Apple points finger at Amazon in DOJ e-book pricing lawsuit

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Yet more news has developed in the DOJ’s case against Apple and several book publishers over their alleged collusion to price-fix e-books, or what we like to call The Never-ending Lawsuit That is Slowly Choking the Fun out of Reading. This week, Apple filed this statement with the Southern District Court of New York, which… Read More…

Big Fish now a whale in mobile casino land, launches real-money gambling app in the UK

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Seattle may not be Vegas (no offense, Tulalip Casino), but a new gaming app that allows players to use real money is bringing some more gaming attention this way. Big Fish has launched its first social mobile app in the UK called Big Fish Casino (formerly known as Card Ace: Casino) that will let players… Read More…

LadyCoders reach Kickstarter goal for ‘Women in Tech’ series

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Why aren’t there more women in tech? And what can we do to get and keep them there? These are the all-important questions posed by three senior web coders, Tarah Wheeler Van Vlack, Liz Dahlstrom and Lorraine Sawicki, who posted their Kickstarter campaign to fund a seminar that will help women navigate the ins and… Read More…

Battle of the mobile wallet: Target, Wal-Mart and others team up against Google

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It sounds like such a simply great idea, a mobile wallet in your smartphone, right? Major retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, among others, think so. That’s why they announced today that they’re joining forces to form the Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, and are creating their own collective nationwide mobile commerce network. MCX, while… Read More…

Student rocket soars using hybrid propulsion system

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The DAQ Destroyer isn’t some fancy new ice cream treat from DQ. No, it’s a badass rocket built by University of Washington students that just snagged the top prize in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition’s advanced category. The Detroyer was launched more than 5 miles high — or about 26,000 feet — and was powered… Read More…

Amazon’s cloud powering NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover

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Amazon, the online super-retailer and South Lake Union Overlord, has the cloud computing system that best suits NASA’s latest and greatest mission to Mars — storing images and data from the space rover Curiosity’s mission. As reported by the LA Times, NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory picked Amazon’s web services for its Mars Exploration Rover and Mars… Read More…

REI, LinkedIn land in top 10 places for work-life balance; Facebook falls off

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When employers dangle salaries and signing bonuses and Justin Bieber songs in front of prospective employees, they might just want to consider how well they’re doing on one more thing: work-life balance. These top 25 companies in 2012 must be doing something right. Jobs and workplace site glassdoor.com just released its cumulative study of employee… Read More…

What should Bill Gates read? Our top 5 books for his list

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A few weeks ago, Bill Gates posted his summer reading list. A self-confessed reading junkie — “sometimes I can get in as much as a book a day” — poking around in what is firing Gates’ reading lists these days is quite a treat. And he has some great taste to boot. Thinking, Fast and… Read More…

This simple touchscreen device might be grandpa’s next computer — or ours

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Do your parents or grandparents really need a full-blown computer? One startup thinks the answer might be no. Seattle-based Pure Devices has launched a Kickstarter campaign in support of a new tabletop touchscreen device that streams data and applications from the cloud to a simplified user interface. The company is hoping that the device, which… Read More…

Guinness Record attempt: 1,200-square-foot piece of handmade, recycled paper

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Most of the time, publicity stunts are lame. And sometimes, well, sometimes something like this comes along. Spokane, Wash.-based online retailer GreenCupboards will attempt to construct the world’s largest handmade, recycled piece of paper to break the Guinness World Record. The team will begin construction at 4 a.m. Friday by mixing up recycled paper into… Read More…

Court orders Oracle, Google to reveal which news sources they’ve paid for coverage

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Blam-o! In probably one of the most awesome court orders we’ve ever read on the side of what is truthful and just in fair reportage, the judge in the Oracle vs. Google case has ordered that both sides disclose which journalists, bloggers and any other press they paid for coverage. In other news, the First… Read More…

Boeing shows off Unmanned Little Bird autonomous copter

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Builder of warcraft, hoster of Blue Angels and all-around badass in aerospace engineering, Boeing is showing off its Unmanned Little Bird, among other unmanned systems, in Las Vegas this week at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, or AUVSI, Unmanned Systems North America 2012 conference and exhibition. Whew. Insert Boeing gives the Bird joke… Read More…

Report says iPad users are more affluent than Kindle folk

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Hey, Big Spender! Your iPad would probably like to spend some more time with you… According to a new report by comScore, iPad users tend to be younger (44.5 percent under age 35), wealthier (46.3 percent in households with income greater than $100,000) and male (52.9 percent), as opposed to its nearest rival, the Kindle… Read More…

The Sims vs. The Ville, EA files suit against Zynga

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Electronic Arts‘ has apparently had enough of its too-close-for-comfort neighbors The Ville. The gaming giant has filed suit against Zynga, accusing the game maker of essentially ripping off their popular game The Sims Social. The copyright infringement case was filed in a San Francisco federal court today, calling The Ville an “unmistakable copy” of The… Read More…

Z2Live’s hit Battle Nations expands from iOS to Mac

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The phrase “cross-platform game” might conjure up images of Xbox Live and PC gaming, or turn-based games that work across Android and iPhone. But what about Mac and iOS? That’s the big news for Battle Nations fans this week. They can play now the popular game across both Apple mobile devices and Macs, after Seattle-based… Read More…

Super awesome ‘Curiosity’ approaches Mars, set for ‘Seven Minutes of Terror’

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The plan to land the roving space lab Curiosity on Mars this weekend is the stuff of the wildest imaginations. Seriously, Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick would’ve killed for this storyline in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In what is being hailed as one of the most challenging space maneuvers ever, NASA’s Curiosity will endure… Read More…

Seattle joins federal government open data effort

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This week, Seattle took a giant leap toward open data and transparency when it became one of four U.S. cities to join the federal open data portal data.gov at cities.data.gov. As reported by govtech.com, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and New York now have a great amount of data available for the public, such as fire… Read More…

UW team deploying power and Internet to the sea floor

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In further news about awesome people doing awesome things, a team from the University of Washington is installing a series of nodes on the sea floor — something akin to a “giant electrical outlet” the size of a Volkswagen Beetle — to provide Internet connectivity and power for real-time observations of the ocean. On July 14,… Read More…

Guy Adams back on Twitter after Olympic tweet scandal

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“Matt Lauer would do well to shut up, wouldn’t he?” This is just one of many critical — and hilarious — tweets fired away from The Independent‘s Los Angeles correspondent Guy Adams‘ Twitter feed about the London Olympic Games. And it was this, among a few other zingers, especially criticizing NBC for its coverage and… Read More…