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The Wall Street Journal reported that Google Inc. has requested that manufacturers of televisions based on its software delay their release, citing sources close to the company.

Several major electronics companies are getting ready to bring Google TV-ready television sets to the market around the world. Google has allegedly asked them now to delay the planned introduction of the televisions to the market, saying it will give the company time to improve the software.

Televisions armed with Google TV software lets users browse the Internet and use applications without the need for an external set-top-box. Sony Corp. and Logitech already have introduced devices based on Google TV.

LG Group, which includes LG Electronics, LG Display and LG Innotek, has announced it will increase its investment in 2011 by 12 percent.

The $18.2 billion investment will focus on strengthening its position in the market for smartphone handsets, as well as give it an extra boost in its TVs and display devices segment. While two million Optimus One smartphones have been sold since its October launch, LG's handset business is making losses.

"The focus for 2011 will be bolstering our core businesses of smartphones, tablets, TVs and large-sized displays and also supporting new growth engines such as solar cell, new types of displays and small-sized display panels for smartphones and tablets," the group said in a statement.

eBay Inc., the world's online auction giant, has announced it will buy Germany's largest shopping club, Brands4Friends.

The company will acquire Brands4Friends to boost its position in the European markets in a deal worth $200 million. It will obtain Brands4Friends' equity interests in SecretSales.com, a UK shopping site and in the Japanese brands4friend.jp service.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011, and eBay said it does not expect the acquisition to have a material impact on its financial results for the year.

China Mobile, which has the largest mobile telecommunications network in the world, revealed that it hit a massive 579.6 million subscribers in November.

The state-owned enterprise, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Hong Kong stock exchange, said the figure included 18.8 million users of its relatively new 3G Network. China Mobile also is said to be the most valuable mobile telecommunications company in the world.

Rapid expansion of China Mobile's 2G network across mainland China meant that by 2006, over 97 percent of China's massive population lived in an area where there was reception, giving it a much greater share of rural market than any of its competitors.

Motorola has taken a shot at the iPad and Galaxy Tab today, while at the same time hyping up its upcoming Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet.

The teaser video (posted), shows a museum of tablets, starting with an Egyptian Hieroglyphics Tablet from 3200 BC and concluding with the iPad and Galaxy Tab, released earlier in 2010.

Motorola, via @MotoMobile, tweeted today: "Might want to hold off on that tablet purchase until 2011," before linking the video.

The company will launch the Android tablet at CES 2011 next year.

In all CGI, the video walks the viewers through a museum of tablets, starting with the aforementioned Egyptian Hieroglyphics Tablet, moving to the Ten Commandments, then the Rosetta Stone, Mayan tablets, 1989's GriDPad and finally the 2010 tablets before panning back to a Motorola stand with a bee buzzing around it, in a reference to Honeycomb.

PCMag has some blurry pics of the tablet here.

After being in closed beta since early this year, alternative text input software Swype has moved to open beta, giving most Android users a chance to try the application.

For those that have not used the software or seen commercials, Swype lets users slide their finger over the touchscreen to spell words, allowing for typing speeds much faster than normal input, or even physical keyboard input.

Using predictive design, the software will determine what word you are trying to type, even if you spell it wrong when sliding.

Current beta users will get a nice upgrade, as well. Reads the Swype site:

First and foremost - We've resolved an accuracy issue that was introduced in the last beta update. Refer to the changelog for more detail on this critical fix.

Second - Swype BETA for Android now supports Double-Tap-to-Edit! Swype choose a wrong word? Just tap the word twice to bring up the word choice window, pick the correct word, and the cursor will return to wherever it was before. It doesn't get any simpler! See a video demonstration, and check out our other tips and tricks.

And Third - Swype BETA for Android now includes a Voice-to-Text button (available for QWERTY layouts ONLY)! You MUST have Google Voice Search pre-integrated in your ROM for this feature to work. We wish everyone could access it, and are working to adapt our existing code to support versions of Voice Search downloaded from the market, as well as other voice search providers, in our next update.

Roku, despite new competition from Apple, Google and others, seems to be striving in the set-top market, set to hit its millionth sale by the end of the year.

Revenue will surpass $50 million for 2010 and expects revenue to top $100 million in 2011.

Roku CEO Anthony Wood says a huge portion of its sales (25 percent) come from Amazon, which currently shows the $80 Roku XD at #9 on the best-selling gadgets list, followed by the $100 XDS player at #11.

Rivals, like the $100 Apple TV, are further down the list at #23, followed way further down by the Logitech Revue at #110 and the Boxee Box at #171.

At the same price as the Apple TV, the XDS offers more features, including 1080p output.

To stay relevant, Roku will "counter with broader retail distribution, more products via licensing deals (such as the new Netgear Roku device), and more channels, bringing more content to its devices," adds BI.

Microsoft is currently working on improving Kinect accuracy by 400 percent, making it so the motion-control system can even read finger movements and hand rotations.

The team behind Kinect is working on a compression technology that will allow a much larger amount of data to pass from the Kinect to the Xbox 360.

When completed, Microsoft will update the hardware with a firmware update to allow the new technology.

The current depth sensor, explains EG is limited to 320x240 resolution and 30 fps, but the update will expand it to 640x480.

The USB controller interface is capable of a full 35MB/s but currently uses only 15MB/s.

"This artificial limit is in place because multiple USB devices can be used at once on an Xbox 360. But Microsoft is working on a technology to allow greater throughput in this regard," adds Eurogamer.

AT&T and Qualcomm have jointly announced today that the carrier will purchase the wireless spectrum licenses in the 700 MHz band from the telecom R&D company for $1.925 billion.

By doing so, AT&T will be able to offer 4G mobile broadband to millions of more customers in the near future.

Qualcomm was using the licenses to support the failed FLO TV service. The company has said it will fully shutdown the service in March.

The press release explains that the "spectrum covers more than 300 million people total nationwide: 12 MHz of Lower 700 MHz D and E block spectrum covers more than 70 million people in five of the top 15 U.S. metropolitan areas - New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and San Francisco; 6 MHz of Lower 700 MHz D block spectrum covers more than 230 million people across the rest of the U.S."

AT&T will begin deploying the new spectrum once handset manufacturers begin releasing compatible phones.

Both companies expect the sale to close in the Q2 2011.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken a vacation to China this month, taking time to meet with Baidu CEO Robin Li.

Baidu is considered the 'Google of China,' being far-and-away the most used search engine in the nation.

China has 1.3 billion citizens, and Facebook, along with other social networking sites, is banned in the country.

Zuckerberg has made it clear he has interest in the Chinese market, which has over 400 million active Internet users.

A spokesperson for Baidu was quick to quash any rumors that the search giant may be interested in buying Facebook: "Rumors that Baidu is about to acquire Facebook are greatly exaggerated. C'mon people. Robin and Mark have known each other for a while. Mark's interest in China is well known. Keep the speculation in check."

Zuckerberg has been learning Mandarin all year, studying one hour per day as a way to "understand the language, the culture, the mindset -- it's just such an important part of the world."

Although unconfirmed by either company, Eldar Murtazin is reporting this week that Nokia is in early talks with Microsoft to begin building smartphones run on Windows Phone 7.

The talks were started by Nokia management.

If true, the new Windows Phone devices will be sold "under the Nokia brand, via Nokia distribution channels" and will include some standard Nokia features.

Nokia has long run their smartphone on the Symbian platform, and recently launched Meego, in a partnership with Intel.

Meego is still in early stages, however.

For now this is rumor, by Murtazin is a very reputable source known for his insider sources in the mobile phone industry.

Marking the first update since they purchased Tapulous in early July, Disney has launched Tap Tap Revenge 4 today for iOS devices.

As with past versions, the interactive music game is free to download, but premium music packs will cost you money.

The latest version will feature music from Linkin Park, Katy Perry, Benny Benassi, My Chemical Romance, Kid Cudi, Justin Timberlake, Daft Punk, Train, Far East Movement, Hinder, Edward Maya, Selena Gomez & the Scene, Florence and the Machine, Cee-Lo, Nicki Minaj, Young MC, and Bad Religion.

Gamers can purchase premium track packs from most of the above mentioned artists.

Before their buyout, Tapulous said they were making over $1 million per month in revenue from the game.

With the RIAA asking for $1 billion in copyright infringement damages from Lime Group LLC, providers of the LimeWire gnutella P2P client, a federal judge has ordered both parties to produce detailed analysis on the financial impact of songs shared using the LimeWire P2P client.

In October the RIAA was granted a permanent injunction against LimeWire, requiring Lime Group to stop distributing and supporting the software.

RIAA lawyers had argued that proving actual damages would be too much of a burden for the labels, but the judge apparently felt the defendants' right to mount a defense trumped the labels' convenience.

EU officials have raised concern over Intel's $7.68 billion bid for security software firm McAfee, which could in turn lead to a delay in closing the transaction.

Anti-trust regulators in the European Union have expressed preliminary concerns, says the WSJ, which may lead to an extended examination into the proposed deal.

Of focus is "Intel's stated desire to incorporate security features into its widely used microprocessor chips."

EU regulators say that fact may give McAfee an unfair advantage over other security rivals, like Norton.

Intel is the clear leader in the microprocessor market.

So far, the EU has only sent out preliminary questionnaires to other security-software firms asking if Intel could "embed security functions into its chips and whether any of them could be reserved to work only with McAfee software."

Peter Kafka of AllThingsD has reported this weekend that the upcoming iPad-only newspaper "The Daily" will launch on January 17th.

Citing multiple sources, Kafka says that date is pretty set in stone, dispelling most past rumors that had the newspaper launching in December.

The Daily will sell for .99 a week, will use mixed media content such as video in most articles, and will even have 3D effects in some articles.

News Corp. has already hired over 30 writers for the Daily.

The Daily will be the first subscription-based paper on the iPad that will be billed automatically by iTunes.