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Sprint, the largest user of Carrier IQ software in the U.S., has said this week that is completely disabling the software in all of its devices.

The carrier admitted to using the software since 2006, and that it is installed on 26 million Sprint smartphones and tablets.

Due to recent customer concerns over the rootkit, Sprint says it has stopped collecting data using Carrier IQ, disabled it from all past devices, and will consider fully dropping it in the future. Sprint adds that they only used Carrier IQ to collect network- and device-related information for quality-of-service-related purposes.

"We have weighed customer concerns and we have disabled use of the tool so that diagnostic information and data is no longer being collected," read the carrier's statement to Senator Al Franken. "At Sprint, we work hard to earn the trust of our customers and believe this course of action is in the best interest of our business and customers."

Carrier IQ, which is installed in over 140 million devices, can read the state of your phone at all times, log all keystrokes, see who you called, see who you texted, see what terms you have searched for, and logs sleep/uptime.

Last month, Adobe announced that the Galaxy Nexus would not support Flash at launch, and fans would have to wait around a month before regaining the support.

The device, which launched around Europe over the past month, and in the U.S. on Thursday, is the first smartphone to have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, Google's latest operating system update.

Adobe, recently announced it was discontinuing development on its mobile Flash player to move focus to HTML5 and its more popular Flash players on other platforms. The Android 4.0 update, which brings Flash to version 11.1.112.60, will be their last.

Additionally, the update will fix a few known issues, which included: Seeking while video is paused will not update the frame on ICS device, StageVideo using On2 and Sorenson does not work on ICS devices, PHDS content plays with audio pops, OS does not prioritize incoming call - audio remains playing before and after call is received, Enter key does not work on the multi-line text input field.

In a surprise move, The House Judiciary Committee has delayed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) vote.

The delay seems to be thanks to the committee's chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) agreeing to look further into one of the controversial provisions of the bill. That provision would allow the Attorney General to change many of the core Internet infrastructures in order to halt online piracy and copyright infringement. Other representatives argued changing the domain-naming system would cause security risks, says Wired.

Smith has pushed the hearing to the "earliest practical day that Congress is in session." With Congress' track record, that could be months down the line.

The Stop Online Piracy Act was proposed earlier this year. SOPA is the first of two bills being considered by Congress. The second is E-PARASITE/Protect-IP. The bills are created to prevent piracy, copyright infringement, and block access to "rogue foreign sites." The bills have been generally panned by the public and the major tech companies due to the fact that companies can get domains and websites shut down if they "engage in, enable or facilitate infringement." By creating this blacklist, governments and companies can choose to get sites cut off from search engines and from accepting payments for ads. SOPA only gives accused websites 5 days to file an appeal before they get shut down.

Dell has officially decided to kill its consumer netbooks.

The company will still sell enterprise models, but it is unclear for how much longer. Dell has already removed the netbooks from its websites, including the once very popular Inspiron Mini line.

Other companies, like Asus and Toshiba, remain committed to the small Intel Atom netbooks but Dell is moving on to the new trend, ultrabooks. To ensure it will not come back to netbooks, the company says it will not use Intel's forthcoming Cedar Trail platform, at all.

For those worried that the tablet/netbook Inspiron Duo would be discontinued, Dell says no, as it continues to sell well.

Adds Marketing Director Alison Gardner: "Thin and powerful is where it is at for us."

Game developer Square Enix has announced this week that 1.8 million user accounts have been compromised thanks to a security breach.

Hackers hit one of Square Enix's servers, taking the company's U.S. and Japanese sites offline. 1 million Japanese users accounts were compromised and 800,000 in the U.S., say reports.

Enix says that the accounts did not contain credit card info, but did have full names, emails, phone numbers and addresses. The developer has warned that phishers may send emails asking for passwords or credit card numbers, and that those should be ignored as the company would never ask for them.

The company was hit earlier this year, as well, with a European server being hacked and 25,000 customer accounts being compromised. Additionally, the resumes of 250 applicants were taken.

Although still horrible, the numbers in this case pale in comparison to Sony's nightmare PSN experience, in which over 100 million users had their personal info compromised, including passwords and likely credit card info.

As supporters of SOPA and PIPA, the anti-piracy bills working their way through Congress, continue to insist they won't be used to censor the Internet, the entertainment industry seems determined to prove they intend to do just that.

The latest big target for censorship is the file locker service Megaupload. Besides being one of the most successful cloud storage services, Megaupload is also one of the sites at the top of the entertainment industry's "rogue sites" list, making them one of the first services you can expect to be targeted if SOPA or PIPA becomes law.

But even without either measure, Megaupload finds itself fighting for the right to publish completely legal content to defend themselves in a PR war started by the major record labels and movie studios. As part of that effort, Megaupload commissioned a music video featuring a number of music industry heavyweights.

After it was uploaded to YouTube and started getting a lot of attention on Twitter, Universal Music Group had the video removed taken down. When Megaupload protested the removal of the video, it was reinstated and then almost immediately taken down again.

Reuters is reporting this morning that Apple is now receiving their A5 processing chip from a plant in Texas, run by manufacturing giant Samsung.

The 1.6 million square feet factory is located in Austin and has recently reached full production. Samsung spent $3.6 billion to construct the non-memory chip production line.

Sources say the entire factory is dedicated to Apple chips, with a small amount of the line used for NAND flash memory.

The A5 chip is used in the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The rest of Apple's components are made in Asia, mainly by Foxconn, one of the largest companies in the world.

Samsung created the factory in 1996, and the investment is the largest foreign one in Texas, valued at $9 billion.

According to the latest IDC figures, Apple continues to lose tablet market share, as the industry becomes more and more competitive.

Apple still has, by far, the strongest selling tablet, with the iPad outselling the next tablet by an 11:1 margin, but a large amount of new Android releases are starting to chip away at the share. Overall, tablet shipments rose 265 percent year-over-year, to 18.1 million units.

Analysts had expected 19.2 million units, but the miss is likely to be made up in the next quarter, the holiday quarter.

iPad sales came in at 11.1 million for the Q3, good for 61.5 percent market share, down a few percentage points from the quarter before. Samsung came in second with 5.6 market share after selling 950,000 units during the quarter. HP, thanks to its firesale, controls third at 5 percent after selling 900,000 TouchPads.

IDC has changed its methods to now include the Nook Color, Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire, which are intended as e-readers but have LCD screens and Internet access. The Nook Color saw 805,458 units sold, while the figures for the latter two devices will need to wait until the end of the Q4.

RIM has become the first handset maker to officially give instructions on how to remove the smartphone rootkit Carrier IQ.

The software runs secretly on over 140 million smartphones including Android, BlackBerry and some versions of iOS and can log all keystrokes, phone calls made, and apps used. T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint have confirmed using the software, but Verizon vehemently denies including it on any of its phones. T-Mobile says it uses the software to help improve call quality.

RIM says it does not pre-install Carrier IQ on its BlackBerry devices, nor does it authorize carriers to do so. However, it has been revealed that the software is found on one carrier's Bold 9900, the Curve 9360 and Torch 9810. The document also shows that the Carrier IQ software was installed on Android phones from T-Mobile.

If you are looking to remove the software from your BlackBerry device, RIM makes it very easy.

Head over to the app marketplace and download "IQ Agent," says the company, which has quick instructions.

Amazon has said today that it is selling over 1 million Kindles per week.

The behemoth e-tailer is notorious for never revealing sales numbers for its products, so the new admission is in stark contrast to past press releases. Amazon says it is "selling well over" 1 million devices per week, and this mark has been hit for the last three weeks and running.

Included in the sales numbers are all generations of the Kindle e-reader, and the Kindle Fire tablet. Kindle Fire sales have been increasing week-over-week, added Amazon exec Dave Limp.

Many in the industry believe the press release was a direct response to a recent flurry of negative reviews of the Kindle Fire, which lacks many standard features like a mic and camera. However, the Fire sells for just $199, at least $100 cheaper than its competitors in the 7-inch category and $300 cheaper than the standard 10-inch tablets like the iPad and Galaxy 10.1.

Additionally, Amazon has already said an upcoming Kindle Fire software upgrade will "improve performance, touch navigation, and give customers the option to choose what items display on the carousel."

The social gaming giant Zynga will IPO tomorrow, pricing in at $10 per share, for 100 million shares.

There had been recent discussion on whether the company could have a strong showing in its public debut, but it appears that at least some large funds and other deep pocket buyers are willing to pay up. 100 million shares is equal to just 11 percent of all shares, giving Zynga a market value of just around $9 billion.

Additionally, the IPO will raise Zynga $1 billion in cash, which they expect to use to expand their existing lineup and development on new games. The IPO is the largest since Google's in 2004, although Facebook is expected to trump both by a hefty amount.

Separating Zynga from other recent social IPOs, is the fact that the company is actually profitable. Others, like LinkedIn, Zillow and Pandora, have had years of losses, and profitability does not appear to be on the horizon despite their billion dollar valuations.

Zynga is the giant behind hits like FarmVille, CityVille, MafiaWars, Empires and Allies, Words with Friends, and Zynga Poker. The company has 4 of the top 5 most popular games on Facebook , and has over 200 million monthly users.

The company says it makes all of its revenue from just 3 percent of its players, who buy virtual items like new guns, poker chips, and upgrades for their farm.

As a final reminder, we are in the home stretch of Google's great 10 cent Android Market promotion.

There are 12 apps today, as a special "blowout" for the last day. Each other day had 10 apps. It is unclear at what time tomorrow the promotion will end.

Android's promotion is in celebration of 10 billion apps being downloaded from the market. The promotion began last Tuesday and has seen very strong downloads for the apps.

The List:
1. Camera Zoom FX
2. Shine Runner
3. TileStorm HD
4. Star Chart
5. Talking Ben the Dog
6. Apparatus
7. Color & Draw for kids
8. Hyper Jump
9. Sentinel 3: Homeworld
10. Majesty: Fantastic Kingdom Sim
11. Puffle Launch
12. Heavy Gunner 3D

Nintendo will help the French museum appeal to new audiences.

The gaming company has announced today it will be sending 5000 of the new 3DS handhelds to the Louvre for use as an audio guide. Additionally, the museum is developing an iOS app, so their plan is clearly to appeal to the generation that has touchscreen smartphones or still games.

Museum-goers who rent the handheld will get to listen to the guided tour, which is available in seven languages. They will also be able to load and create special itineraries.

Nintendo says they have produced original content for the Louvre, but no one has elaborated on that just yet. Most likely, the content will have minor tie-ins to popular characters or include puzzle/mysteries related to the museum.

Finally, as Crunch mentions, this isn't the first time the two have teamed up, with the museum making an appearance on The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3.

As expected with a new update, there have been reports of a few popular apps having issues with Google's latest Android 4.0 software.

As of today, however, Netflix is now updated for the new software. The Android Market description now reads: "Supports Android 2.2, 2.3, 3.x, and 4.x in the USA, Canada, and Latin America. Download the free Netflix app to instantly watch TV shows & movies streaming from Netflix."

Of course, to use the service you will need a Netflix subscription, which costs $7.99 per month for unlimited streaming.

After months of delays, Verizon finally launched the Galaxy Nexus today, the first phone to have Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Ice Cream sandwich is the biggest rehaul of the Android operating system, to date, and the first OS created for both smartphones and tablets, natively.

It is about time to write an obituary on the once hallowed smartphone maker.

RIM, the company behind the BlackBerry line of smartphones and the Playbook tablet has delayed their BlackBerry 10-based phones until the end of 2012, effectively putting the final nail in their coffin.

The company says they are delaying the launch of the BlackBerry 10 devices as they wait for the production of dual-core chips with LTE support.

RIM had initially planned to release the phones in February-April.

Outside of the delay, the company's earnings got smashed, with profits falling to $265 million for the Q3 2011, down from $911 million in the same quarter in 2010. Furthermore, the company downgraded their forecast for sales in the Q4, to 11 million units. This compares to 14.8 million sold in the same period last year. That figure hurts the most as the holiday season is normally a seasonally strong period for phone sales.

RIM's market share in the U.S., its largest market, has fallen from 44 percent in 2009 to just 10.5 percent in November, as Android and iOS continue to grow.

Additionally, the company announced more bad news, with a $356 million write-down for poor sales of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and a $40 million loss due to the 2-day service outage they experienced earlier this year that left users without emails and texts.