CowTipperGore writes "The AP reports (via Yahoo!) that Nintendo of America Inc. has been ordered to pay a small East Texas gaming company $21 million for infringing on a patent while designing controllers for its popular Wii and GameCube systems. No stranger to lawsuits over controller designs, a Nintendo spokesman said the company will seek an appeal. The suit was originally filed in 2006 and included Microsoft. Microsoft's aggressive legal push back apparently helped as they reached a (confidential) settlement agreement before the case went to trial."

Iddo Genuth writes to mention that MIT researchers have made their first pass at bringing the common yellow post-it note into the digital age. Using a combination of artificial intelligence, RFID, and ink recognition, the team hopes to make the digital version as ubiquitous as possible. "The Quickie application not only allows users to browse their notes, but also lets users search for specific information or keywords. Using a freely available commonsense knowledge engine and computational AI techniques, the software processes the written text and determines the relevant context of the notes, categorizing them appropriately. "The system uses its understanding of the user's intentions, content, and the context of the notes to provide the user with reminders, alerts, messages, and just-in-time information" - said the inventors. Additionally, each Quickie carries a unique RFID tag, so that it can be easily located around the house or office. Therefore, users can be sure never to lose a bookmarked book or any other object marked with a Quickie."

Rob O'Neill writes "A Kiwi open source developer is working on a self-replicating 3D printer, RepRap, to be made available under the GNU license. 'The 3D printer works by building components up in layers of plastic, mainly polylactic acid (PLA), which is a bio-degradable polymer made from lactic acid. The technology already exists, but commercial machines are very expensive. They also can't copy themselves, and they can't be manipulated by users, says Vik Olliver. RepRap has a different idea. The team, which is spread over New Zealand, the UK and the US, develops and gives away the designs for its much cheaper machine, which also has self-copying capabilities. It wants to make the machine available to anybody — including small communities in the developing world, as well as people in the developed world, says Olliver. Accordingly, the RepRap machine is distributed, at no cost, under the GNU (General Public License).'"

ddanier writes "Now that all major browsers have mastered the ACID2 test (at least in some preview versions), work on ACID3 has begun. The new test will focus on ECMAScript, DOM Level 3, Media Queries, and data: URLs. 100 tests will be put into functions each returning either true or false depending on the result of the test. The current preview of ACID3 is still missing 16 tests."

TheBrutalTruth writes "Bug Labs will soon be launching what Webware calls 'the LEGO of gadgets.' From their site: 'BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (ex: a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc). You decide which functions to include and BUG takes care of the rest, letting you try out different combinations quickly and easily. With BUG and the integrated programming environment/web community (BUGnet), anyone can build, program, and share innovative devices and applications. We don't define the final products — you do.'" Looks a bit vaporous, but conceptually interesting.