Cequint, which describes itself as a “pioneer in landline caller ID” claims that it was first to provide “enhanced mobile caller ID” by not just showing the phone number of a caller, but also the location from where the call originates. The first patent in question, #6,353,664, was filed in December of 1997 and granted to Lucent in 2002; Cequint acquired the patent in 2007. The second patent mentioned in the lawsuit, #7,200,212, was filed in January 2005 and granted to Cequint in April of 2007.

According to the patent, Cequint’s invention covers the retrieval of “the calling number delivery (CND) message from a local central office (CO) switch or mobile station switching center”, the storage containing “corresponding geographic information such as city and state by matching the area code and/or local exchange number received:, as well as a readout device to display the geographic information.

Cequint may have a clear-cut case here as Apple appears to be one of the very few missing customers of Cequint. AT&T, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, RIM, Samsung, Sharp, Sony Ericsson, T-Mobile and Verizon are listed as the company’s customers.

In its patent infringement lawsuit, Cequint asks to be compensated for Apple’s direct and indirect infringement on its patents.

SOURCE via Morris James (PDF)

Did you know that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has already produced 100 petabytes of data that needed to be sent out to labs across the world for analysis? Pushing that amount of information across the Internet is a gargantuan task, which is why Caltech teamed up with the Universities of Victoria, Michigan and Florida (International) amongst others to try and break the internet speed record. Using commercially available gear (including Dell servers with SSDs), it was able to push 98Gbps and pull 88Gbps down a single 100Gbps fibre-optic connection between the Washington State convention center in Seattle and the University of Victoria computing center in British Columbia. Head on past the break for a video that shows you how it was done.

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Subscribers to the beta and dev channels of Google’s browser have been enjoying the fruits of the company’s syncing labor for some time now. But, with the stable release of Chrome 16, the Mountain View crew is finally bringing those features to less adventurous users. An entry in the wrench menu offers you the option to “sign in to Chrome,” automatically syncing your installed apps, extensions, bookmarks, browsing history and settings. But, if you’ve got more than one user sharing the same PC, you can keep your experiences separate and customized by adding new users from the “Personal Stuff” page in the options menu. Then you’re just a couple of quick clicks on the user menu (that new icon in the upper left- or right-hand corner depending on your OS) away from alternating between sets of synced data. Head on after the break for a quick video demo.

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We’ve seen plenty of round mice, including Apple’s infamous puck, and many devices that derive power from a yo-yo-like pull string mechanism. So we’re not quite sure why we’ve never seen those two concepts married before. In retrospect, a wireless mouse charged by the kinetic energy of using it as a yo-yo seems like a painfully obvious idea. As an added bonus, this tiny pointer with an LCD battery gauge makes you get up every so often and get your limbs moving — thus saving you from chronic back pain. Huzzah! Of course, there’s no guarantee you’ll ever actually see one of these on shelves. Check out the source for a few more pics.

SOURCE via Yanko Design

We’ve seen plenty of wickedly weird watches, and plenty are tough to read for god knows why. However, this… this is nothing like them all. We do like a good indecipherable timepiece ’round these parts and Click’s KeyPad certainly fits the bill. Resembling an old-school mechanical numerical keypad, each button packs an LED — press any number and it’ll blink out the time in single digits, so if it was 9:15am, the zero, nine, one and five buttons would flash in sequence. Push the hash key and the watch will oblige you for today’s date. If you enjoy frustrating colleagues who ask you for the time, then you’ll be delighted to hear that it costs $90 and is shipping now. However, we’re not sure we could pull one off — maybe the hipster down the street will have better success.

SOURCE via Watchismo

Just in time to thank Grandma for that polyester blend sweater, comes more free domestic calling in Gmail for the US and Canada. In the spirit of holiday giving, Mountain View has decided to extend its gratis VoIP program for another year of free chatter. Of course, we’re not sure if the holiday cheer will last forever though, so let’s start calling your love ones more other shall we.

SOURCE via Google

Kvetching about your PND’s inability to get a proper lock could soon become a thing of the past, thanks in large part to a fresh breed of GPS satellites designed by the whiz-kids at Lockheed Martin. The program — which is estimated to eventually cost around $5.5 billion to complete — is set to hit its prototype phase by 2014, with a pathfinder being recently delivered to the same Colorado facility. The Block III prototype (more accurately known as the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed), won’t actually be hurtled into space, but the Air Force is slated to launch 32 of the final versions over the next few years. The aforementioned birds should improve power, reliability and accuracy, while also promising to be “harder for enemies to jam and easier for receivers to tune in, especially in urban canyons or under thick tree canopies.” Moreover, they’re expected to enable both denizens and military users to grab a position within three feet, compared to ten feet using today’s technology. In other news, they’re sure to cause LightSquared all sorts of new headaches.

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