JoostTeam

When your smartphone drops from $249 to $79 over a summer, you have to wonder what’s going on. Two rumors are circulating this AM, one that Palm is laying off folks, perhaps in the Windows Mobile team.

The estimated sales for the Pre topped out at 375,000 at the end of August and they went from $299 ($199 after rebate) to about $79 in about eleven weeks. While this might be normal for a feature phone – the subsidy kicks in once they’re sure that the early adopters who simply must have the LG Chocolate have had their fix – this isn’t good for a smartphone that was supposed to be the lead invasion force for a new WebOS smartphone renaissance.

Finally, Palm has finally backed off over iTunes Syncing. The latest WebOS update doesn’t sync with iTunes and won’t be syncing with iTunes any time soon. After using brute force and then running to the USB standards body, the company may have finally given up.

via Pre faltering, Palm laying off employees?.

It may look a little precarious and uncomfortable to ride, but Honda believe their new ‘personal mobility‘ device could one day be zipping up and down our streets.

The vehicle looks like a very modern unicycle and to ride it you simply lean your weight in the direction you want to go, whether that’s forward, backwards or even sideways. It maintains its own balance travelling up to 3.7MPH.

The U3-X, which was given a test-run by reporters in Japan today, was designed to be small, safe and unobtrusive enough to mingle with pedestrians or use indoors, according to Honda Motors.

Enlarge

via Honda unveils ‘Segway-style’ unicycle that travels in any direction you want | Mail Online.

People hate IE6; they’ve made that abundantly clear on the web. Unfortunately, plenty of people are still stuck using it for reasons such as their work not letting them upgrade. So Google is doing something about it.

Chrome Frame is a new browser plug-in developed by Google to give you a Chrome browsing experience inside of Internet Explorer. Let me restate that slightly to make it more clear: Chrome Frame turns IE into Chrome.

Yes, it’s both hilarious and awesome or hilariously awesome, if you will that Google seems to dislike IE so much that it has spent its own time improving it. Google claims its goals are noble. Talking to Group Product Manager Mike Smith and Software Engineer Alex Russell, they tell us that they simply want to make a more seamless web experience for both web users and developers. That said, they are only targeting one browser, IE, right now.

via Google Has A Solution For Internet Explorer: Turn It Into Chrome.

Livestation have released an app on the App Store a few days ago in partnership with Five and UEFA to allow purchasers to watch the Europa League matches shown live on Five in the UK on their iPhone/iPod touch devices.

The app retails for a one-off fee of £3.99 and it will give access to all the games up to the final on the 12 May 2010. Additionally, highlights from all the games are also made available on the app a few hours after the end of the games.

If you have iTunes installed and live in the UK, click here http://tinyurl.com/lx233z

The Skype-eBay plot thickens. Joost and Joltid, both companies owned by Skype’s founders, have filed a lawsuit against former Joost chairman and CEO, Mike Volpi. The suit also names Index Ventures, the VC firm where Volpi is a partner. We’ve embedded the legal document that appears to have been filed this morning, below.

According to a press release issued this morning:

The lawsuit alleges breach of fiduciary duty against Volpi, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty against Index, interference with prospective business advantage, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract against Index, breach of confidence, and civil conspiracy. The suit seeks an injunction requiring the defendants to return to the plaintiffs all documents and files containing confidential information that the lawsuit alleges was misappropriated from Joost, and enjoining the defendants from making any use of the alleged misappropriated trade secrets, among other things.

read more via The Plot Thickens: Skype Founders And Joost Sue Former Chairman And CEO Mike Volpi.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Skype Founders Sue eBay – Big Surprise (gigaom.com)
• Joost sues Mike Volpi and Index Ventures over theft of information used in Skype bid (venturebeat.com)