News written by James Delahunty (November, 2011)

Germany takes its time banning Zombie title.

Dead Island was released in early September, but it's only now that Germany has decided that the game is too violent. The Federal Department of Media Harmful to Young Persons (translated, obviously..) has made the decision to pull the game and the developers are not surprised.

"This isn't unexpected," Techland told Eurogamer. "Germany has its unique regulations regarding video games and violence and the industry can only comply. Both Deep Silver and Techland were aware of such a possibility from the very beginning."

The organization put the title on "List B", which is reserved for media that features content depicting "extreme torture or Nazism."

FCC releases report to public, despite protests from AT&T and Deutsche Telekom AG.

There were some suggestions that AT&T and Deutsche Telekom may have withdrawn their application for approval of the proposed $39 billion AT&T buyout of T-Mobile to stop issues being raised as part of the administrative hearing that could also affect the court case with the Department of Justice (DoJ).

To the great displeasure of AT&T and Deutsche Telekom, the FCC has released a 143 page staff report which probes the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile; a move that would give birth to a new carrier and put 75 percent of the U.S. market under the top two carriers.

The report examines the economic benefits that AT&T and Deutsche Telekom had touted to regulators. The report found that the, "applicants failed to meet their burden of proof to show that the proposed transaction is in the public interest."

AT&T was not pleased about the release of the report, questioning its motives. "This report is not an order of the FCC and has never been voted on," said Jim Cicconi, senior executive VP of external and legislative affairs.

"It is simply a staff draft that raises questions of fact that were to be addressed in an administrative hearing, a hearing which will not now take place. It has no force or effect under law, which raises questions as to why the FCC would choose to release it."

Xbox Live, Verizon subscribers will get new app.

A collaboration between Verizon and Microsoft will make a selection of live, FiOS TV channels to the Xbox 360 games console. It is only available for Xbox LIVE Gold members who also subscription to both FIOS TV and a Verizon Internet access service.

Users who have Kinect will be able to control the service using voice and gesture commands. For new customers who sign up for Verizon's triple play services (FiOS TV, 35/35Mbps Internet service and Voice), starting at $89.99 per month, a a 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold Membership and the "Xbox Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary" game will be included free.

"Joining forces with Microsoft and Xbox, we are breaking the boundaries between TV and gaming, and furthering the borderless lifestyle Verizon customers enjoy with our new offers and services," said Eric Bruno, vice president of consumer and mass business product management for Verizon.

"We are putting the controls in our customers' hands, and giving them the ability to watch TV on another dynamic device that they can control with voice and gesture commands. Whether it's your Xbox, your mobile device, your PC or your traditional television, Verizon will continue to deliver the programming consumers want, where, where and how they want it."

Military shooter continues strong performance through November.

After setting the biggest first day shipment for Electronic Arts, the DICE title Battlefield 3 has gone on to continue selling strong throughout November. On October 27, ten million units of the game were shipped, resulting in five million sales the first week.

Electronic Arts Chief Financial Officer, Eric Brown, revealed during an investor presentation that the title has now hit twelve million units shipped and eight million copies sold.

Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 beat Battlefield 3's early sales, with 6.5 million units in the UK and the United States within its first 24 hours of availability. Still, EA will be very pleased with the extra three million sales for Battlefield 3 during November.

The game is now the subject of a class-action lawsuit after EA failed to deliver on a promise that the PS3 version of the game would come packed with Battlefield 1943. The publisher has said it will make good on the original promise.

Pair already have ratings systems in place.

Yesterday, CTIA and the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) detailed a new plan to provide ratings to mobile apps, the same way ESRB provides ratings for the video games industry. The mobile app ratings system will be identical to the video games rating system.

Developers of mobile games will fill out a survey for each game and answer questions about the content at hand. A rating will be issued to the developer, who can appeal the rating if they feel it is unfair or incorrect. The same rating will apply across other platforms for the same app.

ESRB has seven ratings categories:

• Early Childhood (EC)
• Everyone (E)
• Everyone 10+ (E10+)
• Teen (T)
• Mature (M)
• Adults Only (AO)
• Rating Pending (RP)

Companies are free to come back with new application when it suits.

AT&T and Deutsche Telekom AG requested to withdraw their application for approval of the proposed $39 billion AT&T buyout of T-Mobile USA. The FCC had come out against the proposed merger, which would have created the largest wireless carrier in the United States.

The FCC was joined in opposition with the Department of Justice (DoJ), which has went to court to stop the merger from proceeding. Both believe that if the merger goes ahead, it will lead to job losses and a significant reduction of competition in the U.S. market for wireless services.

The telecommunications firms opted to withdraw the application for approval from the FCC for now, so that it can focus on the DoJ case, aiming to come to an arrangement with the DoJ that could allow the merger to go ahead.

Zuckerberg admits Facebook "made a bunch of mistakes."

Facebook has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges that it deceived its users by informing them that they could keep information on their profile pages private, only then to repeatedly allow it to be made public.

Facebook will have to take several steps to ensure that it does not infringe its users' rights again in the future. It will have to provide its users with clear and prominent notice and must obtain users' express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established previously.

"Facebook is obligated to keep the promises about privacy that it makes to its hundreds of millions of users," said Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC. "Facebook's innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy. The FTC action will ensure it will not."

What did Facebook do wrong?

The FTC complaint made a number of charges against Facebook. In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so that certain information designated as private by its users (Friends List for example) was made publicly available. The social network provided no warning before making the change, nor did it seek approval of its users.

Samsung given rare victory in Apple patent war.

Apple had previously won an injunction against Samsung in October which banned the sales of the Galaxy 10.1 tablet in Australia. The ban prompted Samsung to make some quick changes to the tablet. The iPad-maker accused Samsung of slavishly cloning its iPhone and iPads in its Galaxy-branded smartphones and tablet PCs.

"Samsung Electronics Australia is pleased with today's unanimous decision by the Federal Court to lift the preliminary injunction on sales of the Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1," the company said in a statement. "We believe the ruling clearly affirms that Apple's legal claims lack merit."

Samsung will have to wait until December 2 (Friday) to start selling the tablet in Australia, after Justice Lindsay Foster granted a stay on the order, giving Apple some time to appeal the decision in the High Court.

This is just one case involving Apple and Samsung, while others are under way in the United States, Europe and South Korea.

HP denies sensationalist and inaccurate reports.

HP is currently working on a potential security vulnerability that affects some of its LaserJet printers. The consumer electronics firm noticed some sensationalist reports had surfaced in the media, suggesting that this vulnerability could let hackers alter the firmware of a printer in such a way that it could cause a fire.

"Speculation regarding potential for devices to catch fire due to a firmware change is false," HP said. "HP LaserJet printers have a hardware element called a 'thermal breaker' that is designed to prevent the fuser from overheating or causing a fire. It cannot be overcome by a firmware change or this proposed vulnerability."

The vulnerability being investigated by HP could let users on a private network modify the device firmware. In some Linux or Mac environments, it may be possible for a specially formatted corrupt print job to trigger a firmware upgrade.

HP is working on a fix for the issue, and in the meantime, suggests that customers and partners follow basic practices for securing devices by placing printers behind a firewall and, where possible, disabling remote firmware upload on exposed printers.

Hybrid solid-state drive aimed to laptop PCs.

Seagate announces that it is now shipping the second-generation Momentus XT solid state hybrid drive. It will enable users of laptop PCs using traditional HDDs to speed up their device by getting some benefits of solid-state storage, while keeping capacity high.

The new Momentus XT drive is being loaded into new laptops by original equipment manufacturers (OEM) now. The 750GB drive is powered by Seagate's Adaptive Memory and FAST Factor technologies. Adaptive Memory technology works by identifying data usage patterns, and then moving the most frequently retrieved information to solid state memory for faster access.

FAST Factor technology blends the strengths of SSDs and hard disk drives for faster access to applications, quicker bootup and higher overall system speed.

"Laptop users want faster access to all of their content, from gaming, music and video to spreadsheets and documents, creating strong demand for the highest performance," said Scott Horn, vice president of Worldwide Marketing at Seagate.

"Seagate is excited to answer this need with a second-generation Momentus® XT drive that delivers solid state drive (SSD) speed, greater storage capacity and easy installation at an affordable price."

All member states to harmonize laws related to data protection.

The European Commission (EC) is seeking bloc-wide reform of data protection to update laws that were put in place by governments long before services like Facebook or Twitter were around.

European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, Viviane Reding, said that services such as social networks need to be far more open about how they operate. She proposes that businesses (including ISPs) be endowed with new responsibilities to inform their users about data collection, what is being collected, what for, how, and so forth.

"All social network service providers active in the EU must fully comply with EU data protection laws," Reding said. "Companies have a specific responsibility when personal data is their main economic asset."

Reding is referring to the practice of using consumers' personal data in order to attract advertisers. A Eurobarometer survey conducted in the summer found that three quarters of Europeans questioned are concerned about how companies use private information they have stored about them.

Next generation Kinect will be bundled with next Xbox consoles.

Eurogamer has been talking to sources about Microsoft's next generation Kinect device, expected to be released alongside the next generation Xbox console(s). The device, which will provide motion sensing and speech recognition to the console, is so accurate is can apparently lip-read.

It can also detect if a player becomes angry or otherwise emotional by detecting the pitch of the voice input, volume changes, facial charactistics and more. It is also reportedly much better at detecting a player's orientation relative to the console.

Eurogamer sources explained that one major problem with the current Kinect models is the USB cable. The USB controller interface supports around 35MB/s but Kinect is limited to 16MB/s to allow for other USB devices attached to the console.

For this reason, when Kinect launched it was limited to 30fps and 320x240. Kinect 2 beefs up the resolution and motion data it sends back to the Xbox significantly (though no details are given).

"It can be cabled straight through on any number of technologies that just take phenomenally high res data straight to the main processor and straight to the main RAM and ask, what do you want to do with it?" a source is quoted as saying.

Facebook apologizes for its part in mix-up.

The social networking site admitted to making a mistake when it allowed American drugmaker Merck & Co take control of a page on Facebook of its German rival, Merck KGaA. The German drugmaker went to court in New York over the issue.

After World War I, Merck & Co was setup as an independent company in the United States, sharing the Merck trademark with Merck KGaA in different geographical areas. The change was part of Germany's reparations under the Treaty of Versailles.

Merck KGaA asked the court to force Facebook to explain why it lost administrative control over www.facebook.com/merck, and why the American Merck & Co was now using it. The German Merck said that Facebook had not been helpful, and even evasive, when approached for an explanation.

"The transfer of the vanity URL Facebook.com/Merck from Merck KGaA to Merck & Co was due to an administrative error," Facebook said in a statement. "We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Facebook said it will make the URL unavailable until both drug companies could come to arrangement over its use.

Developer had concerns over working conditions.

According to reports, Angry Birds developer Rovio turned down a $2.25 billion buyout offer from casual games giant Zynga. The Farmville-developer proposed a $2.25 billion cash and stock acquisition, but Rovio walked away from discussions, citing concerns over the culture at Zynga.

The New York Times reported that Zynga's successful rise has been on the back of harsh working conditions with employees complaining about overbearing managers, long working hours and stressful deadlines. This situation also reportedly prompted PopCap to turn down a $950 million bid from Zynga.

PopCap was later swooped up by EA for $750 million in cash and stock, and potentially $550 million in bonuses.

Recruitment agencies are also swirling around Zynga as it approaches its initial public offering to be traded on Wall Street, looking to snap up top talent following the sale.

"I expect a lot of game and tech companies will begin recruiting Zynga's talent after their equity becomes liquid," EA human resources head Gabrielle Toledano said. "Competitors will make the case that they offer much more compelling opportunities for creative people."

RIM aims to cash in on switch to other smartphones.

Security features offered by BlackBerry handsets have been a selling point for corporations and governments over the years. Employees have been armed with the devices, which offer encryption and other useful features, such as the ability to remotely wipe data from stolen handsets.

In recent times, there has been a shift away from BlackBerry phones to iPhones and smartphones running the Android operating system. Some hesitation remains for corporations due to security concerns with the new models, but RIM is offering a solution to that problem.

The company said today that it will offer a new Mobile Fusion device management software solution next year. The new software allows corporate IT staff to set and monitor rules for passwords, applications and software across many devices.

The software will allow the IT staff to remotely lock or wipe a stolen device and many other features that have made BlackBerry's attractive. "What our enterprise customers are looking for, and the opportunity for us, is to become the de facto platform," Alan Panezic, RIM's vice-president for enterprise product management, told Reuters.

CTIA-The Wireless Association is to announce mobile app rating system with ESRB.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) is tasked with providing content ratings to video games to help make consumers, and especially parents, more informed about what kind of content they are buying. ESRB works mostly with ratings for games released on console platforms.

Now the CTIA is to detail a partnership with the ESRB to introduce a content rating system for mobile apps. Many games are downloaded as apps by smartphone and tablet users, but information provided by CTIA so far suggests the new ratings will go beyond just games.

The wireless group said that "applications will be rated based on age-appropriateness of their content and context," saying that more details will be provided tomorrow.

Apple's App Store and Google's Android Marketplace already provide their own proprietary content rating systems, as well as user-based quality ratings systems.

It wouldn't be the first time a shift from Blue to Red pushed through a deal involving AT&T.

As it stands, both the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are opposed to AT&T's planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA from Deustche Telekom. They are joined in opposition by public interest groups and competitors, large and small, in the wireless industry.

Essentially, both the DoJ and FCC believe that if the deal were to go through, then it would harm competition in the U.S. market, lead to job losses and potentially higher prices for consumers.

However, what would happen if the U.S. administration is removed from power by a victorious Republican candidate in 2012? Considering that the new U.S. President would make new appointments, it is not inconceivable to think that both the DoJ and the FCC would change their stance on the acquisition.

"If the Republicans win, there is a new FCC and a Republican administration will be a lot more positive toward this merger than a democratic one," said telecom analyst Roger Entner, founder of Recon Analytics.

Republican candidates are not shy about pushing for a reduction in regulations of all kinds; Rick Perry even suggested that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) be closed down. Herman Cain prides himself as a businessman and even Ron Paul's libertarian philosophy would be extremely helpful to AT&T.

Managing director says piracy is a "service problem."

Gabe Newell, Valve managing director, has claimed that software piracy is a "non issue" for the company's Steam gaming service. Instead, he said that the fundamental misconception about piracy is that it is motivated by price, when Value believes that its more down to problems with service.

"For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24/7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable," he said, in an interview with Cambridge Student.

Going by that, Steam itself could not be considered a perfect solution either. Still, Newell does seem to have another way of looking at piracy than most of the industry, and does appear in the interview to understand that Digital Rights Management (DRM) can have detrimental effects on legitimate consumers, especially when you consider that it barely even affects pirates.

PRIMEHPC FX10 capable of enormous computational performance.

Fujitsu announced the global availability of its new PRIMEHPC FX10 supercomputer, which is scalable to a top theoretical processing performance of 23.2 PFLOP/s (petaflop == 1 quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) floating point operations per second.)

The PRIMEHPC FX10 improves upon the technology used in Fujitsu's K Computer, which was crowned the world's fastest supercomputer back in June (up to 10 PFLOP/s).

"By leveraging the new system, it will be possible to address societal challenges?including new drug development, disaster prevention, disaster mitigation, and other measures, to bring about a safe and secure society?and to pursue cutting-edge research, such as enabling the development and manufacturing of new materials without the need to make prototypes. This has the potential to help companies enhance their competitive edge." Fujitsu said.

In its largest potential configuration consisting of 98,304 nodes, 1,024 racks, the supercomputer delivers a high-speed, ultrascale computing environment with a theoretical computing performance of 23.2 petaflops and 6 petabytes of memory.

Google shows what was behind the evolution of its search engine.

Search engines filled an obvious need in the 90s, as the amount of information accumulating in cyberspace was growing so rapidly, we needed some way to filter through it and find what we want. Many attempts were made at indexing the web, but Google co founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin seemed to have a winning solution.

Over the years Google has repeatedly expanded and changed its search services. It has posted a short video giving a brief overview of the evolution of Google search from the domain registration right up to today, and the thinking behind the changes.

Australian airline reports case of burning iPhone on flight.

Regional Express, Australia's largest independent regional airline, issued a press release on an incident shortly after a flight landed late last week. Flight ZL319 had just landed when a passenger's mobile phone started emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, and started glowing red.

A Flight Attendant extinguished the burning phone immediately and no passengers or crew were harmed. Regional Express reported the incident to the Australian Transport Safety Board (ATSB) and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).

The mobile phone in question is identified as an Apple iPhone, which shows a significant amount of damage to the rear of the phone. Reports online indicate that the iPhone shows evidence that the burning came from the battery, which would explain the red glow and the release of smoke.

Google seeking regulatory OK for Motorola Mobility deal.

According to the European Commission website, search engine giant Google has officially sought EU approval for its planned acquisition of Motorola Mobility. The $12.5 billion was announced back in August, and is seen as a way for Google to boost its mobile patent portfolio in an increasingly volatile market.

Google is seeking the approval of European regulators at the same time the European Commission is investigation claims from small firms that Google is abusing its position to thwart rivals.

In the United States, the Department of Justice (DoJ) is also assessing the proposed takeover.

The European Commission will make a decision on whether or not to approve the proposed deal in its current form, by January 10 of next year.

Changes to Google policies deprives criminals of much-needed search information.

In order to protect people on possibly vulnerable networks, such as Wi-Fi hotspots, Google changed its policies to automatically turn on secure searching for logged in users. Using SSL, search queries could no longer be easily captured by other devices on the same network.

Another change made by Google that didn't get as much attention was the removal of search terms used to reach websites from the HTTP referrer header. This only applies if using secure search, while the information is still there when using the default unencrypted HTTP search.

This change means that legitimate websites could no longer see the search terms used to eventually find content on their websites. Typically, such information would be used by legitimate websites to create more targeted content, or to probe the ever-changing interests of its target audience.

It was also used, however, by cyber criminals to figure out which search terms to target with Black Hat SEO techniques. Typically, gangs of cybercriminals who are peddling malware will setup many routes to the same scam website. Those 'routes' exist as other webpages that you can find on search engines that link or redirect to a malicious website.

Amazon.com Inc. leads the pack again.

This year's Black Friday has been a great success for e-tailers such as Amazon.com Inc., with online sales in the United States jumping 26 percent, according to research from comScore. The jump compares to the year-over-year growth for Black Friday 2010 of 9 percent.

Online sales last Friday reached $816 million, easily the heaviest spending day on the Internet so far in 2011. There had been some fears that online sales would suffer as brick-and-mortar retailers offered big discounts to shoppers this year, and even in some cases, opened late on Thanksgiving to get an early start.

"With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said.

The amount of Americans who visited an online retail site on Black Friday this year topped 50 million, around 35 percent more than last year.

"Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year," Fulgoni said.

Samsung boosted by Galaxy-branded gadgets.

Driven by positive sales of its Galaxy smartphones, South Korean electronics firm, Samsung, has revealed that it expects to beat its own smartphone sales target for this year.

"We are pinning high hopes...on achieving sales higher than our previous plan," a mobile executive said at a press conference today. He did not give any details on how much the firm expects to beat its own estimations, however.

He was speaking to journalists at a local launch event for the Galaxy Note, Galaxy Nexus and for the Galaxy Tab 8.9 long-term evolution (LTE) device.

Samsung has seen strong demand for its Galaxy gear in recent years, despite being caught in a global patent war with Apple Inc.

U.S. judge rubbishes market domination claim made against Netflix, Walmart.

US District Judge Phyllis Hamilton was overseeing a case against the two firms, in which they were alleged to have conspired to dominate the DVD-by-post market. Specifically, the lawsuit alleged that Walmart dropped out of the mail DVD rental market so Netflix could consume its previous customers, and in return, Netflix stopped selling DVDs.

Judge Hamilton disagreed, pointing out that Walmart's mail rental service had just a small 1.5 percent of the market, and that its exit simply would have aided Netflix in any significant way. Furthermore, Netflix's DVD selling business was nowhere near that of the retail giant, and so it's decision to abandon it would not have affected Walmart in any significant way.

The lawsuit was filed against both companies January 2009, and after more plaintiffs joined the case it was eventually granted class action status.

?The court concludes that no reasonable juror could believe that Netflix would have lowered its [rental plan] to $15.99 in response to continued competition from Walmart, whose [comparable plan] was set at $17.49 ? particularly when those facts demonstrate that Netflix chose not to lower its price in the face of Blockbuster's $14.99 price cut, despite the fact that Blockbuster had a higher market share than Walmart,? Hamilton wrote in his decision.

High-speed connection tests at DreamHack LAN event in Sweden.

Attendees of the event, estimated at 20,000 in total, were invited to test the world record-setting 120Gbps connection, which ran 186 miles between Stockholm and Jönköping. A previous record speed of 20Gbps had been set at the DreamHack Lan event too.

The test used Cisco hardware along with Telia's fiber network in the country. The project has been in the works since last summer, building a network that can connect up to 750,000 people and allow them all to stream multimedia at the same time and experience no ill effects to their Internet connection as a result.

The firms claimed that users would be able to download an entire movie in 47 thousandths of a second, putting aside the obvious problems of writing the data to a storage device, for example.

Nexon Korea Corp's online games targeted by hackers.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said that Nexon reported the incident to it late Friday afternoon. Specifically, Nexon reported to the regulator that it discovered a data leak involving personal information of subscribers of its Maple Story online game.

The leak affects up to 13.2 million people, all of whom are located in South Korea. The report comes just weeks before the company planned an IPO of its Japanese affiliate on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, aiming to raise ¥95 billion ($1.2 billion).

The leaked data includes user IDs, names, resident registration numbers and passwords, according to KCC. Nexon insists that the leak did not include information on financial transactions, bank account numbers or credit card numbers.

The gaming firm is advising its subscribers to change their passwords to avoid any more damage, even though the passwords leaked were encrypted.

Authorities describe scene as "customer vs customer shopping rage."

How determined would you be to get your hands on a discounted Xbox 360? A woman waiting for Black Friday deals at a Porter Ranch Walmart in Los Angeles waited in line with her two children, and some pepper spray. According to reports, she started to attack other customers with the pepper spray as soon as she saw store employees removing plastic packaging off discounted items for Black Friday.

She was apparently looking to get a discounted Xbox 360 console and some games. Witnesses say as soon as the doors opened, she used the pepper spray to subdue other customers there determined to get discounts.

Firefighters and the LAPD responded to the attack quickly, treating 20 customers suffering from coughing, extreme swelling and redness of the face. One other customer required treatment at a nearby hospital.

Police are trying to track down the woman and will release photos to the press. They were reportedly looking into her method of payment in an attempt to get details that might lead them to her residence. Unfortunately, there were other reports of Black Friday violence across the U.S., as there is every year.

Patent firm talks tough after HTC withdraws appeal.

It announced on Friday that it would enforce an injunction from a February 2009 court decision in Mannheim, aiming to get HTC smartphones removed from German retail stores before the crucial holiday season. The news is a blow to HTC, which already is struggling to maintain its position in the volatile smartphone market.

"IPCom now intends to execute this injunction in the shortest possible time," the company said in a statement, after HTC withdrew an appeal against the February 2009 decision, due to be decided on next week. "We will use the right awarded by the courts, likely resulting in HTC devices disappearing from shops during the crucial Christmas season."

HTC said it pulled the appeal because it found the ruling to be redundant, given that a German patent court is questioning the validity of the patent at the center of the injunction. Legal experts say that HTC can still battle to delay the injunction, while it is also expected to address two other patent issues.

HTC reported last month that revenue would fall up to 8 percent from the October - December period, leading to a drop in stock value.

South Korean firm reportedly planning to phase out netbooks.

A French blog (Blogeee) is reporting that Samsung will phase out its netbook line-up in 2012, citing an e-mail that Samsung allegedly sent to its retail partners.

"Following the introduction of our new strategy in 2012, we [will] stop the product range in 10.1in (netbook) in Q1 2012 for the benefit of ultraportable products (11.6 and 12 inches) and Ultrabooks to be launched in 2012," the e-mail reportedly stated.

Netbook sales are on the decline, hurt by tablet PCs and by small-sized notebooks and emerging products such as Ultrabooks. The low cost of netbooks and their ability to handle the majority of basic tasks carried out by users made them quite successful for several years.

Now firms such as Samsung are looking to new products, such as tablet PCs. Ultrabooks are also emerging with effort being put in by many tech firms to bring down their cost while keeping them more powerful than traditional notebooks. Intel and its partners see Ultrabooks as a way to boost the PC, and as a way to steal market share back from tablets.

Strategy to protect UK digital economy against cyber attacks.

The National Security Strategy in the UK last year put hostile computer attacks on par with the threat of international terrorism to the region. This prompted ministers to provide £650 million for cyber-security measures, in particular for defence systems and key infrastructure.

As it stands, about 6 percent of the UK's GDP is generated by the Internet, and that figure is only likely to continue rising over the coming years. This embracing of the digital world carries an enormous security threat at all levels; to the public service, to private sector firms and to individual consumers.

The UK Government recognised the need for a national strategy to cover all bases. It will reveal a plan that will include using the intelligence agency GCHQ to prop up security in the private sector. The police force will get more cyber training and skilled army reservists will also be utilized.

A joint initiative between the public and private sector will bolster critical information sharing on emerging threats, and ensure a coordinated response. Individuals will be given more help and information to protect themselves, as the GCHQ reports that 80 percent of successful attacks could be avoided easily by doing simple things, such as keeping software up to date, A/V definitions up to date and being more aware of the methods commonly used to attack individuals.

Firms will focus on Justice Department anti-trust lawsuit for now.

Earlier this week, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski recommended the proposed $39 billion buyout of T-Mobile by AT&T be sent to an administrative law judge for review. The move is effectively seen as disapproval by the FCC chairman.

After eight months of a review, the FCC has come to the conclusion that if AT&T buys T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom AG, it will hurt competition in the wirless space, as well as prompting job losses. Both AT&T and T-Mobile reject the findings of the FCC.

The deal is also opposed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) however, and it is bringing the case to court in an effort to stop the proposed merger from going ahead.

Now the firms have announced the withdrawal of its application to the FCC for a merger approval, in order to focus on the DoJ case first. Some analysts point out that by withdrawing the FCC application, they can avoid handing over documents that would then be used by the DoJ in its case against them.

Things are looking very bleak for the deal however, with AT&T admitting in a blog post that it expected to take a $4 billion charge because of break-up fees it will owe to Deutsche Telekom. The deal could be salvaged though if the firms agreed to greater conditions in settlement negotiations with the DoJ.

Attack timed to coincide with Black Friday.

According to the Eleven Security Blog, iTunes users are being targeted with another scam designed to deliver a malware payload to their computers. The e-mail appears to come from the iTunes store, and contains a ZIP file that hosts malicious files.

The e-mail instructs the user that they have been sent a $50 iTunes store credit gift, and that the attached file in the e-mail included a code to redeem it. The malware contained is identified by A/V firms as Mal/BredoZp-B, which infects the computer with a backdoor trojan providing direct access for criminals and also is thought to mine for passwords and other information.

Black Friday scams online are quite common, as stores in the U.S. churn out deals and discounts to get customers on what's considered the first shopping day of the holiday season.

Big Fish Games Inc. surprised by Apple's sudden change.

The popular gaming firm said it worked with Apple for weeks to ensure that its new monthly subscription service for iPad gamers would meet all the requirements for recurring charges through Apple's App Store. The service had only been made available on November 18, and Big Fish has no clue why Apple dumped it.

"We were notified that the app was removed," said Paul Thelen, founder of Big Fish. "We're trying to follow up with Apple to try to figure out what happened."

He went on to say that after weeks of working with Apple, the Big Fish subscription gaming app was given official approval and appeared in the App Store.

The Big Fish application let users play dozens of its popular games for a flat $6.99 monthly fee. The "Play Instantly" service would provide unlimited access to games such as Mahjong Towers and Mystery Case Files. Thelen said that Apple was not convinced for some time that a subscription model would work for games.

"It took longer than usual to be approved," Thelen said yesterday. "They needed to be convinced there?s a reason to charge customers every month."

UK regulator orders broadband providers to tell all.

Ofcom has set out steps it expects Internet Service Providers in the UK to take, to make issues such as network traffic management as transparent as possible. ISPs use traffic management to deal with congestion, slowing down or speeding up the flow of traffic based on priority.

The regulator admits that in practice it is beneficial for the most part, being used, for example, to protect critical traffic such as emergency calls. However, Ofcom is concerned that ISPs could use the same management systems to target rivals' services.

It said that ISPs do not go far enough in providing information to consumers about how they manage traffic. If ISPs do not cooperate with Ofcom, it may use its powers to enforce a minimum level of consumer information under European framework.

It expects the ISPs should provide the following information to their customers:

• Average speed information that indicates the level of service consumers can expect to receive;
• Information about the impact of any traffic management that is used on specific types of services, such as reduced download speeds during peak times for peer-to-peer software; and
• Information on any specific services that are blocked, resulting in consumers being unable to run the services and applications of their choice.

Survey finds British oppose mobile phone ownership amongst young kids.

The poll of 2,000 people found that almost three quarters of them felt it was inappropriate for a child aged below 12 years to own a mobile phone. The survey, which was carried out by Recombu.com, noted that up to 79 percent of children in Britain, aged between 7 and 11 years, already own a mobile phone.

Concerns about children having mobile phones range from the prospect of expensive bills, unmonitored Internet use and a lack of easy parental controls, yet up to 90 percent of parents liked the idea of a child having a mobile phone in case of emergency.

More than 1 in 10 admitted they would buy a new phone for a child as encouragement for good behaviour or good results at school.

"It is reassuring for parents to be in constant contact with their children, but there are clearly concerns about just how careful a young child will be with their own mobile phone," Hannah Bouckley, editor of Recombu, said.

Loyalty highest among iPhone owners, research firm finds.

Gfk published the findings of a poll it conducted among smartphone owners in several countries. It found that 84 percent of iPhone owners would choose to eventually replace the handset with another, upgraded iPhone. That compares to 60 percent of consumers who have smartphones that run Android who said they'd stick to the same operating system.

Research in Motion (RiM) didn't fare too well with only 48 percent of respondents admitting they'd stay loyal to Blackberry's. Sales of smartphones continues to grow, though at a slower pace. Still, sales rose 49 percent last quarter compared to the same period of 2010.

Gfk's findings come from interviews with 4,500 people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, China, Japan and the United States.

"Apple is clearly ahead of the game, but developments next year will challenge that," Ryan Garner, analyst at GfK, said. Building market position now is important for players in the smartphone business, as consumers tend to have a high rate of loyalty toward a brand of mobile phone.

Judge questions fairness of injunction.

On October 13, Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett issued an injunction against the sale and marketing of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia, until both Apple and Samsung resolve a patent dispute at trial. Samsung's lawyer, Neil Young, said that Bennett failed to consider the dire consequences of the ban on Samsung's business.

Now another Judge is questioning the decision. Federal Court Justice Lindsay Foster questioned the fairness of the ruling that led to the injunction being granted at Apple's request. "The result looks terribly fair to Apple and not terribly fair to Samsung," Foster said.

The Australian case is only one of several around the world between Samsung and Apple. The iPhone-maker has accused Samsung of "slavishly" cloning its i-Devices in its Galaxy line of smartphones and tablet PCs.

Throughout the industry there are several high-profile cases between tech firms involving patented technology used with mobile devices. This week, the European Commissioner for Competition, Joaquin Almunia, expressed concerns about how patents are being used to stifle competition in the market.

Finnish NPTO on design protection.

Did your grandmother ever make clothes for you as a kid? Such as a scarf or socks for example? In many cases, the designs on those items of clothing came from weaving magazines or guides for enthusiasts. I bet your grandmother never thought it would be considered a crime to give you such a nice gift?

In Finland, that may actually be the case. The National Patent and Trademark Office (NPTO) has explained that if the designs in such magazines are protected, then you can only use the instructions/guide to craft a product for your own personal use, even taking into account that the designs could be published in a magazine for knitting / weaving enthusiasts.

The NPTO explained that deciding where to apply limits is difficult, because design protection doesn't only apply to commercial use.

"Design protection forbids commercial and professional abuse, but you can make one product [using the guide] for your own personal use. The limit where those rights end is a shady line. One must consider that more you make, the closer the [professionalism] line is. It isn't really for your own use if you make gifts for wider circle", says Tapio Priia from NPTO.

Something to do during Thanksgiving weekend.

From today (Thursday, November 24) until Sunday, Xbox 360 owners in the United States will be able to have benefits of Xbox Live Gold membership without having to pay for it (cue the PlaySation Network comments).

That means multiplayer gaming without a gold subscription while the Turkey settles. You will also be able to use other Xbox Live services such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Facebook, Last.fm, Zune Music Pass and ESPN.

It probably goes without saying but this doesn't apply to anywhere outside the United States, being an American holiday.

French lawsuit dropped.

It was brought by a French anti-racism group against Apple Inc. over an application available for the iPhone called "Jew or not Jew." The application let users check the names of celebrities and public figures against a database to discover whether they were Jewish or not.

The application's developer, Johann Levy, decided to remove the application and the lawsuit was dropped. Lawyer Stephane Lilti says the decision "is motivated by the removal of the application in all countries of the world," adding that the lawsuit turned out to have beneficial effects.

After Apple was criticized in December over the application, it removed it from the store in France, but it was still available to download from other countries.

Bugs affect volume levels.

Search giant Google, and consumer electronics firm Samsung, have confirmed that the Galaxy Nexus handset suffers from issues related to the volume. Complaints from owners of the device in the UK surfaced on some web forums in recent weeks.

"Regarding the Galaxy Nexus, we are aware of the volume issue and have developed a fix," Samsung said in a statement. "We will update devices as soon as possible."

Reports from owners say that the volume spontaneously drops to nothing. Some suggest that it gets worse if stuck using a 2G service, but it even apparently can happen when the handset's alarm goes off.

"I was already awake and had not touched the phone yet, the alarm sounded for a second and then went silent. Thought that was weird so checked the phone and the volume was down," one Galaxy Nexus owner posted about the issue.

Samsung said a repair will be offered to customers affected by the bug, but did not indicate when.

European Court of Justice (ECJ) strikes down widescale piracy filters.

The ECJ was ruling in a case that stretches back to 2004, when a Belgian music licensing company, SABAM, brought a case against ISP, Scarlet, in the country. SABAM discovered that customers on Scarlet's network were downloading music illegally using P2P software.

When the case was put before the Brussels Court of First Instance, the court ordered Scarlet to stop its customers from sending or receiving music content from SABAM's catalogue. Knowing the financial and technical implications of such an order, Scarlet brought the case to the Brussels Court of Appeal, claiming the injunction infringed law within the European Union.

Specifically, Scarlet argued that the obligation to monitor the communications of its customers on its network was in clear breach of the E-Commerce Directive in the EU, and having examined the issue, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) sided with Scarlet.

It ruled against the order for several reasons. It found that it would affect Scarlet's ability to run its business as it imposed a requirement to install a complicated, expensive filtering system at its own expense, and that the filtering practice itself could infringe the rights of customers and their right to protect their own data.

New and Used games to be lumped together.

Kotaku is citing employees of Canada's EB Games (GameStop) in reporting that the chain is to blur the distinction between NEW and USED game titles in its stores. If the report is correct, then all games must be in the same sections with the same white price tags.

Essentially, it will strip away much of the features that would give away the fact that a game was previously owned. Kotaku's main source also told them that employees are encouraged to put New copies of games below Pre-Owned copies.

Kotaku contacted EB Games for comment but has not heard anything back at the time of writing.

Since posting the news, Kotaku has gotten e-mails from people who claim to be EB Games employees, with most saying the report is true, and in some cases that the policy has been in effect in a particular store for more than a week.

One e-mail pointed out concern among staff about games that require codes for online play, as some customers might accidentially pick up a Used copy of a title, and go home to find they can't play it online.

Still, even in that e-mail the employee does admit that the stickers do still have USED and NEW on them, but didn't seem convinced it was enough to completely avoid problems for customers.

Legal nag solved, source code in wild.

The source code for the 2004 shooter Doom 3 has been released publicly by id Software. It was ready to be released a couple of weeks back but a small legal nag had held it up.

A shadow stencilling technique discovered independently by John Carmack back in 1997 had been separately patented in 2002 by Creative Labs, and so the lawyers were reluctant to clear the release of the source code.

Carmack solved the problem by rewriting the code in question. President of id Software, Todd Hollenshead, announced the release of the code on via Twitter on Tuesday, which is available from GitHub.

Doom 3 sold more than 3.5 million copies.

Universal Music Group seeking over $17 billion in damages.

The music industry giant claims that Grooveshark employees uploaded more than 100,000 pirated songs to the website. It alleges that even the chief executive, Samuel Tarantino, uploaded 1,791 pirated songs at least, while Nikola Arabadjiev, head of quality assurance efforts, allegedly uploaded over 40,000 songs.

Universal is seeking $150,000 in damages for each of the 113,777 tracks, or about $17.1 billion.

Grooveshark responded to the lawsuit by saying it is based on blatantly false data and on a "gross mischaracterization of information." Marshall Custer, general counsel for Grooveshark, said in a statement that Universal's claims rest almost entirely on an anonymous blog comment.

The comment itself was posted to an entry on the Digital Music News blog. The blog post was about the band King Crimson, and its attempt to have music removed from Grooveshark, which was not a success.

The commenter claimed to work for Grooveshark, saying that employees are set a predetermined amount of weekly uploads to the system and are paid a bonus if they can exceed it. The commenter admits that the practice is neither legal or ethical and that the culture at Grooveshark from the top down is to view the industry, and artists, as the enemy.

German drug-maker will sue to get Facebook page control.

After World War I, Merck & Co was setup as an independent company in the United States, sharing the Merck trademark with Merck KGaA in different geographical areas. The change was part of Germany's reparations under the Treaty of Versailles.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, Merck KGaA is accusing Merck & Co of hijacking its Facebook page, and is threatening to sue to regain control. It has asked a New York judge to force Facebook Inc to turn over information on how the company lost the ability to administer the facebook.com/merck page.

Merck KGaA goes further to say that Faceook has not been cooperative, and even has been evasive while asked for help. "Because Facebook is an important marketing device, the page is of great value to Merck, and its misappropriation is causing harm to Merck," Merck KGaA said.

"It is not clear how that happened or who is at fault nor ... is Facebook providing clear information about what happened."

Aiming for 99% of the market.

BioShock Infinite is due to be release next year. It is set in a floating city called Columbia in the year 1912, and is occupied by two political factions; the right wing Founders and the left wing Vox Populi.

The inspiration for the two factions comes from historical political groups such as the Baader-Meinhof left-wing militants in Germany, and the Know Nothings anti-immigration faction in the United States.

"It's been fascinating to watch the conflict in the game, which is based on historical conflicts, sort of become reincarnated in our times," said Ken Levine, creative director at Irrational Games.

When Levine watched the Occupy Wall Street protests spread, he decided to go and join the crowed and see such a political protest up close. "It's one thing to read about these movements by reading history books but another thing to see one of these things happening in real time and go there and breathe it in," Levine said.

He did not say exactly what about the OWS protest will spill over into the finished title, but he certainly hopes the protests would never imitate his art, as the fictional BioShock Infinite protests turn very radical and violent.

Insults allegedly aimed at Thai King.

In Thailand, you will face harsh penalties if you insult or make threats toward King Bhumibol Adulyadej, regardless of how you do so. For defendant Ampon Tangnoppakul, a 61-year old retired truck driver, the law has become all too real.

He has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for allegedly sending text messages that the court deemed insulting to the King. Specifically, he was given five years per message, according to lawyer Poonsuk Poonsukcharoen.

"He insists that he does not know how to send text messages," Ms. Poonsuk said. "He insists that he loves His Majesty the King."

The contents of the messages were not revealed in the court, but the judge said they defamed, insulted and threatened the King and his wife.

The Thai government has set up a "war room" which has a goal of censoring websites that carry materials deemed insulting to the royal family.

Carrier IQ apologizes for baseless threats, but defends its practices.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) came to the defence of security researcher Trevor Eckhart after he received legal threats from Carrier IQ, a mobile software company.

Eckhart had published an analysis of the company's software, and also posted training materials provided by the company for his audience to download. Eckhart pointed out that Carrier IQ's software logs a great deal of information about users' activities without their knowledge.

The software in question is pre-installed on some Android handsets (reportedly mostly on the Sprint network) and Eckhart reported it was capable of recording a great deal of user activities. In response, Carrier IQ sent a cease and desist demand (PDF) to Eckhart, claiming he made false allegations against the company, and infringed its copyright.

The EFF contacted Carrier IQ through a letter, citing protection of Eckhart's research and commentary under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As for posting the training materials, EFF argued it was "classic fair use" of a copyrighted work for research purposes.

Shocked cinema manager considers warning cinema-goers about possible effects of watching 3D movies.

Julian Mathisen, from Honningsvag in Norway, came down with some bizarre symptoms after returning home from a movie theatre. The six year old appeared cross-eyed to his stunned father, and also complained of double-vision, headaches and nausea.

"After he came home from the movie I saw that there was something strange about his eyes," his father said. "One eye squinted, and he complained that he saw double."

Julian saw doctors and opticians following the ordeal, and they agree that the boy must have had a latent visual defect all along that was triggered by the 3D images on screen.

"You can get different kinds of ailments from this. Julian's case is extreme. However, diplopia, migraine, nausea and discomfort may occur," said Hans Torvald Haugo, Chief Advisor for the Norwegian Opticians Association.

Julian now must wear a patch on his eye, and the hope is that the condition will improve, though the Norwegian media reports suggest that he has not gotten better 14 days after the cinema visit. If he continues to experience the symptoms, he may face surgery to correct it.

New Kinect hardware for general purpose use with Windows.

A post on the Kinect for Windows blog, made on Tuesday, said that the team has optimized certain hardware components and made firmware adjustments which improve PC-centric scenarios. The team is also working on the Software Development Kit (SDK) and runtime.

Simple changes to the hardware include a shortened USB cable to ensure reliability across systems, and a small dongle to improve coexistance with other USB peripherals. Updated firmware enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision, with graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters.

"Near Mode" will enable a whole new class of "close up" applications, beyond the living room scenarios for Kinect for Xbox 360.

Developers and companies are currently participating in the Kinect for Windows pilot program, and Microsoft is taking suggestions for functionality from the Kinect SDK forums.

Phishing scam being investigated by Microsoft.

The Redmond-based software giant said a small number of users have been affected by a phishing scam that used fake e-mails to get personal details and other information from gamers. "We take the security of the Xbox Live service seriously and work to improve it against evolving threats," a Microsoft spokesman said.

"Very occasionally, though, we are contacted by members regarding alleged unauthorized access to their accounts by outside individuals."

Microsoft was quick to point out that there was no breach in Xbox Live security. Nothing has been hacked, users have just been duped by a crafted e-mail that sent them to a malicious website.

"We work closely with impacted members directly to resolve any unauthorized changes to their accounts and, as always, highly recommend all Xbox Live users follow our account security guidance in order to protect their account details."

Google+ is part of a larger plan, apparently.

When Google+ launched this year, it was described as the search giant's best effort in the social space, and possibly the biggest threat to Facebook's dominance of the field so far. Why not? It hit 10 million users within 16 days, compared to two years for Facebook and Twitter.

After 100 days in operation, it hit a 40 million milestone. On paper, it would certainly look like a winner, but a tally of registered users cannot tell a complete story about the popularity of a web service nearly as well as analytical data.

Chitika, a web analytics firm, reported that the Google+ excitement began to fade just a month after its public launch. Its data shows a 60 percent drop in traffic. As for the number of registered users, Google has not released updated figures since September.

Media outlets have already dug the ditch, with Forbes publishing a Eulogy for the service, and Slate declaring in a headline that, "Google+ is dead". Well, not so, according to Google.

Bradley Horowitz, vice-president of product at Google+, says that it is aimed at being more than simply a social networking service. "Google+ is a foundational element for identity, relationship, interest across all we're doing at Google," Mr Horowitz told BBC News.

Julius Genachowski wants proposed merger sent to administrative law judge.

The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission sent a draft order to fellow commissioners in which he cites FCC staff findings related to the merger's impact on competition in the market, and on jobs.

"The record clearly shows that -- in no uncertain terms -- this merger would result in a massive loss of U.S. jobs and investment," an FCC official said, according to Reuters. AT&T's planned merger is already in the firing line of the U.S. Justice Department.

The DoJ went to court in August to oppose the purchase on antitrust grounds, with a trial due to commence in February. Any proposed administrative hearing at the FCC would only begin after the antitrust trial, effectively ensuring that another roadblock is prepared.

AT&T said it is disappointed with the FCC action, and disputes its findings related to job losses and investment. The No. 2 carrier in the United States cited $8 billion in broadband investment and commitments on job preservation and enhancement.

"This notion, that when government spends money on broadband it creates jobs, but when a private company spends money it doesn't, is clearly wrong on its face," said Jim Cicconi, AT&T executive, referring to a $4.5 billion annual fund to promote broadband to underserved communities, which the FCC says will create 50,000 jobs over six years.

Commissioner says IP rights used as "instrument to restrict competition."

In recent years, a plethora of legal cases involving patents related to mobile device technology have emerged and are showing no sign of going away any time soon. Consumer Electronics firms view rich patent portfolios as crucial to take a piece of the growing pie, but the effect of their constant legal challenges is being questioned by the European Commission.

European Commissioner for Competition, Joaquin Almunia, expressed concerns about how patents can be used to stifle competition in the market. The European Commission requested that Apple and Samsung send it details on patents used as standards in the industry this month.

"We requested information from both Apple and Samsung. We have not yet received the answers. We need to look at this because IP rights can be used as a distortion of competition but we will need to look at the answers," Almunia told reporters.

"In particular, in the IT sector, it is obvious it is not the only case. Apple and Samsung is only one case where IP rights can be used as an instrument to restrict competition. Standardisation and IP rights are two instruments that in this new IT sector can be used as a tool to abuse."

Falling prices and drop in U.S. shipments push China to top spot.

Shipments of smartphones in China reached a new record of 23.9 million units in the third quarter, compared to 23.3 million in the United States which saw a 7 percent drop during the period.

The devices are becoming cheaper and more widely available in the giant emerging economy.

Compared to the second quarter, smartphone shipments in China rose 58 percent. Nokia Oyj leads the Chinese market with a 28 percent share of shipments during the quarter. It is followed by Samsung Electronics at 18 percent.

Wireless carriers in China have ramped up the amount of smartphones on offer, particularly devices running the Android operating system. Carriers also offer subsidies on iPhones.

"I could never get a Samsung, I'm creative!"

While never specifically mentioning "Apple," or "iPhone," there can be no doubt who Samsung has aimed its new 60 second spot for the Galaxy S II smartphone at.

The scene is outside (presumably) an Apple store on the launch day of a new (presumably) iPhone. It is _just_ nine hours until the store actually opens, so one eager customer questions why some people would already be leaving the queue.

The gang notice a smartphone being used by a passerby, and learn that its a Samsung Galaxy S II.. and a big deal is made out of its 4G capabilities. "The next big thing is already here," we are then informed.

Launch details of PlayStation Vita in EU are revealed.

When the PlayStation Vita handheld launches in EU territories on February 22 next year, it will be accompanied by 12 first-party launch titles. The software line-up includes newly announced Motorstorm 13, and shooter United 13.

Highlights of the list also include Uncharted: Golden Abyss and WipeOut 2048.