Vodafone will launch the iPhone on January 14th, with pre-orders already being taken.

O2's exclusivity deal ended in the Q3, and Apple announced that both Vodafone and Orange would begin selling the phone. Orange started selling the popular smartphone in November.

Users can get the 8GB iPhone 3GS for GBP 59 with a two-year contract that costs GBP 30 per month or get the phone for free with a 35-a-month contract.

"We started preparing our network over a year ago so that iPhone customers will really feel the advantage of being with Vodafone," added Guy Laurence, CEO of Vodafone UK. "We will offer an outstanding iPhone experience wherever our customers live, work and travel, delivering speed and reliability – something our customers have told us they really value."

The Black Broadcasting Network (BBN) has announced signing a deal with Verizon FiOS TV that will be the startup network's first distribution deal.

The network is aimed at the "urban" 18-35 demographic, and will include mainly Black and Hispanic-themed entertainment and "variety programming." Additionally, the station will offer sporting highlights from historically black colleges and universities as well as many boxing events.

"We are excited about our affiliation with Verizon FiOS TV," adds Black Broadcasting Network's Chairman and CEO Ricky Anderson. "This day established our existence in Broadcast Cable. The Network will focus on programming that is appealing, interesting, entertaining and culturally relevant to urban viewers today."

Vonage has released its VoIP apps for the iPhone and BlackBerrys today, allowing users to make international calls for cheaper.

BlackBerry users can make the calls through cell networks while iPhone users can make the calls while connected to cell networks and Wi-Fi.

Vonage unlimited calling plans cost $25-a-month and the apps are free.

"As mobile devices become more powerful, broadband networks become more available and 3G/4G data networks become more open, we envision a future where Vonage delivers calls, readable voicemail, texts, MMS, and video calls from any device, using any broadband connection," added Vonage CEO Marc Lefar.

Hewlett-Packard is taking heat this week after a video released on YouTube shows an internal problem with HP webcams, the fact that the camera has difficulty in recognizing black people.

The video shows two people, a black man named Desi and a white co-worker, Wanda. The problem is the webcams face recognition software, which in the video clearly does not work with Desi in the frame but works excellently with Wanda on screen.

HP says the problem is with low contrast in low lighting situations and they are working to fix it as soon as possible.

RIM has confirmed a second BlackBerry email outage this week, seemingly acknowledging that their systems may not yet be ready to handle the large increase in smartphone owners.

The smartphone maker attributed this outage to a glitch in the latest update to the BBM instant messaging program. The bug cause an "unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure."

RIM is known for secure and stable emails, and outages can cause corporate customers money, especially if the outages are for extended periods of time.

Adds John Jackson, vice president and wireless analyst at CCS Insight, via the WSJ: "It's a consequence of the architecture that makes RIM RIM. They invested heavily in upgrading their backup systems after outages in 2007 and 2008, and made some high-profile hires. So that it's happened twice in a week, albeit with a limited duration and geography, indicates gaps."

In August, software giant Microsoft lost in court to tiny Canadian company i4i over patent violations relating to customized Extensible Markup Language (XML) and was told to either update Word or stop selling it entirely. The company was also fined $290 million USD

As part of the broader Office pack, the full suite accounts for over $3 billion USD in sales per year for Microsoft.

Today, Microsoft has released a mandatory patch for Office 2007 that will bring Word in compliance with the court's decision. The patch, dubbed the 2007 Microsoft Office OPK Master Kit Download, will cut some custom XML editing capabilities from Word and other Office suite products. The patch is mandatory for legal US users of Office 2007.

Microsoft lost their final appeal yesterday.

"In this case, a small company was practicing its patent, only to suffer a loss of market share, brand recognition, and customer goodwill as the result of the defendant's infringing acts," said the judge in the ruling.

Three days ago, Barnes & Noble said that some customers who pre-ordered the Nook e-reader may not receive their device by Christmas, and the company was giving a $100 online gift card to those who did not get theirs in time.

Today, B&N has noted that all early consumers will receive their device in time.

Says Mary Ellen Keating, B&N spokeswoman: "We're pleased to tell our customers today that we're shipping out all our orders in time." During the first announcement, Keating said most likely under 5 percent of buyers would not receive the e-reader in time.

The popular e-reader, the Amazon Kindle has been hacked this week, allowing for all purchased content to be transferred off the device via a PDF file.

Kindle e-books are sold as .AZW files which have DRM that stops users from transferring the purchased books to other devices that are not Kindles.

That should no longer be a problem thanks to Israeli hacker "Labba" who has cracked the DRM. A second hacker, "I <3 cabbages," has released the "Unswindle" program, which will reformat digital content downloaded and stored on the Kindle for PC app, converting it to easily movable formats, such as PDF.

"Cabbages" did note that Amazon's DRM process was tough to crack, although ultimately Amazon's work was in vain. "Amazon actually put a bit of effort behind the DRM obfuscation in their Kindle for PC application. And they seem to have done a reasonable job on the obfuscation. Way to go Amazon! It's good enough that I got bored unwinding it all and just got lazy with the Windows debugging APIs instead," he said.

According to recent Nielsen figures reported by MobileCrunch, the Apple iPhone 3G is now the most popular phone in the United States, despite RIM having about double the market share.

The numbers shows the Apple iPhone 3G/3GS at 4 percent, with the Blackerry 8300 series in a close second at 3.7 percent.

Somewhat surprising is the high ranking of the RAZR (the full line) in third at 2.3 percent.

View the full list below:

One of the biggest news stories of the month so far has been the buzz built by the Android 2.1 phone, the Nexus One, built by HTC to the specifications of Google.

Today, Engadget has posted the specs, which are highlighted like this:

* Android 2.1
* 11.5mm thick
* 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM, 4GB microSD in-box expandable to 32GB
* 5 megapixel camera with mechanical AF and LED flash
* HSPA 900 / 1700 / 2100, 7.2Mbps down and 2Mbps up. EDGE will work for T-Mobile and AT&T but 3G will NOT work on AT&T, only on T-Mo.
* 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display

Nexus One Previewed

Warner Music Group (WMG) announced a deal with online video service Hulu to offer music videos, artist interviews & concerts from Atlantic Records, Rhino Records and Warner Bros. Records. This follows a deal with EMI, which brought that label's content to the service last month.

Hulu is in the process of launching pages for a variety of artists. One has already been established for the band Muse, and pages for Jason Mraz and Fueled have been announced.

More artist pages will be announced early next year.

Its nice to see Hulu continue to expand their offerings and music is certainly a logical step. Still, it's worth noting that as more content partners have come on board there has been increasing pressure on Hulu executives to control access more tightly.

It was this pressure which led to both TV.com and Boxee users losing the ability to stream videos from Hulu earlier this year.

Labels like WMG have a history of insisting on limiting online offerings to the point of devaluing them. If adding their content ultimately means tighter restrictions on how you can watch Hulu videos it's a step in the wrong direction.

Today LG Electronics announced a mew LCD TV panel which will be the world's thinnest, measuring just 2.6mm thick. The announcement was timed as a promotion for the company's exhibit at CES, where the new panels will be on display.

The reduction in panel thickness was made possible in part through the use of LED backlighting. This also improves image quality compared to older LCD panels

The panels also feature a 120Hz refresh rate and full HD (1080P) resolution.

Although not officially anounced yet, the date for next years Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference appears to have been chosen.Not surprisingly it will begin on June 28 to coincide with both the anniversary of the original iPhone's release and the expiration of AT&T's exclusive carrier deal.

With all the bad publicity and customer ill will generated by AT&T during their time as the ecxlusive iPhone partner you can be sure this will be more than just another iPhone launch. It will be Apple's chance to make a new start, either with a new US carrier deal or a completely open arrangement like Google is planning for their Nexus phone.

Assuming there is also an accompanying OS update, as their has been with each successive iPhone launch, it will also be the first time iPhone owners have been charged for it.

Thanks to the restrictions placed on them by the same accounting rules which have required them to charge iPod Touch owners for previous updates, they must charge for updates released more than three years after an iPhone is sold. Changes to these rules could mean Apple can offer free updates for the life of the device. They would also be able, for the first time ever, to immediately show the full amount of revenue generated from the next iPhone launch on their books.

As Blu-ray continues to grow in popularity, more and more people are considering the purchase of a BD-ROM drive. To date the biggest obstacle for many consumers has been the price, which until the last few months has consistently been over $100 for even a reader.

Earlier this year Lite-On introduced the iHOS104 BD-ROM drive. At around $60 for the OEM version and $70 for the retail model it's currently the least expensive Blu-ray reader you can buy.

We decided to pick up an OEM unit and try it out.

James Cameron's epic 3D blockbuster Avatar appears to have been slowed in the United States by severe snowstorms on the East coast, opening to an estimated $73 million USD in domestic sales, good for the second largest December launch of all-time. The movie also had the third largest Friday opening of all-time, at $27 million.

'I Am Legend' opened to $77 million in December 2007.

Worldwide, the movie has already made an estimated $232 million, almost surpassing the movie's gigantic budget.

Avatar is said to be the fourth most expensive film to be ever made, with an official budget of $237 million. Ahead of it are "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" at $300 million, "Spider-Man 3" at $258 million, and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" at $250 million. Marketing/advertising figures for the epic are said to surpass $120 million.

Sales will undoubtedly be compared to James Cameron's last movie, Titanic, which spent 6 months in theaters bringing in $600 million domestic and $1.8 billion globally.