President Barack Obama has mandated today that all major federal government agency sites must become optimized for mobile devices within a year.

By "optimized," the President means at least two key services must be available on mobile phones and tablets.

Additionally, the agencies must create websites to report "on their mobile progress." These sites must be published within 90 days.

Reads the White House press release:

Innovators in the private sector and the Federal Government have used these technological advances to fundamentally change how they serve their customers. However, it is time for the Federal Government to do more. For far too long, the American people have been forced to navigate a labyrinth of information across
different Government programs in order to find the services they need. In addition, at a time when Americans increasingly pay bills and buy tickets on mobile devices, Government services often are not optimized for smartphones or tablets, assuming the services are even available online.

Bill no. S06779 will look to block anonymous speech online.

Lawmakers in the state want to cut down on "mean-spirited and baseless political attacks" and also "turn the spotlight on cyberbullies by forcing them to reveal their identity."

The bill itself is described by lawmakers as "an act to amend the civil rights law, in relation to protecting a person's right to know who is behind an anonymous internet posting."

If the legislation were to ever be passed, an admin/owner of any website hosted in New York can, by request, remove comments "posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agreed to attach his or her name to the post and confirm that his or her IP address, legal name and home address are accurate." Furthermore, all website admins must have valid contact information "clearly visible in any sections where comments are posted."

There will be, of course, potential First Amendment issues with the bill, says Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney with the Center for Democracy and Technology. The lawyer says "this statute would essentially destroy the ability to speak anonymously online on sites in New York and provide a heckler's veto to anybody who disagrees with or doesn't like what an anonymous poster said."

Sony exits LCD panel venture.

It announced that it will sell back all 7 percent of the stake in Sharp Display Products Corp, walking away from the joint venture after breaking even on its investment.

Sony is moving away from investing in the production of LCD panels, and opting instead to buy them from suppliers. It's TV division is responsible for enormous losses, as Sony has had serious woes in the market for flat-planel televisions the past several years.

Now with a new CEO in charge, Kazuo Hirai, Sony is seeking to stem losses and turn its fortunes around. In the TV business, it will buy its panels from other manufacturers and focus on its own technology to differentiate it from others in the market.

It also recently ended a flat-panel venture with South Korean consumer electronics giant, Samsung.

Regulators leave Sky Movies off the hook.

The Competition Commissioner had found last August that Sky enjoyed a monopoly on running movies first in the UK for years. It had estimated the cost to the public of this monopoly at £60m-£70 million per year. It has not backed off on that stance, however.

The entry of Netflix and Amazon's LoveFilm into the market has provided Sky with adequate competition in the space. Also, the viewing habits of people in the UK are starting to change, making which service shows movies first on PPV irrelevant.

"Competition between providers of movie services on pay TV has changed materially and, as a result of these changes, consumers now have much greater choice," said Laura Carstensen, who led the Commission's investigation.

"LoveFilm and Netflix offer services which are attractive to many consumers and they appear sufficiently well-resourced to be in a position to improve the range and quality of their content further."

Sky had been investigated by UK communications regulator Ofcom for three years, before it passed the case on to the Competition Commissioner.

CEOs fail to reach a deal.

Samsung chief executive Choi Gee-sung and Apple CEO Tim Cook were to met this week after being ordered to do so by the Northern District Court of California. The Judge had hoped that mediation efforts between both parties could bring about a speedy resolution to the case, which both companies say they want.

However, the Korea Times is reporting that no compromise was reached between the two executives. The case is heading for trial in July, a prospect that neither tech firm really wants to face.

Apple has accused Samsung of slavishly cloning its iPad and iPhone products with the Samsung line of Galaxy tablets and smartphones. Samsung denies the allegations and accuses Apple of infringing on patents related to wireless technology.

The two have slugged it out in court in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia over the conflict.

Choi Gee-sung had reportedly suggested that cross-licensing agreement might be the best way for both to resolve the dispute and avoid a costly and risky trial.

Flash will work on some sides in Metro-style browser.

Internet Explorer 10 will have Flash already integrated in Windows 8. It can be used on any website in the browser when running as a Desktop application, but will be limited to a number of trusted sites when it is used with the Metro-style browser.

The websites that will be approved for use of Flash include YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and the other usual suspects that rely heavily on Flash technology. Attempting to use Flash on another site will require the browser to run in Desktop mode.

Microsoft has originally said that the Metro-style browser will be plugin free, anticipating a major shift toward HTML5 in the next few years and away from proprietary plug-ins. Adobe, however, was reportedly very keen on Flash working to some degree in the Metro browser.

The Windows 8 release preview, which is expected early next Month, will include the integrated Flash support.

Latvian firm fined £50,000.

It had added knock-off copies of games such as Angry Birds to the Android Market. While they were eventually rooted out and removed from the service, they had already been downloaded by many people, who then discovered that they were being charged £5 a pop for premium SMS messages.

PhonepayPlus, an industry watchdog, said that these kinds of scams are a growing threat.

In addition to the £50,000 fine, the Latvian company must also refund another £28,000 to mobile users. "It is hectic," Nitin Lachani, researcher at PhonepayPlus, said to the BBC. "These guys are coming up with more and more sophisticated malware."

"There is a wider issue here. There is malware out there which can gain total access to your phone. A cyber criminal could then deliver apps to your phone which could tap into your phone calls, your messages. You've got to be think that phones are like computers and there is a massive link to your phone bill or potentially your credit card."

Generally speaking, the biggest threat to Android users is installing applications from untrusted sources, but in this case, the malicious apps had actually gotten to the Android Market. They were removed along with others back in November.

LG vows to develop "the most advanced commercial OLED TV."

The company showed off the world's largest and slimmest 55-inch OLED TV in Monaco, in front of an audience of 400 dealers, journalists and special guest F1 champion Sebastian Vettel. Officials promised that the company would develop the most advanced commercial OLED TV in the market

They also said LG would be the first company to bring these TVs to European consumers in the second half of 2012.

"In the history of television, there have been very few innovations as impactful as the coming of OLED TV," said Havis Kwon, President and CEO of LG's Home Entertainment Company.

"We say THE ULTIMATE DISPLAY because LG OLED TV is truly above all expectations and beyond everyone's imagination with uncompromising picture quality and beautiful design. This year, we plan to make OLED synonymous with LG."

LG's OLED TVs are based on its WRGB technology, a 4-colour pixel technology that relies on a white sub-pixel to perfect the colour output. A Colour Refiner enhances the image, resulting in pictures that are the most vibrant, natural and comfortable to the human eye.

The screen also delivers a perfect viewing experience without distortion or loss of contrast regardless of ambient brightness or viewing angle.

Third party sites hacked.

Telstra has revealed that as many as 35,000 users of its GameArena and Games Shop services have had their passwords reset, after the sites were hacked. The websites in question were operated by a third party company.

Telstra has stressed that no financial details of any of its customers were affected. Additionally, users' broadband passwords had not been affected either.

"Information that might have been obtained was limited to BigPond Games usernames, the email address used to join the site and the encrypted GameArena and Games Shop passwords of up to 35,000 customers," a statement from Telstra said.

It is not the first time that the Australian firm has been targeted in this way, having been hit by two cases of data breach just last year.

Google hopes to warn 500,000 within a week.

DNSChanger is malware that infected millions of computers around the world. As its name suggests, it changed the DNS settings on a users' computer to use malicious DNS servers instead of what they'd normally use. It also could change the DNS settings of a router or wireless access point if it was using the default user and password as a login to the web interface.

There have been several websites setup to detect if DNSChanger has modified either the DNS settings of a computer or a router, and now Google has decided to participate.

If you search Google and it detects that your DNS settings have possibly been modified by DNSChanger, it will show the following warning:

Investors angry about information disclosed before the IPO.

A writ filed in a Manhattan court alleges that Facebook and the banks that lead its recent floatation did not inform all investors of its revised growth figures.

Morgan Stanley has already been brought up by U.S. financial regulators, who say the firm may have questions to answer about the highly-publicized Facebook IPO. The bank however, said that it fully complied with all the rules.

The lawsuit alleges that the banks and Facebook concealed a "a severe and pronounced reduction" in growth forecast during the flotation marketing process.

The floatation did not get off to the right start on Friday, when it was affected by technical glitches on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Since then, the value of Facebook shares dropped from the $38 float price.

It is also being reported that the Senate banking committee may take a look at the issues surrounding the Facebook IPO.

Sony and Samsung have both started blocking retailers from offering discounts on their HDTVs.

The move is said to protect the "manufacturers' margins and the retailers' profits by preventing "showrooming," where customers check out models in person before buying them for less online."

The so-called "showrooming" has become common place nowadays, as most retailers cannot match the price of their online counterparts, many of whom do not have the overhead costs of actual brick-and-mortar stores.

Apple has used similar tactics in the past, very successfully, but it is unclear if Sony and Samsung will fare the same. In the TV world, Samsung is undoubtedly the king, but will people pay for a Sony set with a higher price tag than other similar sets from rivals like LG or Panasonic? Probably not.

In the last month, alone, Sony has raised the price of their high-end sets by $1000, and Samsung is expected to make a similar move soon. Samsung also says it will begin charging a premium for its laptops.

Amazon's new store boasts 2,000 titles.

It has launched a "Never Before on DVD" store accessible from Amazon.com's "Movies and TV" homepage, where fans can easily browse and locate more than 2,000 titles available on DVD for the first time via Amazon's CreateSpace DVD on Demand service.

The service literally makes DVDs and packaging after you have ordered them. Among its 2,000 titles initially offered are movies from the vaults of Disney, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The Never Before on DVD store also features more current content from other studios and networks including CBS Networks, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, MTV Networks, Nickelodeon and Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

"The Never Before on DVD store is a great place for fans to discover thousands of films and television series they've been waiting for on DVD," said Brad Beale, director of digital video content acquisition for Amazon.

"In addition to being available on DVD, many titles are available digitally to enjoy right away through Amazon Instant Video and Prime Instant Video. We will continue working to bring our customers even more great video content on DVD as well as digitally."

Take-Two's financial figures appear to anticipate major launch.

The publishers' figures show that it anticipates between $1.75-$1.85 billion for the year ending March 31, 2013. According to analysts, this figure hints heavily that Rockstar's anticipated next instalment of the Grand Theft Auto series will launch sometime before then.

Wedbush Securities' Michael Pachter had already said that the delay of the upcoming BioShock title hinted that GTA V will launch, and now he agrees with other analysts that Take-Two's revenue projections make the case even stronger.

Pachter believes that the guidance is "unattainable" without a major Rockstar title. He believes the developer will provide $1.1 billion to Take-Two's bottom line, with $300 million coming from Max Payne 3 and its DLC, and a further $150 million from Rockstar's existing catalog. That leaves a void of $650 million, which Pachter believes could easily be accounted for by GTA V.

There were also reports that Microsoft's Xbox Support Twitter feed had accidentally revealed that GTA V will launch in 2012, but that it removed the tweet later on. Adding to fuel to the speculation, the support team later Tweeted, "There is no official release date for [GTAV], and we are not aware of what date it comes out."

EFF, Public Knowledge get Aereo's back in dispute with TV networks.

Aereo is a New York-based service that allows a customer to literally rent a tiny remote TV antenna which will be used to deliver broadcast television to them wherever they are connected to the Internet. Predictably, major U.S. broadcasters are crying foul and have dragged the start-up to court.

Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge filed an amicus brief in federal court urging it to block a preliminary injunction that could prevent Aereo Inc. from establishing a customer base in New York City, saying that shutting the service sends a dangerous message to other start-ups.

"The threat of lengthy litigation would discourage any business from working to add value to the television viewing experience, leaving the market in the hands of a few established players," said EFF Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz.

"Remember, these are the same folks who tried to keep VCRs off the market years ago, and more recently fought viciously against remote DVRs, which allow cable subscribers access to content they've already bought but is stored elsewhere. This is yet another attempt by TV networks to profit from, control, or stop new technology they didn't think of first."