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Seth Rogen demonstrates his Kylo Ren lightsaber joint.

Seth Rogen, Bill Hader, and Zach Galifianakis are set to star in a new astronaut movie called The Something, and I'm unreasonably excited about it.

I say "unreasonably" because the movie is written and directed by Rodney Rothman, who wrote 22 Jump Street and Grudge Match, a decidedly mixed bag when it comes to awesomeness. Still, the first-time director has pulled together an impressive cast for a comedy and that could make all the difference.

All we know about the plot so far is that it's about a group of three male astronauts who have been drifting in space for years... until they come upon another spaceship. Given that the official summary emphasizes that the astronauts are all male, my guess is that we can expect some lady alien shenanigans in that other spaceship. Or lady somethings, anyway.

An East Texas jury has ruled that Apple must pay patent-holding company VirnetX $625.6 million for infringing four patents. It's a massive verdict for VirnetX, a company that has no products and makes its money solely through patent litigation.

The verdict form (PDF) shows the jury found Apple infringed on every patent claim that was at issue. The first question was how much Apple should pay for infringement related to two VirnetX patents that it had already been ruled to infringe, and the jury held Apple should pay $334.9 million. It also found in VirnetX's favor on every other patent claim and ordered Apple to pay another $290.7 million for infringing those patent claims.

The VirnetX v. Apple showdown may be one of the last of its kind in which a "patent troll"-style company is able to wrest a nine-figure jury verdict from a tech company. Patent trolling still abounds and is increasingly concentrated in East Texas. But the ability to get huge verdicts has been dampened by changes in case-law, particularly the Supreme Court's 2014 Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank decision that made it easier for defendants to get software patents thrown out of court.

In this magnified image of mouse cells, the nucleus is blue, the mitochondria are green, and the cell walls are red. Every cell has hundreds or even thousands of mitochondria producing energy. (credit: D. Burnette, J. Lippincott-Schwartz/NICHD)

Today a panel of scientists released a report recommending that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve testing for a medical procedure known as mitochondrial replacement, which could prevent dangerous genetic diseases in newborns. The procedure, already approved in Great Britain, still has a long way to go before final approval in the US.

A microscopic organ transplant

Though critics say it will send us down a slippery slope of "gene editing," there is in fact no gene editing involved in mitochondrial replacement. Instead, it's more like a microscopic version of an organ transplant.

Mitochondria are called "organelles" because they play an organ-like role in the cell. A bit like a miniature stomach, mitochondria break down molecules to provide energy for the entire body. Mitochondria are also the only part of the cell that contains DNA, other than the nucleus. Some biologists believe this is because mitochondria were once separate cells, absorbed in a process called endosymbiosis during a very early phase in cellular evolution, which nevertheless retained a shred of DNA over the billions of years since that merging.

LeBron James in full tattoo glory on the cover of NBA2K14.

The rights holders of tattoos on NBA superstars Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and other professional basketball players are suing Take-Two Interactive, alleging that the maker of the NBA 2K video game series and other titles is infringing their artwork. The federal copyright infringement lawsuit accuses the video game maker of copyright violations because it has not licensed the tattoos from Solid Oak Sketches.

The suit is a maximalist approach to intellectual property. But it's not the first to assert copyright infringement of tattoos in a video game or on the silver screen. That said, all the cases concerning tattoo copyright infringement have settled out of court, and none have come to an ultimate in-court resolution. That's a legal fact that even Solid Oak Sketches notes in its lawsuit.

"The issue of tattoo copyrightability has yet to be decided upon in court due to numerous settlements preventing a final judicial opinion," the rights holder noted in its filing.

A Kansas City resident and her son, two of the first people to get free gigabit Internet from Google Fiber. (credit: Google)

Google Fiber today said it will provide free Internet access at gigabit speeds to residents in affordable housing.

Google Fiber was already providing free Internet in public housing, but speeds were limited to 5Mbps downloads and 1Mbps uploads.

Today's announcement said that's being pushed up to 1Gbps downloads and uploads, a speed that normally costs $70 a month. The free gigabit Internet is being rolled out first to West Bluff, a property in Kansas City, Missouri. Google partnered with the Housing Authority of Kansas City on the project.

This carp was not paranoid enough. (credit: Wikipedia)

A former Department of Energy employee has pleaded guilty to federal charges that he attempted to infect 80 current DOE employees with malware so foreign hackers could take control of computer systems that held sensitive information related to nuclear weapons, officials said Wednesday.

Charles Harvey Eccleston, 62, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted unauthorized access and intentional damage to a protected computer, according to a statement issued by officials with the US Department of Justice. The statement said the man, who previously worked for both the DOE and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, plotted to compromise federal computer networks by sending current employees highly targeted e-mails that he believed contained links to malware that would give hackers remote access. Such campaigns are often referred to as spear phishing because they target a specific individual, often referring to them by name and referencing specific interests of job duties.

Prosecutors said the plot came to their attention in 2013 after Eccleston entered an unnamed foreign embassy in Manila, Philippines and offered to sell a list of more than 5,000 e-mail addresses of officials, engineers, and employees of a US government agency. Undercover FBI agents posing as embassy employees then worked to build a criminal case against the former employee, who prosecutors said was terminated from his employment at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2010. To make the e-mail more convincing, it posed as an advertisement for a conferences related to nuclear energy. According to the press release:

(credit: General Motors)

Things are looking pretty good at General Motors these days. The US' largest car maker just reported its Q4 2015 results: $6.3 billion in net income, a big jump over the $1.1 billion it earned during the same period in 2014. Net income for 2015 was $9.7 billion.

That's good news for shareholders—GM earned $5.91 per common share—and also for GM's hourly workers. The 49,600 GM employees who are members of the United Auto Workers union are in line for up to $11,000 in bonus payments as a result of the company's success.

"It was a strong year on many fronts, capped with record sales and earnings, and a substantial return of capital to our shareholders," said chairman and CEO Mary Barra. "We continue to strengthen our core business, which is laying the foundation for the company to lead in the transformation of personal mobility. We believe the opportunities this will create in connectivity, autonomous, car-sharing and electrification will set the stage for driving value for our owners for years to come."