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Japan's largest mobile carrier, NTT DoCoMo, has announced a partnership with a group of leading Japanese and Korean electronics manufacturers to develop and manufacture LTE components.

Their partners in the joint venture will include Fujitsu Semiconductor, NEC Corporation, Panasonic Mobile Communications, and Samsung Electronics.

The details are still be working out, but NTT DoCoMo plans to invest nearly $6 million (450 million Japanese Yen) to establish the new company which will be called Communication Platform Planning Co. They will also be supplying the CEO, Mitsunobu Komori, who is currently DoCoMo's CTO (Chief Technical Officer) and an executive vice president.

The new company is expected to be formally established in January. This move appears to be a shot across the bow of Qualcomm, who currently leads the mobile chip chip industry worldwide.

DoCoMo, Fujitsu, NEC, and Panasonic had already established a partnership to develop mobile hardware. Last year they announced their first chip, developed using technology from another Japanese company called Tensilica.

The addition of Samsung to coalition would seem to complete the puzzle. Over the last few years Samsung has made great strides in mobile processor manufacturing. Among their other achievements, they build Apple processors for the iPhone and iPad.

According to a new report from analyst firm Sterne Agee (via Barron's), Apple's still unconfirmed iTV will feature a la carte channels, meaning users can pick and choose what they want to buy.

The HDTVs, which have been the subject of rumor since last year, are expected to launch during the summer in 32 or 37-inch varieties, built by Sharp and with chips from Samsung.

Reads the client note:

Frankly, we think that Apple should enter the TV space. Frankly, we are not surprised and believe Apple should enter the TV space as this is arguably the only major end market the company is not currently participating in a bigger way. Moreover, we have picked up several data points indicating activity from component makers to manufacturing partners as well as Apple's own patent filings from at least 2005.

By far the most notable part of the report is the notion that Apple will start a new streaming platform for HD channels, in which users can pick what they want instead of being forced to buy a bundle from a cable company with hundreds of channels they likely don't watch.

Sony has finally confirmed that its Tablet S and Tablet P devices will receive Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the future.

Additionally, the company reiterated that Sony Ericsson Xperia phones will get the update in March.

Reads the post: "Sony Tablet is evolving, and we'd like to keep you informed with the latest updates.

Today we're happy to confirm that an update to Android 4.0 will be available for Sony Tablet. Details including timing will be announced in due course, so please stay tuned."

The Tablet S has a 9.4-inch screen, a "magazine" form factor, a Tegra 2 dual core processor, dual cameras and Honeycomb 3.x. If you purchase the Wi-Fi-only version you get Honeycomb 3.1 (with Sony UI overlay) and if you buy the more expensive Wi-Fi/3G version you get 3.2 (with similar UI overlay). The tablet comes with either 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, DLNA compatibility, an IR port (to use as universal remote), an SD card slot, Sony's Crackle and eReader apps and Sony's "QuickView" tech for faster browsing. Finally, the tablet is the first to be Playstation Certified which means it can play PSX games from the PS Store.

According to the latest report from customer experience analytics firm ForeSee, Amazon had the highest customer satisfaction in 2011 while perennial competitor Netflix cliff dived.

The company says that Amazon and Netflix had been fighting for the top spot since 2004. This is the first year that either saw a significant dip in their customer sentiment.

On the 100-point scale, Amazon scored a solid 88, the highest score any retailer, ever. Netflix fell 7 points to 79 following a series of PR disasters. During the summer, the company arrogantly hiked the prices of their services and then tried to spin off the DVD rental business as "Qwikster." The company's stock fell from $300 to $50 as investors followed subscribers out the door.

Netflix saw a drop across the board, losing points in site content, site functionality, merchandise, and prices. Despite Netflix's drop, Overstock.com and Gap fell to 72 and 73, respectively, leaving them at the very bottom of the index.

The biggest jumps were TigerDirect to 79 and JC Penny to 83.

Chart via Crunch:

The popular PC gaming download platform Direct2Drive announced earlier this week that it is merging with GameFly, the gaming rental service.

Gamefly say it's working hard to make the process smooth, but there is one catch: Not all games will make the transition. A few titles that were readily available on D2D are not available via GameFly and Prima guides will not make the transition either.

As a precaution, D2D has told customers to download their purchases and guides to ensure they still have them after the merger. As for the games, D2D also notes that "Some older titles may not be available immediately after the transition, and will be added later."

The transition begins in January for U.S. gamers and it is unclear whether the service will ever make it overseas given that Gamefly is a U.S. service, only.

Subscribers will also be allowed to play hundreds of games, for free, with unlimited access.

Apple has been fined 900,000 euro today by Italy's anti-trust authority.

The large fine is in regards to Apple's misleading guarantees on its products and on assistance services.

Reads the statement: "Sanctions of a total of 900,000 euros have been imposed on the Apple group after it was found responsible for bad commercial practices that harmed consumers." Apple gave "unclear information on payments for additional assistance offered to consumers" and the company had not "fully implemented the two-year guarantee by the producer," read the complaint.

The fine is minuscule compared for the company which is expected to bring in $22 billion in profits this year alone.

The fast-growing Windows Phone Marketplace has surpassed 50,000 apps, just a month after hitting 40,000.

All About Windows Phone reported the number, which is different than Microsoft's official "more than 35,000" stance. The discrepancy is due to the fact that Microsoft does not include "lite" versions of paid apps and wallpaper apps in its tally.

The platform took just 14 months to reach the plateau, faster than Android which took 19 months and BlackBerry which took 27 months. Apple is not a fair comparison as there were already 4 million iOS devices active before the store opened.

In the past few weeks, the WPM is growing at a rate of 256 apps per day.

There is no clear reason as to the surge in developer interest but it can likely be attributed to the more widespread availability of WP7 devices and the anticipation of the first Nokia phones hitting the U.S. in the next two months.

It appears Universal Music Group (UMG) does not discriminate when it takes down videos, even nonsensically taking down music videos from its own artist.

Following the release of his official video for "They Burn Me," UMG took down the track from its artist 50 Cent, leaving the usual "this is blocked due to copyright" message in its place.

UMG and 50 Cent have a long history of disagreement. Earlier this year, 50 Cent (real name Curtis Jackson) accused Interscope (division of UMG) of leaking his first single and the artwork for his second single. Jackson had not wanted to release any of his tracks until later in the year. As retaliation, Jackson threatened to leak one of Dr. Dre's latest tracks, off the decade-in-the-making "Detox" album, but in the end he did not.

Furthermore, UMG publicly declared 50 Cent's personal website "a pirate site."

It is unclear why UMG took down its own artist's video, especially from such a prominent rapper.

Seven prominent LCD makers have agreed to pay a fine of $553 million to settle multiple cases relating to claims they conspired together to fix prices for LCD panels found in TVs, notebooks and other monitors from the years 1999 to 2006.

The companies in question are Samsung, Sharp, Hitachi, HannStar Display, Chimei Innolux, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and Espon Imaging Devices. The case began in 2006, as authorities in Japan, Korea, the EU and the U.S. began probing into the "cartel" that had been formed by the companies and their anti-competitive activity.

So far, the companies and their top execs have paid out over $890 million in fines for settlements in the EU or elsewhere. Just last month, 8 companies including Samsung and Sharp, agreed to pay $388 million to settle litigation by direct purchasers of the LCD panels, says Reuters.

The $553 million from this payout will go to "indirect purchasers" of the LCDs and claims by 8 U.S. states; Arkansas, California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, New York, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Paul Allen, the founder of Ancestry.com and "Google+'s unofficial statistician" has noted today that the social network is now used by 62 million people.

Additionally, Allen says the network is adding 625,000 new users every day.

Allen and his team run "hundreds of queries on various surnames" and they have been tracking Google+ since July, when Google announced that Plus had reached 10 million users. According to Allen, this is how the growth in Google+ is looking and where it is expected to go:

July 13 - 10 million
August 1 - 20.5 million
September 1 - 24.7 million
October 1 - 38 million (Larry Page announced "more than 40m users" on Oct 13th)
November 1 - 43 million
December 1 - 50 million
December 27 - 62 million
January 1 - 65.8 million (forecast)
February 1 - 85.2 million (forecast)

By those figures, it appears that a full 25 percent on all Google+ users will have joined this month, alone. If the rate of growth continues, then Google+ should finish next year with just under 300 million users. Rival Facebook is closing in on 800 million users after launching in 2004.

The mobile app research firm Flurry has released data today showing off how popular the Android and iOS operating systems were this holiday season.

On Christmas day, alone, 6.8 million of the devices were activated, 353 percent higher than the average of the first 20 days of the month. The number is even more impressive considering the operating systems saw 2.8 million combined activations last Christmas.

Although the split was not revealed, it is expected that Android and iOS split the 6.8 million almost evenly.

Furthermore, 242 million total apps were downloaded on Christmas, a large 125 percent jump from the 20 day daily average. In terms of year-over-year, the jump came from 150 million total apps. By New Year's Day, Flurry expects another 750 million apps to be downloaded.

The developer "pod2g" has unveiled his long-awaited iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak, after weeks of testing his exploit on different devices.

Because of the new release, all A4 devices are now jailbroken including the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4 CDMA, iPad 1, iPod touch 3G, and iPod touch 4G.

Following the release, the iPhone Dev Team and Chronic both released separate jailbreaks. The Dev Team has baked the jailbreak into the new RedSn0w 0.9.10 and the Chronic team has released an app in Cydia with the jailbreak called Corona Untether 5.0.1 if you are already using the tethered 5.0.1 solution. Anyone with a jailbroken iOS 5.0.1 is encouraged to download Corona.

If you aren't jailbroken, the best route is using RedSn0w, says the iPhone Dev Team, and to use the custom IPSW.

There are still no jailbreaks for A5 devices and all the above mentioned methods require iOS 5.0.1, not 5.0.0.

Even after releasing a statement saying they no longer support SOPA, the US anti-piracy bill opposed by just about everyone familiar with it, GoDaddy continues to lose customers to other domain name registrars.

In part this is due to the relatively weak statement made reversing their position, while failing to mention anything about withdrawing the statements made on the record to Congress. In the letter, GoDaddy's General Counsel did not just generally support the bill. She specifically defended its worst elements.

Here are some of the highlights:

The solutions outlined in SOPA clearly present a thoughtful and comprehensive approach.

This bill cannot reasonably be equated with censorship. This bill promotes action pursuant to preexisting criminal and civil laws.

The Senate's standard for action is a site "dedicated" to infringement. SOPA's standard is similar. It is unfathomable to me how one page amidst a million could possibly qualify under any such standard.

I'm finding that most of the concerns on the substance out there are unfounded. The notion that the solutions that have been put forth will break the Internet, or that certain legal businesses will go off-line because of new mandates is utterly unconvincing to me.

Last week we told you about an anonymous source, supposedly from inside RIM, who claimed the delayed launch of the upcoming BlackBerry 10 line of devices was largely the result of unfinished software.

This source told Boy Genius Report the new OS is still a work in progress, and doesn't even have working email or BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) clients. This was in response to an earlier statement by RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis blaming the delay of primarily on a processor availability problem.

A RIM representative contacted us with a statement saying:

RIM made a strategic decision to launch BlackBerry 10 devices with a new, LTE-based dual core chip set architecture. As explained on our earnings call, the broad engineering impact of this decision and certain other factors significantly influenced the anticipated timing for the BlackBerry 10 devices. The anonymous claim suggesting otherwise is inaccurate and uninformed. As RIM has previously explained, and as Mike Lazaridis reiterated on the earnings call, we will not launch BlackBerry 10 devices until we know they are ready and we believe this new chip set architecture is required to deliver the world class user experience that our customers will expect. Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false.

The NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission has announced that starting in the spring, six Nissan Leaf electric cars will begin service as taxis in New York City.

Three fleet-operators will split up the Leafs, but the cars from each operator will share a single medallion. Because of this fact, there will only ever be three of the cars on the road at any time.

Chargers will be created in airport holding lots, garages around the city, and at the homes of other Leaf-owners. Leafs can go 60-130 miles per single charge.

The NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission had this to say of the program: "This program is a real test with unknown results. We have worked to plan for the "what ifs," but there most likely will be bumps in the road. We want this program to be successful and hope that it will help lead to broader electric-vehicle applications in the taxi industry, but we will need your patience and assistance to get there."