Multiple sources are reporting today that Apple's oft-delayed white iPhone 4 model may finally be headed to retail shelves at the end of February.

An inventory screenshot from Best Buy shows the 16GB and 32GB models being available starting February 27th, with SKUs identical to those that the white iPhone had last summer before Apple pulled the devices.

Best Buy began pre-orders last summer, but pulled them when Apple announced delays on the device.

Furthermore, Vodafone Germany's inventory system has shown similar additions.

Apple said late last year that the white versions will see a "spring" release, so February 27th seems particularly early, and the date being a Sunday is unlike Apple's usual release days.

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Hugh Hefner, the 84-year-old founder of Playboy has tweeted today that the adult entertainment magazine will be getting an iPad app in March.

Says the founder (via Yahoo):

"Big news! Playboy--both old & new--will be available on iPad beginning in March. The IPad Version of Playboy will include the whole magazine from the first issue to the latest and Playboy on iPad will be uncensored."

Apple has repeatedly blocked all porn or apps of an adult nature, so Playboy would be a first of its kind on iOS.

Playboy has an iPad app, currently, but it offers no nudity.

Adds Hefner:

The brand resonates today as clearly as at any time in its 57-year history. I believe this agreement will give us the resources and flexibility to return Playboy to its unique position and to further expand our business around the world.

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As of today, Starbucks will begin allowing iPhone, BlackBerry and iPod Touch owners to pay for their coffee via a mobile app in 7500 stores.

The program had been tested in 1000 stores since last year, and was successful.

CW explains that "the Starbucks mobile payment system allows customers to hold a smartphone displaying a two dimensional barcode for reading by a scanner installed at Starbucks cash registers."

You will need a Starbucks card to use the service, and the Starbucks card is always backed by a credit card. Everything else is done wirelessly.

The company is currently working on an Android app for the card, with no set timeframe.

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Samsung has confirmed a Galaxy S successor is in the works, with a formal launch coming during the Mobile World Congress next month.

Via a promotional ad, Samsung has teased that on February 13th they will unveil the "evolution" of the Galaxy S line.

It is unclear what the name of the new device will be, but following the recent trend, the Galaxy S 4G seems likely.

The smartphone is rumored to have a dual-core Hummingbird processor, LTE-support and Samsung's Super AMOLED display.

Samsung recently boasted of strong sales for the original Galaxy S, which hit 10 million by the end of 2010.

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Liberty Media has filed suit against cyberlocker Hotfile, as well as 1000 "John Doe" Hotfile uploaders.

Additionally, PayPal is named in the lawsuit, as Hotfile has an account with them.

Liberty is looking to have Hotfile's account frozen and their domain name seized.

The suit claims Hotfile is a Panamanian company that exists only in name and takes multiple steps to "obfuscate the facts of its location, address, and principals." The company is owned by Russian named Anton Titov, who is possibly a resident of Bulgaria. Hotfile allegedly has servers in Dallas, Texas and Florida.

The 1000 uploaders allegedly "jointly and severally, with actual or constructive knowledge of or with willful blindness, reproduced and distributed certain LIBERTY-owned works through www.Hotfile.com."

Liberty does conclude that Hotfile could have legitimate uses, but its main purpose is "to profit from the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials, many of which are the intellectual property of LIBERTY."

The company says it found over 2500 links to 800 of its titles, and the company is seeking $150,000 per infringement.

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Nintendo has finally priced the upcoming 3DS handheld for the U.S., giving it a $250 price tag.

The device launches in the States on March 27th.

Most speculators had believed Nintendo would sell the console for $300, around the same price it will sell for in Japan, however, it appears the company has gone for a discount.

At $250, the 3DS will sell for $70 more than the most expensive DS, the over-sized DSi XL.

Both the Cosmos Black and Aqua Blue bundles will come with a free charging dock and a 2GB SD card.

The 3DS will hit Japanese stores on February 26th, 2011, and then the US/European markets one month later.

The first 10 launch games for the system are: Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Nintendogs + Cats, Pilotwings Resort, Pro Baseball Spirits, Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle, Ridge Racer 3D, Samurai Warriors Chronicle, Steel Diver, Super Monkey Ball, and Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition.

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Just weeks after receiving a $175 million million investment by Amazon, popular daily deal site Living Social has begun a "once-in-a-lifetime" deal of offering a $20 Amazon gift card for $10.

The deal began at midnight and will run until 8 AM tomorrow.

So far, Living Social has sold 500,000 of the gift cards and it is unclear how much they paid for the cards.

The promotion makes it clear that Amazon.com is "not a sponsor" and the gift cards are "sold by LivingSocial, an authorized retailer of Amazon.com Gift Cards," and no one else.

Calls to Amazon have confirmed the promotion will run the full way through, with no cap on how many buyers, with most expecting a final count around 600,000.

Living Social is the second largest daily deal site behind Groupon, and the new deal seems like an easy and cost-effective way to bring in (potentially) hundreds of thousands of new customers to its service, whilst also sending traffic to its largest single investor.

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Just two weeks after Geohot revealed the PlayStation 3 root key to the world, developer Infinity Ward has apologized to Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2 gamers affected by the influx of hackers playing on public servers.

Geohot revealed the key and just recently created a custom v3.55 firmware which allows for homebrew and Linux to be run on the latest Sony PS3 firmware.

While the hacker does not believe in piracy, others have been busy creating custom 3.55 firmwares that will run backup managers, allowing for the playback of pirated games right from the hard drive.

Infinity Ward says it has fallen victim to the ever increasing amount of users running custom firmwares, but says the hacking does not affect the latest game in the series, Black Ops, which was developed by Treyarch.

Reads the full statement(via IW forums):

Sony has recently acknowledged a breach in security on the PS3 which has resulted in the hardware and its games to become exposed to exploits and hacks. Modern Warfare 2 is no exception to this security exploit and we understand that some of you have experienced problems with stats and other issues associated with this.

Games rely on the security of the encryption on the platforms they're played on, therefore; updates to the game through patches will not resolve this problem completely, unless the security exploit itself is resolved on the platform. However, that doesn't mean we're not going to look into every option available to us. Regretfully, Call of Duty games are receiving the bulk of the hacker's attention, due to its high player counts and popularity. However, the number of legitimate players severely outweighs the bad apples.

If you are concerned about playing with players who are hacking, I encourage you to play exclusively with friends by utilizing the party or private match options in Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty 4 to avoid such players as much as possible until this issue is resolved by Sony.

At this time, we do not have the ability to restore or adjust individual stats.

Let me assure you, while we are very reliant on Sony updating their firmware and security to address the core problem of this issue. We are looking at EVERY option available to us to help any user affected.

This only applies to legacy games such as Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2. In the future we plan to adjust our approach to not rely solely on platform security and reduce the ability for this to happen in our games, as has already been displayed by the work Treyarch has done on Call of Duty: Black Ops to prevent similar measures.

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Digitimes has reported today that HP should begin shipping their first webOS tablets starting in March, throwing its first real competitor into the suddenly crowded media tablet market.

Says the source:

The development of WebOS tablet PCs was finished in 2010, but HP will have Taiwan-based Inventec begin ODM production and shipments in March 2011 to allow for software testing and timing of launch schedules in line with market development.

IDC reported earlier this week that Apple controls over 87 percent of the market with the popular iPad, but a number of Android 3.0 models are coming in the next few months, which should put some pressure on the leader.

Through leaks, two WebOS tablets have been confirmed, "Opal" and "Topaz," and it is speculated that the Topaz will be the product shipping in March.

The Topaz is 9-inches, has no buttons, a 1.2GHz processor and dual cameras.

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