Marvell yesterday debuted its Plug Computing initiative, which seeks to strip the always-on PC down to the smallest form possible while still retaining its functionality. The result is the SheevaPlug development platform, a 1.2GHz Sheeva CPU with 512MB of Flash memory and 512MB of DRAM jammed into an oversized Glade Plug-in. It's compatible with most Linux distributions running the 2.6 kernel.

The unit has a gigabit ethernet port and one USB port and is meant to be hooked up to the home's main router and network storage device. From there, Marvell says it consumes one tenth the power of a PC being used as a home media server.

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Amazon's Kindle 2 has not been in consumer hands for 24 hours, and already it's been torn apart to show every conceivable mystery that could be contained under the e-ink display.

iFixit disassembled the device today and found an empty outline of a SIM card on the left side of the logic board. Also identified among the guts of the Kindle 2 was its 532 MHz ARM-11 processor, 32MB of Samsung DDR, and the 2GB Samsung moviNAND flash memory. A SIM reader will likely be included in Kindle 2 builds destined for overseas markets, where it will simplify wireless connectivity.

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Though the hearing of accused file sharer Joel Tenenbaum and his Harvard Law counsel headed by Professor Charles Nesson is on hold while the issue over broadcasting the trial on the Internet awaits resolution, Massachusetts District Court Judge Nancy Gertner last night ruled on a timeline for other parts of the case.

The pre-trial conference and trial date, originally March 24, has been cancelled until a proper rescheduling can take place. All of the Rule 26 disclosures, which include supporting evidence and expert testimony for both parties involved in the trial, will be heard on March 30, depositions may be taken thereafter by each party. The hearing on Tenenbaum's counterclaims, -- which include abuse of process by the litigant record companies -- and motion for the RIAA to join the suit, is stayed until April 30. 

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Eircom will be blocking the Pirate Bay and sites of that nature under threat of legal action from the Irish Recorded Music Association.

In late January, Irish ISP Eircom adopted the now famous "graduated response" to illegal file sharing pioneered by the French, where suspected file sharers are given three strikes and then cut off from the Internet entirely. Now, Ireland's Sunday Business Post reports that Eircom is working with the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) to block all music swapping sites from general user access. The ISP's move was reportedly made under threat of legal action from IRMA.

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Apple's iTunes today opened the first iTunes Pass purchases, which lets users pay a fee up front to receive every piece of content an artist releases for a certain period of time.

While this has not officially been announced by Apple yet, a diligent Mac Forums reader located details on it in the Spanish iTunes store terms of service:

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Highddefinition video-on-demand service Vudu has been making an honest play at becoming the set top box that brings streaming video to the home theater enthusiast market. Today, the company has begun to offer HD movies as downloads in addition to streams.

Vudu's library of high-definiton titles is around 1,400 and downloads will cost between $13.99 and $23.99. Vudu set top boxes are all equipped with HDDs, which could conceivably fill up quickly when downloading HD movies. For example, the company's top-of-the-line STB, the XL, can hold approximately 500 standard definition titles on its terabyte drive. Vudu however, reinforces the user's account with a free cloud storage service called Vudu Vault. Archival in the Vudu Vault is currently limited to select movies, but all television content can be stored there.

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Market research company Futuresource today released its Blu-ray disc market outlook for 2009, and projected sales to exceed 100 million units as players come down in price. This would represent another in a series of vast leaps in market size.

In the US in 2008, Blu-ray disc sales grew 320% to a total of 24 million units. Sales of 100 million would represent a 416% growth.

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California Speaker of the Assembly Leland Yee (D - San Francisco) is a doctor of developmental psychology responsible for a California Law passed in 2005 that criminalized the sale of violent video games to children under 18 and called for stricter labeling for games rated "M" by the ESRB.

Shortly after the bill's passage in 2005, video game industry representatives filed suit in the District Court. Judge Ronald Whyte deemed the law unconstitutional and blocked it from taking effect.

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Polish bulletin board FrazPC last night received a post from developer and writer Marcin-PRV showing that he can successfully run Windows 3.1 simultaneously with Symbian S60 on a Nokia N95.

This feat could not normally be done by the N95's ARM processor, but thanks to an emulator known as DOSBox for Symbian, the ARM chip emulates the x86 architecture...a 486, to be exact, according to Marcin.

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While major service providers like Google, Microsoft and Apple offer cloud-based contact synching for personal records, DubMeNow is like a mobile business card swap.

With the Dub application loaded onto a user's phone -- the company says all US mobile phones are supported -- the user's contact information can then be blasted out to e-mail addresses, phone numbers, or other Dub users. Let's say you meet a potential client whilst out somewhere, you enter that person's number into the Dub app, and it then sends all your flagged contact information directly to that person's address book. It syncs with Outlook and CRM apps such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SugarCRM, and Siebel, allowing for a single contact to be sent to multiple recipients in one action.

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Nielsen released its fourth quarter figures for TV, Internet and mobile video consumption in the United States has hit an all-time high.

The average US television viewer now consumes 151 hours of TV per month, roughly 20% of the total month, or 31% of their time awake, if eight hours of sleep are taken into account. Nielsen's "three screens" report considers traditional television viewing, Internet video viewing, and mobile handset video viewing habits when creating an overall picture of American TV consumption.

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This morning, semiconductor company Broadcom announced it will be bringing the Chumby open source widget platform to connected TVs, Set top boxes, and Blu-ray players.

Chumby began as a somewhat quirky device, which could be best described as a "social clock radio." Users set up a profile on the Chumby site which they then pair with their touchscreen Chumby device.

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Cosmetics company Cargo has infiltrated the consumer electronics lexicon. Now offering a line under the name "Blu_Ray," Cargo has produced makeup for those conscious of the flaw-exposing power of high definition cameras. The High Definition Make-up Essentials Kit "delivers a look that can easily stand up to high-definition filming, so you will be ready for your close-up."

For those wondering: Yes, "Blu_Ray" is an official trademark of the Cargo cosmetics company, obtained in May 2008. Also be on the lookout for Italian-designed "Blue Rey" clothing to wear when being filmed.

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Delivering on a campaign promise made in 2006, Rhode Island's General Treasurer Frank Caprio has made the state checkbook available to the public in an easily comprehensible online format.

Rhode Island is not the first state to make such a move toward "open government." Since the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) sponsored by Senators Tom Coburn (R - Okla.) and Barack Obama (D - Ill.) was signed into law in 2006, 22 states have put up sites which avail their financial information, and eight more have begun transparency legislation.

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Comcast began the rollout of its wideband DOCSIS 3.0 network in October last year, promising a 50Mbps "Extreme" tier for 10 million homes in the northeastern United States.

The goal for completing Comcast's "wideband" network remains 2010, which will then serve as a waypoint for further DOCSIS development. Yesterday, the company announced it will triple the network's size this year.

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