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Microsoft has sued UK-based accessory maker Datel this week over its Xbox 360 controllers, claiming the company illegally copied the design.

The controllers in question are the Datel "TurboFire" and "WildFire" wireless controllers, which sell for $40 USD online. Microsoft says the controllers infringe on a few patents held by the software giant.

Microsoft is seeking monetary damages, royalty payments, or a portion of profits from past sales. Microsoft is also seeking an injunction.

Turbofire controller:

US broadcast network ABC is ready to take advantage of the iPad when it launches tomorrow.

Their new iPhone app is already available in the iTunes Store. It's only compatible with the iPad and won't work on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Like many internet video sites, ABC's website uses Flash to stream video, which isn't supported by any version of the iPhone OS.

The ABC app allows iPad users to stream full episodes of shows like Lost and Grey's Anatomy. It can also be used to get details of ABC's broadcast schedule.

Based on the description in the iTunes Store it will work only on Wi-Fi, and not across 3G. This isn't surprising given AT&T's history of objections to streaming video applications for the iPhone.

Microsoft's latest appeal of a $290 million patent infringement judgement over XML editing in Word has been rejected by a federal appeals court.

They were requesting that all 11 judges sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit review the case. The appeal has already been denied by a panel of 3 judges.

Loudon Owen, Chairman of i4i, called the decision, "a powerful reinforcement of the message that smaller enterprises and inventors who own intellectual property can and will be protected."

Despite Microsoft's apparent prior knowledge of the patent, held by a Canadian firm called i4i, the judgement against them seems generous to say the least.

The award was based on the number of users estimated to have used Word for editing XML documents, which seems reasonable. The problem is the valuation of the feature, which was set at $98 per copy.

Even if you were to buy Word by itself you wouldn't pay more than $230. If you get it bundled in one of the many versions of the Microsoft Office suite, as most Word users do, it amounts to no more than about $100 of the total price.

Adobe recently showed off a new feature from the upcoming Photoshop Creative Suite 5 called Content-Aware Fill. Besides saving a lot of time for experienced Photoshop users, it also promises to make serious photo editing operations much more accessible for less skilled users.

Content-Aware Fill can be used for everything from simple photo retouching operations like getting rid of artifacts like lense flare to creating entire new areas of an image based on existing elements.



Photoshop CS5 will be officially unveiled later this month. So far no actual release date has been announced.

Blaming illegal file sharing and streaming, Sony Pictures is hinting that they may stop selling DVDs in Spain.

In reality this appears to be just posturing, perhaps intended to put pressure on the Spanish government to criminalize all illegal copying. Under current Spanish law copyright infringement is only illegal if it's done for profit.

According to the LA Times, Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton said, "Spain is on the brink of no longer being a viable home-entertainment market for us."

Spanish Minister of Culture, and former filmmaker, Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde appears to be firmly on the side of movie studios. He's currently backing legislation that would make it possible for the government to shut down websites for even providing links to unauthorized movie or music downloads with no judicial oversight.

He also apparently believes the people of Spain are simpletons who don't understand the concept of intellectual property. He has said "in Mediterranean countries, it's hard for people to understand that immaterial things can be worth as much as material things."

EMI, one of the "Big 4" record labels, appears to be on the brink of being taken over by banking behemoth Citigroup after failing to sell off its North American artist distribution rights to other labels.

The label was looking to sell those artist rights to Sony and UMG for $300 million USD, but the negotiations broke down after the two sides could not agree on the price.

EMI, for its part, has a catalog with mega-stars such as Coldplay, Pink Floyd and some of The Beatles tracks.

Now, EMI must raise $180 million USD by June 15th, or face being taken over by creditor Citigroup, which will likely break up the label and sell all its assets to the highest bidders.

EMI was purchased in late 2007, right before "the Great Recession," for over $7 billion USD by Terra Firma Partners, which now owes Citi over $5 billion over the course of the following years.

Christopher Scott, accomplice to the largest heist of credit card numbers, ever, has been sentenced to seven years in prison this week, following buddy Albert Gonzalez (pictured), the mastermind behind the scheme.

Gonzalez was convicted of stealing and reselling over 170 million credit and ATM card numbers, and received 20 years in prison for his role in over 20 counts of identity theft, wire fraud, computer fraud and conspiracy that led to $200 million in losses for banks, insurers and retail companies.

Scott was pegged as a "key lieutenant" to Gonzalez, with Gonzalez allegedly paying up to $400,000 to Scott for his services over the course of their years as thieves.

Update: We have been contacted by Ira P. Rothken: "I am the lawyer for Isohunt in their litigation against the Major Movie Studios. There is no injunction in the Isohunt case. The parties are still briefing what an injunction, if any, will look like."

In a decision that will likely take down the giant torrent indexer, a judge has ordered IsoHunt to remove all torrents linking to infringing content.

The massive site has over 30 million unique users per month, and was one of the largest public trackers behind The Pirate Bay and Mininova.

The MPAA had sued IsoHunt in 2007, and last year a judge ruled against the indexer, saying it created a venue for illegal file sharing.

Writes Judge Stephen Wilson: "It is axiomatic that the availability of free infringing copies of plaintiffs' works through defendants’ websites irreparably undermines the growing legitimate market for consumers to purchase access to the same works." Continuing (via Wired), Wilson says: "Upwards of 95 percent of all dot-torrent files downloaded from defendants' websites return infringing material or works at least highly likely to be infringing."

Gary Fung, the owner of IsoHunt, must now remove all infringing content by April 12th, as well as start filtering against keywords. "It amounts to nothing less than taking down our search engine," says Fung of the request.

As the headline states, the extremely popular Apple App Store is now available through Facebook as a group you can become a "fan" of.

The link let's you see the top game, both free and paid, as well as search for titles you may already know about.

There is a "Featured" category and a "Discussion" tab, which is full of user comments on games and other apps.

If you are a Facebook user and need your fix of apps you can check the Store here: http://www.facebook.com/AppStore

MartinSchirr from AndroidForums has compiled a build of Fennec (Firefox Mobile) to run on Android devices, and has documented the browser running on video.

This is all the info provided (he's German), but the videos are more informative:
"maybe it is interesting for you.
I compile Fennec for Android.
It is running on my Motorola Milestone.
I made 2 Videos and a site with further information."

A thread for those testing: [APP] Fennec (Firefox) for Android

The Hollywood Reporter is saying today that over 20,000 individuals have been sued for alleged illegal downloading of movies by the under-the-radar US Copyright Group, a firm based in the nation's capital.

Making the suits different from those in the past is that these suits are over small independent films, for example the films "Steam Experiment," "Far Cry," "Uncross the Stars," "Gray Man" and "Call of the Wild 3D."

All of the users were "caught" downloading the films from torrent trackers.

The Group says there are up to 30,000 more suits coming, for five different films.

The users were caught thanks to new German technology dubbed Guardaley IT, which "allows for real-time monitoring of movie downloads on torrents." The software captures IP addresses when a user begins downloading, and then back checks the files to make sure it is the correct copyright protected movie.

We will certainly keep you updated.

Adobe's Flash is one of the most used plug-ins available for current browsers as it allows for support of a good number of videos, games and other content on the Internet.

Google says the plug-in's interface is limited in capability, however, and varies depending on what OS or browser you are using, which leads in turn to security holes and an overall reduction in performance. They want to change that.

Says the Chromium blog:

"That’s why we are working with Adobe, Mozilla and the broader community to help define the next generation browser plug-in API. This new API aims to address the shortcomings of the current browser plug-in model. There is much to do and we’re eager to get started.

As a first step, we’ve begun collaborating with Adobe to improve the Flash Player experience in Google Chrome. Today, we’re making available an initial integration of Flash Player with Chrome in the developer channel. We plan to bring this functionality to all Chrome users as quickly as we can.

Microsoft has announced today that they will be releasing a 64GB model of the Zune HD media device, double the largest capacity of currently available units.

The device will be available in Platinum, Black, Blue, Red, Green, Purple and Magenta when it goes on sale on April 12th.

As an added bonus, the company is slashing the price of the 32GB and 16GB models, dropping the MSRP to $270 and $200, a $20 cut.

The Zune HD was recently in the headlines when Microsoft announced that the much-anticipated v4.5 firmware was "coming soon," bringing with it SmartDJ and native Xvid support.

A handful of tech journalists and bloggers have been given iPads to try out and the first reviews have appeared. They are overwhelmingly positive.

Most reviewers praised the iPad's speed. That's understandable considering it has a much faster CPU than any generation of the iPhone or iPod Touch, while most of the apps available for it now were actually designed with those devices in mind.

The user interface also got its share of kudos. The Houston Chronicle's Bob LeVitus calls the on screen keyboard "eminently usable," adding that in landscape mode he can almost touch type on it.

Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun Times called the iPad "a computer that’s designed for speed, mobility, and tactile interaction above all other considerations."

But that leaves us to think about what other considerations might be important. Perhaps the biggest is what consumers will expect from a device priced about the same as a budget laptop.

As all the reviewers make clear, the iPad is no substitute for a laptop.

Everyone was quite pleased with its multimedia playback and e-book reader capabilities. But they were equally unanimous about its unsuitability for things like working with word processing or creating spreadsheets.

As part of an effort to update patent law, New Zealand legislators have proposed a bill which would make it impossible to patent software. If it becomes law it would no doubt cause friction with US ACTA negotiators, who are pushing to make software patents standard internationally.

Currently they are recognized in just a few countries, including the US and Japan. Ironically there is a good chance that the court decision which started the software patent mess in the US has recently been reinterpreted, potentially invalidating nearly all of them.

Along with business processes, software has been the most controversial patent subject matter for several years. It's also behind much of the current smartphone patent war. If you own a phone with a touch screen, but not multi-touch, you can thank a software patent for it.

Other notable software patents include Amazon.com's infamous one-click patent for e-commerce websites and Netflix's patent on their queue system.