Enlarge / Google Chromecast with Google TV. (credit: Google)

Google Chromecast infringed upon three patents of Touchstream Technologies, Inc. and should pay $338.7 million in damages, a Western District of Texas jury decided on Friday, as reported by Law360 .

The verdict [PDF ] shows the jury agreeing with Touchstream's allegations that Google violated patents 8,356,251 , 8,782,528 , and 8,904,289 (Touchstream Technologies Inc. v. Google LLC, case number 6:21-cv-00569 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas).

The ruling comes after Touchstream filed a complaint in June 2021 claiming that it met with Google in December 2011 and was told that the tech giant wasn't interested in partnering with it in February 2012. Google then released Chromecast in 2013. The complaint points to the first Chromecast and the second and third generations, Chromecast Ultra and Chromecast with Google TV, as well as other Chromecast-integrated products, as infringements of Touchstream patents.

Enlarge / Google Chromecast with Google TV. (credit: Google)

Google Chromecast infringed upon three patents of Touchstream Technologies, Inc. and should pay $338.7 million in damages, a Western District of Texas jury decided on Friday, as reported by Law360 .

The verdict [PDF ] shows the jury agreeing with Touchstream's allegations that Google violated patents 8,356,251 , 8,782,528 , and 8,904,289 (Touchstream Technologies Inc. v. Google LLC, case number 6:21-cv-00569 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas).

The ruling comes after Touchstream filed a complaint in June 2021 claiming that it met with Google in December 2011 and was told that the tech giant wasn't interested in partnering with it in February 2012. Google then released Chromecast in 2013. The complaint points to the first Chromecast and the second and third generations, Chromecast Ultra and Chromecast with Google TV, as well as other Chromecast-integrated products, as infringements of Touchstream patents.

Enlarge / Google Chromecast with Google TV. (credit: Google)

Google Chromecast infringed upon three patents of Touchstream Technologies, Inc. and should pay $338.7 million in damages, a Western District of Texas jury decided on Friday, as reported by Law360 .

The verdict [PDF ] shows the jury agreeing with Touchstream's allegations that Google violated patents 8,356,251 , 8,782,528 , and 8,904,289 (Touchstream Technologies Inc. v. Google LLC, case number 6:21-cv-00569 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas).

The ruling comes after Touchstream filed a complaint in June 2021 claiming that it met with Google in December 2011 and was told that the tech giant wasn't interested in partnering with it in February 2012. Google then released Chromecast in 2013. The complaint points to the first Chromecast and the second and third generations, Chromecast Ultra and Chromecast with Google TV, as well as other Chromecast-integrated products, as infringements of Touchstream patents.

Enlarge / An AI-generated image of a chatbot in front of library shelves. (credit: Benj Edwards / Stable Diffusion)

On Thursday, OpenAI announced a new beta feature for ChatGPT that allows users to provide custom instructions that the chatbot will consider with every submission. The goal is to prevent users from having to repeat common instructions between chat sessions.

The feature is currently available in beta for ChatGPT Plus subscription members, but OpenAI says it will extend availability to all users over the coming weeks. As of this writing, the feature is not yet available in the UK and EU.

The Custom Instructions feature functions by letting users set their individual preferences or requirements that the AI model will then consider when generating responses. Instead of starting each conversation anew, ChatGPT can now be instructed to remember specific user preferences across multiple interactions.

Enlarge / An AI-generated image of a chatbot in front of library shelves. (credit: Benj Edwards / Stable Diffusion)

On Thursday, OpenAI announced a new beta feature for ChatGPT that allows users to provide custom instructions that the chatbot will consider with every submission. The goal is to prevent users from having to repeat common instructions between chat sessions.

The feature is currently available in beta for ChatGPT Plus subscription members, but OpenAI says it will extend availability to all users over the coming weeks. As of this writing, the feature is not yet available in the UK and EU.

The Custom Instructions feature functions by letting users set their individual preferences or requirements that the AI model will then consider when generating responses. Instead of starting each conversation anew, ChatGPT can now be instructed to remember specific user preferences across multiple interactions.

Enlarge / An AI-generated image of a chatbot in front of library shelves. (credit: Benj Edwards / Stable Diffusion)

On Thursday, OpenAI announced a new beta feature for ChatGPT that allows users to provide custom instructions that the chatbot will consider with every submission. The goal is to prevent users from having to repeat common instructions between chat sessions.

The feature is currently available in beta for ChatGPT Plus subscription members, but OpenAI says it will extend availability to all users over the coming weeks. As of this writing, the feature is not yet available in the UK and EU.

The Custom Instructions feature functions by letting users set their individual preferences or requirements that the AI model will then consider when generating responses. Instead of starting each conversation anew, ChatGPT can now be instructed to remember specific user preferences across multiple interactions.

Enlarge / The little Android robot is watching everything you do. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images )

Google's newest proposed web standard is... DRM? Over the weekend the Internet got wind of this proposal for a "Web Environment Integrity API. " The explainer is authored by four Googlers, including at least one person on Chrome's " Privacy Sandbox " team, which is responding to the death of tracking cookies by building a user-tracking ad platform right into the browser.

The intro to the Web Integrity API starts out: "Users often depend on websites trusting the client environment they run in. This trust may assume that the client environment is honest about certain aspects of itself, keeps user data and intellectual property secure, and is transparent about whether or not a human is using it."

The goal of the project is to learn more about the person on the other side of the web browser, ensuring they aren't a robot and that the browser hasn't been modified or tampered with in any unapproved ways. The intro says this data would be useful to advertisers to better count ad impressions, stop social network bots, enforce intellectual property rights, stop cheating in web games, and help financial transactions be more secure.

Enlarge / The little Android robot is watching everything you do. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images )

Google's newest proposed web standard is... DRM? Over the weekend the Internet got wind of this proposal for a "Web Environment Integrity API. " The explainer is authored by four Googlers, including at least one person on Chrome's " Privacy Sandbox " team, which is responding to the death of tracking cookies by building a user-tracking ad platform right into the browser.

The intro to the Web Integrity API starts out: "Users often depend on websites trusting the client environment they run in. This trust may assume that the client environment is honest about certain aspects of itself, keeps user data and intellectual property secure, and is transparent about whether or not a human is using it."

The goal of the project is to learn more about the person on the other side of the web browser, ensuring they aren't a robot and that the browser hasn't been modified or tampered with in any unapproved ways. The intro says this data would be useful to advertisers to better count ad impressions, stop social network bots, enforce intellectual property rights, stop cheating in web games, and help financial transactions be more secure.

Enlarge / The little Android robot is watching everything you do. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images )

Google's newest proposed web standard is... DRM? Over the weekend the Internet got wind of this proposal for a "Web Environment Integrity API. " The explainer is authored by four Googlers, including at least one person on Chrome's " Privacy Sandbox " team, which is responding to the death of tracking cookies by building a user-tracking ad platform right into the browser.

The intro to the Web Integrity API starts out: "Users often depend on websites trusting the client environment they run in. This trust may assume that the client environment is honest about certain aspects of itself, keeps user data and intellectual property secure, and is transparent about whether or not a human is using it."

The goal of the project is to learn more about the person on the other side of the web browser, ensuring they aren't a robot and that the browser hasn't been modified or tampered with in any unapproved ways. The intro says this data would be useful to advertisers to better count ad impressions, stop social network bots, enforce intellectual property rights, stop cheating in web games, and help financial transactions be more secure.