Google has unceremoniously blocked a large portion of the applications in the Android Market from owners of unlocked G1s. Any copy protected application (all of the new for-pay apps) are now unusable, according to an Android Market forum post.

Google told IDG's MacWorld that it is no longer distributing copy-protected apps to reduce the unauthorized copying of those applications.

Continue reading →

In light of Facebook's recent Terms of Use conflicts, users' pages are now stamped with a message linked to a blog post from founder Mark Zuckerberg announcing suggested changes to how Facebook may be governed in the future.

Two documents, called "Facebook Principles" and "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities" have been posted for user review and comment. These will not go into effect until they have been voted upon and changed by the users. The comment period closes at 12:01 am Pacific Time on March 29.

Continue reading →

Last May, Texas company Anascape won $21 million from Nintendo in a patent infringement suit regarding the video game giant's "classic controller" for the Wii. The analog stick architecture of a number of Nintendo's controllers infringed on a patent held by Anascape, and the future of the Wii classic controller became uncertain.

Predictably, sales of the controller saw a brief 207% explosion after the ruling.

Continue reading →

Dell's newest performance desktop is now available for purchase online. Geared toward the "power user," the XPS 435 has six DIMM slots, and three drive bays for a maximum potential of 24 GB of DDR3 1066 MHz Tri-Channel memory, and 4.5 TB of storage.

The XPS 435 is powered by Intel Core i7 processors -- for the base configuration priced at $1,099, a 2.66 GHz i7-920. For an additional $470, that can be upgraded to the i7-940 that runs at 2.93GHz. The top speed i7 processor available in the XPS 435 is the 965 which hums at 3.2 GHz but tacks on an additional $1,170 to the overall cost.

Continue reading →

Asus ushered in the netbook craze with its Eee PC in 2007 by hitting a sweet spot in price, features, and aesthetic appeal. When all of those aspects are in harmony, and the timing is right, the overall value of the product soars. We could be seeing a jump in value right now.

The 8.9" solid state, Linux-driven, Eee PC 901is being sold with a $100 rebate from Asus until March 8. It is equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, 1GB of Ram, 20GB of solid state memory, a 6-cell battery that promises up to 6 hours of use, and the Xandros Linux operating system.

Continue reading →

This week, Microsoft issued a copyright infringement suit in US district court and with the US International Trade Commission against Dutch PND maker TomTom, claiming the company has violated eight of Microsoft's patents.

From Microsoft's filing with the USITC, the company says, "The portable navigation computing devices in question run a version of the Linux operating system, which is a general purpose operating system capable of supporting a wide variety of software applications. For example, the Linux operating system on the portable navigation computing devices executes a navigation application that uses the GPS data provided by the GPS receiver to generate driving directions. The Linux operating system used in the personal navigation computing device and/or the software applications supported by the operating system also provide the devices with additional functionality such as file system support for long and short file names, memory management for flash memory commonly used on such devices, and a platform for integrating and controlling various electronic components used with the portable navigation computing devices, such as other components in a vehicle."

Continue reading →

Convergence is happening on all sides. PC makers Acer and HP pushed their way into the smartphone market this month, and now we await the push by a phone maker into the PC business.

Statements from Nokia's President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo yesterday affirmed his company's interest in making notebook computers, if nothing else. Kallasvuo told Finnish broadcaster YLE that Nokia is "looking very actively" at producing a PC.

Continue reading →

Before January 1, 2010, Congress must reinstate SHVIA (the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999), the pro-competition law that lets satellite television companies carry local broadcast TV stations, so a rare opportunity has been presented to change the law in its period of review.

Congressman Bart Stupak (R-Michigan) proposed a bill this month that would ultimately require satellite TV companies to provide local TV signals in all of their markets. Stupak proposed H.R. 927, or the "Satellite Consumers' Right to Local Channels Act," because two of the thirty satellite markets that cannot receive local TV broadcasts are in his district. Satellite coverage in the U.S. is comprised of 210 market areas.

Continue reading →

Not only have sales of Nintendo products continued to rise, but so has piracy of those products. In a report to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the body specializing in international trade agreements, Nintendo listed six countries where piracy of the Wii and DS are out of control.

The Special 301 process looks at the adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights worldwide, and countries are then classified according to the frequency and severity of their violations of IP rights.

Continue reading →

One of the most repeated and memorable quotes from the tech world in the last six months was Steve Jobs referring to Blu-ray as a "bag of hurt," not for any consumer end shortcomings, but rather for its complex licensing process.

Today, Sony, Phillips and Panasonic issued a joint press release announcing the creation of a "one stop shop" for Blu-ray licensing that will seeks to simplify and cheapen the process. The idea has been discussed numerous times since 2007, well before Blu-ray had even won the high-definition format war.

Continue reading →

In keeping with Google's habit of giving its search fields multiple purposes, the new Google Toolbar 6 beta for Internet Explorer is just a little more than its name lets on.

Packaged with the toolbar is what is known as the Google QSB (quick search box) which appears as a Google logo next to the Windows Start Menu when it is installed. Clicking on it opens a search field that doubles as an application launcher which remembers your most frequently used apps.

Continue reading →

It's a tough game job creating a new search engine. Trying to break into the market with Google, Yahoo, and MSN is sort of like trying to start your own baseball league to draw fans away from MLB. Three-month-old search engine LeapFish isn't trying to start a new league, it's just trying build a better stadium.

LeapFish takes the indexed results from Google, Yahoo, and MSN, and does what what CEO Ben Behrouzi calls "the heavy lifting." That is, it gives a selection of results that include web entries, related statistics, videos, and other such relevant information rather than the same information you'd find if you were to use those individual search engines.

Continue reading →

While the PlayStation 3 continues to be regarded as the runner-up in online console gaming, the system's growing library of free to play online titles has helped PlayStation Network (PSN) grow to double every year, and the growth continues.

Last year, Microsoft said it had reached the 17 million subscriber mark for Xbox Live, but more recent numbers are not yet available. The company made a strong push early this year to attract more users to the online gaming service by dropping the price of an annual subscription to $30 from the customary $50.

Continue reading →

Download Safari for Windows 4.28.16.0 Beta from Fileforum now.

After writing for Betanews for a couple of years, there's something you may not know about me. If there is one company that I approach with favoritism (but never fanboyism!), it's Google. Yes, Google's omnipresence is enough to make you want to don a tin foil hat, but it's hard to argue with a company that gives everyone such powerful research tools at no cost.

Continue reading →

Adobe has released an update (11.0.1) to Photoshop CS4 which includes a handful of significant fixes. Performance issues have been tweaked, the pen barrel rotation feature on Wacom tablets has been fixed, 3D textures edited by plug-ins are now properly recognized, and the quality of Stacked (auto blend) images has been improved. Also, attempting to paste formatted text, or open a corrupt font no longer result in a CS4 crash.

The update is available directly from Adobe.

Continue reading →