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Spotify has expanded its mobile app line to include BlackBerry.

Months after expanding to the U.S. and launching iOS and Android apps, the app has finally made its way to BlackBerry smartphones.

RIM lists the new features:

Million of songs available instantly on your BlackBerry.
Offline playlists listen to music with no mobile connection and avoid using your data allowance
Create and sync playlists
Star your favourite tracks
Search tracks, artists, album
Browse Whats new and Top tracks
Scrobble tracks to Last.fm
Receive music from friends via the inbox

For now, the app only works on GSM devices, the 9780 Bold, 9700 Bold, 9300 Curve, 9000 Bold, and 8520 Curve.

Just like on rival devices, the mobile Spotify requires a $10 premium subscription.

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said the company is lucky it did not purchase Yahoo! in 2008.

When asked by the speaker "Are you glad you didn't buy Yahoo?," Ballmer responded, "You know, times change. When you ask any CEO [that type of question] after the market has fallen apart, it's 'hallelujah.' Sometimes, you're lucky."

In 2008, Microsoft made a massive unsolicited $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo, in an effort to merge the companies and better compete against Google in major markets. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang rejected the offer using a poison pill plan.

At the time, Yahoo was valued at around $40 billion. That figure has collapsed to just over $20 billion today, so it does seem that Microsoft got "lucky" in getting rejected.

Microsoft still signed a deal with Yahoo, which allows Microsoft's Bing tech to power Yahoo's search, in exchange for advertising sales.

Netflix has announced today that they have added streaming support for Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablets.

Additionally, Android users in Canada and Latin America now have streaming access via their smartphones and tablets.

While there are not all that many Honeycomb tablets, users of the Xoom, Iconia, Galaxy Tab and others can download the updated app in the Android Market today.

Android 2.2 and 2.3 (and now 3.x) users have access to streaming movies and TV shows from Netflix's extensive catalog.

Users must be subscribers to Netflix's $7.99 streaming plan.

Much to the chagrin of T-Mobile users, the fourth carrier in the U.S. to have the iPhone 4S is C Spire Wireless, a small regional carrier.

T-Mobile remains the only major carrier in the nation to not have access to the iPhone, with Sprint "betting the bank" to get the device this fall.

C Spire was formerly known as Cellular South and has over 1 million customers in just 4 states. T-Mobile, the smallest of the majors, has 33.6 million customers.

There was no other word on the deal except that C Spire says the phone will only be available to contract subscribers, not pay-as-you-go.

On Monday, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, US Senator Ron Wyden was interviewed by Jon Heilemann of New York Magazine about a range of legislative issues, including his opposition to the PROTECT IP Act.

PROTECT IP is a bill which would mandate the creation of a domain name blacklist based on accusations from law enforcement and private companies accuse of copyright infringement. ISPs would be required to use DNS filtering to prevent their customers from reaching those domains.

In part, PROTECT IP is simply pointless since it's trivially easy to simply change your computer's DNS settings to route around the affected servers. At the same time, it would set a dangerour precedent by giving private companies law enforcement powers and dealing a significant blow to due process.

Wyden is no stranger to laws which pit content producers against Internet services. In the 1990s he was one of 2 US legislators to get language inserted in Communications Decency Act to shield Internet service providers from liability for their users' actions.

Last year it was thanks to Wyden that a bill nearly identical to PROTECT IP called COICA (Combatting Online Infringement and Counterfeits ACT) was killed. Just last week, it was Wyden who sent a letter to President Obama demanding the ACTA agreement be submitted to the Senate for ratification since it is effectively a treaty.

Google is working to add some additional privacy in the form of a secure search page.

As they roll it out, people signed into Google accounts will find themselves redirected to an SSL encrypted page for searching by default. If you are not logged into a Google account, you will still be able to access their secure search by typing https://www.google.com into your browser's address field.

Make sure you include 'www' in the address or else it will send you to the normal (unencrypted) Google search.

This is intended primarily as a measure for people using unsecured Internet connections, such as public Wi-Fi, where your communications are particularly susceptible to being intercepted without your knowlege.

However, it will also affect what information is available to websites you visit via Google searches.

According to Evelyn Kao, product manager at Google:

When you search from https://www.google.com websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won't receive information about each individual query. They can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools.

A promotional video released for Google and Samsung's new Galaxy Nexus smartphone seems to confirm it will be coming to Verizon some time soon.

The Galaxy Nexus will be the first phone to run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), and is expected to be available some time next month.

At one point there was speculation that Verizon might be the only US carrier to get the new phone, but thanks to the announcement of both LTE and HSPA+ versions, it could very well come to AT&T and T-Mobile eventually.

Sprint is currently the only US carrier completely out of the running as they bet on WiMAX as the next generation data standard and won't have their replacement LTE network in place for quite some time.

What we can tell for sure from the video is that a Verizon version is in the works for sure. At one point, when the new notification screen for Android 4.0 is shown, you can clearly see that the phone is a Verizon handset.

Watching an interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, you could easily get the impression Google is struggling to compete in cloud computing and smartphones.

According to Ballmer, when it comes to the competition for enterprise cloud services, Microsoft is "Winning, winning, winning, winning, winning."

You certainly wouldn't guess Google's smartphone OS was a market leader based on his comments. He said Android is too complicated and the handsets too cheap.

"You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows phone," said Ballmer, "and I think you do to use an Android phone." He called Android handsets "inconsistent," and complained that they "don't look alike." He added, "the cheapest phones on the market this holiday will still probably be the Android phones - the very rock bottom cheapest."

And how does Windows Phone stack up? According to Ballmer it will attract consumers because the phones will look good and feel nice in your hand. But primarily, he says, they will succeed because Windows Phone is "putting your information front and center," instead of "seas of icons."

Bill Gates is expected to be testifying in another antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft over Windows. Although the lawsuit filed by Novell only dates back to 2004, the allegations go all the way back to the mid-1990s.

In their suit, Novell accuses Microsoft of deliberately misleading competing software vendors to reduce the competition for software on computers running Windows 95 and then pressuring OEMs to bundle Microsoft Office, rather than WordPerfect, with new computers.

Specifically, they say Microsoft conspired to kill the WordPerfect productivity software Novell had purchased for nearly a billion dollars. Less than than 2 years after buying it, Novell sold WordPerfect to Corel in 1996 for just over $100 million.

In his opening statement yesterday, Novell lawyer Jeff Johnson cited a number of Microsoft emails about Windows 95 development, including some from Gates, and alleged, "Microsoft seriously crippled Novell's ability to produce a competitive product in a timely manner."

Sony has finally announced the release date for the PS Vita in North America and Europe.

The handheld is set for release in Japan in December but the rest of the world has been told simply to wait while Sony finalized the details.

It appears today that the date is February 22nd, 2012, for everywhere that isn't Japan.

The Vita will run on an ARM Cortex A9 quad-core processor and be powered by a quad-core PowerVR SGX543MP4+ GPU.

Featuring a 5-inch capacitive multitouch OLED screen (with 16 million colors), the device will be 7.16 by 0.73 by 3.28 inches. Furthermore, the Vita has 512MB memory and 128MB VRAM in its graphics processor.

Samsung just live streamed the event here: http://www.youtube.com/android

The Android 4.0 ICS device will have a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen and dual cameras 1.3/5 MP. Curved design, thin, impressive no-shutter lag camera.

Galaxy Nexus goes on sale in November.

Android 4.0 ICS is far and away the most impressive part of the device, however.

Interface

The new typeface in ICS is dubbed "Roboto" and is specifically designed for HD displays. There are also now live wallpapers available for the lock screen. Speaking of the lock screen, instead of a need for a password or pin, ICS has facial recognition as an option.

Screenshots are now available for all devices, with a quick touch of the power + down volume.

Virtual soft keys run on the bottom of the device and hide when not in use. Widgets are resizable and can drag dropped from the widgets tab into any home screen.

Folders are easily made, such as "games" or "multimedia" and apps just drop right in. To close an app that is open (when multitasking) just flick it off the screen.

Keyboard

The new keyboard has improved error correction, and the spell checker/dictionary are improved, as well. Talk-to-type now writes out words as you speak them, not waiting until after you are done.

Now that the iPhone 4S has been released it seems the never ending cycle of iPhone rumors is spinning up again.

Speculation is already flying about the next iPhone, which was supposedly Apple founder Steve Jobs' last project for the company.

According to CNET, multiple sources have indicated Jobs intended the iPhone 5 to be the major overhaul to the platform many people expected this time around, including a larger screen and LTE support.

It will, reportedly, be redesigned on the outside and be introduced at Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) next year.

The idea of Apple introducing a new iPhone so soon seems a little strange, but keep in mind every iPhone launch before this year has been at that event. In fact, it's entirely possible the timing of this year's iPhone launch had more to do with manufacturing difficulties than anything else.

Keep in mind this is nothing more than rumor and speculation for the moment, but of course, given Apple's policy of strict secrecy, that's about all we can expect until a new iPhone is officially announced.

Celina Aarons was shocked, to say the least, when her last cellphone bill topped $200,000.

Aarons has two deaf brothers on her plan and since they cannot speak the whole family has unlimited texting and data.

Her usual plan, with T-Mobile, costs $175 per month for the three of them.

The crazy bill came after her brothers spent two weeks in Canada and Aarons was not informed she needed to switch to an international plan. Because they can not speak, her brothers sent around 2,000 texts and downloaded videos (with captions), that sometimes amounted to $2000 per video.

Because clearly no one can afford to pay such a bill, Aarons called the TV show "Help Me Howard" who explained to the carrier the situation.

T-Mobile has reduced the charge to $2500 and given Aarons six months to pay it off, interest-free.

Apple has reported their quarterly earnings this afternoon, missing analyst expectations after seven straight years of huge beats.

The company reported Q4 earnings of $7.05, well below the $7.28 estimate. Revenue came in soft, as well, at $28.3 billion versus the $29.45 billion estimate.

Looking forward to next quarter, the company raised its profit and revenue predictions.

While still wildly profitable, the company sold much less iPhones than expected in the quarter, most likely due to consumers in the U.S. waiting for the iPhone 4S.

Apple sold 17.07 million iPhones in the quarter versus 20 million estimated, while also selling 11.1 million iPads, well above consensus.

Mac sales were also strong, at 4.89 million sold versus 4.4 million estimated.

iPods continued their slow descent into the abyss of items people don't need anymore, at 6.3 million sold compared to lowball estimates of 6.6 million.

Viacom's appeal of their lawsuit against YouTube for copyright infringement started today with oral arguments from both parties.

They are appealing a summary judgement issued last June in which a federal judge sided with Google (owner of YouTube) on the key point of what constitutes "red flag" knowledge of copyright infringement. Under the DMCA, a service provider is responsible for taking down content which they is obviously infringing due to so-called red flags.

In the 2010 decision, Judge Louis Stanton found that Viacom's reading of the law in a way that would make YouTube responsible to determine which videos are infringing didn't match either the legislative history or judicial precedent of the DMCA. General knowledge that copyright infringement is occuring, he said, does not constitute a red flag.

Viacom lawyers took up that argument again today. Their arguments are essentially built on around comparing YouTube to Grokster.