The WSJ has uncovered a new suit filed by a man in New York, who claims he owns 84 percent of the social networking giant Facebook.

Paul Ceglia says he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, for a 50 percent share, doing so for $1000 USD.

In addition, Ceglia says the deal granted him 1 percent extra of the company for every day until the Web site was completed.

The site took 34 days to complete.

Ceglia's suit included a copy of the "work for hire" contract the two men allegedly signed in 2003.

In return for the $1000 payment, Ceglia "would own a 50 percent interest in the software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of the [Facebook] service to a larger audience."

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Mashable is reporting today that visitors to Netflix's site have jumped 46 percent year-over-year for the month of June.

The growth is thanks to the increasing popularity of the Watch Instantly streaming service, and Netflix's decision to add their native service to set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and HDTVs.

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney adds that Netflix's explosive growth is the "fastest year-to-year growth [he] has seen in over five years."

For the entire second quarter, Netflix's web traffic was up 34 percent year-over-year. In the first quarter, YoY growth was 19 percent.

Netflix has added 1.7 million subscribers in the Q1, ending with 14 million customers.

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Microsoft has extended the downgrade period for Windows XP until 2020, allowing owners of some Windows 7 versions to "downgrade" to the aging operating system if they choose to.

In the past, Microsoft killed off downgrade rights within months of releasing a new OS, so the new move is somewhat surprising.

Microsoft had limited 7-to-XP downgrades to six months when 7 was released, but extended the rights almost immediately after. It changed the date until July 2010, but that day has now come and gone, with Microsoft doing the lengthy extension.

The new downgrade rights are for users of Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, who can downgrade to XP Pro.

"Our business customers have told us that the removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing," adds Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc.

Furthermore, downgrade rights are only available on OEM copies of Windows 7, meaning it had to have come pre-installed on your new PC.

"Going forward, businesses can continue to purchase new PCs and utilize end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP or Windows Vista until they are ready to use Windows 7," LeBlanc concluded.

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In April, AOL sold one of the pioneers of instant messaging, ICQ, to Digital Sky Technologies Limited (DST) for $187.5 million USD.

Today, AOL has completed that sale, with Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL saying the company will use the proceeds to either buy media properties or hoard the cash for emergencies.

Despite losing popularity in the United States to other services such as MSN Messenger and AIM, ICQ remains the most popular IM service in Russia and other smaller international markets.

"The acquisition of ICQ is a strategic enhancement of our business in Russia and Eastern Europe. ICQ's long-standing brand name and its sizeable loyal customer base together represent a very attractive opportunity to further strengthen our position in the region," added Yuri Milner, Chief Executive Officer of DST.

ICQ was created in 1996 by Mirabilis of Israel, and AOL purchased the parent company in 1998.

Reads the SEC notice: As previously announced, on April 28, 2010, AOL Inc., (the "Company") entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement (the "Agreement") with Digital Sky Technologies Limited, a British Virgin Islands company ("Digital Sky"), for the sale of the Company's ICQ operations ("ICQ").

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Microsoft has finally, officially launched the public beta of Windows 7 SP1, giving users a chance to download the service pack.

In late June, the SP1 was leaked online, and is still circulating on torrent, P2P and warez sites. Additionally, a beta of the Windows Server 2008 R2 was leaked as well.

The SP1, as stated by Microsoft, is mainly a rollup of already-released hotfixes.

Says Microsoft's Tammi Reller: "I am quite pleased today to announce the public beta availability of service pack 1 both for Windows Server 2008R2 as well as Windows 7. [For Windows 7 ] mostly it is minor updates that are available through Windows update."

Businesses will be the main beneficiaries of the update, as they will finally be free to upgrade their corporate systems to a fully stable Windows 7, from XP and Vista.

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Google has launched the App Inventor this week, a tool that will given anyone the chance to create apps for Android phones.

The software tool is in beta, and Google Labs has created videos and screenshots to help new users.

"To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge," says the site.

The code is written inside the software.

Additionally, the tool offers suggestions and options for app creations, like how to build apps that will link to social networking services, or a new SMS app.

The move should give Android another leg up on the Apple iOS, which requires people to have software coding skills to make apps, and then Apple has to accept the app to their App Store.

Check out the site here: http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/

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