Network infrastructure joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks announced on Wednesday its plans to cut more than a billion Euro in overhead by the end of 2013. These plans involve refocusing on mobile broadband infrastructure, and cutting its global workforce by 17,000 workers.

As of November first, Nokia Siemens Networks employed 74,000 globally, so this will constitute a 23% reduction in workforce.

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There's going to be a controller. Enough people inquired about the obvious that Craig Eisler, Kinect for Windows general manager, felt obliged to answer.

"We’ve been asked whether there will also be new Kinect hardware especially for Windows", he blogs today. "The answer is yes; building on the existing Kinect for Xbox 360 device, we have optimized certain hardware components and made firmware adjustments which better enable PC-centric scenarios".

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Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski on Tuesday put forth an order for a hearing to re-examine the proposed merger between national wireless carriers AT&T and T-Mobile. If approved, the hearing would have to take place after the Justice Department submits the merger to an antitrust trial, and could delay the merger by a few more years.

"The FCC’s action today is disappointing. It is yet another example of a government agency acting to prevent billions in new investment and the creation of many thousands of new jobs at a time when the US economy desperately needs both," said Larry Solomon, senior vice president of Corporate Communications of AT&T. "At this time, we are reviewing all options."

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Rumors persist over the mythical "Facebook Phone". This time it's Ina Fried and Liz Gannes of All Things Digital, claiming sources say the social network is working with HTC on an Android powered device -- codenamed "Buffy" -- to launch in about 12 to 18 months. It deeply integrates Facebook services into the experience, and relies on HTML5 as a platform for applications.

But Fried's and Gannes' report may not be accurate. In a "He Said, She Said" response, Inside Facebook followed up saying its own sources call Buffy a "trainwreck". Reporter Kim-Mai Cutler says that the phone would have a host of issues, including always being one step behind the latest version of Android due to the deep customization that Buffy would require.

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Editor: Earlier today Retrevo offered a list of Black Friday deals. But we think many BetaNews readers will be just as interested in the duds and perhaps benefit more. You want to take this holiday, not get taken, right? Please add your own Black Friday duds in comments.

Mixed in with some great bargains this year are some questionable ones like a $38 Toshiba Blu-ray player that requires a $49 adapter to make its Wi-Fi work. We offer this selection of deals we think you might be better off avoiding.

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By now, we all can see that the Internet will become the dominant media distribution platform.
We can easily imagine (and expect) that all content will be digitized and distributed online. Every song, every movie, every video game, every software program, every live television event, every business document and more will be instantly searchable and retrievable via a range of connected devices. It will all be magically available to stream or download on-demand through "the Cloud".

This was the dream when I started my first Internet business in 1995. Now, people think it is the reality. And, while we are making great progress towards such a future, unfortunately, we are not there yet. The demand for online media consumption is simply too great and is growing even faster than we can deploy cloud services to meet it.

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Western Digital is liable for $525 million in damages to Seagate following an arbitration decision regarding the misappropriation of trade secrets. The ruling stems from a court case brought by Seagate in 2006 against Western Digital and one of its former employees who had taken a job with its competitor.

That employee is accused of sharing information with his new employer, although court proceedings were stayed while the two sides entered arbitration in 2007. The arbitrator sided with Seagate in the matter.

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AT&T is alerting affected customers to an "organized and systematic" attack on its website that attempted to steal their data. The nation's second-biggest carrier says in a letter to those customers that it "[does] not believe that the perpetrators of this attack obtained access to your online account or any of the information contained in that account", but decided to warn users "out of an abundance of caution".

Less than one percent of the carrier's 100.7 million customers are affected, but that still puts nearly one million at risk due to AT&T's size. Hackers employed an automated script to see if cellular numbers were linked to AT&T accounts, which the script tried to pair with logins. All attempts appear to be unsuccessful.

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Using the upcoming Asus Transformer Prime which was rumored to be the first Tegra 3 tablet graphics company Nvidia on Tuesday officially showed off what Tegra 3 and Android 4.0, "Ice Cream Sandwich" can do.

This early demonstration quickly shows off the 1080p video playback, and an all-too short demo of Android game Tegra 3-optimized racing game Riptide GP from games studio Vector Unit.

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"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo."

That's some of the text from Apple's famous "Think Different" marketing campaign from 1997 to 2002. The promotional likened Apple and Mac users to legendary individuals who stepped outside the mainstream, who expressed their independence and defied convention. Today, iPad is the status quo for tablets. What irony. Buyers of 1.2 million non-iPad tablets, sold at US retail, are the individualists -- the rebels who dared buy something else.

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Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it had acquired video search company VideoSurf, which in September launched its technology for identifying video content based upon images captured with a mobile phone camera. Microsoft says it will add this technology into the Xbox 360 ecosystem, improving the search and discovery of entertainment content on Xbox Live.

To bring live television to Xbox Live, Microsoft has partnered with more than 40 different content providers in over 20 countries, including television networks and multi-service operators. Microsoft on Tuesday said the acquisition of VideoSurf will help these companies integrate their content into Kinect voice search.

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Mimo Monitors, the company that specializes in USB-powered mini-displays, launched its first two monitors that use capacitive touchscreens just like those used by smartphones and tablets.

Like Mimo's other products, both the Mimo Magic Touch and Magic Touch deluxe are powered by a single USB connection and are meant to give your PC additional screen real estate and an additional interface that doesn't take up much room. Unlike Mimo's other monitors, however, the Magic Touch line is styled to be more like 10.1" mobile tablets that can be used in a dock or as a hand held device.

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BlueStacks App Player, the Windows application capable of smoothly virtualizing Android apps has launched for Windows XP. The alpha version that launched in October only ran on Windows 7 machines, but the company says nearly 20 percent of Android users are also Windows XP users, so this new version is for them.

So far, BlueStacks App Player has been downloaded by 500,000 people, an impressive feat for a company that was unheard of just six months ago. With this new version, the application's reach will grow even larger.

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"Beginning this week Acer and Samsung Chromebooks will be available starting at $299", Googler Venkat Rapaka blogs today. Is that price low enough for you or perhaps as present for a relative? For $100 more than Kindle Fire, you get a keyboard, double the storage (16GB vs 8GB), similar cloud connected benefits, comparable battery life and bigger display. Well, I had to ask.

If you want to answer, fire off in comments. This is a serious question. Because there is a right price, one making Chromebook an appealing alternative to a new laptop or tablet. Before the price cuts, Acer and Sumsung models started at 349.99. Some commenter surely will claim price cuts are sure sign Chromebooks aren't selling well. Oh yeah? Consider this: Samsung is releasing a black Series 5 Chromebook (to go alongside grey and white ones) and prices fall for lots of reasons, such as economies of scale when products sell well, lower component prices or holiday prices. Reasons aside, is $299 low enough for you?

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In an effort the provide better personalized recommendations, eBay has acquired privately-held Hunch, a two-year-old service that suggests content on the Internet based on personal tastes. The auction service expects Hunch to integrate into a variety of its offerings beyond recommendations.

Hunch founder Chris Dixon will lead eBay's existing recommendations team, reports indicate. "We’ll be tackling all kinds of interesting challenges as part of eBay including predictive merchandising, interpreting unstructured data and creating merchant insights", he writes in a blog post announcing the acquisition. "We can’t wait to get started".

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