Payback time: First patent troll ordered to pay “extraordinary case” fees

FindTheBest CEO Kevin O’Connor and Director of Operations Danny Seigle. FindTheBest When Santa Barbara startup FindTheBest (FTB) was sued by a patent troll called Lumen View last year, it vowed to fight back rather than pay up the $50,000 licensing fee Lumen was asking for. Company CEO Kevin O’Connor made it personal, pledging $1 million of his own money to fight the legal battle. Once FindTheBest pursued the case, the company  dismantled the troll in short order. In November, the judge invalidated Lumen’s patent, finding it was nothing more than a description of computer-oriented “matchmaking.” At that point, FindTheBest had spent about $200,000 on its legal fight—not to mention the productivity lost in hundreds of work hours spent by top executives on the lawsuit, and three all-company meetings. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Payback time: First patent troll ordered to pay “extraordinary case” fees

4K Is Officially the Next Dumb Format War

If your bank account has left you unaware of the state of the 4K movement, here’s a fun surprise: if you buy a 4K movie from Sony, you’ll need a Sony television to play it back. If you buy one from Samsung, you’ll need a Samsung TV to view it. Which means that what should be a fiesta for your eyes has turned into just another proprietary pain in the ass. Read more…

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4K Is Officially the Next Dumb Format War

Huawei’s WiFi is ten times faster than yours

Don’t look now, but the speedy WiFi router you just bought may already be old hat. Huawei has tested WiFi based on a future standard (802.11ax) that can hit 10.5Gbps — about 10 times faster than what you typically get out of an 802.11ac connection today. The trick, the company says, is making more efficient use of the airwaves. The new technology is smarter at allocating wireless spectrum, juggling data between multiple antennas and cutting back on interference. Huawei doesn’t even have to switch to ultra-high frequencies to make the magic happen; its approach works on the same 5GHz band that many WiFi networks already use. You’re still a long way from picking up a 10-gigabit router at the local electronics shop. Huawei estimates that super-fast routers might not hit the market until 2018, and that’s assuming that both the 802.11ax standard and matching chipsets are ready. Don’t despair at being stuck with “only” single-gigabit wireless for four years, though. An updated 802.11ac spec (802.11ac-2013) is expected to launch in 2015 with 7Gbps speeds, so you’ll soon have plenty of bandwidth to spare. [Image credit: Getty Images] Filed under: Wireless , Networking Comments Via: ISPreview , Slashdot Source: Huawei

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Huawei’s WiFi is ten times faster than yours

FilmOn Lets You Watch Broadcast TV Online for Free

We’re big fans of cord-cutting here at Lifehacker, but you still occasionally miss broadcast TV, especially sports. FilmOn is a way of watching broadcast TV online for free. Read more…

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FilmOn Lets You Watch Broadcast TV Online for Free

Google Wants To Bring The Best Moto X Feature to Every Android Phone

One of the best features of the Moto X—besides that perfectly-sized screen—is its always-on listening capability. Nothing beats saying “OK, Google” and watching the device wake up from sleep to do your bidding. It works like magic, and if this Android Police report is true, it’ll be coming to every Android phone before you know it. Read more…

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Google Wants To Bring The Best Moto X Feature to Every Android Phone

You Can Grab Software That Helped Pixar Make Wall-E For Free Soon

If you’re an aspiring animator, this might be the best news you’ll hear this month: Pixar is giving away—that’s right, giving away—a version of RenderMan, its in-house rendering software. Gratis. No catch. You’ll be able to download the program some time in August . Read more…

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You Can Grab Software That Helped Pixar Make Wall-E For Free Soon

Pirate Bay Co-Founder Peter Sunde Arrested In Sweden

An anonymous reader writes “Peter Sunde was arrested today in a police raid in southern Sweden. The Pirate Bay co-founder was wanted by Interpol as he had yet to serve prison time for his involvement with the site. Sunde’s arrest comes exactly eight years after the police raided the Pirate Bay servers, which marked the start of the criminal prosecution against the site’s founders.” From the article: “While details are scarce at the moment, the Swedish newspaper Expressen reports that the arrest has been confirmed by the Swedish authorities. According to Peter Althin, Sunde’s lawyer, the news means that his client will most likely be sent to prison to serve his 8-month sentence. Sunde’s prison sentence was made final in 2012 after Sweden’s Supreme Court announced its decision not to grant leave to appeal in the long-running criminal case against the founders of The Pirate Bay.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pirate Bay Co-Founder Peter Sunde Arrested In Sweden

New Federal Database Will Track Americans’ Credit Ratings, Other Financial Info

schwit1 (797399) writes “As many as 227 million Americans may be compelled to disclose intimate details of their families and financial lives — including their Social Security numbers — in a new national database being assembled by two federal agencies. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National Mortgage Database Program to include personally identifiable information that reveals actual users, a reversal of previously stated policy. The FHFA will manage the database and share it with CFPB. A CFPB internal planning document for 2013-17 describes the bureau as monitoring 95 percent of all mortgage transactions. FHFA officials claim the database is essential to conducting a monthly mortgage survey required by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and to help it prepare an annual report for Congress.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Federal Database Will Track Americans’ Credit Ratings, Other Financial Info

After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out

Tekla Perry (3034735) writes “Former Sun executives and employees gathered in Mountain View, Calif., in May, and out came the ‘real’ stories. Andy Bechtolsheim reports that Steve Jobs wasn’t the only one who set out to copy the Xerox Parc Alto; John Gage wonders why so many smart engineers couldn’t figure out that it would have been better to buy tables instead of kneepads for the folks doing computer assembly; Vinod Khosla recalls the plan to ‘rip-off Sun technology, ‘ and more.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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After the Sun (Microsystems) Sets, the Real Stories Come Out