The good news is that Microsoft prepared for this possibility ahead of time, and is prepared to remove the offending feature and have a clean product available for sale by the injunction date. Of course, this decision does not effect current owners of Office and Word products, nor does it affect the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010. OpenOffice users are also safe, as their suite has been cleared of any infringement. [Microsoft and Engadget]

Apparently Psystar has until the final second of this year, midnight on December 31, to cease all of these activities:

• Copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works of Mac OS X without authorization from Apple.
• Intentionally inducing, aiding, assisting, abetting or encouraging any other person or entity to infringe Apple's copyrighted Mac OS X software.
• Circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access Mac OS X, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers.
• Playing any part in a product intended to circumvent Apple's methods for controlling Mac OS X, such as the methods used to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers.
• Doing anything to circumvent the rights held by Apple under the Copyright Act with respect to Mac OS X.

It's noted that those rules laid down by judge William Alsup may not apply to "Psystar's Rebel EFI software, a $50 application that allows certain Intel-powered PCs to run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard," so this may not be the last we hear of the company. For now though, we can enjoy a few moments of quiet after this legal knockout. [Apple Insider]

Needless to say, the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) is super-illegal for the average Joe to use, and the breach last month has opened up the floodgates for countermeasures. DECAF is a lightweight app for Windows that deletes temporary files, clears all COFEE logs, disables USB drives, and contaminates or spoofs a variety of MAC addresses once the COFEE software is detected. Future versions could also add features that allow users to remotely lock down protected systems.

Of course, the two guys behind DECAF have not released the source code for the app citing fears that the signatures might be reverse engineered. That means it could be riddled with software that can do God-knows-what to your computer. In this case, it's probably best to switch to Tea—or some other drink that hasn't been corrupted. [DECAF via The Register via Wired UK Image via Gimme Coffee]

There's a battle raging (okay, it's actually being handled rather quietly through proper legal channels) right now between publishers and authors over who owns the digital publishing rights of older books. In one corner, you have the authors claiming that because ebook rights were not set explicitly, they retain the right to publish. In the other corner, you have the publishers claiming that ebooks fall under the category of "books" and as such they own the rights.

You can see how this gets messy. In 2002 a Manhattan judge ruled in favor of the authors. saying that ebooks are separate from books. But that's just one case, and there's sure to be more legal action to follow.

You can read more at the link. It's yet another interesting conflict over who owns what, brought about by the gadgets we create. [NY Times]

Time Names Droid as Gadget of the Year, iPhone Last Seen Crying in Corner

Time made their list of Gadgets of the Year and it looks like the Droid came out on top, followed by the Nook. The iPhone doesn't even get bronze and instead sits at fourth place this year. Youch. Do we even care about these lists anymore though? [Electronista]

What if Women Were as Horny and Pervy as Men?

This one made a few of us laugh like crazy, but heads up: There's definitely some man-crack visible sometime during the pole dancing sequence. Yes, that means this video is definitely NSFW unless your boss is Jason Chen and giggles right along with you.

2010's Color of the Year is Seriously Ugly

Apparently Pantone picked a color of the year already and, frankly, the description is almost as bad as the color:

Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green, Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of wellbeing

I have to be honest though, I probably only dislike #15-5519 Turquoise because I prefered 2009's #14-0848 Mimosa. [Crunchgear]

(Super Gay) Ron Livingston Does Not Understand the Internet

Alright, so I'm just baiting Office Space actor Ron Livingston a bit in that headline. I don't really know or care what his sexual orientation is or whether it's super or not. I just know that he's attempting to sue an anonymous Wikipedia editor for constantly changing his entry to state that "he is gay and officially confermed (sic) it in TMZ he is gay and darn proud."

Dear Ron, I've had far stranger things written about me, ranging from implications of vampirism to suggestions that I've got an obsession with space travel. I'm not suing. You shouldn't be either. [Wired]

Windows Server and Azure Get Blended Into Server & Cloud

Microsoft has created a new Server & Cloud Division which will include Windows Server and Azure. Like the name gives away, it'll focus on both on-premise and cloud solutions. Looks like it's mainly some reorganization for now and won't affect Microsoft's roadmaps. [ZDNET]

Dell's Twitter Account Generates $6.5 million in Revenue Over Two Years

I'd laugh at Dell for employing 100 people whose job is to man the company's Twitter accounts, but apparently it's paying off in the form of $6.5 million made from Twitter promoted offers. Not too shabby, Dell! [BGR]

The suit bears a lot of the stamps of hollow patent trollery, from the outside-the-industry plaintiff company to the oddly late filing. (The iPhone has been out for a couple years now, and it's had a camera the whole time.) But these guys aren't bullshitting: they have a history of winning similar suits against major camera maufacturers, including Sony, which paid them $25m in 2001, and Canon, which paid them $34m in damages in 2003. They've entered into licensing agreements with "many" of the companies they've sued, which include the likes of Samsung, Nokia and Nikon. So, what's their secret? Patents like this:
Digital cameras, have you ever heard of them?

To have a patent as fundamental as this—among others, including a patent on digital shutter buttons, and one for storage and display methods for digital images—awarded in the early 90s and upheld by the courts is nothing to scoff at. When this thing finally kicks off—the scheduling conference isn't until January, so it'll probably be a few months before we see fireworks—it'll be one to watch, since companies who land in court with Apple have a tendency to—one sec—DIE HORRIBLY. There. [LoopinSight, specific patent list here]

At first thought, Henrik Anderson seems crazy for doing something like this, but he's actually attempting to force clarification of the contradicting laws by bringing them in front of a court. He's doing this after his attempts to contact the Danish anti-piracy Antipiratgruppen, their lawyers, and the Association of Danish Video Distributors and discuss the issue were blown off, so he's definitely not just randomly deciding on an extreme approach.

So far no actual arrest has been made, so we'll have to wait to see how the whole thing plays out. Either way, Anderson's protesting an entirely paradoxical set of laws in a pretty ballsy way. [Torrent Freak via Boing Boing]

While the injunction's been denied, Spring Design has been granted an expedited pre-trial process to push the entire mess into court a bit faster, but at the rate Barnes & Noble will be making the Nook available, there's hardly any rush. [Engadget]

True, here the fMRI is being used by the defense as a means to elude the death penalty, and only in the sentencing portion of the trial—not as a tool of conviction, as a dubious EEG scan was used to convict a woman of murder in India last year. Specifically, the fMRI scan is being submitted as evidence that the defendant Brian Dugan's brain is abnormal—psychopathic—and so he shouldn't be subject to the death penalty. The jury disagreed, but took 10 hours to reach the decision that the state should kill Dugan for his crime. Without the scan, Dugan's defense attorney says it would've take them an hour.

It's kind of hard to grasp, conceptually, looking inside somebody's brain, literally peering into their mind. It's something from fiction, something paranormal—mind readers and psychics—as a means of detection, a means of determining right and wrong, truth and lies. Brain scans to determine how much punishment your crime merits logically leads into brain scans that figure out whether or not you committed the crime, into scans that reveal every crime you have committed, a persistent and inescapable confessional. What secrets would your brain spill? [Science Mag via Wired]

Datel maintains that Microsoft is "disabling or erecting technological barriers to Datel accessories" and thereby favoring its own products. For reference, Microsoft's 512MB memory unit is about $30, while a 2GB version from Datel is $40. Sounds like it might be worth supporting the little guy in this one. [Techflash]

Sorry about the previous typo, it's 512MB for $30 on the Microsoft memory unit, not 12MB.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten Sr remarked that people might "misunderstand" the commercials, "but that doesn't mean they're misleading." He continued to add that "most people who are watching TV are semi-catatonic" to begin with. Let's hope his train of thought remains during the follow-up hearing on December 16, because the case is starting to lose any entertainment value. [AJC via Engadget]

When your lawsuits sound like press releases, it's because they probably are (not that we care, the whole case is pretty entertaining). Check out this opening statement from Verizon:

AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon's "There's A Map For That" advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon's ads are true and the truth hurts.

YA BURNT, AT&T! Verizon goes on to accuse AT&T of failing to adequately expand its 3G coverage to match demand for its smartphones, which is sort of a hard point for AT&T to argue. Verizon claims that its advertisements are "literally true" (instead of philosophically true? Metaphorically true? True in the sense in which it is used in animal husbandry, as in purebred? What?) and not misleading, and that AT&T has failed to provide customers with an accurate map of its coverage. It's pretty great, really—if you've ever wished the American legal system was more like it is on Law and Order, this whole statement is a gift. [Engadget]

The pair supposedly had an eventual "crisis of conscience" and told Madoff that they would no longer lie for him. Of course, somehow their personal Jiminy Cricket crisis urged them to delete nearly all the programs designed to falsify records and take some cold hard cash for silence, too. Wonder what Jiminiy will say about the 30 years of prison time they now face. [NJ]

Here's how Intel describes the settlement:

Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices today announced a comprehensive agreement to end all outstanding legal disputes between the companies, including antitrust litigation and patent cross license disputes.

So, they're not fighting directly anymore, and the mountains of patent and antitrust disputes are resolved: Intel will pay this ridiculously large sum of money to AMD, and agree to not engage in anything even resembling monopolistic behavior, and both companies will live in harmony, cross-licensing technologies and competing, but softly! Great. Well, sort of: Intel's biggest problems right now don't come from other companies, but from governments: complaints from AMD no doubt helped spur investigations by the European Commission and New York Attorney General into Intel's business practices, and as part of the agreement AMD is withdrawing their complaints with both agencies, but the EC issued their $1bn+ fine quite a while ago, and from the looks of it, the AG's office is eager to move forward with their investigation too. In other words, this probably isn't the end of the pain for Intel.

That, kids, is why you don't engage in anticompetetive practices in a two-company industry. [WSJ Law Blog]

The leaks suggest that countries who sign up to the U.S promoted plan would have to force ISPs to proactively police copyright on user-generated content, cut off those accused (or face liability), and put "graduated response" clauses in customer contracts. An example of a graduated response is France's "three strikes and you're out" law. There, you get two warnings if caught sharing music or movies, then you're banned for up to two years.

This provision would mean that every country that signs up to ACTA must allow content owners such as record companies and Hollywood studios to sue ISPs for failing to stop their subscribers from illegally sharing copyright-protected material such as music and movies.

By the way, two major sources of counterfeiting—Russia and China—aren't in the talks. If you want to get your head further around the issue, these sites do a great job of breaking it all down: [Electronic Frontier Foundation and PC World via BoingBoing]

As a result of the individual motions by both companies, two hearings have been set for November 12 to determine whether there'll be a January trial. I'm not-so-secretly hoping that Judge William Alsup will look at the "user license agreements for both Mac OS X 10.5 and Mac OS X 10.6," arguments about Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the whole disc protection circumvention mess and make Apple and Psystar duke it out in court. Hell, I'll volunteer to transcribe the case for everyone's entertainment, stupid argument by stupid argument. Just make it happen. [AppleInsider via Crunch Gear]

As a safeguard, the FCC would also be required to protect legitimate communications by conducting tests, approving equipment and laying out specific rules about when and where signals could be blocked. As you might expect, the issue of inmates using cellphones to conduct nefarious business has become a problem over the last few years. The House still needs to approve the bill—but it seems like a no-brainer to me. I mean, think about all the time officers would save when they don't have to hunt for cellphones being smuggled in by carrier pigeons, R/C helicopters and buttholes. [WSJ via Phone Scoop via CrunchGear]

Given their earnest public defense of filesharing and aggressive posturing, I always assumed the Pirate Bay was just a couple of fellas, who happened to start a popular website, happened to get in trouble for it, and happened to become icons for a vocal, if misguided, movement against copyright. This, it turns out, is not the case: The real Pirate Bay is a shadowy property that's been passed from mysterious shell corporation to mysterious shell corporation, and seems awfully hard to get a read on, much less buy, according to Nate Anderson at Ars:

GGF wants to buy The Pirate Bay site from a mysterious company called Reservella, based in the Seychelles islands. Reservella has no known contact information, no website, and the company that helped it register in the Seychelles refuses to provide any contact information. The Pirate Bay's current admins claim to Ars that they don't even know who's behind the company. That's odd enough, but they also tell Ars that Reservella acquired the company from another unnamed company, who took it over in 2006 after the Swedish government seized some Pirate Bay servers.

The Bay's founders have "absolutely no connection" to Reservella, a "fact" which morphs this whole fiasco from a weird situation into an incomprehensible one.

On top of it all, Google has honored a DMCA complaint filed by a porn company called Evasive Angel, which alleges the Pirate Bay is hosting links to unauthorized content including Horny Black Mothers 8 and Big Butt Latin Maids 2. (No, really, it's in the filing.) Not that delisting the site from Google will stop anyone from going there, but still. UPDATE: The listings are back, and Google says the delisting was an error.

In short, the future doesn't look so great for anyone involved, be it the company that (still) wants to buy the Bay, the founders of the site, or people who use it regularly. Actually, no, scratch that: Everyone is screwed. [Ars Technica, BoingBoing Gadgets]

The issue Google takes with CyanogenMod isn't that it fundamentally changes Android—they're generally open to that, seeing as it's an open source project and all—but that the custom ROMs contain binaries of Google proprietary applications, like Maps, Talk and Gmail. Of course, this is a technicality, because the devices Cyanogen writes his customs ROMs for all ship with these apps in the first place. That's why Google's cease and desist spree seemed so silly, but also why it'll be so easy to legally circumvent. From Cyanogen:

Since I don't work with any of these closed source applications directly, what I intend to do is simply ship the next version of CyanogenMod as a "bare bones" ROM. You'll be able to make calls, MMS, take photos, etc. In order to get our beloved Google sync and applications back, you'll need to make a backup first. I'm working on an application that will do this for you.

I mean, I'm glad this won't amount to more than a small bump in the road for Cyanogen, but what exactly did Google accomplish here, aside from some hilariously bad PR?

UPDATE: A lot of folks in the comments are emphasizing that Google has good reason to uphold their copyright, if not just for precedent. That makes sense. What doesn't make sense, though, is why, given that they're so willing to communicate and cooperate with Cyanogen now, Google didn't just open a discussion in the first place, instead of sending him Cease and Desist letters. That was the bad PR. Discuss! [Cyanogen via Lifehacker]