Research In Motion Ltd. today launched its faster, more optimized Facebook application for Blackberry, at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment show in San Francisco.

The application is non browser-based, giving the user access to all the site's "essential" features: uploading photos (applicable to the Pearl or Curve handsets), adding friends, poking, wall posting, and private messaging. All these actions are very quickly executed, according to Crackberry forum user postings, and only lag a few seconds behind the user's Facebook site.

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Following in the wake of Verizon and AT&T, whose chief executives have both made comments in the past seven days that were interpreted by analysts as either saying they would bid in the FCC's upcoming auction of the 700 MHz broadcast spectrum or would not bid - depending, one supposes, on which side of the room they were listening on at the time - Google CEO Eric Schmidt added fuel to the fire by making the same kind of bipolar comments.

Indeed, some sources who attended Google's analyst conference in Mountain View yesterday quoted Schmidt as clearly saying his company would "probably bid" in the auction, now set for next January 24. But others who followed Schmidt out the side door to ask more questions, according to MarketWatch, heard Schmidt say his company would most likely want to partner with someone else to place that bid.

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This afternoon, Microsoft won the apparent battle for an equity stake in social networking applications provider Facebook, making a $240 million equity investment in the company. In exchange, Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party supplier of Facebook's advertising platform.

During a conference call Wednesday afternoon, Facebook Chief Revenue Officer Owen van Natta and Microsoft platforms division president Kevin Johnson revealed few specific details. In fact, they worked hard to draw a clear line around those items they would not reveal any details about. For instance, would the partnership enable new forms of Microsoft applications on the Facebook platform? Won't say. Will Facebook branded applications appear on Microsoft properties? Won't say.

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A patent application turned up by the Associated Press reveals that IBM has proposed an electronic trading system that would enable a new kind of derivatives market for intellectual property. In this market, traders would buy and sell "floating" rights to chunks of a company's IP portfolio, thus becoming not only the recipient of royalties from that portfolio, but the designated defender of those IP rights in court, for a limited period of time.

As traders in derivatives are already well aware, there are new and burgeoning options markets emerging not just for stocks and securities, but commodities and other tradable interests. The idea is to enable investors to buy the right to buy or sell a security or other interest at a specified price at some point in the future. A buyer might purchase the right to acquire a set amount of stock at a low price after its trading value has well surpassed that price, or a seller might purchase the right to dispose of stock after its value plummets below a set price - and for this, traders pay a premium.

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Sophos Labs, an international firm specializing in IT security and control, has published its most recent "dirty dozen" report, saying that the United States relays more spam than any other country by a tremendous margin.

This is not a newly-achieved position, as the company has been releasing these reports for several years, and it is always topped by the United States.

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While HD DVD may be trumpeting the success of Transformers, the format is still struggling to take the lead back from rival Blu-ray. Sony's format has seen sales of 2.6 million discs from January 1 to September 30, compared with 1.4 million discs sold on HD DVD.

Home Media Research, a division of Home Media Magazine, released the figures Tuesday, which were in line with analysts expectations. Industry watchers expect HD DVD to gain some ground in the 4th quarter thanks to a move by Warner Bros. and Paramount to begin selling all movies as combo discs, which have the standard DVD on one side. Expanded special features and Web enabled content not yet found on Blu-ray titles could also help push HD DVD ahead.

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While Mozilla may get all the credit for finally dethroning Internet Explorer as the only dominant Web browser with its development of Firefox, the man behind the curtain continues to be Google, which provides the vast majority of the cash that keeps Mozilla going.

According to financial statements posted this week by Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker, the company brought in $66.8 million in revenues during 2006 - a 26 percent improvement from 2005's revenues of $52.9 million. A full 85 percent of Mozilla's revenue for 2006 came directly from Google through its search box partnership.

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While computer makers have for the past year been rolling out laptops with built-in 3G broadband services, customers were forced to make a choice between HSDPA, used by AT&T and soon T-Mobile, or EV-DO, used by Verizon, Sprint and Alltel. Qualcomm aims to change this with its new "Gobi" chipset.

The Gobi chip is compatible with both technologies, which could lead to its quick adoption by manufacturers - and potentially drive more consumer adoption of 3G services. Qualcomm says the chipset is available now, and expects consumers to see laptops with the dual capability by the second quarter of 2008. Gobi does not, however, support WiMAX, which is currently being tested by Sprint as a better -- and faster -- alternative to cellular-based 3G offerings.

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In a move to demonstrate its recent drive toward openness was not being done to appease the European Commission, Microsoft this afternoon announced it is adding the API for hypercalls - the ability for a host machine to communicate directly with a virtual machine - to the list of technologies covered by its Open Specification Promise.

The hypercall API will be one of the more intriguing additions to Windows Server 2008, which will be the vehicle in which the company's built-in virtualization technology, code-named Viridian, will premiere next year.

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The company that years ago set out to become a legitimate alternative to Intel, and blazed the trail that AMD eventually followed, today announced it is setting aside its patent infringement claim against Intel. The companies have reached an out-of-court settlement granting Intel perpetual license to Transmeta's CPU power management technology, in exchange for $150 million in cash up front and $100 million more over the next five years.

"This agreement insures there will be a complete peace between the companies," Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy told BetaNews this morning, "and presents the opportunity for the companies to work on future projects together."

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Samsung announced at the CTIA Wireless show in San Francisco yesterday that its Blackjack II smartphone will be available later this year through AT&T. The i617 is much like its predecessor in appearance and profile, but has undergone some design tweaks.

Most notably missing from the handset is the scroll wheel, which made the Blackjack behave much like a Blackberry. It has been replaced by an iPod-style jogwheel above the keypad.

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As expected following news Monday that Microsoft would finally comply with the European Union's requirement that it make parts of its Windows source code available for distribution to developers, the Redmond company has officially dropped its appeal of the original 2004 antitrust ruling, as well as an appeal of the fine imposed in July 2006.

Seemingly eager to put the matter behind the company once and for all, Microsoft says it paid that fine of 280.5 million euros in October 2006. Microsoft had also appealed a provision of the 2004 decision that required it to freely open certain Windows protocols to open source developers, but that effort was struck down last month, leading the company to file another appeal. The company said that appeal was now unnecessary due to the deal with the EU Commission announced Monday.

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After having mounted what appeared to have been a serious legal challenge to the US Federal Communications Commission's right to impose rules for bidders in the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction without legislative authority, Verizon yesterday formally withdrew its FCC complaint from the D.C. District Court of Appeals, Dow Jones reported this morning.

Verizon had sought judicial review on the matter on the basis that the FCC exceeded its authority under current telecommunications law. The FCC has ordered that winners of spectrum in the so-called "C-block," which currently resides around UHF Channel 63, make services available to customers using that spectrum only if they can choose their own equipment. Verizon's lawyers challenged that argument on the grounds that any restrictions whatsoever could be construed as a violation of federal mandates for openness in the auction process.

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WiMAX technology is on the cusp of coming fully into the marketplace, and Cisco has seized an early opportunity in acquiring mobile WiMAX pioneer Navini Networks for $330 million.

The idea for long-range broadband-capable wireless connectivity has been in existence for several years, but due to the changing face of WiMAX as we know it, and varying degrees of adoption by big companies, actual developments have been fewer than the regulations pertaining to them.

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Although Mac OS X version 10.5, known as "Leopard," won't pounce into retail stores until Friday at 6pm, a purported final copy of the new operating system is already making the rounds on the Internet. Windows Vista leaked out before its launch as well, but there is one key distinction in that Leopard includes no activation requirements or other anti-piracy restrictions. Mac enthusiast sites are using the leak to prepare early reviews of Leopard.

In preparation for Leopard's launch, Apple has pulled the beta version of Boot Camp, which allows owners of Intel Macs to install Windows and dual-boot between the operating systems. It's unlikely that Apple will provide further updates to Tiger owners, instead encouraging them to spend $129 on the upgrade to Leopard, which ships with Boot Camp built in.

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