It's the question to ask with the Mac App Store launching in one week. Software takes up valuable shelf space Apple could use for other things, particularly in many of its smaller boutique-sized shops. I've asked Apple PR if the company plans to stop selling software at its retail stores but received no answer before posting.

Apple is notorious for pulling the plug on something and pushing the consumer market forward, whether or not it's ready to move. I remember when in 1998, with launch of the Bondi Blue iMac, Apple removed legacy ports, shifting to FireWire and USB. A decade later, Apple ditched the internal optical drive on the original MacBook Air. The newer model replaces the hard drive with solid-state storage. There are many other examples and some quite displeasing to consumers, when Apple releases something new incompatible with what its customers already have.

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One of the major advantages Barnes and Noble's Nook e-reader offered over Amazon's Kindle was the ability to lend other users e-books that you had purchased. Today, Amazon closed that gap when it announced Kindle Book Lending.

Just like Barnes and Noble's Nook, Kindle users can now share certain books they have purchased with friends for a period of 14 days. From the "Manage Your Kindle" menu in your Amazon account, you can select "loan this book," and then enter the recipient's e-mail address and name. They do not have to own the Kindle hardware, and can read the book in any of the free Kindle applications. If one receives an e-mail alerting you that someone has loaned you a book, you have seven days to initiate the loan and start the 14 day loan period.

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An Android-based Trojan called "Geinimi" has been discovered in the wild, mobile security company Lookout now warns. The Trojan is capable of sending personal information to remote servers and exhibits botnet-like behavior, the security company says.

Geinimi originated in China, and is being distributed inside applications and games downloadable in third-party Android app stores. Once the application is launched on the user's smartphone, the trojan collects location data, as well as the device's IMEI and IMSI numbers, and a list of all the apps the user has installed on his device. It then attempts to contact a remote server every five minutes to send this information.

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I started developing applications and websites using Microsoft tools about 15 years ago, and I anticipated developing for Windows Phone 7. In fact, two of my WP7 apps were announced as winners in Microsoft's WP7 Federal Apps contest about two weeks ago. However, my enthusiasm is much less post launch, after struggling to get several of my apps approved for sale in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

When I went to register for my Marketplace account early in September, I got an error message at the end of the process. My credit card was charged the $99, but I had no access to the Marketplace developer portal. It took about a full week for this issue to be resolved and for me to get access to the portal -- however, the issue was fairly widespread as there were numerous postings to the support forum from other users experiencing the same issue. I believe this issue is still occurring, although not as commonly, as you can still find similar postings to the registration forums here.

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Popular instant messaging, voice and video chat client Skype today released a version for iOS that supports video calling on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

With the updated iOS application, users can make video calls to desktop versions of Skype as well as to other iOS devices over Wi-Fi or 3G mobile data connections.

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Six months after moving to Apple's smartphone, I'm back on Android. On December 17, I bought the Samsung-made Google Nexus S from my local Best Buy. Days later, my iPhone 4 sold on eBay for $575, which will cover my early termination fee with AT&T and some of the new phone's cost. Like any other tech purchase, I did research beforehand but couldn't find what I most wanted: iPhone comparison to Nexus S reviews -- Apple's flagship smartphone to Google's superphone. After nearly two weeks using Nexus S, I'm ready to offer some experiential comparisons for other shoppers.

To be clear, I wasn't dissatisfied with iPhone 4. On the contrary, I was hugely satisfied with the phone and the user experience. Apple's smartphone feels solid to hold, offers breathtaking display and shoots pleasing photos and videos. With the exception of ongoing Bluetooth earpiece problems, iPhone satisfied -- perhaps too much. Psychologists say that marriages often break up not in a flurry of anger or arguments but silence. Two people drift apart, one day realizing they have little left in common. That sentiment in some ways describes my feelings about iPhone 4. Three-and-a-half years after the original phone launched, the iOS user interface is pretty much the same. The UI feels stale, uninviting and too PC-like. I love the hardware, but no longer pine for the software.

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A systemwide failure which took down the popular VoIP service for about 24 hours beginning at 4pm GMT December 22 was caused by a server overload, chief information officer Lars Rabbe disclosed on Wednesday. This overload in turn caused delayed communication with Skype clients, in some cases causing crashes.

The problems even prompted CEO Tony Bates to e-mail users of the service, offering a credit voucher worth about 30 minutes of international airtime to its users -- and again publicly apologizing for the issues.

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In what may be an attempt to fend off any potential lawsuits, Nintendo on Wednesday took the unusual step of actually recommending parents to not buy its upcoming 3DS handheld system for their children if they are under the age of six.

The game manufacturer's reason was that children at this age are still in the "developmental stage" and exposure to 3D imagery may damage their vision. It also recommended that gamers of all ages take more frequent breaks when playing 3D games.

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Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen really needs a lesson in how to effectively file and win patent lawsuits. For starters, you don't file them in a Washington State federal court. Other patent plaintiffs seem to get what Allen doesn't: You file in East Texas, in what is affectionately or unaffectionally called -- depending on which side of the verdict you're on -- the "rocket docket." Instead, Allen is back in a Seattle court, refiling a patent infringement case that got tossed about two weeks ago.

US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman vacated the original complaint for being too vague -- "spartan," she wrote -- listing infringers but offering no real examples of infringement. Based on my long experience reporting about technology patent cases, such little details probably wouldn't have stopped Allen in East Texas. The new lawsuit is more explicit, citing examples of real products that allegedly infringe on his patents. The lawsuit names Apple, eBay, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and YouTube -- but, hey, not Microsoft.

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My second set of year-in-review retrospectives is 10 stories in disguise. The number is closer to 20, because I combined together the 7-part Chrome OS laptop review series into one. While I wrote fewer stories about Google than Microsoft, I found this list harder to create than the first one -- "10 for 2010: Microsoft stories that mattered."

These are 10 (OK, nearly 20) of my Google stories I believe that you should have read in 2010. You still have time! The stories are organized by importance, from least to most -- that is 10 to 1. I weighed importance based on relevance of the analysis to Google in 2010 and even in coming years. Not all readers will agree on which is more or less important, or perhaps not at all.

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Internet retail giant Amazon may sell a lot of stuff, but nothing has sold like the Kindle. The company said Tuesday that the third generation of the book reader has become its best selling product of all time, surpassing 2007 bestseller Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

As has been the case with the Kindle since its initial release, Amazon still has refused to give an exact number of devices sold. An educated guess on sales can be made, however: Harry Potter sold about 2.5 million copies during the first quarter following its release.

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2010 was a big year for Google's Android mobile operating system, as it moved at a lightning pace from a minority position into the position of most popular operating system in the United States. Still, when retrospectives are put together for "best apps of the year" lists, editors often make choices that seem obvious. We've put one together for 2010 that hopefully avoids the more self-explanatory choices.

Moodagent-- Even though it's frequently chided for being weak in the gaming department when compared to iOS, Android has far more ground to gain against it in the MP3 player category. With the many OEM-skinned media players, the built-in one sometimes looks unremarkable. That's why third party media management apps on Android is a category worth paying attention to. Moodagent is a playlist-creation app that takes the music stored on your Android device and categorizes each song by its "feel." The user then sets sliders labeled "Sensual," "Tender," "Happy," "Angry" and "Tempo," and playlists appropriate to the mood are built according to its settings.

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Three are enough: Search, advertising and Android. But if you need seven more: Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google.

Last night, while reading news on my Nexus S, I came across this little ditty: "Google TV Is Failing: 10 Reasons Why," by freelancer Don Reisinger, writing for eWeek. Judging from Reisinger's eWeek profile, he seemingly only writes top-10 lists. His reasons appear to be sensible but lack depth regarding the consumer electronics industry, Google or television networks. Google is as committed to television as it is to mobile -- and look how well Chrome and Android are doing two years out of the gate.

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Google's efforts with the six-year old Google Books project have yielded 15 million scanned books, a new cross-platform e-bookstore, and a temporary copyright shield that lets Google sell "orphaned" works*; but the task of scanning every book cannot be left solely up to Google and its partners.

Earlier this year, Google estimated that 129,864,880 books were in existence. At Google's current pace of 1,000 pages per hour per scanner in use, it could take over 40 years to scan that many books. What's more, Google is only counting the media it defines as a "book," and not the countless other paper media that makes a library such a valuable resource.

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Apple's iPad surely doesn't deserve the designation, although some other news sites or blogs are giving it. Instead, sync is my choice as technology of 2010. Sync by far is the year's most useful and widely beneficial technology. Sync wasn't invented this year, but the technology reached a crescendo of usefulness -- anytime, anywhere and on anything.

I first started writing about the importance of content synchronization in 2003, arguing that the utility belonged in the operating system. In January 2004, I blogged for JupiterResearch: "Controlling synchronization at the platform level would help Microsoft protect its Windows monopoly." Microsoft planned to integrate sync into Windows Longhorn, but later pulled the plug. Apple brought sync into Mac OS X with limited utility and later to iOS, where it is much more useful. Google trumped both companies, by taking sync somewhere even more useful: To the cloud. Android and the Chrome browser sync to Google datacenters and back to software, quite marvelously. But sync's reach and utility go much farther than these three companies-- from Amazon Kindle to Facebook and beyond.

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