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.

Dropbox better hope the report is not accurate.

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!

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.

There is more info on the exploit, the process and notes here: It's Bugs All the Way Down.

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.

Pic via Tmo News: