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Microsoft has filed suit against a group of spammers this week, accusing them of one of the "largest" spam attacks against Windows Hotmail, ever.

Making the case more insulting to Microsoft, was the fact that the spammers used Microsoft's anti-spam filtering technologies to start the spam campaign.

"The lawsuit ... alleges [the] defendants engaged in an elaborate scheme to evade Microsoft's filters by abusing Microsoft's Junk E-Mail Reporting Program (JMRP) and Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) to send vast quantities of spam each day," says John Scarrow, general manager of safety services for Microsoft.

The SNDS and JMRP features are free services for Hotmail users that want to report spam that breaks through filters.

As a way to get around the anti-spam filters, Microsoft says the defendants hired hundreds of people to open millions of Hotmail accounts, who then were sent the spam, and manually misidentified them as valid e-mails, thus destroying the accuracy of the filters.

According to a new report from Digitimes, a CDMA-capable iPhone for the Verizon network is already being manufactured and will be ready to ship in time for the 2010 holiday season.

The report says contract manufacturer Pegatron already has an order from Apple for the CDMA iPhone 4, and the company is "currently using its plants in Shanghai, China, to produce the products."

A Wall Street Journal report earlier in the year said the same thing, that Pegatron had already been contracted.

An iPhone for Verizon has been rumored, on and off, for years now but earlier this month a Verizon spokesperson said: "We have no plans to carry the iPhone in the immediate future." That being said, it is likely an iPhone 4 for Verizon is in the works, but unlikely that it is coming as soon as a few months from now.

There is also still the possibility that Apple and AT&T signed an iPhone exclusivity pact until 2012, which would clearly make it impossible, at least without a breach of contract, for a Verizon iPhone this year.

Verizon, the biggest wireless carrier in the U.S., has said today that it may follow AT&T's recent move into tiered data plan pricing, while at the same time eliminating unlimited plans.

Says Verizon CFO John Killian: "We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate."

The plan will likely not take effect until Verizon rolls out its 4G networks. When 4G goes live, the carrier expects an "explosion in data traffic," due to video downloads, video conferencing, and other bandwidth-intensive applications.

Verizon says smartphone owners currently use about 700MB of data per month, and the company says eventually smartphone users will be 80 percent of all Verizon consumers, up from just 17 percent today.

AT&T's cheapest new plan is $15 per month, but will only include 200MB of data. If customers go over the limit, they will be charged $15 extra for every 200MB of data, a very expensive proposition.

Broadcom has agreed to buy Innovation Research & Technology which specializes in short range communication for a fee of around $47.5 million, the company announced on Thursday. While Innovation makes products for a variety of different wireless products, Broadcom has highlighted Innovation's progress in Near-Field Communications (NFC).

Innovation launched the Topaz-512 this week, which opens the door for content delivery including for example discount coupons that can be be retrieved via smart posters.

Broadcom is staying silent about how it intends to use Innovation's technology. However it is likely that Broadcom intends to integrate NFC with its existing solutions for other wireless technologies, including Bluetooth and 3G.

The lack of NFC-enabled phones has been seen as one of the major factors holding the wireless technology back, but Nokia recently announced that all smartphones it releases from 2011 will include NFC capabilities.

Siliconera has posted a picture this week on how the game cart for the Nintendo 3DS looks, and unsurprisingly it looks very similar to a standard DS cart.

The new 2GB 3DS carts are the exact shape as a standard DS cart, but with a small tab in the corner.

Additionally, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has hinted that the 3DS may be getting an e-reader app that works with the handheld's built-in Wi-Fi support. Using the wireless, the device may soon be able to "automatically acquire newspaper and magazine articles."

Posted in the Japanese Nikkei, Iwata also said the 3DS' wireless connection could stay active even when the handheld is asleep: "It will seek out and automatically connect with wireless LAN spots, and download information," leaving the latest news or other info for gamers when they turn the system back on.

Please read our full post on the 3DS here: E3 2010: Nintendo shows off 3DS, 'No More Glasses'

PreCentral has revealed this week that HP, which recently acquired the struggling smartphone maker Palm for $1.2 billion, is planning on releasing new Palm smartphone devices next year, as well as an updated WebOS mobile operating system.

Palm had put itself up for sale in March after it became clear that the company's phones were not selling and it only had enough cash to last the next 12 months. In late April, HP swooped in and purchased the company Palm for $1.2 billion, after at least four other companies gave serious bids.

Engadget has posted the official press sheets for a white HTC EVO 4G that will be sold exclusively through Best Buy.

Pre-orders start today for the white model, and it will be officially launched on July 11th.

While unconfirmed, the site says Sprint stores will get the model in August and other retailers will get it as late as September.

The price is the same as the existing black model, $200 with two-year contract.

Under the hood is a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 1GB ROM, 512MB RAM, a 1500 mAh battery and an 8GB microSD card. The device has a 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive multi-touchscreen display (with pinch to zoom), Android 2.1 with Sense UI, Google Search, Google Maps, Google Talk, Gmail, Google Goggles, YouTube, Google Calendar syncing, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and 3G/4G Mobile Hotspot capability for connecting up to eight Wi-Fi enabled devices.

According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, adults are more likely than teenagers to text while driving, with 47 percent of respondents saying they either send or read messages while at the wheel of a vehicle.

That shockingly high number compares with 34 percent of teens doing the same thing. Pew considers teens as minors aged 16 and 17.

Says Mary Madden, senior research specialist at Pew: "There's been a lot of focus on young drivers, and for good reasons. But this research provides an important reminder that adults are setting a bad example."

The U.S. Senate is currently voting on banning texting as a federal mandate, and 28 states already ban the practice. Seven states have banned all mobile phone use while driving.

Pew also says that focus groups have shown that younger children have seen older siblings and their parents texting while driving, and see it as "okay" to do, as well.

The industry as a whole is moving to discourage use of mobile phones while driving, with the CTIA wireless trade group, the National Safety Council, and large carriers Verizon and AT&T starting ad campaigns.

According to sources cited by Reuters, Facebook had revenue of $800 million USD in 2009, thanks to huge boosts in user-ship and advertising.

Perhaps more importantly, the social networking site turned a profit "in the tens of millions of dollars."

Facebook, which started in 2004, has become the most popular web destination in the United States, even topping Google, and has over 500 million users.

The revelation comes at a time when would-be shareholders are practically begging for an IPO (initial public offering) for the site, making the company public and allowing it to trade in the stock market.

$800 million in revenue, and profits in the tens of millions is well ahead of what various analysts have estimated over the course of the year. Even the most generous estimates placed revenue at $700 million with a thin profit margin.

Revenue in 2008 was $250 million, based on 150 million users.

Apple Inc. has pushed out an updated version of its popular iTunes multimedia software ahead of the iPhone 4 launch next week. Top of the list of changes is compatibility with iOS 4 and syncing with iPhone 4. It also introduces book syncing and reading with an iPhone or iPod Touch running iBooks 1.1.

iTunes 9.2 also supports organizing and syncing PDF documents as books and supports the new "Folders" feature of iOS 4 that lets users organize their applications into groups. The update version also promises some improvements such as much faster backups while syncing with an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4, and quicker display of album artwork in the iTunes library.

Changes between iTunes v9.1.1 and iTunes v9.2

• Sync with iPhone 4 to enjoy your favorite music, movies, TV shows, books and more on-the-go
• Sync and read books with iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4 and iBooks 1.1
• Organize and sync PDF documents as books. Read PDFs with iBooks 1.1 on iPad and any iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Organize your apps on your iOS 4 home screens into folders using iTunes
• Faster back-ups while syncing an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4
• Album artwork improvements make artwork appear more quickly when exploring your library

Think back a few months to a fight that took place between Redbox and the major Hollywood studios. Hollywood execs were all hot and bothered about how Redbox kiosk's cheap $1 movie rentals were cannibalizing new DVD and Blu-ray sales, and decided to order their wholesale distributors not to sell to Redbox for a month or more after the initial release.

Redbox launched some legal action in response and decided to buy directly from retailers to stock kiosks as a workaround. However, that came crashing down for Redbox when Wal-Mart and other retailers imposed limits on the number of units of the same film a single customer can buy from them. Long story short, Redbox ended signing deals with Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. that required a 28-day window before Redbox kiosks could offer new titles for rental.

Paramount however decided to actually test whether or not the availability of new titles from rent from Redbox kiosks affects the sales of new DVD or Blu-ray releases. It signed a deal with Redbox in August 2009 which would allow it to stock new releases on the same day as the title comes out on Blu-ray and DVD. Redbox agreed at the time to share rental data with Paramount so that it could evaluate the potential benefits of a longer-term contract.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is inviting everyone who is opposed to the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA), or to provisions of ACTA (or how it is being negotiated) to support a "firm, simple declaration against ACTA." People can sign the declaration which includes 11 demands about ACTA if it is to be implemented, or provides an alternative of abandoning ACTA entirely.

The FSF does not want to seem opposed to the Wellington Declaration however, but a post from Richard Stallman of FSF does point out some details about it that he "cannot put his name to." New Zealand citizens held a public meeting dubbed PublicACTA to criticize a secret meeting of government representatives. The attendees published the Wellington Declaration (which you can sign), calling on the negotiators to reject several injustices suspected to appear in the controversial treaty.

Stallman however points out that while the Wellington Declaration condemns the plan for ACTA to prohibit devices that can break digital restrictions (DRM, digital handcuffs etc.), it goes ahead to suggest instead that a limited prohibition, along the lines of Article 11 of the WIPO Internet Treaty. This would result in government backing being given to certain kinds of digital handcuffs, according to Stallman, and he is concerned that to accept that much without a fight would tempt ACTA negotiators to try for "more."

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., has introduced a new high-speed 512GB solid state drive, utilizing high-performance toggle-mode DDR NAND. "The highly advanced features and characteristics of our new SSD were obtained as a direct result of an aggressive push for further development of our NAND flash technology, our SSD controller and our supportive SSD firmware," said Dong-Soo Jun, executive vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Electronics.

"Early introduction of this state-of-the-art toggle DDR solution will enable Samsung to play a major role in securing faster market acceptance of the new wave of high-end SSD technology." The 512GB SSD uses 30 nanometer-class 32-gigabit chips that the company began producing just last November. Combining the toggle-mode DDR structure with the SATA 3.0Gbps interface generates a maximum read speed of 250 MB/s and a 220 MB/s write speed.

Samsung claims this provides three-fold the performance of a traditional hard disk drive, with two 4GB DVD movies being stored in just a minute. The SSD is also developed to be energy-efficient, using a low power controller specifically for toggle-mode DDR and a low-power mode that is activated after the controller analyzes the users' activities that can extend the batter life of a notebook significantly.

Sony Ericsson has launched its latest Android device, the Xperia X8, a mid-level entry to the smartphone market.

The device will have a 3-inch HVGA touchscreen, a 600 MHz processor,Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, GPS, a 3.2MP camera, a microSD slot, a 3.5mm headset jack, and will run the aging Android 1.6.

An update to 2.1 is expected "soon," however, says Sony. On top of the Android OS, the device will use Sony Ericsson's "four corners" UI layer.

Additionally, the X8 will run the Timescape app, which manages calls, texts, emails, and social networking.

As with all SE devices, the phone will come with strong video and audio playback players.

Price and release date were not revealed.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued Oracle today, claiming that the software giant overcharged the federal government by tens of millions of dollars after not disclosing discounts given to other corporate customers.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the DOJ says Oracle did not provide a discount that is normally given to "most favored customers." The government should have that discount through a deal with the General Services Administration (GSA).

GSA's "multiple award schedule" lets the government negotiate contracts with companies so that government employees can make purchases at a discounted price.

Due to regulations, the GSA must obtain the best price a contractor provides, and the contractor must disclose that price.

The new suit says Oracle, starting in 2007, did not disclose their lowest prices to the GSA.