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The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is preparing for a third trial to once again determine damages, which have so far ranged from $54,000 to $1.92 million, to be paid by Jammie Thomas-Rasset who has been accused (and found guilty) of sharing 24 songs illegally on file sharing networks. Last year, the mother of four from Minnesota was ordered to pay $1.92 million in damages for sharing the music.

Last week, Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis reduced the damages to $54,000, declaring that the $1.92 million figure was "monstrous and shocking." The RIAA was given until Wednesday to accept the decision or to reject it, which would result in a new trial. The trade group announced it will reject the decision and go to another trial, as Thomas-Rasset turned down an opportunity to settle the case.

Attorneys for Thomas-Rasset said she would not accept a settlement offer from the RIAA, which would have her paying $25,000 to a charity for struggling artists. "Jammie is not going to agree to pay any amount of money to them," Attorney Joe Sibley said, adding that it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million.

Netflix has reported its highest number of new customers in a single quarter in the company's history, adding more than 1.1 million new subscribers in the fourth-quarter. It took four years to hit 1 million subscribers after Netflix launched in 1999. Investors applauded as the company revealed its results for the quarter, including a 36 percent rise in the Q4 profits for the rental-by-mail service.

Netflix now has more than 12 million subscribers, with a boost in new subscribers in response to new plans that bundle the rental-by-mail service with unlimited video streaming over the Internet, for prices as low as $9 per month. The good news didn't stop there for investors either; Netflix management expects Q1 2010 to be even more successful, projecting between 1.2 and 1.5 million new subscribers by the end of March.

Fourth-quarter revenue climbed 24 percent to $444.5 million, missing analyst expectations by $1 million. The shortfall however was overshadowed by pledges from management to boost profit margins to 11 percent from its previous 10 percent target.

Nokia Corp. has decided not to bundle its 'Comes With Music' service with its flagship X6 music phone model, in an effort to boost sales of the device. By cutting the unlimited music service, Nokia can cut the price of the phone by a third. Nokia launched 'Comes With Music' in 2008 in Britain as a test for the service, but it has only received a lukewarm reception, largely due to a large price overall.

"Nokia will have unbundled Comes with Music with heavy heart. It's a cornerstone service for flagship products like the X6, but this move reflects operators' reluctance to offer it," said Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight. Nokia wanted to boost the service by bundling it with the X6 phone, but retail outlets and operators weren't warm to it.

"This was an expected move -- in our view, the early demand for the bundled X6 has been soft," said analyst Tero Kuittinen from MKM Partners. "The lack of confidence in Comes with Music has kept European operators from marketing it aggressively." The phone went on sale last year, bundled with 'Comes With Music', for around €450 ($634), excluding taxes and subsidies.

Ubisoft is looking to reduce the amount of pirates playing its PC games while tackling some of the common problems that Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology causes for legitimate consumers. The company has said that a new anti-piracy system will allow users to install their games on as many PCs as they want and there will be no need to insert a disc for authentication purposes either.

"If you own a hundred PCs, you can install your games on a hundred PCs," said Brent Wilkinson, Director, Customer Service and Production Planning at Ubisoft. While these changes will sound great to those affected by Ubisoft's use of StarForce DRM, there is one major problem. The game is authenticated by the user by signing into his/her Ubi.com account before playing -- even on a single player game.

This obviously raises issues for people who do not have constant access to the Internet, or might regularly suffer service outages. However, Ubisift is not convinced that this will be a big problem. "We think most people are going to be fine with it. Most people are always connected to an Internet connection," Wilkinson said.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has lost a lawsuit against China's biggest search engine, Baidu. The trade group, which represents record companies from across the world, said that it was disappointed by the loss, and is currently taking time to plan its next steps. It has accused Baidu of "deep-linking" users to hundreds of thousands of illegal MP3 downloads.

The IPFI brought the lawsuit against Baidu in 2008 at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court. Baidu said it is pleased with the court's decision and that it will continue to comply with all laws.

"The verdicts do not reflect the reality that these services have built their music search businesses on the basis of facilitating mass copyright infringement, to the detriment of artists, producers and all those involved in China's legitimate music market," an IFPI representative said.

The hacker behind the first proper breach of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console's security has released the exploit for others to tinker with. It won't let you launch a "hello world" program easily, but its definitely a start for others who are up to the challenge now. George Hotz (geohot), known for his work Apple's iPhone, ran a blog for a few weeks following his efforts to crack the console security, and then on Friday announced that he had "hacked the PS3".

Here's his latest blog post.

Here's your silver platter
In the interest of openness, I've decided to release the exploit. Hopefully, this will ignite the PS3 scene, and you will organize and figure out how to use this to do practical things, like the iPhone when jailbreaks were first released. I have a life to get back to and can't keep working on this all day and night.

Please document your findings on the psDevWiki. They have been a great resource so far, and with the power this exploit gives, opens tons of new stuff to document. I'd like to see the missing HV calls filled in, nice memory maps, the boot chain better documented, and progress on a 3D GPU driver. And of course, the search for a software exploit.

The popey.com blog has reported today that all new versions of Ubuntu Lucid will come with Firefox using Yahoo! as the default search engine instead of Google after the companies struck a deal.

Canonical, the group behind the Lucid releases, made the revenue sharing deal as a way to generate income for the company and its developers.

Obviously, if you hate Yahoo or just prefer Google, Bing, Ask, etc., you can switch the search engine back, but Canonical will not see any of the money from your searches. The browser start page will also feature Yahoo instead of Google now, but that is easily changed as well.

The time for Apple's big product announcement has come. As the rumors suggested it's a tablet, which they're calling the iPad.

At first glance it looks like a giant iPod Touch. So far Steve Jobs has shown off web browsing capabilities, which conspicuously didn't include a Flash plugin, much like the iPhone and iPod Touch.

With a 9.7 inch LED backlit LCD display, the iPad is half an inch thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds.

It features between 16GB and 64GB of storage with a 1GHz Apple A4 CPU, Bluetooth 2.1 support, and a 802.11n Wi-Fi interface. It can run almost all the apps from the iPhone App Store.

The iPad will be available in March, and will sell for a (suggested retail) price of $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model, or $699 for the 64GB version. In April there will also be models with both Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities and suggested retail price of $629 (16GB), $729 (32GB), and $829 (64GB).

Two different AT&T iPad data plans for the 3G version were also announced. For $14.99 you will be able to get a plan with a 250MB limit. There will also be an unlimited plan for $29.99 per month.

This is significantly cheaper than standard data plans using a USB 3G modem, but is also more limited since it will only work with your iPad.

Samuel Lassoff, a class action attorney in Pennsylvania has announced today that he has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over the virtual Microsoft Points, the currency system used to buy games and content through Xbox Live.

Lassoff says the system rips off users, and that he recently was charged for downloads which could not be completed "due to nature of the download system."

Says the filing: "Microsoft has engaged in a scheme to unjustly enrich itself through their fraudulent handling," of accounts.

Although we do not know the exact details of what occurred with his account, the points system being a ripoff is not a new claim. $20 USD will get you 1600 MS points, unlike Wii virtual points, where that same $20 will get you a more straightforward 2000 points. The points you buy also never seem to add up correctly for games you want to buy and you are left with leftovers that are useless until you supplant them with more points.

The federal government has officially banned truckers and bus drivers from texting while on the road, a rule that had been implemented by many of the trucking companies already.

"We want the drivers of big rigs and buses and those who share the roads with them to be safe," says U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "This is an important safety step, and we will be taking more to eliminate the threat of distracted driving."

Earlier this week we reported that Avatar was set to become the highest grossing film of all-time.

Today, that has come true, with the movie surpassing Titanic as the highest grossing film of all-time (not adjusted for inflation.)

Gregg Brilliant, of 20th Century Fox, said "Avatar" now stands at $1.859 billion in global sales, beating out Titanic's $1.843 billion from 1998.

The movie is the highest grossing in Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Britain and Australia as well, and is one its way to breaking the American record of $600 million, likely this week.

Long Zheng at istartedsomething has made a very interesting find today, finding drivers for a Zune phone in the latest Zune software update, version 4.2.202.

[Microsoft.NTx86]
%Zune.DeviceDesc% = ZuneMTPZUSB, USBMS_COMP_MTPZ
%Zune.DeviceDesc% = ZuneMTPZUSB, USBVID_045E&PID_0710
%Zune.DeviceDesc% = ZuneMTPZUSB, USBVID_045E&PID_063E
%Phone.DeviceDesc% = ZuneMTPZUSB, USBVID_045E&PID_0640
%Phone.DeviceDesc% = ZuneMTPZUSB, USBVID_045E&PID_0641
%Phone.DeviceDesc% = ZuneMTPZUSB, USBVID_045E&PID_0642
%ZuneIp.DeviceDesc% = ZuneMTPZIP, umburn:microsoft-com:device:mtpz:1

; Localizable strings
Msft = “Microsoft”
Zune.DeviceDesc = “Zune”
…
Phone.DeviceDesc = “Phone”

Zheng concludes that a Zune phone will indeed be launched, most likely at the Mobile World Congress next month.

AT&T has shown Apple its plans to improve the wireless data network, says COO Tim Cook, hoping the new infrastructure will change the general perception of the public that the carrier's network is lacking.

"We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them," Cook added.

Cook did not comment on whether the exclusivity pact Apple has with AT&T was set to expire, and would not go into whether the iPhone would be available for new carriers soon.

The Google Nexus One smartphone has been plagued with 3G connectivity issues since its launch earlier this month, but Google has said today that an OTA firmware update coming this week should fix the problems.

One employee named Ivar says that the company has been actively creating a software fix that should "improve connectivity to 3G for some users." Ivar does say however that it will not solve all problems, as some users may simply be on the outer range of T-Mobile 3G coverage.

The Nexus One will be available for Verizon users in April, and for Vodafone users in the UK at the same time. If you plan to buy the phone unlocked, you can use it on AT&T, but only using EDGE (2G) speeds.

According to new sources, Verizon will begin offering prepaid BlackBerry data service sometime in the next three months.

Although there weren't too many details revealed, the plan will cost $35 on top of your normal voice plan. Most likely, only a few BlackBerrys will be available for the new deal.

The move is the first time Verizon will offer a smartphone as a "prepaid" device, and most American carriers have been reluctant to make such offers, instead opting for long-term contracts with locked in prices.