Leaked by the Wall Street Journal today was info about the upcoming subscription model for, yes, you guessed it, The Wall Street Journal on the Apple iPad.

The popular finance newspaper costs $29 a month for the print edition, but only $8 for a subscription via the iPhone. The iPad subscription will cost $18 per month.

The package will be available on April 3rd with the launch of the tablet.

The WSJ also noted that they had sold four-month ad packages for $400,000 with six large advertisers including Coca-Cola.

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Verizon Wireless, the largest carrier in the United States has announced today that it will open its own mobile app store next week, March 29th.

The app store will allow Verizon subscribers to purchase apps that will be billed to their end-of-the-month phone bill, unlike other stores that must have separate accounts such as Google Checkout or an iTunes account.

The clear market leader is Apple however, with 150,000 apps which have seen 3,000,000,000 downloads.

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Jesse Becker, head of Netflix marketing has announced today that the company has begun shipping out Wii streaming discs to some users that have signed up at www.netflix.com/Wii already.

Says Becker:
"We've got some great news to share. We are in the final phase of getting ready for the launch of streaming to Wii. Today, we shipped out instant streaming discs for the Wii to some of our Netflix members. Their feedback will ensure that we deliver a great experience to everyone when we launch. Instantly watching movies and TV episodes from Netflix via Wii will be available soon at no additional cost – all you need is a Netflix unlimited plan starting at $8.99 a month, a Wii console and a broadband Internet connection. If you have reserved your disc already, you don't need to do anything - we will send you an email as soon as we ship the disc. If you haven't, reserve your disc today at www.netflix.com/Wii and stay tuned for a launch announcement!"

The Wii is the third console to receive Netflix streaming, although the Xbox 360 does not require a disc in the tray like the Wii or the PS3. The Wii version will also not have HD streaming capability.

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Time Warner Cable has announced the launch of free Wi-Fi for New York City subscribers.

Additionally, TWC has partnered with Cablevision to offer thousands of free Wi-Fi hotspots in NYC, as well. Wi-Fi is now available in Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, western Brooklyn, Mt. Vernon, parts of the Hudson Valley region, and Bergen and Hudson Counties in New Jersey. Long Island, parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, Westchester, Rockland, Northern Hudson Valley, the Bronx, and Brooklyn will be available through the partnership.

Adds Howard Szarfarc, Executive Vice President for TWC NYC: "Our sophisticated network is a combination of wireless and wireline services, bringing a wide spectrum of products and services to our customers. This free new Wi-Fi option adds another dimension for Road Runner customers, bringing even more convenience. Road Runner customers can experience a fast, simple and easy connection from their laptops or portable Wi-Fi-enabled devices in Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi zones, meeting their growing need for mobility."

To use the Wi-Fi, "Time Warner Cable customers must be signed up for Road Runner high-speed online service. Customers who use laptops and Wi-Fi-enabled devices can log on to Wi-Fi by entering their Road Runner user ID and password through a simple sign-on screen. The quickest way to obtain or reset log-in and password information is at home, at the computer, through Road Runner's online support at www.rr.com. Additionally, customer login and account verification are available by calling Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi Support at 1-877-895-WIFI (9434)," reads the press release.

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At this week's Pwn2Own hacking contest, the iPhone, Safari, Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox browsers were all taken down within minutes.

Vincenzo Iozzo and Ralf-Philipp Weinmann took down the iPhone browser in under five minutes, and left with $15,000 in prize money. Weinmann is most notorious for being part of a team that cracked WEP Wi-Fi security in 2007, faster than was previously recorded.

Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators took down Safari for the third year in a row, leaving with $10,000 in cash as a prize.

The most impressive exploit came from Peter Vreugdenhil who took down IE8 on Windows 7 by "bypassing the operating system's Data Execution Prevention, or DEP, security mechanism, which is designed to stop most attacks." Vreugdenhil earned the same prize as Miller. German student "Nils" took down Firefox on Windows 7 within minutes as well, earning $10k.

TippingPoint, the company that runs the contest, does not divulge the details of the flaws that are used to exploit the browsers but instead purchases the rights to the exploits and then turns it over to the companies behind the browsers.

The only browser remaining unscathed after day one and day two was Google Chrome.

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Microsoft's previously announced Xbox Game Room is now available, says the software giant, giving access to classic arcade games for the 360 or the PC.

The service will eventually have 1000 games available by 2012.

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.

Vid via Joystiq:

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After nearly two years of excuses for the secrecy of negotiations over ACTA, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a full draft of the proposed treaty has been leaked online and it looks just as bad as critics have suggested.

Among the worst provisions of the proposal is the requirement that third party service providers must implement measures to proactively identify and elminate access to content that's in violation of copyright law.

Failure to do so would make them liable for such infringement. Even worse, according to a note from New Zealand's negotiators this would even include search engines.

Assuming some service finds a way to implement this sort of proactive system, their ability to safeguard the privacy of users would be severely diminished.

Under current laws, when content owners identify content they believe infringes on their copyrights they can notify the service provider, such as YouTube, and demand that the content be removed. This is known as notice and takedown.

Under the ACTA proposal content owners would also be entitled to any information the service provider has which could identify the user responsible for the content without any judicial oversight.

If you post a 30 second video of your child dancing to a copyrighted song on YouTube and a record label believes it infringes on their copyright they could demand that YouTube not only takedown the video, but also provide them with your private account information unless you come up with evidence that the takedown request was in error.

And service providers aren't the only parties whose obligations to enforce other people's intellectual property rights would be drastically increased. Governments would be be forced into a new role as well.

For starters it would make customs officials responsible for proactively identifying intellectual property infringement in goods crossing national borders. They would, of course, be trained in this role by IP holders rather than some sort of actual legal education.

The courts would also be affected by ACTA. It would require that judges be given the power to issue injunctions for "imminent infringement," meaning infringement that hasn't even taken place yet.

Additionally, each government that's a party to the treaty would be required to "educate" the public about the evils of IP infringement.

At the end of the day ACTA isn't about protecting the people who create goods and content. Its real aim is to protect businesses which have traditionally relied on the artificial monopoly of intellectual property to make a profit.

Rather than the government regulating business, those businesses would be regulating the government. Accusations would be given the weight of judgements and the presumption of innocence would be replaced by the assumption of guilt.

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