Highlighting the increased clout of the Chinese consumer in today's high-tech marketplace, research firm Strategy Analytics released results of a study Wednesday that finds smartphone shipments to China eclipsed the United States for the first time last quarter. At 24 million units, China is now the largest smartphone market in the world.

The findings show why phone manufacturers have increasingly turned their attention to the Far East. Apple began selling the iPhone in China in 2009 on China Unicom, and other manufacturers increasingly are looking to the country and its TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE homegrown networking technologies.

The stage is set for an eventful holiday season at Yahoo. Sources close to the struggling Sunnyvale, Calif. search company tell the New York Times that Microsoft has signed a non-disclosure agreement which allows it to look into the media giant's books. The Redmond, Wash.-based company joins Silver Lake, TPG Capital and several others as potential suitors.

Talk of a Yahoo sale has increased since September, when a memo from former CEO Jerry Yang leaked to the press. "Our advisers are working with us to develop ideas that we will pursue proactively. At the same time, they are fielding inquiries from multiple parties that have already expressed interest in a number of potential options", the note reads.

Astonsoft Ltd has released version 4.5 of both free and Pro editions of its personal information manager, EssentialPIM. Version 4.5, which is also available as a portable build, adds a number of new features and improvements.

The most notable new features -- full sync capabilities with Google Docs and Google Tasks, a new Attachment Manager and support for custom fields and filters in the To Do Module -- are restricted to EssentialPIM 4.5 Pro only.

Ashampoo’s Burning Studio has never made quite as many headlines as the big disc burning suites, perhaps because the program concentrates on ease of use rather than forever adding unnecessary "bonus"features that you’ll never use.

The package still manages to include interesting capabilities that you won’t always find elsewhere, though, like the ability to create interactive autostart menus for your data discs. And the latest release, Ashampoo Burning Studio 11, continues this tradition with easy and time-saving integration for your Facebook, Dropbox, Picasa and Flickr accounts.

Boris Eyrich Software has released version 3.0 of its painting application. Artweaver 3.0 Free, which is also available as a paid-for Plus edition with more features, adds a new collaborative feature that allows artists sat at different computers to work on the same document -- either over their local area network or via ArtweaverTeam.com (free account required).

This is the only new feature in the free version, and is accompanied by a number of unspecified bug fixes. The Plus Edition, which costs €29, boasts many more new features to go with its enhanced feature set, plus performance and interface improvements.

PhatWare, makers of WritePad, CalliGrapher, PenOffice, and PhatNotes, launched the public beta of PhatPad for Android on Wednesday, a brainstorming, note taking and free drawing app for tablets.

PhatPad lets users draw with their fingers, jot handwritten notes, or use a mixture of pictures and drawings, handwritten text, typed text, and audio notes in a single field. With its handwriting recognition engine, users can hand write notes, and then convert them to copy-and-pasteable text. Documents created in PhatPad can then be synchronized with Dropbox, or exported as a PDF to local storage.

Hard drive management specialist O&O Software has revealed the latest Server Editions of its flagship defrag and disk imaging tools. But while the packages are clearly targeted at businesses, they could be useful to anyone who has to manage a network.

The core functionality is the same as you’ll see in the other editions. So, for instance, DiskImage 6 Server Edition is a versatile tool for backing up everything from selected files and folders, to individual partitions or complete hard drives. It’s highly flexible (you can exclude particular files from an image backup, or restore only whatever elements of an image that you actually need), and is packed with essential features.

Last night I watched Samsung TV commercial "The Next Big Thing is Already Here" about a dozen times on YouTube. I'm a sucker for good advertising, and this one is clever to a punch and already is viral among tech blogs. Apple used to make adverts like this one -- inventive, clever, memorable -- now they're staid and boring. Anyone remember Apple's hugely successful "Switchers" and "Get a Mac" marketing campaigns from the last decade? This new TV spot is a hilarious poke at yokels waiting in line for the newest iPhone, all without mentioning Apple; meanwhile something better is already here -- from Samsung.

Now before some commenter calls me anti-Apple, because I watched the commercial a dozen times and it snarks the iPhone cult, my interest is bigger. The advert is clever in so many ways, particularly how it uses jump cuts or little touches make it real. Example: When the iPhone line waiters ask to see a Samsung Galaxy S II, the owner holds it up. Someone in the line leans forward, raises his arm and says: "Can I see it with my hands?" I've embedded the long version above, which isn't as tight or dramatic as the 60-second spot. There's something to be said about tighter editing, more closeups and shorter jump cuts. The 30-second edit is good, too. Update: The 15-second ad is absolutely cruel.

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.

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".

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.