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Sony has finally launched their music streaming service Qriocity, in an effort to take a share of the still growing online music market.

Called, in full, "Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity," the service is cloud-based and allows subscribers to listen to 6 million tracks via their PS3, Bravia HDTVs and other Sony Internet-connected devices.

Additionally, the service can sync with your existing library.

Sony executive vice president Kazuo Hirai says the service will help enhance the appeal of their Internet-connected products over similar devices and TV from Samsung and others.

The Qriocity video-on-demand service has been available for some months now in Europe and the U.S.

Music Unlimited has two tiers; "basic" at £3.99 a month and "premium" at £9.99 per month. A premium subscription gives access to "Top 100" channels and the ability to create playlists and favorites.

The service is available now in the UK and Ireland and will hit Canada, Australia, Italy, Spain, France and the U.S. in 2011.

Los Angeles' very own anti-piracy task force, under Operation Chimney Sweep, has arrested 10 people and seized over $4 million worth of pirated movies, music and counterfeit apparel.

L.A. city controller Wendy Greuel says the arrest and raids took place all throughout L.A. by "dozens of officers."

A number of trade group executives including Larry Hahn of the MPAA and Marcus Cohen of the RIAA were delighted by the news and thanked the LAPD for their "sustained commitments."

Adds Cohen (via THR):

"Their hard work has resulted in heightened consumer awareness, more criminals off the street, the implementation of meaningful new policies and -- during this holiday season and in this difficult economic time -- the preservation of many jobs of those in the creative community whose livelihoods are directly threatened by this theft. This historic holiday enforcement action sends a strong message to criminals that this kind of illegal activity won't be tolerated while raising a red flag for last-minute holiday shoppers."

FoxNews has reported today that Palm, purchased by HP in April, will unveil three tablets at the upcoming CES in January, taking on the iPad and Android devices.

Dubbed the PalmPad, Palm will release three models, each with small hardware differences.

Each tablet will run on WebOS 2.5.1, an upcoming update to the mobile operating system.

The PalmPad will have 4G connectivity to the Sprint network and "hardware specs nearly identical to the iPad."

Differentiating itself from the iPad is a USB 3.0 port and a mini-HDMI port. Like the rumored iPad 2, the PalmPad will have a 3MP rear camera and a 1.3MP front-side camera, each with LED flash.

Ready for a March 2011 launch, the PalmPad will be around 10-inches, rounded curves, weigh 1.25 pounds, and be thinner than the iPad.

Google has said this week that it will extend its free Gmail calling service through 2011.

'Call Phones from Gmail' was launched in August and gives any Gmail user the chance to make free domestic phone calls from their computers.

The service uses Google's Voice phone management software.

Although the tool was supposed to end next week, Google says (via EW): "In the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year, we're extending free calling for all of 2011."

To use the feature, Gmail users need to download the voice and video plug-in and then simply hit "Call Phone" from the menu bar on the left and then type in the recipient's phone number in the virtual keypad.

According to Bloomberg, Amazon is on pace to sell 8 million Kindle e-readers this year, much higher than analysts have predicted.

The news agency cites people "aware of the company’s sales projections," and says the 8 million sales figure should be hit easily. Analysts, on average, had anticipated 5 million sales.

These same sources also say Amazon sold 2.4 million Kindles last year.

Goldman Sachs had estimated 4-5 million, Caris & Co had predicted 4.8 million and Citigroup, Barclays Capital, BGC Partners LP and ThinkEquity all noted anticipated sales of 5 million.

Amazon recently began selling a thinner, lighter Wi-Fi-only model of their Kindle for $139, seeing strong sales after its launch.

The e-tailing giant has not confirmed the numbers.

Rivals Sony and Barnes & Noble do not disclose their e-reader sales, either.

After just 4 days in the store, Apple has pulled a WikiLeaks app from its iOS App Store.

The application provided WikiLeaks updates from the service's Twitter account, along with access to WikiLeaks documents.

Submitted to the store for approval on December 11th, developer Igor Barinov says the app was accepted last week and has already been removed.

The app cost $2 and Barinov says half the money made from the sales was donated to WikiLeaks.

Barinov claims to have already sent $1000 to Wikileaks.

A number of prominent banks and financial institutions have cut off all donations to WikiLeaks, including Bank of America and MasterCard.

Not surprisingly, the world's all-time highest grossing film was also the most pirated in 2010.

According to figures from TorrentFreak, the blockbuster was downloaded from torrent sites 16,580,000 times this year beating out the next film by over 30 percent.

In 2009, the most pirated film was Star Trek, which was downloaded 10.8 million times.

Despite the large amount of unauthorized downloads, the film still managed to gross $2.8 billion at the box office, beating out Cameron's last epic, "Titanic" for the top spot.

Second on the pirated list was Kick-Ass, which saw an early R5 (Russian DVDRip with English audio) release and downloads of 11.4 million.

Inception fought its way to third on the list, making strong strides in the last two months as DVD quality versions began to emerge.

Microsoft corporate VP Achim Berg has said today that the company has sold 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 devices in just six weeks, higher than most expectations.

Says Berg: "We are pleased that phone manufacturers sold over 1.5 million phones in the first six weeks, which helps build customer momentum and retail presence."

It is important to note that those figures seem to imply that the 1.5 million figure is how many handsets have been sold to carriers and distributors, not how many have been sold to retail end-users.

Regardless, most analysts had sales at 200,000 so the new number is shocking.

Dell, HTC, LG and Samsung each sell Windows Phone 7 smartphones, available in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.

Notes Berg (via IW):

"Sales are ramping well as our reputation is growing for offering users a unique experience and are in line with our expectations – especially when compared to other new platform introductions. With a new platform you have to look at a couple of things, first of all customer satisfaction. As I mentioned before, we’ve seen great response on the complete mobile phone experience. We know we have tough competition, and this is a completely new product. We’re in the race – it’s not a sprint but we are certainly gaining momentum and we’re in it for the long run."

Google has confirmed today that an OTA Android 2.3 update for the Nexus One is on the way, marking the first device outside of the Nexus S to get the new firmware.

Says the tweet: "The Gingerbread OTA for Nexus One will happen in the coming weeks. Just hang tight!"

Gingerbread brings NFC support, updated UI features, better battery life, an upgraded app manager, and front-side camera video conferencing updates.

The Android 2.3 source code was just made available to developers on Friday.

Google's Nexus One remains one of the few pure "Vanilla" Android experiences, not including any app packs or services from carriers like Verizon or T-Mobile.

Apple has said today that it expects to hit 1 million new Apple TV units sold, 80 days after launch.

The second-generation Apple TV centers more on streaming than the past model, which included a hard drive.

Apple said in October that they had sold 250,000 units after six weeks.

The Apple TV costs $99, cheaper than rivals boxes by Boxee and Logitech, but more expensive than popular set-tops by Roku.

Earlier this week, Roku announced it too expected to hit 1 million set-tops sold in 2010.

Time Magazine ranked the Apple TV #7 in its list of top 10 gadgets of 2010.

Adobe has posted its first-ever $1 billion quarter, a large 32 percent growth year-over-year.

For their record fourth quarter, Adobe posted revenue of $1.008 billion, up from $757 million in the same period last year.

In the 3Q this year, Adobe posted revenue of $990 million.

For the year, the company saw revenue explode 29 percent, from $2.95 billion to $3.8 billion.

Adds CEO Shantanu Narayen:

"We posted our first billion dollar quarter and record annual revenue in 2010, driven by outstanding performance across all of our major businesses, and we are entering 2011 with strong momentum."

The Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales, Lord Judge (not a typo, that is his surname), has given the green light for tweeting inside a court room.

He said that using mobile devices to send tweets out for the general public's consumption during proceedings is fine if the judge believes it will not interfere with the administration of justice. The recording of sounds or images during a court hearing remains illegal.

The question around using social networking sites such as Twitter from a court room came to light as journalists used mobile handsets to tweet from the court room at a bail hearing of Julian Assange, founder of the Wikileaks website.

"The use of an unobtrusive, hand-held, virtually silent piece of modern equipment for the purposes of simultaneous reporting of proceedings to the outside world as they unfold in court is unlikely to interfere with the proper administration of justice," Lord Judge ruled.

Toshiba Corp. will show off its 3D television sets that do not require that a viewer to wear glasses to witness the 3D effect from the displays.

At CEATEC in Japan earlier this year, Toshiba's 12-inch and a 20-inch 3D glasses-free televisions drew large crowds that wanted to experience it first hand. The displays featured a thin sheet of small lenses in front of the display that split light from the television to one of nine points in front of the TV.

To witness the 3D effect, a viewer needs to view from one of these spots. Toshiba will bring the televisions to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January. "It has been three months, I think we should show [the TVs] with better technology," said Masaaki Oosumi, president of Toshiba's digital media network unit.

Oosumi recognized that to make a splash in the United States, the televisions would have to offer a good 3D effect without glasses and be larger than the screens currently shown. While both the 12-inch and 20-inch products go on sale in Japan before the end of the month, he expects the U.S. market would require sets that are 40-inches or larger.

A British conservative MP is pushing for Internet Service Providers (ISP) to be forced to block Internet pornography by default to its subscribers.

Claire Perry, elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Devizes this year, is using children as usual as an excuse for the government-forced censorship. "We are not coming at this from an anti-porn perspective. We just want to make sure our children aren't stumbling across things we don’t want them to see." she told the Sunday Times.

The British government will meet with UK ISPs next month to discuss censoring Internet porn, including the possibility of implementing a system that would force Internet subscribers to request access to pornographic content. The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) in the UK is (obviously) uninterested in such a system being put in place.

Putting aside the inevitable negative reaction from British Internet users who would have to inform their ISP of their intention to view pornographic material, ISPA also points out that such a system would be extremely difficult to implement and would be very expensive to maintain.

A Sony Corp. executive has revealed that the electronics giant is likely to fall short of its LCD television sales target this year.

Sony Executive Deputy President Hiroshi Yoshioka revealed to media sources that the company would struggle to make the division profitable this year, reports Reuters. He also said the company is not expecting a substantial change in the business for the next financial year either.

This year has been a good year for sales of new television sets in the Japan, driven by the digitization of terrestrial broadcasting and a government stimulus plan. However, these factors won't help Sony beyond December in the country.

Additionally, the market is under-performing in the United States where unemployment remains very high. Best Buy shocked its investors last week by announcing a drop in quarterly sales at its existing stores in the U.S, saying that sales of 3D television sets fell behind industry expectations.