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Electric-car maker Tesla Motors has filed suit against a competitor, claiming the company stole trade secrets and copied design ideas.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in San Mateo County Superior Court in California. Tesla hired Henrik Fisker, CEO of car design firm Fisker Coachbuild, last year to design the body of its all-electric WhiteStar sedan. In the suit, Tesla alleges that Fisker and Fisker Coachbuild Chief Operating Officer Bernhard Koehler accepted the contract "to gain access to confidential design information and trade secrets, then announced a competing vehicle," according to a New York Times article.

Last year, Tesla … Read more

It doesn't take much to put Apple in the news, and this afternoon's excuse is that a Miami-based company called PsyStar is selling a Mac clone.

Its Web site was down earlier--ostensibly because of the overwhelming reaction to its product. As Computerworld's Gregg Keizer reports:

Before its site went dark Monday, PsyStar was pitching an Intel-based system it said could be configured to run Leopard, Apple's Mac OS X 10.5. The machine, which was priced at $399 minus Leopard, $554 with it already installed, is powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor … Read more

Updated at 11:45 a.m. PDT with Dish Network's statement.

Another court has upheld TiVo's patent suit against EchoStar Communications.

A U.S. Appeals Court on Friday denied EchoStar's appeal on an earlier court ruling that said the company's Dish Network digital video recorders violated a patent held by TiVo. The ruling was first reported by Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection blog.

Friday's appellate court decision comes two years after TiVo's initial victory, in which a court found that EchoStar's DVRs (digital video recorders) "willfully infringed" on TiVo's patented … Read more

This is just getting silly.

The makers of the popular Slingbox have been promising the SlingCatcher for almost a year and half now. And once again, the projected release date will come and go quietly.

Gregg Wilkes, vice president of sales for Sling Media--which is now owned by EchoStar Communications--told a frustrated customer in an e-mail that the goal to release the device during the second quarter of this year will not be met.

Wilkes writes: "Will the catcher ship in Q2? No. We are upgrading the user experience and making enhancements to the feature set. These may … Read more

Google App Engine Blog: Introducing Google App Engine + our new blog http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2008/04/ introducing-google-app-engine-our-new.html

California Lawmaker Proposes Music … Read more

Philippe Starck had an epiphany, after all these years: "Everything I have designed is absolutely unnecessary," the French star designer admitted in a recent interview with the German weekly DIE ZEIT. I had the dubious pleasure of hanging out in the Starck-designed Volar club in Shanghai last weekend, and my initial reaction to his statement was: yeah, right! I've never really liked his pompose celebrity design. But then I read his quote again in the context of the whole interview and realized: he is right, actually. In fact, his thoughts are so poignant and humbling that it … Read more

The government's Energy Star program and the tech industry's Climate Savers Computing Initiative will work over the next three years to develop more-efficient standards for consumer electronics.

"Today's partnership announcement unites Energy Star and industry in an effort to rally the technology industry to reduce computer energy consumption and fight climate change," said Bob Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, in a press release.

Energy Star, launched in 1992 by the Environmental Protection Agency, is considered the first "green" U.S. consumer label for electronics … Read more

Being a native of the wasteland that is Southern California, fellow Craver Erica Ogg will take any opportunity to take a cheap shot at a San Francisco sports franchise. We won't lower ourselves to that kind of sniping (other than to say the Dodgers suck) in offering this alternative to the product she used as an excuse to sully the name of Barry Bonds.

Like its "asterisk" counterpart, Brando's "Star Hub II" is designed to avoid the dreaded Port Blocking Syndrome by contorting into different positions and angles as needed. It also doesn't … Read more

The men of the 404 go the distance with Frank Warren, compiler of Post Secret, one of the coolest sites on the Internet. We talk about the project, how it started, most common secrets, and even infidelity. Yes, we said it.

Plus, if you still want to win an edition of Weird USA, send us your best animal-human hybrids of the 404 hosts, Randall, Jeff, and Wilson. Free invitations are available to A.viary, if you click on the link from the 404 page.