The highly-anticipated $35 mini-computer, the Raspberry Pi, is finally here and available for sale although both current sellers have seen such overwhelming demand that you will likely have to wait a while to receive yours.
Reads the press statement:
Six years after the project's inception, we're nearly at the end of our first run of development although it's just the beginning of the Raspberry Pi story. Now we start developing educational tools and initiatives, at the same time as continuing research and development on Raspberry Pi hardware.
Although we are still waiting for units to arrive from China, you can start buying the Raspberry Pi today. We have entered into licensed manufacture partnerships with two British companies, Premier Farnell and RS Components. They'll be manufacturing and distributing the devices on behalf of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and handling the distribution of our first batches as they arrive in the country. The Foundation continues to make a small profit from each Raspberry Pi sold, which we'll be putting straight back into the charity.
The Raspberry Pi is a mini-computer created by UK programmers. What makes the computer so impressive (besides its price tag) is the fact that it can play 1080pHD video with no issues. The devices are intended to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools or at home. The company is looking to promote the Python programming language, alongside Basic and C among others.
TPB will no longer give out links to .torrent files. The reason is simple: They're just a waste of space and our time.
Instead we're giving you Magnet links. It's simpler for us and no more hassle for you. It's more resilient than .torrent files and it uses much less bandwidth for those who wants to mirror. Also, since the magnet links are just a hash, it's on every single torrent detail page - so noone knows that you actually downloaded a file or not.
This means that noone can block torrent files without blocking data within a webpage. So far, few countries have implemented such harsh censorship tactics. Countries, particularily in EU, seems to moving towards total censorship so we do all we can to avoid our users ending up with less freedom.
Interpol has said today that 25 alleged Anonymous hackers have been arrested in Europe and South America.
The arrests took place in Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain and those arrested ranged in age between 17 and 40. All of the suspects are accused of "planning coordinated cyber-attacks against institutions including Colombia's defense ministry and presidential Web sites, Chile's Endesa electricity company and national library, and other targets."
Among those arrested, four are accused of defacing Spanish political party sites and using DDoS attacks on other sites. One is also suspected to be the manager of Anonymous's computer operations in Spain and Latin America. The hacker went by the aliases "Thunder" and "Pacotron," say officials.
Anonymous has retaliated multiple times against police officials and other intelligence agencies in the past following arrests of their members, and this time will likely be no different. Rumors on Twitter had the group preparing to DDoS the Interpol site.
Verge has reported that HP has laid off 275 employees from its WebOS division, as the operating system transitions to open source.
The statement from the company reads: "As webOS continues the transition from making mobile devices to open source software, it no longer needs many of the engineering and other related positions that it required before. This creates a smaller and more nimble team that is well-equipped to deliver an open source webOS and sustain HP's commitment to the software over the long term.
HP is working to redeploy employees affected by these changes to other roles at the company."
The company last had a round of layoffs in September, and former Palm CEO and WebOS boss Jon Rubinstein left the company in January.
While unfortunate, the move was expected as many of those fired were from the webOS hardware division, where HP is unlikely to make any more products.
According to info hidden in Google's own data, there are less than 1 million Google TV devices being actively used.
Also notable is the fact that Logitech's Revue set-top is the most used GTV device.
GigaOM found the figures in Google's Android Market stats, which publishes rounded numbers on every application's install base. Each Google TV device comes with pre-installed apps, which Google lists in the Android Market, as well. The TV and Movies app (which is built-in and is the most important app in the platform) is listed as installed on 500,000-to-1 million devices which implies that active users are under 1 million, although that number has a big range.
Data mining firm Xyologic seemed to confirm the fact, estimating that the most important pre-installed apps are on around 600,000-900,000 Google TV devices.
The Logitech Revue, which launched at $250 but was quickly discontinued and sold at $99, is the most popular device, controlling 50-70 percent of the market (depending on what figures you see).
Sandisk, Western Digital, Fox and Warner Bros. have teamed up to create the Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA), a coalition that will create and license solutions to secure HD and other premium content on SSDs, HDDs and other flash memory products.
The SCSA is currently working on codename "Project Phoenix" which is "an initiative that will give consumers an easier and faster way to organize, store and move their high definition digital movies and TV shows - including new releases in up to full 1080p quality - across multiple devices."
Content will be stored in the cloud, as well, using the UltraViolet standard that is becoming more popular in 2012 for studios.
Says Warner Bros.: "Developing solutions that will allow consumers to easily access and store true HD digital content is a critical component supporting digital media and entertainment consumption. Through the SCSA, we will accelerate the development of products that will make it easy for the consumer to download, store and playback their high definition digital movies and TV shows, in full 1080p, on any SCSA-optimized device at home and on the go."
IBM has laid off 1000 employees, and that may just be the beginning.
The company does not comment on specifics, but Alliance@IBM/CWA Local 1701, the union that gathers data and comments directly from IBM employees has mentioned that the 1000 may not be the end of the cuts.
Employees were from multiple businesses and locations and half of those fired "are mobile or work from home."
IBM commented: "We are constantly rebalancing our workforce. That means reducing in some areas and hiring in others -- based on shifts in technology and client demand. This flexibility allows IBM to remain competitive and relevant in an industry that is constantly changing. And given the competitive nature of our business, we do not publicly discuss the details of our staffing plans."
The company has sifted its workforce globally and there have been steady layoffs in the U.S. since 2007. That year, the company had 121,000 employees and that number has fallen to about 98,000 as of today. Globally, the company has 425,000 employees.
Google has put $1 million on the line if security researchers or hackers can exploit their popular Chrome browser.
The company has also pulled out of the annual Pwn2Own contest, where they were regular sponsors. Google says there were changes in the rules by contest organizer Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) which they did not approve of: "We decided to withdraw our sponsorship when we discovered that contestants are permitted to enter Pwn2Own without having to reveal full exploits, or even all of the bugs used, to vendors. Full exploits have been handed over in previous years, but it's an explicit non-requirement in this year's contest, and that's worrisome."
Chrome is a "sandboxed" system which normally means any hack of the browser requires multiple exploits, and Chrome has remained untouched for years while other browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari normally last just a few hours during the contest.
For the new $1 million prize, hackers will need to perform a "full Chrome exploit" which exploits Chrome on Windows 7 using only vulnerabilities in Chrome itself. That alone will bring $60,000 and every other partial exploit that uses one bug will earn $40,000. Additionally, Google will pay $20,000 for "consolation" exploits that "hack Chrome without using any vulnerabilities in the browser itself."
The portal service Yahoo has demanded Facebook license technologies covered by its IP (intellectual property) portfolio or they will proceed with legal action.
Says the company: "We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights."
Facebook, which has over 800 million users and recently took substantial share from Yahoo in the display advertising market, has responded that they have not had time yet to "fully evaluate" Yahoo's claims.
It is unclear what companies already license tech from Yahoo, or what the IP covers, but that will surely be made available in the near future, especially if legal action is required.
Movie studio Nu Image has started a mass lawsuit against alleged downloaders of the 2011 movie 'Conan the Barbarian.'
The suit against 2165 individuals, was filed last Friday. The move follows Nu Image's failed attempt to sue 23,322 downloaders of 'The Expendables,' the largest such P2P lawsuit in history. The former suit was dismissed within months, but it appears that Nu's lawyers have learned from their past mistakes.
All 2165 alleged downloaders were caught between December of last year and February and reside in the Maryland area. Each of the downloaders used cooperative ISPs, such as Comcast, Sprint and Verizon. Time Warner was not involved, as they successfully fought the Expendables case.
Nu Image is looking for about $3000 in settlement fees.
HBO has announced today that it is expanding its online media streaming service, HBO Go, to the Xbox 360.
Starting on April 1st, over 60 million Xbox 360 owners can potentially have access to the service, as long as they are also HBO subscribers.
HBO Go gives access to on-demand programming of the company's biggest original content including True Blood, Entourage, and Game of Thrones. The service is available on iOS, Android, Roku and some Internet-enabled TVs as well as PCs.
The Xbox 360 already has access to Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, Crackle and other content, making the console a formidable media entertainment hub.
Although the PlayStation Vita is selling decently well, one analyst believes a price cut is necessary and is coming soon.
The console, which launched in the U.S. and Europe two weeks ago, has sold 1.2 million units total, including the handhelds sold in Japan since the console's launch last year in the nation.
Sony has also already sold 2.1 million games through their digital store and retail purchases, a significant number since there are only 25 games available for the system. Says Andre House, Sony Computer Entertainment president: "The market has responded and there is clear demand for a mobile device capable of providing a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and social connectivity within a real world context. To sustain momentum, we're working closely with 3rd party developers and publishers to ensure the best games and franchises possible will be available on PS Vita, and our software line up for the remainder of 2012 will have something for everyone across the globe."
Jia Wu, senior analyst for Connected Home Devices at Strategy Analytics (via Forbes), says Sony is making a mistake selling the console at $250-$300, however, and should slash the price as soon as possible. If Sony were to slash the price down similarly to how Nintendo did with the 3DS, the analyst believes Sony could sell 12.4 million units in 2012, making the handheld a massive success.
During the Mobile World Congress event in Spain this week, Panasonic has introduced two waterproof smartphones, the Eluga and Eluga Power.
The Eluga will launch soon with Gingerbread 2.3.5, but will be upgraded to ICS in June. Full specs:
- An ultra-slim D shaped design, with a slender 123x62.0x7.8mm frame.
- International standard IP57 water and dustproofing. Protected for up to a depth of 1 metre for up to 30 minutes in water, and protected against dust (75 micrometers or less in diameter/no harmful deposit) if left near or in it for eight hours or less.
- Near-field communication (NFC) technology, meaning the phone is ready for 'no touch' interactions, including contactless payments.
- A 4.3 inch, 960x540, capacitive OLED QHD screen with one of the largest display area ratio on the market.
- Swipe and Share, letting users wirelessly 'throw' pictures from their phone to a TV or cloud service, or stream movies from their phone to a TV. The VieraRemote app also enables the phone to be used as a remote control for other electronic devices in the home (such as a Viera TV, DIGA Blu-ray player and recorder, home cinema system, or digital still camera).
- An 8MP autofocus camera, with 8GB of integrated memory.
- A 1GHz dual-core processor ( OMAP4430 ), with Android Gingerbread (version 2.3.5) on-board, to be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich from summer 2012.
CNBC has tweeted the following, causing a frenzy amongst electronics and Apple fans.
"ALERT: Quad-Core iPad 3 with 4G LTE to be unveiled in New York next week. -Sources"
There was nothing else posted, as of yet, but if accurate the device will be revealed even sooner than the previously rumored March 13th.
Furthermore, if accurate, Apple would have quieted the reports that the device will not come with a quad-core A6 processor, but instead with a souped up dual-core A5X.
Will be interesting to see next week, and we will keep you updated.
Samsung executive Hankil Yoon has come clean today, admitting that the company "is not doing very well in the tablet market."
The statement comes just a day after Android boss Andy Rubin noted that Samsung's Galaxy line were the highest-selling Android tablets on the market (not including the Kindle Fire and Nook Color/Tablet). If both execs are telling the truth, it would appear that Android is struggling in the tablet market.
Regardless, on the phone side Samsung has been extremely successful, with their Galaxy S II hitting 20 million units sold despite being delayed in the U.S. for 5 months.
Yoon says the company expects 10 million Galaxy Notes to be sold, and that the large-screened phone will completely cannibalize sales of the original Galaxy Tab 10.1. The company also just revealed its Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Note 10.1, along with updated versions of their 7-inch tablets.
If a new report is accurate, Apple fans may not be so happy when the iPad 3 is launched next month.
The device will use a more powerful dual-core processor, an "A5X," instead of the expected quad-core A6, as Apple has not had time to perfect the A6.
BlueFin Research Partners analyst Steve Mullane cites the supply chain, notably Samsung, in the report, which claims the manufacturer was not properly equipped to produce the 28nm A6.
Reads the note: "[Samsung's] Austin logic fab - supports the mass production of the 45-nanometer AAPL A5 processor, and is ramping on a 32-nanometer process. Since the A6 processor is based on a 28-nanometer process, we believe the 32-nanometer ramp validates the recent rumors that the iPad 3 will likely use a higher speed, die-shrink version of the A5 dual-core processor, named the A5X processor, as opposed to the next-generation A6 quad-core processor."
If accurate, the A5X will certainly be powerful (perhaps even with a clock speed of 1.8GHz or higher) but with Android devices already out with quad-core chips, and more coming, Apple may need to step up its other features.
The Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory, whose CEO noted the company's "uncertain future" earlier this month, has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Elpida's move is the largest corporate failure for a Japanese manufacturer since World War II.
Liabilities, as of March 2011, were $5.5 billion and the company's desperate attempts to refinance or get a bailout from the Japanese government failed.
Elpida was Japan's last DRAM maker and the company was ultimately done in by a Yen at its strongest levels since the end of World War II. Furthermore, South Korean rivals like Samsung managed to take large market share in a short period of time thanks to cost efficiency.
Samsung had 45 percent share as of September 2011, followed by Hynix at 21.5 percent and then Elpida and Micron at 12.1 percent each.
The company hopes to re-emerge under the supervision of the Tokyo District Court, says the WSJ.
On February 17 they filed applications in both states to offer IPTV service to customers of the broadband Internet service they are currently building in the two cities. The filings came close on the heels of US and EU regulators approving their buyout of cable set-top box manufacturer Motorola Mobility.
Late last year a report appeared indicating Google was in negotiations to secure deals with media companies for such a service. While Google remains noncommittal about the rumor, earlier this month Ars Technica uncovered another clue in the form of an FCC application suggesting plans for an antenna array to receive commercial TV broadcasts, similar to a cable television head end, at a data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
BGR has posted the alleged specs of the upcoming Galaxy S III, and they are impressive, to say the least.
The device would be a successor to the popular Samsung Galaxy S II, which just recently hit the 20 million sale milestone.
Samsung has still not put a date on the launch of the device, but the rumor is for a March launch and a release in May.
The BGR specs:
-1.5GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor
-4.8-inch "full HD" 1080presolution with 16:9aspect ratio display
-Edge-to-edge display
-A 2-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel rear camera
-Ceramic case
-4G LTE -Android 4.0
Android boss Andy Rubin tweeted earlier this morning that Google is seeing 850,000 Android activations daily, up from 700,000 in December.
Additionally, the number of active Android devices is now at 300 million. The Android Market hit its own milestone, as well, 13 billion apps downloaded.
Looking back, the growth is extremely impressive. Back in November, activations were at 550,000. In June that number was 500,000 and in April the number was at 350,000.
During the Mobile World Congress event in Spain, handset makers have already unveiled over 30 new Android devices, most of which are running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the company's largest update to the OS, ever.
ZTE has announced the Era smartphone, their first quad-core device.
The phone runs on Android 4.0, has a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, a nice 4.3-inch 960 x 540 qHD display and a thin form factor that is only 7.8mm thick.
Additionally, the phone has 8GB internal storage and 1GB RAM.
The device has quad-band support with HSPA+ 42, Wi-Fi, UMA (Wi-Fi Calling), Bluetooth 3.0, HD Voice capability, Dolby-engineered sound, and DLNA.
ZTE did note that the device will have a UI layer called Mifavor, but the pictures don't seem to imply huge changes from the stock experience.
The phone will hit Europe and China in the Q3 with no word on a U.S. release (if there is one).
According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, the Finnish phone maker is looking into producing a tablet in conjunction with partner Microsoft.
Says Elop (NYT): "We look very closely at what is coming out of Microsoft in terms of Windows 8. We are very, very pleased with the consistency of the user experience that is coming from the Windows phone and moving up onto tablets and slates and PCs as Windows 8. So we look at those things and say, boy, if there's a family opportunity there, that's something we'll look at very carefully."
Nokia created a tablet back in 2009 based on its now defunct Symbian operating system.
The company is now in a billion dollar partnership with Microsoft, however, to produce phones with Windows Phone as the operating system.
During the Mobile World Congress event, Nokia introduced 6 new phones that will launch during the year, including the Lumia 610 and the Nokia 808 PureView with a 41MP camera.
Nokia has revealed new mobile phones in Barcelona. Nokia's Mobile World Congress event brought us three new affordable Asha phones, two new Windows Phones and a new Symbian powered camera phone.
Starting with the three affordable Asha phones that have been designed mainly for the emerging markets. The models are Asha 202, Asha 203 and Asha 302. All of them have estimated retail price (before taxes) of less than 100 euros and have 2,4 (202, 203) or 2,6 inch (302) touch screen. The Asha 302 has a QWERTY keyboard and the other two come with an alphanumeric keypad.
Nokia's new Lumia phones are as expected the HSPA+ version of Lumia 900 and the more affordable Lumia 610. The first is a copy of the LTE version, only dropping the LTE for HSPA+ connectivity. Lumia 610 on the other hand is a totally new handset. It comes with 3,7 inch touch screen, 256 mb of RAM, 800MHz processor and a price tag of 189 euros before taxes. Both Lumia phones are expected to launch in second quarter.
WikiLeaks has begun publishing "The Global Intelligence Files," a group of over 5 million emails stolen from Stratfor, the global intelligence agency.
The emails are dated from 2004 until late last year and Wiki says the emails will "reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency."
Stratfor apparently deals with psychological control methods, payment-laundering, informants, and more.
One such email, from CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez reads as follows: "[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase."
There are over 4000 emails that mention WikiLeaks or its founder Julian Assange, and the emails show how Stratfor attempted to subvert WikiLeaks.
Adobe has made its Photoshop Touch app available for iPad 2 owners.
For $10, iPad 2 owners (sorry iPad 1 owners) can have access to the powerful image editing capability of the app. Android owners have had the app since 2011.
Similar to the popular desktop version (which costs upwards of $700), users can work in layers, use "sophisticated selection tools" and erase unwanted parts of pieces. You will also be able to make standard editing
The app is the first of Adobe's upcoming Touch apps for the iPad. The rest are (via Mashable):
Adobe Collage; Adobe Debut presentation software; Adobe Ideas, which will be similar to the Illustrator vector-based desktop drawing software; Adobe Kuler color theme manager; and website- prototyping and wireframe tool Adobe Proto.
Adobe's remaining apps will be released this year and work with the company's Creative Cloud services.
To download the app, you will need iOS 5 and an iPad 2.
At Sony's Mobile World Congress conference today, the company unveiled its Xperia P smartphone.
The device is the first from Sony after its breakup (buyout) with Ericsson, and the company hopes to become a player again in the market where it has almost disappeared.
Sony's Xperia P will have a 4-inch display, a unibody aluminum form factor and be the first to use Sony's "White Magic" display technology for better visibility in sunny conditions.
The smartphone has a dual-core 1GHz processor, will run Gingerbread 2.3.7 out of the box (update to ICS 4.0 coming in the Q2), and have an 8MP camera with 1080p video support.
Sony has also pre-installed photo, video and music player apps, as well as integrating the Sony Entertainment Network. NFC is also supported, and will be work with "Xperia Smart Tags" to created macros for your device.
The world's first quad-core Android smartphone is coming soon, via HTC.
At the Mobile World Congress event in Spain, HTC unveiled there new flagship One X device, the high-end model among three new phone "HTC One" branded phones.
The device has a large 4.7-inch display with 1,280x720-pixelHDresolution and Gorilla Glass. The phone runs on Android 4.0 with HTC Sense 4.0, and the phone maker has decided to keep three buttons, one for back, home and running/recent apps.
Due to its large screen, the device is 0.36-inches thick, putting it on par with the Windows Phone-powered HTC Titan.
The superphone also has, what HTC is calling its "most advanced" camera ever, an 8MP deal with five levels of LED flash and automatic focus, an (f/2.0) lens, a better image sensor and a dedicated imaging chip. The front-side camera is 1.3MP and the device will also have Beats Audio.
The company has unveiled the tablet today at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 is very similar to its predecessor, but is actually heavier. The device has a 10.1-inch 1280x800 PLS TFT display, a dual-core 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 16 or 32GB internal storage and a 3MP 1080p capable standard camera with a VGA front-side camera.
Additionally, the device has 802.11gbn Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, USB 2.0 Host, A-GPS, accelerometer, digital compass and light sensors. The tablet will be 1.3 pounds and be 9.7mm thick.
The Galaxy Tab 2 will run on Android 4.0 mixed with Samsung's TouchWiz UI overlay. The device will have a large 7000mAh battery, as well.
The company says the device will go on sale globally in the Q2.
On the spec side, the Beam has a 1GHz dual-core processor, a 4-inch WVGA TFT LCD display, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage and a 5MP standard camera. The device will launch with Gingerbread 2.3, but be upgraded to Android 4.0 ICS by the end of the year.
Unlike other past phones with projectors, the Beam will actually be on the thinner side at 0.49 inches with a 15 lumens pico projector. Samsung says the phone can project video for three hours on a gull charge, and there will be stands available for sale. The projections can be up to 50-inches wide, and the resolution is 640x360.
A new study has torn apart AT&T argument for throttling mobile data.
The carrier shut down its unlimited plans last year, saying it was aiming at stopping the "top 5 percent" of bandwidth hogs, who allegedly accounted for over 50 percent of all mobile traffic during the year. Users who go over 2GB on an unlimited plan are throttled back down to 2G/EDGE speeds.
Validas, a company that promises to "slash your cell phone bill, on average, by 20%," conducted the study, by examining over 55,000 cell phone bill from Verizon and AT&T in 2011.
The study showed that AT&T's alleged data hogs were not actually using much more data than anyone else. The study says that the top 5 percent of data users on AT&T's network use (on average) 3.97GB per month, only 780MB more than the top 5 percent of those that use tiered plans, which come in different flavors and prices.
In conclusion, the company says AT&T is throttling to force users over to their tiered plans, which are "easier to manage" and efficiently block the occasional user who does use a massive amount of data that actually puts a strain on their network.
Starting next week, Killzone 3's multiplayer experience will go free on PSN.
Players who download the free-to-play Killzone 3 will be able to join and play with those who own the full game. Additionally, FTP users will have "access to the Warzone, Operations, and Guerilla Warfare modes, as well as every map and DLC pack currently available."
The only catch is all free gamers will be capped at the level of "Sergeant," which is level 10 of 45.
To unlock the "full experience," gamers can pay a one-time fee of $15. By doing so, they will also be given 24 hours of double-experience play and the ability to level up to level 45.
The deal is pretty decent considering the game still sells for around $30 from most retailers (not including used copies) and there are many gamers who could care less about the single-player campaign.
Sprint has walked away from an acquisition of MetroPCS in the 11th hour, say sources speaking with Bloomberg.
The deal would have valued MetroPCS at $8 billion, but the final deal was rejected by Sprint's board of directors at the last minute. The company currently trades with a value of about $5 billion, so Sprint's offer would have been with a significant premium.
MetroPCS has 9.3 million subscribers and significant spectrum and certainly would have helped Sprint compete better with major CDMA player Verizon.
Sprint looked into purchasing T-Mobile USA last year, but the price was too high. AT&T eventually bid $39 billion for the company but was rejected by the FCC and US Department of Justice over anti-trust concerns.
Another potential option, says the report, is MetroPCS' rival Leap Wireless.
To do so, the device will likely be more rectangular shaped than its current devices, which have rounded corners. Similar devices with rectangular designs are Nokia's latest, the Lumia 800 and 900.
There was no other details on the device, but there is a chance Samsung will drop more details at next week's Mobile World Congress.
Yesterday, Rapidshare confirmed it is throttling the download speed "free users" of its service receive in an effort to reduce piracy.
Today, free users of the site began complaining that instead of slow speeds, they were instead seeing 404 error screens, blocking them from downloading anything.
Users with premium accounts were having no issues.
Rapidshare has responded (via Freak), chalking the errors up to a mistake: "This error is due to a website update and therefore not intentional. RapidShare is working on a solution so that these "false" links should work again soon."
The Chinese electronics maker Proview has sued Apple over the trademark to the iPad, after a successful suit in China.
Proview is accusing Apple of fraud in their purchase tactics for the trademark. Apple purchased the trademark from Proview's subsidiary IP Application Development. The company says the "representatives Apple negotiated with claimed that they wanted the "IPAD" trademark because it was an abbreviation of the company name."
Lower courts in Shanghai have sided with Proview in the dispute, but the courts over there are now waiting for a higher court ruling, with all current decisions being suspended. The Guangdong High Court will begin its hearing on February 29th, and the suspension means Apple can continue to sell their product in China.
Apple remains in litigation with numerous other companies, mainly for patents relating to Android and iOS, in the U.S., Germany, China and other nations.
HTC's next smartphones, expected to be launched at the Mobile World Congress event next week, have been leaked ahead of time.
The HTC One X will be the company's first quad-core smartphone, using a Tegra 3 processor. The device will also have a very large 4.7-inch "super bright" display, an 8MP camera and a thin form factor.
Furthermore, the device will have three menu buttons, each of which will correspond to their (usually) virtual Android 4.0 buttons (home, back and running apps).
The One X will be released along side the One V and One S, two mid-range devices focusing on Beats Audio and multimedia. The devices will run on Android 4.0 but have 1GHz dual-core processors, 5MP cameras and 4-inch (or smaller) displays.
Popular kiosk rental service Redbox has announced it will offer video game rentals for free next week.
Starting on Sunday, February 26th, Redbox customers will get their first day's rental for free. There are 30 different games available total for the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.
The rentals normally cost $2 per day, so gamers will get a very decent $2 discount for a game they probably would have rented, regardless. After the first night, the regular rate will apply.
A few of the games available include "Just Dance 3," and "COD: Modern Warfare 3."
There is one small catch, however. To get the free night, the games must be reserved online and a credit card must be provided. You can also use the company's iPhone and Android apps to make the reservation.
Google has announced today that it will take a huge loss on its stake in Clearwire, the wireless internet service provider.
The company purchased a $500 million stake in the company in 2008, after Sprint Nextel agreed to take over the WiMax operations of Clearwire. The deal was also backed by Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Intel was the primary backer of the failed standard.
Google will sell its 29 million shares at $1.60 each, taking back just $46 million of its $500 million investment. The company, in a filing with the SEC, says the shares will be offered to existing shareholders and then the public.
Although the move clearly seems like a major player abandoning ship, Google would only say"Google periodically rebalances its investments based on its goals and its evaluation of market conditions."
Although Clearwire ran out of money in 2010, Sprint saved the company by paying $1.6 billion to access the WiMAX service, used as 4G on the carrier, until 2015.
Netflix has made it clear today that they have no plans for BlackBerry support, now or in the future.
When asked, the company responded on Twitter that: "We don't have any current plans to support BlackBerry devices, including PlayBook."
Netflix's streaming catalog, which has over 25,000 TV episodes, movies and original shows, has been available on Apple's iOS platform and Google's Android platform for over a year.
The question was posed as to whether Netflix would change their stance now that RIM had updated the BlackBerry tablet operating system to version 2.0, adding much needed features like a native email and calendar app. The tablet can connect to HDTVs and can also now be remotely controlled by BlackBerry phones.
Netflix has over 24 million subscribers, mainly in the U.S. and Canada, but it expanding internationally.
According to the latest data from Strategy Analytics, Nokia has quickly become the world's top Windows Phone maker.
In the Q4 2011, global shipments of the devices jumped 36 percent to 2.7 million units following Nokia's entrance into the market. Nokia managed to take a full 33.1 percent share, beating out HTC. Nokia says they sold 1 million units in the quarter but Strategy Analytics said that number was closer to 900,000.
Nokia began offering their Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 in November around the world.
The company has an exclusive agreement with Microsoft to license Windows Phone and both companies have a lot riding on a successful partnership. Microsoft has backed the marketing campaign for the platform and the Lumia devices while Nokia tries to regain some footing in the smartphone market for which it reigned supreme for over a decade.
Rapidshare has confirmed it is throttling the download speed "free users" of its service receive in an effort to reduce piracy.
Free users have complained over the past week that their speeds max out at 30 Kbps, far lower than usual, and a useless speed if downloading any file of significant size. Most assumed Rapidshare was cashing in on the demise of Megaupload, Filesonic and Fileserve by pushing free users into purchasing premium accounts.
Rapidshare has once again taken the throne as king of cyberlockers, despite a cash rewards program for uploaders that made hosters like Megaupload, Hotfile and Filesonic popular. Having a free user option is great for many who do not want to "pay to pirate," or are scared of having their personal details linked to an account that can be used to abuse copyright.
In response to a question by TorrentFreak, Rapidshare had this to say about the slow speeds:
On January 19th Megaupload was shut down by the FBI. Shortly thereafter, several other file hosters curbed their services or entirely stopped their operations.
RapidShare has been faced with a severe increase in free user traffic and unfortunately also in the amount of abuse of our service ever since, suggesting that quite a few copyright infringers have chosen RapidShare as their new hoster of choice for their illegal activities.
Forbes has reported today that Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 console will move away from Nvidia and instead use AMD for the GPU.
Sony used Nvidia to power the graphics of the current generation's PlayStation 3, while Microsoft uses AMD in their Xbox 360 and is expected to use them again for their next Xbox.
The note comes via former AMD employees, says Forbes.
Both companies declined comment, and Sony went as far as to not even acknowledge that the PS4 is coming, at all
While the move would be significant, the report must be taken as speculation as moving to a custom AMD Radeon graphics chip would likely kill backwards compatibility with PS3 games, says Xbit, unless Sony pays dual royalties to AMD and Nvidia.
LG has unveiled its 2012 flagship Android device, the Optuimus 4x HD.
The device will run on a 1.5GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor (with 5th ninja core), Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, 1GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage.
Additionally, the phone has a massive 4.7 inch True IPS display with 1280 x 720 pixels, an 8MP rear camera with backside illumination sensor, a 1.3MP front-facing camera and a large 2,150 mAh battery.
The device is LG's successor to their Optimus 2x, the flagship device of 2011.
Pricing and availability will be released at the Mobile World Congress event next week.
T-Mobile has announced today that it will invest the money it was just given by AT&T into building their own LTE network in 2013.
Last year, after a failed takeover attempt, AT&T had to pay a $3 billion break-up fee and give T-Mobile USA $1 billion worth of AWS spectrum, as well.
The carrier says it will use that new spectrum and the $3 billion to launch their own rival LTE network in 2013, as well as install new equipment at 37,000 cell towers.
Says T-Mobile: "Today, we operate America's Largest 4G Network delivering a fast and reliable 4G data experience with HSPA+. Launching LTE next year lets us take advantage of technology infrastructure advancements and benefit from a more mature LTE device ecosystem while continuing to meet the growing demand for data with a powerful 4G experience."
The carrier will actually be the first U.S. carrier to have integrated 4G radios in its cell towers, which should offer higher performance and less hiccups than Verizon and AT&T's networks currently have.
For now, the plan is set but T-Mobile is still awaiting the final transfer of spectrum from AT&T.
Samsung has announced today that the Galaxy S II has reached a new sales milestone, 20 million units.
Since its global launch in April, 2011, the smartphone has become the most popular Android device.
Its predecessor, 2010's Galaxy S, saw 22 million units sold.
Overall, Samsung sold 95 million smartphones last year, just barely beating out Apple which sold 93 million iPhones for the year.
Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy S III at an event in March. If spec leaks are accurate, the device will have a large 4.6-inch 720p multi-touch display, run on Android 4.0 and a 1.8Ghz dual-core Exynos processor, have a 12MP rear camera and 2GB RAM. Each one of the features is practically unheard of in smartphones, currently, especially not together.
India's $35 subsidized Aakash tablet has run into issues.
The tablet has a 7-inch resistive display, runs on Android 2.2, has a 366 MHz processor, 256MB RAM, 2GB internal storage, Wi-Fi, USB slots, SD slot and a tiny 2100 mAh battery and sells for just $35 because the Indian government subsidizes the price of the tablet.
Aakash was created to help "students in higher education and to give them the technological skills" that are needed for 2012. Additionally, only 10 percent of the Indian population is connected to the Internet.
In its first two weeks of availability, the building company, DataWind, took 1.4 million orders, but has so far only shipped 10,000, angering the Indian Human Resource Development Ministry, who is now re-opening the contract to other bidders as partners to built the tablet. The British manufacturer will complete the pilot program, with 100,000 tablets, but will likely lose out on the second part of the contract, to ship 1 million units.
Users have also complained of overall sluggishness, including lag, short battery life and an almost unusable resistive touchscreen.
Video game industry analyst Jack Plunkett has noted today that Sony will need to sell a ton of PlayStation Vita to make a profit on the handheld.
The handheld went on sale in the U.S. and Europe today, after being available in Japan since last year.
Plunkett seemed very enthralled by the console, but still sees Sony needing a monster hit: "It's a pure game machine aimed at absolutely avid gamers who want to spend some real money on it. And that's going to be interesting to see what happens.
It's potentially a real redeemer for the company and based on everything I've seen they have a really good chance with it."
In order for the company to turn a profit, Plunkett estimates Sony will need to sell 50 million units of the Vita and over 500 million games by 2017.
The PlayStation Vita is available now for $250 (Wi-Fi version) or $299 (AT&T 3G + Wi-Fi version).
Last night, ABC had a Nightline special which reported on the working conditions in the Foxconn plants at Shenzhen and Chengdu.
Each supply plant makes Apple products like the iPad and iPhone. The special, which was only 17 minutes long, confirmed what many already believed; that workers are extremely overworked and underpaid.
Mashable has collected a great amount of facts from the report, some of which are pretty shocking. For the most part, however, the conditions were not as horrible as most media would have you believe.
First, each worker makes $1.78 per hour, and live in a cramped dorm room on the factory's campus for $17 per month. Each worker has seven roommates. Lunch costs $0.70 for meat and rice, and each worker gets two one-hour meal breaks during their 12-hour shift.
To create just one iPad, it takes five days and 375 people. However, workers can make 300,000 iPad cameras for the device in just two 12-hour shifts. Some workers create the aluminum exterior design (with Apple logo) at the rate of about 10,000 per hour.
Some workers were as young as 13, but most were in their late teens, said the report.
As of this morning, fans of The Beatles can buy and download official ringtones from the band's songs.
For now, the band's 27 #1 hits are available, exclusively through iTunes.
The Beatles made their official digital debut via iTunes and other music download sites in early 2011 after years of negotiations.
Full list:
The Beatles #1 ringtones
"Love Me Do"
"Yellow Submarine"
"From Me To You"
"Eleanor Rigby"
"She Loves You"
"Penny Lane"
"I Want To Hold Your Hand"
"All You Need Is Love"
"Can't Buy Me Love"
"Hello, Goodbye"
"A Hard Day's Night"
"Lady Madonna"
"I Feel Fine"
"Hey Jude"
"Eight Days a Week"
"Get Back"
"Ticket to Ride"
"The Ballad of John and Yoko"
"Help!"
"Something"
"Yesterday"
"Come Together"
"Day Tripper"
"Let It Be"
"We Can Work It Out"
"The Long and Winding Road"
"Paperback Writer"
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has had his 2011 salary slashed by $2 million following the company's failed bid to acquire T-Mobile.
The board of directors at the company noted the pay cut was directly tied to the takeover attempt and its expensive fallout.
Because of the failed takeover, AT&T had to pay a $3 billion breakup fee (the largest ever) to T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom, and give a large package of mobile communications spectrum and a long-term agreement on UMTS roaming within the U.S. for T-Mobile USA, all of which was worth about $1 billion.
AT&T had bid $39 billion to try to acquire T-Mobile, which is the fourth largest carrier in the United States and the only other major to use GSM networks. Late last year, however, the FCC and Department of Justice blocked the deal, citing anti-trust issues. Had the deal gone through, most believe the U.S. wireless world would have become a duopoly controlled by AT&T and Verizon. Sprint, the third largest carrier in the nation, was a vocal opponent of the deal, which likely would have seen them squeezed out of the picture.
According to figures from NPD In-Stat (via TND), most Internet-enabled TVs remain unconnected to the Web.
Instead of using the built-in connectivity of the TV, many consumers are still using set-top boxes or ordering video-on-demand. "People are buying connected TVs, but they are not all using them," added Norm Bogen, vice president for digital entertainment at NPD In-Stat.
For those that do connect their TVs, many of the more "active" features go unused, says the report: "I think that people like some aspects of smart TVs. They don't often use features that require them to be active. Social networking and games - those are pretty lightly used. People type on laptops and mobile devices."
Some other consumers just do not know their new TV has Internet access, or the retailer they purchased from did not explain how to use the features, including connecting.
New devices from Samsung and others hope to make Internet features more prominent, even adding voice and motion control features to make using the sets as easy as possible.
Asus has followed through with their promise to unlock the bootloader of the popular Transformer Prime tablet today.
The company has released the unlock tool, giving users the ability to add a custom recovery and install custom ROMs, if they so choose to.
Reads Asus' support page:
Unlock Device App: Unlock boot loader(Only works with TF201 ICS OS)
Notice:
1. Only suitable for Andriod4 .0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS version.
2. Before you download, install, and use the Unlock Device App you acknowledge and assume complete risk to the quality and performance of this App, including but not limited to the following: once you activate the App you will not be able to recover your ASUS product (Original Product) back to original locked conditions;the Original Product with the activated App will not be deemed the Original Product; the Revised Product will no longer be covered under the warranty of the Original Product; the software of Revised Product will no longer be deemed the software of the Original Product and can no longer receive ASUS software updates; your purchased digital content may also be affected.
ECJ to examine whether ACTA conflicts with fundamental rights in the European Union.
European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, announced on Wednesday that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The European Commission has already passed ACTA and the European Council adopted ACTA unanimously in December. The trade agreement has also been passed to the European Parliament for a debate and vote to be held later. However, the trade commissioner is looking to the ECJ to independently clarify the legality of this agreement.
The court will assess whether ACTA is incompatible with the EU's fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression and information or data protection and the right to property in case of intellectual property.
The ratification process for ACTA has sparked debate in EU nations about the freedom of the Internet, and the importance of protecting Europe's Intellectual Property for member states' economies.
"I share people's concern for these fundamental freedoms. I welcome that people have voiced their concerns so actively ? especially over the freedom of the internet. And I also understand that there is uncertainty on what ACTA will really mean for these key issues at the end of the day.
Microsoft calls on Google to refrain from killing video on the web.
Microsoft has announced the filing of a complaint with the European Commission over Motorola Mobility's royalty demands, relating to H.264 video. It said that Motorola Mobility is trying to block the sale of Windows PCs and laptops, as well as the firm's Xbox 360 console because they, "enable people to view videos on the Web and to connect wirelessly to the Internet using industry standards."
At the core of its complaint, Microsoft accuses Motorola Mobility of breaking promises made to other firms in the industry when it comes to patents essential to common technical standards. These standards are developed by the industry for a very important reason, so that the greatest amount of interoperability and compatibility can be achieved between products developed by different firms.
Microsoft says that the industry came together years ago to define common technical standards that every firm can use to build compatible products for video and Wi-Fi, and that each firm involved (including Motorola) committed to making patents essential to the standards available on fair and reasonable terms.
"Ubuntu is the killer app for multi-core phones in 2012."
That's according to Canonical Ltd., the commercial entity backing Ubuntu linux and related products. Ubuntu for Android brings the free Desktop experience to multi-core Android smartphones which are docked with a keyboard and monitor, essentially turning the phone into a PC on demand.
According to Canonical, the phone experience is pure Android; it's a normal Android phone. When the device is connected to a computer screen, however, it launches a full Ubuntu desktop on the computer display, the same Desktop experience used by millions of home and business users on their Ubuntu PCs.
Android applications such as contacts, telephony and SMS/MMS messaging are accessible from the Ubuntu interface, as all data and services are shared between the Ubuntu and Android environments, which run simultaneously on the device.
"The desktop is the killer-app for quad-core phones in 2012" said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical. "Ubuntu for Android transforms your high-end phone into your productive desktop, whenever you need it."
Canonical points out that today's IT departments often provide both a PC and a smartphone for every employee. Ubuntu for Android then presents an alternative solution, whereby IT departments can cut the burden per employee to just one smartphone.
China Telecom has announced today that it will begin offering the iPhone 4S in March.
The carrier has 130 million subscribers in China, many of which are Apple fans and purchasers of past generations of the popular smartphone.
Altogether, China Telecom has 200 million customers in mainland China including their mobile, land line and broadband customers. The carrier also claims to have the largest CDMA network in the world.
Apple's response (via 9to5): "The iPhone 4S has been an incredible hit with customers around the world. We're thrilled to be launching iPhone 4S with China Telecom and can. t wait to get it into the hands of even more customers in China."
All models of the device will be available and base models will be free with contract.
RIM has made the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 software update available as a free download for all BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.
The new, updated operating system brings many wanted features to the tablet, including a native email app, a sad but true fact. The integrated email client "has a powerful unified inbox," says the company: "With BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 you have the option to use a unified inbox that consolidates all messages in one place, including messages from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as personal and work email accounts." More of the new features:
Social Integration with Calendar and Contacts apps: The built-in calendar harnesses information from social networks and makes it available where and when users need it. Contact cards are also dynamically populated with updated information from Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to create a consolidated view of contacts.
Updated BlackBerry Bridge app: BlackBerry Bridge is a unique app that provides a Bluetooth connection between your BlackBerry PlayBook and core apps on your BlackBerry smartphone (including BBM, Email, Contacts, Calendar and Browser) in order to let you view the content on the larger tablet display. With BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0, it's easier and quicker than ever to take documents, web pages, emails and photos that appear on your BlackBerry smartphone and display them on your BlackBerry PlayBook for an optimized viewing and editing experience. The updated BlackBerry Bridge app also provides a new remote control feature that allows a BlackBerry smartphone to be used as a wireless keyboard and mouse for a BlackBerry PlayBook.
Kim Dotcom, the founder of the now defunct cyberlocker Megaupload, has been released on bail, after a judge surprisingly decreed he was no longer too much of a flight risk.
Following a raid last month, Dotcom was arrested in New Zealand and his assets seized including cars, cash and a mansion. Dotcom was denied bail twice, due to access to money and jets but the latest judge has granted the request, stating that the police have not proven he has any assets left to remain a high flight risk.
The U.S. is looking to extradite Dotcom and six others involved with Megaupload to stand trial over criminal copyright violations and racketeering charges.
Officials in the U.S. have until March 2nd to file the paperwork for extradition with the court. Dotcom has stated he would prefer to stand trial and fight the charges in New Zealand, where he was lived for some time.
Megaupload, at its peak, accounted for 2 percent of all Web traffic thanks to its 66 million users. The site is said to have brought Dotcom and others $150 million in advertising and subscription revenue.
As reported yesterday, Barnes & Noble has launched a smaller-capacity Nook Tablet today at $199, the same price as 7-inch tablet market leader the Amazon Kindle Fire.
Like the Kindle Fire, the Nook Tablet has a 7" display with a resolution of 1024x600. Also like the Kindle Fire, the Nook Tablet is powered by a 1GHz dual core processor, but the Barnes & Noble Nook tablet, in its original 16GB form, had more storage and more RAM at 1GB.
Barnes & Noble's new release will have 8GB storage and 512MB RAM, putting its hardware completely on par with the Kindle Fire.
"For any customer who likes to read digitally, watch movies or TV shows, browse the web, or help their kids read and learn through interactive books and apps, our new $199 NOOK Tablet with 8GB is the best product value on the market," said William Lynch, Chief Executive Office of Barnes & Noble. "NOOK Tablet is the highest-rated wireless media tablet in the 7-inch class, ultra-portable at under a pound, offers our exclusive VividView screen technology, and since its introduction this holiday has received rave reviews from customers about all its great features. We're pleased to now offer customers the ability to experience NOOK Tablet's unmatched content experience for only $199."
Comcast has launched "Xfinity Streampix," a subscription video service that will directly compete with market leader Netflix.
The service will offer movies and TV shows, including full back catalogs for some shows.
In order to launch the service, the cable operator has made deals with ABC, Disney, NBCU, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. and Cookie Jar. The company did note that the current ABC/Disney deal is only for TV shows, so fans of Disney movies will have to wait.
Comcast will include Streampix with all Xfinity triple-play packages or will cost $4.99 a month with other video packages.
"Our goal is to consistently deliver greater value to our customers and to bring the best anytime, anywhere entertainment on multiple platforms,"says Comcast senior vice president and general manager of video services Marcien Jenckes. "Streampix is another step moving 'TV Everywhere' forward by giving customers access to an even greater library of popular choices to watch."
A few of the offerings that Comcast noted were NBC's 30 Rock, Heroes and The Office; ABC's Grey's Anatomy, Lost and Ugly Betty; ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager; Sony's Married... with Children, Warner's Analyze That, Ocean's Eleven and When Harry Met Sally; Universal's Brokeback Mountain and The Big Lebowski; and Sony's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Stuart Little (via MCN)
Groupon has begun a VIP service that will give subscribers early access to deals, among other perks.
The daily deal giant is testing the service in a few markets like Tampa, Florida and as a special introductory rate the service is free for three months. After the period, the service will cost just $30 per year.
- Early access to deals: VIP members can see (and buy) deals 12 hours before the non-VIP masses do.
- Access to a "Deal Vault": VIP members will be able to buy certain deals even after they're sold out, and after the normal purchase-by date has expired.
- Easy refunds: VIP members can trade in unused daily deals for Groupon Bucks (credits for other deals) at any time, even after the deal's use-by date has expired.
The VIP service will not be for everyone, that is for sure, but it could be an interesting deal for Groupon "addicts."
The Tian Jin Daily has reported on the leaked specs of the Motorola Atrix 3, which will have the largest battery seen on a consumer smartphone, to date.
If accurate, the device will have a 4.3-inch 720p display, run on a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, have 2GB RAM and the huge 3300mAh battery. The phone will also have a 4G LTE radio and all other standard features.
Notably, the phone will have a dual-LED flash 10MP camera, making it one of the more powerful and feature-rich phones to hit U.S. shores.
It is unclear whether the phone will launch with Android 4.0, but it is expected to.
Sony has confirmed today that this fall's "game changing" Call of Duty game will also be made available on the handheld PlayStation Vita.
Guy Longsworth, senior vice president of PlayStation brand marketing noted the game during an interview: "And of course, in the autumn, [my two teenage sons are] really looking forward to Call of Duty on Vita, and we think that's going to be an absolute game-changer for the platform."
Without revealing the developer for the game, Longsworth noted top studios' commitment to Vita development: "Absolutely you will [see Naughty Dog on Vita]. You'll see a number of games coming out from all of our studios."
Finally, the company is committing long-term to the console: "We see this as a five to 10 year platform, so we'll judge the success of this in 12, 24, 36 months. We expect to have a great launch, but it's really in 12 or 24 months we'll know how successful it's been."
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Chinese VP Xi Jinping have settled a long-standing trade dispute that will ease restrictions on imports of U.S. films into China.
China currently allows 20 "blockbuster" foreign films to be released each year but the new deal allows for 34 films, a significant improvement. The only catch, however, is the extra 14 films must be in Imax or 3D formats.
Additionally, the deal will allow foreign film-makers to keep 25 percent of box office revenue, compared to the current 13 percent.
In 2011, Hollywood films accounted for 40 percent of all box office revenue in China. The total value of China's box office was about 13.bn yuan (£1.3 billion) last year.
Independent film makers seem to be the happiest with the new deal: "We do think it's a breakthrough," Jean Prewitt, president of the Independent Film and Television Alliance said (via Guardian). "For the first time we really have the building blocks to begin to work competitively in that marketplace."
Indie producers can now negotiate fixed license fees rather than be stuck with 3%, which they are getting now in China.
Authorities have seized another $50 million of Megaupload-related assets.
The government also added that the company had 66.6 million registered users, far below the site's claims of 180 million. Only 5.86 million of those users ever uploaded files, "demonstrating that more than 90 percent of their registered users only used the defendant's system to download."
Along with the newly seized assets, the officials pressed new charges against the arrested members alleging that "Megaupload falsely represented to rights holders that it had removed infringing works from its servers."
The site was taken down last month, Megaupload and its owners are accused of taking over $500 million from copyright holders due to piracy, and cashing in on $175 million in profits from ads and premium subscriptions. Calling the group "Mega Conspiracy," the original indictment reads: "In exchange for payment, the Mega Conspiracy provides fast reproduction and distribution of infringing copies of copyrighted works from its servers located around the world."
The Verge has uncovered a document that suggests Barnes & Noble will release an 8GB version of their Nook Tablet.
By doing so, the company will be able to offer the tablet at $199, matching the price of the Amazon Kindle Fire, the top-selling 7-inch tablet in the market.
The document says the book store will unveil the version of the tablet on February 22nd, and the device will be available at least at Wal-Mart on that day.
Like the Kindle Fire, the Nook Tablet has a 7" display with a resolution of 1024x600. Also like the Kindle Fire, the Nook Tablet is powered by a 1GHz dual core processor, but the Barnes & Noble tablet has 1GB of RAM, twice that of the Kindle Fire.
At $199, the two devices will compete on an equal ground, but the Nook Tablet has the option for expendable memory whereas the Fire cannot.
Last week, Rovio announced via a "teaser" trailer that the next version of the blockbuster mobile game 'Angry Birds' will be based on space. Angry Birds Space will launch on March 22nd, presumably for Android, iOS and PC (if not for all platforms).
Today, Rovio North America general manager Andrew Stalbow has given a bit more detail into the game, claiming the game will prominently feature "zero gravity levels and slow-motion puzzles."
Furthermore, the company announced two big brand partnerships, NASA and National Geographic: "Science and education are very important to us, and we're very excited to have NASA and National Geographic as launch partners on Angry Birds Space."
Rovio recently launched Angry Birds for Facebook, and the game already has 840,000 daily active users. Overall, the game in all its iterations has been downloaded over 600 million times.
The Nintendo 3DS has reached a milestone in Japan, fastest selling console in the nation's history.
In just under a year, the 3DS has reached 5 million units sold, faster than its predecessors.
After a bumpy start in which sales were slow, Nintendo dropped the price from 25,000 yen ($250 in the US) to 15,000 yen ($169.99 in the US). Additionally, the company released titles like Super Mario 3D Land, Monster Hunter 3 (-tri) G and Mario Kart 7, which helped make the handheld a formidable console.
Although the price cut helped boost sales, it came with a drastic cost. Nintendo had its first annual loss, ever, in 2011.
Microsoft Japan has revealed the end-of-life dates for its last three Windows operating systems.
Here is the list, which includes extended support for Vista and 7:
Windows XP 4/8/2014
Windows Vista 4/11/2017
Windows 7 1/14/2020
Adds the company:
Changed the lifecycle policy for extended support, Microsoft provides a consistent customer use Windows client operating system (OS) services. Will be applied the extended support for Windows 7, Windows Vista consumer products.
Available service packs for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 product currently supported this change's customers are subject to up to 10 years of security update provides will regardless of the Edition.
Apple has started a countdown today as it approaches 25 billion apps downloaded from the iOS App Store.
The user who downloads the 25 billionth app will get a $10,000 iTunes gift card.
Says Apple: "As of today, nearly 25 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 25 billionth app, and you could win a US $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. Just visit the App Store, and download what could be your best app yet."
Users can make up to 25 contest entries per day by either downloading an app or filling out an entry form via Apple.
The device has a 5-inch screen, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 32GB internal memory and a large 2,080 mAh battery.
Says LG: "The Optimus Vu: was designed to maximize what customers could do with a smart-phone. By offering an optimal 4:3 ratio viewing experience, 5-inch display combined with superfast LTE technology, Optimus Vu: is just one example of what we can achieve when we combine our best technology with customer needs."
The device is one of the only smartphones to have a 4:3 aspect ratio, which the company says makes "viewing documents, books, internet and multimedia contents easier and more comfortable."
Google's upcoming Android update will be available in the summer, say sources.
Android 5.0 (or 4.5) 'Jelly Bean' will not target smartphones however, but will be be built with dual-boot functionality for Chrome OS tablets and netbooks.
More importantly, the OS would allow users to dual-boot Android on Windows 8 machines, including the ability to hot-swap without a reboot.
Users could use Android for better battery life, and switch to Windows for more robust features.
HTC has lost the first of their patent-infringement cases against Apple filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).
The ITC said this week that Apple did not violate the HTC patent "for controlling how mobile phones manage power supply."
Says one analyst at IDC of the decision: "HTC is not having much luck in their cases and their performance in the market is taking a hit. At the end of the day, this is an elongated battle that seems to be going a little bit better for Apple than for Android."
HTC has not ruled out an appeal, but one seems unlikely. The company's second case against Apple will begin in August.
Apple, Samsung and HTC are all involved in multiple patent infringement cases revolving around iOS or Android which will guarantee the companies remain in litigation for the near future.
The Iconia Tab A200 just received the update last week and now the company says their A100 and A500 will get updated in mid-April.
Both tablets have lagged Acer's sales expectations, but 4.0 can likely give them a small boost.
The Iconia Tab A500 runs on Android 3.0 Honeycomb, has a Tegra 2 Processor, a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 screen, Wi-Fi, 1GB RAM, a 5MP rear-facing camera plus an HD front-facing camera.
In the summer of 2010, Apple came under intense criticism when it was revealed their iPhone 4 device could lose complete cell signal when held in certain ways. This so-called "death grip" had everything to do with the placement of the iPhone's antenna and the casing of the smartphone.
Dubbed 'Antennagate' for its large scale media coverage, Apple eventually admitted to the issue and offered all iPhone 4 owners the chance to receive a free "bumper" case (which nullified the issue) or the option to hold out for a settlement.
This week, all class action suits have been settled, and users who never took the free bumper are now entitled to a $15 payout settlement.
Apple PR spokesperson Natalie Harrison said this (via Cnet): "This settlement relates to a small number of customers who indicated that they experienced antenna or reception issues with their iPhone 4 and didn't want to take advantage of a free case from Apple while it was being offered in 2010."
LG has unveiled a new logo for its Optimus smartphone/tablet line.
The new design will "accentuate the metallic edges and slim shape of the 2012 smartphone line-up."
Additionally, the logo "will embody modern and seamless simplicity," which is LG's design aim.
More importantly, the company is preparing to launch "superior smartphones that bring design prestige" to consumers who want aesthetically pleasing and feature-rich phones.
The company is expected to launch a quad-core device at next week's Mobile World Congress.
26-year-old software development student Glenn Mangham has been sentenced to 8 months in prison for hacking into Facebook using an employee's login details.
When asked why he did it, Mangham says: "It was to identify vulnerabilities in the system so I could compile a report that I could then bundle over to Facebook and show them what was wrong with their system."
Despite admitting that Mangham had not done the crime for financial gain, the judge still gave the harsh sentence whilst declaring: "You accessed the very heart of the system of an international business of massive size, so this was not just fiddling about in the business records of some tiny business of no great importance."
At the time, authorities believed that Facebook was the next company in a long line of industrial espionage. Companies like Microsoft and Google have been hit over the years, as other companies or even governments try to access secrets.
Prosecutors accused Mangham of stealing "invaluable" intellectual property including restricted internal data.
After obtaining one of the iPad 3's displays and examining it under a microscope, the site says they have determined the resolution and the fact that the display is Retina.
The display will be the same size as the previous models, at 9.7-inches.
Says the site: "Since we only had a raw iPad 3 display with no method to power it, taking high quality photos of the pixels was difficult. Still, even with the relatively poor lighting, you can easily make out the pixels on each display (made up of red, green and blue elements). We highlighted a cluster of 4 pixels (2x2) from the iPad 2 to compare it to the same area on the iPad 3. On the iPad 3, the same cluster was occupied by 16 pixels (4x4) -- exactly twice the resolution in each direction.
Extrapolating out, the iPad 3 screen should carry a full resolution of 2048x1536, exactly twice the linear resolution of the iPad 1 and iPad 2 which is 1024x768. Such a screen should be able to display much sharper images as compared to the previous generation iPads."
Says the company: "We have more good news related to Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, and can confirm that upgrades are planned for Verizon Wireless customers with the HTC Rhyme, HTC Thunderbolt, and DROID Incredible 2 by HTC, as well as the already announced HTC Rezound.
In addition, the HTC Raider is on the list to receive ICS for customers of Rogers and Bell in Canada. Stay tuned for more news on Ice Cream Sandwich releases in the coming weeks."
The HTC Sensation and Sensation XE will be the first two HTC devices to receive the much-anticipated update, followed soon by the Sensation XL.
2013's yet un-named Xbox successor is codenamed 'Durango,' says Kotaku.
As the console develops, that will be the name used, say sources, until Microsoft comes up with a final name for the system.
The name makes sense given Microsoft's use of the codename "Natal" for the Kinect motion control system. Natal is a city in Brazil, and "Durango" is a state in Mexico, so it seems the company has a "thing" for naming their projects after areas.
Among the rumors about the Xbox successor are that the system will play Blu-ray discs, catching up to Sony 7 years after the launch of the PS3. Another is the notion that Microsoft will "incorporate some sort of anti-used game system" in the new console. It is unclear how this system would work, but it will likely not be foolproof, regardless. Additionally, Microsoft is likely to launch the console with the Kinect 2 motion control system including a built-in processor. The processor would allow the Kinect to process motions more accurately and smoother.
Last month, after years of negotiations, MSG was removed from Time Warner Cable's lineup leaving sports fans in New York without Knicks, Rangers, Sabres, Devils or Islanders games.
The two companies had been fighting over how much MSG should be paid and each had an ad campaign blasting the other side. MSG was asking for a 53 percent price increase for their sports programming.
Today, after an over one month blackout, over 1 million Time Warner subscribers will get to watch their sports again.
The companies did not disclose the terms, but the blackout has been lifted as of tonight's matchup between the Knicks and the New Orleans Hornets.
The two companies did not disclose specific terms of agreement.
Brean Murray analyst Todd Mitchell says Time Warner likely paid a premium to get the deal in place, thanks in part to the new Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, who rose from last spot on the bench to starting and averaging over 20 points per game and 7 assists. "At this point given the phenomenon of the situation that is Jeremy Lin, I don't think they had much choice," said the analyst, via Reuters.
According to multiple reports, Amazon is preparing to launch their Kindle Fire sequel in May or June.
Hardware maker Quanta was in charge of the components in the Kindle Fire, but it appears that Amazon will take over the selection and certification of the components to be placed in the new build.
The report speculates Amazon may now add a microSD slot, actual volume buttons and likely Bluetooth or a mic.
Amazon has always implied a sequel was coming this year, as the Kindle Fire sells as an entry-level device. Foxconn will build the new "flagship" device which will be larger than the original Fire. Past rumors have an 8.9-inch as the target frame for the new device.
The etailer has sold over 5 million Kindle Fire since its launch in November, taking 14 percent of the tablet market share in just one quarter.
The blockbuster game Angry Birds is making its way to the final frontier, space.
Rovio has announced via a "teaser" trailer that the next version of the game will be based on space. Angry Birds Space will launch on March 22nd, presumably for Android, iOS and PC (if not for all platforms).
There is not too much more info on the game but says it is a "completely new game with innovative new gameplay, but with some of the familiar Angry Birds elements that fans already know and love."
Since its release in 2009, all variations of Angry Birds have been downloaded over 500 million times.
Microsoft has revealed a new logo today for Windows 8, one that features a single-color design and will be based on the Metro user interface.
The new logo has an angled window, which Microsoft says will give a sense of motion "aligning with the fast and fluid style you'll find throughout Windows 8."
Design consultants Pentagram came up with the new look, and the firm wanted to move away from the current logo which they believed looked more like a flag than an actual window. Says Microsoft of the decision: "'Windows' really is a beautiful metaphor for computing, and with the new logo we wanted to celebrate the idea of a window, in perspective."
Metro, which is part of Windows 8 for PCs and tablets, is touch-friendly and feature tiles rather than the icons connecting to apps that have been seen since the original Windows with GUI.
Windows 8 is expected to be available in the fall, with a consumer preview being released in the next month.
Global publishers Cambridge University Press, Elsevier and Pearson Education Ltd, among others, have taken down the popular ebook file sharing sites library.nu and ifile.it.
The alliance of publishers say the two sites had "created an internet library" with over 400,000 unauthorized ebooks available for free.
Operators of the sites are said to have brought in over $10 million in advertising, subscriptions and donations
The other publishers who were part of the alliance that sent the successful cease-and-desist letters are Georg Thieme; HarperCollins; Hogrefe; Macmillan Publishers Ltd; Cengage Learning; John Wiley & Sons;the McGraw-Hill Companies; Pearson Education Inc; Oxford University Press; Springer; Taylor & Francis; C H Beck; and Walter De Gruyter.
International Publishers Association (IPA), which helped coordinate the events, added (via TheBookSeller): "Today, the international book industry has shown that it continues to stand up against organised copyright crime. We will not tolerate freeloaders who make unjustified profits by depriving authors and publishers of their due reward. This is an important step towards a more transparent, honest and fair trade of digital content on the Internet."
Nintendo Wii owners now have access to the Hulu Plus catalog of movies and TV shows.
For the standard price of $7.99 per month, Wii gamers can subscribe to the streaming service, which has current-season and back catalog of shows from ABC, NBC and Fox.
"Wii offers the most entertainment fun for everyone in the family, with an impressive selection of streaming movies and TV shows in addition to an unparalleled lineup of games that can't be played anywhere else," said Tony Elison, Nintendo of America's senior director and general manager of Network Business. "The Wii console is the hub of the living room, and with the addition of Hulu Plus, millions of households now have even more options for streaming premium TV shows and movies."
Adds Pete Distad, VP of Marketing and Distribution at Hulu: "We want to be everywhere, on every screen where people want to watch their favorite shows and discover new ones on their own schedule. Wii is not only one of the most important entertainment devices in the living room, but one of the most heavily anticipated and requested platforms by users and subscribers. Teaming up with Nintendo gives millions of households across the U.S. an immediate way to access some of their favorite current season shows on-demand in their living room through Hulu Plus."
Swype's latest beta finally makes the popular virtual keyboard available to Android 4.0 users.
Additionally, the beta offers downloadable languages for tablets and should have more accuracy improvements, as well.
Finally, the update adds Dragon Go, which is an equivalent of Siri for Android.
Swype allows users to create words on the virtual keyboard by "swiping" their fingers from character to character to create the words instead of having to hit each virtual key individually.
According to research firm iSuppli, Amazon has stormed into 14 percent market share of the tablet market.
The move came only in the Q4 2011, where the Kindle Fire was released in November.
During the same time period, Apple's market share fell from 64 percent to 57 percent, despite a huge growth in iPads shipped.
Additionally, the firm says potential buyers spent their money on the iPhone 4S rather than a new iPad, and the firm expects Apple to make a large push this quarter, especially if the iPad 3 is released.
For the quarter, Amazon shipped just under 4 million Kindle Fire and Apple shipped 15.4 million iPads. While shipped does not automatically amount to actual sales, it is safe to assume that most of the iPads sold and that a significant portion of the Kindle Fire did.
In the market share race, Samsung's Galaxy Tab line came in third with 8 percent and Barnes & Noble's new Nook tablet came in fourth at 7 percent.
The HTC Dev unlock tool is now expanded for even more consumers.
HTC smartphone owners can use the tool to unlock the bootloaders on their device, legally, making it easier to add custom ROMs.
The new devices to be supported by the tool are the Hero, Legend, Eris, MyTouch 3G, and myTouch 4G. There are now 58 different devices that are supported, with more to be added into the future. Most of the devices on the list are newer devices but the company promises older devices will continue to be added.
HTC added the Droid Incredible, Desire Z, T-Mobile G2, Aria, ChaCha, and Status a few weeks ago.
CEO Peter Chou noted last year that all new devices would have unlocked bootloaders, following criticism from the developer community.
Microsoft has announced it has begun rolling out a system update that will fix the color space issues seen in video playback.
Over the past two months, more and more gamers have complained of issues with the video playback, which showed up after the Dashboard update in December. Last month, Microsoft promised a fix and has delivered.
Says Xbox's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb:
"I wanted to let you know that the team has just released a system update for the Xbox 360 over Xbox LIVE. Starting today when you sign in to Xbox LIVE you'll receive a prompt to accept this mandatory update. If you are signed into LIVE already, you may be signed out and asked to accept the update and you'll be back online in a few moments.
This update will increase performance and is part of our continued effort to provide the best possible Xbox LIVE experience. In this update, we are providing a fix to a color issue that some were experiencing, and it will be immediately notable in the dashboard. The fix is also being applied by partners to their apps on Xbox LIVE, which we expect to roll out over the coming months."
Apple has given developers a preview of their upcoming operating system, Mac OS X Mountain Lion.
Says Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing: "The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better. The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world's most advanced personal computer operating system."
The new OS will integrate popular iOS apps like Messages, Twitter, Notes, Reminders and the Game Center.
Additionally, Mountain Lion will be compatible with iCloud and have AirPlay mirroring, allowing Apple TV owners to easily stream content to their TVs.
Messages will replace the current iChat and will the new defacto app for sending messages, photos and videos from their computers.
By releasing the new OS soon, Apple hopes to take a bit of thunder away from Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8, which will be available on PCs and tablets in the fall.
Kobo has announced it will sell its Vox tablet in Best Buy stores in the U.S.
The tablet currently competes with the Kindle Fire in the 7-inch category which may already put the tablet in an un-winnable situation.
Kobo released the Vox in October, but the system was met with criticism from users who found the tablet lacking and laggy.
Since the Vox's release, however, Kobo was acquired by Rakuten, which has been called on occasion "the Amazon of Japan." Rakuten promised to turn the tablet into an ecosystem similar to that of the Fire, which is deeply integrated with Amazon's shopping, music, movies and Cloud platforms.
The Vox features a 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution display, an 800MHz processor, 8GB of internal storage, 7 hours of battery life, and 512MB of RAM.
Last year, Sony succeeded in their bid to buy out Ericsson's share of their jointly owned Sony Ericsson handset and mobile device company.
The deal cost Sony $1.05 billion euros and also included a patent cross-licensing deal. More importantly for Sony, gaining full ownership of Sony Ericsson cleared the way to integrate the company's devices into Sony's online entertainment network and offer a broad range of Sony owned content from companies like Sony Pictures and Sony Music Entertainment.
As of today, the acquisition has been completed. As the press statement reads, "this marks the completion of the transaction jointly announced by Sony and Ericsson on October 27, 2011, and makes Sony Ericsson a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony."
The company will be renamed Sony Mobile Communications "with the aim of accelerating convergence between Sony's lineup of network enabled consumer electronics products, including smart phones, tablets, TVs and PCs."
Following in the commercial successful footsteps of fellow comedian Louis C.K., Jim Gaffigan will release his standup special "Jim Gaffigan: Mr. Universe" exclusively as a digital download in April.
The special will be taped later this month, and will sell for $5 via Gaffigan's website. 20 percent of each purchase will be donated to charity, as well.
Late last year, Louis C.K. decided to skip a DVD distributor and edit and release his standup special "Louis C.K.: Live at the Beacon Theater" on his own website for $5, with no DRM or other restricitions. The "experiment" was so well received that C.K. made over $1 million profit in just two weeks. The comedian donated a substantial amount to charity and gave bonuses to everyone in his team as a show of appreciation.
Gaffigan credited C.K. for the idea, and added some humor, as well: "If no one buys the special or if lots of people steal it then I suppose I will lose a lot of money and have egg on my face. But then again, I have four kids, so I am always losing money and usually have egg or some kind of food on my face so it might just feel normal."
One day after the WSJ reported that Apple is actively considering building a smaller, 8-inch iPad, experts are refuting the claim.
The CEO of Rapid Repair, Aaron Vronko says there is little chance Apple will create a smaller form factor iPad: "I think a smaller iPad would be questionable. "because Apple has been able to appeal to [iPad] developers with its single screen format." Rapid Repair fixes broken iOS devices. Vronko also believes Apple's marketing efforts would have been a waste if they introduce a smaller iPad: "Apple has gone to considerable lengths to define and separate its primary products -- iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Mac -- by, among other things, screen size. To introduce a smaller iPad would muddy the waters, something Apple has spent substantial effort to avoid."
That being said, Vronko also says he does not believe Apple will make a substantially larger iPhone, like its Android rivals.
Cisco has confirmed today it will appeal the European Commission's approval of Microsoft's purchase of Skype.
Last year, the software giant acquired Skype for $8.5 billion, in an effort to integrate the extremely popular VoIP into its Lync suite of applications and platforms. Skype offers users a way to chat via voice, text or video.
Cisco says Microsoft should "support standards for interoperability with other collaboration platforms," says IW. The company does not oppose the merger, says their counsel, but does want more strict conditions imposed on Microsoft.
Says Cisco: "Microsoft's plan to integrate Skype exclusively with its Lync Enterprise Communications Platform could lock-in businesses who want to reach Skype's 700 million account holders to a Microsoft-only platform."
More specifically, Microsoft and Skype do not use the H.264 video codec or the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard.
CBS has confirmed it is in talks to produce a show directly for Netflix.
Says CEO Leslie Moonves: "We are talking to Netflix about a potential deal to produce a show for them. Until they are doing 22 hours a week of premium content, we do not look at them as a competitor, but rather another place to put our content."
Netflix will be producing five original programs by 2013. The first of which, "Lilyhammer," is available now.
Later this year, Netflix will debut "House of Cards," starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher. Netflix had to outbid rivals like HBO and offer major incentives to the companies behind the political drama which is expected to be a hit. Additionally, the fourth season of the cult classic "Arrested Development" will be hitting the service in early 2013.
The last two shows have not been purchased yet, but they are expected to be the prison comedy "Orange Is the New Black" and the thriller series "Hemlock Grove." Says Netflix spokeman Steve Swasey: "By 2013, we'll have five original content programs. We're dabbling in original content with a pretty good mix of dramas, comedies and quirky series. We're excited about it."
The Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory has noted today that it has an "uncertain future" as it faces rising debt.
Elpida makes DRAM chips and is one of few companies in its industry.
The company has said survival is very much in doubt and bankruptcy is a likely option in April, which is the final deadline for the company to pay back most of its debt. The company has $1.2 billion in bonds and short term loans.
Elpida was hoping to secure funding by the end of the month, but it appears that situation is not going to happen. The last option is the Japanese government stepping in to give a bailout, which it has done in the past, but not all in the industry are certain the government will do so.
A possible merger with Nanya Technology also fell through, suggesting the company's balance sheet may be even worse than implied.
Elpida's demise began after Samsung expanded into the sector, driving prices down to all-time lows.
Apple is seeking approval in New York to sue the bankrupt photography pioneer over patent infringement.
Kodak, the storied company, filed for bankruptcy protection last month looking to shred major expenses.
The company released the world's first consumer camera in 1888 and is still looking to sell off some of its patent portfolio and a successful deal would keep the company out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company has 1100 very valuable photography and digital photography patents and internally they value the portfolio at around $2 billion. Despite inventing the digital camera in 1975, the company never capitalized on it, instead sticking to their film business, which has all but disappeared and had already begun shrinking in the 1990s.
Earlier this month, the company announced it would stop making digital cameras in an effort to focus on its more profitable businesses. Into the future, the company will focus only on photo printing and desktop inkjet printers. Unfortunately for the company, Apple's patent complaint is for technologies used in printers, which would effectively kill what is left of the company if Apple was to be victorious.
According to inside sources, it appears HTC is on the verge of unveiling a streaming music service.
The company is working with Beats Audio, in which it has a controlling stake, to create the service which will be the default music client on all future HTC phones and tablets.
Pricing and other details are still being worked out, but the company has long wanted to offer their own music service on HTC devices, say the sources.
In the past, the company made contact with Spotify and other unknown streaming services, but negotiations quickly fell apart. Backed by Beats this time, and the brand muscle of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, the company has higher expectations and hopes. Iovine is widely regarded as one of the most powerful men in the music industry and he does not like Spotify, so the service will almost certainly be different.
HTC purchased a very large stake in Beats for $330 million last year.
Following their standard "Patch Tuesday" protocol, Microsoft has issued nine security updates today that patch 21 vulnerabilities in their products.
The products in question include Windows, Internet Explorer, .Net, Silverlight, Sharepoint server and MS Office.
Four of the nine updates were dubbed "critical," which is Microsoft's highest threat rating, while all the others were labeled "important." Of the vulnerabilities, 6 were critical, 14 were important and the final one was "moderate."
The most notable fixes came for vulnerabilities in IE and Windows as they were "drive-by" attacks, which needed nothing more than the user to visit a malicious site to be affected.
Many of the other fixes were related to media files. More info here: Patch Tuesday
Thanks to a new academic paper from researchers at the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College, the world has more evidence that piracy via torrents has no real effect on the U.S. movie box office.
Internationally, however, downloads and revenue were more correlated, and the researchers blamed delayed release windows for that phenomenon.
Continues the report: "We find that longer release windows are associated with decreased box office returns, even after controlling for film and country fixed effects. This relationship is much stronger in contexts where piracy is more prevalent: after BitTorrent?s adoption and in heavily pirated genres."
The PlayStation Vita will see Sony's largest marketing push, ever, when it begins shipping in the U.S. next week.
Sony will spend over $50 million to promote the handheld console, its largest marketing push for a gaming console, to date.
Using the marketing firm Deutsch, the company has created a line of ads, each with the tagline "Never Stop Playing." Gamespot says these will include ads on "26 websites including Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, as well as on television, during The Simpsons, South Park, Tosh.O, and NBA and NCAA basketball games."
Furthermore, Sony will promote the Vita on billboards in the U.S. in New York, Chicago and San Francisco and via Sirius XM radio.
The console launches in the North American markets on the 22nd.
For the last few months, speculation has been rampant that Apple is preparing to enter the HDTV market in 2012, and even Steve Jobs suggested the TV was coming before his passing last year.
Following in the trend of all of its other devices, the TV is expected to be called the "iTV" as it will likely run on a variant of the iOS operating system.
ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster, is saying however that it will do all it can to make sure that is not the name Apple chooses for its still unconfirmed device.
The two companies discussed the former's concerns in 2010, but ITV is said to be nervous that new CEO Tim Cook will take a different stance than Steve Jobs did when he told ITV CEO Adam Crozier he would not infringe on the name, at least in Europe.
Apple is looking to launch a "game changing" device, and there are plenty of rumors, each of which seems reasonable. The iTV would run on iOS, have a dual-core processor, have voice and motion controls, have Siri and cost $1500 for a 42-inch device. Additionally, Apple is said to be negotiating a way for consumers to have their TV programming delivered ala carte, with everyone picking only the stations they want, each of which will have its own price tag. The move would certainly disrupt the industry which packages hundreds of channels for a set monthly price.
Sony introduced the certification program when it launched the PS Vita in Japan last year. At the time, new CEO Kaz Hirai had said the program "expands the PlayStation experience beyond the PSP border. It is the first cross-platform endeavor."
The program is available to all Android tablet/smartphone makers.
HTC has tried to halt its recent sales slide by moving on popular features for the younger generations, including buying Beats Audio and making all current devices Beats certified.
When Google announced their buyout of Motorola Mobility last year, it appeared to be primarily motivated by access to a handful of mobile phone patents. Even as the two biggest regulatory hurdles are cleared, there is growing evidence which suggests video technology was their primary goal all along.
It's no secret that Google wants to be in your living room. Since 2010 they have made a number of moves in that direction, some more obvious than others. In January of 2010 YouTube started experimenting with movie rentals. By late April the program had been expanded twice. It was still small and focused on independent movies, but clearly past the experimental stage.
At the same time Google was working out a deal to buy On2, whose VP6 video compression was used in Adobe's Flash Video format. Google's primary goal was developing On2's VP8 standard into an open source, and more importantly royalty free, alternative to H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC).
At the time it seemed like a questionable move. H.264 had already been established as the new defacto standard for web video. Google, however, continued promoting VP8 through development of the WebM (Matroska-based) container format to combine it with royalty free Vorbis audio.
Last Saturday opponents of ACTA, the secretly negotiated intellectual property treaty, held protests across the European Union.
The protests provoked two very different reactions from EU officials. One came from the European Commission, who reaffirmed their support for the treaty via Twitter. EC spokesman Cezary Lewanowicztweeted, "ACTA does not change EU law, does not prevent people from sharing content online, will not monitor the internet."
What's more notable is that the EC statement appeared to be a reaction to comments made earlier in the day by European Parliament President Martin Shulz during a TV appearance in his home country of Germany. Shulz criticized ACTA for failing to adequately protect the public's rights. He said (translation via EUobserver.com):
As a head's up to potential buyers, Wal-Mart is still offering the popular Kindle Fire with a $50 gift card to the store for $199, the regular retail price.
The deal is available until the 14th, and is the lowest price available for the tablet especially since the device still sells for the same price on Amazon, with no gift card.
The Kindle Fire has a 7" 1024x600 IPS display, a dual-core processor, Wi-Fi, 8GB of internal storage and deep integration into the Amazon ecosystem of movies, music, Cloud storage and of course, shopping.
Sony has posted a 12-minute hands-on video today of the PS Vita, in an effort to boost interest in the handheld console before its launch in the U.S. and Europe this month.
The Vita runs on an ARM Cortex A9 quad-core processor, powered by a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4+ GPU. Featuring a 5-inch capacitive multitouch OLED screen (with 16 million colors), the device is 7.16 by 0.73 by 3.28 inches.
Furthermore, the console has 512MB RAM and 128MB VRAM in its graphics processor. The rear camera will be capable of 60fps and 640x480 resolution or 120fps at 320x240 resolution. Sony's Vita will playback MP3, AAC, WAV (Linear PCM) files and MPEG-4 video including H.264AVC encodings in high, main, or baseline profiles.
According to a new report in Xbox World Magazine, the next generation Xbox will also include a Wii U-esque touchscreen controller.
Says the magazine: "The controller will be a matt-black media hub with a mission to bring games to life in your living room with augmented reality, directional sound, and a four-player, finger-tracking Kinect."
The Xbox Next controller will be "an HD screen surrounded by the traditional 360 buttons and sticks." Continuing on, the report says "that touchcreen will be second only to Kinect in how you operate your console. It could be a remote control when you're watching TV, a browser when you're on the internet, extra buttons and information when you're playing a game or a portable display when you want to take your game with you."
What will the new system cost you? The magazine speculates the high-end console and controller will cost $600 at lunch, many times more expensive than the Xbox 360: "Microsoft are playing it safe with the CPU and GPU but running wild with the functions that will change how you play, but it won't be cheap."
Within a few hours, the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice have approved Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility.
The company now just needs approval from China, Taiwan, and Israel before the acquisition is completely official.
In August, Google shocked the tech world by announcing it was acquiring the company for $12.5 billion, mainly in an effort to protect its Android platform. Motorola had over 17,000 valuable patents, which Google will use in defense of its smartphone platform.
Despite being cleared, regulators in the U.S. and Europe will continue to monitor the situation to see if Google will license Motorola patents to competitors on fair terms (FRAND/Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) as they have been ordered to.
Motorola Mobility will run separately from Google, and the company will continue to license Android to all current and future manufacturers.
Sony Music is facing intense criticism today after they were found to have raised the price of Whitney's Houston's greatest hits album right after the singer passed away.
Houston passed away on Saturday at the age of 48.
The record label raised the wholesale price of the album, called "The Ultimate Collection," at 7am EST on Sunday morning, just hours after her death, prompting iTunes to automatically lift the retail price from £4.99 to £7.99.
According to insiders speaking to the Guardian, the change came directly after the label "reviewed Houston's iTunes catalogue after the singer was pronounced dead." The same insider says the move was not intended to "cash in" on the singer's death but was rather a fix that should have been made earlier had they been reviewing prices more often.
iTunes had returned the price to normal by late Sunday.
The 7-inch tablet (WSVGA display 1024x600 PLS TFT LCD) will run on a Samsung 1GHz dual-core processor with 1GB RAM. The tablet has a 3MP standard camera and a VGA camera up front.
Furthermore, the device will have standard HSPA+, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS, a microSD slot and a larger-sized 4,000mAh battery all in a 10.5mm thin tablet.
The tablet will be available with 8, 16 or 32GB of internal storage.
Samsung has equipped the device with its own TouchWiz UI, including features like Live Panel, Samsung Apps support, Hub support, S Suggest, Kies Air, ChatON and Allshare Play.
Although it is set for official release tomorrow, fans of the game can now play via Facebook.
Rovio announced last month that Valentine's Day would mark the day for "the biggest Facebook event ever," as the developer planned to release the blockbuster mobile game Angry Birds on the platform.
What will separate the Facebook version from the game available on other platforms is you will get powerups that can help you beat the pigs, a feature not available on mobile versions. Additionally, you can invite friends to top your high score after you've played, adding a bit of fun between your presumably real-life friends.
The game uses Adobe's Flash, and you can play in full screen, with no quality loss.
Apple has moved its attack on Samsung back to the U.S., after spending a year trying to take the company down in Germany and other European nations.
The latest complaint directly targets the Galaxy Nexus, the first Android 4.0 device to be released. The company is looking for an injunction on sales of the device in the U.S.
Four patents are in focus, including one for Siri, one for unified search, one for slide-to-unlock technology and word completion for touch screens.
All of the patents are very new, and were issued in the last few months. Patent specialist Florian Mueller says the patents "are the patent equivalent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Because Apple already won its ITC suit for the "data tapping" patent, the company will almost certainly win again this time, adds Mueller.
A number of sites have leaked specs for the alleged HTC Endeavor smartphone, which could be unveiled at this month's Mobile World Congress.
Making the phone notable is the fact that it will be powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3, the first phone to have a quad-core processor, and the first HTC device to feature Nvidia hardware.
The phone will have a large 4.7-inch 720p screen, an 8-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM, and a quad-band HSPA+ radio. With Ice Cream Sandwich, HTC's Sense 4.0 UI and Beats Audio, the phone will certainly be one of the most powerful and feature-packed in the market.
All current and past HTC smartphones feature Qualcomm processors, but HTC CFO Winston Yung recently noted that the company would be moving to different component suppliers into the future.
Activision Publishing chief Eric Hirshberg seems to believe that the upcoming game will be revolutionize the series.
Speaking on an investor conference call this week, Hirshberg said the "next Call of Duty will bring meaningful innovation to the series." The next game, expected to be Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, will be released later this year.
The exec would not elaborate further but the series has seen some user criticism recently from those who think the series is a lot of "the same" just with a new name and new maps.
2011's Modern Warfare 3 was an unequivocal success, bringing in over $1 billion in sales in just 16 days. Last November, the game helped the video game industry enjoy its best November, ever.
The company will also be updating its CoD: Elite subscription service to version 2.0, soon: "Elite has been a great success. It has generated seven million subscribers and 1.5 million premium members. That's very important to us ? there was a lot of risk in establishing it. So now we're thinking about how we further pursue those kinds of opportunities."
Internet consulting firm DeepField Networks did some digging and it seems that the high-profile take down of major cyberlocker Megaupload has done nothing to affect global piracy.
The firm analyzed Web traffic from six companies, says BGR, "that provide the storage facilities responsible for roughly 80 percent of all file-sharing traffic" and found that piracy is still alive and well, despite triumphant statements from the US government and trade groups like the MPAA.
In the days leading up to the shutdown, Megaupload accounted for about 35 percent of all file-sharing downloads. When a global raid took the site down last month, the entire Internet saw traffic fall about 2 percent. The US DOJ had certainly caught their big fish in the ongoing fight against copyright infringement.
However, within days, the traffic had recovered as users moved on to Rapidsahre, Putlocker, FileFactory and MediaFire, says DeepField, completely negating the takedown.
What will be the main impact of the MegaUpload takedown? DeepField concludes: "Well, file sharing has not gone away. It did not even decrease much in North America. Mainly, file sharing became staggeringly less efficient. Instead of terabytes of North America MegaUpload traffic going to US servers, most file sharing traffic now comes from Europe over far more expensive transatlantic links."
Following in the footsteps of Best Buy, Wal-Mart has started a Valentine's Day promotion in which they give away $50 gift cards with the purchase of select phones.
The deal is only available at brick-and-mortar Wal-Marts, however.
Furthermore, the iPhone, on all carriers, is excluded as are most of the better phones available from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.
Finally, you can only take advantage of the deal if you are signing up for a new two-year contract or have an eligible renewal.
Netflix was forced to restate its previous quarter's earnings this week, following its settlement of a lawsuit.
The lawsuit, which alleged Netflix violated consumer-privacy laws, was settled for $9 million, forcing the company to restate its earnings by 14 percent.
In January, the company announced strong earnings and a surprising gain of 600,000 subscribers, its first significant gain in months. Following its PR disaster year of 2011, where its stock fell from over $300 to $60 per share, the company's stock has rebounded and now sits at over $120.
Netflix is expected to report a loss for 2012, thanks to its massive expansion plans into the UK, Ireland, Latin America, the Caribbean and its investment into original programming.
The lawsuit had alleged that since Netflix retains the records of what DVDs customers rent or stream for up to two years after they cancel, they are breaking the Video Privacy Protection Act, which was put into action in 1987. The Act specifically states that all "personally identifiable information must be destroyed within a year from the date that the information is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected."
Apple started the trend by blocking Flash from its iOS devices. The company then stopped developing its Flash player for Android and BlackBerry within a few months. Finally, Google's latest update to the Chrome browser does not support the most recent version of Flash.
Now, it appears that Internet Explorer for Windows 8 on ARM devices won't support Flash, either.
Windows 8, at least for ARM-based devices, will not support web plug-ins at all, due to their propensity to lead to unstable performance and worse battery life. Plug-in free browsers will be the future, as HTML5 and JavaScript continue to improve, but Flash still remains as one of the top standards, making its very quick demise somewhat surprising.
According to Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley, Amazon is building an 8.9-inch model of the Kindle Fire for release this year.
Additionally, the company will release an updated 7-inch model sometime "during the summer," less than a year after the launch of the first generation tablet.
For the year, Bartley has raised his shipment forecast to 15 million in 2012, up from 12.7 million.
Adds the analyst: "We believe there is an upward bias, particularly from the new 7- and 9-inch models, which we expect to launch in mid-2012."
There have been rumors of a family of Fire products for some time now, including a 4-inch smartphone, a 10-inch tablet and the "in-between" 8.9-inch tablet.
AT&T, one of the kings of bleeding consumers dry, has announced it will be doubling its upgrade fee for new handsets.
Whenever a subscriber upgrades to a new handset after signing a new contract, the fee is currently $18. Starting tomorrow, that fee will be doubled to $36.
Says the carrier: "Wireless devices today are more sophisticated than ever before. And because of that, the costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased and is reflected in our new upgrade fee. This fee isn't unique to AT&T and this is the first time we're changing it in nearly 10 years."
It is not entirely clear what "costs" are actually associated with the upgrade, as all it takes to switch phones is to switch SIM cards over being that AT&T is a GSM operator.
Regardless, AT&T users should take note that next time they upgrade their phone, expect a heftier fee.
Premium users of the Spotify service have access to unlimited streaming on their mobile devices, but there has always been questions about the quality of the streams. The company has put those questions to rest this week, adding an 'extreme' option.
Until this week, there were only two options, "low" at 96kbps and "high" at 160kbps. While the high quality was probably okay for quick listening on the way to work, the quality certainly left audiophiles with expensive headphones hoping for more.
The new "extreme" mode bumps mobile streaming to 320kbps, the highest bit rate available in the MP3container.
For now, extreme is available only for iOS, with the update headed to Windows Phone and Android soon.
Blizzard's experiment seems to have paid off in a big way.
Last year, Blizzard introduced the World of Warcraft Annual Pass deal, which give users a free copy of Diablo 3 and 12 months of game time in World of Warcraft. The subscription package costs £8.99 per month, for a grand total of £107.88 per player for the year.
At 1 million subscribers "in the west," the pass seems to be a large success.
More importantly for the company, after the first subscriber dip in years last year, the game appears to be headed back to growth.
Finally, Blizzard CEO Mark Morhaime noted that updates to the game have "contributed to retaining our players in the wake of competitive launches," naming Star Wars: The Old Republic without actually naming the game.
Tencent, the Chinese mobile game platform and microblogging company, has confirmed they have now hit 200 million registered users on the gaming side.
13 million users are actively playing every day, with an average of 1 million concurrent gamers at any given point.
The company offers support on Symbian, Java, Android, iOS and Windows Phone 7, alongside HTML5 versions of the platform for in-browser gaming, making it available to almost everyone in China's fragmented mobile phone market.
Tencent still only has around 30 games, but they are adding more casual games weekly. A few of the most popular titles are Chinese Tetris and Chess. The platform is linked closely to the Weibo microblogging service, which has 250 million users and is the Chinese version of Twitter.
At 200 million, the gaming platform almost rivals that of Zynga, which has over 225 million users via Facebook and smartphones. In fact, both companies tied up in the past to offer a Chinese version of the popular CityVille game, dubbed "Zynga City" on Tencent.
Eldar Murtazin has posted today that the Samsung Galaxy S II and Note devices will be getting Android 4.0 on March 1st.
Murtazin, the controversial blogger known for breaking news stories and being completely wrong on many others, tweeted the details:
"Android 4 aka ics for sgs2 will be officially available from march 1(depends from country/operator). Update over the air or using kies."
Late last year, Samsung confirmed the devices would be getting ICS, but stuck with the press-friendly time table of "in the first quarter 2012."
For now, Samsung has not confirmed the date so it will remain as a Murtazin rumor, but the date should make owners happy as the ICS update is the most highly anticipated software update for Android, to date.
Just a week after expanding from the U.S. to Europe, Roku has announced it has added the BBC iPlayer to its set-top box content offerings.
Roku boxes are only available in the UK and Ireland, for the time being, and only two of the most recent models are available, the Roku LT and Roku 2 XS. The devices sell for GBP 49.99 and GBP 99.99.
For their European offerings, Roku has 40 channels including Netflix, Crackle, MLB.TV, UFC, Angry Birds and more. The iPlayer will give BBC users a chance to watch on-demand back catalogs of popular shows like Doctor Who.
Roku, which launched in 2008 and is very popular in the U.S., has sold over 2.5 million devices.
Says the company (via TNW): "Roku recognizes the importance of region-specific programmes so today we are excited to announce the addition of BBC iPlayer to our platform. This is among the first of many significant content partnerships for Roku in Europe and we look forward to making additional announcements in the coming weeks."
Despite a slumping market, the Microsoft Xbox 360 had another big month.
In the U.S., in January, the console had another solid month, marking the 13th month in a row it was the top selling console in the country.
For the month, 270,000 360s were sold, good for 49 percent of all consoles sold. The figure was also the 11th time in a row that the Xbox accounted for over 40 percent of hardware sales.
Overall, the Xbox accounted for $310 million in total sales (hardware, software, and accessories), much higher than the PS3 and Wii.
Says NPD in their report: "Historically, after several years in the console lifecycle there is a softening of demand, but Xbox 360 continues to defy that convention. The Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend the lifecycle of the console by re-imagining entertainment and delivering new technologies like Kinect for Xbox 360, a new Xbox dashboard, and new entertainment content partners in 2011."
According to the Russian newspaper Vedomosti, popular streaming services Netflix and Hulu are considering expanding to Russia.
Hulu executives have allegedly visited Moscow and met with top Russian film studios in an effort to roll out the service. Amongst the executives was Johannes Larcher, the company?s SVP of international, reads the report.
Russia, despite being a haven for piracy, especially of movies, was recently let into the World Trade Organization, which is said to have piqued Hulu's interest.
Additionally, Netflix had a similar trip, in the efforts of expanding to the nation, which has the most online viewers in Europe.
Netflix is currently available in 45 nations, while Hulu is U.S.-only.
Netflix already operates in 45 countries (recently launching in the UK and Ire
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found a way to improve CPU performance more than 20 percent using a GPU built on the same processor die.
"Chip manufacturers are now creating processors that have a ?fused architecture,? meaning that they include CPUs and GPUs on a single chip," said Dr. Huiyang Zhou, who co-authored a new paper based on the research. He explained, "Our approach is to allow the GPU cores to execute computational functions, and have CPU cores pre-fetch the data the GPUs will need from off-chip main memory."
The research was performed in conjunction with AMD, who talked about plans to increase CPU/GPU integration in a presentation to analysts last week. Based on that presentation, the techniques identified in this research could be used in AMD processors within the next two years.
Although this research appears to be focused on current PC technology, most likely AMD's Fusion APU, it also has obvious applications for improving ARM processor performance. ARM's SOC (System On a Chip) design emphasizes power efficiency over speed, making it the standard choice for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices.
Stories are emerging about a new device Google is testing which appears to be some sort of streaming media box.
Speculation began back in December when Google filed an application with the FCC asking for permission to test the mystery box. The application explains, "Google is developing an entertainment device that requires testing outside the laboratory environment."
It also provides details about some of the device's technical features. It will connect to Wi-Fi networks, home electronics equipment, and even Blutooth devices. The application also indicates 252 of the experimental devices are involved in the tests, which were scheduled to start on January 17 and run for six months.
According to a report from the New York Times, the device will initially be sold as a streaming music appliance, but later expanded with additional features. That seems plausible considering their streaming music service, Google Music, has been operating since last year.
One interesting question is how Motorola Mobility figures into Google's home entertainment plans. Their acquisition of the smartphone and set-top box maker could be approved by regulators in both the US and EU as soon as next week. While Motorola's smartphones are widely perceived as the focus of Google's interest, their set-top boxes could be just as important.
According to the most current market data, it appears that Spotify has doubled its market share in just one year.
In 2010, the unlimited streaming music company had a market share of around 9.1 percent thanks to its 750,000 paying subscribers. Overall, that year, there were 8.2 million paying subscribers for streaming music.
By the end of 2011, however, thanks to the company's launch in the U.S., that share has more than doubled, to 18.7 percent. The company has about 2.5 million paying subs now, compared to a global market of 13.4 million.
Arctic put together some quick math, and while Spotify grew over 100 percent year-over-year, the market only grew 63.4 percent, implying it could be the dominate streaming service in the market in just a few short years if growth rates remain stable.
The popular smartphones will be getting the promised Android 4.0 update at some point next month.
Followed by the Sensation XL within a small time frame, the HTC Sensation and Sensation XE will be the first two HTC devices to receive the much-anticipated update.
Reads the company's Facebook page: "HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we're excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation and HTC Sensation XE."
Warner Music Group saw its sales stay flat in the last quarter at $780 million, thanks to a boost from Spotify and iTunes.
Digital revenue as a whole jumped 17 percent, and now accounts for a full 28 percent of the company's quarterly sales.
Music downloads, from iTunes, Amazon MP3 and other services, accounted for $205 million in revenue during the quarter, with streaming services like Spotify bringing in another $15 million. Streaming is increasing at a fast pace, 36 percent last quarter, while downloads remain in their shrinking growth mode, at just 15 percent.
The company remains hopeful that former pirates will shell out money for the convenience of a Spotify (or other service) which offers millions of tracks in decent quality and via your computer and mobile devices.
Hasbro and Zynga have announced today a partnership in which the toy giant will create toys and games based on Zynga's social games and brands.
With over 230 million monthly users, Zynga's brands like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, CityVille and Zynga Poker are some of the most popular games in the world.
Says Mark Pincus, founder, CEO and chief product officer of Zynga: "It's exciting to partner with Hasbro as we share a common vision for play and a mission to connect the world through games. This partnership is so special because it represents an exciting leap forward in enabling people to connect their virtual and real worlds. Hasbro has inspired play through their famous toys, games and action figures and we look forward to working with a company that continually creates meaningful and fun brands."
Adds Brian Goldner, President and CEO of Hasbro: "Hasbro is thrilled to have the opportunity to bring Zynga's immensely popular social games to life in a variety of creative and new expressions that reflect consumers' growing desire to surround themselves with gaming brands they love anytime, anywhere together with their friends and family. Zynga is bringing more games to mainstream culture and is redefining how people play. At Hasbro, we're proud to help bring their games to even more people around the world. This strategic alliance plays off of both Hasbro?s and Zynga?s proven strengths and is emblematic of the new innovations and new platforms we are creating across our entire gaming portfolio."
Samsung has noted today that it expects to sell over 25 million "smart" TVs this year.
Overall, the company expects to sell 50 million TVs this year. Samsung's "smart TVs" are Internet-enabled, interactive, stocked with apps, and most have cameras for video chatting.
At CES, the company made waves by introducing a new smart TV that recognizes voices and accepts controls to turn on and off, change channels and adjust volume. Using the camera, the TV can also recognize hand motions and gestures.
To be released in March, the ES8000 will have access to 1500 apps.
Additionally, Samsung is looking to create a Google TV display by the end of the year.
Kodak has announced it will stop making digital cameras in an effort to focus on its more profitable businesses.
Additionally, the company will also stop making digital picture frames. Both lines of products will be phased out by the end of the quarter, adds the company.
Into the future, the company will focus only on photo printing and desktop inkjet printers. By dropping the other products, the company should save $100 million per year.
Last month, the storied company filed for bankruptcy protection, looking to shred major expenses.
Kodak released the world's first consumer camera in 1888 and is still looking to sell off some of its patent portfolio and a successful deal would keep the company out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company has 1100 very valuable photography and digital photography patents and internally they value the portfolio at around $2 billion.
Despite inventing the digital camera in 1975, the company never capitalized on it, instead sticking to their film business, which has all but disappeared and had already begun shrinking in the 1990s.
Analyst Erza Gottheil of Technology Business Research has suggested today that Apple could launch a 7-inch version of its iPad tablet this year.
The analyst, just like others in the industry, believes Apple will unveil the full-sized iPad 3 in early March for release by the end of the month.
Apple's upcoming tablet should feature a Retina Display screen with a massive resolution, a quad-core A6 processor, and Siri integration.
Additionally, both models will come with an optional wireless keyboard-case accessory.
A 7-inch tablet, depending on the price, would likely compete with the Amazon Kindle Fire, which has quickly become a major force in the market despite being launched very late last year.
In a new blog post about WOA (Windows On ARM) Steven Sinofsky said user's will be limited to running software distributed by Microsoft. Sinofsky heads Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live Division.
This revelation comes in the wake of speculation about whether WOA would be limited to the new Metro UI and why they won't let users turn off Secure Boot on ARM tablets. Metro UI is the touchscreen oriented UI originally developed for Windows Phone. Secure Boot is a BIOS security feature which prevents unauthorized code from running before the OS begins loading.
Sinofsky gave a number of arguments for controlling the software which will run on WOA. He started by talking about code written for the x86/x64 architecture found in traditional PCs. "WOA will not support any type of virtualization or emulation approach," wrote Sinofsky, "and will not enable existing x86/64 applications to be ported or run."
He claims this is because emulation and virtualization would result in poor performance and potential system instability. In addition, he said they wanted to ensure ARM tablets would never require a mouse or keyboard.
Vonage has released new mobile apps for iOS and Android offering free voice and texting throughout the world.
In 2010 Vonage expanded into Skype territory with a Facebook app to offer free calling to other Facebook users. Their new Vonage Mobile apps take this a step further by combining free app to app calling on iOS and Android with prepaid calls to other phones.
Voice calls and texts between Vonage Mobile clients are free, potentially allowing people who have dropped home phone service to save on wireless minutes. Calls made through mobile data connections will still count against your data plan. Of course you can avoid that when your phone is connected to a Wi-Fi network.
Vonage Mobile works with your phone's existing address book. It will show you which contacts have Vonage Mobile accounts, and there's a SMS powered Invite feature (see the video below). To call a phone directly, instead of from app to app, you will need to buy credits. When you select a contact it will show you the per minute rate before you make a call.
Calling credits can be purchased directly within the app and go through the iTunes Store or Android Market. According to Vonage, their rates are "on average 70% less than major mobile carriers and 30% less than Skype2." Calls to Vonage home phone numbers are free.
The U.S. Justice Department is also preparing to clear Google's purchase of Motorola Mobility.
In August, Google shocked the tech world by announcing it was acquiring the company for $12.5 billion, mainly in an effort to protect its Android platform. Motorola had over 17,000 valuable patents, which Google will use in defense of its smartphone platform.
Despite being cleared, regulators in the U.S. and Europe will continue to monitor the situation to see if Google will license Motorola patents to competitors on fair terms (FRAND/Fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) as they have been ordered to.
The European Commission will make its decision on the acquisition on Monday.
Motorola Mobility will run separately from Google, and the company will continue to license Android to all current and future manufacturers.
The U.S. Department of Justice is prepared to clear the massive bid for Nortel patents from a group of tech giants.
Apple, Microsoft, EMC, RIM and Sony grouped together to outbid Google on the 6000 patents, paying a hefty $4.5 billion. Google had got the ball rolling by offering $900 million for the rights to the patents.
The patents covered a wide range of topics from wireless, data and optical networking, voice, Internet and semiconductors.
Last July, the DOJ let it be known that they were "intensifying" investigations into what the patents will be used for by their new owners. Specifically, the DOJ wanted to know whether the patents were purchased with the sole intention of starting lawsuits against Google over the Android platform. The DOJ reserved the right to place rules and conditions on the sale depending on what the answers are from the companies involved.
The WSJ is reporting today that Google is preparing a cloud-drive competitor that will be launched in the coming months.
Such a service would directly compete with Dropbox, BitCasa, Amazon CloudDrive and others that offer cloud storage and syncing capabilities for a price. For example, Dropbox offers the first 2GB free (with ability to get more for free) but then charges $10 for 50GB, or double that for 100GB.
If accurate, the report says Google's service will be free for all Google users, unless they require "a large amount of storage."
The so-called "G-Drive" has been rumored for years, but Google shut down the project in 2008.
There were little other details about the purported service, but it is expected to work exactly like its competitors, although with a little Google "twist."
Microsoft is expected to be releasing the first public beta of Windows 8 at the end of this month.
Microsoft has sent invitations to an official launch event for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, scheduled for February 29 in Barcelona. The timing and location will put it right in the middle of this year's Mobile World Congress.
That's not surprising considering the massive changes in Windows 8 are nearly all designed specifically for tablet optimization. From the Metro UI to advanced power management and ARM processor support, Microsoft is betting heavily on tablets being the next wave of personal computers.
The Indian government will offer the low cost Aakash tablet to students for free, subsidizing the already cheap price.
50 percent of the subsidy will be from the government, with the rest of the subsidy coming from the educational institution where the student attends.
The tablet, which sells in India for 2500 rupees ($40), was created to help "students in higher education and to give them the technological skills" that are needed for 2012. At $40, the tablet is affordable almost everywhere in India, where wages remain low.
Says HRD Minister Kapil Sibal: "We want to give Akash tablets in the hands of every student, then this will be useful. We had a meeting with Bharat Electronics, we are looking for manufacturing all components of the Akash tablet indigenously. Otherwise, it will not be possible to distribute it as widely as planned."
The Aakash has a 7-inch resistive display, runs on Android 2.2, has a 366 MHz processor, 256MB RAM, 2GB internal storage, Wi-Fi, USB slots, SD slot and a tiny 2100 mAh battery.
Microsoft is preparing to show off the Windows 8 Consumer Preview later this month, and with it launch the Windows Store.
There will be a number of launch titles in the Store, says a report, including the mobile blockbuster hit Angry Birds.
The rest of the list is as follows: Hydro Thunder, Toy Soldiers, Reckless Racing, Ilomilo, Rocket Riot, Full House Poker, Tentacles, Crash Course, Ms Splosion Man and Wordament.
Windows 8 will come with the old classics, Pinball and Solitaire, pre-installed.
How the Windows Store works for devs is app makers receive a the greater end of a 70/30 revenue split which moves to 80/20 if you bring in over $25,000 in sales.
Rovio is in a giving mood today, celebrating the birthday of Angry Birds.
The updated app, available in the iOS App Store and Android Market, has 15 new cake-based levels.
Reads the release:
-Party with the amazing expandable orange bird!
-Check out the spiffy new menus and graphics!
-Special birthday achievements make this update a treat!
-As a birthday gift to our fans, all episodes are now unlocked!
The total amount of Angry Birds levels are now at 300 across all variations.
Just a few months after its release, the Sony Tablet S has been rooted.
The root access comes via security researcher Dan Rosenberg.
It appears to be a very simple process, as well. Enable USB debugging on your device, plug it into a computer (Windows only for now), and a run a .bat utility created by Rosenberg and you are done.
Sony's Tablet S has a 9.4-inch screen, a "magazine" form factor, a Tegra 2 dual core processor, dual cameras and Honeycomb 3.x. If you purchase the Wi-Fi-only version you get Honeycomb 3.1 (with Sony UI overlay) and if you buy the more expensive Wi-Fi/3G version you get 3.2 (with similar UI overlay). The tablet comes with either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, DLNA compatibility, an IR port (to use as universal remote), an SD card slot, Sony's Crackle and eReader apps and Sony's "QuickView" tech for faster browsing. Finally, the tablet is the first to be Playstation Certified which means it can play PSX games from the PS Store.
T-Mobile has confirmed today it is indeed having a large Valentine's Day sale on its 4G smartphones.
The one-day sale will be on February 11th and the carrier is making all of its 4G devices free after rebate, if you sign a new contract.
Making the deal even sweeter is the fact that the deal is applicable to both T-Mobile Classic and Value subscribers. Most past deals were only for Value plan customers.
As with most good deals, there appears to be a catch with some of the devices. The HTC Amaze and Samsung Galaxy S II appear to need an upgrade to a 5GB data plan, which is more costly than the "unlimited" 2GB plan. Regardless, even tablets like the LG G-Slate and the Huawei Springboard are completely free after the mail-in-rebates.
The deal will be available at all retail stores and authorized dealers in the U.S.
The Phoenix Suns have become the first NBA team to license Android tablets across all the company's operations.
In an agreement with Verizon Wireless and Samsung Mobile, the Suns will use the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as playbooks on the court (and off) and also in their business operations.
The press release says the team will "utilize the tablet throughout US Airways Center on game-nights for more effective activation related to Suns partner initiatives, as well as showing prospective Suns ticket holders an interactive view of seats from anywhere in the arena."
Adds Suns President Brad Casper: "Our organization has always placed a priority on remaining at the forefront of digital innovation within the sports industry. Utilizing the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network to integrate the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 into our daily operations is yet another great digital milestone for the Suns."
Sprint, after spending billions on bringing the iPhone to their network, has taken a larger than expected loss for the Q4 2011.
The company confirmed it paid $15.5 billion to Apple for a four-year commitment on the iPhone, the first of which, the iPhone 4S, went on sale in October.
During the quarter, which ended at the end of December, Sprint activated 1.8 million of the smartphone. Rival AT&T activated 7.6 million and Verizon did 4.3 million during the same period. Making Sprint's number much more impressive (for the carrier) was the fact that 40 percent of the activations were from customers that were new to the company.
Contract-based subscribers jumped 161,000 for the quarter, a rare gain for the carrier which makes most of its money from contract-free customers.
While the jump in subscribers and activations was certainly nice for the carrier, it came at a very steep price. The company saw a quarterly loss of $1.3 billion, their largest in 3 years. Losses related to the iPhone came in at the equivalent of $350 per phone sold.
Damian Dinning, Nokia's imaging chief, has confirmed that the upcoming Lumia 900 will not have a 12MP camera, as rumored.
The rumors began when AT&T posted a pre-order page implying a 12MP camera version of the phone would be made available, as well. The new version was to be called the 'Lumia 910,' read the page.
For now, it appears we can put that rumor to rest, as Dinning bluntly stated that the device "doesn't exist."
The Lumia 900 has 4.3-inch AMOLED display, 1.4GHz single-core processor, Nokia's ClearBlack technology, LTE support, an 1830 mAh battery, 512MB RAM, 16GB internal storage and an 8MP Carl Zeiss camera with large aperture (F2.2) and wide angle focal length (28mm). The phone also has a 1MP front facing camera.
Reports claim the device will cost just $99 with contract, a potential "game changer" for the smartphone platform which has struggled to make an impact against iOS and Android.
Over the last year, perhaps no Samsung products have gotten as much attention as their Android phones, but their success in the TV market is no less striking.
Samsung has been the worldwide leader in TV sales for several years. Unlike Japanese rivals such as Sony, they have also turned a tidy profit in the process.
It appears their strategy to continue that dominance will involve new models ranging from the high end units they showed off at CES last month to low end TVs to capture the budget segment. Reuters reports Kim Hyun-suk of Samsung's visual display division, indicated the new budget models would be ready in just a few weeks:
We've been preparing to introduce cheap models and have been studying to optimize production costs and retail prices,"he said. "Those (cheap) models will be ready for sale in one or two months."
Most likely this is part of Samsung's plan to spend more than $40 on manufacturing facilities this year. Their focus is expected to be on mobile processors and displays. While lower end products don't have the best profit margins, they could be the key to success in expanding markets like China.
As Microsoft continues to extensively cover minute details about changes in Windows 8, they seem unwilling to address important questions about differences between the ARM and x86 versions.
Considering ARM support is a cornerstone of their strategy for tablet support, which in turn is the primary focus of Windows 8, this has raised suspicions about Microsoft's plans. It appears to suggest the answers would be do more damage than the rampant speculation about their ulterior motives already has.
The two biggest unanswered questions are whether WoA (Windows on Arm) will be restricted to Metro Style apps and why disabling Secure Boot on ARM devices will be forbidden. Last month we explored how restricting WoA to Metro UI and the Secure Boot requirement could be used to create a walled garden ecosystem similar to Apple's iOS devices.
Windows Phone is already built around a walled garden. Given the iPad's incredible success, it seems logical Microsoft would copy this approach for tablets as wee, but maybe that doesn't mean abandoning the desktop UI. In fact, yesterday's post to the Building Windows 8 blog talked about optimizations for desktop programs on SOC (System On a Chip) architecture, which is dominated by ARM processors right now.
Sony has confirmed today that it will not be making the UMD import program for the PS Vita available to North American fans of the handheld.
The UMD Passport Service, available in Japan, allows users to transfer their PSP games to the Vita and into their SEN accounts, for a fee ranging from $6 to $31. The only problem with the system is that many big name games from developers like Capcom and Square Enix were not made available and were likely never going to be made available.
Regardless, the news should be sad for many gamers, especially those that owned the PSP and large game collections on the now defunct UMD disc standard. Without repaying fully for their games through the PSN Store, most Vita owners will not get a chance to play their old collections on the new device.
Sony's PS Vita will reach North American shores on February 22nd, priced at $250.
Current lifetime sales are at just 535,000 units in Japan, and sales appear to be weakening by the week.
Microsoft and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) have released a customized version of Internet Explorer 9.
The browser launch comes in time for Safer Internet Day 2012.
In the browser, children can report cyberbullying and inappropriate images very easily. Additionally, minors can "seek help" on a large range of topics easily, as well.
CEOP content will be prominent, as will internet safety search sites. The browser is aimed at parents who can not always monitor the content their kids are viewing.
The UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has proposed to force ISP BT to slash its broadband and telephone prices, at least on a wholesale scale.
Ofcom submitted the proposals to the European Commission this week, says The Inquirer.
The proposals have BT cutting the price of three of its wholesale products, including "dropping the price of an unbundled line from £91.50 to £87.41 a year and further decreases the following year."
A shared unbundled line should be cut from £14.70 to £11.92 a year, with an additional decrease in 2013.
Finally, Ofcom wants BT's Openreach telephone line rental to drop in price from £103.68 per year to £98.81 per year.
Ofcom has proposed the cuts because of BT's almost complete monopoly on the copper line infrastructure in the UK.
The much-anticipated Chrome browser for Android has finally arrived.
Google has launched the beta of their popular Chrome browser for Android smartphones and tablets. Currently, Android uses its own variant of Chrome as the native browser, and there are many alternatives, including Firefox, Dolphin HD and Opera.
Says Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Google Chrome, on why it took 3 years to bring the browser over: "We didn't want to just push out Chrome light. Our goal was to get all of Chrome onto Android."
If you are already a user of the desktop version of Chrome, the browser should be a great addition to your phone. After logging in to your Google account (and signing into Chrome on your desktop), all your bookmarks will be synced over, and all pages you left open at home will open on your mobile device. Search terms and history will sync over, as well.
Following the take down of Megaupload, file-sharing site BTJunkie has decided to voluntarily shut down, as well.
The torrent search engine, which at its peak had 4 million active torrents, was one of the top 500 trafficked sites in the entire world.
Reads a note on BTJunkie's homepage: "This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we've decided to voluntarily shut down. We've been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it's time to move on. It's been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!"
The site's founder also confirmed to numerous sites that the recent legal actions against Megaupload and The Pirate Bay (as well as its owners) was the reason for the shutdown.
Among the "collateral damage" of the global takedown of Megaupload, the casualties keep on coming. Within a day of the shut down, FileSonic and Fileserve, two major cyberlockers, shut down all ability to share files, whilst also deleting files and banning major uploaders.
Citing data from measurement firms Omniture and mDialog, NBC says 2.1 million people streamed Sunday's Super Bowl XLVI.
The game, between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, also set the record for most watched TV event in U.S. history, beating last year's Super Bowl. An average total of 111.3 million people watched the game at any given time.
At 2.1 million, the game was the most-watched single sporting event online, and a nice bump from regular season games, which average 300,000.
Fans of football who did not have access to a TV for the big game were able to watch online via NBCSports.com or via NFL.com. In addition to the broadcast, the streams also had additional camera angles, in-game highlights, real-time stats and other enhanced viewing features.
Finally, the game was available on Verizon smartphones if you have the NFL Mobile app and a subscription. It is unclear if the figure includes the mobile viewers.
The partnership between Redbox and Verizon to offer a subscription streaming and disc rentals could represent the biggest competitive threat Netflix has ever faced.
A press release announcing the deal didn't offer any real details beyond a third quarter launch date and plans for multiplatform device support. A website setup to promote the new venture doesn't add any new information.
Since then, executives from Redbox and their parent company Coinstar have dropped some hints to FastCompany. While they seem to suggest the exact details haven't been worked out yet, it appears the Redbox component may be fairly limited. Coinstar CFO and interim Redbox CEO Scott Di Valerio explained:
As the debate in Europe over the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) heats up, a growing number of Europeans are protesting their governments for signing the treaty. Officials from 22 EU member states added their signatures to ACTA last month. It was finalized and signed by it's biggest backers, the US and Japan, last October.
What may be the most interesting aspect of the anti-ACTA movement is that the most widespread and loudest opposition, as well as the most effective, isn't in the UK, France, or other countries traditionally considered strongholds of democracy and freedom. Instead it is in areas where oppressive dictatorships ruled until late in the 20th century.
For most people in the US and more powerful European nations, widespread censorship is something of an abstract concept. In countries controlled by the Soviet Union after World War II the situation is much different. Many people in these countries grew up in an environment of state controlled media, no free speech, and rampant government corruption.
We have already seen organized protests in Poland, where several members of Parliament also staged a protest of their own. Last week Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk suspended the ratification process pending a more thorough analysis. The Warsaw Business Journal quotes Tusk saying, "Consultations about ACTA were incomplete. I am mad at my co-workers."
The phone had been originally expected to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress 2012.
Last week, Samsung admitted it had to delay the launch of its Galaxy S III Android smartphone, but that the launch would be this quarter.
The latest rumor is the device will now get some face time at a special event on March 22nd in France.
If spec leaks are accurate, the device will have a large 4.6-inch 720p multi-touch display, run on Android 4.0 and a 1.8Ghz dual-core Exynos processor, have a 12MP rear camera and 2GB RAM. Each one of the features is practically unheard of in smartphones, currently, especially not together.
Furthermore, Samsung will somehow manage to squeeze all that power into a case that is just 7mm (0.28 inches) thick. Its predecessor is 0.33 inches thick, and the king of smartphones, the iPhone 4S is 0.37 inches.
Amazon has confirmed today it is slashing the price of its S3 storage for standard users.
Effective as of the last week but only confirmed today, the post says users will get a cheaper per GB rate, up to their first petabyte.
For example, your first TB of storage will now cost $0.125 cents per GB, down from $0.14. Overall, if you sign up for 500TB storage, you will see a 13.5 percent discount now.
Amazon currently has 762 billion objects stored in the S3 service, up 300 percent from 2010, says Giga.
Originally expected to be released in January, the $35 Raspberry Pi will be available by the end of the month, says the group working on it.
The Raspberry Pi is a mini-computer created by UK programmers. What makes the computer so impressive (besides its price tag) is the fact that it can play 1080pHD video with no issues. The devices are intended to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools or at home. The company is looking to promote the Python programming language, alongside Basic and C among others.
For $35 you get a 3.3-inch wide board with a 700 MHz ARM11, 256MB RAM, HDMI-out, SD card slot, a USB port, ethernet, audio jack and Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU.
The initial production run is just 10,000 units, with manufacturing finishing on February 20th.
Coinstar, the parent company of Redbox, has agreed to purchase the assets of NCR Corporation for $100 million.
NCR is the company behind the Blockbuster Express kiosks, Redbox's main rival in the business. The purchase wil bring Coinstar "DVD kiosks, certain retailer contracts, and DVD inventory from NCR's entertainment line of business."
Additionally, the two companies will "enter into a strategic supplier arrangement where Coinstar will purchase product and services from NCR" in the future.
Says Redbox president Scott Di Valerio: "We are very pleased to enter into this agreement with NCR. As the global self-service solutions leader, NCR has strong technology, manufacturing and servicing capabilities, and we look forward to leveraging their expertise as Coinstar continues to grow its core automated retail businesses and expands its offerings."
Adds NCR: "Through this agreement with Redbox, NCR will be better positioned to focus on expanding our business in our targeted industries. Additionally, this transaction affords us the opportunity to develop a long-term strategic relationship with Coinstar and partner on delivering new and innovative solutions to the market."
Netflix saw its stock rise today after The Verge posted a Best Buy survey that included the still-unconfirmed Apple iTV (HDTV) being linked to the streaming service.
Best Buy surveyed customers asking how they felt about a 42-inch Apple television for $1,499 including streaming services like Netflix and apps from YouTube and Flickr among others.
For its part, Best But says the survey was completely hypothetical: "The customer survey was a routine offer effectiveness survey conducted by one of Best Buy's research partners. Any brand reference was hypothetical."
Apple's long-rumored iTV is expected to finally be released this year, as even Steve Jobs said before he passed that Apple had "cracked" the nut that was holding the TV back.
As expected, the device will be run on iOS, support iCloud, be controllable from an iPhone or iPad and have a camera for FaceTime (and Skype).
Canalys has posted their Q4 2011 global smartphone research report and it appears that for the first time, ever, smartphones have outshipped PCs.
158.5 million smartphones were shipped during the quarter, for a total of 488 million on the year. The figure was a huge 63 percent jump from the 300 million shipped in 2010. PCs, on the other hand, only saw a 15 percent bump to 414.6 million units, including tablets like the iPad.
Says Canalys: "In 2011 we saw a fall in demand for netbooks, and slowing demand for notebooks and desktops as a direct result of rising interest in pads. But pads have had negligible impact on smartphone volumes and markets across the globe have seen persistent and substantial growth through 2011. Smartphone shipments overtaking those of client PCs should be seen as a significant milestone.
In the space of a few years, smartphones have grown from being a niche product segment at the high-end of the mobile phone market to becoming a truly mass-market proposition. The greater availability of smartphones at lower price points has helped tremendously, but there has been a driving trend of increasing consumer appetite for Internet browsing, content consumption and engaging with apps and services on mobile devices."
Crytek, the company behind the Crysis series, has announced the launch of Gface, their browser-based, social gaming platform.
The platform will be run by a newly created affiliate, also called Gface, says Joy.
Much like other social networks, Gface will make it easier for gamers to find casual (or hardcore) games, and find other people to play them with. Because the platform is in-browser, you will need to install a plugin dubbed "Seed Engine," which allows for the streaming gameplay with no further installation required.
Right now, the platform is in closed beta, but you can try to get in here: Gface Closed Beta
Verizon and Redbox parent company Coinstar have announced today that their oft-rumored streaming video, physical media disc joint venture is coming this year.
The service is unnamed, for now, and will not be limited to Verizon subscribers. The service will be national at launch, which is expected to be in the Q3 2012.
Verizon will supply digital streaming and digital video downloads on demand, while Redbox will continue to distribute physical discs through its thousands of kiosks.
The press release says "the download service will be multi-platform, offering video for PCs, phones, tablets, smart TVs, consoles - the whole gamut of video-capable devices to which Verizon already delivers some video services through FiOS."
There is no word on content partners for launch, most of which will be revealed later in the year.
Sony has announced today that the term "PlayStation Network account" will no longer exist as of tomorrow.
Starting tomorrow, Qriocity and PSN accounts will be replaced in title and become Sony Entertainment Network accounts instead.
Outside of the name there is no difference between the accounts, as the functions and features will remain identical. Your username, password and other profile details will remain untouched, as well.
Says Sony (via Joystiq): "The goal is for there to be one networked log-in for all Sony services. Changing the name 'PlayStation Network account' to 'Sony Entertainment Network account' helps clarify the unity between PSN and other Sony Entertainment Network services."
If you are a PSP owner, you will not see any change, as your login will still show as PSN account.
Last week, AMD executives laid out a plan for developing a new SOC (System On a Chip) architecture for all their processors.
CEO Rory Read, whose tenure at AMD began just five months ago, kicked off the presentations at AMD Financial Analyst Day by talking about the impact of ARM processors, mobile devices, and cloud services on the computing landscape, as well as the importance of relationships with OEMs.
He sees a situation similar to what happened in the 1980s, when mainframe dominance was first challenged by personal microcomputers. As an IBM employee for 23 years, starting in 1983, Read a had an insider's view of that transition. He believes the current environment is creating opportunities to compete with Intel in the same way early PC makers took on IBM.
He described how he sees AMD transitioning from the old PC oriented CPU paradigm, where speed and complexity were king, to what he called "an SOC kind of strategy." Rather than using the latest technology and running the risk of missed deadlines or disappointing products, he wants to focus on producing a single chip package with the features people already want and need.
Dropbox has announced that the official Android app has been updated to experimental beta version 2.0.9, bringing the ability for fans to get another 5GB free of storage space.
The new version also brings a new automatic Camera Upload feature. The feature has been available through third-party apps, but will now be built in.
Reads the presser:
-The app can now automatically upload photos and videos in the background using Wi-Fi or your data plan.
-No more size limit. So upload to your hearts content.
-If there are network issues, the upload will resume when those issues are resolved.
-Some performance improvements and bug fixes.
-You'll also get 500MB of free space on your first automatic photo upload.
Getting to the 5GB free, the first sync gets you 500MB bump, and then, for every 500MB of photos and videos you upload automatically, you will get 500MB more, up to 5GB.
RIM has dropped the price of their PlayBook tablet, again, actually bringing the device down to a price where buyers may step up and purchase it.
Following the second slash in under 6 months, the 16GB model now sells retail for $199, the 32GB for $249 and the 64GB model for $299.
At $199, the price makes the tablet appealing, especially when compared to the current champion in the 7-inch market, the Amazon Kindle Fire. The PlayBook has double the storage, HDMI ouput, dual cameras, a mic, GPS and other features not seen on the newer Fire.
There is one major catch, however. The Playbook runs on the PlayBook OS, which could discontinued at any time, literally, especially as the tablet continues to catch little traction.
Regardless, RIM is expected to launch their Playbook 2.0 OS later this year in a final effort to make a dent in the tablet market dominated by Apple and Android.
As a reminder before the big game, NFL.com and NBCSports.com will be live streaming the Super Bowl tonight for those who cannot get in front of a TV.
Super Bowl XLVI, between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, starts tonight at 6:30 PM EST.
In addition to the broadcast, the streams will have additional camera angles, in-game highlights, real-time stats and other enhanced viewing features.
Says the NFL: "Whether it's just for a quarter if somebody has to run out to the store to get something they forgot, now they can stay connected to the game. With such a big television audience, it will be interesting to see the expanded reach."
Finally, the games will be available on Verizon smartphones if you have the NFL Mobile app. If you have a 4G data plan, the app is free, but if you have a 3G-capable device only, Verizon Video subscriptions cost $10 per month.
Slovenia's Ambassador to Japan Helena Drnovsek Zorko has apologized for signing the ACTA agreement on behalf of her nation.
The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement resulted from efforts by the entertainment industry to mandate copyright law via international agreement. It was written in secret, with the input of movie and recording industry lobbyists, but with the general public provided information only via leaks from various parties to the negotiations.
Zorko says she was overworked and did not pay enough attention to the agreement before signing it. It has been signed by the U.S., Japan and 22 European nations.
On Thursday, 26th January, 2012, I signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on behalf of the Republic of Slovenia, following the directive and authorisation of the Slovenian government. I signed the agreement because I was instructed to do so by the government, and because it is a part of my job.
Paul Thurrott has posted this week that Microsoft is removing the Start button from Windows 8.
There have been reports during the week that the button, which has been a standard on every Windows edition since at least 95, will be gone, and Thurrott says his "internal sources" within Microsoft have confirmed the move.
You will still be able to access the Start orb from the Windows button on keyboards or by hitting ctrl+esc on the keyboard. Additionally, if you "hover the mouse over the bottom left corner of the taskbar to bring up the Charms," you can mimic the Start orb function.
The Windows 8 Consumer Preview, aka beta, will be released soon, with a final version expected in the late summer of early fall.
Here is how the Windows 8 screen looks like without the Start Orb:
Microsoft has put the Nokia Lumia 900 up for pre-order, with $25 down payment, but only if you live near a Microsoft retail store.
There are mainly stores in only California, but there a few on the east coast, such as one in Atlanta. You can check the locations here: Microsoft Stores
Furthermore, even if you pre-order the device, Nokia and Microsoft are still not revealing the final price of the device.
The Lumia 900 has 4.3-inch AMOLED display, 1.4GHz single-core processor, Nokia's ClearBlack technology, LTE support, an 1830 mAh battery, 512MB RAM, 16GB internal storage and an 8MP Carl Zeiss camera with large aperture (F2.2) and wide angle focal length (28mm). The phone also has a 1MP front facing camera.
Brandon Watson, one of the top Microsoft execs for Windows Phone, has left the company and will be headed over to Amazon.
Says Microsoft: "We can confirm February 6th is Brandon Watson's last day at Microsoft. Brandon did a great job helping us build a vibrant developer community and we wish him well with his next adventure."
Watson was in charge of getting devs to build apps for the Windows Phone platform but will now do the same work for Amazon and their Kindle devices.
The news follows Microsoft's decision to replace the head of the mobile division, Andy Lees, with one of his VP's while moving Lees to a new role that remains a mystery.
Watson says he was mostly attracted to Amazon due to his love for the Kindle. In the past, Watson said his levels of reading have gone up significantly since getting a Kindle.
Starting tomorrow, Netflix will be offering its first ever original series, "Lilyhammer," to subscribers.
All eight episodes of the first season will be available right from the get-go.
Lilyhammer is the "story about a New York gangster living in Lillehammer, Norway, as part of a witness protection program." Steven Van Zandt, formerly of "The Sopranos," is the star of the show.
Later this year, Netflix will debut "House of Cards," starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher. Netflix had to outbid rivals like HBO and offer major incentives to the companies behind the political drama which is expected to be a hit. Additionally, the fourth season of the cult classic "Arrested Development" will be hitting the service in early 2013.
Netflix senior spokesman Steve Swasey has said Netflix will have five original shows running in 2013. The last two shows have not been purchased yet, but they are expected to be the prison comedy "Orange Is the New Black" and the thriller series "Hemlock Grove." Says Swasey: "By 2013, we'll have five original content programs. We're dabbling in original content with a pretty good mix of dramas, comedies and quirky series. We're excited about it."
According to a new report from firm Crittercism, iOS apps crash more often than Android apps do.
The smartphone app monitoring company collected data for 2 months from all versions of iOS and Android and came to the conclusion after breaking down all the data.
Crittercism says they found 23 different versions of iOS and 33 versions of Android, pretty much the entire range of versions ever made available for each smartphone OS.
As expected, the higher the OS build, the higher the crash rate, as devs rush to make their apps compatible with the latest firmware update.
Electronic Arts reported its quarterly earnings on Friday and it appears that their new digital distribution platform Origin is doing very well.
The platform has 9.3 million registered users, almost 25 percent of large rival Steam, which was established well before Origins launched in May.
To date, Origin has generated "over $100 million in non-GAAP revenue since launch," read the report.
Into the future, Origin has signed 11 more publishers, including Trion, CD Projekt Red, Paradox Interactive and Robot Entertainment, so revenue and subscriber base should increase exponentially.
Finally, the upcoming blockbuster Mass Effect 3 will have an Origin requirement, meaning you can't activate the game without signing into Origin. Steam will not be getting the game.
As reported earlier this week by Cultofmac, iTunes Match is either unintentionally (or intentionally) converting some explicit rap songs to their more benevolent censored versions.
iTunes Match is Apple's $25/year service that converts your entire library to "iTunes quality" and then stores the library in the cloud.
A few of the artists that appear to get censored more than others are Kanye West, N.E.R.D and Eminem.
Apple has responded to word of the "glitch" and says it is working on it: "Apple is currently investigating the issue and working on a fix."
A gamer in Taiwan passed away at an Internet cafe last week, and no one noticed for a full 9 hours.
Chen Rong-yu, who was 23, suffered and died from a heart attack after playing League of Legends for almost 24 straight hours.
The gamer, playing in the cafe in New Taipei City, died but stayed in the same position, with his hands outstretched and on the keyboard. Rong-yu was known to take naps in his chair, so no one seemed to notice. There were 30 other people playing around him but no one noticed until rigor mortis had begun to set in. At that point, a waitress realized what had happened and called the police.
Rong-yu had a history of a bad heart, and initial tests say he died of a heart attack "brought on by low temperatures, fatigue and lack of movement," says the Mail.
According to the latest figures from Media Create, Sony PS Vita sales remain extremely slow, but the company doesn't seem to be bothered by it.
In fact, Sony CFO Masaru Kato had this to say on the matter: "As far as the sell-through, three weeks have passed and sell-through is 500,000. This was announced on the 10th of January. So as a start, I think we had a very good start.
Including software and hardware, we are carrying out the sales promotions and we do it to boost the sales, and we do not think we have any problems."
Current lifetime sales are at just 535,000 units in Japan, with only 18,942 sold last week.
The console heads to the U.S. and Europe on February 22nd.
Starting on Tuesday, gaming developer Ubisoft will begin to move its data from one third-party server farm to a new farm, thus killing the ability of some legitimate gamers to play their purchased games.
As AfterDawn has reported repeatedly, Ubisoft is one of a couple of companies who employs an "always-connected" DRM, which means you must always be connected to the Internet to play their games.
While online play will be down for mostly all Ubisoft games until the migration is done, games with the DRM like "the Mac OS X version of the original Assassin's Creed, however, will be completely unplayable, as will the OSX version of Splinter Cell: Conviction and the PC versions of Might and Magic: Heroes VI and Tom Clancy's HAWX 2," says Joystiq.
Yes, that means even the single player versions of the games will be unplayable. Pirates will be able to play the games, however.
Although the Windows Phone platform unquestionably represented a quantum leap forward in Microsoft mobile technology, underneath its slick interface and app support beats the heart of an outdated OS.
While iOS was developed from OS X and Android from Linux, Windows Phone 7 was built from an already dated platform called Windows CE. Starting with an existing mobile OS allowed Microsoft to develop Windows Phone into a finished product very quickly, but a lot of work would have been required to make it suitable for a modern tablet.
Last year Microsoft began detailing their plans for the touchscreen tablet market. While their vision does include Windows Phone's Metro interface, it is built on their next generation desktop OS. Windows 8 is essentially the culmination of work began at least a decade ago to redesign Windows for servers. The goal was to divide the OS into many separate parts which could be selectively installed.
The same changes which make it possible to minimize Windows' footprint on a server also proved useful in optimizing Windows for tablets. Combined with the touchscreen friendly Metro UI and new strategies to keep hardware in an idle state whenever possible, they make it possible for Microsoft to finally create a modern mobile OS.
IDC has released their annual report on the mobile phone market. As expected, Nokia and Samsung came out the overall leaders, with Apple finishing the year in third place.
While Apple moved fewer than a third as many units as Samsung, and a quarter that of Nokia, as the only vendor in the top five who exclusively makes smartphones, their showing was quite impressive. By contrast, Nokia's ability to retain the top spot, despite a sharp decline in Symbian smartphone sales, demonstrates just how dominant they remain in the feature phone market.
But perhaps the most impressive company last year was ZTE. The Chinese phone manufacturer maintained the fifth position, moving more than 66 million handsets and narrowing the gap with fourth place LG Electronics. While LG's sales plummeted more than 18 million units last year, ZTE improved by nearly 16 million handsets. ZTE's 17.1 million unit performance in the last quarter of the year was nearly a match for LG's 17.7 million.
With all the furor over SOPA and PIPA in recent months, the signing of the ACTA trade agreement last October by the US, Japan, and a handful of other countries has largely been ignored.
The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement resulted from efforts by the entertainment industry to mandate copyright law via international agreement. It was written in secret, with the input of movie and recording industry lobbyists, but with the general public provided information only via leaks from various parties to the negotiations.
According to US President Obama, ACTA isn't actually a treaty, and therefore requires no ratification by the US Senate. In the EU, the process of approving ACTA is now in full swing. Thanks in part to the significant publicity generated by SOPA and PIPA protests, officials from several EU governments are coming under fire for supporting ACTA.
According to the latest figures, Ice Cream Sandwich is now on 1 percent of Android devices.
The software update, Google's largest yet for the mobile operating system, was released in December alongside the launch of the Galaxy Nexus.
While adoption is slow, it is important to note that the OS is seeing much faster growth than its tablet predecessor, Android 3.0 Honeycomb. Also, there are very few devices that have the update, most notably the aforementioned Nexus and the Transformer Prime tablet.
Gingerbread (2.3) remains atop the list at 58.6 percent, followed by Froyo (2.2) at 27.8 percent.
Honeycomb has 3.4 percent share and the very old Eclair (2.1) still has 7.6 percent share. 1.6 percent of users still have Android 1.5 or 1.6, which were released in 2009.
In an effort to shut down illegal sports streaming sites before the Super Bowl on Sunday, American prosecutors have taken down 16 popular sites including FirstRowTV.
Thousands of users use the sites to watch NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and Fifa streams, not to mention pay-per-view events like UFC or boxing.
One man, 28-year-old Yonjo Quiroa of Michigan, has been arrested and charged with being the operator behind 9 of the sites. Authorities say Quiroa made over $13,000 profit from the sites through advertisements.
The list of the sites taken down is: firstrow.tv, firstrowsports.com, firstrowsports.net, firstrowsports.tv, hq-streams.tv, robplay.tv, soccertvlive.net, sports95.com, sports95.net, sports95.org, sportswwe.net, sportswwe.tv, sportswwe.com, xonesports.tv, youwwe.com and youwwe.net.
Last year, days before the Super Bowl, as well, U.S. authorities took down 10 similar sites. As with all piracy-based activities, if you take down one, many more will just pop up to take its place, as is expected after the demise of firstrow.
VeriSign, the registry for the .com and.net top-level domains, has admitted today it was hacked repeatedly in 2010.
More surprisingly, top-level managers were not notified about the data breaches until 2011, added the company in its statement.
Says the company in their recent 10-Q SEC filing: "In 2010, VeriSign faced several successful attacks against its corporate network in which access was gained to information on a small portion of our computers and servers."
VeriSign also noted that "given the nature of such attacks, we cannot assure that our remedial actions will be sufficient to thwart future attacks or prevent the future loss of information."
David Choe, a graffiti artist who was hired by Sean Parker to paint the walls of Facebook's headquarters, is about to be worth $200 million.
Choe was given thousands of shares as payment for his work in 2005, even though he reportedly called the site "ridiculous and pointless." Choe will be one of 1200 employees, advisers and investors that will become millionaires or billionaires when the social network goes public in April.
The social network will raise $5 billion in its IPO, with a value of almost $100 billion, far and away the largest public offering, ever.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg will see the biggest payday, with his 28 percent share of the company. Depending on the final value of the company, Zuckerberg will be worth somewhere in the $25-30 billion range.
Despite their years of lawsuits and complaints against Facebook, the Winklevoss twins will see a large windfall as well, thanks to their 1.2 million shares received in an early settlement with Mark Zuckerberg.
The Huffington Post has announced today that it will be launching its own online video streaming network.
The news comes one year after the company was acquired by AOL for over $300 million.
Launching in "the summer," the HuffPost Streaming Network will have 12 hours a day of original programming, with the plan to expand that to 16 hours a day by the end of 2013.
Says founder Arianna Huffington: "The HuffPost Streaming Network will go live on every platform -- computer, smartphone, tablet, Over-the-Top TV -- with the goal of creating the most social video experience anywhere. The network will be built around segments spotlighting the biggest, hottest, most engaging stories HuffPost is covering at any given moment."
In 2011, the Huffington Post saw record traffic, at 36.2 million unique monthly visitors.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Ray William Johnson may be the first YouTube millionaire that isn't already a famous musician.
Under the name RayWJ, the 30-year-old now has 1.5 billion views of his videos on YouTube, and is expected to be bringing in about $1 million per year from YouTube's ad revenue share and from sales of his merchandise.
Johnson is famous for ranting about other videos (somewhat like the shows "The Soup" or "Tosh.0") and for bringing in famous comedians to guest star in videos. The viral star's twice-weekly show averages around 10 million views per week.
Because of his popularity, RayWJ is a YouTube partner that makes somewhere between $3000 and $9000 per every 2 million views.
For now, Johnson still calls his videos a "hobby."
According to one report, the upcoming iPad 3 will launch very early March for release at the end of the month.
Additionally, the same report says Apple is planning a separate "unusual media event" for next week, with an unknown reason. Loop Insight, on the other hand, has since refuted the claim on the media event. For now, it will remain strictly speculation.
The iPad 3 is expected to be slighter thicker than previous models in order to have an high-resolutionRetina Display at 2048x1536.
Furthermore, the device will house a larger battery that could add an extra 5 hours of battery life. Finally, the most anticipated update is the quad-core A6 processor and the ability to connect to AT&T and Verizon 4G LTE.
A custom version of the XMBC media center has made its way to the $35 version of the Raspberry Pi computer.
The Raspberry Pi, a mini-computer created by UK programmers, is expected to be available very soon, after a year of tweaking and development. What makes the computer so impressive (besides its price tag) is the fact that it can play 1080pHD video with no issues. The devices are intended to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools or at home. The company is looking to promote the Python programming language, alongside Basic and C among others.
For $35 you get a 3.3-inch wide board with a 700 MHz ARM11, 256MB RAM, HDMI-out, SD card slot, a USB port, ethernet, audio jack and Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU.
Raspbmc is available here, along with active discussion with its developers: Raspbmc.com
Just a day after appointing Kaz Hirai as the new CEO of the company, Sony has posted an operating loss of $1.2 billion. The loss was larger than expected.
Sony saw the loss on $23.4 billion in revenue for the year, which was down 17 percent to fiscal 2010.
For the entire fiscal year, Sony is now projecting a loss of $2.9 billion, over double its forecast from last year.
During the quarter, Sony had to take a large loss "primarily due to an impairment loss on the shares of S-LCD, which were sold in January 2012, and the recording of a valuation allowance on deferred tax assets at Sony Ericsson."
To make matters worse, Sony cut its forecast on PS3 sales to 14 million from 15 million and digital camera sales from 23 million to 21 million.
Google has been ordered to pay 500,000 euros in damages for offering Google Maps free of charge in France.
Bottin Cartographes sued Google, alleging they were offering Google Maps for free to push competitors out of the market. Once their competition is gone, Bottin claims, Google plans to begin charging for the service. Despite the fact their allegation seems to run counter to Google's standard business model of using free services to generate ad revenue, a French judge agreed.
Google has vowed to appeal the ruling, which even Bottin's lawyer called"a decision without precedent," according to a report from AFP. In addition to the damage award, Google was ordered to pay a 15,000 euro fine.
Google has been criticized around the world by companies in various sectors for allegedly abusing their dominance in search to give their own services an unfair advantage. However, this seems significantly different from the standard complaints because of the wild claim that Google plans to begin charging users once they eliminate the competition.
Although Samsung is still barred from selling the original Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, the newer Galaxy Tab 10.1N will remain available for now.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1N was designed to work around the ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 which was ordered last year, and upheld by a higher court late last month. However, Apple has also filed a lawsuit over the 10.1N, alleging infringement of a patent on displaying lists and documents on a mobile touchscreen device.
Despite Samsung's initial victory in keeping the Galaxy Tab 10.1N on the market, German patent expert Florian Mueller, of the FOSS Patents blog, suggests Apple may have a solid case if they appeal. "It's relatively surprising that the Munich court doubted the validity of that patent,"wrote Mueller. "Judge Lucy Koh in California deemed that patent both valid and infringed."
Have you been looking for a way to make Blu-ray (BDMV) or AVCHD discs from your home videos or TV captures? Do you have Blu-ray discs you want to backup, but want to strip out titles or audio streams to make them fit on a single layer BD-R?
If the answer to either question is yes, you might want to take a look at MultiAVCHD, and our recently added guide can help you get started. MultiAVCHD is a free (donationware) program which uses a number of free programs, including Avisynth, FFDShow, and TSMuxer, to create BDMV or AVCHD discs.
Currently our MultiAVCHD guide is far from complete. Instead of creating a guide covering everything it can do, we decided to start with the basics and ask you what else we should include. Since being published last month, we have already expanded the guide once. We would be happy to let you know what else we can add for you.
MultiAVCHD Quick Start The first section of Create AVCHD and Blu-ray Discs With MultiAVCHD, is a Quick Start guide. It covers installing MultiAVCHD and the necessary helper applications, setting some basic options, and creating a new disc using your own videos. These could be videos you've captured with a DVR or computer TV tuner or videos from a digital camera or smartphone.
Hitachi has announced it will begin selling 4TB drives this month.
The new Deskstar 7K4000 hard drives will be some of the first in their capacity with 7200rpm spindle speed.
Xbit explains that the "model (HDS724040ALE640) boasts 4TB capacity and uses five previous-generation 800GB platters with 446Gb/square inch areal density, Serial ATA-600 interface, 64MB cache as well as 7200rpm spindle speed."
The new hard disk drives also use the 4K format.
Additionally, the company will offer Deskstar 5K4000 drives with slower 5400rpm speed. Those drives also use five 800GB platters and not newer 1TB plates.
For now, the higher capacity drive is available in Japan for ¥28800 ($377), an expensive price even with the baked-in "flood" premium.
In an effort to turn around its struggling electronics and TV businesses, Sony has replaced its president and CEO Sir Howard Stringer with current consumer electronics boss Kazuo Hirai.
Stringer will move to a board member position. The exec had this to say: "Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature. I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead."
Hirai, at 51, will be Sony's youngest CEO ever.
The new CEO will have a tough road as Sony is no longer the name it used to be. The company has fallen far behind Samsung in the TV business, and has almost been erased off the map in the media player, tablet, and smartphone markets. The company has seen four straight years of losses, and a generationally-strong Yen is certainly not helping matters.
Redbox has let its current wholesale deal with Warner Bros. expire as the two companies fight over the now standard "delay window" on new releases.
In the current deal, in exchange for drastically reduced prices, Redbox would have to wait 28 days after release to make new titles available for rent. Warner, in its new deal, wanted to up the delay window to 56 days, outraging rental companies and consumers alike.
Now, Redbox will have to purchase the titles from retailers at a much higher price, but they are free to offer the movies on day one.
Redbox senior vice president of marketing Gary Cohen would only comment to say it "will work to provide Warner Bros.' movies through alternate means."
Warner shot back: "The consumer is best served by a windowing and pricing structure that ensures a healthy film business continuing to deliver quality movies. We hope to continue discussions with Redbox and reach a mutually agreed upon solution to this situation, but we fully intend to do what is best for our business, our consumers and the industry as a whole."
According to Xbox's Larry Hryb, the Xbox 360 is adding CinemaNow and Crackle apps to its entertainment center.
Posted earlier today, "Major Nelson" writes: New apps are now available on Xbox LIVE: Crackle (Australia, Canada, UK & US) and CinemaNow (US)
Crackle is Sony's free movie and TV streaming service and CinemaNow is the movie and TV rental/purchase service. The Crackle catalog is small but CinemaNow's is significant.
Microsoft has been making significant investments into its Xbox Live service over the past year, in an effort to turn it into an entertainment "powerhouse." The service now offers, besides gaming, live streaming TV, video and music.
Facebook, the behemoth social network with over 850 million users around the globe has finally filed to go public.
The offering will be the largest ever, surpassing Google's in 2004. The company will go by the ticker "FB" later this year and the major banks Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are the underwriters.
In their S-1 document, the social network reveals it had revenue of $3.71 billion in 2011, up from $1.97 billion the year before. Net income was $1 billion, compared with $606 million the year before, making the site wildly profitable. However, using simple math, Facebook is averaging just over $1 profit per user, a very low number by any metric.
Social gaming giant Zynga "accounted for approximately 12 percent of its revenue in 2011," showing how strongly the gaming company's fate is tied to Facebook.
When the company goes public, it will raise $5 billion, with a company valuation over $75 billion. CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has a 28.4 percent stake in the company, making him one of the richest men in the world. The valuation will put Facebook squarely ahead of most major companies in the world.
Nintendo has announced a new deal with free-hotspot.com to offer free Wi-Fi hotspots to European 3DS owners.
The deal will give gamers access to just over 5000 hotspots around the continent.
Free-Hotspot has hotspots in chains like McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and Subway, Ibis Hotels and Etap Hotels.
To get access, 3DS owners just need to download the browser and update to the latest system firmware. When completed, the device will automatically connect when in range.
Users will be able to browse the web for free, or play multiplayer games with friends or online.
Samsung has confirmed today that it will not be launching the Galaxy S III smartphone this month, as rumored.
Many had speculated the phone would be put on display at this month's Mobile World Congress in Spain and Samsung had even suggested it last year. Unfortunately, the company has had to delay the launch:
"The successor to the Galaxy S II smartphone will be unveiled at a separate Samsung-hosted event in the first half of the year, closer to commercial availability of the product," said a spokesperson. (Verge)
Samsung's latest note seems to be in-line with other reports which speculated the launch could come in June, when the phone would be available globally and in the U.S. There was a multi-month lag between launches for the Galaxy S II that the company wants to avoid this time around.
The S III will likely come with a quad-core processor among other new additions.
T-Mobile has started a new unlimited plan in Europe, a move that will likely cause other mobile providers to rethink their own packages.
The deal, which costs £41 a month with two-year contract, will include unlimited calls, texts and data.
Making the plan even more notable, is there is no "fair use policy" in effect either, like T-Mobile US has, meaning unlimited really is unlimited.
T-Mobile's entire catalog is available, and that includes the iPhone, Blackberrys and Android smartphones, among others.
Says the company: "Over the past two years we have seen a rise in mobile internet use of over 250%, which reflects the consumer trend of being 'always on' wherever they are. However, consumers also want to retain a more personal level of communication by calling or sending a text."
Finally, the icing on the cake is the phones can be used for free tethering, as well, making the new "Full Monty" plan likely the best smartphone plan available on the planet.
The highly-anticipated $35 mini-computer, the Raspberry Pi, is finally here and available for sale although both current sellers have seen such overwhelming demand that you will likely have to wait a while to receive yours.
The Pirate Bay has ceased distributing 
