(Groklaw)
The giant that is Google has stirred and stepped ponderously into , filing a request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for reexamination of the two patents Lodsys is . According to Groklaw, Google is contesting that the patents aren't actually novel and is citing five pieces of prior art as evidence. When reached for comment, noted patent expert Scooby Doo said: "Ruh roh."
(The Next Web)
HP's webOS hardware apparently died as it lived--with a lack of clarity. A report in The Next Web suggests that executives as highly placed as HP's vice president of webOS software found out about the axing when HP on Thursday. To be fair, though, they really should have seen the clues, such as the thousands of TouchPads just lying around the office .
(The Next Web)
Speaking of the TouchPad, The Next Web has a separate report that the webOS software may have actually been tested on an iPad--on which it ran twice as fast. , but we buy it: I mean, . Seriously. You ever tried Flash sites in Mobile Safari? They load so fast you can't even .
(Delimiter)
You think Apple products are expensive here? Try , mate. In fact, the markup on Cupertino's goods in the land Down Under is so high that one member of the country's parliament has been bugging Apple for an explanation. Unsurprisingly, the company has yet to respond, leading Federal Labor MP Ed Husic to threaten an investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (motto: That's not anticompetitive behavior-- is anticompetitive behavior).