Palm has announced the launch of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus today, noting the smartphones will go on sale to Verizon subscribers starting January 25th. Until now, the original Pre and Pixi (minus the "Plus") had been available only on Sprint.

The updated Pre has 16GB of storage, simplified navigation and a back cover that works better with Palm's TouchStone charging station. The Pixi adds Wi-Fi and new colorways. Both phones will include Verizon's VZ Navigator, for turn-by-turn GPS.

Palm also announced the addition of 3D gaming, and Flash support for the phones.

No word on the subsidized pricing of the phones through Verizon just yet.

Pic via MobileBurn:

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Sony has launched their latest flagship Blu-ray player today at the CES event, the BDP-S770, alongside the most powerful specs for a BD player yet (not including the PS3).

The player has integrated Wi-Fi, Bravia Internet Video Link (for Netflix, Pandora, YouTube), has native 3D support, and DLNA support for streaming.

Additionally, the player has support for an iPhone/iPod Touch remote control app which will be available for free via the App Store. There is no price tag yet, and Sony says the player will be available "this summer" likely meaning mid-June.

The full specs:

BDP-S770 Blu-ray Disc™ Player
Available this summer
• Blu-ray 3D™ Playback
• BRAVIA® Monolithic Design
• Full HD 1080p single-disc Blu-ray disc™, DVD, SA-CD, CD player
• BRAVIA® Internet Video and BD-LIVE™
• IP Content Noise Reduction
• Built-in Wi-Fi® Wireless (802.11) with Wi-Fi® Protected Setup (WAP)
• Entertainment Database Browser with Gracenote technology
• BD Remote (iPhone®/iPod touch® remote control – free app.)
• DVD upscaling to 1080p with Precision Cinema HD Upscaling
• Dolby® TrueHD and dts-HD Master Audio™ decoding
• Photo/Music/Video Playback via USB and DLNA®

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Panasonic has unveiled the world's largest 3D plasma display, a 152-inch 4K x 2k resolution behemoth that uses the company's new "quadruple luminous efficiency technology."

The technology, says the company, means the PDP "achieves a higher illuminating speed, about one fourth the speed of conventional Full HD panels."

The 4,096 x 2,160 pixel resolution screen also "incorporates a crosstalk reduction technology" and a "frame-at-a-time driving method that gives PDP TVs an advantage in crosstalk reduction in principle. Panasonic has successfully developed a unique technology to minimize double-image that occurs when left- and right-eye images are switched alternately. The development has resulted in the 3D compatible plasma display that can render clear and smooth high-quality pictures by accurately reproducing video sources."

Pic via Gizmodo:

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DreamWorks Animation, Technicolor and Samsung have announced today the introduction of a 3D home entertainment package bundle which will include a 3D-capable HDTV, a Blu-ray player and a "Monsters Vs. Aliens" 3D Blu-ray disc.

Technicolor is in charge of producing the 3D BD, and the TV and Blu-ray will come from Samsung.

"There has been great success with 3D in theaters, and the stars have finally aligned to bring this experience to the home," added Tim Baxter, president of Samsung's consumer electronics division, via BW.

Monsters Vs. Aliens was the fourth-most successful 3D release of the year, behind Avatar, Up and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

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Former private torrent tracker OiNK administrator Alan Ellis is under trial, with jury selection occurring earlier this week. Today, the jury was told that Ellis had received over $300,000 USD over the years through donations.

Additionally, Judge Briggs has told the jury to not research OiNK at all, as so far most reports on the matter are inaccurate or biased.

"It would be most unfortunate if any of you did any private research on the internet relating to this matter. Please don't," added Briggs. "It's only likely to cause difficulties and could in theory abort the trial. So, ladies and gentlemen, no independent research."

The case itself is pretty straightforward and Ellis is only charged with one case of conspiracy to defraud. "Put very simply it is suggested he was involved in a website that was used to distribute sound recordings and things of that nature in breach of copyright," Briggs noted.

Getting back to numbers, the prosecution said the OiNK tracker had led to 21 million downloads and that Ellis accepted about $300,000 in donations, although the prosecution did not mention that most, if not all, of the money went to paying for servers and hosting.

The case is ongoing.

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Microsoft has unveiled some more details today at CES about the Xbox Game Room, the company's new Xbox Live service.

The service will provide a "place to relive the glory days of arcade games" and that it will grow to include "over 1000" retro titles by 2012.

Your Xbox avatars will also get a "mini home" at the Arcade, with a customizable room.

Most interesting is the pay structure, which will be either 40 MS points for a single play (like at an arcade with quarters) or 240-400 points to own it.

The service should be available in the Spring.

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Just a couple days after Nintendo announced it expected 3 million Wii sales in the US alone for the month of December, Sony has put out a prediction as well, saying 3.8 million PlayStation 3 units were sold globally "during the holiday season."

Sony says demand jumped 76 percent year-on-year, mainly thanks to the cheaper price point of "fat" models and the introduction of the "Slim" model. Sony did not give region-by-region estimates however.

The NPD Group will release the December U.S. figures on January 15th.

Additionally, the company added that the free PlayStation Network now has 38 million registered accounts, although it is unclear how many actively use the accounts for anything but downloading firmware updates.

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The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has revealed the new logo for the Blu-ray 3D standard, which was ratified in December.

The specification allows for 1080p resolution delivery to each eye while wearing stereoscopic glasses, and will work on any compatible 3D display, including LCD, OLED and Plasma.

Blu-ray 3D also specifically calls for PlayStation 3 consoles to have full BD 3D content playback. Says CDRinfo: "Additionally, the specification supports playback of 2D discs in forthcoming 3D players and can enable 2D playback of Blu-ray 3D discs on the large installed base of Blu-ray Disc players currently in homes around the world. The Blu-ray 3D specification calls for encoding 3D video using the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec, an extension to the ITU-T H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) codec currently supported by all Blu-ray Disc players. MPEG4-MVC compresses both left and right eye views with a typical 50% overhead compared to equivalent 2D content, and can provide full 1080p resolution backward compatibility with current 2D Blu-ray Disc players. The specification also incorporates enhanced graphic features for 3D. These features provide a new experience for users, enabling navigation using 3D graphic menus and displaying 3D subtitles positioned in 3D video."

The new logo:

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AT&T has announced it will soon begin selling Android and Palm smartphones in the U.S., a smart hedge for when the iPhone goes off exclusivity in the 6 months.

The company is the second largest carrier behind Verizon with 82 million subscribers, but most of its growth has been attributed to new subscribers flocking to the iPhone.

AT&T will have five Android phones, developed by Motorola, HTC, and Dell. The Dell Mini3, released so far only in China and Brazil, will be exclusive to AT&T, although it is unclear for how long.

Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega also noted that they would begin selling two Palm devices, although it is unclear whether they will be the Pre and Pixi or new phones not yet unveiled that will run on GSM and not CDMA.

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On the 5th, Google introduced the Nexus One "superphone" during a press event, confirming most of what was known on the Internet for weeks.

Although we will have a much more in depth article on the Nexus One later tonight, here is a video of the superphone running Flash video thanks to Adobe Flash 10.1 beta. iPhone owners need not apply.

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DivX has announced that upcoming Philips Blu-ray players will include DivX Plus HD, allowing for playback of the HD video, in the MKV container. When the players hit Europe in April, Philips will be the first to offer the feature.

The devices will play all content created using the DivX software. More notably, the HD technology can support authored chapter points, quick start, 32x fast forward and rewind, high-quality AAC audio, 8 subtitle and alternate audio tracks, and metadata.

There are a number of sites that will begin offering pay-for downloads of movies in the format, and the new players will finally get the HD tech off the computer and onto the TV.

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Microsoft has finally, officially given a release date for its full body motion sensing Project Natal, saying it will hit the Xbox 360 "in time" for the holidays 2010, likely meaning November.

Says Steve Ballmer, CEO: "2010 is going to be a landmark year for all Xbox customers."

Ballmer also noted that there have been about 39 million Xbox 360 consoles sold globally, and over 500 million software titles sold. There are also over 20 million people with an "active" Xbox Live subscription.

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