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Lawsuit against the social network giant and CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks more than $1 billion in damages.

It was reported earlier this week that Facebook shut down a "Third Intifada" page, which called for violence against Israel. The page quickly picked up about 340,000 fans. Facebook removed it several days after a letter to Zuckerberg from Israeli Public Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein urged him to do so.

The company said the page was left alone at first because it specifically called for peaceful protests. It was later removed as the tone changed to the incitement of violence instead, which violates Facebook's terms of service.

Now, a lawsuit filed against Facebook in the U.S. claims it showed negligence by not quickly responding to requests to take down the controversial page. The lawsuit has been filed by Larry Klayman, a controversial American activist.

"While Facebook has accomplished a lot of good, it can, as in this instance, be used for nefarious and evil purposes. Defendants Zuckerberg's and Facebook's callous and greedy actions in not taking down the page, but willfully allowing it to stay up for many days, has caused huge damage, for which they must be held accountable, so as to prevent this from ever happening again.

Netflix and Twentieth Century Fox have expanded their current streaming deal, adding the very popular series Glee and Sons of Anarchy to the company's "Watch Instantly" streaming library.

Starting today, season 1 of Glee and both seasons of SOA are available for streaming.

Additionally, catalog series like "Ally McBeal" and the "Wonder Years" have been added.

Says Fox:

Our expanded non-exclusive streaming arrangement with Netflix maintains Fox's flexibility to effectively manage both the content we offer, and the appropriate window of availability relative to our other distribution partnerships.We look forward to working with Netflix and our other partners to further enhance the choices available to audiences.

And adds Netflix:

We've worked closely with Fox for the last year to provide our members access to some of the studio's greatest TV franchises and library of both contemporary and classic movies. Our members love TV shows, and making such pop-culture hits like 'Glee' and 'Sons of Anarchy' available to watch instantly reinforces our commitment to provide them a wider selection of programs."

The major movie studios, Warner, Sony, Universal and Fox have agreed to launch a new VoD service that will allow for rentals of movies that are still in theaters, or those that are just finishing their runs.

Dubbed "Home Premiere," the studios will offer movies 60-days after their theatrical launch, and at $30 a piece.

The viewing period will be 48-72 hours, depending on the studio behind the release.

Home Premiere will launch next month through DirecTV exclusively. Some cable companies, like Comcast, will get the service soon, as well.

The first two movies available will be "Unknown" and "Just Go With It," says Variety.

Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie has made some interesting comments this week, claiming that he remains doubtful that media tablets are anything more than a fad.

The officer does admit that Microsoft was very late on tablets, however, and should have introduced an optimized OS earlier.

Says Mundie (via Xbit):

I think there's an important distinction - and frankly one we did not jump on at Microsoft fast enough - between mobile and portable. Mobile is something that you want to use while you are moving, and portable is something that you move and then use. These are going to bump into one another a little bit and so today you can see tablets and pads and other things that are starting to live in the space in between. Personally I don't know whether that space will be a persistent one or not. [...] I don't know whether the big screen tablet pad category is going to remain with us or not.

Google is looking to standardize its Android 3.0 mobile operating system and may also be looking to standardize Android with the ARM architecture products available in many smartphones and tablets.

By standardizing Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google will be looking to eliminate most of the drawbacks of the OS, says Digi including a buggy UI and lack of native apps.

While there are over 250,000 apps in the Android Market, only under 100 were built for 3.0 specifications and run "perfectly" on tablets.

Additionally, the report says the "plans to standardize their platforms should significantly improve ARM architecture's major drawback of having difficulty upgrading, while can significantly reduce the development time of downstream partners as well as maintain quality."

Google recently announced it would not be releasing the Android 3.0 open source code:

"While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones," a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. "We're committed to providing Android as an open platform across many device types and will publish the source as soon as it's ready."

According to Digitimes, Apple has agreed to eat any and all production cost increases caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disasters.

In return, upstream component suppliers will keep shipments running "smoothly."

Many of the component suppliers buy components from Japan, but Apple's move should help them remain fully profitable in the foreseeable future.

The move should also help Apple see little supply issues for its iPad and iPhone devices.

Additionally, other tablet vendors will likely be squeezed out if they cannot make a similar move, giving Apple an even bigger edge in the market.

Apple currently has over $50 billion in cash.

Verizon Communications has confirmed today that it will upgrading backbone pipes to 100Gbps capacity in some parts of the U.S., planning for a streaming/cloud future.

The routes being upgraded include Chicago to New York, Sacramento to L.A. and Minneapolis to Kansas City, Kansas.

Says the company:

We've already successfully deployed 100G on a portion of our European network, and now we're preparing to expand this technology to our U.S. network. Advancing to 100G is a significant step in strengthening our global IP network to handle the bandwidth demands of our customers – whether it's large enterprises or the average consumer. Besides greater scalability and network efficiencies, we also expect 100G deployment to improve latency on a route-by-route basis.

Verizon began its rollout of 100G in November 2007 and was the first to successfully complete a field trial of 100G optical traffic on a live system.

A standards-based, multivendor 100G Ethernet link for an IP backbone was deployed to their European network for the route between Paris and Frankfurt earlier this year.

Google has kicked a PSX emulator for Android devices out of the Android Market.

Citing its Content Policy, Google pulled the PSX4Droid application from the Android Market. Developer of the application, ZodTTD, suspects that the real reason for the removal of the app is down to Sony, with the launch of the Xperia PLAY, known often as the "PlayStation Phone", imminent.

ZodTTD announced the removal of the application on Twitter, and said he was trying to determine what to do. "Sony's Xperia Play must be coming soon," ZodTTD wrote on Twitter.

"Google just suspended all my legal Sony PSX emulator app ids from Marketplace. They locked me out of their service. Fair enough, but no specific reason. The timing is suspicious with no remedy." Google has provided no specific reason for removing the app.

A similar application on the Android Market, FPse for Android, is still available to buy however. The Xperia Play is expected to go on sale in the U.S. in mid-April, featuring a 4-inch touch screen and slide-out controller. It is powered by a 1GHz ARMv7 processor and runs Google's Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Director promises to push up to 48 or 60fps at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

"When you author and project a movie at 48 or 60, it becomes a different movie. The 3D shows you a window into reality; the higher frame rate takes the glass out of the window. In fact, it is just reality. It is really stunning," Cameron said.

Jon Landau, James Cemeron's production partner, said the higher frame rate will provide for a better audience experience. He said it would remove a strobing effect caused by a "3D artefact".

With the shutter closed for less time, you also get a bright image as a result. This could help with 3D movies, as glasses can reduce the amount of light that a viewer is supposed to see of an image.

Cameron was joined at CinemaCon by George Lucas and Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, as they were "championing the digital 3D movie revolution."

Microsoft-led effort to decapitate Rustock botnet significantly reduces global spam volume.

In a detailed report from Symantec's MessageLabs, it emerges that global spam volumes dropped by one-third in the days following the action taken against the Rustock botnet. Rustock seemingly went quite on March 16, prompting security firms and spam monitors to ask questions about its lack of activity.

Rustock is/was one of the most technically sophisticated botnets known, and it still remains to be seen whether its operators can regain control over the million-strong herd again. It has been active since 2006, quite a lifetime for a botnet.

Microsoft-led action against Rustock, with help from Pfizer and FireEye, led to the seizure of 96 command and control servers mid-March. The hard drives have been handed over for forensic analysis in an attempt to identify the operators.

Following the takedown, global spam volume dropped 33.6 percent by the 17th of the month. In the days following the seizures, 33 billion spam e-mails were sent a day, compared to an average of 52 billion beforehand.

Apple pushes out supplemental update for users of MacBook Air devices.

Apple customers who bought a MacBook Air last year have been complaining about problems using the iTunes software. Using iTunes with the MacBook Air was making the ultra-thin device become unresponsive for some users. It was reported to happen after the Max OS X 10.6.7 update.

The music software would crash on launch after some users of the 13-inch MacBook Air updated the operating system to the latest version.

Apple is recommending that a supplemental update aimed directly at this issue be installed by anybody who got a 13-inch MacBook Air model in late 2010, and that has been updated to Mac OS X 10.6.7.

For more information: Mac OS X v10.6.7 Supplemental Update for 13” MacBook Air (Late 2010)

Microsoft has reportedly started to push out early copies of Windows 8 to OEM partners, according to a report.

WinRumors reports that the Redmond-based giant is distributing build 7971.0.110324-1900, using its Connect external testing system, as the Windows 8 and Server vNext Pre-Release Program. The Milestone 3 build is now available for OEMs, such as HP, to access and test out.

Other Windows 8 details have leaked recently. One feature expected is a system reset feature that makes it much easier for an installation to revert to original OEM factory settings. Windows 8 also will reportedly go into hibernation within a few seconds.

It is expected to feature a full 3D interface that can adapt to user habits. A tile-based user interface, codenamed "Mosh", will also be available if a user should choose it.

Samsung has announced it began mass production of a transparent LCD panel this year.

The 22-inch panels come in black-and-white type and the color type, and feature a contrast ratio of 500:1 with a resolution of 1680x1050 (WSGA+). Samsung's transparent panel boasts a transparency rate of over 20 percent for black-and-white and 15 percent for color type.

Conventional LCD panels that use a back light unit have 5 percent transparency. The transparent LCD panel has a high transparency rate, which enables a person to look right through the panel like glass, and it consumes 90% less electricity compared with a conventional LCD panel using back light unit.

The LCD panel also incorporates HDMI and the USB interface for convenience.

Samsung's press information highlights the possibilities of using the panels in advertising and such uses, hinting that these units won't come cheap for some time.

"Transparent displays will have a wide range of use in all industry areas as an efficient tool for delivering information and communication. With the world's first mass production of the transparent LCD panel, Samsung Electronics plans to lead the global transparent LCD market by developing various applications," said Younghwan Park, a senior vice president of Samsung Electronics LCD Business.

According to unwired, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has a large incentive to make sure the recent Nokia/Microsoft Windows Phone 7 deal is a success.

The CEO's compensation package is now directly tied to the success of the deal, and Nokia's stock price in the next 20 months.

Says the source:

Here’s the new revised deal Mr. Elop gets, depending on how well his strategy works:

His short term cash incentive plan has been reduced to 100% from 150% of gross salary. It means that ~1.5 Million EUR yearly cash bonus Mr.Elop was entitled to if Nokia reached it’s intended targets for 2011 and 2012, is reduced by 500K Euro each year. Annual equity grants are reduced to a level below the competitive market value. Not sure what this one means, my guess is the automatic yearly share grants to Mr. Elop have been reduced. In return Mr. Elop gets an opportunity to earn a number of Nokia shares if overall Nokia share price increases.

Overall Nokia share price performance will be compared to a group of “relevant companies in the high technology/mobility, telecommunications and Internet services industries”. To get any bonus at all, Nokia’s share price performance should be “at the 50th percentile of the peer group”, for the maximum bonus – Nokia should be among the top three of the peer group. Also, the minimum Nokia share price at the end of the 2012 should be 9 EUR. For maximum bonus it should be at least EUR 17.

Redmond gets involved in EU anti-trust case against web search giant Google.

Microsoft spent nearly a decade being probed and prodded by the European Union for anti-competitive practices, so one is entitled to raise an eyebrow at Microsoft's filing of a formal complaint with the European Commission, as part of the EC's ongoing investigation into Google's Search practices within the EU.

This is the first time that the software giant has ever taken such as step, according to Brad Smith, senior Vice President & General Counsel at Microsoft Corporation. While commending Google's attempts to "organize the world's information," Smith says that Microsoft is concerned about a broadening pattern of conduct aimed at stopping anyone else from creating a competitive alternative to Google's key businesses.

He has pointed to some recent cases in the United States involving Google. In 2008, the Department of Justice (DOJ) considered a suit against Google for attempting to tie up and set search advertising prices at Yahoo!. Google backed down following the DOJ's intervention. Then last year, the DOJ objected to what it said was Google's efforts to monopolize book content. A federal judge ruled in that case just last week.