| Judge Says Asus Can Keep Selling Transformer Prime Tablets Despite Hasbro's Objections Posted: 27 Mar 2012 11:08 AM PDT  Would you rather toy around with a Transformer Prime than a new iPad? If Hasbro had it way, you wouldn't have the option. Way back in December, we reported that the toy company was dragging Asus into court, claiming that "Transformer Prime" name was too close to "Optimus Prime," "Transformers" and the "Transformers Prime" animated series for comfort. A federal judge disagrees; he tossed out Hasbro's request for a preliminary injunction (read: sales ban) against the Asus tablet.
PaidContent reported the judge's words: "There is nothing gimmicky about the Eee Pad Transformer or the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, nor can it be said that there is any similarity in the use or function between Hasbro and Asus's products." The fact that the Eee Pad Transformer Prime can, well, transform into a notebook (using the optional keyboard dock) also helped to sway the judge's decision. Apparently, the Transformer Prime -- despite its Tegra 3 chops -- isn't exactly tearing up the charts, either. Asus told the court that only 2,000 direct orders from customers were waiting to be filled, and "retailer fulfillment orders for the next two months total approximately 80,000 tablet computers." |
| NZXT Slaps New Special Edition Paint Jobs On The Phantom 410 Chassis Posted: 27 Mar 2012 10:31 AM PDT NZXT's new Phantom 410 chassis only hit the streets in December, but apparently, finicky system builders have already grown tired of the red, white and black color options available at launch. Rather than telling said finicky system builders to shove it, NZXT polled them on Facebook, asking users which colors would be preferable on the case. The results are in in the form of the Phantom 410 Special Edition, which is available in four new hues. 
NZXT's press release informs us that the new colors are "Black with Orange Trim, Black with White Trim, White with Blue Trim, and a surprise Gunmetal black edition with a gunmetal interior and exterior matte finish." The Phantom 410 SE is a virtual clone of the standard Phantom 410 in all other respects, right down to the tool-less bay drive design, the nifty window on the side, and support for ATX, Mini-ATX and Micro-ATX motherboards. You can read all the nitty gritty details on the Phantom 410 page on the NZXT website. So what'll the new paint job cost you? Just $99 -- the same price as the normal Phantom 410. The press release says the Phantom 410 Special Edition will be available by late March, and since it's already the 27th, expect to see the new colors any day now. |
| Nvidia GPUs Helping To Send Lunar X Team's Rover To The Moon Posted: 27 Mar 2012 10:07 AM PDT  With CPU-integrated graphics upping their game and handling most casual gaming and HD video watching tasks without too many problems, AMD and Nvidia could find the bottom dropping out of the low-end discrete graphics market before long. The question is, how do the companies make up for it? One answer lies on the opposite end of the spectrum: high-end super-duper-computers often take advantage of the raw computational power of GPUs. That same processing efficiency is opening up new (final) frontiers -- Nvidia's helping a Lunar X team in their quest to go to the moon, Alice!
Nvidia announced that the German "Part-Time Scientists" team -- best name ever, right there -- has begun using Nvidia Tesla GPUs in the command center for the Asimov lunar rover being built by the group. The GPUs will be used for a wide array of number-crunching activities, ranging from simulating mission scenarios and navigation techniques in preparatory exercises to actually monitoring the Asimov and processing its massive video feeds when it (hopefully) hits the giant hunk o' cheese in the sky. The team expects a five- to ten-time boost in video processing speeds thanks to the addition of the Nvidia GPUs. The team hopes to land the Asimov on the moon by 2015, and Google plans on doling out over $30 million to the first private groups that actually make it there. (Twenty-six teams are taking part in the Lunar X prize race.) If you want to learn more about GPU computing and the wonders it's capable of, check out Loyd Case's awesome The State of GPU Computing: Is the CPU Dead Yet? |
| You Probably Can't Afford Panasonic's 152-inch Quad-HD 3D Television Posted: 27 Mar 2012 07:24 AM PDT  Look, we're not here to judge how much money you earn or the size of your bank account. That's not the point. For one or two of you reading this, our headline is all wrong, because you're a 1 percenter and can, in fact, afford to drop £600,000 on a television, which works out to more than $957,000 in U.S. currency. But for the rest of us, Panasonic's 152-inch 4K2K 3D television is out of our league.
That doesn't mean we can't appreciate an ultra-expensive and insanely huge screen. Panasonic actually showed off a prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year, and apparently it's now ready for prime time. According to the U.K.'s Telegraph, Panasonic's display is going on sale at Harrods, which is also launching a technology deparment with exclusive buys from BlackBerry, Fujifilm, and Lowe. In case you go looking for it, the model number is TH-152UX1W. It's a professional display, though it will sit alongside pricey cameras, loudspeakers, and other high priced electronics at Harrods starting this Thursday. If you plan to pick one up, you might also be interested in a £300,000 ($478,000) Jean Michel Jarre iPad. Just saying. As for Panasonic's TV, it sports a 4096x2160 resolution and 17:9 aspect ratio. It supports 3D, has multiple inputs, and a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Oh, and did we mention it's one hundred and fifty two freaking inches? Image Credit: Panasonic |
| Japanese Court Orders Removal of Google Autocomplete Terms in Defamation Case Posted: 27 Mar 2012 07:10 AM PDT  First introduced in late 2004 as a Google Labs project, Google's autocomplete search feature has been an integral part of the world's most popular search engine ever since its widespread rollout in 2008. This nifty search aid hasn't had a controversy-free existence, however. It now finds itself at the heart of a fresh controversy in Japan. More after the jump.
A Japanese court has ordered the removal of certain terms from Google's autocomplete search feature. According to a report by The Japan Times, the court was acting on a petition accusing Google's autocomplete feature of being defamatory. The petition was filed by a Japanese man (name not disclosed) who alleged that some of the autocomplete suggestions accompanying his name were not only defamatory but also breached his privacy. The unnamed petitioner, in fact, claimed that these defamatory search suggestions even cost him his job. "This [autocomplete feature] can lead to irretrievable damage, such as job loss or bankruptcy, just by displaying search results that constitute defamation or violation of the privacy of an individual person or small and medium-size companies," The Japan Times quoted the man's lawyer Hiroyuki Tomita as saying. But Google seems to be in no mood to subject itself to the Japanese court's order. It contends that the court has no jurisdiction over its U.S. headquarters, and that its own privacy policy does not necessitate the deletion of any search terms in this matter. "A Japanese court issued a provisional order requesting Google to delete specific terms from autocomplete," the Google spokesperson said in a statement. "The judge did not require Google to completely suspend the autocomplete function." The autocomplete feature has found itself in the middle of similar controversies in the past too, with virtually identical cases being filed in other countries as well. |
| Rovio Crashes Benchmarking Party with Futuremark Games Studio Acquisition Posted: 27 Mar 2012 06:58 AM PDT  Coming out of left field (from a 'fowl' hit? *groan*) is Rovio Entertainment's announcement that it has acquired Futuremark Games Studio, the gaming arm of benchmarking software developer Futuremark. Rovio, of course, is the developer behind the hugely popular Angry Birds franchise, which was just recently launched into space in the latest multi-platform installment, Angry Birds Space.
"They are an incredibly talented and experienced team, and we are thrilled to have them on board," said Mikael Hed, Rovio Entertainment's CEO. "Rovio's success is founded on the excellence of our team, and Futuremark Games Studio is going to be a superb addition." Futuremark CEO Jukka Mäkinen said he was "proud to see the potential of [Futuremark's] talented games team recognized by Rovio." As for Futuremark, the benchmarking company will do what it does best and "will now focus on supporting gamers and industry with 3DMark." Mäkinen said there will be a new version released later this year, one that will allow gamers to compare performance across operating systems. For Rovio, this is the developer's second acquisition in the past year, after scooping up Kombo Animation Studio last summer. |
| Outdated Law from 1980s Blocks Netflix from Releasing a Facebook App in the U.S. Posted: 27 Mar 2012 06:32 AM PDT  Do you remember what you were doing in 1987? It was the year the Simpsons appeared for the first time as a series of shorts on The Tracy Ulman Show, Bow Wow was born, and both Larry Bird and Magic Johson were still in the NBA. It also happens to be the year an incident led to the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which was enacted a year later, nearly a decade before Netflix was founded and 16 years before Facebook launched. Yet this quarter-of-a-century old legislation is the reason why Netflix hasn't released a Facebook app in the U.S.
A CNNMoney report is drawing attention to the issue and explains that VPPA arose from "strange circumstances" in 1987 involving the failed Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork. While Bork was being considered, a freelance journalist was able to obtain his rental history from a video store. Bork's rental history wasn't particularly damning in any way, but it made Congress uncomfortable and they quickly enacted VPPA, which made it illegal for a "video tape service provider" to disclose "personally identifiable information" about its customers without their written consent. Looking beyond VHS, Congress included language referring to "prerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials." "It's ambiguous about whether it applies to us," Netflix told CNNMoney. "We just don't know, and we'd rather be in compliance than risk stepping over the line." Netflix is lobbying for Congress to update VPPA, which not only is preventing the streaming service from launching a Facebook app, but is also proving costly via lawsuits, including a $9 million settlement in 2011 to customers who accused Netflix of holding onto their personal data for longer than a year. |
| FTC Lauds 'Do Not Track' Web Technology in Final Privacy Report Posted: 27 Mar 2012 05:56 AM PDT  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its final report on protecting consumer privacy as the agency continues to call on companies to adopt best privacy practices and give American consumers greater control over the collection and use of their personal data. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said many companies have already adopted the agency's final recommendations and is confident consumers will have an easy to use and effective Do Not Track option by the end of the year.
In the latest revision, the FTC notes it received more than 450 public comments in response to the preliminary report from various stakeholders, including businesses, privacy advocates, technologists, and individual consumers, which helped shape the current framework. Based on those comments, the FTC made revised recommendations in three main areas. They include: - A tighter scope set forth by the framework that seeks to address concerns about undue burdens on small businesses. The final framework doesn't apply to companies that collect only non-sensitive data from fewer than 5,000 consumers a year, but only if such businesses refrain from sharing that data with third parties.
- A modified approach to how companies should provide consumers with privacy choices.
- The FTC recommends that Congress consider enacting targeted legislation to provide greater transparency for, and control over, the practices of information brokers.
The report, which you can read in its entirety here (PDF), was approved by the Commission with a 3-1 vote. Image Credit: FTC |
| Rumor: Windows 8 Release Candidate to Arrive in May Posted: 26 Mar 2012 09:12 PM PDT  The general response to the recently released Windows 8 Consumer Preview hasn't been entirely positive. That does not mean that all is lost, though. With the first Windows 8 products widely expected to debut in the later part of 2012, Microsoft still has some time on its hands to make amends. If Microsoft does intend to make some important changes, they will most probably be part of the Windows 8 Release Candidate. But when exactly will the software giant deliver the Release Candidate?
The answer, according to WinUnleaked.tk, is late May or early June. The site claims that the Release Candidate of Windows 8 will include some "light" UI changes as far as the Charms bar, Internet Explorer 10 (desktop version), and the language input menu are concerned. It further claims that the Customer Experience Improvement Program will be disabled by default. This latest Windows 8 rumor follows close on the heels of a Bloomberg report that hinted at an October launch for Windows 8. When asked to comment on these rumors by CNET, Microsoft refused, saying it had nothing to share. |
