The big GOOG joins the battle against Lodsys, the demise of webOS devices was just as surprising to many inside HP as outside, and one Australian politician wants Apple to lower its prices. The remainders for Friday, August 19, 2011 are always a deal.
Google Reexam Requests Devastating to Lodsys (Groklaw)
The giant that is Google has stirred and stepped ponderously into the fight against patent troll Lodsys, filing a request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for reexamination of the two patents Lodsys is suing developers over. According to Groklaw, Google is contesting that the patents aren’t actually novel and is citing five pieces of prior art per patent as evidence. When reached for comment, noted patent expert Scooby Doo said: “Ruh roh.”
An inside look at HP killing webOS hardware: Here’s how it really went down. (The Next Web)
HP’s webOS hardware apparently died as it lived—with a lack of clarity. A report in The Next Web suggests that executives as highly placed as HP’s vice president of webOS software found out about the axing when HP put out its press release on Thursday. To be fair, though, they really should have seen the clues, such as the thousands of TouchPads just lying around the office not being sold.
HP tested webOS on an iPad. It ran over twice as fast as the TouchPad. (The Next Web)
Speaking of the TouchPad, The Next Web has a separate report that the webOS software may have actually been tested on an iPad—on which it ran twice as fast. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is skeptical, but we buy it: I mean, everything is faster on an iPad. Seriously. You ever tried Flash sites in Mobile Safari? They load so fast you can’t even see them.
Labor MP wants ACCC enquiry into Aussie tech tax (Delimiter)
You think Apple products are expensive here? Try Australia, mate. In fact, the markup on Cupertino’s goods in the land Down Under is so high that one member of the country’s parliament has been bugging Apple for an explanation. Unsurprisingly, the company has yet to respond, leading Federal Labor MP Ed Husic to threaten an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (motto: That’s not anticompetitive behavior—this is anticompetitive behavior).