5:19 PM
Federal appeals court overturned California's Prop 8 ban on gay marriage, with celebration on one side and vows to appeal on the other side:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/prop-8-gay-marriage.html
iRobot has a 450-pound robot for sale that is extremely powerful. It can travel over rough terrain, climb stairs, tow cars, shatter windows, and even launch rockets and use other weapons:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/irobot-warrior/
83-year-old British woman received the first custom jawbone made by a 3D printer. Her age made reconstructive surgery problematic, but the 3D-printed jawbone has been working great for the woman since June and she can now chew and speak with ease:
http://www.wirelessdesignmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=055&ACCT=0000100&ISSUE=1202&RELTYPE=IN&PRODCODE=000000&PRODLETT=UF.html
Redbox and Verizon formed a joint venture to compete with Netflix in both the digital (movie streaming) and physical (DVD) worlds. Redbox agreed to spend up to $100 mil to buy the Blockbuster-branded DVD kiosks, adding 9,000 Blockbuster machines to the 35,400 Redbox machines (and eliminating BlockBuster's kiosk competition). The joint venture will be owned 65% by Verizon and 35% by Redbox's parent company Coinstar:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-fi-ct-verizon-redbox-20120207,0,4158694.story
A Chinese company is "demanding an apology" from Apple as part of their lawsuit against Apple over the use of the iPad trademark. Apple purchased the iPad trademark for $55k in 2006 from Proview Electronics in Taiwan, but apparently Proview Technology in China owns the iPad trademark in China. Proview sued Apple in china last year for $1.6 bil in damages and the Proview expects Apple to be fined $38 mil soon by a Beijing court. Apple countersued Proview because they said they were the rightful owner of the iPad trademark, but a Chinese court ruled in favor of Proview in December:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/07/chinese_lawsuit_seeks_38m_apology_from_apple_for_use_of_ipad_name.html
Verizon brought back the promotion that gives double the monthly data for LTE smartphone buyers, going into effect on Friday when the Droid 4 comes out. Verizon is also offering a buy one, get one free promotion for Droid Razr phones, offering a $30 credit for feature phone buyers trading in their phones for a smartphone, and $100 off any LTE tablet with the purchase of any phone:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-revives-double-lte-smartphone-data-promotion/2012-02-07
T-Mobile has a big promotion for Valentine's Day--a lot of their 4G smartphones are free starting February 11:
http://www.androidcentral.com/t-mobile-celebrates-valentines-day-free-4g-devices
For Lori: Article about how to sync tabs on desktop/laptops to a phone/tablet with the PC Google Chrome browser and Google Chrome for Android:
http://www.androidcentral.com/how-sync-tabs-chrome-desktop-and-android
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/02/prop-8-gay-marriage.html
iRobot has a 450-pound robot for sale that is extremely powerful. It can travel over rough terrain, climb stairs, tow cars, shatter windows, and even launch rockets and use other weapons:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/02/irobot-warrior/
83-year-old British woman received the first custom jawbone made by a 3D printer. Her age made reconstructive surgery problematic, but the 3D-printed jawbone has been working great for the woman since June and she can now chew and speak with ease:
http://www.wirelessdesignmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=055&ACCT=0000100&ISSUE=1202&RELTYPE=IN&PRODCODE=000000&PRODLETT=UF.html
Redbox and Verizon formed a joint venture to compete with Netflix in both the digital (movie streaming) and physical (DVD) worlds. Redbox agreed to spend up to $100 mil to buy the Blockbuster-branded DVD kiosks, adding 9,000 Blockbuster machines to the 35,400 Redbox machines (and eliminating BlockBuster's kiosk competition). The joint venture will be owned 65% by Verizon and 35% by Redbox's parent company Coinstar:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-fi-ct-verizon-redbox-20120207,0,4158694.story
A Chinese company is "demanding an apology" from Apple as part of their lawsuit against Apple over the use of the iPad trademark. Apple purchased the iPad trademark for $55k in 2006 from Proview Electronics in Taiwan, but apparently Proview Technology in China owns the iPad trademark in China. Proview sued Apple in china last year for $1.6 bil in damages and the Proview expects Apple to be fined $38 mil soon by a Beijing court. Apple countersued Proview because they said they were the rightful owner of the iPad trademark, but a Chinese court ruled in favor of Proview in December:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/02/07/chinese_lawsuit_seeks_38m_apology_from_apple_for_use_of_ipad_name.html
Verizon brought back the promotion that gives double the monthly data for LTE smartphone buyers, going into effect on Friday when the Droid 4 comes out. Verizon is also offering a buy one, get one free promotion for Droid Razr phones, offering a $30 credit for feature phone buyers trading in their phones for a smartphone, and $100 off any LTE tablet with the purchase of any phone:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-revives-double-lte-smartphone-data-promotion/2012-02-07
T-Mobile has a big promotion for Valentine's Day--a lot of their 4G smartphones are free starting February 11:
http://www.androidcentral.com/t-mobile-celebrates-valentines-day-free-4g-devices
For Lori: Article about how to sync tabs on desktop/laptops to a phone/tablet with the PC Google Chrome browser and Google Chrome for Android:
http://www.androidcentral.com/how-sync-tabs-chrome-desktop-and-android