Apple Earth
Apple Inc. has bought Quebec, Canada based company Poly9. Poly9 makes Google Earth plug-ins and Flash map programs. Their maps have been used by Yahoo!, Microsoft and MSNBC. Add this to Apple’s purchase of PlaceBase, a Google Maps competitor and we could very likely see an Apple Earth and/or Maps very soon. To Apple this is likely worth it just to be able to have more control over the Maps application on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad not even counting the possible other uses of it. Definitely something to keep an eye out for.
USB
A new USB device, called the UltraTek Flipper USB has come out today. The UltraTek Flipper metal connectors on the top and bottom to allow you to plug in a USB cable in however you like, so no more trying to plug your USB device in upside down. While it sounds dead simple it actually looks quite good.
We have two things from Google today. First is that Google Chrome Web Apps are now out. You do have to be on the latest Chromium build or the on the Chrome Dev Channel to get them but if you are interested in a guide on how to activate these please click here.
The next thing is that Google is now testing multiple account logins on one browser. This is great news because now you can be logged into a YouTube account on one tab while a friend could be logged into their YouTube Account in another tab. This also helps businessmen and women who have both a personal Google Account and a business Google Account. No word on when this will be released to everyone.
eBay Sued
XPRT Ventures is suing eBay for patent infringement. Apparently XPRT Ventures came up with basic additions to online paying and then pitched the idea to eBay back in 2001. They claim eBay then bought PayPal just so they could implement these ‘enhancements’. When asked why they waited so long to file a lawsuit, they stated that they filed this patent back in 2001 but it wasn’t accepted until 2009 meaning that the whole time the patent was actually pending. Here is a link to the patent. The list of patents underneath the top section are related patents, not patents owned by XPRT Ventures. They are suing eBay for $3.8 billion.
Toshiba
Toshiba promised everyone in Spain that if they won the World Cup any Core i5 computer or TV bought in Spain during the World Cup would be free. Toshiba is now going back on that, now that Spain won. The rules stated that you had to register your computer and/or TV by June 17 to qualify. The problem though is that Toshiba never listed this on the ads, only on the website. Toshiba probably wouldn’t have a problem if they would have said something like “See Toshiba.com for official rules.” at the end of the advertisements, but of course they didn’t. They are being sued for false advertisement.
Thanks for reading!
