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Google has put $1 million on the line if security researchers or hackers can exploit their popular Chrome browser.

The company has also pulled out of the annual Pwn2Own contest, where they were regular sponsors. Google says there were changes in the rules by contest organizer Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) which they did not approve of: "We decided to withdraw our sponsorship when we discovered that contestants are permitted to enter Pwn2Own without having to reveal full exploits, or even all of the bugs used, to vendors. Full exploits have been handed over in previous years, but it's an explicit non-requirement in this year's contest, and that's worrisome."

Chrome is a "sandboxed" system which normally means any hack of the browser requires multiple exploits, and Chrome has remained untouched for years while other browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari normally last just a few hours during the contest.

For the new $1 million prize, hackers will need to perform a "full Chrome exploit" which exploits Chrome on Windows 7 using only vulnerabilities in Chrome itself. That alone will bring $60,000 and every other partial exploit that uses one bug will earn $40,000. Additionally, Google will pay $20,000 for "consolation" exploits that "hack Chrome without using any vulnerabilities in the browser itself."

Yahoo welcomes Facebook to the big leagues.

The portal service Yahoo has demanded Facebook license technologies covered by its IP (intellectual property) portfolio or they will proceed with legal action.

Says the company: "We must insist that Facebook either enter into a licensing agreement or we will be compelled to move forward unilaterally to protect our rights."

Facebook, which has over 800 million users and recently took substantial share from Yahoo in the display advertising market, has responded that they have not had time yet to "fully evaluate" Yahoo's claims.

It is unclear what companies already license tech from Yahoo, or what the IP covers, but that will surely be made available in the near future, especially if legal action is required.

Movie studio Nu Image has started a mass lawsuit against alleged downloaders of the 2011 movie 'Conan the Barbarian.'

The suit against 2165 individuals, was filed last Friday. The move follows Nu Image's failed attempt to sue 23,322 downloaders of 'The Expendables,' the largest such P2P lawsuit in history. The former suit was dismissed within months, but it appears that Nu's lawyers have learned from their past mistakes.

All 2165 alleged downloaders were caught between December of last year and February and reside in the Maryland area. Each of the downloaders used cooperative ISPs, such as Comcast, Sprint and Verizon. Time Warner was not involved, as they successfully fought the Expendables case.

Nu Image is looking for about $3000 in settlement fees.

cona-ip

HBO has announced today that it is expanding its online media streaming service, HBO Go, to the Xbox 360.

Starting on April 1st, over 60 million Xbox 360 owners can potentially have access to the service, as long as they are also HBO subscribers.

HBO Go gives access to on-demand programming of the company's biggest original content including True Blood, Entourage, and Game of Thrones. The service is available on iOS, Android, Roku and some Internet-enabled TVs as well as PCs.

The Xbox 360 already has access to Hulu, YouTube, Netflix, Crackle and other content, making the console a formidable media entertainment hub.

Although the PlayStation Vita is selling decently well, one analyst believes a price cut is necessary and is coming soon.

The console, which launched in the U.S. and Europe two weeks ago, has sold 1.2 million units total, including the handhelds sold in Japan since the console's launch last year in the nation.

Sony has also already sold 2.1 million games through their digital store and retail purchases, a significant number since there are only 25 games available for the system. Says Andre House, Sony Computer Entertainment president: "The market has responded and there is clear demand for a mobile device capable of providing a revolutionary combination of rich gaming and social connectivity within a real world context. To sustain momentum, we're working closely with 3rd party developers and publishers to ensure the best games and franchises possible will be available on PS Vita, and our software line up for the remainder of 2012 will have something for everyone across the globe."

Jia Wu, senior analyst for Connected Home Devices at Strategy Analytics (via Forbes), says Sony is making a mistake selling the console at $250-$300, however, and should slash the price as soon as possible. If Sony were to slash the price down similarly to how Nintendo did with the 3DS, the analyst believes Sony could sell 12.4 million units in 2012, making the handheld a massive success.

During the Mobile World Congress event in Spain this week, Panasonic has introduced two waterproof smartphones, the Eluga and Eluga Power.

The Eluga will launch soon with Gingerbread 2.3.5, but will be upgraded to ICS in June. Full specs:

- An ultra-slim D shaped design, with a slender 123x62.0x7.8mm frame.
- International standard IP57 water and dustproofing. Protected for up to a depth of 1 metre for up to 30 minutes in water, and protected against dust (75 micrometers or less in diameter/no harmful deposit) if left near or in it for eight hours or less.
- Near-field communication (NFC) technology, meaning the phone is ready for 'no touch' interactions, including contactless payments.
- A 4.3 inch, 960x540, capacitive OLED QHD screen with one of the largest display area ratio on the market.
- Swipe and Share, letting users wirelessly 'throw' pictures from their phone to a TV or cloud service, or stream movies from their phone to a TV. The VieraRemote app also enables the phone to be used as a remote control for other electronic devices in the home (such as a Viera TV, DIGA Blu-ray player and recorder, home cinema system, or digital still camera).
- An 8MP autofocus camera, with 8GB of integrated memory.
- A 1GHz dual-core processor ( OMAP4430 ), with Android Gingerbread (version 2.3.5) on-board, to be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich from summer 2012.

CNBC has tweeted the following, causing a frenzy amongst electronics and Apple fans.

"ALERT: Quad-Core iPad 3 with 4G LTE to be unveiled in New York next week. -Sources"

There was nothing else posted, as of yet, but if accurate the device will be revealed even sooner than the previously rumored March 13th.

Furthermore, if accurate, Apple would have quieted the reports that the device will not come with a quad-core A6 processor, but instead with a souped up dual-core A5X.

Will be interesting to see next week, and we will keep you updated.

Update: The invite is out, March 7th is the day.

Samsung executive Hankil Yoon has come clean today, admitting that the company "is not doing very well in the tablet market."

The statement comes just a day after Android boss Andy Rubin noted that Samsung's Galaxy line were the highest-selling Android tablets on the market (not including the Kindle Fire and Nook Color/Tablet). If both execs are telling the truth, it would appear that Android is struggling in the tablet market.

Regardless, on the phone side Samsung has been extremely successful, with their Galaxy S II hitting 20 million units sold despite being delayed in the U.S. for 5 months.

Yoon says the company expects 10 million Galaxy Notes to be sold, and that the large-screened phone will completely cannibalize sales of the original Galaxy Tab 10.1. The company also just revealed its Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Note 10.1, along with updated versions of their 7-inch tablets.

If a new report is accurate, Apple fans may not be so happy when the iPad 3 is launched next month.

The device will use a more powerful dual-core processor, an "A5X," instead of the expected quad-core A6, as Apple has not had time to perfect the A6.

BlueFin Research Partners analyst Steve Mullane cites the supply chain, notably Samsung, in the report, which claims the manufacturer was not properly equipped to produce the 28nm A6.

Reads the note: "[Samsung's] Austin logic fab - supports the mass production of the 45-nanometer AAPL A5 processor, and is ramping on a 32-nanometer process. Since the A6 processor is based on a 28-nanometer process, we believe the 32-nanometer ramp validates the recent rumors that the iPad 3 will likely use a higher speed, die-shrink version of the A5 dual-core processor, named the A5X processor, as opposed to the next-generation A6 quad-core processor."

If accurate, the A5X will certainly be powerful (perhaps even with a clock speed of 1.8GHz or higher) but with Android devices already out with quad-core chips, and more coming, Apple may need to step up its other features.

The Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory, whose CEO noted the company's "uncertain future" earlier this month, has filed for bankruptcy protection.

Elpida's move is the largest corporate failure for a Japanese manufacturer since World War II.

Liabilities, as of March 2011, were $5.5 billion and the company's desperate attempts to refinance or get a bailout from the Japanese government failed.

Elpida was Japan's last DRAM maker and the company was ultimately done in by a Yen at its strongest levels since the end of World War II. Furthermore, South Korean rivals like Samsung managed to take large market share in a short period of time thanks to cost efficiency.

Samsung had 45 percent share as of September 2011, followed by Hynix at 21.5 percent and then Elpida and Micron at 12.1 percent each.

The company hopes to re-emerge under the supervision of the Tokyo District Court, says the WSJ.

If there was any question about Google planning to offer their own pay TV service, it would seem to be answered by their recent applications in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas.

On February 17 they filed applications in both states to offer IPTV service to customers of the broadband Internet service they are currently building in the two cities. The filings came close on the heels of US and EU regulators approving their buyout of cable set-top box manufacturer Motorola Mobility.

Late last year a report appeared indicating Google was in negotiations to secure deals with media companies for such a service. While Google remains noncommittal about the rumor, earlier this month Ars Technica uncovered another clue in the form of an FCC application suggesting plans for an antenna array to receive commercial TV broadcasts, similar to a cable television head end, at a data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

BGR has posted the alleged specs of the upcoming Galaxy S III, and they are impressive, to say the least.

The device would be a successor to the popular Samsung Galaxy S II, which just recently hit the 20 million sale milestone.

Samsung has still not put a date on the launch of the device, but the rumor is for a March launch and a release in May.

The BGR specs:

-1.5GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor
-4.8-inch "full HD" 1080p resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio display
-Edge-to-edge display
-A 2-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel rear camera
-Ceramic case
-4G LTE
-Android 4.0

Android continues to see accelerating growth.

Android boss Andy Rubin tweeted earlier this morning that Google is seeing 850,000 Android activations daily, up from 700,000 in December.

Additionally, the number of active Android devices is now at 300 million. The Android Market hit its own milestone, as well, 13 billion apps downloaded.

Looking back, the growth is extremely impressive. Back in November, activations were at 550,000. In June that number was 500,000 and in April the number was at 350,000.

During the Mobile World Congress event in Spain, handset makers have already unveiled over 30 new Android devices, most of which are running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, the company's largest update to the OS, ever.

ZTE has announced the Era smartphone, their first quad-core device.

The phone runs on Android 4.0, has a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, a nice 4.3-inch 960 x 540 qHD display and a thin form factor that is only 7.8mm thick.

Additionally, the phone has 8GB internal storage and 1GB RAM.

The device has quad-band support with HSPA+ 42, Wi-Fi, UMA (Wi-Fi Calling), Bluetooth 3.0, HD Voice capability, Dolby-engineered sound, and DLNA.

ZTE did note that the device will have a UI layer called Mifavor, but the pictures don't seem to imply huge changes from the stock experience.

The phone will hit Europe and China in the Q3 with no word on a U.S. release (if there is one).

According to Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, the Finnish phone maker is looking into producing a tablet in conjunction with partner Microsoft.

Says Elop (NYT): "We look very closely at what is coming out of Microsoft in terms of Windows 8. We are very, very pleased with the consistency of the user experience that is coming from the Windows phone and moving up onto tablets and slates and PCs as Windows 8. So we look at those things and say, boy, if there's a family opportunity there, that's something we'll look at very carefully."

Nokia created a tablet back in 2009 based on its now defunct Symbian operating system.

The company is now in a billion dollar partnership with Microsoft, however, to produce phones with Windows Phone as the operating system.

During the Mobile World Congress event, Nokia introduced 6 new phones that will launch during the year, including the Lumia 610 and the Nokia 808 PureView with a 41MP camera.