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Channel William Shatner with new 'Shatoetry' spoken word app

iPhone users can now make William Shatneresque poetry, filled with his dramatic pauses and unique inflections, thanks to an app released today.

Called Shatoetry, the app lets users choose from a library of prerecorded words to create what Shatner -- or his marketing people -- has branded "Shatisms," phrases played out in Shatner's voice. It's like making poetry with refrigerator magnets, but with the "Star Trek" icon and Priceline.com spokesman guiding your artistry. … Read more

Twitter founder says influence is in retweets. NFL player shows why

When Green Bay Packers guard TJ Lang let loose a couple of F-bomb-laden tweets last night in the wake of the Monday Night Football refereeing disaster that cost his team a victory, his posts were quickly seen by far more people than followed him on Twitter.

Lang's two tweets, one which read "Got f---ed by the refs.. Embarrassing. Thanks nfl," and the other, "F--k it NFL. Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs," were pure frustration at having lost the game to the Seattle Seahawks, likely due to a missed call … Read more

Ex-FTC chief: Google could beat an 'unfair competition' suit

ASPEN, Colo.--The former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission predicts that an unfair competition lawsuit against Google would be an uphill battle for his former agency.

But William Kovacic, who left the commission last fall and is now a law professor at George Washington University, said here yesterday that his former agency might well try it anyway.

"If I were Mount Google or Mount Apple, I'd be really worried about being scaled today," Kovacic said during a panel discussion on antitrust at a Technology Policy Institute conference. Government attorneys get "extra credit for big cases,&… Read more

Shatner comes back from the dead for Priceline

The last time anyone saw William Shatner, he seemed to have met a grisly end.

He had saved a busload of vacationers. Their only expense was his life. For the bus, with the Priceline Negotiator inside, folded over a bridge and into a wet nothing.

The mourners were few, but their pain was considerable.

How must they feel now to discover that he is still alive? I am grateful to CNN for revealing that the Priceline Negotiator is not dead, but merely resting.

Still in his suit, he lives by the beach. He surfs the waves more than he surfs … Read more

Neighbors to Twitter co-founder: Cease and desist

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and his wife were trying to find a nice San Francisco neighborhood for their young family to call home. A year and half ago, they found what they were looking for, a 6,300-square-foot lot occupied by an early 1900s home that they now want to demolish to make way for a new house.

Not so fast. This is San Francisco, after all, where even little changes are hard, especially in old neighborhoods like this one, which sits near the peak of a picture postcard hill just south of famous Golden Gate park. The planned tear-down … Read more

Motion for new Oracle v. Google trial denied by judge

If Oracle wants to keep fighting for its copyright and patent infringement lawsuit against Google, it's going to have to do so in an appeals court.

Judge William Alsup returned with a ruling on Friday in regards to Oracle's motion for judgment as a matter of law for a new trial. Given that the original 12-person jury couldn't come to a unanimous, complete verdict during the copyright phase of the trial, Oracle hoped it could get the chance to present more evidence with a new argument.

However, the judge denied the motion, so a new trial will … Read more

Microsoft exec's defection adds to Amazon phone mystery

This may rate as one of the tech industry's worst-kept secrets, but another clue has surfaced to suggest that, yes, Amazon is indeed hard at work developing its own phone.

If you're keeping score, the latest data point concerns the job-hopping status of one Robert Williams, who used to be the top business development exec at Microsoft's Windows Phone division. Williams has now joined Amazon -- we know this thanks to Williams, who blabbed the news on his Twitter feed, complete with a tweak to his bio with this tease: "working on a top secret project … Read more

Hearst Castle, palace to the stars, still shines bright today

SAN SIMEON, Calif.--To visit Hearst Castle, the private palace built by media magnate William Randolph Hearst along the Central California coast, was to enter a place completely out of any obvious time period.

Easily one of America's most notorious homes -- it was fictionalized as Xanadu in Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane," Hearst Castle was first conceptualized in 1919 and was never finished. Work stopped when the media magnate left in 1947, four years before he died.

Packed with hundreds upon hundreds of priceless antiquities from throughout Western history, Hearst Castle was constructed before there were ever … Read more

Judge William Alsup: Master of the court and Java

For several weeks, U.S. District Judge William Alsup showed that he was the smartest person in the courtroom as high-priced lawyers for Google and Oracle pleaded their cases. On Thursday afternoon, he basically slammed the door in Oracle's face, explaining in a 41-page ruling that the 37 Java APIs used in Google's Android platform do not fall under U.S. copyright laws. The ruling on APIs followed a jury verdict on May 23 that absolved Google of violating two Oracle patents.

Oracle was asking for more than $1 billion in damages, but in the end the jury … Read more

Who wins, who loses in Oracle v. Google

After more than a week of deliberations, the jury in Oracle v. Google finally came back with a verdict over patent infringement on Wednesday.

There is an obvious winner and an obvious loser here, but let's reflect on some of the major wins and losses that have emerged thanks to proceedings at the U.S. District Court of Northern California in San Francisco over the last several weeks.

WINNERS

Google: The obvious winner in the patent round and the less-than-obvious winner in the copyright round. When the copyright verdict was announced a few weeks ago, the jury could only … Read more