Continuing our look back at later developments to stories we brought you on Geeks Are Sexy this year, we turn our attention to August. The Obama administration vetoed a ruling by the International Trade Commission (a US agency) that would have banned imports of iPhone and iPad models alleged to breach Samsung patents. Such a veto is extremely rare. In October an ITC import ban of some older Samsung products alleged to breach Apple patents went through without presidential veto.

Patent law experts generally concluded the specifics of the two cases were different enough that it was reasonable to veto one and not the other. That wasn’t enough to satisfy Samsung, which implied the government was deliberately favoring a US company against a foreign competitor. It also launched legal action against the ITC over a third case, in which it refused to impose an import ban on Apple.

A British local authority issued a demolition order on a “Hobbit”-style house built for $23,000 using only local natural materials such as straw and lime plaster and a grass roof. The couple who built it did so without a planning permit, taking somewhat literally the idea that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. The pair have since filed an appeal against the demolition order and formally applied for retrospective planning permission. Those processes are still ongoing and the couple are preparing to spend Christmas in their self-built home.

A class action suit accused Microsoft of intentionally delaying a decision to writedown the value of its stock of unsold Surface tablets by $900 million. The suit claims that Microsoft knew in March that the tablets were worth less than its accounts stated (because they’d either have to be sold off cheap or might never be sold) but didn’t include this in the accounts for the January-March quarter, instead waiting until the April-June report. When that report came out, the suit claims the company’s market valuation dropped by $34 billion. The case has not been settled and is still ongoing: in November Microsoft was granted its request to have the case transferred from Massachusetts (home of Microsoft’s accounting division) to its home state of Washington.

Nintendo announced the 2DS, a handheld console designed for younger and casual players. It had much the same specs and features as the 3DS but without the three-dimensional view. Unlike previous DS models, it didn’t have a hinge, making it fairly bulky to carry around. When the device arrived, reviewers generally concluded that it was a good budget device with a hideously ugly design. Although originally retailing at $129.99 and £109.99, retailers on both sides of the Atlantic found they got a major sales boost when they reduced it to the psychologically-appealing $99 and £99 respectively.

Continuing our look back at later developments to stories we brought you on Geeks Are Sexy this year, we turn our attention to July. Tesla encouraged the public to sign a White House petition calling for an end to laws in several states that prevent manufacturers from selling direct (in person) to the public, something that’s a big problem as Tesla doesn’t use dealerships.

Although the petition reached the 100,000 signatures required to trigger a mandatory response from the White House, no response has yet appeared online. The battle continues locally however. In Ohio, proposed legislation that would expressly have limited Tesla selling directly to the public was rejected by state senators in December.

In Massachusetts, the state legislature is considering two rival bills, one expressly banning direct Tesla sales and one expressly legalizing them. Meanwhile Tesla has opened a store in the state, prompting a case under the more ambiguous existing laws, which will go to the state Supreme Court in February.

Ouya, which manufactures an open source games console, offered a total of one million dollars to match money that game developers raised on Kickstarter. The offer originally applied to any Ouya game that raised at least $50,000, with a per-title limit of $250,000, but the company later lowered the minimum threshold to $10,000. So far seven titles have received a total of just under $350,000, the biggest being “psychological horror game” Neverending Nightmares which raised over $100,000. Developers have until August 2014 to claim a share of the remaining money.

The debate continued about a possible pardon for British computer pioneer Alan Turing, convicted in 1952 for homosexual activity.  Officials had maintained that a pardon was legally impossible as Turing knowingly and rationally decided to carry out what was then a criminal act.

A member of the House of Lords (the UK’s upper, unelected house of parliament) proposed creating a law specifically to pardon Turing. In an extremely rare change of usual procedure for a non-governmental bill, the government agreed to make legislative time for the bill as long as nobody proposed any amendments (which would prompt a lengthy scrutiny process.) The bill was passed without change in the House of Lords and next had to make its way through the House of Commons (the lower, elected house) before it can become law. Its progress there was halted in December by a member objecting to the bill. It therefore had to go to a full debate, currently scheduled for February 28 next year.

However, just before Christmas, the government’s Justice Minister formally requested that the Queen issue an immediate pardon, which happened with effect from December 24. It wasn’t immediately clear why the government changed its stance, though it may have wanted to avoid a potentially embarrassing political dispute as the bill went to debate.