Latest news

In April, AOL sold one of the pioneers of instant messaging, ICQ, to Digital Sky Technologies Limited (DST) for $187.5 million USD.

Today, AOL has completed that sale, with Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL saying the company will use the proceeds to either buy media properties or hoard the cash for emergencies.

Despite losing popularity in the United States to other services such as MSN Messenger and AIM, ICQ remains the most popular IM service in Russia and other smaller international markets.

"The acquisition of ICQ is a strategic enhancement of our business in Russia and Eastern Europe. ICQ’s long-standing brand name and its sizeable loyal customer base together represent a very attractive opportunity to further strengthen our position in the region," added Yuri Milner, Chief Executive Officer of DST.

Microsoft has finally, officially launched the public beta of Windows 7 SP1, giving users a chance to download the service pack.

In late June, the SP1 was leaked online, and is still circulating on torrent, P2P and warez sites. Additionally, a beta of the Windows Server 2008 R2 was leaked as well.

The SP1, as stated by Microsoft, is mainly a rollup of already-released hotfixes.

Says Microsoft's Tammi Reller: "I am quite pleased today to announce the public beta availability of service pack 1 both for Windows Server 2008R2 as well as Windows 7. [For Windows 7 ] mostly it is minor updates that are available through Windows update."

Businesses will be the main beneficiaries of the update, as they will finally be free to upgrade their corporate systems to a fully stable Windows 7, from XP and Vista.

Google has launched the App Inventor this week, a tool that will given anyone the chance to create apps for Android phones.

The software tool is in beta, and Google Labs has created videos and screenshots to help new users.

"To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge," says the site.

The code is written inside the software.

Additionally, the tool offers suggestions and options for app creations, like how to build apps that will link to social networking services, or a new SMS app.

The move should give Android another leg up on the Apple iOS, which requires people to have software coding skills to make apps, and then Apple has to accept the app to their App Store.

Check out the site here: http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

According to a new research note from Rodman and Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, the rumored RIM tablet may have a 7-inch screen, a 1GHz processor and dual cameras, allowing for picture taking and video conferencing.

The tablet will also have a 3G chip from Marvell, meaning you will not need a tethered BlackBerry to access cell networks.

Kumar's note says the Armada 618 is the leading candidate for the processor, meaning 1080p video will be supported as well as hardware acceleration.

While the still unconfirmed tablet had a rumored "early" 2011 launch, Kumar says the company wants it out for Christmas this year.

RIM has still not committed to the tablet, but has said such devices are a great bridge between a smartphone and a computer.

A federal judge has cleared a class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T, and the suit will consolidate a few filed over the years.

The complaint takes aim at Apple's practice of locking iPhones to AT&T and Apple's practice of controlling what applications can be download to said smartphones.

Furthermore, the suit also complaints that Apple secretly made AT&T its exclusive iPhone partner for five years, effectively locking customers into a five-year deal with AT&T if they want to keep their phone, while they had only paid for two-year contracts.

Additionally, the deal hurt competition and drove up prices.

Judge James Ware has said those parts of the lawsuits can continue as class action. The suit is available to anyone who purchased an iPhone with a two-year contract since June 2007.

If successful, the suit will force Apple to sell all phones unlocked and with the ability to download any programs they want.

After jailbreaking the iPad in early April, the noted hacker Geohot went on a small hiatus.

Today, however, the hacker has posted again to his blog, showing off a picture of the iPhone jailbroken, with access to Cydia, the app store available to users with jailbroken devices.

That being said, it does not look like he will be releasing the jailbreak software anytime soon.

Says Geohot: "Got one of these in the mail today and figured I'd give it a shot.

As far as a release goes, it probably won't happen from me. limera1n is little more than a raindrop on a website; it was never mentioned by me previous to this post. pwned4life is a complete invention of some blogger in a basement somewhere. When I said pwned for life, I was referring to the original iPhone, 3G, and Touch; which of course are, by the aptly named PwnageTool.

Again, please don't ask for release dates. Every person that does makes me want to release a little bit less."

For those with the new device, and in need of a jailbreak, your best bet is waiting on Comex’s Spirit tool, which should be released once the iOS 4.0.1 is launched.

China shut down the Xiaoshan Airport early this morning after a UFO flew through the night sky, leaving a bright trail of light in its wake.

Over 30 flights had to be redirected or cancelled.

The UFO was first seen flying over the Zhejiang provincial capital Hangzhou.

Witnesses called local authorities claiming they had seen a "comet-like" fireball in the sky.

Says one witness: "The thing suddenly ran westwards fast, like it was escaping from something."

Some experts have already said the sight was debris from U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile, and Chinese officials have stayed mum, given the "military" connection.

A federal judge has significantly reduced the penalty against Joel Tenenbaum, the graduate student that was convicted of sharing 30 unauthorized tracks online.

Last July, Tenenbaum was found guilty and told to pay $675,000 to the RIAA and record labels.

The judge has now reduced the verdict to $67,500, saying the damages award was "unconstitutionally excessive" given the fact that Tenenbaum made no money off the sharing of the music.

Judge Nancy Gertner added the following of the new verdict: The new damages "not only adequately compensates the plaintiffs for the relatively minor harm that Tenenbaum caused them; it sends a strong message that those who exploit peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully download and distribute copyrighted works run the risk of incurring substantial damages awards."

$67,500 is three times the statutory minimum.

Despite being grateful, Tenenbaum still called the new verdict 'ridiculous:' "I still don't have $70,000 — and $2,000 per song still seems ridiculous in light of the fact that you can buy them for 99 cents on iTunes," Tenenbaum said. "I mean $675,000 was also absurd."

T-Mobile released the first Android-powered Garmin smartphone in May to mixed reviews, and slow sales.

This week, the wireless carrier has dropped the price of the phone, from $200 to $130, looking to keep the price competitive in a world where Froyo will soon be the norm.

The phone has a 3.5-inch screen, 3MP camera with autofocus, and because of the GPS, the pictures can be geo-tagged. The GPS, as standard, works over 3G and Wi-Fi.

While those specs are not impressive, the Garminfone is notable because of its GPS system, which has on-board US maps, text-to-speech, full driving/walking/public transportation directions, real-time traffic, weather, local events, movie listings and even gas prices.

The next best feature is "Garmin Voice Studio" which lets users "record and customize voice directions which can also be shared with family and friends."

Because it is more a GPS with phone capabilities than anything else, the device will come with a charging window and a dashboard mount for the car.

Apple.pro has shown off a couple of new photos today of an Apple-branded touchscreen that is only a bit bigger than 1x1 inches, leading to speculation that the upcoming revised Shuffle will use the display.

Although less plausible, the site speculated that Apple may be making a foray into the wristwatch market, releasing a large touchscreen watch.

The display is too small for an iPod Nano, unless Apple completely changes the design.

In the past, Apple.pro has shown off parts for Apple products before they launch, like leaking white iPhone 4 parts earlier this year.

Apple has been negatively in the news recently, thanks to antenna issues with the newly launched iPhone 4.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said this week that he expects China to renew the company's Web license, as it has been recently revised.

China had threatened to not renew the license, saying it disapproved of the way the search giant tried to sidestep Google's censorship rules by directing its domain to Hong Kong, where searches were unfiltered.

While Schmidt believes the license will be renewed, he admitted the ball is fully in China's court.

"Our operations in China are completely at the discretion of the Chinese government," he added.

The situation began in January when Google said it would stop censoring search results, which violates Chinese law.

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology spokesman Wang Lijian says the decision could take months, however.

Today during the VidCon 2010 conference, Google has announced that YouTube will now support video with 4k resolution, over double what the current 1080p standard allows for.

4k has a pixel resolution of 4096 x 3072, whereas 1080p has resolution of 1920 x 1080.

"To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors," says Ramesh Sarukkai, a YouTube engineer.

Many users will not be able to even run the videos at this point, as it requires "super fast broadband," likely with 15Mbps as a bare minimum.

You can test out streaming a 4k video here (click on the link and switch resolution to "original"):

The intellectual property holding company NTP has sued giants Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola this week over patents pertaining to the delivery of email on smartphones.

Each company either makes smartphones, or creates the software used on them.

NTP is alleging that each company has infringed on up to eight patents.

The holding company won over $600 million in damages from BlackBerry maker RIM in 2006 for a similar suit.

NTP has been called a "patent troll" by the industry, one that is making money off the innovation of others. NTP does not agree.

"Use of NTP's intellectual property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its licensees," said Donald E. Stout, NTP's co-founder, via CNet. "Unfortunately, litigation is our only means of ensuring the inventor of the fundamental technology on which wireless email is based, Tom Campana, and NTP shareholders are recognized, and are fairly and reasonably compensated for their innovative work and investment. We took the necessary action to protect our intellectual property."

Apple has banned That Nguyen, the popular app developer, from iTunes and the Apple App Store, after it was discovered he hacked 400 iTunes accounts, and used them to boost sales of his comic book apps.

The company also said it has now tightened security, and similar situations will not occur again.

Nguyen had, at his peak, 42 of the top 50 book apps in the market.

All apps have now been removed and the developer banned due to violations of the "developer Program License Agreement including fraudulent purchase patterns".

Apple also recommended that users with compromised accounts should contact their banks and change their passwords.

As part of strengthening their security, iTunes users will likely be asked to enter their credit card security code more often when making purchases.

ComScore has released their latest U.S. market share figures for the smartphone market, and Google's open-source Android platform has seen explosive growth since March, when the previous results were released.

RIM remained the clear leader with 41.7 percent share, although the BlackBerry maker lost some share, falling from over 42 percent in the previous period.

Apple stayed stuck in second, with 24.4 percent, a noticeable drop from their 25.4 percent share at the end of February.

Continuing its multi-year trend, Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform fell significantly, from 15.1 percent to 13.2 percent.

The big winner was Android which jumped almost 40 percent, from 9 percent to 13 percent. Android is expected to see a similar jump in the next quarter.

ComScore adds that about 235 million Americans over the age of 13 have mobile devices.