Latest news

Google Voice, the new beta service that allows users to have their voicemails transcribed and sent as emails as well as send free text messages, is now open, "priority" status, to students with valid .edu email addresses.

It has been hard to get invites to the service so far, but if you are a student, you get one within 24 hours.

Head over to google.com/voice/students and enter an email address that that ends in .edu, and you get the invite within 24 hours. (I tried it, it works)

The service is only available in the U.S., and I recommend that if you get it, and own an Android phone, get the free app from the market, it makes the service a lot more handy.

You can check out all the videos on the service here: youtube.com/googlevoice

According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, 65,000 smartphones running the Android operating system are shipped everyday now, showing continued strong growth for the OS which launched in late 2008.

The OS is used on 34 different mobile devices in 50 countries, he adds.

"It looks like Android is going to be either the number one or number two player" in the smartphone market, Schmidt said during the shareholders meeting.

Schmidt also adds that the 65,000 figure may be conservatively low: "Our partners are shipping about 65,000 Android handsets per day but if you check the blogosphere you'll discover there are some reports that that number might be quite low."

Major rival Apple, which only sells one smartphone (the iPhone), had about 8.75 million units sold in the last quarter, so the 65,000 a day figure would put the two companies almost on par.

Nintendo this week has filed another lawsuit against an online retailer that continues to sell R4 flash carts.

Flash carts are used to run homebrew and other legal features on the Nintendo DS and DSi handhelds, but also allow for the easy playback of pirated ROMs.

Just last month, Nintendo blamed piracy for a massive 50 percent drop in software sales in Europe.

The suit was filed against NXPGAME, which has continued selling the devices and ignored all cease-and-desist letters from Nintendo.

The owners behind NXPGAME previously shut down their site and stopped selling the R4, but then within weeks had set up an "identical business at a different website address," redirecting old traffic to the new site.

Wal-Mart is set to begin selling the Apple iPad in 2010 in the U.S., says one of the company's executives.

"We anticipate being able to have the iPad later this year," says Gary Severson, senior vice president of entertainment for Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores.

The exec would not provide any timetable, however, or whether they would offer a discount off the MSRP.

In the past month, Apple has sold 1 million iPads, its strongest new product launch.

So far, the device is only available through Apple directly or at Best Buy brick-and-mortar stores.

The Wi-Fi/16GB version of the iPad is available for $499, and the most expensive, the 3G/Wi-Fi/64GB version, sells for $829 USD.

Adobe has taken an interesting new route in their ongoing feud with Apple, starting a new ad campaign highlighting the company's "love" for the electronics giant.

The full page ads ran in giant newspapers such as The NY Times and the Wall Street Journal and is accompanied by a site, promoting Adobe's message.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has called Adobe's Flash technology outdated and unreliable, and has practically banned it from their "i" devices. Jobs also adds that Flash was designed for desktops using a mouse, and not appropriate for small, touchscreen devices.

The ad is only 82 words, and starts with: "We love creativity," "We love innovation," "We love apps," and finishes with: "What we don't love is anybody taking away your freedom to choose what you create, how you create it, and what you experience on the Web."

According to the latest NPD figures, U.S. video game sales crumbled in April, 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.

Sales fell to $766.2 million USD, after regularly topping $1 billion.

The Nintendo Wii remained the top-selling home console for the month, despite sales falling. The Xbox 360 came in second, just beating out the PS3.

Sales of the DS/DSi handheld fell over 50 percent to 440,800, but the console was still the clear winner for the month.

"The portable side of the industry contributed more than its fair share to the industry decline," added NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

The full hardware sales figures:

DS – 440,800
Wii – 277,200
Xbox 360 – 185,450
PS3 – 180,800
PSP – 65,500

Sony, along with their quarterly earnings, has revealed the sales figures for their gaming consoles.

Overall sales were down 10.2 percent for the fiscal year ended March 2010, but the PlayStation 3 was up significantly, from 10.3 to 13 million.

The overall decrease can be attributed to the fall of the PSP handheld and the aging PlayStation 2.

PSP sales were down large from 14 million to 9.9 million and the PlayStation 2 fell marginally from 7.9 million to 7.3 million.

The company reported an operating loss of $889.1 million USD for the year, slightly down from the $900 million+ loss last year.

Software sales on the PS3 jumped to 115.3 million from 103.7 million last year, while PS2 game sales collapsed to 35.7 million from 83.5 million. PSP game title sales fell as well from 50.3 million to 44.4 million.

Sony has announced today that the PlayStation 3 hardware is finally profitable, and the company expects its game business to be profitable for the year as well.

"The game business achieved a profit in the fourth quarter due to strong sales of first-party software and the elimination of negative margins on the PS3," adds Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's new chief financial officer.

The fourth quarter ended March 31st, 2010.

The hardware had been sold for less than cost since its release in November 2006, and high manufacturing costs made the console a continued money loser until just recently.

In late 2009, Sony released a "Slim" version of the PS3, which has more streamlined internals, and a cheaper price tag which led to an increase in sales. Manufacturing costs continue to fall as well, and it appears that Sony will reap the benefits of a profitable fiscal year.

For the fiscal year ended March 31st, Sony lost almost $900 million USD for their games division. That will change this year. "For this year we expect to be able to generate at least double-digit profits," adds Oneda, via BusinessWeek.

Paramount has announced today that they are recalling the very popular Saving Private Ryan Blu-ray, due to an unexpected audio glitch.

The movie sold 100,000 copies last week, and was the second-best selling Blu-ray for the week, behind Avatar, which continues to see strong sales.

The glitch occurs in Chapter 15 of the special edition Blu-ray, and Paramount blames the problem on a botched authoring process by vendor Technicolor.

The film went on sale on May 4th and the problem discs were sold in North America, the UK and Benelux territories.

Paramount has pulled all the current inventory from retail shelves and anyone who purchased the disc last week can request a replacement here: (888) 370-8621.

The German top court has ruled this week that Internet users must password-protect their Wi-Fi, or face a fine if someone accesses their connection and then downloads music or movies illegally.

Those with unsecured connections face up to a 100 euro fine if "a third party takes advantage" and is then caught doing so.

"Private users are obligated to check whether their wireless connection is adequately secured to the danger of unauthorized third parties abusing it to commit copyright violation," reads the court decision.

With that being said, the court did say the users were not responsible for the illegal content downloaded by those accessing their unsecured connections.

Additionally, the court said users would only be expected to add a password when they first set up their router, and not need to constantly update to the latest protections as they become available.

The ruling followed a lawsuit filed by a musician who sued an individual user for illegally downloading his music. The user proved he was away on vacation when the music was downloaded, but did admit he had unsecured Wi-Fi.

In April, Google announced the addition of "drag-and-drop" attachment support, giving users a chance to drag attachments from their respective folders right into an email or message without the need to hit the "attach file" button.

Today, the search giant has expanded that feature to include images, letting you drag in the image to any email or message right from any folder on your computer.

Additionally, it allows for resizing.

For now the attachment support feature works in Chrome and Firefox but the image support only works in Chrome.

Blockbuster, which has over 6000 "Express" kiosks, has announced that they are expanding to Kwik Trip convenience stores starting this week.

The Express kiosks will now be placed in 300 of the convenience stores in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

NCR, the company which operates the kiosks, says it hopes to expand to 10,000 kiosks in operation by July, in an effort to compete against RedBox, which has over 25,000 kiosks currently operating across the nation.

A few months ago, Blockbuster acquired small kiosk maker DVDPlay, allowing for an expansion into the west coast, most notably in California, Denver and Chicago.

In March, the rental company announced it had reached a deal with Warner Bros. to have new Warner releases available for rental day-and-day with release date, and a full 28 days before rivals Redbox and Netflix get them. That deal does not expand to the Express kiosks, however.

The once-extremely popular file sharing service LimeWire has been found liable of copyright infringement today in a 4-year-old lawsuit brought against them by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) threatening to put the final nail in the company's coffin.

U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood noted that users of LimeWire perform "a substantial amount of copyright infringement" and that LimeWire "has not taken meaningful steps to mitigate infringement."

The RIAA's lawsuit was seeking up to $150,000 USD per infringement, and the suit alleged that 93 percent of LimeWire's traffic was unauthorized file sharing. At its peak, LimeWire had 50 million unique users.

Adds the RIAA (via Wired): "LimeWire is one of the largest remaining commercial peer-to-peer services. Unlike other P2P services that negotiated licenses, imposed filters or otherwise chose to discontinue their illegal conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision in the Grokster case, LimeWire instead thumbed its nose at the law and creators."

Samsung has said they plan to invest $21 billion USD into new businesses such as solar cells, LED tech and even bio-pharmaceuticals.

The statement adds that the investment will help develop five new businesses for the company, add 45,000 jobs, and add $40 billion in additional revenue by 2020.

"Governments around the world are now investing in green industries to address the issues of depleting energy resources and the protection of our planet’s environment, which present pressing challenges to the global community," Samsung added in their prepared statement.

About 25 percent of the investment will be for solar cells "using crystalline silicon technology and thin film technology." Another 20 percent will be invested in rechargeable batteries for hybrid vehicles. An even larger chunk, around 35 percent, will be invested in LED technology ranging from TV back-lights to outdoor lighting.

The rest will be split between bio-pharmaceuticals and electronic healthcare equipment, says Samsung, which is currently a leader in the HDTV, mobile phone and chip markets.

The Hollywood Reporter has reported today that producers of the recent Best Picture winning film "The Hurt Locker" are preparing to sue thousands of alleged pirates, and that the case could be filed as soon as this week.

The U.S. Copyright Group, which has sued tens of thousands of alleged torrent users this year, has teamed up with Voltage Pictures, the team behind the movie, and the filing is said to include "tens of thousands (of pirates), if not more."

The movie was leaked to the Internet, in full DVD quality, about 6 months before its nationwide release in the U.S. Despite winning Best Picture, the film only grossed $17 million USD.

When filed, the plaintiffs must subpoena ISP records, and lawyers for the U.S Copyright Group say 75 percent of ISPs asked have cooperated in doing so.

Back in April, the Group sued 50,000 users, and says that over 40 percent have already settled with no cases going to court.