Latest news

Expected to be revealed at CES next month, Skype has instead launched their iOS video chat app this week, giving iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad owners a chance to video-chat using the popular video-calling service.

Says Skype project manager Raul Liive:

"This season is very special as we are releasing a new version of Skype for iPhone and iPod Touch with video calling. Now you will be able to share all the special moments in video, as they happen, wherever you are."

iOS users can now make free Skype video calls from their devices, however anyone with an iPod Touch 3 or iPad can only receive calls (obviously, no cameras).

The service works via 3G and Wi-Fi and is completely compatible with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 4 as long as they are running iOS 4.0 or higher.

Calls can be made between iOS devices, or from iOS-to-PC. For Windows, the owner must be running Skype 4.2 or higher and Mac users must be using Skype for Mac 2.8.

Nintendo has said this week that children under the age of six will be banned from using the 3D functions of the upcoming 3DS handheld at next month's introductory event.

The 3DS supports 3D images without the need for stereoscopic glasses and will launch globally in February through March.

"Looking at 3-D images for a long time may harm the growth of children’s eyes," said the company in a note to would-be visitors of the event.

Therefore, all young children will be banned from trying the 3D aspects of the game, at least during the event.

In general, Nintendo says users should take a break after every 30 minutes of 3D playing time, or immediately if they feel dizzy.

Last week, Skype had its second-longest outage, ever, with most of its users being unable to access the service for just over 24 hours.

Today, Skype explained what happened, which I will post a snippet of here:

On Wednesday, December 22, a cluster of support servers responsible for offline instant messaging became overloaded. As a result of this overload, some Skype clients received delayed responses from the overloaded servers. In a version of the Skype for Windows client (version 5.0.0152), the delayed responses from the overloaded servers were not properly processed, causing Windows clients running the affected version to crash.

Users running either the latest Skype for Windows (version 5.0.0.156), older versions of Skype for Windows (4.0 versions), Skype for Mac, Skype for iPhone, Skype on your TV, and Skype Connect or Skype Manager for enterprises were not affected by this initial problem.

However, around 50% of all Skype users globally were running the 5.0.0.152 version of Skype for Windows, and the crashes caused approximately 40% of those clients to fail. These clients included 25–30% of the publicly available supernodes, also failed as a result of this problem.

According to a new Bloomberg report, Apple may be unveiling the oft-rumored Verizon iPhone 4 on Valentine's Day, February 14th.

AT&T has been the exclusive carrier of the iPhone since its launch in 2007, but Consumer Reports recently ranked them the worst carrier in the nation, and iPhone owners have long complained of slow 3G speeds and dropped calls, especially in metropolitan areas.

Says the report:

"Verizon enjoys a reputation for reliability. AT&T is notorious for dropping calls, especially in densely populated places like New York and San Francisco where iPhones are most common and cell towers get loaded."

Apple's event will include a "splashy product introduction to announce a new version of the iPhone that work's on Verizon's network," and that it will definitely be later than next month's CES, likely on Valentine's Day.

While in the long run, the loss of an exclusive iPhone contract will be a concern for AT&T, the report says it may not be easy for Verizon, at the start:

South Carolina police officials say a 23-year old man was hit by an SUV on the highway after he decided to play a real-life version of the classic game "Frogger."

"Frogger," which launched in 1981, was about as simple as games get. With a few lives, you have to navigate your frog across a highway (or river) by hopping forward, left, right or back, while avoiding vehicles or other objects.

The police say the man was discussing the game with friends, while the group loitered around the intersection of two highways.

Someone in the group then yelled "GO!" and the victim began running across the highway, which was still busy at 9 PM.

The victim was then (obviously) hit by a 2010 Lexus SUV, but remains in stable condition at a nearby hospital. The driver is not expected to be charged.

A hacking group called "fail0verflow" has presented at this week's Chaos Communication Conference 27C3, showing off the PlayStation 3 "private key" that Sony uses to authorize code on all retail consoles.

Knowing the private key means any hacker can gain full control of the PS3 system, without needing to jailbreak it using a USB dongle.

The team's site (here) is not available yet, but should be soon, giving more details.

If used, the PS3 should be permanently jailbroken, as unofficial code can be quickly updated when Sony creates new firmware updates like version 3.55, which added nothing of use to the console, but did block USB-based jailbreaks.

Fail0verflow says their main goal now "is to have linux running on all existing PS3 consoles, whatever their firmware versions."

In a tweet, the hackers note what many have been saying for months, that Sony made a terrible decision when the removed OtherOS, the built-in ability to run Linux. Says the group: "We only started looking at the ps3 after otheros was killed."

Mozilla has confirmed this week that a database of inactive Mozilla usernames and encrypted passwords was compromised, with the accounts being leaked to the Internet.

Chris Lyon, the Mozilla director of infrastructure security, says (via CW) 44,000 inactive inactive user accounts "for the addons.mozilla.org site were inadvertently placed on a public-facing Web server."

While noting that the "exposure posed minimal risk to users," Lyon says the company has erased all the passwords, which were encrypted anyways, and accounted for all downloads of the database.

All current users of addons.mozilla.org needn't worry as Mozilla upgraded its database and procedure for encrypting passwords in April of last year.

Security officials for the organization were notified of the leak on December 17th, through the bounty program which pays out up to $3000 to volunteers who submit security-related vulnerabilities, bugs and exploits.

All account holders in the leaked database were notified on December 27th.

USC researchers have hacked the Microsoft Kinect motion-control system, giving users a chance to play the popular MMORPG 'World of Warcraft,' and other PC games.

The researchers have made the software available for free, online, dubbed the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST).

FAAST makes it easier for users to play PC games that would otherwise require a keyboard and mouse, by translating body movements into those inputs.

Says researcher Skip Rizzo (via LAT):

"I think the real compelling aspect of all this is that you can now take off-the-shelf games, content that's already built, and emulate the keyboard actions with body movement. This opens up the doorway for building rehabilitation exercises for people after a stroke or traumatic brain injury. And in an area that's getting a lot of attention, the area of childhood obesity and diabetes.

Kaufman Bros. analyst Shawn Wu says RIM is "making good progress" on the upcoming PlayBook tablet, however, the low battery life remains a critical issue.

Wu cites industry and supply chain sources, adding that the new QNX operating system is progressing strongly, as well.

Outside of the battery life, "app store monetization" is also an issue, notes the analyst.

Speaking about RIM's decision to work on multiple operating systems (BlackBerry OS 6 and QNX), Wu added(via PCM):"Competitive pressures will likely step up as we are also hearing Microsoft courting developers pretty aggressively with its new Windows Phone 7 platform as it attempts to catch up."

The battery life remains the main concern, which Wu claims is only "a few hours." The iPad claims 10 hours while the Galaxy Tab has over 6.

"From our understanding, this could require a bit of re-engineering," says Wu of the OS and battery life. "One possibility we are hearing is the likelihood of a larger battery which could add to the heft and weight of PlayBook."

Cowon has launched their D3 Plenue portable media player (PMP) this week, featuring Android.

The D3 runs on Android 2.1, has a 3.7-inch AMOLED display, and a 800x480 resolution.

Cowon's latest also includes Bluetooth 2.1,WLAN 802.11 b/g, a gravity sensor, vibration feedback, terrestrial DMB, FM Radio, E-Book, Photo Album, vocabulary, Twitter and other apps.

While the company promises apps, it is unclear if D3 owners will ever get access to the 100,000-deep Android Market library.

The D3 will be available in purple or black in 8GB, 16GB or 32GB models, each with a MicroSD slot.

TorrentFreak has posted their list of the most pirated video games of the year, and unsurprisingly the top title is Call of Duty: Black Ops.

COD was the most pirated game on the PC, and fifth most on the Xbox 360. Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the most pirated Wii title.

Dante’s Inferno took the cake for the 360.

Despite launching in November, Black Ops was downloaded 4,270,000 times for the PC and 930,000 times for the 360.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came in second with 4,270,000 total downloads.

TF says their data is "collected from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers. All the data is carefully checked and possible inaccuracies are systematically corrected."

Apple has been sued this week over "allegedly transmitting user information to advertising networks without the consent of owners" of its iOS devices.

Jonathan Lalo, of Los Angeles, says Apple and a group of mobile app developers sold his personal data (age, sex, location) to ad networks.

Reads the suit: "[Lalo] did not expect, receive notice of, or consent to Defendants' tracking of his iPhone app use and did not want Defendants to engage in such activity."

Apple's policies state that apps are not allowed to transmit data without a user's consent.

The suit comes at a time when the WSJ has broken news that many mobile applications transmit personal data to third party advertisers without user content.

One of the most high-profile apps named is Pandora, the popular Internet radio app.

According to a new DigiTimes report, Apple will launch three different models of the upcoming second-generation iPad, adding a CDMA version, as well.

The current iPad is available as Wi-Fi-only and as a UMTS and Wi-Fi model.

Apple will produce UMTS, CDMA and Wi-Fi models in a ratio of 4:3:3.

500,000 iPads should already be assembled by the end of January, with release expected in April.

Most current research reports claim that about 65 percent of all worldwide iPad shipments are the UMTS model.

Apple is ready to ship 16 million iPads by the end of the year, with 2 million or so expected to still be on retailer shelves come January.

The company will produce 40 million iPads next year, adds the report.

Security company McAfee has listed its expected 2011 "targets" for malicious activity, claiming Apple devices, smartphones, URL shorteners and geo-location services will be at the top of the list.

"We've seen significant advancements in device and social-network adoption, placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most," adds Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs (via Cnet). "These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss."

Apple, for example, has long been seen as "more secure" or "safer" than its Windows counterparts, but digging deeper into the matter has always resulted in the same conclusion. Apple devices appear safer because virus writers have not taken the time to write for them. Why waste time trying to infect 9 percent of the world's PCs, when you can take just as much time to write code that could infect the other 91? However, now that Apple devices,(Macs or iOS) are practically in every household, McAfee says the company will become a much larger target.

Sears has announced the launch of Alphaline Entertainment, an online movie download service that will give Sears and K-Mart customers a chance to download films the same day they hit DVD and Blu-ray.

The service is based on Sonic's RoxioNow platform.

Plans for the platform were announced in June and Sears is now rolling out the service, which will be available for HDTVs, media players and smartphones.

Sonic was just purchased last week by Rovi, months after the company bough the digital-compression software maker DivX to increase its digital presence.

CinemaNow, another Sonic online movie store, has been popular thanks to a partnership with Best Buy.

Sears is pushing into a market dominated by Google, Amazon, Netflix and Apple although those companies (for the most part) lack a brick-and-mortar presence.