Latest news

A new service for musical acts will help them sell merchandise, tickets, and music downloads through YouTube.

In their announcement, YouTube was vague about the details, but did say it will be rolled out around the world in the next few weeks.

On the official YouTube Blog, they wrote:

Fans will be able to buy artists' merchandise, digital downloads, concert tickets and even unique experiences like meetups. These features are made possible through affiliates like Topspin for merchandise, concert tickets and experiences; Songkick for concerts; and iTunes and Amazon for music downloads.

More details will be announced at a panel hosted by YouTube in New York City's Mercury Lounge on October 20. The panel will include a number of independent artists who have used YouTube to further their careers.

If you wish to attend the event, you can RSVP via an online form.

RIM will be giving away free apps with a total value of more than US $100 to BlackBerry owners affected by an outage of the the company's services for more than 3 days last week.

Unlike other smartphone makers, RIM's business is built in large part around their own service offerings which include messaging and email servers. They primarily cater to businesses, which is why they were the number 1 smartphone platform in the US before the iPhone came along.

In a statement, RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said:

We truly appreciate and value our relationship with our customers. We've worked hard to earn their trust over the past 12 years, and we're committed to providing the high standard of reliability they expect, today and in the future.

The apps will be available from RIM's BlackBerry App World through the end of the year. They include:

• SIMS 3
• Bejeweled
• N.O.V.A.
• Texas Hold'em Poker 2
• Bubble Bash 2
• Photo Editor Ultimate
• DriveSafe.ly Pro
• Drive Safe.ly Enterprise
• iSpeech Translator Pro
• Nobex Radio Premium
• Shazam Encore
• Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant

More than 4 million of the new iPhone 4S have been sold already according to Apple. This matches a prediction on Friday by Bloomberg.

While sales have beat every other iPhone launch, it's important to keep things in perspective. The iPhone 4S was launched simultaneously in 7 countries, compared to just 5 for the iPhone 4.

In the US, this is also the first time the iPhone has launched on 3 of the 4 national carriers compared to just AT&T for previous models.

Apple is arguably facing bigger obstacles to selling iPhones today than ever before. Besides increased competition from other handset makers, the number of people who already have a smartphone has also increased dramatically.

In the past, there was an overwhelming public perception that Android vendors were playing catch up with Apple. Increasingly, people are questioning whether Apple is falling behind in areas like display size and processor speed.

Those may be valid concerns, but keep in mind Apple is still competing primarily with themselves. Any other company would be thrilled with the kind of success the iPhone 4S has had to this point.

An injunction barring Samsung from selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia doesn't mean consumers can't get their hands on one.

In a story reminiscent of the German Galaxy Tab ban handed down earlier this year, an Australian court granted Apple's request for an injunction preventing Samsung from selling the tablet. And just like in that case, consumers still have access to the tablet thanks to a steady supply coming from outside the country.

According to the Australian portal for GetPrice, a shopping comparison service, Australians can buy the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from more than a dozen different online sources.

Meanwhile, Samsung continues to file what can only be described as nuisance lawsuits against Apple. These suits, requesting the iPhone 4S be banned, revolve almost entirely around wireless patents which are covered by FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) licensing obligations.

Nintendo has announced today that the launch of their new slimmed down Wii console, part of the "Holiday Edition" bundle which removes GameCube support, will hit the U.S. on the 23rd.

The console is 30 percent smaller than the original Wii and sits horizontally, saving space by removing GameCube memory card and controller slots.

Bundled with the black colorway console is the New Super Mario Bros. game, a special Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack CD, a black Wii Remote Plus controller and a black Nunchuk controller.

Nintendo is offering the console with an MSRP of $150.

EMI Group, the fourth largest record label, is seeing underwhelming bids, say sources close to its owner Citigroup.

The bank was forced to take over the label this year after the former owner, private equity firm Terra Firma, could not pay back its debts.

Five months ago, the Warner Group (world's 3rd largest label) sold for $3.3 billion, giving Citi faith that they could command a similar price for the label which has 1.3 million songs including recordings by the Beatles, Coldplay and Katy Perry.

EMI has been up for sale since June, after Citi was forced to write down the label's debt by $3.5 billion.

For now, it appears the only bidders on EMI's recorded music division are other labels, with each bidding as high as $1.3 billion, well short of the $3.5 billion Citi hoped for. EMI's publishing unit has received bids as high as $2 billion.

The saga never ends.

Samsung has filed suit against Apple in Japan and Australia this weekend in an effort to stop sales of the iPhone 4S.

The company filed similar complaints in France and Italy earlier this week.

Additionally, the company is looking for injunctions on the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2, at least in Japan.

The patents cited in all the complaints are related to telecommunications, three user-interface patents and three covering wireless communications technologies.

Apple and Samsung now have over 10 outstanding patent suits against each other, with Apple looking to get an injunction on sales of the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy line of smartphone and with Samsung looking to get sales of the iPhone and iPad blocked.

Kodak has confirmed today that the company has licensed some of its vast patent portfolio to IMAX, in an effort to stave off bankruptcy and stay viable.

IMAX will license 100 patents related to laser-projection technology used in giant-screen movie theaters.

The deal is not huge, however, with only $50 million in upfront fees and royalties into the future.

Says IMAX (via NYT):

This Kodak intellectual property is truly cutting edge, and will be used by IMAX?s esteemed technology group to enhance the cinematic experience for consumers, enable the application of digital technology in our larger and institutional theatres, and make being in business with IMAX even easier and more profitable.

Kodak hopes to sell 1100 patents, and soon, as the company struggles despite sitting on a patent portfolio worth over $2 billion. Kodak has not posted one profitable quarter since 2004.

According to different sources close to the company, Spotify U.S. now has 250,000 paying subscribers.

The number is certainly notable as the platform only launched in the States in July in invite-only beta.

Globally, the company has over 2.5 million paying subscribers.

Spotify continues to expand and has just reached Denmark, the 9th nation to have the service.

The service, which lets users stream limited amounts of music for free (with some ads) or pay a premium for unlimited access (including smartphone/tablet streaming), has been very successful in Europe and the U.S. and has been seen as a strong piracy deterrent.

Mozilla Director of Firefox Engineering Johnathan Nightingale has announced this week that the Android version of their platform will dump the XUL technology used in all desktop Firefox editions.

"Firefox on Android is a critical part of supporting the open Web, and this decision puts us in a position to build the best Firefox possible," added Nightingale.

While Firefox has over 20 percent market share on PCs, it has yet to meaningfully break into the mobile market which is controlled by Apple's Safari and Android's Chrome variant.

By moving away from XUL and into a native Android interface, the browser should use less memory and have a much faster boot time, stuff even the average Joe user cares about.

Concludes Nightingale: "After substantial discussion, we have decided to build future versions of Firefox on Android with a native UI [user interface] instead of the current XUL implementation."

Amazon has brought back their popular 1 cent Verizon smartphone promotion, and you have until Monday to get in on it.

There are 31 models available for just 1 cent (excluding any applicable activation fees from the carrier) and shipping is free two-day for any device purchased.

New phones are available, including the Motorola Droid Bionic and the HTC Thunderbolt which normally cost $300 and $250 with contract, respectively.

There is one Windows Phone 7 device in the bunch, the HTC Trophy.

New customers can sign up and existing customers must add a new line to take advantage.

Check the list here: Amazon Penny Pincher

Google's CEO Larry Page, after announcing quarterly earnings on Thursday afternoon, had some choice words for the company's upcoming Android 4.0 release.

"You won't believe what we have managed to do in this release. We see Android going gangbusters, and we don't see anything that will stop that," says the CEO.

On the same morning, the Google campus received delivery of the giant Ice Cream Sandwich statue (embedded video).

For quarterly earnings, revenue rose to $7.51 billion, well above analyst expectations and profit was $9.72 per share, almost $1 higher than analyst estimates.

Google and Samsung are expected to announce the Nexus Prime flagship phone (and first device with ICS) on October 19th.

Since its inception, users of the popular Google Voice service have requested the addition of MMS support.

This week, Google has figured out a way to add MMS support, due to a small workaround.

If sending an MMS to a Google Voice number, the picture/video message will now be forwarded to your email.

For now, the service is said to only be perfect on Sprint and Virgin Mobile with Google adding carriers as we speak.

If interested, it takes about 4 seconds to activate the MMS support:

Microsoft has announced this week the closing of their $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype.

Notes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer:

Skype is a phenomenal product and brand that is loved by hundreds of millions of people around the world. We look forward to working with the Skype team to create new ways for people to stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues ? anytime, anywhere.

The VoIP service will have its own new business division within Microsoft.

Skype CEO Tony Bates will remain as the president of the new Skype division and there will be no layoffs.

Eventually, Skype will be integrated into most of Microsoft's products as part of the suite that includes Zune music, Xbox Live and more.

The guys over at iDownloadBlog have put together an unscientific test on the download/browsing speeds of the different iPhone 4S carriers.

What is clear from the video is that Verizon is best browsing experience, AT&T has the quickest raw download speed, and Sprint fails at everything.

Of course, take the video with a grain of salt as it was taken from a single area, where service for each company may not have been "perfect," including the SpeedTest.

Check the video here: