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This year Samsung will begin selling a pair of Blu-ray players with support for the UltraViolet (UVVU) rights locker system favored by the majority of major Hollywood studios.

Currently the only retailer who actually supports UltraViolet is Warner Bros owned Flixster. The Samsung Blu-ray players will interface with both the UltraViolet and Flixster services using a recently announced Rovi solution.

Basically it will work like this. First you must purchase a qualifying title on disc. When you put it in your Blu-ray player, you can register it with your UltraViolet account and pay a so-far unspecified "nominal fee" to access it through Flixster.

The obvious problem with this system, aside from Flixster's problems getting customers access to their UltraViolet registered content, is that you must pay a second time to watch content you have already purchased on disc.

Warner content is an exception for now. Currently they are offering UltraViolet copies of their movies for three years through Flixster. Of course, if other retailers decide to participate in the UltraViolet program they aren't obligated to match Warner's offer.

The Reddit community has been on the front lines of the fight against SOPA and PIPA, the US anti-piracy bills which have been widely criticized for threatening the very foundations of the Internet.

Internet engineers, law professors, service providers, venture capitalists, and political activists from across the spectrum have criticized the two bills for their implications on both free speech and the technical underpinnings of the Internet. Nowhere has that criticism garnered more attention than on Reddit, where movements to boycott GoDaddy and unseat prominent US congressman Paul Ryan have led to both publicly opposing SOPA.

Warner Bros is pushing DVD and Blu-ray rental outlets to wait nearly two months to offer their new releases to customers.

Yesterday Netflix became the first, and perhaps only, rental outlet to agree to Warner's proposed 56 day delay from the time a movie is released for sale on disc to when it's available to rent. Previously Netflix and Redbox had both agreed to a 28 day window.

Redbox, however, has not agreed to the new terms. That's not surprising considering they were already considering ditching the arrangement when their agreement ends at the end of this month.

If they opt to skip a new deal with Warner entirely, Redbox would actually be able to get new releases sooner by purchasing them from alternate sources. In fact, last October a company spokesman indicated they were prepared to do just that.

Dish Network owned Blockbuster also appears to be balking at Warner's new plan. Of course they were already fighting Warner over the 28 day window, which was extended to brick and mortar rental outlets last year.

Roku has announced today that its set-top boxes are now available in the UK and Ireland.

For now, only two models, the Roku LT and the Roku 2 XS will be available, at £49.99 and £99.99 respectively from Amazon.co.uk.

Says the company: "Roku launched the first ever streaming player to deliver Netflix to consumers in the U.S. and now we are among the first to bring Netflix to residents of the U.K. and Ireland. n addition to Netflix, we are launching with a variety of entertainment channels and look forward to expanding our content selection in the same way that we have in the U.S. where we have more than 400 channels today."

The Roku boxes have access to 40 channels in the UK and Ireland, including Crackle, Netflix, MLB.tv and UFC. Additionally, the boxes have access to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook, Flickr and even Angry Birds.

Roku's LT box is the cheapest they offer because it only offers 720p output. Regardless, the device has built-in Wi-Fi. The Roku 2 XS has 1080p support, Wi-Fi, ethernet and a USB port to play movies, music and pictures.

Samsung has made a bold statement (or is it) this week, claiming it will definitely surpass Nokia in 2012 as the world's top phone maker, by volume.

Nokia has held the top spot since 1996. In 2011, Samsung surpassed Nokia in the Q3 but could not overtake the Finnish company in the overall yearly stats.

Samsung saw a huge surge thanks to its popular Android devices, most notably the Galaxy S1 and Galaxy SII, both of which were international best sellers. Nokia, on the other hand, has struggled to make waves but is looking to reverse fortunes with its new Windows Phone devices, namely the Lumia 710, 800 and 900.

At least one analyst agrees with Samsung's statement, Tim Shepherd of technology research firm Canalys: "It really highlights the level to which Nokia has struggled to retain momentum through 2011. Samsung is really charging forward at the moment. It is delivering really compelling products to the market and consumers are responding."

Today at CES, Asus has unveiled their next iteration of the Transformer Prime line of tablets, one that has a 1920x1200 resolution display.

The new Transformer Prime (model TF700) will have the same sized screen as its recently released brother, but with a high-density display that should "make the individual pixels difficult to see even with the screen inches from one's face."

Other than the resolution, the only other update to the consumer hardware is a 2MP front-side camera which will enable 1080p video chats. The current model has a 1.2MP camera.

Additionally, Asus has changed the chassis, "taking the spin out of the aluminum back panel and inserting a plastic strip that's supposed to improve Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS reception." The Prime, at least in review units, was panned for poor Wi-Fi reception. Asus was even forced to remove GPS from the Prime's spec sheet since it worked so poorly.

After just a three week beta, HBO Go is now live for Time Warner subscribers.

Says the cable company: Finally, something we have all been waiting for. You have no idea how much it pleases me to be able to say this. Today, right this minute, after a long negotiation and a brief beta test:

TIME WARNER CABLE CUSTOMERS WITH SUBSCRIPTIONS TO HBO/CINEMAX ARE NOW ABLE TO USE THE HBO GO/MAX GO APPS.

They're available for download in the Apple app store and Android Market now.

On December 17th, the company announced it would be giving its subscibers access to the massively popular HBO GO service and Cinemax subscribers access to MAX GO, as well.

Both services, which give users access to streaming TV on-demand as long as you are a subscriber, are available on iOS and Android devices as well as in-browser or through Roku set-top boxes. HBO says they have 1400 titles available right now, including all seasons of original programs like Game of Thrones, True Blood, and Boardwalk Empire. Furthermore, HBO GO also streams full-length features, docus and sporting events. MAX GO has 400 Cinemax titles available now, and is always changing.

Marking the third time since September that it has done so, Google has taken back search engine market share from rival Bing.

ComScore says that for December 2011, Google jumped to 65.9 percent, up half a percentage point. Bing lost an equal amount, down to 14.5 percent. Yahoo remain unchanged at 15.1 percent.

Even though Yahoo uses Bing's search engine technology, the searches are still considered different.

Bing managed to take a decent chunk of share over the past 12 months, thanks to an expensive marketing campaign from Microsoft and promotions like Bing Cashback. Since the fall, however, Google has fought back, taking back share in three of the last four months.

Additionally, Yahoo and Bing seem to switch back and forth every other month, running in place.

If including mobile queries, Macquarie Equity Research says: We estimate that as much as 10%-15% of all Internet search traffic is coming from mobile devices currently and that it will grow to 25%-30% by 2012. Moreover, Google recently indicated that in certain categories, such as restaurants, almost 30% of queries are already coming from mobile devices (other key categories such as Consumer Electronics, Beauty & Personal, Finance/Insurance, and Autos have between 14%-16% mobile queries).

Last night, during Microsoft's final CES keynote, CEO Steve Ballmer announced a definitive date for Kinect hitting Windows.

Starting on February 1st, the company's extremely popular and powerful gesture-recognition technology will be available for Windows PC users. An SDK has been available for over a month, and hackers have been using the Kinect sensor for Windows since its launch.

The Kinect for Windows will likely look similar to the Xbox 360 version.

Microsoft has said, and Ballmer reiterated, that 200 companies are working on Kinect apps and they now have a much broader audience.

We will have more information as it becomes available.

Today at CES, Lenovo showed of their aptly named Yoga tablet/notebook hybrid, which runs on the upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

The IdeaPad Yoga is a 13.3-inch notebook that, when flipped, can be used as a standalone tablet.

Although there is not too much known about what the computer's final hardware will be, it is apparently just 0.67-inches thick and made to look like Lenovo's current IdeaPad U300 line. Lenovo says the laptop can be easily flipped to look like a tablet for made to stand V-shaped in "tent" mode, as seen in the pics. The device is very light at just 3.1 pounds.

Additionally, the display is 1600 x 900-resolution and the current prototype has an i7 processor.

Lenovo will release the hybrid soon after Windows 8 launches this fall, with a price tag of $1200.

AT&T has finally revealed the price if you want 3G data on your PlayStation Vita.

The carrier says 250MB will run you $15 per month, and $25 will get you 2GB.

This price comes on top of the extra $50 premium the 3G model demands on the base price.

Additionally, Sony later announced that the Vita would be getting Netflix access. A streaming subscription to Netflix costs $7.99 per month.

With a release date in late February for the U.S. and Europe, the Vita will run on an ARM Cortex A9 quad-core processor and be powered by a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4+ GPU.

Featuring a 5-inch capacitive multitouch OLED screen (with 16 million colors), the device will be 7.16 by 0.73 by 3.28 inches. Furthermore, the Vita has 512MB memory and 128MB VRAM in its graphics processor.

Sony has decided to take one last crack at the aging media player business with their Walkman NWZ-Z1000.

The device will take on the iPod Touch and the Samsung Galaxy Player 4.0. The new Walkman will feature a 4.3-inch WVGA display, Android 2.3, and a dual-core Tegra 2 processor. The Android will have access to the Market and the full Google suite, meaning the media player will have 250,000 apps at its disposal.

Sony says they are boosting the audio with its own S-Master MX sound tech, xLoud compact integrated speaker and access to its Music Unlimited service. Furthermore, the device will have an FM radio and a dedicated "W" (for Walkman) button that will lead to "instant music playback."

The players will be expensive, as is standard with Sony, with the 8GB version priced at $250. For comparison, the iPod Touch is $50 cheaper and the Galaxy Player is $100 cheaper. The 16GB model will cost $280 and the 32GB will cost $330.

Looking to take on Amazon and Barnes & Noble directly, Asus has revealed their yet-to-be-named 7-inch tablet priced competitively at $250.

The price and size are where the comparisons stop, however. The tablet will come with a Tegra 3 quad-core processor (including 5th stealth core like in the Prime) and run on Ice Cream Sandwich.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says the tablet will be "almost" as powerful as its full-sized brother, the Transformer Prime, which is the world's first quad-core tablet and the first device to receive the official Ice Cream Sandwich. The Prime sells for $500 so getting the price down to $250 seems to be quite the accomplishment.

The resolution of the screen is an impressive 1280x800, which should lead to a large pixel density.

Huang did not mention a timeline for the tablet's release, or a name, but it should be available within months.

(Pic via Crunch)

Tim Cook has just been given a massive stock award from Apple for his 5 months as CEO of the company.

The executive, on top of his $900,000 salary, will receive restricted stock and options valued at $376 million. For 2012, Cook's salary will increase to $1.4 million, as well.

In their award, the Apple board of directors said (via Cnet) the pay is based on "Cook's performance in assuming responsibility for the company's day-to-day operations during Mr. Jobs's prior leaves of absence. The Board also took into account the 10-year vesting period of the award, the importance of retaining Mr. Cook, and the opportunities Mr. Cook would likely have if he were to seek other employment."

Cook was previously the COO under former CEO Steve Jobs and took over his role all three times Jobs was forced to take medical leaves for his cancer treatments and his liver transplant.

The compensation package is not the first for Cook, who was given 1 million restricted shares of Apple stock that vest in 5 years. At current value, those shares are worth over $400 million.

Samsung has followed in LG's footsteps in unveiling a 55-inch OLED TV for the masses.

Differentiating the TV is its "Super OLED" panel which "has self-emitting RGB sub-pixels and is faster than LED," says the company. OLED panels will provide "accurate color reproduction and 'true-to-life picture quality,'" which was certainly visible today, say spectators.

The OLED display will "virtually eliminate motion blur," as well, notes Samsung.

Furthermore, the TV will include Samsung's newly introduced "Smart Interaction" technology, which includes an integrated webcam and two mics for motion and voice control. For example, you can turn on/off the TV, raise the volume, use some apps, facial recognition and even search via the built-in browser using the interface.

The TV will be powered by a dual-core processor.

Samsung says the OLED will be available in the second half of the year. The company wouldn't say, but expect a $10,000 price tag.