News archive (12 / 2010)

Androlib has said this week that the Android Market has reached a new milestone, 200,000 apps, just months after October's announcement of 100,000.

Furthermore, the site says a total of 2.56 billion apps have been downloaded in the Market's history.

Since October, Rovio released their extremely popular Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons, Epic Games released a gaming development tool, and social gaming giant Zynga has begun to focus on the platform, explains TG, leading to much more visibility of the market.

Google said recently that 300,000 Android devices are activated every day.

For comparison's sake, the older Apple iOS App Store has over 305,000 apps and the baby Windows Phone 7 marketplace has 5000 apps. RIM's more selective BlackBerry World has 15,000 apps.

The site also brings up an interesting figure in the free vs. paid discussion, showing how 99 percent of the most popular apps in the store (those with 250,000 or higher downloads) are free. 1411 of the 1414 apps with those kind of download figures are free, but many are supported by ads, like Angry Birds.

This is typically a time for my personal roundup of past year's most interesting news from our extensive news archive and also a time to wrap up of the events that have happened here at AfterDawn.

iPad and tablets

Playstation Move & Kinect

Lookout Mobile Security has reported this week that a new Android-based Trojan Horse dubbed "Geinimi" has been taking down Android devices in China over the past month.

So far, there have been no reported cases in Europe or the Americas, as the malware-infected apps have only been seen on Chinese mobile apps websites.

Says the security firm:

A new Trojan affecting Android devices has recently emerged in China. Dubbed “Geinimi” based on its first known incarnation, this Trojan can compromise a significant amount of personal data on a user’s phone and send it to remote servers. The most sophisticated Android malware we’ve seen to date, Geinimi is also the first Android malware in the wild that displays botnet-like capabilities. Once the malware is installed on a user’s phone, it has the potential to receive commands from a remote server that allow the owner of that server to control the phone.

Geinimi is effectively being “grafted” onto repackaged versions of legitimate applications, primarily games, and distributed in third-party Chinese Android app markets. The affected applications request extensive permissions over and above the set that is requested by their legitimate original versions. Though the intent of this Trojan isn’t entirely clear, the possibilities for intent range from a malicious ad-network to an attempt to create an Android botnet.

The European Commission has approved standards for a new universal USB smartphone charger that will hopefully put an end to drawers full of proprietary chargers for year's worth of old phones.

Based on the MicroUSB, the new standard has already been accepted by fourteen smartphone manufacturers, including Apple, Nokia and Samsung.

All new smartphones from those companies will include a port using the new standard starting next year.

Says Antonio Tajani, European Commission VP for industry and entrepreneurship (via IW):

I am very happy that the European Standardisation Bodies have met our request to develop within a short space of time the technical standards necessary for a common mobile phone charger based on the work done by industry.

Now it is time for industry to show its commitment to sell mobile phones for the new charger. The common charger will make life easier for consumers, reduce waste, and benefit businesses. It is a true win-win situation.

BlogKindle has posted instructions on how to root the new Nook Color e-reader, opening up the device to Android apps like the Amazon Kindle application.

The Kindle app is, obviously, not authorized on the Nook Color but rooted users can now enjoy both bookstores on one device.

Reads the article:

Yep, you are reading this right. It’s actually quite easy now to get Kindle books on Nook color and have both eBook stores available to you on a single device. This is possible because Nook Color is more of an entry level Android tablet than a dedicated eReader. As it comes out of the box it just happens to start the Nook application by default and not let users run anything else.

However that can easily be fixed by rooting the device and enabling the Android Market. With Andoid market you can install all kinds of applications, including Kindle, Kobo reader. You would also be able to play Angry Birds and watch Youtube videos. Installing the Kindle application for Android will let you read Amazon Kindle books on your Nook Color device.

ViewSonic will introduce a new tablet at the upcoming CES event, one that will also include phone features.

Despite being dubbed a tablet, the device will only have a 4-inch screen, and run on the Android mobile OS.

There is no word on what processor the tablet will run on, but the company has already introduced a larger tablet which runs on the dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2.

Most notably, the tablet will be able to connect to 4G LTE networks, like the ones Verizon and AT&T are rolling out this year and next.

Dell released a 5-inch tablet/phone hybrid earlier this year, dubbed the Streak, but there are no figures on its sales.

Viewsonic's current 7-inch tablet has seen lackluster sales thanks to critical reviews of the user interface.

According to the government's official daily newspaper, popular VoIP service Skype may soon be banned in China, joining the ranks of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and countless others.

If accurate, the ban will extend to all VoIP services, with the exception of those provided by China Telecom and China Unicom.

Both phone carriers are state controlled.

There is no current timetable for the implementation of the restrictions. When it does go into effect, the paper speculates "services like Skype will become unavailable in the country."

Skype has used the Chinese mobile Internet carrier TOM Online to offer their software in the nation, in its native language, since 2007, and Skype has confirmed it is still up-and-running as of writing.

Microsoft has confirmed today that the Windows Phone 7 platform has reached its next milestone, 5000 applications.

In just two months since launch, WP7 has matched the total number of apps written for the WebOS operating system, which launched in June 2009.

An even better comparison may be that of the BlackBerry App World, which has 15,000 apps.

The news seems to bode well for WP7, which has had developers express concern over the facility of writing for the mobile OS.

Microsoft noted earlier this month that they had shipped 1.5 million WP7 smartphones, but it is unclear how many of those have been sold to end users.

The Apple iOS app store has 300,000 apps and the Android Market has 100,000.

Expected to be revealed at CES next month, Skype has instead launched their iOS video chat app this week, giving iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad owners a chance to video-chat using the popular video-calling service.

Says Skype project manager Raul Liive:

"This season is very special as we are releasing a new version of Skype for iPhone and iPod Touch with video calling. Now you will be able to share all the special moments in video, as they happen, wherever you are."

Nintendo has said this week that children under the age of six will be banned from using the 3D functions of the upcoming 3DS handheld at next month's introductory event.

The 3DS supports 3D images without the need for stereoscopic glasses and will launch globally in February through March.

"Looking at 3-D images for a long time may harm the growth of children’s eyes," said the company in a note to would-be visitors of the event.

Therefore, all young children will be banned from trying the 3D aspects of the game, at least during the event.

In general, Nintendo says users should take a break after every 30 minutes of 3D playing time, or immediately if they feel dizzy.

Last week, Skype had its second-longest outage, ever, with most of its users being unable to access the service for just over 24 hours.

Today, Skype explained what happened, which I will post a snippet of here:

On Wednesday, December 22, a cluster of support servers responsible for offline instant messaging became overloaded. As a result of this overload, some Skype clients received delayed responses from the overloaded servers. In a version of the Skype for Windows client (version 5.0.0152), the delayed responses from the overloaded servers were not properly processed, causing Windows clients running the affected version to crash.

Users running either the latest Skype for Windows (version 5.0.0.156), older versions of Skype for Windows (4.0 versions), Skype for Mac, Skype for iPhone, Skype on your TV, and Skype Connect or Skype Manager for enterprises were not affected by this initial problem.

However, around 50% of all Skype users globally were running the 5.0.0.152 version of Skype for Windows, and the crashes caused approximately 40% of those clients to fail. These clients included 25–30% of the publicly available supernodes, also failed as a result of this problem.

According to a new Bloomberg report, Apple may be unveiling the oft-rumored Verizon iPhone 4 on Valentine's Day, February 14th.

AT&T has been the exclusive carrier of the iPhone since its launch in 2007, but Consumer Reports recently ranked them the worst carrier in the nation, and iPhone owners have long complained of slow 3G speeds and dropped calls, especially in metropolitan areas.

Says the report:

"Verizon enjoys a reputation for reliability. AT&T is notorious for dropping calls, especially in densely populated places like New York and San Francisco where iPhones are most common and cell towers get loaded."

South Carolina police officials say a 23-year old man was hit by an SUV on the highway after he decided to play a real-life version of the classic game "Frogger."

"Frogger," which launched in 1981, was about as simple as games get. With a few lives, you have to navigate your frog across a highway (or river) by hopping forward, left, right or back, while avoiding vehicles or other objects.

The police say the man was discussing the game with friends, while the group loitered around the intersection of two highways.

Someone in the group then yelled "GO!" and the victim began running across the highway, which was still busy at 9 PM.

The victim was then (obviously) hit by a 2010 Lexus SUV, but remains in stable condition at a nearby hospital. The driver is not expected to be charged.

A hacking group called "fail0verflow" has presented at this week's Chaos Communication Conference 27C3, showing off the PlayStation 3 "private key" that Sony uses to authorize code on all retail consoles.

Knowing the private key means any hacker can gain full control of the PS3 system, without needing to jailbreak it using a USB dongle.

The team's site (here) is not available yet, but should be soon, giving more details.

If used, the PS3 should be permanently jailbroken, as unofficial code can be quickly updated when Sony creates new firmware updates like version 3.55, which added nothing of use to the console, but did block USB-based jailbreaks.

Fail0verflow says their main goal now "is to have linux running on all existing PS3 consoles, whatever their firmware versions."

In a tweet, the hackers note what many have been saying for months, that Sony made a terrible decision when the removed OtherOS, the built-in ability to run Linux. Says the group: "We only started looking at the ps3 after otheros was killed."

Mozilla has confirmed this week that a database of inactive Mozilla usernames and encrypted passwords was compromised, with the accounts being leaked to the Internet.

Chris Lyon, the Mozilla director of infrastructure security, says (via CW) 44,000 inactive inactive user accounts "for the addons.mozilla.org site were inadvertently placed on a public-facing Web server."

While noting that the "exposure posed minimal risk to users," Lyon says the company has erased all the passwords, which were encrypted anyways, and accounted for all downloads of the database.

All current users of addons.mozilla.org needn't worry as Mozilla upgraded its database and procedure for encrypting passwords in April of last year.

Security officials for the organization were notified of the leak on December 17th, through the bounty program which pays out up to $3000 to volunteers who submit security-related vulnerabilities, bugs and exploits.

All account holders in the leaked database were notified on December 27th.

USC researchers have hacked the Microsoft Kinect motion-control system, giving users a chance to play the popular MMORPG 'World of Warcraft,' and other PC games.

The researchers have made the software available for free, online, dubbed the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST).

FAAST makes it easier for users to play PC games that would otherwise require a keyboard and mouse, by translating body movements into those inputs.

Says researcher Skip Rizzo (via LAT):

"I think the real compelling aspect of all this is that you can now take off-the-shelf games, content that's already built, and emulate the keyboard actions with body movement. This opens up the doorway for building rehabilitation exercises for people after a stroke or traumatic brain injury. And in an area that's getting a lot of attention, the area of childhood obesity and diabetes.

Kaufman Bros. analyst Shawn Wu says RIM is "making good progress" on the upcoming PlayBook tablet, however, the low battery life remains a critical issue.

Wu cites industry and supply chain sources, adding that the new QNX operating system is progressing strongly, as well.

Outside of the battery life, "app store monetization" is also an issue, notes the analyst.

Speaking about RIM's decision to work on multiple operating systems (BlackBerry OS 6 and QNX), Wu added(via PCM):"Competitive pressures will likely step up as we are also hearing Microsoft courting developers pretty aggressively with its new Windows Phone 7 platform as it attempts to catch up."

The battery life remains the main concern, which Wu claims is only "a few hours." The iPad claims 10 hours while the Galaxy Tab has over 6.

"From our understanding, this could require a bit of re-engineering," says Wu of the OS and battery life. "One possibility we are hearing is the likelihood of a larger battery which could add to the heft and weight of PlayBook."

Cowon has launched their D3 Plenue portable media player (PMP) this week, featuring Android.

The D3 runs on Android 2.1, has a 3.7-inch AMOLED display, and a 800x480 resolution.

Cowon's latest also includes Bluetooth 2.1,WLAN 802.11 b/g, a gravity sensor, vibration feedback, terrestrial DMB, FM Radio, E-Book, Photo Album, vocabulary, Twitter and other apps.

While the company promises apps, it is unclear if D3 owners will ever get access to the 100,000-deep Android Market library.

The D3 will be available in purple or black in 8GB, 16GB or 32GB models, each with a MicroSD slot.

TorrentFreak has posted their list of the most pirated video games of the year, and unsurprisingly the top title is Call of Duty: Black Ops.

COD was the most pirated game on the PC, and fifth most on the Xbox 360. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the most pirated Wii title.

Dante’s Inferno took the cake for the 360.

Despite launching in November, Black Ops was downloaded 4,270,000 times for the PC and 930,000 times for the 360.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came in second with 4,270,000 total downloads.

TF says their data is "collected from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers. All the data is carefully checked and possible inaccuracies are systematically corrected."

Apple has been sued this week over "allegedly transmitting user information to advertising networks without the consent of owners" of its iOS devices.

Jonathan Lalo, of Los Angeles, says Apple and a group of mobile app developers sold his personal data (age, sex, location) to ad networks.

Reads the suit: "[Lalo] did not expect, receive notice of, or consent to Defendants' tracking of his iPhone app use and did not want Defendants to engage in such activity."

Apple's policies state that apps are not allowed to transmit data without a user's consent.

The suit comes at a time when the WSJ has broken news that many mobile applications transmit personal data to third party advertisers without user content.

One of the most high-profile apps named is Pandora, the popular Internet radio app.

According to a new DigiTimes report, Apple will launch three different models of the upcoming second-generation iPad, adding a CDMA version, as well.

The current iPad is available as Wi-Fi-only and as a UMTS and Wi-Fi model.

Apple will produce UMTS, CDMA and Wi-Fi models in a ratio of 4:3:3.

500,000 iPads should already be assembled by the end of January, with release expected in April.

Most current research reports claim that about 65 percent of all worldwide iPad shipments are the UMTS model.

Apple is ready to ship 16 million iPads by the end of the year, with 2 million or so expected to still be on retailer shelves come January.

The company will produce 40 million iPads next year, adds the report.

Security company McAfee has listed its expected 2011 "targets" for malicious activity, claiming Apple devices, smartphones, URL shorteners and geo-location services will be at the top of the list.

"We've seen significant advancements in device and social-network adoption, placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most," adds Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs (via Cnet). "These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss."

Apple, for example, has long been seen as "more secure" or "safer" than its Windows counterparts, but digging deeper into the matter has always resulted in the same conclusion. Apple devices appear safer because virus writers have not taken the time to write for them. Why waste time trying to infect 9 percent of the world's PCs, when you can take just as much time to write code that could infect the other 91? However, now that Apple devices,(Macs or iOS) are practically in every household, McAfee says the company will become a much larger target.

Sears has announced the launch of Alphaline Entertainment, an online movie download service that will give Sears and K-Mart customers a chance to download films the same day they hit DVD and Blu-ray.

The service is based on Sonic's RoxioNow platform.

Plans for the platform were announced in June and Sears is now rolling out the service, which will be available for HDTVs, media players and smartphones.

Sonic was just purchased last week by Rovi, months after the company bough the digital-compression software maker DivX to increase its digital presence.

CinemaNow, another Sonic online movie store, has been popular thanks to a partnership with Best Buy.

Sears is pushing into a market dominated by Google, Amazon, Netflix and Apple although those companies (for the most part) lack a brick-and-mortar presence.

Nintendo and Game Freak launched their latest Pokemon games (Black and White) on September 18th in Japan, to strong critical reviews and massive pre-order sales figures.

Today, the company has announced the eventual U.S. launch of the games will be on March 6, giving fans something to look forward to.

Pokemon, since its launch in the 90s, has long been one of Nintendo's biggest cash cows, bringing in strong sales for every new iteration of the franchise.

The latest games have all-new Pokemon, a fully revamped visual style, new ways to connect online, and even new battling options, giving the series a serious makeover for the first time in years.

In Japan, the game sold 2.63 million copies in its first 48 hours. Currently, the game is nearing 5 million sales in the nation.

Even though it hasn't even launched yet, Hackulous has announced today that they have already cracked the Apple Mac App Store.

Hackulous is a community known for cracking Apple DRM and indexing cracked iOS applications.

The community has long said they only do what they do because Apple does not offer trials or refunds on apps in the iOS App Store. Hackulous offers two products, Apptrakr, an index of cracked apps, and Installous, an app for jailbroken devices that allows the installation of the cracked software.

Before Apple has a chance to launch the Mac App Store on January 6th, Hackulous has already found a way to remove the DRM that comes with the applications, using a new software dubbed Kickback.

Despite having the software available already, Hackulous admin "Dissident" says they will not release it yet:

We don’t want to release kickback as soon as the [Mac App] Store gets released. I have a few reasons for that...Most of the applications that go on the Mac App Store [in the first instance] will be decent, they’ll be pretty good. Apple isn’t going to put crap on the App Store as soon as it gets released. It’ll probably take months for the App Store to actually have a bunch of crappy applications and when we feel that it has a lot of crap in it, we’ll probably release Kickback.

Although there are little details known so far, it appears the 6th generation iPod Nano has been hacked.

Developer James Whelton has "managed to bypass the device’s cache comparison," explains MacStories and install a very basic Springboard hack, allowing for blank space creation and app removal.

Whelton makes it clear that the device has not been jailbroken by any means, but the hack should be the start of something larger. He encourages other devs to begin looking for ways to install bootloaders on the tiny gadget.

Says Whelton:

Next is the discovery in some of the device’s plists of reference to support of Movies, TV Shows, Apps, Games, vCards, Calender events and so on, with a few other cool things like a passcode lock. With the bypass I figured out, I hope to enable these pretty soon. It seems like the OS is a rehashed version of the previous Nano’s OS.

Apple has upped its iPhone sales projections for the Q1 2011 from 19 million to 21 million, says DigiTimes.

The company had expected to ship 19 million units, but they have upped production of WCDMA models, from 13 million to 15 million.

Interestingly, Digi says Apple expects to ship 6 million Verizon CDMA iPhone 4s in the quarter even though neither company has confirmed such a device even exists.

Apple has shipped an estimated 15.5 million iPhones in the Q4 2010, for a total of 47 million for the year.

The company's quarterly earnings are expected on January 24th.

Techcrunch had a very interesting article today about those annoying AOL installation discs that every American received in the mail, usually once per month.

On the popular Q&A site Quora, the question was recently asked: "How much did it cost AOL to distribute all those CDs back in the 1990′s?"

Former AOL CEO Steve Case joined the site to answer the question, responding:

A lot. As we were able to lower the cost of disks/trial/etc we were able to ramp up marketing. (Plus, we knew Microsoft was coming and it was never going to be easier or cheaper to get market share.) When we went public in 1992 we had less than 200,000 subscribers; a decade later the number was in the 25 million range.

Over $300 million :-) At one point, 50% of the CD’s produced worldwide had an AOL logo on it. We were logging in new subscribers at the rate of one every six seconds.

Last week we reported that Logitech was reportedly ordering a production freeze on its Google TV set-top box, the Revue, following a request from the search giant itself.

The reports had said that the company was ordering component maker Gigabyte Technology to freeze production until at least January, when Google is expected to upgrade the firmware for Google TV.

Logitech has denied those reports today, making it clear that since the device can receive OTA updates, there is no need to freeze production on current devices.

Reads Logitech's PR:

Logitech does not discuss the specific production plans for any of its products. As high-volume manufacturer of electronic products, Logitech’s use of its own factories as well as those of its manufacturing partners, provides the company with flexibility in how and when it produces products to accommodate customer demand.

Amazon has said today that the latest Kindle has become the best-selling item on the site, ever.

Without disclosing numbers, Amazon says the 3rd generation Kindle has just outsold "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the final book in the epic franchise.

Amazon also offered an interesting tidbit, saying "many" of those buying a Kindle also owned a tablet, with those consumers preferring to use the tablet for gaming, Internet browsing and media playback, while using their Kindle for reading.

The e-tailer also noted that many iPad purchasers were also buyers of the Wi-Fi Kindle, which retails for $139.

Although the iPad also has e-reading functions and the Apple iBookStore, battery life is significantly shorter than a Kindle, or other e-readers. iPads can handle only up to 8 hours of playback, while the latest Kindle can go for a month without charging.

The Kindle currently has 47 percent of the e-reader market, down from its peak of over 80 percent before the iPad and Nook launched.

It appears that the much-anticipated open-source media player VLC is just about ready to hit Android devices, with a January launch date expected.

Lead VLC developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf tells GigaOM the app should be available within "a matter of weeks," and available in the Android Market for free.

VLC just made its way to iOS devices in September, and Kempf says an Android version has been in the works for "months."

Because Android’s multimedia output libraries are in Java, the project was stalled but since Google's latest Android NDK made it simpler to use native code, the project has really picked up steam.

While most of the "VLC libraries have already been ported to Android," Kempf warns that some specific devices may prove troublesome.

Streaming and rental giant Netflix has said the same thing about their lack of Android apps, as fragmentation of the operating system makes it hard to release an application that will work across all devices.

Samsung will launch its first true rival to the market leading iPod Touch at the CES event next month, dubbing the device the Galaxy Player.

Just like the iPod Touch is almost identical to the iPhone (without the phone and 3G capabilities), the Galaxy Player will be based on the popular Galaxy S smartphone.

The Galaxy Player will run on Android 2.2, come in 8, 16 and 32GB models, and include a standard 3.2MP camera and a 1.3MP front-side camera.

There are no current media players running Android, so the Samsung player should have an advantage over those competitors right out of the gate, due to the Android Market and its 100,000 apps. Apple, on the other hand, will be no pushover.

Samsung lacks retail presence like Apple has, as well as a brand-loyal fanbase. Furthermore, Samsung lacks a music/movie store like iTunes so it is unclear what store will come built-in.

Dell has slashed the price of the Adamo 13 ultraportable this week, also adding more powerful specs.

The aluminum 0.65-inch thick notebook is now selling for $900, giving it a strong price advantage over the new 13-inch MacBook Air, which sells for $1300.

Your $900 now gets you an Adamo 13 with a 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo SL9600 Intel processor, 4GB RAM, a 128GB SSD and 64-bit Windows 7.

A 3G modem is optional as is a larger battery than the 6-cell.

An Adamo 13 has USB, USB/e-SATA and Ethernet ports.

Jerome Taylor, of Connecticut, walked into the Northern Indian restaurant on State Street earlier this week, put on a mask and pulled an item from his pocket while demanding money.

The cooks each pulled out a knife and told Taylor they were not giving him anything.

Taylor then apologized, said he needed the money to feed his kid and proceeded to leave.

When police officers eventually caught him, he confessed but showed them that he had used an Apple iPhone and not a gun, or any other deadly weapon.

The restaurant cooks told the police afterwards that they felt sorry for Taylor and would not pursue charges, but the police have charged the would-be criminal with attempted robbery anyways.

Taylor added that his child was staying with a relative.

A Game Stop employee on Neogaf has posted that the giant retailer is taking pre-orders for the upcoming Nintendo 3DS handheld, but only in brick-and-mortar locations.

Says the post:

Ok well I got the OK to tell people about this from my work, but we officially got word in that all US based Game Stop stores will be taking reserves on the 3DS starting on the 26th. Depending on the place holder price you will be required to drop a minimum of $25 on a reserve.

If your GS can't find it in their system the SKU is 020132

Rovi has announced its acquisition of Sonic Solutions this week, taking over the company known for its DVD editing and burning software, digital movie downloads and for DivX, the digital video software and codec.

The company will pay $720 million in cash and stock just six months after Sonic purchased DivX for $323 million.

Rovi says the merger will help "Hollywood studio clients sell content in a fast-growing digital entertainment market."

Because the content will be more centralized, consumers may be willing to pay a premium for it, adds the company.

The deal should close in the first half of 2011 and consolidation should help save them $15 million in expenses per year.

Social gaming company Zynga's latest hit "CityVille" is now the most popular social game in the world, with 67.4 million active users.

That figure far surpasses FarmVille, also by Zynga, which was formerly in the top spot at 57 million.

Stat-tracker AppData has been following the launch of CityVille, which Zynga released in early December.

The company says the game had 300,000 users in just its first 24 hours.

Overall, including FrontierVille, MafiaWars, FarmVille and others, Zynga now has 269 million active users playing their games on Facebook.

Zynga has 6 of the top 10 most used apps on Facebook.

Amazon has said this weekend that Microsoft will end sales of the 3-license Windows 7 'Family Packs' at the end of the year.

Microsoft began offering the packs in October, saying it was for a "limited-time only."

Amazon's Family Pack page now says: "Available to purchase until December 31, or while supplies last."

Microsoft priced the 3-license pack at $150, but Amazon is selling it for $125.

In 2009, after the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft offered the Family Pack for 6 weeks before taking it off the market. Because it was pulled just before the holidays, angry potential buyers began calling the software giant "Scrooge."

Consumers buying a Family Pack save $235 off Microsoft's list price for three individual Windows 7 Home Premium licenses.

A district judge has cleared a class action lawsuit against Electronic Arts this week, which means it should eventually become a jury trial.

The class action suit claims EA illegally increased the price of the Madden NFL series after it won exclusive rights to the NFL license, in 2005.

Any purchaser of a Madden game from 2005 until now is eligible to register as a plaintiff in the wide-ranging suit.

In 2004, Take-Two released NFL2K5 for just $19.95, taking on the behemoth Madden, which was forced to drop its prices to $29.95, down from the standard $49.99.

EA won the exclusive NFL license the next season and returned Madden prices to $50, and eventually $60 when the Xbox 360 and PS3 were launched.

Says plaintiff lawyer Steve Berman (via GI):

"Consumers now have a legal standing to demand that EA refund consumers millions of dollars it made from Madden NFL and other sports titles through what we contend was an illegal price-gouging scheme.

"We believe EA forced consumers to pay an artificial premium on Madden NFL videogames. We intend to prove that EA could inflate prices on their sports titles because these exclusive licenses restrained trade and competition for interactive sports software."

Skype will allegedly bring video calling apps to smartphones like the iPhone at the upcoming CES event, bringing some real competition to Apple's FaceTime and other apps like Tanga and Fring.

The company will have a "series of video-related announcements" and will also be part of the "Video Calling Gets Ready for Primetime" panel at the conference.

So far, it seems that the iPhone will be the first to get the app, with Android and Symbian likely to get the video support in the near future, as well.

Skype video chat is currently supported, in a limited capacity on the Nokia N900, but you can only chat with other N900 owners.

FaceTime was launched with the iPhone 4 this summer, offering Apple users a chance to video conference with other Apple users, on Macs, iPod Touch 4s and iPhone 4s, over Wi-Fi.

Although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg won the Time's editor "2010 Person of the Year" and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange won the online popular vote, the Financial Times had someone different in mind, naming Apple CEO Steve Jobs their 'person of the year.'

Reads their article:

"As technology colonises every area of our lives – music, films and art – so nerds are the emperors. So it has come to pass. Steve Jobs, the polo-necked Apple chief, described this week by US president Barack Obama as the 'epitome of the American dream,' is the Financial Times' Person of the Year."

Acer's upcoming Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet has been seen quickly in a few videos via Engadget this Christmas, showing off a responsive gyroscope.

There is little known about the actual specs of the tablet, but it should be powered by a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2.

Additionally, the tablet will have a 10-inch screen and Acer's own Android marketplace for apps.

Acer appears to use the gyroscope for touch-free page turning, as well as for zooming of photos without the need for users to multi-touch, however, Engadget says that feature is still very buggy.

The videos show some internal testing of the tablet, which Acer says should be in stores by April.

Although unconfirmed, it appears that Logitech may be ordering a production freeze on its Google TV set-top box, the Revue.

Digitimes says the company has already ordered component maker Gigabyte Technology to freeze production until at least January.

Logitech says it continues to ship the set-top to consumers, but will not comment on any alleged production suspensions.

Over the course of the week, a number of reports claimed Google has asked manufacturers to delay their first Google TV devices and HDTVs until the search giant can overhaul the platform.

Google TV has seen mediocre reviews since the Revue launched in November mainly due to broadcasters like ABC CBS, NBCU and Fox blocking their content to the platform.

The Logitech Revue sells for $250.

IBM has made some technology predictions for 2015 this week, breaking out the crystal ball for its forecast.

The company surveyed its over 3000 researchers, asking which five ideas will trend in the next five years.

At the top of the list was holographic 3D phone conversations, meaning your smartphone will have the ability to project 3D images of the person you are speaking to.

Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at the investment-advisory firm Discern says of the list: "These are all stretch goals, and that’s good. In an era when pessimism is the new black, a little dose of technological optimism is not a bad thing."

While some of the predictions will not pan out, IBM spends over $5 billion per year on R&D, 6 percent of its yearly revenue and most of the ideas on the list are for projects IBM has already started development on.

The rest of the list consists of "air- breathing batteries, computer programs that can tell when and where traffic jams will take place, environmental information generated by sensors in cars and phones, and cities powered by the heat thrown off by computer servers."

Microsoft has warned this week that a very serious vulnerability has been discovered in all versions of Internet Explorer, one that can give exploiters a chance to take control of unprotected computers.

The software giant did say, however, that it does not appear hackers have begun using the exploit.

While they continue to work on a permanent fix, the company has created a workaround for the bug.

The BBC explains the "bug revolves around the way that IE manages a computer's memory when processing Cascading Style Sheets - a widely used technology that defines the look and feel of pages on a website."

Hackers have long used IE's memory management to inject their own code, usually leading to a hijack of the vulnerable computer.

For now, IE users are being told to "use a protection system known as the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit."

Rik Ferguson, of Trend Micro says:

"As vulnerabilities go, this kind is the most serious as it allows remote execution of code. This means the attacker can run programs, such as malware, directly on the victim's computer. It is highly reminiscent of a vulnerability at the same time two years ago which prompted several national governments to warn against using IE and to switch to an alternative browser."

According to multiple reports, Samsung will sell 10 million Galaxy S smartphones this year globally, selling 3 million of the smartphones in November alone.

Additionally, the device has outsold the iPhone in South Korea, moving 2 million units compared to Apple's 1.8 million sales.

Making the last figure more impressive is the fact that the Galaxy S just launched in SK in June, compared to the iPhone which launched in November 2009.

Globally, the numbers don't compare, as Samsung has sold nearly 10 million of the Android device while Apple is expected to sell 16 million iPhones in the Q4 alone.

Samsung sells the Galaxy S on all the major carriers in the U.S, as the AT&T Captivate, T-Mobile Vibrant, Verizon Fascinate, U.S. Cellular's Mesmerize and Verizon Continuum.

Apple has been working with Cherokee tribe members to include the ancient Cherokee language as an option on iOS devices, in an effort to appeal to younger tribe members who also want to keep up with their heritage.

The ancient Cherokee language was put into writing two centuries ago, and tribe members already use Apple computers with the unique characters, explains DigitalTrends.

iOS devices have support for 50 international languages, but none are Native American.

Cherokee Chief Chad Smith contacted Apple about the addition of Cherokee three years ago, and the update should come in 2011.

There are only 10,000 speakers of Cherokee, with most younger tribe members not ever taking the time to learn the ancient language.

Skype, facing global outrage over a service outage that lasted 30 hours, has announced it will offer refunds to paying customers that have needed to make calls or video calls but have not been able to.

CEO Tony Bates said today that 90 percent of users can now make calls again, while it is still working on returning access to the rest.

"We now know what caused a number of clients to actually crash," Bates added. "We’ve been able to mitigate that crash risk and isolate that."

Bates would not say what caused the crash, but did note that it was not a malicious attack.

All current pre-pay and pay-as-you-go users will be given 30 minutes of free calling, and all current subs will get a free extra week's subscription.

While audio, video calling and IMs are still available, some features such as group calling are still down.

It's time for us here at AfterDawn to take a break, and enjoy some quality time with our friends and family.

Happy holidays to all our readers and users!

-AfterDawn.com Staff

Google has announced today the completion of their purchase of 111 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea, valuing the property at $1.9 billion.

The property is 2.9-million-square-feet and is the biggest deal in 2010 for a single building purchase in the U.S.

Google currently occupies 500,000 square feet in the building, and shares the space with Nike, Lifetime cable, WebMD and many telecoms.

The search giant is said to have won the contract because of its ability to close before the end of the year. The company has already put down a deposit in excess of $200 million.

111 used to be the headquarters for the Port Authority of NY and NJ.

Says Google of the deal:

Google New York started in a Starbucks on 86th Street with one person in 2000—a scrappy, highly-caffeinated sales “team.” After moving to a larger office in Times Square, in 2006 we relocated to our current home in Chelsea, at 111 Eighth Avenue—a former Port Authority building. In June of 2008, we took additional space in the Chelsea Market building at 75 Ninth Avenue. Now we have more than 2,000 Googlers working on a variety of projects in both sales and engineering—and we’re hiring across the board.

The patent holding group of Alcatel-Lucent has sued Apple, Canon, LG and TiVo this week, claiming each has violated patents on certain AT&T video codecs.

According to the complaint, all Apple devices and software violate the four hardware and software patents, including Mac computers, iOS devices, Final Cut, iLife and QuickTime

64 LG mobile phones allegedly violate the patents, as do Canon's Vixia camcorders and most of TiVo's DVRs and remote desktop apps.

The lawsuit even goes as far as to allege that LG's very new Optimus Android smartphone line violate the patents. Notably absent is the LG Optimus 7, which runs on Windows Phone 7. It appears that a past lawsuit brought against Microsoft may cover WP7 devices.

In early 2009, when the operating system was still in its infancy, Google was sued over the trademark to "Android" by Erich Specht, who wanted monetary damages of $94 million.

Specht had run a company called "Android Data" from 1998-2002, before liquidating assets and abandoning the mark after the tech bubble in the stock market burst.

In 2008, when he became aware that Google was using the Android name, Specht put together a website as proof that he was still actively using the Android Data trademark he had left dormant since 2002.

The judge clearly saw through the attempt, throwing out the case and canceling Specht's original trademark, saying it may now be confused with Google's legal trademark.

Reads the judge's summary (via TC):

Moving to Google’s Counterclaim, pursuant to the analysis above, Google is entitled to a declaratory judgment that Plaintiffs abandoned ANDROID DATA and the other Asserted Marks. Plaintiffs do not possess valid or enforceable rights to the marks. The Court grants Google summary judgment on Count III of its Counterclaim. In regard to Count I of the Counterclaim, a party that believes it may suffer harm because of a trademark that has been abandoned by its owner may move to have the registration cancelled. See 15 U.S.C. § 1064(3). Google became the senior user of the ANDROID mark when it began using it in commerce on November 5, 2007. Plaintiffs, however, resumed use of ANDROID DATA as the junior user after Google acquired its rights to ANDROID. Plaintiffs’ use in commerce of ANDROID DATA creates a possible likelihood of confusion with Google’s ANDROID mark pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1114(1)(a), as well as possible dilution by blurring of Google’s mark under 15 U.S.C. § 1125(c).

The WSJ is reporting today that Microsoft is prepared to discuss a new Windows operating system, one that will be optimized for tablets and other low-power devices.

Although the OS will be discussed next month at the CES event, the operating system will not be ready for launch until 2012.

The new Windows will be optimized for use on products that have chips from ARM and also x86 chip technology from AMD and Intel.

ARM designs have become favorites of smartphone makers as they consume the least power, giving batteries some room to breathe.

The sources say Microsoft has been working on the project for some time and it is part of "a broader push at Microsoft to make Windows more "modular" so that pieces of the operating system that are unnecessary for smaller, low-power devices like tablets can be easily stripped away to make the software perform snappily on the gadgets."

Skype, the popular Internet phone and video service, remains down for millions of global users, the second such widespread outage since 2007.

Beginning at around noon EST, many outraged took to Twitter to voice their complaints about not being able to sign in.

Skype acknowledged the outage very soon after: "Some of you may have problems signing in to Skype – we’re investigating, and we’re sorry for the disruption to your conversations. Our engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal — thanks for your continued patience."

In 2007, the service went down for a full 48 hours, but Skype has many more users now than it did then.

Just last month the company said it hit a significant milestone, 25 million concurrent users.

For those who are interested in what took the service down, Skype blogged it here:

Skype isn’t a network like a conventional phone or IM network – instead, it relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running. Some of these computers are what we call ‘supernodes’ – they act a bit like phone directories for Skype. If you want to talk to someone, and your Skype app can’t find them immediately (for example, because they’re connecting from a different location or from a different device) your computer or phone will first try to find a supernode to figure out how to reach them.

Sony has finally launched their music streaming service Qriocity, in an effort to take a share of the still growing online music market.

Called, in full, "Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity," the service is cloud-based and allows subscribers to listen to 6 million tracks via their PS3, Bravia HDTVs and other Sony Internet-connected devices.

Additionally, the service can sync with your existing library.

Sony executive vice president Kazuo Hirai says the service will help enhance the appeal of their Internet-connected products over similar devices and TV from Samsung and others.

The Qriocity video-on-demand service has been available for some months now in Europe and the U.S.

Music Unlimited has two tiers; "basic" at £3.99 a month and "premium" at £9.99 per month. A premium subscription gives access to "Top 100" channels and the ability to create playlists and favorites.

The service is available now in the UK and Ireland and will hit Canada, Australia, Italy, Spain, France and the U.S. in 2011.

Los Angeles' very own anti-piracy task force, under Operation Chimney Sweep, has arrested 10 people and seized over $4 million worth of pirated movies, music and counterfeit apparel.

L.A. city controller Wendy Greuel says the arrest and raids took place all throughout L.A. by "dozens of officers."

A number of trade group executives including Larry Hahn of the MPAA and Marcus Cohen of the RIAA were delighted by the news and thanked the LAPD for their "sustained commitments."

Adds Cohen (via THR):

"Their hard work has resulted in heightened consumer awareness, more criminals off the street, the implementation of meaningful new policies and -- during this holiday season and in this difficult economic time -- the preservation of many jobs of those in the creative community whose livelihoods are directly threatened by this theft. This historic holiday enforcement action sends a strong message to criminals that this kind of illegal activity won't be tolerated while raising a red flag for last-minute holiday shoppers."

FoxNews has reported today that Palm, purchased by HP in April, will unveil three tablets at the upcoming CES in January, taking on the iPad and Android devices.

Dubbed the PalmPad, Palm will release three models, each with small hardware differences.

Each tablet will run on WebOS 2.5.1, an upcoming update to the mobile operating system.

The PalmPad will have 4G connectivity to the Sprint network and "hardware specs nearly identical to the iPad."

Differentiating itself from the iPad is a USB 3.0 port and a mini-HDMI port. Like the rumored iPad 2, the PalmPad will have a 3MP rear camera and a 1.3MP front-side camera, each with LED flash.

Ready for a March 2011 launch, the PalmPad will be around 10-inches, rounded curves, weigh 1.25 pounds, and be thinner than the iPad.

Google has said this week that it will extend its free Gmail calling service through 2011.

'Call Phones from Gmail' was launched in August and gives any Gmail user the chance to make free domestic phone calls from their computers.

The service uses Google's Voice phone management software.

Although the tool was supposed to end next week, Google says (via EW): "In the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year, we're extending free calling for all of 2011."

To use the feature, Gmail users need to download the voice and video plug-in and then simply hit "Call Phone" from the menu bar on the left and then type in the recipient's phone number in the virtual keypad.

According to Bloomberg, Amazon is on pace to sell 8 million Kindle e-readers this year, much higher than analysts have predicted.

The news agency cites people "aware of the company’s sales projections," and says the 8 million sales figure should be hit easily. Analysts, on average, had anticipated 5 million sales.

These same sources also say Amazon sold 2.4 million Kindles last year.

Goldman Sachs had estimated 4-5 million, Caris & Co had predicted 4.8 million and Citigroup, Barclays Capital, BGC Partners LP and ThinkEquity all noted anticipated sales of 5 million.

Amazon recently began selling a thinner, lighter Wi-Fi-only model of their Kindle for $139, seeing strong sales after its launch.

The e-tailing giant has not confirmed the numbers.

Rivals Sony and Barnes & Noble do not disclose their e-reader sales, either.

After just 4 days in the store, Apple has pulled a WikiLeaks app from its iOS App Store.

The application provided WikiLeaks updates from the service's Twitter account, along with access to WikiLeaks documents.

Submitted to the store for approval on December 11th, developer Igor Barinov says the app was accepted last week and has already been removed.

The app cost $2 and Barinov says half the money made from the sales was donated to WikiLeaks.

Barinov claims to have already sent $1000 to Wikileaks.

A number of prominent banks and financial institutions have cut off all donations to WikiLeaks, including Bank of America and MasterCard.

Not surprisingly, the world's all-time highest grossing film was also the most pirated in 2010.

According to figures from TorrentFreak, the blockbuster was downloaded from torrent sites 16,580,000 times this year beating out the next film by over 30 percent.

In 2009, the most pirated film was Star Trek, which was downloaded 10.8 million times.

Despite the large amount of unauthorized downloads, the film still managed to gross $2.8 billion at the box office, beating out Cameron's last epic, "Titanic" for the top spot.

Second on the pirated list was Kick-Ass, which saw an early R5 (Russian DVDRip with English audio) release and downloads of 11.4 million.

Inception fought its way to third on the list, making strong strides in the last two months as DVD quality versions began to emerge.

Microsoft corporate VP Achim Berg has said today that the company has sold 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices in just six weeks, higher than most expectations.

Says Berg: "We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence."

It is important to note that those figures seem to imply that the 1.5 million figure is how many handsets have been sold to carriers and distributors, not how many have been sold to retail end-users.

Regardless, most analysts had sales at 200,000 so the new number is shocking.

Dell, HTC, LG and Samsung each sell Windows Phone 7 smartphones, available in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.

Notes Berg (via IW):

"Sales are ramping well as our reputation is growing for offering users a unique experience and are in line with our expectations – especially when compared to other new platform introductions. With a new platform you have to look at a couple of things, first of all customer satisfaction. As I mentioned before, we’ve seen great response on the complete mobile phone experience. We know we have tough competition, and this is a completely new product. We’re in the race – it’s not a sprint but we are certainly gaining momentum and we’re in it for the long run."

Google has confirmed today that an OTA Android 2.3 update for the Nexus One is on the way, marking the first device outside of the Nexus S to get the new firmware.

Says the tweet: "The Gingerbread OTA for Nexus One will happen in the coming weeks. Just hang tight!"

Gingerbread brings NFC support, updated UI features, better battery life, an upgraded app manager, and front-side camera video conferencing updates.

The Android 2.3 source code was just made available to developers on Friday.

Google's Nexus One remains one of the few pure "Vanilla" Android experiences, not including any app packs or services from carriers like Verizon or T-Mobile.

Apple has said today that it expects to hit 1 million new Apple TV units sold, 80 days after launch.

The second-generation Apple TV centers more on streaming than the past model, which included a hard drive.

Apple said in October that they had sold 250,000 units after six weeks.

The Apple TV costs $99, cheaper than rivals boxes by Boxee and Logitech, but more expensive than popular set-tops by Roku.

Earlier this week, Roku announced it too expected to hit 1 million set-tops sold in 2010.

Time Magazine ranked the Apple TV #7 in its list of top 10 gadgets of 2010.

Adobe has posted its first-ever $1 billion quarter, a large 32 percent growth year-over-year.

For their record fourth quarter, Adobe posted revenue of $1.008 billion, up from $757 million in the same period last year.

In the 3Q this year, Adobe posted revenue of $990 million.

For the year, the company saw revenue explode 29 percent, from $2.95 billion to $3.8 billion.

Adds CEO Shantanu Narayen:

"We posted our first billion dollar quarter and record annual revenue in 2010, driven by outstanding performance across all of our major businesses, and we are entering 2011 with strong momentum."

The Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales, Lord Judge (not a typo, that is his surname), has given the green light for tweeting inside a court room.

He said that using mobile devices to send tweets out for the general public's consumption during proceedings is fine if the judge believes it will not interfere with the administration of justice. The recording of sounds or images during a court hearing remains illegal.

The question around using social networking sites such as Twitter from a court room came to light as journalists used mobile handsets to tweet from the court room at a bail hearing of Julian Assange, founder of the Wikileaks website.

"The use of an unobtrusive, hand-held, virtually silent piece of modern equipment for the purposes of simultaneous reporting of proceedings to the outside world as they unfold in court is unlikely to interfere with the proper administration of justice," Lord Judge ruled.

Toshiba Corp. will show off its 3D television sets that do not require that a viewer to wear glasses to witness the 3D effect from the displays.

At CEATEC in Japan earlier this year, Toshiba's 12-inch and a 20-inch 3D glasses-free televisions drew large crowds that wanted to experience it first hand. The displays featured a thin sheet of small lenses in front of the display that split light from the television to one of nine points in front of the TV.

To witness the 3D effect, a viewer needs to view from one of these spots. Toshiba will bring the televisions to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January. "It has been three months, I think we should show [the TVs] with better technology," said Masaaki Oosumi, president of Toshiba's digital media network unit.

Oosumi recognized that to make a splash in the United States, the televisions would have to offer a good 3D effect without glasses and be larger than the screens currently shown. While both the 12-inch and 20-inch products go on sale in Japan before the end of the month, he expects the U.S. market would require sets that are 40-inches or larger.

A British conservative MP is pushing for Internet Service Providers (ISP) to be forced to block Internet pornography by default to its subscribers.

Claire Perry, elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Devizes this year, is using children as usual as an excuse for the government-forced censorship. "We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren't stumbling across things we don’t want them to see." she told the Sunday Times.

The British government will meet with UK ISPs next month to discuss censoring Internet porn, including the possibility of implementing a system that would force Internet subscribers to request access to pornographic content. The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) in the UK is (obviously) uninterested in such a system being put in place.

Putting aside the inevitable negative reaction from British Internet users who would have to inform their ISP of their intention to view pornographic material, ISPA also points out that such a system would be extremely difficult to implement and would be very expensive to maintain.

A Sony Corp. executive has revealed that the electronics giant is likely to fall short of its LCD television sales target this year.

Sony Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka revealed to media sources that the company would struggle to make the division profitable this year, reports Reuters. He also said the company is not expecting a substantial change in the business for the next financial year either.

This year has been a good year for sales of new television sets in the Japan, driven by the digitization of terrestrial broadcasting and a government stimulus plan. However, these factors won't help Sony beyond December in the country.

Additionally, the market is under-performing in the United States where unemployment remains very high. Best Buy shocked its investors last week by announcing a drop in quarterly sales at its existing stores in the U.S, saying that sales of 3D television sets fell behind industry expectations.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Google Inc. has requested that manufacturers of televisions based on its software delay their release, citing sources close to the company.

Several major electronics companies are getting ready to bring Google TV-ready television sets to the market around the world. Google has allegedly asked them now to delay the planned introduction of the televisions to the market, saying it will give the company time to improve the software.

Televisions armed with Google TV software lets users browse the Internet and use applications without the need for an external set-top-box. Sony Corp. and Logitech already have introduced devices based on Google TV.

LG Group, which includes LG Electronics, LG Display and LG Innotek, has announced it will increase its investment in 2011 by 12 percent.

The $18.2 billion investment will focus on strengthening its position in the market for smartphone handsets, as well as give it an extra boost in its TVs and display devices segment. While two million Optimus One smartphones have been sold since its October launch, LG's handset business is making losses.

"The focus for 2011 will be bolstering our core businesses of smartphones, tablets, TVs and large-sized displays and also supporting new growth engines such as solar cell, new types of displays and small-sized display panels for smartphones and tablets," the group said in a statement.

eBay Inc., the world's online auction giant, has announced it will buy Germany's largest shopping club, Brands4Friends.

The company will acquire Brands4Friends to boost its position in the European markets in a deal worth $200 million. It will obtain Brands4Friends' equity interests in SecretSales.com, a UK shopping site and in the Japanese brands4friend.jp service.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011, and eBay said it does not expect the acquisition to have a material impact on its financial results for the year.

China Mobile, which has the largest mobile telecommunications network in the world, revealed that it hit a massive 579.6 million subscribers in November.

The state-owned enterprise, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Hong Kong stock exchange, said the figure included 18.8 million users of its relatively new 3G Network. China Mobile also is said to be the most valuable mobile telecommunications company in the world.

Rapid expansion of China Mobile's 2G network across mainland China meant that by 2006, over 97 percent of China's massive population lived in an area where there was reception, giving it a much greater share of rural market than any of its competitors.

Motorola has taken a shot at the iPad and Galaxy Tab today, while at the same time hyping up its upcoming Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet.

The teaser video (posted), shows a museum of tablets, starting with an Egyptian Hieroglyphics Tablet from 3200 BC and concluding with the iPad and Galaxy Tab, released earlier in 2010.

Motorola, via @MotoMobile, tweeted today: "Might want to hold off on that tablet purchase until 2011," before linking the video.

The company will launch the Android tablet at CES 2011 next year.

In all CGI, the video walks the viewers through a museum of tablets, starting with the aforementioned Egyptian Hieroglyphics Tablet, moving to the Ten Commandments, then the Rosetta Stone, Mayan tablets, 1989's GriDPad and finally the 2010 tablets before panning back to a Motorola stand with a bee buzzing around it, in a reference to Honeycomb.

PCMag has some blurry pics of the tablet here.

After being in closed beta since early this year, alternative text input software Swype has moved to open beta, giving most Android users a chance to try the application.

For those that have not used the software or seen commercials, Swype lets users slide their finger over the touchscreen to spell words, allowing for typing speeds much faster than normal input, or even physical keyboard input.

Using predictive design, the software will determine what word you are trying to type, even if you spell it wrong when sliding.

Current beta users will get a nice upgrade, as well. Reads the Swype site:

First and foremost - We've resolved an accuracy issue that was introduced in the last beta update. Refer to the changelog for more detail on this critical fix.

Second - Swype BETA for Android now supports Double-Tap-to-Edit! Swype choose a wrong word? Just tap the word twice to bring up the word choice window, pick the correct word, and the cursor will return to wherever it was before. It doesn't get any simpler! See a video demonstration, and check out our other tips and tricks.

And Third - Swype BETA for Android now includes a Voice-to-Text button (available for QWERTY layouts ONLY)! You MUST have Google Voice Search pre-integrated in your ROM for this feature to work. We wish everyone could access it, and are working to adapt our existing code to support versions of Voice Search downloaded from the market, as well as other voice search providers, in our next update.

Roku, despite new competition from Apple, Google and others, seems to be striving in the set-top market, set to hit its millionth sale by the end of the year.

Revenue will surpass $50 million for 2010 and expects revenue to top $100 million in 2011.

Roku CEO Anthony Wood says a huge portion of its sales (25 percent) come from Amazon, which currently shows the $80 Roku XD at #9 on the best-selling gadgets list, followed by the $100 XDS player at #11.

Rivals, like the $100 Apple TV, are further down the list at #23, followed way further down by the Logitech Revue at #110 and the Boxee Box at #171.

At the same price as the Apple TV, the XDS offers more features, including 1080p output.

To stay relevant, Roku will "counter with broader retail distribution, more products via licensing deals (such as the new Netgear Roku device), and more channels, bringing more content to its devices," adds BI.

Microsoft is currently working on improving Kinect accuracy by 400 percent, making it so the motion-control system can even read finger movements and hand rotations.

The team behind Kinect is working on a compression technology that will allow a much larger amount of data to pass from the Kinect to the Xbox 360.

When completed, Microsoft will update the hardware with a firmware update to allow the new technology.

The current depth sensor, explains EG is limited to 320x240 resolution and 30 fps, but the update will expand it to 640x480.

The USB controller interface is capable of a full 35MB/s but currently uses only 15MB/s.

"This artificial limit is in place because multiple USB devices can be used at once on an Xbox 360. But Microsoft is working on a technology to allow greater throughput in this regard," adds Eurogamer.

AT&T and Qualcomm have jointly announced today that the carrier will purchase the wireless spectrum licenses in the 700 MHz band from the telecom R&D company for $1.925 billion.

By doing so, AT&T will be able to offer 4G mobile broadband to millions of more customers in the near future.

Qualcomm was using the licenses to support the failed FLO TV service. The company has said it will fully shutdown the service in March.

The press release explains that the "spectrum covers more than 300 million people total nationwide: 12 MHz of Lower 700 MHz D and E block spectrum covers more than 70 million people in five of the top 15 U.S. metropolitan areas - New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco; 6 MHz of Lower 700 MHz D block spectrum covers more than 230 million people across the rest of the U.S."

AT&T will begin deploying the new spectrum once handset manufacturers begin releasing compatible phones.

Both companies expect the sale to close in the Q2 2011.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken a vacation to China this month, taking time to meet with Baidu CEO Robin Li.

Baidu is considered the 'Google of China,' being far-and-away the most used search engine in the nation.

China has 1.3 billion citizens, and Facebook, along with other social networking sites, is banned in the country.

Zuckerberg has made it clear he has interest in the Chinese market, which has over 400 million active Internet users.

A spokesperson for Baidu was quick to quash any rumors that the search giant may be interested in buying Facebook: "Rumors that Baidu is about to acquire Facebook are greatly exaggerated. C'mon people. Robin and Mark have known each other for a while. Mark's interest in China is well known. Keep the speculation in check."

Zuckerberg has been learning Mandarin all year, studying one hour per day as a way to "understand the language, the culture, the mindset -- it's just such an important part of the world."

Although unconfirmed by either company, Eldar Murtazin is reporting this week that Nokia is in early talks with Microsoft to begin building smartphones run on Windows Phone 7.

The talks were started by Nokia management.

If true, the new Windows Phone devices will be sold "under the Nokia brand, via Nokia distribution channels" and will include some standard Nokia features.

Nokia has long run their smartphone on the Symbian platform, and recently launched Meego, in a partnership with Intel.

Meego is still in early stages, however.

For now this is rumor, by Murtazin is a very reputable source known for his insider sources in the mobile phone industry.

Marking the first update since they purchased Tapulous in early July, Disney has launched Tap Tap Revenge 4 today for iOS devices.

As with past versions, the interactive music game is free to download, but premium music packs will cost you money.

The latest version will feature music from Linkin Park, Katy Perry, Benny Benassi, My Chemical Romance, Kid Cudi, Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, Train, Far East Movement, Hinder, Edward Maya, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Florence and the Machine, Cee-Lo, Nicki Minaj, Young MC, and Bad Religion.

Gamers can purchase premium track packs from most of the above mentioned artists.

Before their buyout, Tapulous said they were making over $1 million per month in revenue from the game.

With the RIAA asking for $1 billion in copyright infringement damages from Lime Group LLC, providers of the LimeWire gnutella P2P client, a federal judge has ordered both parties to produce detailed analysis on the financial impact of songs shared using the LimeWire P2P client.

In October the RIAA was granted a permanent injunction against LimeWire, requiring Lime Group to stop distributing and supporting the software.

RIAA lawyers had argued that proving actual damages would be too much of a burden for the labels, but the judge apparently felt the defendants' right to mount a defense trumped the labels' convenience.

EU officials have raised concern over Intel's $7.68 billion bid for security software firm McAfee, which could in turn lead to a delay in closing the transaction.

Anti-trust regulators in the European Union have expressed preliminary concerns, says the WSJ, which may lead to an extended examination into the proposed deal.

Of focus is "Intel's stated desire to incorporate security features into its widely used microprocessor chips."

EU regulators say that fact may give McAfee an unfair advantage over other security rivals, like Norton.

Intel is the clear leader in the microprocessor market.

So far, the EU has only sent out preliminary questionnaires to other security-software firms asking if Intel could "embed security functions into its chips and whether any of them could be reserved to work only with McAfee software."

Peter Kafka of AllThingsD has reported this weekend that the upcoming iPad-only newspaper "The Daily" will launch on January 17th.

Citing multiple sources, Kafka says that date is pretty set in stone, dispelling most past rumors that had the newspaper launching in December.

The Daily will sell for .99 a week, will use mixed media content such as video in most articles, and will even have 3D effects in some articles.

News Corp. has already hired over 30 writers for the Daily.

The Daily will be the first subscription-based paper on the iPad that will be billed automatically by iTunes.

Google has added a new layer of protection to search results, alerting users if they may be about to click on a site that has been hacked or compromised.

If the search giant believes a site has been hacked, your search result will have the sentence "this site may be compromised" below it.

Google users will find the warning to be very similar to what the company already uses for sites that spread malware.

Says Google of the update (via eW):

"We've provided notices for malware for years, which also involve a separate warning page. Now we're expanding the search results notifications to help people avoid sites that may have been compromised and altered by a third party, typically for spam. When a user visits a site, we want her to be confident the information on that site comes from the original publisher."

"We use a variety of automated tools to detect common signs of a hacked site as quickly as possible. When we detect something suspicious, we'll add the notification to our search results. We'll also do our best to contact the site's webmaster via their Webmaster Tools account and any contact email addresses we can find on the webpage. We hope webmasters will also appreciate these notices, because it will help you more quickly discover when someone may be abusing your site so you can correct the problem."

The eBay user "moonlightflyer" has put an extremely rare Apple Lisa 1 computer up for sale via auction this week, giving Apple fans a chance to purchase a piece of history.

As of writing, the computer is selling for $25,100 with two days remaining.

Reads the description:

Unfortunately I do not have a mouse or the Lisa system software.

• It has authentic Lisa 1 and Twiggy ROMS.
* It has the Keyboard
* It has the original TWIGGY Floppy Disk Drives. I assume they work.
* Anti-glare silk screen for the CRT. No holes or tears
* The plastic has yellowed some but as you can see there’s no chips,
cracks, or dents anywhere on the case.
* The CRT is bright and sharp with no burn in.
* No problems with the power supply.

It has some very minor corrosion from the battery. I have removed the batteries.

I can not find a serial number anyplace. I believe this may have been a very early production Lisa my brother use internally at Apple.

Sony has noted today that their 'Reader' line of e-readers is selling out, worldwide, with supply dwindling for some models.

The company's two high-end models, the Touch and Daily, will most likely be sold out before Christmas.

Without giving a specific number, Sony would only say that they are selling "millions" of the gadgets.

Surprisingly, the company says the cheaper low-end Pocket was not selling well and supply was heavy.

Sony has strong competition in the market, with market leaders Amazon and Barnes & Noble continuously adding features and dropping prices.

Paramount has announced this week that it will begin releasing 10 feature films with Silverlight-enhanced features for Windows Phone 7 devices, starting with the launch of 'School of Rock.'

The other 9 movies will be available in the U.S, Canada and some international markets by the end of the year.

Each movie "app" will have the full film, a menu, bonus features and Web-connected content.

The next Paramount Silverlight Enhanced Movies for Windows Phone are 'Zoolander,' 'Waiting for Superman' and 'GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.'

"Through our relationship with Microsoft, we're able to provide consumers new, enhanced ways to enjoy movies from anywhere on Windows Phone 7," adde Geremie Camara, Vice President Product Development for Paramount Digital Entertainment, in the press release. "Using Silverlight technology and adding interactive and social networking features, our enhanced movie apps transform the movie viewing experience into a true entertainment experience."

Enhanced movie apps will have 'Scene It?' pop-up trivia, the ability to cut custom clips, and "Movie Info," giving consumers a chance to identify actors, music, places and objects in the movie.

Despite rumors that it may launch this month, Apple has confirmed the Mac App Store will launch next month, on January 6th.

First announced back in October, the Mac App Store will mimic the iOS App Store, giving Mac desktop and notebook owners a chance to download thousands of free or paid apps to their computers.

Says CEO Steve Jobs:

The App Store revolutionised mobile apps. We hope to do the same for PC apps with the Mac App Store by making finding and buying PC apps easy and fun. We can't wait to get started on January 6.

Legendary rapper Dr. Dre has announced this week that he will begin promoting his upcoming album via "Mafia Wars," the extremely popular Facebook game.

'Detox,' Dre's first album since 1999, is set for release early next year, after years of delays.

The partnership with game developer Zynga will begin with the company streaming the music video for "Kush," the first single off the album.

Zynga is the market leader in the growing "social gaming" market, thanks to their hits FarmVille, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars and others.

The promotion is dubbed "Hustlin' Wit Dre," and Mafia Wars gamers can purchase and collect Dr. Dre virtual goods, like Beats headphones, weapons and a car or purchase (in real-life) 'Kush.'

There is a chance to win a signed Detox album, as well as signed Beats headphones, via the promotion.

According to the "Game Purchase Drivers 2010 report" by the NPD Group, 29 percent of all U.S. video game purchases are now digital.

Over the past three months, physical game purchases accounted for the remaining 71 percent.

42 percent of the digital purchases were made from mobile phones, with users buying games via the iOS App Store, Android market and others.

With some math, we can see that mobile game sales now account for a full 12.18 percent of total game sales.

Another 30 percent of digital sales came via Xbox Live, PSN and the Wii, accounting for 8.7 percent of total game sales.

The largest slice of the digital pie came via PC download portals like Steam, at 47 percent, good for 13.63 of total sales.

Many of the 3704 Americans surveyed purchased from multiple mediums, as is illustrated by the numbers.

Over the last three months, the average amount of purchased games (physical, digital) was 3.1.

Although unconfirmed, it appears that Google's under-the-radar film streaming service is about to get a large expansion, possibly as early as next month.

TC, citing reliable sources, says Google will add feature films to its rental/streaming catalog, meaning users will be able to rent and watch newer movies via YouTube.

Additionally, the search giant will put a massive ad campaign behind the service, putting some of its $33 billion in cash to work.

Google hired former Netflix exec Robert Kyncl during the summer and he is in charge of negotiating the studio deals.

The company is looking for "top tier films," and will create a deeper library over the course of the year.

Currently, YouTube has some "top tier" movies, but most are B-list, or much older films. For example, the 2010 hit "Kick-Ass" is available for rent for $.99, right now, but I would be surprised if anyone else had ever heard of the other 30 movies on the front page.

Bank of America has said this weekend that it too will decline process payments to WikiLeaks, which has angered countries around the world by releasing thousands of previously confidential U.S. diplomatic cables.

Says the bank:

"Bank of America joins in the actions previously announced by MasterCard, PayPal, Visa Europe and others and will not process transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for WikiLeaks."

For the quarter ended November 30th, RIM has said they have shipped 14.2 million BlackBerries, a record quarter for the company.

Year-over-year, revenue surged to $5.5 billion, a rise of 40 percent, but net income rose just 14.4 percent, to $911 million, as the company pushed more low-end devices.

Over the summer, Apple announced it had shipped 14.1 million iPhones, and the company is expected to sell 16 million for the quarter that ends on December 31st. RIM uses a different accounting period.

Despite the strong growth, RIM saw some less-than-stellar numbers in regards to usership. The company added just 600,000 new users for the period.

RIM says it expects to see only slightly higher revenue for the next quarter, of around $5.7 billion.

The company will release the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet during the period.

Cable giant Comcast has said today that if their proposed purchase of NBCU is accepted, the company will create minority channels aimed at the Asian and Black markets.

The channels follow agreements recently made with civil rights groups.

Comcast is still awaiting final decision on the purchase, a 51 percent stake for $30 billion USD, from the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

A multitude of public interest groups have insisted that the Obama administration reject the purchase, fearing that Comcast will leverage its new power to charge other cable companies higher fees for NBCU content, leading to higher bills for consumers and less competition in the marketplace.

As part of the new deals, Comcast will add four new cable networks owned, or partly owned by black people, and at least one new English-language channel that will "cater to" Asian interests.

Apple's iTunes Music Store has increased its share of the digital music market to over 66 percent despite increasing competition from Amazon and others.

The NPD Group issued figures on the digital music market based on music sales this year. It puts Apple's iTunes music store clearly at the very top again. Its share of the market jumped from 63.2 percent to 66.2 percent. Rival Amazon witnessed a growth in its market share from 11 percent to 13.3 percent.

Amazon has attempted to lure customers away from iTunes by offering "daily deals" where albums are sold for as little as $3.99. In order to offer such a price cut, Amazon needs to take a loss on the sales, reportedly paying the wholesale price of the album despite the discount to customers.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has said in an interview that Nintendo could consider cutting the price of a Wii console in half to boost demand.

Riccitiello believes that a recent slump in sales of Nintendo Wii consoles could be avoided again by cutting the console's price in half to just $99. Additionally, he suggested that Nintendo should do more to promote third-party titles than focusing so much on its in-house titles.

Recent launches of PlayStation Move for the PS3 and Kinect for Xbox 360 means that the Wii can no longer cling to motion control features to differentiate it from its competitors.

Blockbuster's Express movie-rental kiosks will have to wait 28 days before offering new releases from Warner Bros. for rental, putting it in the same boat as Netflix and Redbox.

The company agreed to the 28 day window in order to maintain a close relationship with Warner. It had tested same-day launches as recently as just weeks ago, including the title Knight and Day from Fox. The rental chain also cited lower distribution costs and a healthier supply for agreeing to the 28 day window.

It already had similar agreements with Fox and Universal in place. Blockbuster recently filed for bankruptcy in part as it shed popularity in the face of cheaper and more convenient alternatives.

Reports suggest that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. may get the go ahead to acquire full control over BSkyB without the need for concessions.

News Corp. is seeking to buy a 61 percent share of BSkyB that it doesn't already own, giving it complete control over the company. The deal is estimated to be worth about £7.8 billion (over $12 billion). Next week, the European Comission will back the deal, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.

The European Commission will report that the deal does not have any significant anticompetitive impact. The communication's regulator in Britain is also reviewing the deal to determine if it would give News Corp. too much control over UK media, where it already owns The Sun, News of the World, the Times and the Sunday Times newspapers.

The European Commission set a December 22 deadline for its decision in the case.

Google has informed the Connecticut attorney general that it will not comply with an information request related to the interception of wireless payload data by its Street View cars.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has issued a civil investigative demand to determine exactly what content Google's Street View cars had accidentally captures from unsecured wireless networks while photographing streets for its online services.

The privacy breach occurred in over 30 different countries. "I am disappointed by Google's failure to comply with my information demands," Blumenthal said in a statement. "We will review any information we receive and consider whether additional enforcement steps -- including possible legal action -- are warranted."

Google's popular search engine service now warns users about possibly hacked or otherwise dangerous websites that make it into its search results.

The new warning system was announced on Google's Official Blog on Friday. If Google's system detects any signs that a website has been compromised by hackers, spammed or defaced in some way that may make it a threat to the searcher, it will add a small message reading, "This site may be compromised" directly under the search result.

"We use a variety of automated tools to detect common signs of hacking as quickly as possible," wrote Google director of product management Mike Cassidy. "In addition to protecting users, these notices will also help webmasters more quickly discover when someone is abusing their sites."

An update to Kindle for Android will now allow users to either buy single issues of magazines or newspapers, or subscribe to them.

Users that opt to subscribe to a particular magazine or newspaper will have it automatically delivered to their Android device. Other news features added with the update are the ability to share reading progress through social networking sites and zoom closer to images.

"We want to give customers the freedom and flexibility to buy their newspapers and magazines once, and read them everywhere across the devices and platforms they chose—just like they do with Kindle books today," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Amazon Kindle.

MasterCard has said it will cease processing payments to websites that offer illegal copies of movies, music and other content for download.

The credit card company supports the proposed Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, which authorizes the Department of Justice (DoJ) to shut down domain names of U.S.-based websites that are offering pirated content.

As for websites located overseas, the bill grants the DoJ the power to force ISPs, payment processors like MasterCard or online advertising networks from doing business with them.

"MasterCard in particular deserves credit for its proactive approach to addressing rogue Web sites that dupe consumers," Mitch Glazier, Recording Industry Association of America exec, told CNET. "They have reached out to us and others in the entertainment community to forge what we think will be a productive and effective partnership."

Sony's efforts to obliterate the PSJailbreak USB dongle that enables homebrew code to be launched on some PS3 consoles have been dealt a blow in Spain.

After already scoring some victories against PSJailbreak, including a notable victory in Australia, Sony's efforts have been impacted by a court in Spain.

Sony's decision to kill the OtherOS functionality in the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console may have hurt it badly in this case. The feature had originally been killed off due to concerns about the system's security, which remained strong at the time with the known information.

Trend Micro's TrendLabs blog has posted some information on a website that is redirected to from Wikileaks.org.

At present, the Wikileaks.org domain domain redirects to mirror.wikileaks.info, which is hosted on IP address 92.241.190.202. This IP address is registered to Heihachi Ltd, and this is where TrendLabs has put up a flag and felt the need to write about it.

While the site doesn't contain any malware, the TrendLabs blog regards the presence of the WikiLeaks mirror in this neighborhood as disturbing.

Despite the release of at least one fix to address reported problems, users of Call of Duty: Black Ops are still reporting serious problems with online play.

Gamers have complained about connection error messages in the middle of online gaming sessions that appear to be limited to the PC and PlayStation 3 (PS3) versions of the game. Other users report crashes, glitches and lags in the gameplay that can be very frustrating.

Treyarch says it is working hard on a fix and already released an update aimed at the reported issues two days ago. "People buy this game mainly for multiplayer features. The main feature being unplayable makes this nothing but an overpriced paperweight," said gamer "Ian" on the BBC's Newsbeat Facebook page.

Opera Software has pushed out Opera 11, touting some new features to enhance browsing experience for users, and some security enhancements to protect them.

Opera 11 has been released to the general public as a free web browsing solution. It's most touted new feature is "tab stacking", which essentially allows users to group similar tabs together to reduce clutter and better utilize on-screen workspace.

Opera has also gotten support for extensions, an area where it has lagged far behind its rivals in the area. Enhancements made to Opera's under-the-hood security features, geolocation features and its support of HTML 5 bring the browser in line with rival Desktop browsers.

It has an estimated share of the overall market of between 2 and 3 percent, but its success has come with mobile devices and games consoles, being the only available browser on Nintendo's Wii and handheld DS consoles.

Kyle Machulis, considered one of the world's top experts on sex and video games made the call just two weeks ago that he was surprised that no one had used the Microsoft Kinect motion control system to create a 'sex game.'

Yesterday, ThriXXX Software, the company behind 3D role-playing sex simulation games released a demo of an upcoming game using the motion controller.

The company says (via CNet):

"The open-sourcing of device drivers for Kinect have enabled the...device to be used directly from connected PCs operating on Windows 7...The Kinect interface provides another exciting interface option for users of the sex simulation software to control the experience in extraordinary new ways. Controller-free is the next generation of game user interfaces, allowing users to use gestures, spoken commands, or objects to control in-game action that creates a completely new sex game activity and magical experience."

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), besides posting huge piracy numbers for the UK, has also taken shots at Google, claiming the search engine is used just as often as P2P apps for illegal downloads.

Furthermore, the trade group would like Google and other engines to censor their search results and instead push legal services like iTunes, Amazon and others.

Says the BPI (via TF):

"Search engines are as popular as P2P applications as a source of illegal downloads. It’s not hard to see why. Key in the name of any popular artist, add search terms like ‘mp3′ or ‘download’ – both neutral terms – and typically the large majority of results that appear are blatant links to illegal downloads."

Take-Two Interactive has reached one of its major goals in reporting a profit for a year that did not include the release of a new Grand Theft Auto title.

The published reported a 65 percent rise in revenue to $1.16 billion for the 12 months to October 31. It turned a profit of $49.7 million, in stark contrast to a sharp $130 million loss for the 12 months prior. "We have achieved our goal of profitability in a year without a new release of Grand Theft Auto," said outgoing CEO Ben Feder in a statement.

Two titles carried a lot of weight for Take-Two in the time frame; Red Dead Redemption and NBA 2K11. Red Dead Redemption is around the 8 million sales mark worldwide, while continuing to sell pretty strong. Helped by EA's cancellation of NBA Elite 11, the NBA 2K11 title managed to move 3 million copies.

The Nikkei business daily is reporting that Sharp Corp will make a sizable investment in production of small and medium sized LCD panels.

The report states that Sharp is planning to spend around ¥100 billion (US$1.2 billion) on production lines for the LCD panels, which Apple Inc. reportedly will purchase the bulk of for its iPhone and iPod touch line of devices.

Sharp will start installing equipment at the Mie Prefecture plant next year. Mass production then will commence in the second half of 2012. if all goes to plan.

Electronics giants are mulling further investments in LCD production as global smartphone demand continues to increase. Toshiba Corp. is planning to build an Ishikawa Prefecture factory to boost LCD supplies to Apple Inc., according to the report.

Nielsen has released the results of a study into how young teenagers use their gaming consoles as more and more features are added to them.

The survey was conducted on a general U.S. population sample of an unspecified size. It found, for example, that 13 year old PlayStation 3 (PS3) owners spend an average of 49 percent of the time using the device to play video games. It found that 27 percent of the time was spent watching DVD or Blu-ray movies and 13 percent of the time watching movies downloaded and streamed.

Users of the Xbox 360 console spent about 62 percent of the time gaming, 11 percent watching DVD movies and 16 percent watching downloaded/streaming content. Wii users spent 69 percent of the time gaming and 20 percent of the time using the Netflix feature.

Just one day after announcing 600 layoffs, portal giant Yahoo has announced it will likely begin shutting down most of its 'underperforming' assets, such as AltaVista, MyBlogLog, Delicious and Buzz.

AltaVista, the search site of choice for many in the 1990s and early 2000s, has seen its market share dwindle to nothing over the past half-decade.

The online news aggregator Buzz and the social bookmarking service Delicious have seen similar results and are considered "non-core" Web properties.

For now, the company is "still evaluating its options" on the sites and services.

"Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond," added a Yahoo spokesperson (via WSJ).

"We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months," she added. "We will communicate specific plans when appropriate."z18LDrioL5

The National Security Agency (NSA) is working on the assumption that all of the most sensitive computer networks under its guard have been compromised.

Speaking at a cyber security forum sponsored by the Atlantic and Government Executive media organizations, Debora Plunkett of the NSA said that they have to build computer systems based on the assumption that adversaries will be able to penetrate them. "There's no such thing as 'secure' any more," she said, reports Reuters.

She heads the NSA's Information Assurance Directorate which is tasked with protecting national security information systems and networks across the world. "We have to, again, assume that all the components of our system are not safe, and make sure we're adjusting accordingly," she said.

Her comments come as the world's governments and media watch the publishing of U.S. embassy cables and other sensitive information on Wikileaks, but she declined to comment on the website.

Google and MySpace have finally reached a new deal on search and ad services on the social entertainment website following months of negotiations.

Search-giant Google entered into an agreement to provide search and advertisement services for MySpace back in 2006. The deal was worth $900 million to News Corp.'s MySpace service, then the dominant social networking site on the Internet.

The deal gave Google the right to sell advertisements related to user searches on MySpace and some other News Corp. properties for three years from commencement. It expired in June this year, but was temporarily extended as the pair continued talks on a renewed deal. The pair announced a new deal has been reached on Thursday, but did not disclose the terms.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade group has once against highlighted the level of Internet music piracy in the UK in its annual report.

The group, which represents major and independent record companies in the UK, estimated that Internet users will illegally download 1.2 billion songs this year, and describes the estimate as "conservative." The number is compared to the 370 million tracks (including individual tracks in album downloads) that will be bought legally in the UK during the same time.

"Illegal downloading continues to rise in the UK," said Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive. "It is a parasite that threatens to deprive a generation of talented young people of their chance to make a career in music, and is holding back investment in the fledgling digital entertainment sector."

LG has unveiled the Optimus 2X today, the first smartphone to use a dual-core processor.

The smartphone will launch with Android 2.2 but will be upgradeable to 2.3 Gingerbread and beyond.

Using Nvidia's Tegra 2 chip at 1GHz will give Optimus 2X users "HDMI mirroring" and no lag on multitasking apps or Web browsing.

HDMI mirroring means full replication of the current display on the phone on an external screen at 1080p.

Finnish mobile phone firm Nokia has filed patent infringement complaints against Apple Inc. in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands.

"These actions add 13 further Nokia patents to the 24 already asserted against Apple in the US International Trade Commission and the Delaware and Wisconsin Federal courts," said Paul Melin, vice president, Intellectual Property at Nokia.

A complaint filed in the High Court in the UK covers four Nokia patents. They relate to the touch user interface, on-device app stores, signal noise suppression and modular structures.

In the Dusseldorf District Court in Germany, a complaint was filed by Nokia against Apple that cites several patents held by the Finnish giant. The patents relate to a touch user interface, antenna structures, messaging functionality and chipsets. Another complaint filed in Germany, in the Mannheim District Court, cites five Nokia patents related to on-device app stores, caller ID, display illumination and the integration of multiple radios.

Online auction giant eBay Inc. announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Critical Path Software for its ventures into the mobile marketplace.

eBay has bought Critical Path Software of Portland, Oregon, for an undisclosed amount. The company had already developed applications for eBay's ticket site StubHub, eBay Classified and for Shopping.com. The main work it has done for eBay however, is the development of the eBay iPhone application.

French regulators have sent a warning to Google Inc. to avoid exploiting its market position in relation to search advertising.

The French regulator said that Google's market power was not bad or illegal, but that its practices would have to be closely monitored to watch for an anti-competitive impact on the market. A 10-month investigation into Google's activities was carried out by Authorite de la Concurrence at the request of the French economy ministry.

The investigation examined Google's advertisement services that allow firms to buy targeted advertising based on search keywords, or when a user loads a webpage with Google ads that contains related content. These services generate the majority of Google's revenues.

The regulator wrote that while Google's position in the market results from a great deal of innovation supported by continuous investments, its search ads, "represent a specific market that cannot be replaced by other forms of communication, notably because it allows for very fine-tuned targeting, and because no other equivalent alternative offer exists in the eyes of advertisers."

Social networking giant Twitter has announced that it raised $200 million in new finance.

The micro-blogging outlet received the new investment funds from some of its existing investors, and from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers. The new financing is valuing the social networking firm at $3.7 billion.

Twitter boasts 175 million registered users and currently employs about 300 people. The service is based around 140-character messages, dubbed Tweets, and has caught on very well in recent years, often being used to spread information in times of crisis. One such example is the disputed Iranian presidential election in 2009, where members of the green movement used Twitter to spread information.

A man in the UK has admitted to being part of a group involved in a £500,000 fraud involving music tracks sold from Amazon and iTunes.

Nineteen year old Lamar Johnson from Wolverhampton was part of a group that stands accused of gaining royalties from music sales through the use of stolen credit card details. The group added their own songs to both services and then used the credit card details to purchase them all about 6,000 times during 2008 and 2009, the BBC reports.

Johnson admitted in the Southwark Crown Court that he was responsible for about 2,000 of the illegal purchases. The group were then paid royalties for their music sales, which they had purchased themselves using "compromised credit card details," according to the prosecution.

An update distributed by Apple Inc. for its popular iTunes software that was intended to address stability issues with the software, has had the opposite effect for some users.

iTunes 10.1.1 is the first update pushed out since iTunes 10.1 added support for iOS 4.2 and Airplay functionality with Apple TV. It was issued as a fix for problems that caused the software to terminate unexpectedly during use.

AppleInsider reported that some of its iTunes users complained that after installing the iTunes 10.1 update, the program would crash once it was run. Apple's Support forums also started to get reports of similar problems, which seem to be occuring when iTunes' built-in Software Update feature was used for the update.

BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy group, has taken down 29 torrent and NZB sites this week although only one, HD-UNiT3D has been named.

Visitors to the HD-U site are now redirected to BREIN'S homepage.

HD-U and the other were hosted in the United States but a BREIN spokesperson said the sites were "directed at the Dutch public and unlawful under Dutch law."

T-Mobile USA and Nokia have announced Long Term HSPA Evolution, a new mobile data standard that promises speeds over 650 Mbps.

Commercial deployment of the standard is expected as soon as 2013.

The current HSPA+ "4G" network offered by T-Mobile in the United States offers speeds of up to 21 Mbps, and the carrier says those speeds will be doubled to 42 Mbps next year.

Says T-Mobile CTO Neville Ray: "Long Term HSPA Evolution will allow us to enhance our 4G mobile broadband network beyond its current and planned near term capabilities, and provide room for considerable growth and speed enhancements. As customer demand for wireless data increases, we are well positioned to compete based on the speed, breadth and evolution path of our mobile broadband service."!-- PAGE BREAK -->

The most notable features of the new standard:

-HSDPA Multicarrier evolution: Combines up to eight carriers and provides peak data rates of up to 672 Mbps along with improving spectrum utilization. To overcome operators’ spectrum fragmentation constraints, HSDPA carrier aggregation enables carriers from more than one frequency band to be combined.

Although it has yet to be confirmed by either Verizon or Apple, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has ramped up his iPhone sales estimates for 2011, fully "baking" in sales for a Verizon model of the popular iOS smartphone.

Rumors have been flying around for months that a Verizon iPhone is ready for launch in the Q1 2011 and Munster believes a CDMA iPhone is indeed on the way.

Time magazine has dubbed Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg their 2010 Person of the Year 2010.

Says Time:

For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

Stephen Colbert, the popular political pundit, had the most retweeted tweet for all of 2010 for his commentary on the Gulf oil spill which started this summer.

Colbert, known as @stephenathome on Twitter, currently has 1.9 million followers.

The tweet in question, from June 16th, read:

"In honor of oil-soaked birds, 'tweets' are now 'gurgles.' http://bit.ly/cIhZNf

Samsung has noted this week that it fully expects to sell 5 million smartphones running the Bada mobile OS by the end of 2010.

The first Bada smartphone launched in June.

Since then, the #3 mobile phone maker in the world has promised five more Bada devices, all within the "Wave" line.

Besides the original Wave, the Wave II, Wave525, Wave533, Wave575 and Wave723 have launched or will launch in 2011.

The PlayStation 3 has gotten its first Sega Genesis emulator this week, from the same source who released the PSX emulator last week.

Dubbed GenesisPlus GX, the emulator supports 2-player gaming, ROM/ZIP support, and SVP emulation.

The emulator is still a test version, and promises to be full of bugs.

PS3SX, the PSX emulator, has support for full speed, full screen, CDDA and XA audio, 2-player support, saving, and image formats .iso, .bin, .mds and .img.

The read-me file for GenesisPlusGX:

Genesisplus GX on PS3 it’s just for change my mind before i go back to ps3sx

put all folders so ./genplus ./genplus/roms ./genplus/bios ./genplus/state ./genplus/sram
on root of dev_usb000 so the first usb port on your right .

Support in this test version :
2 Players
roms support
Zip support
svp emulation for virtua racing and Co

TODO :
Fixed the sound i’ve a mini glich look like the sound buffer size is too long ?!?
Fixe save states already work but freeze on some games so disabled

Four Japanese publishers have accused Apple of infringing on copyrights, saying the company is offering illegally scanned books and graphic novels via its iOS App Store.

The four accusing publishers are the Japan Book Publishers Association, Japan Magazine Association, the Electronic Book Publishers Association of Japan, and the Digital Comic Association.

Each says that Apple has deleted some of the pirated titles, but others are still freely available.

One such publication is Haruki Murakami’s "1Q84."

Apple has noted that it "respects intellectual-property rights and that it will respond to complaints promptly and appropriately."

A US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled this week that email is protected by the Fourth Amendment and that the government will need a search warrant to "intercept" and read emails.

Email communication is similar to traditional communication methods like phone calls, and users still have a reasonable expectation of privacy online, said the court.

The decision reads:

"Given the fundamental similarities between email and traditional forms of communication, it would defy common sense to afford emails lesser Fourth Amendment protection. It follows that email requires strong protection under the Fourth Amendment; otherwise the Fourth Amendment would prove an ineffective guardian of private communication, an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serve... [T]he police may not storm the post office and intercept a letter, and they are likewise forbidden from using the phone system to make a clandestine recording of a telephone call--unless they get a warrant, that is."

IBM's supercomputer "Watson" will take on human contestants on "Jeopardy" this coming February, taking on all-time champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

In 2005, Ken Jennings won 74 straight games en route to $2.5 million in earnings. Rutter did not win as many games, but took home $3.2 million, the highest ever.

Watson will take on Rutter and Jennings over a three-day period and the winner will receive $1 million. Second place gets $300,000 and third gets $200,000. IBM will donate all their winnings to charity and Jennings and Rutter will donate half.

Jeopardy is seen as a high-level test of Watson's ability "to think in a human-like way, not only being able to retrieve information when requested—as is done with a normal Google search request—but also to go through its vast database of information, make the necessary connections and pick up on the subtle nuances, puns and riddles necessary to answer questions," says eWeek.

IBM says they have run Watson through at least 50 "mock games" of Jeopardy against former participants on the show, and the machine has managed to win some, but lose others.

McDonald's has confirmed today that hackers broke into a database containing email addresses and birthdays for consumers who have signed up for McDonald's promotions.

The fast food chain made it clear that no sensitive information, like credit card numbers, Social Security numbers or physical addresses were compromised.

"The incident has resulted in an investigation by law enforcement authorities. Arc and McDonald's are cooperating with the appropriate authorities," says spokeswoman Danya Proud. "We are also working with Arc and their database management firm to understand how the security was bypassed."

Arc refers to long-time McDonald's business partner Arc Worldwide, an email database management firm.

It is unclear how many consumers are affected.

Toshiba has said today that they will spend close to $1.2 billion to build a factory that will be mainly used to supply LCD panels for the Apple iPhone.

The facility will be built in Ishikawa prefecture by Toshiba's Mobile Display company.

Low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels will be produced in the plant, allowing for high-resolution images on small displays.

Toshiba will start on the plant by early 2011 with production expected to start in the Q3.

The Ishikawa prefecture already produces 8.55 million units of the LCD panels but capacity should double with the new factory.

Apple will pay an unknown amount of the full investment costs.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's lawsuit against 11 companies over alleged patent violations has stumbled right out of the starting gate. A federal judge dismissed the complaints, explaining Allen's lawyers failed to include "adequate factual detail" in their filings.

Judge Marsha J. Pechman noted, "Plaintiffs should, where possible, set forth the specific websites that are at issue and identify the hardware and software with adequate detail for Defendants to know what portions of their business operations are in play in this litigation."

In other words, they didn't actually list any patent infringements, but instead just alleged they are occuring.

This doesn't mean the end of the lawsuit or Allen's plans to demand licensing fees for patents awarded to his failed company, Interval Research Corporation. Allen's spokesman indicated the suit will be amended and refiled by the deadline later this month.

MacDailyNews has reported today that the upcoming Verizon-bound iPhone 4 will have LTE 4G support, a feature not seen on any other current model.

Additionally the site says the phone will hit the Verizon network before the New Year, right after Christmas.

Citing reliable sources, MDN says AT&T requested Apple hold off on breaking the American exclusivity pact until after Christmas so the carrier could make as many iPhone 4 and 3GS sales as possible.

Furthermore, the site says the LTE iPhone has already shipped to Verizon warehouses and has been in the hands of training managers since last week.

As a special marketing campaign, Verizon will market the device as "the only LTE iPhone."

Because Verizon has just begun their LTE rollout, the iPhone will backwards compatibility with 3G CDMA.

For now, take this as rumor, but we will keep you updated.

Although normally dead quiet on Kindle sales figures, Amazon has boasted today that they have "sold millions" of the latest generation e-readers during the first 73 days of this quarter, strong numbers considering the Christmas rush is still heating up.

In the past, Amazon had said little about sales figures, only claiming that the Kindle was the top selling item on the e-tailer's site, and its "fastest selling" item, ever.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also made the bold claim that e-book sales will pass paperback sales by summer 2011, and surpass hardcover and paperback sales by 2012.

The giant online retailer has always said that the hardware sales are not as important as the e-book sales, and Amazon even makes Kindle apps for iOS, BlackBerry, Android, Macs and PCs.

Despite being the clear market leader, increased competition from Apple, Barnes & Noble and now Google has analysts believing a once 70-percent share will fall to under 40 within 2 years.

The latest Kindle Wi-Fi sells for $140.

As of November 21st, digital music downloads have only seen 5 percent year-over-year growth, a number much lighter than most record labels execs had expected and hoped for.

The industry, while at least seeing continued growth from digital revenue has continued to see strong declines in CD sales, with 47 million fewer physical CDs being sold in 2010 YoY compared to 2009.

So far, digital track gains have increased by 95 million this year.

The revenue from 95 million downloads (at an average of $1.29) is nothing compared to the decline of 47 million CDs (at an average of $9.99).

Individual track sales are flat YoY but albums have seen a 12 percent jump, buoyed by strong sales of "Speak Now" by Taylor Swift and the full Beatles catalog on iTunes.

Developers over at XDA-Devs having begun porting the Android Gingerbread SDK to phones other than the Nexus S.

Google revealed the Nexus S on Monday, the first smartphone to run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).

A number of popular smartphones have been promised the 2.3 update, such as the Droid, Droid 2, G2 and Galaxy S but the timetable for those updates is still unknown.

For now, rooted devices can boot Gingerbread but otherwise the ROMs are not useful.

Says the Dev site: "Please keep in mind that these ROMs are only for testing and playing purposes. These are not meant for daily use – these are all SDK ports so basic functions won’t work properly. These ROMs only boot, and they only show you the Gingerbread interface. Nothing more. You can’t do anything with it."

The following phones have these "play" ROMS:

HTC HD2
Droid Eris
HTC Hero
HTC Hero (CDMA)
HTC Desire
HTC Wildfire
HTC EVO 4G
HTC Incredible
HTC Sapphire

'Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’ gamers have vented their frustrations this week over a glitch that literally breaks the game, leaving users stuck in the year 2012 and halting all forward progress in the game.

For current players of the title who might be worried they will encounter the same glitch, angry gamers are reporting that the glitch happens when you leave "the Animus as Desmond Miles and explore Monteriggioni in the game’s year 2012. It appears that after a player does this he or she is then unable to have his or her character return to the Animus, which essentially traps them in the game’s year 2012 and stops all further player progress," says GR.

For some gamers, they managed to avoid the glitch by not saving the game, at all, while in the year 2012. A few others turned on the subtitles and averted breaking their game. For some gamers, neither "fix" worked.

Ubisoft, the company behind the blockbuster game has yet to comment, living up to their growing reputation in the gaming community of being "anti-consumer."

As of writing, Ubisoft has not provided a timetable, but it is clear that a patch will be needed.

Google has said this week that the Android Market has gotten a full makeover, with users getting the new "significantly updated" client over the next two weeks.

To get the update you must have Android 1.6 or higher running on your device.

The engineering team behind the Market says the update "introduces important features that improve merchandising of applications, streamline the browse-to-purchase experience, and make it easier for developers to distribute their applications."

Helping users discover new apps, the team has added a "carousel" on the home and category screens. Promoted apps will be prominently displayed in the carousel and users can head right to download pages for the apps.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship has sued games publisher Ubisoft this week, alleging that its "Fighters Uncaged" game infringes on a UFC catchphrase trademark.

On the back of "Fighters Uncaged" is the phrase "Become the ULTIMATE FIGHTING weapon!"

Zuffa, the parent company of the UFC says that phrase it too close to UFC's trademarked name (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and the phrase may confuse consumers into thinking they are purchasing one of the UFC's sanctioned games, like "Undisputed."

"Undisputed" is published by THQ.

Having been rumored for months on AfterDawn and other sites, Reuters is finally reporting today that Apple's upcoming iPad 2nd generation will include dual cameras, a standard rear camera and a front-side camera for video conferencing.

The report says component suppliers are already preparing to begin producing the updated tablet, which should see launch in April.

Further more, the revamped tablet will be slimmer, lighter and use Retina Display, as seen on the iPhone 4.

Additionally, the news agency says Apple is preparing a smaller version of the tablet, despite CEO Steve Jobs dismissing the rumor that anything smaller than the current 9.7-inche model was in the works.

ITG Investment Research analyst Matthew Goodman has noted this week that Android has quickly become the top selling smartphone OS on Verizon's network, far outpacing RIM's BlackBerry.

In October of 2009, RIM BlackBerries controlled a full 93 percent of Verizon's smartphone sales, with Windows Mobile controlling the rest.

The next month, the company began selling the Motorola Droid and by January of 2010, RIM's number had fallen to 48 percent.

Yesterday we reported that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) had finally voted to move ahead with a contract with ICM Registry that would create domains with a .xxx address, to be used by pornographic sites.

Today, the group has delayed that decision again, to an unspecified date, citing government official opposition.

ICANN made it clear, however, that the delay had nothing to do with an expensive campaign from U.S. religious and conservative groups that claim the move will legitimize porn.

Rovio, the developer behind blockbuster game 'Angry Birds,' has said today that the game has hit 50 million downloads, with over 10 million coming from Android devices.

The company also announced the "Bad Piggy Bank," an in-game payment structure on Android that lets users pay a certain amount to remove the ads in the free version of the game, or even purchase the "Might Eagle" DLC that is upcoming.

To use Bad Piggy Bank, you will not need a credit card, as the in-app purchases are billed to your monthly phone bill.

Eventually, the Bad Piggy Bank will be extended to other operating systems, like iOS.

Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka confirms that Angry Birds will be hitting PCs, gaming consoles and Macs next year.

Fritz Lanman, Microsoft's senior director of corporate strategy and acquisitions, has confirmed today that the company unsuccessfully bid $15 billion for social networking giant Facebook in 2007, being rejected outright.

After being turned down, Microsoft instead purchased a small stake in the company for $240 million.

Added Lanman (via CW): "Yeah, we tried to acquire Facebook. Facebook had a lot of similarities to Microsoft back in the day."

The exec says he believes the company will one day be worth as much as Microsoft. Microsoft currently has a market cap of $233 billion, second only to Apple in the technology sector.

Facebook currently has an estimated value of $41 billion.

Both companies currently work together, with Facebook's search being powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has finally voted to move ahead with a contract with ICM Registry that would create domains with a .xxx address, to be used by pornographic sites.

While closer to being a reality than before, there are still concerns from some government officials about the suffix that will be dedicated solely to adult sites.

ICM's CEO Stuart Lawley says the new suffix will fully benefit adult content sites by making it easier for would-be customers to find them.

.xxx domains, however, will be voluntary and it is unclear how many popular adult sites will actually give up their .com addresses and move.

ICM says there are already 189,000 "pre-registrations" for .xxx sites, with another 300,000 expected to launch next year.

According to the latest NPD figures, the Microsoft Xbox 360 led the way again for the month of November, beating out rivals Wii and PS3 in hardware sales.

The Xbox 360 has now led sales in the States for six straight months.

Microsoft saw 1.37 million Xbox units sold for the month, up 68 percent year-over-year, followed closely behind by the Nintendo Wii at 1.27 million units, up .8 from last year.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, one of the most well-known in the video game industry has said today that Microsoft's Kinect is crushing Sony's rival Move motion control system in regards to sales.

Sony says it has shipped 4.1 million units since launch, but it is unclear how many of those have translated to actual retail sales.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has confirmed 2.5 million sales in just under a month.

Pachter added:

"About one fifth of PS3 sales included bundles with Sony’s Move controller, suggesting a modest third month. About half of Xbox 360 sales included bundles with Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral, suggesting a strong first month. Xbox 360 Kinect console bundles outsold PS3 Move console bundles by more than 5:1."

Google has launched YouTube 2.1 for Android devices running version 2.2 of the OS this week, the first time the popular video sharing site can be downloaded unconnected from the OS.

YouTube 2.1 is fully redesigned and should "mimic" the desktop version.

The update is the "fastest, most intuitive" mobile YouTube app created for any device, says Google.

Some of the welcome updates are the ability to read descriptions, post comments, see related content, rate the video in-play and in-page playback.

2.2 owners can download the app now, and it is natively built into 2.3 Gingerbread.

Michael "Shag" Washington, backup singer for the band Cypress Hill has sued Rockstar Games and publisher Take-Two for $250 million dollars, for allegedly using his likeness without permission in the blockbuster hit Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

$250 million is 25 percent of the profits the game has made since its release in 2004.

Washington says that while the game was in development, Rockstar consulted him for a real-life look into "gangs and street life," promising to call him if they used any of his material in the game.

The singer says now that the entire appearance and story of Carl "CJ" Johnson, the main character, is based on what he consulted Rockstar and his own life story.

Washington says he never heard back from Rockstar and only just heard of the game after a nephew purchased it for his Mac last month. After playing the game, Washington says he believes the stories and appearance of the main character are based off his life and info.

"Upon examination of images of 'CJ' and comparison to his photos from that year and other evidence, it became clear that Rockstar had stolen his image and never paid him," reads the suit (via GamaSutra).

Sirius XM has signed a new five-year deal with infamous 'shock jock' Howard Stern, one that will pay him somewhere between $80-$100 million per year.

Stern's current 5-year $500 million deal expires at the end of the year.

As part of the new deal, the shock jock can also be streamed via mobile/Internet apps, such as those found on the Apple iPhone and Android smartphones, alongside satellite radio devices.

Stern's first deal blocked the host from being on Internet sources.

Since Stern's original contract was signed, Sirius' subscriber base has jumped from 600,000 to 19 million.

According to a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 8 percent of American adults currently use Twitter, with only 2 percent using it on a daily basis.

The company surveyed 2550 Americans, 74% of which use the Internet.

Although the overall number was low, Pew found that Twitter was popular among younger adults, urban city dwellers and minorities.

Women were also more likely to use Twitter.

Overall, 10 percent of Twitter users were women, compared to 7 percent for men, with the majority being in the 18-29 age group.

From a racial standpoint, Hispanics were most likely to use the micro blogging service followed closely by the black population and finally the white population.

24 percent of Twitter users check the site for updates multiple times a day, while 12 percent check it just once. A full 21 percent never check their accounts.

For those that actually post, 72 percent post about their personal lives, 62 percent write about work and 55 percent post news. 54 percent "post humorous or observational tweets" and 53 percent re-tweet other posts.

52 percent send private messages, 40 share pics, 28 percent share videos and 24 percent tweet their geo-location.

Google's head of Android Andy Rubin took to Twitter today to let the world know that over 300,000 Android smartphones are being activated each day.

Marking only the second time he has ever tweeted, Rubin says, simply: "There are over 300,000 Android phones activated each day."

The number is a huge jump from the 200,000-a-day claim stated in August. In February the company claimed 60,000 per day and 160,000 in June.

Adds Rubin, via MM: "It looks like Android is not just phenomenal but incredibly phenomenal in its growth rate. God knows how long that will continue."

Android has quickly become the most popular smartphone operating system in the United States, surpassing RIM and Apple in the Q3 2010.

Version 2.3 of the OS, dubbed Gingerbread, has just been unveiled and will be available next week via the new flagship Nexus S.

The European Union has fined five companies $863 million USD this week for being part of an 'LCD cartel' that helped fix prices from 2001 through 2006.

Samsung, the sixth LCD maker in the scheme and the largest in the world, blew the whistle on the other companies and therefore avoided a fine from the European Commission.

LG Display, the second largest LCD maker in the world, was fined $284 million and accepted the fine saying: "LG Display acknowledges the wrongful acts of the past and respects the European Commission's regulatory authority in this regard."

The company did say it may appeal the ruling if it finds any "procedural issues with the investigation."

Netflix has signed a new licensing agreement with Disney-ABC, adding tons of new content to their Watch Instantly streaming service.

For the first time ever, Disney has added ABC Family content to the streaming library.

Newer first-run content will be available 15 days after initial telecast.

Part of the new agreement are "prior season episodes of current ABC hit series "Grey's Anatomy," "Desperate Housewives" and, for the first time on Netflix, "Brothers & Sisters."

Furthermore, Netflix will have all seasons of "Scrubs," "Lost," Ugly Betty" and "Reaper."

Prima Cinema, a new start-up, wants to bring movies to your home movie theater the day that movie launches in theaters, but it won't be cheap.

The company will charge a one-time $20,000 fee to install the digital-delivery system, and each new movie will cost $500.

Prima says it has $5 million in venture capital from Universal and Best Buy and hopes to begin delivering movies to customers in the Q4 2011.

The company has high expectations, as well. Prima wants to install the delivery system in 250,000 homes by 2015, however, executives in Hollywood seem to see that number as a lot lower.

Stuart Hughes, the brand behind such excess as the $3 million iPhone and the £200,000 PlayStation 3 has gone prehistoric this week, designing the "iPhone 4 History Edition."

The iPhone 4 History Edition will be encrusted by diamonds, feature a 65 million year-old Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth and polished meteoric stone from the same prehistoric era.

The Japanese ISP NTT DoCoMo has said today that they will begin equipping taxis with free Wi-Fi.

Additionally, some of the taxis will have Sony PSPgo handhelds left in the back.

820 cabs in Tokyo will get the Wi-Fi, while only 100 will get the handheld.

The company says taxis with the extras can be identified by red DoCoMo Wi-Fi stickers on their doors.

DoCoMo's service is in testing now and will launch fully in March.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has said today that the service will likely not hit the U.S. this year, despite promises since 2009.

While still hopeful, Elk says the company now cannot "commit to a specific date."

When it does launch, however, it will cost $10 per month, much cheaper than the 10 euros it costs currently in EU nations.

Andy Rubin, VP of Engineering at Google and head of the Android project has revealed an updated version of Google Maps this week, version 5.

GM5 will be released "in a matter of days," and most Android users should be able to download it, free, at that point.

Coming with the Maps update will be the end of tiling, which Unwired explains "essentially involves stitching several flat images or maps together and can wreak havoc on map loading times."

GM5 will use vectors, which brings the ability to see maps in 3D. For anyone who has used Google Earth on their Android device knows, Maps will now let you tilt and rotate any map with your fingers.

Sony has released the latest firmware update for the PlayStation 3, adding nothing.

Says Eric Lempel, Sony VP of Network Operations: "This is a minor update that adds a security patch."

What Sony will not come out and state is the fact that the update will do little but block potential jailbreakers of the console.

In September, PSJailbreak released the first jailbreak, showing how PS3's security model was open to be exploited, and Sony was quick to shut down the project. However, open-source alternatives cropped up, giving users a chance to jailbreak their console for free.

Beginning today, the blockbuster hit "Inception," as well as "Knight and Day" starring Tom Cruise will be available as "premium" rentals via Blockbuster Express DVD kiosks, 28 days earlier than htey will be available via Netflix or Redbox kiosks.

That being said, "premium" comes at a price, $3 for the first night's rental, compared to $1 from Redbox. After the first night, the price drops to $1 per night.

Redbox, Netflix and Blockbuster Express (run by NCR) all have rental agreements in place with the major Hollywood studios that block most new releases from being placed in kiosks (or available online) for the first 28 days of their release, in exchange for significantly reduced pricing.

Although unconfirmed, multiple sources are reporting that Apple will launch its Mac app store next week, on December 13th.

The Mac app store will give third-party developers a chance to create low-cost apps for Mac users, basically becoming a desktop version of the iOS App Store.

One source says "Apple is targeting a Monday, December 13 launch of the Mac App Store," although CEO Steve Jobs has reportedly pushed for an earlier launch date.

Other sources claim Apple will use this month to launch iOS 4.3, which will bring the addition of subscription-billing APIs, and "The Daily," a cheap, iPad-only newspaper created in conjunction with News Corp.

iOS 4.3 should also bring an update to AirPlay.

Market research firm IDC has said today that the end of the PC-centric era is near, with tablet and smartphone shipments set to overtake PC shipments in 2012.

IDC makes sure to note, however, that PC sales will continue to increase, as well, just at a much slower rate than gadgets that rely on touchscreen and apps.

Worldwide shipments of "app-enabled devices" will reach 377 million in 2011, and 462 million shipments in 2012, exceeding PCs which are expected to ship 402 million in 2011 and 448 million in 2012.

Frank Gens, chief analyst at IDC says tablets and smartphones are "not replacing the PC -- that's a key point -- but [they are] expanding the market."

Overall, global IT spending will jump 5.7 percent to $1.6 trillion in 2011.

(Pic via Flickr)

Avast, the company behind the anti-virus software Avast Pro, had a very interesting story to tell this week, in regards to piracy of the company's flagship AV suite.

The company noticed that a license meant for a 14-PC business had made its way online, and was being shared via warez sites.

Instead of killing the license, however, the company let it be, calling the situation an "experiment."

Google has purchased the video DRM company Widevine this week, saying GoogleTV and Android will benefit from the tech that allows video to be delivered securely over the Internet.

Widevine calls itself "a content delivery optimization and security company."

YouTube will likely be the top user of the technology, as Google needs to convince distribution partners that their content is available securely, and in good quality, on a variety of platforms.

Earlier this year, Microsoft proclaimed that its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system would be getting the popular free music streaming service Pandora.

It appears this week, however, that Pandora may have had a change of heart, possibly stopping development of an app for the new operating system.

In a Tweet to its followers, the company said a WP7 app was out of the question, before backpedaling later and saying: "I’m not sure if/when we will be available on [Windows Phone 7]. Appreciate everyone’s enthusiastic suggestions. I’m passing the feedback on."

Pandora's largest rivals, Last.fm and Slacker, have already released Windows Phone 7 applications.

Finally, speaking to BGR, the company said: "While we’re excited to see companies innovating and while we’re not ready to make an announcement specifically related to the Win 7 phone, we generally want to be everywhere our listeners want us to be."

Google has finally delivered on their promise of the Google eBookstore, starting the service with 3 million books available in a number of formats.

The ebooks will be playable on the Nook, iPad and others, but notably not on the Amazon Kindle.

Google's entry to the market could challenge Amazon's monopoly, which is estimated at 72 percent of the market in 2010. The Kindle store will sell an estimated $250 million worth of ebooks this year.

One analyst firm believes Google's service, along with Apple's iBook Store, should turn Amazon's share of the ebook market to 35 percent by 2015, down from the current 72.

According to the latest Consumer Reports survey, AT&T has received the all-around worst scores in customer satisfaction for 2010, ranking it last behind US Cellular, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.

AT&T got the lowest scores in eight out of the nine categories, and tied for worst in the last category.

The categories included overall value, voice service, data service, texting services, phone support, staff knowledge, and resolution of issues, and other customer support issues.

AT&T scored a 60/100, putting it 9 points behind T-Mobile, and 22 points behind the leader, US Cellular.

The U.S.' second largest carrier scored a 66 in 2009.

Google has officially unveiled the Nexus S smartphone today, the first device to use Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Additionally, the company says the Gingerbread SDK is now available for developers.

The Nexus S is built by Samsung, and will be a "pure Google" experience, unlocked and "vanilla," with no special user interface layers.

Google says the smartphone will have a 4-inch "Contour Display designed to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand and along the side of your face."

The smartphone runs on a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, has 16GB internal memory, standard and front-side cameras and NFC (near field communication) hardware.

According to sources close to the company, it seems as though AOL may be in the process of breaking up the company before merging it with portal giant Yahoo.

The break-up will require a number of complicated transactions and so far the plans are still in the exploratory stage, with Yahoo having not been contacted yet.

AOL will firstly separate its dial-up Internet service and its display advertising business.

"You can drive the pieces into people's hands that could pay top dollar for them and create value, or spin them off," added one of the sources (via Reuters).

For the past couple of years, new AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has invested millions of dollars in purchasing content sites, including TechCrunch and others, turning AOL into a leading portal site.

AVG has pulled their latest update for AVG Free 2011 this week after it crashed systems running Windows 7 64-bit.

The antivirus database update is 271.1.1/3292 (432/3292) and has since been pulled after user outrage.

After being updated, AVG 2011 was prompting a system restart, which is then followed with a "STOP: cc0000135" error that completely crashes your system.

To be able to boot your system after the crash, AVG has made a "Rescue CD" available.

You can also use the package to boot from a USB drive.

ViewSonic has begun shipping their G tablet this week, making it available at retailers like Office Depot.

The price for the tablet is $400, $100 under the price of the cheapest Apple iPad, which offers 16GB of storage and Wi-Fi support.

ViewSonic's G has a 10-inch display with 1024x600 resolution, and runs on a powerful 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 SoC.

Additionally, the tablet has 512MB or RAM, a 16GB SSD, a USB 2.0 port, a microSD slot, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity and a 1.3MP frontside camera for video conferencing.

On the downside, the tablet has a stated battery life of 8 hours, and weighs 1.55 pounds, slightly heavier thatn the iPad and with an hour worse battery life.

Although still unconfirmed (the software hasn't been released yet), the French site Logic Sunrise has reported that PlayStation 3 firmware version 3.50 has finally been jailbroken.

The firmware has been hacked by the developer team behind X3Max, a USB dongle used to jailbreak or downgrade other firmwares.

Says the site (translated):

"This marks the third major advance in the world of hack Playstation 3: Jailbroken firmware 3.50 the PS3 by Team X3 with X3max without need for a downgrade! The X3 team has managed to run homebrew on official firmware 3.50 without downgrading! The downgrade is still possible."

It appears that Apple has amended its ongoing lawsuit against Motorola this week, adding 12 more alleged patent violations, bringing the total to 24.

In their own suit, Motorola says Apple has infringed on 18 of their patents.

Motorola sued Apple in October, just days before Apple sued HTC for patent violations. HTC and Motorola sell the most popular Android smartphones.

At the time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it."

The patents relate to 3G, GPRS, 802.11 wireless and antenna design, and OS user interfaces.

Since 2009, Apple has been sued 27 times over alleged patent violations.

Samsung has said today that they have sold 1 million Galaxy Tab tablets already, surpassing their expectations.

When the device launched two months ago, Samsung said it expected to just hit 1 million sales by the end of the year.

The device sells on all four major carriers in the U.S., and on a number of carriers worldwide.

Both Verizon and AT&T said recently they were "encouraged" by Tab sales, but neither revealed specific numbers.

For comparison's sake, the market leader Apple iPad hit 1 million sales in just 30 days, and sales have recently topped 8 million.

Samsung's tablet runs on Android 2.2, has a 1GHz processor, a 7-inch multi-touch screen and dual cameras.

Following Wednesday's blurry "spy" video of the device, we now have a nice, clear "hands on" with the upcoming Sony Ericsson PSP Phone (Z1), although the smartphone still does not have any gaming content available for it.

The oft-rumored device could see an official announcement as soon as December 9th.

It will run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, a 1GHz Qualcomm chip, have a 4.1-inch multi-touchscreen, a 5MP camera, 512MB of RAM, a 5 megapixel camera and 1GB of internal storage.

The smartphone will also have a dedicated gaming app store.

Gaming will be made possible via a slide-out control similar to the PSP.

Google has sent out invites for a December 7th event relating to the Chrome OS, likely unveiling the first netbook to run on the operating system.

Chrome OS was revealed last year to much fanfare, but so far there has been little actually unveiled about the OS.

Google has said in the past that the Chrome OS will run on netbooks and desktops (machines with keyboards) while their popular Android mobile OS will remain on all touchscreen devices, like tablets and smartphones.

A Chrome OS machine can boot in seconds, faster than systems running Windows, Mac OSX or Linux.

According to new figures from NetMarketShare, the antiquated Internet Explorer 6 browser has finally fallen under 15 percent market share, globally, for the first time since its launch in 2001.

The browser has fallen to 13.72 percent, with most of that figure coming from China, where half of Internet users still use the "legacy" browser.

Outside of China, the share has fallen to 7.62 percent.

The market share leader remains Internet Explorer 8, at 32.79 percent, with Firefox 3.6 in second at 18.17 percent.

Behind IE6 is IE7 at 9.53 percent, followed by Chrome, which continues to see extremely strong growth whilst moving to 8.02 percent.

Other browsers, including IE9, Opera, Safari 5 and Firefox 3.5 hold the remaining 16.94 percent.

According to multiple sources, Groupon has rejected Google's massive offer to acquire the company.

The search giant had offered $5.3 billion, with another $700 million in performance-based incentives.

It appears Groupon's board of directors were divided on the decision to sell, with some new directors believing the company will be worth even more in a couple of years.

Other sources say the daily deal site will instead launch an initial public offering in 2011.

Groupon has 35 million users in 300 cities.

The BBC has said this week that their global iPlayer will be iPad-only, as well as subscription-based.

Since its release in the UK last year, the video-on-demand streaming service has been the most popular in the nation, giving license-fee payers a chance to watch shows like Doctor Who and Top Gear when they miss it on TV.

Says BBC.com managing director Luke Bradley-Jones:

According to new Google figures, Android 2.1 or higher is now installed on 83 percent of all Android smartphones, as of December 1st.

That number is up from 77 percent, posted in early November.

43.4 percent of phones have Android 2.2 while 39.6 percent are running 2.1.

A shocking 6.3 percent are still running the ancient Android 1.5, with another 10.6 percent running 1.6 (mainly G1 owners).

Google is set to launch Android 2.3 Gingerbread in the coming weeks, with a few handsets getting the update right out of the gate.

Aron Embry of Texas has claimed today that his brand new Droid 2 smartphone exploded while he was making a call this morning, injuring his ear, neck and face.

Says Embry: "I heard a pop. I didn't feel any pain initially. I pulled the phone down. I felt something dripping. I realized that it probably was blood. I went into the house and as I got into the bathroom and once I got to the mirror and saw it, it was only then I kinda looked at my phone and noticed the screen had appeared to burst outward."

He then drove to his wife's job and they called 911, while also taking pictures of the damage.

His wife, Kara, had thought Aron had been in a car crash due to the massive amount of blood coming from his neck and face.

NBC may be on the verge of bringing 99 cent rentals to iTunes, if a new screenshot is to be believed.

9to5Mac posted a picture that shows NBC hit show "The Office" available for purchase for $2.99 per episode or $.99 for a rental.

For now, only ABC and Fox have made their shows available for rental through iTunes at 99 cents.

Yesterday we reported that the jury trial for the case of Matthew Crippen had been delayed, after the presiding judge took 30 minutes to lecture the prosecution.

Today, the prosecution has dismissed the case, after just hours, "based on fairness and justice."

Prosecutor Allen Chiu says: "The government has decided to dismiss the indictment."

Crippen was on trial for allegedly modding Xbox 360 consoles to be able to play pirated games and homebrew.

The New York Post has reported today that Netflix is prepared to pay up to $100,000 per episode for the ability to stream in-season TV shows, such as current episodes of hits like "Glee" and "The Office."

If accurate, the move will position Netflix next to Hulu as the premier destination to view TV episodes from current running seasons.

In October, Netflix announced it had signed a deal with NBCU to bring full back catalogs of hit shows like "30 Rock," "The Office," and others to the streaming service, as well as a deal that gives Netflix the right to stream "Saturday Night Live" the day after it airs on TV.

Netflix recently began offering a streaming-only service for $8 per month in the U.S., the first time the company has offered a deal that does not include physical media rentals.

The company has spent close to $1 billion on streaming rights over the past years, placing a big bet on the future of streaming.

LimeWire, once the world's most popular P2P client, was officially shut down last month, following a four-year legal battle against the record industry.

A New York federal court issued a permanent injunction against the site, ruling that LimeWire caused a "massive scale of infringement" by intentionally giving users a platform to share millions of unauthorized music tracks.

At its peak, LimeWire was seeing 50 million monthly users.

Today, the company has sent out a memo scrapping their longstanding plans to open a new legal music download store, meaning there is literally nothing left of the company.

The current LimeWire store will also shut on December 31st, and the company will not accept any new payments, effective immediately.

Yesterday we reported that Amazon was preparing to purchase an investment stake in daily deal giant LivingSocial, following Google's $5.3 billion bid for market leader Groupon.

Today, Amazon has announced an investment of $175 million in the site, a deal that will put the two companies in a "deep operating partnership."

LivingSocial will use the massive cash infusion to expand to more countries.

The site is currently available in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Australia. For those nations, the deals are available in 120 different cities.

The jury trial for the case of Matthew Crippen has been delayed today, after the presiding judge took 30 minutes to lecture the prosecution.

Crippen is on trial for allegedly modding Xbox 360 consoles to be able to play pirated games and homebrew.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez started the trial off with a 30-minute rant complaining about the prosecution and the government's case, with his main concerns being the prosecution's "star" witnesses.

The two witnesses in the case have both potentially broken the law, making them less credible. The first is
Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who has video of Crippen modding consoles in his home in L.A. Those videos, however, were taped secretly, in violation of California's strict privacy laws.

The rumor that Amazon is getting ready to purchase an investment stake in daily deal giant Living Social has gotten more intense today, following Google's $5.3 billion bid for market leader Groupon.

Amazon and Living Social are in "advanced talks" for a major investment by the e-tailer, one that will put the two companies in a "deep operating partnership."

While in advanced stages, the deal is not yet set in stone and Amazon could walk away at any time, notes the WSJ.

Groupon has 35 million worldwide users and over $500 million in annual revenue while Living Social has just under 10 million users and an expected revenue of $300 million for 2010.

The move would be Amazon's second venture into the fast growing daily deals market, where it purchased Woot for $100 million during the summer.

A new survey from ChangeWave Research says that Amazon's Kindle is "rapidly" losing e-reader market share thanks to the popular iPad tablet.

For the three-month period of August 1st to November 8th, the Kindle's market share fell to 47 percent, from a whopping 62 percent.

The iPad took most of that share, rising to 32 percent from 16. Sony's "Reader" line accounted for another 5 percent, and the Barnes & Noble Nook took 4 percent.

ChangeWave surveyed 2800 consumers and found that 75 percent were "very satisfied" with their iPad, compared to 54 percent for Kindle owners.

The bigger question may be to ask if the iPad can be considered in the same market as the Kindle, as it does so much more. The Kindle is a dedicated e-reader. That being said, the survey showed that 76 percent of iPad owners use it to read.

Apple has sold over 2 million iPads. Amazon does not reveal Kindle sales figures.

According to new Nielsen data, smartphones now account for 29.7 percent of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers, the highest percentage in history.

Furthermore, for the first time ever Apple iPhone has become the most popular smartphone in the nation, taking 27.9 percent market share.

RIM, makers of the BlackBerry, fell to second place, at 27.4 percent share.

Android has quickly taken 22.7 percent share.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile line held at 14 percent, not including sales of the new Windows Phone 7 which launched in November.

Additionally, Apple's iOS was named the "most desired" mobile operating system, with 35 percent of current smartphone/feature phone owners saying they would like to get an iPhone. 28 percent wanted Android. A full 25 percent did "not know" which smartphone they wanted, however.

Verizon has priced their LTE 4G data plans this week, a few days before the carrier begins rolling out the fast network in the United States.

The network will be 10 times faster than current 3G speeds from the carrier.

Verizon has made it clear that, while fast, the data plans will not be cheap. A 5GB plan will cost $50 per month, and a 10GB plan will cost $80.

The carrier says it expects users will see real-world down speeds of 5-12Mbps and uploads of 2-5Mbps.

The still unofficial Sony Ericsson PSP Phone has been seen in a short, blurry video today, at least confirming its existence.

Last month, Engadget posted pictures of the device, the first pictures of the device that has been oft-rumored for over two years.

The source says the smartphone could be dubbed the Sony Ericsson Z1.

ChevronWP7, the unlocking software that gives Windows Phone 7 owners a chance to install homebrew and unsigned applications on their smartphones has been pulled by its developers, after a discussion with Microsoft went well.

The software gives user the ability to side load apps, which would normally cost $99 per year for a Marketplace developer account.

Today, the developers behind the app have said they are "discontinuing the unlocking tool effective immediately," as per a discussion with Brandon Watson, Director of Developer Experience for Windows Phone 7.

Wikileaks, the group behind recent leaks of sensitive data, found itself homeless today for a few hours, after Amazon pulled its hosting services.

Earlier this week, WikiLeaks unveiled "Cablegate," publishing "251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities."

Over 15,600 of those cables were classified as "Secret," with some dating as far back as 1966.

The cables contain confidential communications from 274 different embassies throughout the world to the State Department here in D.C.

Today, its American web host, Amazon pulled the plug on the site, however, forcing the owners to move it back to a host in Sweden.

Wikileaks had moved to Amazon's self-service after repeated DDoS attacks took down its Swedish-hosted site.

The Chinese government has announced that it will inspect computers owned by central and local government authorities for any pirated software that is being used.

The inspection is part of a new push by the Chinese government to tackle rampant software piracy in the country. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimated in 2009 that 79 percent of all software used on computers in the country was pirated.

Microsoft also said it has filed a lawsuit against 10 companies in China for selling computers with pirated versions of its Windows operating system and other products pre-installed. "Computers pre-installed with unauthorized software have always been a core problem for the software industry that must be resolved," said Microsoft China's intellectual property general manager, Yu Weidong, in a statement.

The U.S. company has been a major victim of piracy in the country but has been having some success using the Chinese legal system to fight back.

Opera is celebrating reaching a new milestone: 150 million users are now using its Web browser (mobile and Desktop versions.

The Opera.com website was changed on Wednesday to display the "inbox" of Opera co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner. You can browse through folders of his inbox and read the mail in it, but the most important item is the very first one which states that the entire Opera team is out celebrating a 150 million user milestone.

Opera crossed 100 million users in April 2010, a figure which includes mobile versions of its web browser.

The recent release of an Opera 11 beta brought tab stacking, a new way to manage tabs, and also provided support for HTML5 and extensions. The company is also working on an improved auto-update system.

More Info: Opera.com

The Home Office in the UK is meeting civil liberties groups as part of a consultation about UK data interception laws.

The consultation is being carried out to meet EU requirements despite the Home Office saying earlier that a meeting with civil liberties groups was unnecessary. It will now meet the Open Rights Group and other organizations this week.

A European Union investigation into how a controversial ad trackng technology, Phorm, was rolled out in the UK, prompted the consultation. The European Commission found that the UK has no legal redress for citizens who think their web browsing or other online activities have been monitored.

This puts the UK in breach of the European e-Privacy directive. Thousands of users of BT Internet services in the UK took part in Phorm trials without their consent. Phorm is one of many firms that tracks web behavior in other to better target advertisements to users.

Jim Killock, chief executive of the Open Rights Group, is not happy with how the consultation is being carried out however. "When the consultation started in November we heard about it through the grapevine rather than a public announcement. We wrote to the Home Office saying they needed to meet with representatives from civil society because the law was about individual rights," he said.

European Union regulators are to investigate practices by search giant Google after several antitrust complaints were made against the U.S. company in the region.

Earlier this year, British price comparison website Foundem and French legal search engine ejustice.fr alleged that Google unfairly demoted their sites in search result rankings because they were providing competing services.

Microsoft's Ciao also filed a complained with the European Commission relating to Google's standard terms of service. "The (European) Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services," the EU executive said in a statement.

However, the EU invesigation into Google's practices does not mean there is anything wrong with how the company goes its business. "I want to be very clear that this does not mean that there is definitely a problem -- it is far too early to say that," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said.

A new chip from STMicroelectronics will be make it possible to shrink the size of Blu-ray players and recorders, as well as cutting down on costs.

The new STODD01 power supply IC can generate all the voltages needed to operate the player's circuitry. Using it, designers can eliminate multiple individual power supplies from the printed-circuit board, which will reduce component costs, design complexity and assembly time.

The size of the board can also shrink down if used. The STODD01's power-supply channels benefit from highly efficient switched-mode conversion, which minimizes energy losses and heat generation. A true "shutdown mode" also works to cut down standby power consumption.

Virgin Media has announced a new deal with TiVo Inc., which the company says marks a transition from being a cable operator to an entertainment providers.

Virgin provides telephone, Internet and cable TV services in the United Kingdom to about four million customers. It has gained popularity due to its high-speed Internet offerings, including options of 100Mbit connections for some of its subscribers.

It competes with BSkyB in offering television services. BSkyB once also reached an agreement with TiVo Inc., but then decided to distribute its own boxes instead, forcing TiVo to pull out of the UK altogether. Virgin will now have thousands of TiVo boxes available for existing customers over the Christmas period.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google Inc. is in the final stages of preparing Google Editions, an e-book service that will compete with Amazon and other players in the emerging market.

While Google executives had hoped to launch Google Editions in the summer of 2010, the plans were interrupted by several technical and legal hurdles. Those distractions have now largely been dealt with, according to people close to Google.

Google's product management director, Scott Dougall, says the service will debut in the United States by the end of the year, while completing an international roll-out in the first quarter of 2011. Independent booksellers began receiving contracts from their trade groups in recent weeks.

"Because of the complexity of this project, we didn't want to come out with something that wasn't thorough," Dougall said. The service differs from its largest competitors by offering open, read anywhere e-books that are not tied to a single set of devices. Users will buy the e-books directly from Google which will be available from a book library tied to a Google account, which can be accessed from almost anywhere.

Adobe has announced a new beta of its popular Flash Player that greatly improves hardware acceleration and adds new features.

The beta provides a new method for video playback in Flash Player 10.2 that will allow developers to utilize complete hardware acceleration of the video rendering pipeline, greatly improving video playback performance. Stage Video can dramatically decrease processor usage and enables higher frame rates, reduced memory usage, and greater pixel fidelity and quality.

The player also takes advantage of hardware accelerated graphics capabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 web browser. Additionally, developers will also be able to define custom native mouse cursors to enhance user experience.

One other note-worthy change is improved support for Full Screen playback. Full screen content will remain in full-screen on secondary monitors, allowing users to watch full-screen content while working on another display.

Winamp has introduced a beta version of their Winamp for Android app this week, giving Android 2.1 (and higher) users a powerful music management application for their smartphones.

For users with 2.2 or higher, the app gives access to 40,000 Internet radio stations through SHOUTcast.

Winamp lists what comes with the Android app, version 0.9.2: