News written by Andre Yoskowitz (April, 2009)

We recently reported that Sony will be releasing an updated PSP handheld before the holiday season this year, one that will add significant hardware changes.

The updated handheld will remove UMD, add a sliding screen, and will come in two models, with either 8 or 16 GB of built-in flash memory.

A new report from 1UP suggests that after talking to inside sources, that the new PSP will not be called the PSP-4000 as would be assumed, but instead be called PSP Go!.

The company will unveil the handheld at the E3 event in June and will release the console in September in Japan and hit the US in early November.

Along with the release of the handheld, Sony will have over 100 classic and new titles available for download at launch. Previous reports expect a few blockbuster games will be coming later this year including Little Big Planet, MAG, Heavy Rain and Shadow of the Colossus.

According to a new report, Acer is planning on producing an Android-based smartphone as well as a "other devices" by this fall, each using the open-source operating system.

"The entire industry is looking at Android," said Acer president and CEO Gianfranco Lanci said. "I think it's too early to say if we're going to see Android on a netbook in the near future," he concluded however, not committing to any particular device.

Recent data suggests that Android is becoming more popular in phones, and the landmark T-Mobile G1 recently sold its one millionth handset.

As previously reported, the first known Android-based netbook is expected to sell for $250 USD and should be available soon.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has announced that it will begin streaming over 100 full-length feature films on its video site Crackle.com including Spider-Man 2, Stripes and Godzilla.

The move follows Sony's previous deal with YouTube to stream full movies through the popular video sharing site.

Sony notes that Crackle users only spent 5 minutes on average on the site for the month of March, and Sony is hoping to keep users around longer, especially if they are viewing more ads.

Although the site is no competition against YouTube, Hulu and TV.com, the site posted an 84 percent gain in streams to users, year on year, for the Q1.

"Our movie lineup is unmatched online," adds Sony Pictures Television senior VP of digital networks Eric Berger.

Rumors have been flaring today that the new, upcoming iTunes 8.2 will include Blu-ray support. The evidence, say the reports, is in the new "About iTunes" splash screen.

Currently, Macs do not support BD, and users with external Blu-ray drives need to boot to Windows to use it. If iTunes is allowing ripping and burning of BD however, it could signal that Macs will finally have integrated Blu-ray support and possibly internal drives.

Last year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs infamously called Blu-ray licensing a "bag of hurt," noting it was overly expensive and complicated and that Macs wouldn't be seeing integrated support anytime soon.

Here is the screenshot, via 9to5Mac:

Paramount Home Entertainment has announced that it has become the second major Hollywood studio to license Macrovision’s BD+ copy-protection for Blu-ray Discs, following Fox as the only studios to use the extra layer of protection.

The deal also includes licenses for ACP and RipGuard, technologies used for copy-protection in DVDs and video streams.

“We are pleased to continue our long-standing relationship with Macrovision to preserve Paramount Home Entertainment’s high-quality products,” Paramount worldwide president for Paramount Home Entertainment Kelley Avery added. “Macrovision’s technologies cover a variety of distribution channels, providing necessary safeguards, which benefit both the studio and the consumer.”

The company did not say if only certain Blu-ray titles would be given the added layer of protection or whether all new movies would use it.

Creative has introduced their new entry-level ZEN MX audio player, coming in two models, 8GB or 16GB.

The players look very similar to the company's current ZEN line, but has changes to the control button layout.

The player has a 2.5-inch LCD display with 320x240 resolution and includes support for MP3, WMA (with DRM) and Audible 4. Video support includes only the Creative proprietary video-CMV format. Included with the player is the Creative Centrale software that will convert many formats to video-CMV.

The Zen MX also includes an FM radio tuner, voice recording, an SDHC card slot for extra capacity and has an estimated 30 hours of audio playback and 5 hours for video.

The player will hit Japan on May 5th and cost $102 USD for the lower capacity model and $144 for the 16GB model. There is no word on NA or EU release dates.

Following its recent deals for full-length content with Sony Pictures, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate, Starz and the BBC, YouTube has made new deals that will add longer content to the popular video sharing site.

The agreements will bring the 90-minute environmental film Home to the site in English, French, German and Spanish and will also bring four short films from the Tribeca Film Festival this week.

YouTube remains by far the most popular video sharing site, with almost 90 million unique users in February, higher than Yahoo and Hulu combined.

Because of the site's push for longer form videos, the amount of time spent watching videos in February was boosted by 23 percent year-on-year and the average video length increased 22 percent.

For more information on the Tribeca films, view the official page here: YouTube Screening Room

According to Billboard, Taiwan has passed an amendment this week to its copyright laws that will add the controversial "three strikes" anti-piracy laws.

The three strikes laws will force ISPs to send two warning letters to alleged pirates before cutting off their Internet connections. The law, the Taiwanese government hopes, will "encourage self-correction by users" and clear up room in overburdened Taiwanese courts.

Adds Margaret Chen, deputy director general of Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office: "These people are doing something they shouldn't be doing in the first place. Besides, there are lots of ways to restrict Internet access besides cutting it off entirely."

The 'three strikes' laws have come under severe criticism around the globe, and was recently shot down in France and repealed in New Zealand.

New York-based ISP Cablevision has announced today that they will be offering all 3 million of their subscribers the option to upgrade to much speedier new DOCSIS 3.0 cable Internet, offering incredibly fast speeds of 101Mbps downstream and 15Mbps upstream for only $99.95 per month.

In comparison, competitor Verizon offers their FiOS fiber optic service for $140 USD per month with upload and download speeds of only 50Mbps.

The new "Ultra" tier makes Cablevision the clear winner in the market, with other cable companies such as Comcast and Charter offering only up to 50Mbps speeds, and at higher prices.

Even more notably perhaps, is the fact that Cablevision is a staunch opponent of metered billing and bandwidth caps, and the new tier will not have an usage caps or overage fees.

Cablevision added they are spending $300 million, (about $75 per user), to deliver the faster DOCSIS 3.0 connectivity.

The tier will be made available in two weeks, and I know I myself for one will be upgrading as soon as it does.

General Electric has introduced a micro-holographic disc that can store up to 500GB of data today, aimed at the archive industry and users with massive movie and music collections.

The company knows the market for the disc is small now, but believes it can eventually be used in standalone players, just like DVDs and Blu-rays are now. DVDs can hold up to 8.5GB and BD-50 can hold up to 50GB.

Micro-holographic discs can store so much data because the store information in three dimensions, rather than just having the info written on the surface of the disc.

Brian Lawrence, head of GE's Holographic Storage team added, "Very recently, the team at GE has made dramatic improvements in the materials enabling significant increases in the amount of light that can be reflected by the holograms."

Now that the higher reflexivity is a possibility, the technology can be used in new standalone players that are backwards compatible with DVD and Blu-ray discs.

Added GE: "The hardware and formats are so similar to current optical storage technology that the micro-holographic players will enable consumers to play back their CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs."

Samsung has debuted their first mobile phone using the Linux-based Android platform today, dubbed the I7500.

The smartphone has a nice 3.2-inch AMOLED touch screen and will include the new Android 1.5 firmware, which adds a virtual keyboard and video recording among the most notable features. The phone, despite being touchscreen, also has tactile keys under the screen and on the sides of the phone.

The new mobile will follow in the footsteps of the popular T-Mobile G1 and will have deep integration with Google services including Google Maps, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk. For Internet connectivity, users have the option to use Wi-Fi, EDGE, and 3G with up to 7.2-Mbps downlink speed.

Users can access the new Android Market from the handset as well.

"Samsung is among the earliest members of the Open Handset Alliance and has been actively moving forward to introduce the most innovative Android mobile phone," added J.K. Shin, executive VP of Samsung's mobile division.

EDGE has made available this week a very interesting article on the origins of the original Sony PlayStation console which is a good read for fans of gaming, Sony, or history in general.

"This is a story that isn’t just about the design of an object made from silicon, plastic and metal. Nor is it just the story of the corporate politics that allowed the project to commence. It’s also the story of sales forces and distribution systems, of marketing strategies and product evangelists, of a confluence of social, economic and technological circumstances that allowed it to thrive. It’s about the vision behind the piece of hardware that pushed videogames into 3D and a veteran yet wide-eyed technology corporation into an industry that it would transform.

And it’s a vision that rose out from the rubble of a very public disaster. At the Consumer Electronics Show in June 1991, Sony revealed to the world a videogame console on which it had jointly worked with Nintendo. This SNES with a built-in CD-ROM drive was a project driven by Ken Kutaragi, a Sony executive who had come out of its hardware engineering division. It was to be Nintendo’s route into a brave new world of multimedia, and a way for Kutaragi to show his company how important the videogame industry could be. But the very day after Sony’s announcement, Nintendo declared that it would be breaking its deal with Sony by partnering with Philips instead..."

According to a Digitimes report, flat-panel TVs such as LCD and Plasma displays will drop in price by over 20 percent in 2009.

The price gap between mid-sized and large-sized TVs will also decrease, says the report.

The average price for a 37-inch LCD HDTV will drop to $500 USD by the end of the year, from $670 USD at the end of 2008. Lower end 32-inch models will drop in average price to under $400.

Entry-level 42-inch models will see their prices frop to $580 USD by the end of the year, and sources say the steep price declines for the model will turn the 42-inch segment into the market mainstream by 2012.

According to a thorough Computerworld report,the first Netbook to use Google's Android as an operating system will be available in July and will cost about $250 USD.

Dubbed the Alpha 680, the laptop is in its final stages at the testing facilities of Guangzhou Skytone Transmission Technologies.

The Netbook has a 533MHz ARM 11 processor, has a 7-inch LCD screen with unknown resolution, and built-in Wi-Fi. Other specs are not known, but it is known that the netbook will only include a 2-cell battery, with meager 3 hour battery life while surfing the Internet.

Recently, market research firm Ovum predicted that Netbooks running Android platforms will emerge in 2009, as manufacturers try to bring the price Netbooks to under $200 USD. Android is open source and therefore does not require expensive licenses, such as those needed for netbooks running Windows operating systems such as Vista or XP.

For reviews of three current popular netbooks please view here: Afterdawn Netbooks Hands-on: Reviewing the Asus Eee PC 901, the Acer Aspire One 110, and the MSI Wind U100.

The popular T-Mobile G1 Android handset, which recently sold its one millionth handset, will be updated to Android version 1.5 in the next coming weeks, including the addition of an on-screen keyboard, more widgets, video recording and finally, stereo Bluetooth.

For now, the update is only promised for T-Mobile Germany but it is very unlikely that other regions, most notably North America, will be left out in the cold.

The most anticipated addition is the the on-screen keyboard. Users will be able to enter text while the phone is in portrait mode instead of having to rotate to landscape mode and open the keyboard.

The new update will also add more Home Screen widgets including a widgets for the user's calendar, a music player, and a picture frame.

The addition of video recording, as well as the addition of video playback support for MPEG-4 and 3GP, is a welcome addition for many whose biggest complaint is the lack of video recording using the built-in camera.

Panasonic has announced the launch of its CN-HX900D and CY-BB1000D two-part in-car Blu-ray system, the first of its kind.

The system uses a Windows-powered dash-mountable device which includes a 7-inch 720p display. It also includes a CD/DVD player, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0, a 40GB HDD and iPhone/iPod compatibility.

The Blu-ray player itself is not BD-Live compatible.

The entertainment system is expected to it Japanese stores by September with no word on North American or European releases.

The inventor Craig Thorner, CEO of Virtual Reality Feedback, has sued Sony, PDP/Electro Source and multiple lawyers over the "theft" of intellectual property in relation to force feedback technology that is now used in PS3 DualShock 3 controllers.

Thorner says that Sony violated his trust by "failing to defend him and his patents against lawsuits from Immersion."

Immersion sued Sony and Microsoft over patent violations and suits and countersuits raged for years.

Electronista explains that "during Immersion's original lawsuit against Sony for violating patents with the original DualShock controller, he had originally licensed his patents to Immersion. Not being aware of a joint defense agreement between Sony and PDP, which was also sued by Immersion after Sony initially lost its case, Thorner switched his patent license to PDP. He claims that Sony unfairly exploited his unawareness of the defense deal with PDP and let him offer his patents for a too-low $150,000 when he would have been entitled to more."

Activision, the publisher of the popular Guitar Hero franchise has settled out of court with instrument manufacturer Gibson, which had sued the publisher over patent infringement claims.

The settlement was reached last week and a California judge has dismissed all of Activision's claims and Gibson's counterclaims.

Gibson sued the publisher last year saying that the Guitar Hero peripherals violated its "System and method for generating and controlling a simulated musical concert experience" patent.

Gibson's claims were thrown out last month and Activision immediately countersued the company for a declaratory judgment that would say Gibson's patent was invalid and that the franchise did not violate it.

Microsoft has apparently sent out an updated build of Windows 7, and the new update, build 7100, has already been leaked to BitTorrent sites and other P2P networks.

7100 fixes over 2000 bugs from previous builds. Microsoft has noted however, that an RC will be made available to MSDN/TechNet customers on May 5th, although it is unclear whether it will be 7100 or something even newer.

Adds Long Zheng of the istartedsomething blog, "The highly anticipated release candidate (RC) build of Windows 7 has been leaked and its authenticity is entirely undisputed. First looks reveal nothing significantly new or different, but if you've been wanting to get a vibe of how far Windows 7 has come since the public beta, especially performance, this is the build to get."

A few screenshots:

According to PSLS, Sony will be releasing an updated PSP handheld before the holiday season this year, one that will add significant hardware changes.

The PSP-4000 revision, according to sources, will be announced at the upcoming E3 event.

Debunking past rumors, touchscreen will not be added but the proprietary UMD format is a thing of the past. With the removal of the disc drive, the PSP will add a solid state drive and will keep a removable flash memory port.

The site also wouldn't confirm that the PSP-4000 will have a sliding screen, but implied it. There will also not be the addition of dual analog sticks, which has been hotly anticipated in all rumors.

Perhaps even more notably is that a few blockbuster games will be coming later this year including Little Big Planet, MAG, Heavy Rain and Shadow of the Colossus.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) of Canada is currently meeting with the country's members of parliament in an effort to lobby for harsher piracy laws, because the group's members "feel their intellectual property is at risk."

Canada does not allow any pirated goods to be seized without a court injunction, and punishments do not include jail time, only fines.

Danielle Parr, the executive director of the ESA of Canada, added: "At the federal level, the primary issue for us... is the protection of intellectual property."

Parr also believes there should be jail time, and the current fines for pirates are simply a "a slap on the wrist." She also singled out mod chips, saying, "in Canada, these devices are not illegal. They're illegal in virtually every other country."

Two men from Pennsylvania have set the record for most text messages sent in a month, with one man sending and receiving 217,000 total. Although both men were on an unlimited text messaging plan, one man, Nick Andes recieved a bill for $26,000 USD at the end of the month.

The bill was two inches thick.

"It came in a box that cost $27.55 to send to me," Andes said. He immediately called T-Mobile after he "panicked" over the bill and the carrier has said they have credited the account and are looking into the charges.

Andes added that he has been texting for almost a decade and wanted to become the world record holder for most in a month. The previous record was 182,000, set by Deepak Sharma of India in 2005.

The second man, Doug Klinger, and Andes, set their phones to be able to send multiple messages and found they could send up to 6000 texts per day some days.

"Most were either short phrases or one word, 'LOL' or 'Hello,' things like that, with tons and tons of repeats," added the men.

T-Mobile has now sold its 1 millionth Android-based G1 phone, a strong pace for the phone which was released last October.

The carrier remains the fourth largest in the US however, behind Verizon, AT&T and Sprint and sales of the smartphone were significantly behind those of the Apple iPhone, which sold 1.6 million from January through March 31st.

The G1 is also by far the most used 3G phone on T-Mobile, with the carrier saying there are 1.5 million 3G-capable devices on the network.

T-Mobile is expected to launch new Android-based "G" series phones later this year, with one being a touchscreen.

According to a new report from AdMob, the iPhone and Android platforms continue to gain mobile web surfing market share, taking away from former leaders Symbian and Windows Mobile.

The company uses metrics reports to measure what smartphones are most popular for mobile web browsing, and passes the information onto advertising firms.

The Android platform has grown 47 percent since the release last year of the T-Mobile G1. By itself, the G1 captured 6 percent of the OS market in the US, and was the fourth most popular smartphone to access the Internet, behind the Apple iPhone, and the two most popular BlackBerrys, the Curve and the Pearl.

The iPhone however, was in a league of its own, taking almost 50 percent of all market share. Globally, the iPhone is still big, with 36 percent market share.

RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, had 22 percent of the US market share and Windows Mobile followed in third at 11 percent. Palm tied with Android at 6 percent but will most likely gain share with the release of the Pre.

Warner Brothers has confirmed that it is infact working on a new Rock Band game that will feature Lego characters. The deal is already in place with Harmonix, MTV and the Lego Group, and the game will be available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii and the DS handheld.

"Lego Rock Band combines two compelling properties and creates an experience that family members of all ages will enjoy playing together as a group," said Tom Stone, managing director of TT Games (part of Warner).

"Harmonix and MTV Games are the world experts in music gameplay, and we're genuinely thrilled to bring the unique and humour-filled Lego experience to their Rock Band universe."

Bob Picunko, of MTV, added: "Harmonix and MTV Games are big fans of the Lego game franchise and excited to work with TT Games to develop a new take on Rock Band that focuses on great music and Lego humour that's fun for the whole family."

Sony America senior VP of marketing Peter Dille, has spoken out today about the rampant piracy attached to the PSP handheld, saying that over 50 million units have been "compromised."

"I'm convinced and we're convinced that piracy has taken out a big chunk of our software sales on PSP," Dille said. "It's been a problem that the industry has to address together; it's one that I think the industry takes very seriously, but we need to do something to address this because it's criminal what's going on, quite frankly.

"It's not good for us, but it's not good for the development community. We can look at data from BitTorrent sites from the day Resistance: Retribution goes on sale and see how many copies are being downloaded illegally, and it's frankly sickening. We are spending a lot of time talking about how we can deal with that problem."

The e-tailer Amazon has begun selling WiiWare titles on their website, allowing users to buy the games for the first time outside of the Wii Shop channel.

However, Amazon has not officially announced the store and so far the only game available is World Of Goo. The game may just be a test to see popularity, before a dedicated store is created.

Gamers who purchase through Amazon will be given a code to download the game through the Wii Shop.

Two weeks ago, Amazon opened an XBox Live Store which allowed the same thing, the ability to purchase Xbox Live games with cash, cutting out the need to purchase Microsoft Points cards.

Confirming rumors that have been flying around for days, China Mobile will be launching their own application store dubbed the Mobile Market sometime before the end of 2009.

Third parties can add apps for multiple operating systems and it will be easily accessible through the one store.

Although the exact release date isn't known, it is expected that the launch will coincide with the launch of the Chinese TD-SCDMA standard for 3G, which will allow for speeds fast enough for downloading of applications.

The application store may have been another roadblock in negotiations between Apple and China Mobile over bringing the iPhone to China. Apple wants to be the sole distributor for applications on the iPhone, but clearly China Mobile has different plans.

Making this service much different from Apple's App Store however is the freedom for developers to put out apps for all OSs, including Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Warner Bros. has launched a new HD DVD trade-in program today, allowing owners of Warner HD DVD titles to receive the same film on Blu-ray for a small fee.

Dubbed Red2Blu, the site allows you to "upgrade" your titles to Blu-ray for $4.95 USD ($9.95 for boxsets), without needing to trade in your actual discs, just the cover art (with UPC code) from the red HD DVD cases.

Shipping costs a flat rate $6.95 USD for up to 25 films, and Warner has all 128 titles available for "upgrade."

The site is very simple to use and I used it this morning to trade in 5 HD DVD titles. Final cost? $33 with tax to have 5 Blu-rays while keeping the HD DVDs is not a bad deal at all. If you are a big fan of the HD DVD cover art, then make replicas but make sure to send in the originals or your claim will be rejected.

Visit the site here: Warner Bros. Red2Blu.com

According to calculations made by Mobile Squared, Apple will see the 1 billionth application downloaded from their App Store on April 23rd.

The site calculates that Apple currently average daily downloads of 5.1 million apps and needs under 10 million downloads to hit the milestone.

Earlier this month, on April 10th, Apple began a countdown web page and began a promotion to give away prizes including a $10,000 USD iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule and a MacBook Pro. Every free or paid app download counts as an entry into the giveaway.

The site also says for the first 500 million downloads, Apple was only averaging 2.98 million downloads per day, so it is blatantly obvious that the content has grown more popular in the past six months. The most popular apps are currently, and will always be, the free ones, but data shows the average cost of paid apps is $2.20.

BET (Black Entertainment Television) has announced that they have begun using Motorola's MPEG-4 AVC encoding system to deliver their broadcasts in HD.

The programming will be distributed via satellite using Motorola's SE-5100 HD video encoder. The network decided to use MPEG-4 instead of MPEG-2 as it would save satellite bandwidth.

All affiliates will receive the content using Motorola's DSR-6050, which can transcode MPEG-4 HD content in MPEG-2 for cable subscribers that do not have HD set top boxes.

"We have enjoyed excellent video quality and reliability using Motorola DigiCipher II over many years," added BET senior vice president of technology and operations Deidre Jackson. "Being able to merge this easily with Motorola's new MPEG-4 HD equipment has made this transition to HD transmission seamless for us."

Amazon has announced that fans of the company's Video on Demand service will now be able to rent and purchase high definition movies and TV shows to playback on their PCs, or devices from Roku, TiVo, Sony and others.

New release HD movies will cost $3.99 to S4.99 USD to rent, and HDTV shows can be purchased for $2.99 USD.

As of writing, over 500 HD TV episodes and movies are available from major studios and broadcasters.

"Our customers have been asking us for two things: HD and the ability to watch movies and TV shows instantly on their television," added Bill Carr, Amazon vice president of music and video.

Users can playback the titles on the Roku digital video player, TiVo Series3, HD and HD XL digital video recorders; Sony Bravia Internet Video Link; and Panasonic VIERA CAST-enabled HDTVs as well as PCs.

According to an IDG News Service report, the world's largest mobile phone carrier, China Mobile, is planning to start its own application store, dubbed the Mobile Market.

The store will be open to professional developers and independent developers, although it is unsure what operating systems will be supported by the store or the applications.

The report says the application store may have been another roadblock in negotiations between Apple and China Mobile over bringing the iPhone to China. Apple wants to be the sole distributor for applications on the iPhone, but clearly China Mobile has different plans.

Apple is now allegedly negotiating with China Unicom instead.

The Sony PlayStation 2 video game Hanuman: Boy Warrior has come under criticism from the American Hindu leader Rajan Zed, who has asked the company the withdraw the game from stores.

Zed adds that the game "trivializes" Lord Hanuman, a highly revered deity in the Hindi religion.

Sony responded to the claim saying it will not withdraw the game from the market, and has no plans to.

In the video game, players get to control the destiny of Lord Hanuman, while in the real world, religious believers put their own destinies in the hands of the deity. "Controlling and manipulating Lord Hanuman with a joystick, button, keyboard, or mouse is denigration", added Zed.

The game is only available in India, and Sony says that "prominent Indian scholars were consulted at every step" of developing the game. The game was created to "encourage young Indians to celebrate the stories of Lord Hanuman and to help bring the key lessons to life" adds the company.

The AT&T Wireless website has begun selling refurbished 16GB Apple iPhone 3G devices for $149 USD, a full 50 percent discount of the $300 USD retail price.

Of course you will have to sign a two-year contract to get the phone at that price, and being refurbished it may not be in pristine condition, but the price drop is still somewhat of a surprise.

The price drop has many believing that Apple is once again clearing out all excess inventory to make way for a third generation of the device, coming as soon as June, Apple's standard launch month.

Refurb iPhones have been available for some time now, with AT&T selling smaller capacity 8GB models for $99 and Best Buy selling the larger model for $249 USD, but never at "firesale" prices like this.

According to the latest official PlayStation Blog , the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld will be updated to firmware version 5.50 soon.

The most notable update will be the addition of an Information Board to the XMB interface. As owners of the PS3 might know, the IB displays current news, weather and other updates for Sony products in a scrolling ticker.

Additionally, says the blog, the update will add:

* Memory Stick improvements – You’ll be able to create and access sub-folders on your Memory Stick PRO Duo for music, videos and photos. Separately, the available space required to download a file from PlayStation Store to your Memory Stick has been reduced significantly.

* Internet search for games directly from the XMB – You’ll be able to easily search the Internet for information about your PSP games. Select the icon for the game, hit the Triangle button, and then select [Internet Search] from the options menu to get search results based on the game title. This feature was added to PS3 with the recent 2.70 update.

* Trend Micro trial – PSP’s Internet browser is a great tool for checking out your favorite Web sites on the go, and we’re teaming up with the Internet security experts at Trend Micro to make the Web browsing experience safer and more secure. With the 5.50 update, you’ll have the option to access a free trial of two Trend Micro services:
Trend Micro Web Security uses Web reputation technology to block PSP owners from accidentally visiting a Web site that may contain malicious content designed to steal personal information and confidential data.
Trend Micro Kids’ Safety uses URL filtering technology to prevent children from accessing Web sites that feature inappropriate content.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has given a written statement speaking about the recent conviction of the four administrators of the infamous public torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, applauding the verdict.

"This decision confirms that the harm being inflicted on creators of digital works by BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay will not be tolerated, and that such actions are subject to criminal sanctions," ESA CEO Michael D Gallagher said.

"Piracy is the single greatest threat to the development and release of innovative and creative entertainment software that consumers demand and enjoy. It's a job killer in an economy that needs millions more jobs, not less."

As reported, the admins and founders of the site, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström were found guilty of assisting copyright infringement and each received one year in prison and fines totaling $3,620,000 USD.

According to an anonymous developer, the rumored WiiWare 'threshold' is real, but the press has misinterpreted the facts.

The so-called 'threshold' means that indie developers who create titles to sell via WiiWare have to sell a significant amount of the game to receive any revenue from Nintendo.

"I'm concerned this recent threshold news is generating an artificially negative wave of press. The spirit of the threshold was never to screw the developer - it was, as far as I can tell, a quality control mechanism to prevent the service from getting overrun with a bunch of crappy games," says the source.

"Once the threshold is crossed, the developer is retroactively paid for every single unit sold below the threshold. I know there has been confusion on that point in the past.

"From the stats I've seen and heard developers report, the threshold is easily surpassed within the first day, or at least the first week, for many games."

"I hear rumours within the dev community that Nintendo recognises a problem here, where occasionally an entirely legitimate game just doesn't make it, and is looking for a way to make exceptions, to ensure small devs are paid even if the threshold is not reached. Just rumours though, so who knows. Read more...

Broadcasters are set to announce later today that Washington D.C. will be the first city in the United States to receive free digital TV (DTV) broadcasts for their mobile phones, laptops and in-car entertainment systems.

The broadcasts using "mobile DTV" technology will hit the city in July or August and will come from the local affiliates of CBS, NBC, PBS, FOX and Ion.

At launch, the broadcasts will be identical to those seen on standard TV sets, including commercials.

The big question that looms however is what devices users will need to receive the signals. Mobile phones are prime candidates but the largest wireless carriers have their own TV services which cost money and have been very reluctant to sign up for the free broadcasts.

Among the large companies supporting the technology are Dell, Samsung, LG and Kenwood. Dell is expected to release a netbook with a built-in mobile DTV receiver later this year, and Kenwood is currently developing car-based receivers.

If a slip from a Chinese wholesaler is accurate, then the highly anticipated Palm Pre is already in mass production and the device could be available at the rumored May 17th release date.

Ludle International says the smartphone is already in volume production and the company provided an "example unit" and a packaging slip.

A few of the early impressions of the phone are that it "feels smaller than an iPhone, the design's screen is less scratch-proof but is compensated for by a tougher (though fingerprint-prone) back."

We will keep you updated.

On Friday, Sony Ericsson posted a large loss of $382.4 million USD, adding that phone shipments fell 35 percent year-on-year, to 14.5 million units between January and March.

Additionally, the company will cut 2000 more jobs on top of the 2000 already cut in the past year.

Officials estimated that due to the global economic recession, the entire mobile phone market will shrink 10 percent in 2009, with just about 1.2 billion phones shipped for the year.

Perhaps more critical for the future of the company is the fact that they have lost 2 percent market share in the past year, dropping to 6 percent, and being surpassed by LG, Samsung and possibly Motorola. Notably, Sony Ericsson has lost giant amount of market share in the high-end market.

Beginning next week, BluFocus and NetBlender will launch a mobile phone app for smartphones that will allow Blu-ray Disc owners to transfer extra features from the disc directly to their phones.

The app, dubbed BD Touch 2.0, will be shown off next week at the NAB conference, added CEO Paulette E. Pantoja.

BD Touch 2.0 will be free in the App Store and other application stores and will work on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, the Palm Pre, Google's Android platform and BlackBerry phones.

With the app installed, users can "transfer downloadable content and interactive features from their Blu-ray Disc to their phone. The phones also can be used as a remote control for a compatible Blu-ray player."

Pantoja adds that BD Touch capability will be a very easy for Blu-ray developers to add to discs in the future. “It’s just one line of code they have to put in,” Pantoja notes. “We made it extremely, extremely simple.”

Last month we reported that 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment had announced it would be creating two classes of DVDs for now on, a "premium" version with extras and digital copies and a "rental" version which removes all extras and will be available for rental only.

The first movie to be "split" was Oscar-winner Slumdog Millionaire which hit stores and rental outlets on March 31st. It appears the studio is now reconsidering that policy, and rental outlets will now be allowed to order 'premium' sell-through versions as well.

This is according to library media distributor Midwest Tape which has informed all its accounts that Fox has reversed course on the policy, due to a large number of complaints from retailers and consumers.

On the other hand however, Fox has denied the report saying it has not made a final decision on the policy.

"Fox is currently reviewing its policy as it pertains to the library channel," added a spokeswoman. "No changes have been made at this time."

Fox did issue a notice however, on how the studio continues to receive complaints over the policy. “Over the past week, many of our customers have advocated via e-mail and on list-serves for a reversal of Fox’s rental policy,” says the notice. “We are very pleased to announce that in response to this vocal and persuasive outcry from the library community, Fox has decided to amend their policy.”

Popular actor Ashton Kutcher has become the first person to achieve 1 million followers on Twitter this week, beating out CNN as the first to the milestone.

"We have shown the world that the new wave is here," Kutcher said of the milestone. "It is present and it is ready to explode. You guys are all of it because I can't follow me."

CNN was long the leader in the race, but Kutcher pulled off a rally in the last week that brought massive media attention to CNN, Kutcher and Twitter in general.

The breaking news page has since past the 1 million follower mark, and Britney Spears is within hours of passing the mark as I write this article.

Kutcher adds that Twitter is "removing filters between celebrities and fans, big media companies and their customers."

Now that the "race" is over however, all eyes are on Oprah Winfrey, who recently joined the site and gained 130,000 followers in under 24 hours.

According to a Microsoft Developer Network post, Microsoft is planning to "launch" Windows Mobile 6.5 next month at the Tech Ed 2009 event.

The event runs from May 11th to May 15th, but it is unknown what the company means by "launch."

The operating system was debuted in February at the Mobile World Congress but Microsoft did admit the system was not in its final version.

There is also a chance there will be some sort of device launched alongside the final version of the operating system but there is no concrete evidence yet of such a phone.

We will keep you updated.

The popular Amazon Kindle 2 is a hit, says sources talking to the Washington Post. The e-book reader has sold 300,000 units since its release in late February, a rate almost double that of the first generation of the device.

Because the device sells for $359 USD, it can be deduced that Amazon has made over $100 million USD in revenue from the device in just under 2 months.

Although Amazon never gave exact figures, it is believed the original Kindle device only sold 400,000-500,000 units over its entire lifespan but the e-tailer expects to sell 800,000 of the new devices in 2009.

Citi analyst Mark Mahaney, who follows the Kindle, says he expects over 1 million Kindle 2s to sell this year, and believes Amazon may have to increase production to satisfy any unexpected surge in demand.

According to a Variety report, Best Buy is preparing to start its own online movie store, with a connection through CinemaNow and "other online movie services."

Although specifics are unavailable, and Best Buy has not confirmed or denied the report, it is believed the retailer will receive a cut of the revenues for each movie viewed and will promote the service through new media hubs with the movie services built-in.

The retailer also has a current listing searching for a Digital Movies Product Manager, which supports the report but could also mean nothing.

The deal would help Best Buy continue its strong sales in electronics while also accounting for the gradual slow of DVD sale growth.

The Swedish ISP Bahnhof is destroying any and all details of its customers in an open protest to Sweden's controversial IPRED anti-piracy laws.

CEO Jon Karlung, a long time opponent of the laws that went into effect on April 1st, has said the company is making it top priority to protect their clients.

The Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) laws make it much easier for content rights holders to get the personal details of alleged unauthorized file sharers. The laws say the ISPs can retain the IP addresses of file sharers or they are free to destroy the info.

"It's about the freedom to choose, and the law makes it possible to retain details. We're not acting in breach of IPRED; we're following the law and choosing to destroy the details," Karlung added.

Bahnhof also added that his actions make the law completely ineffective and if all other Swedish ISPs followed, then the law would no longer have any effect.

"Yes, that would make the new law completely ineffective. And then the legislators will have to step up and say they want to have data storage, not to catch terrorists but to help record companies and the movie industry in the hunt for file sharers," he concluded.

Nintendo has noted that the new DSi handheld sold very well in the US, moving 435,000 units in its first week of sales, the week ended April 12th.

The numbers were almost double that of its predecessor, the DS Lite, which sold 226,000 in its first week.

"These numbers demonstrate that the Nintendo DS brand remains strong, and that consumers continue to look for the best new experiences on their portable video game systems," said Nintendo of America executive vice president of sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway.

Dunaway also noted that DS Lite sales remained high as well, with the company selling 563,000 in March.

"Nintendo systems accounted for 58.4 per cent of the video game hardware sold in March, more than all other systems combined," Dunaway added. "Consumers continue to be attracted to the wide range of software available and the great value of Nintendo systems."

One of The Pirate Bay's confiscated servers has been sold this week, and will now be prominently exhibited in the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology.

The Museum bought the server for 2,000 kronor ($243 USD). It will be exhibited in a section that shows off "inventions that impact people's lives."

A spokesperson for the museum said the bypassing of copyright-protected material is nothing new and added that music tapes were also very controversial in the 70s.

The administrators of the infamous public torrent tracker were convicted yesterday on charges of assisting copyright infringement and face one year in jail and a large multi-million dollar fine.

According to the latest figures from the NPD Group, overall U.S. video game sales fell sharply in March, with hardware sales dropping 18 percent and software sales falling 17 percent.

Overall, industry sales fell 17 percent to $1.43 billion USD, a somewhat surprising number in an industry that has so far seen sales increases despite the global recession.

Hardware sales fell to $455.6 million USD while software sales fell to $792.8 million USD.

The Nintendo Wii was once again the best selling console, moving 601,000 units for the month, but sales fell 20 percent from February. The Microsoft Xbox 360 came in second selling 330,000 units, but sales fell 15 percent from last month. The Sony PlayStation 3 lagged behind again, selling 218,000 units, but sales only fell 7 percent from February.

"While it's not unusual for March hardware sales to be lower than February, I thought we'd see higher unit sales on most platforms," added NPD's Anita Frazier. "The Xbox 360 was the only platform to achieve a year-over-year unit sales increase."

Warner Home Video has given Blu-ray fans a new reason to be excited this week, showing off early specs and box art for the hotly anticipated The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Many retailers, including Amazon, now have the box set available for pre-order, with an average price of $69.99 USD.

The set will have seven discs and will include the theatrical versions of each film. Although there is still no exact release date known, fans of the series will be able to purchase the box set before the end of 2009.

We will keep you updated on any developments for the upcoming 'The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy.'

Box art to the right ->
LOTR Blu-ray at Amazon

Apple has announced that they will finally begin selling and renting feature films in the German iTunes Store

German users can now watch films from Paramount, Warner Bros., MGM, Disney, Sony and German indies Universum Film and Shorts Intl.

Notably missing however is Universal. Apple spokespeople declined to comment on the missing Universal content.

A few of the notable titles available are "The Dark Knight," "Quantum of Solace," "Pineapple Express," "High School Musical 3: Senior Year," "Eagle Eye" and German films such as "The Counterfeiters" and "Keinohrhasen" (Rabbit Without Ears).

More local indies are expected to join soon, but Apple would not let on who or when.

According to new data from Adams Media Research, Blu-ray Disc sales grew almost 88 percent year-on-year in the US for the Q1, despite the global economic recession.

There were 9 million units sold for the period ended March 31st, up from 4.8 million units sold in the comparable quarter.

The report also adds that there are now 10.5 million Blu-ray "households," meaning any home with a Blu-ray set top player or a Sony PlayStation 3.

Blu-ray revenue for the period also grew to $196.6 million USD, up from $117.2 million in 2008.

“We are delighted to see continuing, significant growth of the Blu-ray Disc format in the midst of one of the worst economic downturns in recent memory,” added Andy Parsons, U.S. chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Assn. Promotions Committee. “I think the numbers are a clear indicator that consumers really do understand the value of packaged media, and that even when times are very tough, [consumers] continue to seek out and enjoy the best possible high-definition content.”

The British publishing company Kraken Opus has announced it will be selling 950 special edition purple iPod Touch devices, each preloaded with 40 minutes of Prince's “21 Nights” 2007 tour in London as well as the live soundtrack from his “Indigo Nights” album.

Also coming with the Touch is the “Prince 21 Nights Opus" photography book which chronicles "21 Nights" and includes lyrics and poetry from Prince. The book is 200 pages and weighs an "epic 17 kg.” It is leather bound and has a velvet-covered case. What will this limited edition media player cost you? $2100 USD.

Kraken Opus CEO and founder Karl Fowler says that 300 of the players have already been sold.

“I’m ecstatic about that,” he said. “Without being overly confident or too arrogant about it, we always knew that we would get to a sellout position within a few months.” He added that the quick sales were surprising however.

Fowler also noted that he believes the price is justified by all the exclusives you receive. “Even in this current climate, there was a thirst, a strong appetite, for people who were willing to part with a premium, because they are getting something that has never been given to them before,” he concluded.

Confirming earlier reports that surfaced this week, Sony America has announced that the new PSP game Patapon 2 will be UMD-less and will be exclusively sold as a digital download.

Senior director of corporate communications Patrick Seybold added that the release is a "one time test case as we continue to explore consumer preference for digital content."

Seybold was also quick to note that the company remains committed to UMD, the proprietary disc format. "We remain focused on providing superior games and entertainment experiences in both the UMD and digital formats and are working closely with our partners to deliver the best PSP line up in our history."

Nokia, the world's largest phone maker, has reported a 90 percent drop in its Q1 profits year-on-year, citing the ongoing global recession as the reason for falling demand.

For the quarter ended March 31st, profits were EUR 122 million compared to EUR 1.22 billion in the same quarter last year.

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was optimistic however, adding that demand for mobile phones is stabilizing, after dropping drastically over the past 16 months.

"Regarding the health of the overall mobile device market, the inventory already in the sales channels decreased substantially during Q1 due to extensive destocking by operators and distributors. This adversely impacted our sales volumes in the quarter," noted Kallasvuo. "However, it has also resulted in the demand picture becoming more predictable as we enter the second quarter."

For the upcoming quarter, the company believes sales volume to pick up or at least remain the same, from 93.2 million units during the quarter.

Last week we reported that Time Warner Cable was planning to test "tiered" Internet access, each with bandwidth caps.

The plan received significant backlash from Rep. Eric Massa of New York, who promised to draft a bill completely eliminate "unfair" tiered pricing structures from ISPs. Massa added at the time: "I am taking a leadership position on this issue because of all the phone calls, e-mails and faxes I've received from my district and all over the country. Time Warner has announced an ill-conceived plan to charge residential and business broadband fees based on the amount of data they download. They have yet to explain how increased Internet usage increases their costs."

That criticism continues to come from all areas now however, notably in the areas where the tests are set to start soon, Rochester, N.Y.; Greensboro, S.C.; and San Antonio and Austin, Texas.

In Rochester, the city's largest newspaper has publicly called on Time Warner to explain its actions, and company executives recently met harsh criticism at any open public forum. The new website, StopTheCap.com is currently running as a way for users to protest the caps.

According to a Gamasutra report, indie developers who create titles to sell via WiiWare have to sell a significant amount of the game to receive any revenue from Nintendo.

The minimum number of sales is said to be in the "high four figure number for the US and low four figure number for individual EU territories," and if those numbers are not hit then the developer will not make one cent.

It is being speculated that the threshold was set so high to stop waves of shovelware titles from hitting the service, but it is believed that many titles, even hit titles, are selling far below initial expectations.

Nintendo dismissed the report saying the sales threshold report is "rumour and speculation. The terms, conditions and contracts between Nintendo and developers are a private and confidential matter."

According to Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts, both Sony and Nintendo are beginning to get "freaked out" by the raging success of the Apple iPhone as a gaming platform.

"The iPhone for us was a spectacularly pleasant surprise," says Hawkins speaking of his success through the App store with his new gaming company. "We had no idea it was going to be as good for us as it turned out to be...

"It's by far our most effective platform. We make as much money with these games on one device as we do putting a game on 100 different cell phone platforms."

Continuing, Hawkins adds: "Between the iPod Touch and the iPhone, I think the platform is freaking out Sony and Nintendo. Apple has sold 30 million units so far and it has created tremendous awareness. It has taken ground all over the world. But it has only penetrated one half of one percent of its total market."

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has become something of a sleeper hit since its release in November of last year, hitting the 2.5 million sold milestone for the first three months of the year.

The device is touchscreen and can be considered more of music player than a phone. Its dual speakers face outwards and there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, two features not found on many phones. Also included are 81 MB of on-board memory and a large 8GB microSD card as well as a guitar pick stylus.

The sales data is from GC Capital's Tero Kuittinen which explains that Nokia was only expecting to sell 1 million of the phone but has handily beaten their conservative estimates.

Kuittinen adds that sales are being pushed thanks to the phone's decently low price as well as expansion into regions like Australia and Asia.

Sony has announced the retirement of Sony Europe president and CEO David Reeves, and the promotion of Andrew House to the position. Reeves will leave the position on April 30th.

"David’s contribution in firmly establishing the PlayStation brand and expanding the business in Europe/PAL territories in his 14 year tenure at SCEE is immeasurable," said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment.

"I would like to express my sincere gratitude to David for the many accomplishments he made to the to the PlayStation business and wish him the best luck in his future endeavours."

Reeves joined the company in 1995 and has been president since 2003. House joined the company in 1990 and has worked for Sony Japan and Sony America in marketing positions, eventually becoming CMO 4 years ago.

"I’m confident that the skills and expertise Andy has gained over the years working as Sony’s CMO will contribute enormously in leading the PlayStation business in Europe/PAL countries and regions and to bring new initiatives in managing the business in the coming networked era," concluded Hirai.

Microsoft has acknowledged the now infamous E74 error for their Xbox 360 console, and added the error to its warranty extension that was meant to cover RROD (Red Ring of Death) system failures.

The software giant now considers both failures equal and users affected can have their system replaced or fixed under the 3-year warranty extension. Anyone who has encountered the error and paid to have it fixed will be issued a full refund.

The error surfaced late last year when users upgraded to the New Xbox Experience (NXE). The E74 error is brought on by overheating problems for the GPU.

The full Microsoft posting reads as follows:
"While the majority of Xbox 360 owners continue to have a great experience with their console, we are aware that a very small percentage of our customers have reported receiving an error that displays “E74” on their screen. After investigating the issue, we have determined that the E74 error message can indicate the general hardware failure that is associated with three flashing red lights error on the console. As a result, we have decided to cover repairs related to the E74 error message under our three-year warranty program for certain general hardware failures that was announced in July 2007. We have already made improvements to the console that will reduce the likelihood of an occurrence of this issue. Detailed information related to the Xbox 360 warranty and resources for those who require repair can be found at www.xbox.com/support (www.xbox.com/support) . Read more...

Pioneer has announced the release of its latest Blu-ray writer, the BDR-2203, which promises fast dual-layer burning speeds of 8x.

Using the maximum means users can fill a BD-25 in 15 minutes and about 30 for a dual layer BD-50.

DVD-R can be burnt at up to 16x, and CD-Rs can be written at 32x making the drive very useful overall.

The source adds that "included software includes CyberLink PowerDirector, PowerDVD, and Power2Go, which allows Windows users to edit the videos recorded on their HD camcorders and insert photos, other home videos or songs, as well as integrated dialogue and chapter bookmarks."

The BDR-2203 is currently available and has an MSRP of $250 USD.

Portable media player maker iRiver has announced that through a joint venture with Speedo, the companies have created an underwater media player, dubbed the LZR Racer Aquabeat.

The device is IPX5/IPX7 certified, meaning it can "operate safely" while submerged in up to 10 feet of water. The player has 1GB of internal memory, but no display. The only buttons on the player are play/pause, volume up/down and next/previous.

The Aquabeat will play MP3 and WMA audio formats and has an estimated 9 hour battery life. If the player is ever removed from your head while swimming, it will float as an added safety precaution. The player will work on any PC with Windows ME through Vista, and all Macs with OS 9.x and higher.

The player cost $145 USD and is available in lime, black and pink colorways.

Sony has announced the price of its first ever touchscreen Walkman media players, part of the NX-X1000 series.

The NW-X1050, which will hit Japan on April 25th, will sell for $400 USD and has 16GB of built-in flash memory while its higher capacity brother, the NW-X1060, will sell for $500 USD and will include 32GB of memory.

Each player supports Wi-Fi and will allow playback of YouTube videos and the downloading of podcasts. Also of note, the players have integrated FM and 1Seg TV tuners and will allow recording of content if broadcasters support it.

The media players have nice OLED touchscreens and for audio support AAC, MP3 and WMA. For video files, MPEG-4, H.264 and WMV are supported.

The PC retailer Systemax, which recently purchased Tiger Direct and CompUSA, is planning to buy the Circuit City name and brand, and is willing to pay up to $6.5 million USD for it. With the acquisition, Systemax also gets to run the Circuit City website.

Systemax has recently restarted 30 CompUSA retail outlets, with promises that demo units will be less restricted than retail rivals such as Best Buy, including free Internet on all display units.

The company is hoping to gain retail position while taking advantage of the bad management of other companies, which has been elevated by the ongoing global economic recession.

Thanks to a recent job listing posted on Netflix's website, rumors have flared across the Internet that the company will finally be bringing its streaming Watch Instantly library to the Wii and PS3.

The listing is searching for an "Engineering Leader -- Gaming Platforms," an engineer with "deep experience developing and testing media rich applications on current generation gaming consoles."

"Expect to help build a small technology team to rapidly prototype and iterate on a variety of platforms," the post adds.

There is no guarantees that this listing will lead to Netflix streaming service on either console, but it appears that the company is at least trying to expand their presence in the console market.

According to a study of Ohio State University students, students who actively use social networking site Facebook reported GPAs of between 3.0 and 3.5 while those who did not averaged 3.5-4.0.

Although the study was only of 219 students and cannot be considered definitive, it has suggested the clear link between the site and overall academic performance.

Also noted in the study was the fact that Facebook users studied only one to five hours a week while non-users studied 11 or more.

Ohio State doctoral student Aryn Karpinski, who conducted the research with another graduate student, did add however that the study was too narrow to make any "set in stone" conclusions.

"It cannot be stated (that) Facebook use causes a student to study less or get lower grades," says Aryn. "I'm just saying that they're related somehow, and we need to look into it further." 68 percent of those studied said they use Facebook and 65 percent of those said they access the site daily or even multiple times daily.

Some students did say the site helps them form study groups with other students and overall 79 percent said the site did not hinder their academic performance.

If sources talking to Arstechnica are correct, then Sony is preparing to release the upcoming music game Patapon 2 as a downloadable game only, removing the proprietary UMD format from the equation.

For those that want to purchase a retail copy with case, those will be available as well, but will only include a sheet with a coupon code to download the game online. The game will cost $15 USD online compared to $20 in-store however.

The move would be radical for the company, which has continually pushed UMD as the format of choice for the PSP, despite its obvious lack of portability compared to digital downloads placed on a Memory Stick. The move would mark the first time a major release would be only downloadable.

Sony has made it clear this year that they will be making a push towards downloadable games for the PSP handheld, releasing most digital versions on the same date as it's UMD physical counterpart. However, Sony has never said it will be dropping UMD completely.

Just 14 months after reaching 4 billion downloads the popular torrent site Mininova has announced that they have hit another milestone; 8 billion torrent downloads by its users.

The site was launched in January 2005, and is currently in the top 50 for most visited sites on the entire Internet. Users download over 10 million torrents per day, and growth does not appear to be slowing.

TorrentFreak adds that growth from emerging markets such as India has been exponential, especially as more and more Indians gain broadband Internet access.

Palm Pre, the latest in a long line of "iPhone Killers", is set to be one of the most anticipated smartphones of the year.

The Pre, which has a rounded shape, a 3.1-inch touchscreen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and uses a powerful interface to "pull together information, photos and current online status data from sites such as Facebook, Gmail and Exchange to seamlessly integrate them into the address book and contacts list," has been highly anticipated since its debut at this year's CES but Palm has yet to reveal pricing or a release date.

The smartphone will be coming exclusively to Sprint and Sprint may have let some vital information slip, according to Brighthand. Sprint employees have been granted no vacation time in the month of May, and the source says the expected release date is May 17. If the smartphone misses that date, then the release date will be June 29th, right before Palm's own self-imposed deadline for release.

A Brooklyn teenager has admitted to creating two viruses that have hit the popular micro-blogging site Twitter. Why did he do it? To promote his own website, and of course, because he was "bored".

The "StalkDaily" and "Mikeyy" worms exploited unpatched holes in Twitter and spammed unwanted messages on thousands of user's pages, promoting the teen's web site as well as telling "Twitter please fix this, regards Mikeyy."

The teen, Michael "Mikeyy" Mooney, added: "I usually like to find vulnerabilities within websites and try not to cause too much damage, but start a worm or something to give the developers an insight on the problem and while doing so, promoting myself or my website."

Mooney added that his site was quickly growing in popularity "because of the worm."

Twitter, for its part, has closed the hole.

"We've taken steps to remove the offending updates, and to close the holes that allowed this 'worm' to spread," Twitter added in a prepared statment. "No passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive information were compromised as part of this attack."

Apple has announced the release of a firmware update for their recently released iPod Shuffle Voice.

The update should fix a few minor, but noticeable items.

The new 17MB download will install VoiceOver version 1.0.1 and will correct the gross mispronunciations for several artist's names. Apple did not elaborate on what other bugs were fixed.

You can read up more on the Shuffle and its features here: Apple introduces iPod Shuffle with VoiceOver

This week we reported that Time Warner was to offer uncapped "Turbo" Internet access for $150, while also adding "tiered" Internet access, each with bandwidth caps.

That plan however, may lead to a federal legislation that will completely eliminate "unfair" tiered pricing structures from ISPs, such as that being made available by Time Warner. US Rep. Eric Massa of New York is already drafting the bill, which will curb all tiers, especially in places such as Manhattan or Rochester, where Time Warner has a monopoly.

On April 7th, before Time Warner hastily rewrote their plans for tiered pricing structure, Massa called the move "nothing more than a large corporation making a move to force customers into paying more money." One day later, Time Warner added an unlimited usage tier, but a price not even remotely reasonable given the slow speeds offered by the ISP. The move certainly did not appease Massa either.

"I am taking a leadership position on this issue because of all the phone calls, e-mails and faxes I've received from my district and all over the country," Massa added. "Time Warner has announced an ill-conceived plan to charge residential and business broadband fees based on the amount of data they download. They have yet to explain how increased Internet usage increases their costs."

Foxconn, the manufacturer behind the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, may be ready to launch its own independent e-book reader, says Taiwanese sources.

According to the DigiTimes report, Foxconn has hired a few new "software technicians with e-book programming experience."

The move would be unusual however, as it would put the company in direct competition with its own client Amazon. It could however simply "pitch the design to other companies that would brand it with their own names."

The e-book reader market is slowly getting more and crowded, with the recent announcements by Barnes $ Noble and Verizon saying they too will bring readers to the public.

Microsoft has been fined over 9 million euros this week by German antitrust officials over the alleged price fixing of their massively popular Office 2007 software.

Bundeskartellamt, Germany's economic regulatory body, added that undisclosed retailers worked with the software giant to illegally set the price of Microsoft's Office Home and Student 2007 before starting a joint ad campaign.

"Not every contact between supplier and retailer regarding resale prices constitutes an illegal concerted practice," the German group added. "In the present case, this boundary has been crossed."

Microsoft said it will obviously comply with the ruling.

"We will use this case as an opportunity to review our internal commercial processes and ensure that we are in full compliance with German law," a Microsoft statement noted.

Last Tuesday, Apple's iTunes went DRM-free, but at the same time began charging more for new hit singles, $1.29 USD, up from the standard $0.99.

Two days ago, Amazon and Wal-Mart followed the move by upping the price of new tracks by 30 cents as well, to $1.29 on Amazon, and $1.24 at Wal-Mart. Apple now sells older tracks for 69 cents, 99 cents for most new tracks, and $1.29 for the biggest new hits.

It appears, in what can only be described as a "shocking" development, that the rise in prices is hurting sales of the more expensive tracks, and could eventually lead to less revenue as well. These conclusions, from Billboard are only based on two days of data however, and are obviously subject to change. So far, the higher priced songs continue to lose chart positions to lower price songs.

On average, $1.29 songs lost 5.3 places on the Top 100 sales chart, while $0.99 songs gained 2.5 spots. A few of the songs that were initially $.99 on Tuesday but changed to $1.29 on Wednesday lost an average 1.9 places, while those that remained $1.29 for both days lost a huge 7.7 average positions.

Microsoft, who ended its hostile bid for Yahoo almost one year ago, has started up discussions again with the company, this time over a possible advertising pact.

Yahoo's new CEO Carol Bartz has met with Microsoft CEO Stee Ballmer this week, says sources, with both sides still hesitant to set any agreement in stone. One possible deal would have Microsoft selling search ads for Yahoo while Yahoo sells display ads on all Microsoft properties in exchange.

Microsoft has been very aggressive in expanding their search engine (Live.com) and is expected to introduce another major overhaul this summer.

A large scale partnership would go a long way towards creating a strong competitor to Google in search, which currently has 81.39% market share, according to Net Applications.

Pete Waterman, the songwriter behind the infamous "Never Gonna Give You Up" (performed by Rick Astley), has spoken out about Google recently, claiming the company is "exploiting" him, adding that he received only $16 USD in royalties from the company in the last year, despite the video being viewed 154 million times on YouTube.

In his whining rant, Waterman, whose estimated wealth is over $55 million USD, compared his treatment to that of exploited workers in Dubai.

"There was I sitting at Christmas thinking, 'I must have made a few bob this year with the old Rickrolling'," Waterman said.

"I rang my publisher and they said 'You'll be all right', until I saw the royalty statement. £11.

"If 154 million plays means £11, I get more from Radio Stoke playing Never Gonna Give You Up than I do from YouTube."

For those unfamiliar with "Rickrolling," the recent Internet fad revolved around users sending other Internet users a link that was really a disguised link to the Rick Astley video on YouTube.

"Panorama did a documentary on the exploitation of foreign workers in Dubai," Waterman continued.

In an interview with the WSJ, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has outlined his company's plans to start a video download service for the Wii, following in the steps of rivals Sony and Microsoft however doing "something different."

The Wii would be used as a download hub, with the video content easily being made portable through the DS or DSi handhelds.

"If the Wii and the DS are connected, it should be possible to download video through the Wii and take it with you on the DS," added Iwata. "When the service begins, you'll see how we're going to do it differently in a Nintendo-like way. There are a lot of on-demand video services, so there’s no reason to do the same thing, so we’re going to do something different."

Iwata did not go into when the service might begin, or any details on pricing of the content, but did note that Japanese users would receive the service first, followed by European and North American gamers.

Last month, MTV and Harmonix announced that 'The Beatles: Rock Band' was coming on September 9th, marking the first time the iconic band's music would ever be available digitally.

Today, Apple Corp. announced that the game's release would get a marketing push as the label will be releasing all 12 of The Beatles albums digitally re-mastered for the first time ever on the same date.

The game will be available on all three major consoles at launch, the Microsoft Xbox 360, the Sony Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii. As with previous Rock Band games, existing instruments will work flawlessly with the game.

The game itself will sell for $59 USD, with a version bringing a special edition guitar selling for $99 USD and finally a full special edition band kit for $250 USD.

Amazon has announced the release of a shopping application for BlackBerry smartphones that it hopes will make it very easy for users to purchase online, on the go.

The App will make Amazon.com optimized for viewing on BlackBerry phones, while also making it easier to "browse and purchase products with one click, view customer review, track packages, and access their wish list."

Of note is the the Amazon Remembers feature which also users to take a picture of any product with the BlackBerry's camera then upload it and let the app try to match it to products available for sale through the e-tailer.

"In addition to their favorite Amazon shopping features, BlackBerry users can now access the Amazon Remembers feature for a fun and easy way to build a list of photographs showing products they want to remember for later, make price comparisons across multiple merchants, and purchase," added Sam Hall, director of Amazon Mobile.

The App is available for free and will work on the Curve, Pearl, and Bold. The touchscreen Storm is currently not supported.

Time Warner Cable, one day after mapping out upcoming bandwidth caps for its Internet users, has added that there will also essentially be an unlimited, uncapped tier, costing $150 USD a month.

Landel Hobbs, COO of Time Warner Cable, added: "Some recent press reports about our four consumption based billing trials planned for later this year were premature and did not tell the full story. With that said, we realize our communication to customers about these trials has been inadequate and we apologize for any frustration we caused. We've heard the passionate feedback and we've taken action to address our customers' concerns."

"If we don't act, consumers' Internet experience will suffer," he notes. "Sitting still is not an option. That's why we're beginning the consumption based billing trials. It's important to stress that they are trials."

The initial trials of the caps will begin in Rochester, N.Y., and Greensboro, N.C., at the end of the summer and the tiers will work as follows:

- A 1 GB per month tier offering speeds of 768 Kbytes downstream/128 Kbytes upstream and costing $15 USD per month. Overage charges will be an extremely expensive $2 per GB per month. Hobbs said about 30 percent of all TWC users use less than 1 GB per month in total bandwidth.

According to new data from Nielson, the Nintendo Wii is the least used gaming console in the US, despite having, by far, the most sales of any "next-gen" system.

For the month of December 2008, the Wii had an average use of just 5 days, compared to 6.8 for the Sony PS3 and 7.1 for the Xbox 360.

In terms of minutes, average usage for the Wii is 58 minutes per session, while the PS3 clocks in at 64 and the 360 at 78 minutes.

The report also collected data on last generation systems such as the original Xbox, the GameCube and the PS2, and says the Wii and GameCube show similar numbers.

"Predominant users of the Wii and GameCube are likely to use these consoles at most once a week and for fewer minutes and the fewest number of sessions compared to the other two groups of consoles," notes the report.

According to GSMarena, the mysterious Android-based Huawei phone first showed off during the MWC 2009 event will in fact be the anticipated T-Mobile G3.

The phone itself has a large touch screen and will include no QWERTY keyboard in its slim design. The device will have 3G support as well as Wi-Fi support and an impressive 5MP camera. The only other known details are that the device will have a 3.5-mm headphone jack, Bluetooth connectivity, and obviously, the latest Android platform.

There was no word on price but expected release is the Q3 2009.

Wizards of the Coast has sued 8 alleged file sharers this week over copyright infringement for unauthorized sharing of the recently introduced Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook 2.

The lawsuits say the Handbook was illegally shared on file-sharing websites and the many downloads of the unauthorized copies led to lost sales and lost revenue for the company.

“Violations of our copyrights and piracy of our products hurt not only Wizards of the Coast’s financial health but also the health of whole gaming community including retailers and players,” added Greg Leeds, President of Wizards of the Coast. “We have brought these suits to stop the illegal activities of these defendants, and to deter future unauthorized and unlawful file-sharing.”

The suit claims the defendants purchased the digital copy of the Handbook, then stripped any protection and redistributed it to P2P networks.

According to a DigiTimes report, Apple has ordered 100 million 1 gigabit NAND flash chips, sparking rumors that the upcoming iPhone 3G model will have storage capacity of 32 GB. The amount of chips purchased would be enough for 6 million 16GB iPhones or 3 million 32GB models.

There is also the possibility that a larger capacity 64GB iPod Touch is on the way, however the iPhone seems more possible considering the upcoming iPhone 3.0 firmware will add video-recording functionality.

The NAND Flash chips are also used in a lot of Apple products, such as the Nano and Shuffle, but the huge order has the rumor mill working overtime.

We will keep you updated.

On March 24th, the founders of the giant public torrent tracker The Pirate Bay rolled out a new way to browse the Internet anonymously, using a virtual private network (VPN), and began giving out beta invites.

Users could submit their email address to http://ipredator.se/ in hopes of receiving a beta invite before the service goes public this month.

Today, TPB founder Peter Sunde said over 113,000 would-be users have signed up to test the service, with about 80 percent coming from Sweden. The service would already be live, added Sunde, however the unexpected high demand has caused delays.

The service, when it does go public, will cost 5 euro a month, and will "allow the user to protect his Internet connection with encryption while “tunneling’ data in privacy through the servers of a VPN provider, usually located in another country. The user’s ISP-designated IP address remains hidden, revealing only a second IP address provided by his VPN company."

On April 1st, Sweden's controversial Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) went live making easier for content holders to get personal details of suspected pirates. Within two days, Sweden's overall Internet traffic fell 30 percent.

Amazon has announced the launch of its Xbox Live store which will allow users to purchase Xbox Live games for cash, cutting out the need to purchase Microsoft Points cards.

There are over 100 games available currently, and Amazon is the first retailer to sell XBL games outside of Microsoft. You can however, purchase Microsoft Points cards through the Amazon store, if you are more comfortable with that method.

After making a purchase at the Amazon store, a download code will appear in your Xbox 360's "Your Games & Software Library" where you can use it to download the game.

"With the overwhelming success of our existing Xbox LIVE Marketplace, it is clear that the 17 million active and engaged members of the Xbox LIVE community enjoy digital access to entertainment content," added Xbox Live general manager Christina DeRosa. "Now we're happy to be extending our storefront to Amazon.com, a cutting-edge online retailer who is helping make digital distribution more mainstream."

You can check the store here: Amazon Xbox Live Store Beta

On Tuesday, Apple's iTunes went DRM-free, but at the same time began charging more for new hit singles, $1.29 USD, up from the standard $0.99.

Today, Amazon and Wal-Mart followed the move by upping the price of new tracks by 30 cents as well, to $1.29 on Amazon, and $1.24 at Wal-Mart. Apple now sells older tracks for 69 cents, 99 cents for most new tracks, and $1.29 for the biggest new hits.

Amazon's decision, in particular, seems strange especially considering the company dropped the price of the best selling MP3s in the UK version of the store just this week to rival Apple's increases.

According to NPD data, Amazon has about 16 percent market share in the legal music download market, far behind iTunes, but far ahead of all other competitors, including Wal-Mart.

Analyst Matt Rosoff adds: "I can't imagine Amazon's excited about raising prices in a recession?they're probably responding to price increases by the record labels, which were made possible by Apple's capitulation."

According to new reports, RIM is preparing to make a new updated BlackBerry Storm as soon as Septmeber that will completely refresh the phone while adding Wi-Fi.

SlashGear has added that the unnamed sources have "given their assurances that the BlackBerry Storm 2 would have WiFi, and would be an even better pro-consumer device than the first Storm."

There was not too many other details revealed, but a September release would kill off the first generation Storm in under 10 months, a clear admission of failure on RIM's part.

Sources talking to TBG, add that "a new type of screen will come with the BlackBerry Storm 2, improving the screen enormously and making typing really pleasurable." There may also be the addition of a 5 MP camera.

Microsoft marketing manager Brian Seitz has said that the software giant will be revamping its Zune media players this year, marking the first significant refresh since early 2008 when Microsoft added a firmware update and increased storage capacity.

Over the past six months, the only significant news to come out about the Zune has been negative, and Microsoft is under pressure to keep the media player relevant in a time where Apple continues to strive. In January, the company reported that Zune revenue had fallen over $100 million USD year-on-year from 2007. The number represented a 54 percent decline year-on-year, an to date only 3.2 million Zune units have been sold, compared to over 200 million Apple iPods.

The company remains committed to the media players however, and has said it is looking to port the "Zune Experience" to Windows Mobile and other "living room devices."

You can view Seitz' small Twitter entry here: MS marketing manager Brian Seitz' Twitter page

According to the latest figures from GfK-ChartTrack, the new Nintendo DSi sold 92,000 units in the UK in its first 48 hours of availability, making it the fourth fastest selling UK console ever. The numbers even "eclipsed" the debut figures of the original "fat" DS in the region.

The numbers say that the DSi managed to outsell all other consoles in the region, combined, for those two days.

The handheld is only a nominal update, in terms of hardware, from the DS Lite, but more prominently uses an online store to sell games and applications.

Initially launched in Japan, the DSi sold over 500,000 units in its first month of availability there.

Last month, Nintendo announced that the DS had hit a new milestone, 100 million units sold globally.

According to the latest figures by Enterbrain, the Sony PlayStation 3 has outsold the Nintendo Wii in Japan for the month of March, marking the first time in 16 months that the Wii isn't the top seller in the region.

Most analysts say the spike in sales for the PS3 can be attributed to the the games Ryu Ga Gotoku 3 and Resident Evil 5 which both sold very well for the console.

Sony sold 146,948 units for the month, compared to 99,335 Wii consoles.

Many believe the numbers will be back to "normal" next month however. "PS3 hardware sales picked up due to brisk-selling software. But I don't see any drastic change in the industry landscape," added Okasan Securities analyst Masashi Morita.

According to a note from analysts over at Credit Suisse, manufacturing costs for the Nintendo Wii have dropped 45 percent since the console launched in late 2006.

Analyst Koya Tabata, speaking to the Financial Times, added that Nintendo could now choose to cut the price of the Wii and still make money, while at the same time stimulating new sales. Tabata also noted that the firm believes Nintendo will release lower-priced models for emerging markets such as South America.

Doing the math shows that even with the current exchange rate for Yen-Dollar, the Wii only costs about $140 USD to make. The console is sold for $250 USD in all regions it is available.

Viacom has brought more content to Netflix's streaming video library, bringing MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central content to the ever-growing library.

Among the content being added is Nickelodeon shows "iCarly," "Blue's Clues," "Dora the Explorer," "SpongeBob SquarePants," and others. From Comedy Central, the first nine seasons of "South Park," are being added. Seasons 9-current are available for free on SouthParkStudios.com.

Over the past year, the company has been broadening access to its online streaming library in the past six months, adding the service to the Xbox 360 as well as to TiVo and a number of Blu-ray players.

According to a Cnet report, the popular online video sharing site YouTube is currently in negotiations with Sony Pictures in an effort to bring full-length videos to the site.

Although neither company has commented on the rumor, the report says YouTube is pushing for free, ad-supported versions of the movies, similar to Hulu.

The video sharing site continues to struggle to get major studios on board for full-length features, but over the year has made deals with major record labels to carry music videos. More recently, YouTube signed a deal with Disney to carry ABC, Disney and ESPN TV shows.

The source says any "formal agreement for Sony would give owners of mobile devices with full YouTube clients, like the iPhone and multiple HTC Touch series phones, access to whole movies for free or near-free as long as the movies themselves aren't deliberately excluded from non-web visitors."

Last week we reported that one month before its theatrical release, a workprint version of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' had been leaked online, and that hundreds of thousands had downloaded it, despite the fact that it was missing CGI and some scenes.

On Friday, an entertainment columnist for Fox News by the name of Roger Friedman, wrote a review on the leaked film in his column, adding in the review that the leak was so accessible that “it took really less than seconds to start playing it all right onto my computer.”

20th Century Fox, the studio behind the film, immediately put out a statement calling the column “reprehensible.” Later in the day the entire review was taken down.

On Sunday, Mr. Friedman was fired for reviewing the pirated film, with a statement from News Corporation (parent company of the studio) reading: “When we advised Fox News of the facts...they promptly terminated Mr. Friedman.”

News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch has said in the past that he has a "zero tolerance" policy towards movie piracy. It appears we now know he is not kidding.

Microsoft has quietly announced they have settled with game developer Jamie Durrant who had sued the software giant over alleged homophobia within the company.

Durrant was asking for GBP 45,000 in the case, in which he claimed Microsoft's HR department "blatantly disregarded" his complaints of homophobic abuse within Microsoft's Lionhead Studios.

"We are pleased to have reached an amicable resolution to this matter with Mr. Durrant," noted a Microsoft spokesman. "The terms of the settlement are confidential, but we can confirm that Mr. Durrant will not continue his employment at Lionhead as part of the agreement."

"Microsoft has a longstanding commitment to diversity. We attract, recruit and respect diverse talent and we have included sexual orientation in our anti-discrimination policies for 20 years.

"Our efforts have been recognised by a wide range of groups, including the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in its 2009 Corporate Equality Index. We do not tolerate breaches of our code of business conduct and take any complaints extremely seriously. Read more...

Last week Skype officially released their Skype for iPhone application and Apple says it had been downloaded over one million times in its first 48 hours of availability.

Of note, and of criticism, is the fact that users can only use the application through Wi-Fi, not through cell 3G or EDGE networks. That restriction has been called anti-competitive, and now the Internet advocacy group Free Press has asked the FCC to investigate whether the restriction is illegal.

The public letter uses the FCC's own words in citing the Internet Policy Statement which says “consumers are entitled to run applications and use services of their choice” in order to “preserve and promote the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet.”

Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s top public policy executive, spoke about the allegations, saying the company has “every right not” to promote services of a rival.

“We absolutely expect our vendors...not to facilitate the services of our competitors,” he noted.

“Skype is a competitor, just like Verizon or Sprint or T-Mobile,” he added, “Skype has no obligation to market AT&T services. Why should the reverse be true?”

Momitsu has announced the release of their BDP-899 Blu-ray player, the world's first region-free BD player.

The player will play DVD and Blu-ray discs from any region and is also BD-Live compatible. Depending on what region your discs are, you can enter a six digit code using the remote control to change the player from Region A to B or C.

The player can also playback a plethora of formats: Xvid, MPEG1, MPEG2 , MPEG4(AVI), MP4 HD, WMV9, JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF, JPEG2000 and GIF. The player also has internal HD audio decoding, including Dolby TrueHD.

In September, RealNetworks launched RealDVD, a $30 USD software application that allows users to make a copy of their DVDs and it play it back on their PCs.

By October however, the company had been sued by the MPAA and the Hollywood studios, and the software was taken down pending the verdict of the lawsuit.

Real finally has a chance to defend its product though, as a judge has set an April 24th court date, says CEO Rob Glaser.

Glaser believes the company will win the suit, as users “have the right to make a secure copy” that cannot be shared with anyone but those using the computer that made the copy. Let's see if the judge agrees.

Disney, ever the Blu-ray trend setter, has announced that they will be re-releasing the classic "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" on Blu-ray on October 6th, a full seven weeks before it returns to standard DVD on November 24th.

The only times a similar move was made was in the last month when Disney released "Bolt" and "Bedtime Stories" on Blu-ray two days before its standard DVD cousin.

However, it is important to note that the Snow White Blu-ray will include a standard DVD in the package, following the current trend.

“We are thrilled that the consumer has clearly recognized the value in our Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack releases and will have another opportunity to maximize their viewing options in October with Snow White,” Disney president Bob Chapek added. “With today’s technological breakthroughs found in Blu-ray, we are confident that this version of Snow White will easily become the reference point for high-definition home entertainment libraries and family collections all over the world.”

Swedish authorities have arrested two men in southern Sweden for alleged copyright infringement after their apartments were raided in Skövde.

Prosecutors believe the men are part of a much larger international network of pirates that have upload hundreds of films to the Internet.

At the same time, raids occurred in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain.

"The suspects are at the inner core of organized pirates within the so-called Scene, which systematically steals films and distributes them on the internet," said Henrik Pontén, a lawyer for the Anti-Piracy Agency (Antipiratbyrån).

"The Swedes have been at the head of the ring and the most important cells of the group's infrastructure have been located in Sweden," he concluded.

Prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad added: "We are dealing with a large number of films that have been made available. I am not at liberty to divulge exactly how many."

According to a company report, Samsung will deliver three new Android-based smartphones in 2009, with the first set to hit in early June.

Samsung added that the first Android device would be released in Europe, with the two subsequent handsets being released in the US. One would be CDMA-based, for Sprint, while the other would be GSM-based, for T-Mobile.

The company did not detail what the phones would look like, but did say it would have more of a Samsung-feel to it than the current G1 Android, which is deeply integrated with Google services and applications.

"Our commitment is more to the Android phone than the Google experience device," added Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, Samsung's executive VP.

According to Sony America head marketing executive John Koller, PlayStation 3 and PSP sales will rise 15 percent over the upcoming fiscal year. The current fiscal year for Sony ended March 31st.

"We've been very bullish on PSP," Koller said in an interview. "We had our largest sales year ever last year, and we’d look to go about 10-15 per cent north of that this year.

"It's for a number of reasons, but primarily because of the entertainment packs and line-up of software that's coming. The software line-up alone should drive a lot of hardware sales.

"For PS3 I'll stay general as well, but we also had our best sales year for PS3 last year and we'll look to go north of that by a similar percentage.

"That's being driven by, in a lot of ways, our first-party software line-up, which is outstanding, but there's some third-party titles coming. The line-up's very strong."

The popular DVD rental company Netflix has proudly announced the delivery of its two billionth DVD this week, giving the lucky subscriber who received the disc a lifetime subscription.

The disc happened to be a Blu-ray copy of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and was shipped to a member in Alabama.

The company launched in 1999, and recently announced they had reached 10 million subscribers in the US. The service offers over 100,000 DVD titles, and 1300 Blu-ray films.

The much anticipated DSi handheld console has launched in Europe today, and with it comes the launch of the DSi Shop.

There are five games available and the free Opera web browser as well. The games are WarioWare: Snapped!, Pyoro, Paper Plane, Art Style: AQUITE and Art Style: CODE.

As part of the launch promotion, DSi owners will receive 1000 free DSi points after downloading an initial firmware update.

All games in the DSi store are placed in a three-tiered pricing structure, with the cheapest costing 200 points (GBP 1.80), the next tier costing 500 Points (GBP 4.50) and Premium, which is everything higher.

According to Taiwanese manufacturers, the next version of the iPhone will have a 3.2-megapixel camera, an upgrade from the current model's 2.0-megapixel camera.

The sources claim that OmniVision has received orders for 3.2-megapixel CMOS sensors that are intended for upcoming iPhones, and add that Aptina and STMicroelectronics are also competing for the orders.

The reports also claim that OmniVision has secured orders to produce 5.2-megapixel sensors for Apple, although it is unclear what device they will be used in. The sources say the end product is expected to launch in Q3 2009 however.

Apple has been rumored to be working on netbooks, new iPods, and a new iPhone, all of which could use the sensors.

Research In Motion (RIM) has officially launched the BlackBerry App World mobile store this week, two weeks after opening registrations.

The company did not say how many apps will be available, but what is known is that some are free, and the rest range from $2.99 to $9.99 USD.

The launch is generally seen as a way for RIM to compete with the Apple App Store, which hit half a billion downloads in January
and has over 6000 games available among tens of thousands of apps. Many of Apple's apps are free or 99 cents, but can go as high as $9.99 USD.

Although it is trying to branch out to non-business users, it is expected the App World will be littered with business related programs more so than games.

The devices that support the App World are the Bold, Storm, Curve and Pearl. You will also need a PayPal account to purchase the apps.

Amazon has now expanded its DRM-free MP3 store to Germany, and the service has launched today with 5 million tracks.

Full albums are priced competitively, with the 2000 most popular selling for under €5. The top selling album, Stadtaffe by Peter Fox, is currently selling for €4.89. The top paid download is Lady Gaga's international hit "Poker Face," which is selling for €0.97.

"We're excited to provide our German customers with even more ways to discover and enjoy great music at the same destination where they can buy millions of CDs," added Amazon EU retail VP Greg Greeley in a statement. "Amazon MP3 offers a vast selection of DRM-free a-la-carte music from major and independent labels, ready to enjoy in seconds with any hardware device in high-quality audio."

According to the German music industry trade body Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BMI), digital album sales exploded in 2008, moving up to 3.9 million units, a 50 percent increase.

"Amazon's emphasis on ease of use, consumer choice and satisfaction has won their brand a high level of popularity and credibility with music fans," noted Bernd Dopp, chairman and CEO Warner Music Central and Eastern Europe. "Amazon MP3 is an exciting development in the evolution of this dynamic online retail experience. The platform now offers a compelling range of digital as well as physical formats from our world class roster of artists, while ensuring that the downloads bought can be played on any device."

According to their latest official blog post, Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3 firmware upgrade, version 2.70, will add a few interesting new features, most notably Text Chat that will allow users to have a chat room with up to 15 other PSN users using any keyboard peripheral or the on-screen keyboard. Sony says you can be a participant in up to three chats at one time, and even use it in-game.

Additionally, the post says the following features will be added:

Friends list on the XMB (XrossMediaBar)

* Sort your friends via their online status
* Attach larger files to the messages you send to your friends (file size will increase from 1MB to 3MB)

Video delivery service on PlayStation Store

* Video files you’ve purchased from the PlayStation Store can be backed up to an external storage device and then restored to PS3’s internal hard drive for playback – so you can clear up space on your hard drive and then restore the video anytime in the future
* Videos you’ve purchased for PSP (PlayStation Portable) system can now be transferred to PS3 for playback

As of yesterday, Google is no longer allowing German users of their popular YouTube platform to watch any official music videos, as negotiations over licensing has fallen apart.

The negotiations were between YouTube and Germany's music royalty organization GEMA, who appear to be on very opposite sides of the spectrum, and the German people will now suffer. Google says they would rather block all the official music videos rather than pay GEMA's "huge" proposed royalty rate.

On March 10th, a similar situation occurred in the UK, where Google began blocking music videos to UK residents, as negotiations fell apart there as well.

Google spokesman Hennig Dorstewitz says that GEMA wants a completely ridiculous $0.16 USD every time a German user plays a song on YouTube. In comparison, imeem recently said it was struggling to pay its $0.01 per stream royalty fees.

GEMA CEO Harald Heker contradicts that assertion however, saying the group offered YouTube a temporary rate of $0.013 per song but Google declined. Google's previous deal with GEMA was set at $0.004 per stream.

"They are essentially asking us to lose money with every video playback," added YouTube spokesman Chris Dale.

"We can't pursue unsustainable economic practices, especially in this business environment. Until we can get rates sustainable for our business, we can't afford to keep (premium music video service in Germany) up."

One month before its theatrical release, a workprint version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine has been leaked online, and is seeing huge downloads as I type.

The film, being a "workprint", has some special effects missing, as well as the occasional view of wires still attached to actors during action scenes. Although unconfirmed, some are reporting that the leaked version is missing some of the director's re-shoots. We probably won't know until next month however what is missing.

The film was supposed to compete with other blockbuster fare such as Star Trek and Transformers 2 but poor reviews of the film based on the leaked version may kill that buzz.

The more important question may be, at least from 20th Century Fox's perspective, is where the leak came from. There is a small caption at the beginning of the video that says 'Rising Sun Pictures' and is dated from last month.

Rising Sun Pictures is an Australian visual effects company that worked on editing the film, and is currently working on the upcoming blockbuster Terminator Salvation. There is no evidence however to support that RSP was involved in the leak.