NVIDIA Says Patent Settlement With Rambus Unlikely

In an interview with BusinessWeek, NVIDIA’s top lawyer said that a settlement with Rambus is unlikely. I am not trying to be funny here but isn’t this what every company says...you know...right before they settle?

"Rambus and Nvidia talked for eight years before they sued us," David Shannon, Nvidia’s general counsel, said in an interview yesterday in Washington. "I don’t think it’s realistic to think that there’s going to be an agreement any time soon between the two companies."

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New York Investigating Scumbag Scammers

When you think of scumbag scammers, usually these companies don’t come to mind. Well, they should now. Any time a company allows someone else to charge your credit card $20 a month without your knowledge, they are officially "scumbag scammers" until they rectify the situation.

Buried in the fine print however, are the full terms, which state that by providing an e-mail address, the customer is agreeing to sign up for a membership program and authorizing their credit card to be charged sometimes as much as $20 a month. How can these marketers charge credit cards without the owners giving them their card information? Simple, they buy the information from well-respected merchants, such as Continental Airlines, Priceline and Buy.com.

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[H]ardware Round-Up II

ETC.

iDisappointed in the iPad @ T-Break

iPad's Identity Crisis and Apple's A4 CPU Showstopper @ HotHardware

Memory/ Storage

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB @ Techgage

Motherboards

ECS H55H-CM Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets

MSI H57M-ED65 mATX Motherboard @ HardwareZone

iPad Trademark Dispute

Here is another story about Apple taking a name it likes, regardless who has a trademark on it at the time, simply because they wanted it. This could get really interesting if Fujitsu sticks to its guns and fights for the trademark it has owned for 8 years.

Well, here we go again. Apple might have stolen all the headlines yesterday with the iPad, but as we've already noted, that name has been in dispute since September -- and it doesn't look like Fujitsu, which has been selling its own iPad since 2002, is going to back down.

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Microsoft Reports Record Second-Quarter Results

Microsoft Corp. today announced record revenue of $19.02 billion for the second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009, a 14% increase from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $8.51 billion, $6.66 billion and $0.74 per share, which represented increases of 43%, 60% and 57%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period.

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Hacker Breaks Into 49 House Web Sites

According to the Associated Press, a hacker broke into 49 house web sites and posted crude remarks about the president. While most hackers are never caught, I have a feeling there will be a little "extra" effort to catch this guy.

A hacker broke into 49 House Web sites of both political parties to post a crude attack on President Barack Obama after his State of the Union address. Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the House chief administrative officer, said the sites were managed by a private vendor — GovTrends of Alexandria, Va.

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Gaming [H]eadlines

Aliens vs. Predator Multiplayer Modes @ Blue’s News

Bayonetta PS3 Patch Available Today @ Joystiq

BioShock 2 Multiplayer Matchmaking Detailed @ Shacknews

Mass Effect 2 Review Round-Up @ Kotaku

Pot Smokers Busted On YouTube

If you are going to smoke pot, don’t put videos of you doing it on YouTube. If you are going to smoke pot with your kids, don’t put 90 videos on YouTube showing you doing it…you might get caught.

Sarpy County Lt. Steve Grabowski tells 1110 KFAB they found more than 90 videos on YouTube showing David Johnson and his 17 and 19 year old sons smoking pot. Investigators also seized 50 bongs and pipes from Johnson's house during the January 12th search.

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Report Shows Cyber Attacks Rampant

McAfee has released a new report that says cyber attacks are running rampant. Making maters worse, most of the companies surveyed said they do not believe they are prepared to deal with cyber attacks.

Attacks that lead to down time can cost more than $6 million per day, and more than $8 million at oil and gas companies, the report, "In the Crossfire--Critical Infrastructure in the Age of Cyberwar," found. Meanwhile, respondents said they worry about attacks on critical infrastructure in their countries coming from the U.S. and China more than any other potential aggressors.

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[H]ardware Round-Up

Cases & Modding

Lancool Dragon Lord PC-K58 Tower @ Pro-Clockers

Cooling

Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU Cooler @ Legit Reviews

ETC.

G-Cube IB-990T Crystal Beats Earbud Headphones @ Tweaknews

Memory/ Storage

Vantec NexStar Universal Storage Adapter @ ThinkComputers

Seagate and LSI Collaborate

LSI Corp. and Seagate Technology Inc. are going to work together on PCI-based solid-state storage for data centers. LSI will produce board-level products that integrate SAS and PCIe communications with Seagate solid-state drive (SSD) technology, the company said. The products are said to address architectural challenges that have limited the adoption of solid-state storage. Product samples are expected to be available to OEM customers in the second quarter of this year.

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Intel is on the Augmented Reality Bandwagon

Here's a pretty cool video of Intel using a few augmented reality demonstrations to showcase its Core i5 processor. As always, it is neat to see the different ways augmented reality can be used.

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