According to a recent FCC filing, an AT&T-compatible Google Nexus One has been approved, and could be available for the GSM-based provider within a few months.
Currently, the Nexus One works for T-Mobile and AT&T, but 3G only works on T-Mobile's network. A Verizon version has been promised for the "Spring."
The filing shows an HTC smartphone being approved with model number 99110. The current Nexus One has model number 99100. The new device has support for AT&T 3G, a different band then that used in Europe, where Vodafone will have a version in the Spring as well.
The phone currently sells at www.google.com/phone for $180 with T-Mobile contract or $530 unlocked.
Rockstar Games has announced that they will be bringing two downloadable Grand Theft Auto IV episodes to the PlayStation 3 and to PCs, months after they debuted, exclusively on the Xbox 360.
The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony will cost $20 each, and become available on March 30th.
Buyers can purchase the episodes individually, or buy both together as the Episodes From Liberty City bundle.
Matthew Delorey of Massachusetts has been arrested this week, accused of selling hacked Comcast cable modems that would allow buyers to have free Internet access.
Delorey has also been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of wire fraud, each of which has a maximum sentence of 20 years and a fine of $250,000 USD.
The alleged hacker sold the modems via Massmodz.com, which has since been taken down. The modems were modified to have the MAC addresses spoofed, technically stealing Internet access from paying customers.
Delorey was caught when FBI agents purchased two of the modems. The hacker also posted videos on YouTube
titled "Massmodz.com How to Get Free Internet Free Cable Internet Comcast or any Cable ISP - 100% works" and "Massmodz.com How to bypass Comcast registration page with premod cable modem SB5100, SB 5101."
T-Mobile is set to add a new "flagship" Android device to their lineup of smartphones, one that likely signals the end of the T-Mobile G1, the original Android-based device.
It is still unknown what the phone will be called, but it is either the MyTouch 2 or the MyTouch Slide, with either name possible given that it is a sequel to the MyTouch 3G and, you guessed it, it includes a slide-out full QWERTY keypad.
The new device will have an HVGA touchscreen, a trackpad, and a four-row physical keypad. It will run Android 2.0, but will also use the HTC Sense interface. The camera is likely 5MP, with LED flash. As with past devices, the MyTouch 2 will include a microSD memory card slot.
The device will launch at under $200 with contract.
Google has written a blog post today that officially ends wider Google support for Internet Explorer 6.
Reads the full post:
The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible. There are many choices:
Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products -- as well as new Docs and Sites features -- won’t work properly in older browsers.
As of December 31st, 2009, Nintendo has sold 67.4 million Wii consoles, with 32 million in the U.S., 9.7 million in Japan and 25.7 million in Europe and other regions.
Additionally, 510 million software titles have been sold, with 275.8 million of those coming from the U.S.
The popular handheld console, the DS/DSi, has reached 125 million, with 45 million sales coming from the U.S., 30 million in Japan and 50 million from Europe and other regions.
Despite the strong sales, Nintendo reported that overall net profits were down 9.4 percent for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2009, most likely due to slightly weaker sales of the Wii, alongside Nintendo's price cut on the console.
The UK satellite provider Sky has announced it will be the first in the region to offer a dedicated 3D channel when it launches Sky 3D in April.
The first 3D live sports event will be a football match between Arsenal and Manchester United. There will be one Sky Sports broadcast completely devoted to the 3D showing, with 8 different 3D camera setups.
As long as you have a 3D HDTV, Sky+HD customers can watch the programming from their homes as well starting in April. The programming will be free and current set-top boxes are capable of receiving 3D content.
Microsoft has announced their quarterly earnings today, claiming their highest-ever quarterly revenue, thanks directly to strong sales of the Windows 7 operating system.
The company sold 60 million copies of the new OS, and overall net income jumped 60 percent year-on-year to $6.66 billion USD.
In comparison, Vista took four months to sell 40 million copies, and sales slowed from there on out.
Additionally, Zune HD sales were not revealed, but total Xbox and Zune revenue dropped 11 percent year-on-year.
According to the NYTimes, Fujitsu will be suing Apple over the rights to the name iPad.
In 2002, Fujitsu released a real-time, portable inventory-management device called the "iPAD," which was last updated in 2006.
The iPAD runs with a "PXA 270 processor with Microsoft Windows CE .NET 5.0, together with a 802.11 b/g radio and Bluetooth v1.2." Companies such as Current Directions still advertise the sale of the product.
PCMag says there is one problem: "The Fujitsu iPAD trademark stalled because of an earlier filing by another company, Mag-Tech. Fujitsu let its application lapse, but revived its application. Apple has asked for more time to fight the application."
Following Nokia'searnings report today, there was an interesting note about the Ovi Store, Nokia's application store for its mobile phones.
The Ovi Store is now seeing 1 million downloads per day, a strong milestone for the service that opened to criticism last year for its sloppy launch.
Nokia VP of Product, Media George Linardos said earlier this month that the company was looking to re-do the store, and that a V2 should be available by the Spring. Apparently, the Ovi Store has also surpassed the iPhone App Store in most territories in Asia and Latin America, although it is important to note that Apple has a much smaller base in those nations.
In comparison, the Apple App Store is seeing 300 million-plus downloads per month.
ScanSafe, a provider of corporate software, has reported that workplace piracy (and attempted piracy) is up 55 percent in the last three months on corporate networks, including downloads of movies, music and software.
The company says it "currently processes data across more than 100 countries for millions of employees, giving it the industry’s most significant insight into the latest trends in Web traffic and malware."
"Employees mistakenly assume they can use the Internet at work in exactly the same way as they use it at home and this is potentially one of the reasons for this steady increase in illegal download attempts over recent months," adds Spencer Parker, director of product management at ScanSafe. "Inappropriate Internet use in the workplace can put the employer at risk for legal liabilities."
Parker continues: "Downloading illegal content is a 'double whammy' for employers as not only does it put them at risk legally but it also puts the company network at risk of being infected with malware. A large majority of free illegal downloading websites are often riddled with malware."
Yesterday we reported that Wal-Mart had a "coming soon" screen for the Google Nexus One, and it appeared that the smartphone may have been headed to brick and mortar stores around the U.S. (View the screenshot in the linked article.)
The retailer has since responded to the page, calling it an error: "Due to a technical error, this item erroneously was displayed on our site ... We have no plans to carry Nexus One in Walmart stores or online at Walmart.com at this time,"said spokesperson Ravi Jariwala.
We now have both sides of the story, but who do we believe? It seems like a waste of time and effort for someone at Wal-Mart to create a full Nexus One page, along with "coming soon" attached, if the retailer is not expected to sell the device.
Sony will be releasing "around" 10 motion control-based games this year, for use with the PS3's upcoming "Arc" device, says a short Nikkei report today.
A few of the games released will be sports based and "pet raising" based.
Sony announced last week that the device was being pushed back from a Spring release to a fall release, but that it would come with "extensive line-up" of software in North America, Europe, Japan and the Asian regions.
Rival Project Natal is coming in the fall as well.
In updating the iPhone SDK, Apple is now accepting apps that allow for VoIP calls over 3G networks. Until this week, that option had only been available through Wi-Fi.
iCall, the maker of the iCall app first noted the SDK change and has updated its app to be "the first and only VoIP application that functions on the iPhone and iPod Touch over cellular 3G networks."
Apple had previously acquiesced to AT&T, prohibiting VoIP over 3G, leaving applications like Skype and iCall to work only over Wi-Fi.
Says iCall CEO Arlo Gilbert: "I applaud Apple's decision to allow iCall to extend its functionality beyond Wi-Fi and onto the 3G networks. This heralds a new era for VoIP applications on mobile platforms, especially for iCall and our free calling model. I hope that now more developers will begin using our VoIP as a platform to integrate VoIP into their applications."
AppleInsider has put together a strong list of what Wall Street analysts are expecting for the newly launched Apple iPad tablet, and the consensus seems to be 1 million to 5 million units in its first year for the "risky" device.
Needham & Company says the iPad is "another winner." RBC Capital Markets, judging by the general unenthusiastic reaction from the tech community says: "Not everyone initially liked the Ten Commandments either -- but they endured." RBC continues that: "With iPad, Apple creates a revolutionary e-reading, browsing, media, gaming experience. Newspapers, Web pages, books 'come alive' with video, animation, color and fullscreen touch." The lack of a camera, the inability to multi-task applications and no Verizon compatibility is disappointing, they add, but don't see it being a dealbreaker.
Kaufman Bros. says the cheap, Wi-Fi only version will be the best seller, with the AT&T 3G version selling for too high of a premium.
Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner calls the iPad "a revolutionary new media device," and expects 1.1 million units sold in its first year.
Nokia has just announced the financial results for the previous quarter. The mobile giant reported profit of 1,395 billion euros (approx. $1,952 billion) and the revenue rose to 12 billion euros (approx. $16,8 billion). Revenue went up 22 percent from the previous quarter but had a 5 percent decline from year ago.
Overall sales rose 17 percents from the previous quarter and 12 percent from year ago to 126,9 million units. Market share climbed from 38 to 39 percent. The average selling price (ASP) of mobile devices was up one euro to 63 EUR.
Sales of converged mobile devices, including smartphones and so called mobile computers such as the Nokia N900, climbed as well. A total of 20,8 million converged mobile devices were sold during the quarter, an increase of 4,4 million units from previous quarter.
Services generated a revenue of 169 million euros, which increased 14 percent from the previous 148 million.
Overall the result was very positive for Nokia and far better than analysts expected.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued a statement today telling citizens that the Android mobile OS is "OK" in China despite Google's recent threat to leave the country unless a compromise is made on search engine censorship.
Official Zhu Hongren says there should "be no limit" to a mobile OS in China as long as it follows the nation's laws.
The statement was mainly to appease the fears of investors and fans of Android but it may have also been a way for China to officially acknowledge the country's dependence on Android, and its variant, Open Mobile System. China Mobile, which is backed by the Chinese government, has released most of its smartphones with OMS.
Motorola and Samsung recently delayed the release of two Android phones in the nation following Google's threat. Lenovo, however, says they are still on track to release their Android phone in China this spring.
The European Commission (EC) has agreed to requests from a human rights watchdog to monitor Virgin Media's planned deep-packet inspection test on its network to determine the level of illegal file sharing. Virgin will use software called CView that will sniff traffic over the Gnutella network, eDonkey network and through BitTorrent and will be capable of retrieving file names.
The system is setup currently so that individual users cannot be identified by CView. However, Privacy International is concerned that using the software will breach UK privacy laws. "Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) intercepting communications is a criminal offence regardless of what you do with the data,"Alexander Hanff, head of ethical networks at Privacy International, said.
He has vowed to file a criminal complaint if Virgin starts using CView. Legislation proposed in the UK would use a measured response to fight piracy. It would start with a warning letter to a customer of an ISP (from the ISP once it receives a complaint) and those who persist will get further, stronger warnings before eventually being suspended from the service.
According to CVG, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was given the opportunity to sign up as part of the device that we now know as Project Natal, but declined because he felt they could not launch it at mass-market price.
The technology was demoed by Israel-based 3DV Systems in 2007, but Iwata and other executives declined to accept it as a Wii peripheral.
"Iwata-san only ever invests in something he can guarantee will work for a Nintendo audience," says an unnamed "top" executive, via CVG."3DV showed off a camera that detected motion in 3D, and had voice recognition - but Iwata-San was unconvinced he could sell it at a Nintendo price point. He also had some worries around latency during gameplay."
Despite agreeing that Microsoft has improved on some aspects of the technology since it purchased 3DV last year, the exec adds: "What we witnessed at E3 was smaller and the facial [reading] stuff had improved, but it's the same technology. We remain unconvinced Natal will deliver on the more sophisticated elements of what Microsoft is promising at the price they're aiming for."
More than 150 people have contacted consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to have been wrongly targeted with written warnings for Internet piracy activity. ACS:Law has sent thousands of letters to users in the UK accusing them of illegally sharing copyrighted content on the Internet, and providing a chance to pay about £250 to settle the case.
Which? claims to have been contacted by a number of people who say they have no knowledge of the alleged offense. One such case involves a 78 year old man who was accused of downloading and sharing pornography. "He doesn't even know what file-sharing or BitTorrent is so has certainly not done this himself or given anyone else permission to use his computer to do such a thing," Which? was told in a complaint.
The consumer advocate is now concerned that users might be accused wrongly. "Innocent consumers are being threatened with legal action for copyright infringements they not only haven't committed, but wouldn't know how to commit," said Matt Bath, technology editor of Which?. "Many will be frightened into paying up rather than facing the stress of a court battle."
Samsung has announced that they have begun mass producing displays for 3D LED HDTVs, a move that puts a lot of support behind the technology that many critics have called a "gimmick."
Being in mass production should mean lower prices for the end user in a short time frame. 3D TVs have so far come with a heavy price tag.
"Recently, 3D displays have captured the industry spotlight. Samsung Electronics aims to lead the global 3D TV panel market in pioneering mass production for 3D LED and LCD TVs," reads the press release.
The displays being produced are 40-inch, 46-inch and 55-inch.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is preparing for a third trial to once again determine damages, which have so far ranged from $54,000 to $1.92 million, to be paid by Jammie Thomas-Rasset who has been accused (and found guilty) of sharing 24 songs illegally on file sharing networks. Last year, the mother of four from Minnesota was ordered to pay $1.92 million in damages for sharing the music.
Last week, Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis reduced the damages to $54,000, declaring that the $1.92 million figure was "monstrous and shocking." The RIAA was given until Wednesday to accept the decision or to reject it, which would result in a new trial. The trade group announced it will reject the decision and go to another trial, as Thomas-Rasset turned down an opportunity to settle the case.
Attorneys for Thomas-Rasset said she would not accept a settlement offer from the RIAA, which would have her paying $25,000 to a charity for struggling artists. "Jammie is not going to agree to pay any amount of money to them," Attorney Joe Sibley said, adding that it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million.
Netflix has reported its highest number of new customers in a single quarter in the company's history, adding more than 1.1 million new subscribers in the fourth-quarter. It took four years to hit 1 million subscribers after Netflix launched in 1999. Investors applauded as the company revealed its results for the quarter, including a 36 percent rise in the Q4 profits for the rental-by-mail service.
Netflix now has more than 12 million subscribers, with a boost in new subscribers in response to new plans that bundle the rental-by-mail service with unlimited video streaming over the Internet, for prices as low as $9 per month. The good news didn't stop there for investors either; Netflix management expects Q1 2010 to be even more successful, projecting between 1.2 and 1.5 million new subscribers by the end of March.
Fourth-quarter revenue climbed 24 percent to $444.5 million, missing analyst expectations by $1 million. The shortfall however was overshadowed by pledges from management to boost profit margins to 11 percent from its previous 10 percent target.
Nokia Corp. has decided not to bundle its 'Comes With Music' service with its flagship X6 music phone model, in an effort to boost sales of the device. By cutting the unlimited music service, Nokia can cut the price of the phone by a third. Nokia launched 'Comes With Music' in 2008 in Britain as a test for the service, but it has only received a lukewarm reception, largely due to a large price overall.
"Nokia will have unbundled Comes with Music with heavy heart. It's a cornerstone service for flagship products like the X6, but this move reflects operators' reluctance to offer it," said Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight. Nokia wanted to boost the service by bundling it with the X6 phone, but retail outlets and operators weren't warm to it.
"This was an expected move -- in our view, the early demand for the bundled X6 has been soft," said analyst Tero Kuittinen from MKM Partners. "The lack of confidence in Comes with Music has kept European operators from marketing it aggressively." The phone went on sale last year, bundled with 'Comes With Music', for around €450 ($634), excluding taxes and subsidies.
Ubisoft is looking to reduce the amount of pirates playing its PC games while tackling some of the common problems that Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology causes for legitimate consumers. The company has said that a new anti-piracy system will allow users to install their games on as many PCs as they want and there will be no need to insert a disc for authentication purposes either.
"If you own a hundred PCs, you can install your games on a hundred PCs," said Brent Wilkinson, Director, Customer Service and Production Planning at Ubisoft. While these changes will sound great to those affected by Ubisoft's use of StarForce DRM, there is one major problem. The game is authenticated by the user by signing into his/her Ubi.com account before playing -- even on a single player game.
This obviously raises issues for people who do not have constant access to the Internet, or might regularly suffer service outages. However, Ubisift is not convinced that this will be a big problem. "We think most people are going to be fine with it. Most people are always connected to an Internet connection,"Wilkinson said.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has lost a lawsuit against China's biggest search engine, Baidu. The trade group, which represents record companies from across the world, said that it was disappointed by the loss, and is currently taking time to plan its next steps. It has accused Baidu of "deep-linking" users to hundreds of thousands of illegal MP3 downloads.
The IPFI brought the lawsuit against Baidu in 2008 at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court. Baidu said it is pleased with the court's decision and that it will continue to comply with all laws.
"The verdicts do not reflect the reality that these services have built their music search businesses on the basis of facilitating mass copyright infringement, to the detriment of artists, producers and all those involved in China's legitimate music market," an IFPI representative said.
The hacker behind the first proper breach of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console's security has released the exploit for others to tinker with. It won't let you launch a "hello world" program easily, but its definitely a start for others who are up to the challenge now. George Hotz (geohot), known for his work Apple's iPhone, ran a blog for a few weeks following his efforts to crack the console security, and then on Friday announced that he had "hacked the PS3".
Here's his latest blog post.
Here's your silver platter In the interest of openness, I've decided to release the exploit. Hopefully, this will ignite the PS3 scene, and you will organize and figure out how to use this to do practical things, like the iPhone when jailbreaks were first released. I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night.
Please document your findings on the psDevWiki. They have been a great resource so far, and with the power this exploit gives, opens tons of new stuff to document. I'd like to see the missing HV calls filled in, nice memory maps, the boot chain better documented, and progress on a 3D GPU driver. And of course, the search for a software exploit.
The popey.com blog has reported today that all new versions of Ubuntu Lucid will come with Firefox using Yahoo! as the default search engine instead of Google after the companies struck a deal.
Canonical, the group behind the Lucid releases, made the revenue sharing deal as a way to generate income for the company and its developers.
Obviously, if you hate Yahoo or just prefer Google, Bing, Ask, etc., you can switch the search engine back, but Canonical will not see any of the money from your searches. The browser start page will also feature Yahoo instead of Google now, but that is easily changed as well.
The time for Apple's big product announcement has come. As the rumors suggested it's a tablet, which they're calling the iPad.
At first glance it looks like a giant iPod Touch. So far Steve Jobs has shown off web browsing capabilities, which conspicuously didn't include a Flash plugin, much like the iPhone and iPod Touch.
With a 9.7 inch LED backlit LCD display, the iPad is half an inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds.
It features between 16GB and 64GB of storage with a 1GHz Apple A4 CPU, Bluetooth 2.1 support, and a 802.11n Wi-Fi interface. It can run almost all the apps from the iPhone App Store.
The iPad will be available in March, and will sell for a (suggested retail) price of $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, or $699 for the 64GB version. In April there will also be models with both Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities and suggested retail price of $629 (16GB), $729 (32GB), and $829 (64GB).
Two different AT&T iPad data plans for the 3G version were also announced. For $14.99 you will be able to get a plan with a 250MB limit. There will also be an unlimited plan for $29.99 per month.
This is significantly cheaper than standard data plans using a USB 3G modem, but is also more limited since it will only work with your iPad.
Samuel Lassoff, a class action attorney in Pennsylvania has announced today that he has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over the virtual Microsoft Points, the currency system used to buy games and content through Xbox Live.
Lassoff says the system rips off users, and that he recently was charged for downloads which could not be completed "due to nature of the download system."
Says the filing: "Microsoft has engaged in a scheme to unjustly enrich itself through their fraudulent handling," of accounts.
Although we do not know the exact details of what occurred with his account, the points system being a ripoff is not a new claim. $20 USD will get you 1600 MS points, unlike Wii virtual points, where that same $20 will get you a more straightforward 2000 points. The points you buy also never seem to add up correctly for games you want to buy and you are left with leftovers that are useless until you supplant them with more points.
The federal government has officially banned truckers and bus drivers from texting while on the road, a rule that had been implemented by many of the trucking companies already.
"We want the drivers of big rigs and buses and those who share the roads with them to be safe," says U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "This is an important safety step, and we will be taking more to eliminate the threat of distracted driving."
Today, that has come true, with the movie surpassing Titanic as the highest grossing film of all-time (not adjusted for inflation.)
Gregg Brilliant, of 20th Century Fox, said "Avatar" now stands at $1.859 billion in global sales, beating out Titanic's $1.843 billion from 1998.
The movie is the highest grossing in Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and Australia as well, and is one its way to breaking the American record of $600 million, likely this week.
Long Zheng at istartedsomething has made a very interesting find today, finding drivers for a Zune phone in the latest Zune software update, version 4.2.202.
AT&T has shown Apple its plans to improve the wireless data network, says COO Tim Cook, hoping the new infrastructure will change the general perception of the public that the carrier's network is lacking.
"We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them," Cook added.
Cook did not comment on whether the exclusivity pact Apple has with AT&T was set to expire, and would not go into whether the iPhone would be available for new carriers soon.
The Google Nexus One smartphone has been plagued with 3G connectivity issues since its launch earlier this month, but Google has said today that an OTAfirmware update coming this week should fix the problems.
One employee named Ivar says that the company has been actively creating a software fix that should "improve connectivity to 3G for some users." Ivar does say however that it will not solve all problems, as some users may simply be on the outer range of T-Mobile 3G coverage.
The Nexus One will be available for Verizon users in April, and for Vodafone users in the UK at the same time. If you plan to buy the phone unlocked, you can use it on AT&T, but only using EDGE (2G) speeds.
According to new sources, Verizon will begin offering prepaid BlackBerry data service sometime in the next three months.
Although there weren't too many details revealed, the plan will cost $35 on top of your normal voice plan. Most likely, only a few BlackBerrys will be available for the new deal.
The move is the first time Verizon will offer a smartphone as a "prepaid" device, and most American carriers have been reluctant to make such offers, instead opting for long-term contracts with locked in prices.
Although it is available online through the new Google Android store, it appears as though Wal-Mart stores may be getting the smartphone soon too.
More interesting however is the fact that in the specs sheet listed, AT&T and Sprint bands are listed, meaning the phone may be soon available for four major carriers.
Google has announced the launch of a new version of Google Voice for the Apple iPhone, one that cannot be downloaded through the app store but instead used through the web browser.
In July, the original Google Voice app was rejected from the app store and faced large criticism, prompting the FCC to look into Apple's rejection process.
The Voice service allows users to make cheap long-distance calls online, and the ability to forward phone calls from one number to multiple phones.
Google says the new version is a "Web app" that is "much more interactive than the previous browser-based version of the service, with the ability to listen to voice mails directly from within the browser and to dial phone numbers on an interactive on-screen keypad."
The new version will work for iPhone 3.0 and above firmware and for WebOS based Palm smartphones.
Get Games, the digital download site launched in November has announced that it has added 19 games this week, with 150 more expected in the upcoming weeks.
The site launched with little content outside of Serious Sam HD but now seems to be making some headway.
Popular titles Machinarium, Trine and EuFloria are available for £29.95 each and other titles are available for cheaper.
"Our goal is to work with people professionally and to run a nimble and efficient business which should result in a service that makes sense for the content owner as well as the retailer, a relationship which too often seems to be out of step in traditional retail and digital distribution at the moment,"says founder Rupert Loman.
AOL has announced it will be acquiring the Internet video firm StudioNow for $36.5 million in cash, in an effort to boost the company's video offerings.
The portal now owns 80 sites, and CEO Tim Armstrong adds: "We have a big need for video."
Because of the acquisition, AOL can expand quicker then building a video platform from scratch, adds Armstrong. "We did a search across the video landscape," he said. "We knew we wanted to buy, versus build, because of the time frame we were looking at," he said.
The Washington Post says StudioNow's "founder has said his company can produce videos for corporations at a cost of $3,000, compared with to what was once a typical starting price of $15,000. The firm's clients have included publisher Simon & Schuster and Maxim magazine."
Google has announced that the Chrome browser has been updated to version 4 (stable), giving PC users access to 1500 new features and extensions. Chrome 4 beta has been available for some time, including extensions, but users will want to update to the stable version to make sure they access all the features and bug fixes.
MCV is reporting today that the BBC is actively trying to get back into gaming, looking to turn intellectual properties into DS, Wii and iPhone games. The company is also looking to turn the properties into games that can be played online via social networking sites such as Facebook.
Of the popular properties the BBC is looking to convert, Doctor Who, Top Gear, and In The Night Garden are the most popular.
"We are open to conversations with anybody in games about all kinds of business models to see how we can extract more value," said Neil Ross Russell, MD of licensing. "Outside of Disney we have the most well-known line-up of children’s characters around the world."
"We've been reactive to the market in the last few years," adds Dave Anderson, head of multimedia development at BBC Worldwide, noting that the company closed its gaming division in 2005. "There were a few opportunistic licensing deals, but we were largely aggregating and holding on to our properties to wait and see how the market developed."
If the latest reports are to be believed, Apple and AT&T'siPhone exclusivity pact will end on Wednesday.
Says HotHardware:"According to an inside source close to the going-ons involved in all of this, a new tablet of some sort may not be the only thing on deck for next Wednesday though. We have been led to believe by an inside source that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on the same day, though it's not yet clear what other carrier (or carriers) will be stepping in to also carry the phone."
The most likely new carrier is Verizon, which is the biggest carrier in the nation. To work on Verizon however, the new iPhone hardware would have to be CDMA compatible.
Hewlett-Packard has partnered up with Ominfone for a new venture that will distribute theMusicStation music service to new PCs sold in Europe.
The subscription service has 6.5 million tracks from the Big 4 labels and offers the music in WMA format, with DRM which kills the tracks if you ever stop paying the monthly fee.
Sixteen HP models will have the MusicStation Desktop service pre-loaded and for now the computers will be available with the service in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.
As part of the deal, a free two-week trial comes included, and the service will cost 9 pounds per month in the UK, and 10 euro in the other countries.
The Chinese government has denied any involvement in the recent cyber attacks launched at Google, and defended its right to censor search engine queries.
Google has threatened to leave the country entirely after Chinese hackers tried to steal data from the Gmail accounts of human rights activists.
"Any accusation that the Chinese government participated in cyber attacks, either in an explicit or indirect way, is groundless and aims to discredit China," said a ministry spokesman. "We are firmly opposed to that."
For Internet censorship, the State Council defended what it does, saying it is fully legal and that other countries should not interfere in China's domestic affairs.
After just five weeks in theaters, the epic blockbuster Avatar is set to pass Titanic this week as the highest selling movie of all-time (not adjusted for ticket price inflation.)
On Sunday, the film became the highest selling movie overseas, beating out Titanic's former record of $1.242 billion in sales. Individually, the movie is the highest grossing of all-time already in China, Spain, Russia, Hong Kong and Chile.
Avatar currently sits at $552.8 million domestic and $1.808 billion worldwide cumulative, on pace to break Titanic's 13-year-old records of $600.8 million and $1.843 billion, respectively.
The film is also the best selling IMAX film of all time, with $134 million in sales at an average of $15 per ticket.
Gone With the Wind, when adjusted for inflation remains the highest grossing film of all time, with an estimated $3 billion in sales.
Speaking with Ars Technica in an extensive internet, Google's Matthew Papakipos, the engineering director for the Chrome OS project, revealed that the operating system and the Chrome browser would include a media player. He said it would be the "equivalent of Windows Media Player." The player will support HTML5 audio and video, as well as Flash, and will be integrated with services on the web.
For example, a GMail user can view an attached video file directly in the Chrome browser because the media player framework is built-in. Google's Chrome operating system allows users to perform every day tasks such as checking e-mail, using social networking or just browsing the web. It is meant to provide long battery life for netbook users in particular.
The inclusion of a Chrome Media Player is then a necessity for users to be able to perform simple multimedia tasks offline. The operating system is still a work in progress by far, as Papakipos reveals that the team is still experimenting with many issues, such as ways to make use of dead space on widescreen monitors (the areas to the right and left of a web page that are blank, and may be quite large amounts of space depending on screen size).
Microsoft has confirmed some major organizational changes to its Entertainment and Devices unit following the departure of Corporate Vice President Enrique Rodriguez, who has reportedly decided to pursue other interests. Under Rodriquez were teams for Zune Software & Services, Mediaroom IPTV and Media Center. Those have now been moved to Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB).
The IEB division is also part of Entertainment and Devices, and is in charge of Xbox development, Games for Windows and Microsoft Game Studios. "As a natural evolution of the Interactive Entertainment Business, our consumer products and experiences focused on games, movies, TV and music will move into IEB, led by SVP Don Mattrick. In addition, we’ve formed a new centralized E&D services infrastructure team, which will act as a combined resource across the division,"a spokesperson said.
"Finally, Enrique Rodriguez has decided to move on from his leadership position running the TV, video and music business and is evaluating his next career opportunity. The TVM first party business, Zune and Windows Medica Center will move to IEB, and Mediaroom, the TV platform business, will become a standalone group within E&D, reporting directly to (E&D) President Robbie Bach."
Microsoft has recently filed a patent relating to the upcoming Windows Explorer 9 web browser that will enhance the functionality of tabbed browsing and tab management.
Neowin says the patents (pictures at end of article) describe "a system and method for selecting a tab within a tabbed browser."
The patent was filed in September of last year, and shows that IE8's "quick tabs" feature will be upgraded substantially. In addition to thumbnails of all open tabs, users will be able to drag and move the tabs from within the Quick Tabs page. Thumbnails will enlarge when you hover over them with the mouse, allowing for an easier preview of the page.
The Justice Department has vocally supported the awarding of $675,000 in damages to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) from a Massachusetts student for sharing 30 songs illegally on the Internet. The department said that copyright infringement, "creates a public harm that Congress determined must be deterred."
The comments aren't very surprising, since several former RIAA lawyers do serve in high positions. The student in question is Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University graduate student, who is only the second person to go to trial against the RIAA following a P2P lawsuit. Over 30,000 such claims were made, almost all of which have resulted in settlements for a few thousand dollars.
The Copyright Act allows for fines ranging from $750 to $150,000 per infringement. After the Jury verdict in Tenenbaum's case, his defense team mounted a legal challenge against the damages, claiming they were unconstitutional on the grounds that they were disproportionate to the harm done to the industry by the crime.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved Arabic domain names, giving the countries of Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates a chance to begin creating web addresses in their native languages.
"This marks a pivotal moment in the history of Internet domain names," says ICANN CEO and president Rod Beckstrom. "These international names will now allow people to type entire domain names in their own language."
By June, the four approved countries can request that local language addresses be included in domain names root systems that can be accessed by all Internet users.
The ICANN calls the move the biggest in over 40 years for the foundations of the Internet.
Data acquired by Valve's Steam gaming delivery service shows that a large portion of its users have already decided to switch to Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7. Although it can be installed on Windows Vista, Microsoft has essentially tied DirectX 11 to the new operating system by working with Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to maximize its potential for more realistic graphics, improved multimedia performance and other features in Windows 7.
Microsoft sees the potential in Windows 7 offloading tasks to graphics hardware to take the load off of the CPU; certainly not a new concept at all, but one that the Redmond-giant wants to give a bigger role to for even common tasks. Valve data gotten directly from users' computers show that around 23 percent of its users have moved to Windows 7.
Verizon has announced that all calling fees for wireless and home users making calls to Haiti from the U.S. have been waived from now until the end of the month.
Any calls made since the time of the disaster on January 12th will also be credited back on your next statement, says the company.
"Communicating and connecting families is essential to what our business stands for, and who we are. During this major relief effort as communication systems are starting to come back on line, we understand the importance of being in touch with the people who matter most,” added Dan Mead, COO at Verizon Wireless.
As reported earlier, anyone with a cell phone can help the relief efforts by texting “HAITI” to 90999, which donates $10 to the American Red Cross.
Epic Games, the publisher behind the extremely popular Gears of War series, regrets their exclusivity pact with Microsoft, says top video game analyst Michael Pachter, who adds that "I think the Epic guys can't wait until they can start doing multiplatform games."
When asked if he means the new GOW will hit the PS3, Pachter explains: "I don't, I think Microsoft has a contract to make sure they get that sequel. But I think Epic regrets signing that contract. You're up to 11 million PS3s in the U.S. and probably similar number in Europe, you got a 20 million addressable market with a game like Gears of War. I mean, that thing would easily sell 3 or 4 million on the PS3, that's a lot of profit. No way is it worth it."
Of course, this is just words from an analyst, in which he is speculating and not quoting any sources from within Epic, however, it is an interesting rumor.
President Barack Obama is looking for answers from China this week over the cyberattacks that hit Google earlier this month, coming from Chinese hackers looking to steal info on human rights activists.
"We are having high-level meetings and we will continue to have meetings and we will continue to press this issue aggressively," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley. "We will continue to seek an explanation from China. A blanket denial that nothing happened we don't think is particularly helpful."
The administration is looking for at least some answers on the cyberattacks, which China has yet to give.
"As the president has said, he continues to be troubled by the cybersecurity breach that Google attributes to China," White House deputy spokesman Bill Burton noted. "As Secretary (Hillary) Clinton said yesterday, all we are looking for from China are some answers."
Clinton called on China to stop restricting the "free flow of information," and received a response from foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu: "We firmly oppose such words and deeds, which go against the facts and are harmful to China-US relations. We urge the United States to respect facts and stop using the so-called Internet freedom issue to criticize China unreasonably."
The UK ISP BT has announced the launched of its BT Infinity fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connection this week, which will include bandwidth caps, much to the dismay of those hoping restrictions on P2P downloading would subside with the new rollout.
The £19.99 package, which offers up to 40Mbit/s download speeds, has a tiny 20GB per month bandwidth cap.
BT also says that that they implemented traffic management equipment that will throttle P2P traffic during peak hours, the same way it does with ADSL lines. The 5 percent heaviest users will also be monitored and have their bandwidth throttled.
Rob Wells, the senior vice-president Digital for Universal Music Group International, talked to the Telegraph this week about his label's relationship with the popular streaming service Spotify, which is apparently one of the first ever sustainable business models for digital licensing.
In the UK and Spain, Spotify pays UMG a royalty per user, and in Sweden, Norway, Finland and France, Spotify pays the label from money generated by subscriptions and advertising.
"In all its territories bar two, Spotify pays the labels from a mixture of the money it generates from advertising revenues and subscriptions. That to me equates to a sustainable business model," says Wells.
Wells adds that only 10 to 12 percent of all users in any given territory need to have subscriptions for the record labels to make money, and that it is doing so in everywhere but Spain, where there is a ton of free users, and the 10 percent is such a large number. In the UK, Spotify has turned back to "invite only" membership, as a way to limit new users.
The senior VP also said Spotify was the group's fourth largest digital partner in terms of revenue, behind iTunes, YouTube and an unknown third.
The Archos 5 media player has finally seen its firmware updated to Android 1.6, giving a long anticipated update for their now aging 1.5 players.
Unfortunately, the update will still not give access to the Android Market, but built-in applications are now optimized for the device's higher resolution screen. 1.6 also adds "quick search" for easy location of much, contacts, and applications.
However, you may want to hold off on downloading, as early reports call the update the "very unstable."
Full change log:
Version 1.7.33
Since this firmware is based on a new version of Android, after the update, you will be prompted to reset your device configuration. It is highly recommended to do so. The extra applications that you may have installed will need to be re-installed, but your multimedia files will not be affected.
* Android 1.6 "Donut": quick search box, power control widget, battery usage indicator screen, WVGA screen native support, VPN
* ThinkFree Mobile 1.2: double-tap zoom in PDF, miscellaneous bug fixes and speed improvements
* Video: add automatic gain control option for sound in Video Player
* Video: fix support for MJPG files
* Video: improve youtube playback support
* Music: add support for .mp2 files
* Music: allow to play shoutcast .PLS files from the web browser
* TV: improve image centering in Video Player when using DVR Snap-on
* Android: fix touch screen offset experienced in some applications due to presence of Archos status bar
* Keyboard: add up and down arrow keys in Android keyboard (press "?123" to get it)
* Keyboard: add "OK" key in Android keyboard (long press on "Return" key to get it)
* GUI: improved Archos Widget layout on TV
* Storage: correct random hard disk disconnection while playing music or video
* Network: fix UPnP and network sharing not working on Wi-Fi access point not complying with Wi-Fi power saving standard specification
* Network: add an option to disable power saving at the expense of battery life for a specific access point at first association to cope with some buggy Wi-Fi access points
* Network: fix archos multimedia application sometimes failed to access the network
* Alarm Clock: fix alarm could not be set when android multimedia library was off
* System: use Android default notification sound when android multimedia library is off
* System: add accelerometer calibration in Startup Wizard
A U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) judge has dealt a setback to Nvidia Corp. in a legal patent dispute with chip-maker Rambus. Judge Theodore Essex said that Nvidia is violating three patents owned by Rambus, while dismissing two other patents as invalid. Rambus Inc. is attempting to force Nvidia to patent royalties over technology in use in Nvidia graphics chips.
Nvidia is just one of many companies that Rambus is pursuing with the goal of gaining lucrative settlements and royalties. On January 19th, South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. agreed to pay $900 million to end a legal dispute with Rambus over computer memory chips. The consumer electronics manufacturer said it will come to a licensing deal with Rambus following the legal dispute.
"We're going to continue to fight this," said David Shannon, Nvidia's general counsel, adding that the company's customers "know we're going to take this as far as we have to take it." Judge Theodore Essex' decision is subject to review by the full commission, but it could potentially result in a ban on imports of Nvidia products that use the patented technology, which could include computers made by Hewlett-Packard.
The disputes over mobile technology patents just keep on coming. Yesterday, Motorola filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), alleging that Research in Motion (RIM) has infringed several of the company's held patents.
Motorola is asking the ITC to investigate possible infringements of five patents on early stage innovations such as Wi-Fi access, UI and application management, by the Blackberry-maker.
"In light of RIM's continued unlicensed use of Motorola's patents, RIM's use of delay tactics in our current patent litigation, and RIM's refusal to design out Motorola's proprietary technology, Motorola had no choice but to file a complaint with the ITC to halt RIM's continued infringement." said Jonathan Meyer, senior vice president of intellectual property law at Motorola.
"Motorola will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its R&D and intellectual property, which are critical to the Company's business."
Rockstar Games has responded to an open letter attributed to "wives of employees" that alleges Rockstar workers suffer poor working conditions at a certain studio. The letter alleged that Rockstar was pushing employees to the brink at its San Diego studio. Employees were expected to work 12 hour days, including Saturdays, and the company had been dishonest about deadlines, according to the letter.
It demanded that Rockstar change its working practices or face legal action over the threat to workers' health at the studio. On Rockstar's official website, the developer made its first public comments on the allegations in response to fan questions. "As for the stories spreading around the internet, yes we have noticed them. Unfortunately, this is a case of people taking the opinions of a few anonymous posters on message boards as fact,"the company stated.
"No business is ever perfect, but Rockstar Games is a tight knit team made up of around 900 supremely talented and motivated professionals, many of whom have worked here for a very long time. We're saddened if any former members of any studio did not find their time here enjoyable or creatively fulfilling and wish them well with finding an environment more suitable to their temperaments and needs, but the vast majority of our company are focused solely on delivering cutting edge interactive entertainment."
Earlier this week, Nokia responded to Apple's complaints to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), saying it will "defend itself vigorously." Apple filed a complaint with the ITC on January 15th, requesting that Nokia imports to the United States be blocked. The iPod-maker accuses Nokia of infringing several of its patents, having allegedly "copied certain aspects of the iPhone."
The legal dispute between the two companies kicked off in October when Nokia fired the first shot by filing a lawsuit against Apple, alleging that Apple's iPhone infringed 10 of its patents. In response, Apple countersued the Finnish mobile handset giant, alleging that its products infringed 13 patents it held. Then, in December 2009, Nokia filed a further claim with the ITC alleging Apple infringed seven of its patents in "virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers."
Following the latest move by Apple in the ongoing dispute, Nokia said it will "study the complaint and defend itself vigorously". "This does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia's innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007," a Nokia spokesperson said.
Expedition 22 Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer has sent the first live Tweet from space today, via Crew Support LAN on the International Space Station.
Said Creamer: "Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s"
Creamer and other astronauts at the Space Station had sent Tweets before, but they had been emailed to ground control and then posted manually.
PCmag says of the new LAN setup: "The Crew Support LAN provides indirect access to the Internet via existing communications channels. When the ISS is in contact with the ground via Ku-band communications, the astronauts have remote access to a ground computer, which can then access the Internet and relay the screen up to the ISS."
According to PCWorld, Apple is in talks with Microsoft over Bing, which could become the default search engine for the iPhone in the near future.
The current default search engine for the iPhone and iPod Touch is Google.
Although the deal is nowhere near completed, Bing Maps may also replace Google Maps, and the Bing search engine would be default with all new firmware updates and new devices. Google could be reset as the default from within the software, however.
Apple is reportedly in talks with major publishers Hearst, McGraw-Hill and Hachette Book Group over deals that will have magazines, educational, and trade titles available via the company's upcoming tablet.
Hachette would distribute books, Hearst would provide magazines, and McGraw-Hill would provide electronic versions of college textbooks. Hearst has popular print magazines such as Esquire and Marie Claire, however no deal is set yet, say sources.
All three publishers declined comment.
The tablet is expected to launch on the 27th at Apple's next event.
The world's foremost Android "hacker" Cyanogen has introduced a new Nexus One rom that enables multi-touch support for the "superphone."
For now, multi-touch using the hacked rom will only work using the built-in browser but Cyanogen says he's working on updates to activate multi-touch for all apps.
It is still unclear why Google will not enable the multi-touch, as the ability is there. Many speculate that it will lead to a patent violation, with Apple controlling most of the patents on the technology.
I don't generally like to post articles on claims about console hacking. Over the past few years, the PS3 and Xbox 360 have been subject to numerous hoaxes. In the Xbox 360 case, there were several that turned out to be true (esp. of late), but so many others that didn't. For the PlayStation 3, there has been a lot of claims made and not a lot that has come from them (that's just good security, over three years now).
So I have been following a blog from George Hotz (geohot), who is responsible for several iPhone hacks, on PlayStation 3 (PS3) hacking, and just today I came across a blog entry dated as the 22nd January, 2010 with an immediately intriguing title: "Hello hypervisor, I'm geohot". So while I (and most of us) generally ignore things like this that are submitted to us by users, in this case I'm willing to make an exception, even just for the sake of discussion, and out of respect.
Hello hypervisor, I'm geohot
I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1.
A federal Judge on Friday dramatically reduced a penalty imposed on Jammie Thomas-Rasset by a Jury last year that amounted to almost $2 million for the offense of sharing 24 songs over the Internet. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, who knocked the $1.92 million penalty down to about $54,000 ($2,250 per song), described the original fine as "monstrous and shocking."
"The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music," Davis wrote. Davis did deny a request for a new trial from Thomas-Rasset however, and has given the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) seven days to either accept the smaller penalty or ask for a new trial.
"Whether it's $2 million or $54,000, I'm a mom with four kids and one income and we're not exactly rolling in that kind of dough right now,"Thomas-Rasset said. The Judge said that he came to the $2,250 fee by simply tripling the minimum $750 penalty defined by Federal law, but did indicate that he could have considered an even lower fine.
Sony has announced that the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console has sold 3 million units in the United Kingdom since it was launched. "We'd like to offer a huge thank you to our retail partners in helping us pass the 3 million PS3 milestone," said Ray Maguire of Sony UK.
"The £249 price point is enabling us to reach a much broader audience and our line up of software, Heavy Rain, and God of War III - and that's just in Q1 - should help maintain the momentum." Back in July of last year, the console had reportedly moved 2.2 million units in the region, highlighting a very decent 800,000 units sold in the second half of 2009.
Around the same time, Microsoft had said the Xbox 360 was up to 3.9 million units in the UK, while in December of 2009, Nintendo revealed that the Wii had reached 6 million unit sales. The Wii is leading the market easily worldwide with 56 million units sold globally.
BACH Technology, a technology company based in Norway, Germany and China, which also has the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology as a partner, is pushing a new digital music file format that could be used with legal online music stores. MusicDNA focuses on embedding more content into the file, such as song lyrics and images, as well as making them capable of receiving media updates through the Internet.
The proposed file format has the backing of the original MP3 file inventor (who is a BACH investor). It would store MP3 audio but provide additional content to those that legally purchased it through the Internet. The original artist or record labels could "send" updates to the music file over time, whether it is information on tour dates or links to new content available on the Internet.
The user would be able to control the type of content that it would receive. Users that download the file illegally would not be able to tap its additional content features. The file would work as a normal MP3 file in a portable media player. BACH is in contact with record labels, rights holders and technology companies to plot a path forward for MusicDNA.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has said that global legislation aimed at tackling piracy is the key to the sector's survival. The trade group noted Spain as proof of a link between government inaction and growing music piracy. It said that Spain does not have laws in place to prevent illegal downloads, and pointed out that sales of music from local artists fell 65 percent in five years.
IFPI chairman John Kennedy described the situation in Spain as "almost irreversible". In the UK, the IFPI has thrown support behind the Digital Economy Bill, which contains measures that could result in music file sharers being disconnected from the Internet, and a controversial clause that hands power to change copyright laws to the Secretary of State.
"I hope they won't throw clause 17 overboard,"Kennedy said. "We want this to be futureproof." Unsurprisingly, he also believes that suspension for persistent file sharers is a tactic that will be effective against online piracy. "If there is a risk of kids losing their internet connection, they will stop," said Mr Kennedy. He described the loss of the recent case against Oink (BitTorrenttracker) as a terrible disappointment, and added that it was an indication of how UK laws are out of touch.
The Chinese government has denounced criticism directed at it in a speech about Internet freedom given by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday. In the speech, Clinton has named China as a country that restricts Internet freedom, among several others. In her speech, Clinton also called for the Chinese government to investigate allegations made by Google that a China-originated attack on its systems targeted Chinese human rights activists, and to publish the results of the investigation.
"The US has criticized China's policies to administer the Internet, and insinuated that China restricts internet freedom," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement on the foreign ministry website. "This runs contrary to the facts and is harmful to China-US relations." When Google itself launched in China in 2006, it agreed to censor some search results, which included those related to the 1989 Tienanmen Square protests and Tibet.
Clinton acknowledged in her speech that the Internet was a "source of tremendous progress" in China, but warned that any country imposing political or commercial restrictions on the free access of information risked "walling themselves off from the progress of the next century." She called for tough action to be taken against people and states that engage in cyber attacks.
Microsoft released a patch for its Internet Explorer browser yesterday, aimed at protecting users of the software from vulnerabilities that were exploited in the recent Google China hack. The company claimed that hackers had targeted Google and at least 20 other companies in China by exploiting the browser weakness, and said the patch should be considered critical and applied as soon as possible.
Symantec Corp. warned that others have now begun to exploit the flaw too, with at least 100 websites being discovered that use the IE weakness. The real threat from the flaw is that it can lead to virus infections without the user having to download and run any file, which is usually the case. The patch address eight vulnerabilities in the Internet Explorer browser.
The websites discovered by Symantec successfully attack Internet Explorer 6 only, but the security firm warns that attackers could target Internet Explorer 7 and 8 as well. The patch will be delivered to most users via Automatic Updates, but can be manually applied through Microsoft's Windows Update site too (you need to be running Internet Explorer).
Earlier this month we reportedScripps Networks Interactive had pulled its popular Food Network and HGTV channels from Cablevision, after the two companies could not agree to carriage fees.
Last night the cable company reported that all customers would be getting the channels back, after the companies agreed to a non-disclosed new agreement.
Cablevision blacked out the stations for its 3.1 million New York, New Jersey and Connecticut subscribers after the company asked for a 200 percent fee increase.
Thanks to a $1.25 billion settlement between Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in an antitrust battle, AMD has posted its first quarterly profit in three years. AMD did benefit from a lift in the computer market, with microprocessor and graphics chip unit sales increasing, although prices have fallen too. Revenue was up 42 percent over the same period of last year, totaling $1.6 billion (just ahead of the $1.5 billion analysts expected).
AMD admits that it would have last money if it wasn't for the Intel settlement. For 2009, AMD's net income was $304 million with revenue at $5.4 billion, compared to 2008 when AMD made a net loss of $3.1 billion with revenue of $5.8 billion. Intel reported last week its highest gross profit margin in the company's history with better sales in all of its major product categories.
The $1.25 billion settlement it paid to AMD brought an antitrust suit due to go to trial in March to an early end. AMD originally filed the lawsuit against Intel in 2005. The deal does not bring to an end other cases against Intel that AMD has been vocally supportive of. It has complained to antitrust regulators around the world about Intel's sales tactics, which it alleges are illegal.
Video-sharing site Vimeo has launched its own experimental HTML 5 video player. For users with the right browser, this means there would be no need for the Flash plug-in to play about 90 percent of the videos available on the service. However, Vimeo's staff blog was quick to point out that the new player is only in beta test phase, and suffers from several limitations, some related to browsers' handling of HTML 5.
Firstly, videos cannot be watched in full screen mode at the moment, due to browser limitations. Vimeo is working to at least offer full-window support within the next day or two. Users will not be able to embed the HTML 5 video player in external sites at the moment either. The player is also expected to be harboring some bugs for the moment too.
The positives that Vimeo highlights however are the immediate loading of the video player and instant seek abilities (no waiting for buffering). It should also provide smoother, less jumpy playback. In order to even test the HTML 5 player, a user would need to have the latest version of Google Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed.
This afternoon, Verizon has denied the claims, saying that the original Cnet article misquoted a spokesperson.
Spokeswoman Bobbi Henson says that although the company does reserve the right to kick pirates off the Internet, they have not done so yet.
"I'm not aware that we've ever terminated anyone's account for excessive consumption, although we reserve the right to do so," added Henson. "That part of the CNET story is wrong. I did not say 'we've cut people off'; I said we reserve the right to do so."
Henson adds that the warnings have worked well "in reducing instances of repeat notices and has not resulted in the termination of any Verizon customer's service."
Motorola has announced that it has opened its own app store in China for Android phones, giving users a chance to download apps for their phones despite Google's decision to pull out of the nation.
The store, called Zhi-Jian-Yuan (Shop4Apps), will be available on February 14th, the Chinese New Year, for Android users in China.
"I see Google and Android as two separate things," said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst for Gartner. "China has always been a key market for Motorola and unless forced to, I doubt they will walk away from it."
According to new reports, Electronic Arts is already working on games for the upcoming Apple Tablet, and that Apple entrusted the company to create games that would highlight the tablet's "gaming capabilities."
The tablet is expected to be unveiled, after years of hype, on January 27th at an Apple event.
All reports have the device as a 10.1-inch multi-touch capable tablet, with an included e-book reader, as well as Wi-Fi, 3G, TV, and gaming capabilities.
Although consumers have made it clear they will not pay more than $700 for the device, many analysts believe the expensive tablet will weigh in at $999.
According to the latest official blog, YouTube has now released an experimental version of an HTML5-supported player, giving users their "number one request" for new updates.
To join the beta, Google links to this page, as long as you have an HTML5-supportive browser: http://www.youtube.com/html5
A while ago, YouTube launched a simple demo of an HTML5-based video player. Recently, we published a blog post on our pre-spring cleaning effort and your number one request was that YouTube do more with HTML5. Today, we're introducing an experimental version of an HTML5-supported player.
HTML5 is a new web standard that is gaining popularity rapidly and adds many new features to your web experience. Most notably for YouTube users, HTML5 includes support for video and audio playback. This means that users with an HTML5 compatible browser, and support for the proper audio and video codecs can watch a video without needing to download a browser plugin.
Our support for HTML5 is an early experiment, and there are some limitations. HTML5 on YouTube doesn't support videos with ads, captions, or annotations and it requires a browser that supports both the video tag and h.264 encoded video (currently that means Chrome, Safari, and ChromeFrame on Internet Explorer). We will be expanding the capabilities of the player in the future, so get ready for new and improved versions in the months to come.
Responding to complaints, Xbox group product manager Aaron Greenberg has said that the company does not want to mislead consumers with MS Points and will be looking to display actual currency prices next to the MS Points for all content.
"We never intended to mislead people," Greenberg said, via G4. "We want to be transparent about it, and so it is something that we're looking at."
"How can we be more transparent and let people see it in actual dollars? You've got to think that we have one service that we're offering around the world. The nice thing about Points is that no matter if you're on the JPY or the EUR or the USD – something that's 200 Points is 200 Points everywhere around the world. There's more technical complexities to being able to put local prices in. You have to do that for every product in every country and you then have to deal with currency fluctuations. So there's some challenges to that, but we absolutely did it with the Games On Demand, response has been good and absolutely it's something we're looking at doing," he concluded.
Kinney Lee Malone, son of former popular Mississippi bluesman Junior Kimbrough and the record label Fat Possum Records have decided to dismiss a copyright lawsuit filed in 2008, where Malone was seeking about $1 million and royalties.
U.S. District judge W. Allen Pepper said this week the case was closed as both sides agreed to dismiss it.
It is unclear whether there was any financial settlement between the two parties.
Kimbrough died in 1998 and had a few hit songs in his life. Malone sued FPR claiming they were using the songs without permission and were not paying royalties.
PreCentral has compared the older Palm Pre smartphone with the new PalmPre Plus and it appears that the new handset, which features double the RAM and storage space, can run up to 50 apps simultaneously, whereas the original starts to hurt at around 13.
According to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, children ages 8-18 spend about nine and a half hours "glued" to screens, including TV, computers, MP3 players and phones.
The study, dubbed "Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds," showed that kids are spending more time with media then sleeping. It appears that it may be affecting their school work as well.
"While most of the young people in the study got good grades, 47 percent of the heaviest media users -- those who consumed at least 16 hours a day -- had mostly Cs or lower, compared with 23 percent of those who typically consumed media three hours a day or less," says the study.
Ericsson and 3 Scandinavia have unveiled plans to roll-out a worlds-first 84Mbps HSPA+ wireless network. The initial rollout will cover Denmark and four Swedish cities. HSPA+ networks that currently operate in Canada, for example, offer speeds of up to 21Mbps depending on conditions. In the United States, T-Mobile recently announced a similar planned network.
Real-world tests of the 21Mbps networks show the services achieving around 7Mbps speed. If a similar performance could be applied to the new Ericsson/3 network, it could result in speeds of roughly 28Mbps at realistic distances and network load. Of course, that is just speculation and the performance of such a high-speed network under heavy demand and in a variety of conditions could be much different than predicted.
Regardless, the availability of such a high-speed network will be good news for the near-future, especially for those in rural areas of some countries where broadband outside of a mobile network is impossible. Ericsson and 3 will also deploy 900MHz 3G networks in Sweden in a bid to boost coverage in remote areas, as existing higher frequency networks have left some users with poor performance.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Beijing to investigate the sophisticated hack of Google services during a wide-ranging speech about Internet freedoms and rights. Clinton brought up the issue of some governments attempt to erect "electronic walls" to block access to information to their Internet users. "Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century."she said.
She acknowledged that China and the U.S. had differing opinions on the matter, and said they would,"address those differences candidly and consistently." Clinton named China, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Egypt and Vietnam as countries where there has recently been a spike in the threats to the "free flow of information". "They have expunged words, names and phrases from search engine results," Clinton said. "They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in nonviolent political speech."
Earlier on Thursday, a Chinese government official insisted that the Google hack issue should not effect relations between the United States and China. "The Google case should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it's an over-interpretation," the Xinhua News Agency reported Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei as saying.
The secrecy over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently being negotiated by countries from across the world has hit elected MPs in the UK, who cannot get access to any ACTA documents. Junior business minister David Lammy said documents related to ACTA will not be put in the House of Commons library, due to the desire for other countries to keep the negotiations secret.
"Although I am sympathetic to the view that ACTA negotiations should be more transparent and I have instructed my officials to press for more transparency, we are not in a position to place the drafts held by my Department in the Library,"Lammy said. "Disclosure of any documents without the agreement of all our ACTA negotiating partners would damage the United Kingdom's international relations."
He continued: "This would harm our ability to protect, promote and secure an outcome in the UK's interest, and the premature release of documents that are not agreed and not fully developed may also have a negative effect on the Government's reputation."
The European Commission has approved Oracle's bid for hardware and software vendor Sun Microsystems. The Commission granted Oracle an unconditional approval to take over Sun Microsystems, in a deal worth €5.17 billion ($7.75 billion), after previously being concerned about the proposition.
The takeover of Sun, which developers the popular Java programming language amongst other products, was approved the U.S. Department of Justice in July.
"I am now satisfied that competition and innovation will be preserved on all the markets concerned. Oracle's acquisition of Sun has the potential to revitalise important assets and create new and innovative products," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroessaid.
Sun Microsystems shareholders had also given their blessing to the buyout. Following concessions by Oracle last month, such as the extension of the terms and conditions of existing commercial licenses for up to five years, the EU Commission came to the conclusion that the deal would not have a negative impact on the market within Europe.
Nokia Corp. has dealt something of a blow to navigation players including TomTom and Garmin by announcing plans to release a new version of Ovi Maps that includes high-end walk and drive navigation at no extra cost to the user. The move, which could potentially double the size of the mobile navigation market, will bring high-end car and pedestrian navigation features to Nokia smartphones, such as turn by turn voice instructions for 74 countries in 46 different languages.
The Nokia move is probably a response to Google's move to offer free navigation on Motorola's Droid smartphones in the North American market. Nokia's decision to offer the services for free will help it to stay firmly on top of the Smartphone market that it leads, where it has lost some group to Apple and RIM.
Verizon Communications has confirmed to CNET that it has suspended the accounts of several file sharers suspected of sharing copyrighted content illegally. The ISP is known for issuing warnings to its customers when they are found to be sharing illegally, but until this confirmation it was unclear whether Verizon would suspend a customers. "We've cut some people off," Verizon Online spokeswoman Bobbi Henson told CNET.
"We do reserve the right to discontinue service. But we don't throttle bandwidth like Comcast was doing. Verizon does not have bandwidth caps." At the end of 2008, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that it would cease filing lawsuits against individual users and had instead come to an agreement with several major Internet Service Providers in the U.S. to take another approach.
Mozilla Corp. is set to release Firefox 3.6 later today, coming just a couple of days after Firefox 3.6 Release Candidate 2 was made available for download. The newer version makes dozens of fixes over the previous Firefox 3.5 versions. The updated browser will have better add-on support, with a new page to check all user plug-ins, alert when an update is available and then link to download it. This should help users to maintain security and performance of the browser.
According to a Mozilla video, which showcases some of the changes in Firefox 3.6 (below), the new browser version is now 20 percent faster than Firefox 3.5, which itself had dramatically increased speed over older versions of the software. HTML 5 is also more integrated in Firefox 3.6. Also added is support for Firefox Personas, a user-friendly way to change the entire theme of the Firefox browser.
Virgin is planning to use packet sniffing software in order to measure the amount of illegal file sharing on its network. The software is called "CView", and it will be used to monitor traffic from about 40 percent of Virgin customers in the UK, none of whom will be notified prior to the test. However, the ISP stresses it is only measuring the amount of illegal sharing on the network, and it will not be collecting data that could identify an individual user.
The system uses Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to sniff files being shared through P2P networks, which can then be matched against a third-party database of music tracks to flag copyright violations. Customer's IP addresses will automatically be stripped from each packet of data and replaced with a randomly generated identifier instead. Virgin claims that the system will keep individual file sharers completely anonymous.
CView, the ISP claims, is being used simply to provide a statistical view of digital piracy on the network as opposed to becoming an anti-piracy tool aimed at identifying individual sharers for litigation. As for the law, Virgin Media does not consider the system to be in violation of UK or European legislation that protects Internet users' personal information because the system keeps each user anonymous.
Amazon has announced today that publishers and authors will receive a much larger royalty for books sold in the Kindle Digital format beginning on June 30th.
Currently, the royalty rate is 30 percent, but that will soon balloon to 70 percent.
The move is being seen as a chance for Amazon to preemptively attack Apple's upcoming tablet device, which is likely to have an e-book deal with HarperCollins right from launch.
Amazon will exclude delivery costs from the royalties paid, and each megabyte is 15 cents. To qualify for the higher royalty rate, your book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99 and be selling in the U.S. Public domain books from before 1923 do not qualify.
Physical books normally net authors about 7 to 15 percent of prices set by publishers and 25 percent for digital books, meaning Amazon's latest move should make authors very happy to have their works available digitally.
Adobe Systems has issued updates for Shockwave 11.5.2.602 and earlier on the Windows and Mac operating systems aimed at patching serious security bugs with the player. The bugs could potentially allow malicious code to be executed on computers that use the software. The integer overflow and buffer overflow flaws are fixed by an upgrade that Adobe is strongly urging all of its users to install.
It estimates that ShockWave has been installed on over 450 million Internet-enabled Desktops. In order to install a newer version of the Shockwave player however, users need to manually uninstall the older vulnerable version of the software, reboot and then install the newer version. Other Adobe products use automatic update utilities to get newer versions, which will ensure a much higher rate of patching then manual installation.
A new plug-in for Skype being marketed by Startup Vivu brings multipoint videoconferencing to the Skype software; adding functionality that has been absent so far from the service. Failing to deliver multipoint videoconferencing has been viewed as one of Skype's biggest shortcomings, and Vivu is hoping to capitalize on the vacuum. "The flaw in Skype's video strategy right now is that it's point-to-point only," said Irwin Lazar, an industry analyst with Chicago-based Nemertes Research.
The VuRoom plugin allows several people to take part in a video call using Skype, which the number of participants limited by available bandwidth. Vivu CEO Sudha Valluru said that the service will allow for up to 8 participants for broadband users before a degradation in quality would become a problem. The participants' feeds will be shown in a browser window that will pop up when the call begins.
The plug-in will cost a user US$9.95 per month for unlimited use. Not all participants in a videoconference need to buy the plug-in; only the user who initiates the call. For other participants, the requirements are just Skype, a webcam and a browser. The plugin also allows participants to show PowerPoint presentations on screen, or to stream their computers' desktop.
Companies that market the 25 year old classic, Tetris, are expected to announce that the game has reached an impressive 100 million mobile downloads -- paid mobile downloads at that. Since it's creation in 1984, it has had a long life, exploding with its role in the success of the Game Boy, released in 1989.
Ever since it rose to worldwide popularity, it had stayed around one way or another, racking up millions of players.
Tetris' playing format (doesn't need explanation!) makes it very suitable for mobile devices in particular, and it is not surprising that it has hit such a significant milestone on such devices. It's neat, familiar interface, combined with simple control requires, means it is suitable for a very wide range of mobile phones and other devices made by a wide range of CE companies.
EA Mobile, an arm of Electronic Arts Inc., currently licenses Tetris from Blue Planet Software. The official announcement of the sales milestone is expected on Thursday.
Microsoft has sued TiVo this week, accusing the DVR company of patent infringement.
The suit says TiVo illegally used technology relating to "purchasing and delivering video and the ability to display programming information."
Last year, TiVo sued AT&T in a similar suit, and it appears Microsoft has intervened on AT&T's behalf. AT&T is Microsoft's largest customer for its Internet video platform, with Microsoft's video delivery platform powering AT&T's Internet-based TV service.
Microsoft has explained that it will end the suit with a licensing agreement in place, but that TiVo has not been responsive.
Google Inc.'s YouTube online video service announced on Wednesday that it will offer five films from the Sundance Film Festival (2009 and 2010) for rental from this Friday until January 31st to U.S. users. In addition to the titles offered in partnership with the Sundance Film Festival, the site will offer a small collection of rental videos from other U.S. partners across different industries, including health and education, in the weeks after.
"These are early days and in the coming weeks we'll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option. Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing," the YouTube blog reads. "And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work."
The announcement states that owners can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration, when and where their content is available and will keep 100 percent of the rights. The site will be seeking more Independent filmmakers to participate in the rental program as part of its "Filmmakers Wanted" campaign at the festival.
Apple has released Boot Camp 3.1 for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, and recommends that all users update. The release officially adds support for Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate), addresses issues with the Apple trackpad and supports the Apple wireless keyboard and Apple Magic mouse. The infrared sensor on all Macbooks will also turn off now when it's not being used.
"Use the Boot Camp Utility for Windows 7 Upgrade Installation Utility before upgrading from Vista to Windows 7. This utility safely unmounts the read-only Macintosh volume on Microsoft Vista," An Apple support page for the tool reads.
Google has announced that YouTube will begin streaming all Indian Premier League cricket games beginning in March.
The IPL features the world's best players, in eight teams, and is extremely popular in the nation.
YouTube has the exclusive online rights for IPL content for the next two years and both will share ad and sponsor revenue.
This is the first time Google has a deal to stream live sporting events.
"We are excited, this will put India at the center of a global experience," added Shailesh Rao, managing director of Google India. "YouTube offers an open platform for sports and entertainment companies to take their content to a global audience and a great opportunity for advertisers."
Interestingly, viewers of the IPL will be able to customize their viewing by altering camera angles and choosing when to watch interviews.
Sony Corp. has announced that it is delaying the release of its anticipated motion controller for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console. The announcement of the delay comes just a week after it was revealed the launch of the new Gran Turismo title would be delayed.
Adding motion control helps Sony's PS3 compete with the popular Nintendo Wii console and with the upcoming Project Natal system due to launch by year's end for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console.
The launch of the motion control technology for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) has been delayed until there is adequate software titles available on the marker to utilize it, according to Sony.
While its projected release sometime in Autumn is less specific than would be desired, Sony did not set a date or timeframe for the release of Grand Turismo 5, which was due to be released in March.
Boxee has announced today that they have created a payment system for their software, allowing for content holders to charge for their work.
Says CEO Avner Ronen:
"Users want to see more content on Boxee. Content owners want to be paid for what they produce (whether that’s TV Shows, movies, music, or applications). We don’t believe these are conflicting interests.
This is why we plan to release a Payment Platform this summer where users will be able to make purchases with one click on the remote. The content partners we launch with will offer shows, movies and channels that were previously not available to Boxee users. The content owners will be able to package and price as they wish, including pay-per-view and subscription. Content partners will have the flexibility to decide what they make available, whether it’s premium content, content from their existing library, or extras that will never make it “on air”.
As content owners benefit, so will Boxee. While details are still to-be-determined, Boxee will charge a small fee (i.e. lower than the 30% charged by many app stores) for transactions which we enable. This beginning to the Boxee business model ties our success as a business to the success of our partners."
The popular Pocket God application has hit a milestone today, the first to 2 million downloads.
The game costs $0.99, and has updated 30 times since its release, all for free.
BoltCreative, the company behind the game, says its best sales day was 53,000 and that during the holiday season the game was downloaded over 100,000 per week.
"We couldn't be happier with the turnout we've seen at the island," added Bolt's CEO Dave Castelnuovo."The community has been absolutely incredible embracing this game. From the thousands of YouTube videos to the homemade Halloween costumes to the valuable user feedback we've received, we can't thank our community enough for our success."
The research firm Jefferies and Co. has released a note this week that claims that the long-hyped Microsoft 'Zune phone' will be launched next month at the Mobile World Congress conference.
The phone has been rumored since at least 2007, and Windows Mobile has continued to lose market share to Apple, RIM and Android in the smartphone market since then, now holding just under 10 percent.
Katherine Egbert, an analyst with the firm says: "Our recent industry checks indicate Microsoft will be debuting its own phone sometime in the next two months."
The phone will be designed to look and feel like the Zune HD media player, and will work on a hybrid operating system of Windows Mobile 7 and that of the Danger Sidekick smartphone.
5MP camera will be standard, and the phone should support 720p video, says the note. The phone will also have close integration with the Zune Store, making downloads of music and movies easy.
Today, Mozilla has said that Firefox downloads have exploded since the warning, with 300,000 downloads taking place from Friday until Monday. Opera said that downloads doubled week-on-week.
For the week before the warning, Mozilla says average downloads of the browser was about 70,000 daily.
The New York Times has decided to begin charging for its online content, 3 years after upper management started mulling over the idea.
The new pay-for system will not go into effect until 2011 however, and the site will give all users free access to a certain amount of articles per month. After that number however, you will have to pay to read any more.
The Times, like many of its print brethren, has seen a giant hit in advertising revenue, especially since the current recession started in 2007.
According to a recent post on their Security Research and Defense blog, Microsoft has explained the the vulnerabilities of its Internet Explorer 6 Web browser, and encouraged users to upgrade to at least IE7, if not IE8.
The exploitable nature of IE6 came to public light after last week's attack of Google systems by Chinese hackers. Because IE6 is not available for Vista or Windows 7, it appears the company is also pushing users to upgrade to the latest OS as well.
Says the post: "As you can see, the client configuration currently at risk is Windows XP running IE6. We recommend users of IE6 on Windows XP upgrade to a new version of Internet Explorer and/or enable DEP. Users of other platforms are at reduced risk. We also recommend users of Windows XP upgrade to newer versions of Windows."
In all honesty they should just kill off IE6 and force corporate and educational institutions to upgrade to the newer versions. There is no reason IE6 should even be available, to anyone.
The number of flags we have in the top-right corner of our site grew by one today with the launch of AfterDawn Norway, a new localized version of AfterDawn.com. The Norwegian site will focus on software downloads and discussion forums for now, but it will eventually expand to news, guides and other content, hopefully within a year or so.
The Norwegian version of AfterDawn is the fourth language version of AfterDawn -- our site was originally published in English and Finnish back in 1999, followed by the Swedish version launched in 2008. The Norwegian version is also using the new site structure and layout (something we call "v4") - the look and feel that the English version of the site will eventually use, once we get all the bits and pieces together.
The entire site has been translated by one guy and one guy alone -- impressive feat, I might add -- slaybay. He is the guy you should thank for making this locale a reality -- and if you find any bugs within the site, I'm the one you should blame :-). Thank you, slaybay!
The Norwegian site is still in its infancy: there are couple of pages here and there that haven't been entirely translated yet and you can be certain that there are occasional bugs and hiccups on various pages/sections. If you find anything weird that needs to be fixed, please let let us know (use the feedback form). Furthermore, if you happen to speak fluent Norwegian and would like to help us to translate more content, the contact us or subscribe directly to our translation project mailinglist and let us know that you're available.
China's Internet population, the largest in the world, continues to grow at an exponential pace, jumping 29 percent year-on-year to 384 million users, thanks mainly to rapid growth in the mobile phone arena.
Mobile phone users surfing the Internet rose 106 percent, to 233 million, thanks to the launch of 3G networks in the nation. China's overall population is about 1.4 billion.
Online commerce in China totaled 250 billion yuan ($37 billion USD).
Google has delayed the release of two Android-based smartphones in China, both of which were supposed to launch tomorrow with China Unicom.
The phones were from Motorola and Samsung and Google did not say how far back the phones would be postponed.
The latest fallout from Google's threat last week to remove its service from China, the company said it would be "irresponsible" to release the phones in China, given the uncertain future.
Samsung, Motorola, and Unicom all declined comment.
BGR has posted some details for the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0firmware update from "Apple sources."
Says the site:
* There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense for that as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)
* “A few new ways” to run applications in the background — multitasking.
* Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient. We haven’t had this broken down, but we can only hope for improved notifications, a refreshed homescreen, etc.
* The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date. Everyone is “really excited.”
* The last piece of information is the most vague, but apparently there will be some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.
According to VG247, the upcoming Sony PlayStation 3 motion controller will be called Arc.
The new "wand" has yet to be officially named, and so far it has only been known as codename "Gem." President Kaz Hirai had said last year that the wand would be available by March, but the company has now changed its timetable to just "this year."
The Arc will include a wand, with a trackable ball on top. It will work with the PSEye.
As is standard, Sony said: "We don't comment on rumor or speculation."
In March, the founders of the giant public torrenttrackerThe Pirate Bayannounced their plans to release a virtual private network (VPN), allowing for users to browse the Internet anonymously.
This morning I received an email stating the service has gone live. Says the email:
A while ago you showed an interest in our VPN service, Ipredator (www.ipredator.se)!
The service was at that time in a beta phase and we hope that you got a chance to use the service already. If not, we would like to tell you that it's now open for everyone!
For only 149 SEK (that's about 15 EUR / 21 USD) per 3 months you will get safe, encrypted communication between you and the internet, with no logging of the data transferred. It's of our utmost concern that you can use the network without anyone deciding what you're can communicate about.
Ipredator is not only another VPN-service. It's also a statement. Right now we're developing a new tool to make it harder (or impossible) for the government of Sweden to tap into their citizens traffic. Our goal is making people have the ability to use their democratic rights, without a fear of repression.
Sony Asia has announced that it has launched the PlayStation line of consoles in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The PSP, PS2 and PS3 are now available in Vietnam, which becomes the 8th country in Sony Asia territories to get the consoles.
The slim PS3 will sell for VND 9,990,000 ($540 USD), the slim PS2 will sell for VND 4,490,000 ($243 USD), and the PSP-3000 model will sell for VND 5,990,000 ($324 USD).
Microsoft and Disney are currently in talks over offering ESPN content through Xbox Live, although the sources say a deal is not imminent.
If completed however, ESPN would live stream certain sporting events, and will likely cost an additional fee on top of the current XBL Gold subscription.
"Microsoft could also create some interactive games in association with ESPN," say the sources.
XBL currently has over 20 million active Gold subscribers.
Yun Can Meng, of the UK, has been sentenced to one year in prison this week, after pleading guilty to illegally importing R4 flash carts into the country.
Meng imported 26,500 of the cards, and was arrested after a raid by the the Entertainment and Leisure Software Association’s (ELSPA) Crime Unit, Hull City Council Trading Standards Department and the Humberside Police force.
Flash carts allow for users to run homebrew on their DS devices, as well as play pirated games.
Says ELSPA Director General Michael Ralinson: "Our crime unit is pleased with the outcome of this trial and pleased to see the Court of Appeal’s copyright judgement is being robustly enforced. Intellectual property (IP) theft is an important issue for the country’s videogames industry - as is protecting it."
Apple has set January 27th as a day for a "special event" in which the company is expected to reveal the long-hyped tablet which has so far been given the name "iSlate."
The rumored device will have a 10-inch screen among other notable features but the WSJ has posted today that the large publisher HarperCollins is negotiating with Apple to make e-books available alongside the launch of the tablet. Details are still shaky but it seems that HC will set the prices of the books, which will include added bonus features, and Apple will take a percentage of sales.
Yesterday, the German government released a statement slamming the security of the Internet Explorer browser and telling all users to find an alternative.
Today, the French "Certa" government agency has followed suit, warning users against using versions 6,7, and 8 of the browser. "Pending a patch from the publisher, Certa recommends using an alternative browser," says the agency.
Microsoft, in the midst of a public relations disaster, has said that IE8 is the "most secure browser on the market" and users of older versions should upgrade. Cliff Evans, IE head of security and privacy said the "risk is minimal," and that to be affected a user must be using IE6 and visit "a compromised website."
Despite only admitting problems with IE6, security company Sophos says all Microsoft browsers are affcted: "Microsoft themselves admit there is a vulnerability, even in IE8," added Graham Cluley.
Internet Explorer, in 2003, had a 97 percent dominate market share position that has continuously declined to its current 65 percent range.
According to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, the Sony PlayStation line of consoles is "poison" and is leading children down the "capitalist road to hell."
The PS wasn't the only product feeling the heat from the President however, as he called on Venezuelan manufacturers to create "educational" toys with the features of those indigenous to the nation and not capitalistic dolls such as Barbies that "have nothing to do with our culture."
After dissing Nintendo for promoting "selfishness, individualism and violence," Chavez took aim at the PS line.
"Those games they call 'PlayStation' are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game, 'you've got to find Chavez to kill him.'" The games sold for the PS are used as propogando to "later sell weapons," and they "promote the need for cigarettes, drugs and alcohol so they can sell them. That's capitalism, the road to hell."
eMusic has announced that it will be adding artists from Warner Music Group, the third largest record label on the planet.
The new deal will make 10,000 catalog albums available for downloading, but will not include new popular hits.
eMusic says it hopes to expand to 400,000 subscribers by the end of the year.
CEO Danny Stein added that the company is looking to make licensing deals as well, which will allow its catalog titles to be streamed to paying subscribers.
"We have a bunch of things in store for 2010 that will allow us to grow again and that includes streaming," Stein added. "The biggest issue comes with the rights holders being able to take on new business models."
Warner Bros. Interactive has signed a deal with Sesame Workshop that will allow the publisher to create educational videogames using "Sesame Street" characters. Sesame Workshop is the non-profit company behind the famous brand.
The deal is part of a larger multi-year deal between WB and Sesame for the distribution of new and catalog Sesame Street titles on DVD, VOD, and digital downloads.
WB should see significant growth in the kid's market thanks to the move, as Sesame is a brand known by most in America. WB also has the Lego games series, which have been extremely popular for both kids and teens.
"With Warner Bros.' capability to create and publish videogames and its ability to distribute and market home videos, together, we are able to deliver the ultimate 'Sesame Street' experience for families," added Sesame Workshop CEO Gary E. Knell.
American texters have helped raise $11 million for Haitian earthquake relief, either by donating $5 or $10 to different funds specifically created to help those in need.
The Mobile Giving Fund says the figure is a record for a single cause, and that the company was seeing up to 10,000 texts per second.
Users can send $5 to to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund by texting the term "yele" to 501501. Other organizations, such as the American Red Cross have similar situations but users will have to look up the numbers.
The Red Cross has received $9 million, and the Yele fund about $2 million.
Carriers T-Mobile, AT&T, Sprint and Verizon have waived all texting fees if you want to donate.
Sony Electronics USA President Stan Glasgow has revealed that the PlayStation 3 will soon be getting support for the BRAVIA Internet Video Linkstreaming video service.
New Sony Bravia HDTVs currently are compatible with the service, and those with older sets can purchase an add-on module.
There is free content such as news, weather and sports, and movies and TV are provided through Amazon VOD and soon from the PSN.
No word was given on when the firmware upgrade would hit with the update.
According to Bloomberg, Disney and Starz are in negotiations that may eventually affect Netflix's ability to stream Disney films via its "Watch Instantly" service.
Disney is seeking more money from viewers who watch Starz movies online though Netflix and other outlets. Netflix users currently pay no premium for the streaming services. Also under negotiation is digital rights, determining whether DreamWorks and Pixar movies are included with the Starz package or whether Netflix will have to make a deal directly with Disney.
"Netflix may be challenged to retain some of its most appealing content when Starz renews its Disney distribution deal, which expires in 2012," says Lazard Capital Markets analyst Barton Crockett.
Apple has fired back at Nokia this weekend, filing a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) over patent violations.
"Nokia will study the complaint when it is received and continue to defend itself vigorously," said the company. "However, this does not alter the fact that Apple has failed to agree appropriate terms for using Nokia technology and has been seeking a free ride on Nokia's innovation since it shipped the first iPhone in 2007."
Apple entered the smartphone market in 2007 and has quickly become the most profitable phone maker in the world. On the other hand, Nokia continues to lose market share in the smartphone market despite keeping its title as the most prolific manufacturer worldwide.
The German government has warned Internet users about the security vulnerabilities of the Internet Explorer browser and recommended that everyone find an alternative, such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari and others.
The warning came from the German Federal Office for Information Security.
Microsoft has said that most exploits can be shut out by placing the security zone of the browser on "high" mode. By doing so however, many popular sites are blocked and functionality is limited. The German officials all agree that even "high" security mode does not make IE as safe as other browsers. The warning is aimed at IE 6,7, and 8 users.
"This is a vulnerability that was announced in the last couple of days. Microsoft have no patch yet and the implication is that this is the same one that exploited on the attacks on Google earlier this week," said an expert, via the BBC. "The way to exploit this flaw has now appeared on the internet , so it is quite possible that everyone is now going to have a go."
Yesterday, Verizon dropped the prices on their unlimited voice and text plans, and today AT&T has followed suit, giving iPhone users a break from their normally very high monthly fees.
Before today, iPhone users had to pay $130 a month for unlimited voice and data, but AT&T has cut that price to $100 total for both. Texting remains $20 for unlimited plans.
Current subscribers can change to the new plan without penalty or contract extension.
It was reported this week that high-end Blu-ray player maker Lexicon, which sells its BD-30 for $3500, had simply just taken a $500 Oppo BDP-83 and placed it into a new case, without making any modifications to the original internals. Worst of all, the new player had THX Certification, but some research proved that to be false. Rather then go through all the audioholics' review, I will post a link to it, here:
"It's an Oppo BDP-83. Normally we'd launch into a statement like this with more tact. We may, for example, wax eloquent about the Lexicon BD-30's beautiful chassis or it's billet aluminum front face. We could tell you about the heft of the unit, or the fact that comes double boxed with enough padding to warrant throwing it off the FedEx or UPS truck while it's still moving. While all of that is true, the Lexicon BD-30 is still an Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Player. And what's more, it's not just using the same parts - they actually stuck the player inside - chassis and all. This would be OK, were it not for the $3000 premium over the Oppo and THX certification. As Sherlock Holmes would say: The game is afoot!"
Sony Japan has introduced a new TV tuner for the PlayStation 3 dubbed "torne," a very similar product to Sony Europe's PlayTV hardware.
Torne will allow gamers to watch digital terrestrial broadcasts on their PS3 as well as record the shows to the internal HDD or an external one. The device connects via the USB port and includes a digital TV guide.
Recorded shows can be transferred to a PSP as well.
The Torne will be released in Japan in March for 9,980 yen ($109 USD) and Sony will be releasing a "PlayStation 3 Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting Recorder Pack" bundle at the same time.
Alan Ellis, the former admin of the giant private torrenttrackerOiNK, has been found not guilty on the charge of conspiracy to defraud, and will walk free.
At its peak, the indexing site had 200,000 members which had shared over 21 million music files.
The prosecutors had claimed that Ellis was receiving £11,000 a month in donations, and that there was $300,000 USD in Ellis' PayPal account. They did not mention that donations went towards paying the servers and hosting fees of the popular site. Ellis says any "surplus" from a monthly donation eventually went towards buying a new server. Ellis did admit, however, that he had £20,000 in savings when the police raided his home.
Google and T-Mobile have slashed the price of the Nexus One for T-Mobile upgraders, dropping the price from $379 to $279, while giving refunds to those who paid the full price in the last week.
To be eligible, you must have had T-Mo service for 22 months since your "last upgrade or new contract." You must also be an individual customer, not on a family plan, or on a business account.
To purchase the phone without upgrading or without a new contract, the phone costs $530 unlocked. With a new two-year contract the phone costs $180.
Sony has revealed today that besides seeing huge hardware sales for the PlayStation 3, revenue from the PlayStation Network (PSN) set a new all-time record in December as well.
Overall, revenue increased 155 percent in the US, year-on-year, setting up the largest revenue month for the service to date. Sony did not reveal the exact figures, however.
"Final Fantasy VIII" was far and away the most downloaded game of the month, followed by "PixelJunk Shooter."
Nintendo will officially announce a "DS 2" handheld within 8 months, says top video game industry analyst Jesse Divnich, despite a record sales year for the DS/DSi in 2009.
"Even though the Nintendo DS posted a record year in 2009, EEDAR expects Nintendo to make an official announcement on the DS2 within the next eight months," wrote Divnich in a note. "Nintendo has always had a controlling stake in the handheld market, despite facing numerous competitors, and EEDAR believes one of the biggest reasons for Nintendo’s success in the handheld market is their ability to remove opportunity gaps for competitors to enter. Nintendo’s transition from the GBA to the DS, a year earlier than anticipated, was a brilliant strategy to remove any upper hand the Sony PSP could have by being first to market."
The new hardware will also help Nintendo to somewhat curb the piracy market, which will in turn give publishers more reason to invest in handheld gaming.
NBC has reported this week that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has moved on from the iPhone to the Nexus One, the latest Android device, and a direct rival to Apple's product.
When asked what his favorite phone device was, "Woz" said "Well, it's the latest one. It's a non-Apple product, but it's a gadget that just came out yesterday." This was one day after the Nexus One was released.
The news may not be so surprising especially since Woz has jailbroken his iPhone 3G, and even criticized Apple for the first iPhone and its lack of 3G support.
After the report however, Woz cleared up any misunderstandings by admitting that the Nexus One is in fact is favorite new gadget but that he still owns two iPhones, and has been known to carry three phones on him at one time.
Earlier this week, Gawker offered up to $100,000 USD to anyone who could bring concrete proof of the existence of the much-hyped Apple Tablet, and they announced a winner today, with that winner being Apple itself after the company sent a cease-and-desist letter which calls for the end of the search for the "unannounced and highly confidential" product.
The letter, from Apple’s law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, says: "While Apple values and appreciates vibrant public commentary about its products, we believe you and your company crossed the line by offering a bounty for the theft of Apple’s trade secrets. Such an offer is illegal and Apple insists that you immediately discontinue the Scavenger Hunt. Apple has maintained the types of information and things you are soliciting ... in strict confidence."
Microsoft has gone in a different direction then Google and Yahoo, saying that it has no plans of exiting the Chinese search engine market.
In speaking of the recent cyber-attack on Google, CEO Steve Ballmer said: "There are attacks every day. I don't think there was anything unusual, so I don't understand. We're attacked every day from all parts of the world and I think everybody else is too. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary."
Earlier this week, Google threatened to pull their service from China after they were attacked by hackers trying to gain access to human rights activists' Gmail accounts. China says they will stay if Beijing can come to an agreement on freedom of information.
When asked if Microsoft may follow Google (and Yahoo) out of China, Ballmer was frank. "I don't understand how that helps anything. I don't understand how that helps us and I don't understand how that helps China."
Google has a 30 percent market share in China, behind Baidu at 60 percent. Microsoft's' Bing has under 4 percent.
According to the latest NPD figures, the struggling video game industry ended 2009 on a high note, with hardware sales jumping 16 percent, offsetting a dip in software sales. Overall, sales jumped 4 percent to a record $5.5 billion USD.
Nintendo dominated the hardware and software charts, winning the month easily, spurred by promotions from Amazon and Wal-Mart. The Wii sold 3.8 million units and the DS/DSi sold 3.31 million units. In the software chart, Nintendo had 6 of the top 10 sellers, including the top 3 (if you split Modern Warfare 2 into separate console sales).
"We expected to have a good holiday and this was a great reaffirmation of that," added Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing.
PlayStation 3 sales jumped 90 percent to 1.36 million units, and the Xbox 360 was slightly behind at 1.31 million units sold for the month. The PSP got crushed in the handheld market battle, selling just 656,000 units.
Eastman Kodak has said today it is suing RIM and Apple for patent violations relating to the cameras used in BlackBerrys and the iPhone.
The complaint was filed with the International Trade Commission and alleges that the smartphones infringe on Kodak patents "covering technology for previewing photos."
Kodak is asking for an injunction on the import of phones sold by both companies. The company is also seeking unspecified monetary damages, and the end of the use of the technologies.
RIM and Apple declined comment but it is not as if sales of the popular devices are in immediate trouble. Patent disputes sometimes take up to 10 years, however ITC complaints usually take only 15 months.
"We've had discussions for years with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue amicably, and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement," added Laura Quatela, Kodak's chief intellectual property officer. "Our primary interest is not to disrupt the availability of any product but to obtain fair compensation for the use of our technology."
Kodak currently has 1100 patents relating to digital photography technologies and licenses them to over 30 companies.
Facebook has announced today that they have signed a deal with McAfee that will give all 350 million members a free six-month license for Internet security software.
"Now, if your computer is infected, you will be asked to run a scan ... and clean it before accessing Facebook," added Facebook project manager Jake Brill. "We're not aware of another free Internet service that takes this much responsibility for helping people keep their accounts secure."
After the six months, you will have to pay to continue using the license, but McAfee says the fee will be cheaper than the annual subscription price for the software in stores.
The software will run on Windows PCs only, with no expected Mac OS X or Linux deal coming anytime soon.
Nintendo has finally announced the European launch date for the DSiXL, setting March 5th as the release day for the new, updated console.
The handheld has a much larger screen, and comes with two larger styluses as well as pre-loaded games, and sold well in Japan when it was released there in November.
The device will be available in wine red and dark brown and the XL will come pre-loaded with "Dr. Kawashima's: Little Bit of Brain Training: Arts Edition" and "Dictionary 6 in 1 with Camera Function"
According to Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Chen, the next generation iPhone will be ready by June, featuring a 5MP camera and touch-sensitive casing, similar to that of the Magic Mouse.
"Apple's going to put a lot of innovation, not just on the hardware, but also on the software of the new iPhone," says Chen, who is also a member of Asia's highest-ranked technology hardware research team.
The camera upgrade has been long expected, and should put the iPhone in the same realm as other smartphones, such as the Nexus One, for starters.
More notably however is the speculation of multi-touch casing and an upgrade of the iPhone firmware, to version 3.5 or even 4. The App Store will be re-hauled as well. The Magic Mouse has a touch shell that replaces the need for clicking buttons. The iPhone may have the new casing included, offering touch-sensitive features on the back on the handset.
Vodafone is claiming strong launch day iPhone sales today, with over 50,000 pre-ordered.
In a direct jab at rival O2'sadmitted network problems, Vodafone says that the expected data use surge will be handled smoothly, even with high sales of the device.
"It's an outstanding phone and our network has been built for smartphones. We already carry vast volumes of data, so we've got the capacity to handle the iPhone demand," says the company.
The iPhone is now available on three carriers in the region, Vodafone, Orange and O2, but Voda says the refuse to start a price war, instead keeping the prices similar to that of rivals.
"People thought there would be a price war [when we announced we'd sell the iPhone] but it's not a price war, it's about the quality of experience," the spokesman concluded.
According to the latest data from research firm Nielsen, Google continues to be the dominant force in the search engine market, controlling 67.3 percent share in December.
For the month, a total of 9.9 billion queries were made, with Google taking about 6.7 billion of them. Yahoo remained in second, with 1.4 billion queries, for 14.4 percent share. Bing, Microsoft's latest incarnation, has 9.9 percent share. AOL, Ask, My Web and Comcast took the next few spots for a combined 5.7 percent share.
From November, Yahoo and Bing dropped about a percentage point a piece, which was apparently taken over by Google, which moved up two percent.
Earlier this week, Google threatened to pull its service from China if the company and the government could not come to an agreement over the censoring of content. Chinese officials have fired back today, claiming the Internet is a free place in China, but that companies must obey the law.
"China's Internet is open," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. "China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law."
The Chinese Information Office added: "Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts. Properly guiding Internet opinion is a major measure for protecting Internet information security."
Official Wang Chen also adds: "Companies have to concretely increase the ability of Internet media to guide public opinion in order to uphold Internet safety."
Google's threat was made public on Tuesday when it was discovered that Chinese hackers had breached Google's network, stealing "intellectual property" and attempting to steal Gmail accounts of human rights activists involved in Chinese issues. Google was just one of 35 companies attacked, but was certainly one of the largest. If the government will not agree to providing uncensored search results that will not violate Chinese law, then Google is prepared to completely pull its service from China.
The Activision blockbuster smash hit Modern Warfare 2 has hit $1 billion USD in global sales in two months of availability, meaning about 15 million units have been sold.
The news makes it a good month for the entertainment industry, with the blockbuster film Avatar surpassing $1 billion as well, becoming the second-highest grossing film of all-time, in just one month of release.
According to a report from 24/7 Wall St., App Store app piracy has led to $450 million in losses for developers and Apple since the market's open in July 2008.
It is estimated that about 17 percent of all downloads from the App Store (currently over 3 billion) are paid applications, with over 100,000 paid applications available.
However, the jailbreaking of iPhones and iPod Touches continues to grow, especially as the process has gotten simpler. The process has become as easy as one-click, using a software such as redsn0w, and unlocking the phone for use on GSM providers outside of AT&T has become as easy as one-click as well. Jailbroken phones can use pirated apps, and it is estimated that there are 7.5-10 million current devices jailbroken.
The report then does a bit of math to come up with the headline figure. Putting paid application piracy at 75 percent (3-to-1), and 17 percent of 3 billion at 510 million, pirated downloads of paid applications can be as high as 1.53 billion. The average app price is $2.99 so the math turns to about $450 billion. Of course that number is not an accurate representation of how many users would have actually purchased the apps had they not had the ability to pirate them, so the report puts that number at 10 percent, or about $450 million USD.
South Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) has sued 22 mobile phone makers over patent violations, including the world's largest mobile company, Nokia.
ETRI is accusing the manufacturers of violating up to seven patents in reference to 3G mobile telecommunications standards, including wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA).
Officials say they hope to make back $268 million USD in royalties, and have already settled some for about $16 million.
The ETRI has about 170 patents for international mobile standards and commercialized CDMA in 1996.
A new study performed by Australian researchers has finished with some shocking results, concluding that, even with exercise, extended TV watching leads to a higher risk of death.
The researchers tracked 8800 people for six years, and found that those who watched TV for over 4 hours per day had a 46 percent better chance of dying of any cause, and an extremely high 80 percent more likely chance of dying of cardiovascular disease, over those that spent less than two hours a day.
"It's not the sweaty type of exercise we're losing," says David Dunstan, a researcher at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne. "It's the incidental moving around, walking around, standing up and utilizing muscles that [doesn't happen] when we're plunked on a couch in front of a television." On average, most of the participants had about 30 minutes of exercise per day.
The results seem to follow the latest trend of studies which has shown that periods of inactivity can lead to slower processing of fats and other chemicals in the body.
The American Heart Association journal says Americans average 5 hours of TV a day.
According to market analytics firm Flurry, the Google Nexus One only saw 20,000 units sold during launch week, an extremely low number under 1/10th the amount the Droid sold during its November launch week.
Flurry monitors over 10,000 applications in the Android Market and the iPhone App Store and was able to come up with the chart below from those analytics.
It is estimated that Verizon spent $100 million on marketing for the Droid, but Google has yet to make an aggressive TV push for the Nexus One, instead relying on word of mouth, Internet reviews and Google's Android phone site.
The numbers are not official, but here is what Flurry came up with:
Anti-piracy outfit BREIN has proudly announced this week that it shut down 393 torrent sites in 2009, with the largest being massive indexer Mininova, which was forced to go legal.
Overall, the group shut down 615 "illegal websites," with the good majority being torrent trackers.
Additionally, 35 eD2K servers were taken down, 38 streaming movie stires, and 14 NZB (Usenet portals) were part of the group.
TF is reporting that the sites taken down must be very, very small since they received "a grand total of zero emails requesting information on the other several hundred closures." (Not including Mininova, TorrentVault)
As is always the case with torrent site shutdowns anyway, one goes down and at least one new one goes up to take its place.
StuartHughes, the brand behind such excess as the $3 million iPhone and the £200,000 PlayStation 3 has released their latest "masterpiece," the £99,995 Nokia Supreme, clearly priced for us, the everyday consumer, unlike the previously mentioned items.
The Supreme has the following specs: Encrusted with 12.5 cts of Pink diamonds, a magnificent circa of approximately 1225 individually set sparkling gems all of which include a 3ct single cut flawless center diamond. The TW in diamonds is a massive 15.5ct. Solid hallmarked platinum handmade veneers where made with 8 platinum screws as well as the diamond mount for the navigation buttons all weighing an immense 83 grams of platinum. The chest its housed in been crafted from Granite , colour ‘ Visak ’ otherwise known as French Blue with beautiful leather hide interior. There is no finer relationship than platinum & diamonds. They are pure, rare, and eternal. The Nokia SUPREME is a true celebration of your individuality. Available as a limited edition of only 3 to be ever made.
Zune HD users should be pretty happy today given the latest firmware update, one that will bring native XviD support to the device as well as streaming Smart DJ.
Microsoft says the player will soon have native support for the MPEG-4 Part 2 ASPcodec, and the player will playback XviD videos, which is still the codec of choice for most videos downloaded online. The format will play via your HDTV as well if you own the Zune HD Dock.
Smart DJ playlists, a "Genius"-esque song playlist creator, will also be available on the player and not just the desktop software.
Beginning "in the Spring," Wii owners will finally get Netflix movie and TV streaming, the third console to receive the service.
To use Netflix, Wii owners will be sent a free disc that must be in the tray at all times, just like on the PlayStation 3. Xbox 360 owners can access the service without a special disc, but pay on average $50 a year for their XBL subscription. You must also be a Netflix subscriber, with a subscription that costs $9 USD or higher. The streaming is then free.
In the United States, Nintendo has sold over 25 million Wii units, making it the largest user base of the current generation of consoles.
Netflix has 17,000 shows and movies available via its "Watch Instantly" streaming program.
Last October a company called Free All Media announced a service to offer ad-supported, DRM-free music. Earlier this week I got an invitation to the Beta for Free All Music. I decided to give it a try and report back to Afterdawn's reader's.
Keep in mind that Free All Music is currently in beta testing, and may change significantly, perhaps many times, by its public launch. If you'd like to check it out for yourself, and are in the US and at least 13 years old, you can sign up for the Beta waiting list on their website.
How It Works
Previous attempts to offer free music downloads, like SpiralFrog and Qtrax, have offered DRM laden Windows Media tracks paid for by standard background ads seen on many web pages. The problem is these files don't play on most portable media players - no iPods or Zunes for example. Since the DRM is tied to your computer you also have to download multiple copies if you want to listen to a song from multiple computers.
The kiosk company MOD Systems, which launched in October has said today that playback support of its movie downloads has been extended to all PCs, and soon to Blu-ray players, HDTVs and other devices with SD card slots.
MOD kiosks offer movies from Warner Bros. and Paramount which are downloaded to SD cards. Despite SD cards being supported by many devices, the movies could only, until now, be played back on MOD SD set-top boxes.
Additionally, MOD says they have created technology that will allow device makers to add MOD support, through easy firmware updates. Players that can playback MOD will have the name "GreenPlay."
LG Electronics has launched the BD590 at CES this week, a wireless Blu-ray player that includes a 250GB HDD built-in.
The player will also have the online movie service VUDU integrated. Users can download and rent films in SD or HD.
Additionally, the player can rip and copy CDs using the drive. The new "MusicID" feature will let users hear "an entire song playing within a movie or TV show using the BD590’s remote control."
As with most BD-Live LG players, Netflix, CinemaNow, YouTube and Pandora are integrated. New to the BD590 are Picasa and Accuweather.
"LG is committed to offering consumers easier access to more content on demand, which is reflected in our 2010 line of Blu-ray products with new content partners, advanced technology and unique design," adds Peter Reiner, senior VP of marketing at LG Electronics USA.
The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) has upgraded the interface for DisplayPort to version 1.2, doubling the data rate from v1.1 and providing support for multiple monitors.
Data transfer rate is now 21.6 Gbps, allowing for higher display resolution, color depth, refresh rates, and 3D playback.
Says PCMag: DisplayPort v1.2 supports "multi-streaming"—the ability to transport multiple independent uncompressed display and audio streams over a single cable, supporting protected content and high performance applications such as 3D gaming. This enables the use of multiple monitors connected by cable in a daisy chain or hub configuration. Whereas the current Display v1.1a standard can support one 2,560-by-1,600 monitor at 60Hz, DisplayPort v1.2 can support two such monitors with one cable, or four 1,920-by-1,200 monitors. Many other combinations are possible, including multiple video sources, multiple displays (even at different resolutions) and multiple audio speakers.
The MOTO Development Group has published a report this week which has given the Apple iPhone, hands-down, the best marks for quality of touchscreen.
The phone was put up against three Android competitors, the Nexus One, the Droid and the Droid Eris.
The test itself was pretty simple: "Although we usually use sophisticated tools to test touch screen accuracy, MOTO has also developed a simple technique anyone can use to evaluate the resolution and accuracy of a touchscreen device. All you need is a basic drawing program (download one if necessary), a steady hand, and a few straight lines drawn very slowly on the screen."
The iPhone had the smoothest, straightest lines, although it notably had the worst sensitivity towards the edges of the screen. The Droid had the worst sensitivity all-around, while the Nexus One and the Eris had some trouble with "light contact."
3D technology was the biggest new trend of the 2010 CES event, and the creation of new glasses and digital 3D has certainly made the experience a more enjoyable one. Despite the advances, prominent eye experts has said that 3D tech may still lead to headaches for many users, and they should have their eyes checked first before investing in 3D HDTVs or other tech.
"There are a lot of people walking around with very minor eye problems, for example a minor muscle imbalance, which under normal circumstances, the brain deals with naturally," says Dr Michael Rosenberg, an ophthalmology professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. 3D "translates into greater mental effort, making it easier to get a headache," Rosenberg added.
Normally, each eye will see things at a different angle.
"When that gets processed in the brain, that creates the perception of depth," adds Dr. Deborah Friedman, a professor of ophthalmology and neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. "The illusions that you see in three dimensions in the movies is not exactly calibrated the same way that your eyes and your brain are. If your eyes are a little off to begin with, then it's really throwing a whole degree of effort that your brain now needs to exert. This disparity for some people will give them a headache."
The James Cameron epic Avatar has continued to crush the competition at the Box Office and in the record books, becoming the second-highest worldwide release ever, just one month after release.
Globally, the film earned $191.5 million this weekend, for a total of $1.3 billion. The figure surpasses "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," which made slightly over $1.2 billion during its run. Avatar is now only behind Titanic, Cameron's last epic which collected $1.84 billion at the Box Office in 1998.
In America, Avatar has hit $430 million in sales, good for 7th all-time. Titanic is the leader there as well, at $601 million.
Internationally, the film is a sensation as well, with $906 million in sales. France is the largest market, at $100 million, followed by Germany at $73 million. The film set a Chinese launch week record as well with $40.2 million last week.
The film cost $230 million to produce and had an estimated marketing budget of $130 million.
Avatar will also undoubtedly be the best selling Blu-ray and DVD of all-time when it is released sometime later this year.
PCMag is reporting today that members of their staff have followed the tech-heavy CES event by heading to the AVN Adult Entertainment event and noticed that the porn industry seems to have unanimously selected MicroUSB for their, um, charging needs.
In the past, the porn industry has helped push standards (see VHS vs. Beta, and more recently Blu-ray vs. HD DVD), and this latest trend could help give MicroUSB the push it needs to be the standard across most tech appliances. Currently MicroUSB is used by HTC and other phone manufacturers, and is the standard for most digital cameras.
Quoting PCMag: "It looks like many in the porn industry are getting on board as well, with a new crop of vibrators that can be charged from the comfort of your PC. From now on, you'll only have to pack one cable for those long business trips."
Google is on the verge of settling with Chinese authors, says the Chinese Writers' Association, after months of fighting over whether Google had the right to scan books and upload them for its giant online library.
"Following discussions and communications in recent months, we do believe that our communication with Chinese writers has not been good enough," Google said in a letter to the Association. "Google is ready to apologize to Chinese writers about this." The letter was signed by Erik Hartmann, Asia-Pacific head of Google Books.
Just last month, the case of author Mian Mian went to Chinese court and the judge told both sides to settle the case.
Overall, Google has scanned 10 million books since 2004, getting consent for 2 million from publishers. Another 2 million are public domain. The remaining 6 million are still in dispute.
According to the American Dialect Society, the term Google (when used as a verb), is the top of word of the last decade, beating out "green," "blog," "text," "9/11," and "war on terror" for the honor.
"It's hard to imagine life before we were Googling," American Dialect Society executive council member Ben Zimmer says.
In 2002, "Google" was voted as "most useful" by the Society, and there aren't too many people out there who could have seen Google's raging successes coming.
During the decade, the suffix "-er" saw a boost, with terms such as "flip-flopper" and "birther" becoming commonplace, and the prefix "un-" saw a boost as well, with terms such as "unfollow" and "unfriend" becoming mainstays thanks to Twitter and Facebook.
A few of the notable words of the decade that have not "stood the test of time" despite being very popular at one point include "muggle" (from Harry Potter), "bushlips," and "plutoed."
CBS, via the Society has posted some of the most notable words for each year of the past decade:
2000:
Chad; Courtesy call; Civil union; Nader traitor
Sony president Kaz Hirai has said the company will be expanding the PlayStation Network across most of the Sony product range, not just the PS3 and PSP gaming consoles.
The new PSN will be unified across HDTVs, Blu-ray players, PCs and laptops.
To access the service, eventually users will have a "single user login and experience across all product lines."
Beginning next month, when the PSN video service arrives on Windows PCs, Bravia TVs, and Sony Blu-ray players, the company will launch a new studio, Sony Network Entertainment which will be in charge of content produced for distribution via PSN.
LG has unveiled the GW990 smartphone at CES, the first to use Intel's Moorestown platform, alongside Intel's Moblin Linux OS.
The phone itself is gigantic, but includes a 4.8-inch screen that features a 1024x480 resolution. The device gets about 4 hours of talk time and 300 of standby for its 1850 mAh battery, and includes a now-standard 5MP camera.
The Moblin OS looks similar to Android but has much less developer support as of yet. LG uses an "S-Class" UI for the GW990, adding 3D effects and large, colorful icons.
The Atom CPU allows for flawless multitasking, says PCmag, and the editor says he watched a movie, while checking his calender and sending a text, all at the same time.
The device is not priced as of yet, and will hit Korea first in the Q3 of this year. No word on a North America release.
Dreamer has announced this week at the CES event that OppoBlu-ray players will now include the BluTV IPTV service.
"The OPPO BDP-83 model is one of the few Blu-ray Disc players that can support nearly every type of traditional five-inch disc, so adding connectivity to the device through Dreamer and BluTV further strengthens its appeal as the central hub of the connected living room," adds Won Baek, CEO and president of Dreamer. "Dreamer transforms Blu-ray Disc players into a full-featured HDset-top box, making it easy for consumers to browse, search and watch interactive content on their TV screens."
Current owners can recieve the service by simply updating their firmware. BluTV has 20 casual games such as chess, and many different widgets.
Sony has unveiled two new digital cameras at CES this week, both of which will record Full HD1080p video in the AVCHD format.
The DSC-HX5V and DSC-TX7 have 10MP sensors, include Backlight Correction High Dynamic Range (HDR), and include TransferJet wireless technology. The HX5V also includes GSP + Compass for automatic geo-tagging of photos by location. Both have an HDMI output for easy connection to HDTVs.
The HX has a 3-inch LCD and 10x optical zoom and the TX has a 3.5-inch touchscreen display and a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 4x optical wide angle lens.
Both cameras can accept SDHC memory cards, or Sony's own proprietary Memory Stick, although the latter is much more expensive.
Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo added during his keynote speech at CES that the mobile phone manufacturer is promising $1 million funding for a developer that can design a phone that "helps improve the life of the poorest citizens in the world."
The operation, dubbed the Growth Economy Venture Challenge, includes both software and hardware innovations and the million dollar idea will be judged by a panel of Nokia developers and private venture capitalists. The "poorest citizens" of the world, as described by Nokia, are those that make under $5 a day, such as people in Haiti, and many parts of Africa.
"We've seen what the tech community can do when it focuses on problems that are also opportunities", Kallasvuo added. "We want to channel that energy toward improving lives in the developing world."
Kallasvuo illustrated some of the problems that developers will encounter, such as the fact that many in developing nations are illiterate, or lack bank accounts.
"Business people often tend to lump all of the growing countries outside the West into one category,” he noted. “They call them 'developing countries,' 'emerging countries' or 'emerging markets.' Each of these markets is uniquely different and complex. A one-size-fits-all approach just doesn't work."
Microsoft has filed a second appeal in their XML patent case, claiming the original ruling could be dangerous for future patent cases.
Last month, the software giant lost to tiny Canadian company i4i, and removed all infringing custom XML editing abilities from its Office 2003 and 2007 suite. Microsoft also paid $290 million in damages.
Of the new appeal, Kevin Kutz, director of public affairs for Microsoft says: The latest appeal "details significant conflicts we believe the December 22 decision creates with established precedents governing trial procedure and the determination of damages, and we are concerned that the decision weakens judges' authority to apply appropriate safeguards in future patent trials."
New versions of Office go on sale the 11th, with all infringing XML editing removed.
Loudon Owen, chairman of i4i responded to the new appeal: "This next step of seeking a rehearing was anticipated. We continue to be confident that we will prevail. We look forward to continuing to build i4i's business now that Microsoft is obligated to comply with the terms of the injunction. i4i stands ready to work with the wide range of customers that require this custom XML functionality."
According to a new materials cost teardown performed by iSuppli, the new Google Nexus One costs $174.15 to build, with the most expensive part being the extremely powerful Qualcomm SnapDragon processor, estimated at $30.50 USD.
The most interesting revelation is the fact that "Touchscreen Assembly (capacitive multitouch)" costs $17.50, about 10 percent of the entire bill of materials, even though Google has disabled multi-touch on the Nexus One.
Google is selling the phone unlocked for $530, or $180 with contract via T-Mobile.
LG has noted at CES that the first phones to include Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7 will be released later this year, and that LG will be carrying both WinMo 6.5 and 7-based phones.
Despite LG's confirmation, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer left no comment during his CES keynote speech, promising more details were upcoming at the GSM Mobile World Congress in February.
"We will have a lot more to say about phones next month at Mobile World Congress," he said.
Dell has unveiled their "Streak" tablet at CES, and Engadget has posted some pictures and some hands-on impressions.
The tablet runs a tweaked Android 1.6firmware, and the Streak has a 5MP camera. It also has a SIM card slot, meaning AT&T 3G service will likely be available for the device. The display is fully multi-touch capable.
The virtual keypad even includes a number pad on the right side, and is apparently very responsive.
Apple has put its recent purchase, Lala, to work already, opening up 30-second previews for the Web-based version of iTunes' Charts.
Until this week, iTunes Charts did not have preview available and it was necessary to open up the iTunes software installed on your computer. Thanks to Lala, users can now preview the tracks at 44.1, 320 kbps AAC, using QuickTime.
Apple purchased Lala last month for $85 million USD.
Microsoft's Robbie Bach has said today that Google will cause problems for itself now that it has released the Nexus One smartphone, problems with "attracting partners" for Android in the future.
Bach thinks that now that the company has released its own phone, handset makers may feel that Google phones will be prioritized over their own Android devices. That may push some to stop using Android in general.
"Doing both in the way they are trying to do both is actually very, very difficult," adds Bach. "Google’s announcement sends a signal where they're going to place their commitment. That will create some opportunities for us and we'll pursue them."
At least one analyst agrees: "No one has ever succeeded in selling their own device while trying to license to partners simultaneously," says Michael Gartenberg of Interpret LLC. "As much as Google can say it's not a Google phone, the phone says Google on it. They're going to have to convince their licensees they're not in competition with them."said.
Google feels completely different about the matter and cites the fact that they will be adding a plethora of Android phones to the Google Store, giving users an easy way to access Android, from all makers.
Samsung has introduced their latest flagship HDTV at CES this week, the LED-backlit C9000.
The company has called the HDTV "ultra thin" and the pictures seem to agree. The TV has native 3D support, and can convert 2D into 3D. Refresh rate is 240Hz.
The touchscreen remote control can "show content from other sources, like live TV while watching a Blu-ray on the big screen," says Gizmodo.
Kempler & Strauss have made available their W PhoneWatch this week, a touchscreen GSM device that will retail for $200 USD unlocked.
In the U.S., the PhoneWatch will work with T-Mobile and AT&T but will not include any 3G or Wi-Fi support. The watch has a speaker and a microphone but the company has recommended that all users also purchase a Bluetooth headset to pair to the device.
The PhoneWatch is quad-band GSM (supporting 850MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, and 1900MHz), has a 1.5-inch TFT LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 128 x 128. The watch measures 57 x 45 x 18mm and weighs only 2.5 ounces.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the watch has a 1.4MP camera that can take pics at 640 x 480 resolution. The built in video camera can make AVI files at 128 x 104. The watch can support video playback and MP3, WMA and WAV files.
Plastic Logic has launched the Que e-reader this week at CES, an admittedly powerful device with a giant price tag.
The button-less device has a sleek touchscreen and is completely dependent on multi-touch.
"What we are trying to do at Plastic Logic is give you the benefits of paper without all of the drawbacks," said CEO Richard Archuleta, via Cnet.
The e-reader can access e-mail and calendars via Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Windows Live or Yahoo. The player can read PDFs, Excel, Word and Powerpoint documents natively. Somewhat surprisingly, the display is in black and white, and Archuleta says: "At Plastic Logic, we really celebrate black and white."
Plastic Logic has content deals with USA Today, Zinio, The Financial Times, LibreDigital and the Que's bookstore will be backed by Barnes & Noble.
The 4GB model will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and will price $650 USD. An 8GB model with 3G will cost $800. There are no monthly fees. Because of the price tag, the player is likely not aimed at the mass consumer audience but more towards high-powered executives.
Google has raised their offer to purchase On2 Technologies by 20 percent, to $134 million USD, a few months after shareholders denied the company's first offer.
The video compression company will now receive the $134 million in cash as well as 0.0010 of a share of Google Class A common stock for every share of On2 they currently have. Google trades for about $599 a share while On2 is currently trading for $0.74 cents.
Google announced it would purchase the company in August, however On2 shareholders were unhappy with the valuation of the buyout. The new offer is a final offer.
YouTube-parent Google says the purchase will help the continued spread of Internet video given On2's video compression technology which will shrink video files and make them easier to send for those with slower connections.
The highly rated Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-ray Disc Player is cut down to $127, a great deal for those that do not care for the latest tech introduced at CES, such as native 3D support.
On the 5th, Google introduced the Nexus One "superphone," and it has once again been given the title of possible "iPhone Killer." CBS has a nice comparison of the specs, and some interesting commentary worth a view.
Boxee has announced the specs for its much hyped Boxee Box today, revealing that the player will be using the powerful Tegra 2 (T20) platform.
The Tegra 2 uses a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU, and uses very little power consumption, says the company.
Full specs:
Tegra 2 CPU:
* Enjoy a fluid and responsive user interface that is similar to the UI performance up till now available only on full blown PCs
* Play 1080p video from locally stored content and stream HD video content from the Internet
* Play Adobe® Flash® 10.1 content from across the web, including HD content
More inside the Box:
* RF chip by Nordic – to support a great remote control experience that is not dependent on line-of-sight and can work from anywhere in the house
* 802.11N wireless chip by Broadcom
What’s not in the Box:
* No hard-drive – We discussed hard-drive at length with D-Link, and figured people already have storage solutions, and that we should do our best to reduce the price of the Boxee Box. You’ll be able to connect your choice of storage devices directly to the Box using USB
* No IR – While we realize many people are using universal remotes, we believe there is a greater benefit having a full QWERTY keyboard, and the right way to do that was RF. We really wanted to also support IR, for various reasons we could not get it as part of the build. We continue supporting this in software, so you can use any IR dongle and continue using your universal remote with Boxee.
Palm has announced the launch of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus today, noting the smartphones will go on sale to Verizon subscribers starting January 25th. Until now, the original Pre and Pixi (minus the "Plus") had been available only on Sprint.
The updated Pre has 16GB of storage, simplified navigation and a back cover that works better with Palm's TouchStone charging station. The Pixi adds Wi-Fi and new colorways. Both phones will include Verizon's VZ Navigator, for turn-by-turn GPS.
Palm also announced the addition of 3D gaming, and Flash support for the phones.
No word on the subsidized pricing of the phones through Verizon just yet.
Sony has launched their latest flagship Blu-ray player today at the CES event, the BDP-S770, alongside the most powerful specs for a BD player yet (not including the PS3).
The player has integrated Wi-Fi, Bravia Internet Video Link (for Netflix, Pandora, YouTube), has native 3D support, and DLNA support for streaming.
Additionally, the player has support for an iPhone/iPod Touch remote control app which will be available for free via the App Store. There is no price tag yet, and Sony says the player will be available "this summer" likely meaning mid-June.
The full specs:
BDP-S770 Blu-ray Disc™ Player
Available this summer
• Blu-ray 3D™ Playback
• BRAVIA® Monolithic Design
• Full HD1080p single-disc Blu-ray disc™, DVD, SA-CD, CD player
• BRAVIA® Internet Video and BD-LIVE™
• IP Content Noise Reduction
• Built-in Wi-Fi® Wireless (802.11) with Wi-Fi® Protected Setup (WAP)
• Entertainment Database Browser with Gracenote technology
• BD Remote (iPhone®/iPod touch® remote control – free app.)
• DVD upscaling to 1080p with Precision Cinema HD Upscaling
• Dolby® TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio™ decoding
• Photo/Music/Video Playback via USB and DLNA®
Panasonic has unveiled the world's largest 3D plasma display, a 152-inch 4K x 2k resolution behemoth that uses the company's new "quadruple luminous efficiency technology."
The technology, says the company, means the PDP "achieves a higher illuminating speed, about one fourth the speed of conventional Full HD panels."
The 4,096 x 2,160 pixel resolution screen also "incorporates a crosstalk reduction technology" and a "frame-at-a-time driving method that gives PDP TVs an advantage in crosstalk reduction in principle. Panasonic has successfully developed a unique technology to minimize double-image that occurs when left- and right-eye images are switched alternately. The development has resulted in the 3D compatible plasma display that can render clear and smooth high-quality pictures by accurately reproducing video sources."
DreamWorks Animation, Technicolor and Samsung have announced today the introduction of a 3D home entertainment package bundle which will include a 3D-capable HDTV, a Blu-ray player and a "Monsters Vs. Aliens" 3D Blu-ray disc.
Technicolor is in charge of producing the 3D BD, and the TV and Blu-ray will come from Samsung.
"There has been great success with 3D in theaters, and the stars have finally aligned to bring this experience to the home," added Tim Baxter, president of Samsung’s consumer electronics division, via BW.
Monsters Vs. Aliens was the fourth-most successful 3D release of the year, behind Avatar, Up and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.
Former private torrenttrackerOiNK administrator Alan Ellis is under trial, with jury selection occurring earlier this week. Today, the jury was told that Ellis had received over $300,000 USD over the years through donations.
Additionally, Judge Briggs has told the jury to not research OiNK at all, as so far most reports on the matter are inaccurate or biased.
"It would be most unfortunate if any of you did any private research on the internet relating to this matter. Please don't," added Briggs. "It's only likely to cause difficulties and could in theory abort the trial. So, ladies and gentlemen, no independent research."
The case itself is pretty straightforward and Ellis is only charged with one case of conspiracy to defraud. "Put very simply it is suggested he was involved in a website that was used to distribute sound recordings and things of that nature in breach of copyright," Briggs noted.
Getting back to numbers, the prosecution said the OiNK tracker had led to 21 million downloads and that Ellis accepted about $300,000 in donations, although the prosecution did not mention that most, if not all, of the money went to paying for servers and hosting.
Microsoft has unveiled some more details today at CES about the Xbox Game Room, the company's new Xbox Live service.
The service will provide a "place to relive the glory days of arcade games" and that it will grow to include "over 1000" retro titles by 2012.
Your Xbox avatars will also get a "mini home" at the Arcade, with a customizable room.
Most interesting is the pay structure, which will be either 40 MS points for a single play (like at an arcade with quarters) or 240-400 points to own it.
Sony says demand jumped 76 percent year-on-year, mainly thanks to the cheaper price point of "fat" models and the introduction of the "Slim" model. Sony did not give region-by-region estimates however.
The NPD Group will release the December U.S. figures on January 15th.
Additionally, the company added that the free PlayStation Network now has 38 million registered accounts, although it is unclear how many actively use the accounts for anything but downloading firmware updates.
The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has revealed the new logo for the Blu-ray 3D standard, which was ratified in December.
The specification allows for 1080presolution delivery to each eye while wearing stereoscopic glasses, and will work on any compatible 3D display, including LCD, OLED and Plasma.
Blu-ray 3D also specifically calls for PlayStation 3 consoles to have full BD 3D content playback. Says CDRinfo: "Additionally, the specification supports playback of 2D discs in forthcoming 3D players and can enable 2D playback of Blu-ray 3D discs on the large installed base of Blu-ray Disc players currently in homes around the world. The Blu-ray 3D specification calls for encoding 3D video using the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec, an extension to the ITU-T H.264Advanced Video Coding (AVC) codec currently supported by all Blu-ray Disc players. MPEG4-MVC compresses both left and right eye views with a typical 50% overhead compared to equivalent 2D content, and can provide full 1080p resolution backward compatibility with current 2D Blu-ray Disc players. The specification also incorporates enhanced graphic features for 3D. These features provide a new experience for users, enabling navigation using 3D graphic menus and displaying 3D subtitles positioned in 3D video."
AT&T has announced it will soon begin selling Android and Palm smartphones in the U.S., a smart hedge for when the iPhone goes off exclusivity in the 6 months.
The company is the second largest carrier behind Verizon with 82 million subscribers, but most of its growth has been attributed to new subscribers flocking to the iPhone.
AT&T will have five Android phones, developed by Motorola, HTC, and Dell. The Dell Mini3, released so far only in China and Brazil, will be exclusive to AT&T, although it is unclear for how long.
Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega also noted that they would begin selling two Palm devices, although it is unclear whether they will be the Pre and Pixi or new phones not yet unveiled that will run on GSM and not CDMA.
On the 5th, Google introduced the Nexus One "superphone" during a press event, confirming most of what was known on the Internet for weeks.
Although we will have a much more in depth article on the Nexus One later tonight, here is a video of the superphone running Flash video thanks to Adobe Flash 10.1 beta. iPhone owners need not apply.
DivX has announced that upcoming PhilipsBlu-ray players will include DivX Plus HD, allowing for playback of the HD video, in the MKVcontainer. When the players hit Europe in April, Philips will be the first to offer the feature.
The devices will play all content created using the DivX software. More notably, the HD technology can support authored chapter points, quick start, 32x fast forward and rewind, high-quality AAC audio, 8 subtitle and alternate audio tracks, and metadata.
There are a number of sites that will begin offering pay-for downloads of movies in the format, and the new players will finally get the HD tech off the computer and onto the TV.
Microsoft has finally, officially given a release date for its full body motion sensing Project Natal, saying it will hit the Xbox 360 "in time" for the holidays 2010, likely meaning November.
Says Steve Ballmer, CEO: "2010 is going to be a landmark year for all Xbox customers."
Ballmer also noted that there have been about 39 million Xbox 360 consoles sold globally, and over 500 million software titles sold. There are also over 20 million people with an "active" Xbox Live subscription.
Sharp concluded their CES 2010 announcements today introducing QuadPixel technology.
QuadPixel, which will be added to new Aquos LCD panels, adds a "Y" pixel to RGB pixels, giving TVs the capability to display over 1 trillion colors. Current LCDs can render one to two billion colors.
The HDTVs will not be cheap however, with the LE 920 Series starting at $3300 for the 52-inch model.
Today at theCES 2010 event, Toshiba showed off their ZX900 Cell TV, using the Cell processing engine found in the powerful PlayStation 3.
The player will come as either 46-inch, 55-inch or 65-inch models and the company says each will include a 3.2GHz Cell chip with eight cores. Each core will upscale SD content into 1080pHD content using "smart" pixel generation that Toshiba says will leave upscaled images almost "indistinguishable" from Blu-ray and other legitimate HD content. The same technology will reduce noise and remove artifacts, all on the fly.
The processor is so powerful that it can also convert 2D content into stereoscopic 3D, all on the fly as well.
According to an interview with Japanese site Asahi, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says a new DS handheld is in development, one that will include an HDresolution screen and a motion sensor.
The handheld is being developed in-house, will have a 1024 x 768 resolution screen, will have ability to download e-books via 3G of Wi-Fi, and will include the motion sensor, allowing accelerometer technology for gaming.
When asked when the next DS would hit the States, Iwata was careful to not say anything. Our guess? 2011.
UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) president Dana White has said today that the sport is preparing to sue individuals and websites that offer the MMA content illegally.
The UFC made about $350 million in PPV revenue in 2009, but many websites have been streaming the UFC PPV events for free online, while they are playing live.
UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta said his anti-piracy group had found 271 illegal streams of the UFC 106 event, with a total of 140,000 viewers.
"The piracy of live sporting events is illegal, it kills jobs, and it threatens the expansion of U.S. based companies," Fertitta added. "The UFC is potentially losing millions of dollars a year from piracy."
White, clearly extremely angered by pirates, says the company has been considering the legal actions since 2007 but will take the leap this year due to heavier "losses."
"It's going to be a battle, man," White says, via MMAJ. "It's going to be a battle, but I'm ready to {censored} fight.We're gonna go after them, we're gonna go after them hard, and we're gonna hurt them."
In what is frankly a head-scratching display of skewed reasoning, Sony has said today that it will not promote the sleeper hit Moon (starring Sam Rockwell) for an Oscar award because the movie does not come out on DVD in the U.S. until later this month and the company does not want to have screeners leaked to the Internet.
Last week, director Duncan Jones tweeted his displeasure at Sony's decision to not send screeners out, citing the fact that Moon had been successful (awards-wise) in many other smaller awards shows. You can view his tweets here.
Sony's response (via MovieLine): "The DVD and Blu-ray come out on Jan. 12 — next Tuesday — and it was felt that to preserve the integrity of the film, we didn't want to send screeners. We're concerned about piracy. The thing about Moon is that its particular genre is very predisposed toward being uploaded onto the Web. We really just wanted to protect that aspect of it. I'’s a simple as that. […] A lot of publicity for Moon is coming out next week. Hopefully that will remind all the consumers, all the readers — and especially any awards folks — that this terrific title is out there."
In March 2009, Nine Inch Nails went around the U.S. for the Lights In The Sky Tour and because they somehow could not get a professional capture team for a commercial release, they released 405GB of free raw HD footage from the tours to their fans, allowing them to do what they please with it. Today, the group This One Is On Us has released their creation, in literally every format you could ever need, for free.
The full post:
Our 2008 Lights In The Sky tour was an ambitious multimedia production on a scale well beyond anything we'd ever attempted before. Everyone involved was extremely proud of how it came together, and we were devastated when, for a variety of reasons, we were unable to capture it professionally for a theatrical or commercial release. As a "plan B" of sorts, early last year we released a massive 405gb free download of raw HD footage captured at three different shows during the tour. The idea was to get the footage out in the wild and see what our notoriously enterprising fans could do with it. There were no rules. No strings attached. This was a gift, and an experiment, and for the past year we've watched it come to life in more ways than we could have ever imagined.
The NYTimes is reporting today that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will unveil a Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard built tablet tonight during his CES 2010 keynote speech, stealing some thunder from Apple's still unofficial "iSlate."
Both HP and MSFT declined comment on the report or the product, but sources say the device will be "touted as a multimedia whiz with e-reader and multi-touch functions."
Local broadcasters can use Mobile DTV to transmit free signals to mobile phone and laptops and Mobile DTV devices, and 35 channels are already available.
The Moment has a 3.2-inch AMOLED display and will run the newly launched Android 2.1 firmware, the same that is run on the Nexus One.
Nintendo has said today that it expects to smash previous sales records, selling over 3 million Wiis in the US for the month of December.
The official numbers will hit on January 14th and the Wii sold 2.15 million consoles last December.
Additionally, the DS/DSi is expected to set another sales record as well, although the company did not give a figure.
"The millions of people who bought Nintendo hardware during the holidays can look forward to enjoying great games on those systems now and in the future," added Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive VP of Sales & Marketing."The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for Nintendo DS, and Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros Wii are all currently providing Nintendo fans with amazing experiences and fun adventures for the whole family."
T-Mobile has announced today that they have completely upgraded their 3G network to HSPA 7.2Mbps (peak speed) from the former 3.6Mpbs, allowing for much smoother streaming and music and video downloads.
The carrier also noted that its 3G map now covers 200 million Americans.
Additionally, T-Mobile has been trialing HSPA+ in Philadelphia and hopes to deploy the update to its entire network by June 2010. HSPA+ will offer download speeds up to 21Mbps, faster then most of the country's DSL and cable lines.
ESPN has announced that the popular sports network will be launching ESPN 3D in June, in time for the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The company says it is the first "all 3D" TV channel.
ESPN 3D will show off 85 live sporting events in its first 12 months, but there will be no older programming. That being said, when those 85 events are not running, the station will just remain dark, with nothing playing. The events will include the Summer X Games, NBA basketball matches, and NCAA football/basketball matches.
ESPN has committed to the station for the first year only, through June 2011.
"We're going to assess the viability of this as we did with all our businesses," adds Sean Bratches, an ESPN executive vice president for sales and marketing.
To recieve the channel you will obviously need a new 3D-capable TV, like the ones set for release later this week at the CES event.
It is unclear whether you will have to pay a premium for the channel, and whether or not your cable company will need to provide new set-top boxes or just firmware updates.
- Nexus One "superphone" is reality
- Spec sheet as expected
- Noise reduction/suppression in speakers
- Android 2.1 firmware
- Updated widgets, weather, sports, etc
- Live wallpapers, touch the water it ripples...music live wallpaper turns into equalizer that "bounces" to the beat
- 3D app homepage
- New music, video, pictures gallery, tilts...works like Cooliris
- Excellent speech-to-text (write emails, navigate to anywhere), all text fields include speech-to-text
- Upcoming Google Earth app
- Will NOT work with AT&T 3G frequency
- http://www.google.com/phone
- $530 USD unlocked, $180 with T-Mobile
- Headed to Verizon and Vodaphone in "Spring 2010"
- Free engraving on the backplate
- Tethering coming in the future, officially
- NO multi-touch, "we will consider"
Google's much hyped Android press release began at 10 AM PST, and there are quite a few sites out there live blogging the event.
We would however, like to give you the opportunity to watch the event, LIVE, and for free. All that is required is the latest VLC player.
Apple will soon announce its intent to purchase Quattro Wireless for $275 million USD, says AllThingsDigital. The company specializes in mobile advertisements.
The move would mirror Google's recent $750 million acquisition of AdMob, the market share leader in the mobile ad department, and Quattro's biggest direct rival.
Although Apple has declined comment, the report says the announcement should be official this week. Quattro's biggest clients are Ford, Disney, and the NFL.
The move would seem a a bit out of Apple's comfort zone, which of late has been to focus almost exclusively on improving the software and hardware aspects of their iPod line of media devices and their smartphone, the iPhone. Many analysts see the move simply as a cheap way to defend against Google, who will be the clear leader of the mobile ad market when the deal is approved.
Microsoft has revealed the retail prices for its upcoming Office 2010 productivity suite today, with the four versions selling for $99 to $499 USD.
The cheapest version, Office Professional Academic, will sell through most campus book stores for $99 and will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Access and Publisher. Office Home and Student, will sell for $149 boxed, or $119 as digital downloads with a "product key card."
Office Home and Business will cost $297 boxed or $199 with the key card. The most expensive, Office Professional, includes all the programs and premium technical support and will cost $499 boxed and $249 with the key car.
Each edition will include free access to Office Web Apps, Microsoft's slimmed down versions of the programs that can be accessed through an Internet browser.
Apple has said today that the App Store has reached a new milestone, 3 billion downloads, just 3 months after hitting 2 billion.
"Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months -- this is like nothing we've ever seen before," added CEO Steve Jobs. "The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon."
From April to July, Apple was seeing about 6.9 million downloads per day from the App Store, but since September, that number has jumped to 10.1 million. Apple has over 100,000 applications available through the store. The much newer Android Market and Palm App Catalog have about 18,000 and 1,000, respectively.
The Finnish record label Lion Music has started a new campaign this week, promising to not sign any new musicians until the government has managed to stop unauthorized music downloads.
"We are NOT able to sign more artists. No demos or masters you send us will be considered for release. We will NOT listen to any mp3 files or check out your websites and we will NOT respond to questions regarding releasing your album," says Lars Eric Mattsson, company president, via TF. "The illegal file sharing on the net is killing independent music. We are sorry about this situation but we are sure you are aware of what is going on."
Mattsson continues: "Our demo policy will not change before our politicians have stopped the P2P sites. Illegal file sharing is not just about stealing from rich major companies. It is about killing independent music and making it impossible for many great musicians to have a chance to release albums and have a musical career even as a part time job. Next time you consider downloading an album for free or adding new torrents please think of the impact you are having on the artists – would you like it if we came into your home and stole your pay check?"
Skype has announced today the addition of 720pHD webcam and software support for their service, but perhaps more notably, deals with both LG and Panasonic for Skype-enabled HDTVs.
Current Skype users can upgrade to the new 4.2 beta which can achieve 1280x720 HD resolution at 30fps. The company will begin selling HD webcams, through faceVision, for $100 which included video encoding and on-board processing.
The HDTVs will have integrated Skype software, built-in 720p webcams and mics, for voicemail, landline and mobile calls.
Sprint and Skiff have announced today that they will be introducing the new Skiff e-reader at the CES event later this week, one that will be extremely fast and will feature a large resolution screen.
“We think it’s the speediest reader yet,” says Gil Fuchsberg, president of Skiff. "We've got some things that we can do that you’ve never been able to do on e-ink screens before."
Partner Sprint will provide the 3G wireless service for the device, and will even make the Skiff Reader available in Sprint retail stores and online, the first carrier to do so.
Skiff will also offer a store selling newspapers, magazines and e-books that should work with most other e-readers and smartphone apps. "We think there'll be a market for dedicated readers alongside applications on your phone or tablet PCs," Fuchsberg added, via the NYT.
The display is black and white, but Fuchsberg says a firmware update will bring color very soon. "We're working very aggressively on color, and we’ll bring color to this device as quickly as we can," he added.
Scripps Networks Interactive has pulled its popular Food Network and HGTV channels from Cablevision, after the two companies could not agree to carriage fees.
Cablevision is a smaller cable company, with only 3.1 million subscribers in New York and New Jersey, but the move mirrors that of the recent, larger fight between Time Warner and Fox (News Corp.)
Scripps says the cable provider is not properly compensating it for the channels, and has an active media campaign trying to get consumers to complain about the channels being removed.
"The distribution rates Cablevision pays for Food and HGTV are among the lowest in the industry," added Scripps CEO Kenneth Lowe.
"We are sorry that Scripps' current financial difficulties are making it impossible for them to continue our relationship on terms that are reasonable for Cablevision and our customers," responded Cablevision. "We wish Scripps well and have no expectation of carrying their programming again, given the dramatic changes in their approach to working with distributors to reach television viewers."
Electronista is reporting today that Syabas, the company behind the Popcorn Hour media hub, will be showing off the newly dubbed Popbox at the upcoming CES event, a media hub that should surpass the Popcorn Hour in every way thanks to a newly finished user interface overhaul.
The new interface includes "infopops" which show off the weather, Twitter feeds, and other data. The interface also includes a cover-flow-esque visual thumbnails selection for videos, music and other data, as well as universal search.
More notably, the interface can handle Flash, Java and QT meaning Netflix is now available. Also available is Hulu, CBS and ABC content, which can now include the in-video ads required for playback. Facebook, Twitter, ShoutcastMP3, Revision3 and other Popcorn Hour content will rollover to the new box.
For video, full 1080p at 100Mbps is now supported, along with the standard MPEG formats, H.264, VC-1, WMV, MKV, XviD and other containers. The player can also support most subtitle files, including Microsoft's proprietary one. For streaming, the Popbox can recognize iTunes via Bonjour, and DLNA and UPnP sources.
The "movie social-networking" company Flixster has announced today the purchase of popular movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, expanding its overall presence in the industry.
Rotten Tomatoes was formerly owned by gaming outfit IGN, and IGN will get a minority stake in Flixster as part of the new deal. Other financial details were not released.
The WSJ says the combined entities have 30 million monthly visitors per month combined, and Flixster had already integrated RT ratings into its mobile device apps. Overall, both sites now have a database of 250,000 movies and DVDs, 2.3 billion user reviews, 550,000 critic reviews and tens of thousands of trailers and other videos.
"Rotten Tomatoes has built a fantastically well-known brand that moviegoers trust when making their decisions. Combined with Flixster's social networking and word-of-mouth, we're creating the leading movie destination on the Internet," added Flixster President and Chief Operating Officer Steve Polsky.
LG today has posted on their Korean-language site that it will be introducing at least two new Blu-ray players at the upcoming CES event, each of which will "significantly expand" the Internet-enabled capabilities of current BD players.
The company will expand on the NetCast Entertainment Access used on current models, which allows for CinemaNow, Netflix, Pandora and YouTube playback.
LG teases that users can download movies and music and then create digital libraries that are searchable by metadata. Other Internet updates will include weather forecasts and updates, and DLNA connectivity.
Popular HDTV maker Vizio has announced that it will begin integrating Wireless HD technology into its HDTVs, using SiBEAM 60GHz chipsets.
The company can begin doing so after it completes its application to join the WirelessHD Association, which seems more like a formality than anything.
Vizio and SiBEAM will introduce their new XVT Pro TV lineup of LED-backlit machines at the upcoming CES event.
SiBEAM currently provides WirelessHD to Best Buy, Panasonic, Monster, Sony, and LG, says Electronista, and the technology allows for streaming of lossless 1080p at 4Gbps without interfering with any other wireless products. The tech is also known to break through any physical barriers such as walls or furniture.
The U.S. launch of Spotify was delayed in November after it was learned that the record labels wanted users to pay for the normally free ad-supported service, while Spotify wants it to remain free.
TechCrunch is reporting today that Spotify in the U.S. will indeed be free for users, but that it will be "limited" to a "very" few number of people.
More notably, TC says the company has been in talks with Google to launch the service built-in with Android 2.1, the firmware run by the upcoming Nexus One smartphone. The Nexus One is expected to launch tomorrow at a Google press conference. Google is said to have wanted Spotify integration so badly that it is willing to cover the $36-a-year fee the record labels want from each user.
According to VidZone head of production Ben Creasey, the application has now become the largest music video streaming app in the world.
"VidZone is official the biggest dedicated music video streaming application in the world," says Creasey.
He adds that the application has been downloaded "over" two million times and 200 million videos have been streamed since launch. "I think the correct response is 'wow!'" Creasey concluded.
VidZone is free to European PS3 owners, and has about 15,000 music videos available. VidZone launched in June.
Sony accidentally made the still-in-theaters film Armored available via the PlayStation Store earlier this week, offering the movie as a free digital download for about five hours.
All users had to do was head over to the PS Store, search for "Armored" and download the movie, for free, for the PS3 and the PSP.
For those that missed it, the film has resurfaced as Armored 2009 DVDSCR READNFO XviD-PrisM on torrent and warez sites, and the entire situation is a pretty large mistake to be made by the corporation. Perhaps a marketing stunt?
In the past week, Verizon Wireless has been pushing a Bing search engine application onto BlackBerry phones, without the owners consent.
Microsoft and Verizon signed a $500 million USD pact last year, in which the wireless carrier agreed to make Bing the default search engine for the browser in most of its phones. BlackBerry owners had always had the chance to select their own default search engine, however.
Many BlackBerry users now have a Bing icon on their phones, which is a link to install the app, although it cannot be deleted, only hidden. Worst of all, it was added without consent of the user.
Verizon has posted information on how to hide the icon after many complained but added: "We think Verizon Wireless BlackBerry users will love Bing, but we are passionate about customer choice."
BGR has revealed some new specs for the Android-based Motorola Devour, Verizon's third known device running the Google operating system.
Formerly dubbed "Calgary," the Devour will likely launch in two colorways, black and silver, with the silver casing a new development.
As for the operating system, the new leak seems to confirm that the Devour will run Android 2.1, so far only confirmed for the Nexus One, and will have MOTOBLUR as well, Motorola's Android user interface which connects social networking, emails and RSS feeds.
The phone will only work on Verizon, having support for Verizon's own EV-DO mobile broadband network. Wi-fi and Bluetooth are standard as well. The device will include a slider QWERTY keypad, optical trackpad, a 3.2MP camera, 3.5 mm headset jack, a GPS receiver, and a microSD memory card slot.
China has arrested over almost 5400 people in 2009 in its latest Internet pornography crackdown, calling the new tougher policy a key piece of China's "state security."
In the last month, the Chinese government began offering up to 10,000 yuan (about $1500 USD) to anyone who reported sites featuring porn, and 9000 sites were taken down alongside the arrest of 5394 citizens.
For 2010, China says it will "strengthen punishment for Internet operators that violate the laws and regulations...severely punish operations that have serious problems with harmful information". "Purifying the Internet environment and cracking down on Internet crimes is related to long-term state security," added the ministry, via the AFP.
While the number arrested may seem large, it is important to note that China has 338 million Internet users, and thousands of porn sites and operators remain active today.
Rock star Bono, of the group U2 made some interesting quotes today, in regards to illegal file sharing and the music and movie industries.
"The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files," says Bono, adding that in just a few years, bandwidth will be so abundant, and connections so fast that entire movies can be downloaded in under a minute, regardless of size.
"A decade's worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators -- in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can't live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us," he added.
Bono does believe that Internet content can be tracked, and cited the US' effort to stop child pornography as well as China's to suppress online gaming and pornography.
"Perhaps movie moguls will succeed where musicians and their moguls have failed so far, and rally America to defend the most creative economy in the world, where music, film, TV and video games help to account for nearly four percent of gross domestic product," Bono concluded.
Redbox has announced that they have set a new one-day rental record, seeing 2 million DVDs rented from their kiosks on New Year's Eve.
The previous record was only 170,000 rentals, and the company adds the most popular titles were District 9 and Paranormal Activity.
"With many Americans celebrating New Year's Eve at home and many more resolving to save money in 2010, Redbox proved a great way to do both," added senior VP of marketing and customer experience Gary Cohen, via VB.
Redbox has over 22,000 kiosk nationwide and says that they saw 350 million rentals total in 2009.
Apple has won their appeal in a class-action lawsuit that was aiming to hold the company responsible for possible hearing loss caused by iPods.
The appeals court said that the plaintiffs failed to show that iPod use posed "unreasonable risk of noise-induced hearing loss."
Apple has sold over 220 million iPods since 2001, and each unit comes with a warning telling users to listen to their music and movies at "safe" volume levels.
"The plaintiffs do not allege the iPods failed to do anything they were designed to do nor do they allege that they, or any others, have suffered or are substantially certain to suffer inevitable hearing loss or other injury from iPod use," Senior Judge David Thompson added. "At most, the plaintiffs plead a potential risk of hearing loss not to themselves, but to other unidentified iPod users," he concluded.
Jack Yates, an employee of an LA DVD duplication company, made a private copy of Paramount's 2008 flop The Love Guru before the movie hit theaters, and decided to distribute it to his family and some friends.
One promotional copy was supposed to be created for the Jay Leno show, but Yates made two copies instead. He was captured on surveillance camera however, and in 2008, Yates pleaded guilty to the theft and was sentenced to six months in prison.
One of the friends he distributed the film to decided to upload it to public torrenttrackerMininova, and this week Mischa Wynhausen has pleaded guilty to uploading the copy and was sentenced to three years probation.
While Wynhausen’s was much more severe than that of Yates, Yates initially lied to authorities and denied the crime. They then promptly showed him video of his theft. Wynhausen cooperated from the outset.
Regardless of the pre-release upload, the Love Guru was a complete flop, both critically and at the box office where it only made $40 million worldwide with a production budget over $60 million.
The latest rumor from the boys over at BoyGeniusReport is that the upcoming Nexus One Android phone will have multiple models, the first of which will be for T-Mobile users (confirmed) and the second will have native AT&T 3G support.
The AT&T model will a "second unlocked" version, says the report, with the first model being locked to T-Mobile.
The James Cameron epic Avatar has already surpassed the $1 billion milestone globally, making it the fourth-biggest movie of all-time, in just 16 days of release.
According to figures from Fox, the movie has hit $1.02 billion, with about $350 million or so being domestic box office sales. The distributor expects overall domestic sales to surpass $500 million.
The top three movies of all time are Cameron's Titanic at $1.8 billion, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at $1.12 billion, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest at $1.07 billion. Avatar is expected to move into 2nd place by the end of the month.
"This is like a freight train out of control," added Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. "It just keeps on going."
Expected to add to foreign sales is the fact that Avatar has just begun playing in China, and will reach Italy next week.
Avatar had a reported production budget of $230 million with a marketing budget of $130 million.
Alfred Hightower, wanted in Indiana for drug dealing and possession has been apprehended in Canada this week after Blizzard gave up his personal details from the popular online game World of Warcraft.
Deputy Matt Robertson and Major Steve Rogers were in charge of the investigation and say the breakthrough came after a tipster somewhat mentioned Hightower's addiction to the online phenomenom. "We received information that this guy was a regular player of an online game, which was referred to as 'some warlock and witches' game," said Roberson. "None of that information was sound enough to pursue on its own, but putting everything we had together gave me enough evidence to send a subpoena to Blizzard Entertainment. I knew exactly what he was playing — World of Warcraft. I used to play it. It's one of the largest online games in the world."
The so-called "subpoena" was just a polite request to Blizzard, but it paid off as the developer released Hightower's IP address, account information, billing address and his online screen name to the authorities.
Ex-Google China president Kai-Fu Lee has thrown in his own predictions for the much-hyped but still not official Apple iSlate tablet, saying that he believes the tablet will be unveiled January 26th, will cost under $1000 USD and will have 3D graphics.
Lee continued: "Most surprising: Apple predicts production of nearly 10 million [units] in the first year!"
The exec cited a close friend with knowledge of the situation, which seems more credible given Lee's former title and his former job at Apple in the 90s.
The iSlate will have a 10.1-inch multi-touch screen, support for e-books and videoconferencing, "3D graphics support" and a virtual keyboard like the one used on the iPhone/iPod Touch.
Continuing on, Lee says the device will weigh half of what the MacBook Air weighs.
Panasonic and Sony have introduced the new i-MLSE (Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation) method this week, increasing the per-layer storage capacity of Blu-ray discs from the current 25GB to 33.4GB.
Tech-On! says the new method can use existing Blu-ray equipment, a "blue-violet laser diode with a 405 nm wavelength, and an object lens with a numeric aperture (NA) of 0.85."
i-MLSE will be proposed to the BDA for widespread adoption, and Sony being a founding member should mean eventual adoption of the standard.
Google's Chrome browser has surpassed Apple's Safari in market share for the first time ever, according to the latest NetApplications stats, seeing large growth to move to 4.63 percent, just ahead of Safari's 4.46 percent. Overall, Chrome moved 18 percent from 3.93 in November.
Firefox declined to 24.61 percent, and Internet Explorer continued its long term downtrend, falling to 62.29 percent.
Chrome's big jump can mainly be attributed to the release of Chrome for Mac (beta) and the addition of official extensions for Windows users and continued delays by the Mozilla team.
Foxconn Electronics has filed a report today with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) denying a Digitimes article that had claimed that Foxconn was taking orders for an Orange-branded Android phone.
The manufacturer also added that it has "no intention of competing directly with its clients."
Digitimes says that the Foxconn-Orange deal was done through a sales agent and despite the denial, the manufacturer is indeed developing Android handsets for Orange.
Adds DT: "By acting through arrangements with the sales agent, FIH is able to say it is not violating its policy of not competing directly with its clients, the sources pointed out."
Wireless carrier Orange UK has noted today the launch of "high definition calls", an upgrade to call quality.
The updated voice service will use Wideband Adaptive Multi-Rate (WB-AMR) for speech transmission which allocates 5x more bandwidth for a call than normal 3G voice, while using the same or only slightly more data. Orange says that two users calling each other with HD calling should expect the clarity to be as if both "were actually in the same room."
It is still unclear however if any current handsets can be updated to support WB-AMR, but Orange will have new phones available with the standard supported in 2010 alongside a wider rollout.
LG has released the full specifications for the first American Mobile DTV device, the DP570MH.
The unit has a 7-inch, 480 x 234 resolution screen and can natively playback DVDs via the built-in drive. Making it a "Mobile DTV" device is the fact that it has a TV tuner that can pick up live TV, even while in fast moving vehicles.
The TV can playback live video for 2.5 hours on full charge, and has about 4.5 hours of battery life when used as a DVD player.
Mobile DTV is free, but the device will have $250 MSRP when it ships in a few months.
The Palm App Catalog has hit its first major milestone today, 1000 apps, giving Pre and Pixi users a myriad of viable options to download for their smartphones.
In comparison however, the Android Market has over 16,000 apps available and the Apple App Store has 100,000.
There was little access given to Palm's webOS SDK in the first few months of the Pre's release which led to little developer support and overall malaise. That should not be a problem now, and especially when the phones go off Sprint exclusivity in the next few months.
TWC has over 20 million cable subscribers in metropolitan NYC, LA, and other smaller markets.
Unfortunately, neither company would reveal the financials of the deal. Fox was looking for $1 per month per subscriber for the signal, even though it had once given the programming away for free.
"We're pleased that, after months of negotiations, we were able to reach a fair agreement with Time Warner Cable — one that recognizes the value of our programming," added Chase Carey, News Corp. COO.
The video pretty much speaks for itself here but the FPSECE was updated recently to version 0.10 and with it came multi-touch support. This vid shows the PS1 classic Tekken 3 being played on the HTC HD2 phone with full touchscreen.
According to a recent FCC filing, an AT&T-compatible Google Nexus One has been approved, and could be available for the GSM-based provider within a few months.
Rockstar Games has announced that they will be bringing two downloadable 
Matthew Delorey of Massachusetts has been arrested this week, accused of selling hacked Comcast cable modems that would allow buyers to have free Internet access.
