Eastman Kodak has said today it is suing RIM and Apple for patent violations relating to the cameras used in BlackBerrys and the iPhone.

The complaint was filed with the International Trade Commission and alleges that the smartphones infringe on Kodak patents "covering technology for previewing photos."

Kodak is asking for an injunction on the import of phones sold by both companies. The company is also seeking unspecified monetary damages, and the end of the use of the technologies.

RIM and Apple declined comment but it is not as if sales of the popular devices are in immediate trouble. Patent disputes sometimes take up to 10 years, however ITC complaints usually take only 15 months.

"We've had discussions for years with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue amicably, and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement," added Laura Quatela, Kodak's chief intellectual property officer. "Our primary interest is not to disrupt the availability of any product but to obtain fair compensation for the use of our technology."

Kodak currently has 1100 patents relating to digital photography technologies and licenses them to over 30 companies.

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Facebook has announced today that they have signed a deal with McAfee that will give all 350 million members a free six-month license for Internet security software.

"Now, if your computer is infected, you will be asked to run a scan ... and clean it before accessing Facebook," added Facebook project manager Jake Brill. "We're not aware of another free Internet service that takes this much responsibility for helping people keep their accounts secure."

After the six months, you will have to pay to continue using the license, but McAfee says the fee will be cheaper than the annual subscription price for the software in stores.

The software will run on Windows PCs only, with no expected Mac OS X or Linux deal coming anytime soon.

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Nintendo has finally announced the European launch date for the DSi XL, setting March 5th as the release day for the new, updated console.

The handheld has a much larger screen, and comes with two larger styluses as well as pre-loaded games, and sold well in Japan when it was released there in November.

The device will be available in wine red and dark brown and the XL will come pre-loaded with "Dr. Kawashima's: Little Bit of Brain Training: Arts Edition" and "Dictionary 6 in 1 with Camera Function"

The price has not been revealed for the UK yet.

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According to Goldman Sachs analyst Robert Chen, the next generation iPhone will be ready by June, featuring a 5MP camera and touch-sensitive casing, similar to that of the Magic Mouse.

"Apple's going to put a lot of innovation, not just on the hardware, but also on the software of the new iPhone," says Chen, who is also a member of Asia's highest-ranked technology hardware research team.

Apple declined comment.

The camera upgrade has been long expected, and should put the iPhone in the same realm as other smartphones, such as the Nexus One, for starters.

More notably however is the speculation of multi-touch casing and an upgrade of the iPhone firmware, to version 3.5 or even 4. The App Store will be re-hauled as well. The Magic Mouse has a touch shell that replaces the need for clicking buttons. The iPhone may have the new casing included, offering touch-sensitive features on the back on the handset.

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Vodafone is claiming strong launch day iPhone sales today, with over 50,000 pre-ordered.

In a direct jab at rival O2's admitted network problems, Vodafone says that the expected data use surge will be handled smoothly, even with high sales of the device.

"It's an outstanding phone and our network has been built for smartphones. We already carry vast volumes of data, so we've got the capacity to handle the iPhone demand," says the company.

The iPhone is now available on three carriers in the region, Vodafone, Orange and O2, but Voda says the refuse to start a price war, instead keeping the prices similar to that of rivals.

"People thought there would be a price war [when we announced we'd sell the iPhone] but it's not a price war, it's about the quality of experience," the spokesman concluded.

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According to the latest data from research firm Nielsen, Google continues to be the dominant force in the search engine market, controlling 67.3 percent share in December.

For the month, a total of 9.9 billion queries were made, with Google taking about 6.7 billion of them. Yahoo remained in second, with 1.4 billion queries, for 14.4 percent share. Bing, Microsoft's latest incarnation, has 9.9 percent share. AOL, Ask, My Web and Comcast took the next few spots for a combined 5.7 percent share.

From November, Yahoo and Bing dropped about a percentage point a piece, which was apparently taken over by Google, which moved up two percent.

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Earlier this week, Google threatened to pull its service from China if the company and the government could not come to an agreement over the censoring of content. Chinese officials have fired back today, claiming the Internet is a free place in China, but that companies must obey the law.

"China's Internet is open," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. "China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law."

The Chinese Information Office added: "Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts. Properly guiding Internet opinion is a major measure for protecting Internet information security."

Official Wang Chen also adds: "Companies have to concretely increase the ability of Internet media to guide public opinion in order to uphold Internet safety."

Google's threat was made public on Tuesday when it was discovered that Chinese hackers had breached Google's network, stealing "intellectual property" and attempting to steal Gmail accounts of human rights activists involved in Chinese issues. Google was just one of 35 companies attacked, but was certainly one of the largest. If the government will not agree to providing uncensored search results that will not violate Chinese law, then Google is prepared to completely pull its service from China.

The hackers did not get away with much, however, only seeing the subject lines of a few emails, and the account creation date of two accounts.

Besides human rights activists, lawyers of an American firm were also targeted. Gipson Hoffman & Pancione are representing a plaintiff suing the Chinese government for alleged stealing of software that is now used in the Chinese "Great Firewall," but was banned from sale. The plaintiff is asking for $2.2 billion.

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The Activision blockbuster smash hit Modern Warfare 2 has hit $1 billion USD in global sales in two months of availability, meaning about 15 million units have been sold.

The news makes it a good month for the entertainment industry, with the blockbuster film Avatar surpassing $1 billion as well, becoming the second-highest grossing film of all-time, in just one month of release.

At 15 million units sold, Modern Warfare 2 ranks 12th all-time for non-bundled games, behind Wii Fit, Wii Play, Nintendogs, Pokemon Red, Blue, Green, Diamond and Pearl, New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Bros. 3, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Mario Kart DS.

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According to a report from 24/7 Wall St., App Store app piracy has led to $450 million in losses for developers and Apple since the market's open in July 2008.

It is estimated that about 17 percent of all downloads from the App Store (currently over 3 billion) are paid applications, with over 100,000 paid applications available.

However, the jailbreaking of iPhones and iPod Touches continues to grow, especially as the process has gotten simpler. The process has become as easy as one-click, using a software such as redsn0w, and unlocking the phone for use on GSM providers outside of AT&T has become as easy as one-click as well. Jailbroken phones can use pirated apps, and it is estimated that there are 7.5-10 million current devices jailbroken.

The report then does a bit of math to come up with the headline figure. Putting paid application piracy at 75 percent (3-to-1), and 17 percent of 3 billion at 510 million, pirated downloads of paid applications can be as high as 1.53 billion. The average app price is $2.99 so the math turns to about $450 billion. Of course that number is not an accurate representation of how many users would have actually purchased the apps had they not had the ability to pirate them, so the report puts that number at 10 percent, or about $450 million USD.

Apple takes a 30 percent cut of revenue, putting their losses at $135 million, however the $315 million loss seen by the developers is the bigger problem and may be a reason why only a handful of developers have been extremely successful through the App Store.

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