This IFTTT Recipe Lets Your Friends Know You're Back in Town

iOS: Sometimes people remember when you're out of town, sometimes they don't. If you want to make sure your friends know when you get back from your holiday trip (or any trip, for that matter), you can use IFTTT to take care of that automatically. The IFTTT mobile app for iOS has a location-based channel that can automatically trigger events based on where you are. Once you leave your house, activate this recipe and it'll post a status message of your choice (e.g. "I'm back!!!") on Facebook. You could also make alternate versions of this recipe that notify people via email or other social networks like Twitter, but this pre-made version gives you a good starting point (or, perhaps, ending point if Facebook is your entire world).

Set Up and Get to Know Your New Tech Gifts

You've unwrapped your presents and received everything you'd hoped you'd get. But now what? We've got you covered this holiday season with several guides to help you get acquainted with your brand new gadgets.

Han Solo's blaster sells for a mere $200,000

The battered space gun carried by Harrison Ford as Han Solo in the second two Star Wars movies, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, has been sold to an anonymous buyer for $200,000 after 20 days on the auction block. Solo's DL-44 blaster is modeled on the Mauser C96, a semi-automatic German pistol that was manufactured until the 30s. This was likely the prop used in the scenes where Darth Vader uses the Force to knock the blaster out of Solo’s hand in Empire Strikes Back and when Solo wrestles with a Stormtrooper to get his blaster back in Return of the Jedi. A heavier version was used for close-up shots. The blaster was a replica of the original created for A New Hope, which has allegedly been lost to history. It sold at the low end of its $200,000 to $300,000 estimate.

Google fires back against Apple- and Microsoft-led patent consortium in new lawsuit

Gigaom reports that Google has filed a lawsuit this week against Rockstar, the patent holding company jointly owned by Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Sony, and Ericsson whose portfolio comes mostly from the corpse of bankrupt Canadian telecom giant Nortel. In October, Rockstar had sued Google and a variety of Android OEMs — Samsung, LG, and HTC included — alleging infringement on a number of those ex-Nortel patents, and Google's countersuit is geared directly at sliding the platform out of the consortium's aim. The filing stops just short of calling Rockstar an outright patent troll: Rockstar produces no products and practices no patents. Instead, Rockstar employs a staff of engineers in Ontario, Canada, who examine other companies' successful products to find anything that Rockstar might use to demand and extract licenses to its patents under threat of litigation. It also effectively calls out Rockstar for disproportionately targeting Android when its underlying patent portfolio could apply to a much wider swath of technology — in fact, there's an entire section of the filing titled "Rockstar's Campaign Against Android." The company notes that in situations where targeted Android OEMs make other devices not running the platform, those devices have been excluded from Rockstar's complaint. Android is a frequent target for patent lawsuits Google, of course, is no stranger to patent litigation over Android: its purchase of Motorola Mobility was seen in part as an effort to beef up its defensive intellectual property position, and Microsoft (a Rockstar co-owner) is known to make good money by licensing patents to companies producing Android products. But Mountain View is using some particularly dire language in this latest suit, accusing Rockstar of having "placed a cloud" over Android and of "[interfering] with Google's business relationships" with OEMs. To that end, the suit is geared at protecting the very companies making the bulk of the devices in the Android ecosystem — up to and including the crown jewel, Samsung — but it also has its own Nexus line in mind. Throughout the filing, Google calls out the Nexus 5, 7, and 10 by name, seeking a court ruling that neither the Nexus phones and tablets nor the operating system itself infringe any of the patents in question. Barring a situation where Google and Android OEMs strike licensing deals with Rockstar — which seems unlikely in light of this latest volley — the legal proceedings could drag out for quite a while.

Edward Snowden delivers 'alternative Christmas message' on UK's Channel 4

Channel 4 has a reputation for delivering an "alternative Christmas message" every year as a counterpoint to the Queen's annual Christmas address, and 2013 is no different: it tapped NSA leaker Edward Snowden to speak directly to UK citizens about privacy issues and, according to Channel 4, "why he believes mass indiscriminate surveillance by governments of their people is wrong." "A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all." In the brief, sub-two-minute video, Snowden — who is still in Russia after traveling there from Hong Kong earlier this year — says that "Great Britain's George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information," a reference to the dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four whose parallels to modern-day mass surveillance have become increasingly alarming as the full extent of the NSA's capabilities have come to light. "A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves, an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that's a problem, because privacy matters," he says. Snowden has been more visible in recent days, delivering an extensive interview yesterday with The Washington Post effectively a half-year after the first classified documents from his trove began to leak. "If [the government] really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying," Snowden says in his Channel 4 video, closing by wishing viewers a merry Christmas.

Date Night in a Jar. Cute idea.

DIY - Canvas with wooden letters glued to it - then spray paint white - tada! Instant wall art! This gives me so many ideas! Holidays, Bathroom, Bedroom, Kitchen, Kids Room, Laundry Room, Entry way! The list is pretty endless ♥ this & can't wait to try!