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Phandroid has posted a nice article on the upcoming Android Ice Cream (maybe 4.0?) which includes the fact that the operating system will add Google TV.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said last month that Ice Cream would merge Gingerbread and Honeycomb, removing fears of ongoing fragmentation in the open source operating system.

The search giant will announce the decision at their IO conference in May, says the site.

Over the past week, Google has received a lot of criticism for not releasing the Honeycomb source code, but the site says the delay is completely due to Google still working on integrating Google TV and wanting to release the code with Google TV in a working state.

Ice Cream will be a huge benefit to Android owners as Google would only need to update one code base for smartphones, Google TV boxes and HDTVs and tablets.

comScore has posted their latest figures today for the mobile market, and Android is now the dominate smartphone operating system in the U.S.

Samsung was the top handset maker, with 24.8 percent share of the market.

For the period ended February 28th, 234 million Americans over the age of 13 used a mobile phone and 69.5 million owned a smartphone.

Following Samsung was LG at 20.9 percent share, Motorola at 16.1 percent share, RIM at 8.6 percent, and Apple at 7.5 percent. Apple saw the biggest gain of all manufacturers thanks to the release of the iPhone on Verizon.

In the smartphone market, the top OS was Android at 33 percent, followed by RIM at 29 percent, Apple at 25.2 percent and Windows Mobile/Windows Phone 7 at 7.7 percent.

Although unconfirmed, a leaked photo of the upcoming iPod Nano 7th generation appears to suggest that the device will be adding a camera.

Apple.pro, known for leaking pictures of past Apple devices, posted the picture this weekend but even the author could not verify its authenticity.

Apple added a camera to the 5th generation of the Nano but then completely changed the form factor for the 6th version, making it much smaller and lighter, while removing the camera.

The site speculates the camera should be added without changing the form factor of the 6th generation.

Apple.pro has accurately shown off the form factor of the previous six generations of the device but has been less accurate for MacBook rumors.

Multiple sites are reporting today that Microsoft will be implementing a new user interface for its upcoming Windows 8 operating system, including replacing toolbars with "Ribbons," as seen in Microsoft Office.

The reports come via leaked alpha builds of the operating system.

Windows 8 login screen will look somewhat similar to Windows Phone 7/Zune and include the time, day and date (pic below).

Ribbons will be included (meaning toolbars within different tabs), and most of Window's programs will use the new interface including Windows Explorer.

As most would contest, ribbons organize different functions better than a standard toolbar.

Additionally, wwwery says "the "View" button (toggles viewing styles) in Windows Explorer toolbar goes into the Details Pane (bottom), and now there’s a consolidated file menu (top-left) just like in Office 2010."

Although unconfirmed, Windows 8 is expected to add tablet support and the ability to control music while the computer is locked.

The Nintendo 3DS launched in Japan in late February and held the top spot for sales, easily, for the first three weeks.

VG24 has reported this week, however, that for the week ended March 27th, the PSP has taken the top spot, following the launch Final Fantasy IV Complete.

The PSP (Go and 3000) combined for 51,095 unit sales while the 3DS saw 50,710.

Sony's victory this week looks like a clear anomaly as year-to-date (YTD) figures have the 3DS at 792,954 to the PSP's 584,585. The 3DS has only been out for a month.

Final Fantasy IV Complete was the major factor behind the sales, as the game moved 104,000 copies, tripling up on the next best-selling game, Dynasty Warriors 7.

In late March of last year, the Windows Phone team showed off their application platform and developer tools.

This weekend, Brandon Watson of Microsoft has posted some relevant stats for the operating system:

1.5 Million - The Windows Phone Developer Tools, consisting of Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone and Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone have been downloaded over 1.5 million times. Put differently, the number of downloads equates to the size of the entire population of Philadelphia.

36,000 – People are talking a lot about the number of developers in their ecosystem. It would be easy for us to say that we had 1.5 million given the developer tools downloaded, or we could talk about the number of people we have on mailing lists, but we won’t. We’d rather give a nod to the 36,000 members of the AppHub community who have voted with their wallets and become members of the Windows Phone developer community.

“The number:” 11,500 – What is an app? It’s a question that really begs some scrutinizing. For us, from the beginning, we have always been focused on quality over quantity. We recognize the importance of getting great apps on our platform and not artificially inflating the number of actual apps available to customer by listing “wallpapers” as a category, or perhaps allowing competitor’s apps to run on the platform to increase “tonnage.” We also don’t believe in the practice of counting “lite” apps as unique quality content. In reality they only exist because developers can’t have a Trial API and must therefore do extra work. Finally, we don’t double and triple count apps which are submitted in multiple languages.

Ericsson has sued Chinese-based ZTE today over patent infringement relating to mobile phones and network technology.

The suits were filed in the UK, Italy and Germany.

Ericsson says it made multiple attempts to get ZTE to sign a patent licensing agreement, but the sides could not come to terms. The company says it has been trying for years to get the deal signed and that the suits are "a last resort."

The UK and Italian suits are solely over handset patents while the German one includes handset and network patents.

Ericsson would not reveal which specific patents were up for debate.

9to5 has reported this weekend that Sony's CEO Howard Stringer has implied that the Apple iPhone 5 (or another Apple iOS device) will be getting an 8MP camera.

Said the CEO:

Our best sensor technology is built in one of the (tsunami) affected factories. Those go to Apple for their iPhones…or iPads. Isn’t that something? They buy our best sensors from us?

At the moment, Apple doesn't buy any sensors from Sony, but there have been rumors that the company has been looking to drop OmniVision in favor of a different supplier.

The likely sensor is the new Exmor R, which is in the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc and features improved technology for low light situations.

GFI, the company that owns the VIPRE security products, has apologized for its part in a claim made earlier this week that Samsung pre-installed keylogging software on new laptops.

The headlines of Samsung pre-loading spying software on its laptops made waves online on Wednesday and through Thursday. The claim was originally published by NetworkWorld.com through a guest contributor, Mohommad Hassan. Some contributions were also made to the articles by Mich Kabay.

Original Reports - Disocvery

The two part report from Hassan and Kabay separates the story into the discovery of the keylogging software, and then Samsung's response and alleged admission to it being there.

Some problems with the claims were immediately noticeable. Firstly, on the discovery article, Hassan claims to have been alerted to the presence of the threat on a new Samsung R525 by a "commercial security software" he installed on the system. Hassan never names the security product that fingered the threat, which is bizarre by itself in such a report, and taking into account the gravity of the accusation against Samsung.

Hundreds of thousands of websites have been hit by a code-injection attack that targets a problem with an unknown (so far) web application.

Websense has dubbed the widespread attack as "LizaMoon" after the website its researchers were initially directed to by the malicious code. The attack seems to have largely affected small website so far, with no reports of major corporate or government websites showing signs of being compromised.

Users visiting any hacked site are redirected to a prompt showing a bogus security warning, and may end up downloading "Windows Stability Center", a scareware application that provides fake scans and results on an infected system and gives the user a chance to buy a license to remove the fake threats.

Websense was contacted by people who found the code in their Microsoft SQL databases, using SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008. This does not mean there is a vulnerability in Microsoft SQL Server, Websense Security Labs stressed, but instead points the finger at a web application that is still, right now, unknown.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Dish Network Corp and investor Carl Icahn have submitted bids for bankrupt Blockbuster Inc.

The bids qualify both for an auction in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan on Monday. Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last September, weighed down with debts of $900 million.

A group of hedge funds headed by Monarch Alternative Capital made a bid of $290 million for the rental chain in February, setting a mark for other bidders.

South Korea's top mobile carrier, Sky Telecom Co Ltd, also said it was considering an investment in Blockbuster.

Icahn has revealed interest in the past in buying Blockbuster, and Dish could find the brand very useful for its video-on-demand (VOD) services. It is not known how much each lodged bids at.

Man claims that Electronic Arts failed to compensate him for sales of one of the most popular video games franchises in history.

Robin Antonick is suing the company for "tens of millions" in royalties as well as potentially billions from profits made by EA from over 85 million copies of Madden NFL Football titles sold. Antonick says he created the mega-popular game.

The first version was created for the Commodore 64, MS DOS and Apple II when it was released in 1988. Antonick signed a development contract with EA in 1986, which allegedly entitles him to royalties on derivative versions of the game. He says that for years afterwards, he worked in a cubicle a few feet from EA founder Trip Hawkins.

"Only recently, as a result of publicity surrounding the 20th Anniversary of the 'Madden' videogame did Antonick become aware that Electronic Arts did not independently develop subsequent versions of its Madden NFL software," says the complaint.

"Instead, according to recent statements by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, the current generation of software apparently derived from software developed by Antonick."

Bloomberg is reporting that Amazon is joining a list of other tech firms in plotting a mobile payments service.

Based on near-field communication (NFC) technology, the demand for services that allow payments to be made at brick and mortar stores using a smartphone could be considerable. For that reason, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and several others have reportedly been developing their own offerings.

Users of such services could hold their handset near an NFC-equipped register and use an application to make payment for goods and services, or to potentially carry out other tasks such as redeem coupons or use loyalty points.

Amazon is making bold inroads into the mobile marketplace. It recently launched its own Android Appstore to the dismay of Apple, which is suing the company for the use of "App Store" in its name. It also unveiled a music streaming/locker service just earlier this week that works with Android.

According to research firm Gartner, 340 million mobile users will carry out mobile transactions in 2014, with a value of $245 billion.

Baidu reaches agreement with music group to pay for MP3 downloads through its web site.

Baidu had been in talks with the Music Copyright Society of China, a group that has previously sued the Chinese search giant, to establish a partnership to protect legal digital music. The payment will go directly to the Music Copyright Society of China.

The money only covers the songwriters behind lyrics in the downloads however, and no record companies will receive any. Baidu spokesman Kaiser Kuo said to pay labels would require a completely different agreement.

"We will also provide the [Music Copyright Society of China] playback and download data, so that they will be able to have some idea of what's actually being downloaded," Kuo said.

Baidu has been the focus of a lot of anti-piracy groups for years due to the popularity of its MP3 search service in China, which helps users to download copyrighted music for free. Some experts claim the MP3 service was the offering that brought Baidu to the top in China, and now 75.5 percent of the country's search market is held by Baidu.

MSI says AM3 boards have easy upgrade solution to support AM3+.

The company officially announced compatibility with all AMD AM3+ multi-core processors on its AMD AM3 mainboards today, saying that it will be made possible by way of a quick BIOS update.

AMD AM3+ multi-core processors are built on the latest 32nm process for significant technical specs: additional cores, a larger L3 cache memory capacity, and the built-in 2nd generation Turbo Core technology boosts overall performance.

Current MSI board owners can download the latest BIOS updates to enable use of the latest AM3+ processors on their respective product pages. In addition, all future shipments of existing AM3 motherboards will have their BIOS updated from the factory before being sent out.

MSI AM3 mainboards with support for AMD AM3+ multi-core processors and corresponding BIOS versions: