Yesterday evening, YouTube reportedly became inaccessible in most of China, possibly due to the presence of graphic videos of violence against Tibetan separatists in Lhasa. The site is normally filtered for content, not only for intellectual property violations, but also for videos deemed subversive or critical of the Communist Party.

Last week, in the Vatican's continuing efforts to utilize the Internet to spread the Catholic church's message, it released a Chinese site, which many expected will be blocked, since observation of the Pope as an authority figure defies Communist rule.

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Mobile phone joint venture Sony Ericsson has faced dwindling profits for more than a year as its main markets strain under economic pressure. In the third quarter of 2008, the company dropped to a €25 million loss. Just one year prior, by contrast, the company reported a profit of €267 million. Last quarter, Sony Ericsson's earnings slipped to a €73 million loss.

On Friday, the joint venture announced that it could post a loss of between €340-390 million for the first quarter of 2009.

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Cox Communications may finally be making tru2way a reality. Tru2way is a common software platform that allows software developers, cable companies, or in this case set top box DRM maker NDS, to create interactive software and Web-based applications for use on the TV.

The initiative, which began as the OpenCable platform over ten years ago, has enjoyed only a moderate push from a few big names, like Panasonic, but hasn't yet made a tremendous splash. Cox announced today that tru2way services -- which will include integrated voice communications, e-mail, news, weather, and entertainment gadgets -- will be rolled out, along with a new user interface, this summer.

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European mobile telecommunications giants Vodafone and Telefonica today announced that they will consolidate much of their 2G and 3G network transmission infrastructure in Germany, Ireland, Spain, and the UK as the two companies roll out their 4G technologies.

As a cost-saving and environmentally conservative measure, the companies have agreed to consolidate their existing cellular masts and antennas where opportunity allows, and also by building new sites that will house the equipment of both carriers.

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Today, video game companies Capcom, EA Mobile, THQ, Namco, and PopCap Games announced their support for Zeebo, the first video game console designed especially for emerging markets.

It's an interesting concept indeed. Zeebo is a home video game console based on cell phone technology; it runs on Qualcomm's BREW platform and MSM chipset, consumes only 1 watt of power, and offers quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band UMTS/HSPA connectivity.

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The intellectual property battle between Microsoft and Dutch personal navigation device maker TomTom today made its first significant impact on Linux: TomTom's Kernel is now a protectorate of The Open Invention Network.

This morning, The Open Invention Network announced that it has signed TomTom as a licensee. The Network takes a strong (if rather dramatic) stance on the issue of defending Linux. On its site, the group says it is "actively seeking to address problems that arise from patent trolls and industrial companies whose business models and behaviors are antagonistic to Linux and true innovation."

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A moderately powerful computer and some choice bits of software can effectively replace dozens of individuals formerly integral to the music recording and mastering process. Multi-million dollar studios have been replaced by laptops with an arsenal of software plug-ins. Likewise, a high-speed connection and a fistful of properly chosen Web site memberships can do the job of an entire troupe of PR agents.

Yet there hasn't been a single solution exploiting the Internet as a music marketing tool, perhaps until now.

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The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced today that work has begun on two new heterogeneous wireless network standards that fall under the 1900.4 category that was approved just two months ago.

IEEE 1900.4 is also known as "The Standard for Architectural Building Blocks Enabling Network-Device Distributed Decision-Making for Optimized Radio Resource Usage in Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks."

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SpiralFrog, the ad-supported music service launched by Universal Music Group and EMI in 2007, is now defunct.

To say SpiralFrog started off on the wrong foot would be an understatement. The service's launch was delayed by nearly a year due to an internal coup that resulted in the departure of the entire executive team. Then, beta testers reported a very unfriendly system of that commanded the user to authenticate each download within a 60-second span after it was completed, or else the download would be negated. This made the service impossible to use passively.

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At the end of February, Microsoft sued personal navigation device maker TomTom for violations of eight of Microsoft's patents, three of which deal with file system and memory management issues within the Linux operating system of TomTom devices.

The Dutch company responded this week by countersuing Microsoft in the Virginia District Court for violating three TomTom patents. The countersuit seeks not only damages, but entreats the court to block Microsoft's legal actions.

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At MIX 09 in Las Vegas, Microsoft showed off its latest version of Windows Mobile 6.5, which has experienced a number of UI design tweaks.

The most noticeable change since the OS debuted last month is the elimination of the on-screen honeycomb on the home screen. While the layout remains essentially the same, the icons have grown in size, and the hex-grid pattern has been removed. Microsoft Product Manager Loke Uei Tan said that users who were testing the UI in real life found that it wasn't quite "finger friendly," so it has been tweaked with that in mind.

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Next week, AT&T is expected to begin selling Apple's iPhone in the US without the required two-year contract.

A company spokesman told the Associated Press that the devices will cost $599 and $699 for the 8 GB and 16 GB models respectively, which normally cost $199 and $299 with the two-year contract. These iPhones will reportedly not be unlocked, and will still require an AT&T iPhone account to operate.

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Apple has turned up the juice on its iTunes movie store and now offers HD downloads of Hollywood motion pictures.

To download HD movies, users must have iTunes 8.1, which was released to coincide with the launch of the third generation iPod Shuffle last week. This is the first time movies can be purchased in HD through iTunes. Prior to this, only certain television content was available for purchase in HD, while H.264 movies in 720p were only available for rent.

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In Germany and the UK today, consumer electronics company Samsung launched the Samsung Movies beta on its mobile portal. The dedicated movie download shop lets users rent or download Hollywood movies and TV shows on their PCs and Windows Media Player-equipped Samsung handset. The only device that supports the beta service is the S8300 Tocco Ultra.

Windows Media Player version 11 is required to watch downloaded content on the PC and sync with the mobile device. An active Internet connection is also required to receive the license key that makes the content viewable. Rentals can sit unopened indefinitely, but once the key is retrieved, the file is only usable for 24 hours.

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Psystar has hung on for nearly a year, continuing to offer "Mac clone" desktop systems equipped with OS X, despite the nonstop litigation they bring the company.

The Florida-based company has released its fourth OS X package, the Open(3) with Mac OS X. In its base configuration, the Open(3) is equipped with a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E7400, 2 GB DDR2 800 MHz RAM, a 500 GB 7200 RPM SATA hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce 8400GS 256 MB graphics card. It includes a SATA DVD R/W drive, gigabit Ethernet, 8 USB ports, LPT and RS-232 ports, as well as two PS/2 ports, despite the fact that MAC OS doesn't support them.

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