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Update at 3:11 p.m. PDT: This story now includes a comment from Consumer Watchdog.

A federal judge has granted authors worldwide four more months to decide whether to participate in a settlement involving Google's online Book Search service.

Absent the ruling, made by Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, authors would have had until May 5 to decide whether to join the settlement or opt out.

But according to a law clerk in Chin's court, as well as one of the lawyers in the case, the … Read more

They're calling it "the offer," and if you're part of a video game development team looking for a financial boost, it might indeed be hard to refuse: up to a year's free rent in a riverside building in beautiful Savannah, Ga.

The initiative was the brainchild of Brenda Brathwaite, a longtime developer and a professor of game development and interactive design at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). She says as the recession kicked in and she saw layoffs affecting everyone, including friends and colleagues, she asked herself what she could do to … Read more

Seeing how the cyborg is real and the mutants are not, I think the cyborg will win this. Yes the cyborg is real. He's a filmmaker with only one eye so he figured he'd put a camera in the empty socket. For now it's only a red LED, but soon it will be a camera. Also Apple gets sued over touch tech and Africa gets fiber cables to it's shores.

Apple sued over touchscreen http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123920026450801313.html

Costing Africa’s new cable ties http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7987812.stm … Read more

The controversy regarding the text-to-speech function offered by Amazon.com's Kindle 2 digital book reader appears to be heating up again.

Groups advocating for the blind and reading disabled on Tuesday held a protest at the Manhattan offices of the Authors Guild. The guild was very vocal in opposing the text-to-speech technology in the Kindle. The group, which represents 4,000 authors, argued that the Kindle infringes on copyright and could hurt audio book sales.

The whole debate seemed to be over in February when Amazon appeared to give in. The Web's largest retailer said it had decided … Read more

Much like its professional counterpart, WinLock offers an endless array of options for locking certain files, functions, and even Web access. And as is the case with the professional version, our only complaint is that its Internet options work only with Internet Explorer.

WinLock's interface will appeal to all user levels. It's easy to navigate. All of your protection options are listed under drop-down style menu buttons. The program includes options for hiding files and folders, disabling system features such as Windows' Registry Editor and Task Manager, and limiting access to executable files. You can also manage your … Read more

Paving the way for the so-called Hydrogen Super Highway, California Fuel Cell Partnership released a roadmap that details plans for 46 retail hydrogen fueling stations in six targeted California communities by 2014. Hydrogen is considered to be the holy grail of clean transportation because Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV) emit only water when driven, but a lack of infrastructure is one of the major roadblocks to this advancement.

"By 2017, automotive manufacturers plan to place 50,000 zero-emission fuel cell vehicles in customer hands. FCVs will provide the performance, durability, driving range, and comfort that customers want, and meet the nation's need for a domestic fuel that is better for the environment," said Catherine Dunwoody, CaFCP's executive director in a press release.

For the moment, only six of the state's 26 hydrogen refueling stations are open to the public. Most are privately owned and operated for corporate fleet or testing vehicles. The CaFCP gave details for the cost of building 40 stations by 2012, which is projected to be $181.5 million and is expected to be funded largely by the government to incentivize the industry to begin the transition to hydrogen. … Read more

With the roll-out of plug-in and electric vehicles this year, car owners are going to need to know where else besides their home they can charge their car. Communities are working to accommodate these new vehicles by installing public charging facilities, but that won't help much if no one can find them.

Tying the pieces together is the Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Map created and maintained by the Cleantech Authority, an environment-conscious information hub that provides actionable resources for readers to use. … Read more

Update 2:49 p.m. PST: to include comment from Amazon.

Paul Aiken and the Authors Guild aren't gloating.

The executive director of the 9,000-member guild isn't taking all or even most of the credit for Amazon's abrupt about-face on Friday. The retailer announced that it would allow publishers to disable the Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature on any titles of their choosing.

He says while Authors Guild managers were "vocal" with their objections to the Kindle's speech technology, including publishing an op-ed piece in The New York Times, much more powerful entities were leaning on Amazon to make changes: large book publishers.

There was one more reason Amazon was prompted to make changes, according to Aiken.

"Amazon realized the magnitude of the contractual problem," Aiken said Monday morning. "Many of the author's publishing contracts give publishers the right to publish e-books, but only without enhancing audio. A reasonable reading of those contracts shows that publishers didn't have the authority to sell e-books for use in a Kindle device with audio enhancement."

An Amazon spokesman denied being pushed into Friday's decision. As for whether contractual issues played a part, the spokesman repeated what the company said Friday: "Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal."

Aiken began criticizing Amazon soon after the Kindle 2's debut last month. He argued that the retailer was violating the author's copyright and was cutting them out of a potentially new and lucrative market. … Read more

Amazon chose to keep secret from much of the publishing sector the text-to-speech feature built into the Kindle 2.

Instead, Amazon sprung the feature on publishers and the retailer is now taking public-relations hits that it might have avoided if it hadn't been so tight lipped.

Following the debut of the Kindle 2, the 9,000-member Authors Guild claimed text-to-speech created a derivative work and violated copyright. Paul Aiken, the guild's executive director said many publishers were also angered over the speech function, adding that Amazon never consulted beforehand with either of those groups. Amazon responded Friday by … Read more