In other words, whoever was the patent examiner, we’d love to grab a beer sometime because we think your cool.

But seriously. We’ve been pulling one image per patent and posting in this whacky invention category but a “Space Vehicle Propelled by the Pressure of Inflationary Vacuum State”, I don’t think one image can do justice.

Ahem. The abstract goes…

“A space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state is provided comprising a hollow superconductive sheild, an inner sheild [of course you have to have an inner sheild], a power source, a support structure, upper and lower means for generating an electromagnetic field, and a flux modulation controller.”

Hold up. Is “flux modulation controller” the new flux capacitor? Awesome, just awesome.

Check it out at patent number 6960975 issued to Boris Volfson.

And the primary examiner is Ramon M. Barrera. Look us up Ramon, we owe you a beer.

He invented fiber optics before his time. Basically, if you could imagine he took morse code from a mirror and crazy fast digitized it. You could say he invented digitization with this, although that might be reading into it and inventing a new word altogether, I’m not sure, i’ve had some wine you know.

But this invention, the Photophone, is pretty awesome.

Read all about the patent over at patent number 235199. That’s right less than a million number, which means 1800′s as in 1880.

G Bell. Crazy.

MasterCard Inc., the other major payment processor, is already part of the project. The Wallet application Google released on Monday, so far, only works on one Sprint smartphone. The Wallet can be loaded with a Citibank MasterCard or a prepaid debit card from Google.

With a card in the Wallet, owners can pay in stores by tapping their phones on wireless-capable payment terminals, instead of swiping credit cards. There are more than 135,000 such terminals in stores and other retail locations, but that’s a small fraction of the total number of terminals.

Google’s vice president of payments, Osama Bedier, couldn’t say when cards from Visa Inc., American Express Co. and Discover Financial Services would work with the wallet. In the case of Visa, not only does Google need to work out the technical details of making its wallet compatible, it also needs to get the banks that issue the cards to sign on to the project, like Citigroup Inc. did for its MasterCard.

Google also needs more phones that work with the wallet. Bedier said Google is working with all major manufacturers of smartphones that run on Google’s Android software to incorporate chips that communicate with payment terminals. Samsung Electronics Co. makes the Nexus S phone that works with the wallet today.

Visa plans to bring out its own, competing mobile wallet application. The competition isn’t about getting a cut of the money that flows through the credit card accounts — Google isn’t directly tapping into that stream — but about who gets to reach people when and where they shop. The applications are conduits for advertising in the form of coupons and loyalty cards. These opportunities are the real reason companies like Google and Visa are pushing to have cellphones replace credit cards.

Sprint Nextel Corp. is collaborating with Google, but the other three national wireless carriers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile USA — have formed a joint venture to create their own digital wallet. They, too, are working with Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

Original Story Found Here

Netflix Inc. is separating its DVD-by-mail business from the online movie streaming service it sees as the future of entertainment consumption.

In announcing the changes, CEO Reed Hastings also apologized to subscribers for the way the company communicated its decision to split the two services, which raised prices for those who want both.

The mail order plan will be renamed “Qwikster.” In a few weeks, Netflix subscribers who want to get DVDs by mail will go to a separate website to access Qwikster. The streaming business will continue to be called Netflix.

Members who subscribe to both services will have two entries on their credit card statements. Instead of Netflix, the distinctive red envelopes that end up in customers’ mailboxes will now say Qwikster.

Here is the mass email sent out to Netflix customers.

I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

So here is what we are doing and why.

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service.

So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

Thanks for the loving email and apology Reed, now how about you put prices back to where they were?

Respectfully Yours,

Your 22 million customers.

Of course, advertising on scarecrows. Billboards? Nah, scarecrows are so well placed in fields of corn throughout the midwest with such a captive audience, what a brilliant idea.

Even comes equipped with a hat and a little hand arrow deal-e-o.

Check this one out in the picture or for yourself. One Samuel Hunter of Onondaga New York would be happy. Patent number 1142326.

The Shark Protector suit is like a full body wet suit with spikes. Obviously, such an invention would stop any shark from clamping down on the wearer. Duh…

From the patent…

“The Shark protection suit of the invention, which includes an attached helmet portion, has the unexpected advatage that a shark is unable to clamp its jaws around any part of the wearer since the multiplicity of spikes extending outwardly from the suit prevent the shark from closing its mouth should it try to attack a wearer of the suit and helmet of the inventions.”

No foolin. Check it out 4833729.

Receiving a patent in 1938, Milton Kairis and Joseph Slizus developed a pnuematic boxing glove. Just like it sounds, the pneumatic boxing glove claims to build up pressure and release when the hand releases, it looks like the pressure explodes outward to bash your opponents face even more.

Although it appears old patents have even more criptic claims than newer patents, this one is pretty funny. You can just imagine two guys that have been getting pounded at the local gym trying to come up with a way to make their scrawny arms fight harder.

Check it out, it’s patent 2135853

You can now turn your iPad into a free television with some of these powerful apps. Keep in mind that there will also be other features on the app as well such as behind the scenes stuff, interviews with casts, trailers and more.

While you will need to be able to access these channels through your cable, if you already have them, then all the apps are free and so is all the content.

One thing to remember is that if you are using a 3G plan that has a data limit, then you will definitely max out that data in a short amount of time using these apps. Be aware of your plan, and know that you can always upgrade to unlimited data if you so choose.

Here is a list of all the apps, along with the links to them. Enjoy!

ABC Player

NBC

TV.com

CNN App for iPad

WSJ Live: Dow Jones

PBS for iPad

HBO Go

Showtime

TBS for iPad

TNT for iPad

Time Warner Cable TV

Optimum for iPad

XFinity TV

Crackle Movies and TV

Amazon is currently creating a digital library of mainly older works and the proposed online library would offer users access to content for an annual fee, with restrictions on the amount of books that could be borrowed each month. Amazon’s popular Kindle e-reader would obviously benefit from such a rental service.

There are not too many early details available, but we can already report that several publishers are unhappy with the idea. Publishers think that the proposed Amazon service would cut down the amount of people who buy books and also hurt their relationships with other distributors.

We will see what happens, but it is definitely an interesting idea. Netflix has become a giant, and one can only assume that if Amazon launches something like this it would probably be successful.

“Zagat will play a prominent role in Google’s overall plans for becoming a player in travel, entertainment and particularly deals,” said Dan Olds, an analyst at The Gabriel Consulting Group.

“Groupon and others have paved the way with their deals offerings. I would expect to see Google expand the Zagat model to many more businesses, and also become much more active in the Web deals space,” Olds said.

The amount that Google paid for Zagat was not disclosed, however you could be sure they paid a premium. What makes this even more interesting is the fact that Google can now aim for Groupon and even Facebook (to an extent) if it so chooses. By all accounts, that is exactly what they are going to do.

“Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering,” said Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of local, maps and location services, in a blog post. Google wants Zagat to help them become more efficient in the world of reviews and travel.

There are so many things wrong with this. At what point do you say that Google is becoming an illegal monopoly? Yes, I know people don’t have to use their search engine, but because they do, they have enough resources to buy anything in their way.

Hey may even target Facebook, which seems like it would be very unlikely that a deal like that could happen, however at the very least Google is going to start to put some pressure on Facebook, especially if they buy Groupon, which does seem likely.

Another huge issue with Google continuing to purchase sites like this is the fact that Google can control algorithms and put the companies they own at the top of every search. This has been an issue for a while, and Google has already had to face several anti-trust lawsuits.

Google has also already tangled with online review monster Yelp, and many people think that if Zagat reviews jump Yelp in the search engine rankings, that Yelp will bring a billion dollar lawsuit against Google.

Google claims it does not set any algorithms to favor certain sites, however most people have no way of knowing whether this is true or not.

The next few months should be interesting. Google is either going to control every piece of online information imaginable, or they are going to be faced with one of the biggest lawsuits in history.