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Original Project Grizzly suit being auctioned off
Troy Hurtubise has certainly auctioned off a few grizzly fighting suits before (not to mention the Halo-inspired Trojan), but this is likely your one and only shot at procuring the original Project Grizzly Mk VI suit worn by Troy himself in the generally unknown cult classic Project Grizzly. The suit is being offered to the highest bidder as the Grizzly Proof exhibit in Toronto shuts down, and while the starting bid sits at $500, it'll take upwards of 40 grand before Mr. Hurtubise's debts associated with the suit are cleared. C'mon, you know that's all the reason you need to throw your hat into the ring.[Thanks, Cantraider]
Darren Murph07.07.2008
EA sued by gamers over football exclusivity
Two gamers have filed a lawsuit against Electronic Arts, alleging that the publisher's exclusivity agreements with the NFL, NCAA and Arena Football have led to anti-competitive practices. The focus of the suit, according to Gamespot, stems from EA's actions after sales of Take-Two's NFL 2K5 pushed the publisher to drop Madden 2005 from $50 to $30. Instead of competing with Take-Two, according to the suit, EA entered into multiple exclusivity agreements and was able to raise the price of Madden 2006 back to $50.Additionally, the suit notes that should the EA-Take-Two acquisition come to fruition, it would "remove one of the few companies with the ability and expertise to compete in the market for interactive football software." The plaintiffs seek restitution for all those who purchased an EA football game after August 2005, "disgorgement of all profits made as a result of anticompetitive actions, and that the infringing agreements be declared null and void."
Ross Miller06.12.2008
Los Angeles to sue Time Warner Cable over shoddy service
Far from being the first time Time Warner Cable has upset its subscriber base, the Los Angeles city attorney's office is pulling a Dee Snider and refusing to take the carrier's lackluster service anymore. In a 25-page lawsuit, the city is alleging that the operator "caused major havoc and distress" two years ago when it "failed to live up to its part of the franchise cable agreement requiring that a company answer subscribers' calls within 30 seconds and begin repairs of service interruptions within 24 hours of notification in 90% of its calls for service." The suit claims that no more than 60% of customer calls were answered in time, and cable / internet service was said to be "so intermittent and inferior in quality that it was not much better than no service at all." Not surprisingly, TWC representatives chose not to comment on the whole ordeal, but the outfit could face civil penalties of tens of millions of crisp US dollars in the case. Should've picked up the phone, TWC -- it would've been easier than picking up this tab. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family][Image courtesy of Web 2 Concepts, thanks Scott]
Darren Murph06.06.2008
Voom HD claims over $1 billion in damages from DISH Network drop
If you had a sneaking suspicion that somewhat just wasn't right when all 15 of the VOOM HD networks suddenly vanished from DISH Network's lineup, um, you were right. Apparently EchoStar (now DISH Network) and VOOM Networks had inked a 15-year deal in 2005 that would give the latter "a license fee of $3.25 a month per HD subscriber receiving VOOM." Now, VOOM has "filed an amended complaint against EchoStar, claiming it will suffer more than $1 billion in damages." More specifically, it notes that "EchoStar had no right to terminate the affiliation agreement on the basis of a trumped-up and pretextual claim of breach simply because it no longer liked the deal it struck." As expected, EchoStar is remaining mum on the subject, but its ex-partner is seeking "substantial damages in an amount to be determined at trial." This one could get real ugly, and fast.
Darren Murph06.03.2008
Pacer Suit gives you the perfect excuse for doing the Macarena
We've certainly seen musical gizmos meshed with wearables before, but the Pacer Suit doesn't even pretend to be anything other than a cacophonic jumpsuit (with a beastly set of kneepads). Laced with sensors and integrated speakers, the suit sends out tones based on movements from the person within. Heck, there's even a headphone jack if you're looking to be courteous while bustin' a move on the subway. In case you couldn't guess, the creation is still a concept for now, but we could totally see this becoming a cult classic in the underground scene.[Via Gadgetremote]
Darren Murph05.29.2008
Dell engaged in misleading business practices, says NY judge
According to a state judge in Albany, New York, Dell and its financing arm "engaged in deceptive business practices related to financing promotions for its computers and technical support." The decision, which was just released yesterday, contained quotes from NY State Supreme Court Justice Joseph C. Teresi stating that the Round Rock mega-corp dabbled in "repeated misleading, deceptive and unlawful business conduct, including false and deceptive advertising of financing promotions and the terms of warranties, fraudulent, misleading and deceptive practices in credit financing and failure to provide warranty service and rebates." The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo last year, and while Mr. Cuomo was understandably delighted with the outcome, a Dell spokesman made clear that it didn't agree with the decision and it would be "defending its position vigorously." As for potential restitution for NYers, we won't know any of that until further proceedings are held.[Thanks, Nate]
Darren Murph05.28.2008
Sprint gets slapped with debt downgrade, lawsuit
If there's one thing Sprint doesn't need at the moment, we'd say that "a harder time getting cash" ranks high on the list. That's where big ol' number three finds itself at the moment, though, thanks to a credit downgrade by Standard & Poor's from "BBB-" to "BB," a move that puts its bonds squarely in junk territory. S&P has some harsh words for Sprint regarding the move, too, explaining that it went down thanks to its "assessment that Sprint Nextel's business risk profile is no longer supportive of an investment-grade rating given its deteriorating operating performance and lack of visibility in the wireless business." Lack of visibility in the wireless business, eh? Snap! The junkification of Sprint's debt coincides with the installment of a new CFO -- purely a coincidence, no doubt -- effective immediately.But wait, the bad news isn't over. A workers' lawsuit filed in US District Court last week alleges that Sprint dumped pension plan cash into Sprint stock at a time when... well, let's just say that it wasn't exactly a solid investment. The suit names 12 Sprint board members as co-defendants and looks to recover the money lost as Sprint stock slid into the basement; furthermore, it's looking to garner class-action status, meaning that the carrier could potentially owe money to a whole boatload of employees if the plaintiffs win the whole shebang.Read - Debt downgrade, new CFORead - Pension plan lawsuit
Chris Ziegler05.04.2008
Creative could pay class-action settlement over exaggerated MP3 capacities
Couldn't fit those last two Oingo Boingo albums on your Zen when you thought you had enough space? Get ready for payback, because if you own a Creative Labs MP3 player made between May 5, 2001 and April 30, 2008, you could be entitled to a class-action settlement over this very issue. The proposed settlement -- not the first of its kind -- will force Creative to "make certain disclosures regarding the storage capacity of its hard disc drive MP3 players" and give a 50% discount on a new 1GB player or 20% off any item purchased at Creative's online store, if it's approved by the court. For its part, Creative denies any wrongdoing, but it looks like it's offering up the settlement to smooth thing over with consumers -- but you know it's going to fight the $900,000 requested by plaintiffs' attorneys in fees. Applications are due by August 7, 2008, so start digging up those serial numbers.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Joshua Fruhlinger05.01.2008
Gibson fires Guitar Hero lawsuit at Wal-Mart, other retailers
Last we checked we actually weren't in the Twilight Zone, but quite frankly, the bigwigs at Gibson just might be. Seemingly out of nowhere, the famed guitar manufacturer sparked up a lawsuit against Activision claiming that Guitar Hero titles violate one of its patents. Now the company appears to be on the warpath, suing Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop, Amazon, Toys 'R' Us and Kmart in an attempt to get the game off of store shelves. Reportedly, Gibson took "this action reluctantly, but is required to protect its intellectual property." For the retailers that did comment, they chimed in only to say "we aren't commenting," and judging by the looks of things, the games are still widely available -- for now.
Darren Murph03.21.2008
Blizzard loses a round in the fight against botting
In Blizzard's attempts to get rid of gold farmers and hackers, one of their most annoyingly persistent enemies has been the WoWGlider bot, now known as MMOGlider. They've been throwing suits and countersuits at each other for a few years now, but the latest salvo seems to have gone against Blizzard, the Game Activist reports. Blizzard was trying to subpoena Joe Thaler, owner of Lavish Software LLC, maker of programs such as EQPlayNice. While Lavish Software's programs do not appear to be cheat programs on their own, they did make a deal with MDY Industries, maker of MMOGlider, to use the programs within MMOGlider. According the judge's decision, Blizzard was hoping to obtain all documentation related to the deal, all communication between Thaler and Lavish and MDY and its owner, Michael Donnelly. They also wanted a list of all WoW accounts owned by Thaler and Lavish, as well as the contents of the WTF folders of every installation of WOW used by Thaler and Lavish Entertainment. Unfortunately, the Judge ruled that Blizzard was demanding information that could compromise Lavish's trade secrets and client confidentiality, and that the demand for the information within 9 days did not give Thaler and Lavish enough time to respond an gather information. It's worth noting that the judge did specifically say that Blizzard could file another subpoena that would be more narrow in scope and allow more time for Lavish and Mr. Thaler to respond, so this is probably not a fatal blow to Blizzard by any means. I personally hope not. I've never had much patience for bots, or people who feel they have a civil right to cheat at games, so I'm rooting for the big bad corporation on this one. What about you? Thanks for the link, Tyrsenus.
Daniel Whitcomb03.20.2008
Toshiba sued for cloning Fujitsu's RakuRaku handset
It's fairly commonplace for Chinese manufacturers to crank out clones of other popular wares, but apparently, things aren't brushed off as easily when the cloning gets done by a mega-corp like Toshiba. Granted, quite a bit is lost in translation here, but the long and short of it is that NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu are suing Tosh for creating and selling its 821T -- which, as you can see above, looks an awful lot like Fujitsu's RakuRaku handset. Reportedly, the plaintiffs have demanded that Softbank Mobile withdraw the 821T from the market, but it seems there's quite a bit more back-and-forth left to go down before the dust settles on this one.[Via GearFuse]
Darren Murph03.17.2008
TracFone wins a cool million in unlocking lawsuit
Mass unlocking and reselling of prepaid phones has been a pretty hot topic as of late, with AT&T taking its high-power legal team out of its holster recently and TracFone famously pursuing unlockers for some time now. In fact, according to the latest press release, TracFone has now filed a bewildering 28 lawsuits against a grand total of 80 defendants (including one disconcertingly called "Skynet"), all in an effort to stamp out the so-called "theft of subsidy" concept that rips off TracFone when its ultra-cheap phones are worked over and sold elsewhere. The legal angle seems to be working, too, with a $1 million judgment being handed down this week against a guy (who goes by no fewer than three names, it seems) in a Texas federal court.[Via HotCellularPhone.com]
Chris Ziegler03.11.2008
AT&T gets slapped for deceptive third-party charges
Suffering a rash of complaints after allegedly free ringtone downloads from shady random companies started showing up on AT&T subscribers' bills, the state of Florida stuck it to the carrier -- and they've agreed to pay up. AT&T and the state have jointly announced that as much as $10 million or more could ultimately be refunded to customers, depending on how many folks file claims, in addition to a $2.5 million fine payable to the state itself and $500,000 for educating consumers on "safe internet use." What's really funny about the whole deal is that Florida's attorney general has flat-out admitted that they went after AT&T only because the actual offenders -- the fly-by-night shops operating the free ringtone schemes -- were too difficult to round up and sue. The carrier has said that it has since made unauthorized charges more difficult to rack up, and is quick to point out that other carriers have been just as guilty of allowing the shady dealings; indeed, Florida says there are other investigations underway.
Chris Ziegler03.03.2008
Realtors bring suit against U-verse
In case you've been hiding in a cave, you know the real estate market in the US is experiencing a kind of meltdown these days. It's probably no coincidence, then, that The National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NARB) has turned to a classic alternative revenue stream -- the lawsuit. NARB has brought suit against AT&T, citing the exploding batteries in some U-verse cabinets as damper on property value. NARB claims that sales in areas near the affected cabinets "will show a dramatic drop-off until their security is ensured," which will in turn negatively impact the livelihood of realtors. Oh, if only blame could be laid at the feet of "supply and demand" issues instead!
Steven Kim02.21.2008Samsung sued for defective Blu-ray players
We'll be straight with you -- we aren't surprised one iota by this one. For those keeping tabs, Samsung's slate of Blu-ray players have been plagued with issues essentially from day one, and while it has released a flurry of firmware updates over the years in an attempt to mend a variety of incompatibility issues, even its recent BD-UP5000 hybrid player is being axed early on after giving owners all sorts of fits. Apparently, one particular buyer isn't taking things lying down, and has decided to file suit against the mega-corp alleging that it has sold "defective Blu-ray players" to consumers. According to the suit, Sammy was "fully aware of the defective nature of the player [BD-P1200, in particular] at the time of manufacture and sale," and it also claims that the firm has "failed to provide a remedy consistent with the products' intended and represented uses." More specifically, the verbiage picks on the units' inability to play back select BD titles, and while some fixes have indeed been doled out, we still get the feeling many consumers have been left dissatisfied. Needless to say, this outcome should be interesting.[Thank, Nfinity and Prey521]
Darren Murph02.09.2008
Lawsuit could force Verizon to pay up for "illegal ETFs"
Simmer down, Verizon subscribers. A trial date has yet to be set, but apparently, an arbitrator has "certified a huge class action against Verizon Wireless" that could cost it nearly $1 billion in refunds of early termination fees. Reportedly, this case marks the "largest class ever certified in arbitration, with approximately 70 million members of the subscriber class." Essentially, the lawsuit is attempting to extract refunds for hordes of VZW customers that were charged with "illegal ETFs," and while a company spokesperson unsurprisingly declined comment, we're hearing that the trial could get going as early as mid-2008. That's two, who's next?[Image courtesy of Spusa]
Darren Murph01.30.2008
Patent granted on smartphones, everyone sued
What would you do if the US patent office gave you the go-ahead on a far-reaching, non-specific application filed for a "mobile entertainment and communication device"? If your answer was that you would immediately draw up lawsuits against almost every major electronics manufacturer that even looked at a smartphone funny, you get a cookie. Yes folks, as impossible as it is to believe, the holders of the aforementioned patent have just sued Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, AT&T, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, and Samsung... amongst others. So eager was this company to sue, in fact, that legal papers were filed a day before the patent was granted, and subsequently had to re-submitted. The real sucker-punch here is that the patent simply combines a list of prior technologies jumbled into one product, a practice which has recently been ruled against by the Supreme Court. Still, we doubt it will stop the holders from trying to nab a few dollars in settlements, staying the work of real innovators, and generally making a mockery of our patent system. Bravo![Via Slashdot]
Joshua Topolsky01.25.2008
Wearable farming robot suit takes the load off
Hard to believe we're seeing yet another wearable robot suit emerge from Japan, eh? All sarcasm aside, there actually is a newcomer to the curiously growing market courtesy of Shigeki Toyama and colleagues from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. The aptly dubbed farming robot suit is a strap-on contraption that makes lifting objects much easier than nature intended, reportedly reducing the wear and tear (read: force) placed on one's joints, knees and back by around 50-percent. Additionally, the suit will be programmable depending on the type of work being done, but we've no idea if any third-party attachments (you know, rubber band launchers, integrated HMDs, etc.) are in the works. On the real, you'll be looking at around ¥500,000 ($4,559) to ¥1,000,000 ($9,117) to ease your load, but that could dip as low as ¥200,000 ($1,823) per suit if mass production becomes viable.[Via The Register]
Darren Murph01.17.2008
Qualcomm gets spanked for failing to turn over evidence in Broadcom case
We know that minding your P's and Q's can be a challenge in a lawsuit as long, drawn out -- and frankly, boring as the ongoing Qualcomm / Broadcom patent dispute, but isn't this just a little sloppy? Qualcomm has been fined a hefty $8.6 million for "failing" to turn over a veritable wheelbarrow of evidence in the Broadcom case, and here's the real kicker: the money goes straight into Broadcom's pocket. Seriously, at this point, wouldn't it have been way cheaper for Qualcomm to just pony up the licensing fee?
Chris Ziegler01.09.2008
Microsoft's free Arcade title not enough, still hit with lawsuit over Xbox Live outages
We can't say that we're shocked to hear this -- you know, considering just how long those Xbox Live holiday blues went on -- but Microsoft is indeed being slapped with a class action lawsuit over the aforementioned outages. Reportedly, a trio of angered Texans are alleging that Microsoft didn't abide by its own contract when network issues disallowed a good chunk of Live users from getting their fix over the past few weeks. According to the complaint, MSFT understood that the time of year would lead to increased activity, yet "failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers." Of course, we're betting the Redmond-based lawyers point out that clause about not guaranteeing any minimum level of service, but who knows, maybe we'll all end up with two shiny new Arcade titles.[Thanks, Andre and Ben]
Darren Murph01.05.2008