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Late last month, a man sued Facebook claiming he owns 84 percent of the social networking giant.

Paul Ceglia says he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, for a 50 percent share, doing so for $1000 USD. In addition, Ceglia says the deal granted him 1 percent extra of the company for every day until the Web site was completed after January 2004.

The site took 34 days to complete.

Reads the signed contract: In return for the $1000 payment, Ceglia "would own a 50 percent interest in the software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of the [Facebook] service to a larger audience."

Facebook immediately called the suit "frivolous" and said it expected it to be thrown out.

This week, a lawyer for Facebook has said she was "unsure" whether Zuckerberg signed the contract, giving credibility to Ceglia's case.

Said Facebook lawyer Lisa Simpson: "Whether he signed this piece of paper, we’re unsure at this moment."

The saga continues.

Last month, AT&T killed off the popular "unlimited" data plan for new smartphone users, instead creating tiered, capped plans.

Verizon confirmed last month they were considering doing the same, and it appears they may be ready to do so before the end of the month, killing off their "unlimited" 5GB data plan in exchange for tiered plans.

Engadget has reported that Verizon will introduce the new scheme on July 29th.

Reportedly, the plan will be $15 for 200MB of data per month, and $25 for 2GB.

For those that want to keep their unlimited plans and not worry about paying expensive premiums for less data, T-Mobile and Sprint have said they have no intention of capping connections.

Verizon official tech reps have confirmed today via Twitter that the HTC Incredible will be receiving the Android 2.2 Froyo update soon, either during the end of this month or at the beginning of August.

Says the original Tweet: "HTC DROID Incredible to be updated to Froyo end of July, early August [ link ]

Furthermore, Incredible owners will finally get 720p video recording support, 802.11n Wifi, Verizon's 3G Wifi hotspot, Amazon's MP3 store and a couple of other apps and widgets.

Although the Twitter account is not corporate, the guys behind the VZWTechSupport account say the following: "Officially unofficial. We are official technical reps but are not endorsed directly by corporate. Which may be a good thing? :)"

Additionally, the reps say the Motorola Droid will likely get the OTA update in early August, as well.

A New York judge rejected a plea for lenient sentencing when he determined photos of the defendant performing various charitable works were altered.

Instead he sentenced Daryl Simon, convicted of credit card fraud, to almost 24 years (285 months) in prison. The sentence was more than 4 years more than the maximum under sentencing guidelines.

According to prosecutors, "Evidence that his image was inserted and flipped can be seen by examining the single detail on his shirt above his fingers -- that detail appears on the left side of the shirt in the top photograph, and on the right side of the shirt in the bottom photograph."

In addition to the digitally altered photos, Simon also presented fake letters from various charitable organizations.

Although the Microsoft store and many retailers have had the motion control system priced at $150 for some time, the company had refused to confirm the price, officially.

Today, the mystery is no longer a mystery, as Microsoft has confirmed the official price is in fact $150. The system will ship November 4th as leaked, and will come bundled with "Kinect Adventures."

Additionally, Microsoft has launched a new slim model of the Xbox 360, which will replace the current Xbox 360 Arcade model.

The new system will have 4GB of internal flash memory and matte finish and will launch August 3rd for $200.

As a bundle, you can get the new slim system and Kinect (with 'Adventures') for $300.

Kinect games will sell for $50.

Nokia Siemens has said this week it will purchase Motorola's wireless-network equipment division for $1.2 billion in cash.

The company is a joint telecommunications venture between Nokia and Siemens and the division being purchased supplies carriers with equipment needed to build LTE, WiMax and 3G infrastructure.

Nokia says the acquisition will help it improve its position in the United States and Japan, two nations where sales have been low and brand recognition is low as well.

"First and foremost, this deal is about customers," says Rajeev Suri, CEO of Nokia Siemens. "We expect to gain an incumbent position with many new customers and strengthen our position with others."

With the acquisition, Suri says Nokia will establish new relationships with China Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Clearwire.

The deal will close by the end of the year, and Nokia will bring on 7500 Motorola employees.

Lenovo, the Chinese PC giant has said today that it will release its LePad Android tablet by the end of the year.

Liu Jun, senior vice president and president at Lenovo's Consumer Business Group, made the comments via an interview and the company later confirmed.

Lenovo’s decision should help the company get a good foothold in the Chinese market, which Apple has not focused on.

Adds Lenovo chairman Liu Chuanzhi: "If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, (Lenovo) would be in trouble.”

Earlier in the year, Lenovo began selling its own iPhone rival, the “LePhone.”

Apple has no plans for releasing the iPad in mainland China.

Sharp has announced today that they plan to enter the crowded e-reader/e-book market, hoping to take a piece while the market is still in its toddler years.

The company will offer an e-book distribution service by the end of the year, and a reader that will allow users to playback audio and video content.

Sharp has confirmed publisher backing in Japan "and overseas."

The market has grown crowded over the past 24 months, with the launch of the iPad, Nook and updated Sony and Amazon devices.

Just in the last month, Barnes & Noble and Amazon slashed the prices on their popular devices to under $200.

Earlier in the month, search giant Google announced it was planning on launching an e-book service in Japan, as well.

Later this year Netflix will be expanding their Watch Instantly streaming video service, making it available to Canadian residents.

In addition to being the first service offered by the home video rental giant outside the US, it will also mark the first time they have offered streaming by itself. To date their streaming video offering has been an add on to their popular rent by mail DVD and Blu-ray service.

That's not likely to be changing any time soon for US customers. When the plan for streaming outside the US was first mentioned last October, CEO Reed Hastings was clear that it was purely due to the logistical issues of shipping discs internationally.

And selling the exclusively online service to Canadians isn't a sure winner either. Although Netflix has made some headway in licensing new releases and increasing their selection of recent TV episodes for streaming, such arrangements are still the exception.

Canadians interested in the service can go to www.netflix.ca and sign up for email notification when the service launches.

Wired has written a very interesting exposé this week on the relationship between AT&T and its star player in the smartphone market, Apple, with the site claiming Apple actively considered pulling the iPhone from the carrier at least five times.

In 2007, with the launch of the original iPhone, AT&T asked Apple to start limiting use of the YouTube app via 3G, asking them to limit it to only Wi-Fi. Apple refused, saying it would not "gimp" its device to help the overburdened network.

That fight was the first of many, and allegedly Apple CEO Steve Jobs began looking into a jump to Verizon at that point, very early into the relationship.

While the company looked into Verizon "seriously," the move would have required developers to build the smartphone "from scratch" all over again, moving from GSM to CDMA. There was also, of course, the exclusivity pact with AT&T.

Additionally, there were other battles, such as over tethering, where AT&T wanted to charge, and Apple wanted it included in the monthly data plan. The ability to tether now costs $20 extra per month.

Amazon has said today that Kindle e-reader sales have tripled since the e-tailer dropped the price of the device last month.

E-books sales now out pace that of physical books, as well, adds the giant e-tailer.

The Kindle dropped in price from $250 to $190, and Amazon also released an updated Kindle DX for $379, a steep price drop off the first-generation device which sold for $489.

As has been policy, Amazon did not release any specific numbers on how many units were sold.

Rival Barnes & Noble last month also lowered the price of the popular Nook e-reader.

"In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format," added CEO Jeff Bezos. "Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books -- astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months."

If Apple continues its trend of strong revenue growth for the upcoming quarter, the company will surpass Microsoft in overall revenue, for the first time ever.

Apple is expected to report a massive $14.62 billion in revenue for the quarter, but some analysts expect revenue as high as $15.74 billion. Microsoft, on the other hand is expected to report $15.25 billion in revenue with a high estimate of $15.73 billion.

Microsoft dominates the personal computing world, with Windows found on 90 percent of computers worldwide and Office or Works found on nearly all computers that require a word processing suite.

Apple, on the other hand, completely dominates the MP3 player market with the iPod, the tablet market with the iPad and a decent chunk of the smartphone market, with the iPhone.

In April, Apple reported that revenue jumped to $13.50 billion, thanks to strong Mac computer and iPhone sales.

If you are an active Twitter user, you have undoubtedly used or seen the URL shortener bit.ly.

Gigaom is reporting today that Yahoo is actively considering acquiring the shortening service, with interest growing over the past two months.

Bit.ly is said to have raised up to $5 million in venture capital since its launch in early 2009.

Although unconfirmed, Bit.ly was reportedly asking for up to $100 million in a sale to Google.

Says the source: "What Yahoo wants to do is aggregate its users’ activities from around the web. The Facebook Connect integration is the first in a string of coming deals with other social sites… And now, at the center of Yahoo’s new open social strategy, is a product called Yahoo Updates, which consists of activity streams shown in Yahoo Mail, on its front page, in Yahoo Messenger clients and on its toolbars."

The larger question remains, however, whether Bit.ly, which tracks the click-performance of the shortened URLs, and any conversations linked to that URL, is worth the multi-million dollar valuation.

Apple has confirmed today that the popular iPad will be launched in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore starting this Friday.

All 3G and Wi-Fi models of the tablet will be available in each nation.

As of today, the tablet is available in the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland.

In the United States, the device retails for between $499 and $829, depending on the model.

Apple announced in late June that they had sold 3 million units of the iPad, in just 80 days.

HP has filed for a trademark application for the term PalmPad, which has led many observers to suggest that the company will name their upcoming WebOS tablet by the name.

Even on the simplest level, the name implies use of WebOS, which was created by Palm on a tablet, although everything is speculation at this point.

Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P applied for the trademark.

In April, HP purchased Palm for $1.2 billion, after outbidding RIM, Apple and Lenovo.

With the acquisition, the company also acquired all of Palm's patents and its WebOS mobile operating system.

HP has promised to use the operating system on tablets, printers and other non-computing devices, as well.