YouTube has reimagined the remote control with a new feature that not only controls basic TV functions using an app, but lets users integrate more deeply with YouTube content — sharing videos, browsing and leaving comments, using Super Chat and Super Stickers and signing-up for channel memberships. YouTube on TV head of design Brynn Evans says the feature is the result of “hundreds of hours” researching user experiences with YouTube on televisions. Traditional remotes make it difficult to navigate on most TV sets, which typically don’t have web browsers built in, Evans says. Continue reading YouTube Helps Integrate TVs and Smartphones with New App

Apple won a minor victory in its ongoing software patent dispute with Samsung Friday when a federal court jury decided that some Samsung devices infringed on two Apple patents. As a result, Samsung was ordered to pay Apple $119.6 million in damages. However, the jury also found that Samsung did not infringe on two other patents in question, and Apple would not receive the $2.2 billion it was seeking. The jury also awarded Samsung $158,400, the result of Apple infringing on a Samsung patent. Continue reading Samsung Ordered to Pay Apple $119.6 Million in Patent Case

BitTorrent’s new file-syncing technology, BitTorrent Sync, can synchronize files between computers and mobile devices without copying data to a cloud server. The company is hoping that, in light of the National Security Agency’s controversial harvesting of information stored in data centers, people will be attracted to the new technology. The only way the NSA could gather this data would be by going directly to the source where the information is stored. Continue reading BitTorrent Sync Transfers Data Without Help From the Cloud