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Yesterday, Verizon publicly stated that sales of the Motorola Xoom tablet are very strong, but at least one analyst disagrees.

Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research says today that sales are in fact, "very weak," and short battery life and "poor software quality" are killing the tablet.

Says Chowdhry (via Barrons):

Google Honeycomb is suffering from frequent application freezes and crashes and the battery life is very inconsistent – lasts sometimes for 2 hours, and sometimes for 6 hours. The battery standby life is mere 10 – 12 hours vs. 30 days on Apple iPad.

The analyst calls the Honeycomb interface "extremely complicated and confusing, and does not come naturally – you really have to work on it," citing conversations with Xoom owners.

Chowdhry concludes that Honeycomb, and Android tablets in general, may "struggle to get mass adoption – and probably be relegated to Tech Community only."

Microsoft has said this week that the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace has now reached 9000 available apps, and 32,000 registered developers.

Furthermore, the company has launched a new global publisher program.

Windows Phone Developer tools have seen over 1 million downloads, to date. Microsoft has included the ability to trial apps, which it says has been successful.

Microsoft (via PCM):

Users like trials. Paid apps that include trial functionality are downloaded 70 times more than paid apps that don't include trial functionality, expanding the number of potential customers to purchase the full paid version.

More than half of trial downloads that convert to a sale do so within one day, and most of those within two hours.

LimeWire has finally settled a long-standing lawsuit brought by major music publishers, months after the service was shutdown for good.

The settlement covers 30 publishers but the financial terms were not disclosed.

As part of the deal, all claims against founder Mark Gorton have been dropped, and cannot be brought again.

Says the National Music Publishers Association (via Reuters):

A settlement was reached. The parties worked hard to achieve a settlement that is a good result for all involved.

The publishers sued LimeWire last June, months before a judge shut down the P2P client for good.

There are still thirteen labels "pursuing copyright litigation," against LimeWire, however. Arista, Atlantic, BMG Music, Capital, Elektra, Interscope, Laface, Motown, Priority, Sony BMG, UMG, Virgin and Warner Brothers are all hoping for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Google has purchased Next New Networks this week, the producer of viral video programming.

The financials of the deal were not disclosed.

Since its launch in 2007, Next New Networks' videos have collected 2 billion views and 6 million subscribers.

Says Google (via DMW):

Within YouTube, Next New Networks will be a laboratory for experimentation and innovation with the team working in a hands on way with a wide variety of content partners and emerging talent to help them succeed on YouTube.

NNN has raised over $27 million in funding, so far.

American divorce lawyers and academics have stated this week that Facebook is now cited in 65 percent of all divorces in the United States, despite divorce levels remaining relatively stable in the fast few years.

Says Dr. Steven Kimmons, a clinical psychologist and marriage counsellor at Loyola University Medical Centre near Chicago (via Guardian):

We're coming across it more and more. One spouse connects online with someone they knew from school. The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook.

A survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML) showed a huge jump in divorce cases citing social networking sites, with Facebook at the top at 65 percent, followed by MySpace at 14 percent and Twitter at 5 percent.

The sites weren't only used to show off evidence of infidelity but also used in custody cases, where spouses could point out pictures of drug and alcohol use by their husband/wife.

Facebook has 600 million users worldwide.

Opera, the company behind popular desktop and mobile browsers, has launched the Opera Mobile Store, now available in over 200 countries.

The store is available at mobilestore.opera.com or as a 'Speed Dial' link for users of Opera Mini or Opera Mobile on their phones.

Opera says there are over 100 million Opera Mini/Mobile users around the world.

Appia, a marketplace technology company, is delivering the app store, which has applications for Java, Symbian, BlackBerry and Android operating systems.

Says Oepra:

The launch of the Opera Mobile Store supports Opera's core belief in an open, cross-platform mobile Internet experience by providing Opera users with an integrated storefront of mobile applications. Our partnership with Appia delivers to all Opera Mobile and Opera Mini users easy access to a wide variety of great content, on any device, all over the world.

In beta form, Opera says the Store attracted 700,000 downloads per day.

Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft will end up paying Nokia over $1 billion for the recent Windows Phone 7 deal, through development and promotional costs.

"Nokia will pay Microsoft a fee for each copy of Windows used in its phones, costs that will be offset as Nokia curtails its own budget for software research and development," says one of the sources even though the full agreement has not been signed yet.

The deal will last for "over 5 years."

Most analysts have called the deal a winner for Microsoft, who will gain a huge platform boost for a relatively insignificant amount of money. Nokia, on the other hand, has seen their shares fall 25 percent since the announcement, as investors doubt the move will help fix Nokia's faltering market share.

Additionally, margins at Nokia have fallen to just 5 percent in 2010 from 19 percent in 2001.

Spotify has announced today that they have reached their first major milestone, one million paying customers.

Says the streaming music company:

It seems like only yesterday we were hatching ideas for a new music service in a tiny office-cum-apartment with a broken coffee machine, and the party we threw having reached one million users almost two years ago today was one to remember.

So it’s with a sense of real pride and excitement that we can announce a new milestone today, having welcomed our millionth paying subscriber to the service. It’s a testament to our fantastic users who continue to support us and spread the Spotify word, either by telling friends or sharing some of the 200 million playlists that you’ve put together so far.

From everyone at Spotify, we’d like to give you all massive thanks. We’ll continue to focus on providing you with the best music service possible, and look forward to adding even more cool new features over the coming months. What’s really exciting is that this is only the beginning.

Warner Bros. has said this morning that it will begin renting digital copies of films via Facebook, the first studio to do so.

Starting with 'The Dark Knight,' Facebook users can rent the films for 30 FB Credits ($3 USD).

As with most other rental stores, viewers have two days to watch the film and can pause/resume whenever they choose during the period.

While watching the movie, the social networking giant says all Facebook functionality is still active, including the ability to chat, post comments and update statuses.

Says Warner (via THR):

Facebook has become a daily destination for hundreds of millions of people. Making our films available through Facebook is a natural extension of our digital distribution efforts. It gives consumers a simple, convenient way to access and enjoy our films through the world's largest social network.

Last week, Sony dropped the price of the PSPGo handheld from $200 to $150, following the price drop of the PSP-3000, to $130.

Surprisingly, just three days later, Sony has brought the price back up to $200 with no explanation.

It is unclear whether the price drop was just premature and will return in the future or whether the entire situation was just a mistake.

Sony's PSPGo handheld has been a large flop, with sales remaining low since launch.

Later this year, the company will release the NGP (PSP2) which boasts 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. The device will have dual micro-analog sticks, tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, standard and front-side cameras, GPS, an electric compass, Wi-Fi and 3G support, and access to Android gaming.

Target has confirmed today that it will begin selling the upcoming Apple iPad 2 on launch day, March 11th, at 5pm.

Says the large retailer (via PCM):

We will be offering all 18 versions and price it as all other retailers have, starting at $499.

Apple sells three Wi-Fi only models, three AT&T 3G models and three Verizon 3G models (16/32/64GB for each). Because the iPad 2 is available in black or white, there are a total of 18 different versions available.

The tablets will only be available in-store, not via Target's online store.

Furthermore, you can trade-in your original iPad for store credit starting on the 13th.

The tablet is going on sale through AT&T, Verizon, Apple and Best Buy on launch day, as well.

TechRadar is saying today that Nintendo is planning to unveil the Wii 2 at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in June even though the gaming company has repeatedly denied that the console is even in development.

Just last month, the company said it was not ready to begin phasing out the Wii, despite at least five quarters of declining sales.

The Wii remains a "last generation" console, whereas gaming rivals Xbox 360 and PS3 are "current generation," with better Internet connectivity and better graphics among other features.

TR speculates that the new Wii 2 will boast a hugely improved spec sheet, including a quad-core processor, a Blu-ray drive, and built-in projector.

Nintendo quickly responded with a "no comment."

The National Sleep Foundation has released their annual study this week on American's sleeping habits, and once again concluded that technology is ruining our sleep.

Says vice chairman Russell Rosenberg:

Unfortunately, cell phones and computers, which make our lives more productive and enjoyable, may be abused to the point that they contribute to getting less sleep at night leaving millions of Americans functioning poorly the next day.

95 percent of those in the study said they used some electronic device within one hour of sleep, and 65 percent admitted they do not get enough sleep during the week.

Exposure to artificial light within one hour of bed can "increase alertness and suppress the release of melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone," says Charles Czeisler, of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Continues Czeisler (via Reuters):

Technology has invaded the bedroom. Invasion of such alerting technologies into the bedroom may contribute to the high proportion of respondents who reported they routinely get less sleep than they need.

On Saturday night, the well-known hacker Mathieu Hervais posted on his Twitter that he had found a way to exploit Sony PlayStation 3 firmware 3.56 although he refuses to release the details, as not to anger Sony.

Says Hervais:

I hesitated a lot before tweeting about it, but a bug allows exploiting metldr, the bootloader and 3.56+. I don't intent to ever unveil it.

So much for "unhackable" ps3s though....

The hacker will not unveil the exploit, but says "this wasn't about getting attention at all, or fame, this was just done so the right people know this bug is there for the finding."

Hervais' decision comes after Sony has taken custom firmware creator Geohot to court, as well as subpoenaed IP addresses of other hackers and even casual visitors of Geohot's site and YouTube account.

JD Power's latest call quality study has been released this week and unsurprisingly Verizon once again tops the list, for the 13th straight time.

The carrier had the best call quality in the northeast, southeast, southwest and west and tied with AT&T in the mid-atlantic.

In the north central, US Cellular held its annual lead.

The rest of the major carriers were mostly mixed bags, but T-Mobile and AT&T had some terrible scores in some regions. Sprint remained in the middle for all regions.

T-Mobile was by far the worst in the northeast while AT&T took home the lowest score of the study for its showing in the west, anchored by infamously bad coverage in San Francisco.

Interestingly, the company says smartphone users and frequent texters encountered more problems than average, around 13 out of every 100, while average users had 11 problems.



View the rest of the ratings here: http://www.jdpower.com/Telecom/ratings/Wireless-Call-Quality-Ratings-(Volume-1)/