The Apple part of the iPhone battery class-action lawsuit has been dismissed by U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, who looked at the claims brought by Jose Trujillo and deemed them as dumbtastically stoopeed. Not exactly in those words, but I know that’s exactly what he meant with his words:

Apple disclosed on the outside of the iPhone package that the “battery has limited recharge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced by Apple service provider.” Under the circumstances, no reasonable jury could find that deception occurred.

However, AT&T is still a defendant in the case. Judge Kennelly denied the company’s motion to compel arbitration, saying that at the time of purchase Trujillo didn’t have access to the terms of service documentation. The next hearing will be on September 29. [Bloomberg]

Source:iPhone Battery Lawsuit Dismissed, Steve Won't Send Luca Brasi [Apple]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

We’ve already seen a few apparent Windows 7 screenshots and videos turn up, and it looks like there could soon be plenty more where those came from, as Microsoft has now officially announced that it’ll be handing out “pre-beta” builds of the OS at both the Professional Developer Conference (PDC) in late October and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in early November. As we had heard previously, you can also expect to hear plenty of technical details about the OS straight from Microsoft at PDC and, who knows, we may even get word of an actual release date.

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Source:Microsoft to hand out Windows 7 "pre-betas" at PDC, WinHEC

Not to be outdone by the folks at Buffalo, Sony’s latest internal SATA BD recorder can achieve 8x writing speeds on the latest 6x BD-R media, for zapping 25GB in 15 minutes and 50Gb in 30. DVDs are also written, of course, at 16x. It’s $400 and shipping next month, with an included Men In Black Blu-ray disc from the good folks at Sony Pictures. Where’s your Will Smith, Buffalo? Full details follow:

SONY DEBUTS 8X BLU-RAY DISC WRITER DRIVE

Sub-$400 Model Leaps Ahead in Recording Speed; Includes Blu-Ray Disc Movie Title “Men In Black”

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 23, 2008 – Sony Electronics today announced its third generation internal Blu-ray Disc™ (BD) writer for the computer aftermarket, which at about $400 achieves a new level of affordability for BD enthusiasts.

The new BWU-300S model burns single and dual layer BD-R media at up to 8X speed, recording a full 25GB disc in about 15 minutes and a full 50GB disc in about 30 minutes. The 8X recording speed is achieved using 6X compatible BD-R media. The drive also records DVDs at up to 16X, CDs up to 48X, and supports DVD-RAM recording, with an eye towards data backup, making it an excellent replacement burner for a standard DVD drive while offering all the benefits of Blu-ray Disc technology.

To provide consumers with the opportunity to experience high-definition movie playback first-hand, the new drive comes bundled with a “Men in Black” Blu-ray Disc from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “Men In Black” stars Will Smith (“Hancock”) and Oscar®-winner Tommy Lee Jones (“The Fugitive”) saving the world from a total intergalactic disaster in Barry Sonnenfeld’s smash-hit sci-fi action comedy. The “Men In Black” high-definition Blu-ray Disc boasts advanced BD-Live enabled bonus features, including a multiplayer trivia game, an interactive Frank the Pug advice generator, an alien subtitle track and much more.

Also included with the drive is CyberLink’s software suite for capturing, authoring, editing, burning and viewing high-definition personal content.

“Consumers are demanding a better experience,” said Bob DeMoulin, marketing manager for branded storage products in Sony Electronics’ IT Products Division. “Not only are we providing state of the art hardware, but also the industry’s most complete software bundle and premium content.”

“Sony’s new 8X Blu-ray Disc writable drive significantly improves the BD recording speed, a key feature in the optical storage technology,” said Wolfgang Schlichting, research director for removable storage at IDC. “The explosion of digital media usage by consumers, whether in the form of high-definition video, music or data, continues to grow at exponential rates. Innovative products such as this next-generation drive will help fuel the acceleration of Blu-ray adoption in the years ahead with more than 100 million drives shipping worldwide by 2011.”

The BWU-300S drive can record up to 50GB of data for random access storage and backup on BD-R (write once) or BD-RE (rewritable) discs, or up to 230 minutes of high-definition HDV 1080i video on a BD-R/RE 50GB disc. It also supports recording on standard single layer 4.7GB DVD+R/+RW/-RAM discs, 8.5GB DVD+R double/dual layer discs, and CDs.

The internal drive features a Serial ATA (SATA) interface and standard 5.25-inch form-factor for easy installation inside a desktop PC with Microsoft® Windows XP or Windows Vista® operating systems.

The new drive is fully supported by Adobe® Encore® CS3 software, now included with Adobe Premiere® Pro CS3, and Sony’s Vegas Pro 8 and DVD Architect Pro 5 software, providing video production professionals with another option for outputting high-definition video on a Blu-ray Disc with MPEG-2 or H.264 compression.

Availability

The BWU-300S drive will be available through select retailers, resellers and directly at sonystyle.com starting next month. Pre-orders are now being accepted by Sony on the website.

Source:Sony's BWU-300S Blu-ray Recorder Burns 50GB in 30 Minutes [Blu-Ray]