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Google has dropped a complaint against the US Department of the Interior (DOI) claiming the agency improperly awarded a cloud services contract to Microsoft in violation of a federal law governing the bidding process.

Google's lawsuit stemmed from a DOI decision to exclude their Google Apps for Government service from consideration when they decided to adopt cloud-based services. One of the reasons given at the time was a lack of certification for Google's government oriented services.

When documents related to the bidding process were unsealed, it was revealed they were excluded from bidding on the grounds their Google Apps For Government hadn't been certified.

Microsoft Deputy General Counsel David Howard seemed to take great glee in pointing this out in a Technet blog post, but conveniently missed key details which seem to give credence to Google's claims of preferential treatment for Microsoft.

While it was true Google Apps For Government had yet to be certified, it was based on another product called Google Apps Premier Edition which did have FISMA certification. Microsoft's service also didn't have FISMA certification when it was chosen by the Interior Department.

The media reform organization Free Press filed suit yesterday, asking a federal judge to review the FCC's new net neutrality rules.

When the FCC formally announced the adoption of their Open Internet rules last week, the clock started ticking on a 2 month window for legal challenges before they go into effect.

The complaint from Free Press is notable because it is different from those expected from broadband providers like Verizon, who tried unsuccessfully to have the rules overturned in April. Instead of claiming the FCC has no authority for their rules, Free Press argues they may not set different rules for wireline vs wireless service.

The Open Internet rules exempt mobile providers from some rules applied to services like DSL and cable Internet. Specifically, the new rules would allow wireless providers to prioritize different types of traffic as they see fit.

Like traditional broadband providers, they would be required to disclose such practices to customers and would be forbidden from completely blocking lawful traffic. However, it would be within the rules for them to degrade third party services which compete with their own offerings.

The EU will not be participating in a signing ceremony for the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) intellectual property treat according to a statement from the European Commission.

Earlier this week, the Japanese government released a statement announcing an October 1 signing event which suggested the EU would be among the signatories. In fact, it appears their representative will be one of three mentioned who will not be participating in the ceremony.

Yesterday Out-Law.com reported that a spokesperson for the European Commission corrected the earlier report in a statement:

The EU has not yet completed its internal procedures authorising the signature, therefore it will not be signing ACTA at this event. Neither will Mexico and Switzerland, since they did not conclude their domestic proceedings.

For the EU, the domestic process for signature is that the Council [of Ministers] adopts a decision authorising a EU representative to sign ACTA. Since this required the translation of the treaty in all the EU languages, such decision has not yet been adopted. It may still require a couple of months for the EU to be able to sign ACTA. After the signature, the European Parliament will have to vote its consent of ACTA.

The latest rumor is that Apple is finally prepared to kill of their iPod Shuffle and Classic.

Says TUAW: "Obviously we can't divulge our source, but it is NOT an analyst."

Additionally, an updated iPod Touch will be coming later this year, say the sources.

There have been rumors of the iPod's demise for years now but this time they might be on to something. iPod sales now only account for 5 percent of Apple's net income, down from 10 percent in 2010, and overall sales are in continued decline (check the chart, via Time).

Furthermore, if Apple kills off the two models, the more expensive Nano and Touch will remain, which will boost income (or at least keep it steady for the time being).

Samsung and Google will unveil the Nexus Prime flagship device on October 11th, powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The hardware maker has sent out invites for CTIA with the tagline "get a look at what's new from Android."

Youtube.com/android will be the home of the live streaming for the event, and Samsung is expected to announce some major products besides the Nexus Prime.

The Prime is expected to be similar to the Galaxy S II (spec-wise) but there are still likely surprises waiting.

The broadcast begins at 11:30 AM PST and we will have a report as it streams.

(Pic via AndroidandMe)

The US Department of Justice has sent Google a request for additional information as part of their scrutiny of the search giant's proposed purchase of Motorola Mobility.

As with any deal of this magnitude, the DOJ must conduct an investigation before it can be finalized. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission may have a say in the matter.

Google Senior Vice President David Drummond announced the DOJ request on the company's Public Policy blog, writing, "Today we received what is called a "second request," which means that the DOJ is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal."

He added that he doesn't believe there is any reason to believe the Justice Department will not approve the sale.

However, that doesn't mean there won't be additional hurdles to clear before everything is said and done. At a US Senate antitrust hearing last week Google's Erich Schmidt faced hostile legislators who accused Google of anticompetitive behavior.

Even though the hearing was focused on their search business, more than one Senator intimated Google uses the Android OS primarily to further their dominance.

With bids for online video service Hulu in, it looks like the competition is coming down to three options, and the leading contender may be no sale at all.

If the sale does happen, the two leading buyers appear to be Dish Network and Google.

According to Business Insider, Google offered $4 bilion with the condition Hulu's current corporate parents would guarantee the current content deals for several years. Dish offered just $1.9 billion, but without the additional demands.

Hulu's owners, which include News Corp and Disney, reportedly want to renegotiate licensing terms after two years. A third owner, Comcast, was forced to give up control of the company as part of their deal to buy Hulu co-founder NBC.

It remains to be seen if any deal can be reached which would satisfy News Corp and Disney. News Corp's Fox Network has already begun delaying the availability of their shows on Hulu by two weeks.

Intel has decided to kill off the Meego mobile OS and partner with the LiMo Foundation in developing a new platform called Tizen.

LiMo is a consortium of companies, including Samsung, whose goal is creating an open, hardware independent, version of Linux for mobile devices. A third partner, the Linux Foundation, is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the growth of Linux,

MeeGo, also a Linux-based OS, was originally conceived as a way to combine the efforts of Intel and Nokia, who were each working on their own Linux-based mobile operating systems, Moblin and Maemo.

Although other companies decided to join their efforts, Nokia's decision to jump ship and partner with Microsoft to create Windows Phone devices left MeeGo's future in limbo.

It's likely not a coincidence that the announcement of MeeGo's demise comes less than a week after Nokia released their only MeeGo phone.

Although both operating systems are are Linux-based, there are significant differences between MeeGo and Tizen.

On October 2 Samsung's Galaxy Tab 8.9 will hit the shelves of US retailers. It will be priced at $469 for 16GB of memory or 32GB for $569.

It features an 8.9" Gorilla Glass display with a resolution of 1280x800. It is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core T250S processor.

It can handle up to a 32GB microSD card and also has a USB 2.0 port. For connectivity, it features Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0 support.

Rounding out the hardware are both front and rear facing cameras, 2 Megapixels and 3 Megapixels respectively, and a 6100mAh Li-polymer battery.

It will be able to play MPEG-4 AVC (H.264), MPEG-4 ASP/SP (H.264), and VC-1 video in resolutions up to 1080p and a variety of containers, including 3GP, MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, and MKV.

Supported audio formats include MP3, M4A, MP4, 3GP, 3GA, WMA, OGG, ACC, and FLAC.

As with other Samsung tablets, it will come loaded with Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) and the TouchWiz UX skin.

Along with their new tablet, Samsung also announced that their Galaxy Player 4.0 and 5.0 will be available on October 16. The Galaxy Players are essentially Android equivalents of the iPod Touch, except with displays measuring 4" and 5" respectively.

Embattled would be wireless provider LightSquared has published an open letter blaming the GPS industry for his company's problems rolling out a nationwide LTE (4G) wireless network in the US.

LightSquared has become a subject of debate among US legislators over their plan to use frequencies normally reserved for satellite communication for mobile phone service. Although they have received FCC approval for their service, it was with the condition that they be able to show it won't interfere with GPS equipment.

LightSquared's wireless service would be a wholesale product sold to regional mobile providers, allowing them to expand their networks to offer nationwide coverage.

The original plan was to use two different frequency ranges. That plan was modified when it was determined one of them would interfere with standard GPS communications which use an adjacent frequency range.

Problems remain with the second range of frequencies due to interference with high precision GPS signals used in industries like aviation and agriculture, as well as by the military.

In his letter, LightSquared CEO Sanjiv Ahuja wrote:

The software update is being rolled out as we speak.

7.5 Mango should finally turn Windows Phone into actual smartphone contenders, following a botched launch and a botched "noDo" update that actually bricked some devices.

Mango brings 500 new changes, fixes and updates.

PCW has a great list (they have been using for 30 days):

Messaging Threads: Within a messaging exchange between you and another party, you can switch the messaging platform on the fly. You can start off instant messaging, switch to SMS texting, then jump over to Facebook messaging all within one message thread.

Group Contacts: With "Mango" you can create groups of contacts like "Family", or "Softball Team". You can filter incoming messages in the People Hub using the groups, and you can use the Group as a contact for outbound messages if you want to send an email or text message to the whole group.

Local Scout: The Maps app in "Mango" has a new tool called Local Scout that identifies places nearby to eat or drink, tourist sites and things to do, and places to shop. You can also use it to plan a trip by finding where you're going to travel on the Maps app ahead of time and then using Local Scout to discover what's near there.

Amazon has embarked on a voyage to control the entire e-reader market.

The company has unveiled the Kindle Touch e-reader for $99, a full $40 cheaper than Barnes & Noble's popular Nook Simple.

If you want the 3G data version of it, the cost is $150.

Additionally, Amazon has set a new low price for e-readers with its latest E-ink Kindle, which is "small enough to fit in your back pocket" and will cost just $79.

The smaller device is "75 percent lighter" than current Kindles, says CEO Jeff Bezos.

Both are available today, although they have not shown up on Amazon just yet.

Samsung has become the latest company to enter into a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft for its Android devices.

Since Android has become a significant player in the smartphone market, Microsoft has threatened to sue handset vendors over a handful of mobile phone related patents. They filed a patent lawsuit against Motorola last year.

Microsoft has also made a lot of noise about supposed infringement by Android itself. For years Microsoft has claimed Linux, which Android is based on, violates a number of their patents. However, to date they have never actually said what patents they are talking about.

In the last few months several companies, including Acer, ViewSonic & HTC.

Neither Samsung or Microsoft has disclosed the terms of the new licensing agreement, although statements from both suggest part of the arrangement was a promise by Samsung to continue building Windows Phone handsets, or at least publicly affirm their support for it.

Amazon has unveiled their long-awaited tablet offering this morning, the $200 Kindle Fire.

The device will be 7-inches and run on Android but will remove some functionality seen on rival tablets like the iPad.

Offering Wi-Fi but no 3G, the device also removes a camera and a mic, in an effort to cut down costs. Despite its smaller size, the display is impressive IPS with Gorilla Glass.

The Kindle Fire will have its own new mobile browser dubbed Amazon Silk. The browser is ?cloud-accelerated? and uses Amazon's EC2 to turn 100 millisecond waiting times into 5.

Additionally, all buyers get a 30-day free trial to Amazon Prime, and access to free TV and movie streaming along with the usual free two-day shipping and discounted 1 day shipping.

As expected, Amazon has closely integrated their ecosystem of services into the Android operating system make it very easy for users to find music, movies and magazines. Cloud access, via the Cloud Drive and Cloud Reader, are also one-click away.

The latest version of Mozilla's Firefox browser, released yesterday, promises to cut down on the amount of memory it uses.

Poor memory management is perhaps the biggest complaint among Firefox users. With the emergence of Google's Chrome browser, which is notably light on memory usage, has made the issue more pressing for Mozilla developers to address.

The announcement on the Mozilla blog promises:

Firefox manages memory more efficiently to deliver a nimble Web browsing experience. Users will notice Firefox is faster at opening new tabs, clicking on menu items and buttons on websites. Heavy Internet users will enjoy enhanced performance when lots of tabs are open and during long Web browsing sessions that last hours or even days.

They have also added an option to send performance data to Mozilla to help with future improvements, which you will be asked about the first time you run Firefox 7.

Other changes include modifications to Firefox Sync intended to make passwords and bookmarks update almost immediately and a new rendering engine which should speed up HTML5 2D animation rendering for most Windows 7 and Vista users.