Tim Conneally

On the same day Nokia releases its audio-centric XpressMusic 5800 touchscreen smartphone, LG sees the Finnish company's bet with its own camera-centric handset of similar styling.

Named the Renoir, this device combines an 8 megapixel xenon flash camera with unique touchscreen-enhanced features, with a result similar to a tactile viewfinder on a point and shoot camera. A special feature known as "Touch Shot" allows the user to select the area of focus by touching it on the screen, and the shutter fires upon release. It also includes 16x digital zoom, auto- and manual focus, image stabilization, face and smile detection, geotagging, and Schneider-Kreuznach optics.

While it may be a rather late entry in the "handset*" field, today's launch of the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 (originally nicknamed the "Tube") has been timed to coincide with the availability of the "Comes with Music" service.

The 5800 is equipped with the tactility-enabled Symbian S60 interface that Nokia began showing off last year. Unlike other touchscreen handsets in this form factor, the 5800 is primarily a music phone. It has outward-facing stereo speakers (rather than ones mounted on the back of the device), a 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo Bluetooth, 81 MB of on-board memory expandable with an included 8 GB microSD card, and a quirky guitar pick stylus. Fortunately, that is not the device's main input device, and is more of a gimmick to accompany the numerous ways to interact with the touch UI.

After a couple of rumor-heavy weeks, Nintendo will officially release an upgrade to its popular touch-screen handheld game system in Japan next month.

The most celebrated feature of the DSi is its dual-camera setup. One is mounted inside the clamshell, and the other on the outside. With these 640 x 480 "eyes" come the requisite photo manipulation tools, the roots of which Nintendo included with the Game Boy Camera more than ten years ago. Pictures can be merged together, drawn upon, or distorted.

The first beta of Skype 4.0 exposed testers to a totally redesigned UI that placed increased emphasis on video conferencing. In the second beta, released today, the Skype team provided a more familiar-feeling alternative.

Based upon what seemed to be a universally negative reaction to the amount of real estate Skype's new UI required, beta 2 of version 4.0 offers the ability to switch to a window more similar to previous versions. Skype's Mike Bartlett said the team received over 45,000 comments, with the predominant issue being the interface.

The Application Programming Interface (API) that will allow third party developers to create new tools for use with the Netflix movie and user data is now open,enabling them to build new applications based on Netflix's platform.

The free API (available here) includes JavaScript and REST APIs and ATOM feeds. The JavaScript component allows users to integrate such things as the user's queue into other Web applications.

On the same day, RealNetworks sued Hollywood studios and the DVD Copy Control Association, and the MPAA sued RealNetworks over the less-than-month-old RealDVD software that allows users to save copies of DVDs.

Using DVD Copy Control Association v. Kaleidescape Inc as a legal precedent, Real sued for a declaratory judgment for the protection of RealDVD. According to the company, the action was a response to threats made by major movie studio parents Disney, Viacom, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, NBC Universal, and Warner Bros.

Japanese site PC Watch has started the global rumor mill churning with a report that Sony's Cell BE processor that powers the PS3 could still be a viable chip for the company's next next-gen console.

Without citing sources, PC Watch appears to be saying that a technological leap of the same scale as from the PlayStation 2 to the PS3, may no longer be affordable. As a result, the article says -- showing material from recent presentations on the Cell processor family as evidence -- Sony may be considering elevating what had been called the "PlayStation 3 +" project to PlayStation 4 status.

Sprint's Xohm WiMAX network barely got its feet on the ground before neutrality advocates began to tear apart the service's acceptable use and network management policy.

Sprint's terms of service include the passage: "XOHM may provide various Service plans with different characteristics, including different speeds and usage limitations.  You agree to comply with these limitations.  In addition, your use of the Service may not result in an excessive burden of system or network resources, may not weaken network performance, and may not restrict, inhibit, interfere with, or degrade any other user's use of the Service.  To ensure a high-quality experience for its entire subscriber base, XOHM may use various tools and techniques designed to limit the bandwidth available for certain bandwidth intensive applications or protocols, such as file sharing."

Sony Ericsson will lay off over half of the employees of its research facility in Research Triangle Park just outside of Durham, North Carolina. The cutback is a part of a wider re-structuring taking place at the joint mobile phone company.

Of the nearly 750 workers at Sony Ericsson's research and development center, some 450 will be put out. The company said the cut of approximately 2,000 jobs worldwide would represent a savings of €300 million.

The DivX Connected platform has received a couple of crucial upgrades, making the hardware-software hybrid system more attractive to open source developers and consumers alike.

Version 1.4 of the DivX Connected server has been released, finally granting the home server software Flash Support, and adding to its unique Wake-on-LAN tools. With the server upgrade, a host of associated plug-ins were also released, bringing the platform into a place where it is equally desirable to casual consumers as it is to the "maker" crowd.

UK internet service provider BT, a branch of British Telecom, will be running another trial of the controversial behavioral advertising system Phorm.

Last February, British ISPs BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media announced that they had joined together to deliver a targeted advertising platform. However, this was met with public outrage when BT admitted that it had already tested such a system with secretly collected user data.

The final step in making your PC into a TiVo is about to be bridged. Today, Nero AG -- makers of the famous desktop CD and DVD authoring software -- announced its LiquidTV TiVo-for-PC package.

The package includes a Hauppauge USB ATSC TV tuner and USB IR transceiver with paired remote control. LiquidTV offers most of the features of a standard TiVo DVR: online scheduling with the integrated Electronic Programming Guide, recording of up to two shows simultaneously to the hard drive, HD and standard image quality, and support for as many as four tuners.

Sprint's Xohm WiMAX service begins this morning in Baltimore, Maryland. Customers will be able to pay for daily or monthly access to the 4G wireless service without long-term contracts or usage caps.

The expected average downlink speed for the service will be 2-4 Mbps and will cost either $10 per 24-hour block of time or $35 per month for home access and $45 per month for "on-the-go." Sprint also offers multi-device packages in anticipation of future hardware availability.

Hong Kong gets the iPhone without the carrier obligations by which many other countries must abide.

Available officially through Apple on its Hong Kong regional site, the 3G iPhone is compatible with any carrier's SIM. However, the devices do come at a rather prohibitive price point: HK$ 5,400 ($694.75) for the 8 GB and HK$ 6,200 ($797.65) for the 16 GB.

Alabama telephony company Digium announced its flagship product Asterisk, open source PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system, has released a beta version of Skype for Asterisk.

Since Asterisk is designed for commodity PC hardware, inclusion of one of the world's most popular consumer VoIP clients seems a natural fit. The add-on channel driver module integrates Skype VoIP calls into the Asterisk structure. Skype calls can be made, received, transferred, routed to voice mail or automated menus, and conferenced without the need for any additional hardware.