TomTom’s new app for Apple’s iPhone is getting attention for its high price tag of $99.99 but is garnering a positive first impression in the gadget blogosphere.
The app offers many of the features offered in its standalone GPS devices, including navigation help, trip-planning tools and multi-language support.
Apple and Palm kicked a lot of dirt at each other last week–acting Apple CEO Tim Cook flatly told analysts that “We will not stand for people ripping off our IP” when asked specifically about competition like the Palm Pre, and Palm responded with a similarly explicit “We have the tools necessary to defend ourselves.”
Barely a month into series production of the first all-electric sports car, Tesla Motors is making more of a name for itself lately for lawsuits than for the Roadster. Lawyers for Silicon Valley’s darling automaker are busy charging former partner-turned-rival Henrik Fisker with the theft of trade secrets related to Tesla’s WhiteStar hybrid sedan, while at the same time defending the 5-year-old company from breach-of-contract accusations being leveled by former transmission supplier Magna Powertrain. That’s a lot of drama on the receiving end for a start-up that was supposed to teach Detroit how to build a lightning car at lightning speed. What’s going on here?
Kids–they hate brushing their teeth. Sure, we try and show them pictures of zombie faces and toothless seniors, but it just doesn’t work. Finally, someone has come up with a solution to the problem: Make it fun. Researchers at the National Taiwan University have devised a scheme that turns brushing your teeth into a Webcam-tracked video game. Using an LED-studded toothbrush, a camera mounted above a mirror and an LCD display, kids can watch plaque and debris get annihilated from a cartoon mouth while they scrub their choppers.
You’d think that with a name like “One Laptop Per Child,” NickNeg and company would have stress-tested their laptop with some actual children, but it looks like everyone’s favorite green machine just isn’t up to the toddler challenge–OLPC owners are reporting that the laptop’s rubberized keyboard is easily destroyed by inquisitive kids, who are peeling the keys off like so many scratch’n’sniff stickers.
Oh sure, she looks friendly enough. But don’t let her matronly, argyle looks fool you. A retired Columbia University Professor, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, is looking to extract some cold, hard cash from a who’s who of consumer electronics giants. Otherwise, they can forget about importing their goods into the U.S. Rothschild’s complaint, filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission on Feb. 20, claims that some 30 companies are violating a patent she owns for light-emitting and laser diodes. Today, the ITC has agreed to investigate the matter. It’s worth noting that Rothschild has already successfully tested the legislative waters with lawsuits against Philips and others–the Philips matter was settled out of court earlier this month.
The most compelling image we’ve seen out of CES to date: Bill Gates sitting down for a one-on-one interview with Engadget editor Ryan Block. What’s compelling? The fact that Bill Gates granted an interview with a blog–and that it’s not considered news.
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