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It has only been a few years since Apple dumped Nvidia for AMD for its video card needs but it appears that the company will be switching back in 2012.

Semi reports that three years after Apple infamously dropped Nvidia GPUs for AMD/ATI, the company has changed their mind thanks to a dispute over the AMD "Llano" line, which were supposed to be in MacBook Airs this year.

The Llano GPUs were expected to be in MBA models this year but there were supply issues which infuriated Apple.

Nvidia has now won the order for the next upgrade of Macs, most likely with Ivy Bridge models set for release in the Spring.

Sony Europe president Jim Ryan has said this weekend that it would be highly "undesirable" for the company to release the PlayStation 4 too far after rivals Microsoft and Nintendo launch their next-gen consoles.

To quote, Ryan says:

I think we would consider it undesirable to be significantly later than the competition [with the next PlayStation].

The Nintendo Wii U should be out late next year and rumors have been mounting that Microsoft will unveil the Xbox successor in 2012, as well, for a 2013 release.

Sony, on the other hand, says they are firmly sticking by the PS3, which still has at least four more years left in its life cycle.

For the PS3, Ryan adds: "There's still a lot of unfinished business on PS3. If you look at PlayStation 2, now in excess of 150m units installed globally, a huge majority of that was done at price points of £120 or lower. [With PS3] we've only just hit £199 in the UK, so clearly there's a considerable untapped part of the market there."

The extremely stacked Sharp Aquos SH-01D will go on sale on December 2nd, says carrier NTT DoCoMo.

Available in Japan only, for now, the powerful Android device has a 4.5-inch 720p display that is also glasses-free 3D.

Additionally, the smartphone runs on 1GHz dual-core TI OMAP4430, has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, DLNA, NFC, and a massive 12.1MP camera.

At launch, the device will have Android 2.3.7, but will likely be upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich.

The phone has made its way through the FCC in the U.S. but most remain skeptical that it will ever make it to our shores.

More info (in Japanese): Sharp Aquos SH-01D

Eurogamer has reported today that a future firmware update will allow PS Vita remote play for all PS3 titles.

While that is the good, the bad is that the games will only be at 480x272 resolution that is upscaled to fit the 960x544 resolution of the Vita. 480x272 was the native resolution of the original PSP.

In the future, all developers will be able to create 480p modes aimed specifically at the Vita.

Sony has showed off how the Vita will add any missing Dual Shock controls to the touchscreen, and how players can use the handheld in co-op mode for PS3 games.

Video of Remote Play Killzone 3:

According to police reports in the Philippines, four citizens are accused of hacking into the accounts of AT&T business customers in the U.S. and diverting money to help aid terrorist attacks in Asia.

The group is accused of working with Jemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist group that has been linked to Al Qaeda and which took responsibility for the 2002 Bali bombings which killed over 200 people.

Three men and a woman have been arrested in Manila.

FBI officials said they are working with Filipino police to investigate into the hacking, which began in 2009.

The NYT says "the suspects remotely gained access to the telephone operating systems of an unspecified number of AT&T clients and used them to call telephone numbers that passed on revenues to the suspects."

All of the customers have hacked have been reimbursed for the charges, which amounted to over $2 million.

Last year, Google quietly began censoring terms it deemed were being used by pirates from its "Instant" and "Autocomplete" search.

This week, the company has blacklisted even more terms, including the names of certain popular sites.

A few of the new blocked search terms are "thepiratebay," "the pirate bay," "isohunt," "torrentreactor," "btjunkie," "kickasstorrents," "sumotorrent," "btmon," "extratorrent," "Torrent," "BitTorrent," and "RapidShare" have now all made the list along side cyber lockers like "4shared, "wupload" and "filesonic."

Google does make it clear, however, that it is not blocking the sites and terms from its search engine completely, just from the Instant and Autocomplete, making it a bit more annoying for the average lazy pirate.

High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) has been cracked by a group of computer scientists at Germany's Ruhr University.

The protection, created by Intel and used by most monitors to allow encrypted transfer of HD signals via DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI, was first "cracked" last year when the master key was leaked online but there has been little practical use for the key.

Explains Reg: "Computer scientists in the Secure Hardware Group at Germany's Ruhr University built a custom board using relatively inexpensive FPGA chips. A Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGA featuring an HDMI port and a serial RS232 communication port was created and sat between a Blu-ray player and a flat screen TV, intercepting and decrypting traffic, without being detected."

The latest rumor has Microsoft releasing two separate gaming consoles to replace the Xbox 360.

If accurate, the devices will launch in 2013, allowing the manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) time to perfect their 28nm manufacturing process, says TS.

One console will be an "entry-level system" while the second will be aimed the true hardcore gamer.

The entry-level console will be small like a set-top box and be aimed at the casual gamer. The device will access to many streaming services like Hulu Plus and Netflix and will allow for downloadable games from Xbox Live.

Moving up to the gamer's upgrade, the console will have an HDD, an optical drive, backwards-compatibility with 360 games and updated hardware, obviously. Rumored specs are a six-core CPU, AMD graphics and 2GB of DDR3 memory.

Despite withdrawing its merger proposal for T-Mobile from the FCC, AT&T has a "Plan B" in the works, one in which it would sell up to 40 percent of the carrier if its acquisition is approved.

The asset sale would be necessary to have the acquisition approved. The Justice Department sued to block the merger in August saying it would "substantially lessen competition" in the market, which only has 4 major carriers, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile.

Although the plan could work, in theory, there are few bidders out there for wireless assets that can afford such a huge purchase. Verizon would undoubtedly be blocked, and Sprint is having money issues.

AT&T is said to be okay with divesting a significant amount of subscribers whilst holding on to much-needed spectrum.

If the acquisition falls through, AT&T will owe T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom a $4 billion breakup fee that includes assets and cash.

The Motorola Droid 4 has been outed, less than 6 months after the release of the Droid 3.

Leaked spec sheets and pics are now available of the device, which is expected to be released on December 8th.

Motorola's latest device will have a 4-inch qHD screen, a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, a form-factor similar to the Droid Razr, a 5-row keyboard that is "edge-lit" and dual cameras 8MP/1.3MP.

The phone will also have a large 1785mAh battery.

Additionally, the device will be a world phone, including support for all radio bands and be 4G supported.

Pictures:

A few talented devs have ported the brand new Android 4.0 to the first ever Android phone, the T-Mobile G1.

The G1 was released way back in 2008 with Android 1.0, running on a single-core processor and hardly any RAM.

When viewing the video, it is clear the phone struggles with the new OS, but that is absolutely expected,

The devs say they are working on hardware acceleration, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and screen rotation but those issues should be sorted rather quickly.

If you still have your old G1 laying around, it may be fun to throw on the new ICS, likely before you get it on your 2011 device.

Check it here.

The Ville, HTC's upcoming Android 4.0 device has seen some more specs and pics leak today.

Rumor has the device being HTC's thinnest, to date, at just 7.9mm thick.

Expected to be launched in February, the device will run Ice Cream Sandwich, have a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display with qHD resolution and a new 28nm dual-core Snapdragon processor running at 1.5GHz.

As is standard the device will have dual cameras 1.3MP/8MP, 1080p capture and support, Beats Audio, HSPA+ and a 1650mAh battery.

If the launch date is accurate, the Ville will likely be in consumer's hands by late March.

South Korean firm reportedly planning to phase out netbooks.

A French blog (Blogeee) is reporting that Samsung will phase out its netbook line-up in 2012, citing an e-mail that Samsung allegedly sent to its retail partners.

"Following the introduction of our new strategy in 2012, we [will] stop the product range in 10.1in (netbook) in Q1 2012 for the benefit of ultraportable products (11.6 and 12 inches) and Ultrabooks to be launched in 2012," the e-mail reportedly stated.

Netbook sales are on the decline, hurt by tablet PCs and by small-sized notebooks and emerging products such as Ultrabooks. The low cost of netbooks and their ability to handle the majority of basic tasks carried out by users made them quite successful for several years.

Now firms such as Samsung are looking to new products, such as tablet PCs. Ultrabooks are also emerging with effort being put in by many tech firms to bring down their cost while keeping them more powerful than traditional notebooks. Intel and its partners see Ultrabooks as a way to boost the PC, and as a way to steal market share back from tablets.

Strategy to protect UK digital economy against cyber attacks.

The National Security Strategy in the UK last year put hostile computer attacks on par with the threat of international terrorism to the region. This prompted ministers to provide £650 million for cyber-security measures, in particular for defence systems and key infrastructure.

As it stands, about 6 percent of the UK's GDP is generated by the Internet, and that figure is only likely to continue rising over the coming years. This embracing of the digital world carries an enormous security threat at all levels; to the public service, to private sector firms and to individual consumers.

The UK Government recognised the need for a national strategy to cover all bases. It will reveal a plan that will include using the intelligence agency GCHQ to prop up security in the private sector. The police force will get more cyber training and skilled army reservists will also be utilized.

A joint initiative between the public and private sector will bolster critical information sharing on emerging threats, and ensure a coordinated response. Individuals will be given more help and information to protect themselves, as the GCHQ reports that 80 percent of successful attacks could be avoided easily by doing simple things, such as keeping software up to date, A/V definitions up to date and being more aware of the methods commonly used to attack individuals.

Firms will focus on Justice Department anti-trust lawsuit for now.

Earlier this week, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski recommended the proposed $39 billion buyout of T-Mobile by AT&T be sent to an administrative law judge for review. The move is effectively seen as disapproval by the FCC chairman.

After eight months of a review, the FCC has come to the conclusion that if AT&T buys T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom AG, it will hurt competition in the wirless space, as well as prompting job losses. Both AT&T and T-Mobile reject the findings of the FCC.

The deal is also opposed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) however, and it is bringing the case to court in an effort to stop the proposed merger from going ahead.

Now the firms have announced the withdrawal of its application to the FCC for a merger approval, in order to focus on the DoJ case first. Some analysts point out that by withdrawing the FCC application, they can avoid handing over documents that would then be used by the DoJ in its case against them.

Things are looking very bleak for the deal however, with AT&T admitting in a blog post that it expected to take a $4 billion charge because of break-up fees it will owe to Deutsche Telekom. The deal could be salvaged though if the firms agreed to greater conditions in settlement negotiations with the DoJ.