According to a Facebook post, Best Buy will begin offering the Motorola Devour for $99 starting February 25th, alongside price drops of the Droid and the Droid Eris.

With activation and 2-year agreement, the Devour will cost $99, the Droid will drop to $99, and the Droid Eris will be free.

Reads the post:

"We lowered our prices on the Droid Eris by HTC to Free, DROID by Motorola to $99.99, and on February 25th are introducing the MOTOROLA DEVOUR™ with MOTOBLUR™ at $99.99. Pricing requires 2 year activation. Activation and termination fees apply. Handsets may vary by store. See store for details."

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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has written to over 100 firms and organizations warning about a widespread, on-going data breach due to misuse of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software. The FTC did not specify who it contacted, but said it included public and private institutions including schools and companies that employee as few as 8 people to others than employ tens of thousands.

The FTC said that sensitive data about customers and employees had been shared from computer networks to virtually anybody in the world connected to the Internet and P2P file-sharing networks. "Unfortunately, companies and institutions of all sizes are vulnerable to serious P2P-related breaches, placing consumers' sensitive information at risk," FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said.

These types of data breaches are serious because of their potential to facilitate identify theft or fraud. "For example, we found health-related information, financial records, and driver's license and social security numbers -- the kind of information that could lead to identity theft," Leibowitz said.

"Companies should take a hard look at their systems to ensure that there are no unauthorized P2P file-sharing programs and that authorized programs are properly configured and secure." It's not just the organizations with P2P users that need to be cautious either, Leibowitz said developers of P2P software should take measures to block accidental sharing of files.

Sensitive data being made available on P2P networks is probably accidental in the vast majority of cases, as an employee of a particular organization could install P2P software to download music or other content, and accidentally include sensitive information among shared items.

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A UK government proposal to charge citizens with fixed phone lines a levy of 50p per month in order to fund broadband plans in the Digital Economy Bill has been condemned as "unfair" by members of parliament. The Business Innovation and Skills Committee said that most affected by the new levy would not benefit from the ultra-fast broadband services the government is pushing.

The government says that upgrading its broadband networks is the best way to drive further investment, maintaining that such measures are vial to the UK's economic growth. "We believe that a 50p levy placed on fixed telecommunication lines is an ill-directed charge," the committee asserts. "It will place a disproportionate cost on a majority who will not, or are unable to, reap the benefits of that charge."

Also included in the broadband plans is a goal to provide a minimum of 2Mbps Internet anywhere in Britain by 2012. The committee does agree with this part of the goal in principal, although it criticizes the government for not being more specific. Broadband speeds vary for customers throughout the day, and can also vary based on the distance between a home and an exchange.

The committee would like the government to guarantee a minimum of 2Mbps to all users, at all times and under normal circumstances. As for the Next Generation Access plans (ultra-fast broadband plans), the committee feels that demand for such services is not high enough to justify the public investment, and believes the free market can be trusted to provide it.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that it wants everybody to "access the huge social, economic and health benefits" that high speeds offer. "The 50p duty we have proposed is modest, fair and affordable and is the best way to drive further investment in our networks," said a spokesman.

"Our analysis shows that without intervention, the market will only reach up to 70% of the country, so it's vital we act now to ensure no area is left behind." The Department believes the 50p duty will facilitate a £1 billion upgrade to the UK's digital networks, and will particularly benefit users located in rural areas.

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TiVo Inc. has reached out to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over concerns that the use of Switched Digital Video (SDV) technology by Cable providers will destroy its business. While traditional cable infrastructure delivers all available channels at once to subscribers' receivers, SDV will deliver only the channels currently being accessed.

The benefits of SDV are obvious; savings in bandwidth for one and the possibility of setting up systems with multiple times the channels currently being offered to subscribers. The system requires a receiver to send an upstream signal to a cable headend to request a signal be sent down the cable; a TiVo box cannot do this and relies on infrastructure that allows it to simply lock on to the available signals.

In a nutshell, this means that a TiVo box cannot change a channel on a SDV-based system, whereas a provider-issued box can. TiVo attacks the industry in a filing with the FCC on the issue, pointing out that TiVo is the "only major competitive entrant left standing" in the DVR space. It attributes this position to Cable's historical reluctance to open networks to third-party hardware, as opposed to natural free-market forces.

"It is reasonable to foresee that the majority of, if not all, video programming will be SDV in the not too distant future," says TiVo. "Without immediate FCC action, no market for competitive video devices can emerge." SDV has been around for a while, but TiVo has found a new urgency due to an inflating number of U.S. households with SDV-based hookups.

In 2008, an estimated 25 million U.S. homes used a cable service driven by SDV, and by 2009 the number had increased to 35 million. To resolve the issue, Cable providers demand that TiVo should adopt the "tru2way" platform, but TiVo is looking for a less restrictive and simpler approach. The DVR-maker would much prefer to use broadband signaling (more or less using the Internet) to communicate with the headend and request signals.

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South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics is aiming to be the first TV-maker to offer a full HD 1080p LED-backlit 3D television in Europe. It will begin shipments of its 3D-capable units to Europe next month along with expansions of its 8 and 7-series LEDs and 6-series LCDs.

For plasma proponents, Samsung is aiming to ship 3D plasma televisions to Europe in "late Spring". The company will also release its new BD-C6900, a 3D Blu-ray player, and will offer 9-series LEDs and the HT-C6930W home theater rig in Spring.

3D models come with "wireless-ready" capabilities and sport a built-in Ethernet connection to access the company's Internet@TV online applications store. Among the media downloads being offered from the service is software from the History Channel, Cartoon Network, Google's Picasa and BBC's iPlayer.

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Twitter has boasted that its users now send out 50 million 140-character-or-less tweets per day, or about six hundred per second. The micro-blogging giant, which is usually mute about much of its statistics, revealed the milestone on Monday. The site had five thousand tweets every day back in 2007, which went up to 300,000 per day in 2008.

In 2009, tweets had grown to an impressive 2.5 million every day, according to Kevin Weil, a member of Twitter's analytics team. "Tweets grew 1,400 percent last year to 35 million per day," Weil said. "Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day -- that's an average of 600 tweets per second."

The total number of Twitter users is unknown to the public, kept as an internal statistic at the company since it launched.

Considering that the 50,000,000 figure only represents the amount of tweets made by users, the actual number of tweets delivered by the service would be much higher, with tweets being shown for all followers of a user. Furthermore, Twitter omitted messages that were posted from accounts identified as spam from the total figures.

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The European Commission (EC) is set to approve a merger between Orange and T-Mobile, which will create the largest mobile phone company in the United Kingdom. A request from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to the Commission to launch its own independent investigation spurred both operators into action to alleviate any concerns that regulators might have with the merger.

Among the concerns were the dominant share the new company would have over the scarce wireless spectrum and what the merger would have meant to the UK's smallest mobile phone network; 3. Despite being the smallest network in the UK, 3 can be credited with driving price competition in the UK in recent years.

In order to fend off a lengthy competition-probe in the UK, T-Mobile and Orange came to a deal with 3, which is owned by Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.

Under the new deal, 3 will get access to 3,000 more mast sites across the UK. This would bring its total access to 16,000 sites and give it the largest 3G network in the United Kingdom. As for concerns about the wireless spectrum, T-Mobile and Orange agreed that the new mobile network would give back a quarter of the spectrum allotted to it for use by rivals to provide wireless broadband services.

The OFT's main concern appeared to be the effect the merger would have on the 3 network, and so it would appear the European Commission has resolved all major concerns from a competition stand-point. The EC had until March 1 to respond to the OFT request.

However, the merger could still face objections from Vodafone or O2, both of which have only given a lukewarm reception to the wireless spectrum concession.

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PreCentral is reporting today that the Palm webOS 1.4 firmware update should hit Sprint and Verizon phones by the 25th, with rollout expected to last for up to a week.

100,000 devices will get the OTA rollout at a time, but users can manually install it from the update launcher if they want it right when it launches.

The update should bring video recording capability, Flash 10.1 compatibility, speed and battery improvements, as well as LED alerts on by default.

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According to the New York Times, Wal-Mart is set to purchase VUDU, the premium video streaming service, as a way to compete against iTunes, Netflix and cable VOD.

The move marks the third time Wal-Mart has tried to compete in the realm of video rental. In 2004, it started a DVD-by-mail service, but closed it in 2005 and set its customers right to Netflix as part of a deal.

In 2007, they started an a la carte music download program with full blessing from the major record labels, but killed the service in 2008 after Apple surpassed them as the biggest music retailer in the United States.

Vudu offers the most HD movies, and offers the best quality, but has remained for the most part, obscure, as it does not have broad marketing.

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Nokia and Sky have teamed up to introduce a new application that will give smartphone users a way to watch live Premiership football matches on their Nokia handsets.

The app is free from the Ovi Store, and will also allow users to watch on-demand highlights, or program their Sky+ boxes to record the games.

So far, the app is compatible with the Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia 5530, with Nokia 5230 and X6 support expected soon. 10 other handsets will get a watered down version without live broadcasts but with the other features.

Rupert Englander of Nokia adds (via PCAdvisor): "Modern lifestyles have driven demand for great mobile content and services on-the-go, and it's great to know that this app will make a real difference to Nokia users."

David Gibbs, general manager for mobile at Sky, continues: "We're delighted to be working with Nokia to give millions more people the chance to enjoy TV on the move. The success of Sky Mobile TV has shown there's a real appetite for innovative services that allow customers to choose when and where they watch".

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Google has been sued today by Harvard Law School student Eva S. Hibnick, who has started a class-action lawsuit against the search giant "on behalf of Gmail users," claiming that the new Buzz social networking service is a breach of user privacy.

Buzz is a voluntary add on to Gmail, but all users are automatically enrolled and have to opt-out if they don't want to use it.

"The social networking industry is going too far," Hibnick added, saying she was disgusted that upon opening Gmail, she was already being "followed" by people on her contact list that Google had chosen for her.

Law School student Benjamin R. Osborn, who is aiding Hibnick, doesn't say whether he believes Google intentionally breached privacy. "I don't know what Google's motive is in all of this," Osborn says, via the Harvard Crimson newspaper. "I think they were just trying to jump-start their social network." However, "[Buzz] has already violated people's privacy. Damages have been incurred. And we want Google to change its conduct in the future."

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In early January, YouTube launched a video rental service that allowed users to rent films from the Sundance Film Festival. The service has not necessarily strived, but today the streaming giant has announced an expansion of the service.

The films cost $3.99 to rent for 48-hours, but the NYTimes reported that YouTube and the content providers only netted $10,709.16 in revenue, from 2684 views.

New publishers that have signed up for the service, however, include Anime Network, Bay View Fitness, Cerebellum Corp, FineCooking, FineWoodworking.com, FitnessChannel, FUNimation Entertainment, GolfLink.com, Language Tree, Questar Entertainment, Terwilliger Productions, TravelVideoStore.com and UFOTV Studios, says NewTeeVee.

Pricing and availability will differ by publisher.

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Last week we reported that Ubisoft's new Assassin's Creed 2 for PC was given DRM that requires a constant Internet connection for the game to work. If your Internet drops for any reason, you are kicked from the game, losing all progress you have made since the last save.

Ubisoft has defended their actions today, via an interview with CVG.

The full interview (definitely worth reading if you were critical of the previous article):

What's the problem this DRM is trying to address?
Ubi are increasingly concerned about piracy on the PC.
"It's a huge problem - you know it, I know it, other people know it. It really is a very important issue that all serious companies need to address," says their spokesperson. But they also believe that their online services will make PC gaming better. "The real idea is that if you offer a game that is better when you buy it, then people will actually buy it. We wouldn't have built it if we thought that it was really going to piss off our customers."

So what's in it for gamers?
Ubi say there are three advantages to their online services. The first: you don't need a disc. The second: that you can install the game on as many PCs as you like, as many times as you like. And the third: the automatic uploading of savegames to Ubisoft's servers.

Do Ubisoft understand that we don't want to be permanently online?
They've spotted the outcry, yes.
"We know that requiring a permanent online connection is not a happy point for a lot of PC gamers, but it is necessary for the system to work.

Which PC games will require an always on internet connection?
All announced Ubisoft PC games will include the online services, whether sold online, or from brick and mortar stores. That includes Splinter Cell, Silent Hunter 5, Assassin's Creed 2, Prince of Persia and the newly announced Ghost Recon. "It's hard for us to say, yes, from now until the day that we all die all of our games are going to include this," says their spokesperson, "but most will."

If my internet connection goes down during play, will I lose my progress?
That depends on the way the systems have been implemented. The two examples we have now, Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII, show differing implementations. In Assassin's Creed, if your connection cuts out, you'll be taken back to the last checkpoint. "With Settlers, your game will resume exactly where you left off," says Ubisoft's spokesperson.

How will I know what I'll lose?
"You'll have to wait for the reviews, and to hear what your peers are saying."

What happens if Ubisoft take the DRM servers offline for maintenance, or suffer a technical breakdown?
In the case of a server failure their games will be taken offline, and you'll be unable to play them.

"The idea is to avoid that point as much as possible, but we have been clear from the beginning that the game does need an internet connection for you to play. So if it goes down for real for a little while, then yeah, you can't play.

"

Are Ubisoft trying to kill PC gaming?
One theory states that piracy is such a problem on PC that they'd prefer to move their customers to the Xbox or PS3. Their spokesperson disagrees.

"No, we're not trying to kill the PC market. Are we frustrated by the PC market? I think everyone is. In the end it all comes back to one single truth: piracy is a big, huge, hairy problem. It's a market that suffered a lot because of piracy, and we're all just trying to figure out what we think is the best way to deal with it."

Do Ubi believe this DRM is unhackable?
They accept that it's all DRM's fate to be eventually hacked, explaining that internally, they've already talked of a timescale for how long their games will be protected by it. But, they believe that it's secure enough for them.
"We wouldn't do it if we didn't believe in it. The guys who designed it believe in it. Do we think that it's the one system that God has sent onto earth that will never be cracked by anybody ever? We can't guarantee that, but we believe in it.

"

Does this mean that Ubi are dissatisfied with other online rights management platforms like Steam?
There's a hint of that, although Ubi are keen to praise Valve's online platform.
"We think what Steam has done is amazingly valid, but aren't Steam games cracked amazingly fast? It's not a question of dissatisfaction, it's a question of 'we've got another idea, another way of implementing it, and we're going for it'."

What happens when it becomes economically inefficient to run the servers for these games? Will Ubisoft take the servers down? And will that mean we can't play the games we bought?

The first point Ubi makes is that they intend for the servers to stay up.
"Say in 5 years someone who bought Assassin's Creed 2 wants to go back and play it, the hope is, the plan is that we'll be on Assassin's Creed, I dunno, 3, 4, 5, and the servers will still be there to serve those new games," explains their spokesperson. "They'll also be able to serve the old games." But Ubisoft have the ability to patch the DRM out of their games. "If for some reason, and this is not in the plan, but if for some reason all of the servers someday go away, then we can release a patch so that the game can be played in single-player without an online connection. But that's if all of the servers are gone."

Will Ubi make a firm commitment to removing the DRM if the servers are to be taken offline?

We'll paste the straight transcript here:



PCG: What I think a lot of us would really like is a firm commitment that you understand our worries that the servers are going to go down and suddenly we've just got some trash data on our hard drives that we've paid for.



Ubisoft: The system is made by guys who love PC games. They play PC games, they are your friends.



PCG: So you can commit to saying that those systems will be patched out?



Ubisoft: That's the plan.



PCG: It's the plan, or it's definitely going to happen?



Ubisoft: That's written into the goal of the overall plan of the thing. But we don't plan on shutting down the servers, we really don't."

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Mitsubishi has unveiled new upscaling technology today, one that will upconvert 1080p Full HD content to 4K2K.

The company says the upscaling is possible thanks to new algorithms and software.

Mitsubishi does note that the tech cannot yet upscale Blu-ray content, despite support for HDMI 1.4.

The technology will be added to upcoming 4K2K HDTVs, in the same way that current TVs have SD upscaling technology built-in.

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A man arrested for recording 2008's mega-hit movie The Dark Knight has been sentenced to 2 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $25,000 in restitution.

The sentence isn't exactly surprising. Recording movies in a theater has been a federal felony in the US since 2005, when the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act was passed.

What's much more interesting in this case is the MPAA's official statement on the sentence (PDF). They're calling it "an appropriate sentence for a very serious crime." And the reason given? It's because "The theft of films by camcording is a serious threat to the health of the motion picture industry."

Perhaps this case isn't the best one for making those sorts of arguments. Despite widespread availability of the movie through P2P networks, The Dark Knight was the top grossing movie in the US for all of 2008 by a wide margin.

With more than half a billion dollars in box office receipts, it beat the number two movie, Iron Man, by more than $200 million according to the MPAA's own figures (PDF). In fact despite slightly lower theater attendance for the year, The Dark Knight eventually became the fifth highest grossing movie of all time.

It was also the top selling movie on iTunes for 2008, even though it hadn't been released yet and could only be pre-ordered.

That's in addition to smashing records for Blu-ray sales. There were 600,000 Blu-ray copies of The Dark Knight sold the day of its release, and nearly 2 million in the first week.

Is the MPAA really arguing that it would have made more money if low quality copies hadn't been available on the internet? Or are they just sticking to their ludicrous claim of stopping unauthorized copies from reaching the internet in the first place?

It's hard to see what harm was done that justifies taking away two years of a man's life.

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