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Last week, AT&T announced that they were dropping their $30 unlimited data plans for smartphones and netbook new users, while creating cheaper plans at the same time.

Existing subscribers can keep the unlimited plan but anyone signing up with the carrier after tonight cannot sign up for the $30 all-you-can-eat package.

The 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.

A more reasonable plan is $25 per month and will give smartphone, tablet, netbook users 2GB of data for the month. For every 1GB over the cap they go, they will be charged $10, another expensive proposition.

The carrier says, however, that 65 percent of smartphone owners use less than 200MB of data per month, and 98 percent use less than 2GB. For the most part, the only people who need unlimited are iPhone users, a significant number of which will surpass 2GB monthly.

It should be interesting to see the horror stories coming from iPad and iPhone users when they have to pay over $50 per month for bandwidth.

CNET is reporting this weekend that they have uncovered documents revealing that the music trade group RIAA wants LimeWire shut down for good.

The RIAA has requested that a Manhattan District Court give them a permanent injunction against the P2P client, effectively shutting it down in the United States.

Write the RIAA lawyers: "Every day that Lime Wire's conduct continues unabated guarantees harm to plaintiffs that money damages cannot and will not compensate. The scope of the infringements that Lime Wire induced...boggles the mind."

Last month, Judge Kimba Wood found the once-extremely popular file sharing service liable of copyright infringement in a 4-year-old lawsuit brought against them by the RIAA. The decision was seen as the final nail in the company's coffin.

Kimba will now meet with LimeWire and the RIAA's representatives, where the judge can grant the injunction and seal the service's fate.

Developer ZodTTD, best known for his work on emulators for the iPhone, has said today that a PlayStation 1 (PSX) emulator is very close to being launched for Android devices running firmware 2.0 or later.

Without giving any timetable, ZodTTD also noted that an N64 emulator was coming in the future.

ZodTTD partnered with Nesoid and Gameboid authors to use the interface that is likely familiar to Android users that have been using the NES and GB emulators for months.

The PSX emulator will have the ability for fullscreen, and controls works via the touchscreen, physical buttons and the trackball, depending on what your device has and your personal preference.

Currently, the emulator cannot yet hit the "sweetspot" of 60fps, but performance increases are expected for upcoming builds.

In what can only be described as incredible, a woman in California has found her two missing children, reported missing in 1995, using the social networking giant Facebook.

According to Deputy District Attorney Kurt Rowley, the children's father, Faustino Utrera ran off with the kids, but the mother found her eldest daughter's Facebook profile after searching for it a few months ago.

The two kids, now aged 16 and 17, have been placed in the custody of the state of Florida.

Rowley described the mother's feelings: "You can imagine the feelings she's having, not seeing her children for so many years and knowing they've bonded with another family. But at the same time they're almost within her grasp."

Florida has put out an arrest warrant on Utrera.

Rowley did note that the eldest daughter initially told her mother she did not want to be in contact with her, or re-establish any relationship.

More details have leaked today about the Motorola Xtreme, the highly-anticipated sequel to the Droid smartphone.

The Android phone had been dubbed the "Shadow" for months.

Motorola's upcoming Xtreme will run a customized Android 2.1, possibly include the MotoBLUR UI, and will likely be released in late July.

The new details, from Droidlife say the device will sport an 8MP camera and 720p video recording.

Additionally, the device will have a large 4.3-inch screen, 16GB of internal storage, a 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, and an HDMI-out port. Perhaps most notably is the 1500-mAh battery which should give significant battery life, even with moderate-to-heavy daily use.

The phone will be released through Verizon.

According to AppleInsider, Apple will launch Safari 5 with "Reader" and built-in Bing next week at the much-hyped WWDC.

The company is expected to launch the new iPhone 4G during the event, as well.

Additionally, the updated browser will have expanded HTML5 support.

The documents, allegedly leaked from Apple, show 25 percent faster JavaScript performance than Safari 4. Safari 5 will also include DNS prefetching to allow faster browsing.

The new "Reader" feature gives Internet users a chance to read articles "in a single, clutter-free page."

In the footsteps of Firefox and Chrome, the newly updated browser will include "Private Browsing" as well.

Safari 4 was released about a year ago.

Full new, rumored specs:

Citing sources familiar with "AOL's strategy," it appears that Microsoft is ready to purchase the popular web portal, which would then be used to outsource web search to the Bing search engine.

Shares of AOL rose 1.3 percent despite a massive sell-off in the broader indexes.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong recently noted that the company was exploring new web search deals with "more than two potential partners." AOL currently outsources its web search to Google, the clear market leader.

While those discussions are still ongoing, the conclusion could be an outright sale of the company to Microsoft, which has over $37 billion in cash on hand.

AOL is valued at about $2.3 billion.

Both companies declined comment on the matter.

According to Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Online Audience Business Group, the company is ending the Bing Cashback program that has been offering users of the Bing search engine a way to make back some money on their purchases from certain retailers.

Mehdi says Bing Cashback was a "test-and-learn" program and after over a year, they will be retiring the feature.

The last day for Cashback purchases is July 30th, 2010.

Why is Microsoft ending the program? "When we originally began to offer the cashback feature, it was designed to help advertisers reach you with compelling offers, and to provide a new type of shopping experience that would change user behavior and attract a bunch of new users to Bing. In lots of ways, this was a great feature – we had over a thousand merchant partners delivering great offers to customers and seeing great ROI on their campaigns, and we were taking some of the advertising revenue and giving it back to customers. But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for."

Warner Bros. has announced that its hit MMO Lord of the Rings Online will move to free-to-play starting in September.

The publisher tried a similar strategy last year with Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, and says revenue exploded 500 percent after they made the game free-to-play.

"Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited was the world’s first truly premium free-to-play online game that ushered in a new era of choice for online gamers seeking quality entertainment," says Jim Crowley, president and CEO of Turbine (via GI). "The popularity of DDO validated the extraordinary demand by gamers for quality entertainment they can experience at their own pace and within their budget. Extending free-to-play to Lord of the Rings Online will offer another premium game to a broad spectrum of fans."

Warner will make money off the game by charging for expansions, quest packs, items, weapons and account services. The company is also starting a VIP program that will give gamers unlimited access to all content for a certain price.

Research firm NPD has noted today that they have been forced to delay the video game industry sales report for May as the company is upgrading its IT architecture.

The report was expected, as it is every month, to be released in the second week of the month. The delay could be as long as three weeks, which would call for the report to hit at the very end of June or even first week of July.

What the benefits are of the IT upgrade are still unclear but appear significant.

May is generally a slow month for the industry, but a few blockbuster games, including Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption and THQ's UFC Undisputed 2010 are expected to boost the results.

April saw sales fall off a cliff, with hardware falling 37 percent year-on-year and software falling 22 percent. The overall 26 percent decline was the fourth largest such collapse since the turn of the century.

Boost Mobile, the American prepaid cell carrier has announced today the launch of the Motorola i1, the world's first Android touchscreen device with "push-to-talk" walkie-talkie features.

The smartphone will be available through Boost, Best Buy, and Best Buy Mobile stores.

Says Neil Lindsay, CMO of Boost Mobile: "Last year Boost disrupted the wireless marketplace with the $50 Monthly Unlimited offer, and we are doing it again with the launch of the Motorola i1. Together with Motorola, we are able to offer the Android experience to those customers who enjoy the walkie-talkie feature. And with 1,100 Best Buy locations, 80 Best Buy Mobile stores and exclusive Boost Mobile stores nationwide, customers will not have to search far to find this hot handset."

The i1 runs some variant of Android 2.1, has a 3.1-inch HVGA display, an optimized Opera Mini 5 browser, Wi-Fi and 3G support, pre-installed SWYPE for quicker messaging and a 5MP camera with autofocus, flash and video.

Cablevision, one of the largest ISPs in the New York City metropolitan area, has said today that they have submitted a proposal to the MTA in an effort to extend free Optimum Wi-Fi onto Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trains within the next year.

The Wi-Fi is currently available at 200 commuter stops, but the new proposal would extend the Wi-Fi onto the actual trains, giving Internet to Cablevision subscribers whilst in transit.

"Access to the Internet on MTA trains will transform the riding experience, and we believe Cablevision is uniquely positioned to deliver this enhancement through the extension of Optimum WiFi – already the nation’s largest and most advanced WiFi network – onto the rails," says John Bickham, Cablevision’s president of cable and communications. "As a New York-based company already providing popular WiFi access at nearly 200 MTA commuter rail stations we propose to deploy wireless Internet access across the entire MTA system within 12 months of selection, at no cost to the Transportation Authority or taxpayers."

If you are not a Cablevision subscriber, then you can pay for access, at a "reasonable" price.

Yesterday, AT&T announced new data plans for their smartphone line, including the iPhone and iPad tablet, which will be less expensive for customers, but will also limit data use. The carrier also eliminated its unlimited plans for new subscribers starting June 7th.

Slacker, the online radio service, has announced today that iPhone supported offline playback is now available, giving Slacker Radio Plus subscribers the chance to download up to "thousands" of audio tracks from custom stations then listen to it later without the need for an active Internet connection.

The music caching feature has been standard on Android and BlackBerry devices since earlier this year.

Slacker's announcement is great news for future iPhone owners, who may be fans of streaming music but will be trapped with capped 3G data thanks to the new data plans. Slacker subscribers can now download the music they want while connected to a home wireless network or a Wi-Fi hotspot, and then play it back later while saving bandwidth.

According to a company spokesman, Verizon is unlikely to get the Apple iPhone in the "immediate future," despite Apple CEO Steve Jobs' recent revelation that "there might be" a iPhone on a new carrier in the U.S. soon.

Verizon spokesperson John Johnson says: "We have no plans to carry the iPhone in the immediate future."

Johnson then went on to talk about Android, and Verizon's support of the HTC Incredible and other "flagship" Android devices.

Steve Jobs, speaking a week before Apple's yearly Worldwide Developers Conference, had said "there might be" a chance of the iPhone on another carrier, before adding: "The future is long. I can't talk about that stuff."

AT&T recently announced the elimination of unlimited data plans, while adding new data plans for their smartphone line, including the iPhone and iPad tablet, which will be less expensive for customers, but will also limit data use.

Unless you have been on the island featured in "Lost" for the last month you have undoubtedly heard or read of the tragic oil spill caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico.

Director James Cameron, the man behind the biggest grossing movies of all-time, Avatar and Titanic, is also an avid deep-sea explorer, and recently offered his help to BP in efforts to combat the spill which is leaking, depending on whom you listen to, up to 9 barrels per second.

Apparently, BP did not want his help.

"Over the last few weeks I've watched, as we all have, with growing horror and heartache, watching what's happening in the Gulf and thinking those morons don't know what they're doing," Cameron said. It is unclear who "those morons" are, but it's safe to say he likely means both the underwater team as well as the executives.

Cameron has "worked extensively with robot submarines and is considered an expert in undersea filming," says Reuters, but BP still "graciously" turned down his offer.

The spill, which has quickly become the worst in U.S. history, continues to gush oil into the ocean, from a well one mile below the surface.