The Geekcast

News:

While some patent lawsuits continue to drag on, the battle between TiVo and Verizon over DVR technology has come to a resolution. In exchange for cross licensing their patents and dismissing all pending litigation, the two parties have agreed Verizon will pay TiVo $100 million up front followed by recurring quarterly payments totaling $150.4 million through July 2018, as well as monthly license fees for each FiOS DVR user above certain levels. Now that they’re no longer at war the two companies may find a few things to work together on, and there is a provision for “certain commercial initiatives” which, if pursued this year, could count as credits toward the amount Verizon has agreed to pay.

Additionally, the press release indicates they are exploring support for the upcoming Redbox Instant service (which Verizon is a partner in) on TiVo’s DVRs. This all follows TiVo’s $215 million settlement with AT&T earlier this year and last year’s $500 million agreement with Dish Network. Meanwhile, lawsuits are still pending against Cisco, Time Warner Cable and Motorola.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/24/tivo-settles-patent-lawsuit-with-verizon-for-at-least-250-milli/

Myspace Plans a Reboot — Again

Myspace, the long-beleaguered social network, announced plans Monday for a site-wide redesign that will include a complete visual refresh.

Details of the new site were unveiled in a promotional video that previewed a drastically different, horizontally oriented user interface and a continued emphasis on music, one of the site’s strong points in its nearly 10-year existence.

The brief unveiling comes more than a year after News Corp. (AllThingsD’s parent company) sold Myspace at a half-a-billion-dollar loss to Specific media for $35 million, after suffering through years of a flagging user base, in sharp contrast to the skyrocketing success of Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site.

Redesigns are not new to Myspace’s efforts to kickstart its site’s activity. Last year, Specific media made the rounds to advertisers to make the case for Myspace, billing the site as the “#1 online community music destination,” relying heavily on the existing content rights agreements that it had with the four major record labels. Specific went so far as to call Myspace the “Hulu of music.”

In 2010, there was another attempt to revive the site with then-CEO Mike Jones at the helm; back then, the aim was to create a “social entertainment site” aimed at Gen-Y, Web-savvy users. The redesign was largely ignored by the crowd the company was targeting; News Corp. sold less than a year after relaunch.

We’ll see if the leadership of Justin Timberlake, one of the site’s major backers, can help with the renewed push into emphasizing music as the site’s platform.

http://allthingsd.com/20120924/myspace-plans-a-reboot-again/?refcat=news

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins: ‘we have a clear shot at being number three’

Speaking to the press today shortly after the unveiling of the latest beta version of BlackBerry 10 and a new developer device, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins discussed BlackBerry 10′s chances on the market. He argues that BlackBerry 10 is going to have a chance to beat Windows Phone 8 out as the next platform after iPhone and Android. “We have a clear shot at being the number three platform on the market. We’re not just another open platform on the market, we are BlackBerry.”

“It has all the table stakes we need to have for consumer [success],” Heins said. He pointed out that the unique features of BlackBerry 10, including the BlackBerry Hub and its new multitasking UI, add on to those stakes to represent a real contender. He was careful to note that the BlackBerry Hub, in particular, is more compelling than it seems at first blush, “BlackBerry Hub is not just a unified inbox.” He also continued a theme that RIM has been hitting often lately, that the iPhone UI is getting a little long in the tooth. That’s something that Microsoft has also pointed out, that jumping in and out of apps may not be ideal for power users. For Heins, it’s about better multitasking: “The application grid is a reservoir,” he says, from which you can simply “throw [apps] into your multitasking zone” where you will actually use them. It is indeed a new smartphone interaction model, but whether it will appeal to the audiences that RIM is trying to reach — consumers, power users, enterprise users, and those oft-mentioned “BlackBerry People” — remains to be seen.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/25/3406824/rim-ceo-thorsten-heins-clear-shot-number-three

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Aaron: Querying out my book after 4 years.

More Doctor Who

Revolution

Gozer:  Avengers. X2 Movie review: End of Watch & Cabin in the Woods

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The Geek’s Choice:

Set five years after the events of Borderlands, Handsome Jack, the game’s main antagonist, has taken over the Hyperion corporation, has declared himself Dictator of Pandora and stolen all of the credit for finding the Vault, going so far to claim responsibility for killing the Destroyer. Jack has also blotted out much of the light on the planet by having a giant orbiting H-shaped base set in front of Pandora’s stationary moon. The new team in Borderlands 2 is tasked with killing Jack and returning peace to Pandora.

Characters:

Borderlands 2 initially has four player characters:

• Axton (Commando)

• Maya (Siren)

• Salvador (Gunzerker)

• Zer0 (Assassin)

DLC characters:

• Gaige (Mechromancer) – Releases on October 16, 2012

4 Player Co-op and 2 player split screen

Weapons: Gun Manufacturers 6 different kinds, elemental damage for certain guns, do not affect enemies who have that elemental skill

• Character customization – New gear, skins, and “heads” will be made available as drops from bosses and certain enemies and as mission, challenge, and levelling rewards, and will feature varying grades of rarity.

• E-Tech – A holdover from the original Borderlands’ Eridian weapons E-Tech is a barrel modification technique that works with all brands of weapons. [9]

• Badass Points – Used for tracking overall ranking. The harder the challenge is, the more Badass Points are racked up.

• Optional objectives – There are now objectives that the player can complete that are not required (like keeping an ally above 50% health). Rewards are being tabulated.

• Elemental nerfing – Whereas in Borderlands an elemental-based enemy (e.g. a fire skag) could be killed with sheer bullet damage from a similarly based elemental weapon (e.g. a Hellfire SMG), in Borderlands 2 enemies will take significantly less damage from weapons utilizing elements they have a resistance to.

• Multiple Choice Quests – Some quests will feature a choice in how they will be completed. For example, after retrieving questionable photos of Moxxi for Marcus, Moxxi makes a counter-offer to deliver the photos to her. These choices are largely for entertainment but Gearbox has hinted that decisions made during some of the quests can significantly affect the storyline. The player will also have choices in mission rewards.

• Trading Interface – A trading system will allow players to formally trade or sell items. Players can also wager items to be dueled for.

• Traps – Some normally loot-dropping items (chests, plant pods, etc.) will contain traps (monsters jumping out, corrosive goo spraying, etc.).

• Adaptive Shields – Some shields will grant the elemental resistance of whatever damage type they were last struck by.

• One Point Wonders – “Game changer” skills that can change available options and gameplay style but only require a small investment to unlock at a basic level.

• Eridium – A new element that can be used to augment other elemental powers. [10] It is also a currency that can be used to buy the most powerful weapons and upgrade backpack space capacity and weapon ammo capacity. Enemies can use their own Eridium, this can be shot out of their hands before use.

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