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LimeWire has decided to settle with the record labels in their federal copyright infringement suit, paying $105 million and finally marking the very end of an era.

After five years of litigation, LimeWire will pay out the money to 13 record labels; Arista, Atlantic, BMG Music, Capitol, Elektra, Interscope, Laface, Motown, Priority, Sony BMG, UMG, Virgin and Warner Brothers

LimeWire was shut down in October by judge Kimba Wood, who ruled that the company behind the P2P service was liable for wrongfully assisting users in pirating digital recordings.

Had the trial continue on to a jury, LimeWire was facing penalties of up to $1.5 billion, $150,000 maximum each for 10,000 tracks.

At its peak, LimeWire had 50 million monthly users, sharing hundreds of millions of tracks.

Edge is reporting today that retailers are starting to see the effects of the over 3-week-long PSN outage, with an influx of consumers trading their PS3s in for cash or Xbox 360s.

Furthermore, sales of PSN points cards are almost non-existent and the ratio has begun to shift for multi-platform games, with Xbox taking the lion's share.

One manager at a UK retailer had this to say:

In the first week of downtime we did not really see any major change in sales or trades. However from the second week onwards we have seen an increase of over 200 per cent on PS3 consoles being traded in, split almost 50/50 between those trading for cash and those taking a 360 instead.

A different retailer said most of those trading in their systems are from the "hardcore online shooter crowd," gamers that spend many hours online looking to level up. Black Ops and/or Modern Warfare 2 were cited in many cases.

PS3 sales have also taken a hit (says independent retailer in Germany):

We’re just ten days into the month and already we have an increase of 200 per cent in PS3s coming into the store compared to all of March. Normally we sell them really fast, but not this time. We’ve only sold 30 to 40 per cent of our inventory right now.

Netflix has announced the launch of the long awaited streaming app for Android devices, however, it is only available on five devices.

As of right now, the app is available for the Nexus S, Nexus One, T-Mobile G2, HTC Evo 4G and HTC Incredible.

You must be running Android 2.2 (or 2.3 for Nexus S) to download the app.

Netflix was clear to explain why the small selection of phones:

The Android platform is gaining rapid adoption in the mobile world and presents a great opportunity to reach more of our members. Because the platform has evolved so rapidly, there are some significant challenges associated with developing a streaming video application for this ecosystem. One of these challenges is the lack of standard streaming playback features that the Netflix application can use to gain broad penetration across all available Android phones. In the absence of standardization, we have to test each individual handset and launch only on those that can support playback. We are aggressively qualifying phones and look forward to expanding the list of phones on which the Netflix app will be supported. We anticipate that many of these technical challenges will be resolved in the coming months and that we will be able to provide a Netflix application that will work on a large majority of Android phones.

Nintendo has announced that the 3DS "eShop" will be added with a firmware update on June 6th for North America and June 7th for Europe and Japan.

Additionally, the update will bring the much-anticipated web browser to the handheld, and add DSiWare transfer.

Says Nintendo:

By downloading the free update via a broadband internet connection, Nintendo 3DS users can enjoy a number of new features and enhancements including an internet browser and access to the Nintendo eShop, where users can browse and purchase downloadable content.

The 3DS, which offers 3D gaming without the need for glasses, has been selling well in Japan, Europe and North America since launch in March, despite a large price tag.

Facebook has come clean this week, admitting to secretly hiring a PR firm that planted negative stories about Google in newspapers and websites.

The social networking giant hired top-5 PR firm Burson-Marsteller to tell newspaper editors to investigate into whether Google was invading the privacy of its users.

Burson-Marsteller even offered to help noted blogger Christopher Soghoian write an op-ed that would have bashed Google. The PR firm promised the story could be placed later in the Huffington Post and the Washington Post. Soghoian instead released all the emails and declined the offer.

While many believed the "unnamed client" was either Apple or Microsoft, it turns out Facebook has an ax to grind and hates the fact that Google is trying to use Facebook data in its own social-networking services, like Social Circle.

Social Circle lets Gmail users see info about their Google and Facebook friends, but also their "secondary connections," or friends of friends.

The latest data from the NPD Group confirms that PC sales are struggling, but the firm says blaming the Apple iPad is the wrong way to go.

Of consumers who bought the iPad within six months of its debut, only 14 percent pushed aside plans to buy a PC to buy the tablet.

For the more important holiday season, that number fell to 12 percent.

Instead, NPD says the decline can be attributed to:

The explosion of computer sales when Windows 7 launched, as well as the huge increase in netbook sales at that time, are much more to blame for weak consumer PC sales growth than the iPad. Overall it appears that the vast majority of iPad purchases to-date have been incremental to the consumer technology industry.

The percentage of consumers looking to buy Windows notebooks under $500 has grown 21 percent since October, while the percentage of consumers looking for more expensive computers has fallen 25 percent in the same time frame.

According to the latest Nielsen figures, overall music sales in the U.S. have increased for the first time in years, mainly thanks to extremely strong sales of the Beatles digital catalog.

For the YTD (year-to-date) period, sales were up 1.6 percent, with digital track sales up 9.6 percent, making up for continued declines in physical CD sales.

Until the Beatles finally put their entire catalog on sale via digital distribution last November, growth in digital sales has slowed to just 3 percent, after seeing triple digit growth for most of the previous decade.

Since November, digital sales have been much higher, leading the firm to believe that the Beatles sales were the catalyst.

The sustained sales may also be attributed to Apple's strong marketing campaign for the Beatles music, which may have led an older generation to start buying music.

Vinyl record sales were also up 37 percent year-over-year, as the records have become a new "trend" for younger buyers.

As reported this week, Google has launched the beta of their Google Music cloud service.

To nobody's surprise, the record labels are not happy, since Google decided to launch without any licensing deals in place.

The record labels gave Amazon the same angry treatment when they launched their CloudDrive last month.

Google Music lets users upload their music to an online server which can be played back in a Web browser or via a native Android app. In beta, the service is free but will eventually cost money.

It appears the negotiations between the labels and Google failed because the labels kept trying to raise rates and even tried to get Google to sign off on blocking "piracy sites" from Google searches.

According to numerous reports, Samsung has begun rolling out the Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread update to the original Galaxy Tab tablet.

2.3.3 may be the last firmware upgrade Galaxy Tab owners will receive, however, as Android 3.0 Honeycomb is not expected to ever make the trip.

Gingerbread adds a number of UI improvements, as well as some other features. NFC support is added but useless since the tablet does not have the chip built-in.

Samsung's new updated Galaxy Tab 10.1 is set for release soon, and will come with Honeycomb, dual-core processor and many other improvements including a larger screen and thinner bezel.

According to a new survey by Crucial, the average user replaces their computer after 4.5 years.

The survey polled 1000 PC owners in the US, UK and France, and it appears that over half of those polled believe their computer should last "much longer" than three years but admit they don't.

Most of those that upgraded their PC blamed "slow speeds," although it is unclear if these users had fast Internet connections, slow HDDs, viruses or just old hardware.

A solid 50 percent of those surveyed said they upgraded simply beacuse they hated something about their PC.

Comically, 35 percent of those polled said they were more scared about upgrading their computer manually than dealing with a house spider.

According to a new study from the BSA (Business Software Alliance), worldwide software piracy hit an all-time high in 2010, up to $59 billion worth.

That number was 14 percent higher than 2009 and 95 percent higher than 2003.

Says the group (via Cnet):

The software industry is being robbed blind. Nearly $59 billion worth of products were stolen last year--and the rates of theft are completely out of control in the world's fastest-growing markets.

The BSA has members from the software industry including all heavy hitters like Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec and McAfee.

As has been the trend for years, "emerging markets" accounted for most of the piracy, $32 billion worth in 2010.

Piracy rates jumped to 64 percent in Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Latin America. The Asian-Pacific region jumped to 60 percent, as well.

North America has the lowest piracy rate, again, at 21 percent.

Rovio and Google are offering Angry Birds HD for free for Chrome browser users.

Head over to the webstore here: Angry Birds HD for Chrome to install the game.

Reads the game's description:

**** Surprise! New exclusive Chrome levels ****

The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole the Birds’ eggs. Use the unique destructive powers of the Angry Birds to lay waste to the pigs’ fortified castles. Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, and lots of replay value. Each of the 70 levels requires logic, skill, and brute force to crush the enemy.

“Lemme tell ya, these ain’t no ordinary finches we’re talkin’ about. These here are the Angry Birds, the ones that’s gonna kick you in the ‘nads. And they’re the ones on your side. They must be from Galapadapados, or sumptin’.” – Col. Angus, Bird Expert.

Protect wildlife or play Angry Birds!

Google has introduced two Chromebooks today, one made by Samsung and the other made by Acer.

The netbooks will run on Google's Chrome OS.

Samsung's model will have a 12.1-inch display, 1280x800 resolution, 8 second boot time and 8 hour battery life. The device runs on a dual core 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 processor, has an HD webcam, a mini-VGA port, 2 USB ports and will weigh just 3.3 pounds.

A Wi-Fi-only version will sell for $429 while a 3G version will sell for $499.

The Acer model will be smaller and have an 11.6-inch display, 8 second boot time, dual core Intel Atom processor, 2 USB ports, an HD webcam, optional 3G and HDMI-out.

Acer's Chromebook will sell for $350 as Wi-Fi-only.

VUPEN Security has announced the discovery of a vulnerability in Google's Chrome browser software.

Google Chrome has survived assaults at the Pwn2Own contest for the last three years. Now, French security firm VUPEN says it is unhappy to announced that it has officially "Pwned" Google Chrome and its protective Sandbox measures.

VUPEN uploaded a video of the browser exploit in action which bypasses all security features including ASLR/DEP/Sandbox, without exploiting a Windows kernel vulnerability. It works on all Windows systems and with the latest versions of the Chrome browser.

In the video, a web page is loaded displaying just a text message - "Your browser is being Pwned!" - and after a few seconds of inactivity (and without a visible crash in Chrome), the windows calculator application runs. According to the VUPEN write-up, the calculator executable is downloaded and executed.

At Pwn2Own in March this year, VUPEN successfully attacked Safari in much the same way. A specially crafted web page was loaded and several seconds later, the Mac OS X calculator application was launched and a file was written to the hard drive to demonstrate that the Sandbox had been compromised.

Google has introduced Android@Home today during their I/O conference, a service that it will give users a chance to control their home's lights and other appliances using an Android device.

The new remote is dubbed "Project Tungsten."

Using Android@home, users can also send their brand new Google Music cloud library to any computer or stereo in the home.

Making it even more interesting is the fact that if you have appliances that do not have built-in Wi-Fi, future items will have a protocol to make them compatible.

One example Google used was CDs selling with an NFC device inside the case. When you tap the case with your Android device with NFC, the entire album's content is uploaded to your cloud music library.

For now, Android@Home is a demo with future ambitions.