Until March, Theflyonthewall.com posted research reports and press releases on its website, usually minutes before the banks the headlines came from were even shared the reports with their clients.

In March however, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that the site "engaged in systematic misappropriation,", making money and getting a "free ride" from analyst moves which usually move stock prices positively or negatively.

The banks that brought the case were Merrill Lynch, Barclays and Morgan Stanley which also tried to ban the site from using their research reports.

However, TFOTW's appeal has gained some legs today, with both Google and Twitter backing the site, saying blocking immediate news dissemination is "obsolete" and "wrong."

Reads the filing: "News reporting always has been a complex ecosystem, where what is 'news' is often driven by certain influential news organizations, with others republishing or broadcasting those facts -- all to the benefit of the public."

Both companies say if the court's decision is upheld, the banks will go after other sites that offer real-time news updates in the financial markets.

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The BPI, Britain's largest recording industry association, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Google demanding the popular search engine take down links that lead to "one-click hosting" sites such as MegaUpload.

The complaint says there are at least 38 links "available via Google's search engine, and [requests these] links be removed as soon a possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by [BPI] members."

A few of the songs mentioned as being readily available for unauthorized download via Google are K'Naan's "Wavin' Flag," Michael Bublé's "Haven't Met You Yet" and Eminem's "Not Afraid." While Google does not host any of the infringing sites or songs, searches lead users to MegaUpload, SendSpace, Rapidshare and others.

The BPI, in an example, typed "k'naan wavin' flag download" into Google and the first couple of pages of results showed off free download sites.

Google has often said they are not liable as they only index sites and list them, while not hosting any files.

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Google has announced that the most popular video sharing site on the planet, YouTube, will now offer full-length, current episodes of WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) programming.

The new deal will include current episodes of Friday Night Smackdown, WWE NXT, WWE Superstars, and ECW.

Additionally, there will be more footage from Monday Night Raw, classic matches, and interview videos with "WWE Superstars and Divas like John Cena, Chris Jericho and Alicia Fox."

The WWE's official YouTube channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/WWEFanNation

YouTube's new deal should help it compete with "catch-up" programming services like Hulu, since the WWE will be making brand new episodes available within 24 hours of its broadcast day.

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Google has begun offering free OCR software with their Google Docs online productivity suite, giving users a chance to convert PDFs or images into editable text.

Google demoed the image-to-text conversion last year but it appears it is finally ready for prime time.

When uploading files to Google Docs, you will now be given the option to turn PDFs or JPEG image files into an editable text copy, using the Google OCR algorithm.

GoogleSystem says the results are not great yet, but the system will certainly prove to cut down time on making a text copy of a large image or PDF.

Try it out here: Google Docs OCR conversion

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Following a week of speculation as to its price, Microsoft has officially priced the Kinect motion control system for the Xbox 360 at $150 USD.

Last Tuesday, GameStop put the system on sale for $150 USD while also offering up a bundle with an Arcade console and Kinect for $299.99 and an Elite console with Kinect for $399.99.

Later in the week, more retailers followed suit, with Amazon, Best Buy and Wal-Mart offering the system for $150, as well.

At the point, Microsoft had still not officially outed the price for the system.

There is still no word on when the device will ship, but speculation has the launch date as November 4th.

Read more about the Kinect system here: Xbox 360 Kinect news @ AfterDawn

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On June 16th, when the Apple iPhone 4 went on sale, the device was so popular that it took down the AT&T web site, and the carrier was forced to halt all pre-orders.

If you were lucky enough to get your order in before the systems went haywire, Apple has begun shipping the device, with some users expected to even get it a day early, on the 23rd.

Today, other users who thought they had successfully pre-ordered the smartphone have instead had those orders canceled.

AT&T says that out of the 600,000 pre-orders accepted, a "fraction" have been sent emails saying their order is canceled, with CNN saying those emails should only be to users that accidentally/purposely submitted multiple orders, or to those that paid full price when they could have used the cheaper upgrade price.

Says AT&T: "We're reaching out to many of these customers to answer questions, and are also happy for customers to call us with individual account questions."

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According to Droid-Life, Verizon has quietly phased out the Droid Eris smartphone, removing it from its active smartphone roster.

The site tried filtering Verizon's site by smartphone>Android>HTC and found the Eris completely removed except for some accessories and support documents.

Additionally, Droid-Life posted a "phaseout/closeout" list and besides the Eris, the Droid Incredible is also apparently set to be phased out.

The Incredible is Verizon's top-of-the-line Android device, and was only launched two months ago.

So far, off the list, the Eris and the Tour have already been phased out, giving more fuel to the rumor that the list is accurate.

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Adobe has announced the wide launch of Flash Player 10.1 for mobile platform partners, finally giving smartphone users the chance to experience video and applications on the Web that they had been unable to.

Flash 10.1 is already the top free app in the Android Market for developers running Android 2.2 Froyo and the product will be a final production release once 2.2 is rolled out to a wider variety of Android devices.

A few of the smartphones and tablets expected to have Froyo soon are the Dell Streak, Google Nexus One, HTC Evo, HTC Desire, HTC Incredible, DROID by Motorola, Motorola Milestone, Samsung Galaxy S and 3G Slide.

Besides Android, Flash Player 10.1 was also released to mobile platform partners for support on devices with the BlackBerry OS, webOS, Windows Phone 7, LiMo, MeeGo and Symbian OS. Notably missing is the iPhone OS, and its many millions of users.

"We are thrilled that more than three million Flash designers and developers are now able to unleash their creativity on the world of smart phones, tablets, netbooks, televisions and other consumer electronics," says David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business at Adobe, via a press release. "The combined power of the leading rich media technology platform with millions of passionate creatives is sure to impact the world in ways we haven't even imagined yet."

The company says it has hardware support with ARM, Brightcove, Dell, Google, HTC, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, RIM, Samsung and Texas Instruments and content holder support from AgencyNet, AKQA, Armor Games, Blitz, CNET.com, HBO, JustinTV, Kongregate, Mochi Media, Msnbc Digital Network, Turner, Nickelodeon, Odopod, Photobucket, RAIN, Roundarch, Sony Pictures, South Park Studios, USA Network, Viacom and Warner, who have started optimizing their Flash content to work with smartphone screens.

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Giant retailer Sears has announced it has partnered up with digital media company Sonic to sell movies and TV shows online, through the company's RoxioNow platform.

Sonic, over the course of the year, has made similar deals with Blockbuster and Best Buy.

Sears will launch the online portal site later in the year, giving HDTV, Blu-ray player and smartphone users the chance to download the movies and shows for playback through their respective devices.

Adds Mark Ely, executive vice president of strategy for Sonic: "This is an opportunity for Sears to get their consumers up and running with digital content, and offset what is happening as consumers move from physical media to digital delivery."

The move can be seen as a way for Sears, the owner of K-Mart, to counter Wal-Mart's recent purchase of HQ video streaming service Vudu.

"Teaming up with Sonic is a great opportunity for Sears and Kmart to quickly establish a position in digital video entertainment,"notes Karen Austin, president of home electronics for Sears Holdings.

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On May 3rd Apple announced the sale of 1 million iPads and by the end of the month the company had announced 2 million units sold.

At the same time, the tablet launched in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

Today, Apple has announced the sale of its 3 millionth iPad, just 80 days after its early April launch in the United States.

"People are loving iPad as it becomes a part of their daily lives," adds CEO Steve Jobs. "We're working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more people around the world, including those in nine more countries next month."

Additionally, Jobs says there are now 11,000 native iPad apps now available in the App Store, which has over 225,000 apps in total.

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Using a VPN service like ipredator in Sweden to share files with some level of security using BitTorrent or similar methods has become very popular as more tough laws pass to address Internet piracy. However, for those using IPv6 in combination with a PPTP-based VPN, a flaw may have undermined the entire idea of the VPN in the first place.

A security flaw was revealed at the Telecomix Cipher conference that would allow a third party to find the true IP address of a user sharing through a VPN. To make matters worse for some users, there are suggestions that anti-piracy investigators in Sweden at least are aware and may have been exploiting the flaw to identify "anonymous" sharers.

IPv6 is set to replace the IPv4 protocol, but most users using IPv6 arguably have no idea they are, as it is promoted by newer operating systems like Windows 7.

The operators of ipredator are aware of the issue and have said they will contact all users about it. Other privacy-based VPN services may want to do the same thing. Simply turning off IPv6 in Local Area Connection properties on Windows should serve as a workaround for the problem.

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