Latest news

According to Inside-Games, Nintendo has committed to a Q3/Q4 2012 Wii U release date.

Previously, the company had given a huge range, from April to December.

Nintendo is expected to show off the Wii U next month at the CES event and have playable demos on the show floor. The company launched the console, and showed off its touchscreen controller at this year's E3 show.

While unconfirmed, thanks to the new provided roadmap, industry insiders now believe Nintendo will set a price and release date at this summer's E3 for an actual release sometime during the holiday season.

There has not been too much revealed about the system as of yet, but Nintendo has confirmed the games will be on a proprietary disc that is not Blu-ray or DVD. Additionally, the console will run on a processor similar to the one used in the IBM "Watson" supercomputer.

The Amazon Kindle Fire has just received its first "pre-alpha" ROM of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Because the ROM is so buggy, it is not recommended for installation unless you are a developer looking to help. The audio and video functions are still broken but the touchscreen, Wi-Fi and other standard features seem to be working just fine.

There was an issue where the device could not recognize the internal storage, but that appears to be fixed. The Amazon Kindle Fire does not have an SD slot.

If you are a daredevil, here are the instructions to root the device, along with the ICS ROM: XDA Devs

The Kindle Fire costs $199 and is expected to become the second-best selling tablet of all-time behind the iPad after just two months of availability.

Anyone with a 2011 LG smartphone with Android can expect the upgrade starting in the Q2 2012.

LG says "the global upgrade schedule will begin in the second and third quarters of 2012, which will be followed by a global roll out."

The first phones to get the highly-anticipated upgrade to Android 4.0 are the LG Optimus LTE, the Prada phone by LG 3.0, the LG Optimus 2X, the LG Optimus Sol, the LG my Touch Q and the LG Eclipse. Afterwards, the LG Optimus 3D, the LG Optimus Black, the LG Optimus Big, the LG Optimus Q2 and the LG Optimus EX will receive the update, likely by the end of August.

LG is particular to note that "it will be taking all possible measure to offer a smooth OS upgrade in a timely manner" but carrier and country requirements vary.

LG Display has announced it will unveil its new 55-inch OLED TV at CES next month.

The TV will be the largest ever OLED screen, and LG has hinted that it will be much more affordable (per inch) than past commercial OLED screens. For example, in 2008 Sony released an 11-inch OLED for $2200.

OLED displays are mainly seen now in phones and watches, where they are extremely cost efficient. Adds Beom Han, CEO and Executive Vice President of LG Display: Our objective has always been to actively define and lead emerging display technology markets. Although OLED technology is seen as the future of TV display, the technology has been limited to smaller display sizes and by high costs, until now. LG Display's 55-inch OLED TV panel has overcome these barriers."

LG says the new TV has wider color gamut than LCD screens, and a contrast ratio of 100,000:1. Furthermore, "the new technology allows light emitting diodes to self-generate light and features a reaction velocity to electric signals over 1000 times faster than liquid crystal."

Samsung has bought out Sony's share of their LCD joint venture S-LCD for $940 million.

The two companies started the venture in 2004 and there have been rumors of a break-up since the late summer.

Reads the press release: "Under the agreement, Samsung will acquire all of Sony's shares of S-LCD Corporation ('S-LCD'), the two companies' LCD panel manufacturing joint venture, making S-LCD a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung. In consideration for the share transfer, cash consideration of approximately KRW 1.08 trillion will be paid to Sony by Samsung. Concurrently, the two companies have entered into a new strategic agreement for the supply and purchase of LCD panels with a goal of enhancing the competitiveness of both companies. The agreement also allows Sony and Samsung to continue cooperative engineering efforts focused on LCD panel technology."

Sony saw a massive loss of $1.2 billion this year for its TV division, thanks to low demand out of Europe and a strong Yen not seen since the end of World War II. Samsung remains the top LCD maker in the world, with a profitable TV division.

Although unconfirmed by Microsoft, Epic Games community manager Will Kinsler says the software giant will begin blocking gun avatars from Xbox Live starting on January 1st.

Says Kinsler: "Heads up! Starting on Jan. 1, 2012, the Lancer and Hammerburst avatar items will no longer be available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace. If you've purchased the items prior to Jan. 1, you will be able to keep them. A new policy goes into effect for all gun-like avatar items on the Marketplace, so get them while they're hot." There are additional guns besides the Lancer and Hammer, and those are posted here: Neogaf.

Other weapons appear to be okay, including tanks, lightsabers, chainsaws and armored helicopters, so it is unclear where the policy sets its boundaries.

PCM speculates that the new policy is related to Kinect's ever-improving ability to map avatar movements to real-life gestures. This does not make all too much sense, however, as users who have already purchased the avatars get too keep them.

According to the latest market research from The NPD Group, smartphones are stealing market share from point-and-shoot cameras and traditional camcorders.

The group's Imaging Confluence Study shows that more and more consumers are taking pictures and videos on their smartphone and less and less are using traditional cameras or camcorders, including the once-popular Flip and Vado pocket camcorders. The "percent of photos taken with a smartphone" jumped to 27 percent this year from 17 percent last year.

Concludes Liz Cutting, executive director and senior imaging analyst at NPD:

There is no doubt that the smartphone is becoming 'good enough' much of the time; but thanks to mobile phones, more pictures are being taken than ever before. Consumers who use their mobile phones to take pictures and video were more likely to do so instead of their camera when capturing spontaneous moments, but for important events, single purpose cameras or camcorders are still largely the device of choice.

Overall, low-end point-and-shoot cameras are feeling the biggest squeeze, with units sales down 17 percent year-over-year. Camcorders are down 13 percent and even more in dollars, since prices have dropped significantly. On the other end, SLR camera sales increased by 12 percent.

Akamai Technologies has bought out their rival Cotendo, the maker of mobile-network acceleration software.

The purchase price of $268 million was well below the expected price of $320 million, sending Akamai's shares soaring this week. There was a ton of interest in the company, as many larger companies look to expand their cloud computing efforts.

Cotendo, based in Israel, was founded in 2008 and provides technology that accelerates the delivery of content through the Internet "using a network of distributed servers around the world to put content physically close to consumers," says WSJ.

The company specializes in speeding up delivery of content to smartphones and tablets.

Cotendo has seen high double digit revenue growth over the last two years and had strong buyout interest from AT&T, Juniper and Akamai, who had sued the company over patent infringement just last year.

Steve Jobs has been awarded a posthumous Grammy by The Recording Academy.

The recently deceased Apple founder is a recipient of the Trustees Award for his contributions to the music industry.

Reads the news release: "As former CEO and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs helped create products and technology that transformed the way we consume music, TV, movies, and books. A creative visionary, Jobs' innovations such as the iPod and its counterpart, the online iTunes store, revolutionized the industry and how music was distributed and purchased."

Apple also received a Grammy in 2002 for its contributions to the recording industry, mainly iTunes and the iPod media players.

Additionally, Steve Jobs was immortalized by a bronze statue in Hungary commissioned by Graphisoft, who says its professional relationship with Jobs stretches all the way back to the early 80s. (Pictured)

The University of California-Berkeley has chosen Google Apps over Microsoft's Office 365 as their new cloud-based email and calender provider.

After an "exhaustive" review process, the major university decided on the Google-based system: "While both products are feature rich and offer advantages over our current environment, the analysis concluded that the Google offering was the better overall fit for the campus at this time."

Additionally, the school revealed their selection criteria by releasing a matrix assessment. Microsoft scored higher in key areas like security, contract terms and ease-of-use for the calender, but the university still went the other way.

Berkeley decided on Google because it was easier to roll out and most of its student already have Gmail accounts and familiarity with Google applications.

Concludes the report: "Google's solution is optimized for web-based interaction. It is designed to be quickly provisioned and a migration to Google could begin more quickly than one to Office 365."

Earlier this week it was revealed that Google had paid again to be the default search engine in Firefox, the web browser which has about 25 percent of global market share.

Last year, Mozilla noted that Google practically kept the company in business in 2010, contributing 84 percent of their $123 million revenue.

The new deal, according to Kara Swisher, is apparently a lot more expensive for Google. If accurate, the deal now costs $300 million per year, for the next three years, meaning Mozilla will have made $1 billion revenue from Google, alone, for this year and the next three years.

It appears the payment was boosted so significantly because Microsoft and Yahoo were in the bidding, as well. Google was willing to pay up to block out the other companies, who are trying to take market share through a joint initiative and large marketing campaigns for Microsoft's Bing engine. Additionally, it has been speculated that Google is anticipating antitrust issues in the future, and is building a defense. For that to come true, however, Google's Chrome OS and Chrome browsers will need to get significantly more popular, to the point that they can be compared to Microsoft's Windows and Internet Explorer.

The Raspberry Pi, the $25 mini-computer created by UK programmers, will be available in January, after a year of tweaking and development.

What makes the computer so impressive (besides its price tag) is the fact that it can play 1080p HD video with no issues. The devices are intended to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools or at home. The company is looking to promote the Python programming language, alongside Basic and C among others.

For $25 you get a 3.3-inch wide board with a 700 MHz ARM11, 128MB RAM, HDMI-out, SD card slot, a USB port, audio jack and Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU. For $35, you can get a deluxe edition with an ethernet port and 256MB RAM.

The computer is intended to have a keyboard attached via the USB, and then attached to a monitor or TV via the HDMI.

According to info collected by The Domains, 37,000 domains were pulled from Go Daddy after it was revealed they were formal supporters of the draconian censorship bill dubbed SOPA.

Within 2 days, Go Daddy had switched their stance, but the damage had already been done. Many of the domains transferred to companies like NameCheap, who are staunch opponents of the bill.

The new report says 15,000 domains transferred out on Thursday and another 22,000 domains transferred out on Friday. The registrations normally cost about $10 on Go Daddy, so the 37,000 could likely hit the bottom line.

Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman has noted that he is not fully for or against SOPA, but that he is certainly for fighting online piracy. The company helped work on revisions to SOPA, but says the bill in its current form is still not good enough. Adelman says: "Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."

For more info on the backers and the anti-SOPA companies here: 120 companies and groups come out in favor of SOPA

Microsoft has acknowledged that users are experiencing errors since they updated to the recent December Dashboard update.

Outside of errors, some users have been locked out of Xbox Live, completely. Because they are locked out, whenever trying to login the gamers are met with error popups. Some gamers who manage to get in through the errors, can then not play online or download their user profile.

The software giant says it is working on a fix.

Since rolling out on December 5th, adding Bing search, better Kinect integration (including motion and voice command control) and TV channels, users have complained of multiple errors when trying to access the Dashboard of their console.

If you are experiencing issues, Microsoft says they are more than likely codes "801540B7" and "80070571." The company would not reveal what is causing the errors.

Just a day after it was revealed as 1 of the 120 formal supporters of SOPA, Go Daddy has pulled its support from the draconian bill.

The turning point for Go Daddy, which sells domain names, seems to be when Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger networks said he would pull all 1000 of his domains from Go Daddy unless they dropped support for the "free Web cancer that is SOPA."

Cheezburger sites receive 375 million views per month.

Go Daddy has now posted a full statement on their site: