In an interesting turn of events, Seattle PI is reporting that a Texas judge has ordered Microsoft to cease all sales of its famed word processor in the US within 60 days. No, seriously. The injunction came as the result of a patent dispute between Canadian software company i4i and Microsoft regarding the processes with which Word handles XML files. This isn’t the first victory for i4i over the Washingtonian beast either — back in May a court awarded the company $200 million in damages as it found Microsoft had knowingly infringed on the same patent. That judgment is still being appealed and of course Microsoft isn’t going to stop selling Word any time soon as a result of this new injunction. In the end, Redmond will appeal related rulings as long as it can and then it’ll cut a check and be done with the matter. Oh yes, it will be a large check.

[Via Mashable]

Read

You remember Peek, don’t you? Well the company is back and confident yet again that it’s going to take the world by storm with the new Peek Pronto. Retailing for $79.95, the Pronto ups the ante from its past offering by allowing users to manage up to five email accounts with push and support for PDFs, DOCs and pictures on a device with a full-QWERTY keypad, 8MB of internal memory and a 2.5″ QVGA 65,000-color display. As with the original Peek, the Pronto runs contract-free on T-Mobile’s GPRS network for $19.95 per month, which not only includes unlimited email but also unlimited text messages via an email gateway. So will the Pronto take off like its predecessor never did? Who knows, but one thing is for sure — if the new Peek Pronto is named Time Gadget of the Year, we might have to close up shop.

Read