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Greg Peters, head of Netflix product development, has said today that Netflix for Android will hit a few 'select' smartphones beginning early next year.

Currently, Netflix streaming apps are available on the iPad, iPhone and Windows Phone 7 devices.

Says the company via their blog:

We regard Android as an exciting technology that drives a range of great devices that our members could use to instantly watch TV shows and movies from Netflix. We are eager to launch on these devices and are disappointed that we haven’t been able to do so already. The hurdle has been the lack of a generic and complete platform security and content protection mechanism available for Android. The same security issues that have led to piracy concerns on the Android platform have made it difficult for us to secure a common Digital Rights Management (DRM) system on these devices. Setting aside the debate around the value of content protection and DRM, they are requirements we must fulfill in order to obtain content from major studios for our subscribers to enjoy. Although we don’t have a common platform security mechanism and DRM, we are able to work with individual handset manufacturers to add content protection to their devices.

Multiple sources are reporting today that Facebook is set to unveil an e-mail service, one that will be instantly available to all 500 million members of the social networking giant.

If every current member signs up for an account, Facebook would leap into the top spot for email providers, surpassing Microsoft, who has 361 million users of Hotmail and Live. Yahoo is in second with 273 million, followed by Google's Gmail at 193 million.

The company has invited the press to a "significant" announcement on Monday, where it will unveil an alelged "Gmail killer."

An analyst with Gartner said this: "There is a huge opportunity for these guys to fundamentally change the nature of e-mail."

The analyst says the Facebook system could likely prioritize emails based on closeness to the sender, or make email exchanges into a conversation between a number of users, turning the "dinosaur" that is email into a social service.

We will be reporting on the situation on Monday.

It has been less than a month since Microsoft has launched their Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system but it appears it is already on the verge of being jailbroken.

The Australian developer Chris Walshie has already been able to "run native unmanaged code" on his stock WP7 device, giving hope that easy root access and eventually a jailbreak is upcoming.

It seems that the Samsung Network Profile application in WP7 runs on native code (and not Silverlight-DRM code), leaving an opening.

After looking deeper:

(Hounsell) documented some interesting characteristics of the application that gave it its native capabilities – most notably a DLL called “Microsoft.Phone.InteropServices”, which if poked the right way provided COM access.

Walshie, using that idea, was able to gain root access by deploying a WP7 app using the developer sideloading process.

AndroidandMe has put together a long article today, collecting all the info it could on the upcoming Nexus S "superphone," which will sell on T-Mobile, likely before the end of the year or in early January.

Apparently, the Nexus S might already in customer's hands had final prototypes not been scrapped at the last minute so Samsung could add a dual-core processor to the device.

Because the addition of a dual-core processor was last-minute, Google is still working on optimizing Android 2.3 Gingerbread to work with the processors.

The site says the pictures leaked to Engadget earlier this week were also leaked right from the source, an effort by Samsung to keep buzz going for the delayed device.

It is unclear what dual-core processor is in the device, but many are speculating it is the new Samsung Orion, which runs both cores at 1GHz.

Fox has said today that it will join its competitors ABC, CBS and NBC in blocking video from playing on Google's new Google TV service.

Last month, the first three broadcasters began blocking streams with Fox being the lone holdout. That has changed, as of this week.

Google responded: "Google TV enables access to all the Web content you already get today on your phone and PC, but it is ultimately the content owners’ choice to restrict their fans from accessing their content on the platform."

Google TV gives users a chance to watch web videos and browse websites alongside their regular TV shows.

Yesterday we reported that Microsoft was suing Motorola over patents relating to the Xbox 360 gaming system.

Today, Motorola has counter-sued, accusing Microsoft of infringing on 16 patents with their Xbox, Windows for servers, PCs, and mobile devices.

Says Motorola (via Cnet):

"The Motorola patents directed to PC and server software relate to Windows OS, digital video coding, e-mail technology including Exchange, Messenger, and Outlook, Windows Live instant messaging, and object-oriented software architecture. The Motorola patents directed to Windows mobile software relate to Windows Marketplace, Bing maps, and object-oriented software architecture."

Continues the company: "Motorola's R&D and intellectual property are of great importance to the Company and are renowned worldwide. We are committed to protecting the interests of our shareholders, customers and other stakeholders and are bringing this action against Microsoft in order to halt its infringement of key Motorola patents. Motorola has invested billions of dollars in R&D to create a deep and broad intellectual property portfolio and we will continue to do what is necessary to protect our proprietary technology. It is unfortunate that Microsoft has chosen the litigation path rather than entering into comprehensive licensing negotiations, as Motorola has mutually beneficial licensing relationships with the great majority of technology companies industrywide."

Wal-Mart has kicked off the holiday shopping season by offering free shipping on online purchases of 60,000 items, with no minimum purchase requirement.

The promotion will run from now until December 20th and is good on most items the company sells.

Says the company: "We want cost-conscious shoppers to save money so they can bring home more for less this holiday season."

Large rivals Target and J.C. Penney have also started free shipping promotions, but those have minimums. Target's is $50 and JCP's is $69.

The company says its offer will save customers up to $25 million during the holidays.

Orders will be in customer's hands within five business days, and if you are unsatisfied, return shipping is also free. You can also return an item to a local Wal-Mart if one is in your area.

Wal-Mart had 2010 fiscal revenue of $405 billion.

Although the company has denied it exists, pictures of the upcoming Samsung Nexus S Android smartphone have surfaced, leaving very little to the imagination.

Furthermore, Best Buy's Website has let it slip that a "Pure Google" Nexus S will be available "this holiday season."

The site also says the device will sell for T-Mobile.

Rumor has it that Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer of the device, which is still unconfirmed by Google.

The device will be the first to run Android 2.3 Gingerbread, and it may be the first to have native video chat available through an updated Google Talk app.

Furthermore, the phone will run on a 1.2GHz Hummingbird processor, feature a 4-inch Super-AMOLED display, a 5MP camera with autofocus and HD video recording, a 1.3MP front-side camera, 512MB RAM, and 16GB internal memory.

Earlier this week we reported that just two weeks after LimeWire was permanently shut down by a federal ruling, a "secret dev team" had brought the P2P client back, dubbing it the LimeWire Pirate Edition (LPE).

The LPE has the Ask.com toolbar removed, all need for the LimeWire LLC servers removed, all remote settings disabled, and all LimeWire Pro features activated, for free. There is also no adware or spyware.

LPE has been circulating via warez, P2P and torrents sites for a couple of days now.

Apparently, the real LimeWire is not a fan.

"We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the Internet purporting to use the LimeWire name," reads a notice on the LimeWire site.

"We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal."

Redmond Pie has put up very interesting instructions this week on how to install Android 2.2 Froyo on jailbroken iPhones without needing a PC.

The site uses Bootlace 2.1, a new piece of software similar to iPhoDroid.

Bootlace works on the iPhone 2G with iOS 3.1.2 or 3.1.3 and the iPhone 3G running iOS 3.1.2, 3.1.3, 4.0, 4.0.1, 4.0.2 and 4.1.

The software works with jailbreaking tools PwnageTool, Redsn0w and Blackra1n.

While Android runs painfully slow on the iPhone (say reviewers), you can check the instructions here: Install Android 2.2 on 2G/3G iPhone

Hulu CEO Jason Kilar has posted some interesting numbers for the popular streaming service today, as of the end of October.

The service has 30 million monthly users with users watching 260 million content streams. An individual TV episode is counted as content stream.

Hulu has 800 million ad impressions and 352 ad partners.

The big number is revenue. Hulu is on-track to earn $240 million for 2010, up from $25 million in 2008 and $108 million last year.

Hulu, a joint service by NBCU, Fox and ABC, just started Hulu Plus, a $10-a-month premium version of the service which offers back catalogs of available TV shows.

According to Gartner, Android has moved into second place in global smartphone sales, as of the Q3 2010.

The mobile OS saw 1400 percent growth year-over-year, thanks to strong sales of new devices.

Apple continued strong growth as well, seeing 91 percent growth year-on-year on an already established brand.

Adds Gartner research vice president Carolina Milanesi: "This is the third consecutive double-digit increase in sales year-on-year, indicating that consumer demand is healthy. This quarter saw Apple and Android drive record smartphone sales."

Smartphone sales almost doubled, exploding from 41 million to 81 million year-over-year.

In the smartphone market, Symbian remained king, with a 36.6 percent market share. Android took second at 25.5 percent, and iOS took 16.7 percent, good for third. BlackBerry moved down to fourth, with 14.8 percent.

Windows Mobile and other mobile OS accounted for the remaining 6.4 percent.

Starting next week, Sprint customers can purchase a Zte Peel, which will add 3G capabilities to the Apple iPod Touch.

The Peel attaches to 2G and 3G Touches.

User slide their Touch devices into the the Peel and instantly connect to Sprint's 3G data network by pressing a button.

There are many texting applications in the App Store as well as Skype so the iPod Touch can be used as a bulky smartphone of sorts, as long as you are willing to pay $30 a month for 1GB of 3G data bandwidth through Sprint.

The Peel itself costs $80.

"ZTE PEEL unlocks the wonderful user interface and Web experience of Apple's popular iPod touch and transforms it into a powerful mobile device using the Sprint 3G network," adds Fared Adib, vice president-Product Development. "When combined with Sprint's 3G network, ZTE PEEL turns an iPod touch from a portable device limited by the availability of Wi-Fi to a mobility tool free to browse the Web and use applications anytime, anywhere while on Sprint's 3G network."

Skype has released the updated Skype for Android software today, version 1.0.1.

Amongst the most notable improvements are:

* 320*240 and 240*400 screen resolutions are now supported.
* Hardware back key is now supported.
* Signing out from Skype now exits Skype.
* Reduced power consumption in idle mode.
* Improved login stability and behavior.
* Improved performance with large contact lists.
* Reduced application size.
* General bug fixes.

More phones are now supported by the popular software, including devices with "lower screen resolutions" such as the WildFire, which has 320x240 resolution.

Skype has added hardware back key support, meaning if you hit the back key on your smartphone, the user interface will close but the program will still run in the background, allowing you to continue receiving messages and calls.

If you sign out, then the Skype application exits.

You can download the software from the Android Market.

BBC Worldwide CEO John Smith has said today that the popular iPlayer streaming service will go global next year, giving users around the world a chance to enjoy shows like Top Gear and Doctor Who, which normally air in the UK.

The service will likely be free with ads, although the BBC may decide to charge a subscription fee.

After receiving the approval of the BBC Trust, Smith says the plans are now to introduce the service next year. Executives in the company have said the Trust's decision will allow them to raise funds. Earlier this year the government froze the license fee.

Adds Smith: "Not only will that mean international fans of, for example, Doctor Who can get their fix legitimately [rather than downloading programmes illegally], but it has the potential of opening up a new revenue stream for the entire UK production industry, alongside sales to traditional broadcasters."

Notes Luke Bradley-Jones, MD of Global iPlayer: "Our research has shown there is an international audience of British TV fans that are frequently watching TV online – and we are excited about rolling out our iPlayer VOD [video-on-demand] service to meet and grow this demand. We strongly believe the Global iPlayer is going to offer an excellent opportunity for the UK's creative industry to directly reach much sought after digital audiences and revenue streams around the world."