HP Financial Services, a subsidiary of leading information tech hardware company Hewlett-Packard, announced it will be making up to $2 billion available to "help clients finance their way into the cloud."

According to Forrester Research, business IT investment was up between 8.9% and 11% in 2010, but based upon recent trends, growth in 2011 is expected to slow to only around 8%.

I can answer that question for you. Apple locks up your past purchases for 90 days, and you can forget that Monopoly game get-out-of-jail free card. But that's OK.

It was a big day for Apple yesterday, announcing iCloud and new push sync features from iTunes Store. It's a big day for Apple customers, now that iTunes 10.3 is available -- with purchase sync in beta. The utility is simply amazing for what Apple intends for it -- but also for how customers might choose to use it.

Google has updated its popular open-source browser Chrome to version 12, introducing a number of notable features. Of most importance is a new extension to the Safe Browsing feature, which now screens downloaded files for known malware in addition to warning against potentially malicious or phishing websites.

Privacy has been bolstered ,too, with Chrome now able to manage and delete Flash Player's equivalent of cookies (Local Stored Objects) directly within the browser itself. LSOs are now listed alongside cookies when clicking the Content Settings button followed by All cookies and site data in the Privacy section of Chrome's Options dialog.

Nintendo debuted its newest piece of gaming hardware, Wii U, a touchscreen tablet and game controller that takes the dual-screen gaming concept of the DS and applies it to the television.

Wii U includes a 6.2" touchscreen tablet with dual analog circle pads, a D-pad and buttons, rumble support, a microphone and speaker, accelerometer, gyroscope, and forward-facing camera which are all used to communicate with a 1080p HD set top box that stylistically looks like an update to the current Wii console.

A portion of Skype users found themselves without service Tuesday after a configuration problem caused the VoIP provider's systems to crash. A message to Heartbeat, Skype's status page, indicated that the company was aware of the problem and was working to fix it.

The most recent update indicates that the problem has been "stabilized" and most should be able to log back in shortly. "You shouldn't need to manually sign back in to Skype - it should reconnect automatically when it's able to do so," Skype's Peter Parkes said in an update.

Russian security company Kaspersky has dropped the beta tag from Anti-Virus 2012 and Internet Security 2012 products, launching both today. While there are no revolutionary changes on offer, Kaspersky has provided more than enough general improvements and enhancements to justify giving the programs a closer look.

Significant low-level changes sees both Anti-Virus and Internet Security 2012 offering strong protection even earlier in the boot process, for instance, making it harder for rootkits to modify the operating system, and blocking attempts by malware to disable the antivirus engine.

BitSum Technologies has updated its process automation and optimization utility, Process Lasso, to version 5.0.0.25. Available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds, Process Lasso uses ProBalance technology to balance the competing demands of applications and system processes, ensuring no single process can cause sluggish performance or temporary freezes through excessive use of available resources. Although designed to be fine-tuned by experts, Process Lasso is also configured by default to run in fully automated mode for less experienced users too.

Version 5, which is available in free and paid-for versions, introduces a number of new features. Support for setting I/O priorities for processes in Vista and Windows 7, plus a new option to automatically install updates as and when they become available, are present in all versions, but a new default power scheme, replacing the old High Performance Option, is only found in the Pro version.

Even though Windows Phone has been leading the innovation curve for the next generation of all of Microsoft's graphical interfaces --everything from Windows 8 to Xbox Live is expected to adopt the mobile OS' "live tile" system-- Windows Phone seemed to have been lost in the shuffle in Microsoft's E3 keynote yesterday.

Updates to Kinect, Xbox Live, and of course the Halo franchise took center stage, and nearly nothing was said about Windows Phone and its upcoming improvements in the gaming realm and deepened integration with Xbox Live.

The latest version of Apple's flagship software iTunes has been released. The big news in iTunes 10.3 is support for the new iCloud service that can be used to automatically download apps, music and other purchases -- this is being labeled as iTunes in the Cloud. There is also newly added support for iBookstore which enables users to purchase ebooks from within iTunes.

iCloud is the replacement for MobileMe and will be made available to users completely free of charge. Once content, such as an app, has been purchased it can then be re-downloaded on any other compatible device without the need for payment. The purchasing options available in iTunes have been extended with the introduction of iBookstore that can be used to browse and buy a selection of ebooks that can be downloaded and synchronized in the same way as apps and music.

Apple's iOS 5 is slated for release this fall, presumably with iPhone 5. But the Android Army doesn't have to wait, like the iPhone idolators. Android users can have some of those features now. Looks like Apple has been doing a little copycatting. Again.

It's funny, since hardcore Apple enthusiasts are so quick to accuse whenever they see anyone copying the slightest thing from Steve Jobs' company. They're not as fast to acknowledge when Apple does the, ah, borrowing. I'm glad to do it for them.

Shown in early previews as "NGP" or "Next Generation Portable," Sony officially announced the PlayStation Portable's successor will be called PlayStation Vita, and it will be available with AT&T 3G connectivity.

Sony's new portable combines the traditional dual-analog gamepad interface with a smartphone-like capacitive OLED touchscreen, and adds a rear-mounted touchpad, and sixaxis motion sensors for a versatile gaming experience. It is also equipped with a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor and an SGX 543MP4+ graphics processor.

At Sony's afternoon E3 keynote, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) Jack Tretton issued an apology to third party partners, retailers and consumers for the massive Playstation Network outage.

To the media, who profited a great deal off of the bad news, Tretton said "you're welcome."

That's right. During Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference today, CEO Steve Jobs said that MobileMe's price would drop from $99 to free. But there's more to it. I just received email from Apple stating the service will retire in little more than year.

No surprise, iCloud, which Jobs announced today, will replace MobileMe. How many times is Apple going to change the name and function of its online service, I wonder. Anyone remember iTools, which Apple debuted in January 2000? That was a free service, too. Then in summer 2002, Apple unveiled .Mac, which would replace iTools and institute a yearly subscription fee.

I'm having freaky sense of déjà vu, today. Apple may be late to cloud computing, but what's that saying about better late than never? Late has worked for Apple before, and I expect it to do so again.

Apple was late to music, when it launched iTunes in January 2001. The Napster revolution was well underway and Windows PC manufacturers shipped CD-RW drives. Now look at Apple and music. Apple was late to smartphones and tablets. Now it has shipped 200 million iOS devices, 25 million of them iPads -- in just 14 months. The list is longer, but you get the point.

Since Betanews' original report last Wednesday, dozens of readers have e-mailed their own reports of account issues, most dealing with Sega's Kingdom Conquest. Some of these initial reports were detailed in a followup to our original piece, but we have received more since then.

(Betanews is still actively collecting reports. If you've been hacked, whether it's Kingdom Conquest or not, we'd like to know. Send your reports to ed at edoswald dot com.)