Latest news

Twitter users can now opt-in to allow for current location sharing, a feature that will append your Tweets with your geolocation.

Adds Twitter co-founder Biz Stone of why they added the feature: "A recent burst of interest in location sharing applications, games, and services has many Twitter users excited about appending geographic data to some of their tweets."

The real question remains as to how many users will opt-in to the optional feature or even what the point is. Still, once a good number of celebrities opt-in, it is likely many followers will do the same. Those who frequent at pleaserobme.com will then have a field day.

Full instructions from Twitter:

Netflix’s second $1 million contest, which offered to give the winner the money for creating the best way to improve the company's movie recommendation system, has been canceled this week, with Netflix citing privacy concerns.

University of Texas researchers found that the "anonymous" data released by Netflix for the contest, including recommendations and choices from hundreds of thousands of users could be used to identify the users, by name.

The researchers brought the news to the FTC, and a class action lawsuit as well, leading Netflix to cancel the second contest. They have also settled the lawsuit.

Says Neil Hunt, Netflix’s chief product officer: "The resolution of both matters involves certain parameters on how we use Netflix data in any future research programs."

According to the latest data released by the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), cyberfraud losses doubled in 2009, with victims reporting $560 million in losses for the year.

The biggest scam was one using emails claiming to come from FBI Deputy Director John Pistole. Victims were asked to pay small fees in order to receive a larger amount of money in return, money that obviously never comes.

Of the 336,665 complaints received by the IC3, over 55,000 were FBI-themed scams. Total complaints were up 22 percent from 2008, and losses were up 111 percent.

Among other popular scams were fake antivirus software, non-delivery of merchandise or payments via online marketplaces and identity theft.

PCWorld reports the strangest scam as being one where the victim received an email from a hitman claiming he had been hired to assassinate them. The assassin offered to cancel the job, if the victim sent them $800 within three days.

OnLive, the cloud gaming service set for a June launch in the U.S., will notably allow for a la carte rentals, says GI.biz, with CEO Steve Perlman confirming that subscription packages will not be required.

Basic OnLive packages cost $15 a month for "full OnLive services," but the rental "Portal" will not require a package.

Says Perlman of the individual rentals: "The OnLive Game Portal is for gamers looking for direct access to OnLive games without being required to subscribe to the features of the full OnLive Game Service. Through the OnLive Game Portal, gamers will be able to play select games directly on a rental basis as well as game demos for free; subject to available OnLive service capacity and whatever usage limits are associated with each given demo. Rentals will be priced on a per-game basis."

The a la carte rental "Portal" will launch a bit later than the the service, adds Perlman.

CVG has an interview with Microsoft Xbox and Entertainment's Stephen McGill, who has made it clear that digital media is the future, and not Blu-ray discs.

Says McGill: "We have no plans to adopt [a] Blu-Ray drive for the Xbox 360. In fact, the future of home entertainment started last autumn when Xbox 360 became the first and only console to offer instant-on 1080p streaming HD movies."

Microsoft has seen some pressure of late over the low capacity of DVD discs in comparison to Blu-ray, especially after Capcom said it had to cut content from the upcoming Lost Planet 2 on the 360, because of the lack of space.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the overseeing body of the Internet, has decided to postpone the ruling on the proposed .xxx porn domain until the summer.

The .xxx domain was originally approved in 2005, but government bodies, including the American government, have been critics of the domain and ICANN has since rejected the proposal on various occasions.

An independent panel of judges has recently ruled that ICANN's latest rejection, in 2007, "was not consistent with the application of neutral, objective, and fair documented policy." It is therefore up for approval again.

ICANN may choose to not vote at all, and CEO Rod Beckstrom says the public opposition to the domain is still very heavy.

If approved, porn sites can use the .xxx domain, but are not required to do so.

The Plastic Logic Que 'business' e-reader has been delayed until at least the Summer, reads an eWeek report.

CEO Richard Archuleta says the company is working on "fine-tuning" the device, as well as improving overall stability. Anyone who pre-ordered the device was sent an email explaining the delay.

Because the Que has a businessman target demographic, the device will retail for $650 for the 4GB/Wi-Fi model and $800 for the 8GB/Wi-Fi/3G version. Mostly all other e-readers sell for under $300, including the popular Nook and Kindle devices.

The Que features a large 10.7-inch screen, and has built-in support for Microsoft Office documents as well as PDFs.

Nokia has asked a federal judge to toss the ongoing patent dispute case between the phone giant and Apple, claiming that Apple's claims are "designed to divert attention away from free-riding off of Nokia’s intellectual property."

In October, Nokia filed suit against Apple, accusing the company of infringing on 10 patents and asking for backpay on royalties for the patents. Apple has sold 42 million iPhones since 2007.

Apple then counter-sued, accusing Nokia of patent infringement, as well, asking for an injunction on some Nokia smartphones.

Nokia's latest filing accuses Apple of "revisionist history, misleading characterizations, unsupported allegations and flawed and contradictory legal theories to turn these fruitless negotiations into a multi-count federal lawsuit." Both companies tried to work out a deal, but got nowhere.

In February it was reported that tucked away in the iPad/iPhone 3.2 SDK, a few icons relating to video calling, such as "decline or end video" and "accept video," were found, giving theory that future versions of the devices may have front-side cameras.

Today, 9to5Mac is reporting that SDK 3.2 beta 4 removes all those video chat files, although it is unclear as to whether Apple did so to make the video chat features a "surprise" in the future or just because they were originally there as a mistake.

Old SDK beta:


New SDK beta:

The NPD Group has released their latest industry sales figures for the U.S. gaming industry, and the number were not pretty.

Overall sales fell 15 percent year-over-year to $1.48 billion, a 50 percent higher drop than even top industry analyst Michael Pachter was expecting.

"Honestly, I had expected the industry to perform somewhat better this month," adds NPD analyst Anita Frazier. "Nonetheless, strong new releases, and Easter gift-buying bodes well for industry performance in March."

Outside of the giant decline, the most notable news was that of the Xbox 360 outselling the Nintendo Wii for the first time since 2007. The 360 saw 422,000 units sold, with the Wii seeing 397,000 sold. Closely behind was the PlayStation 3 at 360,100 units sold. For handhelds, the DS/DSi blew out the PSP again, 613,200 to 133,400.

"The Xbox 360 nabbed the top-spot among the three console systems for the first time since September 2007, when Halo 3 was released," notes Frazier of the hardware sales. "The PS3 enjoyed a 30 percent increase over last year, even while retail supply is reported to remain constrained."

Earlier this week David Rivas, VP of Technology Management at Nokia, showed off a demo of the interface for the Symbian^3 (S^3) smartphone OS at a demo in San Francisco. The first Nokia phones running the now completely open source platform will be available later this year.

During the presentation, which primarily demonstrated customizing the interface, Rivas talked about the features that will set it apart in the smartphone market. Of particular note were his comments about multitasking.

He pointed out that Nokia has had multitasking on their smartphones for several years, and indicated it will be "coming much more front and center."

You can see the demo in this video posted by PhoneDog.com's Noah Kravitz.

The cloud gaming service OnLive, first announced last year, finally has a set launch date.

Starting June 17th in the U.S., users can pay $15 a month to play games from major publishers EA, THQ, 2K Games, Warner Bros., and Ubisoft in the "cloud."

"This marks a huge milestone for both OnLive and the interactive entertainment landscape as a whole, changing the way that video games are developed, marketed, accessed and played," says Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. "We are opening the door to incredible experiences for gamers and enormous opportunities for developers and publishers."

The service includes standard features such as voice chat, profiles and gamer tags and will allow for pausing and resuming of games. OnLive is available for PC and Mac users.

"The OnLive Game Service creates a new opportunity for consumers to play the latest games without spending hundreds of dollars on a hardware system to make it happen," adds Mike McGarvey, COO of OnLive, via Gi.biz. "As a Mac user myself, I'm excited about the opportunity to help bring high-end gaming to this new and significant market."

New and popular titles that will be included are Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age Origins, Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands, Borderlands, Assassin's Creed II, and Metro 2033.

Google has launched Google Reader Play, a "new way to browse interesting stuff on the web that’s easy to use and personalized to the things you like."

Making it different than Google Reader is the fact that Reader Play does not require any set-up, it uses the users feeds.

Try the experimental project here: http://www.google.com/reader/play/

Press release:

In Google Reader Play, items are presented one at a time, and each item is big and full-screen. After you've read an item, just click the next arrow to move to the next one, or click any item on the filmstrip below to fast-forward. Of course, you can click the title or image of any item to go to the original version. And since so much of the good stuff online is visual, we automatically enlarge images and auto-play videos full-screen.

Reader Play adapts to your tastes -- as you browse, you can let us know which stuff you enjoy by clicking the "like" button, and we'll use that info to show you more items we think you'll like. If you want, you can also choose categories, and we'll personalize your stream to only show you stuff from those categories. And you don't even need a Google account to use Reader Play. Of course, if you want to star, like, or share items, we'll ask you to sign in to your Google account. Since Reader and Reader Play share the same infrastructure, any actions you take in one will be reflected in the other.

Sony has launched their highly-anticipated motion controller, the PlayStation Move, a system that should rival the Wii and Microsoft's upcoming Natal motion system.

Says Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing for Sony Computer Entertainment: "The migration path from the Wii household to the PlayStation 3 household is a pretty natural path, partly because of the experience that you can get on the PlayStation Move but also because of the content that we find on PlayStation 3."

As viewed in the demo video, the Move is used in conjunction with the PlayStation Eye camera and allows for real-time tracking of the player's body movements. As for accuracy?

"Nothing has ever been this precise," say Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Computer Electronics Worldwide Studios.

Standalone prices were not revealed but Dille says that a "starter bundle" including a game, the PS Eye and the Move will retail for under $100.

Motorola and Microsoft have announced a new deal today that will make Bing search and maps the default for the smartphone maker's Android-based phones.

The phones will now come with a search widget pre-loaded.

The company signed a similar deal with Baidu last week, to make Baidu the default Web search engine for Android phones sold in China.

The moves come as Google continues its dispute with China over censorship, a fight that has yet to be resolved, and one in which Google threatened to pull its search engine service from the country entirely.