Another episode in the continuing saga of Skype getting better in "the rest of the world" first, UK-based mobile carrier 3 has introduced the Skypephone, the market's first cellular device designed around the free peer-to-peer telephone service.

Skype is ideally suited for those who frequently make international calls, and fans of the service consider it a smart and urbane alternative to shelling out huge sums to a phone company. The wired handsets and WiFi phones of recent past, however, have not exactly meshed with the image of the classy, jet-setting Skype user.

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Flash memory leader SanDisk has filed patent infringement suits against no fewer than 25 companies in the US International Trade Commission, as well as in Federal Court.

Though public statements have yet to reveal which of SanDisk's over 780 U.S-issued patents (and over 400 foreign-issued patents) the companies are infringing upon, SanDisk says it is enforcing its patents to be fair to third parties who legitimately license from them.

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In response to what its parent company today called the top request voiced by its "passionate customer base," video download service Vongo announced today the 2.0 revision of its software, which now supports more Windows Media Center Extenders.

Vongo previously supported only two Windows Media Center 2 devices: the Toshiba Gigabeat S and V series. It has now more than tripled that lineup with the addition of the Archos 405 and 605WiFi, the Creative ZEN, the award-winning ZEN Vision: M, and ZEN Vision: W.

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Research In Motion Ltd. today launched its faster, more optimized Facebook application for Blackberry, at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment show in San Francisco.

The application is non browser-based, giving the user access to all the site's "essential" features: uploading photos (applicable to the Pearl or Curve handsets), adding friends, poking, wall posting, and private messaging. All these actions are very quickly executed, according to Crackberry forum user postings, and only lag a few seconds behind the user's Facebook site.

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Sophos Labs, an international firm specializing in IT security and control, has published its most recent "dirty dozen" report, saying that the United States relays more spam than any other country by a tremendous margin.

This is not a newly-achieved position, as the company has been releasing these reports for several years, and it is always topped by the United States.

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Samsung announced at the CTIA Wireless show in San Francisco yesterday that its Blackjack II smartphone will be available later this year through AT&T. The i617 is much like its predecessor in appearance and profile, but has undergone some design tweaks.

Most notably missing from the handset is the scroll wheel, which made the Blackjack behave much like a Blackberry. It has been replaced by an iPod-style jogwheel above the keypad.

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WiMAX technology is on the cusp of coming fully into the marketplace, and Cisco has seized an early opportunity in acquiring mobile WiMAX pioneer Navini Networks for $330 million.

The idea for long-range broadband-capable wireless connectivity has been in existence for several years, but due to the changing face of WiMAX as we know it, and varying degrees of adoption by big companies, actual developments have been fewer than the regulations pertaining to them.

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MySpace announced today that through a partnership with Oberon Media, it will add a section of free, multiplayer games to the popular social networking site.

Oberon, a worldwide provider of multi-platform casual games, has previously worked with Microsoft, Comcast, AOL Games, Verizon, France Telecom, and NHN. Such games are turning into a huge industry, with growth expected to double to over $500 million in revenue this year.

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Recently leaked on Buy.com, SanDisk's new Sansa TakeTV device touts the ability to take PC video content and play it on your TV with a remote control-enabled cradle.

Launched this morning, the TakeTV unit consists of a USB drive with 4 or 8 GB of space, a USB dock with video outs, and a nested remote. Supported formats include DivX, XVID and MPEG-4.

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An Associated Press reporter ran a test of two computers connected to the Internet with Comcast cable modems in Philadelphia and San Francisco, in order to see if reports of the cable provider blocking file sharing programs were true.

Using a copy of the King James Bible -- not under copyright and free to share -- and file swapping program BitTorrent, the reporter found the transfer repeatedly blocked.

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British intelligence agency GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) will embed advertisements in online multi-player games in order to recruit spies, the Times newspaper reported Friday.

The advertisements will begin to appear later this month in various locations in the gaming environments, including prominent billboards. Those games featuring the ads include: Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Rainbow Six Vegas, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Need for Speed: Carbon.

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Microsoft announced its free Live Search 411 service, a directory assistance line with more features than the average local directory listing.

Directory assistance, based on its traditional pay-per-use model, is a standard in phone service and subsequently a multi-billion dollar industry.

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Best Buy announced today that it has pulled all remaining analog television products from store shelves and will henceforth only sell digital tuners. The company is the first consumer electronics retailer to publicly announce its departure from the analog television business.

Congress has mandated that the FCC re-claim the wireless spectrum used for analog TV by January 2009. The spectrum is being auctioned early next year, with Verizon and Google among the interested bidders. Consumers will soon begin seeing ads on TV announcing the impending transition to digital.

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The Sao Paolo and Rio de Janiero offices of Cisco in Brazil were temporarily closed yesterday, and employees were reportedly arrested under suspicion of tax fraud amounting to approximately $830 million dollars in unpaid duties.

Cisco is under major tax fraud investigation for allegedly using tax havens like Panama, the Bahamas, and the British Virgin Islands to ship undervalued goods into Brazil to avoid paying applicable duties. Its Brazilian unit is believed to have imported $500 million worth of network and telecommunications equipment over the course of five years without paying necessary taxes.

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MySpace today announced a new licensing agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment that shares revenues gained from sponsorship and advertising, and lets the site post video and audio content from the label's artists.

Sony BMG, one of the big five record labels, encompasses a tremendous amount of music, with over 60 labels under its banner including such groups as RCA, Arista, Columbia, Epic, Jive, and Rough Trade.

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