PC makers are working on both netbooks and small desktop systems using Ion, but the first Ion PC, expected by this summer, will probably be a desktop model, an Nvidia spokesperson said today.

"Given that we just introduced Ion is December, and that PC design cycles are usually 6 to 12 months, it will take some time for Ion designs to come to market. We do expect the first Ion-based systems to hit by summer, if not earlier," said Ken Brown, PR manager for platforms, in an e-mail to Betanews.

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This week, Google cranked out several tools that exploit the search company's strength in the LBS (location based service) model. Betanews took a look at one for Android, and one for Gmail.

Google Labs is a repository of potentially advantageous little gadgets, so when new product is pushed through, it usually warrants solid consideration. On Tuesday, a Gmail lab was premiered that carried a solid concept: Show the geographic origin of a user's e-mails as a signature.

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A settlement by Facebook's founder to college classmates, pegged by lawyers at $65 million, contained only $20 million in cash, according to an AP report this week which also revives the issue of Facebook's real stock value.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg paid the controversial settlement to former Harvard classmates who claimed he stole their idea for a social networking site. The classmates later started their own social network, ConnectU.

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T-Mobile tends to keep the wraps on each new iteration of the Sidekick for as long as it can, but that doesn't keep details on (and photos of) the 2009 iteration of the cult-fave smartphone from making their way to the fan sites.

First, Hiptop3 (from which the above image is borrowed with thanks) scored another scoop this week from correspondence with, as they put it, "a reader who claims to have actually held and played with the Sidekick 2009/Blade."

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Charter Communications, the nation's fourth-largest cable company and a major component of Paul Allen's Vulcan, has turnaround experts on board and is prepping a Chapter 11 filing to restructure approximately $8 billion in debt.

The purchase of the St. Louis-based company in 1988 was a big component of Allen's "wired world" vision -- "I will finally have some wires for my wired world," he said back when he was purchasing both Charter and the quickly ingested Marcus Cable -- but the provider's had a hard time in the marketplace, ranking at or near the bottom of various customer-satisfaction polls over the years and getting a rare public warning from the Better Business Bureau in 2006.

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The Conficker situation has to be maddening for Microsoft. The vulnerability was patched months ago, but as the infection spreads through unpatched systems, it's hitting some very high-profile networks. And so the company's offering a remarkable reward for what could be a very fragile peace of mind.

Microsoft announced on Thursday that it's prepared to hand over a quarter of a million dollars (or the equivalent sum in your local currency; the offer's worldwide) for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who wrote Conficker. That's not a bad payday for a knowledgeable person willing to drop a dime, but a look at past arrests for alleged malware-writing reveals that usually the people who get nabbed are, to be blunt, script kiddies who tweaked up a variant and got (un)lucky. (Remember Jeffrey Lee Parson? The Blaster B variant? Anyone?)

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After Microsoft ended the Windows 7 Beta 1 downloads this week, reports of the appearance of a new leaked build quickly began to roll in. Users who didn't get a chance to download Beta 1 are now turning to BitTorrent sites to get the newer, leaked release.

Though reportedly "nothing major," the 7022 build is dated January 15, and includes Internet Explorer 8 RC 1. Windows 7 Beta 1 was build 7000.

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Planning a foray into standalone retail stores is risky business for a tech company not named Apple, but if Microsoft's going to take its long-rumored shot, it could have done worse than David Porter, the former DreamWorks and Wal-Mart exec they've hired to do the job.

According to the Redmond company, Porter's first task will be to define the time frame, location and specifics for Microsoft-branded retail stores. Porter will report to COO Kevin Turner, and he starts work on Presidents Day (that is, Monday).

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So begins a new day for the venerable YouTube, the popular video streaming site is testing downloadable videos which include both a free and a for-pay model.

Thai Tran, Product Manager at YouTube announced today in the site's official blog that YouTube is "going offline." That is to say, it is giving video owners the option to make their videos downloadable under the Creative Commons License. Also, the option to make the videos available through a Google Checkout purchase is being tested.

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With an estimated 44% of all mobile phones sitting around unused, many handset and service providers are working to keep gear from landing in landfills. On Thursday, Sprint announced an initiative to, by 2017, recycle or reuse 90% of all mobile phones compared with annual wireless device sales.

Sprint did some polling and found that nine out of ten households had at least one dead or decommissioned mobile phone hanging around; Nokia, in an earlier survey, said the total number of inert handsets works out to 44% of all mobile phones ever sold. And phones, unlike some tech gear, can be wholly recycled into new products -- if they can't simply be refurbished and re-deployed. Still, more than 140 million handsets get tossed each year in the US, and most of them go to landfills.

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Hard to imagine that Apple will be falling over themselves to celebrate this "celebrity" sighting, but a doozy in Al-Jazeera does have interesting implications for understanding how the Taliban has changed since the war started.

The Taliban is, of course, anti-everything worthwhile, and that includes technology. It's one thing for the wild-eyed leadership to have satellite phones and middling-quality videocameras, but overall, modern conveniences have been regarded as corrupting influences, and the general public is forbidden contact.

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T-Mobile's G1 will be getting its first full-featured navigation system on February 24 when Telenav releases its GPS Navigator for Android.

First available directly through Telenav's site, the navigation software will hit the Android market shortly thereafter, when it begins offering for-pay apps.

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Claiming that certain areas of the country are less ready than others for the switch to digital broadcast television, the FCC denied 123 termination notices from a list of 491.

"We have now reviewed the 491 termination notices filed by the stations intending to end analog service on February 17, 2009," reads a Federal Communications Commission public notice published yesterday (PDF available here). "We find that 368 of these stations may proceed with their intended termination of analog service on February 17th."

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Don't call it a comeback: Despite a solid year of competitive pressure from Apple, Google, RIM and the like, the world's biggest mobile OS system got bigger again on Thursday with the addition of 14 companies to the Symbian Foundation.

The Nokia-run non-profit foundation, still working toward its goal of an open mobile platform, increases its roster to 78 in just eight months of existence. Members are committed to creating an open-source platform, and have access to Nokia's Symbian software royalty-free.

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Though it took several days for it to decide upon the proper language, Mozilla today posted its final explanation about its status with respect to the European Commission's latest Microsoft complaint: an "interested party."

Today's admission from the makers of Firefox incorporates language the organization had been pondering as a response to questions from Betanews and others Tuesday, following uncorroborated blog reports that Mozilla was either suing Microsoft or that it was adding its name to legal action from the EC. Neither is the case, especially since the EC's action is not a lawsuit; and today, Mozilla explained that as carefully as possible.

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