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Just two days after releasing the first beta, Apple has now launched a second fix for the iOS 5 battery issue.

Critics of the firmware claim the battery has had excessive drain, making the iPhone 4S less useful than expected.

Apple has released the updated software to developers, meaning the public will probably see the fix within the month.

Additionally, iOS 5.0.1 will add multitasking gestures to iPad 1 owners.

Finally, the security issue with Apple's Smart Cover for the iPad 2 has been fixed.

Last month, hacking group 'Anonymous' threatened to attack the Mexican drug cartel "Los Zetas."

The Zetas are notoriously violent and considered the most ruthless in the world, specializing in assassinations and beheadings in their native land.

In total, there were over 15,273 drug-related crimes in Mexico in 2010 and over 40,000 people have died in the country since 2006 in drug related violence.

Anonymous had threatened to reveal police and media members allied with the cartel, unless an allegedly kidnapped member of the hacking group was freed in the city of Veracruz.

Apparently, the kidnapped member has now been freed so the group has backed off their threats. Allegedly, the group was also sent death threats from the cartel, which many believe is the real reason for the downplay of the attack.

The Zetas has said they would kill 10 Anonymous members for every name the hacking group revealed.

HTC has launched their Rezound smartphone this week, a multimedia-heavy device that promises "thundering bass, soaring midrange and crisp highs" due to integrated Beats Audio.

The company acquired Beats over the summer for $300 million.

Rezound owners will enjoy an Android 2.3 phone with a powerful 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 16 GB of on-board memory, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 16GB microSD card, an 8MP camera with autofocus, dual LED flash and an f/2.2 and 28 mm wide-angle lens with BSI sensor.

The device will have an HD 720p display and a 4.3-inch super-LCD screen.

Beats Audio co-founder Jimmy Iovine added:

The sixth-largest carrier in the U.S., U.S. Cellular, has noted this week that it will delay its LTE 4G rollout.

Instead of the Q4 2011, the network will be available for 4G-capable phones in the Q1 2012.

U.S. Cellular says the LTE rollout will be enabled by King Street Wireless. The carrier has a stake in the spectrum management company.

The carrier has 6 million subscribers across the U.S. and the LTE network will initially service just one quarter of them.

First, the LTE rollout will hit cities in Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine and North Carolina with additional markets receiving the network support later next year.

Says U.S Cellular:

With a 4G LTE network and cutting-edge 4G LTE devices, customers will be able to connect to their friends and family even faster and get more done when they're away from their home or office. We're excited to partner with King Street Wireless to bring 4G LTE speed to more customers next year that will help them be more productive. Our commitment to providing products and services that simplify and enhance customers' lives is one of the reasons we have the happiest customers in wireless.

Best Buy has announced today that they are giving away free HTC smartphones to anyone who purchases the upcoming blockbuster game "Modern Warfare 3."

The phones are available from Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T and will require you to sign a new two-year contract.

A few of the more notable phones are the HTC EVO 4G, the Droid Incredible 2 and the Inspire 4G. Each normally costs $150-200 with contract, making the deal a good one.

Best Buy is allegedly doing the promotion to build consumer awareness about its growing mobile business.

Activision has said it expects to sell 20 million copies of the game before the end of the year, making it by far the best selling game of the year.

As expected, Barnes and Noble will unveil their Nook Color sequel next week at a New York press event.

According to a leak (via Slashgear), the company will call the e-reader the "Nook Tablet" and sell the device for $249, a $50 step up from the upcoming Amazon Kindle Fire.

To warrant the price, the Nook Tablet will have better specs than the Fire including a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage and a light 7-inch frame.

Additionally, the device will have integrated Netflix and Hulu Plus.

If accurate, the Nook Tablet will hit stores on the 16th, one day after Amazon is shipping their Fire.

Chuck D of Public Enemy fame is the latest artist to sue his label alleging they are cheating him out of royalties from music downloads.

The issue, as with other artists who have sued, is whether downloads, including those from services like iTunes or Amazon's MP3 Shop as well as ringtones, should be counted as sales or licenses.

It's an issue which could cost the labels a lot of money due to the fact pre-iTunes recording contracts do not, obviously, have any royalty terms for downloads. In a similar case involving Eminem, a federal appeals court ruled that downloads clearly count as licensing, rather than sales.

This is significant because the royalty rate for licensing is much higher. Based on the contract terms disclosed in Chuck D's lawsuit, Universal Music Group would be required to pay him almost 50% of all the money they collect from each download.

Essentially, this is a case of the labels wanting to treat downloads in whatever way gives them the most power and makes them the most money. On one hand, they argue downloads are not sales when a consumer wants to sell them. Therefore the first sale doctrine does not apply. But when they pay the artist, they argue the opposite case, calling them sales to pay lower royalties.

According to the latest figures by Nielsen, Android has moved to 43 percent market share of the U.S. smartphone market.

Apple remained firmly in second with 28 percent share following another strong quarter of iPhone sales.

Most notably, overall smartphone ownership grew to 43 percent up from 38 percent just 6 months ago.

Nielsen says (via Fortune):

-62% of Americans aged 25-34 who own any kind of mobile phone own a smartphone.

-Among 18-24 and 35-44 year olds the smartphone penetration rate is hovering near 54%.

-Around 40% of teens 12-17 years old and 40% of 45-54 year-olds reported owning a smartphone

-The second fastest-growing smartphone penetration rate is those aged 55-64. Smartphone penetration among this older group is only 30%, but it jumped 5% this quarter.

Google may be looking for a new way to make the transition from traditional to Internet TV.

Google TV, their Internet-based TV service was launched last year, but has yet to be a success by any objective measure. At the end of last month they announced version 2.0 of the service, but with few people currently using the service, it remains to be seen if it can get traction in the market.

Considering a recent report about their plans to setup a cable TV service, maybe their purchase of Motorola Mobility is the key to that succes.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google's Jeremy Stern is negotiating with media companies as part of a plan to offer cable TV service in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas. The service would use the same transmission lines they are already planning for a high speed Internet offering in the area.

Coupled with the Motorola Mobility acquisition, it could clear the two biggest hurdles Google TV has faced since its inception; a lack of content provider cooperation and a lack of consumers with Google TV capable devices.

EMI continues to lose their fight to prove MP3tunes is liable for copyright infringement.

Responding to a filing from EMI lawyers in which they argued the judge was mistaken about two key points in the case, a federal judge reaffirmed his original decision.

The first contested point was whether the DMCA covers recordings released prior to 1972. These recordings are covered by state, rather than federal copyright law. The second is whether MP3tunes' policy for cancelling the accounts of repeat infringers fulfilled their DMCA obligations.

Not surprisingly, the judge ruled that his previous decision was correct on both issues. He also agreed with his earlier ruling that MP3tunes failure to remove songs from users' lockers following DMCA notices does, in fact, make them guilty of contributory copyright infringement.

In addition, he upheld his own decision that MP3tunes founder Michael Robertson is liable for his own personal use of a MP3tunes file locker for infringement.

On his personal blog, Robertson mused about why EMI's lawyers would waste their time (and EMI's money) presenting the same argument before the same judge a second time. He suggested it may be a case of EMI's lawyers taking advantage of the company's management and ownership turmoil.

As the entertainment industry in the US lobbies for PROTECT-IP, the E-PARASITE Act, ACTA, and numerous other legal measures designed to give them control over technology, they have released a report showing why they don't need any of them.

According to the report from the International Intellectual Property Association, whose members include the MPAA, RIAA, Business Software Alliance, Entertainment Software Association, Association of American Publishers, Independent Film & Television Alliance, and National Music Publishers' Association, copyright industries are doing just fine.

In fact they're doing better than fine. The report boasts about how copyright industries are doing better than the rest of the economy.

On the subject of how poor economic conditions are affecting copyright industries, the report says:

For the entire period 2007-2010, the U.S. core copyright industries, in real terms, grew at a compound annual growth rate of 1.10%. During the same period, the total U.S. copyright industries grew at a compound annual growth rate of 1.47%. By contrast, the U.S. economy?s compound annual growth rate over the period 2007 through 2010 was only 0.05%.

Samsung's desparation patent lawsuits accusing Apple of infringing on 3G patents has caught the attention of European regulators.

According to a filing by Apple in the two companies' US patent case, the European Commission has reached out to Apple as part of an investigation into Samsung's licensing of essential mobile technology.

Specifically, they are trying to determine if Samsung is violating FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non Discriminatory) licensing rules.

The commission confirmed this in a statement, saying (via Reuters):

The Commission has indeed sent requests for information to Apple and Samsung concerning the enforcement of standards-essential patents in the mobile telephony sector.

Core technology for mobile communication standards, being essential to modern mobile phones and carrier networks, is subject to FRAND rules. These rules are designed to ensure a company like Samsung isn't allowed to take unfair advantage of other companies who need to license their patents for standards compliance.

The new flagship Google device gets rooted weeks before its official launch.

The Galaxy Nexus, Samsung's new flagship Android device and the first to run Android 4.0 ICS has already been rooted by MoDaCo's Paul O'Brien.

Samsung is releasing the device on Black Friday, in three weeks.

Using his "Superboot" program, users can install a specialized boot image to the Galaxy Nexus which will then automatically root the device on first startup.

Instructions (for when you get the device in three weeks): 03 Nov r1: Superboot - rooting the Galaxy Nexus

"Steve Jobs," the only authorized biography of the founder and former CEO of Apple, has sold 379,000 copies in just one week of availability, in the U.S.

Figures from Nielsen BookScan put the book way ahead of the competition, with the next best-selling title, John Grisham's "The Litigators," selling 125,000 copies.

For nonfiction, the title beat out Bill O'Reilly's "Killing Lincoln," which sold 47,500 copies to stay in second for the week.

The book was released on October 24th and is based off of hundreds of interviews with Jobs, former and current employees, family, friends and acquaintances.

If orders remain strong, the book will likely be Amazon's top selling book for 2011.

It is unclear how many of those purchases were digital compared to hardcover.

After being released for Android last month, the team at Opera has now brought the mobile browser to other popular platforms.

Opera Mini 6.5 is now available for iOS, S60, J2ME and BlackBerry.

Additionally, Opera Mobile 11.5 (which is pretty much the same thing) is now available for Symbian, Maemo and MeeGo.

The biggest update in Opera 6.5 is a small counter that shows you how much data you have used browsing and how much Opera's compression software has helped you save.

Since November 2nd, Opera has had a global counter on their homepage showing how much data the compression has helped users save. The number is above 313 TB as of writing.