You might remember Anascape Ltd, the company that sued Microsoft and Nintendo back in 2006 for controller patent infringement. Well, they’re getting a huge payday of $21 million. A jury found that Nintendo’s Wii Classic, WaveBird, and Gamecube controller designs are all guilty of violating Anascape’s patents. Nintendo will of course appeal, probably telling the judge that nothing can touch them while they are using Mario’s “star power”.

Microsoft settled the case before the matter went to trial. Aside from this case, how many of you have ever heard of Anascape? Do they provide any products or services? Not really, aside from getting money for patents. They need a few Goombas sent their way.

Microsoft is touting some new statistics trying to gain some additional momentum for the Xbox 360 game console, stating that in the U.S. they have sold 10 million units. There is no refuting that this is quite an accomplishment, but Microsoft is trying to add some more significance to the 10 million unit mark.

“History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry, ” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft.

Anyone who pays $80 a month for mobile broadband access and then has to pay for broadband at home because they have more than one computer that needs Internet access has wished that there was a router that would allow the sharing of broadband connectivity from a cellular router.

CradlePoint is making that wish come true with its new CTR500 Travel Router. This little router features a support for an external Wi-Fi antenna, uses WPA2 and other security methods and features VPN pass-through. The CTR500 is also compatible with some Express Card modems. The router can also be used as a failover system to change from a normal Internet connection to wireless in the event of a lost normal Internet connection.

The folks at Google Maps have recently released a pretty cool upgrade to the mapping service incorporating geo-coded photos, entries from Wikipedia and even some real estate listings from local and national real estate companies.

The next time you use Google Maps to look up a location you will notice a ‘More’ button next to the ‘Street View’ and ‘Traffic’ buttons on the map. Click the ‘More’ and you’ll have a couple of options for both photos and Wikipedia. Selecting the Photos check box brings in small geotagged photos from Panoramio right onto the map. Checking the Wikipedia box, just as you would expect, brings up little “W” icons representing geotagged Wikipedia entries. Clicking on the Wikipedia entries then brings up an excerpt of the article and a link.

With all of the various devices that we have plugged in, it can feel a bit overwhelming. Containership powersupplies can help keep your fleet of powerstrips in order like a well oiled Navy.

I guess the general idea here is to hold your power adapters in a cute and clever way, having a bit of fun with some organization. According to the company, it’s neat because the cord is in the Containership’s wake. I’m not sure what they’re smoking, but the whole effect is ruined the minute you put a few adapters in it, making it look like your wires are about to pull the whole thing under…your carpet. File this one under good concept, bad follow-through.

Google rolled out some new technology that automatically blurs out human faces in street-level photographs. Oh. Horses too.

Here’s the latest wacky concept from Japan. A solar-powered bra that’s eco-friendly. Forget the fact that it looks like someone glued a display onto a piece of astroturf. The solar panel on the waist powers a scrolling LED display above, so you can display a message, about how dorky you look. It can also power other devices.

Here’s the really strange bit. It has reusable liquid containers in the cups, because they want to discourage the use of aluminum cans. The upshot is that you would increase your bust size…Until you get thirsty.

Once Microsoft finally released Windows XP Service Pack 3 to the Automatic Update after a last minute delay you might think the worst is over, but for many it doesn’t look like that’s necessarily the case. As the release has been rolling out to computers around the world there have been a number of reports with problems as you might expect with any major service pack, but one issue seems to be quite a bit more prevalent than the others.

According to ComputerWorld there have been many reports of an “endless reboot” problem that has been flooding forums with no real specific reason or response from Microsoft. One of the theories is that computers running AMD processors with XP are the ones having the problem, but the issue is not exclusive to AMD. Microsoft has said that problem comes from computer makers who used the wrong XP images to load the OS on AMD machines. HP, who was not named specifically by Microsoft, fired back saying that SP3 added a driver that was not previously present which causes the problem.

At CES back in 2007 there were several demonstrations of 60Hz TVs next to 120Hz TVs. The difference in image quality achieved through going from 60 to 120Hz was very impressive. Samsung wasn’t content to sit on its 120Hz laurels and has announced the first Blue Phase LCD panel.

Whereas 120Hz sets on the current market use overdrive circuits to achieve 120Hz, the Blue Phase panel will not require any overdrive circuits. Samsung also says that the design is extremely cost efficient thanks to not needing liquid crystal alignment layers like today’s LCD panels do.

Of all the emotions we go through when playing games, frustration is probably the dominant one. Here, we have a psycological profile of the gamecube come to life. In the fall of 2003, Kathryn Elliot was asked to pick up a product, analyze the intricacies of color involved, then redesign it based on a dominant emotion associated with it. She chose Nintendo’s GameCube, so it was naturally going to depict frustration. She named it the Frustration Game Cube. Or Frube. It’s designed to aggravate, portray and possibly even relieve a player’s frustration, with Frube’s many changes.

To highlight an element of frustration in the color scheme of the gaming device, she colored the GameCube purple and yellow, which are aggressive colors. The shape of Frube further irritates as it will no longer sit on a shelf easily. Some other design changes are asymmetrical position of the front plug-in panel and a jagged cut lid, which makes it difficult to figure out which side opens and how.

This is obviously the Hamburglar’s getaway vehicle. Frankly, I’m surprised we don’t see this kind of thing more often, since Harley’s are a symbol of the American dream. Judging by the hoardes of obese Fast Food enthusiasts out there, the only thing more American is obesity. Which makes this a much desired vehicle.

Hamburger enthusiast Harry Sperl of Florida took a look at his Harley and his collection of burger collectibles. This is the result. The Hamburger Harley. Let the fatties begin fighting over it, while Grimace and Ronald laugh hysterically. It’s got all the fixings, melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, buns and patty. The top bun flips up to access to the seat, and the handlebars have a tray with a burger and fries.

iTunes has officially started offering HBO series episodes available for download online through iTunes. This is a welcome announcement for many who would love to get episodes of the Sopranos, The Wire and Flight of the Conchords onto their PMP’s, but it comes at a price.

The price is actually what makes this announcement most interesting. Apple, who seems to have previously been with the belief that all series shows are priced equally, seems to have made a concession with HBO. The series episodes of the Sopranos is priced at $2.99 each, which is a whole dollar more than the usual $1.99 rate for a TV show.

Here is a laptop on some serious steroids. The Eurocom D901C Phantom-X has more muscle then is good for it’s battery life, which is a mere hour. Some features include: Quad Core Xeon X3360 2.8GHz processor, 1.5TB of storage space (three SATA-300 drives), 8GB DDR2-800 RAM, Blu-ray burner and a 17″ display. As far as looks, it’s pretty average though.

If you have deep enough pockets, you’ll want to check this laptop out. Just be careful you don’t throw your back out lugging this 12 pound beast. Judging by Eurocom’s other products, it will likely cost you about $3,500.

D-Link, which first introduced the DSM-750 back in September, is now making this device available for purchase at around $330. It is essentially a set-top HD Extender for Windows Media Center.

The DSM-750 lets you play and display music, photos, movies, online content and live/recorded television on connected televisions throughout the house. You can get the full details on this device after the jump.

Actiontec Electronics recently unveiled a new home networking gaming kit designed to be used through electrical wiring in the home. It is called the MegaPlug AV Powerline Gaming Kit and it prices at around $170.

The Actiontec MegaPlug AV Powerline Gaming Kit makes uses of the HomePlug AV powerline standard to transmit computer networking signals through electrical wiring. Two special adapters plug into wall outlets, with one connecting to a PC, Xbox, Playstation, Wii, or other gaming console and the other connecting to a broadband access point.