Comcast Wins Ruling From FCC, Net Neutrality Takes Another Blow

It seems like only yesterday that the FCC Chairman announced their support of Net Neutrality. It seemed then that having the FCC on Net Neutrality's side was a massive coup in the ongoing battle to keep the corporations grubby hands off of our pipes. Now it seems as though that's not necessarily the case. The U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. just ruled that the FCC "lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks". In this particular case, Comcast was being investigated for throttling bittorrent speeds back in '07. This is a big fat blow to Net Neutrality, which is vital for sites and shows like ours to survive. Head to Save The Internet to find out more about Net Neutrality.

Apple Going After HTC For Patent Infringement

Ok, this is about to get messy. Apple announced yesterday that they are taking legal action against HTC for infringing 20 patents pertaining to the iPhone. Thing is, these patents are VERY broad and could potentially be applied to any touchscreen device. For example: "Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image"....oh, really, Apple? You mean every single device with a touch screen? I mean, literally every device. But, there are also some non-graphical hardware-specifica patents HTC is getting hit for like: "GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality".

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Skype Class-Action Settled

I woke up this morning to an email from a class-action suit against Skype. Apparently, if you purchased credits from Skype that expired before December 31, 2009, you're eligible for a $4.00 credit. What happened was that the class-action suit claimed that allowing credits to expire after 180 days was against the laws imposed on gift certificates and so should also apply to Skype credits. Skype settled, dropped the 180 day rule, and now you get $4.00! All the information is after the jump.

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