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China has said it will do more to combat "rampant" violation of intellectual property rights throughout the country.

Since the government announced a crackdown on the activity in November, it has arrested over 4,000 individuals. It now says it will seek to impose tougher punishments to send a message. Ministry of Public Security's Economic Crimes Investigation Bureau director, Gao Feng, said his agency had uncovered over 2,000 cases, with a financial value of 2.3 billion yuan, or $384 million.

"On one hand they demonstrate the achievements we've made in cracking down on the violation of IPR, on the other hand it also indicates that IPR violation is still quite rampant and frequent," Gao said. "So we want to introduce heavier punishments."

The topic of intellectual property is likely to come up in a meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese leader Hu Jintao next week.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates U.S. trade losses in China due to piracy hit $3.5 billion in 2009.

It has been revealed that Intel will pay Nvidia Corp. $1.5 billion to license its technology, settling a dispute among the pair.

The deal gives Intel the right to use Nvidia technology in its new chips as graphics performance becomes more and more important. Nvidia will be able to use some of Intel's technology (but not related to the x86 architecture).

Nvidia recently announced that it plans to produce processors for personal computers, which will use technology from ARM Holdings. The company is trying to drag the low-energy chips into the PC space from their stronghold in the market for smartphones and tablets.

The company does not plan to produce x86 chips. "Those are not our core businesses nor do we have the intention or strategy to go develop those things," Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang, told analysts.

Nvidia has been touting the possible benefits of utilizing its powerful parallel processors used in its graphics chips for important intensive tasks such as medical imaging, or weather forecasting.

The Supreme Court in the United States has dealt a blow to major record companies by refusing to review a decision by a lower court in an antitrust case over the sale of music online.

In 2008, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against several major record companies which alleged price fixing in the music download market. It stated that the major record companies had agreed on a 70 cent wholesale price for music tracks when rivals began to offer music on the Internet for a cheaper price.

An appeal's court found that the original judged had made an error, ruling the plaintiffs had described enough facts to suggest an antitrust price-fixing conspiracy, and sending the case back to continue proceedings under the judge.

Record company attorneys decided to take the case to the Supreme Court, but the Justices declined to review the decision. The case involves Sony Corp (Vivendi), Warner Music Group and the EMI Group.

Japanese media is reporting that Nintendo will ship a significant amount of 3DS units in the first week of availability in Japan.

After launch events in the country for previous iterations of the Nintendo DS handheld platform have been impacted by supply problems, Nintendo is hoping to avoid the same problem by shipping 1.5 million Nintendo 3DS units in its first month of availability after its launch on February 26th.

The 3DS handheld will launch in the United States and Europe in March. It was unveiled at the E for ALL (E3) show in 2010, promising to deliver 3D games content to consumers without the need to wear any kind of glasses for the effect.

Due to the release of PlayStation Move and Microsof't Kinect for Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii console is under new pressure from its competition, and smartphone gaming is starting to grow as well to challenge the NDS and PSP. Nintendo will be hoping the 3D capabilities of the 3DS handheld will result in strong sales throughout 2011.

"It's important that we ensure a continuous supply," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata was quoted as saying by the Nikkei.

Nvidia Corp revealed late last week that it plans to develop and market its own line of processors made for personal computers.

The processors would use ARM technology, which Microsoft has pledged to support in upcoming versions of its Windows operating system across several platforms. "Project Denver" is being seen as retaliation by Nvidia against Intel for its stroll into the graphics space.

"If you have the ability to have your own processor architecture and the support of operating-system vendors like Microsoft, then that becomes a formidable dynamic that Intel will have to contend with," said Hans Mosesmann, an analyst at Raymond James. "You and I five years from now might look back at this ... and say this was the turning point in the industry."

Nvidia has broadened its targets in the market to smartphones and tablet devices with its new chips. However, Nvidia is taking a risk entering into the market for PC processors, analysts are warning. At the very least, such a venture by Nvidia would take years to pay off.

A Sony executive has indicated that Sony is looking to catch up with market-leader Apple Inc., and take second place in sales of tablet PCs.

Sony's lack of a new tablet device to challenge the iPad was one surprise of the Consumer Electronics Show this year. Most other big players came with their iPad assassination attempts, including Samsung Electronics with its Galaxy Tab and Research in Motion's PlayBook.

While admittedly late to the game, Sony is looking to catch up quickly and get on the heels of the iPad. "For sure iPad is the king of tablets. But what is the second, what is the third? Who is taking the second position? That is our focus," computer division head Kunimasa Suzuki said. "We would like to really take the number two position in a year."

Sony CEO Howard Stringer also said that the company is waiting to watch the market and listen to consumer demands, specifically mulling whether or not adding 3D viewing capabilities to its own tablet device makes sense yet in the growing market.

A security researcher in Germany is warning that Amazon's cloud service can be used to brute force weak passwords used to protect Wi-Fi security.

Thomas Roth says it is quite easy to break weak passwords using brute force methods with access to Amazon's cloud-based computing service, which is capable of testing 400,000 potential passwords every second. Amazon rents its service to customers for 28 cents per minute.

Networks that use the WPA-PSK setup to secure their networks are always going to be vulnerable to weak passwords (or more accurately, the pre-shared key). Short and weak passwords would be vulnerable to a brute force attack, especially at the speeds offered by Amazon's services.

"Nothing in this researcher's work is predicated on the use of Amazon EC2. As researchers often do, he used EC2 as a tool to show how the security of some network configurations can be improved," said Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener.

"Testing is an excellent use of AWS, however, it is a violation of our acceptable use policy to use our services to compromise the security of a network without authorization."

Roth claims to have found the key for a network in his neighborhood using his method and Amazon's service. The brute force attack took about 20 minutes to get the correct key, but Roth is making changes to his code which he reckons could bring the time down in such a case to about 6 minutes.

Intel chief executive officer, Paul Otellini, has indicated to Fox Business Network that chipmaker giant is not concerned about Windows 8 running on ARM architecture.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last week, Microsoft demonstrated a build of Windows OS running on ARM and pledged to support ARM and play nicely with SoC developers over the coming years. Some had speculated the Intel would be concerned about its long-term partner Microsoft stretching its hand out to competitors.

"The Windows CE today, the Windows phone applications today all run on ARM and only on ARM, so what they are saying is for the tablet version and the phone version they are going to support ARM for Windows 8," Otellini said.

"What I am excited about is that Windows 8 will also support Intel down into the other devices. Today we do not have an opportunity to sell into Microsoft-based phones and Microsoft-based tablets."

ARM processors are dominating in portable devices such as smartphones and tablets, and now NVIDIA is talking about producing its own processors for personal computers using ARM technology too. Many analysts see it as NVIDIA standing up to Intel, due to Intel's continued advance into graphics solutions.

Last November, Android developer Howard Harte offered $1000 to the first person or team that could jailbreak the Google TV.

A group of developers heeded the call and last week successfully jailbroke the platform using a mixed hardware and software-based hack.

The group, GTVhacker dev team, also released a 6-min video showing off their work (below).

Harte says he is excitedly writing code for the platform now.

"What this means is that we now have a complete Android development environment for the Google TV," added Harte (via RWW) "I am able to use standard Android development tools to develop for GTV, just like developing for any other Android device."

"The most important thing for developers though is that they now have full access to developing for the platform well in advance of Google releasing the tools," Harte continues. "Now, it should be possible for Rovio to port Angry Birds [...] to the Google TV."

Not to mention, working Hulu, CBS, Fox, NBC and other video content, as it should be.

According to multiple reports, Android 2.4, dubbed 'Ice Cream,' is set for a summer launch.

2.3 Gingerbread is available now on the Nexus S and soon on a number of other Android devices, like the Nexus One.

An announcement from Google is expected at the start of May, for a June or July release.

Google recently said they were trying for a new Android update every 6 months (or at least two per year), and with Gingerbread being announced just last month, the time frame works for Ice Cream.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb, formally announced at CES last week, will be the company's tablet-optimized OS, and will likely not make it to smartphones.

This weekend, Digg founder Kevin Rose added fuel to the iPad 2 rumor mill fire, claiming an introduction of the tablet is coming within a month.

Says Rose:

I have it on good authority that Apple will be announcing the iPad 2 in the next '3-4 weeks,' possibly Tuesday February 1st. The iPad 2 will feature a retina display and front/back camera. If you're thinking of buying an iPad, hold off for now.

Outside of the Retina Display and dual-cameras, other oft-posted rumors include the addition of a USB port, a larger, improved speaker and slimmer form factor.

From the retail side, Apple has kept most of its overstaffed holiday personnel employed, and limited vacation time for a three-week period from the end of January into February for all staff. Vacation time is always limited when a large product launch is in store, such as an updated iPhone.

Apple had been expected to begin selling the iPad 2 in April, a year after the launch of the first generation tablet.

Although it is not even official yet, AT&T PR head Larry Solomon took a shot at Verizon's upcoming iPhone.

Apple and Verizon are expected to unveil the CDMA version of the device on Tuesday, with sales starting in earl February.

Said Solomon: "The iPhone is built for speed, but that's not what you get with a CDMA phone. I'm not sure iPhone users are ready for life in the slow lane."

The claim is that AT&T's GSM technology is faster than Verizon's CDMA tech.

AT&T has been the exclusive American carrier for the iPhone since its inception in 2007. Analysts have warned that losing the exclusivity pact, and the strong growth driver that is the iPhone, may affect the company's bottom line for some time. Other analysts have warned that frustrated AT&T iPhone owners may jump ship to Verizon, who is known to have the most reliable network of the major carriers.

It appears the carrier has fired the first shot in what will almost certainly be a "war" for iPhone customers.

Although unconfirmed by both companies, Apple is expected to unveil a CDMA version of the iPhone on Tuesday, to be available on Verizon in the U.S.

Verizon is the largest carrier in the nation, ahead of rival AT&T, the current exclusive carrier of the Apple smartphone.

All reports claim that the device will be introduced this week, but go on sale in early February.

If accurate, a new WSJ report says Verizon will offer all iPhone purchasers an unlimited data plan option, which AT&T has removed for new owners.

Unlimited plans will sell for $30 a month, while AT&T offers, at most, 2GB per month for $25.

Yesterday, we reported that Apple had pulled the popular VLC media player application from the iOS App Store, following an argument over the GPL with VLC developer Rémi Denis-Courmont.

Denis-Courmont had filed a lawsuit against Apple in late 2010.

Under a standard GNU General Public License (GPL), VLC is available for Macs, Windows and Linux machines for free, and while it was free for iOS, the open-source nature of the application was compromised by Apple, since all apps in the iOS App Store must be signed by Apple and given DRM.

Today, popular jailbreak developer Ryan Petrich has added the app to his Cydia repository.

Cydia is the completely open app market available to users who have jailbroken their iOS devices.

Says Petrich of the app: "It was pulled from the App Store and deserves a new home in Cydia.”

IDB gives instructions on how to install:

Just days after releasing the root key for the PlayStation 3, opening up the console to homebrew, custom firmwares and more, Geohot has released a jailbreak for firmware version 3.55.

Says Geohot:

i do not condone piracy

it's jailbreak time
open the zip, you know how to install
3.55 only
would be pirates, don't waste your time
do not mirror file, link to geohot.com
no donations accepted right now, don't get scammed

homebrew signing source
make_self_npdrm makes valid NPDRM selfs from elfs
it does not contain any info on decrypting or removing NPDRM
NPDRM is required for interoperability of our homebrew applications
package_finalize turns your debug packages into psuedoretail packages
psuedoretail packages install on a geohot jailbroken PS3

i'm excited to see what you will create
open source SDK @ PSL1GHT

While Geohot does not believe in piracy, it seems only a matter of time until an updated version of OpenManager or other homebrew is made available for jailbroken PS3s running 3.55.