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Logitech, which saw a massive loss due to its failed Revue set-top box has said it would back Google TV again, but would be much more cautious this time around.

CEO Guerrino de Luca admits the company was far too bullish on the technology when it launched the box, overinvesting at a time when it was still unclear whether the technology would be widely embraced.

Google TV allows users to stream videos and access sites and apps via their TVs using a set-top box and impressive keyboard. Media companies have mostly blocked access to their streaming sites via Google TV, however, making the service useless in its current form.

Adds the CEO (via Reuters):

Google TV is a great concept, but the product was not mature at the launch.. [however] embracing the platform was a good idea.

A previous report from IHS had estimated costs at $210.

Research firm IHS iSuppli has done a thorough teardown of the Amazon Kindle Fire and found that the component costs are about $201.70. Amazon sells the device for $199.

By far, the most expensive part was the 7-inch display, which came in at $87 per unit. The displays are LG E-Ink.

The 1GHz processor is a Texas Instruments OMAP4430 processor which costs $14.65 per unit. Texas Instruments also supplied the "power management device and the audio codec" which accounted for another $9.35.

To save money, Amazon skipped out on a camera, microphone, microSD card slot, HDMI port and 3G/4G wireless radios.

By comparison, the 16GB iPad 2 has a teardown price of $326 but with a much richer feature set.

Concludes IHS:

The Kindle Fire, at a retail price point of $199, is sold at a loss by Amazon, just as the basic Kindle is also sold at a loss at the current $79 retail price point.

The big boys of online porn have joined together to sue ICANN in an anti-monopoly lawsuit.

Manwin, the company behind YouPorn, Brazzers, PornHub and Xtube has teamed up with Digital Playground to sue ICANN and the ICM Registry over the newly created .XXX top level domains.

Both companies want a full injunction to stop .XXX and a re-opening of competition with "reasonable price constraints."

The lawsuit claims "(...) monopolistic conduct, price gouging, and anti-competitive and unfair practices, broadly harming competition, businesses, and consumers, arising out of the establishment of .XXX, a new Top-Level Domain Name (TLD) intended for adult-oriented content."

The 44-page lawsuit continues:

ICM initially attempted to coerce ICANN to approve the .XXX TLD and to approve ICM's anti-competitive .XXX registry services. That coercion took the form of misleading predatory conduct and aggressive litigation tactics, described more fully below.

Eventually, ICANN agreed to approve the .XXX TLD, and to approve ICM as the XXX registry, not only in response to those improper and coercive tactics but also because ICM promised to pay ICANN what is expected to be millions of dollars in fees.

Apple fans are experiencing a new issue with their new iPhone.

Since its launch last month, iPhone 4S owners have had multiple problems to work through, including excessive battery drain and a non-working Siri.

Now, the latest issue is that the smartphone stops recognizing the SIM card inside, leaving users without a way to make phone calls through cellular service.

At some point during the day, the phone will flash an error message that says the SIM card is not valid or a message that says there is no SIM card inside, at all.

The issues is widespread across multiple carriers and it is unclear whether it is a hardware issue, a software issue or just a plain SIM card issue.

According to a new survey, Americans seem to have made piracy an acceptable practice, although a very small amount can be considered "hardcore" pirates.

70 percent of 18-29-year-olds surveyed admitted to pirating music, TV or movies, but only 2 percent said they had pirated over 1000 music tracks and only 1 percent said they had downloaded over 100 episodes or movies.

Additionally, 67 percent of pirates also purchased legal content, via outlets like iTunes.

The research is from the report "Copy Culture in the US and Germany" although so far, only the American research has been released. The data is via a Princeton Survey Research Associates telephone poll of 2,303 American adults this summer.

Overall, 46 percent of those surveyed admitted to piracy but a significant portion said they now pirate less due to the launch of "more attractive legal services" like Netflix streaming.

Video game players with "modified consoles" came in at only 3 percent, and mainly Xbox 360 users.

Perhaps the most interesting part of study came when the question was asked whether pirates should be punished for their actions, with only 52 percent agreeing. When asked what kind of punishment, a simple warning led the way at 51 percent, with jail time bringing up the rear at 12 percent. For music pirates, an "acceptable" fine was overwhelmingly seen at $10 or less per track.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Leader, has said today that she does not support SOPA, the proposed anti-piracy bill that would lead to Internet censorship in the U.S.

Pelosi tweeted: "Need to find a better solution than #SOPA #DontBreakTheInternet." The quote was in response to being asked "Where do you stand on internet censoring and #SOPA?"

On the other side of the political spectrum, California Republican Darrell Issa has said the act has no chance of passing (via the Wrap):

Congress is realizing there are so many unintended consequences that they can't just use Google as a piñata and bash on it here. There is a very broad coalition from far left to far right who realize this will hurt innovation, something we can't afford to do. And there are other ways to accomplish what they say is their goal.

Issa would go on to call the proposal "dangerous" in its current form.

SOPA has seen strong opposition from major tech firms like Google, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo, AOL and more as well as a huge uprising from citizens and heavily trafficked sites like Reddit. The bill is backed in force by the MPAA, RIAA and other content providers.

Although it was never really a question, Samsung has confirmed today that its popular Galaxy S II smartphone will be getting the Android 4.0 (ICS) update.

The tweet from Samsung UK says: "Hi, yes it will be released but no confirmed date yet. We will keep you updated." Out of context that makes no sense, but the tweet was in response to the question "ICS on GSII?"

Google showed off the operating system update last month to praise, and the first device to use the OS, the Galaxy Nexus has launched this week. Google also released the source code for 4.0 on Monday.

The Galaxy S II has a 4.27-inch WVGA Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen, Android 2.3.4, a 1.2GHz Samsung dual-core processor, an 8.49mm thin chassis (at lowest), an 8MP camera with autofocus and 1080p recording, NFC support, 4G, a 2MP front-side camera and HSPA+, WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0+HS.

Facebook, through its private share sales, appears to be losing value.

SharesPost, which auctions private shares of companies that have not yet gone public says Facebook shares have fallen from their peak in August at $33 per share to $30 today.

On August 16th, 100,000 shares were sold for $33 per share. On October 26th, 70,000 shares were sold at $32. Yesterday, a large block of 75,000 shares sold for $30 per share, implying a 9.1 percent drop in value in just 2 months.

Facebook is set to go public next year, with a market value of over $70 billion, making it a top tech firm.

Recently, companies like LinkedIn, Groupon and Yelp have gone public and commanded large premiums due to their social networking nature.

Seagate CEO Stephen Luczo has some bad news for anyone in need of a new hard drive - prices will stay inflated until at least the end of next year.

Due to the flooding in Thailand, which has left 13 million people homeless and a significant amount of factories with over 3 feet of water, hard drive prices have soared 20 percent in the last month.

Says the CEO:

This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least. And by then, demand will have gone up.

Currently, the floods have affected the infrastructure that is producing around 40 percent of the world's hard drives.

With supply drying up and demand growing, some customers have offered Seagate $250 million in upfront cash to lock up some capacity. For now, the CEO says he could raise prices another 20 percent but prefers to sign up customers for 1-3 year contracts at the current rates, instead.

Starz CEO Chris Albrecht has said today that the company is looking to starting an online version of its TV and movie channel that will operate just like HBO Go.

The streaming service, available for free to paying subscribers, will offer the ability to watch the company's premium programming via the Internet, on-demand.

Starz currently has 52 million subscribers.

Additionally, the company could also launch a stand-alone version of the service for subscribers who don't want the channels on their TV (or don't have TV).

Albrecht believes the service "would help reduce customer losses, increase availability beyond the home and attract younger subscribers."

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney says Amazon's oft-rumored smartphone will be released at the end of 2012.

The device is being built by Foxconn and developed by Amazon.

Mahaney notes that the phone will be "mid-level," not running with high-end specs.

The phone will be very price competitive, costing Amazon $150 to build. The phone will then be sold to carriers at $170 who could choose to subsidize it to consumers for free.

In comparison, HTC sells their phones for $243 on average to carriers (good for 30% margin) and Apple sells their latest iPhone for $600 to carriers, ensuring a massive 55 percent margin.

The Amazon smartphone will run the same Android-based OS as the Kindle Fire, and will closely integrate Amazon shopping, music, movies, Kindle ebooks, daily deals and cloud storage.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has broken yet another sales record.

The game grossed just over $775 million during its first five days of availability, says publisher Activision.

Adds CEO Bobby Kotick:

Life-to-date retail sales for the Call of Duty franchise have exceeded $6 billion worldwide, which makes Call of Duty one of the most valuable entertainment properties in the world.

Call of Duty has seen its share of records, especially in the last few years. In 2009, COD: Modern Warfare 2 grossed $550 million in its first 5 days while last year, COD: Black Ops cashed $650 million in the same time frame.

From a multiplayer standpoint, Microsoft says 3.3 million subscribers played the game on launch day via Xbox Live, a record.

Microsoft has announced a multi-year sponsorship deal with the National Football League (NFL) to have the Xbox 360 become the official console of the league.

As part of the deal, the software giant will work with the NFL's "Play 60" kids health program in order "to help teach kids the importance of a healthy and active lifestyle while having fun with Kinect for Xbox 360."

The program is based on getting kids to be physically active for 60 minutes every day.

From now on, the Kinect motion control system will be integrated into Play 60 events.

According to sources speaking to Edge, the Xbox Next/720 will be launched in 2012 in order to beat out rivals Nintendo and Sony.

The source says Ubisoft Montreal "is currently working with next generation target boxes based on the intended specifications of Microsoft's Xbox 360 successor."

Furthermore, a few other major developers, like EA, also have the units.

The "target boxes" are PCs with components about equal to the specs of the upcoming console. AMD is said to be providing the GPU.

If accurate, the sources say Microsoft will make some announcements at CES in January for the game console launching in late 2012.

The SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) bill has been dubbed draconian by a number of tech giants, including Google and Facebook.

Both companies say the bill is too strict and will lead to an incredible amount of unintended consequences.

SOPA was proposed as a way to censor access to sites like The Pirate Bay.

If SOPA was to pass, copyright holders could complain and have websites shutdown. Additionally, payment processors and search engines will have to block those sites, as well.

Outside of Google and Facebook - AOL, eBay, LinkedIn, Mozila, Yahoo, Twitter and Zynga filed the formal complaint with key Senate and House lawmakers.

Reads the complaint (via CNN):

We support the bills' stated goals. Unfortunately, the bills as drafted would expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities [and] mandates that would require monitoring of web sites.

Additionally, huge sites like BoingBoing and Reddit are now sporting "STOP CENSORSHIP" logos.

SOPA is backed by the MPAA and RIAA.