Musicians and musician-wannabes *raises hand* all fell for the Tenori-On musical synthesizer a couple of years ago, but were put off by its $1,200 price-tag. If you own an iPhone or iPad though, cough up £12/$19 for the app version instead. More »

You can just imagine the whistles and bleeps R2-D2 would make as you accidentally touch the sides of his Hasbro Operation game body. Or if you cough up $27 from September, you don't even have to imagine. [Toywiz via ChipChick via OhGizmo] More »

A few weeks back, a patent-holding company called Lodsys began contacting developers and asking them to cough up money for using their in-app purchasing technology without a license. Apple intervened briefly and said that its developers are covered under its own license, but now the company has taken the matter to court with an official movement to intervene. The motion officially states:

Apple Inc. hereby respectfully moves to intervene as a defendant and counterclaim plaintiff in the above-captioned action brought by plaintiff Lodsys, LLC against seven software application developers for allegedly infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 7,222,078 and 7,620,565. Apple seeks to intervene because it is expressly licensed to provide to the Developers products and services that embody the patents in suit, free from claims of infringement of those patents.

Hit the jump for more of the back story.

Apple’s move is in addition to a separate suit from ForSee Results, which filed a declaratory lawsuit against Lodsys on June 10th. Lodsys has remained inexorable in its belief that developers are in debt. “We stand firm and restate our previous position that it is the 3rd party Developers that are responsible for the infringement of Lodsys’ patents and they are responsible for securing the rights for their applications,” Lodsys said in a recent statement. Lodsys has also targeted Android developers, but we have yet to hear what Google’s role in this battle will be.

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If you're willing to cough up $10 a month, you'll find yourself with 8 million songs at your disposal on Slacker's new Premium Radio service, which we previewed the other month. More »

Given Facebook's nabbed a few features from Twitter over the years, it's only fair Twitter looks to Zuckerberg's creation for ideas—especially when it comes to the little issue of making cold, hard cash. Facebook pages, where companies and wares-pushers could advertise and have a "coherent message," might be the answer. Presumably this would differ from their actual Twitter profiles, and with any luck actually offer some worthwhile features to make brands cough up the extra zeroes. [Marketing via TechRadar] More »

Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse sat down with the Financial Times and re-confirmed the wireless provider’s option to pursue LTE if and when the time is right. According to Hesse, Sprint and Clearwire are in the enviable position of having access to ample 4G spectrum that is able to support LTE on top of the current WiMAX network. This over-abundance of 4G spectrum, and the possibility of deploying LTE, is causing analysts to re-consider the potential for a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile. Rumors of a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile surfaced in 2008 but the talks reportedly stalled because the two companies use two very different and incompatible wireless technologies (*cough*Nextel*cough). If both carriers adopt LTE, a merger is more likely as Sprint would receive a boost from T-Mobile’s 33 million subscribers and T-Mobile would gain much needed access to 4G spectrum. Hesse acknowledged that there was a “logic” to the merger but failed to comment on the possibility that the two wireless providers are in discussions.

[Via Phonescoop]

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Americans and Canadians rejoice as coming from nowhere, and without announcement, (even though we broke the news on it) is the Google Nexus One with AT&T and Rogers network support. Android fans can point their browser to the now familiar Nexus One URL and score a Nexus One with three 3G/UMTS bands (850/1900/2100 MHz) and four GSM radio frequencies (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) on board. No subsidies on this puppy, so you will have to cough up $500 and change to rock the latest Google has to offer. Not a bad way to start improving sales, right?

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Thirty months ago, iLive's streeetchy iPod dock/surround sound bar looked like this. Well, now it looks like this. They've moved the dock to the left, which looks aight. Not sure about the other 32 products, though. *cough* Thanko. *cough*

Haleron's iLet 10-inch tablet starts cheap, gets expensive, ships next week originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The EU, and various other stakeholders, *cough* Mozilla and Opera *cough*, filed suit against Microsoft in 2007, alleging that the act of only having Internet Explorer installed on the Windows operating system by default was an anti-competitive business move that violated EU antitrust laws. The suit proved effective, as European regulators and Microsoft executives have reached an agreement on how to move forward without the “help” of the courts. Microsoft has consented to a five year contract that requires all copies of Windows in the EU to present the end-user with a “Choice-Screen” that presents an option of 12-browsers to have install. Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, AOL, and Flock all made the short list along with a few lesser known browsers. Microsoft, which has already paid around $1.7 billion in EU fines due to the IE debacle, will face additional penalties if they decide not to honor the five year deal. Microsoft estimates that 100 million current Windows users will be presented with the pop-up while another 30 million will see it as a result of new hardware or software purchases. The “Choice Screen” will be presented to users running Windows 7, Vista, or XP, and will begin showing up next year.

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Concerned for a long-suffering Pandora pre-orderer in you life? Well, you might want to keep them away from sharp knives and their dormant SD card full of rare ROMs for the next few weeks. The device has seemed tantalizingly close in recent months, but new word from the front lines means that we won't be seeing the final devices ship out until well into the new year. Luckily, the list of tweaks sounds pretty minor, including an adjustment to shoulder button action perfection that we can all get behind, but we suppose it also serves as a sobering example of just how hard it can be to actually get good hardware (or even the crappy stuff) built. Cough, CrunchPad, cough.

[Thanks, Steve]

Pandora hits some production snags, will miss the holidays originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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