Latest news

According to Deagol's AAPL Model, Apple saw 152,000 iPad pre-orders in its first weekend of availability, however, sales dropped off significantly from Friday until Sunday (view pics at the end).

In the first day, an expected 120,000 tablets were ordered, with orders slowing down as the days went on, for a total of about 152,000 now.

Adds the post: "A nice, round rump evolves after 12 hours into a relatively straight line slightly sloping up. I'll just add that this slope will increase in the next few hours and days, that is, the line will curve in the opposite direction right about now (72 hours) and get steeper, and then it'll become straight once again for some time. Once we get past 100-150 hours, I expect a new, more subtle rump to form in which the slope will very slowly get shallower as the days and weeks pass."

The original Palm Pre (minus the 'Plus') has a 500MHz processor and 256MB of RAM, and the mid-range processor has been criticized by critics of the smartphone for some time.

This week, modders have overclocked the Pre (running 1.3.5.1 firmware or 1.4) to 800MHz, and saw obviously faster performance.

The phone drains battery very quickly, and the phone runs hot as well, but for those with some extra time on their hands and extra money (in case the phone explodes) it might be worth trying out.

Read the full post, and links here: http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre-tips-information-resources/236315-prototype-video-wosqi-720-800-mhz-os1-3-5-1-a.html

Nokia Corp. said that the market for mobile phones totaled 1.26 billion handsets last year, beating the Finnish giant's forecast of 1.14 billion. The company reduced its share of sales to 34 percent from an earlier forcast of 38 percent, recalculating the size of the market and the scale of the growing grey market for counterfeit and unlicensed mobile phones.

According to Gartner research group, the grey market totaled around 145 million handsets in 2009, with the majority of them being sold in China, India and Latin America. "These include vendors of legitimate, as well as unlicensed and counterfeit, products with manufacturing facilities primarily centered around certain locations in Asia and other emerging markets," Nokia said.

"This is a good thing for Nokia because it is really showing that they want to measure the real market and grey market has been a big driver in 2009," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. "It is an opportunity for them to go after and try and actually win over users in that segment as well."

Sky and Virgin Media have confirmed that they will be offering ITV1 HD through both company's entertainment services starting in April. This brings more World Cup football games to UK subscribers in High-definition.

"The addition of ITV1 HD from 2nd April means Sky+HD homes across all ITV regions will be able to watch World Cup matches live in HD, as well as other major ITV shows such as Law and Order: UK, The Prisoner, Foyles War, Lewis, Survival with Ray Mears, and Britain's Got Talent," Sky said in a statement.

Virgin Media also announced separately that it will be offering ITV1 HD from April 2, and that some of ITV1 HD's content will be available on demand on ITV Net Player on Virgin Media's TV Platform.

Sky also said it will be launching Hallmark Chanel HD and Sky Sports 4 HD to bring its total line-up of HD channels to 40.

NVIDIA is hosting a website that covers legal cases against Intel Corporation for anti-competitive practices. The site is clearly part of NVIDIA's PR campaign against Intel as the spat between both companies over rivaling technology continues to grow.

The site has extensive details from legal cases brought against Intel, including cases brought by the European Union, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S., New York State etc. and also aims to educate consumers about the base of the conflict; at least from the perspective of NVIDIA.

The site is an interesting browse and to its credit, is very informative and does its intended job quite well. Nevertheless, some of its content is amusing and reminds you that it is presented from a single side in this argument. Take, for example, the difference in how NVIDIA describes what a GPU is, and what a CPU is.

Q. What is a GPU?
"A. GPUs, or graphics processing units, are specialized processors first developed by NVIDIA in 1999. They were initially used to render three-dimensional graphics. In more recent years, GPUs have also been used for “general purpose” computing, which harnesses the computing power of the chip to perform certain functions traditionally handled by the CPU, often more efficiently than can be done by the CPU alone. General purpose GPUs are being used by scientists and engineers around the world to perform ground-breaking research in fields like medicine, biology and chemistry as well as for mainstream applications like streaming HD video and transcoding media files."

PRS for Music has compiled figures showing that growth in digital music downloads lead to a increase in royalties paid to British songwriters, composers and publishers. About £623 million was paid out in 2009 in royalties, up 2.6 percent from the total in 2008. It represents the first time that growth in digital revenues was larger than the drop in CD and DVD earnings for the industry.

"2009 was the first year in which the growth in revenues from the legal digital market compensated for the decline in revenues from traditional CDs and DVDs, though we remain cautious as to whether this represents a true turning point," said PRS for Music chief executive Robert Ashcroft.

"The next decade does, however, promise further growth in earnings from the legal digital market as well as the use of British music overseas." The global music business witnessed continuing declines throughout the last decade. It blames growth of Internet piracy and the decline of physical format sales for the reduction in revenues.

There is something that doesn't seem right about charging games consumers extra fees to unlock content that is already present on a disc they bought, or at least that is what gamers feel. Fans have pointed out that new Downloadable Content (DLC) for BioShock 2 is actually already present on the game disc itself, despite being labeled and sold as "DLC".

The Sinclair Solutions pack was "released" on Thursday and includes two new playable characters, 20 new trials, weapons upgrades and increases the level cap to 50. The add-on is priced at 400 Microsoft Points, the equivalent of about $5. However, fans of the game posted on the 2K Forum that the download size for the PC add-on was just 24K in size.

Similarly, the download size for the Xbox 360 add-on was just 108K in size. Clearly the content is already on the disc itself, fans believed. According to forum community manager Elizabeth, they are right. She posted that the download was already on the disc to ensure there was no split in the userbase for the games' multiplayer mode.

According to details in a court filing, Nokia Corp. and Apple Inc. will seek a U.S. court hearing in a patent infringement case in mid-2012. The detail shows that both sides expect the mobile patent feud between them to continue for quite some time. Nokia has already moved to have a case brought against it by Apple dismissed in the meantime.

Nokia sued Apple in October 2009, alleging that the company's iPhone uses patent technologies owned by Nokia Corp. without paying royalties for their use. Nokia is seeking up to €1 billion ($1.36 billion) from Apple in the case.

On December 11, Apple filed a countersuit against Nokia accusing the Finnish mobile giant of infringing 13 Apple patents. The company later removed four of the 4 patents from the list.

Patent disputes like these are becoming all too common in the ever-growing market for mobile gadgets. Last week, Apple sued HTC Corp accusing it of infringing 20 hardware and software patents held by Apple. HTC makes touchscreen smartphones that run Google software.

According to AppleInsider, multi-tasking may be the headlining feature of the upcoming iPhone OS 4.0, giving millions of users their biggest demand.

Multi-tasking will allow for apps to run concurrently in the background, although it is unclear how many apps will be able to run at once.

The news comes from sources with "proven track records" in predicting upcoming Apple updates, says AI, and the sources say that Apple has "developed a full-on solution" to multi-tasking, although it is unclear how battery life will be affected.

The iPhone 4.0 OS is expected to be released in June at the earliest.

Greek authorities have taken down the large torrent tracker Gamato.info, accusing the site of facilitating copyright infringement of music, games, movies, and books.

Six admins of the site were also arrested in raids of their homes in Athens, Salonika, Larissa and Aridaia.

The police officials were working on tips from IFPI Greece, the local branch of the industry group.

Gamato.info was a top 20 most visited site in Greece, with an estimated 155,000 daily visitors. The site had around 13,000 movies, 6500 games and over 35,000 music albums available.

Says Jeremy Banks, director of anti-piracy at IFPI: "Gamato.info was facilitating the illegal distribution of music, film, games and books. It is the perfect illustration of how such illegal operations are damaging a wide range of creative industries in Europe. The Hellenic Police swiftly recognized this was not a victimless crime and took action against those who sought to shamelessly profit off the back of others' creative work. This skilfully executed action by a highly knowledgeable police force should act as a real deterrent to others in Greece considering engaging in online piracy."

According to multiple reports, the UK launch of the Google Nexus One has been delayed until the middle of next month, a setback that should lose it sales to the HTC Legend, which is set for release in a few weeks.

The handset will be available unlocked at a premium or locked to Vodafone with a two-year contract for free.

Because of the delay, the Nexus One will have to compete with the Legend as well as the HTC Desire, both of which use Android, along with the very popular HTC Sense user interface.

Overall, the Nexus One has struggled in the US, and Goldman Sachs recently cut their sales estimates from 3.5 million this year to a measly 1 million.

There was no reason behind the delay.

James Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corps. European and Asian operations has made some interesting comments this week in regards to piracy, calling on governments to "get tough" on illegal downloading.

"We need enforcement mechanisms and we need governments to play ball … There is no difference with going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag and taking this stuff. It's a basic condition for investment and economic growth and there should be the same level of property rights whether it's a house or a movie," said Murdoch. "The idea that there's a new consumer class and you have to be consumer-friendly when they're stealing stuff. No. There should be the same level of sanctity as there is around property. Content is no different. They're not crazy kids. No. Punish them."

James Murdoch is the son of mogul Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corp, and younger Murdoch is expected to take over the company when his father retires.

Adding to what his father has said in the past, James said News Corp. will act against "content aggregators," including search giant Google, in order to protect its copyrights.

"We're being very careful legally to protect our rights," says Murdoch, via Guardian. "If there's money getting stuck it's getting stuck in an inefficient distribution layer … where Google and Yahoo are suddenly indexing copyright material and then selling bits of it and making money from it. You may have to withdraw access to those things. You may not."

Pre-orders for the much-hyped Apple iPad just started on Friday but that isn't stopping eBay sellers from trying to make a pretty penny off the tablet before it officially ships on April 3rd.

There are currently 442 iPads up for sale, with a range of prices, most with a heavy premium.

The most ridiculous comes from a "top rated seller" with the moniker egiftscentral_123, who is selling a Wi-Fi/16GB model for $21 million USD, and even then is audacious enough to charge $14.42 for shipping.

Users that will ship internationally seem to be the only ones receiving true bids, as the iPad is set to go on sale in only 10 countries next month.

View the auction here: eBay $21 million iPad

Pic via CNNMoney:

According to the Financial Times, Google Inc. is "99.9 percent" sure to shut down its Chinese search engine. The newspaper cited a source familiar with the situation in reporting that talks between Google and the Chinese government over censorship have reached an apparent impasse.

The report said that Google is likely to make a decision very soon but that it will take some time to follow through on its plans. The company would carry out an orderly closure to take steps to protect local employees from retaliation by authorities.

On Friday, China's Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Li Yizhong, warned Google about its decision to stop censoring search results for Chinese users. "If you don't respect Chinese laws, you are unfriendly and irresponsible, and the consequences will be on you," he told reporters.

Google shocked the business world and ignited tension between the United States and China in January when it revealed that it would pull out of China if it would not offer unfiltered search results. The move came after Google was targeted by a cyber-attack sourced in China aimed at its Intellectual Property and the e-mail accounts of Chinese activists.

Electronic Arts has dropped its in-game advertisement partners and opted instead to sell its ads in-house. EA is currently partnered with IGA Worldwide and Massive Inc, owned by Microsoft, but has held an event in New York where it pitched its properties to advertisers and media buyers.

The sale operations will not be handled in-house when the deals with IGA Worldwide and Massive Inc. end in August this year. Both companies will provide ads until Electronic Arts ships the next Madden NFL title in the United States.

Reports from the New York event suggested that Electronic Arts put a big emphasis on content on the Apple formats, such as the iPod Touch and iPad, and also social networking sites like Facebook, along with its expected titles and formats.