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Research In Motion will sell their upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook for "under $500," undercutting the prices of the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Says Co-CEO Jim Balsillie: "The product will be very competitively priced."

The PlayBook will go on sale in the U.S. and Canada in the Q1 2011 and internationally in the Q2.

Apple's iPad, the clear market leader, sells for $499 at cheapest, for a model that only includes Wi-Fi and 16GB storage. The most expensive, which includes Wi-Fi, 3G and 32GB storage sells for $829.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab sells for $400, with a 2 year contract from the major wireless carriers.

The tablet will measure in smaller than the iPad at just 7 inches, but it is thinner at 9.7 millimeters.

Furthermore, the tablet has a rear and front-facing camera, and the ability to natively playback Flash videos.

BlackBerry smartphone owners can tether their devices and use the 3G on the tablet.

The Playbook will not run on RIM's new BlackBerry 6 OS, however, instead it will run on a brand new mobile operating system created by QNX Software, which was acquired by RIM earlier in the year.

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against Motorola today, accusing the mobile phone maker of charging "excessive royalties on network technology used in Microsoft's Xbox game system."

The suit is the second in the last month, as Microsoft sued the phone company over patents related to the Android mobile OS in October.

Reuters says the suit "alleges that Motorola breached its commitments to standards organizations that allow other companies to license its patents relating to wireless technology and video coding."

Those patents are used by Microsoft's gaming console.

The software giant is seeking monetary compensation.

According to multiple sources, Yahoo has made it clear it is willing to purchase deal-of-the-day behemoth Groupon for up to $4 billion USD.

Groupon localizes multiple deals per day to major markets in the United States. Offers range from coupons off food, to discounts on major surgeries, like laser eye corrective surgery.

Once a certain amount of users purchase the Groupon, the deal is activated.

Small businesses use Groupon as a way to get new clients in the door.

Although many other smaller rival services have popped up in the last year, Groupon remains the top dog in the market.

Yahoo has almost $3 billion in cash, and little debt.

TheStreet.com has said today that Microsoft only managed to sell 40,000 Windows Phone 7 devices on launch day in the U.S., not including the 90,000 given out to Microsoft employees.

While Microsoft would not comment on the report, T-Mobile said they were "receiving strong interest from our customers right out of the gate" for the HTC HD7.

In comparison, Apple says it sells 160,000 iPhones per day, while Google says 200,000 Android devices are activated daily.

One strategist says the Monday launch date did not help matters.

"Mondays aren't great launch days. They poured all that cash into it but they lost track of the fact that Fridays or Saturdays are the best launch days," said Michael Cote of Cote Collaborative.

Microsoft is said to have spent $100 million on advertising for WP7.

AT&T has slashed the price of the new RIM BlackBerry Torch in half today, just two months after its launch.

The price is now $99.99 directly from the carrier, with a two-year contract. Without contract the smartphone sells for $500.

AT&T must be having trouble selling the device, especially with Amazon selling it for 1 cent with contract.

When asked for comment, the carrier says the price cut is a holiday promotion.

Says AT&T: "Promotional pricing for wireless devices, especially in the holiday season is business-as-usual for AT&T and other carriers. We are pleased with consumer and business customer response to the BlackBerry Torch and we’re excited for the opportunity to offer it at such a compelling price point in time for the holiday."

If you think you may have an STD (sexually-transmitted disease) but are too embarrassed to see a doctor about it, you may be in luck soon.

British health officials are currently developing a mobile phone app that will allow users to get diagnosed within minutes, and without needing to head to a clinic or a doctor's office.

The impressive app would work as follows (via Guardian): "A user would put urine or saliva on a computer chip about the size of a USB chip and then plug it into their phone or computer. And voila, a diagnosis will appear right before their eyes."

There have been over $6 million dollars invested into the project already by the U.K. Clinical Research Collaboration.

Lead researcher Dr. Tariq Sadiq, consultant physician in sexual health and HIV at St. George's, University of London says: "Your mobile phone can be your mobile doctor. We need to tackle the rising epidemic of STIs, which have been going up and up and up. Britain is one of the worst [countries] in western Europe for teenage pregnancy and STIs."

If the app confirms you have an STD, such as chlamydia, gonorrhea or herpes, the app "tells you where to go next to get treatment."

T-Mobile has finally released the Android 2.1 software update for the Motorola Cliq smartphone today, meaning Android 1.5 may finally be gone.

Until this week, about 8 percent of all Android handsets available were still running 1.5, which launched in March 2009.

The update is not available OTA yet, so users will have to download it manually. The instructions link is posted at the bottom of this article as the process is somewhat complicated.

With 2.1 comes turn-by-turn navigation for Google Maps, voice search, updated Media Gallery and Connected Music Player apps, and speech-to-text.

There will now be six more home screens, widgets can be rearranged and resized, quick actions are added, and favorites can be given a space on the homepages.

The Exchange server has been updated, as well as battery-life saving widgets such as the Power Control toolbar. Users will also get a built-in Task Manager.

More importantly, Cliq users will finally be able to download most of the apps in the Android Market. There were very few still fully compatible with 1.5.

Smartphone maker HTC is allegedly creating its own app store for games, books and other applications, one that will be supported by Android and Windows Phone 7 devices.

Sources say "the team [behind the store] is understood initially to include a small number of staff based in Taiwan, with plans to expand to 100 people in different locations around the world."

HTC makes some of the world's most popular Android devices, such as the EVO 4G, Incredible, the MyTouch line and the G2.

The company has also just begun selling WP7 devices, including the HD7 and the Surround.

Says one analyst of the anticipated move: "App stores are table stakes," says Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies (via EW). "The phone makers feel they have to have them. Even Qualcomm, a phone chip supplier, offers an app store infrastructure to its customers, the phone makers. Companies feel obliged to provide ‘a complete stack’ or else they're out of the game."

Amazon has said today that it will begin paying publishers 70 percent of the retail price (after delivery costs) for all magazines and newspapers they sell via the Kindle Store.

The new move will take effect on December 1st.

Amazon says (via the WSJ), "newspapers and magazines will qualify for the new rate only if customers can read the title on all Kindle devices and applications, and in all countries where the publisher has rights."

Giving an example, Amazon says any newspaper that delivers 9MB of content per month would make $6.05 per subscription, after subtracting $1.35 for delivery costs.

Says Peter Larsen, director of Kindle Periodicals: "Increased revenue sharing is a great new tool for making Kindle better and easier than ever for publishers."

Just two weeks after LimeWire was permanently shut down by a federal ruling, a "secret dev team" has brought the P2P client back, dubbed the LimeWire Pirate Edition (LPE).

Says the team (via PCW): "On October 26 the remaining LimeWire developers were forced to shut down the company's servers and modify remote settings in the filesharing client to try to harm the Gnutella network. They were then laid off.

"Shortly after, a horde of piratical monkeys climbed aboard the abandoned ship, mended its sails, polished its cannons, and released it free to the community."

LPE is based off the LimeWire 5.6 beta, and is now available via warez and torrents sites.

The new updated client 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.

Kno has launched their massive 28-inch dual-screen tablet this week, selling it for $900.

A single-screen (not 28-inches) version will sell for $600.

CEO Osman Rashid said of the device (via BI): "Our long term direction is to be a platform, not just a hardware company. We have priced the product accordingly. It's about building a long term relationship with students."

That being said, the tablet maker will have a "maniacal focus on education," built not "as just another tablet with touchscreen" but as an "education device for the millions of students in the world."

Pre-orders start today for a December release date.

Tech sites should be getting review models in early December.

Toshiba has launched their first Android smartphone today, branding it with the popular Regza name normally only used on HDTVs.

Dubbed the Regza T-01C, the smartphone has a 4-inch display with 480x854 resolution.

Making it a high-end device is a massive 12.2MP camera, a 1Seg TV Tuner, and a fully waterproof body. The device will launch with Android 2.1, with an update to 2.2 coming in the Q1 2011.

As is standard, the device has 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and GPS.

Additionally, the device comes with a landscape stand to make TV watching easier.

The phone will go on sale in December in Japan.

The online retailer Kelkoo, along with market research firm GameVision Europe, have said today that they expect the Sony PlayStation 3 to win the holiday console sales "war," beating out the Xbox 360 and Wii.

A study from the companies showed that 1.8 million consumers in the UK plan to buy a console for the holidays.

Sales will be buoyed by the launch of the PlayStation Move and Microsoft Kinect.

Of those 1.8 millon sales, the PS3 will account for 41 percent, or 750,000 units.

The Wii is expected to sell 650,000 units and the 360 is expected to sell 400,000.

Verizon has officially unveiled the Samsung Continuum today, with a release date of November 11th.

The new Samsung smartphone will be the first to include a secondary display, a small 400x96 AMOLED ticker that displays live news, weather, time and texts/emails/IMs.

A special sensor turns on the small ticker display when users grab the bottom of the phone.

The main hardware uses a 3.4-inch 800x480 Super AMOLED display while the phone runs on a 1GHz Hummingbird processor. The smartphone has 8GB of internal memory and a 5MP camera with HD recording.

Unfortunately it will launch with the outdated Android 2.1 mobile OS.

Pricing starts at $199 with contract.

Google has announced today that it has partnered with Delta, AirTran and Virgin America to offer holiday travelers free in-flight Wi-Fi for domestic flights in the U.S.

The promotion starts on the 20th and will end on January 2nd, 2011.

Google will offer the Wi-Fi through Gogo, which normally costs $11 per day for in-flight broadband.

The Google Chrome team is sponsoring the free Wi-Fi, but the company made sure to note you can access it with any browser.

Overall, the promotion is expected to affect 15 million travelers on 700 planes.

Google offered the same promotion last year for the same period.