Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Your right to privacy is no longer as private as you once thought or hoped. By court order, Google is being forced to hand over all the records of every video watched by YouTube users. This information will include users’ names as well as IP addresses, and the request has Google lawyers arguing invasion of privacy.  The judge in his ruling, however, found this argument “speculative” and ordered them to turn over the logs on a set of four terabyte hard drives.

The purpose behind the lawsuit is that Viacom intends to prove that infringing material is more prominent than user-created videos. This would most likely increase Google’s liability if they are found guilty of contributory infringement. The suit was originally filed in March of 2007, with Viacom seeking over $1 billion in damages. Google tried to argue that the law provides a “safe harbor for online services so long as they comply with copyright take-down requests.” Apparently Judge Louis L. Stanton, the senior judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who issued the opinion and order, wasn’t buying it, since the order also requires Google to supply copies of any video that was taken down for any reason.

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$899 million euros or $1.4 billion is definitely a huge sum of money and it seems like Microsoft would not just want to lose that amount over an anti-trust ruling that the EU has slapped Microsoft in February 2007. The fine was a result of a case filed against Microsoft for failing to comply with a 2004 ruling. So, Microsoft is appealing the EU ruling and hoping against all hopes that the EU would heed its plea to overturn the ruling or at least reduce the fine.

If you recall, sometime in 2004, the EU slapped Microsoft with a $768 million fine after it failed to comply with an anti-trust ruling that ordered Microsoft to provide rival companies with data that would allow their servers to connect to the Windows platform which was the predominantly used operating systems in majority of the PCs in 2004. In return, Microsoft is allowed to charge reasonable royalties for giving rival companies access to its Windows Platform.

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“Athletic Performance Sensing and/or Tracking Systems and Methods” is the title of a new patent applied for by Nike, in relation to its collaboration with Apple on something called Nike+iPod. While you probably thought that Nike finally ditched Apple when it released the Nike+ Sportband, this new patent reveals that Nike and Apple are actually on planning a few new things for their Nike+iPod team up, including adding support for activities other than running (such as yoga, karate, pilates and free weights) aside from expanding into the iPhone and iPod touch lineup.

When the idea behind this patent bears fruition, expect it to provide you with ways to create customizable workouts, motivational playlists, and specific feedback for your sessions in order to help you keep track of your performance, whether you’re actually improving or not.

Well it’s about time they got to work on this thing. With all the gleaming tech under the hood of the iPhone, it’s not unusual to hear Nike+iPod being able to do all of this. And as with all great things, the question of course, is when, where, and how much?

Read [USPTO] Via [iLounge]

Sony Ericsson’s newest patent comes afloat, and it shows us a new type of device allowing up to three input interfaces. The electronic device has a main body, a flip attached to the main body and multiple input interfaces (it says here), so basically this will be some kind of new device in which you can enter data via any of the available ways. From the illustration above, you can see that this will be some kind of cellphone/ smartphone with a flap on its face that can go both ways. It’s reversible, and two different input interfaces will reside on that flap alone, aside from the input interface located on the main body of the phone itself. Now I have to say, it’s a fine concept and all, but the question is, will it work?

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All the major players in the tech industry are starting to get really serious about touch screens, if they haven’t been already in the past year. One such company is Sony Ericsson, one of the leading mobile phone manufacturers in the world. A newly discovered patent application it’s filed back in 2006 reveals that it has plans of making a similar device to the Apple iPhone, blending the features of a cellphone, music player, mobile computer, and even that of a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) into one awesome handheld multimedia device.

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We all have some gadget or other tucked away in a drawer that we really shouldn’t have bought. In fact many argue that is the definition of a true gadget - something that you just have to have but don’t need. Well you can console yourself that it could be worse, unless you happen top have bought any of these Top 10 useless inventions from the 19th and 20th century’s:

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