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Intel Labs has announced today the investment of $30 million into two new Intel Science and Technology Centers (ISTC).

Both will be hosted at Carnegie Mellon University and the labs will focus on cloud and embedded computing research.

The investments are part of a greater $100 million plan to increase "university research and accelerate innovation."

Says the company:

These new ISTCs are expected to open amazing possibilities. Imagine, for example, future cars equipped with embedded sensors and microprocessors to constantly collect and analyze traffic and weather data. That information could be shared and analyzed in the cloud so that drivers could be provided with suggestions for quicker and safer routes.

Earlier this week,HP started a promotion that will chop $50 off the price of their newly-launched WebOS-based TouchPad tablet.

With the discount, the tablet will sell for $450 (16GB model) or $550 (32GB model).

Following the news, the discounts kept on coming, with Staples and other retailers offering the device for $100 off, for this weekend only.

On top of that, Woot is offering the tablet today (16GB) for $380..$120 off the list price.

HP purchased Palm last April to acquire WebOS and all its patents, and the TouchPad, along with a new version of the Palm Pre, are the only new devices consumers have seen with the mobile OS. Developer support has been, understandably, limited.

Sony's upcoming S1 and S2 tablets will run a custom Honeycomb UI, and pics of the OS have leaked today.

From the pics, the OS doesn't look too heavily altered, but with some additions.

Each tablet will run Android 3.2, with a custom launcher that adds quick access to network connections and access to favorites.

The app drawer will come standard but include Chumby and Zinio, apps for streaming photos, social feeds, weather, stocks.

Additionally, there is a custom keyboard and a music player that looks similar to Google Music.

Acer founder Stan Shih has made some bold statements today, claiming that popular tablets are just short-term fads.

Additionally, Shih throws ultrabooks in the same basket.

The retired exec also urged notebook makers "to come out with more value-added products through innovation."

Shih complemented the iPad by saying Apple used "outside-the-box thinking" and made the tablet extremely successful.

Acer has a 7-inch tablet coming out soon priced at $345, which Shih expects will cause some price competition in the smaller-screen market.

At this year's E3, Nintendo revealed the Wii U, stating it would be hitting retail shelves in mid-2012.

Today, president Satoru Iwata says they will not reveal anymore details on release date or pricing until 2012, likely 2-3 months before actual launch.

Says the exec:

Since the Wii U we showed you at the E3 show in June was still in the development phase without very specific proposals on the software titles, we are going to announce the release date and the price next year when we are able to explain the specific proposals.

Nintendo has not showed of the console itself, but instead displayed the new controller, which features a touchscreen and streaming capabilities.

The large controller has a 6.2-inch touchscreen and can work as a standalone gaming device, as well. There are two circle pads, a regular d-pad, shoulder buttons, rumble, a camera/speaker/mic and gyroscope/accelerometer sensors.

French daily deals company is the latest to pile on Google Inc. in EU antitrust probe.

Deal du Jour filed a complaint with the European Commission on Sunday, joining a group which includes Microsoft that is urging the EC to investigate Google's business practices. The French firm claims that Google illegally removed it from its web index, and also blocked it from using the Adsense advertising service.

The firm told the European Commission that Google's actions were clearly anti-competitive in nature. "We ask the competition regulator to investigate Google as a matter of urgency because our small company is being destroyed by Google," Deal du Jour said in the complaint.

It also filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in the United States, and with the French competition regulator. Google is now subject to nine antitrust complaints filed with the European Commission and is also being investigated by the FTC.

"We haven't seen a new complaint, but our AdWords program has clear guidelines. We work to ensure these policies are easy to understand and continue to improve our customer service for advertisers," Google spokesman Al Verney said.

Two senators write letter pushing regulators to approve the buyout.

Republican senators Mike Lee (Utah) and John Cornyn (Texas) have written a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DoJ) urging them to approve AT&T's proposed buyout of T-Mobile. The proposed deal would be worth about $39 billion, and would consolidate 80 percent of all U.S. mobile users under just two carriers; the new combined AT&T/T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless.

Lawmakers and consumer groups alike have lashed out at the proposed merger, saying the decrease in competition will result in higher prices for customers. Proponents of the merger say it will enable AT&T to roll-out a next generation 4G network faster.

Both Senators Mike Lee and John Cornyn are two of three Republicans on the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.

Democratic Senator Herb Kohl (Wisconsin) acts as chairman of the subcommittee, and has previously urged the authorities to block the deal on the ground that it would be bad for consumers and would harm competition. Lee and Cornyn's letter urges the FCC and DoJ to focus on the possible benefits too before making a decision.

Skype expands number of Android devices that can use video call features dramatically.

The Skype for Android application has been updated to v2.1, bringing official support for video calling to 17 Android handsets. You can download the updated Skype for Android app from the Android Market or Skype.com/m using your Android phone's browser

The Android handsets that Skype has "officially" added video call support for include the following...

• Acer A5
• HTC Desire (2.2)
• HTC Desire HD
• HTC Evo 3D
• HTC Evo 4G
• HTC Flyer
• HTC Incredible S
• HTC Sensation
• HTC Thunderbolt - Verizon (2.2) (US only)
• LG Revolution - Verizon (2.2) (US only)
• Samsung Droid Charge - Verizon (2.2) (US only)
• Samsung Galaxy S
• Samsung Galaxy S II
• Samsung Galaxy Tab
• Sony Ericsson Xperia mini pro
• Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

If your Android device is not listed, you will be happy to know that if you are using Android 2.2 (Froyo) and above, you should still be able to enable video calling in Skype settings. If the option isn't included, then your decide doesn't meet the minimum requirements for the feature unfortunately.

Seagate has noted today that it will shorten the warranty on most of its consumer series HDDs.

In an effort to reduce costs, the warranties will be reduced from 5 years to just 2 years.

Included in the list are Seagate's most popular drives, the Barracuda 7200.12 and Momentus Green product series.

Barracudas are 3.5-inch form factor and used for desktop builds while the slimmer Momentus are 2.5-inch and used for notebooks, or as slim external drives.

Enterprise models, like the XT series, will keep its five-year warranty.

It is unclear when the new move will go into effect.

Every quarter it seems that T-Mobile reports customers jumping ship.

This quarter, the bleeding slowed, however, with the carrier losing just 50,000 customers of its 33.6 million large base.

In the corresponding quarter last year, the carrier lost 90,000 customers.

Despite the slow down, parent Deutsche Telekom said: "The contract-customer situation remains unsatisfactory, with the churn rate remaining at 2.4 percent."

Net prepaid subs rose by 231,000, showing that many users are moving to the great prices T-Mobile has for pre-paid.

AT&T has bid $39 billion to purchase T-Mobile, pending anti-trust issues.

Last July, Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a syndicate of technology, cable and entertainment companies introduced their long awaited cloud-based digital locker today, dubbing the service Ultraviolet.

The group is readying Ultraviolet for a fall launch.

When it launches, the service will allow users to stream their music and movies anywhere, as long as it is legally purchased. Content providers will get to use one cloud-based platform to create a set of Web standards for DRM on digital content.

Time Warner will be adding the UltraViolet technology to its movies in time for the holidays, says the company.

Two of its new releases, Horrible Bosses and Green Lantern, will be the launch films for UltraViolet.

Beginning with the releases of Horrible Bosses and Green Lantern in the fourth quarter, the vast majority of our future home video new releases will be UV enabled. The key part of our plan is to drive use of the UltraViolet is Flixster, the preferred system there.

Today, Flixster is one of the most popular applications for finding information about movies, and over the coming months we'll begin to roll out new upgraded versions of the Flixster service, which will be deeply integrated with UltraViolet.

A poster at MacRumors has posted an alleged picture of the iPhone 5, which is expected to launch in September.

In the image we see a very slim iPhone (thinner than the iPhone 4) with a more rounded body.

The poster says the picture was secretly taken while at the office of a French carrier.

Says the poster:

The only thing I can tell you, is that my iPhone 4 looks really slow now.

Japanese buyers will see the console for Christmas, but everyone else has to wait.

Despite the general expectation that Sony would be rolling out the PlayStation Vita handheld before the holiday season, the company has said today that it will not hit Europe or the U.S. until 2012.

Because of the delay, many analysts now expect Sony to have weakened sales of the console, and overall revenue decline.

For controls, the updated handheld adds dual micro-analog sticks, giving gamers a feature they begged for on the original PSP.

The device has a massive 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen with 960×544 resolution, a multi-touch panel on the back and will run on a quad-core ARM cortex processor.

Sony has added tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, standard and front-side cameras, GPS, an electric compass, Wi-Fi and 3G support, and access to Android gaming.

Yesterday, Google came out guns blazing, calling out Oracle, Microsoft and Apple, accusing them of trying to stifle Android growth and development with their lawsuits based on "bogus patents."

The post went on to list all the ways rival companies are trying to attack Android, including Microsoft's continued lawsuits to get $15 licensing fees per Android device, Microsoft's purchase of Novell patents, the CPTN's (Apple, RIM, others) $4.5 billion purchase of 6000 Nortel patents to make sure Google didn't get them, and Apple's current suits against Samsung and Motorola over Android devices.

Last night, Microsoft came back, crushing Google's argument with one email.

Frank Shaw, Microsoft Head of Communications, posted one email from Google SVP Kent Walker that proves that Microsoft asked Google upfront to be a purchasing partner on the Novell patents, and that Google declined:

UK's Metropolitan Police reminds potential hacktivists that the actions are a crime and they will be prosecuted.

Using its official Twitter account, the Met Police directed users toward a notice that stated defacing website,s carrying out denial of service attacks and stealing information from servers is illegal in the UK. It also said that attacks aimed at targets outside the UK can be prosecuted within the country.

The UK's warning comes just days after the arrest of another teenager in an investigation into attacks against the Soca website, the UK's agency for investigation serious cyber crimes.

Across the world recently, more alleged members of hacker groups have been arrested for similar activities. Law enforcement agencies are among the top targets of such attacks, usually in response to arrests that have been made.

Metropolitan Police

The investigation into the criminal activity of so-called "hacktivist" groups #Anonymous and #LulzSec continues. We want to remind people of the law in this area:
The Law Against Computer Misuse

Anyone considering accessing a computer without authority should understand that such acts are unlawful and can carry a term of imprisonment.