McDonald's has confirmed today that hackers broke into a database containing email addresses and birthdays for consumers who have signed up for McDonald's promotions.

The fast food chain made it clear that no sensitive information, like credit card numbers, Social Security numbers or physical addresses were compromised.

"The incident has resulted in an investigation by law enforcement authorities. Arc and McDonald's are cooperating with the appropriate authorities," says spokeswoman Danya Proud. "We are also working with Arc and their database management firm to understand how the security was bypassed."

Arc refers to long-time McDonald's business partner Arc Worldwide, an email database management firm.

It is unclear how many consumers are affected.

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Toshiba has said today that they will spend close to $1.2 billion to build a factory that will be mainly used to supply LCD panels for the Apple iPhone.

The facility will be built in Ishikawa prefecture by Toshiba's Mobile Display company.

Low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels will be produced in the plant, allowing for high-resolution images on small displays.

Toshiba will start on the plant by early 2011 with production expected to start in the Q3.

The Ishikawa prefecture already produces 8.55 million units of the LCD panels but capacity should double with the new factory.

Apple will pay an unknown amount of the full investment costs.

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Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's lawsuit against 11 companies over alleged patent violations has stumbled right out of the starting gate. A federal judge dismissed the complaints, explaining Allen's lawyers failed to include "adequate factual detail" in their filings.

Judge Marsha J. Pechman noted, "Plaintiffs should, where possible, set forth the specific websites that are at issue and identify the hardware and software with adequate detail for Defendants to know what portions of their business operations are in play in this litigation."

In other words, they didn't actually list any patent infringements, but instead just alleged they are occuring.

This doesn't mean the end of the lawsuit or Allen's plans to demand licensing fees for patents awarded to his failed company, Interval Research Corporation. Allen's spokesman indicated the suit will be amended and refiled by the deadline later this month.

Allen's decision to sue over patents he's never used for any other purpose (like creating a product or service) include suggesting products in an online store, adding audio and video to other content to attract a viewer's attention, and comparing the contents of multimedia files.

The big problem with these patents, as with so many process patents used to generate income for companies incapable of producing anything but technology licenses, is that they don't really describe anything in enough detail to produce a working product. Instead they simply lay out all the individual steps a developer would need to implement them.

And since what they really deal with is translating long established and well understood human actions to a form compatible with computerizing them it's hard to see where there's any innovation at all.

It's easy, however, to understand how Allen's former company, which was apparently built on licensing these patents, didn't last.

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MacDailyNews has reported today that the upcoming Verizon-bound iPhone 4 will have LTE 4G support, a feature not seen on any other current model.

Additionally the site says the phone will hit the Verizon network before the New Year, right after Christmas.

Citing reliable sources, MDN says AT&T requested Apple hold off on breaking the American exclusivity pact until after Christmas so the carrier could make as many iPhone 4 and 3GS sales as possible.

Furthermore, the site says the LTE iPhone has already shipped to Verizon warehouses and has been in the hands of training managers since last week.

As a special marketing campaign, Verizon will market the device as "the only LTE iPhone."

Because Verizon has just begun their LTE rollout, the iPhone will backwards compatibility with 3G CDMA.

For now, take this as rumor, but we will keep you updated.

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Although normally dead quiet on Kindle sales figures, Amazon has boasted today that they have "sold millions" of the latest generation e-readers during the first 73 days of this quarter, strong numbers considering the Christmas rush is still heating up.

In the past, Amazon had said little about sales figures, only claiming that the Kindle was the top selling item on the e-tailer's site, and its "fastest selling" item, ever.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also made the bold claim that e-book sales will pass paperback sales by summer 2011, and surpass hardcover and paperback sales by 2012.

The giant online retailer has always said that the hardware sales are not as important as the e-book sales, and Amazon even makes Kindle apps for iOS, BlackBerry, Android, Macs and PCs.

Despite being the clear market leader, increased competition from Apple, Barnes & Noble and now Google has analysts believing a once 70-percent share will fall to under 40 within 2 years.

The latest Kindle Wi-Fi sells for $140.

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