In the ongoing sadness that is the legal battle between TechCrunch and Fusion Garage over the JooJoo tablet, Fusion Garage has moved to dismiss Michael Arrington's lawsuit entirely.

The Fusion Garage claim seems to center around there being a "lack of any formal legal relationship or contract" between the two companies, despite their openly working jointly on JooJoo's development. Much of the filing is the legalese version of JooJoo's previous response, and in parts reads like a terribly depressing (and one-sided) history of what could have been a terrific device. That is, before it became pretty much irrelevant.

Well, this is a fun reversal. Shenzhen Great Loong Brother has been manufacturing the P88—which looks just like, hey, a giant iPhone—for about six months. And they're pretty ticked that Apple has so blatantly stolen their idea.

Okay, so maybe the P88 and iPad don't have that much in common. Or really, hardly anything. The P88 has a resistive screen, has a 250GB hard drive, an ethernet port, a webcam, and run Windows. It also gets an hour and a half of battery life, and costs, um, $525. Still! The intellectual property of Shenzhen Great Loong Brother will not be wrongly appropriated! At least, not if SGLB president Xiaolong Wu has anything to say about it:

We are considering legal action, but we can not do much in the United States. But if Apple brings the iPad to China, we will be forced to denounce them, because it will certainly affect our sales.

Keep considering, Xiaolong Wu. There's a long line of Apple lawsuits ahead of you, some of which actually seem to have an iota of merit. [El Mundo via Wired]

Microsoft's last SideWinder keyboard had a neat parlor trick: It split in two. The X4 has a little less pow—its main feature is anti-ghosting for cheap, letting you press up to 26 keys at once for $60. [Microsoft]

Remember this incredible 70-minute video review of The Phantom Menace? Well, while he works on his Attack of the Clones review, he decided to take on Avatar. It's a much more manageable 20 minutes, but is just as great. [YouTube]

Note: these are Hershey's-Kiss-inspired CD/DVD stands—not actual Hershey's Kisses—that are being used to prop up optical media. The latter might work, but the former will crack that coworker's tooth who keeps stealing your desk candy. [HiddenArtShop via NerdApproved]

There's been no love lost between Apple and Adobe for a while now, ever since Apple decided to not allow Flash on the iPhone. But since the iPad was announced with an equal lack of Flash, things have gotten ugly.

First, Adobe posted a screed about how lame it was that Apple wasn't including Flash on the iPad. Then, Steve Jobs himself called Adobe "lazy" and blaming Flash for most Mac crashes. Now, Adobe is back to its Flash blog with another salvo.

First, they address and attempt to debunk the various reasons Apple has for blacklisting Flash. Then, they go for the heart of the matter:

But I want to be very clear. My concern isn't just about Flash on the iPad. It's about a disturbing trend where Apple is starting to inhibit broad categories of innovation on their platforms. On the iPad, it looks like developers won't be able to write applications in Java, .net, Python, Ruby, Perl, or any number of other languages (including Flash). And users won't be able to install Firefox, Opera,IE, or any third party browser. There are countless other examples of applications and technologies that Apple doesn't allow. Why? Apple won't say.

And innovation isn't just about technology, it's also about business models. Developers on this new platform aren't able to innovate there either. At best, developers targeting the iPad are subject to a 30% Apple Tax in the App Store. And at worst, developers invest time and money building a product that can never be brought to market, because the only channel is one that is centrally controlled and entirely opaque. In every case, Apple is a gatekeeper on how developers are able to deliver content to their consumers.

Over time, restrictions on technology and business opportunity have a chilling effect on innovation on closed platforms.

In the end, this is a tricky situation. On the one hand, Flash is a relatively insecure and resource-heavy plugin that would invariably cause some problems if used on the iPad. In a year or so, HTML5 will be replacing it for most of its biggest uses, such as streaming video.

However, it isn't a year from now, and Flash is still heavily used all around the web. It's just a fact of life that if you want a full internet experience right now, you need to have Flash.

So neither side is entirely right or entirely wrong. But something tells me that Apple isn't going to cave, and as HTML5 gets rolled out over the next year, they'll have fewer and fewer reasons to even consider it. Sorry, Adobe. [Adobe]

What if your phone wasn't a stagnant box with optional vibration, but a mechanism that responded to your touch like a living being? Well, designer Fabian Hemmert has created such a phone—albeit in early prototype form.

During his presentation from TEDxBerlin, Hemmert demonstrates how simple mechanical functions could add a level of tangibility that's completely missing from the phones of today. Imagine a moving icon that has a shifting yet subconscious weight in your hand, or an eBook that shrinks thinner as you have less pages remaining.

Hemmert's demos are unwieldy, for sure, and I'm not so sure these technologies could be readily miniaturized. But I'd certainly love to watch as someone tried. [information aesthetics via Engadget]

I like the current wave of unusual stop motion animation. This clip is not as crazy and amazing as the heasploding Videogioco, but I like its simplicity. It was recorded using a webcam, with no post-production whatsoever. [Pink Tentacle]

Netflix has just secured deals with a bunch of indie distributors—The Criterion Collection (expect even more goodness), Gravitas Ventures, Kino Lorber, Music Box Films, Oscilloscope Laboratories and Regent Releasing—to stream over 300 new flicks.

Make no mistake, streaming is what Netflix cares about now, not shiny plastic discs. [PR Newswire]

Your "friend" who brought you those "special" ramen packets straight from Japan? He's not your friend. That's Soap Ramen and Sponge Cup Noodles Ramen by Takara Tomy—out this month overseas for an unknown price. [TakaraTomy via AkihabaraNews]