Internal emails reveal Google's desperation over Skyhook's Android deal with Motorola

While Skyhook's lawsuit against Google has been ongoing since September, we've yet to hear the latter's side of the story to fight back anti-competition claims. That's all changed now that a Massachusetts state court has published a collection of internal emails from Mountain View, shedding some light on the reasons behind Motorola's -- and apparently Samsung's as well -- abandonment of Skyhook's XPS location service on its Android phones. In particular, soon after the deal was announced in April 2010, an Android product manager became worried that such a deal would pull more manufacturers away from Google's Location Service, thus jeopardizing the company's ability to maintain and improve its location database through continued data collection. "That would be awful for Google," wrote the manager.

Fair enough, but here comes the juicy part of the story: in the following month, Google informed Motorola that it wasn't happy with the way Skyhook blends location data from WiFi, GPS, and cellular signal. Or in Google's words: this is data "contamination." Despite Motorola refuting such concern, a week later it informed Skyhook that Google had told Moto that its choice for a third-party location service "renders the device [Droid X] no longer Android Compatible." It's not exactly clear what this compatibility issue is, but it's believed to be the ultimate reason that forced Motorola -- being a close pal of Google -- to drop Skyhook's XPS in favor of Google's Location Service. If you're still not feeling sorry for Skyhook, then note that last month Google called this "a baseless complaint" and a "thinly veiled fishing expedition" for internal Google documents and emails. Funnily enough, one email quotes an Android manager saying it was obvious to phone manufacturers that "we are using compatibility as a club to make them do things we want." Question is: which direction will the club swing now that the two companies are battling it out in court?

New York Times

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Manual for Alienware M11x with Sandy Bridge confirms NVIDIA GT540M graphics

If the previous Alienware M11x R3 spec leak got you all giddy, then we have some good news for you: according to a manual dug up by one of our eagle-eyed readers, it appears that this year's M11x refresh will indeed be coming with second-gen Core i5 ULV and Core i7 ULV options, along with a faster DDR3 bus (1333MHz instead of 800MHz), a higher-res webcam (2MP instead of 1.3MP), an HD TrueLife LCD, and optional 3G / 4G mobile broadband. But of course, the real meat on this laptop is its graphics card, which turns out to be an NVIDIA GeForce GT540M with either 1Gb or 2GB of dedicated memory -- not bad for a laptop of this size. Unsurprisingly, no dates or prices are mentioned here, but given the early start of inventory clearance, it shouldn't be long before Round Rock reveals all. Dell (ZIP)

Scientist cooks up adjustable strength metals

As you may know, crafting a katana is a delicate process that involves carefully constructing a razor-sharp high-carbon edge around a soft shock-absorbent core. One day though, smiths and forging fires could be replaced by electrode-wielding mad-scientists, with the technology to selectively harden and soften metal at will. At least that's what we envisioned when we read about Jörg Weißmüller's breakthrough research in the field of nanomaterials. The German scientist discovered that by placing precious metals in acid he could create tiny ducts through corrosion. Once those channels are flooded with a conductive liquid, electrical currents can be used to harden the material and, if you change your mind about the brittle results, the effect can easily be reversed to make it soft again. The tech could eventually lead to self-healing vehicle armor or scratch-resistant cellphones -- but, really, we just want to zap our way to a high-quality samurai sword. Physorg

Commodore USA puts the new C64 up for pre-sales, unveils far-less-retrotastic VIC-Slim

Desktops Commodore USA puts the new C64 up for pre-sales, unveils far-less-retrotastic VIC-Slim By Sean Hollister posted Apr 6th 2011 8:43PM Now that Commodore USA has sufficiently piqued your curiosity with a revamped Commodore 64 prototype, it's ready to capitalize on the idea. Quite literally, we might add. $595 buys you the basic basic model with an 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Atom D525 chip, NVIDIA ION 2 graphics, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive -- which it promises to deliver by "early June" -- with hundred-dollar increments adding premium features like an additional 2GB of memory, a Blu-Ray drive, up to 1TB of storage, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth. However, if you're simply looking for a compact keyboard computer (rather than reliving 80's nostalgia) there's another option on tap -- a likely rebadged thin wedge of a machine that Commodore's...

NYC

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