Further upping the ante in its effort to steal customers from cable providers, Verizon unveiled a new high-speed symmetrical plan for its FiOS Internet service. Subscribers will have both 20Mbit/sec download and 20Mbit/sec upload speeds - something that is unheard of in the industry.

Although 20Mbit/sec uploads may primarily whet the appetites of file swappers, Verizon notes there are some useful purposes for such speeds including video conferencing and uploading family movies. The 20/20 service is first launching in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, but Verizon says it will come to the company's 13 other markets eventually. The cost will be $64.99 per month for those with a Verizon phone contract, and $69.99 for those without.

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Although the reviews were lackluster, Michael Bay's Transformers has become the fastest selling title on HD DVD. More than 100,000 copies of the movie sold in the first day and over 190,000 in the first week, setting a record that beat every title on both HD DVD and rival format Blu-ray.

The HD DVD Promotions Group says the success of Transformers has shown the importance of standalone players, the area where the format is beating Blu-ray due to lower prices. Still, HD DVD sales paled in comparison to over 4.5 million copies of the movie sold on regular DVD on its first day of release. 8.3 million units on DVD have sold since October 16, over 43 times the number sold on HD DVD.

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During its quarterly earnings conference call Monday, Apple Chief Operating Officer Timothy Cook estimated that 250,000 iPhones were sold to people with the intention of unlocking them, adding that most of those sales happened after the $200 price drop.

While it's not entirely clear how Cook calculated such a number, it likely relates to the discrepancy between sold phones and those that were actually activated on AT&T's network. 1.4 million iPhones have been sold in total, meaning that a whopping 17% were intended to be unlocked by customers. Hackers have managed to bypass the device's restrictions, but Apple warns that future updates could make an unlocked iPhone inoperable, just as firmware version 1.1.1 did temporarily.

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A national outage affected AT&T's Uverse television service on Sunday, completely knocking out service for several hours, the company confirmed. Early Sunday morning, service was cut completely, although the company was able to restore local channels as well as service to some sports and news channels. Full service was not restored until last night.

As of press time, AT&T was still unsure what caused the outage, and was investigating the origin. Additionally, it said it was looking into customer service issues reported by subscribers as complaints began rolling in. The service has about 100,000 subscribers across 33 markets.

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Dell said Monday that it will begin selling its lineup of computer products through business supply retailer Staples beginning November 11.

Initially, the store will offer the Inspiron 1721 and 1521 notebooks and Inspiron 530 desktops through its retail locations and website, with the product line to be expanded later. The deal is Dell's second with a retailer after signing a similar one with Wal-Mart in May of this year.

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Microsoft will cut the price of its Xbox 360 console in Japan by about 13 percent from 39,795 yen ($348) to 34,800 yen ($304) starting November 1. The Core version of the console will now run 27,800 yen ($243), further putting pressure on Sony, which recently lowered the price of the PS3.

The Xbox 360 will still be more expensive than Nintendo's Wii, which has been a runaway hit worldwide and costs 25,000 yen ($219) in Japan. Microsoft has struggled to gain a foothold in the country, and recently signed on some big Japanese developers to write games specifically for the Asian market.

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Microsoft's Live Labs has debuted a new service to allow users to create and share various types of lists. Called Listas, the application can be used not only for lists, but for notes, favorites and other communal types of information. Like Wikis, the lists can then be shared with the public, which allows for group editing.

Along with the service, Live Labs has created a companion toolbar for Internet Explorer which allows users to collect information from the web and add it to their lists, be it search results or full or partial web pages. Users also can subscribe to others' lists through RSS, the company said.

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Sony confirmed the speculation Thursday, officially announcing a 40GB PS3 model for the United States, which will be available for $399 USD on November 2. The 40GB model already made its debut in Europe and Japan. In addition, the company made a surprise price drop on its 80GB model, which will now run $499 USD.

The price cuts come as retailers prepare to gear up for the holiday season, and as supplies for Sony's discontinued $499 60GB PS3 dry up. The 40GB PS3 has no backwards compatibility with PlayStation 2 games, while the 80GB model has "limited" support. Sony has bundled Spider-Man 3 in Blu-ray format with the 40GB PS3.

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Comedy Central has launched a new Web site in beta for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, giving the program its own destination and making available 13,000 video clips. Although full-length episodes will not be viewable, users can search for and view specific segments free of charge.

The effort is a sign that media giants like Viacom, which owns Comedy Central, are finally embracing the Web as a means for distributing content. Because clips dating back to The Daily Show's debut in 1999 will be available to watch, the company expects to attract even those who religiously watch Jon Stewart on TV. Viacom has placed 5-second ads before each video to offset the site's costs.

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Beginning today, Boingo Wireless is offering Wi-Fi for select Nokia mobile devices. The Boingo Mobile application is available for the N95, N80, and N80 Internet Edition smartphones. It can also be downloaded from mobile.boingo.com for select Wi-Fi enabled Nokia S-60 based devices.

"Millions of Nokia customers worldwide can use Boingo Mobile to effortlessly connect to Boingo's hotspot network, allowing them to enjoy bandwidth-intensive applications at blazing-fast speeds," said Boingo president and CEO Dave Hagan.

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London-based mobile satellite communications company Inmarsat has begun marketing its new IsatPhone as the world's cheapest satellite phone.

The device is pocket sized (13 x 5 x 3.2 cm) and features the typical oversized satellite antenna. It features dual mode GSM 900 and satellite reception with coverage in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. The battery provides up to 2 hours 40 minutes of talk time, and up to 42 hours of standby time.

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As reported earlier this month the HTC Touch smartphone will soon be made available in the United States by mobile carrier Sprint for a price of $249 USD.

The touch screen-enabled Windows Mobile device is currently available in European and Asian markets. For notification on the exact date of when the handsets are in stock, Sprint's Web site offers an abbreviated sign-up sheet.

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After months of silence on the matter, Apple finally announced Wednesday that it plans to enable developers to create native third-party applications for the iPhone (not just Web-based applications), and will deliver an SDK in February. The delay has been blamed on security concerns.

"It will take until February to release an SDK because we're trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once - provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc.," company CEO Steve Jobs said. Apple notes that Nokia does not allow third-party applications on its newer phones without a digital signature for this very reason. Jobs adds that applications can also be created for the iPod Touch.

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OpenDocument took another step away from obscurity Tuesday, as Apple confirmed that Mac OS X version 10.5 -- known as "Leopard" -- will natively support ODF files, alongside Microsoft's Word 2007 formats. Apple had previously added support for the format in its Pages word processing application.

Leopard users will be able to view ODF and Word 2007 documents without an external program; they will open directly in the operating system's TextEdit application. While TextEdit provides only very basic editing capabilities, it will suffice for viewing of most documents. Microsoft supports ODF in Office 2003 and 2007, but only when an external plug-in is installed.

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Although the TiVo Series3 has been out for more than a year, its external storage expansion port has remained inoperable - until now. With software update 9.2, TiVo customers can boost the amount of programming they can store by simply plugging in a verified Serial ATA hard drive.

The feature is also compatible with the new TiVo HD. The company has not yet said what will be considered a "verified" drive, or whether it will sell its own branded hard drives. The 9.2 update also brings an important feature for Amazon Unbox customers: progressive downloads. Users can begin watching the movie the moment it downloads, rather than waiting for it to complete.

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