The America Invents Act, which passed through the final stages of Congressional approval one week ago was signed into law by President Barack Obama on Friday morning.

The Act represents the largest single overhaul to the U.S. patent system in almost 60 years, and is the result of more than a decade of legislation.

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In child psychology there's a concept called the middle child syndrome, where the kid in-between feels unloved by the parents or jealous of attention given the older and younger siblings. Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 might just be that middle child. I'm not loving it.

Best Buy has started taking preorders for the tablet nestled between Tab 7/7.7 and 10.1 and for surprising price: $469.99 for the 16GB model, or just $30 less than the 10.1. From a price perspective, Best Buy isn't giving buyers much reason to choose Tab 8.9 over 10.1, other than smaller size. But is it really small enough for the price?

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Friday, Google rolled out the stable build of Google Chrome 14 (14.0.835.163) for all platforms, a more or less market-ready version of the beta channel release from August.

With this release, Google is highlighting two technologies that Chrome now supports; and fortunately, they're quite shiny and easy to appreciate.

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Oh, why did I sell my Nokia N900 smartphone last year? The N900 can now perform real-time brain scans right in the comfort of my home -- or yours. Seriously, it doesn't get much more geek than this. Watch the video, and you'll see.

I loved the N900. It truly was a pocket computer and shows just how much innovation Nokia can produce -- or did before CEO Stephen Elop killed off what he called the "burning platform". A team from Technical University of Denmark has created what they call the Smartphone Brain Scanner, built around the N900 and wireless 14-channel EEG headset. Arkadiusz Stopczynski, Carsten Stahlhut, Michael Kai Petersen, Jakob Eg Larsen and Lars Kai Hansen developed the scanner, which they promote with clever tagline: "Holding your brain in the palm of your hand".

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As if Research in Motion's co-CEOs haven't done enough, shareholders inflicted serious pain overnight and early today. RIM shares plummeted, following yesterday's dire earnings report -- by about 22 percent in after-hours trading.

RIM opened at $22.89 this morning, off yesterday's close of $29.54. The stock is fairing better in mid-morning trading, well if down nearly 19 percent could be called better. Shares are down 66 percent from their February 52-week high.

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Synchronizing files between devices usually entails one of two methods. The first involves establishing a physical connection between the two devices so that the contents of folders can be compared, while the second option takes advantage of cloud storage to act as an intermediary store for files. Cheetah Sync for Android eliminates the need for the middleman and allows you to synchronize files over your wireless network.

The app is available free of charge from the Android Market and in order to use it you will also need to download a copy of the desktop software for your Mac or Windows PC. You can then set about the task of configuring folder pairs and Cheetah Sync will take care of the rest for you. If you regularly work with more than one computer, you can choose to synchronize to multiple machines and there are advanced options for controlling filtering and resolving version conflicts.

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If you discover a file type on your system which you can’t open, then you’ll probably start searching the web for applications that might be able to help. But while this will return plenty of information, it’ll probably take a while to sort through everything to discover your best options. And so a better solution may be to try OpenWith Enhanced, which provides everything you need on your own desktop.

The program replaces the standard Windows “Open With” dialog with an extended version, so it’s easy to use. Just right-click a file type, and select Open With, or Open With > Choose Default Program.

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Paragon Software has updated its home drive-imaging backup tool, Paragon Backup & Recovery Home to version 11. This new build offers four different recovery environments, adding WinPE 3.0 to existing Linux, Windows and DOS recovery options.

It also updates Paragon Adaptive Restore, which allows the user to restore a backup on to a computer with completely different hardware, to version 3.0, adds support for hard drives larger than 2.2TB, supports MBR>GPT conversion without data loss and allows users to encrypt their backups.

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Whatever sort of life you lead, there is no avoiding finances. We all have some form of bills to pay each month and bank accounts of one sort or another to keep track of. Keeping on top of what’s coming in and what’s going out and when can be tricky, often meaning having to visit one website after another, each with their own login requirements. Manilla is a great online service that enables you to access details of all your accounts and bills from one place. There are also apps available for iOS and Android devices.

The Manilla website is almost obscenely useful. At its most basic you can use the service to monitor the various bank accounts you have, making it possible to get all of your balances in one place without the need to log into multiple websites. For this reason alone, Manilla is well worth checking out, but the fact that the service could also save you money by helping you to avoid late fees is also a great draw.

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It was  only last week the iPhone version of Facebook was updated; the Android app followed suit this week. The Android app is not quite as fully featured as the iOS version, but the update brings a number of important improvements that bring it in line with the features of the Facebook website.

The big news here is the mirroring of the privacy controls that can be found on the Facebook website. When making a post, it is now possible to choose its visibility and choose whether location data should be attached to it. The same options are available when tagging images and sharing content online.

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Slovakian security firm ESET has updated its anti-malware and all-in-one security packages to version 5. ESET Smart Security 5 32-bit/64-bit and ESET NOD32 Antivirus 5 32-bit/64-bit both include ESET Live Grid, a renamed and revamped cloud-based protection based on the previous release’s ThreatSense.Net technology.

Also new to version 5 of both products is Removable Media Control, which prompts the user to scan a removable drive when it’s plugged in, and Gamer Mode, which reduces ESET’s system footprint and suppresses all pop-up windows. Also new to ESET Smart Security 5 is a new parental control module and improved startup performance.

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Nintendo made it clear that despite investor pressure to develop game titles for smartphone platforms, it had no intention to even consider the idea. The smack down came in the form of a bluntly worded response to questions from Japanese news outlet Nikkei.

"This is absolutely not under consideration," president Satoru Iwata told reporters. "If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength."

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hit me with a club yesterday -- okay, figuratively, but it didn't feel that way. He boomed onto the BUILD developer conference Day 2 keynote stage with an unexpected message: Microsoft is re-imaging -- that is reinventing -- around Windows. Now that's talk I haven't heard from the big boss in about 10 years.

"Our point of view is Windows is at the center", Ballmer told financial analysts a few hours later. The proclamation is stunning because of timing and what Microsoft is doing with Windows 8. In mid May, US trustbusters finally ended oversight of Microsoft; the company plans to integrate into Windows 8 the kind of stuff it hasn't since, well, XP launched a decade ago next month.

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Since Google launched its new social network Google+ last June, developers have been promised eventual access to the site's data through APIs. Today, Google+ developer advocate Chris Chabot announced that the first Google+ APIs are now available to the public.

"These APIs allow you to retrieve the public profile information and public posts of the Google+ users, and they lay the foundation for us to build on together - Nothing great is ever built in a vacuum so I’m excited to start the conversation about what the Google+ platform should look like," Chabot said today.

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Deep video search company VideoSurf on Thursday launched its mobile application for iOS which lets users point their iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad camera at a TV screen and the app can identify what show is currently being displayed.

Something like Google Goggles and Shazam combined, the app can identify shows, episodes and actors as they appear on the screen to give viewers more information more immediately.

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