A district judge has cleared a class action lawsuit against Electronic Arts this week, which means it should eventually become a jury trial.

The class action suit claims EA illegally increased the price of the Madden NFL series after it won exclusive rights to the NFL license, in 2005.

Any purchaser of a Madden game from 2005 until now is eligible to register as a plaintiff in the wide-ranging suit.

In 2004, Take-Two released NFL2K5 for just $19.95, taking on the behemoth Madden, which was forced to drop its prices to $29.95, down from the standard $49.99.

EA won the exclusive NFL license the next season and returned Madden prices to $50, and eventually $60 when the Xbox 360 and PS3 were launched.

Says plaintiff lawyer Steve Berman (via GI):

"Consumers now have a legal standing to demand that EA refund consumers millions of dollars it made from Madden NFL and other sports titles through what we contend was an illegal price-gouging scheme.

"We believe EA forced consumers to pay an artificial premium on Madden NFL videogames. We intend to prove that EA could inflate prices on their sports titles because these exclusive licenses restrained trade and competition for interactive sports software."

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Skype will allegedly bring video calling apps to smartphones like the iPhone at the upcoming CES event, bringing some real competition to Apple's FaceTime and other apps like Tanga and Fring.

The company will have a "series of video-related announcements" and will also be part of the "Video Calling Gets Ready for Primetime" panel at the conference.

So far, it seems that the iPhone will be the first to get the app, with Android and Symbian likely to get the video support in the near future, as well.

Skype video chat is currently supported, in a limited capacity on the Nokia N900, but you can only chat with other N900 owners.

FaceTime was launched with the iPhone 4 this summer, offering Apple users a chance to video conference with other Apple users, on Macs, iPod Touch 4s and iPhone 4s, over Wi-Fi.

We will keep you updated.

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Although Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg won the Time's editor "2010 Person of the Year" and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange won the online popular vote, the Financial Times had someone different in mind, naming Apple CEO Steve Jobs their 'person of the year.'

Reads their article:

"As technology colonises every area of our lives – music, films and art – so nerds are the emperors. So it has come to pass. Steve Jobs, the polo-necked Apple chief, described this week by US president Barack Obama as the 'epitome of the American dream,' is the Financial Times' Person of the Year."

Obama was celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people, saying: "We celebrate somebody like a Steve Jobs, who has created two or three different revolutionary products. We expect that person to be rich, and that's a good thing. We want that incentive. That's part of the free market."

In a busy year, even by Apple's standards, the company has launched the iPad tablet, a revamped Apple TV, the iPhone 4, new MacBook Air models and fully updated iPods.

Apple has had record sales quarters for their iPhone, and outsold even the most liberal analyst expectations for the iPad.

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Acer's upcoming Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet has been seen quickly in a few videos via Engadget this Christmas, showing off a responsive gyroscope.

There is little known about the actual specs of the tablet, but it should be powered by a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2.

Additionally, the tablet will have a 10-inch screen and Acer's own Android marketplace for apps.

Acer appears to use the gyroscope for touch-free page turning, as well as for zooming of photos without the need for users to multi-touch, however, Engadget says that feature is still very buggy.

The videos show some internal testing of the tablet, which Acer says should be in stores by April.

Watch them here:

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Although unconfirmed, it appears that Logitech may be ordering a production freeze on its Google TV set-top box, the Revue.

Digitimes says the company has already ordered component maker Gigabyte Technology to freeze production until at least January.

Logitech says it continues to ship the set-top to consumers, but will not comment on any alleged production suspensions.

Over the course of the week, a number of reports claimed Google has asked manufacturers to delay their first Google TV devices and HDTVs until the search giant can overhaul the platform.

Google TV has seen mediocre reviews since the Revue launched in November mainly due to broadcasters like ABC CBS, NBCU and Fox blocking their content to the platform.

The Logitech Revue sells for $250.

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IBM has made some technology predictions for 2015 this week, breaking out the crystal ball for its forecast.

The company surveyed its over 3000 researchers, asking which five ideas will trend in the next five years.

At the top of the list was holographic 3D phone conversations, meaning your smartphone will have the ability to project 3D images of the person you are speaking to.

Paul Saffo, managing director of foresight at the investment-advisory firm Discern says of the list: "These are all stretch goals, and that's good. In an era when pessimism is the new black, a little dose of technological optimism is not a bad thing."

While some of the predictions will not pan out, IBM spends over $5 billion per year on R&D, 6 percent of its yearly revenue and most of the ideas on the list are for projects IBM has already started development on.

The rest of the list consists of "air- breathing batteries, computer programs that can tell when and where traffic jams will take place, environmental information generated by sensors in cars and phones, and cities powered by the heat thrown off by computer servers."

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