Who stole the sole? Noah “Red Hot” Shachtman wrote a great piece on an iRobot insider who stole the plans for the company’s military Packbot robot and recreated the robot himself, becoming a direct competitor to iRobot. The thief, Jameel Ahed, was frustrated because he wasn’t given full control over the project. He quit the company […]

Who stole the sole?

Noah “Red Hot” Shachtman wrote a great piece on an iRobot insider who stole the plans for the company’s military Packbot robot and recreated the robot himself, becoming a direct competitor to iRobot. The thief, Jameel Ahed, was frustrated because he wasn’t given full control over the project. He quit the company and, after reworking the design, was able to recreate the Packbot’s special rotating paddles which kept it upright on rocky terrain.

Ahed started a company called Robotic FX and nearly beat out iRobot for a military contract, leading the company to bring a lawsuit against one of its top engineers.

On Monday, August 20, a district court judge in Alabama issued a temporary restraining order against Robotic FX, demanding that it preserve “all evidence, information, data, and documents.” The next day, iRobot’s lawyers showed up at Robotic FX’s office, US marshals in tow.

They searched the office, then Ahed’s parents’ house, and finally headed to Hill’s apartment in Chicago. Ahed and Hill got there first, barely, and went in through the back door. Hill let the marshals in the front while Ahed ran to the bedroom. His laptop was there, its screen displaying a message that the hard drive had been wiped clean. He unplugged it, put it in a case, and slid the case underneath the bed. Then he went to the living room, where the marshals were asking Hill where the personal were. She didn’t mention the laptop. They found it anyway.

Ahed is currently banned from competing in robotics and iRobot eventually purchased his assets, essentially folding in his copycat robot back into its own project. IP theft doesn’t pay, children.

Via [crunchgear]

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Lenovo’s tiny notebook, the U110 that I drooled all over at CES will be available starting tomorrow at Lenovo’s site and will be available in stores mid-May. A quick refresher in case you’ve forgotten what makes this IdeaPad so special. The U110 sports a red and now black top with raised tendril design. The 11-inch […]

Lenovo’s tiny notebook, the U110 that I drooled all over at CES will be available starting tomorrow at Lenovo’s site and will be available in stores mid-May. A quick refresher in case you’ve forgotten what makes this IdeaPad so special. The U110 sports a red and now black top with raised tendril design. The 11-inch notebook can be outfitted with a 120GB drive, up to 3GB of RAM, a 1.6GHz Intel Centrino proc, and built-in camera, but it’s weight entices me even more. A 2.3-pound laptop with 8 hours of battery life sound pretty good to me, but with a price tag starting at $1,899, I might rethink this one.

Via [crunchgear]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

Oh sure, those with no shame whatsoever can snag a absolutely sketchy LV 2008 with an attachable zoom lens, but those of us with a shred of dignity are waiting on something superior. Enter Tessera Technologies, which is this day announcing that its OptiML Zoom solution is available for licensing. Said innovation brings a very special lens design and specialized algorithms to replace “traditional mechanical zoom capabilities,” giving equipped cameraphones 3x optical zoom capabilities in a “compact camera module without moving parts.” Hailed as the industry’s first non-mechanical optical zoom solution, it promises to not degrade images the way digital zoom does, and while it’s eager to see handset OEMs pick up the tech and integrate it into forthcoming mobiles, we’ve yet to hear of any large players jumping on board.

[Via PhoneScoop]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

While DXG has few aspirations to taste or quality, they sure know how to price this stuff. The new DXG-569V HD cam can shoot 1280 x 720 video at 30 fps, captures 5 megapixel stills and sports a 3-inch foldout LCD, all for the bargain basement price of $169. Naturally, that video quality probably won’t be putting RED ONE out of a job, and you’ll need to supply your own SD card to make the magic happen, but if that doesn’t dissuade you, you can swipe one from a Radio Shack shelf in silver or black as of today.

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http://www.YouriPodTouch4free.com/index.php?ref=4975814 Hey, I know and you know, everyone wants an ipod touch for free. But it seems like a scam, but it actually is legit! Here are some links to show proof. CNN’s Report http://youtube.com/watch?v=0iWWiHyy8Ag BBC News’s Report http://youtube.com/watch?v=b7-aw_LexLo NBC http://youtube.com/watch?v=6AaJErJilGE Engadget http://www.engadget.c…

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Holy shmokes! My childhood obsession — Starcade — is now online. Every single episode is there in all its 8-bit glory! For the infants among you, Starcade was a video game show that pitted two sassy arcade gamers against each other on a collection of the 1984’s ideal technology. Think about it: you could be 11 […]

Holy shmokes! My childhood obsession — Starcade — is now on the internet. Each single episode is there in all its 8-bit glory! For the infants among you, Starcade was a video game show that pitted two sassy arcade gamers against each other on a collection of the 1984’s ideal technology.

Think about it: you could be 11 years old and on Television playing games. As they say: “This isn’t just a TV show, this is an experience.” Seriously. And you could win a stand-up cabinet. That was like getting laid.

I actually wonder if this wasn’t an advertising car for one of the game makers. Anyone know any background?

Via [crunchgear]

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They used to be good. Metallica gave hints in an interview with Rolling Stone that it will follow the Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead model of Internet-based music distribution. (You can already download live show MP3s and FLACs, for the record.) Says Lars Ulrich: We’ve been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor and in twenty-seven years or however […]

They used to be good.

Metallica gave hints in an interview with Rolling Stone that it will follow the Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead model of Internet-based music distribution. (You can already download live show MP3s and FLACs, for the record.) States Lars Ulrich:

We’ve been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor and in twenty-seven years or however long it takes for the next record, we’ll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the Internet.

Unfortunately for Metallica, they released an album called St. Anger back in 2003, universally condemned as the worst piece of recorded music in history. “Madly in anger,” really? What does that even mean?

Oh, and they also helped kill Napster. That’s not how you win friends.

via Slashdot

Via [crunchgear]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras

Ben (aka Benjamin Linus), leader of the Others and all around creepy manipulator, doesn’t just shoot guns all the time — as we find out in a flashforward to 2005, he also apparently shoots Nikon as well. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with a D100, but Ben does kind of strike us as the calculating, discerning type that would probably like a full-frame Canon though, you know?

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the title says it all Music: Eiffel 65 - Move Your Body

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Nadia Plesner made a T-shirt that she’s selling to raise money for children in Darfur. Her shirt includes an image of a malnourished child carrying a sexy purse that looks like something out of the Louis Vuitton Desiccated Trophy Wife line so popular with the ladies a few years back. Note that it doesn’t have […]

Nadia Plesner made a T-shirt that she’s selling to raise money for children in Darfur. Her shirt includes an image of a malnourished child carrying a sexy purse that looks like something out of the Louis Vuitton Desiccated Trophy Wife line so popular with the ladies a few years back. Note that it doesn’t have the LV logo, just a bunch of squiggles, and it bears a passing resemblance to the concept of an LV bag remixed by an designer. It is as much an infringement of an LG bag as Exile in Guyville by PJ Harvey Liz Phair (sorry, I played guitar for a woman who loved PJ Harvey and she kept playing this so…) infringes on the Rolling Stones.

Well, that didn’t stop LV from suing her. She’s getting charged $7,500 a day for showing the image and another $7,500 for using the words Louis Vuitton. This is what we like to call around the barn “batshit insane.” Head on over, buy some shirts, and prove that the corpse of a leather goods manufacturer reanimated by effete and greedy SwissFrench nationals probably shouldn’t be messing with real artists.

Via [crunchgear]

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