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According to Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jordan Rohan, Amazon Kindle Fire sales are approaching 6 million.

The analyst raised his estimate of Q4 sales to six million from the previous five million.

Reads the analyst's note to clients: "Kindle Fire has staked out an important market position due to its loyal Amazon customer base and attractive (low) device pricing. We believe the lower hardware price will correlate with high e-book and video content attach rates."

In conclusion: "We believe that software attach rates correlate inversely with the hardware price. From Amazon's perspective, this could drive real upside in its North American media segment revenues. From a cost perspective, the shift to digital delivery of content could help Amazon avoid costly free shipping subsidies. Hence, we believe there is a great deal more to the Kindle device strategy than most have discounted."

The Amazon Kindle Fire has proven to be the first tablet to compete (somewhat) with the Apple iPad on a volume scale.

According to the AP, all of the data ever stored on Megaupload could be deleted as soon as Thursday.

The mass-erase will not discriminate with the files, either, legal or illegal.

Megaupload has used the companies Carpathia Hosting Inc. and Cogent Communications Group Inc to store user data, but because the service's assets are frozen, they can no longer afford to pay the hosting companies.

The file sharing company's lawyer Ira Rothken says he is doing his best to keep the data from being wiped: "We're cautiously optimistic at this point that because the United States, as well as Megaupload, should have a common desire to protect consumers, that this type of agreement will get done."

Rothken added that around 50 million Megaupload users will have their data erased, and that the company wants its data to remain untouched also so it can defend itself in the upcoming legal case.

Near the end of last year Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam suggested the company was working on simplifying data plans for customers with multiple devices.

Shared data plans seem like an inevitable development in the current environment where a single account may have multiple smartphones and carriers are also hoping to sell hotspot and tablet access. Besides the potential advantage for customers, it also means lower costs for the carrier according to McAdam.

Now Engadget has posted an image reportedly leaked from inside Verizon. It shows what appears to be an upcoming option for an account level data plan in their account management software. They say the image comes from Verizon training material.

When Amazon launched their Kindle Fire tablet last year, there were significant questions about the wisdom of selling it below cost and counting on content and app revenue to make it profitability.

Less than six months later, after it became the hottest Android tablet in the world, there are significant signs that strategy has paid off in a big way. This time last year Samsung was considered the up and coming competitor for Apple in the tablet market. Now it appears the battle for Android supremacy could come down to the competition between Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

It would be fair to say Barnes & Noble fired the first shot when they introduced the Nook Color back in 2010. Although marketed as an eReader, at the time it was perhaps the first serious sub-$300 tablet. It didn't reach anything approaching iPad sales levels, but it did help Barnes & Noble take over the top spot in eReader sales during the first quarter of 2011.

As a very quick note for anyone interested, U.S. President Obama is having a Google+ "Hangout" tonight, for the first time, ever.

Reads the note:

Hangout with President Obama tonight! In the first completely virtual interview from the White House, the President will answer questions submitted by people across the country through a Google+ Hangout. Watch the interview live on January 30th at 5:30 p.m. EST right here on the White House Google+ page.

It looks like T-Mobile is preparing for a whole new lineup of Android devices this spring.

Six popular phones have been designated "near EOL (end of life)," meaning their time left on the carrier is likely short. However, the designation could also mean that they just have an overabundance of inventory, which they expect to last for some time.

The devices are the HTC myTouch 4G Slide, HTC Sensation 4G, HTC Amaze 4G, LG Doubleplay, LG myTouch and the LG myTouch Q.

Most of the devices were released in the Q3 last year, so the news is pretty significant. Most notably, the three HTC devices have 4G support and are considered "flagship" devices.

First announced at CES, AT&T has finally revealed the date and pricing of the mini-tablet/phone Samsung Galaxy Note.

Pre-orders on the device begin on February 5th for release on February 17th. If you do not want to pre-order or want to pick it up in a store, launch is February 19th.

The device will sell for $300 with 2-year contract and will require a data package.

Galaxy Note devices have a massive 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED screen (1280×800 resolution), run on dual-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S3 processors, have 1 GB RAM, LTE support and Samsung's own input tool called S-Pen.

Says Jeff Bradley, senior vice president, Devices, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets: "The Galaxy Note brings a new level of efficiency to busy customers who would normally rely on multiple devices. This new breed of smartphone helps consumers accomplish more with a single device than ever before. The unique all-in-one experience can simplify daily life while tapping into AT&T's 4G LTE network to let customers work even faster."

The hacktivist group Anonymous had turned its sights on the Mexican government.

Earlier in the week, the group took down sites belonging to the Interior Ministry, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. Most of the sites remained down for at least a small portion of the day on Friday.

The attacks are in protest of the proposed bill that will bring file-sharing fines to over $100,000 (1 million pesos). "We demand the Mexican government not continue with this law because they will take away our freedom of speech and file sharing," read an Anonymous statement. The proposal has been dubbed the Mexican version of SOPA.

In the U.S., the SOPA/PIPA bills have been shelved indefinitely, but Mexicans may not be so lucky.

The politician behind the bill, Frederico Doring, took to Twitter to deride the actions. Doring says Anonymous has the right to protest his proposal but not attack websites.

Just a week after late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon set the record for most video game consoles played in 60 seconds, Ohayocon Tournament Coordinator Ryan Sullivan of Ohio has shattered the record.

Fallon played 9 consoles, while Sullivan played 13.

The consoles and games were as follows:

Super Nintendo- Super Mario World
Wii- Wii Sports Resort (100 Pin Bowling)
Xbox 360- Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition
Gamecube - Super Smash Bros. Melee
NES - Legend of Zelda
Dreamcast - Crazy Taxi
Playstation - Gex
Genesis - Sonic The Hedgehog
Xbox - Halo 2
PS2 - Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (Rolling Thunder)
Sega Saturn - Revolution X
PS3 - Tekken 6
Atari VCS - Missile Command

According to security firm BitDefender, there are numerous "frankenware" viruses in the wild, viruses that have mutated with other computer malware.

The new software is "dangerously unpredictable" and can be very hard to defend against, notes the firm.

Says Catalin Cosoi, head of the Online Threats Lab at BitDefender: "As with evolution, these things happen accidentally. The combination doesn't usually work, but sometimes it does." After searching through 10 million pieces of malicious software and code, the labs says it found 40,000 "frankenwares."

Usually, the mixture occurs when the two malwares have complementary features, like for example, "if one is a keylogger while the other is designed with a wormlike ability to propagate quickly." Because most anti-virus programs use signature definitions, the new hybrids are generally easier to detect. However, since the mutants have different file sizes then their creators, some detection tools may completely miss them.

Rival Symantec says they have not seen anything "of the sort."

Although the Nook Tablet has been rootable out of the box, the process was notoriously user unfriendly.

This week, the devs over at XDA have found a much easier way to root the tablet, (which still has a locked bootloader) using a microSD card. Writing some files to the microSD and booting will bring you to ClockworkMod recovery, effectively opening up the device.

AC has the instructions: "All you have to do to get the custom recovery files to boot is copy the files provided to a card, insert it into the tablet and reboot. (You don't even have to format the card, unlike some Nook Color methods.) Once inside ClockworkMod Recovery, you can flash custom software or use another hack to get ADB file pushing from your computer. Flash the root ZIP file and you're done."

For now the root method works on Nook Tablets with firmware 1.4.1 or older.

Starting on January 30th, T-Mobile will offer unlocked iPhone customers additional support.

There are over 1 million people using unlocked iPhones on T-Mobile's network, even though the phone has never been officially released for the carrier.

Leaked documents claim the new support includes "common procedures, information about feature and specifications and other basic device questions."

Furthermore, the T-Mobile Community iPhone site will be updated to "fit in with the rest of the T-Mobile supported device pages and "Integrated Scope of Support" for representatives."

T-Mobile remains the only major U.S. carrier to not have an official iPhone, but that could change in 2012 since the large AT&T acquisition failed to materialize, meaning T-Mobile will be around for the long haul.

With the release of Google Earth 6.2 this week, Google was very proud to announce that the earth mapping software now has one smooth satellite image of the planet instead of a map patched together by images taken at different times.

The globe looked a bit like a quilt instead of a fluid image, but that challenge has now been eliminated.

Says Google: "We're introducing a new way of rendering imagery that smooths out this quilt of images. The end result is a beautiful new Earth-viewing experience that preserves the unique textures of the world's most defining geographic landscapes?without the quilt effect."

The effect can be seen on all updates to the app, including mobile and desktop version. All older versions of the software before 6.2 will have it, as well, but Google, as with all software makers, is encouraging users to update to the latest.

Additionally, you can now share your screenshots via Google+ directly if you have an account. Finally, the software now has included biking, transit and walking directions.

In April 2010, HP announced it was purchasing the struggling smartphone maker Palm for $1.2 billion, after at least four other companies gave serious bids.

Palm had put itself up for sale that March after it became clear that the company's phones were not selling and it only had enough cash to last the next 12 months.

With the acquisition, former Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein came on board as high-ranking executive at HP, with a commitment to stay 12-24 months.

After a rough year at HP, in which the company discontinued all of its webOS hardware projects and then turned the software open-source after unsuccessfully trying to sell it, Rubinstein has left. Says HP: "Jon has fulfilled his commitment to HP. We wish him well."

A spokesperson for Rubinstein says the exec is "going to take a well deserved break after four and a half years of developing webOS."

Twitter will be making takedown notices and orders sent to Twitter publicly available for all to see.

The company is working with "Chilling Effects" on the transparency, which is available at chillingeffects.org/twitter.

There are already thousands of DMCA takedown notices in the database, which appears to be updated every few weeks. Here is an example: Takedown notice

In the notices there are links to movies, books, photographs and TV, all of which are unauthorized downloads. Twitter must then delete the tweets.

Additionally, Twitter will take orders for takedowns of content from governments of certain nations. The Tweet will then be deleted in that country but still available in other nations.