decision

Neither Apple nor fellow defendant LG Electronics infringed on patents held by Alcatel-Lucent, a Southern California jury said today.

A jury in a federal court in San Diego reached its decision following a two-week patent trial, Bloomberg notes.

Multimedia Patent Trust, a subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, sued the two companies in December 2010 for alleged infringement on three of its patents covering video technology. The matter went to trial late last month.

The lawsuit targeted Apple's portable iOS devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, along with computers such as MacBooks and iMacs -- effectively, anything that included Apple'… Read more

Apple has once again been cleared of infringing on patents held by Mirror Worlds.

In a ruling posted today by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, the court upheld (PDF) a lower court decision from April 2011, which sided with Apple.

Mirror Worlds originally accused Apple of infringing on its patents with features included in its Mac OS X operating systems going back to 10.4 "Tiger," as well as in its iOS devices including the iPhone, iPod, and iPad. The company, which was founded by Yale University computer-science professor David Gelernter, … Read more

The structure, sequence, and organization of the 37 Java APIs at question in the Oracle v. Google case are not copyrightable, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court of Northern California said in a ruling today.

However, it's a narrow ruling that only covers the APIs at question in the copyright phase of this case.

Oracle had sued Google over copyright infringement related to the use of 37 Java APIs used on the Android mobile operating system. Google argued they were free to use because the Java programming language is free to use, and the APIs are … Read more

Bringing Schrodinger's cat thought experiment to real life would get you put on PETA's naughty list. Avoid that complication with the Schrodinger's Cat Executive Decision Maker.

No actual cats were harmed in the creation of ThinkGeek's $30 decision maker. What you do get is a plastic device with a sliding door. Ask a yes-or-no question, open the door, and watch as the cat goes into flux. A dead cat means "no." A live cat means "yes." … Read more

The exclusive partnership between Apple and AT&T wireless has finally come to an end! At a press conference in New York today, Verizon's COO Lowell McAdam announced that the company will begin selling its own iPhone 4 starting next month. Wilson's off covering the announcement, so Digital City's Joseph Kaminski fills in for an agnostic perspective on the release.

The Verizon iPhone 4 will be the same model that AT&T carries now except that the Verizon version will connect to the CDMA network instead of GSM. Aside from better service (hopefully), Verizon will also offer personal Wi-Fi "hot spot" access that lets up to five devices connect wirelessly to the iPhone at once- no word yet on how much extra you'll have to pay for that, however.

Additionally, one of the limitations is that CDMA is that the network won't allow for simultaneous Internet browsing and voice calling, which might be a dealbreaker to some, but most will just be satisfied to make uninterrupted phone calls.

Starting on February 10, a 16GB and 32GB model will cost $200 and $300 respectively with a 2-year contract dea, but we're still in the dark regarding data prices and whether or not there will be an unlimited options on deckl.

So this leaves current AT&T subscribers in a tricky situation: jump ship now and pre-order the Verizon iPhone 4 or wait a few months for Apple to release the next version, hopefully with access to Verizon's superfast 4G LTE network? Check out today's show to hear our best advice for prospective iPhone owners!

The 2011 Chevy Cruze this week was voted "Urban Car of The Year" by Decisive Media and an independent panel of 15 automotive journalists.

The Chevy Cruze, which comes in five including the Cruze LS, Cruze LT, Cruze 2LT, Eco Cruze, and Cruze LTZ, has an MSRP range from $16,995 to $22,695 in the U.S.

"If you really want to see evidence of a turnaround at GM, look no farther than Cruze," said Lyndon Conrad Bell, editor in chief of Decisive Auto. "Handsome styling, an attractive interior, competent power trains, an enjoyable … Read more

It became a bit of a joke at the height of Web 2.0 speculation that entrepreneurs would scramble to craft an elevator pitch as "a Facebook for this" or "a Digg for that." (See also: ItsThisForThat.com.) Well, one start-up believes that it can be "a Kayak for everything"--and, really, that is actually the best way to describe it.

It's called FindTheBest, and it has made it its task to create a comparison app for everything--from jails (you can compare prisons by capacity percent, or by number of juveniles held as … Read more

Crowd-sourced decision-making helper Hunch.com is out of private beta today. The site helps people make decisions based on how they answer questions from user-created quizzes (See our hands-on from April). Anyone can create these, however the strength of the site is that they can be linked to credible, outside sources to back up any advice or claims. There's also an algorithm that learns more about you as you use the site. The more it knows, the less of the quiz questions you have to answer to get valid recommendations.

Hunch says you only need to answer 10 sample … Read more

Yeah, we're not sure what the title of our show means today, but it's what happens when you let the chat room run the show. We think they want us to take off our clothes. Anyway, we're back to our old antics today: Bittr, Wii, Wolverine, iPhone, and pedometers.

As you can see, Slate.com already stole our idea for a skit mocking Twitter. We were going to shoot a video about a one-character status update. Some times, "F" is the only character that describes exactly how we're feeling at the moment.

On today's show, we talk a bit about how Nintendo is almost literally printing money with its Wii console. Apparently, it costs Nintendo 45 percent less to make a Wii than when it first came out. Nintendo is also trying to make more bank by releasing a pedometer, a device that measures foot steps--not an alarm for child predators. Also, we've got some info on a new iPhone app called Bad Decision Blocker that blocks your ability to make drunk phone calls. Seriously, though, if you need an iPhone app to stop you from making drunk calls, you need to 1) stop drinking 2) leave your phone at home, and 3) go see a therapist about your lingering girlfriend issues.

Finally, we get to our favorite "It came from Fox News!" segment. This time around, a Fox News commentator was fired for reviewing a pirated copy of the new "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" movie. Yeah, smart one. Fortunately, Jeff stopped selling DVDs of "Two and a Half Men" a few months ago. And a reminder, please call in with your most death-defying story to win your copy of "To the End of the Death: Our Epic Journey to the North Pole and the Legend of Peary and Henson" by our guest, Tom Avery. Yeah, long, long title.