RapidShare has announced this week that an appeals court in Germany has ruled in favor of the file sharing site, saying it could not be found liable for distribution of unauthorized files, and that forcing the company to filter all uploads would "produce too many false positives."

The court ruled in their favor because the company does not make uploaded files publicly available, and the uploaders themselves have control of who sees the links.

In 2008, a different court ruled against the sharing site, saying they were currently not doing enough to combat copyright infringement and that the filter system employed was ineffective.

If that decision had stood, RapidShare would have had to log IP addresses, and "proactively check content before publishing it."

Adds Christian Schmid, founder of RapidShare: "We are very happy about the judgment. The court has confirmed that RapidShare is not responsible for the contents of files uploaded by its users. The judgment shows that attempts to denounce our business model as illegal will not be successful in the long run. With its 1-click-filehosting model, RapidShare responds to legitimate interests of its users and will continue to do so in the future."

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SanDisk has announced that it has begun shipping 'official' Xbox 360 USB drives, giving gamers a place to backup their game saves, gamertags, map packs and Arcade game downloads.

The company says the USB drive is "pre-configured for seamless plug and play action," eliminating the need for gamers to take the extra step of formatting their own drives and downloading the initial 360 software update.

Additionally, all drives come with a free one-month membership to Xbox Live Gold.

"Xbox LIVE contains a world of content for gamers to explore and download, including full-length games, movies and music," says Shuki Nir, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Retail, SanDisk. "The Xbox 360 USB Flash Drive by SanDisk is specifically engineered to deliver a great user experience and maximum compatibility with the console, offering gamers greater freedom and flexibility in how they store, manage and enjoy their favorite files."

The drive is available in either 8GB or 16GB varieties, with MSRPs of $35 and $70, respectively.

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ZedoMax did a review this week of a new Android tablet (un-branded), and the device, using firmware 2.1, can run Adobe Flash and Air "flawlessly."

The prototype was readily available at the Web 2.0 Expo show, and showed one of the glaring differences between upcoming Android tablets and the Apple iPad which does not support Flash in any form, as the company is pushing HTML5 instead.

An Adobe spokesperson said there will be a "flood" of Android tablets hitting the market in November, although it is unclear what companies are manufacturing them.

Engadget got in contact with Nvidia, who confirmed that the tablet is using a Tegra 2 chip, which helps greatly with the "flawless" Adobe performances. "It is indeed Tegra 2. We worked closely with Adobe to show how next-gen Tegra can bring the complete web to tablets at Web 2.0. You can expect to start seeing Tegra 2 devices appearing this summer, with plenty on the way in the third and fourth quarters of the year."

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The high end smartphone Xperia X10 by Sony Ericsson, which disappointed would-be buyers when it launched with the outdated Android firmware version 1.6 will finally get Android 2.1 in the Q4 2010, says the mobile phone maker.

While this may sound like good news, Android 2.2 (Froyo) should already be readily available by then, so the X10 will remain outdated.

Coming with 2.1 for the X10 are "HD video recording, Wireless home connectivity via DLNA and improvements to signature applications Timescape and Mediascape to make them even smarter and richer."

Unfortunately, there was no mention of multi-touch in the update.

Additionally, the company says the Xperia X10 mini and Xperia X10 mini pro will get the update to 2.1 at the same time, sometime after October.

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According to some digging by MacRumors, the iPhone OS 4 should allow for 720p video recording support, including video capture, editing and conferencing.

The latest beta SDK shows the update, which allows for a much higher resolution than currently available (640x480).

Macrumors shows the new preset values found in the SDK, which read:

AVCaptureSessionPreset640x480
AVCaptureSessionPreset1280x720

The upcoming iPhone 4G/HD will have a 5MP camera, but it was unclear what kind of video capabilities the hardware was capable of.

The new phone is expected to launch in late June.

For more information on the leaked phone, check here: Gizmodo reveals upcoming iPhone model

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Skype has announced today that it has started new subscription plans that will allow for cheaper calls to the United States from over 170 countries, with plans starting as low as $1.09 per month.

The expected most popular package is the one that includes unlimited calls to U.S. and Canadian mobile and landlines which costs $2.95 per month. U.S. buyers can get unlimited calls to landlines in 39 other countries for $6 a month. The most expensive package is $12.95 per month and gets you unlimited calls to 40 countries including the U.S.

To get the cheap $1.09 a month plans, users have to select packages that allow calls to only one country. Packages to allow calls to certain regions, like "Western Europe," are also available.

Subscriptions can be purchased monthly, for three months, or for a year, with automatic renewals.

All subscriptions come with voicemail and call forwarding and can be purchased with credit cards, PayPal or bank transfers.

Although the packages say "unlimited," there are some restrictions, as Skype allows only 10,000 minutes per month, or a maximum of six hours per day.

You can view the countries and the restrictions here: http://www.skype.com/legal/terms/fair_usage/

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Microsoft has finally priced their KIN smartphones today, as well as confirmed that they will be released on May 13th, with tomorrow as the first day to pre-order the device from carrier Verizon.

The KIN One will sell for $50 with contract, and the KIN Two will sell for $100 with contract, entry-level prices for smartphones, but a bit more expensive than most expected.

For both phones, you will need to send in a $100 rebate.

The Verizon plans for the phones start at $40 for the voice and an extra $30 for the unlimited data plans.

Kin One:


- Has a compact full QWERTY keypad
- Multitouch screen
- 5MP camera with LED flash
- 4GB memory
- "Media player powered by Zune."

Kin Two:


- Full QWERTY keypad
- Multitouch screen
- 8MP camera with LED flash, HD video recording
- 8GB memory
- "Media player powered by Zune."

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Wal-Mart has begun selling the Nintendo Wii console for $179 USD, a discount off the $199 price tag.

Additionally, the console comes with a free game, one of 13 top-sellers, most of which still retail for over $40 USD. Shipping is $7 unless you ship the item to a store, which is free pickup.

The games listed are: Animal Crossing: City Folk, Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2010 w/ Gun (Wii), EA Sports Active (Wii), Just Dance (Wii), Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Wii), Mario Kart w/ Wheel (Wii), Mario Party 8 (Wii), Mario Super Sluggers (Wii), New Super Mario Bros. (Wii), Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii), Wii Music (Wii) and Wii Sports Resort with Wii MotionPlus (Wii).

The best deal seems to be the Wii Sports Resort with MotionPlus as you get a highly rated game as well as the MotionPlus add-on that improves the accuracy of the stock remote controller.

It is unclear how long the deal will last, but it's certainly a good deal if you were actively looking for a Wii.

Check it here: Wii at Wal-Mart

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