user: News: Apple has agreed to pay $2.25 million over charges that it misled Australian… (Mark Gunter / AFP/Getty )

When it comes to the legal world, it has not been a good day for Apple.

The Cupertino, Calif., tech company agreed Friday to pay $2.25 million to end a case in Australia that claimed Apple misled customers who bought the 4G version of the new iPad, which it turned out did not work with any of the 4G networks in the country.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, a government regulator, charged the tech company in March, after the new iPad arrived in stores.Â

If the settlement is approved by the judge in the case, Apple will pay the money to the ACCC and will also likely cover the organization's court costs, which are about $300,000.

This isn't the first concession Apple has had to take for its marketing of the iPad 4G in Australia. The company also offered Australian customers refunds if they felt they were misled by its marketing, and it has also updated its website to clarify the specifics of how the third-generation iPad 4G works.

The decision by Apple to settle the case comes the same day that a U.S. federal judge threw out a case between Apple and Motorola Mobility.

That case involved lawsuits filed by Apple in 2010 that alleged that Motorola had infringed on four of its patents. Motorola countersued with its own patent-infringement allegations against Apple.

The judge said neither company proved damages and that any injunctions ordered as a result of the case would not serve the public interest.

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Title: Apple to pay $2.25 million to settle Australia case


News: Researchers hope a new class of antibiotics will fend off an infectious-disease nightmare: bacteria that have grown resistant to nearly all current drugs.

Cases of drug-resistant super bugs are becoming more prevalent, with health officials reporting Monday of an alarming new gene spreading around the world. The problem stems from abuse of antibiotics, which has accelerated the rise of bacteria strains that are completely resistant to current treatments.

Scientists are stepping up the battle in the lab, however, developing a new breed of antibiotics custom designed to deal with bacterial resistance. Micha Fridman, a professor at Tel Aviv University, is actually modeling the bacteria’s methods of resistance to use against the germs themselves.

“We took the mechanism of bacterial resistance and used this mechanism itself to generate antibiotics,” Fridman explained to the American Friends of Tel Aviv University (AFTAU). “It’s thanks to these bacteria that we can develop a better medication.”

According to the Center for Disease Control, 90,000 people die each year from superbugs such as Staphylococcus aureus. As the problem becomes more widespread -- bacteria with the new gene new have sickened people in three U.S. states already -- the only option may be this type of innovative solution.

One of the ways these bacterial strains resist antibiotics is by releasing enzymes that chemically alter the drugs, making them ineffective. By isolating that enzyme and integrating it into his drugs while maintaining the antibiotic effect, Fridman was able to create a modified version effective against those same bacterial strains.

Working with Silvie Garneau-Tsodikova from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the team’s research was recently featured in the peer-reviewed journal ChemBioChem.

Fridman hopes his findings will usher in a new generation of antibiotics, custom fit to deal with infections that are posing serious health risks because of their drug resistance. He believes these antibiotics are only a few years away.

FoxNews.com's SciTech section is on Twitter! Follow us @fxnscitech.

Title: Outsmarting Superbugs, With Superdrugs


News: The most dedicated Comic Con-goers have always shown their loyalties by attending the convention in costume, but now that the New York Comic Con has moved from February to October, part of the event feels like a dress rehearsal for Halloween.

To the uninitiated, the getups might look like a big jumble of store-bought and home-sewn concoctions, yet many of them pay careful homage to superheroes past and present. And though the heroes themselves seem to defy normal rules of aging, their sartorial choices are often keyed to specific eras. The two Robins above, for example, reflect a couple of phases in the life of Tim Drake, one of Batman’s young charges. With Halloween right around the corner, here are some other possibilities for Monday night, along with a bit of the fashion history they’ve fought through.

The X-Men always seem to run into visitors from the future. Cable is one of them. He first appeared in 1990 and many of his outfits have reflected the excesses of that decade: lots of padding, straps and pouches that on many heroes were mostly ornamental.

Despite the explosion in popularity of superhero movies, comic books themselves are often late to capitalize on cultural fads. Take Dazzler, for example, a disco diva and a mutant who could turn sound into light. She first appeared in 1980, amid disco’s last gasps.

Phoenix has probably one of the best-looking costumes in comics. This green version is when the character is behaving. When her powers grow uncontrollable, she becomes evil and the green becomes red. Great color scheme and waist sash.

Apollo and Midnighter are riffs on Superman and Batman that were created in 1998. They are also a gay couple. Their uniforms were recently updated, and Midnighter, in this sketch, looks more like a leather daddy, while Apollo seems like a vacuous Chelsea boy — though there’s still something charming about him.

Superboy, a young clone of Superman introduced in 1993, has been through a number of costume changes. The getup with the glasses, bad haircut and leather jacket (another superhero staple of the ’90s) was not a good look, but the makeover that paired jeans and a black T-shirt turned him into a hunk. The black bodysuit with the red highlights is a design sketch from DC’s recent revamp and keeps him looking sharp and handsome.

Title: Costume Changes | Superheroes for Halloween


News: Mea culpa, Jan Brewer. You showed (or should I say, pwned) me.

A bill requiring presidential hopefuls to hand over their long-form (e.g. not Hawaiian) birth certificates to Arizona's secretary of state landed on her desk last week. Given Gov. Brewer's unparalleled record of empowering Arizona's political fringe, I predicted she would let the bill become law and establish her state as the nation's official "birther" gatekeeper to the presidency. A Hawaiian, whose state provides only the dreaded "short form" to those seeking a birth certificate, would have to dig up enough hospital, baptismal or circumcision paperwork to convince Arizona of his sufficient American-ness.

The bill was a joke, and Brewer dismissed it as such by noting in her short veto message that she "never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their 'early baptismal or circumcision certificate.' " For good measure she could have thrown in a line explaining she has no doubts concerning President Obama's citizenship (clearly what this bill was about), but Brewer has nonetheless handed the un-dead birther movement its most official rebuke yet.

Good for her. Now what about gays, Latinos and immigrants?

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Photo: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, R, speaks Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at the Governor's Volunteer Awards luncheon in Phoenix. Credit: Matt York / AP Photo

Title:

assistant: Sending Arizona 'birthers' back to the drawing board