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The U.S. State Department is developing and pushing new technology to help democracy activists and other protesters around the world to get around blocks and censorship.

One of the new technologies it is pushing is a panic button app made for mobile phones. In the recent slew of protests throughout the middle east, mobile phones have played a big part in driving the protests. However, mobile phones have been confiscated and data including messages and address books have been mined for information on others involved.

Using the "panic button" would securely erase all of that information on a phone, and also send out a warning to everyone else to be careful.

Since the U.S. Government asked Twitter to delay a scheduled update to allow Iranian users continue to use the site during the 2009 election protests, the administration has realized the usefulness of Internet and other services for activists. However, it has also noted how many oppressive governments can, and do, implement blocks and censorship to make it hard for people to communicate or get certain information.

The state department has been working with technology firms to develop circumvention technology intended for use to get around state firewalls easily and on methods for activists to protect their communications and information from snooping.

Apple has addressed some bugs in its gadgets with the release of iOS 4.3.1.

The update is available for users of iPhone 4 (although CDMA just yet), iPhone 3GS, iPod touch (3rd, 4th gen), iPad and iPad 2. Apple supplied the following information about what the iOS 4.3.1 update changes over the recently released iOS 4.3...

• Fixes an occasional graphics glitch on iPod touch (4th generation)
• Resolves bugs related to activating and connection to some cellular networks
• Fixes image flicker when using Apple Digital AV adapter with some TVs
• Resolves an issue authenticating with some enterprise web services

Google Inc.'s YouTube video-sharing service has added tools to assist in the creation of video content.

The tools aim to help users who do not have a video camera or any video creation/editing experience. A beta of www.youtube.com/create lets users work with three video creation tools that simplify the process.

"More than 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and with the motto of 'Broadcast Yourself', it's hard to believe that anyone is left out of the YouTube experience," the YouTube blog states. "But the truth is, sites like YouTube do largely leave out people who don't have a video camera."

GoAnimate and Xtranormal allows users to create animated videos easily, and quickly, without requiring any experience with animation at all. Users can produce animated videos that feature a text storylike. Stupeflix on the other hand, lets users upload their own photos, clips maps and music to make video slideshows and presentations.

The tools are free to use through the youtube.com/create beta, though some tools offer premium options on their own websites.

The controllers of the recently dismantled Rustock botnet are being sought by investigators.

At its peak, the Rustock botnet could push out over 30 billion spam messages every single day. It consisted of over 1 million hijacked computers around the world, and appears to have been controlled by only a small team of about three individuals.

"It does not look like there were more than a couple of people running it to me," said Alex Lanstein, a senior engineer at security firm FireEye. Computers were hijacked when their users visited crafted malicious websites. Updates were pushed out regularly using custom written encryption. Updates were disguised to look like genuine discussion forum messages to evade detection by security firms scouring the web.

The servers found to be used to control the botnet were located in middle-America, not usually where you would expect to find them. Hosting costs would have ran up to $10,000 per month, but the operators are believed to have made many times that amount pushing out spam for fake pharmaceuticals.

Work done by Microsoft, FireEye and Pfizer culminated in the seizure of 96 command and control servers on March 16. Since the action, global spam levels dropped significant and continue to remain low. The operators of the botnet do not appear to have attempted to regain control over it either.

Apple has been given a victory in its patent war with Nokia after a trade panel ruled the iPhone-maker did not violate Nokia patents.

Nokia had accused Apple of violating no less than five patents held by the Finnish phone giant in several of its products. The ITC complaint was filed by Nokia in December 2009, and is just one action taken in an on-going patent feud between both tech firms.

Judge James Gildea of the ITC said Apple did not violate the patents in question, and now the commission must decide to uphold or throw out his decision. It will be probed by the commission in August this year.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) has the power to halt imports of products into the U.S. that are found to be violating patents, which makes it an attractive institution for firms caught in a patent dispute. Generally, separate lawsuits are filed in district courts that seek compensation for the alleged infringement.

Nokia is losing ground in the smartphone market to Apple, and to firms that produce smartphones that run the Android operating system.

The Weinstein Company is moving into the video games business.

The firm announced on Friday that it launched TWC Games, which it says will develop video games for consoles, mobile phones and for social network use. It will work with Beefy Media, a video games production company, on titles in the future.

"The video game marketplace is changing at such a rapid rate. With all of the digital platforms, there are so many opportunities to broaden our audience with compelling, high quality, cost-efficient, video game entertainment," Bob Weinstein, TWC games co-chairman, said.

"We plan to combine our extensive video game developer relationships with the impressive catalog of properties to create and produce content made by gamers for gamers," said Beefy Media President Adam Boyes.

GameStop Corp. turned some heads by forecasting stronger-than-expected profits for 2011.

The news is welcomed by the games industry which has been waiting for a rebound amidst falling sales. The company, which posted higher profit than expected, said it expects sales to be flat to 3 percent higher in 2011. The results pushed up the share price of some firms in the business, such as Electronic Arts.

"That positive commentary from GameStop helped publishers today," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

GameStop also called attention to strong demand for Nintendo's new 3DS handheld, launching this weekend. Reservations for the product have exceeded supply, said GameStop President Tony Bartel. "We've literally had to go back to Nintendo and get more product."

The world's largest video games retailer hopes the 3DS will boost sales in the global video games industry, estimated at around $60.4 billion.

Google Inc. will make developers wait for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) to be available as open source code, it has announced.

The web giant said that Honeycomb is not yet ready to be customized for use for Smartphones and other gadgets, after developing it for use with tablet computers. Honeycomb is already in use with Motorola Mobility's Xoom tablet since February.

Google's announcement might be greeted with skepticism by some developers, as Google's policy for Android has been to allow developers to freely modify the operating system software as they see fit.

"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."

No timeframe was given for the Honeycomb source being opened to developers. Android is the most used smartphone operating system in the world.

The finger of blame is being pointed at Iran in what's being called a state-driven attack on Internet security.

Attackers managed to trick a HTTPS/TLS Certificate Authority into issuing fraudulent certificates. The improperly issued certs covered high-value domains including google.com, login.yahoo.com and addons.mozilla.org. One cert was for "global trustee" which could have enabled the impersonation of any domain on the web.

The CA involved, Comodo, said that one fraudulent login.yahoo.com cert was briefly deployed on an Iranian server. The attack on Comodo came primarily from IP addresses from Iran.

The system attacked acts as a guarantee of identity for some of the world's most popular web services. The certificate acts as a digital passport which is checked by the web browser in use. Most browsers have since been updated to detect the use of the bogus certificates to protect users. An obtained fraudulent certificate could aid in impersonating a popular web service on a malicious server.

Comodo said the attack exhibited "clinical accuracy" and added it was likely to be a state-driven attack. Since it came from Iranian sources and appears to have targeted mainly web communications services, it is thought to have been carried out at the request of Iranian authorities in pursuit of opposition groups in the country that use the web to coordinate their activities on the ground.

Netflix has issued an apology to its customers that experienced the temporary downtime on Tuesday of the company's streaming service.

The company has credited users 3 percent of the $8 monthly fee for streaming, giving subscribers 23 cents back.

If everyone was affected, that means the move will cost Netflix up to $4 million.

Says the email:

Dear User,

Recently you may have had trouble instantly watching TV episodes or movies due to technical issues.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused. If you attempted and were unable to instantly watch TV episodes or movies yesterday, click on this account specific link in the next 7 days to apply your 3% credit to your next billing statement for your Watch Instantly Unlimited plan. Credit can only be applied once.
Story continues below

Ready to start watching again? Check out our latest selection.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-866-923-0898.

Starz has implemented a 90-day delay on all new original content that streams via Netflix, beginning with the series "Camelot."

New episodes of Starz original content will be available 90 days after they initially air on Starz, unlike currently when episodes of some shows, like "Spartacus," are available the next day.

Although it is unclear when, Starz says the same delay will be applied to "exclusive first-run movies" in the future.

Starz has pay TV rights to films from Sony, Disney and others and the deal with Netflix has been one of the streaming company's most productive. When it expires this year, most expect that Netflix will have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more to resign it.

Earlier in the week, it was reported that George 'Geohot' Hotz had 'fled' to South America after Sony filed documents deriding his "suspicious behavior."

The next day, Hotz laughed off the claim, posting:

Apparently, I have fled the country. ROFL

Factually, it’s true I’m in South America, on a vacation I’ve had planned and paid for since November. I mean, it is Spring break; hacking isn’t my life. Rest assured that not a dime of legal defense money would ever go toward something like this. And of course Townsend loves the idea of painting me as an international fugitive. I have been in contact with my lawyers almost every day; I would not let the case suffer. That said, I also won’t let this ridiculous lawsuit run my life either. Then the fearmongerers win.

Sony Ericsson has announced, much to everyone's surprise, that Xperia X10 owners will be receiving the Gingerbread 2.3 Android update for their devices.

The smartphone maker had announced last year that the device would not get any firmware updates past Android 2.1.

Sony implies that the update will be available at the end of June, but will not be available OTA. You will need to download it manually and update by plugging your phone into the computer.

The company says strong consumer demand forced them to change their mind on the updates:

I have been working with this blog for almost 1 ½ years. After lots of interaction and discussion, by far the most intense discussions lately were around Xperia X10 Android upgrades. We earlier stated that we did not have plans for further upgrade of the Xperia X10 beyond Android 2.1 Éclair, which was correct at the time.

However, I am happy to inform you that this has changed. We plan to bring an upgrade to Android Gingerbread for the Xperia X10 to generic trade kits end Q2 / early Q3 this year. We have heard your requests all along but until today have not been able to confirm this. The great work on our 2011 products Xperia PLAY, Xperia arc and Xperia neo actually has enabled us to start the work in a special project bringing Gingerbread to the Xperia X10.

Barnes & Noble has revealed today that an upcoming software update in April will turn the Nook Color e-reader into a tablet, adding Flash and apps.

Despite running Android 2.1, the e-reader (unless rooted) does not have access to app stores and lacks a browser with Flash.

The e-reader does allow for music and video playback (in MP4), however.

Alongside the update, B&N will launch its own App Store, similar to what Amazon has just done.

The leak comes via HSN, which posted:

Coming Soon "Sneak Peek" Updates

The NOOK Color device comes with 8 apps and more will become available after the April update.
HSN will have the "sneak peek" of the new NOOK Color updates, which launches in April
The new updates will be sent out automatically if your device in connected to Wi-Fi
HSN customers will be among the first to receive the update when it's available

Samsung has announced that its Apps store has reached 100 million downloads since launch in June of last year.

The store took three months to reach 10 million downloads and the growth has increased rapidly since.

There are 13,000 applications available in the store, up from 2000 at launch.

Samsung says the top games in terms of downloads are Magic Torch, Need for Speed Shift and Asphalt 5.

A few navigation apps, like London Traffic and Ndrive France, are also very popular, says CN.

French, German and Spanish users accounted for 40 percent of all downloads.

Says Kang-Hyun Kwon, Samsung Senior Vice President of Media Solution Center:

We are anticipating that Samsung Apps will show a rapid growth in 2011, especially with a variety of the upcoming Bada device line-up. Through consistent service improvement and high-quality app selections, we will continue to offer optimised application services for Samsung smartphones.