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The lawyers up in Redmond seem to have been woken from their slumber with the sudden realization that -- oh look! -- Google's Android OS infringes on Microsoft's boatload of software patents. How specifically it does so is not identified, but Microsoft believes that elements from both the user interface and the underlying operating system are in violation of its rights. This is very much in keeping with the Windows maker's crusade to assert patent claims over Linux, which in the past has garnished it with cross-licensing deals with Amazon and Xandros, as well as a settlement from TomTom. Lawsuits...

Hey iPhone, welcome to 1997. Following Opera's script in building grassroots hysteria to goad Apple into approving a contentious app, developer Greg Hughes is teasing a video of his Wi-Fi Sync app to the peoples of planet internet. As the name implies, the app promises a complete sync of your iPhone or iPod touch with iTunes without having to tether and looks pretty straightforward (and occasionally useful) based on the video demonstration found after the break. Greg says he'll be submitting it to Apple for approval at the end of the week -- good luck with that Greg, we hope...

Last week, planetbeing claimed he'd ported Android to the iPhone. This week, Android A Lot says you can, too. If you've got an original iPhone 2G handy, there's now a 68-step guide that can walk you through the entire process. In a nutshell, you'll use iPhone Explorer to copy over the Android files, then turn your Mac or PC into an Ubuntu virtual machine to install the OpeniBoot software. When you're done, you'll probably have a dual-booting iPhone that can swap between iPhone OS and an experimental version of Android 1.6 at startup, but don't quote us on that --...

Google has never been too inclined to give the world the straight dope on total app counts in the Android Market, but other companies -- notably AndroLib -- have been happy to try to pick up the slack. The app tracking site now reports a grand total of 50,031 approved binaries as of this writing, marking a pretty magical milestone in light of the Market's humble beginnings as a free-only cache of a handful of apps for the G1. To be fair, AndroLib is aggregating across all of the Market's regional sites -- you won't find 50,000 apps in any...

Wanna know what exponential growth looks like? Try following Android's progress over the past few months and you'll be treated to plenty of rapidly ascending charts. This latest one from AndroLib is no different, illustrating as it does the ever-increasing influx of new games and applications for Google's mobile platform. Developers must clearly believe Android's growing market share is only going to keep expanding, as last month saw their most productive output yet, with a sweet 9,308 new additions to the Market. Naturally, the same proviso applies as with Apple's inflated App Store numbers -- quantity does not guarantee quality...

Female homicide bombers are being fitted with exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect, British spies have reportedly discovered. The shocking new Al Qaeda tactic involves radical doctors inserting the explosives in women's breasts during plastic surgery — making them "virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines." It is believed the doctors have been trained at some of Britain's leading teaching hospitals before returning to their own countries to perform the surgical procedures. MI5 has also discovered that extremists are inserting the explosives into the buttocks of some male bombers. "Women suicide bombers recruited by...

A fourth type of hominid, besides Neanderthals, modern humans and the tiny “hobbit”, was living as recently as 40,000 years ago, according to research published in the journal Nature. The discovery by Svante Pääbo and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is based on DNA sequences from a finger bone fragment discovered in a Siberian cave. EDITOR’S CHOICE Science briefing: Biofuel breakthrough - Feb-26 Public losing faith in science - Feb-22 Science briefing: Tracking cancer changes - Feb-19 Scientists discover the secret of ageing - Feb-15 Genome of balding Arctic ancestor decoded - Feb-10...

AppleInsider has rounded up its stable of "people familiar with the matter" and squeezed them for info on Cupertino's plans for the near term. Firstly, they've heard that a 27-inch version of the currently available 24-inch LED Cinema Display is on its way, sporting a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution and targeted for release "by June." The more exciting tip from those in the know, however, relates to the well aged Mac Pro and its future upgrade path. Apple has apparently firmed up plans to offer 6- and 12-core options (to replace the current 4- and 8-core variants), though the star...

Since 1977, RSA public-key encryption has protected privacy and verified authenticity when using computers, gadgets and web browsers around the globe, with only the most brutish of brute force efforts (and 1,500 years of processing time) felling its 768-bit variety earlier this year. Now, three eggheads (or Wolverines, as it were) at the University of Michigan claim they can break it simply by tweaking a device's power supply. By fluctuating the voltage to the CPU such that it generated a single hardware error per clock cycle, they found that they could cause the server to flip single bits of the...

PORTLAND, Ore. — By growing arrays of silicon wires in a polymer substrate, researchers have demonstrated what they say are flexible solar cells that absorb up to 96 percent of incident light. Photomicrograph of a silicon wire array embedded within a transparent, flexible polymer film. Credit: Caltech/Michael Kelzenberg California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers said the wires are made up of 98 percent plastic, potentially lowering the cost of photovoltaics by using just 1/50th the amount of semiconductor material used today. In tests, the experimental solar cells demonstrated over 90 percent quantum efficiency. "By developing light-trapping techniques for relatively sparse...

As our Larry Dignan notes, last night’s 60 Minutes featured a piece launching the latest over-hyped energy breakthrough — the Bloom Box. While inventor K.R. Sridhar was still being coy with CBS, the device appears to be a fuel cell, composed mainly of a ceramic and custom inks (probably containing zirconium), that can produce electricity from any hydrocarbon feedstock at high efficiency. (The picture is by Thomas Hawk, from Flickr. The man on the left is legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr.) The official launch is not until Wednesday, but this has not slowed the speculation, or the skepticism....

A little background. I work for a corporation that is in compition with another bigger facility across the street. We have been losing marketshare for more than a decade and as an entity, we have been flailing away rearranging deck chairs. Within that enviroment, I run a small project that has gained marketshare for the 10 years that I have been involved. For the first 7 years, we had the same CEO and I was the goldenboy, I did my job, and everybody left me alone. In the last 3 years, we have had 3 CEOs. The first two tried...

Following the general trend observed in the low-temperature fuel cell research to replace Pt/C catalysts by less costly and more durable compounds, as already exemplified in Pragma’s September Science Note, promising new results point to titanium dioxide. Current polymer electrolyte fuel cells use platinum and platinum-based alloys supported on nanoporous carbon as electrodes. However, during the duty cycles of repeated start-ups and shut-downs, the fuel cell undergoes high potentials that lead to carbon and Pt degradation processes. In order to maximize catalyst utilization in the electrodes, Pt nanoparticles have been downsized to 2-3 nm. Thermodynamic size effects make them less...

I was just hit by the irony that a few months ago, the political experts were predicting that Ted Kennedy's death would propel the health bill to victory. Tonight, it is the fact the Mr. Kennedy died and freed the 60th senate seat that will most likely lead to failure of the Bill and the failure of Obama's plans in general. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

The year 2009 will go on record as one of Apple's best years ever, as I explained in the "10 things Apple did right in 2009" list. This second, did-wrong list looks at the mistakes, and there were plenty. But one did-wrong is pervasive throughout nearly all of them. Apple failed to innovate the way it did during the last recession. Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his senior executives took many of the actions affecting 2009 during 2001 and early 2002. With that introduction, I present the list of 10 things Apple did wrong in 2009 -- in no order...

Apple's 2009 execution was nothing short of spectacular, given the sour economy and CEO Steve Jobs' medical leave. Apple executives handled both circumstances, which might have sunk another company, with finesse and subtle but direct aggressiveness. I had a difficult time narrowing the did-good list to just 10 items. I'll post a did-wrong list later today or just after midnight tomorrow. For now, I present the list of 10 things Apple did right in 2009 -- in no order of importance. They're all important. Apple: 1. Kept Mac prices high. While Windows PC competitors slashed computer prices -- and so...

Sure, there may be a number of relatively easy ways to destroy or disable an RFID tag (tossing it in the microwave, for instance), but where's the fun in that? There are plenty of good times to be had with this so-called "Rfiddler" built by Codeninja though, which disables tags (and potentially anything else in its sights) by emitting a strong electromagnetic field -- not to mention some sounds that will cause anyone standing in its vicinity to take a few big steps back. Head on past the break for a video, and hit up the link below for the...

Since we're already on the topic of fairy dust, how about a new all-wheel drive supercar that can purportedly thrust you from nought to sixty in 2.5 seconds? New startup Kepler Motors is about to unveil its first vehicle and its ambition is nothing short of staggering. Employing a 550bhp Ford Ecoboost petrol engine to drive the rear wheels and a 250bhp electric motor for the front pair, this machine also comes with a carbon fiber chassis and carbon ceramic brakes to really make the theoretical numbers look ridiculous. Of course, it's still only a concept for the Dubai International...

Step aside, Tesla -- we've just spotted the hottest Earth-lovin' supercar since the Lightning GT. Shown off to wide-mouthed onlookers at the LA Auto Show this month, the Capstone CMT-380 prototype is an automotive beast unlike anything we've ever seen. Rather than mixing batteries and a conventional engine, this whip combines the former with a diesel / biodiesel-powered microturbine, which is -- for all intents and purposes -- a jet engine. Reportedly, the car can reach 60MPH from a standstill in just 3.9 seconds, hit 150MPH before being cut off by the electronic limiter, cruise 80 miles on battery power...

It’s not out in the wild yet, but 10.6.2 has been confirmed to kill support for the Intel Atom processor, this is especially important for Hackintosh users who have hacked various Atom based netbooks to run Snow Leopard. So what should you do if you have an Atom based Hackintosh Netbook? StellaRolla recommends staying with 10.6.1 (or 10.5.8 if you’re running Leopard on your Hackintosh, sine 10.5.9 will likely have the same Atom problems) for the time being, otherwise you can try upgrading to 10.6.2 but run an older or modified kernel. I think I’ll just stick to 10.6.1 when...