The Korea Times reports that the price of Apple's iPods will be increased in Korea due to the diminished value of the Korean won.

The international exchange of currency has had a varied impact on the tech industry recently. In January, for example, Nintendo had to tune down its 2009 revenue projections because the Yen increased in value, thereby devaluing exports by a fraction when weighed against the softening dollar and euro. Korea's currency has slid down from about 1,100 on the dollar to the neighborhood of 1,500 on the dollar.

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Users of the Vudu high definition video on demand service now have access to Pandora Internet radio, the company said today.

At the end of 2008, set-top box company Vudu unveiled its open source Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform for Vudu hardware, which allowed the device to access Internet services like YouTube, Picasa, and Flickr. The announcement was similar to one made by budget set top box maker Roku several months before. That company's successful Netflix streamer later got Amazon's Video on Demand, and is expected to get a YouTube upgrade in the near future. The move to bolster a discrete service with rich Internet content is one that has been taken by most set-top box competitors.

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Sony and Comcast announced this morning that they will open the doors to a new co-branded retail storefront tomorrow in the Comcast Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Called "Sony Style Comcast Labs," the store will be similar to the 40 Sony Style stores in the United States, but will include Comcast's roster of products as well, with a special focus on emerging technologies from the service provider.

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Last week, market research company NPD released findings that showed the touchscreen smartphone market has been thriving. Today, Gartner market research has released its figures for 2008, confirming the shift toward a smartphone-dominated market.

The overall mobile phone market is expected to shrink by about 10 percent in 2009, while smartphones will comprise an ever larger segment of that contracting market. Informa Telecoms and Media last week predicted a 35.3% growth in smartphone sales this year, and Gartner this week predicted a growth of 28%.

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Time Warner's CEO Jeff Bewkes announced this evening that AOL's current chairman and CEO Randy Falco will be replaced by Tim Armstrong, President of Google's American Operations and board member of the Advertising Council, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and The Advertising Research Foundation.

Bewkes called Armstrong an advertising pioneer, who has "a stellar reputation and proven track record." Armstrong will also be of crucial importance in Time Warner's decisions about the future of the AOL brand.

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Next Tuesday in Cupertino, California, Apple will unveil iPhone software version 3.0, according to an invitation received by the Apple faithful today.

Apple's popular mobile phone is currently on OS version 2.2.1 (Build 5H11), which was an incremental update pushed out in the first weeks of 2009. The last major update -- one that would warrant its own event, like the one scheduled for next week -- was version 2.0, when the 3G iPhone was released.

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Yesterday, eBay discussed with investors the company's outlook for the next three years. Fulfilling statements from CEO John Donahoe made nearly a year ago, the company's growth efforts will be spearheaded by PayPal, and will include more changes to the eBay marketplace.

Donahoe said, "We are aggressively remaking and transforming our eBay Marketplace and diversifying the ways in which we compete in e-commerce."
This aggressive transformation, however, has coincided with eBay's worst year to date. During 2008, eBay's CEO of ten years departed, policy changes caused an eBay seller revolt, the economy tightened the budgets of buyers, and the trade of counterfeit goods on site brought high profile lawsuits. The end of last year's holiday season saw eBay's net income drop $163.7 million dollars from the prior year.

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Three of the "Big Four" major record labels, Sony, EMI, and Universal, have gotten on board with European carrier Vodafone to provide DRM-free music for the wireless carrier's music store.

Music tracks downloaded through Vodafone Music were formerly protected WMA, but soon the company says it will be selling music as unprotected MP3s. Those who have already purchased music as WMA are eligible for free MP3 crossgrades.

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Since the newest iPod shuffle requires iTunes 8.1 to function properly, Apple has released an update to the desktop music organization software. Though the update was brought around for the new iPod, the real benefits of the update go to multi-iPhone user groups.

ITunes 8.1 has eliminated "Party Shuffle," which is also known as "random," and has been replaced with "iTunes DJ." When iTunes is playing music largely at random, anyone with an iPod Touch or iPhone equipped with iTunes Remote (version 1.2) can request a song and vote when it will play. Betanews also attempted to use the feature this morning with Android Tunes Remote, but it looks like that software will also need to be updated to bring Android users into the DJ booth.

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TV.com -- CBS Interactive's answer to video sites like Hulu, Veoh, and Joost -- has announced today that it is beta testing streams in full 1080p high-definition.

The beta site includes clips of popular CBS properties CSI, Survivor, The Late Show With David Letterman, and even a classic Pink Panther cartoon.

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Networking and telecommunications market research company the Dell'Oro group released research today that shows the IPTV subscriber base grew to 23 million, nearly doubling the total of the prior year. As a result, the set-top box business is booming.

Cisco and Motorola were the top STB makers in both cable and IPTV, and Thomson was at the top of satellite boxes. While Europe receives the most IPTV set-top boxes, Verizon and AT&T's aggressive IPTV marketing made North America a major contributor to the market's growth.

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Infinite SMS, an iPhone app that allowed free text messages through an experimental open Google protocol, has been shut down.

Google debuted the SMS in Chat lab at the very end of 2008, which allowed Google Talk users to send messages to mobile phones from their instant messaging window.

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The new iPod Shuffle was introduced today, revealing a device completely free from buttons and measuring only 1.8" (45mm) x .7" (17mm) x .3" (7.62mm) in size. Jacobim Mugatu would approve. To shrink down the device to half of the size of the last generation Shuffle, the controls have been moved to the headphone cord. A simple three-button switch allows for play, pause, skip, volume, and activation of the new 4 GB USB Shuffle's banner feature.

VoiceOver gives the Shuffle the ability for it to speak song titles, artist names, and playlist categories in any of 14 languages.

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Number one mobile phone maker Nokia has been fleshing out its portfolio of services since late 2007 with its Ovi portal, resurrected N-Gage mobile gaming platform, and most recently with its Comes with Music initiative. The latter, which now has a slogan as unwieldy as its name ("Your Music Player is Ringing!") has been expanded into more markets and onto more devices.

The Nokia Music Store is currently available in 15 markets. The United States still has not yet gotten the service, but is expected to "later this year." Today's announcement added Mexico, Portugal, Norway, and South Africa to the Comes With Music roadmap. Through the software, users can rip or burn CDs, browse the online store, stream, purchase, organize, and sync their music collections with compatible devices.

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The trickle of information about Microsoft's Windows Marketplace for Mobile increased substantially this morning as the company unveiled its developer program for the mobile app store. Microsoft today opened the Windows Mobile 6.5 developer program.

Developers will pay an annual registration fee of $99 which covers five submissions (selling more than five apps will cost an additional $99 each), and will receive 70% of the revenue drawn from sales in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The fees and revenue share are in the same league as those laid down by Apple with its iPhone Developer Program.

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