News archive (2 / 2011)

New York Senator Charles Schumer has called on America's largest sites to make the HTTPS protocol the default for their sites in an effort to prevent ID theft when users hop on public Wi-Fi at places like Starbucks and McDonalds.

The Senator says the growth of public Wi-Fi spots is making it easier for hackers to steal info like credit card numbers and passwords for banking institutions.

Says Schumer (via Reuters):

The number of people who use WiFi to access the Internet in coffee shops, bookstores and beyond is growing by leaps and bounds.

The quickest and easiest way to shut down this one-stop shop for identity theft is for major Web sites to switch to secure HTTPS web addresses instead of the less secure HTTP protocol.

AT&T has announced this morning that it will begin selling the Amazon Kindle 3G in stores in the U.S., beginning on March 6th.

The device can connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi, as well as AT&T's nationwide 3G network.

AT&T will include the device in its "connected devices displays" throughout the store, allowing would-be buyers to test out the e-reader.

Says the carrier:

Amazon has without question pioneered the eReader space with Kindle, and it's exciting to not only connect this device through our network, but now offer it in our stores to readers around the country. As the first dedicated eReader offered in our stores, we are confident the Kindle will be an attractive addition to our in store connected devices lineup.

JPMorgan Securities has noted today that it expects the tablet market to grow into a $35 billion behemoth in 2012, taking a significant share from the PC market.

Furthermore, the increase in competition will lead to a steep price drop in prices, for both tablets and PCs.

Growth will be spurred by educational and enterprise customers and the continued improvement of tablet operating systems, like Android 3.0, iOS, WebOS and eventually Windows.

Says one JPM analyst:

We expect tablets to have an increasingly negative impact on PC shipments. More than 35 percent of tablets sold in 2012 will be cannibalistic, particularly as relates to netbooks and notebooks.

According to Grandtheft5, Rockstar Games may be set to announce Grand Theft Auto V in the very near future, three years after the blockbuster release of GTA IV.

Take-Two, the developer behind Rockstar, has purchased five domains names already, just like it did prior to GTA IV, to house its fake websites seen during gameplay.

The domains are:

CashForDeadDreams.com
SixFigureTemps.com
StopPayingYourMortgage.net
HammersteinFaust.com
LifeInvader

A new music startup, ReDigi, has opened in beta, offering the first digital marketplace to buy and sell used digital music.

Short for "Recycled Digital Media," the company says it is fully legal and allows users to purchase digital music files from owners who already purchased them in the past.

The company says it has done "extensive research and have spent many hours with well respected law firms in Boston, NYC and LA" and believes the "marketplace will provide and protect the rights of consumers as they were provided for under US copyright act and the first sale doctrine."

ReDigi says it believes that just because a file has been digitized does not mean users should lose the right to re-sell their goods as if it were a physical object.

The new marketplace will as a forum for re-selling the digital tracks, first by verifying that the track was properly acquired and then "managing items selected for sale within the sellers music libraries to prevent multiple copies (protecting the seller from copyright infringement)." Finally, the company "facilitates an even greater level of copyright protection than the previous CD market."

HTC has confirmed that a number of their smartphones will finally receive the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update during the Q2, which starts in April and ends in June.

Says the company:

We are excited to announce that the Desire HD, Desire Z, Desire and Incredible S will receive the Gingerbread update in Q2.

HTC has announced their first Android 'world phone,' the Merge.

The slider CDMA phone will go on sale in the U.S. during the "spring," and will likely be available on Sprint and Verizon.

Featuring a 3.8-inch multi-touch display, HTC did not say what the resolution of the Merge will be.

For the QWWERTY slide-out, it is unclear whether the phone will feature a four or five row keyboard.

As standard for other HTC smartphones, the Merge will run on Android 2.2 Froyo, include a 5MP camera with autofocus and flash, GPS, Wi-Fi, 720p video and Microsoft Exchange. There doesn't look to be a front-side camera.

Says HTC (via PCM):

HTC prides itself on creating unique solutions that meet the needs of different customers, and with features like a full keyboard and global 3G roaming, the HTC Merge smartphone is the perfect example of this commitment. Combining the functionality of Android with the HTC Sense experience, the HTC Merge is the perfect device for those customers who are looking for a reliable mobile experience with the features and functionality of a smartphone, whether it's at home or travelling around the world.

Google is actively looking to begin an unlimited streaming subscription service, one that will rival Netflix and Amazon, and may launch it first in the UK.

The search giant has been in talks with the major studios for months but may begin in Europe first where there is much less competition.

Netflix does not currently offer services in Europe but Amazon, following their purchase of LoveFilm last month, has a strong foothold.

For now, Google has put aside $100 million for content deals with the studios.

The NYPost says the plan is being lead by executive Robert Kyncl, who left Netflix last September.

The Chicago Sun-Times posted a remarkable blurb this week, one in which a man from Naperville, Illinois was conned out of $200,000 by his "online girlfriend."

Last week, the 48-year old man called Naperville police because he believed his girlfriend had been kidnapped somewhere around London.

In explaining the situation, the man told police that he started the online relationship 2.5 years ago, and over the course of the relationship he wired over $200,000 to the woman's bank accounts.

The bank accounts were in England, the U.S., Malaysia, and you guessed it, Nigeria.

When the police asked for any pictures or ID to help them find her, the copy of a driver's license he produced turned out to be a sample ID from Florida.

When officers told him he had been conned and his girlfriend did not really exist he "was in disbelief."

Oodle, the company behind the popular Facebook app Marketplace has released a study this week, one that shows Craigslist is really a "a cesspool of crime."

The report links Craigslist to 330 crimes and 12 deaths in the U.S. in 2010, and a total of 20 deaths since the classified's launch in 1995.

After Oodle released the study, Craigslist CEO went ballistic on the report, slamming it, and with good reason.

The study has the incredibly sensationalist title "Crime and Craigslist: A sad tale of murders and more" and starts like this:

"Craigslist: A site of murder and mayhem":

Sadly, Craigslist has become a cesspool of crime. Murders. Rapes. Robberies. Hitman-for-hire. Assault. Fraud. Rental rip-offs. Unfortunately, these are everyday occurrences involving people who use Craigslist to buy or sell, or for worse. And the old rules — "meet in public;" "always tell someone where you’re going;" "know who you’re dealing with" — often don’t work on Craigslist.

FileSoup admins ‘TheGeeker’ and ‘Snookered’ are now free, after the prosecution in their file-sharing case dropped the charges.

The site was founded in 2003 in the UK, and remains one of the longest standing torrent communities. With the decision, it is now the second time UK-based torrent site admins have walked free, following the case of OiNK owner Alan Ellis last year.

In 2009, UK authorities and the anti-piracy outfit Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) raided the homes of the admins, and both were eventually arrested.

The following summer, both were charged with conspiracy to infringe copyright.

Just like in the Ellis case, the evidence was collected only by FACT, with the police not carrying out any independent investigations. The solicitors for the new case were the same from the OiNK trial and they brought up the lack of independent investigation to the Court, which agreed with them on at least two issues.

TorrentFreak says those issues were "whether to prosecute FileSoup as a business or not and whether the copyright holder had caused prejudice."

Mozilla has introduced the latest (and possibly final) beta for Firefox 4, with beta 12 now available for download and testing.

Says the browser company (via ZD):

The latest Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta is now available to download and test. This release delivers improved performance and responsiveness when watching videos on your favorite video websites. We are in the final stages of the Firefox 4 Beta cycle. The team has fixed more than 7,000 bugs since the first beta release.

We are working closely with the community of add-on developers to ensure their Firefox Add-ons are ready to customize the features, look and functionality of Firefox 4 Beta. For more details on how to make your add-ons compatible with Firefox 4 Beta.

The Nintendo 3DS has barely been out for 24 hours in Japan and it has already been hacked to run flash carts like the infamous R4.

R4 cards allow gamers to run homebrew, play DS games, and even run older games, like those from the GameBoy Color.

Two hackers have posted their videos on YouTube, one showing a much older game (Zelda) being played back on the device with the other showing off the DS version of New Super Mario Bros. running from R4 cards.

It is important to note that while flash carts can apparently be used on the device already, 3DS-only games are still secure and have not been cracked, although there are likely teams out there already trying to do so, as with every new console.

The news is likely rough for Nintendo, which boasted of the 3DS' increased anti-piracy measures.

Daily deal giant Groupon saw its revenue top $760 million in 2010, according to an internal memo, growing from $33 million in 2009.

Notably, $285 million of the revenue came from overseas, where Groupon continues to expand to new nations.

The memo was sent from CEO Andrew Mason to staff earlier this year and Mason also says he expects the company to hit "billions" in revenue in 2011.

Said the CEO (via WSJ):

By this time next year, we will either be on our way to becoming one of the great technology brands that define our generation, or a cool idea by people who were out executed and out innovated by others that were smarter and harder working.

The two largest HDD makers, Seagate and Western Digital have confirmed today that they will support Intel's newly launched Thunderbolt interconnect technology.

Both will have drives available with the technology during 2011.

Says WD of the move:

Western Digital believes Thunderbolt technology will bring both new performance levels and simpler connectivity for consumers to access and enjoy their digital media in new and innovative ways.

Seagate will support Thunderbolt with our external GoFlex drives with in calendar year 2011.

Last week, popular European streaming music company Spotify announced it had signed a deal with EMI, following a licensing deal it signed with Sony Music in 2010.

Today, new sources close to the talks say the company is "a few weeks away" from netting a deal with Universal Music Group (UMG), the largest label in the world.

The same sources say that Spotify may have to launch with just UMG, EMI and Sony, however, because all talks with Warner Music Group have gone nowhere. Warner is the third largest label in the world.

Investors recently valued Spotify at $1 billion, even though it has had to delay its American launch for almost a year. The platform is hugely popular in Europe, however, and is a mainstay on smartphones.

Universal and Warner executives have publicly expressed concerns that offering free, streaming music may "cannibalize" competing subscription packages like Rhapsody, and even hurt CD sales and individual digital sales, through services like iTunes and Amazon MP3.

On the 23rd, hacker "graf_chokolo" said his home was raided by local police, as well as a Sony representative.

Says graf via his own blog:

Guys, SONY was today at my home with police and got all my stuff and accounts. So be careful from now on.

You know guys, you will say i’m totally crazy now, but i never slept better than in the last 2 days I don’t know how to explain this feeling but i don’t care about those threats with jail and high money penalties, btw, SONY wants about 750.000 euros from me if i don’t cooperate They don’t know me at all I don’t care about it and they might double it The higher is the sum the higher gets my motivation They don’t understand what makes me tick. Money and even my life doesn’t mean to me very much without knowledge. I have a scientific mind and the knowledge is food to my brain. Without HV, Linux and FreeBSD kernel hacking my life is meaningless.

Sony has announced today that it is slashing the price of the PSP handheld to $130, a full $40 discount.

Additionally, PSP Entertainment Packs will sell for $160.

The price cut comes as PSP sales have continued to collapse, and on the heels of Sony's announcement of the next-generation NGP handheld, which will launch by the end of the year.

Sony's updated pricing goes into effect on February 27th.

The NGP adds dual micro-analog sticks, giving gamers a feature they begged for on the original PSP.

The device has a massive 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen with 960×544 resolution, a multi-touch panel on the back and will run on a quad-core ARM cortex processor.

Sony has added tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, standard and front-side cameras, GPS, an electric compass, Wi-Fi and 3G support, and access to Android gaming.

Money transfer company Xoom Corp. has filed a trademark lawsuit against Motorola today, claiming it has used the name "Xoom" actively since 2003, and has an incontestable trademark on the name.

Motorola just released the Xoom Android tablet, the first real competitor to the market leading iPad because it runs on the tablet-optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system.

Says the complaint (via Beta):

Through this long online use accessible via computer and mobile devices, Xoom's trade name and the XOOM products have become associated exclusively with Xoom. Until [the] Defendants' adoption of the Xoom brand without authorization from Xoom, Xoom to its knowledge was the only entity using the name or mark for online product offerings.

Team Pandaelf has released a video today showing off PS3 games playing on an iPhone using "EveryAir."

The group says the configuration will allow for PS3 gaming on all iOS devices, including the iPad.

For those with PSP handhelds, EveryAir is similar to Remote Play.

Here is the Q&A posted by the group:

Q: What’s the overall picture for how this works?
A: The trick is to connect a capture device and a USB mouse/keyboard device to the PS3. The capture device sends video data to the PC, and the USB keyboard/mouse sends the button presses. On the PC itself, you run a custom build of everyAir which understands custom gestures and pipes the input to the PC which then sends it to the PS3 via the input interpreter.

Q: What were some of the hurdles?
A: There are two problems to solve: sending the video signal to the iOS device and sending back input from the iOS device. Sending the video signal is solved by using an off the shelf capture device, and then sending back the input is a combination of a custom build of everyAir with an off the shelf mouse/keyboard device that connects to the PS3.

The official Android Developers' YouTube channel has posted a really well-done video this week that shows off how fast Android is being adopted.

In the video, which begins with Android's launch in late 2008, activations in geographic locations are shown off by flashing lights which consistently grow taller and taller.

Notable device launches like the Motorola Droid and the Samsung Galaxy S lead to spikes worldwide.

Google has said that over 300,000 Android devices are now activated, daily.

Guerrilla, the studio behind 'Killzone 3,' has said today that it is working with Sony to 'aggressively' monitor all hackers using jailbroken systems to cheat during gameplay.

Says producer Steven Ter Heide (via CVG):

The ability for one person to ruin people's games is not a good prospect obviously, so we're working with Sony on the moderation side.

We're looking at people misbehaving, being able to follow reports against those so that's all been taken care of - and we're working with Sony to see, even more aggressively, what kind of things are happening.

But at the same time we have to step up as developers and say, 'OK what are the holes in our game, what is the data, can we analyse that and see where the problems might be?'

We can look at the leaderboards and the stats that most people are playing with and say, 'This doesn't look right. Can we look into that and see what's happening?' That's the reality now, we have to keep patching the game to make sure we keep getting one over the hackers.

According to new data from ComScore, MySpace Music continues its slow death spiral, falling behind relative "newcomer" Pandora in traffic.

MySpace attracted 44.8 million unique visitors in the United States in January, down 36 percent year-over-year, with MySpace Music seeing 17 million unique visitors, down 46 percent in the same time frame.

Pandora, which continues to see strong growth, moved up to 20.3 million monthly unique visitors.

Furthermore, MySpace Music president Courtney Holt, after two years on the job.

Holt will "be moving from being the President of Myspace Music to becoming a key advisor to both Myspace and Newscorp. Courtney will provide guidance on the strategic direction of Myspace Music and lend his incredible depth of experience, industry expertise and creativity to Myspace and Myspace Music."

First reported by the relatively unknown blog EverythingHQ, Sony may be creating a new model of the PlayStation 3, one that is 'hack-proof.'

Citing "sources," the blog says the company is looking into creating a model of the console that cannot be hacked to run homebrew, Linux or pirated games, and will drop the price of current models.

Despite multiple custom firmwares being developed for the console (at least for those with firmware 3.55), the site says Sony began development on the 'hack-proof' PS3 after "Killzone 3" was leaked earlier this month.

As an added 'incentive' to purchase the new console, Sony will add a 300GB HDD, and sell the console for $300 USD.

Sony is currently in a legal battle against George 'Geohot' Hotz and other PS3 custom firmware writers, although the case may take months as Hotz has received significant donations from the community and plans to fight the suit.

Sprint has introduced its debut smartphone running on the Windows Phone 7 OS, the HTC Arrive, the first WP7 device with CDMA technology.

With the introduction, Verizon is now the only major American carrier without a WP7 device.

The Arrive will go on sale on March 20th for $200 with contract, although you will need to send in a rebate to get that price.

Featuring a 3.6-inch capacitive touch screen, the Arrive also has a full slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 16 GB of internal memory and a 5-megapixel camera with flash, autofocus, digital zoom and a 720p camcorder.

Sprint notes that the physical camera button will be able to take pictures even when the device is locked.

AVAST Software a.s. has released new versions of its popular set of anti-virus and security products.

Used by over 130 million users worldwide, Avast! Antivirus is one of the most trusted and recommended solutions for protecting against virus and spyware infections. Using the Free version of the software does not put you at any great disadvantage compared to the Pro version, which is not something you can say for a lot of free anti-virus suites that have paid equivalents.

Using the free version does require you to register the program using a valid e-mail address, but this only takes a minute and you have 30 days to stop procrastinating and do it.

Time and time again, Avast! has been recognized for its effectiveness at protecting systems. In 2008, AV Comparatives awarded the software an "Advanced" rating for its performance, and awarded it an "Advanced+" rating in 2009. In 2010, Avast! claimed the VB100 award from Virus Bulletin for, amongst other accomplishments, detecting 100 percent of in-the-wild virus samples it was exposed to.

AVAST Software may have gotten something of an ego-boost in November 2010. During an episode of WWE NXT in Manchester, England, an announcement that the "virus database has been updated" is audible over the PSA Announce system, prompting speculation that World Wrestling Entertainment uses Avast! products to protect its systems during broadcasts.

Blockbuster has said this week that they have signed a $290 million deal that will sell the chain to a group of investors which will take it out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The offer comes from Cobalt Video Holdco LLC, which consists of funds Monarch Alternative Capital LP, Owl Creek Asset Management LP, Stonehill Capital Management LLC and Varde Partners Inc.

Each of the funds hold secured Blockbuster debt.

While the deal needs approval from the federal judge overseeing the bankruptcy it is expected to receive the necessary approval soon. From there, other bidders have 30 days to place bids. If any other group does, the company would go up for auction.

CEO Jim Keyes added (via Y!):

An auction will allow for the consolidation of ownership of the company to those with a clear and focused vision for Blockbuster's future.

Google has released the full Android 3.0 Honeycomb SDK this week, giving developers the proper API and tools to create apps for the tablet platform.

Additionally, Google updated their latest smartphone version of Android, Ginergerbread, to version 2.3.3.

Late last month, Google introduced a "preview" version of Honeycomb but Yahoo says the full SDK includes "the ADT plug-in, a new app palette with categories and rendering previews, a more accurate rendering of device-specific layouts, selection-sensitive action bars to manipulate View properties, improvements to zoom, and improved support to merge layouts and create layouts with gesture overlays."

The first tablet with Honeycomb is the upcoming Motorola Xoom, which will be launched next week.

Google says the first two devices to get 2.3.3 (they are pretty much the only devices with 2.3 anyways) are the Nexus One and Nexus S.

2.3.3 adds the "ability to write NFC tags in addition to reading them, better speech recognition, and API support for Bluetooth over a nonsecure socket connection."

HP shares have fallen as much as 12 percent today following a lackluster quarterly earnings report yesterday, and a weak forecast for 2011.

The company blamed its revenue downgrade on a "weak consumer personal consumer market" and slowing growth in its information technology services business.

However, corporate hardware business was a strong winner, said the company.

New CEO Leo Apotheker has planned a March meeting with analysts and stock holders in which he will unveil the company's long-term vision, moving it out of its current "transitional" stage.

Overall, HP reported Q1 profit of $2.6 billion on revenue of $32.3 billion. For the Q2, however, the company predicts revenue of $31.5 billion, much lower than the anticipated $32.6 billion average of analysts following the stock.

For the full year 2011, the company expects revenue of $131 billion, lower than the anticipated revenue of $133 billion.

According to the WSJ, social gaming giant Zynga made $400 million profit on just $850 million revenue in 2010, good for an astonishing 47 percent profit margin.

BI shows off a number of comparisons, and it appears that Zynga may actually be the most profitable company, ever.

In the tech sector, Google, Apple and Facebook all have near 30 percent margins, which are massive, and other behemoths like Amazon and Salesforce have margins closer to 5 percent.

Luxury brands like Hermes have a 30 percent margin, and although unconfirmed, Chanel is said to be the most profitable company in Europe, with a 45 percent profit margin.

Zynga pays Facebook fees for advertising and pays out 30 percent from its virtual goods sales but otherwise has little operating expenses.

The company has hits such as FarmVille, MafiaWars, CityVille and ZyngaPoker, all of which have tens of millions of users.

Microsoft is making headlines this week after their recent Windows Phone 7 update has bricked some user's handsets and caused crashes on others.

The official Windows Phone 7 Troubleshooting Guide has a list of 19 possible error codes, and the final repair is simply a rollback to the more stable firmware.

While a small portion of users had their phones completely bricked by the update, most had lighter issues, such as the update failing.

LG Optimus 7 and Samsung Omnia 7 owners saw the highest proportion of bricked devices.

For now, Microsoft is asking users to not try the update for 72 hours, while it investigates and fixes.

To make matters even worse, the update doesn't bring the promised copy and paste feature, which Microsoft says is coming next month.

Apple has begun sending out invites for an iPad 2 launch event on March 2nd, confirming recent rumors.

The event will be at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts at 10:00 am, the same venue used for multiple launches in the past few years.

It is unclear what will be upgraded for the iPad 2, but most reports have the tablet adding a dual-core CPU, updated GPU, dual cameras and a slimmer form factor.

The invite teases "Come see what 2011 will be the year of," although arguably 2010 was the year of the iPad, with the tablet crushing all sales estimates on route to 15 million units sold. Apple is expected to sell 40 million iPad/iPad 2 units this year even as it faces increased competition from Android, WebOS and BlackBerry tablets, all of which will make their true debuts this year.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball subtly noted last month that Apple may be moving to a 6-month release schedule for their popular iPad tablet, meaning the iPad 3 could be ready by the end of the year, as well.

Google is currently in talks with the NBA and NHL in an effort to bring live game streaming to YouTube.

The move follows the strong success of live streaming cricket’s Indian Premier League.

Gautam Anand, Google’s director of content partnerships for Asia Pacific says YouTube is aiming for more live sports and is in talks with "most pro sports leagues," including soccer in Europe.

Anand says last year's ndian Premier League experiment brought in 55 million unique visits from 250 countries.

Says the director:

It’s fair to say that there will be a lot more appealing sports content you’ll see on YouTube. We have ongoing conversations with pretty much everyone.

Microsoft has begun offering Windows 7 Service Pack 1 via Windows Update today, as promised earlier in the month.

The 32-bit version of SP1 is around 755MB and the 64-bit edition comes in at around 1GB.

Says Microsoft:

Starting today, Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will be available to everyone via the Microsoft Download Center and [will] start rolling out via Windows Update.

Adobe has blogged this week that Flash will be hitting tablets running Android 3.0 Honeycomb within weeks, great news for any early adopters of the Motorola Xoom, the first device to use the mobile operating system.

Honeycomb is the first version of the Android operating system that is optimized for tablets, and the mobile OS features a complete overhaul from previous versions, all of which were created for smartphones.

Says Adobe:

Adobe will offer Flash Player 10.2 pre-installed on some tablets and as an OTA download on others within a few weeks of Android 3 (Honeycomb) devices becoming available, the first of which is expected to be the Motorola Xoom.We are excited about the progress we’ve made optimizing Flash for tablets, alongside partners including Motorola, and expect our momentum to continue.

As we announced last week, over 20 million smartphones were shipped or upgraded with Flash Player in 2010 and over 150,000 consumers on the Android Market are rating it 4.5 out of 5 stars. We have raised our estimates for 2011 and expect to see Flash installed on over 132 million devices by the end of this year. Consumers are clearly asking for Flash support on tablet devices and the good news is that they won’t have to wait long. We are aware of over 50 tablets that will ship in 2011 supporting a full web experience (including Flash support) and Xoom users will be among the first to enjoy this benefit.

Over the last month, a number of gaming industry analysts have predicted that the Sony PlayStation 3 will "soon pass" the Microsoft Xbox 360 in global sales, and hold that place for good.

Sony, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care too much about passing its rival in sales, and cares more about the profitability of its console.

PlayStation software senior brand manager Scott McCarthy spoke to BI:

We obviously are very bullish on our platform. We do feel like we have a great message with Move... and we feel we have the strongest lineup we've ever had coming this year. PS3 has superior technology inside the box, and this is going to be the year where we make a lot of noise based on the exclusive titles you're going to be able to play.

Those things together will give us a voice. We gained a lot of momentum with the 'It Only Does Everything' message, and that was a great hardware message, but this year we're going to follow it up with another punch that is an 'Only on PlayStation' message. You know, LittleBigPlanet 2 led us off; then we've got Killzone 3, SOCOM, Infamous 2, Twisted Metal, Uncharted, Resistance... the list goes on. And that's excluding Move specific software. For the gamer there's a lot to look forward to, and for the Move consumer there's also a lot to look forward to.

Lenovo has unveiled six new Intel Sandy Bridge ThinkPad notebooks this week, some of which feature an incredible 30 hours of battery life, along with Dolby Home Theater v4, Nvidia Optimus graphic switching, and 'Instant Resume' for continuous wireless connectivity, says Beta.

The six models are the high-end T420 and T520, the mid-range L420 and L520, the ultrathin T420S, and the portable workstation for graphics-intensive applications, the W520.

All of the models will include a dual-mode videoconferencing microphone and 'Lenovo Turbo Boost' for faster PC performance.

Instant Resume was unveiled today along with the devices, a feature that will keep the Wi-Fi connection on for 99 minutes when the laptop is sleeping. The feature is meant for office users who want to move from an office to, say, a conference room, without losing their Wi-Fi connection after closing their notebook.

Confirming previously unconfirmed lists, Nintendo has revealed all 18 launch titles for the upcoming 3DS handheld.

The device hits Japan this week and the U.S. on March 27th.

Says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime:

Seeing 3D visuals without the need for special glasses is just one aspect of Nintendo 3DS. The real test of any system is whether the games and applications draw you in and keep you engaged. Through the launch window and beyond, Nintendo 3DS delivers.

- Pilotwings Resort
- Steel Diver
- nintendogs + cats

- Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition from CAPCOM
- The Sims 3 from EA
- Madden NFL Football from EA SPORTS
- Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D from Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
- LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars from LucasArts
- RIDGE RACER 3D from NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.
- Super Monkey Ball 3D from SEGA
- BUST-A-MOVE UNIVERSE from Square-Enix, Inc.
- SAMURAI WARRIORS: Chronicles from TECMO KOEI AMERICA Corp.
- Asphalt 3D from UBISOFT
- Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D from UBISOFT
- Rayman 3D from UBISOFT
- Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars from UBISOFT

Netflix and CBS have signed a non-exclusive, two-year licensing agreement that will give Netflix subscribers a chance to view older and some newer CBS content via the Watch Instantly streaming service.

For the "classic" library, CBS is making Frasier, Family Ties, Star Trek, the original Hawaii Five-O, Twin Peaks and The Twilight Zone available.

In the current content, Medium and Flashpoint are now available to Netflix users.

Says Scott Koondel, president of distribution, CBS Television Distribution (via THR):

We are very pleased that the titles offered through this deal will now also be made available to a whole new community through the terrific and convenient service that Netflix offers. We will continue to pursue additional non-exclusive distribution partners that are additive to our overall business.

Netflix is now the only online premium subscription service with shows featured on all four broadcast networks and dozens of cable TV's biggest brands.

Despite a rumor circulating this week that the iPad 2 will be delayed until June, new sources say Apple will actually launch the updated tablet next week, March 2nd.

Following their release of the original iPad in April 2010, the iPad 2 will hit stores around the same time this year.

Apple will hold a special event on the 2nd to show off the new device, adds the source.

The initial rumor of a delay came via Taiwan, where a brokerage firm said manufacturer Hon Hai was facing production bottlenecks.

2010 was the year of the iPad, with the tablet crushing all sales estimates on route to 15 million units sold. Apple is expected to sell 40 million iPad/iPad 2 units this year even as it faces increased competition from Android, WebOS and BlackBerry tablets, all of which will make their true debuts this year.

The rumored iPad 2 will include dual-cameras, a dual-core processor, better resolution, and have a slimmer form factor.

Apple, Amazon and other digital music retailers are currently in talks with the major record labels in an effort to improve the audio quality of music files they sell via iTunes, Amazon MP3 and other similar stores.

Current offerings are 16-bit files, downgraded from the 24-bit high-fidelity formats they original come in as pressed CDs.

After that, the audio is compressed even further, into MP3 or AAC at 256kbps (usually), in an effort to minimize download time and the amount of space a track will take up on an end user's hard drive.

Jimmy Iovine, the chairman of Universal Music Group's Interscope-Geffen-A&M record label, seemed very gung-ho about the change back to high quality audio (via CNN):

We've gone back now at Universal, and we're changing our pipes to 24 bit. And Apple has been great. We're working with them and other digital services -- download services -- to change to 24 bit. And some of their electronic devices are going to be changed as well. So we have a long road ahead of us.

Amazon has rolled out their much-anticipated streaming movie/TV platform today, taking direct aim at rival Netflix.

The service is free to any Amazon Prime member, a service which costs $79 per year (or free for students) and gets you free two-day shipping or highly discounted one-day shipping.

As of launch, the service has 5000 TV shows and movies, and can be streamed through the computer or one of 200 Internet-connected media devices, like Roku.

Netflix seemed unmoved by Amazon's service (via Yahoo):

We've have said for a long time that we expect someone to compete with Netflix. When you have a big growing category it attracts competition.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has said this week that smartphones running Windows Phone 7 will see their prices fall "very fast."

Microsoft and Nokia recently made a deal to have WP7 available on Nokia smartphones into the future and a key point in Nokia picking Microsoft was that they could bring prices down to "a very low price point."

Elop says: "We have become convinced that we can do that very quickly."

Microsoft will open its platform to other chipsets suppliers outside of Qualcomm, which should help reduce prices.

As a sign of support, Elop (a former Microsoft exec) sold all of his remaining Microsoft shares and used the proceeds to buy 150,000 shares of Nokia.

The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), a trade body, has said this week that PC piracy continues to decline, thanks mainly to the industry's move towards digital distribution.

Says PCGA president Matt Ployhar (via Bit):

What's really interesting is piracy was largely, historically rampant when you had an optical drive or a piece of physical media. And people would go and download the crack for it.

The only PC gaming business models that existed and continued to thrive and that could continue to live were MMOs. They did really well. And then there are free to play games. You can't really pirate free to play. You can but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

So, what's happening is game design is shifting and as a result of shifting game design, piracy, at least on the PC side, is actually declining as a result. There are stats that do corroborate that.

I'm not saying that piracy is going to go away. It's fascinating to watch. For example, you get a game like Crysis that got hit hard by piracy. Now what you're seeing to combat that are developers implementing achievements, in-game pets, all of these things that are tracked and stored in the cloud. So even if you pirate the game you're still not getting the bragging rights. You've got all these additional mechanisms where the value proposition of the game, where if you pirate it, it's just not going to be as fun.

Infamous hacker George "Geohot" Hotz has asked the world for donations today, in an effort to pay for a legal team to fight against Sony's lawsuit against him.

The company sued Hotz last month after the hacker used a master signing key to create a custom firmware for the PlayStation 3 that can run homebrew.

I will post the entire post here, which Hotz wrote this morning and has since updated to thank donators who have apparently already given enough to pay for his legal team.

Media, I need your help. This is the first time I have ever asked. Please, if you support this cause, help me out and spread the word.I want, by the time this goes to trial, to have Sony facing some of the hardest hitting lawyers in the business.Together, we can help fix the system. Donations here are for legal defense ONLY.

Sony are bullies
Sony doesn't care if what you did was legal, if they don't like it, they sue. Sony tried to sue a guy for getting his AIBO to do non Sony approved tricks, making it apparent that they don't really care about piracy, they care about control. In (Sony v Bleem), Bleem was the winner on all counts, but the high cost of a legal defense shut them down. Fortunately, that suit helped set precedent on the legality of emulators. I would hate to lose this case due to resource starvation, and with the support of the masses, I won't. Lets turn the bully back on itself. This case has the ability to set a huge precedent for consoles and all closed systems to come. The other two should be begging Sony to back off.

Sony has unveiled two new OLED TVs this week, the largest commercially available to date.

Adding the TVs to the Trimaster EL line, the new 17 and 25-inch OLED TVs will join the original commercial OLED display, Sony's 11-inch version.

OLED TVs offer the best power-efficiency, the deepest blacks, the richest colors, and the thinnest designs.

The latest displays are the first with RGB 10-bit drivers and the standard luminance is 100 cd/m2.

Says Sony (via Tom's):

These new monitors are the next step in professional displays, providing end users with extremely high picture quality. This is breakthrough technology for applications where visual performance and accuracy are paramount, offering an unbeatable combination of image reproduction, color accuracy, reliability and stability.

According to new data from research firm IHS, the Android Market saw revenue grow by 861.5 percent year-over-year (YoY) from 2009 to 2010, although the actual dollar figures are tiny compared to all the other major app stores.

Revenue grew from $11 million in 2009 to $102 million in 2010.

By comparison, the Apple App Store saw 131.9 percent growth YoY, jumping to $1.7 billion.

More surprisingly, the BlackBerry App World had revenue of $165 million, and the Nokia Ovi store saw revenue of $105 million, both larger than Android despite a much smaller selection of available apps.

Google says there are 300,000 Android phones activated daily.

Gamal Ibrahim, an Egyptian citizen, has named his newborn daughter "Facebook," following the social media's part in bringing about the recent revolution.

Ibrahim says he gave his daughter the name "to express his joy at the achievements made by the January 25 youth."

Many of the youths in the nation used Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks to organize the protests, which began on January 25th and eventually led to the end of President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign.

"The girl's family, friends and neighbors in the Ibrahimya region gathered around the new born to express their continuing support for the revolution that started on Facebook. 'Facebook' received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name," adds the Egyptian paper who broke the story.

Hotfile has begun taking a harsh stance on copyright infringement, says TF, with the cyberlocker deleting premium accounts, along with all the files in them.

Furthermore, the company is not paying out money earned in the site's rewards program.

The MPAA recently filed a lawsuit against Hotfile and its owner, claiming that "in less than two years, Hotfile has become one of the 100 most trafficked sites in the world. That is a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes."

This week, hundreds of account holders are reporting that their paid-up premium accounts have been deleted, along with all their uploaded files. Many had been uploading movies and TV shows and were being paid weekly by the rewards program, using piracy as a means of income.

One account holder says he has not been paid on the $1000 Hotfile owes him for uploads.

Says Hotfile of the matter:

Recently, we have become concerned that despite these policies, some users persist in attempting to use Hotfile.com to share materials to which they do not have the necessary rights. Therefore, we have implemented a more aggressive policy of terminating the accounts of users who are the subject of repeated complaints of infringement.

Microsoft has confirmed this weekend that the Zune HD is now available in Canada, years after its launch in the United States.

However, the Zune Music Marketplace is not available as a choice, yet, even though the video store is available.

It is unclear when the licensing issues will be corrected.

Available via Zune Originals, the 16GB model is $170 and the 32GB version is $200.

Canada is now the second country to get the Zune HD, as Microsoft has moved most of its development towards Windows Phone 7.

T-Mobile has announced that the anticipated Samsung Galaxy S 4G will be hitting retail shelves next week, on February 23rd.

The smartphone will be priced at $200 with contract, and after a $50 rebate.

Featuring a 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen with 480x800, Android 2.2, a 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor and dual cameras, the smartphone is mainly notable because it adds a HSPA+ 4G modem, capable of 21 Mbps downstream.

The device also comes with Mobile HD TV, Samsung Media Hub and T-Mobile Video chat powered by Qik.

T-Mobile says the $150 pricing offered last week by Radio Shack was actually a mistake and that price will not be honored.

Speedtest.net has posted the results of its nationwide speed test, and it is clear that the iPhone gets faster Internet via AT&T's 3G as compared to via Verizon's.

The Ookla SpeedTest app is available in the App Store, and the results of the test come from 43,000 AT&T and 14,000 Verizon users running the app.

On average, the AT&T iPhone down speed was 1769 Kbps with 730 Kbps up speed. The Verizon iPhone saw much slower speeds, averaging 848 Kbps down and 506 Kbps up.

Most of the users ran the test multiple times during the study period, leading to a total of 155,000 test results.

A number of users did mention that the speed test never failed on Verizon, while AT&T had a significant amount of failed tests due to a dropped connection.

The NPD Group has released its latest figures on the gaming industry, which continues its multi-year slump.

For January, overall industry sales dropped 4 percent year-over-year (YoY).

Despite strong sales from the Microsoft Kinect and Sony Move motion control systems, sales fell to $1.14 billion from $1.18 billion in 2010.

Hardware was the major lagging factor, down 8 percent from $354 million to $324 million while software fell 5 percent to $576 million. Video game accessories rose 6 percent to finish at $235 million.

Microsoft saw strong growth YoY, up 14.4 percent to 332,800 units. Half of the consoles sold were bundled with Kinect.

Nintendo got crushed, with Wii sales down 31.5 percent to 319,000 sold.

The PlayStation 3 saw a slight hit, as well, falling from 276,900 consoles sold last year to 267,000 in 2011.

AT&T is likely to add Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi as on option for iPhone users when iOS 4.3 hits, following in Verizon's footsteps.

Personal Hotspot gives users a chance to share their iPhone's 3G connection as a Wi-Fi access point for other devices. Apple added support for the option in iOS 4.2.6.

Verizon charges $20 per month for Wi-Fi tethering, and AT&T will likely offer a similar deal.

The move is reminiscent of when Apple added MMS support and Bluetooth tethering to iOS 3.0, but AT&T restricted the features for months.

Nine months after it was announced, the BBC has finally updated their iPlayer to link VOD listings for other sites.

Partner channels are ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, S4C, Seesaw and MSN Video Player.

BBC's iPlayer is the most popular streaming TV service in the UK, and "iPlayer" has become synonymous with streaming catch up TV just like "Hulu" has in the United States.

The new move is expected to bring significant amounts of traffic to the VOD offerings of the partner channels, thanks to the iPlayer's brand recognition for streaming.

In the iPlayer, users will see the VOD offerings in a new section, or via search.

Google, Sony, TiVo, Mitsubishi, Best Buy, NagraVision and SageTV have announced this week that will form the AllVid Tech Company Alliance, supporting the FCC's AllVid proposal.

AllVid, Time explains, is a "device that would act as a "gateway" adapter allowing all types of pay TV content - whether it's cable or satellite TV, internet TV or IPTV - to be viewable on the same device, without new technology forcing consumers to have to upgrade their equipment."

FCC officials made the proposal last year and it was immediately shunned by the cable companies and the Motion Picture Association of America, which says AllVid does not provide enough protection against unauthorized movies and content, and may promote piracy.

Following anti-regime protests taking place in the nation, Libyan officials have begun cutting off access to Facebook, and the whole Internet intermittently, in the country's capital.

Hundreds of reports coming out of the country say Facebook is completely baned, while connections to other sites, especially social networking, were painfully slow.

It is unclear how citizens outside of the capital are faring.

80 people have died this week in Libya after anti-government demonstrations began on Tuesday.

Libyan authorities have also begun rejecting entrance visas, keeping foreign journalists out of the nation.

Ruler Muammar Gaddafi has been in power since 1969.

Earlier today, Twitter suspended the popular clients UberTwitter and Twidroyd for violating the company's API policies.

Said Twitter:

Today we suspended several applications, including UberTwitter, twidroyd and UberCurrent, which have violated Twitter policies and trademarks in a variety of ways. These violations include, but aren't limited to, a privacy issue with private Direct Messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users' Tweets in order to make money.

We've had conversations with UberMedia, the developer of these applications, about policy violations since April 2010, when they first launched under the name TweetUp – a term commonly used by Twitter users and a trademark violation. We continue to be in contact with UberMedia and hope that they will bring the suspended applications into compliance with our policies soon.

Intel has said this week that it is actively searching for a new partner for its MeeGo operating system, after Nokia dropped support last week.

The company claims Microsoft offered "incredible amounts" of money to Nokia to have them switch over to Windows Phone 7 as their smartphone operating system of choice.

CEO Paul Otellini was even bold enough to say had he been in charge, he would have chosen Android over WP7, even though both Google and Microsoft offered substantial amounts of money.

Says Otellini of Nokia CEO Stephen Elop (via Reuters):

I wouldn't have made the decision he made, I would probably have gone to Android if I were him. MeeGo would have been the best strategy but he concluded he couldn't afford it.

We will find another partner. The carriers still want a third ecosystem and the carriers want an open ecosystem, and that's the thing that drives our motivation.

Google has launched the first beta for Chrome 10 this week, bringing JavaScript improvements, sync improvements, and an all-new settings interface.

Chrome 10.0.648.82 is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Google promises Chrome 10 has 66 percent faster JavaScript performance than the latest stable Chrome 9 browser. The search giant has updated its "V8 - Crankshaft" JavaScript engine to see the performance upgrades.

The browser also adds basic GPU acceleration for video, "which allows more efficient processor utilization and better battery life," says IW.

Finally, the updated browser implements support for password sync across computers.

Video of the updated interface:

AMD has announced an agreement with AVG and Digital Delivery Networks (DDNi) in which the companies will include a paid subscription to the popular anti-virus software with AMD boxed processors.

Available to customers in the U.S. and UK, the deal will give buyers a free six-month license to the latest AVG + AVG Online Shield.

Normally, a subscription costs $35 for an annual license.

DDNi will include a mini-CD with AVG and the license in each eligible product. At the end of the six months, users will be given a chance to renew at a discounted price.

Says David Kenyon, corporate vice president of worldwide channel marketing at AMD (via Xbit):

The processor-in-a-box program is designed to provide AMD channel partners and end-users with a portfolio of choices to create exactly what they want. By coupling the benefits of our PIB program with a free premium six-month license of AVG anti-virus, our system builders now have more choices to build solutions that meet their customers’ needs.

Mapquest has released its popular free, turn-by-turn navigation app for Android phones, following its success on iOS.

The GPS app has two notable improvements from the iOS version, however. The app can use speech capabilities and has OpenStreetMap data, meaning it can be used outside of the U.S.

Mapquest says the app (via SELand) is very stable but "still a work in progress."

The company has said that almost 9 million people use the Mapquest mobile site from their smartphones, with 1.4 million of those coming from Android.

Although the new app will likely not move too many users away from Google Maps, it is still good to have options.

Microsoft has reported today that its recently launched Internet Explorer 9 RC has been downloaded over 2 million times.

The RC was made available on February 10th.

Microsoft says it is "humbled by the enthusiasm and uptake of IE9" and will soon begin notifying beta testers to upgrade. That move should lead to millions more downloads, anticipates the software giant.

Internet Explorer 9 was also confirmed for Windows Phone 7 devices, although the time frame is still unknown.

As of the RC, Microsoft claims their IE9 JavaScript engine is the fastest of all current browsers (based on SunSpider benchmarks). The browser also adds improved JavaScript and tons of added security features.

After the release of IE9 RC, rival Mozilla took a shot at the browser calling it "not modern" and "two years too late."

Download IE9 RC here: http://windows.microsoft.com/ie9

Jan Wildeboer, a Red Hat employee and big advocate of open source software, has posted today that Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Marketplace blocks open source software from being distributed.

Says Wildeboer: "One thing is extremely obvious. Microsoft wants to keep its platform clear of Free Software. Period."

Article 5 of the Application Requirements section in the Marketplace Application Provider Agreement specifically states (via Thinq):

The Application must not include software, documentation, or other materials that, in whole or in part, are governed by or subject to an Excluded License, or that would otherwise cause the Application to be subject to the terms of an Excluded License.

Apple has allegedly cornered the glass capacitive touch panel market, prepaying for 60 percent of the world's entire capacity in 2011.

The move will leave many other companies fighting for the remaining 40 percent, which is expected to cause component shortages throughout the year and delays.

Apple has reportedly prepaid suppliers Wintek and TPK $3.9 billion for long-term contracts, enough money to cover 136 million iPhone displays or 60 million iPad 2 displays.

Gigaom explains that Apple has done this before:

Prepaying for a bulk, long-term contract allows Apple to control pricing, causing scarcity in the market, which raises the prices of remaining component stock. Apple’s pre-bought parts then give it a price advantage when it comes to production costs, and one that could grow as the contract progresses. It’s something Apple’s been known to do in the past, specifically with NAND flash memory in 2005.

The SFG is reporting that social networking giant Facebook has added 'domestic partnerships' and 'civil unions' as relationship status options.

The move has been applauded by gay/lesbian advocacy groups, who see it as strong support for same-sex couples.

For now, the new options are available to Facebook users in the US, UK, Canada, France and Australia.

Facebook has 550 million users around the world and continues to see exponential growth. The company was recently valued at $50 billion, making it one of the largest Internet-based companies in the world.

Says Jarrett Barrios, president the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD):

Facebook sent a clear message in support of gay and lesbian couples to users across the globe.

When millions of Facebook users see these relationship status options, they gain a greater understanding of the legal inequalities faced by loving and committed same-sex couples in so many states today.

Being able to see same-sex couples in civil unions and domestic partnerships who celebrate their relationships no differently than married couples will serve as another reminder that these couples still lack the same legal recognition and protections associated with marriage. Facebook's noteworthy move also highlights the vast majority of same-sex couples living in states where there are no legal protections whatsoever.

According to AllThingsD, Spotify has signed a distribution deal with EMI, bringing the streaming service one step closer to a launch in the U.S.

Last month, Spotify signed a similar deal with Sony.

While the deals are a great start, the company will need to sign at least Warner or Universal before the service can launch. Universal is the largest label on the planet.

Warner's CEO Edgar Bronfman has made multiple positive comments about the service, but there is still no word on whether a deal is anywhere near close.

Apple's shares have fallen five points today after the National Enquirer posted pictures of the ailing CEO Steve Jobs, claiming he may only have six weeks to live due to pancreatic cancer.

The pictures show Jobs leaving the Stanford Cancer Center looking very weak and frail, with his clothes hanging loosely from his body.

Jobs, at 6'2, is said to have fallen to 130 pounds.

Furthermore, the CEO has thinning hair which is "a sign of the effects of the advanced chemotherapy usually used to treat the disease."

One critical care physician, Dr. Samuel Jacobson said of the pictures (via Econ):

Judging from the photos, he is close to terminal. I would say he has six weeks. He is emaciated and looks to have lost a lot of muscle mass, which spells a poor prognosis.

Warner Bros. has announced this week that launch of "App Editions" of popular movies, which are available now via the iOS App Store for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch owners.

The free apps (before purchasing the actual movie) have built-in social networking features, and include bonus content like trivia, small games and soundtracks.

Furthermore, Inception comes with "The PASIV Device Instruction Manual" and "The Cobol Job" comic, as well as unreleased tracks from composer Hans Zimmer. The Dark Knight comes with a full gallery of pictures.

Starting with 'The Dark Knight' at $9.99 and 'Inception' at $11.99, users from around the world can purchase the movies in-app, and customize the menus to one of sixteen languages, or add one of thirty-four subtitle tracks.

While watching the films, the apps have real-time Facebook and Twitter integration, allowing watchers to share quotes or talk.

"For many, watching a movie is a social activity and App Editions are the first mobile product to deliver this capability on a global scale," added Thomas Gewecke, President of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution (via PCM).

Redbox, the popular $1-a-night DVD rental company, will start a subscription-based Internet streaming service, one that will directly rival Netflix.

President Mitch Lowe told analysts that the new subscription model will also give users a chance to still rent physical DVDs along with unlimited streaming.

Netflix reported last quarter that they moved to over 20 million subscribers, a huge jump since the start of 2010.

The LATimes speculates that Amazon will be Redbox's streaming partner:

Redbox has previously said it will launch a digital service with a partner but has not identified the partner. Several people familiar with the matter have confirmed that Amazon.com is in talks with studios to acquire content for a Netflix-like subscription movie streaming service set to launch soon, making it a likely candidate to be Redbox's partner.

Disney, who along with Paramount remain the only studios who still offer new releases to Netflix and Redbox the same day they go on sale, has raised the price it charges the rental outfits for the privilege.

The company will now charge Netflix and Redbox up to $18 per DVD, their full wholesale rate.

'Secretariat' was the first DVD to be hit with the increased pricing. The rental companies got the DVD for Secretariat on January 25th.

Disney has not followed in the footsteps of Fox, Universal and Warner, which have blocked Netflix and Redbox from making new releases available to customers until 28 days after they are released, a delay window long enough to appease internal concerns that the rentals hurt DVD sales on new releases.

Executives at Disney have said that they do not share those fears, especially since animated films and other family friendly Disney movies are often purchased rather than rented.

The wholesale price will drop to $10.80 per movie after 28 days.

The IBM supercomputer 'Watson' has finished handily defeating its human opponents on Jeopardy today, beating former champions Ken Jennings and Bruce Rutter.

At the end of the three-day special event, Watson finished with $77,147 to Jenning's $24,000 and Rutter's $21,600.

After the first day of the three-day event, Watson was tied with Rutter at $5000 each, with Jennings lagging behind at $2000. At the end of day 2, however, Watson had taken a commanding lead, with $35,734 to Rutter's $10,400 and Jennings' $4,800.

IBM will receive $1 million, which it is donating to World Vision. Second place gets $300,000 and third gets $200,000. Jennings and Rutter will donate half of their winnings.

Watson is able to calculate thousands of algorithms at the same time, while searching its massive database for the right answer. The behemoth computer runs on ninety 32-core IBM Power 750 Express servers and has 16TB of memory.

According to the Official PlayStation Magazine, classic PS2 games will soon be available for download via the PlayStation Network.

Currently, Sony offers PSX titles for download on the PSP and PS3.

The company did say last month that some popular PSX games would never be available via PSN, simply because they are too complicated to port or are too buggy.

Sony removed all PS2 backwards compatibility from PlayStation 3 consoles early on, claiming it would lower costs which would then be passed on to the consumer.

Regardless, there will certainly be buyers for blockbuster games like God of War and Grand Theft Auto, especially if available on the upcoming Sony NGP (PSP 2).

Leaked sales data from BGR claim that iPhone 4 sales on Verizon are actually slower than anticipated.

BGR posted sales totals from five Apple brick-and-mortar stores including two "very, very prominent" ones, following the first five days of the smartphone's launch on the carrier.

While there was huge hype for the launch, there were no lines (or small ones) outside of Apple stores on launch day, a stark difference from the phone's launch on AT&T, where eager buyers waited overnight on the street to get the device on the first day.

The full data (sales for Verizon, sales for AT&T, same store):

Thursday: Verizon = 909, AT&T = 539
Friday: Verizon = 916, AT&T = 680
Saturday: Verizon = 660, AT&T = 471
Sunday: Verizon = 796, AT&T = 701
Monday: Verizon = 711, AT&T = 618

Sony Ericsson has said today that future purchasers of the Xperia Play Android gaming phone will have to repurchase all of their classic PSX downloadable games, regardless of when you bought them.

Most of the games available for the Xperia Play will be developed exclusively for the platform, but there are a number of direct PSX ports that will be available, as well.

You will not be able to just re-download those already purchased games, you will have to re-buy them.

Says Sony Ericsson UK managing director Nathan Vautier (via TG):

You will have to re-purchase the games, so it's not totally integrated. I think the exciting thing is that there are games which people are very, very aware of.

British technology firm ARM Holdings, plc. is expecting a boost in revenues from new high-end smartphones unveiled this week in Barcelona.

New high-end devices utilize ARM's new multi-core processor technologies. ARM licenses its technology to chipmakers like Broadcom, Samsung and Renesas instead of making chips of its own. It earns revenue from royalties on the sale of microprocessor units, as well as charging a licensing fee for the use of its technology.

Smartphones such as the new LG Optimus 3D and Samsung Galaxy SII are powered by ARM's Cortex, dual-core designs, which are also used to power tablet computers and microcontrollers.

It receives up to two percent of the selling price of chips based on the Cortex designs, and about one percent for the older chip technology which is still widely in use. The switch then to Cortex architecture in smartphones and tablets will significantly increase the revenue from royalty payments.

ARM CEO Warren East told Reuters that the company is not surprised by the speed of the roll-out of its newer chip technologies. He said that the company is keeping an edge over Intel in the ever-growing space. "Intel is still a long way apart in processors on the market," he said. "Unless they can make their processors smaller they will struggle."

Symantec has published a report on the Stuxnet malware that made headlines around the world last year.

The complex piece of malware was believed to be targeted at Iran's nuclear program, with fingers of blame pointing at the United States and/or Israel for mandating it (though the origin of the malware itself is still a mystery).

Now a detailed description of Stuxnet has been released by Symantec, and the well-known security firm says it was targeted at five industrial facilities in Iran over 10 months. Symantec did not mention the targets by name however, and would not confirm whether the targets had links to the country's nuclear program.

Iran has denied that Stuxnet caused any major damage to its nuclear facilities, but analysis has previously shown that Stuxnet had the capability to disrupt the centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Once Stuxnet compromised a computer network, it was designed to seek out a specific configuration of industrial control software made by Siemens.

It would then reprogram the PLC software to alter instructions given to attached industrial machinery.

Symantec suggests that the authors of the Stuxnet malware must have had extensive knowledge of the systems in use at the targeted organizations. It infected and spread by use of USB keys, bringing it to networks not usually connected to the Internet for security reasons. The virus could have been spread among the targeted organizations by contractors associated with them.

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha has finally confirmed the price of the upcoming Motorola Xoom tablet, which will sell for $800 (3G version) or $600 (Wi-Fi-only version).

The tablet launches next Thursday.

Motorola's Xoom will be the first tablet to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which has been optimized for media tablets.

The powerful tablet will ship with a 10.1-inch display, 1280x800 resolution, a Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 32GB onboard memory (expendable via SD), a 5MP dual-LED flash standard camera and a 2MP front-side camera for video conferencing.

Furthermore, the tablet has a micro USB 2.0 port, an HDMI-port, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.

Sony has posted their first official response to the recent release of custom firmwares for the PlayStation 3 that allow for signed homebrew and the inevitable piracy of games.

Says the corporation:

Notice: Unauthorized circumvention devices for the PlayStation 3 system have been recently released by hackers. These devices permit the use of unauthorized or pirated software. Use of such devices or software violates the terms of the “System Software License Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System” and the “Terms of Services and User Agreement” for the PlayStation Network/Qriocity and its Community Code of Conduct provisions. Violation of the System Software Licence Agreement for the PlayStation 3 System invalidates the consumer guarantee for that system. In addition, copying or playing pirated software is a violation of International Copyright Laws. Consumers using circumvention devices or running unauthorized or pirated software will have access to the PlayStation Network and access to Qriocity services through PlayStation 3 system terminated permanently.

According to Engadget, Sony is creating a PlayStation-certified Android gaming tablet, one that will be released in September.

The 9.4-inch tablet will run a customized Android 3.0, and is currently going by the internal codename "S1."

Sources speaking to the site say Sony has brought out an engineering team from their VAIO, Reader, PlayStation, and Sony Ericsson product groups for the product.

The tablet will focus on Qriocity, Sony's on-demand music, games, movie and ebook service. Additionally, the tablet will come preloaded with Sony PSX games, a Bravia Media Remote for HDTV integration and an IR port built-in.

Inside, the device is powered by a Tegra 2 dual-core processor and the tablet will feature 1280x800 resolution and dual cameras.

Finally, Engadget explains the "design" of the tablet which looks like the picture posted below:

HTC has shown off their Flyer tablet today, running on Android 2.4 with an updated HTC Sense UI and a very powerful 1.5Ghz processor.

The company did confirm the tablet will be upgradeable to Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the OS optimized for tablets, in the second quarter.

Featuring a 7-inch display, the tablet will be notably smaller than the upcoming Xoom and the Apple iPad, but directly rival the aging Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Because of the completely overhauled HTC Sense UI, the Flyer will have a 3D home screen of widgets, despite a lack of Honeycomb. The tablet will also include the ability to use touch gestures and HTC will provide a stylus to make use of the company's Scribe note-taking technology.

There is little to no information confirmed about Android 2.4, with most speculating that it adds dual-core support.

Nvidia has unveiled its mobile chipset roadmap today, starting with the quad-core 'Kal-El.'

Kal-El refers to Superman's birth name.

Says Nvidia's senior VP of mobile business Phil Carmack (via PCM):

Just as the world has rallied around the concept of dual core, the world is about to see that quad core raises the bar, delivers a lot more performance, and fits into all mobile platforms.

This week, at the Mobile World Congress event, Acer unveiled their Iconia Smart smartphone, first announced last November.

The Acer Iconia Smart will have a giant 4.8-inch touchscreen display with 1024x480 resolution, run Android 2.3 Gingerbread and feature a 21:9 aspect ratio.

Acer says the smartphone will run on a single 1GHz Snapdragon processor, have full Dolby Surround Sound technology and a special Acer UI dubbed 'Breeze.'

Furthermore, the device will have an 8MP standard camera with LED flash and a 2MP front-side camera.

Finally, the smartphone will have an HDMI port, 6-axis gyrometer and accelerometer, GPS, HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

Research In Motion (RIM) has announced today that they will release LTE and HSPA+ models of the upcoming PlayBook tablet, joining the WiFi and WiMax 4G models that will go on sale in March.

Each of the models will have Bluetooth tethering, mobile hotspots and BlackBerry Bridge, says PCW, a piece of software that lets BlackBerry owners use BBM (Messenger) on the tablet.

It is unclear what carriers will support the tablet, but it's speculated that it will be available through Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

Price has not been confirmed but has been "leaked" as $500 for a base model, in line with the first generation Apple iPad.

RIM's PlayBook will have a 7-inch LCD screen with 1024x600 resolution, a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 5MP standard camera and a 3MP front-facing camera.

Finally, the company is expanding its BlackBerry World app store to Azerbaijan, Botswana Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, French Guyana, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hungary, Iceland, Kenya, La Réunion, Latvia, Macedonia, Malta, Martinique, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Tanzania.

Last night's showing of "Jeopardy!," which featured former champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter taking on IBM's supercomputer Watson, was the highest rated episode of the show since 2007, drawing an 8.7 household rating.

The taping's draw was 24 percent higher than the show's 2010 average, and a similar (or higher) rating is expected for tonight's continuation episode.

After the first day of the three-day event, Watson was tied with Rutter at $5000 each, with Jennings lagging behind at $2000. The winner will receive $1 million. Second place gets $300,000 and third gets $200,000. IBM will donate all their winnings to charity and Jennings and Rutter will donate half.

At the end of day 2 (which just aired) Watson had taken a commanding lead, with $35,734 to Rutter's $10,400 and Jennings' $4,800. However, the machine did make a huge blunder in the 'Final Jeopardy' question which was in the category "U.S. Cities."

The clue was: "Its largest airport was named for a World War II hero; its second for a World War II battle." Watson answered 'Toronto' while both human competitors answered correctly, with 'Chicago.'

Apple has announced the start of a subscription service which will be available to all publishers of content-based apps sold though the iOS App Store.

The service was first introduced with the release of "The Daily," a collaboration between News Corp and Apple available on the iPad.

Publishers can now sell subscriptions to publications weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly or yearly.

Apple takes its customary 30 percent from all app and content sales made through iTunes.

Says CEO Steve Jobs (via PR):

Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing. All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app. We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has denied the hot rumor that Google and Facebook are looking to acquire the service for $10 billion.

Says Costolo (via ET):

People write that stuff all the time. I don't know where these things come from, it's just a rumor.

Multiple reports today have posted different rumors about the upcoming iPhone 5, which still remains unconfirmed but is expected to launch during the summer, one year after the release of the iPhone 4.

Apple will move the iPhone to a 4-inch screen and use a dual-core A5 processor, likely running at 1.2GHz.

The reports come from Taiwanese component suppliers.

Samsung will provide brand new Super PLS (Plane-to-Line Switching) displays to Apple for the iPhone 5, with Apple having purchased a rumored whopping $7 billion worth of the component for the year.

As compared to the IPS displays seen in the iPad/iPhone 4, the Super PLS screens are brighter, have better viewing angles and are cheaper to produce.

Spanish authorities have arrested a hacker this week who allegedly stole data from 4000 "Nintendo users" and then tried to blackmail the company.

The hacker threatened to contact the country's data protection agency, accusing Nintendo of complete negligence.

When Nintendo ignored his threats, the individual began leaking some of the stolen info online.

Before his arrest, the authorities say the hacker was planning to release all the stolen data.

It remains unclear where the data was stolen from, reports the BBC.

The WSJ is corroborating a Bloomberg report from the weekend which stated that Apple is currently developing a less-expensive version of the iPhone for sale to the mass market.

Furthermore, Apple will overhaul the software services for the devices.

The new report claims the upcoming iPhone will be 50 percent the size of the iPhone 4 and sell for $100, or even less. Current subsidized iPhone 4s sell for as low as $199 with contract.

Apple will look to overhaul the MobileMe online storage service, as well, with the company making the $99 service free, say the sources. By making MobileMe free, Apple will eliminate the need to add a lot of memory to the new, smaller iPhones, keeping costs down.

The company is also looking to add a social network to its cloud service.

Apple will release the smaller iPhones, as well as the revamped MobileMe during the summer although it is unclear where the company will release the phone first.

Adobe has confirmed today that Flash 10.2 will be headed to Android devices very soon, just a few days after it was released for Windows and Mac.

Says Anup Murarka of Adobe (via TR):

We have released source code to all our tier one partners and you will see Flash 10.2 begin to show up for mobile devices in the next few weeks.

Often when we do everything in software today, we are above 60% and up to even 100% CPU. And that also translates into battery savings and improvement in overall responsiveness. We don’t think you’ll see quite as dramatic improvement on mobile because we already use some of that [technology], but you will see improvements in battery life.

Microsoft has shown off the future of their Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system today at the Mobile World Congress, confirming plans to add Copy/Paste functionality, multitasking, Internet Explorer 9, Office support in the cloud and Twitter integration.

Andy Lees, president of Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business says the new features will hit the operating system in 2011, starting with copy/paste.

That function will be added in March.

For all the rest of the features, Microsoft simply says "in 2011."

Microsoft recently signed a deal with Nokia where Nokia will use the OS on all its upcoming smartphones.

Says Lee (via press release):

This partnership will combine the strengths of our two companies, and fuel our growth as we build the global Windows Phone ecosystem. This is a great win for us, for Nokia, and for our existing and new customers around the world

"...A year ago, we introduced Windows Phone 7 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We described how we are putting the entire muscle of our company behind our mobile strategy including Windows, Windows Live, Bing, Zune, Xbox LIVE, Office, SharePoint, Exchange, and our developer tools. Our alliance with Nokia creates opportunities for both companies far beyond what we could achieve separately, and offers a compelling alternative to the existing choices for consumers, mobile operators and developers.

Netflix shares have exploded to a new all-time high today at $247, following news that streaming was headed to future Android devices.

Qualcomm announced earlier in the morning that devices running the updated Snapdragon platform with Android will be able to use Netflix's 'Watch Instantly' streaming service.

While that means current Android smartphone/tablet users may still not be able to use Netflix streaming, future devices will be able to right out of the box.

Says Liat Ben-Zur, senior director of software strategy and ecosystems for Qualcomm:

We’re excited about this collaborative effort to help bring the Netflix application to Android devices running on the Snapdragon platform. Qualcomm is in a unique position to help bring the most optimized and advanced Android apps to market through working closely with the strong ecosystem of Snapdragon developers like Netflix.

Today at the Mobile World Congress event, Qualcomm will announce the next upgrade to their Snapdragon mobile processor chipset line.

Using the new "Krait" micro-architecture, the APQ8064 chipset will run quad core, at an astounding 2.5GHz.

Additionally, the processor will use even less battery than its predecessors.

Qualcomm promises the processor will be 1200 percent faster than single core Snapdragons, whilst using 75 percent less power.

Furthermore, the chipset will allow for 3D recording right out of the box, include NFC, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and FM radio built-in and even includes the new quad-core graphics processor, the Adreno 320.

Samples of the processor will begin hitting manufacturers in early 2012.

MeetMeeGo tweeted a teaser picture today, revealing that Intel will show off an Atom-based MeeGo smartphone tomorrow at the Mobile World Congress.

The unknown device will be unveiled alongside a MeeGo tablet, although both are still mostly unknown.

Intel's Atom is its new Medfield processor, which will be smaller and cooler than the current-gen Oak Trail platform.

Medfield is expected to be the first processor that can be used in a smartphone and meet expectations for good battery life.

There is even less info known about the tablet.

We will keep you updated.

(Pic via Tweet)

Following up their top-selling Galaxy S Android smartphone, Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S II today at the Mobile World Congress.

The device is dubbed the "world's thinnest phone" at just 8.49mm, and will feature a large 4.27-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with 800x480 resolution. The smartphone will ship with Android 2.3.

Samsung has added an 8MP rear camera and a 2MP front-side camera, integrated NFC, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, HSPA+ 24mbps connectivity, and four new "entertainment hubs," music, games, e-reading, and social networking.

Says JK Shin, President and Head of Samsung's Mobile Communications Business (via TS):

In 2011, we will take Samsung's leadership in Speed, Screen and Content to a whole new level. With the GALAXY S II, Samsung wants to set the new standard of quality viewing on mobile, powerful performance, and slim and modern design. GALAXY S II is a natural and powerful evolution of GALAXY S. Building on the phenomenal success of the original Samsung GALAXY S, we are proud to unveil the ultimate smartphone. Consumers no longer have to contain themselves – the Samsung GALAXY S II allows them to design their own smart lives.

Earlier today at the Mobile World Congress event, Samsung showed off their upcoming Galaxy Tab 10.1, a sequel to the popular Galaxy Tab tablet.

The original Tab sold 2 million units in just 3 months.

Featuring Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the Tab 10.1 will have a 10.1" WXGA TFT LCD display with 1280x800 resolution and run on a dual-core 1GHz processor.

Samsung says the device will weigh just 1.24 pounds, and will have a standard 8MP camera with 1080p recording support and a 2MP front-side camera. Available in either 16GB or 32GB, the device will not have any USB or HDMI ports, and use a proprietary charging cable.

Says DJ Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Sales & Marketing (via TS):

As a leader in the Android-powered tablet market, Samsung is committed to providing a variety of feature-rich, always-on devices. The Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 is a valuable addition to our expanding portfolio of smart media devices. Sporting a large 10.1 screen and dual surround-sound speakers, it enables users to enjoy multimedia to the maximum extent without having to compromise mobility.

Current AT&T iPhone owners have been receiving texts all weekend thanking them for being loyal customers to the carrier, and offering 1000 free rollover minutes.

All you have to do is reply "yes" to the text message and the minutes are added to your account.

Cnet says any AT&T iPhone user can send the "yes" text to 11113020 to receive the minutes, even if they haven't gotten the original incoming text.

The move seems like a ploy to thank users for not switching over to Verizon, which began selling the iPhone earlier in the week and saw strong early sales.

Earlier this morning, Best Buy put up a pre-order page for the upcoming Motorola Xoom, pricing the tablet at an insane $1200.

The listing also confirmed a late February release.

At around 6 PM, however, Best Buy took down the listing, with no word on when it will return. Originally, leaks had shown the Xoom selling for $800.

More notably is the fact that to be able to use Wi-Fi on the device, you must pay for at least 1 month of Verizon 3G service, which will cost you a minimum $20 for a 1GB package. That fact was also confirmed by the new Best Buy listing.

Motorola's Xoom will be the first tablet to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which has been optimized for media tablets.

The powerful tablet will ship with a 10.1-inch display, 1280x800 resolution, a Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 32GB onboard memory (expendable via SD), a 5MP dual-LED flash standard camera and a 2MP front-side camera for video conferencing.

Last year, the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), paid out $57,000 to piracy whistleblowers, rewarding 16 reports.

Overall, the group received 157 reports of alleged 'corporate end user software piracy' and pursued 42 of those. Only 16 paid out, however.

Most of the reports came from former IT staff members, with a full 75 percent coming from current or ex IT staff and managers. 11 percent came from company senior management and 4 percent came from outside consultants. The rest was a variety of sources.

Of those reporting, 59 percent were no longer employed by the company they snitched on, and SIIA says many of those reported that the primary reason they left was the company's unethical use of pirated software.

The sizes of the companies reported were rather large, with the average having 567 employees and annual sales of $441 million. The most pirated software came from the "productivity" sector, at 57 percent.

In 2010, 36 companies settled software and content infringement cases with the SIIA. The first case settled involved graphics software and was settled for over $200,000.

According to the latest figures from Experian Hitwise, Google lost some global search engine market share in January, with Bing picking up the slack.

For the month, Google dropped to 67.95 percent share, down from 69.67 in December 2010.

Bing rose to 12.81 percent from 10.6 the month prior.

Overall, "Bing-powered" search, including Yahoo and Bing, jumped to 27.44 percent from 25.77.

Perhaps more importantly, Bing/Yahoo had a higher search engine success rate, the number of results that actually lead to a visit to a site, says CNet. The Bing-powered sites had an 81 percent success rate, far ahead of Google's 65 percent. Both rates remained practically unchanged from December.

Engadget has posted the specs and a picture of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S II, slated to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress next week.

Additionally, the site has some specs on the upcoming Galaxy Tab II, a sequel to the original Tab which sold 2 million units in 2010.

The Galaxy S II will have a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen with 800x480 resolution, run Android 2.3, and work off a dual-core 1GHz Orion processor.

It is unclear what cameras the smartphone will have but it will include NFC, Bluetooth 3.0, and 24Mbps HSPA+ connectivity. Finally, the SII will be just 8.49mm at its thinnest point, and likely reach 9.9mm at its thickest.

The Tab II will have a 10.1-inch display and run on Android 3.0 Honeycomb. The site says it will be a "Google Experience Device" meaning Honeycomb will not come with any extra UI.

Samsung's Tab II will run on a dual-core 1GHz processor and have a 1280x800 resolution.

A full version of the upcoming game, Crysis 2, has been leaked on the Internet this weekend, a full 5 weeks before its official release on March 22nd.

The leaked version is a developer build, and contains all levels.

Additionally, multiplayer allegedly works, and the leak comes with a master key for online authentication.

Many of the features and inscriptions are not final, but the game is complete. Many pirates have noted there are resolution issues as well as bugs.

Electronic Arts has responded, and they are not happy:

Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game on March 22.

Crysis 2 is still in development and promises to be the ultimate action blockbuster as the series’ signature Nanosuit lets you be the weapon as you defend NYC from an alien invasion.

Pandora, the popular streaming Internet radio service has filed for an IPO today, finally revealing numbers on the service that was close to shutting down just 3 years ago.

The proposed price of the IPO is $100 million.

Revenue for the 9 months ended October 2010 was $90 million, a 300 percent YoY increase from 2009. For the same period in 2010, Pandora lost $328,000, a far cry from the $18 million loss they took in 2009.

Pandora made $12.2 million off subscription revenue and the rest from advertising. The service has 80 million users in the U.S. and apps on Android, BlackBerry, WebOS and iOS.

Pandora's founder Tim Westergren owns 2.39 percent of the company and will get 3.6 million shares.

You can check an interview our staff had with the founder in 2008 here: A convo with Tim Westergren from Pandora

Earlier this week, Activision announced that the once popular 'Guitar Hero' franchise is finished, with the company "disbanding Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit" and ending support for current games.

Harmonix, the developer behind 'Rock Band' has said today that the series will continue on via DLC, despite the "discouraging news" of Guitar Hero's demise.

The developer will still release new songs for the series, and will continue as planned with the release of the Fender Squier Stratocaster Guitar controller.

John Drake of Harmonix also noted that most Guitar Hero peripherals will work on Rock Band, if gamers want to switch over.

Adds Drake (via GameSpot):

The music genre is one that calls for constant reinvention, and Harmonix is continuing to welcome and embrace that call. In short, the beat of Rock Band marches on. We're continuing to invest in the franchise and the brand that we have built and will do our best to serve all loyal band game fans.

Bloomberg has brought back the age-old rumor of a smaller 'iPhone Nano' being in the works, one that will also sell for cheaper than the current iPhones.

Sources have already seen the prototype, and claim Apple will make it available on multiple wireless networks.

Although they would never announce it publicly, the sources say CEO Steve Jobs is afraid of losing market share to Android, and a cheaper iPhone would widen its appeal to those that may be on the fence about a smartphone, or those in developing nations.

Android currently controls 32.9 percent of the global smartphone market, compared to Apple's 16 percent.

Apple's new device will sell for $150-$200 with contract, will be 30 percent smaller than the current iPhone 4, and will remove the Home button. Additionally, Apple wants to add a "universal SIM" slot which will work for many GSM networks.

Eldar Murtazin, the Russian tech blogger famous for getting early access to devices, has tweeted this morning that Nokia is still in negotiations that will eventually lead to a partnership with Google's Android.

Says the tweet:

According to my sources Nokia in negotiation with Google as well. First Nokia Android devices for 2012. Turnover. No own OS platform

According to Bloomberg, RIM is prepared to launch software that will let their upcoming PlayBook tablet run Android apps.

The software will integrated into the new QNX operating system, giving PlayBook owners a chance to download and use the 150,000 apps in the Android Market on their tablet.

Sources say the software will not be ready at the PlayBook's launch (allegedly end of March) but will be ready in the Q3.

Price has not been confirmed but has been "leaked" as $500 for a base model, in line with the Apple iPad and $300 cheaper than the newly launched Motorola Xoom.

RIM's PlayBook will have a 7-inch LCD screen with 1024x600 resolution, a dual-core 1GHz processor, a 5MP standard camera and a 3MP front-facing camera.

Following Nokia's official announcement that it will be partnering with Microsoft, shares have tumbled, reaching session lows as of writing of down 14.50 percent on 700 percent average volume.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop announced this morning that Nokia smartphones would now run the Windows Phone 7 operating system, a huge move for Microsoft which instantly gains a worldwide footprint, but a tough admission from Nokia that they have been slow on innovating in the burgeoning smartphone market.

In just 4 years, Nokia's smartphone share has fallen from 51 percent to 27 percent, losing all of its share to Android and Apple. Microsoft was once a leader in that market as well, but has seen its share fall to single digits.

Elop says the partnership will "jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity."

In Windows Phone 7, the Nokia Ovi Store will be merged into the Marketplace and all Nokia smartphones will have Bing as the default search engine. Furthermore, WP7 will add Nokia's NAVTEQ maps.

Multiple sources are reporting today that Apple's upcoming iOS 4.3 might bring gaming to the Apple TV, expanding the practically useless "Game Center" introduced with iOS 4.

In the 4.3 code, there are references to "ATVThunder" and "ATVGames," each of which point to scheduling of games, leaderboards sortable by date, the streaming of live/archived games, and a new storefront (likely similar to iTunes).

Because the Apple TV only has 8GB of internal memory, streaming seems the only way to play games via the set-top.

Furthermore, there are references to streaming like "Sedona" and "Flagstaff." Sedona is Apple's video rental mechanism, explains TUAW, who speculates the rentals will turn to streaming, for movies/TV/games.

Finally, the code references FEATURE_REMOTE_SCREENSAVER, which could speculatively lead to interactive screensavers.

Nokia has officially announced partnership with Microsoft and will adopt its smartphone platform Windows Phone 7. According to the press release, Nokia has selected Windows Phone 7 as the primary platform for its upcoming smartphones.

Nokia says partnership between the companies will combine the strengths of the companies. They believe that Nokia's strengths in manufacturing and the software prowess of Microsoft will "jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity."

The software side of the joint cooperation will now largely fall into Microsoft's hands. However, Nokia's Ovi Store will be integrated with the WP7 Marketplace and Microsoft's Bing will get location and map data from Nokia-owned NAVTEQ. Marketplace will also benefit from Nokia's operator billing platform.

Despite the shift towards Windows Phone 7, Nokia will continue to develop Symbian and MeeGo. Lower end smartphones will likely have Symbian in the future as well and MeeGo will remain as a test platform for future developments. Nokia still has plans to unveil its first MeeGo handset during 2011.

Dell has announced today that it is discontinuing the Dell Adamo line of ultraportables, the last real competitor to the MacBook Air.

The Adamo launched in 2009 at 0.65-inches thick, was housed in an aluminum case, runs an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and had SSD before they became popular.

Dell packed in a 13.4-inch screen with 1,366x768 resolution, a SIM card slot, and the device weighed in at under 4 pounds.

The company discontinued the extremely thin Adamo XPS (at 0.39-inches thick) last year.

Sources say Dell was able to clear out remaining Adamo inventory buy selling the computer at $800, well under the $1300-$1500 it was selling for, on average.

Microsoft has finally released their Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate, meaning a final launch is coming in the near future.

The completely overhauled IE9 saw its first beta in September 2010, and includes a full revamp of the user interface, hardware acceleration, and updated compatibility for HTML5.

Microsoft's new RC is ready-to-ship code, and there are only a few bugs expected to be left.

From the betas, the RC offers improved JavaScript and includes all the 2,000 changes made since the first beta.

As of the RC, Microsoft claims their IE9 JavaScript engine is the fastest of all current browsers (based on SunSpider benchmarks).

Security is also a big factor in the browser, with an improved ActiveX filter and SmartScreen malware protection in the download manager.

RC for those interested: http://windows.microsoft.com/ie9

According to multiple sources, Nokia is very close to announcing a partnership with Microsoft that will have Windows Phone 7 added to Nokia smartphones.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop apparently had talks with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt but chose WP7 over Android.

Additionally, Nokia has already pulled funds and time from MeeGo (its Symbian successor), likely leaving it to Intel.

Elop, hired in September to turn the company around, will unveil the strategy tomorrow at an event in London.

Nokia has a tiny presence in the United States, and is quickly losing its lead in the smartphone market to Android and Apple.

HTC has invested $40 million in cloud video gaming service OnLive, in an effort to strengthen gaming capabilities on smartphones (and likely tablets).

The Taiwanese company has quickly become a very profitable smartphone maker, bringing in $500 million profit for the last quarter, alone, on revenue of $3.6 billion.

HTC was the phone maker behind the first-ever Android device, the T-Mobile G1 and has increased its lineup significantly since.

CEO Peter Chou said earlier this year it wants to use its $2.5 billion it has in cash to boost "strategic investments" in digital content, and it appears, cloud-computing.

Earlier in the week, HTC invested in Saffron Digital, a mobile and Web-based media company.

More details of the OnLive investment are upcoming at the MWC next week.

According to a new report, bankrupt movie rental company Blockbuster will put itself up for sale, following a disagreement with its creditors.

The report claims that a bidder would likely offer $300 million, as well as assuming all debt and leases.

Blockbuster went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year in an effort to restructure debt and give it a chance to reemerge later. By doing so, the company has kept 3300 stores open but has almost wiped out shareholders and junior bondholders. The company had $1 billion in debt when it filed for bankruptcy.

The leading contender to win Blockbuster in auction is investor Carl Icahn and a consortium led by Monarch Alternative Capital, a large hedge fund. The group and Icahn own about 80 percent of Blockbuster's senior notes and gave Blockbuster $125 million to help fuel the turnaround.

Apparently, the company had poor holiday sales and therefore expects it will need more money. The hedge fund is not willing to pay more than the $125 million invested.

The oft-rumored Facebook phones are a reality, despite the social networking giant's repeated denials of their existence.

INQ Mobile has shown off two new phones that are "the result of close collaboration with Facebook."

The first device, the Cloud Touch, will have a 3.5-inch touchscreen, run Android 2.2 Froyo, a 5MP camera and feature a weak 600MHz processor. Although it is hopefully a typo, the press release says the device will only have 4MB of memory.

Second is the Cloud Q, which has a 2.6-inch touchscreen, full QWERTY, and runs Android 2.2. There were no other specs listed.

INQ says each phone will have a dedicated Spotify button, which also doubles as the music player.

Both will only be available in the UK via The Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy.

Explains the press release:

Today, INQ Mobile delivered an all-new Facebook mobile experience with two new Android devices, the INQ Cloud Touch and INQ Cloud Q. Built for people worldwide who use Facebook as their primary means of communication, they deliver a fully live Facebook experience built around INQ’s Visual Media Feed.

Although Sony has not announced the price yet for their upcoming NGP handheld, a leak from GameStop seems to show the device coming in at $300.

Given the impressive specs of the console, the price doesnt seem too high, especially considering the failed PSPGo launched at $250.

At $300, the NGP will also only be $50 more than upcoming Nintendo 3DS, its direct rival.

The "release date" in the leaked photo is likely wrong, as Sony has said it expects to launch before the holidays this year.

For controls, the handheld adds dual micro-analog sticks, giving gamers a feature they begged for on the original PSP.

The device has a massive 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen with 960×544 resolution, a multi-touch panel on the back and will run on a quad-core ARM cortex processor.

Sony has added tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, standard and front-side cameras, GPS, an electric compass, Wi-Fi and 3G support, and access to Android gaming.

AfterDawn is looking to expand it's services in the Nordic countries. We already have a strong presence in our home country, Finland, but we also have localized sites available in Swedish and Norwegian, with a Danish version under construction as well. AfterDawn.com launched Tom's Hardware Finland in August, 2010, and other Nordic countries will follow during the Spring 2011.

We are now looking for people interested in joining our team at AfterDawn.com, and working with translations and content for both AfterDawn and Tom's Hardware in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

Your work will include:

• translating English content (in-depth technology articles that can be 5-40 pages long) to your own native language
• writing news (i.e. not just translating from source material) in your native language on a regular / daily basis
• communicating with other members of the staff for coordination (via email, instant messengers and IRC)

• you’re a native speaker of one of the languages mentioned (no, good Google Translation skills don’t count :-)
• a person with good English language skills (English is the communication language between different AfterDawn teams -- and your news sources, translation materials, etc will all be in English -- but you don't need to produce content in English)
• a strong grasp on PC technology (and related terminology), including motherboards, graphics cards, CPUs and GPUs, mass storage etc.
• ability to write fluently and grammatically correct in the target language
• commitment to agreed deadlines, NDAs, content targets etc.
• ability to work remotely, using ICQ and email as primary means for communicating with other members of the staff
• basic HTML and image editing knowledge (nothing dramatic here, just the understanding of basic tags, image resizing, etc)
• prior experience with content management systems is a bonus, but not required (we use a custom CMS anyway)

• an opportunity to work with a launch of one of the leading technology sites in the world - in your native language
• flexibility in arranging your working hours and holidays -- this is not a nine-to-five-job
• .. and of course a salary based on your content output and an opportunity to a bonus, based on the performance of the site

HP, along with the TouchPad tablet, also unveiled two new WebOS-based smartphones today, the Pre 3 and the Veer (which will replace the Pixi).

The small Veer will have a 2.6-inch touchscreen display with 320x400 resolution, and includes a full slide-out QWERTY. The smartphone will run on an 800MHz Snapdragon processor, include a 5MP camera, built-in Flash, GPS, HSPA+, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and 8GB storage.

Jon Rubenstein, head of HP's mobility group, says the Veer is "something that is powerful yet elegantly small."

Up next was the successor to the popular Pre (Plus) line, the Pre 3, which has a 3.6-inch touchscreen with 480x800 resolution.

The smartphone will run on a very powerful 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor, have 512MB DRAM, dual cameras with LED flash, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, an accelerometer, proximity, and light sensors, and a compass.

Activision has announced this morning that the once popular 'Guitar Hero' franchise is finished, with the company "disbanding Activision Publishing's Guitar Hero business unit."

The developer has also stopped all development on the upcoming untitled 2011 Guitar Hero game.

Activision cited a continued decline in interest, across the board, for music genre games.

Although the franchise is now dead, the company did add that the brand would be "re-assessed" if need be, in the future, leaving the chance of a revival if demand returns.

Although unconfirmed, there is also a rumor that DJ Hero will be dropped by Activision, as well, likely after the release of DJ Hero 3D for the Nintendo 3DS.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball has subtly noted today that Apple may be moving to a 6-month release schedule for their popular iPad tablet.

In response to the unveiling of the HP TouchPad, Gruber says:

The software looks great, it really does, but:

Planned availability this summer.

Summer feels like a long time away. If my theory is right, they’re not only going to be months behind the iPad 2, but if they slip until late summer, they might bump up against the release of the iPad 3. And not only did they announce this with a distant ship date, they did it with no word on pricing.

Less than a month after the Board of Directors removed the CEO, AMD is seeing more management turnover, as the Chief Operating Officer and Senior VP of Corporate Strategy plan to step down.

COO Bob Rivet and VP Marty Seyer will stay with AMD to help with the transition, added the company, before leaving for "other opportunities."

CEO Dirk Meyer left in January after the Board brought up concerns about the company's lack of a concrete strategy for the burgeoning smartphone market.

Last year, Meyer raised eyebrows when he said the company would not invest in microprocessors for smartphones/tablets until the market grew more, despite the fact that the iPad is already eating into netbook and notebook demand.

AMD remains focused on chips for PCs, servers and video cards.

AT&T has said today that they are now offering free unlimited mobile-to-mobile in the U.S. to all customers who have a qualifying voice plan and unlimited text messaging.

Starting tomorrow, you can activate the "Mobile to Any Mobile" addition from www.att.com/anymobile.

Says the carrier:

Mobile to Any Mobile is an exciting offer that will keep our customers connected to the people they want to talk to, when they want to talk to them, without the hassle of watching minutes. We're giving customers more options and even better value. And when you include Rollover Minutes, a benefit available exclusively from AT&T that lets customers keep their unused minutes for all domestic calls, including to landline numbers, it's clear that AT&T offers the most flexibility in the industry.

HP has unveiled their first WebOS tablet today, the TouchPad, set for release in the summer.

The device will have a 9.7-inch display with 1024x768 resolution, run a dual-core 1.2Ghz Snapdragon processor, Beats Audio technology, stereo speakers, a 1.3MP front-side camera, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

HP's tablet will be available as 16GB or 32GB versions, weigh 1.6 pounds and feature a gyro, accelerometer, and compass and full Flash support, just like Android.

Says Jon Rubenstein, head of HP's mobility group (via PCM):

The TouchPad is all about you how you want to work, how you want to play, how you want to connect to things you value most. No one comes close to replicating our WebOS experience.

Sony's Kevin Butler, the character played by actor Jerry Lambert in PS3 commercials, accidentally retweeted the PlayStation 3 security key this morning, but has since taken it down.

The USB dongle ID generator key, which has been used by hackers to create signed firmwares and homebrew, was posted by @exiva originally.

Said Travis La Marr (@exiva):

[Edited for legal reasons]xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx Come at me, @TheKevinButler

Lemme guess... you sank my Battleship? RT @exiva: xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx Come at me, @TheKevinButler

We have just implemented a couple of relatively small, but quite significant changes to the site. Both changes aim to improve the overall page rendering speeds. In short - pages should hopefully load and display faster than before. The changes focus on the way advertisements are displayed on our pages, and on the way certain images are loaded. After the change most of the advertisements are loaded after the page has completed, which allows you to start viewing and reading faster than before.

Even though we have done our very best to test the changes on a variety of browsers and platforms, there is a strong possibility that problems occur on some combinations of browsers, operating systems and service providers. Should you run across any problems with, for example, advertisement placement (see this fabricated example), please let us know either by commenting this news article or by sending us feedback.

Another change that we've implemented has to do with loading images on some of the "image heavy" pages at AfterDawn. A good example of this is the Desktop pics forum thread. Slow loading pictures in posts or signatures can cause some forum pages to load very sluggishly. Now, after the recent change, all the images in the all posts are loaded "lazily", i.e. when they are scrolled to view. You'll see placeholder images such as this when you view posts. Those placeholders will be replaced by the actual images once your browser has loaded them.

The WSJ is reporting today that the iPad 2 is already in production, with an early April launch expected.

Sources claim most of the past rumors of the iPad 2 are true, as well, including the updated processor, graphics, RAM and camera upgrades.

The tablet will add a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip at 1 or 1.2GHz, 512MB RAM, Imagination's PowerVR SGX543MP2 dual-core graphics processing and possibly a dual-mode Gobi chip that can support both Verizon and AT&T's 3G.

Apple will add dual cameras, and the display will remain the same, at 1024x768 resolution.

The form factor of the upcoming tablet will be thinner and lighter, as well.

The Roman Catholic Church has approved of a new iOS app, one that it hopes will bring "modern" Catholics back to their faith.

The app will give downloaders a "personalized examination of conscience for each user."

iApps, the company behind the app says (via Huff):

Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology.

Taking to heart Pope Benedict XVI's message from last years' World Communications Address, our goal with this project is to offer a digital application that is truly 'new media at the service of the word.

Disney, Fox, Columbia, Warner Bros. and Universal have jointly sued cyberlocker Hofile.com, claiming copyright infringement "on a massive scale."

The suit is against Hotfile and Hotfile manager Anton Titov.

Hotfile, based in Panama, has quickly become one of the top "cyberlockers," following in the footsteps of Rapidshare and Megaupload.

The suit says Hotfile "encourages" users to upload and share copyrighted content, while the site and its owner profits.

Comments the MPAA (via Reuters):

Hotfile profits from this theft by charging a monthly fee to users who download content from its servers. Hotfile also operates an incentive scheme that rewards users for uploading the most popular files -- which are almost exclusively copyrighted works. Hotfile profits richly while paying nothing to the studios for their stolen content.

The BBC has confirmed it will be launching iPad and Android versions of their popular iPlayer, starting next week.

On February 10th, the Flash-less iPad app and the Flash 10.1-based Android app will be available for UK residents. Android users will need version 2.1.

Furthermore, all versions of the iPlayer will be updated this week to add 'inter-linking,' which allows for non-BBC content to be offered through the service.

Each of the apps will only be available in the UK due to licensing restrictions, but the BBC has promised international apps "soon."

You will need to be connected to Wi-Fi on your media device to play the video content.

Just weeks away from launching Firefox 4.0, Mozilla has revealed its roadmap for 2011, which ends with the launch of Firefox 7.0 by the end of the year.

Overall, the company has seven main goals:

1. Ship Firefox 4, 5, 6 and 7 in the 2011 calendar year
2. Always respond to a user action within 50 ms
3. Never lose user data or state
4. Build Web Apps, Identity and Social into the Open Web Platform
5. Support new operating systems and hardware
6. Polish the user experience for common interaction tasks
7. Plan and architect for a future of a common platform on which the desktop and mobile products will be built and run Web Apps

LG has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission this week, asking the ITC to block the import of the Sony PlayStation 3.

The company is claiming that the Blu-ray drive in every PS3 console violates multiple LG patents.

Sony, Sony Corporation of America, Sony Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment America are all cited in the complaint, says Cnet.

The patents in question relate to "the way a Blu-ray player reproduces data from a Blu-ray disc" and how it "reproduces multiple data streams by way of multiple camera angles."

Finally, LG says Sony is violating a patent relating to the display of subtitles in Blu-ray films.

LG's choice, over 1500 days after the PS3 launched in the U.S., seems like a direct retaliation for Sony's complaint filed with the ITC late last year over patent violations in mobile phones.

Rovio Mobile has announced this week that Nintendo fans will be getting 'Angry Birds,' as well, with Wii and 3DS versions confirmed.

Furthermore, the company announced a Valentine's Day version, and a "secret" Rio-based level for the game.

Rio is an upcoming animated movie telling the story of a Macaw and his adventures.

Rovio did not give a specific date for the Nintendo version, except to say "later this year."

The Angry Birds mini-game, with 63 levels, hit the PS3 and PSP last month.

Rovio says the Valentine's Day levels will be an update to Angry Birds: Seasons, which is $1 on the iPhone and free on Android.

BusinessWeek has posted a nice concise report on how secure most passwords are, and how long it takes even hackers to guess it.

As it has been for years, the most popular password is "123456," followed by "password," "12345678," "qwerty," and "abc123."

The following is how long it takes for a hacker to randomly guess your password:

Length: 6 characters
Lowercase: 10 minutes
+ Uppercase: 10 hours
+ Nos. & Symbols: 18 days

Length: 7 characters
Lowercase: 4 hours
+ Uppercase: 23 days
+ Nos. & Symbols: 4 years

Length: 8 characters
Lowercase: 4 days
+ Uppercase: 3 years
+ Nos. & Symbols: 463 years

Length: 9 characters
Lowercase: 4 months
+ Uppercase: 178 years
+ Nos. & Symbols: 44,530 years

According to comScore's latest figures, Google's Android smartphone OS is closing in on RIM's BlackBerry OS for most popular mobile OS in the U.S.

Overall, smartphone ownership has increased 60 percent year-over-year (YoY), to 63.2 million.

Total Americans, aged 13 and up owning mobile phones, jumped to 234 million.

In the smartphone market, RIM remained on the top, at 31.6 percent, taking a -5.7 point change YoY.

Android exploded to 28.7, a 7.3 point change.

Apple kept its ongoing growth, moving .7 points to 25 percent, while Windows fell to 8.4 percent and Palm fell to 3.7 percent.

(via comScore)

Sprint has unveiled the Kyocera Echo today, an Android device with dual touch screens.

The smartphone goes on sale in the Spring for $200 with contract.

Kyocera, of Japan, is not very well known in the United States although they do make a plethora of feature phones.

The Echo has dual 3.5-inch screens and will allow users to run multiple apps at the same time, or watch videos whilst surfing the Web on different screens, for example.

Another example is splitting the operations of one app, such as having the email inbox on the top screen and the email text in the bottom screen.

The company says the phone will run on Sprint's 3G network, not their WiMax 4G network, but 4G models may come in the future.

Finally, the phone has huge power drain, because of the dual screens, so Sprint is adding a free spare battery in the package.

(Pic via Engadget)

T-Mobile USA has announced they will offer all their phones, including 4G smartphones, for free over the weekend, as part of a Valentine's Day promotion.

The promotion is in-stores and will include all phones available from the carrier, as long as you sign up for a two-year contract.

Says the company:

Smartphones offer people incredible flexibility to stay connected and express their love to the people that matter most. T-Mobile’s Valentine’s promotion makes it easier for anyone to get their favorite smartphone and keep connected on America’s largest 4G network.

According to a new comScore report on digital trends, email usage has significantly declined, especially amongst teenagers.

From December 2009 to December 2010, overal web email usage declined 8 percent, dragged down by a 59 percent decline among teens aged 12-17.

Users aged 18-24 saw the smallest year-over-year decline, at just 1 percent, while usage among 25-35 year olds fell 18 percent. Usage by 35-44 year olds fell 8 percent and the 45-54 demographic saw a 12 percent decline.

Older people helped buoy the fall, as 55-64 year olds increased usage 22 percent and the 65 and older crowd saw 28 percent growth.

Most of the share lost by email usage, was found by social networking, especially among teens.

(Pic via Crunch)

PSX-Scene has revealed that Sony is expanding its lawsuit against PS3 hackers, moving on from just Geohot and adding well-known hackers Cantero, Peter, Bushing, Segher, hermesEOL, kmeaw, Waninkoko, grafchokolo, kakaroto to its list.

The company will subpoena a number of sites, like PSX-Scene, Twitter, Github, Slashdot and even YouTube, in an attempt to find the location of the defendants.

Many of the hackers, such as hermes, are not located in the U.S., so it is unclear how Sony will be able to bring them to court.

Github was where hackers shared the source codes. The site was recently sent DMCA takedown notices and removed the code.

You can view all the documents here: Sony Expanding It's Case - Looking For All PS3 Hackers

Beginning next week, online music service Last.fm will move to subscription-only for mobile users (except for Windows Phone 7 users), moving from the current ad-based model.

The company says ad-based models are no longer "practical" and now mobile users will have to pay to continue their Last.fm service.

Online use will stay free, in the U.S, UK and Germany, adds Matthew Hawn, Last.fm's head of product.

Says Hawn (via BBC):

We think that the best experience is ad-free. It's not that we're losing buckets of money on our service... but we're trying to make rational decisions about our business model.

On the Last.fm website an ad-supported, free-to-listeners model is what supports our online radio services in the US, UK and Germany. In other markets and on emerging mobile and home entertainment devices, it is not practical for us to deliver an ad supported radio experience, but instead, we will migrate to what we believe is the highest quality, lowest cost ad-free music service in the world.

An Iranian official said that the country must investigate claims that the Stuxnet worm could have caused major harm to its first nuclear power station.

Mohammad Ahmadian, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said that reports of damage to the country's Bushehr plant were a malicious campaign by countries hostile to Tehran's nuclear program.

"Many of these discussions raised in the media and world public opinion about the Stuxnet virus are an effort to create concern among the Iranian people and people of the region and delay the work of the nuclear power plant," he said.

"Therefore it is necessary that experts in the field investigate to see how much truth there is in these discussions."

Analysts believe that Stuxnet was a successful attack by the United States and/or Israel on the Iranian nuclear program, which both suspect has a goal of creating nuclear weapons. Iran has given mixed reports on the true impact of Stuxnet on its systems since the story emerged publicly.

Russia's NATO ambassador created headlines recently when he said the virus could potentially lead to a "new Chernobyl". Russia supplied the fuel for the Bushehr plant, and despite the alarming comment on a new Chernobyl-like incident, Ahmadian indicated that there is no significant delay as a result in the start-up of the plant, which will supply electricity to the country's national grid.

A man is facing jail time for stealing thousands of pounds worth of virtual pokers chips from an online poker website.

Ashley Mitchell admitted in court to stealing more than 400 billion virtual chips after breaking into the systems of Zygna, an online gaming outlet. The 400 billion virtual chips had a face value of about $12 million (£7.4 million).

Mitchell had managed to gain £53,000 from the theft by selling the stolen virtual chips using a series of online accounts on social networking sites. He charged £430 per 1 billion virtual chips.

He posed as an administrator for the Zynga Poker game between June and September of 2009, before he gained access to the company's computer systems and carried out the electronic theft.

After realizing the amount of chips that had gone "missing", Zynga set up a sting which tracked down Mitchell. He pleaded guilty to five charges brought under the Computer Misuse Act and the Proceeds from Crime Act. He was remanded until a date was fixed for sentencing.

Grand Theft Auto developer Gary Penn told Gamasutra about how the original Grand Theft Auto video game title was almost canned during development.

The GTA series has been one of the biggest stories of the video games industry so far, with the Grand Theft Auto IV title selling a huge 17 million copies within two years of its commercial release. Earlier versions of the title also had strong sales across gaming platforms over the past decade.

All of that came very close to never happening. In fact, it was something that was then considered a kind of "bug" in the game that convinced the developers to continue with it and set its tone.

"It never really felt like it was going anywhere. It was almost canned. The publisher, BMG Interactive, wanted to can it," Penn said. "There are probably two key things it fell down on; two critical things. One of them is stability, which is a really boring one, but it crashed all the f---ing time. So even if you did get something in the game, you couldn't really test it."

Sony Ericsson has finally confirmed the Xperia Play, placing an ad during the Super Bowl, at the price of $6 million for the 1 minute spot.

The PlayStation phone will be formally unveiled at the Mobile World Congress on February 13th, running an Xperia Arc custom interface, on top of Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Sony's Xperia Play has a 4-inch display with 854x450 resolution and will be powered by a Sony Bravia engine for smoother video playback.

Under the hood, the device runs a single-core Snapdragon processor clocked at 1GHz, an Adreno 205 GPU and 512MB RAM.

As is standard, the smartphone/handheld will have 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, and an FM receiver plus transmitter.

Physically, the smartphone has 4 buttons, Back/Menu/Home/Search, a 1500mAh battery, USB port, microSD slot and 5MP camera which lacks 720p recording.

The Motorola Xoom tablet has purportedly been priced, selling for $800 without contract, and hitting Best Buy on February 24th. The pricing and date comes via an ad posted on Engadget.

Perhaps more notably is the fact that to be able to use Wi-Fi on the device, you must pay for at least 1 month of Verizon 3G service, which will cost you a minimum $20 for a 1GB package.

It is necessary to point out that the flier has multiple spelling errors, so there is still debate as to whether it is real.

Motorola's Xoom will be the first tablet to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which has been optimized for media tablets.

The powerful tablet will ship with a 10.1-inch display, 1280x800 resolution, a Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 32GB onboard memory (expendable via SD), a 5MP dual-LED flash standard camera and a 2MP front-side camera for video conferencing.

Aircell, the company that started Gogo in-flight Wi-Fi, has raised another $35 million in financing, bringing its total financing to a bit over $500 million, so far.

The company's CEO, Michael Small, says the company is also finally on the "path to profitability."

Small says Gogo had 3 million Wi-Fi sessions for the six weeks ended New Year's, thanks to a free promotion by Google. Overall, the company just hit its 10 millionth session implying that many users love the service, when it's free.

The CEO did say that Aircell has now evolved to the point where "the airlines themselves are paying to activate each plane, as opposed to the early days when Gogo had to front the cost."

Aircell's airline partners are American Airlines, United, Delta, Virgin America, and Air Canada, making Wi-Fi available on 1100 commercial airlines and 6000 private/business jets.

AOL has announced today that they will purchase the popular news/lifestyle website The Huffington Post, which started in 2005 and now has 25 million unique monthly visitors.

As a combined group under AOL, the site will now be readily available to 117 million unique visitors a month in the U.S. and 270 million globally.

AOL has been rapidly expanding into the news, analysis, and entertainment sectors and the when the deal is completed, Huffington Post co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington will run the The Huffington Post Media Group which includes Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, MapQuest, Black Voices, PopEater, AOL Music, AOL Latino, AutoBlog, Patch, and StyleList content.

Says AOL in the press release:

The acquisition of The Huffington Post will create a next-generation American media company with global reach that combines content, community, and social experiences for consumers. Together, our companies will embrace the digital future and become a digital destination that delivers unmatched experiences for both consumers and advertisers.

Arianna is a singularly passionate and dedicated champion of innovative journalistic engagement, and a master of the art of using new media to illuminate, entertain and enhance the national conversation. Arianna is a remarkable person and she will continue to create remarkable outcomes for the combined company.

IBM's supercomputer "Watson," set to take on human contestants on "Jeopardy" this month, has beaten its two competitors in a quick practice round.

Watson will take on all-time champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

In 2005, Ken Jennings won 74 straight games en route to $2.5 million in earnings. Rutter did not win as many games, but took home $3.2 million, the highest ever.

Watson will take on Rutter and Jennings over a three-day period and the winner will receive $1 million. Second place gets $300,000 and third gets $200,000. IBM will donate all their winnings to charity and Jennings and Rutter will donate half.

IBM says the supercomputer will not have Internet access, but is loaded with a massive database "covering topics from history to entertainment." The computer can even "differentiate between literal and metaphorical expressions and understand puns and slang."

In the practice round, Watson beat out Jennings and Rutter, taking $4400 in the round to Jennings $3400 and Rutter's $1200.

The real competition starts on February 14th.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has said this weekend that Egypt's decision to shutdown the Internet could cost the nation $90 million, or about $18 million for each day of the 5 day shutdown.

Overall, telecom and Internet services account for 3-4 percent of GDP in the country.

The organization says the greater implications may be worse, however, since Egypt has been working for years to attract tech firms to the nation:

The shutdown will make it much more difficult in the future to attract foreign companies and assure them that the networks will remain reliable.

Therefore, while the direct costs of shutting down telecommunication networks are still significant, the true social and economic costs will be much higher. Egypt will need to regain the confidence of customers around the globe if it still wants to be considered a key ICT hub for business again.

T-Mobile has dropped the price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab to $250 with contract, likely in an effort to begin clearing out inventory before Honeycomb tablets begin hitting the market later this month.

The discounted price does require a two-year contract with the carrier, however.

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

The tab is available in 94 countries.

Samsung announced earlier this month that the company had shipped 2 million Tabs since launch.

The world's top mobile phone maker, Nokia, is on the verge of firing several executive board members, in the largest management "shake-up" in years.

CEO Stephen Elop, in charge since last September, will unveil the overhaul on February 11th.

A few of the executives expected to leave are "Mary T. McDowell, the executive in charge of Nokia's mobile phones unit, Niklas Savander, the manager of the markets unit, Chief Development Officer Kai Oistamo and Tero Ojanpera, the manager responsible for services and mobile solutions," says Reuters.

Elop is allegedly looking "for top people with good software expertise" as the company continues to see its smartphone market share demolished by Apple and Android.

According to a new report by iSuppli, tablet shipments will increase by 1200 percent by 2015, as demand continues to grow.

Tablet shipments were 17.4 million in 2010 and will reach 242 million in 2015, says the research firm.

The new report claims that Android 3.0 Honeycomb will help "propel" the market forward, before Windows-based tablets begin to truly cut into the "traditional" desktop and laptop markets.

Says Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research at iSuppli (via PCM):

The remarkable expansion of the tablet market from 2010 to 2015 will be driven by three successive waves of growth. The first wave, which is hitting in 2010 and 2011, was created by the arrival of the iPad and the ensuing tsunami of demand for the device. The second wave, arriving in 2011 and 2012, will be propelled by a deluge of iPad competitors, particularly Android-based models. The third wave, which will turn up in 2013, will consist of a flood of models based on the Windows operating system that will expand the reach of tablets into traditional computer markets.

Google has confirmed that their Middle East and North Africa marketing head has tragically gone missing in Egypt.

The search giant has said that Wael Ghonim disappeared last Thursday in central Cairo and has not been seen since.

Says Google:

The safety of our employees is very important to Google, so if anyone has any information please call the following UK number: +44 20 7031 3008.

The latest rumor in the Apple space has iOS 4.3 coming in two weeks for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Citing 'reliable sources,' reports claim Apple will release the major firmware update on Monday, February 14, at 1PM EST.

iOS 4.3 will introduce Personal Hotspot tethering for iPhone users.

The betas for 4.3 also shows off new multi-touch gestures for iPad users, but the company says that is just a "preview" for developers to test their apps with. The functionality will be held back until later iterations of the OS.

Apple released the last beta for 4.3 this week.

Mozilla has confirmed that there will be two more beta releases of the upcoming Firefox 4 browser, before a true RC hits.

The company had promised 11 betas of the browser, and the 12th was a "just in case" that now seems necessary.

Says Christian Legnitto, Firefox release manager at Mozilla (via Soft):

The current plan is to build [Firefox 4.0 Beta 12] when the remaining betaN hardblockers are done. This is heavily dependent on fix and blocker creation rate.

I will be doing some analysis to give people a possible date range, but as far as development is concerned everything is the same (fix as many betaN hardblockers as quickly as possible).

Android 3.0 Honeycomb, the first version of the software to be optimized for tablets, may eventually hit smartphones as a 'lite' version of itself, says Phandroid.

Honeycomb was coded from scratch for tablets, but there are a number of important features that can be ported to upcoming firmware updates for Android versions of the operating system.

Google recently launched Android 2.3 Gingerbread for smartphones, which integrated minor updates.

However, according to the new reports, Google has already begun building new code for a 'lite' version of Honeycomb for smartphones, which may add hardware acceleration, RenderScript and a fully updated notification system.

Furthermore, the new camera UI will likely get ported, as well.

The update isn't expected until at least the Q3.

American fashion designer Kenneth Cole has apologized for his outrageous tweet earlier in the week, one that used the protests in Egypt to pump his upcoming clothing line.

Read the tweet:

Millions are in an uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at [ link ] -KC

I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I’ve dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.

Analyst firm Forecasting and Analyzing Digital Entertainment (FADE), has reported this week that Valve's PC gaming distribution platform Steam is nearing the $1 billion mark in revenue after a strong holiday season 2010.

Estimated revenue for the year was $970 million, with $213 million coming in December alone.

Says Director of Research & Analysis, Benjamin Schlichterv (via GIW):

Steam's growth has been remarkable during the year. Over 180 titles were estimated reaching over $1 million USD in revenue for the year, painting a very healthy market for developers and publishers, with more room for growth in the future.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision) - $98.2 Million USD
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Activision) - $39.4 Million USD
Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve) - $36.0 Million USD
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Electronic Arts) - $25.4 Million USD
Sid Meier's Civilization V (2K Games) - $21.9 Million USD
Portal (Valve) - $20.0 Million USD
Fallout: New Vegas (Bethesda Softworks) - $17.0 Million USD
Metro 2033 (THQ) - $13.4 Million USD
Mafia II (2K Games) - $11.9 Million USD
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising (THQ) - $10.8 Million USD

Summit Distribution, the studio behind the blockbuster franchise 'Twilight,' is demanding that struggling rental chain Blockbuster pay up what it owes, or head into liquidation.

When Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy last year, it told Summit it would not pay Summit the $6.8 million it was owed for DVDs shipped out.

Summit is now demanding a judge force Blockbuster to pay up, or head into liquidation where it will raise the money needed.

Blockbuster went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September, giving the company a chance to reorganize debt without liquidating. If the company cannot recover, it will be forced into Chapter 7 where the full management team will be replaced and all of the rental company's assets will be sold off to pay debts.

Summit's latest, 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse,' was the 4th most popular DVD in 2010.

Reads the court documents (via Yahoo):

According to a new survey conducted by online sample company uSamp, 54 percent of Verizon's current smartphone userbase is considering switching to the iPhone when it becomes available next week.

The company used a "highly profiled online panel" of over 700 current smartphone users.

Overall, 25 percent said they were "very likely" to switch while 29 percent were "somewhat likely" to switch over.

BlackBerry users were the most likely to switch, with a full 66 percent (when combining both answers) indicating a likelihood. Android users were at 44 percent.

Furthermore, a different survey last week said 16 percent of AT&T users would move over to Verizon for the iPhone.

According to a new survey commissioned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, 32 percent of respondents admit to logging into their neighbor's unencrypted Wi-Fi at least once.

In 2008, the last time the group did the poll, the number was 18 percent.

Says Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director at the Wi-Fi Alliance (via USAT):

The reality is that many consumers have not taken the steps to protect themselves.

With Firesheep, almost anyone can effectively hack into your Facebook, Twitter and other accounts. Almost anyone has the skill to use Firesheep to be a nosy neighbor."

Multiple sources are reporting that HTC's first dual-core Android phone, the 'Pyramid' will be headed to T-Mobile in May.

The 'superphone' will feature a dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4.3 inch qHD display, and 4G/HSPA+ support.

Qualcomm announced their dual-core offering at CES and implied a Q2 availability, placing May squarely in the expected range.

HTC and T-Mobile have a long-standing relationship with Android devices, dating back to the launch of the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1.

T-Mobile's HSPA+ network supports up to 14 Mbps downloads and 5.6 Mbps uploads.

In terms of codecs, the phone will support MPEG-4, MPEG-2, H.264, H.263, VC-1, DivX, WMV-9, Sorenson Spark, VP6, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711 and AAC stereo encode.

1UP has confirmed today that 'Bionic Commando Rearmed 2,' purchasable through the PlayStation Store, will come with the dreaded 'always-connected' DRM last seen on Ubisoft titles.

'Always-connected' DRM means the game is unplayable unless the gamer stays connected to the Internet at all times.

In this case, gamers must always be logged into the PlayStation Network so PS3 offline playback is not an option.

Earlier in the year, developer Capcom raised some eyebrows when it released Final Fight: Double Impact with a special DRM that blocked the game from being shared with any other PSN user.

Family members who shared a PS3 but had different PSN accounts were effectively locked out.

On Thursday, the last top level block of free Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses was assigned, igniting a discussion about the future of the Internet and its rapid expansion to more locations and devices.

IPv4 uses 32bit addressing to route data packets across the Internet, providing for 2³² addresses, or 4,294,967,296 addresses. Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is intended to succeed IPv4. Using a 128-bit address, the IPv6 address space allows 2¹²⁸ addresses, or around 340 undecillion unique addresses (1 undecillion == 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). That means an address pool that is a billion-trillion times larger than IPv4.

IPv4's address format uses a Dotted Decimal Notation, such as "209.62.87.157", to enable communication between devices over the Internet. IPv6 addresses are composed of four hexadecimal digits separated instead by colons, such as "2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334".

IPv6 certainly has lasting power because of the mind-numbing numbers involved. The IPv4 pool is now technically completely exhausted, an event that has been anticipated for years (although a lot of free addresses still remain in most assigned IPv4 blocks and will continue to be allocated for the time being.)

Verizon Wireless has confirmed today that it will be "preventing users from downloading entire videos at once to help ease capacity burdens on the network," thanks to the launch of the iPhone.

Additionally, the carrier will "eliminate some colors and other data from videos that it deems to be not visible to the human eye. The loss of information from the input file may result in reduced color accuracy and sharpness."

Furthermore, the top 5 percent of downloaders in metro areas like San Francisco and Manhattan will have their speeds throttled, to avoid "jamming" the network.

The carrier says it will throttle speeds only at "specific high-traffic times of the day."

New customers, or anyone renewing as of today will be affected by the limitations, meaning all future iPhone users.

CNN is reporting this week that if you have been waiting out to buy an LCD TV, this week may be the right time to head out to the store or check online retailers.

Because of slow holiday sales, HDTV makers will likely discount TVs this week by as much as 30 percent, in anticipation of the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Says Paul Gagnon, director of TV research at DisplaySearch:

Just prior to the Super Bowl is one of the last opportunities for manufacturers to clear out their 2010 models. If they can't sell them now, they're going to have to discount them even more.

Michael Phelps, the Olympic gold medal winning swimmer has his own Kinect game coming this summer, giving the world possibly their only chance to ever beat Phelps in a race.

Says Phelps in the press release:

I'm really excited to help bring a one-of-a-kind swimming video game to the market that is reflective of my competitive nature and passion for swimming. This definitely isn't your typical video game; much like my training in the pool, Push the Limit is about improving and mastering every race element -- from controlling your adrenaline on the block to perfectly timing your finish. In my world, it takes a lifetime of dedication to get one-hundredth of a second ahead and I believe Push the Limit offers players a unique journey inside swimming that will challenge themselves as much as their in-game competitors.

Viacom has announced they have signed a new deal with Hulu which will return content to the video streaming platform.

Last March, Viacom pulled popular TV shows like 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" after a scuffle with Hulu over financial terms.

Today's new deal will give access to Comedy Central, MTV and BET content.

The Daily Show and Colbert Report will stream for free (with ads), the day after they air on TV, but other shows, like 'The Jersey Shore' will only be available to Hulu Plus subscribers.

Hulu Plus costs $8 per month. Most of Viacom's shows will stream with a 21-day delay, but back catalogs will be readily available.

Says Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman (via WSJ):

We didn't feel the revenue model was appropriate at that time. We're going to be getting both ad revenues and subscription fees. That's the kind of model that has worked well in the traditional universe, and one that we think is a positive trend in broadband.

LG Electronics is embracing Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology to offer a swipe payment system to users of LG smartphones.

The company will build the functionality into smartphones intended for the European market in 2012. It will allow users to make payments using their smartphones at a check-out.

"The point-of-sale technology, which will be targeted at small and medium-sized businesses and will involve NFC or near field communications and cloud computing, is currently in beta testing," Jin-Yong Kim, vice president for business solutions at LG's Home Entertainment division, said.

Frost & Sullivan has predicted that there will be 860 million NFC-enabled mobile phones in use by 2015, and that NFC will be the technology embraced to drive mobile payment systems.

Kaspersky has re-assured users of its security software that the availability of source code for some of its past products on file sharing sites does not pose a threat.

The source code for early 2008 versions of the Kaspersky security suite was showing up on more file sharing sites and networks over the past few days. The code was originally taken by an employee who tried to auction it off online.

The incomplete dump of the code actually leaked in November but has only just become a popular thing to trade online recently. The easy availability of the code means that Kaspersky competitors can look over it and possibly make improvements to their own products based on it.

The company does not think that the code is of any use to authors of malware, however. The code is outdated and incomplete, and the core features of the software have been radically changed since it was in use.

"Kaspersky Lab reiterates that this incident cannot harm users of its products, solutions and services in any way. The stolen source code is related to one of the previous product lineups, and since then the company has renewed all key protection technologies," a statement reads.

Verizon has finally revealed prices for multiple services relating to the upcoming iPhone 4 launch.

Pre-orders for the smartphone start on Thursday and will launch later in the month.

Verizon says a basic voice plan will cost $40 and include 450 minutes.

Unlimited texts will cost $20 per month, and the iPhone unlimited data plan will cost $30.

Overall, most users will be paying over $100 per month with fees and taxes for their new iPhone on Verizon.

Additionally, the carrier says owners will "be able to use the iPhone as a Wi-Fi hotspot for an extra $20 per month."

Berenberg Bank analyst Adnaan Ahmad has written an open letter to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop this week, telling the companies they must join forces in the phone market, or disappear.

Ahmad says that Elop should immediately make a deal to have exclusive access to Windows Phone 7, and commit to a date for a product shipment.

Elop admitted last week that Nokia "must build, catalyze and/or join a competitive ecosystem" in order to adapt to the fast moving smartphone industry. Nokia has notably lagged.

Continued the analyst (via Bloomberg):

Nokia is no longer in denial. Microsoft also faces very big strategic challenges as smartphones and tablets attack your highly profitable installed base business.

Sony has revealed today that the company is pushing developers to bring games formerly released on UMD to the upcoming NGP (PSP2), porting the games to the new memory cards designed for the system.

Furthermore, Sony is asking developers to add their existing games to the PlayStation Network as digital downloads, so new owners can purchase them.

If you purchased a game from the PlayStation Network, you can re-download that game for free on the new device, however, if you owned the game on UMD, you are out of luck.

The company did say it will not be releasing any external UMD accessories, so it appears that Sony is finally leaving the dead format in the past.

New to the NGP are dual micro-analog sticks, giving gamers a feature they begged for on the original PSP.

The device has a massive 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen with 960×544 resolution, a multi-touch panel on the back and will run on a quad-core ARM cortex processor.

Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., has revealed all the details of "The Daily" iPad newspaper, months after rumors began swirling about the possibility of the digital paper.

You have two options to purchase The Daily, either 99 cents per week, or a discounted $40 for the whole year.

The newspaper was completely built "from scratch," which Murdoch explains:

Simply put, the iPad demands that we completely reimagine our craft. What we are losing today are the opportunities for true news discovery. The magic of newspapers, and of the best blogs, lies in surprise and the deft touch of a great editor.

Google unveiled their web version of the popular Android Market today, live now at market.android.com.

The site should help Android device owners find their apps easier, in the same manner that iTunes gives iOS users a chance to look up apps online before downloading to their devices.

Until today, Android users had to find and download their apps from their smartphones and tablets, or read reviews from third-party sites.

If the app is paid, you can purchase it online via the website and send it to your device, directly.

Because the Market is attached to your Google account, when you log in you can see all your purchased/downloaded apps.

Google does note that the store may have some first-day early bugs, which users should expect to be ironed out by the end of the week.

Sony is set to bring the PlayStation Move motion controller to the PC this month, as part of the "Move Server" project.

At the GDC, Sony America's John McCutchan will discuss the device:

This talk will bring developers up to speed on developing for the PlayStation Move controller. We will cover developing for the new PlayStation Move Sharp Shooter accessory. We will discuss the new Move Server project that will make it possible for academics and hobbyists to develop software using the PlayStation Move controller on their own PCs.

Samsung Electronics Co. announced on Tuesday that refunds will be offered to customers who bought Samsung PCs that have Intel's flawed chipset inside.

Intel announced on Tuesday that some of its Cougar Point chipsets had been found to have a bad design flaw that required a silicon fix. The chipmaker halted production of the defective chips and started production on new fixed units instead.

The affected chipsets are used in systems that feature Intel's Second Generation Core microprocessors, like some sold by Samsung. "There are six PC line-ups released in Korea and one in the U.S., and we plan to fully refund or exchange the product in question," James Chung, Samsung's spokesman said.

"No financial impact on our business is likely as the total payment will be funded by Intel." The design flaw is expected to cost Intel over $1 billion in repairs and lost revenue, as well as delay the release of more computers using its Sandy Bridge microprocessors.

Japanese technology giant Toshiba Corp has been hit with a $100 million lawsuit alleging gender bias, brought by a female employee.

Elaine Cyphers, a senior human resources manager at the company, alleges that women are paid lower salaries than men for comparable jobs at the company, and that it favors men in promotions while putting women into lower grade positions.

The complaint states that just 3.4 percent of Toshiba's 6,237 managers are women, despite Toshiba creating a "Gender Equality Office" six years ago. "We believe the class claims are significant, and will be substantiated in the litigation," said David Sanford, a partner at Sanford Wittels & Heisler LLP who represents Cyphers, calling the numbers "atrocious."

Cyphers says she was paid between $90,000 and $91,800 a year between 2008 and 2010, while men in comparable jobs at Toshiba pulled in $120,000 a year. The lawsuit seeks class action status on behalf of all current and former female employees of Toshiba within the United States.

Toshiba does not comment on pending litigation.

U.S. President Barack Obama met with chief executives from U.S. tech companies at the White House on Tuesday to discuss several issues.

Among the CEOs visiting the White House was Ursula Burns of Xerox, Michael Dell of Dell Inc. and Samuel Palmisano of IBM. On the agenda was jobs, education, trade and taxes as the President picked the brains of the heads of the tech giants.

A White House statement said that the President and the CEOs discussed plans for investments in the United States, as well as the importance of prioritizing Science and Math in U.S. education institutions. They also discussed "ideas for reforming and reorganizing the government to streamline the process and improve efficiency through the use of technology."

The group also pledged support for the Obama administrations's work to get free trade agreements through Congress citing support for the Korea Trade Agreement. "Seventy percent of our industry is outside the United States and most of the growth is outside of the United States, so we need a competitive playing field," Palmisano said.

Apple has blocked Sony's e-book application from the App Store, saying it conflicts with Apple's system for managing the purchase of content.

Sony's app would have allowed iPhone / iPad users to read books bought from the Sony store using the Apple devices. The company accused Apple of changing the way it enforces its rules in its decision not to allow it to offer the application through the App Store.

Apple denied that it changed its rules in any way or enforced them any differently for Sony, and that it instead was only looking to ensure that customers could buy books using its "in-app purchase" payment method, which provides Apple with a 30 percent cut of sales made.

The dust up doesn't appear to have affected Amazon.com however. Amazon offers a Kindle app through the App Store which lets users view books bought through Amazon on the Apple devices.

"We opened a dialogue with Apple to see if we can come up with an equitable resolution for both companies as well as our consumers, but reached an impasse at this time," Sony said in a statement on Tuesday. Developer guidelines from Apple state that apps using a different system to the in-app purchase to buy "content, functionality or services" will be rejected.

A debate has been brewing over the safety of images produced by 3D televisions amidst suggestions to keep younger viewers away from them.

The Nintendo 3DS handheld is due to be released in Japan on February 26, offering 3D images to gamers without the need for any glasses to create the effect. Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime had recommended that very young children not be exposed to the 3D images, and said that it was a standard protocol within the industry.

Following that suggestion and similar advice, a debate has grown in the media about the potential "dangers" of 3D images. Often brought up are comments from Mark Pesce, an early pioneer in virtual reality, made last year where he said children could potentially suffer permanent damage from regular and extensive exposure to 3D images on a screen.

He also criticized the major tech companies pushing the technology for not doing healthy safety tests. Sony, Samsung and LG are among tech giants that do actually issue health and safety guidance with 3D products, mostly echoing the advice made by Nintendo but also extending to people under the influence of alcohol, pregnant women, senior citizens and people with heart health issues.

The BBC has reported that films available through Apple services to iPhone and iPad users are being sold without the consent of the copyright holders.

Popular films dating back to the Soviet era were obtainable through Apple's services, taking the form of applications that can be installed on Apple devices. Films include old favourites such as Gentlemen of Fortune, Assa, The Diamond Arm, Kin-dza-dza and Cheburashka.

Mosfilm and the Joint State Film Collection (Obyedinennaya Gosudarstvennaya Kinocollectsia) own the copyright to the specific Russian movies, and have not given anyone permission to provide them through Apple's services for free or for a fee.

"It is illegal to present our films as applications either in iTunes or on any other internet site. It is permitted only on our own Mosfilm site," Svetlana Pyleva, Mosfilm's deputy director general, said in an interview with BBC News. "There are no third parties which we have permitted to use our content."

Mosfilm at the time was preparing to submit complaints to Apple. Before apps can be made available through the App Store, Apple has to approve them. The company has said it takes copyright complaints very seriously and will take action immediately against any infringing app.

Microsoft has warned Windows users about a security flaw that could affect 900 million Internet Explorer users.

The company warned in an advisory that the flaw could potentially be exploited by malicious users to hijack a computer or steal private information. Even though the flaw itself is in Windows, it only appears to affect the way Internet Explorer handles webpages and documents.

"When the user clicked that link, the malicious script would run on the user's computer for the rest of the current Internet Explorer session," wrote Microsoft representative Angela Gunn.

"Such a script might collect user information, e.g e-mail, spoof content displayed in the browser or otherwise interfere with the user's experience."

Microsoft said it has seen no evidence that the loophole is being exploited in the wild. The company is working on a permanent patch to fix the problem permanently, but concerned Internet Explorer users can utilize a Microsoft "Fix It" solution to guard against it until then.

More information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2501696

Intel announced yesterday that it had discovered a design flaw that affects its Intel 6 Series (code-named Cougar Point) chipsets.

The chip-maker said it has implemented a silicon fix for the problem. In some cases, the Serial-ATA (SATA) ports within the chipsets may degrade over time, potentially impacting the performance or functionality of SATA-linked devices such as HDDs and DVD drives.

The chipset is utilized in PCs with Intel's latest Second Generation Intel Core processors, code-named Sandy Bridge. Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories.

The Sandy Bridge microprocessor is unaffected and no other products are affected by this issue. The company will start delivering the updated version of the chipset to its customers in late February. The systems with the affected support chips have only been shipping since January 9th and the company believes that relatively few consumers are impacted by this issue.

For the first quarter of 2011, Intel expects this issue to reduce revenue by approximately $300 million as the company discontinues production of the current version of the chipset and begins manufacturing the new version, but full-year revenue is not expected to be materially affected by the problem.

Localytics has posted an interesting figure today, stating that 26 percent of mobile apps are used only once, before being uninstalled or just left unused on owner's devices.

The site studied the hundred of thousands of apps used by iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 users by using "its real-time app analytics service."

On a quarterly basis, the Q1 saw 22 percent of apps discarded after one use, the Q2 and Q3 saw 26 percent, and the Q4 saw a bump to 28 percent, although owners may still find time in 2011 to use those apps downloaded in late 2010.

Using the service, Localytics was able to see the first time a new app customer actually used an app, and whether there was any follow through later in the year.

There are currently over 300,000 iOS apps and around 200,000 Android Market apps.

AT&T has been sued this week for over-billing iOS users by 'systematically overstating' the data use of iPad and iPhone owners.

The class-action suit was filed by Patrick Hendricks who says a third-party consulting firm studied AT&T's data billing practices for 60 days and found that some users have their usage overstated by 7 percent, while others had it overstated by 300 percent.

Reads Hendrick's claim (via EW):

Not only does AT&T systematically overbill for every data transaction, it also bills for phantom data traffic when there is no actual data usage initiated by the customer. This was discovered by the same independent consulting firm, which purchased an iPhone from an AT&T store, immediately disabled all push notifications and location services, confirmed that no e-mail account was configured on the phone, closed all applications, and let the phone sit untouched for 10 days. During this 10-day period, AT&T billed the test account for 35 data transactions totaling 2,292 KB of usage. This is like the rigged gas pump charging you when you never even pulled your car into the station."

According to Cnet, Google's Google Music platform is nearing a debut, although there are still hurdles.

Google is still negotiating "complex licensing agreements" which should require a few months, says the site, but this is the closest the platform has ever been to debuting.

It appears that each of the Big 4 labels has a varying mindset on how a cloud music service should be run, and finding a happy medium is harder than Google ever thought.

The search giant had hoped to launch the service by last November.

Apple's iTunes remains the clear market leader for digital music, accounting for over 70 percent of all worldwide sales. A streaming, subscription service by Google (which might also include download options), however, could make a dent, given Google's strength in many markets.

Google could bake the service into Android (most popular smartphone OS), and connect it to YouTube, which is one of the most trafficked services in the world.

Strategy Analytics has said today that the iPad has seen its tablet market share fall from almost 96 percent to 75 percent in the last few months, thanks to Android devices.

Android tablets jumped to 21.6 percent while the rest of the share was taken by Windows and other tablet OS.

While technically "Android" encompasses a large number of tablets released in 2010, most of the gains by the OS came from the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which shipped over 2 million tablets by the end of the year.

Samsung did admit, however, that it believes hundreds of thousands of those shipped tablets still remain on retail shelves.

Apple sold 15 million iPads in 2010 after releasing the tablet to much fanfare in April.

Android is expected to take a much larger share of the tablet market after a number of Android 3.0 tablet-optimized devices hit the market, starting with the Motorola Xoom this month.


(Pic via Electronista)

World of Warcraft maker Blizzard has taken the next step to blocking virtual currency sellers, filing complaints with PayPal to block all 'gold sellers.'

A number of outfits make a living selling WoW virtual goods for real money, which is not endorsed by Blizzard.

Virtual goods include gold, characters, power-leveling and other rare items.

Most of these sellers accept payment through PayPal, but that will no longer be the case as Blizzard has filed complaints with PayPal claiming "Intellectual Properties violation" for the "sale of World of Warcraft Merchandise."

The large online transaction service has sent notices to all affected sellers and they now have three choices. Either give up selling that merchandise, lose your PayPal account permanently, or fight Blizzard in court.

Reads the notice (via Curse):

You were reported to PayPal as an Intellectual Properties violation by Blizzard Entertainment Inc. for the sale of World of Warcraft Merchandise.

According to multiple reports, the 4G-supporting Dell Streak 7 tablet will hit on Wednesday and cost just $200 with contract, and $450 without.

Says T-Mobile:

As tablets change the way we consume content, T-Mobile’s combination of 4G speeds, breadth of our 4G network, our affordable data plans and compelling new products like the Streak 7 place us in a position to offer the best experience and value for our customers.

Microsoft software 'deconstructor' Rafael Rivera has said today that he believes the reason some Windows Phone 7 devices use up massive amounts of 'phantom data' is thanks to an issue with Yahoo Mail, the popular email service.

Rivera looked through the IMAP packets leaving the device and saw that "Yahoo's IMAP server was not responding to the phone's requests to fetch new messages with the correct response," explains Cnet.

Therefore, instead of sending tiny commands, the servers were sending back blocks of data up to 25 time larger than necessary.

Adds Rivera:

This can also be read as: Your phone is downloading ~25 times as much data as it normally would, had you sided with another e-mail provider.

Internet monitoring company Renesys has confirmed this afternoon that Egypt is now in a complete Internet blackout, after small ISP Noor Group went offline, following the path of all of Egypt's major service providers.

The Egyptian government ordered all the ISPs in the nation to disconnect from the Internet four days ago.

Noor was the service provider for many businesses, as well as the country's stock exchange and controlled about 8 percent of the country's Internet connections.

The government's order has come amidst protests and riots in Egypt demanding the end of the Hosni Mubarak regime, and the implementation of a new government "that represents the interests of the Egyptian people." Most believe the Internet cutoff is an attempt by the government to halt the use of social networking sites as a tool for the protesters to organize themselves.

Egyptians can still use mobile phones and landline telephones to communicate.

(Pic via Getty)