Less than a week after unveiling a prototype of the oft-hyped PlayStation Phone, Engadget has revealed more pictures, and some more slight details.

The device is codenamed "Zeus" and the prototype, at least, is running Android 2.2. The phone is expected to launch with 2.3 Gingerbread.

Furthermore the smartphone will come with an 8GB microSD card, a minimum of 512MB internal storage, and be around 17mm thick, almost exactly the same as the PSPgo.

From the original report:

Engadget says the phone will hit the market "soon," likely in the Q1 2011.

The device will run on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), with a fast 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 512MB RAM, 1GB ROM and a 4.1-inch screen.

In the gaming part of the slide-out, the PSP Phone has a multi-touch touchpad, shoulder buttons and a microSD slot.

News Corp. returned their Fox signal to Cablevision subscribers last night, just in time to watch Game 3 of the World Series.

Both companies have agreed "in principle" on a new deal over retransmission fees, and Cablevision subscribers now have their Fox, Fox Deportes, NatGeo Wild and My 9 channels back.

The signals had been blacked out since October 16th, when negotiations between the companies hit a wall.

News Corp. was asking for $150 million in retransmission fees, more than Cablevision pays for ABC, NBC and CBS combined.

Terms of the new deal were not disclosed.

United States Senators have said it is unlikely that Cyber security legislation will pass this year as the 111th Congress comes to an end.

Recognizing that critical infrastructure of the United States depends on computer and network systems, legislators are debating what powers should be given to the U.S. President to respond to, and handle situations such as cyber attacks.

Countries like the United Kingdom and the United States have expressed concerns that some critical systems (health, transport, defense etc.) could be affected by cyber attacks launched by cyber criminals or rogue states. Lawmakers in the U.S. are looking to pass new legislation that would give the President powers to handle attacks from the Internet or threats of attacks, but say that any legislation is unlikely to pass this year.

"I'm not optimistic of major cyber security legislation passing at this late time." Republican staff director on the Senate Intelligence Committee Louis Tucker said. "Considering the objections to some of the cyber bills out there, comprehensive legislation will probably have to wait until next year."

Facebook has sent out invites to members of the press to attend an event that will focus on Facebook's mobile offerings.

The event is sure to re-spark the immediately-denied rumors that there is a Facebook-branded handset (or handsets) on the horizon. The media event will be held at Facebook's Palo Alto headquarters next Wednesday.

The social networking giant recently revealed that of its 500 million members, approximately 150 million use the website from their mobile phones. It offers native software applications for handsets as well as hosting a mobile-friendly version of its site.

That is likely to be the main focus of the event. A Facebook spokesperson denied rumors back in December that the company was working with device manufacturers on Facebook-branded handsets, saying that building phones is just not what Facebook does.

Thom Dunning, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, has said that GPUs are the future of supercomputing.

Dunning said high-performance computing solutions will continue to move toward graphics processing units for more power. China has just recently claimed to have the fastest supercomputer on the planet, the Tianhe-1A, which uses 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 GPUs and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs.

This GPU-CPU hybrid system is what Dunning expects to be the future in the area.

"What we're really seeing in the efforts in China as well as the ones we have in the U.S. is that GPUs are what the future will look like," Dunning said. "What we're seeing is the beginning of something that's going to be happening all over the world."

He said that the migration to such systems will accelerate when chipmakers can provide combined high-performance CPU and GPU functions on the same chip. "If they start to solve some of these other problems like putting [the GPU and CPU] together on a chip, that's when you'll start to see a lot software rewritten," according to Dunning.

Roku Developer Program Manager, "Patrick", has announced on the company's official forum that PlayOn-compatible channels have been removed and can no longer be added.

Anybody already subscribed to a channel will be able to keep it for now, although it is unclear for how long. Roku has said that neither Roku, or the developer of the channel are affiliated in any way with PlayOn.

Hi everyone,

While we understand that many of you are excited about a PlayOn-compatible Channel and may be using it, it unfortunately presents the possibility of legal exposure for us. As a result, the current PlayOn channels have been removed and are no longer available to add to your Roku player.

Patrick

Apple has responded to a lawsuit brought against it by Motorola earlier this month with its own patent infringement lawsuits.

The Cupertino-based iPhone-maker sued Motorola alleging the company's smartphone line-up and the operating system used by its handsets violate the company's intellectual property. Apple filed the two lawsuits on Friday in the U.S. district court in Wisconsin.

Earlier this month, Motorola filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) claiming that Apple's "i" devices infringe on their patents, as well as some Mac computers in its line-up. The three complaints include 18 patents, all of which relate to "early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas found on many of Apple's core products and associated services, including MobileMe and the App Store."

The patents are related to "wireless communication technologies, such as WCDMA (3G), GPRS, 802.11 and antenna design, and key smartphone technologies including wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization."

YouTube announced this week on its blog that users of the service have clicked the little yellow "subscribe" button over 1 billion times since it was added.

YouTube gave users the option to subscribe to videos from other users by clicking the now-familiar yellow button back in 2006. This week it was revealed that YouTube users have amassed over one billion subscriptions to videos from other YouTube user, with the billionth subscription being to the MachinimaSports channel.

Over 1 billion subscription updates that sent to YouTube users' homepages every week. Fifteen YouTube channels have managed to cross the 1 million subscribers landmark; fred, nigahiga, kassemg, shanedawsonTV, shanedawsonTV2, smosh, universalmusicgroup, machinima, sxephil, mysteryguitarman, davedays, kevjumba, realannoyingorange, raywilliamjohnson, collegehumor and failblog.

YouTube has also now offered a widget you can embed into your own websites or blogs that allows users to subscribe to your channel without having to visit YouTube.com.

You can see more details at: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/

The California State Senator behind a controversial piece of legislation concerning the sale of violent video games to minors has claimed that ESRB guideline ratings are "biased".

San Francisco democrat Leland Yee said that his new piece of legislation was needed because the ESRB age-rating scheme is "rather biased." He told GameSpot that since the games industry itself funds the ESRB, it is natural to assume that the ratings titles receive are biased.

"Clearly, they're not going to legitimately and appropriately place any markings on any video games, because it's in the interest of the video [game] industry to sell as many video games as possible," he said. "You never heard of an AO rating whatsoever, because that would limit your market share." (Have a look here, Senator)

A Google executive has said that Google's quiet acquisition of Android Inc. several years ago was the best deal the company has ever struck since its beginning.

The comments were made by David Lawee, vice president of corporate development at Google, at the 16th annual Stanford Accel Symposium. He said that when the search giant buys up a company, it is up to the entrepreneurs to make it a success under the Google umbrella.

Google bought Android for an estimated $50 million back in 2005. Android Inc. was a wireless software start-up that was founded by Andy Rubin.

"I saw this guy in my building for two years, walking his dog, and I was like, I hope this guy does something," said Lawee. "It's obvious when the deal doesn’t work out, because the people leave. That's the key metric: Is the technology being used? A lot of it depends on the perseverance of the team coming in."

Rubin did stick around with Google to champion the development of the open source Android operating system for mobile handsets. It now is one of the most used operating systems in handsets.

A new documentary has revealed that founders of search giant Google tried to lure Steve Jobs away from Apple to head the "then" emerging company.

Bloomberg's new documentary, Game Changers, reveals that Google's co-founders Larry Paige and Sergey Brin traveled to Apple's Cupertino campus for a meeting with Steve Jobs. The pair tried to lure Jobs to Google to act as chief executive officer but were unable to get him on board.

After interviewing about 13 different candidates, Paige and Brin eventually settled on Eric Schmidt. Whilst Schmidt touts a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the fact that he attended a hippy art festival, Burning Man, in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, apparently gave some weight to his candidacy.

Game Changers is a new documentary that tells the story of Larry Paige and Sergey Brin as they met at Sranford and all to the way to their status in the industry today.

The 48 minute documentary is available here.

After sparking speculation by asking customers whether they would be willing to pay a monthly fee for unlimited streaming last spring, Redbox' owner has now confirmed it is planning a movie streaming service.

During a conference call yesterday, Coinstar CEO Paul Davis confirmed that Redbox does have its own plans in the space. He said that Redbox will be working with a partner to deliver a movie streaming service but did not elaborate on who the company is in negotiations with or what kind of a payment structure would be in mind.

The company will launch the Redbox-branded service in 2011 if all goes well. It will either be an unlimited service for a fee like that offered by Netflix, or it could go the iTunes and Amazon route with a Video on Demand service instead.

Last spring, customers were asked if they would be winning to pay a monthly fee of $4 for unlimited streaming and up to 4 DVD rentals per month.

China claims to have built the world's faster supercomputer, surpassing the Cray XT5 Jaguar supercomputer in the United States.

The Tianhe-1A was unveiled on Thursday and claims a performance record of 2.507 petaflops (flops == floating point operations per second; petaflops == 10¹⁵), beating the Cray XT5 Jaguar's 1.75 petaflops record. The Chinese system will have to wait to be crowned the world's fastest supercomputer until the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany in a couple of weeks, which will compile a list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world.

It is powered by 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 GPUs and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs. The system still requires U.S.-made processors, but the very high-speed interconnect technology and software that runs the system was developed in China. It was designed at the National University of Defense Technology in China and comprises 103 computer racks, consumes 4.04 megawatts of electricity and covers 17,000 square feet.

"Certainly there's some nationalistic pride in having the fastest computer, but it's also a signal that the U.S. is not the dominant force when it comes to supercomputing," said Jack Dongarra, a computing expert at the University of Tennessee.

Asus has released a new software tool that is aimed at legacy systems to make it possible to fully access hard drives with more than 2.2TB of storage space.

Disk Unlocker is a free utility for Asus motherboards that are limited by BIOS as 3TB internal HDDs roll onto the market. The tool cannot create a bootable partition based on the GUID partition table (GPT). Instead, it simply allows users running Windows XP x64, Windows Vista and Windows 7 access the extra space beyond the 2.2GB limit.

To boot from a GPT partitioned drive you would need an Extensive Firmware Interface-capable motherboard. Disk Unlocker, when run, provides a drop-down list of HDDs with more than 2.2TB capacity (but does not list any that already use the GPT format). When a user makes a selection, the tool creates a new virtual drive that gives the user control over the extra storage space.

Starting in November, Boxee users will be adding an application for the VUDU on demand service. In addition, VUDU is offering a free movie rental to anyone who signs up for their service through Boxee.

Boxee is a media center platform for Windows & OS X, which is primarily designed to aceess web based content. A set-top box, simply called the Boxee Box, will also be launching next month.

VUDU clients are already available on a number of Blu-ray players & HDTVs, as well as VUDU's own set-top box.

Bloomberg cites sources close to Fortinent Inc. in a report claiming that International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) has approached the network security firm about a possible takeover.

The world's largest provider of computer services approached Fortinet between six and eight weeks ago, according to the sources, and talks now may be at an advanced stage. Fortinent is reportedly working with Morgan Stanley on its strategic options.

The firm provides systems for network security, catering to companies that range from small businesses to large phone carriers. IBM CEO Sam Palmisano had previously said he plans to spend about $20 billion on acquisitions over the next five years.

"IBM's move is part of a bigger trend where technology companies are trying to fill the gaps in their portfolios," said Rajesh Ghai, an analyst at ThinkEquity LLC in San Francisco.

"Fortinet is growing very fast, and IBM is looking at high-growth companies also because the return on cash on a balance sheet is very low."

Fortinent, which has a market value of $2.14 billion, has seen its stock price surge over the past year due to speculation that it could become an acquisition target.

Despite an Dutch-led operating that disconnected 143 command and control servers from the Internet, the Bredolab botnet appears to still be receiving instructions from remaining servers.

Dutch authorities have said that the Bredolab investigation is still on-going, after already taking 143 servers offline and capturing of what authorities described as a computer virus "mastermind" in Armenia. At least two botnet command nodes appear to still be active.

The servers are located in Russia and Romania, and they will deliver FakeAV (Antivirusplus) and spam to infected machines that look them up. A third command node located in Russia was also showing signs of life earlier in the week, but appears to have gone offline permanently.

Security firm FireEye reckons that a second group of bot herders are issuing new instructions to the remaining zombie drones either attempting to make their own botnet or are continuing to use portions of the botnet they had previously rented.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has tapped into the unpopularity of an EU directive that caused major concerns several years ago which would see ISPs in the EU logging user activity.

The EFF is calling on the European Union's data protection watchdogs to pressure the governing bodies of the EU to repeal the law. The San Francisco-based digital rights activist group says the directive is disproportionate and very unpopular with citizens in any state that attempts to make it law.

Under the Directive, which appeared when the United Kingdom held the EU presidency, ISPs would be required to keep records of when its services were used and by whom. This information is then available for police and other state authorities to analyze in cases of terrorism or serious crime.

The length of time the data is retained for is between six months and two years depending on the preference of the state. "The Data Retention Directive is highly controversial, if not wildly unpopular throughout the European Union," said the EFF's Eva Galperin.

Turkish users are reportedly able to access Google Inc.'s popular video sharing website, YouTube, after videos deemed controversial in the country disappeared from the site.

Turkey had blocked YouTube back in May 2008 over video content that was deemed to be insulting to Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Under the country's penal code, it is an offense to insult the Turkish nation or its institutions.

The ban had been widely criticized since being put in place, with even Turkey's president Abdullah Gul using Twitter to voice his opposition to it publicly.

"We've received reports that some users in Turkey are once again able to access YouTube...We want to be clear that a third party, not YouTube, have apparently removed some of the videos that have caused the blocking of YouTube in Turkey using our automated copyright complaint process," YouTube responded in a statement issued on Saturday.

"We are investigating whether this action is valid in accordance with our copyright policy."

Human rights groups and media watchdogs have urged Turkey to halt its continued Internet censorship practices, with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) saying the European Union-candidate now prevents access to as many as 5,000 websites.

Google has said this week that they have spent $1.6 billion on 40 acquisitions this year, with more expected.

The search giant revealed the number via a regulatory filing.

Google's largest acquisition this year has been the massive $861 million purchase of mobile advertising company AdMob, which was easily integrated into Android.

The company also purchased social gaming company Slide for $180 million and video software developer On2 for $123 million.

That $1.6 billion figure could jump substantially if Google's proposed $700 million acquisition of airline travel software company ITA Software is completed. The purchase is pending as EU and U.S. anti-monopoly regulators look at it.

Google still has $33 billion in cash.

More new details have surfaced on the rumored Samsung Nexus Two, which AndroidandMe has compiled.

Samsung has sent out invitations for a major event on November 8th, when they are expected to unveil the device.

The device will be the first to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and it may be the first to have native video chat available through an updated Google Talk app.

Furthermore, the phone will run on a 1.2GHz processor, feature a 4-inch AMOLED (or Super-AMOLED) display, a 5MP camera with autofocus and HD video recording, a 1.3MP front-side camera, 512MB RAM, 16GB internal memory and support for multiple carriers, likely AT&T and T-Mobile.

With those specifications, the Nexus Two will likely became the top Android phone in the market, and a worthy successor to the powerful, but failed Nexus One.

Verizon Wireless has started their tiered data plans for smartphones this week, giving users more options for their phone bandwidth needs.

Subscribers will now have the chance to purchase 150MB a month for $15, or keep their unlimited plan for $30.

The U.S.' largest carrier has said in the past that 95 percent of users don't need unlimited plans as a good portion use under 100MB per monthly cycle, especially BlackBerry users which tend to use the phone's data for email and quick browsing only.

Five percent of smartphone users use about 50 percent of all data bandwidth, added Verizon.

The $15 package is a "holiday promotion" but Verizon is likely to make it permanent.

Microsoft has said today that gamers spend 1 billion hours on Xbox Live each month, a significant amount of hours by any standard.

The company said recently that there are just over 25 million Xbox Live users so that means every Xbox Live gamer is spending an average of 40 hours per month playing games or streaming movies on their consoles.

Microsoft added that they have seen a 157 percent increase in the last year in the amount of time users are spending watching movies and TV shows via Netflix or other services.

12 million XBL users are watching at least 30 minutes of content every day.

Adding to the numbers is Microsoft's expansion of the service, with the number of countries offering access now standing at 35.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said today that they will not drop the price on the Wii console this holiday season, instead choosing to bundle software or accessories as a way to entice new buyers.

When asked about a possible price cut, Iwata said: "Of course, we cannot say it will never happen, but we are not thinking of it for the near future."

The Wii currently sells for $200, the same price as the cheapest Xbox 360 console and cheaper than the PlayStation 3.

One such bundle is the upcoming special Mario edition Wii, which has a red colorway and comes with the latest Mario game.

"Those who really wanted it would have already bought it so now we need to reach those who considered it but never got around to buying it," concludes Iwata.

According to a number of sources, Samsung and Google are set to unveil the Nexus Two next week, the first phone to run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Samsung has already scheduled a major press event for November 8th in NYC.

Adding to the rumor is the fact that Carphone Warehouse has said this week that it will be the exclusive seller of the Nexus Two in the UK for this holiday season.

Google launched the Nexus One in January to much fan-fare. However, sales on T-Mobile were lackluster and the search giant stopped selling the phone a few months ago.

There are few details on the actual device, but Gizmodo got a quick "hands-on" with the device in which they describe a 4.1-inch AMOLED display and a front-facing camera.

More details will be forthcoming.

For the first time ever, Apple has moved into the world’s top five mobile-phone vendors, placing fourth in the Q3 2010.

The numbers come via IDC and Strategy Analytics, who both agreed that if Apple introduces a CDMA version of the iPhone they may be able to jump into third or even second place.

"The entrance of Apple to the top five underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market," notes Kevin Restivo, an IDC analyst. "Vendors that aren’t developing a strong portfolio of smartphones will be challenged to grow and retain market share in the future."

Nokia, (according to IDC) which has held the top spot for every quarter since 1998, stayed in first but share fell to 32.4 percent, down from 36.5 percent year-over-year.

Samsung rose to 21 percent to remain in second, while LG saw its share drop to 8.3 percent, good for third.

LaCie has demonstrated record speeds in two of its professional storage solutions – LaCie d2 USB 3.0 and LaCie 2big USB 3.0.

LaCie's 2big USB 3.0, now available in 6TB, provides a dramatic 20 percent speed boost by reaching 306MB/s, marking the fastest performance of any 2-bay RAID solution to-date, thanks to the performance of USB 3.0.

"There is no question heavy data users continue to demand higher capacities, and in turn faster transfer speeds," said Erwan Girard, Business Unit Manager for Professional Products.

"Today, LaCie answered this challenge by introducing the largest available capacity and fastest transfer speeds in a single solution, providing users with increased backup efficiency and reduced risk for backup interruption."

The LaCie 2big USB 3.0 6TB and LaCie d2 USB 3.0 3TB will be available, worldwide, at the beginning of November. The 2big USB 3.0 is listed for $349.99 with 2TB capacity, and $579.99 with 4TB capacity. The 6TB option is listed but is not priced yet.

Nepalese telecoms firm Ncell, owned by Swedish company TeliaSonera, has made it possible for climbers of Mount Everest to make calls or surf the Internet using its 3G network.

The company installed eight base stations along the route to the Everst base camp. The highest 3G base station is near the Everest base camp at 17,000 ft. Ncell head Pasi Koistinen said the coverage would reach the summit of Everest but said it has not been tested yet.

Climbers and trekkers in the region have had to rely on voice-only mobile coverage or satellite phones depending on location. Ncell said the new coverage will help thousands of tourists that visit the Everest region ever year.

It will enable climbers to stay in touch with family and trip organizers, and to get weather and safety information updates easily. Since Edmund Hillary first conquered Everest in 1952, approximately 3,000 people have followed in his footsteps.

TeliaSonera has announced it will invest over $100 million in the next year to boost mobile coverage in Nepal, where less than one third of the population have access to telecommunications services.

Mass Effect 2 has won the "Ultimate game of the year" award at the 28th Golden Joystick awards. It also picked up the award for the "RPG of the year".

The winners are voted by UK gamers. The Guinness Book of Records lists the Golden Joystick awards as the most popular video game awards show. For games to qualify for awards this year, they had to have been released between May 2009 and May 2010, with just one exception: the "One to watch" award.

The first Golden Joystick awards in 1982 saw Jatpac winning the first "Ultimate game of the year" award. Since then, other titles to receive the award include Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Awards are handed out for 16 different categories...

• Action game of the year: Assassin's Creed II
• Game On Shooter of the year: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Racing game of the year: Forza Motorsport 3
• RPG of the year: Mass Effect 2
• Puzzle game of the year: World of Goo
• Fighting game of the year: Super Street Fighter 4
• Sports game of the year: FIFA 10
• Strategy game of the year: Plants vs. Zombies
• Music game of the year: Guitar Hero 5
• Online game of the year: League of Legends
• Downloadable game of the year: Plants vs. Zombies
• Portable game of the year: Pokemon Heart Gold/ Soul Silver
• Soundtrack of the year: Final Fantasy XIII
• One to watch: Call of Duty: Black Ops
• UK Developer of the year: Jagex
• Ultimate game of the year: Mass Effect 2

Microsoft Corp. beat predictions to report a company record for the first quarter.

The Redmond-based software giant experienced much higher performance particularly of its Windows and Office software products. It announced a 51 percent rise in first quarter profit, with net profit for the three months to September at $5.4 billion.

Revenue for the quarter was reported at $16.2 billion, a company record for the first quarter, and a 25 percent rise over the same period of last year. Microsoft did say however that it had deferred some revenue from Windows sales during the same quarter of last year, and if it had not done so, the net profit would have been reported as 16 percent higher.

Nevertheless, the quarter surprised analysts and investors that have been questioning the company's ability to adapt to major changes in the market. "Microsoft had a very good quarter," said Toan Tran, an analyst at Morningstar.

"Windows is still doing well, Office is doing well, and servers and tools are doing well. The big three businesses are firing on all cylinders as the PC upgrade cycle continues."

Dish Network and New Corp.'s Fox Network have announced a deal that will restore some of Fox's programming to Dish subscribers.

Financial terms of the agreement between the two were not disclosed in the Friday announcement. Subscribers had lost Fox's regional sports networks, National Geographic and FX on October 1 when Dish had refused to enter into a new deal with Fox.

Dish claimed that Fox was demanding a 50 percent increase in programing fees, but insiders at Fox have denied that the fee increase was anything like 50 percent.

"After prolonged negotiations to reach a fair deal, we're pleased to enter into a long-term agreement with Fox and to assure our customers that they can continue to enjoy these channels," Dave Shull, senior vice president of programing at Dish Network, said.

More stations were slated to go off air in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Dallas for Dish subscribers, but the new agreement ensures the local Fox programing will continue to be available.

Facebook has acquired Drop.io, an easy to use, online collaboration and file sharing service that provides users with a single, real time and private way to chat and share images, video, audio, documents and other digital content.

The service was led by Sam Lessin, who attended Harvard University between 2001 and 2005 where he knew Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg during the early days of the site. Lessin is now set to take up a new role at Facebook, the world's largest social networking service.

Drop.io left a blog message for all of its users explaining what will now happen...

Here at drop.io, we've had a great three years helping people privately share pictures, video, audio, documents, andmore. It's been a thrill to watch the first, thousandth, millionth, and ten-millionth drop be created.

Today, we're proud to announce that we've struck a deal with Facebook. What this means is that Facebook has bought most of drop.io's technology and assets, and Sam Lessin is moving to Facebook.

In the coming weeks, we'll be winding down the drop.io service. As of this week, people will no longer be able to create new free drops, but you'll be able to download content from existing drops until Dec. 15. Paid user accounts will still be available through Dec. 15 and paid users will be able to continue using the service normally. After Dec. 15, paid accounts will be discontinued as well.

A Texas man has been given an 18 month prison sentence for selling counterfeit copies of popular software applications through various websites on the Internet.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the sentencing of Todd Alan Cook (24), of Wichita Falls, Texas, as well as a $599,771 restitution payment ordered by the Judge. Cook had pleaded guilty of criminal copyright infringement in March.

Between July 2006 and May 2008, Cook, along with his father Robert and another individual operated several websites hosted by Yahoo. They sold large amounts of counterfeit software from the sites, much of it being from Adobe Systems.

The sites they operated included Econo-soft.com and Bargainsoftwaredownload.com, and they used PayPal and Google Checkout to process payments. Federal agents bought software from Cooks' website during 2007. Yahoo had also sent a cease and desist order demanding that the sale of counterfeit software cease.

Despite the warning, a new website was reportedly set up within days. Robert Cook also pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement in March, and will be sentenced on December 3rd.

YouTube co-founder and chief executive officer Chad Hurley is to step down from the position at the company as Google annexes more control over the world's most popular video site.

The site was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jewed Karim, who were all early employees at PayPal. In October 2006, Google Inc. moved in with a $1.65 billion buyout of the rapidly-growing service. Since then, both Chen and Karim have already departed YouTube.

For the past two years, YouTube's day to day operations have been handled by Salar Kamangar, one of Google's earliest employees. Hurley, 33, concentrated on the site's design and the relationship between YouTube and its millions of users.

Hurley is set to officially turn over the position of CEO to Salar Kamangar, but he will reportedly remain a YouTube adviser.

A broad coalition of industry-leading IT firms has announced the formation of the Solid State Drive (SSD) Form Factor Working Group.

The group will work to advance the benefits of Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) storage drives through standardization. The working group will focus on enterprise customers who are pushing the storage IO envelope and require high-performance, easy-to-use, cost-effective storage solutions to optimize CPU performance.

Promoter Members of the group include Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, IBM and Intel while Contributor Members include Amphenol, Emulex, Fusion-io, IDT, Marvel Semiconductor, Micron Technology, Molex, PLX, QLogic, STEC, SandForce and Smart Modular Technology.

To help customers, the SSD Form Factor Working Group is dedicated to advancing technology standards in three technology areas...

• A connector specification which will promote interoperability of several storage protocols, supporting SAS/SATA 3.0 as well as PCIe 3. This allows greater user choice and flexibility.
• A form factor which builds upon the current 2.5-inch standard to enable enclosure flexibility while supporting the new connector definition and expanding the power envelope in support of higher performance.
• The support for hot-plug capability to create high-availability and serviceability benefits.

Canadian firm Research In Motion (RIM) has promised India that it will provide a final solution for the lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services by the end of January, according to India.

India is one of several countries in the gulf region that has come to dispute with RIM over the encryption used in some of its communication services. Concerned governments fear it can be used to stir political or social instability and threatened to ban the services if RIM could not provide a solution.

RIM has reached an interim agreement for the lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger services and assured the government that it will provide a final solution by the end of January 2011, with talks still ongoing over access to corporate e-mails.

"Accordingly, the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) services will continue to be available," a statement from India's interior ministry said.

RIM's enterprise server systems are designed to protect e-mail and other traffic so that only he sponsoring business or organization has the technical capability to grant access to the unencrypted data. India, like other countries, wants access to the data if it should need it as part of a criminal investigation, for example.

Verizon Wireless, the top mobile phone service provider in the United States, will have to pay out another multi-million fine for over-charging customers.

The service provider has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $25 million on top of the $52 million+ it has alreaddy agreed to pay back to customers for overcharging them for services. The additional $25 million fine is the largest in the Federal Communications Commission's history, according to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

Last month, Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc said it would pay refunds to 15 million cellphone customers overcharged for mobile Internet usage.

Verizon said in a statement that the settlement is being made voluntarily and has apologized for the "accidental data charges" experienced by customers.

"People shouldn't find mystery fees when they open their phone bills and they certainly shouldn't have to pay for services they didn't want and didn't use. In these rough economic times, every $1.99 counts," Genachowski said.

Intel Corp., Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Toshiba Corp are to form a working group to develop the next generation of chip technology by 2016, according to the Nikkei daily.

The three will invite other players in the industry in a bid to develop chip manufacturing technologies that can more than halve the semiconductor line widths to nearly 10 nanometers by 2016. A nanometer is unit of length in the metric system that equals one-billionth of a meter.

According to the report, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan will put up 5 billion yen toward an initial 10 billion yen in funds for R&D efforts, with the other half coming from members of the consortium itself.

Samsung and Toshiba are the world's largest and second largest makers of NAND-type memory respectively, and will use any resulting manufacturing technology to produce 10-nanometer class NAND flash memory chips, while Intel will use the technology for a new generation of powerful microprocessors.

Google has admitted for the first time that its Street View cars accidentally captured more sensitive information from wireless networks around the world than it previously thought.

The disclosure by the web giant comes just days after the Canadian privacy watchdog accused the company of collecting complete e-mails and passwords from wireless networks in the country while its Street View cars were out capturing the area.

It remains unclear just how many users worldwide have been affected by the security breach, and different states have decided to deal with the situation in different ways. Where it has been allowed to do so, Google has already destroyed the data that it captured, while bodies in other states are still analyzing the data and carrying out investigations.

Regulators in France, Germany, Spain and other countries have ongoing investigations into the matter. "If in fact laws were broken...then there's some serious question of culpability and Google may need to face significant fines," said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

In the United States, a collection of more than 30 attorneys general have launched a joint probe into the matter, lead by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. He said that Google's disclosure about the data it collected "validates and heightens our significant concerns."

Dutch authorities announced earlier this week that a computer virus "mastermind" had been arrested in Armenia as part of a move against the spam-spewing Bredolab botnet.

Earlier this week, the High Tech Crime Team of the National Crime Squad in the Netherlands announced that 143 servers hosted by LeaseWeb were taken offline. It identified them as command and control servers for the Bredolab botnet, which at its strongest could infect 3 million computers a month and sent an estimated 3.6 billion spam e-mails a day.

"At the request of the national (Dutch) prosecution service, a 27-year-old Armenian believed to be the brains behind the notorious Bredolab network, was arrested at the Yerevan international airport last night," the prosecution service said in a statement in The Hague.

The Netherlands has no extradition agreement with Armenia, and so the prosecution is currently in discussions to possible put the suspect on trial in Armenia.

Adobe has revealed the discovery of a zero-day vulnerability that affects its Flash player, Reader and Acrobat software.

The vulnerabilities can be used by malicious users to run arbitrary code on a victim's computer, according to the advisory published by Adobe. The company said that the vulnerability affects version 10.1.85.3 and earlier of Flash Player for the Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems.

The authplay.dll component that ships with Adobe Reader 9.4 and earlier 9.x versions for Windows, Mac and Linux is also at risk, while mobile users are also vulnerable as Adobe Flash Player 10.1.95.2 and earlier versions for Android are vulnerable.

Adobe Acrobat 9.4 and previous 9.x versions are also vulnerable for Windows and Mac.

Adobe is working on a fix for the unpatched flaw and expects to provide an update by November 9th, while following with fixes for Adobe Reader and Acrobat during the week of November 15th, which unfortunately gives plenty of time to malware peddlers to attack.

Mozilla released patched updated versions of its popular web browser on Wednesday, addressing a zero-day security flaw that put potentially millions of Internet users at risk.

Morten Kråkvik of the Norwegian security vendor Telenor SOC was credited with the discovery of the flaw on Monday by Mozilla. Within 48 hours of the disclosure, Mozilla had patched the bug. The company has always prided itself on the speed at which it responds to threats, and has claimed that it gets fixes to users of its browser faster than Microsoft or Google.

The bug affected Firefox 3.5 and Firefox 3.6 versions. Firefox 3.6.12 and 3.5.15 were released, while the Firefox 4 beta was not at risk. The update to the Firefox 3.5 browser comes two months after Mozilla said it would stop providing security and other updates for it.

Unfortunately the bug was exploited by code planted into the Nobel Peace Prize website. Visitors to the site were redirected to a Taiwanese attack server that launched a Javascript exploit. If successful, the exploit planted a trojan on the victim's computer, which would in turn retrieve more malware.

A German court recently shot down a damage claim of 600 euros against a teen for sharing 2 songs, opting instead to reduce the figure by 95% to just 30 euros.

In addition, a claim against the boy's father, whom the lawsuit said should be held responsible simply because his internet connection was used, was dismissed entirely by the Hamburg court.

In explaining the amount awarded, they pointed out the songs were already several years old at the time they were shared and also that the rights holders could only prove the tracks were available online for a short time.

Analyzing the decision, a German law blog noted that even if applied to a current hit, the court's formula could result in damage awards of substantially less than 100 euros.

By contrast, recent lawsuits against German file sharers have demanded 1000 euros per song.

For the first time since 2005, Yahoo has redesigned its Yahoo Mail service, which currently has 280 million users.

The main update is the addition of social networking, meaning users can update their Twitter and Facebook statuses from within Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo says the revamped service will work twice as fast as Gmail and Live/Hotmail.

Additionally, texting and IMs have been updated, as well as the ability to view photos and videos from Flickr, Picasa and YouTube from within your inbox.

"People spend more than 30 billion minutes a month on Yahoo Mail," says Dave McDowell, Yahoo Mail senior product director. "It is a critically important product to our users and this represents [the] most significant upgrade to Yahoo mail in five years."

Yahoo has also added priority messages, the service Google added to Gmail a couple of months ago.

Apple has expanded the iOS App Store to China this week, giving Chinese users a chance to view localized feature apps and charts in Simplified Chinese.

Furthermore, the company has launched a Chinese online retail store which offers free shipping, free engraving and free customization for Mac products.

Apple just launched the iPhone 4 in China on September 25th, selling out all supply in 24 hours.

PCMag reminds us that Lenovo chairman Liu Chuanzhi once said: "We are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn't care about China. If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble."

It appears that Lenovo will need increase their "effort" now.

Alexandra Tobias of Florida has plead guilty to murder today, months after killing her 3-month-old son for interrupting her game of Farmville.

Farmville is a game on Facebook where users own their own farms and interact with other farm owners from around the world.

In January, Tobias was playing the computer game and became angry after her baby Dylan started crying.

She shook the baby out of anger, smoked a cigarette and then shook the baby again, says The Florida Times-Union.

Tobias will receive a minimum of 25 years for the charge of second-degree murder.

For the six fiscal months ended September 30th, 2010, Nintendo saw its first semi-annual loss in seven years, thanks mostly to a steep decline in DS handheld sales.

Year-over-year, DS sales (which include DS Lite, DSi and DSi XL) dropped to 6.69 million worldwide, from 11.7 million in the same period last year.

The drop in sales makes sense though, given that the market has been very close to saturation for some time. Additionally, the Nintendo 3DS is set for launch early next year, so consumers appear to be bidding their time and waiting on the new, updated handheld.

Helping contribute to Nintendo's falling bottom line was Wii sales, which fell from 5.75 million to 4.97 million in the same time periods.

GigaOM is reporting today that Apple is currently working with SIM-card pioneer Gemalto to create a special SIM card that would give consumers a chance to buy an iPhone online (or at Apple retail stores) and then activate it through the iOS App Store, eliminating the need to go to a carrier's store.

SIM cards hold subscriber information as well as contacts and are used in GSM devices.

Gemalto's special new card will be integrated right into the iPhone (in European nations), giving consumers the chance to choose a carrier at the time of purchase and getting the handset up and running almost instantly, without needing to head over to a carrier store.

European carriers have expressed some concern, as it could potentially stop millions of consumers from headed into stores, where they might be inclined to buy accessories or even other devices.

Gemalto was recently in the news for suing Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung over a patent related to the Android mobile operating system. More specifically, Gemalto is suing over a patent relating to the JavaCard, a technology which allows for Java apps to run on SIM cards.

Sony has announced today that they will be releasing a standalone 320GB PlayStation 3 console soon, pricing the console at $350.

Additionally, the company is still selling the 320GB system bundled with PlayStation Move, the PS Eye and "Sports Champion" for $400.

Making the system intriguing is the fact that Sony sells their low-end 160GB model for $300, so upgrading may even be cheaper than buying a 160GB model and adding your own HDD (unless you already have one laying around).

For September, Sony saw 312,000 PlayStation 3 sales in the U.S., a steep 37 percent drop year-over-year, although in August 2009 the company dropped the price of the PS3, leading to extremely strong sales for the period.

Sony has also reported that they have shipped 1 million Move motion controllers in the Americas for the PlayStation 3 in just 30 days since launch. Sony Europe reported 1.5 million sales for the EU during the same time.

Mike Beltzner, the Director of Firefox has said today that release candidates (RC) for Firefox 4 will be available at the beginning of 2011.

Beta 7 of the new browser is set for release in the next week.

Mozilla says Beta 7 will be a "code freeze" for the browser, meaning that new features can no longer be added afterwards.

After b7, the browser will be delivered to add-on developers.

Says Beltzner:

"As those who have been tracking our nightly builds know, great things are happening with Firefox 4. The user interface changes are converging, the graphics and layout features are wrapping up, and recently the JavaScript engine was dramatically improved. The result is a fast, capable Firefox that provides better speed and responsiveness for web applications and users. Completing this work is taking longer than initial estimates indicated as we track down regressions and sources of instability. As part of our commitment to beta users, we will not ship software before it is ready.

Development on Firefox 4 has not slowed down and strong progress is being made daily. However, based on the delays in completing the "feature complete" Beta 7 milestone against which our Add-on developers and third-party software developers can develop, as well as considering the amount of work remaining to prepare Firefox 4 for final release, we have revised our beta and release candidate schedule: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4/Beta

Today the iPad 3G went on sale at AT&T stores across the US. Meanwhile, Verizon introduced a competing deal, bundling a regular iPad with a WiFi hotspot.

Verizon's bundled alternatives are priced essentially the same as their 3G counterparts. They are charging $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for 32GB or $829 for 64GB.

Data plan details are similar, but not exactly the same. While AT&T offers a choice of 250MB or 2GB per month for $14.99 and $25 respectively, Verizon customers can choose from 1GB per month for $20, 3GB for $35, 5GB for $50 or 10GB for $80.

Of course the availability of the iPad from Verizon has led to more speculation about the oft-rumored, but never confirmed, partnership between Apple and Verizon for a CDMA version of the iPhone. Many industry analysts and tech bloggers have suggested this is further proof such a device must be on the way.

In reality there are only two conclusions you can legitimately draw from this development, neither of which is much of a revelation. Verizon wants to compete with AT&T and Apple wants to sell more iPads.

T-Mobile USA and Sprint have both confirmed this week that they will offer the Samsung Galaxy Tab for $400 with two-year contract.

Verizon announced they would be selling the tablet for $600 without contract.

T-Mobile will begin offering the tablet on November 10th, earlier than both rivals.

As you will need a data plan, T-Mobile offers existing customers WebConnect/200MB for $25 a month or WebConnect/5GB for $40 a month. If you are a new customer, however, those same plans will run you $30 or $50, respectively.

If you feel your bandwidth usage will be very minor, T-Mobile gives you the chance to use a prepaid mobile broadband rate plan, with the cheapest option being $10 per week for 100MB.

Sprint will offer the device for the same price with data plans costing $30 for 2GB or $60 for 5GB.

Samsung's tablet runs on Android 2.2, has a 1GHz processor, a 7-inch multi-touch screen and dual cameras.

Fox rejected Cablevision's latest offer Wednesday afternoon, meaning that over 3 million sports fans in metropolitan New York City and Philadelphia were not able to watch Game 1 of the World Series, featuring the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers.

Cablevision also emailed its subscribers saying it would reimburse any user the $10 it costs for a premium MLB.com subscription. Premium users can watch any game from their computers or TVs.

The cable company offered to pay News Corp. (parent of Fox) the same rate that Time Warner Cable currently pays for Fox, for one year, but Fox quickly dismissed the offer, which is meant to be a package deal that includes My 9, NatGeo Wild and Fox Business.

Fox called the offer "yet another in a long line of publicity stunts. Cablevision is seeking a discounted 'package rate' without buying the entire package."

Cablevision CEO James Dolan has sent a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, asking him to mediate the dispute and return the signal to Cablevision subscribers until a deal is agreed upon.

Barnes & Noble has introduced the new Nook Color e-reader this week, hoping to gain an advantage over the rival Amazon Kindle in the quickly growing e-reader market.

The Nook Color will use an IPS LCD screen, the same type of display used by the Apple iPad.

Barnes & Noble's new Nook Color will be 7-inches, run Android 2.1, and have eight-hour battery life per charge. Current Nooks and Kindles (using e-ink displays) have battery lives as long as two weeks per charge.

The display will have 1024x600 resolution with 16 million colors.

Additionally, the device has Wi-Fi (but lacks 3G), 8GB of internal storage and a microSD slot.

The Nook Color will also launch with deals with magazine publishers, a strong advantage over black-and-white e-readers.

Available at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and online starting November 19th, the e-reader will cost $250.

LimeWire, once the world's most popular P2P client, is now officially shut down, following a four-year legal battle against the record industry.

A New York federal court has issued a permanent injunction against the site this week, ruling that LimeWire caused a "massive scale of infringement" by intentionally giving users a platform to share millions of unauthorized music tracks.

At its peak, LimeWire was seeing 50 million monthly users.

Visitors to the site are greeted by the pictured "legal notice."

While the company can no longer make unauthorized music readily available, the site says it is now "working with the music industry to move forward."

The court also added that LimeWire should use all available resources to remove all copyrighted materials currently available to downloaders of the client.

Apple has said today that they are delaying the release of the white iPhone 4 for the third time, this time pushing it all the way back until the Spring of 2011.

When they launched the iPhone 4 in June, Apple said it would have to delay the white model of the phone until July.

In July, the company delayed the smartphone until the end of the year.

"We're sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone again," said Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller.

The company neglected to give a reason for the delay except for saying the new white model is "more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected."

Apple sold 14.1 million iPhones in the recent quarter, in its original black colorway.

Zynga, the social gaming giant behind "FarmVille," has just been valued at $5.5 billion by SharePost, the service which exchanges shares of privately held companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Zynga.

With a market cap that large, Zynga is now considered the second largest gaming publisher in the world, surpassing Electronic Arts (EA) which has a current market cap of $5.15 billion.

Nintendo remains the top publisher.

Zynga was launched four years ago and mainly uses Facebook to distribute games. With a built-in audience of 500 million, the company has ascended very quickly thanks to FarmVille, FrontierVille and others. The company makes money off virtual goods, like weapons and upgrades that advance in-game play.

The company has about 210 million monthly active users.

Engadget has revealed the long awaited PlayStation Phone tonight, posting pictures of a working model of the upcoming device.

There have long been rumors that Sony Ericsson was creating a PSP phone, one that would include the gaming aspects of a PSP while adding phone functionality.

Engadget says the phone will hit the market "soon," likely in the Q1 2011.

The device will run on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), with a fast 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 512MB RAM, 1GB ROM and a 4.1-inch screen.

In the gaming part of the slide-out, the PSP Phone has a multi-touch touchpad, shoulder buttons and a microSD slot.

Earlier this week, eBay and Groupon announced the start of "featured deals" through the auction site's new eBay Bucks campaign.

User can collect "eBay Bucks" dollars while buying a daily Groupon they may have wanted to purchase anyway.

Groupon offers large discounts to local or national businesses, sometimes as high as 80 percent off.

When using the featured deal, eBay users will get 5 percent kickbacks in the form of eBay Bucks.

Groupon continues to see exponential growth, with unique visitors growing by 23 percent in August, making it the fourth fastest growing property on the Internet.

Techspot has discovered this week that Microsoft will release its upcoming Windows 8 operating system in late 2012, likely around the anniversary of 7's launch in October.

The proof comes via a blog post in which Microsoft says (translated roughly): "Furthermore, Microsoft is on course with the next version of Windows. But it will take about two years before "Windows 8" hits the market."

Microsoft has not commented on the post.

The timing makes sense, though, as Microsoft has openly said they hoped to return to a three-year product cycle after the delayed cycle that caused Vista to be released seven years after Windows XP.

Microsoft's latest iteration, Windows 7, has sold 240 million licenses in just one year of release.

According to scientists at the University of London, tiny Bee brains can solve complex math problems that take computers much longer to figure out.

The insects can effectively solve the "traveling salesman problem" as they learn to "fly the shortest router between flowers discovered in random order."

Computers solve the "TSP" by comparing all possible routes and then choosing the shortest one.

Bees reach the same conclusion while using a brain that is about the size of a pinhead.

Says Dr. Nigel Raine: "Foraging bees solve travelling salesman problems every day. They visit flowers at multiple locations and, because bees use lots of energy to fly, they find a route which keeps flying to a minimum."

"Despite their tiny brains bees are capable of extraordinary feats of behaviour," adds Raine, via Guardian. "We need to understand how they can solve the travelling salesman problem without a computer."

In under three weeks since launch, Microsoft has boasted today that the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace has hit its first milestone, 1000 available apps.

For comparison's sake, the iOS App Store has 300,000 available apps, the Android Market has 100,000 apps and the BlackBerry App World has a bit over 10,000.

It is important to note, however, that the old Windows Mobile platform took a full seven months to reach 1000 apps.

There are no Windows Phone 7 devices yet available to the U.S. public, with the first batch hitting the States in two weeks.

Microsoft has launched a couple of phones in Europe and Asia.

The digital security firm Gemalto has sued Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung today over a patent related to the Android mobile operating system.

More specifically, Gemalto is suing over a patent relating to the JavaCard, a technology which allows for Java apps to run on SIM cards.

Says the company, via Mash: "Gemalto is recognized as a pioneer and ground-breaking contributor to the JavaCard [sic] , one of the devices for which the patented technologies were conceived."

Earlier this year, Oracle sued Google over Java and IP law, claiming that the search giant "knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property" when creating Android.

From different fronts, Microsoft has recently sued Motorola over patent infringement related to Android, and Apple has sued HTC over the same thing.

The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) have seized 7000 pirated video games from a 35-year old Saskatoon man's residence and charges are currently pending.

RCMP officials say, if sold authentically, the games would be worth $200,000.

The citizen had his house raided following an investigation "into intellectual property crime offences," adds the police.

More specifically, the authorities were looking into the sale of gaming consoles that were modded to be able to play pirated games.

The man had been advertising the modded consoles via online ads.

Authorities noted that the plethora of games and consoles including systems from Nintendo, Sony, Sega, and Microsoft.

Nokia Siemens Networks has announced a technology that could drastically increase the data carrying capacity of standard copper wires.

The company achieved data transmission speeds of 825 megabits per second (Mbps) over 400 meters of bonded copper lines and 750 Mbps over 500 meters. Nokia Siemens Networks used circuits that involve the creation of a virtual - or 'phantom' - channel to supplement the two physical wires that are the standard configuration for copper transmission lines.

"Laying down new optical fiber to the home remains costly, though it is capable of delivering very high speeds and is a definite solution for long-term bandwidth requirements," said Eduard Scheiterer, head of broadband access business line, Nokia Siemens Networks.

"However, the innovative use of technologies such as phantom circuits helps operators provide an efficient last mile connectivity with existing copper wires."

Phantom DSL promises a bandwidth increase of 50-75% over existing bonded copper lines. This prolongs the life of copper networks, delaying the need for fiber rollout and protecting operator's existing capital investments.

Police in several European countries have carried out raids in a case over counterfeit CD and DVD boxsets that stretches back to 2006.

More than 100 police officers in the four countries took action against those involved in the manufacture, supply and sale of unlicensed Masterbox boxsets that have generated millions in revenue for the criminals behind them.

The Masterbox series contained unlicensed music, films and television programmes. Each box set included an MP3 disc featuring up to 60 albums, some of them pre-release titles. Music from artists such as Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson, Green Day and Robbie Williams was found in the Masterbox series, which ran to more than 50 editions.

Copies of Masterbox had a street value of around €40 and were sold informally across the Netherlands. It is estimated that more than 450,000 copies of the various editions were sold, totalling more than €19 million in illegal sales.

Police searched eight business premises and five homes across Belgium, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Spain over the last few days.

The High Tech Crime Team of the National Crime Squad in the Netherlands issued a press release today announcing action has been taken to isolate 143 servers from the Internet.

The servers were actively involved with the Bredolab botnet, appearing to be command and control centers. They were hosted by LeaseWeb, one of the largest provider of hosting services in the Netherlands. The provider fully cooperated in the takedown operation.

It is unclear so far whether the botnet has been fully decapitated, but security firms such as TrendLabs are monitoring activity levels of the botnet for clues.

Bredolab originated in Russia and rose to prominence in August 2009. The primary initial trigged for infection was through e-mail but later was delivered using a wide variety of methods, even being dropped as a payload by other known malware.

Dutch Authorities estimate that it was capable of infecting 3 million computers per month at its peak.

Adobe revealed today that the latest version of its Flash player is heading to major smartphone operating systems, enabling a wide range of mobile devices to support Flash-enabled websites.

"Flash Player 10.1 is available on Android and Google TV today, with BlackBerry platform, HP webOS 2.0, future versions of Windows Phone, LiMo, MeeGo, and Symbian OS also expected to support Flash Player 10.1," an Adobe press release stated.

Since there are quite a lot of Flash websites, it has been a frequently requested feature from smartphone users. Adobe has worked to make its software more stable and more efficient particularly for use with smartphones and other portable devices like slates.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs point blank refuses to add Flash to iOS, embracing the open standard HTML 5 solution instead.

A glitch in Apple's iOS 4.1 software that allows anyone access to potentially sensitive information has been revealed by iPhone owners online.

An easy trick allows anyone to bypass the passcode entry screen and gain access to the iPhone App. To do this, the user must select "Emergency Call" at the passcode screen, then input any number. Then hitting "Sent" and the iPhone sleep button in an _almost_ simultaneous succession will give the user full access to the iPhone app.

This means the user will have access to Contacts, Call History, Voicemail and Dialer. A few further tips include hitting "Share Contacts" and the camera button, which will get you access to the Photos app. It is also possible to send an e-mail or MMS with the device.

The loophole does not exist in the iOS 4.2 beta, which suggests that Apple is already aware of the flaw.

Intel Corp has finally opened its first plant in China several years after announcing the $2.5 billion project. The plant, located in the city of Dalian, opened on Tuesday after being announced in 2007.

"For 25 years now, Intel has been investing and innovating in China with China and for China," Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said in a statement. "This manufacturing facility helps deliver on our vision to contribute to sustainable growth in China while giving us better proximity to serve our customers in Asia."

Over the past three years, rumors emerged that Intel would delay or even scrap plans for the plant, but the chipmaker consistently denied that anything was amiss. The opening is a nod to the growing importance of China, which has struggled to build a globally competitive semiconductor industry.

Intel said it has already started doing business with as many as 80 suppliers in Dalian but didn't identify them. The opening of Intel's new plant fulfills Intel's total investment commitment in China to $4.7 billion.

Mozilla has paid 12-year old Alex Miller $3000 this week, thanking him for finding a critical buffer overflow and memory corruption flaw in the popular Firefox browser.

The company pays out prizes to security researchers (or kids) who disclose vulnerabilities.

Miller says he became motivated to find a security hole in the browser after Mozilla bumped up its prize from $500 to $3000 earlier this year.

The 12-year old says he spent 90 minutes a day, for 10 days straight, until he found the critical flaw.

His 15-hour crusade netted him $3000.

TechSpot says the "flaw can be exploited to crash a victim's browser and potentially run arbitrary code on their computer."

Mozilla patched the exploit with the release of Firefox 3.6.11.

Sony has finally retired the Walkman cassette player, citing lackluster demand for the outdated device.

The company says they produced their last batch of the device in Japan in April and once that inventory clears out, the Walkman will be retired to the history books.

A Chinese company will still produce some units after Sony's supply is exhausted but it is hard to believe they will continue to produce for the foreseeable future.

Sony began selling the Walkman in 1979 and has seen 220 million units sold over the past 31 years.

Walkman sales have been in steep decline since the introduction of portable CD players and even more so with the launch of portable MP3 players earlier this ddecade.

Sony will continue to use the "Walkman" brand, however, in phones and media players.

The Japanese Nikkei has reported today that Sharp is officially out of the PC business, pulling the plug on their personal computing operations.

Sharp has not put out a new PC in the last year.

Additionally, the report says that Sharp will now re-focus on "marketing its Galapagos tablet devices coming out in December, along with providing content such as e-books, music and video for these products."

Sharp is a big player in the HDTV, LED, LCD and solar markets.

Many major computer makers have shifted their focus away from PCs towards tablets and other mobile devices.

Amazon has revealed today that the latest generation of Kindle e-readers are the fastest selling Kindles of all-time, as well as the top selling products on both Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

The new Kindles, which saw a significant price drop along with slimmed down hardware, have already outsold all Kindle device sales from the fourth quarter 2009, Amazon's strongest quarter due to increased demand for the holidays.

"It's still October and we've already sold more Kindle devices since launch than we did during the entire fourth quarter of last year--astonishing because the fourth quarter is the busiest time of year on Amazon," says Steve Kessel, Senior Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "Readers continue to choose Kindle for its all-new electronic ink screen with 50 percent higher contrast, readability in bright sunlight, long battery life of up to one month, light 8.5 ounce form, flexibility to read their books across all major LCD devices and platforms, and low $139 price. It's clear that this is going to be the biggest holiday for Kindle yet--by far."

Furthermore, Kindle e-book sales continue to "overtake print," even though print book sales continue solid growth.

"For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1. Kindle books are also outselling print books for the top 25, 100, and 1,000 bestsellers--it's across the board," adds Kessel, via MarketWatch. "This is remarkable when you consider that we've been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months."

According to @AndroidDev, the Twitter account for the team that is working on mobile operating system Android, the Android Market has officially hit 100,000 apps.

Number of apps in the Market have increased 300 percent over the last year, hitting new milestones at an increasingly fast pace.

Reads the status, simply: "One hundred thousand apps in Android Market."

During a recent interview, vice president for engineering at Google Andy Rubin said there are now 270,000 developers writing software for the operating system.

Including apps that have been pulled by their developers over the course of Android's history, Rubin confirms the number is over 100,000, as well.

For comparison's sake, Apple's App Store has just hit 300,000 apps available while the BlackBerry store has just over 10,000.

Pioneer and Buffalo have introduced the world's first Blu-ray writers with BDXL support, the standard that was approved by the BDA in June.

BDXL discs are quad-layer 128GB Blu-ray discs. The standard also allows for triple-layer BDs with 100GB capacity.

Available soon, the companies have shown off the external BRXL-6U2 and the internal BRXL-6FBS-BK.

Both writers can handle up to quad-layer discs at 4x speeds for the higher capacities.

Support for BD-R/BD-R DL and BD-RE/BD-RE DL are standard.

On the downside, there are no mainstream players that support the standard with only Panasonic and Sharp even introducing players, all of which cost over $2500. There is no word on pricing for the writers.

Citing multiple sources, Kotaku is reporting today that the much anticipated PSP 2 handheld will reach consumers in the fall of next year.

The updated console will sport a touch panel on its back, along with dual analog sticks, the most-wanted PSP feature since its inception.

Sources describe the touch panel as "looking like a big mouse trackpad." It is still unclear how it will be used in-game, but developers are already in early stages of developing games that incorporate it.

Furthermore, the display will offer a higher resolution and sharper picture whilst being about 1-inch larger, as well.

Sony has called the screen "HD" during internal meetings although it is also unclear what is implied there.

The main issue, according to the site, is that system is overheating, thanks to the ramp up in power from past models.

Sony has announced today that is slashing the price of the PSPgo handheld in the United States and in Japan.

The move comes as the holiday season approaches and on the heels of even more PSP 2 rumors.

Rival Nintendo is set to launch their highly-anticipated 3DS handheld before the summer of next year.

In the U.S., Sony will drop the price of the "go" to $200 from $250 and in Japan the price will drop to 16,800 yen ($207 USD) from 26,800 ($330 USD).

Overall, Sony has sold 60 million PSP units, although it is widely expected that the PSPgo has sold very poorly, no matter what market.

Microsoft has begun offering an annual pay option for its Zune Pass, after over a year of only offering a monthly option.

The monthly pass was $15 per month but now subscribers can pay for one year upfront for $150.

Ars asked Microsoft for comment: "It went live yesterday in the US, UK, France, Italy and Spain. The monthly subscription is for $14.99 in the US and €9.99 or £8.99 in European markets. The annual Zune Pass subscription is the same monthly offer, at a discounted price of 12 months of music for the price of 10 months."

The updated Zune Pass subscription option comes right on the heels of the release of Windows Phone 7, which integrates the service.

A Microsoft Zune Pass gives you unlimited access to 10 million songs while you are subscribed whilst also getting to keep 10 songs as free downloads per month.

itrans has posted a supposed leaked picture of Samsung's upcoming (but still unconfirmed) Galaxy S2 smartphone, along side a spec sheet that should impress everyone.

Please note that the picture may just be a mock up and the specs are all speculation so take this as rumor for now.

The new Galaxy smartphone has a tentative release date of the Q1 2011.

Spec sheet:

4.3” 1280x720 resolution Super AMOLED 2 display
Android 2.3 (at least)
2GHz CPU, 1GB RAM/4GB ROM
32GB of built-in flash memory, 32GB expandable microSD card slot
8MP camera with FullHD video recording
A-GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi b/g/n
3.5mm audio jack
Accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity and ambient light sensors

Engadget has posted this weekend that Netflix is already testing a streaming-only plan for U.S. subscribers.

For $7.99, the streaming-only plan will give users a chance to watch 15,000 movies and TV shows from Netflix's "Watch Instantly" catalog.

Users will not get any physical media rentals in the mail, however, if they choose the plan.

Mixed plans that offer unlimited streaming and 1-disc-out at a time currently cost subscribers $10 per month.

CEO Reed Hastings had implied that the streaming-only model has been very successful in Canada and so they have accelerated plans for the U.S. version.

Amazon has confirmed that they will be introducing a 14-day lending period for Kindle e-books starting later this year, matching a feature the rival Barnes & Noble Nook has had since launch.

Kindle e-book owners will be able to lend out books to friends and family for two weeks, and just like with the Nook, users will not be able to read their books while they're lent out.

Not all books will have the feature, however, as it is completely at the discretion of the publishers to enable it.

Amazon offers their new Wi-Fi-only Kindle for $139, slightly undercutting B&N's Wi-Fi-only Nook which retails for $149.

Says Amazon:

"Later this year, we will be introducing lending for Kindle, a new feature that lets you loan your Kindle books to other Kindle device or Kindle app users. Each book can be lent once for a loan period of 14-days and the lender cannot read the book during the loan period. Additionally, not all e-books will be lendable - this is solely up to the publisher or rights holder, who determines which titles are enabled for lending."

Google has finally made Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread official by adding a giant gingerbread cookie to their collection of over sized dessert item statues.

The statues are on Google's campus, where Android remains in constant development.

Says Google VP of engineering Andy Rubin of upcoming Gingerbread updates: "More forms of communication. I think social media is a form of communication. I think you would just talk about general improvements to the platform and make it faster and more robust. I think gaming is an area that I think is underserved right now. We're actually going through a reinvention of casual gaming. If you look at a console game like an XBOX or a PlayStation or a Nintendo, I think it's very, "sit down and try to get to the maximum level possible." On cell phones and devices that are battery operated, I think there's more kind of "what do you do in between the times when you're doing something?" It's more about running a game to fill time rather than running a game to be a dedicated event."

Most also expect an entirely redone user interface that would eliminate the need for "skins" like HTC's Sense or Motorola's MotoBLUR.

Opera has released an alpha version of their latest browser, Opera 11 which finally adds extensions, a key selling point of both Chrome and Firefox.

The browser's updated alpha also shows how quickly the extension coding formats are being standardized. Chrome and Safari use use extensions that are a combo of JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS and Firefox's new framework will bring the same coding formula to the browser.

Internet Explorer uses a proprietary add-on system.

Having standardized extension coding could lead to less work for developers, who could make one single extension for a plethora of browsers instead of needing to re-code every time.

Says Opera:

Extensions allow you to easily add new functionality to your Opera browser. Developers can create extensions using familiar open standards: HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, along with supported APIs. To learn how to create extensions, have a look at our introduction to Opera extensions.

TUAW is reporting this week that the latest iMovie 2011 trailers feature blocks the usage of studio names, most notably Universal and Paramount.

Although unclear, it appears that either Apple or the studios don't want users putting out trailers that could be misinterpreted as real studio-created trailers, and the easiest way to do that is to block the names from being used.

Although the Universal Studios' earth theme is available as a choice, as is the Paramount snow-capped mountains, the "studio name" field turns the words "Universal" and "Paramount" into dashes when using those respective themes.

You can view both pictures here.

A new Nielsen study, dubbed "The Increasingly Connected Consumer: Connected Devices," has shown that nearly one-third of all iPad owners have yet to download an app for their device.

32 percent of iPad owners remain app-less despite a number of very popular apps being created specifically for the tablet.

63 percent of device owners have downloaded an app and paid for at least one while the other five percent have download apps, but only free ones.

The most popular paid apps were games at 62 percent, followed by books at 54 percent and music at 50 percent.

Nearly 100 percent of iPad owners regularly check the news, while 39 percent use it to read books. Another 33 percent use the device to watch movies or TV shows.

The survey was administered to 5000 "connected device owners" including iPad, Kindle, iPod Touch and other device owners.

According to the latest figures from Strategy Analytics, RIM has fallen to third in the global smartphone market, losing out to Apple for the first time ever.

Nokia remained the clear leader, shipping 26.5 million units during the Q3 2010, good for a 34.4 percent market share.

That percentage, however, fell significantly year-over-year, down from 37.8 percent.

Apple, in second place, shipped 14.5 million units, good for 18.3 percent of the market.

RIM fell from 19.6 percent to 16.1 percent after shipping 12.3 million units for the quarter.

The research firm concluded that RIM is losing share due to a "limited presence in the high-growth touchscreen segment." RIM offers the Storm 2 and the new Torch in the multi-touch market.

Android, with incredible growth, has helped companies like Motorola and Samsung stay relevant, although their market share is significantly lower.

According to Engadget, Apple has taken its fight with Adobe to another level, purposely not pre-installing Flash on all new Mac computers starting with the recently launched second generation MacBook Air.

Apple's reasoning behind the decision is: "The best way for users to always have the most up to date and secure version is to download it directly from Adobe."

While the decision does have a point, Apple is forcing extra work on its customers by removing the pre-install.

The easiest way Apple could have ensured Flash would stay up to date would be to add the plug-in into the auto-updater.

For now, new Mac owners will have to head over to Adobe and make sure they download the latest version of Flash. That is if they want to watch over 90 percent of videos on the Internet.

The Sex.com domain has finally been sold this week, after being up for auction for 15 months.

Clover Holdings, a company registered in the Caribbean, has purchased the domain for $13 million, about $1 million less than what Escom LLC purchased it for in 2006.

Last June, Escom went bankrupt and the domain went up for auction.

The domain was originally purchased for under $100 in 1994, and then sold in 2006 for $14 million to Escom LLC, who could not afford the payments and then defaulted the site to DOM Partners, the lender who backed the $14 million bid.

Gary Kremen, the founder of Match.com was the original owner of sex.com, but he lost the domain to a con man named Stephen Cohen. Kremen then waged a decade long legal battle to regain ownership.

Cohen was subsequently fined $65 million for stealing the domain. Cohen was allegedly making $500,000 a month off the site during its heyday.

RWW has reported today that Netflix rules Internet traffic during peak times in the United States as demands continues to increase.

Netflix currently has 16 million subscribers, most of which can access the company's "Watch Instantly" streaming catalog from their mobile devices, computers and TVs.

Given the strong demand, the site says Netflix accounts for just over 20 percent of all American downstream traffic during peak Internet hours.

Bandwidth "consumption," however, still remains low in the U.S., compared to other regions, as the average connection time is 3 hours in the States compared to 5.5 hours average for all of Asia.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has made it clear that the company will continue to build its streaming service, even admitting that the company may soon offer a new streaming-only subscription package that will be cheaper than current mixed plans which offer physical rentals and streaming for consumers who may not care for rentals.

Nintendo has confirmed today they will be releasing red Wii and DSi XL consoles, in an effort to continue their ongoing celebration of Super Mario's 25th anniversary.

For $199, the red Wii bundle will include the console, a Wii Remote Plus (with Motion Plus), nunchuck, Wii Sports and New Super Mario Bros.

The DSi XL bundle will sell for $179 and include the red handheld, Brain Age Express: Arts & Letters, Brain Age Express: Math, Photo Clock, and Mario Kart DS.

Peter Kafka of AllThingsDigital has reported today that Hulu is actively considering dropping the price of their Hulu Plus premium service to $4.95 per month from the current $9.95 per month.

Hulu Plus was created to give subscribers a chance to access more content, including back catalogs of popular shows they would normally watch on the free, ad-supported Hulu site.

Unfortunately for the broadcasters behind the service, Plus has not really taken off, with subscriber base staying very low.

Hulu Plus subscribers can watch the back catalogs of shows on the iPhone, iPad, Xbox 360, PS3, and a few Web-connected HDTVs. Then again, so can Netflix subscribers, who get access to 15,000 TV episodes and movies for $8.99 a month while still getting physical media rentals in the mail.

That being said, Hulu Plus is still in beta, so Hulu refused to comment on the story. NBCU, News Corp. and Disney own equal share in the venture.

Wal-Mart has said today that it will begin selling the B&N Nook at 2500 Super Centers and online starting on the 24th, greatly expanding the presence of the e-reader.

"The world's largest bookseller and the world's largest retailer are bringing e-reading to the masses," added William Lynch, Barnes & Noble's CEO.

B&N offers a $149 Wi-Fi-only version of the Nook and a $200 3G/Wi-Fi model. Wal-Mart will sell both.

The Nook is in direct competition with the Amazon Kindle and to a lesser extent, the Apple iPad. Wal-Mart just began selling all six models of the iPad in their stores.

"The Wal-Mart customer is a slightly different demographic than at Barnes & Noble," continues Lynch, via the WSJ. "This gives us access to a customer who we think grows the base of Nook customers."

B&N offers the Nook through their own stores and Best Buy.

Google has said today that they will begin testing their incredibly fast 1Gbps fiber high-speed broadband project in Stanford, California, whilst still evaluating applications sent in by other cities that want to test the network.

The company will start introducing the network early in 2011 to the Residential Subdivision at Stanford University, which happens to be just a few miles from Google's headquarters in Mountain View.

Google Product Manager James Kelly says the new implementation is a "beta" for the broader Google Fiber project.

At 1Gbps, the network is at least ten times faster than even the speediest of current home connections.

In February, Google announced that it was looking for a community in the U.S. with between 50,000 and 500,000 people to deploy the network, for free. 600 communities applied and one, Topeka, Kansas, even renamed itself "Google" for one month.

Google will introduce the winner by Christmas.

Late last week we announced that Rovio Mobile, the developer behind the blockbuster game Angry Birds had recently released a version of the game for Android devices.

The company is still offering a full version of the game for free in the Android Market, following its massive success in the iOS App Store.

Within 24 hours, Rovio confirmed that there were over 1 million downloads of the game, marking the fastest an Android app had ever hit the milestone.

Today, both Google and Rovio have confirmed that the game has hit over 3 million downloads in just five days.

The app is available for free as it is being supported by Google's AdMob advertising platform. Google is using the game as a way to show advertisers that using AdMob can be very beneficial to them.

Across all platforms, Rovio has sold 7 million copies of the game for $.99.

Although unconfirmed, CNET is reporting today that Barnes & Noble is preparing to unveil a full color version of the Nook e-reader device at an event next Tuesday.

CNET says the source "has proven reliable" in the past year but this should still be treated as a rumor for now.

The new Nook Color will have a 7-inch screen, with a retail price of $250.

Just like its predecessor, the Color will run on the Android mobile OS and offer a multi-touch experience.

B&N will continue to sell its current line of Nooks, which will see a major software update in the near future.

It is still unclear what kind of full color display will be used.

Sony has reported today that they have shipped 1 million Move motion controllers in the Americas for the PlayStation 3 in just 30 days since launch. Sony Europe reported 1.5 million sales for the EU during the same time.

President Jack Tretton said the Move system is already out of stock in most retail stores and the company expects that strong Move sales will lead to an increase in console and software sales during the holiday season.

"Sales are brisk," concluded Tretton, via the WSJ.

The Move, when teamed with the PlayStation Eye camera, gives gamers a chance to interact directly with their games using hand motions and other physical movements.

Sony sells the controller by itself for $49 or bundled with a game and the Eye for $99.

Microsoft will begin selling their rival Kinect system on November 4th.

Microsoft has said today that it has already sold 240 million Windows 7 licenses, making it the fastest-selling operating system in the company's history.

Windows 7 went on sale last October.

The software giant noted that by the end of September, Windows 7 was running on 93 percent of new PCs, with the OS jumping to 17.1 percent global OS market share, surpassing Vista during the summer.

Windows XP still accounts for a majority 60 percent of the global market.

IW notes that Microsoft has seen their bottom line grow significantly thanks to the strong success of the operating system, with the company seeing a 48 percent increase in net income year-on-year for the fiscal Q4 ended June 30th.

Starbucks has partnered with Yahoo this week to launch the Starbucks Digital Network, a Web portal with content that can be accessed only when you are using Starbuck's free Wi-Fi.

The network will launch on Wednesday and will be available in all 6800 Starbucks locations.

Starbucks Digital Network will have six channels: News, entertainment, wellness, business and careers, My Neighborhood, and Starbucks. Additional partners are the Bookish Reading Club, Foursquare, Good, LinkedIn, New Word City, and The Weather Channel.

The free Wi-Fi is accessible via smartphones, tablets and laptops and requires a quick login.

"The team at Starbucks wanted to enhance the time our customers spend in our stores, so we had a vision to create something new, localized, unexpected… and online," says Adam Brotman, vice president of Starbucks Digital Ventures. "The Starbucks Digital Network was developed to provide customers instant access to a collection of hand-picked premium news, entertainment and lifestyle content along with free downloads, local insights and events from nearly 20 different content providers including iTunes, Nick Jr. Boost, Rodale, WSJ.com and Yahoo! It's all free and only available at Starbucks."

Mozilla has patched 12 vulnerabilities in the popular Firefox browser today, including an updated patch for the highly publicized "binary planting" issue that was initially patched last year.

8 of the vulnerabilities were rated "critical," meaning the bugs could be used to hijack a system. After the critical ones there were two "high," one "moderate" and finally a single "low."

PCAdvisor explains that the 'binary planting' vulnerability has also been called 'DLL load hijacking'.

Says the site: "Regardless of the term, the flaw existed in Windows applications that do not call DLLs (dynamic linked libraries) or executable files using a full path name. Instead, they rely on the filename alone. The latter can be exploited by attackers, who can trick the program into loading a malicious file with the same title as a required DLL or executable. If attackers can con users into visiting malicious websites or remote shared folders, or get them to plug in a USB drive, they can compromise a computer and infect it with malware."

Earlier today during the "Back to Mac" event, Apple unveiled its upcoming Mac App Store, an applications store based on the store available to owners of iOS devices.

The Mac App Store will give Mac owners a chance to download Mac applications with one-click.

Additionally, the store will provide auto-updates and a license to use the software on all Macs you may own.

For developers, Apple takes 30 percent of revenue, similar to the cut the company takes for iOS apps.

To access the store you will need Mac OSX Snow Leopard or the upcoming Lion.

Developers can begin submitting applications next week and the Mac App Store will open in 90 days.

Swedish source TheLocal has reported this week that a lucky professor at the Umeå University in northern Sweden has had his data returned to him anonymously after a thief stole his notebook.

On the way to the laundry room, the professor dropped his backpack behind a door in the nearest stairwell, knowing he would be back within five minutes.

That was all it took for a thief to take the bag, which held his computer, calender, keys and other documents. The professor said he was most saddened by the loss of his calender: "It is my life. I have documented everything in it that has happened in the last 10 years and beyond."

The professor then called the police to report the incident and cancelled his credit cards. Much to his surprise, however, he returned to the stairwell a couple of hours later and found the backpack returned, with everything in it except for his notebook and a library card.

One week later, the story gets even more interesting as the professor returned home from class to find an envelope waiting in his mailbox that had a USB flash drive in it. The drive was full of all of the professor's data from the notebook.

Electronic Arts will purchase Chillingo, the publisher behind the blockbuster game "Angry Birds" in an effort to boost their mobile gaming catalog.

The software company will pay around $19 million for Chillingo.

EA has confirmed, however, that they will not get the intellectual property rights to "Angry Birds," which was developed by the Finnish company Rovio Mobile.

One analyst was surprised by the purchase because it lacked the IP for Angry Birds: "I'm kind of wondering what they bought," says Todd Mitchell, a Kaufman Bros analyst, via Reuters. "But in light of EA not getting the IP, they're buying the development platform to put their own IP on it in hopes of driving social networking and customers back to their own properties."

Chillingo's other popular game is "iDracula," a shooter available for iOS devices.

Concludes EA: "By acquiring Chillingo, EA Mobile is increasing its market leadership on the Apple platform as well as reaffirming its position as the world's leading wireless entertainment publisher."

Verizon has announced that it will charge $600 for the Samsung Galaxy Tab beginning on November 11th, pricing the tablet high because you do not need to sign up for a two-year contract to access 3G data.

Customers will pay monthly to use the 3G data, with the cheapest price being $20 for 1GB. After that comes 3GB for $35, 5GB for $50 and 10GB for $80.

Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney says the no-contract plans will remain unique to tablets (including the iPad).

"Verizon Wireless has always been committed to providing customers with the latest technology, and the latest announcements reflect that commitment to a relatively new entrant into the mobile arena -- tablets," adds Raney, via CW. "The data plan pricing for the tablets are reflective of how people use these multi-purpose devices, and because they are 3G and Wi-Fi enabled, customers have a choice in how, when and where they use them."

The carrier is offering the 16GB model, but it has a memory card slot which allows for expansion of 32GB.

"One more thing..."

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has just announced that the new rumored MacBook Air is a reality.

Jobs asked the crowd: "What would happen if a MacBook and an iPad hooked up?" "This is the result. One of the most amazing things we ever created. We think this is the future of notebooks."

The updated MacBook Air weighs 2.9 pounds, has a unibody construction, uses flash storage instead of a hard drive and promises 7 hours of battery life with standard use.

As rumored, there will be an 11.6-inch version as well as a 13.3-inch version.

Each model is 0.68 inches at its thickest point and 0.11 inches at its thinnest.

Resolution is 1440x900 or 1366x768, the computers use Core 2 Duo processors and use GeForce 320m video cards.

The 11.6-inch model comes with 64GB flash and costs $999. The 13.3-inch comes with 128GB flash memory and will cost $1299. A high-end 250GB model will cost $1600.

(Pic via RWW)

According to figures from Cowen & Company, Activision's blockbuster series Guitar Hero continues to see sales declines, despite new additions to the franchise.

The latest game, "Warriors of Rock," saw only 86,000 sales in its first week, well below the average for the franchise.

In 2007, Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock sold 1.5 million copies in five days, in 2008 GH: World Tour sold 500,000 copies in its first week and last year's Guitar Hero 5 sold 499,000 copies in the same time frame.

Says analyst Doug Creutz: "Guitar Hero III likely attracted a lot of one-time buyers (that have not returned for subsequent franchise instalments) due to its 'it-game' status at the time."

Rival Harmonix, the company behind Rock Band said this of the genre as a whole: "I absolutely do not believe that rhythm-action gaming has reached its peak."

Apple's recently released quarterly earnings revealed that the company sold 250,000 Apple TV set-top devices as of the end of September, three weeks after its launch.

Says CEO Steve Jobs: "We’re happy with how it’s turned out." 

Jobs says he expects sales to pick up with the release of iOS 4.2, which will allow owners to stream their own content in addition to the content they downloaded from iTunes.

Available for $99, the updated Apple TV drops the hard drive of its predecessor and is now small enough to fit in your hand.

The device streams movies from the Web or from smartphones/tablets directly to your HDTV.

Additionally, the second-generation device streams movies from Netflix's ever expanding "Watch Instantly" catalog and HD movies purchased through iTunes.

The Apple TV has built-in Wi-Fi and an HDMI output.

Hector Martin aka marcan42 has just posted to his blog the launch of AsbestOS, a way to run Linux on your jailbroken PS3 without OtherOS. Martin has been working on AsbestOS for over a month.

"Other OS" was disabled by firmware version 3.21, and the latest Sony firmware update is version 3.50. Therefore, only owners of "fat" PS3 consoles running firmwares 3.15 or under can still use the OtherOS feature of their console.

Users running firmware 3.41 or under can "jailbreak" their console using a USB Development Board or a number of items like the DualShock 3 controller, TI-84 calculators, an iPod or other media players.

Says Martin:

"AsbestOS (a mineral, and meaning “inextinguishable” in Greek) is a bootloader to run PS3 Linux without OtherOS. It runs using the USB GameOS exploit (on PS3 version 3.41) from any compatible device, and any reprogrammable devices currently running the PS3 exploit can be used as long as they have enough free internal or external storage (40kB or so) to hold the loader. It is general enough that it should be useful to boot Linux given any other GameOS exploit in the future.

Microsoft has unveiled their Kinect motion control system's launch titles this week, with the highest touted game being "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 1 The Videogame."

Kinect is set to launch early next month.

Says Microsoft directly of the Harry Potter title: "Playing as Harry, you are on the run from the opening sequence, fighting for survival on a desperate and dangerous quest to locate and destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes."

There are 22 moves within the game that require the Kinect system, allowing users to control the action with hands-free motion controllers.

The other games to be released at launch are Kinectimals, Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, Kinect Sports, Kinect Joy Ride and Dance Central.

Kinectimals allows users to interact with zoo animals, Fitness Evolved is a fitness game, Sports is (you guessed it) a sports game, Joyride is a racing game, and Dance Central is a game that lets you "hone your dance skills" to pop hits.

AT&T has said today that it will be giving away a free "Entertainment Pack" to buyers of Windows Phone 7 devices.

Included in the pack is a free month to U-Verse Mobile, the Xbox Live game ilomilo and a free one-month subscription for Zune Pass, the unlimited music streaming service.

Reads the press release:

The Entertainment Pack includes: 1) Xbox LIVE® game ilomilo, 2) 30 days free unlimited music service + 10 free songs to keep through one-month Zune® Pass trial, and 3) 30 days free to download and watch hit TV shows with U-verse® Mobile.

The Entertainment Pack is available (while supplies last) at no charge to consumers who purchase a Windows Phone device from AT&T between October 25, 2010, and December 31, 2010.

Redemption must be completed by December 31, 2010, by 11:59 p.m. PT. Consumers can redeem this offer by going to att.com/windowsphone and clicking on the Entertainment Pack offer, providing information to confirm their device purchase, and following the redemption instructions.

Redemption requires: a valid U.S. credit card, PC Internet access, Wi-Fi availability, ability to send and receive SMS messages.

Verizon Wireless will start their tiered data plans for smartphones next week, says the WSJ, following AT&T's decision in June to remove unlimited plans in favor of more restrictive, but cheaper subscriptions.

Subscribers will now have the chance to purchase 150MB a month for $15, or keep their unlimited plan for $30.

Both Verizon and AT&T have said in the past that 95 percent of users don't need unlimited plans as a good portion use under 100MB per monthly cycle.

Five percent of smartphone users use about 50 percent of all data bandwidth, added Verizon.

"It's designed to make data more affordable for entry-level users," added Roger Entner, an analyst for Nielsen. "There's a large number of people who simply can't afford $30 for data."

For now, the $15 plan is a "holiday promotion" but Verizon hopes to make it permanent if it's successful.

HP, who acquired Palm earlier this year for $1.6 billion has finally announced WebOS 2.0, the second-coming of Palm's popular mobile operating system.

Furthermore, the company announced the launch of the Palm Pre 2, which will first hit France this week and then Verizon in the United States in "a few months."

HP says WebOS 2.0 is "the most significant update" to the mobile OS since its inception in June of last year.

One of few of the new features is improved multitasking thanks to "Stacks." Stacks keep all related items together.

"Exhibitions" lets you see a slideshow of Facebook photos or view your calender when docked on the optional Palm Touchstone Charging Dock.

Notably, WebOS 2.0 will support a beta of Adobe Flash 10.1.

The Palm Pre 2 looks very much like its predecessor except HP has turned the display to glass, added an improved 5MP camera and a 1GHz processor.

Phandroid has posted a blurry pic this week of the Nexus One smartphone running Google's upcoming Android 3.0 Gingerbread, giving everyone an early look of the new features coming with the firmware update.

There are a number of cosmetic changes including the notification bar becoming a darker gray and the dialer and browser buttons becoming light green, the same color as the Android mascot.

Additionally, native voice and video calling will be made available through Google Talk, over both 3G and Wi-Fi.

The YouTube app will be completely re-done, as well, integrating it more into the OS.

Google Voice will be updated to allow users to receive calls to your Google Voice number over Wi-Fi and cellular data.

For now those are the only confirmed aspects of the upcoming Android update, which many believe Google will use to unify the platform, moving away from the fragmentation issues that have so far plagued Android. Expect Gingerbread by the end of the year.

Earlier this week, auction giant eBay expanded to three new countries including Finland, AfterDawn's home nation.

A few months ago, eBay opened sites in Russia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Denmark, Sweden and Norway as part of their broader eBay International Market program.

Adding Finland, Hungary and Portugal to the program will give 25 million people the chance to use a local eBay site (in their own native language) to make international purchases.

However, the company notes that auctions themselves, including titles and descriptions will not be translated into local languages.

Shoppers will be able to search for fixed-price items that are delivered to those nations and the prices are converted to local currency.

All Google TV devices are supposed to have access to Hulu blocked but there is already a workaround available, giving early adopters access to the popular streaming site.

The relatively easy loophole consists of "changing the user agent" in the built-in Chrome browser.

Adjusting that setting is pretty simple, even for non-techie Google TV device owners.

Now that the workaround is available in the wild it is likely that the service will soon patch it. Users of Android devices running 2.2 Froyo used the same loophole earlier this year to watch Hulu content on their smartphones but Hulu tightened up security within days.

The site now uses Adobe Flash 10.1 to identify unauthorized access attempts from 2.2 users.

NewTeeVee has video of the service being blocked:

Apple crushed its quarterly earnings this afternoon but shares of the stock have fallen severely after the company guided a lower outlook for next quarter.

Shares of the company are down in after hours trading to $300, after hitting as high as $319 during regular trading hours.

For the Q3, Apple topped $20 billion in revenue, whilst earning $4.31 in net profit. Analysts had expected lower profit and revenue.

Revenue surged 67 percent year-on-year from $12.2 billion and income jumped 70 percent from $2.53 billion during the same period last year.

The most impressive number from the earnings report was iPhone sales, which doubled year-on-year and jumped 60 percent from last quarter. Sales of the popular smartphone were 14.1 million for the quarter compared to 8.4 million in a relatively slow Q2. iPhone revenue accounted for $8.6 billion of the company's revenue for this quarter.

iPad sales increased to 4.19 million, for a total of 7.46 million lifetime sales.

On the downside of the report gross margins fell to 36.9 percent from 41.8 percent year-on-year thanks to lower sales of iPods, the company's most profitable device.

Rovio Mobile, the developer behind the blockbuster game Angry Birds, recently released a version of the game for Android devices.

The company is offering a full version of the game for free for a limited time in the Android Market after first making it available through their own servers.

Traffic was so high that the servers crashed and Rovio decided to move the app to the Android Market sooner than anticipated.

Rovio has confirmed today that there were over 1 million downloads of the game in just the first 24 hours, marking the fastest an Android app has ever hit the milestone.

Most of Google's applications, along with Skyfire, Adobe Flash 10.1 and others have all hit the milestone but each took weeks if not months to reach 1 million.

The latest rumor circulating this weekend is that the still unconfirmed 11.6-inch MacBook Air will be launched during Apple's October 20 event.

Sources have leaked specs today, as well, saying most notably that the computer will use a new type of SSD for storage instead of the 1.8-inch enclosed drive used in current models.

The "SSD Card" will resemble a stick of RAM but will be almost impossible for users to replace. It will also take up much less space.

There are already a few notebooks, netbooks and embedded devices that use similar sticks, such as SanDisk's pSSD but this should be the first move for the SSD into ultraportables.

Rumored processor is an Intel Core i5.

Aesthetically, the new model will resemble the current 13.3 inch model but be "more wedge-shaped" including sharper edges.

Most importantly, Apple will "almost certainly" drop the price "significantly" under the MacBook Air's current $1500 price tag.

Although access has been restored, it appears that earlier in the day Fox blocked their content on Hulu to Cablevision subscribers, following the dispute between the two companies over retransmission fees.

Following months of negotiations with no resolution, News Corp. blacked out their Fox broadcast signal to over 3 million Cablevision subscribers in metropolitan New York and Philadelphia on Friday.

Sports fans are upset by the turn of events, as Fox is the broadcaster for New York Giants games and the MLB playoffs, where the Yankees and Phillies are in the second round.

Fox was looking for exaggerated fees for their signal that used to be free. Cablevision has so far refused as they do not want to tack on extra fees to consumer's monthly bill. Cablevision says they already pay $70 million per year for Fox's "retransmission fee" but now Fox wants $150 million per year. Cablevision was willing to submit the case to third-party arbitration but Fox refused.

Anybody accessing the Hulu site with a Cablevision IP address was given the pictured error screen.

ARM president Tudor Brown has revealed the earliest detail of Android 4.0, which has been dubbed Ice Cream by Google.

Android 3.0 Gingerbread has still not been officially launched by Google, but the company has said it will have a 2010 release.

Following Gingerbread is Honeycomb, which will likely be 3.1 or 3.5.

Forbes notes that Brown's position at ARM would make him privy to Android's long term roadmap, as ARM processor technologies are used in 95 percent of the world's mobile phones.

There have been no official details on features coming with Gingerbread, Honeycomb or Ice Cream.

Ice Cream has a tentative Q2 2011 launch date.

Apple's iOS App Store has quietly surpassed 300,000 apps available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch this week, says new data from Mobclix.

The site has total apps available tallied at 300,975 while 148apps has the tally at 334,498 including apps that have been removed by Apple or by developers.

Apple has not confirmed the number, but they do have an event coming up next week. The company tends to open their events with a status update on iOS device sales and app counts.

The App Store has seen explosive growth in the last year, moving from 100,000 to 300,000 in the time frame.

There are 100,000 apps available in the Android Market and BlackBerry users have 10,000 apps available to them.

According to research firm Gartner, global tablet sales will hit almost 20 million for this year, buoyed by strong sales of the Apple iPad.

Forecasting into the future, the group says sales will explode to 54.8 million units in 2011 and eventually 208 million units by 2014.

For 2010, North American consumers will purchase 61 percent of the 19.5 million expected tablet sales but by 2013 that number will fall to 43 percent.

Tablets are described as "slate" touch-screen devices running a mobile operating system such as WebOS, iOS, Android or Meego.

Apple has sold an estimated 8.5 million iPads this year.

Gartner also noted that netbooks will be cannibalized as tablets begin selling for under $300 in the next couple of years.

Rovio has made the blockbuster smash hit Angry Birds game available for free on Android devices today.

The company offers a free "light" version via iTunes for iPhone owners as well as the full version for $.99.

Says the company: "We want to make Angry Birds available for as many people as possible."

The news managed to take down Rovio's web site earlier in the day, but the site has since returned.

You can download it here: Android Angry Birds

NPD has released their latest U.S. video game industry sales report, for September, which shows a continued decline in overall sales.

However, the group did not give individual sales for Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft, instead preferring to report only that overall hardware sales had fallen a hefty 20 percent to $383 million.

Microsoft was quick to boast that they had sold 484,000 Xbox 360s for the month, a 37 percent year-on-year jump.

Sony saw 312,000 PlayStation 3 sales, a steep 37 percent drop, although in August 2009 the company dropped the price of the PS3, leading to extremely strong sales.

The Nintendo Wii saw a huge 45 percent drop to 254,000 units as it becomes increasingly clear that Nintendo's current generation console has reached sales fatigue and market saturation.

According to Bloomberg and one analyst, Sony has sold 1.8 million PlayStation Move units since launch, with an overwhelming amount of sales coming from Europe.

Andrew House, Sony Europe's boss, says 1.5 million units were sold in Europe since launch on September 19th.

The company is now looking to ramp up production in the region.

"The initial sales response has been so far in excess of our initial plan that we'll probably be looking at accelerating production," says House.

Wedbush Morgan video game industry analyst Michael Pachter says Sony has sold 300,000 units in the United States, including console bundles. Sony America has not confirmed those sales, however.

Following months of negotiations with no resolution, News Corp. has blacked out their Fox broadcast signal to over 3 million Cablevision subscribers in metropolitan New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Cablevision refused to negotiate any longer and declared an impasse at 8 p.m.

Says president of Fox Networks Affiliate Sales and Marketing Mike Hopkins: "We started this process in May and made numerous reasonable proposals. We remain far apart and Cablevision has made it clear that they do not share our view regarding the value of Fox’s networks."

The blackout affects Fox, Fox Business, Nat Geo Wild and Fox Deportes.

Sports fans should be incredibly upset by the turn of events, as Fox is the broadcaster for Giants games and the MLB playoffs, where the Yankees are in the ALCS.

Following the impasse, News Corp. began urging Cablevision subscribers to switch to Verizon FiOS or a satellite provider.

Ars is reporting today that France will begin subsidizing legal music purchases for teens and young adults in an effort to fight piracy.

Citizens aged 15-25 will be able to purchase "carte musique" prepaid cards for certain subscription-based music websites. The cards will give users €50 of music, but the price will be €25.

The French government is subsidizing the rest.

Government officials say the program will run for two years and the government expects to sell one million cards each year.

The program is intended to ward off piracy, and to get younger consumers into the "good habit" of purchasing their music.

European Commission officials also applauded the move, calling the program "well designed" to fight piracy.

According to new figures from Nielsen, U.S. teens average 3,339 texts per month as of the Q2 2010.

The company says that averages out to about six messages for every hour the teen is awake during the month.

Furthermore, teens are also using more Internet data on their phones, up from 14MB per month last year to 62MB per month now.

Growth in texting has also resulted in a drop in voice calls, with teens averaging 646 minutes per month in the Q2 2010, compared to 737 in the same quarter last year.

In the survey, teens said texting was easier, faster and more fun than calling. 62 percent also sent messages with content (MMS) including audio, video and pictures.

When asked for their top reasons for owning cell phones, the most teens answered "texting." A full 43 percent gave that response. 35 percent said "safety" and 34 percent also said "keeping in touch with friends."

Girls averaged 4050 messages per month with guys lagging behind at 2539.

Nielsen surveyed 3000 teens for the figures as well as analyzing mobile phone bills for 60,000 wireless subscribers.

Oracle has issued Java and OpenOffice patches today, patching 29 vulnerabilities that would allow attackers to take control of exploited computers.

28 of the vulnerabilities "could be remotely exploitable without authentication (over a network without the need for a username and password)," says Oracle, via ZD.

The patches are available for users running Windows, Linux and Solaris. Mac users are also vulnerable, but security updates are not expected for another month.

Alarmingly, 15 of the vulnerabilities were given a 10.0 Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS-SIG) severity rating. The scale goes from 1 to 10.

Given the severity, Oracle says you should update your system "as soon as possible."

Check your system for updates here: http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp

Update: Back up.


This is a quick blurb for now as there is no other information on the matter but the world's second largest portal, Yahoo.com is currently down with visitors receiving the "Connection Timed Out" error.

Earlier today we reported that AOL and specialty firms were in talks to bid for the portal.

More info as it becomes available.

Filed in 2008 and granted by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office this week, Apple has been awarded a patent for filtering text message content.

The patent is titled "Text-based communication control for personal communication device."

It is unclear whether the patent will ever find its way into an iOS product but it seems Apple's intention is to cut down on "offensive" texts sent from consumers using Apple devices.

Reads the patent: "One problem with text-based communications is that there is no way to monitor and control text communications to make them user appropriate. For example, users such as children may send or receive messages (intentionally or not) with parentally objectionable language."

Additionally, the patent proposes a way to encourage better grammar in texts. The filtering system can not really work without proper grammar, as many phone users write in shorthand or use words that may not necessarily be in a dictionary, like "LOL."

Apple's patent would disallow the use of non-dictionary words.

T-Mobile has confirmed today that they will begin throttling smartphone owners that use excessive amounts of data.

Subscribers that hit over 5GB of bandwidth per month will have their speeds throttled at that point.

The carrier says the rule will affect less than 1 percent of its 35 million subscribers.

Reads the announcement:

"Beginning on October 16, T-Mobile will begin to reduce data speeds when a customer reaches 5GB of usage in a billing cycle, in accordance with T-Mobile terms and conditions. This change should only affect extreme data users (less than 1 percent) and is being made to ensure that all subscribers receive the best Web performance available by limiting the number of extreme data users on our network.

The majority of T-Mobile customers should not be affected by this change. The new 5 GB threshold limit, which is equivalent to approximately 125,000 yahoo.com page visits, is enough bandwidth to satisfy most customers’ Web and data needs.

Yahoo shares surged as high as $17 today before fading after the WSJ reported last night that the Internet portal company AOL was interested in purchasing it.

In 2008, Microsoft offered $47.5 billion for Yahoo, but the company snubbed the offer.

Today, Yahoo's market cap is under $22 billion and any takeover would command a smaller price than what Microsoft offered just two years ago.

Because AOL can not afford the takeover solo, the company is teaming with specialty firms Blackstone and Silver Lake, known for taking over companies whose stock has fallen out of favor with the market.

Talks are still preliminary.

Microsoft, in 2008, offered $33 a share for Yahoo. The company's stock currently trades at $15.84.

Analyst Colin McGranahan of Bernstein Research has said today the Apple iPad is the fastest selling gadget of all-time, with an estimated 8.5 million units sold since launch in April.

Leading to the strong sales is the fact that consumers seem to replacing new computer purchases with tablet purchases.

NPD says that 13 percent of iPad owners would have instead purchased a new computer had the tablet not been available.

McGranahan calls the iPad a "runaway success of unprecedented proportion."

Apple has recently made the tablet available via Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart so sales are expected to spike over the holiday season.

According to the latest IDC Quarterly PC Tracker Survey figures, Apple shipped 1.99 million Macs during the Q3 2010, good for 10.6 percent market share.

For the quarter, a total of 18.9 million PCs were shipped in the United States.

At 10.6 percent, Macs are at their highest share ever in history. Perhaps more importantly, Apple saw 24 percent growth year-on-year whereas other computer makers remained stagnant.

HP stayed on top at 24.3 percent share, with Dell right behind at 23.1 percent.

Overall, Q3 PC shipments rose just 3.8 percent, against an expected 11 percent, so Apple's growth is even more impressive in that regard.

Why is Apple seeing such growth for its Mac line? An IDC analyst says one word: iPad.

"It is very possible that the iPad's marketing right now is impacting [Apple's Mac] business as a halo effect, just like we saw several years ago with the iPod," says David Daoud. "The momentum went on with the iPhone, now it appears the iPad is playing a similar role, stimulating sales across its product line."

Microsoft has confirmed today that they will be releasing Zune software for Macs by the end of the year, following many months of speculation.

Says the software giant: "Later in 2010 Microsoft will make a public beta available of a tool that allows Windows Phone 7 to sync select content with Mac computers."

Windows Phone 7 owners should be able to quickly connect their smartphones to their Macs, and sync media content stored on their hard drives.

Microsoft first announced the news via Twitter: "Daily #WP7 Announcement: I'm glad to confirm that Mac users would be able to use Zune on their Macs to sync with #WP7. More details soon."

The company finally unveiled its initial WP7 lineup earlier this week, with two phones headed to T-Mobile, three headed to AT&T and one each on Verizon and Sprint next year.

Evan Williams, Twitter's co-founder, has said this week that he expects the microblogging site to hit 1 billion users, although he would not give a time frame.

Earlier in the month, Williams stepped down as CEO.

Twitter currently has just over 165 million members, but the service has been seeing exponential growth since 2008.

Zeus Kerravala of Yankee Group Research says the goal is huge but possible: "A billion does seem a bit aggressive. But I do think, over time, social networking will overtake e-mail as the most popular communication tool. In that light, 1 billion isn't out of reach. Younger people will choose Twitter and Facebook over e-mail."

Kerravala also said e-mail was becoming an "old people's" tool, while Twitter was the modern equivalent.

"Over the next five years, as high school kids go to college and college kids enter the workforce, we'll see a rapid shift away from 'old people' communication tools like e-mail and the phone," he continued. "Twitter allows you to reach out to thousands of people at once."

Wal-Mart has started taking pre-orders for the Apple iPad via their website today, with the retailer having the tablet in stores starting on Friday.

The retailer is not allowing for home delivery of the device, however, meaning you will need to pick it up in-store.

Furthermore, Wal-Mart will reportedly sell the tablet through its gigantic Sam's Club warehouses.

All six models of the device are listed up for pre-order, starting with the 16GB/Wi-Fi version at $500 all the way up to the 64GB/Wi-Fi/3G model at $830.

The iPad has quickly made its way into major retailers in the United States such as Best Buy, Target, Amazon and now Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the nation.

Estimates have placed overall iPad sales at 8.5 million to date.

Google's dashboard service has made it clear this week that almost three-quarters of all Android devices now run either versions 2.1 or 2.2, the latest updates to the popular mobile operating system.

In April, that number was just around 25 percent.

Android 2.2 adoption has jumped to about 30 percent, with the remaining 43.8 percent going to Android 2.1.

Around 10 percent of Android smartphone owners are still running the terribly outdated 1.5 with another 15 percent running the equally as outdated 1.6.

The strong adoption rate for 2.1 and 2.2 comes right as Android 3.0 Gingerbread prepares for its eventual launch by the end of the year.

Besides adding new features, Gingerbread should focus on improving the user experience and interface.

Just weeks after it started selling the iPad in brick-and-mortar stores around the nation, AppleInsider is reporting that the large retailer Target is set to start selling the iPhone, as well.

Target has recently begun re-fitting 850 of their outlets with mobile phone centers, and having the iPhone alongside Android and other smartphones would certainly help drive traffic.

The centers are run together with Radio Shack, which provide the system needed for in-store activations on phones that require it.

Target would not confirm the rumor, just saying they have "nothing to announce at this time."

Apple has made it a priority to offer their products in an increasing amount of retailers, recently offering the iPad tablet in Wal-Mart, Amazon, Best Buy and of course, Target.

Both O2 and Vodafone have announced their plans to sell the Apple iPhone 4 in Germany, breaking T-Mobile's long time exclusivity on the smartphone in the nation.

T-Mobile has offered the iPhone in Germany since its launch in 2007.

Unfortunately, neither carrier has unveiled plans or pricing.

Most nations now have multiple carriers for the iPhone, with the biggest exception being AT&T in the U.S. That is expected to change soon, as Apple readies a dual-GSM/CDMA iPhone 4 that can be released for T-Mobile USA and Verizon.

T-Mobile is Germany's largest carrier, at 37 million subscribers.

LG has unveiled the world's largest LED-backlit 3D HDTV this week.

The 72-inch Infinia 72LEX9 is available in Korea, and is now the largest commercially available 3D HDTV using LED.

Among the specs (says Crunch) of the television are a 480Hz TruMotion panel, full LED backlighting, 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, four HDMI ports, one USB port, a wireless AV link, DLNA support and YouTube, Google Picasa support.

It is unclear if 3D HDTV will come bundled with the necessary stereoscopic 3D glasses.

Mitsubishi currently offers two 3D-ready HDTVs, at 75 and 82-inches, which hold the record.

The Lower Merion School District has settled litigation brought against it by the families of two students for allegedly spying on them at home using a webcam built into laptops issued by the district.

The Pennsylvania school district has agreed to a settlement of $610,000. Of that settlement, $175,000 is to be placed in a trust for Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, and $10,000 goes to a second student, Jalil Hassan. who sued later on.

The students' attorney, Mark Haltzman, will get $425,000 in legal fees. "A major impetus behind settling this matter now is the recent agreement by our insurance carrier, Graphic Arts, to cover more than $1.2M of the fees and costs associated with this litigation to date," Lower Merion School Board President David Ebby said in a statement.

The district provided high school students with laptops as part of a technology initiative, but did not alert families that the laptops were equipped with webcams that could be turned on remotely. Robbins, who was 15 at the time, did not know about this until school officials allegedly accused him of "improper behavior in his home," citing a photograph taken from the webcam while he was at home.

Sony has announced that it will not meet the November release date for the Gran Turismo 5 title that has been eagerly awaited by PS3 owners for some time now.

"We sincerely apologize to GT fans for the delay, however, creator Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital want to make certain they are creating the perfect racing experience, and we are confident that this ambitious game will exceed expectations when it launches," the official PlayStation blog reads.

However, the blog did say that despite not meeting the November 2 release date, the title "will" be released this coming holiday season.

A report compiled by Microsoft Corp. says there are 2.2 million personal computers in the United States that have been infected and are counted as part of botnets. Brazil has the second highest level of infections at 550,000, while 14.6 out of every 1,000 in South Korea are part of botnets.

Microsoft's 240-page report takes an in-depth analysis of botnets, and is intended to alert people and organizations to the growth and danger of malicious botnets. "Most people have this idea of a virus and how it used to announce itself," said Cliff Evans, head of security and identity at Microsoft UK. "Few people know about botnets."

Botnets are used to spew spam around the world, carrying out DDoS attacks on web services and sending phishing e-mails. Personal and private information can also be hoarded from infected machines and uploaded to locations for bot herders to retrieve and sell on in underground markets online.

Google has had to push back some hardware acceleration features for the Chrome web browser. It had promised some of the features to be included in version 8 of the Chrome browser. The Mountain View-based web giant said it had to pull back on planned hardware acceleration APIs for CSS rendering, large layers and opacity fixes in version 8.

The hardware acceleration functionality will now be pushed to version 9. Given the speed at which Google pushes out new iterations of its browser in several channels, it is still likely that the code will be included in a build before the end of the year.

Microsoft, on the other hand, was awarded a patent for GPU-accelerated video encoding technology today, and it's Internet Explorer 9 web browser puts a huge emphasis on hardware acceleration to push up performance for web applications and multimedia content.

Microsoft Corp. has been awarded a patent for a GPU-accelerated video encoding system. The Redmond-based giant applied for the patent titled "Accelerated video encoding using a graphics processing unit," back in October 2004 and now six years later it has been granted the patent.

The Microsoft patent outlines a concept where the graphics unit is utilized to perform motion estimation on videos, as well as other vital aspects of encoding. It covers all bases of GPU-accelerated video encoding, giving Microsoft control of a major new technology that is already used in prosumer applications on the market.

After the release of Windows Vista and DirectX 10, NVIDIA and AMD released GPUs with support for general purpose GPU computing (GPGPU). NVIDIA released the GeFore 8800GTX card with underlying CUDA architecture, while AMD's ATI unit loaded GPU acceleration technology into its HD 2000, 3000 and 4000 cards.

Sony has made several moves to combat piracy on the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console following the release of PSJailBreak and other solutions based on the same trick. Firstly, it closed the USB exploit with firmware 3.42. Later on, another firmware change included a whitelist of USB devices, which also caused some controller incompatibilities.

Now some game titles are also reportedly prepared to tackle attempted piracy. Medal of Honor is one confirmed example. While there are copies of the game available to download online, only newer firmware can be used to play it. Instead of just being a case of refusing to boot on lower firmware, it is reported that only newer firmware can actually decrypt the content due to the use of a new crypto key.

Other new titles like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West do still work using the hack however. Other soon to be released titles will probably require the latest firmware be installed first too as Sony and publishers will look to impact piracy on the platform for the busy holiday season.

Intel Corporation yesterday reported that third-quarter revenue exceeded $11 billion for the first time, up 18 percent year-over-year to $11.1 billion. The company reported operating income of $4.1 billion, net income of $3.0 billion and EPS of 52 cents.

The company predicted a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter too, fueling hopes that the sector could end 2010 on a strong note. Intel's forecast for a December quarter gross margin of 67 percent affirmed hopes that the loss in personal computer sales could be made up with spending on servers or data centers.

The world's largest chipmaker forecast revenue of $11.0 billion to $11.8 billion in the final three months of 2010, in line with analysts' expectations of $11.32 billion.

"We'll see the consumer market growing but likely a little less than you'd normally expect. I attribute that to consumers pulling back a little bit based on economic uncertainty," Intel Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told Reuters.

In the long term, Wall Street investors are still concerned about the competition from tablets and other portable devices that generally use ARM architecture microprocessors.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced today the industry's first production of a 3-bit-cell (3bit), 64 gigabit NAND flash using 20 nanometer-class process technology. The highly advanced new chip can be used in high-density flash solutions such as USB flash drives (UFDs) and Secure Digital (SD) memory cards.

"Samsung has repeatedly provided the market with leading-edge NAND flash solutions, including the introduction of 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND flash last November," said Seijin Kim, vice president, Flash Memory Planning/Enabling, Samsung Electronics.

"By now entering into full production of 20nm-class 64Gb 3-bit devices, we expect to accelerate adoption of our high-performance NAND solutions that use Toggle DDR technology, for applications that also require high-density NAND."

Samsung's 20nm-class, 64Gb 3-bit NAND has a 60 percent higher productivity level than 30nm-class, 32Gb 3-bit NAND. The device also offers improved performance by applying Toggle DDR (Double Data Rate) 1.0 specifications, compared to those of SDR (Single Data Rate) based 30nm-class NAND chips.

A plan by the French government to subsidize the cost of music subscription services to cut the amount of illegal music file sharing in the country has gotten a nod of approval from the European Commission. The commission must ensure that programs such as this do not damage competition in the marketplace.

Under the scheme, French residents can buy a card to access a music subscription service. The card is worth 50 euros of "credit", but the government will pay half the cost. The scheme is aimed at 12-to-25 year olds. It is expected to cost about €25 million a year, and will run for two years.

"We welcome initiatives ... to increase the availability of music online at a lower price for consumers and through legal distribution channels," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement. "The scheme will contribute to preserving pluralism and cultural diversity in the online music industry," the EU body said.

Websites that benefit from the subsidy must cut the price, extend the length of the subscription and contribute to the cost of advertising the card system. The benefit for each site will be capped at €5 million.

The head of Britain's electronic spying agency has warned that Britain is vulnerable to cyber attacks from hostile states or criminals that could adversely affect critical infrastructure. Iain Lobban, Director of British intelligence gathering facility GCHQ, said in a speech that targets such as power grids and emergency services are increasingly vulnerable due to the rapid growth of the Internet and technology.

"The threat is a real and credible one," he told an audience in London at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. "We already provide expert advice and incident response to the operators of critical services. We must continue to strengthen these capabilities and be swifter in our response, aiming to match the speed at which cyber events happen."

Of the millions of malicious e-mails that target computer users all of the world, about 1,000 are directly targeted at government systems, according to Lobban. Britain's critical national infrastructure that could be vulnerable include its mass communication services, financial services, health and transport. Lobban also warns about cyber threats that could damage the British economy.

Sony Corp. has unveiled a line of Internet-connected televisions that use Google TV software. The company is hoping to achieve success in fusing together television and web content in the living room, while past attempts have failed to gain demand.

Sony's Internet TVs use Google TV (based on the Android platform), run the Google Chrome web browser and include an Intel Atom processor. The models also feature Dual View, allowing users to watch television while tweeting about what they're watching, checking their fantasy football scores, or finding related content on the web.

The TVs come with pre-installed applications from CNBC, Napster, NBA, Netflix, Pandora, Twitter, and YouTube. An intuitive hand-held RF QWERTY keypad remote incorporating an optical mouse makes it easy to navigate content, type in search terms, and control the TV's user interface.

Ben Heck has done it again, and this time to an Xbox 360 slim console. Ben's work is generally great, but this project of his is absolutely beautiful, and you can see from user comments on his website that most people agree.

From Ben's Site:

You knew this was coming – the Xbox 360 Slim Portable. Big differences compared to my older models:

• About 1.5″ inches narrower left and right, 1″ narrower front to back.
• Internal power supply.
• Uses stock Xbox 360 Slim fan so it’s much quieter than my older 3 fan models.
• Touch sensitive power and eject buttons of the Slim have been preserved.

Not so big differences:

• Pushbutton control audio amplification.
• Gateway 1775W 17″ widescreen LCD display @ 1280×720.
• Fan grate design copied from PS3 Laptop design.
• PVC plastic routed case.

The construction of this unit is being covered over the first 6 episodes of The Ben Heck Show so be sure and check it out to learn how I put this thing together. This is the actual unit that is up for grabs as part of their contest, so one lucky winner will take this puppy home!

Despite quite a clear disapproval to the plans, Australia's prime minister Julia Gillard has renewed her backing for a web filter. The proposed filter would block selected content such as depictions of drug use, child sex abuse and bestiality. Gillard says her backing is driven by a "moral question."

Generally when government tries to interfere with the Internet in any way at all, there are concerns raised from ISP's and privacy and personal liberty proponents, but the reaction to Australia's plan goes well past that. Even the U.S. State Department has voice concerns about the plan, and web giants Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are united in their opposition.

The problem they have with the plan is it sets a precedent for censorship. User groups have formed on social networking sites, slamming the government for pushing censorship over Australians and likening the filter to the firewalls used by Iran and China.

"My fundamental outlook is this: it is unlawful for me as an adult to go to a cinema and watch certain sorts of content, it's unlawful and we believe it to be wrong," Gillard said in a press club address. "If we accept that then it seems to me that the moral question is not changed by the medium that the images come through."

Apparently the spat between Eminem's publisher, Eight Mile Style, and both record company Universal and online music store iTunes has not been fully settled.

The Detroit News has reported that the publisher has filed for the U.S. District Court judge in Detroit to enforce the settlement reached in the lawsuit against both Universal and iTunes.

Essentially, Eight Mile Style wants Universal and iTunes to hand over $2.2 million (what proportion each must pay is unknown) which includes legal fees.

In 2007, Eight Mile Style filed a lawsuit against Apple for selling 93 downloads of Eminem tracks without paying appropriate compensation, and against Aftermath Records (owned by Universal) for illegally negotiating the deal.

The case went to trial last year but after five days in federal court a deal was reached for an undisclosed sum to settle the case.

Redbox, the popular DVD rental kiosk service, will add games to thousands of its kiosks throughout the United States over the coming weeks. The move follows a successful limited trial which started with a limited number of locations back in July.

Redbox claims to have already rented over 1 billion DVDs at $1 each - a price that has sent shivers throughout the films industry with many believing it undervalues a DVD.

The company will provide rentals of Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii games for $2 each, but they must be returned within 24 hours to avoid incurring a fine. The service is due in the coming weeks, according to Xbox360Digest. You can check game availability at local kiosks here then.

BNI Video, a start-up backed by Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable Inc, and Cisco Systems Inc, launched on Tuesday, offering software that can help satellite and cable providers attempt to keep up with rapidly changing viewer behavior and demands.

The start-up's software will aid in offering functions like search and social networking to subscribers of pay-TV services. It has raised $16 million in financing so far, backed by Charles River Ventures and Castile Ventures.

Cable providers are responding to demands from a new generation of TV viewers, who watch television content on their smartphones, tablet computers and other devices, but have a clear appetite for more features to be available while viewing the video. The TV giants also require the technology to deliver video in a wide variety of formats and to many devices that are now used to commonly view programming.

BNI Video's products will cover a broad range of devices. Viewers have more choice now than ever for tuning in, and spend a lot more time using social networks and other services. BNI will enable pay-TV providers to add those features for subscribers as well as bulked up services for their gadgets.

Japanese mobile Internet company DeNA has purchased the popular social gaming company Ngmoco for $300 million, with an extra $100 million coming if certain targets are hit.

Ngmoco creates mobile games for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch including popular games like "We Rule," "GodFinger" and "Flick Fishing."

Based in San Fransisco, Ngmoco offers free games then makes money off "virtual goods" and in-game ads.

The company also offers the Plus+ platform, giving developers a chance to distribute their games and let players connect with friends across the world playing the same game.

Ngmoco says Plus+ has 14 million registered users.

"They have great games, but what we value in Ngmoco is their platform," added Dai Watanabe, president of DeNA Global. "We want to use that platform the same way we operate our business in Japan."

A new study by warranty company SquareTrade has revealed that the iPhone 4 is much more fragile than its predecessors, with the new phone 82 percent more likely than older models to be damaged within its first 120 days of ownership.

The company examined 22,000 reports from iPhone 4 SquareTrade warranty owners, as well as 20,000 reports from iPhone 3G devices.

Says SquareTrade marketing VP Vince Tseng: "The iPhone 4 is a more fragile device than its predecessors. The surface area ... which you can scratch or break has basically doubled."

The iPhone 3G and 3GS were encased in plastic, whereas the iPhone 4 uses glass on the backplate. The iPhone 2G used an aluminum back.

About 30 percent of the reported damage for iPhone 4 warranty owners had to do with the back glass. When Steve Jobs unveiled the device earlier this year, he boasted of the glass, which is "30 times harder than plastic...and 20 times stiffer than plastic."

According to a new study from TNS Digital Life, the Japanese have the least amount of friends on social networking sites, while Malaysian web users have the most.

Users in Malaysia have an average of 233 friends, followed closely by Brazil at 231. Japanese users only had an average of 29 friends.

Chinese web users, despite heavy use of social networks, had a low average of 68 friends.

In terms of time spent on social networking sites, Malaysians averaged 9 hours per week, with Russian users following at 8.1 hours and Turkish users in third at 7.7 hours per week.

"This study covers more than twice as many markets as any other research," added Matthew Froggatt, TNS chief development officer. "It is the first truly global research into online activities, including all the key emerging markets… We have also researched beyond basic behavior to provide more detailed data into attitudes and emotional drivers of that behavior."

You can read the full study here: Global ‘Digital Life’ research project reveals major changes in online behaviour

According to the latest iSuppli figures, Dell has fought its way back into second place in global PC sales after losing the spot to Acer over nine months ago.

HP, despite losing share, remained on top, at 18.1 percent market share. Sales dipped 6.3 percent from the first quarter.

Dell sales fell as well, but Acer fell farther. Dell took 12.8 percent share for the quarter, with Acer falling to 12.4 percent.

Rounding out the top five were Lenovo and Toshiba. The China-based PC maker saw huge 18.6 percent growth from the first quarter moving up to 10.1 percent global share. Toshiba stagnated, falling slightly to 5.4 percent global share.

Dozens of other computer makers made up the remaining 41.2 percent, but all have less than 5 percent share.

Nokia retained the top spot in the global smartphone market, according to iSuppli, even gaining share in the Q2.

Android's growing popularity was evident by gains seen by a few handset makers, especially HTC and Samsung.

Nokia took the top spot with a 39.7 percent share, showing 11.6 percent growth from the first quarter. RIM, the makers of the BlackBerry line, remained in second at 18.5 percent, seeing a slight decline in share despite shipping more devices.

Apple took a dive while remaining in third place at 13.9 percent. The iPhone maker dropped from 15.7 percent last quarter on slowing shipments.

Seeing massive growth thanks to Android sales, HTC shipments grew 63 percent and market share jumped to 8 percent. Samsung saw 55.6 percent growth in shipments, moving up to 4.5 percent market share.

According to TechCrunch, Apple will likely not make a phone that supports LTE 4G until 2012.

Major carrier Verizon will begin to rollout its LTE network this year, with full rollout expected by the end of 2011.

AT&T will begin their rollout next year.

The site says Apple is waiting for the technology to mature before supporting it, as the LTE transition is expected to be slow at the start.

Furthermore, the site says instead the company will release a dual mode GSM-CDMA iPhone that will work with T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. Rival Sprint uses WiMax 4G for its smartphones.

LTE promises downstream speeds up to 500 percent faster than current 3G.

Wedbush's Michael Pachter revealed in a note he sent to investors that Bungie's Halo: Reach will have pushed U.S. games industry sales figures back into positive territory following three straight months of dismal results.

Pachter predicts that U.S. games software sales for September will hit $665 million, representing a 2.4 percent increase over September 2009. The increase would be larger if it wasn't for a decline in the music games genre. Last year, Guitar Hero 5 and Rock Band: The Beatles helped to boost the genre, while Pachter predicts this time around, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock only sold 100,000 units.

Overall, Pachter expected rhythm genre sales to be down more than $100 million for the month, from $116 million to just $15 million.

He expects FIFA 11 and Dead Rising 2 to be among the best selling titles for the month, while he expects sales of Sony's PlayStation Move to be "modest" at best.

Apple Inc. has been awarded a trademark for the catchphrase, "There's an App for That", which is widely used in campaigns for Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and iPad products. The company filed for the trademark in December 2009, citing its first commercial use in January 2009.

The trademark applies to "retail store services featuring computer software provided via the Internet and other computer and electronic communication networks; retail store services featuring computer software for use on handheld mobile digital electronic devices and other consumer electronics."

It was filed in the Advertising, Business and Retail Services, Computer and Software Services and Scientific Services categories. The phrase has become quite popular and has been parodied on occasion. It refers to the growing focus on the App Store, used by millions of Apple product users to find apps for specific purposes among hundreds of thousands of others.

The 'App Store' format is being emulated by other players in the mobile space, hoping to keep up with Apple in functionality and usability.

The High Court in Dublin has ruled that there is no precedent in Irish law to force Internet Service Providers (ISP) to identify and disconnect subscribers accused to sharing music and other content illegally over the Internet. UPC, one of the largest ISPs in Ireland, is not now required to take part in the same three strikes program that Ireland's largest ISP, Eircom, is currently using.

UPC would have been required to first send an informal warning to customers accused of sharing music illegally. Then it would have to send more stern threats of disconnection, followed by a seven day disconnection. After this stage, a customer could be disconnected for up to a year if the activity continued.

While the High Court decision is based on Irish law, it was pointed out by the court that this could mean Irish law does not comply with European law agreed by EU member states including Ireland itself. Whether this means the Irish government will step in to provide legislation for the issue or not remains to be seen.

Mr. Justice Peter Charleton made the ruling. He had previously condemned the impact Internet piracy has on the industry when the Eircom case was in the media, saying at the time that piracy "not only undermines the record companies' business but ruins the ability of a generation of creative people in Ireland, and elsewhere, to establish a viable living."

It seems that Foxconn cannot keep itself out of the news and for all of the wrong reasons. After several highly-publicized suicides by Foxconn workers, a new leaked report shows that not much has actually changed at Foxconn. The Beijing-based Global Times reported on a study conducted by 60 teachers and students from 20 Universities in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Fourteen investigators were able to enter the company and experience life inside Foxconn for themselves. According to the report, at least 16.4 percent of Foxconn employees have been subject to "some kind of corporal violence," like that seen in a recently released video of employees being assaulted by Foxconn security.

More than 38 percent claimed that their privacy has been invaded and 54.6 percent felt indignant toward management. Foxconn had announced a 30 percent pay rise for its employees following a number of suicides, but the report states that raises only amounted to 9.1 percent and that workers were also deprived of, "many of their welfare terms like subsidies, bonuses and so on."

The report focuses a lot on interns working for Foxconn. While interns are only allowed to work eight hours per day, some plants had them on ten hour shifts and night shifts. By having no contracts with interns, Foxconn doesn't have to pay "social welfare" costs for them, which means if they are injured at work due to a lack of supervision, the interns will have to pay their own medical expenses.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced the industry's fastest and most power-efficient, 10K RPM, 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) Enterprise hard drive, the Hitachi Ultrastar C10K600. The C10K600 is a 2.5-inch drive family that offers capacities of 300GB, 450GB and 600GB, rivaling 3.5-inch drives that also offer 10,000 RPM.

The Ultrastar C10K600 drive also sets a new standard for energy-efficiency with an operating power specification that is at least 22 percent lower than the competition, according to Hitachi.

"The Ultrastar C10K600 is closely aligned with customer requirements for increased performance, improved server/storage density, greater power efficiency and lower total cost of ownership," said Brendan Collins, vice president of Product Marketing, Hitachi GST.

"We are proud to establish new power and performance benchmarks with our latest Ultrastar drives, while delivering to customers the proven quality and reliability they have come to expect from Hitachi."

The new Ultrastar C10K600 drive family offers optional Bulk Data Encryption for hard-drive-level data security. These self-encrypting models are designed to the Trusted Computing Group's Enterprise A Security Subsystem Class encryption specification and allow customers to reduce costs associated with drive retirement and extend drive life by enabling swift and secure repurposing of drives.

TDK has shown off prototype 1TB optical discs at CEATEC in Japan. The company managed to create the 1-terabyte disc by cramming together 16 layers, each holding 32GB. TDK succeeded in forming 16 layers by developing a disc material with a high light transmittance.

"The material has already been used for part of a Blu-ray disc," the company said. "So, it does not have a problem of, for example, durability."

The disc uses the same numerical aperture as Blu-ray Disc (0.85), which TDK says means many existing technologies for the Blu-ray Disc format can be applied. It takes the same time to read one layer of the TDK disc as it does to read a Blu-ray layer.

There is one problem however, and it lies with the thickneess of the disc. "According to the specifications of the Blu-ray Disc, the thickness of a recording layer has to be 100μm or less," TDK said. "But the recording layer of the new disc is 260μm in thickness. And it causes the aberration of an optical lens."

Microsoft is reportedly planning to shut its Massive Inc. in-game advertisement unit before the end of the month, four years after acquiring the company for between $200 million and $400 million. Insiders told MediaWeek that the general manager JJ Richards was currently seeking another job, while members of its tech and sales team were being assigned to other projects for Microsoft.

According to the sources, Microsoft has even approached rival in-game ad vendor Double Fusion, seeking a high 6 digit or low 7 digit figure. When Microsoft had acquired Massive in 2006, things were looking good for the firm. So good, in fact, that then-Massive-CEO Mitch Davis predicted the in-game ad market to hit $2 billion this year, which it never has approached.

Microsoft's Xbox Live service has also grown rapidly since then, hosting over 25 million users, and it is considered a more attractive advertising target for brands. Also, Microsoft doesn't have to share revenue from Xbox Live advertising with publishers as it would have to for in-game ads.

Yahoo has updated their Messenger app for the iPhone today, moving the software to version 2.0.

With 2.0 comes the ability to two-way video chat over 3G.

iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4 owners can now chat through Yahoo Messenger via the front or back camera although the front camera is obviously better if you intend to actually see the person on the other end of the line.

Yahoo's update makes it one of the first pieces of software to have direct support for video chat with a desktop client, not just from mobile-to-mobile.

Additionally, the update brings "VoIP out to real-world numbers at discounted rates and free SMS messaging. An iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and either third or fourth generation iPod touch players can use extra multitasking features. Pure audio chat is also available."

Although the video has since been removed, a video on YouTube has confirmed that the streaming service Lovefilm is headed to PlayStation 3 consoles next month.

The video was available for a number of hours on the Lovefilm official YouTube channel.

Lovefilm has thousands of movies available for streaming, and is a smaller but similar service to Netflix in the United States and Canada.

The service will be free for all current Lovefilm subscribers. A two-week free-trial will be available for new would-be subscribers.

Amazon is in talks to purchase the rental company, expected to bid up to 200 million pounds for the remaining 58 percent stake they don't already own.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has taken a starkly different stance than others in his industry when asked about slowing software sales, citing lack of innovation instead of piracy as the main cause.

The executive was posed the question during a call about the company's revised financial forecast, which was revised to the downside thanks to slow software sales on both the DS and Wii.

Both consoles have just about hit saturation on the global scale.

Singling out an individual game, Iwata says innovative hits like "Art Academy" have sold well everywhere, including in nations where piracy has ravaged sales.

One such country is Spain, which is infamous for piracy levels that far exceed other Western European neighbors.

"Nintendo DS software could not make it to the hit software sales chart in the country for sometime," Iwata said, via GI. "However, when we launched the Nintendo DS software Art Academy in Europe this summer, which shows you how to draw pictures, it was ranked number one on the software sales chart covering all the videogame platforms in Spain. If one software can attract many people and can become a social topic, that software can sell regardless of piracy."

AT&T has announced today that their popular IPTV service U-Verse has been expanded to the Xbox 360 gaming console.

Starting on October 15th, gamers can access the service through their consoles, eliminating the need to purchase a new receiver for their home.

With the launch, AT&T is the first TV provider in the states to offer live TV via the console.

Additionally, the company has announced the launch of "U-Verse Mobile" for upcoming Windows Phone 7 devices.

Starting next month, the Mobile app will be preloaded on AT&T WP7 devices.

"Now you can get our award-winning U-verse services on your big screen TV, online, on your mobile phone, and integrated with your Xbox 360," said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "Our IPTV strategy is putting AT&T at the forefront by delivering U-verse content where you want it. And now we're extending the U-verse experience to more AT&T smartphone customers with the upcoming launch of U-verse Mobile on Windows Phone 7 devices."

For the 360, subscribers will need to purchase a $99 Xbox Kit which is installed for free by a U-Verse technician. Having a 360, however, eliminates the need for an additional receiver taking up space in the house.

AT&T has announced today that their popular IPTV service U-Verse has been expanded to the Xbox 360 gaming console.

Starting on October 15th, gamers can access the service through their consoles, eliminating the need to purchase a new receiver for their home.

With the launch, AT&T is the first TV provider in the states to offer live TV via the console.

Additionally, the company has announced the launch of "U-Verse Mobile" for upcoming Windows Phone 7 devices.

Starting next month, the Mobile app will be preloaded on AT&T WP7 devices.

"Now you can get our award-winning U-verse services on your big screen TV, online, on your mobile phone, and integrated with your Xbox 360," said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "Our IPTV strategy is putting AT&T at the forefront by delivering U-verse content where you want it. And now we're extending the U-verse experience to more AT&T smartphone customers with the upcoming launch of U-verse Mobile on Windows Phone 7 devices."

For the 360, subscribers will need to purchase a $99 Xbox Kit which is installed for free by a U-Verse technician. Having a 360, however, eliminates the need for an additional receiver taking up space in the house.

Amazon.co.uk has announced that starting today, free shipping will be available for delivery to customers in 17 European nations, as long as they spend over GBP 25 on their order.

Until last year, the UK was the only nation to receive free delivery, with Ireland joining in October 2009.

As of today, the service is extended to Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Luxembourg and San Marino.

"Free delivery has been an important part of the great value Amazon shopping experience for many years and we are delighted to announce its availability to even more European customers in time for Christmas," added Brian McBride, Managing Director of Amazon.co.uk. "The aim is for European customers to be able to purchase anything they want to buy online at a low price from a vast selection of products. Now, tens of millions of customers in Europe can also benefit from delivery to their door, absolutely free of charge."

Amazon UK has recently expanded its selection, adding electronics, home and garden, baby, watches, clothing, shoes, sports and leisure, health and beauty and tools sections.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has responded to the current freeze on Meizu M8 sales, accusing the company of blatant theft.

In an email response, Jobs responded to "why?" by saying, "because they stole our ideas and intellectual property."

The Chinese Intellectual Property Office halted M8 production and all marketing recently, and many were curious why.

Meizu's M8 is a touchscreen multimedia/smartphone device that runs on Windows Mobile 6.

From an aesthetic standpoint, the device looks very much like an iPhone 3GS.

Meizu's upcoming M9 has a different design and will use a customized Android operating system. It may turn out that Meizu just lets the M8 die as the M9 will be released in December.

According to a new DigiTimes report, the Canonical distribution of Ubuntu Light will begin shipping with new Dell netbooks within the month.

Dell's optimized netbook running Ubuntu 10.10 is said to be able to boot in 7 seconds flat.

The computer giant is currently the top seller of PCs with Ubuntu, beating out all other major manufacturers.

As pictured, Ubuntu Light uses a "Unity" interface giving quick access to Web browsing, music, games, chat, multimedia, and productivity applications.

The operating system has an integrated music store giving users a chance to download music and stream it to their Android or iOS device.

Better yet, any netbook featuring the operating system will retail for cheaper than a Windows counterpart due to lack of licensing payments.

MacRumors is reporting that Wal-Mart is set to begin offering the Apple iPad, with some stores already making the popular tablet available.

In May, the giant retailer announced the iPad was coming "later" in 2010 with no set time frame.

Just last week, Target began selling the device in 1700 brick-and-mortar stores in the United States.

The site has posted an email which shows all six models becoming available, as well as a number of accessories and a second email which shows availability in 1000 stores by the end of October.

There are 2800 Wal-Mart "SuperCenters" as well as 750 smaller stores meaning the iPad just got a massively expanded presence.

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has said this weekend that it will no longer sell development kits for the PlayStation Portable handheld.

The company "will no longer be selling the PSP development tool (dtp-t2000a) or testing tool (dtp-h2500a) past November 15th."

Sony says they will advise consumers "when a new model becomes available."

The company quickly explained that they intend to support the handheld, but the current kits are expiring.

"Due to the certification on the current development and test tools expiring, we will be stopping selling them on November 15. However, we will continue to provide loan stock for registered and new developers, until a new certified model is available," adds the company via GI.

Yesterday, George "Geohot" Hotz announced the first RC of an untethered jailbreak for all iOS devices, dubbing the jailbreak Limera1n.

The jailbreak works on the iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch 3/4G, iPad, and iPhone 4 but it also apparently spoiled the party for another highly touted jailbreak solution.

Today was supposed to be the release of GreenPois0n, from the Chronic Dev Team, which breaks iOS 4.1 using the SHAtter exploit.

Limra1n, however, uses a different bootrom exploit and Geohot made it clear what that exploit was. Instead of giving Apple a chance to patch both exploits, the Dev Team says it has delayed their SHAtter-based exploit and will instead release one using Geohot's method.

Reads a post from the Chronic Dev Team:

"Thanks to the irresponsible antics of geohot, we will have to delay the release of greenpois0n (new ETA = as soon as possible), so that we have time to clean up his little mess and integrate the exploit he uses in limera1n into greenpois0n. This way, we can save SHAtter for future devices that may still be vulnerable to it.

TMOnews has released a spec sheet for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab, which runs Android 2.2 and seems to be the first real competitor to the Apple iPad.

The Tab will cost $400 with two-year contract (and after rebate) and it will run you $650 without contract.

It was reported yesterday that the Sprint version of the tablet will be priced at $400 with contract, as well.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab is 7-inches (1024x600 resolution), runs on a 1 GHz processor and has dual-cameras. The impressive tablet also runs on Android 2.2 Froyo, which allows for native Flash support.

It will come in two models, one with 16GB and the other with 32GB. Each has a MicroSD slot, allowing for an extra 32GB of memory.

Rovio, the developer behind the blockbuster mobile app Angry Birds has voiced its displeasure at Microsoft this weekend, after it was discovered that the company was already advertising a version of the game for their upcoming Windows Phone 7 platform.

The game developer has not yet begun developing, or even committed to a version for WP7.

Writes Rovio, via Twitter: "We have NOT committed to doing a Windows Phone 7 version. Microsoft put the Angry Birds icon on their site without our permission."

The company says a version of Android Birds is headed to Android this week buy WP7 plans have not been discussed.

"Time will tell, only thing we said that we have not committed to do WP7 yet, we don't like others using our IP without asking," the company continued.

"We could do a WP7 version of Angry Birds, not the issue. We have not agreed to do that (yet). Will support all relevant platforms."

Google has said this weekend that they have begun testing vehicles that do not need human drivers in an effort to improve road safety.

The driverless vehicles have already traveled over 140,000 miles during testing.

Each car navigates itself by maps and uses cameras, radar sensors and a laser range to gauge traffic, other vehicles and the environment.

"Our goal is to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use," adds Sebastian Thrun, a software engineer with Google. "While this project is very much in the experimental stage, it provides a glimpse of what transportation might look like in the future."

Google made sure to note that each car had a human at the helm in the test, to ensure safety.

Says CEO Eric Schmidt: "Your car should drive itself; it’s amazing to me that we let humans drive cars. It’s a bug that cars were invented before computers."

According to numbers from HitWise, Google remains the dominant search engine in the U.S. market, controlling almost three-fourths of the market.

For September, Google captured 72.15 percent of the market, dominating all 68 other search engines monitored by a long shot.

Yahoo fell from 14.2 percent to 13.5 percent, and Bing remained mostly unmoved at 10.1 percent.

Because Yahoo now uses Bing's engine, Microsoft can claim 23.6 percent of the market.

Ask took fourth place, moving to 2.37 percent.

AOL and the other 65 search engines took the remaining share.

Although unconfirmed, BGR is reporting that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab will cost $400 with contract through one carrier, at least.

The tablet will be available through Sprint starting on November 14th.

Without a two-year contract, the tablet will run you $600.

The Tab is 7-inches (1024x600 resolution), runs on a 1 GHz processor and has dual-cameras. The impressive tablet also runs on Android 2.2 Froyo, which allows for native Flash support.

It will come in two models, one with 16GB and the other with 32GB. Each has a MicroSD slot, allowing for an extra 32GB of memory.

One of the most discussed topics currently is California's push to legalize marijuana.

It appears that the state has at least two fans from with social networking giant Facebook, as co-founders Sean Parker and Dustin Moskovitz have donated to the campaign. Parker recently gave $100,000 and Moskovitz gave the rest.

The donations were reported in Proposition 19 campaign finance filings revealed this week.

Although neither is still with the company, both have ownership stakes that make them billionaires.

While still in college, Parker helped develop Napster, the original P2P file sharing network. He is now a partner in a Silicon Valley venture capital firm.

Support for proposition 19 has raised $2.4 million so far.

George "Geohot" Hotz has released the first RC of an untethered jailbreak for all iOS devices, dubbing the jailbreak Limera1n.

The jailbreak works on the iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch 3/4G, iPad, and iPhone 4.

For the time being the jailbreak works only on Windows machines.

The jailbreak is based on low-level bootrom exploits that are different than the current exploits used by SHAtter and in the newly released "greenpois0n."

Geohot uses the same exploit found by c0mex, the hacker behind the popular one-click Spirit jailbreak.

The jailbreak should be available at http://limera1n.com tomorrow.

Hitachi-LG Data Storage has shown off a prototype storage device that can backup unused files to Blu-ray cartridges. Each prototype cartridge can store up to 1TB of data. Each contains discs that use the new BDXL format, standardized earlier this year. BDXL discs offer 128GB of storage on a write-once disc and 100GB on a rewritable disc.

The prototype device is packed with four hard disk drives providing storage with two additional slots capable of holding 8 discs. Each disc contains multiple recording layers. The device runs automatic back-ups where it transfers little used data from the hard disks to the cartridges.

The cartridges are loaded with RFID chips which can be scanned with a handheld scanner, allowing users to quickly find out what a cartridge contains.

The prototype was shown off at CEATEC in Japan and the company hopes to put it on the market in 2011.

IBM will continue to develop the Cell chip technology and hardware to supply for future gaming consoles, a company executive has said. Jai Menon, CTO of IBM's Systems and Technology Group, said that the company is working with Sony and Nintendo. "We want to stay in the business, we intend to stay in the business," he said.

Cell made its first appearance in the PlayStation 3 console, launched in 2006. The chip includes processor cores based on IBM's Power architecture. Neither the Xbox 360 or Wii consoles use the Cell processor, but they do use IBM processors.

"I think you'll see Cell integrated into our future Power road map. That's the way to think about it as opposed to a separate line -- it'll just get integrated into the next line of things that we do," Menon said. "But certainly, we're working with all of the game folks to provide our capabilities into those next-generation machines."

Menon also said that IBM would be providing hardware for cloud-based gaming services. Such services require giant servers with a lot of processing power. "Some of this consumer stuff is also a cloud play. There are giant servers out there that provide some of the gaming capability. Some of that will come through cloud-based offerings as well," he said.

Graham Cluley, a security expert at Sophos, has written about an Internet rumor that predicts a virus will spread across the Internet on October 10, 2010. More specific rumors say it will happen at exactly 10:10am. Of course, it sounds utterly ridiculous but the fact is these rumors do incite panic for some reason.

Cluley also had to debunk similar rumors back in 2003, when many believed a virus would start infecting computers on March 3rd, 2003. These dates are specific because of how they look: 10/10/10 and 03/03/03. "It's just the kind of scare that people love to murmur about, and share with their online friends, but I'm afraid it has no basis in fact," Cluley writes.

"The truth is that there is malicious software which triggers every day of the year - so worrying about one particular date or time is actually counter-productive, as it implies that you should take less care on other dates. The 10/10/10 rumour, just like the 03/03/03 one, is utter codswallop."

"And yes, I know that 101010 is binary for decimal 42 (the alleged answer to "Life, The Universe and Everything" if you're a fan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). But it's still not any reason to worry any more than normal!"

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States is looking for ways to tackle "bill shock" for mobile phone customers. The trade association representing carriers insists that customers are already well informed about their calling and data plans. However, the FCC conducted a survey in which it found 17 percent of respondents experienced sudden bill increases even though they hadn't changed their plans.

CTIA, the trade group that represents mobile carriers, questions the survey and insists that there are no need to any new regulations. The FCC could, for example, force carriers to alert users via SMS or some other way when they are approaching their monthly call minutes limit or data limits. CTIA insists that carriers already carry out such measures to warn customers, and there is no need to mandate any more.

"Wireless carriers and app developers are constantly providing additional methods for alerting customers regarding their usage to avoid unexpected charges," CTIA said in a September document describing discussions with the FCC. "The FCC should not prescribe -- and ultimately limit -- carriers' ability to provide effective consumer account management tools."

Webroot is warning about a change that a Trojan makes to Firefox files that change the way the browser handles password information entered in forms on websites. Trojan-PWS-Nslog is found to modify a file used by Firefox (nsLoginManagerPrompter.js) in such a way that the browser simply saves all entered passwords and does not prompt a user anymore on whether or not it should.

Computer security firms generally advise against saving passwords in a web browser because they can so easily be retrieved either by a person physically using the browser or by malware installed on the computer. The keylogging Trojan, which copies itself as Kernel.exe to the system32 directory, creates a new user account on the machine in the background (Maestro).

It then retrieves information from the registry and saved passwords from Internet Explorer and Firefox. It attempts to send the stolen information to a server once per minute. The server is now actually offline, but the changes the malware makes to the Firefox browser file are not fixed by removal tools. Instead a user will have to re-install the Firefox browser to write a new copy of the file.

That's not the only interesting thing found with this trojan however. Embedded inside is an interesting string of text you wouldn't expect to see included with malware: "SaLiLoG keylogger server made by Salar Zeynali - Salixem@Gmail.com."

Tech vendors are hoping for a stronger year-end as economic woes continue to impact the industry. There are signs that U.S. consumers are spending more, despite unemployment remaining high. Analysts expect consumers to spend more on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs, but will likely demand deep discounts.

Retailers are expected to see their best Christmas in four years and companies that are less exposed to the booming wireless device market are expected not to fare as well as others. "A lot depends on what happens in the economy, but some segments are pretty good," Micron Technology Inc President Mark Durcan told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

"At least for Micron, we have very strong demand in the smartphone space and pretty good demand in enterprise and networking."

The market for tablet PCs has exploded following Apple's release of the iPad device in April. Samsung and Dell have launched competing products and dozens more are in the pipeline. However, many of those devices likely will not be out in time for Christmas.

Another week, another Apple rumor. Once again, a report is suggesting that Apple Inc. is moving closer to offering a music subscription service to customers. The service would grant access to a large catalog of music content for a monthly fee.

The iPod maker is reportedly in talks with the major record labels, mulling over the finer details of the concept.

The New York Post is the source of the latest report on the issue. According to the Post, Apple's iTunes boss Eddie Cue recently has discussed with the record companies how they could implement the plan, with a source saying there would be a tiered pricing range.

The monthly fee would work out at around $10-15 depending on how much music would be included and how long customers would sign up for the service.

The video game industry is confident of a strong holiday season performance following strong sales of top video games recently released. New titles from popular franchises are boosting confidence in holiday sales. After Halo Reach made $200 million in its first day on sale, Electronic Arts' FIFA 11 went on to become the fastest-selling sports game ever.

U.S. games industry figures for September are due out next week from NPD, which will help to give a clearer picture. Arvind Bhatia, a Sterne Agee analyst, expects the numbers to be better than August's dismal 10 percent hardware and software sales drop.

"It's a tough economy, but the overall picture for video games is starting to look a little bit better," Bhatia said. Activision also revealed this week that its online RPG, World of Warcraft, has 12 million subscribers which is the most it has ever had at any given time.

"When you look at how the industry looks today, we are seeing the top products doing really well," said Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Activision's Blizzard Entertainment.

Thanks to quickly dwindling stock of the ultra-portable, the latest rumor is that Apple is preparing to launch a smaller 11.6-inch MacBook Air.

Current models, which are 13.3-inches and come in two models, have been reported out of stock almost everywhere, and Apple has not given a concrete timeframe for new stock.

Best Buy and Amazon have said that Apple will not ship them any new stock until at least the 12th.

Apple historically updates hardware, like their iMacs, in October.

Sources claim the new 11.6-inch model will run on an Intel Core i-series, and could weigh under 2.7 pounds.

Verizon has said this week that they will be launching six LTE smartphones at the CES event in January.

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the 4G data network used by Verizon and AT&T.

Verizon announced that their LTE network would begin rolling out to 38 major cities later this year.

So far, rival Sprint has their WiMax 4G network available and T-Mobile has their HSPA+ network rolled out. AT&T expects to launch LTE next year.

Verizon is also making USB adapters with access to the LTE network available soon, giving netbook and other users full-time access to the network.

Citing sources close to the bank, Reuters is reporting that Morgan Stanley is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) for popular video streaming service Hulu.

Hulu is looking to raise between $200 and $300 million from investors with the offering.

The service could file a prospectus with the SEC by the end of the year.

An IPO is just one of a few options Hulu has actively considered. Another is attracting new media companies to contribute programming or raising more money from existing investors.

The decision is likely to be made in November, add the sources.

Hulu is backed by NBCU, Fox and Disney, three of the four major broadcasters in the U.S.

According to a new report from tech blog Gdgt, Apple's iPhone 4 may soon be back in the news negatively, following "antennagate" with the newly-dubbed "glassgate."

The site says that the glass that is used on the front and back of the iPhone 4 is very susceptible to "serious cosmetic damages", especially on the backside of the device when using a slip-on cases.

Additionally, dirt and other debris from your pocket ends up in that space, reads the site.

Eventually, the backside will completely shatter as the scratches lead to large cracks.

The site likens the effect to a cracked windshield on an automobile.

While it has not been widely addressed in the media, the report says Apple engineers are currently working on a "quiet lockdown," testing a plethora of cases to see how deep the issue is.

The site finally suggests that development of the iPhone 5 may be held up while the company fixes the glass problem on the 4.

Mozilla has released its Firefox 4 beta for Android and Maemo devices, adding a number of new significant features.

Among those features are pinch-to-zoom, the "Awesome Screen" and syncing. Pinch-to-zoom is supported on all multi-touch-capable devices.

The new syncing capabilities allows for all browsing history, passwords, bookmarks, form-fill data and open tabs to be instantly synced from your desktop version of the browser to the mobile one.

Mozilla's "Awesome Screen" will give you instant access to recent history, bookmarks, and tabs with one-click on your mobile device.

Says the company: "Firefox 4 Beta for mobile is significant step forward in sharing a personalized, seamless and encrypted Web experience across devices. Developers have the power to use the latest Web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript to to build fast, powerful and beautiful mobile apps and add-ons that can reach millions of devices."

Yesterday we reported that Adobe's stock jumped as high as 17 percent on reports in the media that Microsoft has identified it as an acquisition target. The New York Times reported that Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in San Francisco recently to talk about Apple's dominance in smartphones.

According to the report, which cited employees and consultants familiar with the situation, the two discussed several options to deal with the situation, one of which would see Microsoft acquiring Adobe.

Today, the stock has fallen back to Earth, dropping 6 percent on skepticism about the proposed deal.

A number of prominent analysts have stated the merger will do little to solve Microsoft's immediate short-term goals.

"There is no doubt Microsoft has some secular concerns that must be addressed, namely around 1) lack of share in tablets, 2) lack of a compelling mobile offering and 3) lack of critical mass in online," says Walter Pritchard of Citigroup. An acquisition of Adobe would not address any of those.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has decried the use of pirated software by Chinese firms. "One of the things that has improved a lot around the world is business piracy, and yet when we look at China today business piracy is more extreme than consumer piracy," he told a business forum in Madrid.

"We are working hard with the support of the Chinese government to improve the situation but it is a real problem," he added. According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), approximately 79 percent of Chinese firms are running pirated software on their computers, while it estimates the value of pirated software in the country at $7.58 billion.

Microsoft generates less revenue in China than it does in India or South Korea, despite China's GDP being twice that of the other two economies combined. Chief executives of several major software firms, including Microsoft, met with lawmakers and officials from the Obama administration to push them to step up pressure on China to crack down on piracy.

Acer plans to adopt dual operating systems on its dual-core netbooks, according to a report from DigiTimes. The Taiwanese firm is planning to load both Microsoft Windows and Google's Android operating system to its netbooks so users can decide which to boot.

Including Android offers users a rapid boot and the ability to quickly and easily handle common tasks such as browsing the Internet or checking e-mail. Including Windows will allow users to run larger more resource hungry applications for more complex tasks.

Acer recently unveiled its new Aspire One AOD255 netbook which includes an Intel Atom N550 dual core processor.

Acet Taiwan president Scott Lin said the company expects to ship 40 million notebooks in 2010, along with 10 million netbooks. Lin said that figures from Gartner showed that netbooks will not be replaced by tablet PCs, and that global netbook shipments would reach 36 million units in 2010 and 50 million in 2014.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will not carry out a suspension of several BlackBerry services in a row over national security issues. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority issued a statement earlier on Friday announcing that Blackberry services were not compliant with the regulator's framework.

"The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has confirmed that Blackberry services are now compliant with the UAE's telecommunications regulatory framework.

Therefore, the TRA has confirmed today that all Blackberry services in the UAE will continue to operate as normal and no suspension of service will occur on October 11, 2010.

The TRA would like to acknowledge the positive engagement and collaboration of Research In Motion (RIM) in reaching this regulatory compliant outcome."

Spotify, which has long announced its ambitions to expand to the United States, may be getting quashed by Apple in its efforts, if a Cnet article is to be believed.

The music streaming service has had issues gaining the support of the Big 4 record labels, and Cnet says Apple may be a big part of why.

Because Spotify would be free in the U.S., Apple has been telling the labels that the service would "undermine" the current digital music industry in the nation.

Of course, that industry is dominated by Apple's iTunes Store, which controls over 80 percent of all sales.

The company has also made it clear to the labels that they don't believe that Spotify's model could ever generate significant profits.

Spotify is currently available in seven European countries, but has missed two announced target dates for launch in the U.S. There have been no reported agreements with major labels either, as of yet.

Microsoft will release 16 security bulletins on "Patch Tuesday," marking the second time in 2010 the software giant has released a record amount of fixes.

In August, the record was set at 14 bulletins, which covered 34 security holes across a range of products and operating systems.

On Tuesday, the 16 bulletins will fix 49 vulnerabilities, mainly in Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office and the .NET framework.

Four of the bulletins are dubbed "critical," another ten are dubbed "important" and the rest are "moderate."

All of the critical bulletins will address vulnerabilities that can be exploited to run remote code.

Total vulnerabilities patched for 2010 after Tuesday will number 86.

According to TheStreet, PayPal will likely soon become an option for Android Market purchases.

Users have complained about the current checkout system (especially if you are not a Google Checkout user), and adding PayPal and its user base of 220 million will certainly make the system more fluid, or at least as easy as rival iTunes.

Google and eBay (the parent company of PayPal) have been working on a deal for months and a launch of the payment system for the Market should happen this month.

The two companies have grown closer to an agreement in the past weeks and unnamed sources say it is a done deal.

eBay is hosting the PayPal developers' conference in San Francisco on October 26th.

NCR, which rents DVDs via 7000 Blockbuster Express kiosks, has reached a deal with Universal that will block the kiosks from offering new Universal releases for the first 28 days after release.

The company is looking into similar deals with the other major studios, Sony, Fox and Warner.

Part of the deal, however, is the new addition of "premium rentals," through the NCR kiosks, where users can pay more than the standard $1-a-night to rent a new Universal film right from launch. "Premium rentals" are an experiment and will continue only if user feedback is positive.

"Our agreement to test premium day-and-date offers and new DVD sales will help us identify new outlets for our movies while giving our customers the flexibility and choice they want in their entertainment purchases," added Craig Kornblau, president, Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

The NCR kiosk deal is Blockbuster's best chance at staging any type of comeback. The company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month after facing $900 million in debt.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has made a new deal with rental giant Netflix that will block the company from getting new releases for the first 28 days after launch.

The deal follows similar agreements with the other major studios Fox, Universal and Warner Bros.

Jackie Chan's "The Karate Kid" is the first film to fall under the restriction, as it was released earlier this week.

For now, the 28-day policy is only on certain titles, but it is likely Sony will eventually extend the same deal to all new releases.

Sony's deal does not affect Redbox, however, while all the other studio's deals impose the same restrictions on the kiosk chain.

The deal works for Netflix as it significantly reduces DVD costs, leaving more money free for the company's push into digital media. The peak sell-through period for new films is in the first thirty days.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Amazon.com is planning to open an applications store for the Android mobile platform. Such a store would mimic Apple's App Store for iPhones and iPads. Google's Android Marketplace currently has about 80,000 applications, compared to 270,000 available in the Apple Store.

An Amazon spokesman told Reuters in an e-mail reply that the company has not made any such announcement yet, while Google declined comment completely, reminding the news outlet that it does not comment on rumor or speculation.

According to the WSJ, Amazon will offer developers 70 percent of the revenue from any sales, which is the same Apple offers app developers for its own platforms.

Android is being used in mobile devices such as Motorola's Droid and Samsung's Galaxy S, and is quickly gaining popularity in the smartphone market.

Adobe stock jumped on Thursday following reports in the media that Microsoft has identified it as an acquisition target. The New York Times reported that Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in San Francisco recently to talk about Apple's dominance in smartphones.

According to the report, which cited employees and consultants familiar with the situation, the two discussed several options to deal with the situation, one of which would see Microsoft acquiring Adobe. Adobe stock rose 17 percent to a high of $30 before settling back to close up 11.5 percent at $28.69 on the Nasdaq.

A Microsoft acquisition of Adobe would cost $15 billion or more based on Adobe's current market value. It would provide Microsoft with control of Adobe's flash player, used all over the web for video and graphics. Wall Street analysts see it as a possible way for Microsoft to integrate graphics and video capabilities into software it develops for phones and tablet computers.

"It's certainly possible," said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran of a potential deal. "It may be a case of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and both Microsoft and Adobe have a common enemy in Apple. The Flash platform in Microsoft's hands might be an interesting competitive weapon against Apple."

A 33 year old man has been handed a suspended sentence for operating a P2P hub using DirectConnect in Finland. The man received a four month suspended sentence after he was found to be the operator of a DirectConnect hub where he was also sharing a considerable amount of music.

His computers and equipment were originally seized in June 2007 and were found to contain a significant amount of "infringing music" files. He later restarted the hub with new computers, which were seized yet again in October 2007. Records showed that up to 2,000 people were using his hub to share about 80 terabytes of content.

The 33 year old must now pay €307,450 in compensation to rights' holders in addition to the four months suspended sentence. The decision was made yesterday by a Finnish District Court.

"Imprisonment is the right penalty for this type of deliberate, planned and very harmful conduct in which the administrator facilitates widespread unauthorised file-sharing," said Antti Kotilainen of CIAPC.

According to data released by research firm Net Applications, users of Microsoft's Windows operating systems still predominately use Windows XP. The data showed that XP had a market share of about 60.03 percent, down from 60.89 percent the previous month. Windows 7 gained 1.25 points to 17.10 percent while Windows Vista dropped from 14.00 percent to 13.00 percent.

Of all machines running Microsoft's Windows operating system software, approximately 66 percent were still running Windows XP, down from 76 percent before Windows 7 launched. During September, Windows Vista had a share of 14.66 percent among will Windows users, down quite a bit from its peak at 20.35 percent. Windows 7 has a 19 percent share among all Windows users.

The results are not very surprising, but it does show that the overall decline in Windows market share (albeit slight) is not being made up by the growth of Windows 7. It also shows that computer users are probably reluctant to invest in a new computer to support Windows 7 if their XP machine works just fine, or even if they could upgrade, are unwilling to risk running into compatibility and other issues.

UK communications regulator Ofcom is now requiring BT to provide competitors with access to its fibre network. Ofcom believes the move will promote the take-up of high-speed broadband services throughout the UK. BT also has to give rivals access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles to build their own fibre networks. The regulator will allow BT to set its own prices for access to its networks.

The British government wants all homes in the UK to have basic 2Mbps Internet access available at least by 2015, while all European Union member states are looking to make basic broadband service available to all citizens by 2013, and then 30Mbps services by 2020.

"In areas where BT invests in fibre, the remedies will enable other providers to offer competing services, based on BT's facilities," it said. "Elsewhere, access to BT's ducts and poles should encourage investment by other providers, enabling the provision of superfast services and increasing competition."

BT is the largest provider of broadband Internet access in the UK. TalkTalk, which comes in second place and will be one of the first ISPs to sell high speed broadband connections that rely on BT lines, welcomed the new regulations but said there is still "room to improve" the deal.

A 19 year old man from Liverpool in England has been jailed for 16 weeks after refusing to give police a password required to access his computer. Oliver Drage was arrested in May last year by police "tackling child sexual exploitation," but police officers have not been able to break encryption to examine the contents of his hard drives.

The police require a 50 character key to decrypt the content. Drage was conviced of failing to disclose an encryption key in September, and was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison on Monday at the Preston Crown Court. He was formally asked to disclose the required key but failed to do so, which is an offense under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

"Drage was previously of good character so the immediate custodial sentence handed down by the judge in this case shows just how seriously the courts take this kind of offence," said Det Sgt Neil Fowler, of Lancashire police.

"Computer systems are constantly advancing and the legislation used here was specifically brought in to deal with those who are using the internet to commit crime. It sends a robust message out to those intent on trying to mask their online criminal activities that they will be taken before the courts with the ultimate sanction, as in this case, being a custodial sentence."

Shares of Samsung Electronics took a hit as South Korean consumer electronics giant estimated its July-September operating profit and sales to come below market consensus. The world's biggest maker of LCDs expects to see an end to its run of record breaking quarters as a stumbling world economy hits demand for computers and televisions.

"LCD and TV performance appears to be worse than expected and the downward pressure on earnings will only grow as chip prices are also falling and TV makers increase price cuts," said Chung Young-woo, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities.

"Usual uptick in seasonal year-end demand will be smaller this time and an earnings recovery is unlikely until early next year."

Samsung has kept its No. 1 slot in television sales, ahead of Sony and Panasonic, and has also performed strongly over chip rival Micron. It is the most valuable technology firm in Asia, worth approximately $116 billion. Shares in Samsung after the dull news spread around closed 2.9 percent lower.

SandForce, a pioneer of SSD (Solid State Drive) Processors, has announced a new line of controllers for enterprise-class drives that could dramatically improve performance and data security. It's new SF-2000 family of solid-state drive processors feature a 6 Gigabit-per-second SATA host interface, industry applauded DuraClass Technology, an unprecedented 60,000 sustained random read/write IOPS (Input-output Operations Per Second) and sustained sequential read/write performance of 500 Megabytes per second.

"The market for SSDs is poised to experience rapid growth over the next few years," said Jeff Janukowicz, research manager for solid state drives at IDC. "Solutions, such as the SandForce SF-2000 Family of SSD Processors, that enable increased performance and higher reliability in a flexible design will enable SSD vendors to meet the demands of this fast paced market."

Some features of the SF-2000 SSD Processors include:

• Support for advanced 30nm- and 20nm-class Flash with Asynch/ONFi2/Toggle interfaces with data rates up to 166 Mega Transfers per second
• Enhanced dual-ported SAS bridge support, including non-512-byte sector sizes, e.g., 520, 524, 528, 4K, etc., with Data Integrity Field (DIF) for true Enterprise-class SAS drive behavior and performance
• TCG Enterprise security with selectable multi-banded 256/128-bit AES encryption with line-rate double encryption for data written to the drive
• Advanced ECC engine correcting up to 55 bits per 512-byte sector to assure high data integrity and support for future generations of Flash memory
• Power and performance throttling options to support green computing initiatives
• Industrial temperature support (-40 to +85 degrees Celsius)

Verizon has said this week that their deployment of the world's first 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network would hit 39 cities instead of the previously announced 30.

The LTE network will cover 110 million Americans, says the carrier.

Furthermore, Verizon says it is launching LTE in 60 commercial airports in the U.S.

Verizon president Lowell McAdam says: "We are driven by the vision to provide ubiquitous wireless broadband connectivity and mobility to rural and urban Americans alike. With our initial 4G LTE launch, we will immediately reach more than one-third of all Americans where they live, right from the start. And, we will quickly introduce 4G LTE throughout the Verizon coverage area."

The carrier says it expects average data rates on an LTE connection to reach 5-12Mbps downstream and 2-5Mbps upstream. Those average speeds would almost double Verizon's current 3G offering.

Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Initial Major Metropolitan Area Deployment:

Akron, Ohio
Athens, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Baltimore, Maryland
Boston, Massachusetts
Charlotte, North Carolina
Chicago, Illinois
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Dallas, Texas
Denver, Colorado
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Houston, Texas
Jacksonville, Florida
Las Vegas, Nevada
Los Angeles, California
Miami, Florida
Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minnesota
Nashville, Tennessee
New Orleans, Louisiana
New York, New York
Oakland, California
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Orlando, Florida
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Phoenix, Arizona
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Rochester, New York
San Antonio, Texas
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
San Jose, California
Seattle/Tacoma, Washington
St. Louis, Missouri
Tampa, Florida
Washington, D.C.
West Lafayette, Indiana
West Palm Beach, Florida

Logitech has officially launched the Revue set-top box today, the first standalone device with Google TV.

The box will sell for $300 with a full-sized keyboard included.

Buyers can purchase the keyboard separately for $99 of they choose to purchase a different Google TV device.

Pre-orders have started today for a release date in the last week of October.

Some of the specs of the Revue:

The device has built-in Harmony Link tech, using IR to control all devices in your home entertainment system. Harmony remotes are compatible. Android devices and iPhones can control the Revue after users download a free app.

If you are a DISH satellite subscriber, you can access DVR content from your Revue.

Logitech has built-in a media player app that allows for streaming playback of local content or the playback of files off of attached storage.

Ubisoft's North American boss Laurent Detoc has said that he wants Ubisoft to be the largest third-party publisher of software made for the Kinect motion control system for the Xbox 360 console. He claimed that the Kinect system was comparable in consumer appeal to Apple's iPad.

"I think that today is a pretty good testament that Kinect is going to do pretty well, because today is an event only about Kinect. That's a statement about how we think it's going to do," he said at a Kinect event in San Francisco. "It's our intent to be the biggest third party publisher on that machine."

Showing his confidence in Kinect to succeed, Detoc made a comparison to Apple's iPad. "It's cool. It's a piece of technology. Why do people buy iPads? I have an iPad. My wife has an iPad. Why? You've gotta have it," he said.

When asked about Kinect's high RRP, he seemed unconcerned. "It's not such a big investment compared to how good it is, and how many units they want to sell at the beginning. Ask me a year for now how I feel about the pricing for Christmas 2011, based on the install base they have," he said.

TiVo Inc. has said that the U.S. Patent office has reaffirmed the validity of a TiVo patent at the center of a legal case that has been ongoing since 2004. TiVo shares rose 10 percent following the boost from the patent office in its legal battle with Dish Network and EchoStar.

"Today's decision further validates our (intellectual property) and brings us closer to ending EchoStar's ongoing infringement," the company said.

TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said in September that the legal battle between TiVo and EchoStar was likely to be resolved around February or March next year.

TiVo accused EchoStar of violating TiVo patents with its Dish Network system. The patent in question covered TiVo's "Time Warp" software that allows a viewer to record one TV program while watching another. To date, EchoStar has already paid $104 million in damages to TiVo.

Facebook has added a new "groups" functionality that allows users to form discreet groups of people to share information and communicate within. It also has introduced new features aimed at giving users more control over the information they add to the site, and who can access it.

"The changes today are about giving people more control over how they share in a lot of different contexts," Mark Zuckerberg told BBC News. "One of the things we have heard is that people just want to share information with smaller groups of people. It will enable people to share things that they wouldn't have wanted to share with all of their friends."

"There are some things you are comfortable saying to all your friends at once but a lot of things you only want to share with your close co-workers or your family and there just hasn't been a great way to do that until now."

A list feature on Facebook already allowed users to create subset of friends, but Zuckerberg said that only about 5 percent of its half a billion users tried it. "Groups will change behaviour," Augie Ray a senior analysts with research firm Forrester told BBC News.

In July, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made it clear that a disc-free version of Netflix was headed to the PlayStation 3 by the end of the year.

Today, Sony says users will be able to access the content without a disc by the end of the month.

Social Media Manager Jeff Rubenstein had this to say when asked about a timeframe for the new app: "It’s this month, but we don’t have a date to announce at present."

It was initially promised before Netflix's quarterly earnings, which is on the 20th, so most believe the update will hit the console on the 19th, which is also when the U.S. PlayStation Store updates.

Hastings also said the update will bring about a new UI.

Intel has said today that there will not be any MeeGo-powered smartphones until next year.

MeeGo is the open-source mobile operating system that was developed by Nokia and Intel for use on phones and tablets.

The project started in February, and the companies showed off an alpha version of the software in July.

Nokia remains the world's largest mobile phone maker, but smartphone sales have lagged, and are non-existent in the United States.

By teaming up, Intel hopes to get their powerful Atom processors into smartphones that will run MeeGo and have access to Intel and Nokia's app stores.

Says Intel: "We have been hitting our dates. We are very pleased with MeeGo’s progress so far."

Version 1.1 of the software will be unveiled this week.

Western Digital has upgraded its My Passport Essential portable hard drives, My Passport Essential SE portable hard drives and My Book Essential external hard drives with USB 3.0 connectivity. All three drives come in a variety of available capacities, and a 3TB My Book Essential external drive is now available.

The drives are all still fully compatible with USB 2.0. When connected via USB 3.0 (or SuperSpeed USB), users can transfer data at up to 5Gbps. WD's press release states that a two-hour High-definition movie could be transfered through USB 3.0 to one of the drives in about three minutes, compared to thirteen minutes for USB 2.0.

My Passport Essential

Samsung Electronics has boasted today that 5 million Galaxy S smartphones have been sold since launch in June.

The company is the world's second largest mobile phone maker but has lagged in smartphone sales.

Samsung's Galaxy S, released across all four major U.S. carriers, was the company's "answer" to the Apple iPhone and high-end Android devices from Motorola and HTC.

Thanks to the Galaxy, Samsung says it should manage to hit 25 million smartphones sold, putting it in fourth place in global sales behind Nokia, RIM and Apple.

Furthermore, the company expects to sell another 4 million units of the Galaxy S in the current quarter.

Hewlett-Packard Senior Vice President Eric Cador has told an industry conference that the company will begin shipping smartphones loaded with the webOS software it acquired from its $1.2 billion Palm buyout earlier this year. "You will see us coming early next year with new phones," he said.

HP bought Palm in order to fast-track its venture into the smartphones market, and had recognized the importance of getting the rights to the popular software immediately. "More importantly we acquired webOS," Cador told the conference in Barcelona.

Going by revenue, Hewlett-Packard is the world's largest technology company, but it would risk falling behind if it didn't target the highly profitable smartphone market. Palm's intellectual property has provided it with its own weaponry to fight against rivals like Apple, which dominates the market.

AndroidandMe is reporting that Motorola is set to release a Tegra 2 smartphone in early 2011, although details are still very scarce due to "hardcore NDAs."

The only concrete detail is that it uses the fast processor and has a 4.1-inch screen.

Co-CEO Sanjay Jha says the company is very close with Nvidia, the maker behind the chip although he did acknowledge that new partners in the mobile space will always have "some lessons to learn."

Jha acknowledged the Tegra 2 device, as well, but noted that it will likely ship in the Q1 2011 with a small chance it launches before the end of the year.

We will keep you updated on what promises to be a very powerful Android smartphone.

According to research from The Guardian, London-based law firm ACS:Law keeps about 40 percent of the copyright infringement fines paid as settlements by alleged pirates. Out of a typical letter demanding a £300 settlement from an Internet user accused of sharing files illegally, ACS:Law would expect to pocket about $120, while the rights holder of the content in question could expect between £60 and £90.

About 10 percent of the settlement fee is paid to the company that retrieved the IP address of the alleged copyright infringer. Internet service providers can expect as much as 15 percent of the fee to cover the costs of retrieving and sending subscribers personal information following a court order.

Germany-based record label, Zooland Records, which owns the copyright to Cascada's Evacuate the Dancefloor single (often the track alleged to have been shared illegally in ACS:law complaints), would not give a comment to The Guardian, with a spokesman saying the company was instructed not to talk about or ACS:Law by bosses.

Other reports have shown that ACS:Law can expect to pocket even more of the sums paid by those accused of downloading and sharing adult entertainment content illegally. Last week's data leak implicated 5,000 UK broadband users as having downloaded or uploaded pornography.

Motorola has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) claiming that Apple's "i" devices infringe on their patents.

Additionally, Motorola says a few Mac computers also infringe on the patents.

The three complaints include 18 patents, all of which relate to "early-stage innovations developed by Motorola in key technology areas found on many of Apple's core products and associated services, including MobileMe and the App Store."

Patents are related to "wireless communication technologies, such as WCDMA (3G), GPRS, 802.11 and antenna design, and key smartphone technologies including wireless email, proximity sensing, software application management, location-based services and multi-device synchronization."

Motorola is asking for a block on imports of all infringing Apple products.

Says Kirk Dailey, corporate vice president of intellectual property at Motorola Mobility: "Motorola has innovated and patented throughout every cycle of the telecommunications industry evolution, from Motorola's invention of the cell phone to its development of premier smartphone products. We have extensively licensed our industry-leading intellectual property portfolio, consisting of tens of thousands of patents in the U.S. and worldwide. After Apple's late entry into the telecommunications market, we engaged in lengthy negotiations, but Apple has refused to take a license. We had no choice but to file these complaints to halt Apple's continued infringement. Motorola will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its R&D and intellectual property, which are critical to the company's business."

According to a new WSJ article, Apple is all set to begin manufacturing a CDMA iPhone, one that will be available on the carrier by the Q1 2011.

The phone will be identical to the current iPhone 4 sold via AT&T and other carriers internationally, except using CDMA instead of GSM.

In the United States, Apple has had an exclusive agreement with AT&T since the original iPhone's launch in 2007.

Furthermore, the article cites sources who say Apple is already developing the iPhone 5, one that will "be a different form factor from those that are currently available."

That vague sentence leaves a lot up to interpretation as Apple has never hinted about adding a physical keypad to the device or of significantly changing the form factor.

Verizon, Apple and Qualcomm (the maker of the CDMA chip) have all declined comment.

At an industry conference in Barcelona on Wednesday, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chief executive Dirk Meyer revealed that the company is not officially up for sale. "AMD is not for sale, but we are happy to listen to any proposal which is in the interest to our shareholders," Meyer said.

The comments came in response to a question about Oracle's plans to increase its interests in the space. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said that the company is keen to make acquisitions and that a microchip company would be an ideal buy.

AMD is the world's second largest manufacturer of x86 architecture-based microprocessors, behind Intel Corp. The company is likely to encounter increasing opposition from ARM microprocessors that are predominant in tablets, smartphones and other portable devices.

"I don't really view ARM as a threat," Meyer said. He said he still sees major growth opportunities in the industry. AMD has been hurt by weak demand for new personal computers in recent times, but Meyer said the company was working to reclaim market share it has lost to Intel in the area with a new line of "Fusion" chips, combining graphics and computing power.

HTC, the world's fourth biggest smartphone maker has reported strong quarterly earnings today thanks to strong sales of phones using the Android operating system.

Net profit for the Q3 was 11.1 billion New Taiwan Dollars (about $360 million USD), up from 5.695 billion NTD in the same period last year.

The company was expected to have an 8.7 billion NTD profit.

Adds one analyst: "Investors are comfortable with HTC's status in the Android market. HTC will keep a stable position, even if it is not a leader in the sector."

HTC has created a number of new Android-powered smartphones this year and will release a Windows Phone 7 device later this month.

Sales have jumped to 75.85 billion NTD in the quarter from 33.81 billion a year earlier.

Intel Corp. is developing a tool that will aid in the conversion of applications written for ARM microprocessor architecture into applications that can be run using Intel chips. The tool would serve to help port iPhone and other ARM-based applications to smartphones, tablets and other devices running Intel Atom and other processors.

Since most smartphones and tablets currently available run on ARM-based processors, developers have churned out thousands upon thousands of applications for the architecture. Intel is hoping to push its Atom line of processors into more portable devices, despite entering the space quite late.

"Getting people excited to develop to Intel platforms is absolutely critical to us," said Doug Fisher, VP of Intel's Software and Services group. Making it easy for developers to port ARM-based applications to Intel architecture could dramatically increase the software available for Intel devices quickly, and thus push up demand.

"We'll get [applications on] AppUp, then Meego and I imagine Windows," Fisher said. "It's basically taking the existing applications, finding the ones that are most relevant to end users, and ensuring they get pulled over."

Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the U.S., has confirmed that they will be reducing supply of available DVDs starting this holiday season, giving most of that shelf space over to Blu-ray, netbooks and tablets.

The retailer has already scaled back most of its DVD selection to new films and classics, but expect more cutbacks.

DVD rental market leader Netflix continues to move toward streaming, following an overall industry trend, striking deals worth over a billion dollars with Epix, Starz and Relativity.

Of course, DVDs are still big business so no one should expect the discs to disappear anytime soon.

However, with mainstream Blu-ray player prices falling under $100, and new Blu-ray discs falling under $20 at launch already, the format should likely push DVD completely out within years, as the HDTV market continues towards saturation.

Panasonic has showed off the Jungle portable console this week, a handheld designed for online gaming and MMORPGs.

The Jungle aims to differentiate itself from the more popular Nintendo and Sony handhelds by adding a full QWERTY keypad, a touchpad, a D-Pad, and shoulder buttons.

Although it is unconfirmed, the Jungle supposedly runs a Linux OS, has 3G and Wi-Fi support, and has an HDMI-out port.

If the console does run on Linux, it means most of the MMORPGs will need to be ported, already putting the system at a disadvantage.

We will keep you updated on any developments, including price.

BT is seeking a moratorium on requests for personal information of alleged pirates that subscribe to its Internet services. The telecommunications giant's move comes after thousands of customers from its PlusNet services, along with those of other ISPs, had their personal information leaked online from London law firm ACS:Law.

BT wants a temporary halt on all new and existing applications for subscriber information until a test case can be heard. The test case was originally scheduled to be heard today, but was adjourned until January 11, 2011. "This will be a test case for ISPs," a legal representative of BT told BBC News.

The case involves law firm Gallant Macmillan, representing record label Ministry of Sound. The law firm is seeking a court order to obtain the personal information of PlusNet, BSkyB and Be Internet subscribers. BT lawyers requested the adjournment, saying the firm wanted details of the security system that would be used to store information that is handed over.

Just last week, BT was criticized after the personal details of 500 customers were sent to ACS:Law in an unencrypted document, possibly putting BT in breach of the Data Protection Act.

Skype has released the long-anticipated Android version of their software today, making the app free in the Android Market.

Smartphone owners running Android 2.1 or 2.2 can use the app.

Skype for Android allows consumers to make free Skype-to-Skype calls over Wi-Fi in the US, or over 3G and EDGE in Europe.

Furthermore, users can make cheap calls to landlines and mobile phones.

Finally, Skype contacts are easily synced with a user's phone contacts, and instant messaging is also included.

Skype for Android is supported on the Samsung Fascinate, the Motorola DROID 2, the Motorola DROID X, the HTC DROID Incredible, the LG Ally, the Motorola Devour, the Motorola DROID and the HTC DROID ERIS.

Samsung Electronics America Inc. has unveiled the new SyncMaster P2770FH monitor which offers an unprecedented 1 ms response time to eliminate motion blur and ghosting effects. "The new P2770FH is a prime example of Samsung's leadership in display engineering, and creative professionals and computer gamers seeking the best possible viewing experience will immediately appreciate its benefits," said Young Bae, director of display marketing at Samsung Enterprise Business Division.

"With the fastest response time among the product line, the P2770FH offers industry-leading quality for premium visual performance in everyday personal and professional use."

Some key specs of the SyncMaster P2770FH:

• Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 1ms response time
• 70,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
• Viewing angle: 170°/160°
• Input:
  • HDMI
  • Standard VGA
  • DVI-I
• Audio:
  • Audio Out
  • Optical Audio Out
• Dimensions: 26 x 19 x 9.6 inches
• Weight: 6.7 lbs.

Acer America has debuted its new Aspire One AOD255, featuring a dual-core processor in an ultra-thin design for enhanced mobile performance. Featuring the latest Intel dual-core technology for netbooks, the Acer Aspire One AOD255 includes the new Intel Atom N550 processor. A cheaper AOD255 model features a single core Intel Atom N450 processor.

"We have enhanced our best-selling Aspire One netbook line with the improved performance and better power efficiency to improve the mobile computing experience for consumers" said Pete Dailey, senior product marketing manager for netbooks. "With the new Aspire One AOD255, users are able to multitask, explore the Internet, connect with friends, and enjoy entertainment applications, without worrying about battery life or being tethered to an electrical outlet."

The AOD255 features a 10.1-inch CrystalBite LED-backlit display that saves 22.2 percent power compared with other netbook displays. An integrated Intel graphics chipset drives the display, while the netbook features 802.11 b/g/n fast WiFi connectivity.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has begun to quietly sell personal computers that contain microprocessors based on the code-named Zosma design from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), featuring TurboCore technology.

The quad-core chips are the first from AMD to feature the TurboCore technology, which can speed up two of the four cores by about 300-500MHz for single thread performance.

The HP Pavilion Slimline s5660f and HP Pavilion Elite HPE-400z feature the AMD Phenom II X4 840T and AMD Phenom II X4 960T respectively, according to CPU-World.

The chips are compatible with AM3 motherboards, featuring 2MB of L2 cache and 6MB of L3 cache. Each feature dual-channel DDR3 memory controllers.

According to new data from Bernstein Research, the Apple iPad has the fastest adoption rate of any non-phone electronics device, ever.

iPads are selling at a rate of 4.5 million units per quarter, handily beating the iPhone and the DVD player, which sold at a rate of under 1 million per quarter when first released.

"The iPad did not seem destined to be a runaway product success straight out of the box. By any account, the iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion," said Colin McGranahan, an analyst for Bernstein.

If this current rate continues, the iPad will help tablets become the fourth largest consumer electronics category in the United States, with an estimated $9 billion in sales.

The top categories are TVs, smartphones and notebooks.

"It is the rare American household that would spend $600-plus dollars on an iPad and buy a TV or a PC or a digital camera in the same month, or the same quarter, or maybe even the same year," added McGranahan.