The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has awarded Amazon what appears to be the silliest patent yet – detailed by Photography Bay, the patent describes ways of taking pictures of subjects or products on a white background – which could turn the company into the a giant patent troll, assuming it ever finds a way to enforce it. Titled “Studio arrangement,” the patent was awarded to Amazon on March 18.

Images for most products conceivable by mankind show them against a white or otherwise colored background. Photographers everywhere have used the technique, and will keep using it in the future, for billions of pictures. However, the USPTO still decided the invention needs to be acknowledged.

“Prior art solutions for achieving such a result for capturing images and/or video of objects set against a true white background include solutions that often involve some type of image retouching, post processing, “green screen” techniques, or other special effects and image and video manipulation to achieve the result of an object set against a true white background,” the patent says.

“Accordingly, as will be described herein, embodiments of the present disclosure provide a studio arrangement in which an object can be photographed and/or filmed, and the images and/or video captured by the camera achieve the effect noted above without any image manipulation due to the particular arrangements of the subject, camera, lighting and background. “

The patent goes into detail on how these effects can be achieved, although it’s hardly likely that Amazon will be able to prove that a competing company, or independent photographer, has used the exact same studio setup to achieve the white background effect in a photo.

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Category: Cameras, amazon

Samsung may still be in denial about the Galaxy S5 Prime, a superior Galaxy S5 version expected to launch next month, but it looks like one website from Hong Kong is already eager to sell the handset. Spotted by SammyToday on Price.com.hk, the Galaxy S5 SM-G906S is apparently a special upgraded version of the Galaxy S5 for South Korea.

The SM-G906 model number has previously been spotted in Galaxy S5 Prime leaks, and it’s very close to the SM-G900, the model number of the Galaxy S5 family.

According to the website, the SM-G906S will offer pack a 5.1-inch 2560 x 1440 (Quad HD or 2K) display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, 3GB of RAM and run Android 4.4.3 KitKat out of the box. The phone will also have a 16-megapixel camera, 2-megapixel front-facing camera, LTE-Advanced support and microSD support.

The Galaxy S5 Prime, or any other special name for the handset, aren’t listed on the website, and it’s not clear when users will able to actually get it. However, Samsung is rumored to launch the Galaxy S5 Prime in June, to compete against the LG G3, which will also have a high-resolution QHD display.

An image showing the Galaxy S5 Prime listing on Price.com.hk follows below.

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Category: mobile, Galaxy S5, Samsung

Have you ever gotten so addicted to a video game (I’m looking at you, Civilization!) that you’ve foregone eating and not felt hungry until after you’ve stopped playing? Well it turns out that there’s a scientific explanation for this phenomenon. Researchers at Plymouth University’s Cognition Institute in the United Kingdom have found that playing Tetris for a certain period of time actually seems to reduce natural cravings such as hunger. Essentially, the researchers claim that having an interactive visual stimulus such as Tetris or other video games in front of you can replace your cravings for a little bit. The researchers conclude that “Tetris might be a useful task for tackling cravings outside the laboratory,” although we’re unlikely to see a Tetris diet in the near future and forsaking food to play video games probably isn’t the healthiest way to lose weight.

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Category: science, Gaming

Remember the Amazon shopper that was suddenly faced with the threat of a lawsuit after posting a negative review for a router? That shopper was vindicated on Thursday, shortly after the story of his predicament began to spread, as Amazon removed all Mediabridge products from their online store in response to the company’s explosive reaction to the review. Ars Technica updated its story, pointing to a lengthy Facebook post from Mediabridge defending the company’s actions. The post has since been deleted, but Ars Technica managed to gather some of the highlights beforehand.

In the eyes of Mediabridge, the 1-star review included “libelous statements,” which have now been altered. Unfortunately, the user’s edits did not go live until after “an army” rose up to attack the company.

“It’s our sincere belief that reasonable people understand that not only is it within our rights to take steps to protect our integrity, but that it should be expected that we would do so when it is recklessly attacked,” Mediabridge stated on Facebook. “Unfortunately, as a result of our attempt to get this reviewer to do the right thing & remove his untrue statements about our company, Amazon has revoked our selling privileges. Many hard-working employees whose livelihood depended on that business will likely be put out of a job, by a situation that has been distorted & blown out of proportion.”

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Category: Business, amazon

The Federal Communications Commission would rather read your thoughts about net neutrality than hear about them. Columbia Law School professor and leading net neutrality activist Tim Wu points out that calling the FCC’s main consumer hotline will give you a message that asks you to write an email to the commission if you’re calling about FCC chairman Tom Wheeler’s controversial net neutrality plans. This seemingly indicates that either the FCC is being flooded with calls about net neutrality that its operators can’t handle them all or it just is tired of hearing everyone call about net neutrality and would like to see them send emails instead. Either way, it looks as though people are speaking up about the issue.

This week has been a very bad one for Wheeler’s proposal that would create Internet “fast lanes” that would let Internet service providers charge companies more to ensure faster traffic delivery. Several big-name tech companies this week — including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix — wrote a joint letter to the FCC telling it to back off any plan that would create a two-tiered Internet and instead urged it to adopt policies that would not only protect against blocking of websites but also the Internet’s traditional architecture where all packets are delivered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

What’s more, two FCC commissioners have come out and said that they want to delay voting on Wheeler’s proposal, which is scheduled to take place at an FCC meeting on May 15th. However, with at least two commissioners seeking to delay the vote and expressing opposition to parts of Wheeler’s plan, it remains unclear whether Wheeler will even have the votes to get his plan passed even if he decides not to table it.

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Category: Internet, FCC, Net Neutrality

Microsoft is widely expected to unveil a new smaller version of its Surface tablet during a press conference scheduled to take place later this month. According to several reports, the new “Surface mini” will likely feature a display that measures about 8 inches diagonally, and it will be powered by Microsoft’s Windows RT platform. An earlier report from Bloomberg noted that Microsoft plans to unveil multiple additional Surface tablets alongside the new Surface mini, and now another report has chimed in to state the same.

According to unnamed sources speaking with CNET, Microsoft will unveil a new Intel-powered Surface tablet along with the other models set to be unveiled on May 20th.

“There’s definitely a new Intel-based Surface,” an anonymous source said to work in the chip industry told CNET. “From what I can assess so far I think it’s going to [have] a new power-optimized Haswell variant.”

A Haswell chip from Intel would mean we’re likely looking at a new version of Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet, possible a “Surface Pro 3” running the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 software.

BGR will be on hand reporting live from the Surface press conference on May 20th.

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Category: Tablets, microsoft, Surface Pro 3

Samsung has a new tablet family in the works that will offer high-end features as the company moves to grab more and more tablet market share from Apple, and SamMobile has obtained the first images of the Galaxy Tab S. The tablet’s main feature appears to be the display, a high-resolution OLED screen that has been mentioned in numerous earlier leaks, even before it had a name.

However, from the looks of it, the tablet still comes with the Magazine UX Samsung has developed for its Note Pro and Tab Pro tablets that were announced at CES and already launched in many markets. Furthermore, the Galaxy S5’s band-aid plastic case design will apparently be found on the back of the Galaxy Tab S as well.

Recently, Samsung has put up a strong marketing campaign to convince users that the Galaxy S5 is cool, and has a spectacular design, but contradicted all those efforts when it fired the chief of its mobile design team.

The feature that could stand out when compared to other tablets, including Samsung’s other models, is the OLED screen, a first for a tablet since Samsung’s first Galaxy Tab model launched back in 2011. BGR has found the Galaxy S5′s display to be the best thing of the device.

When it comes to specs, the Galaxy Tab S will offer a 2560 x 1600 display, octa-core Exynos 5420 CPU that will have a 1.9GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 cluster and a 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 cluster, 8-megapixel camera, 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, LTE, IR sensor and Android 4.4 KitKat with Magazine UX on top.

It’s not clear when the tablet will be launched, but the publication says it’ll be available in 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch versions.

The images showing the Galaxy Tab S design follows below.

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Category: Tablets, Galaxy Tab S, Samsung

Have you gotten tired of iPhone 6 leaks this week? Well too bad because here’s another one. Italian website Macitynet.it is back with another collection of leaked pictures showing off an iPhone 6 mockup and this time it’s decided to show it side-by-side with the fifth-generation iPod touch. This is particularly interesting because the pictures show that while the iPhone 6 will big significantly larger than any iPhone ever released, it will also take certain design cues from the iPod touch such as rounder edges and a thinner frame.

As you can see from the picture above, the iPhone 6 looks almost as thin as the fifth-generation iPod touch, even though its overall frame is significantly larger. The current version of the iPod touch measures in at just 6.1 millimeters thin, which puts it very close to the 6-millimeter thickness that’s been reported for the iPhone 6. In comparison, the iPhone 5s has a thickness of 7.6 millimeters, so picking up an iPod touch really will give you the closest approximation of just how thin the iPhone 6 will be.

If you want to see even more pictures of the iPhone 6 mockup shown side-by-side with the iPod touch, make sure to go to Macitynet.it’s page and check out their full gallery.

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Category: mobile, Apple, iPhone 6

The advent of the PreCheck program has made trips to the airport far less stressful, but how does the TSA keep the screening process secure and unpredictable? Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the TSA uses a “randomizer” app at around 100 airports to determine which passengers will go through the expedited screening process and which will go through standard screening.

After passing the initial risk assessment, passengers are asked to step on to an electronic mat which randomly assigns them to a line. Not only does this method speed up the process, it also prevents accusations of racial profiling on the part of the TSA agents. This is just one part of the “managed inclusion” risk-based security that ensures a greater degree of safety while simultaneously improving the airport experience.

“The whole premise of risk-based security is that the vast majority, if not everybody, traveling every day…are low risk, and so how can we differentiate between those people based on some prescreening, based on information that they share we already know about them such as certain government employees?” TSA Administrator John Pistole said.

As an added benefit, this electronic sorting method has allowed the TSA to cut its budget for 2015 by $100 million. Thanks to one app, the TSA can keep Americans safe and their wallets even safer.

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Category: Security, Flights