Promises online musical treasure chest

The Pirate Bay, the controversial Swedish piracy torrent tracker, is launching a music site where users can share as much music as they want.

Well, that certainly didn't take very long at all. Just a day after the Supreme Court smacked down the Federal Circuit for not properly reviewing patents for "obviousness," Vonage has used the case as an opportunity to ask the courts for a retrial in their VoIP patent lawsuit with Verizon. Vonage claims that, under the new obviousness test, Verizon's patents may be toast. When combined with recent discoveries of prior art that certainly may be true. This certainly is opportunistic of Vonage, but it will be interesting to see how the courts react to this request. One that that's definitely become clear is that courts at all levels are actually going to have to look more closely at obviousness, rather than brushing it off as they have for years. In the meantime, expect many more cases along these lines in the near future. It may clog the system for a bit, but if the end result is fewer bogus patents, it's worth it.

Lockheed Martin's appeal for ukskunkworks.co.uk fails

Defence company Lockheed Martin Corporation has lost its attempt to gain control of a web address currently hosting a site devoted to cannabis paraphernalia. The ruling (pdf) on the .co.uk domain was an appeal from an earlier ruling.

Hiccup may have eaten your data

After thousands of Google users lost their calendar and digital sticky notes when personalised settings mysteriously disappeared last week, the explanation seems to be "iGoogle".

Sony will open its Home to guests this summer, the consumer electronics giant has said. No, we're not talking some tedious Hello-esque celebrity fawn-a-thon, but the Second Life-style alternative world for the PS3.