S 4G (from Sprint) to tap-to-pay using Citi MasterCard cards or the Google Prepaid Card. Not to be outdone, PayPal offered a video sneak peek of its upcoming virtual wallet offering, which is promised to be more than 'just shoving a credit card on a phone.' In May, PayPal sued Google over electronic wallet technology, alleging that the search giant hired two of its former execs to obtain trade secrets for a mobile transactions project."

xTK-421x writes "Looks like Nike is announcing tonight (8:30PM PST) that they've finally been able to create the self lacing shoes from Back to the Future 2. TechCrunch reported on receiving an invitation to a Nike event taking place in Los Angeles today, where Nike would announce the release of the Air Mags, the self-lacing shoes that first made their appearance in Back to the Future II."

An anonymous reader writes "A company named Thinkoptics has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Nintendo over the motion controller used with the Wii. Apparently they make a similar product named the Wavit Remote, and they've been granted patents describing its operation. 'And they've chosen the setting most likely to yield a win: the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas. Now, that's not to say that Wavit-maker Thinkoptics will get a win, but this particular court circuit tends to favor the patent holder over all else. The patent in question, U.S. Patent Number 7,796,116, is titled "Electronic equipment for handheld vision based absolute pointing system." Thinkoptics' primary argument in the case is that Nintendo had previous knowledge that the Wii would infringe based on the Trademark Office's rejection of certain claims in Nintendo-filed patents.'"

jcgam69 writes with a description at TechCrunch of what's claimed to be an all-but-finished version of the upcoming color Kindle. "It's called simply the 'Amazon Kindle.' But it's not like any Kindle you've seen before. It displays content in full color. It has a 7-inch capacitive touch screen. And it runs Android." That last part inspires sharp words from some of the TechCruch readers, because the GUI described is an older version of Android wrapped so thickly in Amazon livery that it's hard to recognize. The author speculates that this new Kindle might be sold with a tempting sweetener — a free subscription to Amazon Prime.

nonprofiteer writes "A bunch of vigilantes are organizing a Google Group dedicated to using recently revealed facial recognition tools to identify looters in the London riots. While Vancouver discussed doing something similar after the Stanley Cup riots, the city never actually moved forward on it. Ring of Steel London, though, is far more likely to incorporate FRT into its investigative work." A related article points out how development of face-recognition technology has been kept under wraps by some organizations, but we're getting to the point where it'll soon be ubiquitous.

theodp writes "Just days after it was reported that apartment sharing startup Airbnb had raised $112MM at a $1B+ valuation from investors that included Marc Andreessen and Jeff Bezos, Airbnb user EJ's blog entry on the ransacking of her apartment by Airbnb renters went viral, creating a PR nightmare that's turning into a war of words. CNET reports San Francisco police have confirmed that a 19-year-old woman has been arrested in the case, booked on possession of stolen property, methamphetamine, fraud charges, and an outstanding warrant."

leetrout writes "Google has introduced their Page Speed Service which 'is the latest tool in Google's arsenal to help speed up the web. When you sign up and point your site's DNS entry to Google, they'll enable the tool which will fetch your content from your servers, rewrite your webpages, and serve them up from Google's own servers around the world.'"

sajjadG writes "After experimenting on 24 adults, a research team at the University of California, Berkeley has determined that viewing content on a stereo 3D display hurts your eyes and your brain. This can supposedly cause visual discomfort, fatigue, and headaches According to the article, 3D content viewed over a short distance (like with desktops and smartphones) is more visually uncomfortable when the stereo content is placed in front of the screen. In a movie theater, it's the opposite: Stereo content that is placed behind the screen causes more discomfort than scenes that jump out at you. With the explosion of 3D-capable gadgetry such as televisions and mobile phones, understanding just what this kind of technology is doing to our bodies may help us better use it in the future. The only problem is that technology tends to far outpace research, and until we get a better handle on its effects, we're more or less walking blindly into a 3D world."

theodp writes "Over at TechCrunch, Jon Bischke is troubled by the growing divide between Silicon Valley and unemployed America. While people who spend most of their days within a few blocks of tech start-up epicenters are enjoying a boom/bubble, the number of unemployed now eclipses 14 million nationwide, labor under-utilization is 16.2%, and the mean duration of unemployment has spiked to 40 weeks. 'Which bring us to an important question,' writes Bischke. 'Should Silicon Valley (and other tech clusters throughout the country) care? After all, as long as people in Nebraska or the Central Valley of California have enough money to buy virtual tractors to tend their crops in Farmville, should the tech community be worried about whether those same people are getting paid to do work in the real world? Is what's best for Silicon Valley also good for America?'"

smitty777 writes "FitBit is a wearable device created to track calorie usage based on activities. Unfortunately for some users, one of those is sexual activities. The information gained from the device is uploaded to the users online web account, which is searchable by Google. From the article: 'Yikes. Users of fitness and calorie tracker Fitbit may need to be more careful when creating a profile on the site. The sexual activity of many of the users of the company’s tracker and online platform can be found in Google Search results, meaning that these users’ profiles are public and searchable.'" It's just a matter of time before a line gets crossed and a relationship gets ruined by trying to post the largest Fitbit numbers for the evening.

wasimkadak writes "While the tech world is buzzing about the launch and implications of Google's new social network, Google+, it's worth noting that Google isn't just in a war with Facebook, it's at war with multiple companies across multiple industries. In fact, Google is fighting a multi-front war with a host of tech giants for control over some of the most valuable pieces of real estate in technology."

tekgoblin writes "Facebook will be launching a new in-browser video chat application. 'The product has been built on Skype and will include a desktop component. It’s not clear to me whether that means it will just work if a user has Skype already installed on the computer, or if additional software will need to be downloaded even if the user already uses Skype. But it’s clear that there’s very deep integration between the products, and from the user’s perspective, the product will be an in-browser experience.'"

tcr writes "A consortium that includes Apple, Microsoft, RIM and Sony has been successful in its bid for the Nortel patent portfolio. The winning bid was $4.5 billion. TechCrunch predicts this could result in a slew of lawsuits directed at Android, but also suggests that the deal will likely receive scrutiny from the U.S. courts."

Randyll writes "Today, Google announced its decisive entry into the world of social networks by introducing Google+, a social network tied around Google services. Its aim is to be different from other networks with emphasis on privacy and a different kind of social networking. Instead of connecting with your friends, Google+ aims to center connections around specific groups—colleagues, projects, or groups of friends—with the ability to use high-quality video chats and a unique and rich web-based user experience. It is currently in beta with opt-in invites." Several other readers submitted speculation about another mysterious new Google service as well.

Hugh Pickens writes "The latest version of Final Cut Pro, the widely used tool in the professional video editing world, was getting a reputation as the app that launched a thousand complaints, as the 955 reviewers and raters on iTunes collectively rated FCP as, 'Two and a half stars.' 45% of reviewers gave the software one star, the lowest rating possible, bestowing on the program the dubious honor of being the lowest-rated Apple software hosted by the company's digital store. Many complaints center around lost features. We used to be able to do this, and now we can't. You can't work with existing FCP Suite projects. There's no external video monitoring, no EDL imports, no backup application disk so good luck re-installing the software on the road without a good internet connection, and lots of unanswered questions about site licensing." Pickens continues: "'This was the product that completely built my company starting in 2000 / 2001 and now it's time for me to say goodbye,' writes Walter Biscardi. 'As I tell everyone else, if the tool isn't working for you, then find a tool that does.' But is this negative response just a very short-term response from editors who have gotten used to doing things the old way and don't want to change? Clearly, there are some amazing new features in FCP X. The 64-bit architecture means much better performance. The new tools such as the magnetic timeline, clip connections, compound clips, and audition seem like intuitive, great features. 'Great design, like great music, is almost always foreign at first, if not disturbingly strange,' writes David Leitner. 'You have to spend time with it. But if it is great, and if you invest your attention, it will change the way you look at the world.'"

theodp writes "Two more software products will be going to Google Software Heaven shortly. On Friday, Google issued a death certificate for Google Health (date of death = Jan. 1, 2012), and added that the lights will go out on Google PowerMeter on Sep. 16, 2011. 'We've observed that Google Health is not having the broad impact that we hoped it would,' said Google. 'There has been adoption among certain groups of users like tech-savvy patients and their caregivers, and more recently fitness and wellness enthusiasts. But we haven't found a way to translate that limited usage into widespread adoption in the daily health routines of millions of people.' Regarding PowerMeter, Google's 'Green Energy Czar' had this to say: 'We're pleased that PowerMeter has helped demonstrate the importance of this access and created something of a model. However, our efforts have not scaled as quickly as we would like, so we are retiring the service.' Google added that the White House will carry on the fight after being inspired by success stories like the Harker School (tuition: $36,435), which used grant money to acquire off-the-shelf sub-metering technology that revealed their energy bill could be reduced by not air conditioning the gym from 9pm-3am."

fysdt writes with this excerpt from TechCrunch: "Opera founder Jon S. von Tetzchner has resigned from the company. In an email to Opera employees, von Tetzchner said that 'It has become clear that The Board, Management and I do not share the same values and we do not have the same opinions on how to keep evolving Opera. As a result I have come to an agreement with the Board to end my time at Opera. I feel the Board and Management is more quarterly focused than me.'"

Zothecula writes "For those of us who grew up with film cameras, even the most basic digital cameras can still seem a little bit magical. The ability to instantly see how your shots turned out, then delete the ones you don't want and manipulate the ones you like, is something we would have killed for. Well, light field cameras could be to today's digital cameras, what digital was to film. Among other things, they allow users to selectively shift focus between various objects in a picture, after it's been taken. While the technology has so far been inaccessible to most of us, that is set to change, with the upcoming release of Lytro's consumer light field camera."

ideaz writes "A village in India has decided to rename itself and henceforth be known as Snapdeal.com Nagar (which means town). Snapdeal.com being an online couponing company that recently raised $12 million and has the lead over Groupon in India in the local ecommerce space. Snapdeal has adopted a remote village in India and enabled clean drinking water facilities for its people by installing manual pumps. To show their gratitude, the village's residents have decided to rename their village to Snapdeal.com Nagar, actually taking the company by surprise."

BigCorona writes "The US Federal Trade Commission said that it has approved Microsoft's $8.5 billion cash takeover of voice and video-over-IP provider Skype. Microsoft officially announced its intent to acquire Skype back on May 10 and since then users have been taking to Twitter to blame Microsoft for Skype's intermittent service. Now, with Reuters reporting that there has been antitrust approval of the deal, users will be able to turn to Microsoft when asking questions of Skype's sometimes-spotty service."

oDDmON oUT writes "Techcrunch has a piece about Facebook's Project Spartan, which aims to deliver app store functionality through the use of HTML5 in the iOS Safari browser. Given Facebook's shifting sands privacy stances, as well as their track record with their "trusted partners", I don't think I'd be alone in wondering if this wouldn't put a great big stake in the heart of the assertion that iOS is the most secure operating system in existence today."

Rambo Tribble writes "CNN is running an article detailing the dubious history of Eric Lefkofsky, Groupon's chairman and largest shareholder. It would seem Mr. Lefkofsky has an extensive history of taking investors' money for himself, then bankrupting the businesses invested in." Another article posted today at TechCrunch explores one businesswoman's story of how working with Groupon was the single worst business decision she ever made.

smitty777 writes "Greentech is running a story on a solar powered laptop concept. The device was created by industrial designer Andrea Ponti, and includes a solar panel on the outside of the case as well as one below the keyboard. The idea seems to be taking shape; Samsung has a design they've been developing as well."