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Wow, I can't believe that the Noughties are about to end in couple of hours time. It is quite mind-boggling to think that our site, AfterDawn, has existed through this whole decade - and then some (as our regulars remember, we celebrated our site's 10th anniversary in June). I could write once again, my "traditional" New Year's summary of the past year's events, but I wont do that this time. Instead, just want to chitchat to you about this past decade.

First of all, 10 years ago, we already had a site, AfterDawn.com, that we began building in March, 1999 and that went eventually live on June, 1999. All of us, the founders of the site, were in our early twenties. I had just moved from Helsinki to New York, with my partner and our baby girl. I was witnessing the golden age of the "dotcom boom", working on one of the "dotcom darlings" of that era in Silicon Valley. It seemed that anything you'd create on the Internet would turn into gold, eventually. You could understand easily how we had the energy to first go through a normal working day in our "real life jobs" and then spend 6-8 hours in the evening to write news articles, code, design and plan for AfterDawn's future.

HBO has added their own iPhone app to the App Store this week, offering an interactive program guide and previews and clips of upcoming shows.

Although full-length episodes are not available through the app, the app will give users a chance to buy full episodes from iTunes or Amazon with one-click.

Video clips will be available for True Blood, Entourage, Bored to Death and others, and behind-the-scenes features will be available alongside bios of the actors. The interactive guide will lets users check HBO episode guides for all shows or select favorites with notifications.

The app can also connect to Facebook and Twitter.

Rival premium broadcaster Showtime has an app as well, but streams some episodes for free.

Time Warner Cable and Fox are unlikely to reach a deal, says News Corp. COO Chase Carey, meaning tens of millions of Time Warner subscribers will not receive Fox programming starting January 1st, missing such draws as the Sugar Bowl and popular shows such as Family Guy.

Fox is asking that the cable company pay $1 per subscriber per month for use of Fox and 14 other channels, a giant increase from current licensing fees.

"At this time, it looks like we will not reach an agreement and our channels may very well go off the air in Time Warner Cable systems at midnight tomorrow, December 31," says Carey. "We deeply regret that millions of Fox customers will be deprived of our programming, but we need to receive fair compensation from Time Warner Cable to go forward with them."

When asked about a binding arbitration deal that Time Warner wants to delay the blackout, Carey says: "Some may ask why Fox isn't providing an extension while negotiations continue--the fact is that we've been trying since the summer to negotiate a fair deal and that further extensions simply extend the period of time that Time Warner profits from our marquee programming without fairly compensating Fox for it."

MobileTechWorld is noting today that Microsoft has a few job offerings available that seems to confirm that the software giant is looking to turn Windows Mobile into a gaming platform:

The posts are:

Principal Program Manager – LIVE Engagement Job

Xbox LIVE involves a lot more than building software. It’s about changing the way people have fun, interact and live. Help us create and deliver the most advanced online entertainment service on the planet. At Xbox LIVE, we’re accelerating the trend towards connected, social interactive entertainment by designing incredibly rich, multi-platform game and community experiences. We’re connecting players via the LIVE services on new devices beyond the console. We need a Principle Program Manager who can help drive the platform and bring Xbox LIVE enabled games to Windows Mobile. This person will focus specifically on what makes gaming experiences “LIVE Enabled” through aspects such as avatar integration, social interactions, and multi-screen experiences.

Amazon, notorious for hyping sales numbers but not really giving hard facts, has said this week that during the holiday season it sold enough Blu-ray players that if lined up side-by-side, it would measure over 27 miles.

VideoBusiness says the average width of a BD player is just about 17-inches. Doing some quick math (miles to inches then divided again by 17) we get that total sales were 100,630.

Obviously the numbers are speculation for now, but 100k units sold for the holiday season would be a massive number for just one retailer. NPD Group says overall units sales jumped 50 percent year-on-year, with profits growing 5 percent, mainly because BD players had prices slashed so low.

Seagate, the world's largest producer of hard drive disks, may finally be in trouble in a 10-year-old lawsuit brought against them by Convolve over technologies allegedly stolen.

An ex-Seagate employee has come forward and signed an affidavit claiming that Seagate, despite having a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) with Convolve, ripped off the small company's technology then destroyed evidence of doing so.

Convolve sued Seagate in 2000 for $800 million USD over patent infringement relating to technology used to reduce noise and vibration in HDDs. Researchers at M.I.T had developed the techniques and Convolve was the first company to sell it. In 1999, Seagate met with Convolve to discuss the technologies but the NDA stated that the larger company could not use what was learned for their own benefit. Within one year, Seagate released a competing technology called "Sound Barrier" which used Convolve's sound reduction techniques.

Paul A. Galloway, the former employee, says that Seagate only began to try sound reduction techniques after their meetings with Convolve, however management had failed to tell its engineers that there was an NDA in place.

“I was deceived by my management’s failure to tell me that the Convolve technology discussed within Seagate was NDA protected,” says Galloway. “If I had known about Convolve’s NDA with Seagate, I would not have worked on competing technology.”

Yesterday we reported that Karsten Nohl of Germany, an engineer and encryption expert, had broken the 64-bit A5/1 encryption algorithm currently used to secure and encrypt GSM phone calls made in most of the world's countries.

Today, Nohl has published a how-to guide on how to crack the encryption, saying that users with a high-end PC, a radio and some easily downloaded software can record phone calls using the codes.

"The message is to have better security, not we want to break you," says Nohl of his decision to make the codebook available via file sharing sites. "The goal is better security. If we created more demand for more security, if any of the network operators could use this as a marketing feature ... that would be the best possible outcome."

The 64-bit A5/1 algorithm is 21 years old and has been protecting GSM networks since its implementation in 1988. Law enforcement has had the ability to intercept GSM calls for decades, and regular wiretapping is also possible. 3G networks use fully secure 128-bit A5/1, and the GSMA says they are gradually phasing out the A5/1 for the more secure A5/3.

According to a pic sent in by a forum user, Apple may be ready to replace the aging iPhone 3G with an 8GB iPhone 3GS at the $99 price point.

First reported on the German apfeltalk forums, the user, .David, ordered a refurbished 8GB iPhone 3G and received the phone but in packaging suggesting that it was a 3GS model.

Says his original post (translated):

"Seems to be an iPhone 3G (back and no compass, FW) 3.0.1 on it. However, the packaging is clearly designed for an iPhone 3G [S] 8GB. Ordered was a refurbished 3G iPhone 8GB.

Vote: who have a refurbished iPhone 3G in a new packaging of the packaged iPhone 3G [S] 8GB, because the enhancement is clearly new. Which clearly indicates that the sale of the iPhone 3G [S] 8GB immediately imminent."

We will keep you updated.

Another rumor from the mill this week comes from AndroidSpin which is saying that T-Mobile G1 owners will soon receive an OTA (over the air) upgrade to firmware 2.0 (eclair).

Says the blog:

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. All of your Android holiday wishes are coming true.

It has been confirmed that T-Mobile is releasing an Eclair update for the T-Mobile G1. The update will be at least Android 2.0 but more likely Android 2.0.1 as both versions have already been prepared as OTA updates. An anonymous source of ours has confirmed that both the Android 2.0 and the Android 2.0.1 are in the hands of some very fortunate people. Nothing can be released just yet due to Non Disclosure reasons.

Rooted users have had 2.0 firmware for some time, but it is nice to see (if the rumor is true) that Google hasn't forgotten about Android early adopters.

Ford will become the first car company to factory-install iTunes-tagging HD radios beginning next year, as well as offering Internet radio through Ford Sync from Bluetooth-streaming smartphones.

Twice explains that the "iTunes tagging radios will bookmark a song heard over an HD Radio FM station for later purchasing and downloading from the iTunes store. Consumers hit the "tag" button on the radio to store the metadata and unique identifier code of up to 100 songs in the radio's memory. The data can be transferred to an iPod docked with the vehicle's Sync system, and when the iPod itself syncs to iTunes via a PC, a list of "tagged" songs appears on the PC for preview, purchase and download."

The radios will be just some of a dozen 3rd party car radios that have iTunes tagging, but none of those come factory installed with any autos.

It is unclear what exact models will get the radios but Ford says "the first vehicles that will feature the new [iTunes tagging] capability will be revealed in early 2010."

According to screenshots sent into Gizmodo, the upcoming Nexus One Android phone will cost $530 unlocked or $180 with a two-year T-Mobile contract, similar pricing to that of the G1 which was released in 2008 as a subsidized phone and as an unlocked model as well.

Gizmodo spells out all of what they read from the shots so far:

• Yeah, it's $530 unsubsidized. Google's not going to be selling the phone at cost, like so many people considered. They're not going to save us from the "making money off of hardware" culture we've got right now, so this is basically just another Android handset, albeit a really good one
• If you want it subsidized, you'll have to sign up for a 2 year mandatory contract and pay $180 for the phone
• There's only one rate plan: $39.99 Even More + Text + Web for $79.99 total
• Existing customers cannot keep their plan if they want a subsidized phone; they have to change to the one plan, and this only applies to accounts with one single line
• If that doesn't fly with you, you have to buy the $530 unlocked version—this actually might save you money over two years if you already have a cheap plan
• Family plans, Flexpay, SmartAccess and KidConnect subscribers must buy the phone unlocked and unsubsidized for $530
• You can only buy five Nexus One phones per Google account
• There is language in the agreement of shipping outside the US
• Google will sell it at google.com/phone, which explains what they were doing with that page a few weeks ago
• Google will still call it the Nexus One apparently, and not the Google Phone
• If you cancel your plan before 120 days, you have to pay the subsidy difference between what you paid and the unsubsidized price, so $350 in this case. Or you can return the phone to Google. You also authorize them to charge this directly to your credit card.

Ministers in the UK have admitted this week that the Digital Economy Bill proposed to curb piracy and suspend multiple time offenders from the Internet will cost taxpayers £500 million, or about £25-a-year for every broadband subscriber.

The DEB would force ISPs to send warning letters to anyone downloading unauthorized movies, music and games and would kick multiple time offenders off the Internet after a third offense.

Assessments published with the DEB show that the "protective" measures will bring £1.7 billion in extra revenue for the film and music industries over the next ten years, as well as £350 million in VAT for the Government.

At least some of the ISPs haven't rolled over and died as of yet, with TalkTalk CEO Charles Dunstone recently publicly announcing: "Broadband consumers shouldn’t have to bail out the music industry. If they really think it’s worth spending vast sums of money on these measures then they should be footing the bill; not the consumer."

Large ISP BT had the same idea. Says John Petter, managing director of BT Retail’s consumer division: The bill is "collective punishment that goes against natural justice. Put yourself in the shoes of a small businessman who has a rogue member of staff. Your internet access could get cut off because of the actions of one individual. It really feels like the UK is out on a limb with these proposals compared to the rest of the world."

Nokia has announced that the company has filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC), accusing Apple of infringing on a number of Nokia patents relating to smartphones and other media devices.

The patents, according to Nokia, are "being used by Apple to create key features in its products in the area of user interface, as well as camera, antenna and power management technologies. These patented technologies are important to Nokia's success as they allow better user experience, lower manufacturing costs, smaller size and longer battery life for Nokia products."

"Nokia has been the leading developer of many key technologies in small electronic devices" adds Paul Melin, General Manager, Patent Licensing at Nokia. "This action is about protecting the results of such pioneering development. While our litigation in Delaware is about Apple's attempt to free-ride on the back of Nokia investment in wireless standards, the ITC case filed today is about Apple's practice of building its business on Nokia's proprietary innovation."

HDGuru reported today that DirecTV will launch the United States' first 3D HDTV channel in 2010, with an official announcement and more details to come at the upcoming CES event on January 7th.

The channel is possible because DirecTV has just added a new satellite to orbit, one that will be fully functional by March.

The source says the the "new DirecTV 3D channel will feature an assortment of movies, sports and programs in 3D. All programs are in HD 3D and meet the new 3D standards the major TV manufacturers support."

All current DirecTV HDTV boxes will receive the firmware upgrade which will give 3D playback and the channel will be compatible with all new 3D-capable TVs that are expected to be launched at CES from major manufacturers.

Reuters is reporting that the UK carrier O2 has been seeing large strains on its network thanks to the iPhone meaning AT&T users in the U.S. may not be the only ones getting accustomed to dropped calls and their texts getting lost in space.

The carrier saw an 1800 percent increase in bandwidth traffic year-on-year, mainly thanks to the iPhone, and the network repeatedly crashed over the past six months.

O2 has since invested $48 million USD into infrastructure and deployed 200 extra mobile stations, and says the problems should be solved.

"Where we haven't met our own high standards then there's no question, we apologize to customers for that fact," CEO Ronan Dunne added. "But it would be wrong to say O2 has failed its customers en masse."

Additionally, across the globe, China Unicom noted that they had sold 300,000 iPhones in the nation, gaining momentum after a notoriously slow launch.