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The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has ruled today that Apple's iOS products do not infringe on patents held by S3 Graphics, the company recently purchased by HTC.

Because an ITC judge ruled initially last month that the products were not infringing, this decision is final and the ITC has closed their investigation into the matter barring any appeals.

The patents were related to functions like power management, phone dialing and texture compression.

HTC purchased S3 for $300 million, and many believed they did so to gain access to the patents.

Apple and HTC have been battling with dueling ITC complaints since last year, with both companies looking to have the other's products banned from import and sale.

Google, despite a strong history of successes, has also had its fair share of failed experiments.

Today, the company says they are shutting down some more of the products or integrating them into other projects.

The company ultimately wants to streamline its "Google experience" to be more intuitive and simpler.

Here is the list of products being shut down or altered (the most notable is probably Wave):

Google Bookmarks Lists-This is an experimental feature for sharing bookmarks and collaborating with friends, which we're going to end on December 19, 2011. All bookmarks within Lists will be retained and labeled for easier identification, while the rest of Google Bookmarks will function as usual. As Lists was an English-only feature, non-English languages will be unaffected.

Google Friend Connect-Friend Connect allows webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a few snippets of code. We're retiring the service for all non-Blogger sites on March 1, 2012. We encourage affected sites to create a Google+ page and place a Google+ badge on their site so they can bring their community of followers to Google+ and use new features like Circles and Hangouts to keep in touch.

Rachel Brown of London has posted her horror story with daily deal giant Groupon.

Brown signed up her 'Need a Cake Bakery' to the site, selling a dozen cupcakes for $10, 75 percent off its usual $40 price tag.

Because the company did not allow her to set a limit to vouchers, 8500 people purchased Groupons - meaning Brown had to create over 100,000 cupcakes.

The baker was forced to hire extra workers and work overtime, overall losing about $20,000 in weeks.

Says Brown (via CNBC):

Without doubt, it was my worst ever business decision. We had thousands of orders pouring in that really we hadn't expected to have. A much larger company would have difficulty coping.

My poor staff were having to slog away at all hours ? one of them even came in at 3 a.m. because she couldn't sleep for worry. We are still working to make up the lost money and will not be doing this again.

Microsoft has acquired startup video search engine VideoSurf for $70 million.

The software was created by Israeli entrepreneurs Lior Delgo, Professor Achi Brandt, Dr. Eitan Sharon and Shai Deljo.

Outside of a number of important Israeli investors, the company also had investments from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

VideoSurf is "a visual identification video search engine" that indexes over 250 million videos from sites like YouTube, CNN and Facebook. The software is used by Warner Bros. and CBS on their web pages.

Microsoft will likely integrate the company into its Bing search in an ongoing effort to steal market share from Google.

Nintendo has announced the availability of two special Zelda bundles for its 3DS and Wii consoles.

Bundling the brand new Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword for Wii with a gold Wii remote with MotionPlus and a special edition music CD, the first bundle will cost you $70.

If you don't care for the controller, the bundle with the CD only will set you back $50.

For the 3DS handheld, Nintendo is releasing a black with gold-trim Zelda 3DS with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D game for $200.

Best Buy has it on Black Friday for $180.

Activision has announced today that it has sold one million premium subscriptions to Call of Duty Elite in just the first 6 days of availability.

As a comparison, the publisher says it took Netflix, Sirius and Xbox Live on average one year to reach the same milestone.

Overall, 4.2 million gamers have registered for the service and 80,000 Elite clans have been created. Furthermore, "100,000 user-generated videos have been uploaded to Call of Duty Elite and the service has had more than three million daily logins," says Activision.

"The audience response to Call of Duty Elite's premium service has been beyond our expectations, and we want to thank Call of Duty players around the world for their unprecedented enthusiasm. The number of gamers who have registered for Call of Duty Elite further illustrates how this service is poised to redefine social gaming and set a new bar for interactive entertainment," said Bobby Kotick, CEO, Activision Blizzard.

Check the service here: http://www.callofduty.com/elite

According to the latest NPD Group figures, HP is the top selling tablet maker for all of 2011 not named Apple.

Overall, the company has sold 204,000 TouchPads, just slightly beating out Samsung at 192,000 tablets sold.

HP has accounted for 17 percent of non-iPad sales, with Samsung close behind at 16 percent.

Of course, it has to be noted that HP was not selling any devices until they firesaled the TouchPad for just $100, cancelling production 48 days after its launch.

NPD has ignored the Kindle Fire and Nook Color for their figures, however, and both are likely well above HP in sales to date.

Says the NPD Group (view full report here):

If you look at the tablet market without Apple there are a number of high-profile brands vying for that number two spot. According to NPD's Consumer Tracking Service, 76 percent of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet didn't even consider the iPad, an indication that a large group of consumers are looking for alternatives, and an opportunity for the rest of the market to grow their business.

Samsung president Yoon Book-Keun has said today that the company is in the final stages of negotiating a deal with Google to bring a Google TV device to the market.

The HDTV will likely be unveiled at CES in January.

Currently, the only official partner Google has in the project is Sony, as Logitech recently bowed out. The company, which made the Revue set-top box, said they lost $90 million due to sluggish sales.

Google recently updated the software to Honeycomb 3.1, its largest update since launch.

LG will officially become a partner when it launches its own Google HDTV at CES.

The Pakistani government has announced this week that it will begin to censor texting in the nation.

If ultimately successful, the move will block Pakistani citizens from 'obscenities' like "Jesus Christ" and "Sex."

All together, there are 1600 'obscene' terms and the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority has already told carriers to begin blocking texts from November 21 and forward.

The policy is in response to multiple consumer complaints from citizens receiving "graphic texts."

1100 of the terms are in English while the rest are in Urdu, Pakistan's native language.

The true out-roar comes from the choice of words, which include relatively and benign terms like "poop," "fairy, "athlete's foot," and "harder."

Android fans that went out and purchased the much-hyped Galaxy Nexus will have to deal with no Flash support, at least for the next month.

Google and Adobe have confirmed that there are no current versions of mobile Flash that support Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Says Adobe (via BGR):

Adobe will release one more version of the Flash Player for mobile browsing, which will provide support for Android 4.0 - expected to be released before the end of this year.

Samsung and Acer have slashed prices on their Chromebook models, and Samsung has introduced a new Series 5 netbook, as well.

In conjunction with Google, the Chromebooks have been dropped to $299 and the new Series 5, which is black (and removes 3G) will sell for same price.

The devices previously cost $350 and $429, respectively.

Additionally, Google has updated the ChromeOS operating system that runs the computers, adding a cleaner login screen and easier access to the file manager.

"We've also been working closely with our partners to continually improve the overall Chromebook experience while making them even more affordable," added Venkat Rapaka, Senior Product Manager.

Apple Macs have reached 5.2 percent of all worldwide computer sales, the highest total since 1996, says Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf.

Growth, as expected, far outpaced the overall PC market, for the 22nd straight quarter.

Mac growth was a healthy 24.6 percent compared to 5.3 for the rest of the industry.

A good portion of that growth came in the business segment which saw a 43 percent increase.

Mac sales continued to grow in the Asia-Pacific region, most notably China:

The growth of Apple's sales in China represents a perfect storm between an iconic brand and a rapidly growing middle class that's more brand-conscious than consumers in most other regions of the globe.

Amazon has brought Black Friday deals early this year, offering up every smartphone it carries for 1 penny.

The retailer, which has brand-new Android, WP7 and BlackBerry devices from Sprint, AT&T and Verizon, is now selling the phones for 1 cent with new two-year contract.

Included are expensive brand new devices like the HTC Rezound 4G, Droid Razr, Samsung Focus S and BlackBerry Bold 9930 among many others.

As expected, however, Apple iPhones are not included in the deal as Amazon does not carry them.

Finally, Amazon is giving away $100 credit to anyone who signs up for a hotspot data plan via Amazon Wireless.

The deal ends on Cyber Monday, next week.

Infinity Ward announced this weekend that it had banned 1600 Modern Warfare 3 players, each accused of using glitches in the game to either hack or cheat in-game.

More players are expected to be banned as the week progresses.

Says the company via Twitter:

Any attempt to cheat, hack, or glitch in #MW3 will not be tolerated. 1600+ bans issued. Updates in works. Please [continue] to report offenders.

We are doing mass bans on PC as well while we work on updates.

Western Digital has been hit with an arbitration court ruling ordering the drive maker to pay rival Seagate $525 million.

The decision comes as all drive makers are reeling from heavy flooding in Thailand that has disrupted up to 40 percent of all hard drive production to the entire world.

Although the case will head to an appeals court soon, the original suit alleged "misuse" of confidential information, most notably trade secrets from a former Seagate executive.

WD responded to the decision:

We do not believe there is any basis in law or fact for the damage award of the arbitrator. We believe the company acted properly at all times and we will vigorously challenge the award.

This does not affect our ability to conduct our operations, to complete the recovery and recommencement of our Thailand operations or, subject to obtaining the required regulatory approvals, to consummate our planned acquisition of Hitachi GST.