Elan Microelectronics, a Taiwanese integrated circuit design firm, has sued Apple in the Northern District of California for infringement on two of its US touchscreen patents.

Observers can file this one under "should have seen it coming."

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As Research In Motion's first all-touchscreen BlackBerry, and one of the "Big Four" in the touchphone market that has dominated smartphone sales, the BlackBerry Storm is a formidable device.

Director of Research at ChangeWave, Paul Carton, said in a Web conference yesterday, "This market is overwhelmingly dominated by two companies: Apple and RIM." Nearly all of ChangeWave's consumer smartphone survey statistics were dominated by the iPhone and the Storm, and by proxy their US carriers, AT&T and Verizon.

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At the end of 2008, according to iSuppli, notebooks finally took the crown for top-selling PC form factor, edging out desktops by a mere 100,000 units. Laptops may have finally taken the lead, with worldwide sales of 38.6 million units, against 38.5 million for desktops.

Of course, Current Analysis has noted times in 2003, 2004 and 2005 that laptops have outsold desktops, generally constituting a 3-7% market share advantage; but market share endgame was never declared. It's generally assumed that at some point desktops will officially be the minority, but no one has yet declared it.

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Take it as a sign that the digital music industry is finally reaching maturity. The labels that once clamped down on digital distribution with absolute prejudice have generally loosened up, allowing DRM-free distribution to flourish. Now, the business is expanding to make room for fully variable pricing.

The cost of digital music has long been an issue of concern for me, as a fan of short, fast, and loud music. I always felt that there was a problem with the 99¢ per song across the board pricing scheme iTunes employed. While you cannot measure musical enjoyment in minutes, cents, or kilobytes per second, it just never felt fair to have to pay 99¢ for a twelve second song like "Wienerschnitzel" by The Descendents, when it could buy a nine-minute song like Dream Theater's "Metropolis, Part 1..."

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While downloadable content has become the norm in home video gaming, a gamer who wants to purchase new games or add-in content via download has very limited options. Generally, it has been limited to the console's built-in app store, or direct from the console manufacturer. With the PlayStation 3, it's the PSN Shop, Wii it's the Wii Shop Channel, and with the 360, was the Xbox Live Marketplace or on Xbox.com.

Today, Amazon announced that it has opened the beta of the Amazon Xbox Live Store, where users can download Xbox Live Arcade games, or buy subscription cards and Microsoft Points. Transactions, however, are cash only and Microsoft Points do not yet look to be accepted.

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In October, Intel and Asus began a project called "WePC," where users could submit their own notebook designs. The project allowed users to submit suggestions for their dream design in the Gamer, Notebook, and Netbook categories with the idea that Asus would eventually build the most popular design. It is a sort of experiment in crowdsourced design.

Today, roughly half a year after the project began, Intel and Asus have selected the top 100 designs in the four most popular form factors submitted: docking units, dual-screen units, touchscreen units, and PCs for kids.

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The Australian government has established a new company with the express purpose of building a national fiber-to-the-home broadband network. The project is expected to take eight years, and cost 43 billion Australian dollars, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in his announcement today.

The ambitious project seeks to connect 90% of all Australian homes to a 100 Mbps pipeline. Under the Rudd Government's national broadband network, "every house, school and business in Australia will get access to affordable, fast broadband."

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Today, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) announced that it has published the first femtocell standard. Covered in the standard is network architecture, radio and interference aspects, management and provisioning, and security.

This new standard is a part of 3GPP's Release 8, and is interdependent with extensions that the Broadband Forum made to Technical Report 069 (TR-069). That document was developed to simplify the connectedness of end user equipment. It defines how hardware can automatically configure the protocols it uses in the application layer (ACS).

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Blockbuster's recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange commission clearly portrays the gravity of the company's current situation.

For the company to maintain day-to-day operations, Blockbuster is in the process of refinancing its revolving and term loans, which will earn it $250 million that will come due in September 2010. However, before the refinancing can finish on May 11, certain conditions must be met before its lenders to fund the credit facility, and even if those are met, Blockbuster still may not make it.

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In December, TiVo began to include advertisements in fast forward and pause states on its Series 2 DVRs. Yesterday, the ads reportedly began appearing on Series 3/TiVo HD units.

Users will have to upgrade their system software to version 11.0c for the advertisements to show up. TiVo community users who have received the update have not noticed any other changes besides these ads, which place a "more info about..." button on the pause screen.

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According to market research firmMedia Create, month-to-month sales of Nintendo's newest handheld, the DSi, have dropped 19.42%, PSP sales declined 17%, both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sales dropped 10%, and Nintendo Wii sales dropped 4.5%.

Even though the PlayStation 3's sales dropped further than the Wii's in March, Sony's console actually outsold Nintendo's by a margin of 47,000 units, according to statistics released by gaming magazine Enterbrain today.

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Taiwanese company First International Computer debuted its 400 MHz touchscreen GSM OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner Linux-based smartphone last year, as a fully open-source device for those users who like full customization. At OpenExpo in Bern today, OpenMoko's CEO Sean Moss-Pultz says the device has been cancelled, and in the wake of that announcement, the company dropped nearly half of its staff.

Moss-Pultz said the layoffs were of utmost importance for the company to stay in business and concentrate on its "Plan B." This plan, according to the CEO, involves a non-telecommunications device which is already in the company's pipeline. Unfortunately, he could not offer any further details as to the nature of the device.

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AT&T's contract with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) expired at midnight yesterday, and if the union's demands aren't met in contract re-negotiation, AT&T's wireline employees -- nearly 100 thousand in number -- will strike.

"Enough excuses!" exclaims the CWA's Web site, "If AT&T really wants to lower health care costs, it should get off our backs and get on our side for national health care reform."

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It seems like there has been a five to one rumor-to-product ratio related to Google's open source mobile operating system Android. Dell, Asus, and Acer were each rumored to be interested in using the operating system on netbooks, while LG, Samsung, Motorola, and Nokia all have been included in rumors of new Android phones.

Deutsche Telekom and HTC have thus far been the only reliable companies for cutting-edge Android-based products; so when a rumor about them comes up -- especially in The New York Times -- it warrants note. The latest rumor is based upon "confidential documents," stating that T-Mobile will be selling an Android-based home phone unit, and then a mobile Internet device based upon the OS.

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I've been to more than a dozen midnight video game product launches now, and I still get taken aback by how upbeat GameStop's employees are when doing such a launch. But at last night's launch of Nintendo's DSi, I couldn't help but feel sad.

I showed up at my local store hoping to buy two DSis, but without any real expectations of leaving fulfilled as I hadn't pre-ordered Nintendo's newest portable. That's generally the reason why these midnight launches take place: to give the pre-order customers an 8-hour jump on general product availability for being supporters of GameStop.

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