Nokia CEO Stephen Elop has said this week that smartphones running Windows Phone 7 will see their prices fall "very fast."

Microsoft and Nokia recently made a deal to have WP7 available on Nokia smartphones into the future and a key point in Nokia picking Microsoft was that they could bring prices down to "a very low price point."

Elop says: "We have become convinced that we can do that very quickly."

Microsoft will open its platform to other chipsets suppliers outside of Qualcomm, which should help reduce prices.

As a sign of support, Elop (a former Microsoft exec) sold all of his remaining Microsoft shares and used the proceeds to buy 150,000 shares of Nokia.

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The PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), a trade body, has said this week that PC piracy continues to decline, thanks mainly to the industry's move towards digital distribution.

Says PCGA president Matt Ployhar (via Bit):

What's really interesting is piracy was largely, historically rampant when you had an optical drive or a piece of physical media. And people would go and download the crack for it.

The only PC gaming business models that existed and continued to thrive and that could continue to live were MMOs. They did really well. And then there are free to play games. You can't really pirate free to play. You can but it doesn't make a lot of sense.

So, what's happening is game design is shifting and as a result of shifting game design, piracy, at least on the PC side, is actually declining as a result. There are stats that do corroborate that.

Ployhar does note that while the rates are declining, piracy will not ever disappear.

I'm not saying that piracy is going to go away. It's fascinating to watch. For example, you get a game like Crysis that got hit hard by piracy. Now what you're seeing to combat that are developers implementing achievements, in-game pets, all of these things that are tracked and stored in the cloud. So even if you pirate the game you're still not getting the bragging rights. You've got all these additional mechanisms where the value proposition of the game, where if you pirate it, it's just not going to be as fun.

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Infamous hacker George "Geohot" Holtz has asked the world for donations today, in an effort to pay for a legal team to fight against Sony's lawsuit against him.

The company sued Holtz last month after the hacker used a master signing key to create a custom firmware for the PlayStation 3 that can run homebrew.

I will post the entire post here, which Holtz wrote this morning and has since updated to thank donators who have apparently already given enough to pay for his legal team.

Media, I need your help. This is the first time I have ever asked. Please, if you support this cause, help me out and spread the word.I want, by the time this goes to trial, to have Sony facing some of the hardest hitting lawyers in the business.Together, we can help fix the system. Donations here are for legal defense ONLY.

Sony are bullies
Sony doesn't care if what you did was legal, if they don't like it, they sue. Sony tried to sue a guy for getting his AIBO to do non Sony approved tricks, making it apparent that they don't really care about piracy, they care about control. In (Sony v Bleem), Bleem was the winner on all counts, but the high cost of a legal defense shut them down. Fortunately, that suit helped set precedent on the legality of emulators. I would hate to lose this case due to resource starvation, and with the support of the masses, I won't. Lets turn the bully back on itself. This case has the ability to set a huge precedent for consoles and all closed systems to come. The other two should be begging Sony to back off.

Sony sued the wrong guy
I am an advocate against mass piracy, do not distribute anyone's copyrighted work but my own, do not take crap lying down, and am even pro DRM in a sense. For example, I believe Apple has every right to lock down their iPhone in the factory as much as they want, but once it's paid for and mine, I have the right to unlock it, smash it, jailbreak it, look at it, and hack on it. Fortunately, the courts agree with me on this point.
My PS3 goal has been to provide users a legitimate path to homebrew, which by the standards of all previous cases (or, in reverse), is 100% legal. Sony does not even try to allege piracy or copyright infringement in this case, they allege I did things like play "super mario world, an unauthorized game" on MY PS3. And access MY PS3 in an unauthorized way. Who are they to authorize what I do with my taxed and paid for property?
fail0verflow's goal was even nobler than mine. They wanted to give you back a feature Sony illegally stole, Linux on your PS3. It's shameful on Sony's part that they are being sued at all. If you have a problem with pirates, sue them, don't sue people who point out your shortcomings.

Why should I care about your personal legal troubles?
You shouldn't. For example, if I was taken to court for sex crimes in Sweden, I would never ask for donations. But this case isn't about me. Clearly I am not being sued because of something I have that Sony wants, I am being sued in order to send a message that Sony is not to be messed with. But if I(and all codefendants likewise) actually win this, we have the power to send a much stronger message back. That consumers have rights, and we aren't afraid to stand up for them.

Why should I trust you? I just saw you trying to rap battle Sony
My attempts at humor aside, I do take this whole matter very seriously. Again, it's not about me, I was on the verge of quitting this stuff last June, and I would hate to be the one who sets a reputation for hackers that all a company has to do is sue us and we back down. In fact, I want the opposite reputation set, that the more a company tries to abuse the legal system, the harder we rally back. I will be the first person in line on the launch date of the Xperia Play, and itching to get my hands on the Next GEOHOT Project.

Why did you wait until now to set this up?
I didn't want to be trigger happy, and thought the suit might go away quickly. Also, I had to consult with my lawyers about how to do this. It's been over a month, and it looks like this is going to be a drawn out case. I am in this for the long haul. I am very serious ethically when I take donations, for all iPhone work I only accepted after the fact, here after the fact is too late. Now I am pot committed so to say.

How much should I donate?
Put it this way, Sony has 5 lawyers, I have 2. I'd like to level the playing field, and really get some hard hitters in there. I have already racked up over 10k in legal bills; donate whatever you feel like. Leftover donations at the end of all this will be donated to the EFF.

What if I want to donate more than I feel comfortable sending through PayPal?
I'm excited! Email me, we'll figure it out.

Why doesn't the EFF fund this?
Ask them. They have offered to provide some legal help though, which is much appreciated.

Donate to help you, you're the reason I can't play Modern Warfare now…
No, I'm not. Kakaroto explains this really well here. I have never played PS3 online ever. Frankly I'm amazed by the apparent ease with which these cheats were created, security 101, why is the security in the client anyway? I had no idea this would happen, and am in full support of the cheaters being permabanned from PSN.

I'm a poor college student, what can I do to help?
I feel you, don't worry. Spread the word. Let people know how you feel about what Sony is doing. Let Sony know how you feel about what Sony is doing.

What if SCEA tries to settle?
Lets just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it. It'd be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it. I'm also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted.

Why isn't SCEA trying to settle?
RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE...THEY POINTED OUT OUR SECURITY FLAWS...IM SO MADDDDDDDD...WAHHHHHH

You can follow the case here: http://geohotgotsued.blogspot.com/

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Sony has unveiled two new OLED TVs this week, the largest commercially available to date.

Adding the TVs to the Trimaster EL line, the new 17 and 25-inch OLED TVs will join the original commercial OLED display, Sony's 11-inch version.

OLED TVs offer the best power-efficiency, the deepest blacks, the richest colors, and the thinnest designs.

The latest displays are the first with RGB 10-bit drivers and the standard luminance is 100 cd/m2.

Says Sony (via Tom's):

These new monitors are the next step in professional displays, providing end users with extremely high picture quality. This is breakthrough technology for applications where visual performance and accuracy are paramount, offering an unbeatable combination of image reproduction, color accuracy, reliability and stability.

The 25-inch BVM-E250 will be released in April for around $29,000 and the 17-inch BVM-E170 will hit in June for around $15,000.

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According to new data from research firm IHS, the Android Market saw revenue grow by 861.5 percent year-over-year (YoY) from 2009 to 2010, although the actual dollar figures are tiny compared to all the other major app stores.

Revenue grew from $11 million in 2009 to $102 million in 2010.

By comparison, the Apple App Store saw 131.9 percent growth YoY, jumping to $1.7 billion.

More surprisingly, the BlackBerry App World had revenue of $165 million, and the Nokia Ovi store saw revenue of $105 million, both larger than Android despite a much smaller selection of available apps.

Google says there are 300,000 Android phones activated daily.

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Gamal Ibrahim, an Egyptian citizen, has named his newborn daughter "Facebook," following the social media's part in bringing about the recent revolution.

Ibrahim says he gave his daughter the name "to express his joy at the achievements made by the January 25 youth."

Many of the youths in the nation used Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks to organize the protests, which began on January 25th and eventually led to the end of President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign.

"The girl's family, friends and neighbors in the Ibrahimya region gathered around the new born to express their continuing support for the revolution that started on Facebook. 'Facebook' received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name," adds the Egyptian paper who broke the story.

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Hotfile has begun taking a harsh stance on copyright infringement, says TF, with the cyberlocker deleting premium accounts, along with all the files in them.

Furthermore, the company is not paying out money earned in the site's rewards program.

The MPAA recently filed a lawsuit against Hotfile and its owner, claiming that "in less than two years, Hotfile has become one of the 100 most trafficked sites in the world. That is a direct result of the massive digital theft that Hotfile promotes."

This week, hundreds of account holders are reporting that their paid-up premium accounts have been deleted, along with all their uploaded files. Many had been uploading movies and TV shows and were being paid weekly by the rewards program, using piracy as a means of income.

One account holder says he has not been paid on the $1000 Hotfile owes him for uploads.

Says Hotfile of the matter:

Recently, we have become concerned that despite these policies, some users persist in attempting to use Hotfile.com to share materials to which they do not have the necessary rights. Therefore, we have implemented a more aggressive policy of terminating the accounts of users who are the subject of repeated complaints of infringement.

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