Filed under: Handhelds

So we were noodling around the laptop section at Best Buy the other day, semi-shocked at the relatively frenzied activity at the big box retailer, when we happened to glance over and notice a very lonely device being ignored by the throngs of shoppers. That poor, unloved gadget was none other than the Sony Reader, which saw a fair amount of hype prior to its (perpetually-delayed) release, but now seems to have basically slipped off most people's radar. Are people buying this thing? Has it developed a following? Is there a community devoted to software and hardware hacks? We're honestly not sure, which lead us to wonder how Sony could have changed things up to make the Reader -- in general, a solid concept -- a more desirable purchase for the mass market. Since it's surprisingly format agnostic for a Sony product, we don't expect to hear too many suggestions in the compatibility department, although there will understandably be some folks seeking support for WMA, non-BBeB protected content, native DOCs, and the like. That being said, should they have loaded it up with more flash, or at least made it compatible with memory cards bigger than 4GB? Would out-of-the-box support for Mac and Linux users help? How about a non-crippled RSS reader? (Hey, at least they hooked you up with Engadget, though). Help us out here, people, what would it take to send you home with a brand new Sony Reader?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

As the Verizon/Vonage patent trial moves onto the next phase, Vonage is clearly trying to use the Supreme Court's new ruling on patent obviousness to get Verizon's patents tossed out. Vonage lost in its request to have a retrial at the district court level, but they're still using the new Supreme Court rules at the appeals court. However, Verizon is claiming that this is unfair and that since Vonage didn't bring up these issues at the lower court level it can't use the new obviousness test in the appeals court either. It is true that the appeals court is supposed to focus on the arguments that were made at the lower court, but the situation gets trickier when the fundamental rules have changed in between the cases. Still, it's amusing to have Verizon claiming that Vonage should have known about this new obviousness ruling before the Supreme Court even made the ruling. Verizon's suit claims that there was plenty of publicity about the KSR case, which is true, but that doesn't mean that Vonage (or anyone) had any idea how the Supreme Court would rule. Of course, even without the ability to use the new obviousness test, it seems like all the new prior art that's coming to light should raise questions about Verizon's VoIP patents. Verizon's filing also asks the court to bring back the injunction while whining about how many customers it's losing to Vonage. What they don't explain is that they might be losing customers because Vonage offers a better cheaper service and Verizon doesn't want to compete -- but that probably doesn't play as well in court.