Ed Oswald

A California law that prevents the sale of violent video games to minors may end up being struck down in the US Supreme Court as justices appeared to question its constitutionality. At issue is the First Amendment right of the video game developers, which may be infringed by the application of the law.

Justices suggested that if California was to ban violent video games, then it would also need to ban other violent forms of media. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, historically a more liberal voice on the court, may have summarized the overall sentiment of the court best by saying, "what makes video games so special?"

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New data confirms that the Android platform has taken a commanding position in the smartphone market, thanks to wider distribution and a much broader selection of phone models than the iPhone. Data from research firm Canalys indicates that Android phones made up nearly 44 percent of all smartphones sold in the US in the third quarter.

Apple took second spot with 26 percent of the market, and RIM third with a little over 24 percent. Apple can take some solace in the results however: the iPhone still remains the best selling smartphone model by a significant margin.

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In yet another black eye for social networking site Facebook, the site disclosed Friday that several developers were selling user data to a third-party. User IDs, or unique identifiers given to every registered member of the site, allow an application to look up a user's public personal information.

As a result of the discovery the offending developers have been placed on a six-month suspension. While not identifying those at fault, the company did say at least one data broker -- RapLeaf, Inc. -- came forward to assist in the investigation. It was not immediately clear if RapLeaf was the purchasing broker, although it agreed to delete any user IDs in its possession.

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Despite the fact that Android OS is now outselling iOS devices as a whole according to most surveys, Apple is still managing to stay at the top of the heap in smartphone sales themselves. According to IDC's Worldwide Phone Tracker, Apple is now the fourth biggest manufacturer of phones -- smart or not -- overall.

In the third quarter of this year, the company shipped some 14.1 million units, likely due to strong sales of the iPhone 4. This was an increase of 90 percent over last year, and by far the biggest jump for any manufacturer.

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Having all but lost the social networking war, MySpace on Wednesday decided to lean on one of the few areas where it still has a good deal of clout: entertainment. The newly redesigned MySpace focuses less on the "friends" aspect it pioneered in the space, and more on sharing videos, music, and games with friends.

The site says it wants to become a "social entertainment destination" for the Generation 'Y' crowd. CEO Mike Jones said that the move marked a complete change in strategy for the company, and focused on its existing strengths. This change may also be the last best hope for the site given how far it has fallen.

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The white iPhone 4 may never see the light of day as Apple admitted Tuesday that it would not meet its end of year goal for the model's release. When pressed on the issue by Reuters, a spokesperson said the white iPhone won't make an appearance until at least Spring 2011.

Based on the release schedules of the iPhone since its launch, Apple's admission suggests that white will not be a color option for the iPhone 4. Although the company has only offered the reasoning that the model has been more "challenging to manufacture than we originally expected," it appears the color itself is the problem.

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After nearly three decades on the market, Sony quietly stopped sales of its Walkman portable cassette recorder in Japan on Friday. While the company will continue to sell the model in developing countries, its exit from the Japanese market seems to suggest its time is running out.

"There is still demand in certain regions, including emerging markets, but in Japan there has been a shift to other forms of recording media," a spokesperson said of the company's decision. Indeed, Sony itself did its part to speed up the death of the market it had all but created on its own.

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In an attempt to keep the PC in the minds of consumers as a capable gaming console, Microsoft on Friday announced that it would launch a web-based gaming store that would allow for the purchase of digital copies of both new and old titles. The store opens on November 15.

While Microsoft itself is a producer of some titles through its own in-house game development subsidiaries, the store would also house titles from its partners as well. "We plan to deliver some of our biggest and best PC franchises on Games for Windows Marketplace from day one," Capcom strategy chief Christian Svensson said in a statement.

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Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia reported earnings much higher than expected, a month after current CEO Stephen Elop took the reins from longtime chief Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo in September. The company reported a profit of 322 million euros, much higher than the 182.5 million euros expected by analysts.

Regardless, this was not enough to save the jobs of about 1,800 employees, whose jobs were eliminated in an effort to streamline the company's operations. In a statement, Elop hinted that these cuts may be only the beginning as the industry as a whole is going through "a remarkably disruptive time."

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In a rare appearance in Apple's quarterly results call with financial analysts, CEO Steve Jobs briefly took over the call to take the offense in the cell phone debate which increasingly looks to be turning against the company. Some of his most pointed comments came over Google's claims that it is more open than iOS.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently referred to iOS as a closed platform, Jobs turned around and pointed out that no matter how open the code is itself, manufacturers and carriers still can choose to add their own proprietary code -- and even restrict certain features.

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In what could be potentially damaging to a company already being criticized over its privacy issues, Facebook admitted late Sunday that it had knowledge of developers passing information called user IDs within applications. The user ID is a unique set of numbers that identify users on the site.

Facebook engineer Mike Vernal said in a blog post that in most cases the company believed developers were doing this unintentionally, but regardless it was a violation of the social networking site's privacy policy. Vernal did however say the press was overblowing the situation.

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Apple was awarded a patent on technologies that would allow for the control of content sent and received to a mobile device, essentially filtering out any objectionable content within text messages. With "sexting" becoming ever more prevalent, a read through the patent which was published online Tuesday has lead some to call it the "anti-sexting" patent.

Parental controls are added to the device, which allows the administrator to choose how content is filtered. The filtering occurs as the message is typed, blocking certain text from being entered before it is sent. It could even be blocked altogether depending on the settings. In any case, the filtering occurs before the text is either sent or received.

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In what could be the biggest acquisition yet in the mobile gaming space, Japanese mobile Internet conglomerate DeNA said Tuesday it will acquire San Francisco-based mobile developer Ngcomo in a transaction valued at some $400 million USD.

DeNA will initially pay $300 million in cash and securities, however Ngcomo's shareholders could receive up to $100 million additionally if the company reaches certain "performance milestones" through the end of next year. The company is one of Apple's most successful developers with over 60 million downloads.

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Motorola subsidiary Motorola Mobility sued Apple on Wednesday, claiming the Cupertino company infringed on 18 patents it holds covering a range of wireless technologies. The suit was filed in two US District courts: one in the Northern District of Illinois and the other in the Southern District of Florida.

Among the technologies covered are those related to GPRS and 3G, as well as 802.11 wireless Internet. Other functions that the patents cover include technologies which have become staples of the iPhone including multi-device synchronization, proximity sensors, and location based services.

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Derided by some at its launch as a device with no market, Apple's iPad has now proven to be one of the most successful consumer electronic device launches ever, according to Bernstein Research retail analyst Colin McGranahan. He expects the device to have a sell through rate to be about 4.5 million units per quarter.

This is far faster than the iPhone, which sold one million units in its initial launch quarter, and far ahead of the 350,000 DVD players sold in its first year, CNBC reported Tuesday. Repeating the statements of some analysts that the iPad would not be a runaway hit, he mused "by any account, the iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion."

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