It's good to be on top of the heap, Sony discovered for perhaps a brief moment, and today gaming analysts are giving the PS3 a ray of hope for Japan. But that depends on just how carefully you slice the pie, as the market leader remains Nintendo.

Widely circulated reports attributed to Reuters, though not attributed to the Nikkei service, state that the relative ratio of sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 to Nintendo's Wii console, tightened to 1.7 : 1, during a five-week period that ended last week. In that period, the highly anticipated Konami game title Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots was released in Japan exclusively for the PS3, evidently contributing to sales.

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Just hours after making it publicly available, Sony has pulled the PlayStation 3's latest firmware download (v2.40) due to reports of inoperable consoles after the update process.

SCEA's director of Corporate Communication and Social Media, Patrick Seybold, played down the problem, saying that incoming calls regarding failures have been of a low volume, and the removal is only temporary.

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If the manufacturer of a product acknowledges a series of potentially hazardous defects before anyone else can be hurt by them, and the solution is already available, perhaps the word "responsibility" applies in a good way.

Download Firefox 2.0.0.15 for Windows from FileForum now.

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With the Windows-based edition of Parallels Server currently in beta, Parallels announced on Wednesday that another of its virtualization servers, Virtuozzo Containers, will run on HP's high-end, Windows-based Integrity servers.

On Tuesday, Parallels' desktop virtualization software for Mac formed a key part of the launch announcement for the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA), a new group established to promote better management of Macs in multi-vendor environments.

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Download Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection 2.0.0 for Mac from FileForum now.

After being in public beta just shy of one year, the official version of Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection 2 client for Mac was released yesterday.

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European ISP organizations are concerned that the cost of implementing proposals intended to reduce cybercrime could put them out of business, but a leading security vendor said the cost of not doing anything could be even higher.

As we reported yesterday, a report for the European Parliament suggests that ISPs pool together to conduct pro-active measures against systems that maliciously impact IP traffic, and that ISPs be held responsible if they fail to do so. That proposal garnered comments from European organizations and from states' government representatives.

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Midrange semi-intelligent phones such as Motorola's RAZR are gradually going to be subsumed by smart phones based on industry standard operating systems, predicted Kevin Burden, director of mobile devices for ABI Research.

The midrange phone market will dwindle as smart phones with high-level operating systems get pushed down the product line, Burden said. The reason, he explained, is because it is easier for manufacturers to deal with a standard operating system than with a real-time operating system that is often homegrown and that they have to create, update, and maintain themselves.

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With online activism one of the key factors behind Barack Obama's success, his new position on a key bill affecting the government's ability to wiretap Internet users is making even stalwart supporters rethink their own positions.

Immediately after the US House of Representatives passed compromise legislation that would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Washington Post was the first to quote Sen. Barack Obama (D - Ill.), the likely Democratic nominee for President, as siding with House Democrats including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D - Md.) in urging the compromise bill's passage in the Senate.

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Less than 60 percent of Web users are outfitted with up-to-date, fully patched browsers, according to a new, IBM co-authored research study, which relies on examinations of users' Google log records to help reach that conclusion.

Jointly produced by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google, and IBM Internet Security Services, the study places most of the blame for browser security problems on Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

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Sun Microsystems hopes to expand GlassFish and MySQL use with a new Glassfish and MySQL Unlimited initiative aimed at corporations looking to deploy open source software.

Sun Microsystems announced last week it will bundle GlassFish with MySQL in a new program called Glassfish and MySQL Unlimited, which will offer companies the ability to deploy these products an unlimited number of times, for a fixed annual fee.

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The other shoe -- or is it the other egg? -- has dropped on VideoEgg Inc., a company whose mission is to make it easier for advertising to be distributed by giving individuals the incentive to do it instead. Apparently they made it too easy.

In a 65-page complaint filed last Friday, EMI Music is alleging several kinds of copyright infringement and unfair competition, citing almost 80 pieces it owns that it said San Francisco-based VideoEgg and its partners had used inappropriately. The company is requesting up to $150,000 per copyright infringement, attorney fees, and both preliminary and permanent injunctions.

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Responding to an unfavorable analyst outlook for post-merger Sirius and XM, satellite radio network Sirius this week published its guidance for 2009, predicting a full year of profitability if the merger is completed.

Just under two weeks ago, Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Wienkes wrote, "While the FCC draft circulation signaling the merger's likely ultimate conditioned approval generated a short-term lift to the stocks, we think any imminent merger-related strength has passed." He went on to add, "With core demand for satellite radio falling amongst the younger demographics, versus rapid increases for MP3 players and other new technologies, and declining core ARPU, we see long-term risk to the outlook."

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Sprint's indoor coverage-extending femtocell device, Airave, will be rolled out nationwide on July 15 according to early reports.

Airave is a device which connects to any cable modem or DSL router with an open port, and generates a signal to which mobile phones can connect. Airave allows up to three simultaneous voice connections to be made within a 5,000 square foot coverage area.

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According to announcements this morning, enterprise Linux distributor Xandros will purchase consumer Linux maker Linspire, in a move that had been rumored for several weeks with little details coming from either company.

According to Xandros, the deal was officially signed on June 19, but it appears both companies tried to slip the announcement under the rug.

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Nokia has gotten the final okay from the European Commission on its plans to buy digital map maker Navteq, following a detail investigation around the impact of the $8.1 billion deal, particularly on competing mobile phone makers.

As previously reported in BetaNews, at the end of March, the EC issued a statement announcing an investigation into Nokia's proposed Navteq acquisition and voicing worries that the deal might "in the light of the duopoly market for navigable digital maps and Nokia's strong position [in] the market for mobile handsets, lead to a significant impediment of competition."

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