Microsoft has confirmed this weekend that the Zune HD is now available in Canada, years after its launch in the United States.

However, the Zune Music Marketplace is not available as a choice, yet, even though the video store is available.

It is unclear when the licensing issues will be corrected.

Available via Zune Originals, the 16GB model is $170 and the 32GB version is $200.

Canada is now the second country to get the Zune HD, as Microsoft has moved most of its development towards Windows Phone 7.

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T-Mobile has announced that the anticipated Samsung Galaxy S 4G will be hitting retail shelves next week, on February 23rd.

The smartphone will be priced at $200 with contract, and after a $50 rebate.

Featuring a 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touch screen with 480x800, Android 2.2, a 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird processor and dual cameras, the smartphone is mainly notable because it adds a HSPA+ 4G modem, capable of 21 Mbps downstream.

The device also comes with Mobile HD TV, Samsung Media Hub and T-Mobile Video chat powered by Qik.

T-Mobile says the $150 pricing offered last week by Radio Shack was actually a mistake and that price will not be honored.

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Speedtest.net has posted the results of its nationwide speed test, and it is clear that the iPhone gets faster Internet via AT&T's 3G as compared to via Verizon's.

The Ookla SpeedTest app is available in the App Store, and the results of the test come from 43,000 AT&T and 14,000 Verizon users running the app.

On average, the AT&T iPhone down speed was 1769 Kbps with 730 Kbps up speed. The Verizon iPhone saw much slower speeds, averaging 848 Kbps down and 506 Kbps up.

Most of the users ran the test multiple times during the study period, leading to a total of 155,000 test results.

A number of users did mention that the speed test never failed on Verizon, while AT&T had a significant amount of failed tests due to a dropped connection.

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The NPD Group has released its latest figures on the gaming industry, which continues its multi-year slump.

For January, overall industry sales dropped 4 percent year-over-year (YoY).

Despite strong sales from the Microsoft Kinect and Sony Move motion control systems, sales fell to $1.14 billion from $1.18 billion in 2010.

Hardware was the major lagging factor, down 8 percent from $354 million to $324 million while software fell 5 percent to $576 million. Video game accessories rose 6 percent to finish at $235 million.

Microsoft saw strong growth YoY, up 14.4 percent to 332,800 units. Half of the consoles sold were bundled with Kinect.

Nintendo got crushed, with Wii sales down 31.5 percent to 319,000 sold.

The PlayStation 3 saw a slight hit, as well, falling from 276,900 consoles sold last year to 267,000 in 2011.

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AT&T is likely to add Personal Hotspot Wi-Fi as on option for iPhone users when iOS 4.3 hits, following in Verizon's footsteps.

Personal Hotspot gives users a chance to share their iPhone's 3G connection as a Wi-Fi access point for other devices. Apple added support for the option in iOS 4.2.6.

Verizon charges $20 per month for Wi-Fi tethering, and AT&T will likely offer a similar deal.

The move is reminiscent of when Apple added MMS support and Bluetooth tethering to iOS 3.0, but AT&T restricted the features for months.

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Nine months after it was announced, the BBC has finally updated their iPlayer to link VOD listings for other sites.

Partner channels are ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, S4C, Seesaw and MSN Video Player.

BBC's iPlayer is the most popular streaming TV service in the UK, and "iPlayer" has become synonymous with streaming catch up TV just like "Hulu" has in the United States.

The new move is expected to bring significant amounts of traffic to the VOD offerings of the partner channels, thanks to the iPlayer's brand recognition for streaming.

In the iPlayer, users will see the VOD offerings in a new section, or via search.

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Google, Sony, TiVo, Mitsubishi, Best Buy, NagraVision and SageTV have announced this week that will form the AllVid Tech Company Alliance, supporting the FCC's AllVid proposal.

AllVid, Time explains, is a "device that would act as a "gateway" adapter allowing all types of pay TV content - whether it's cable or satellite TV, internet TV or IPTV - to be viewable on the same device, without new technology forcing consumers to have to upgrade their equipment."

FCC officials made the proposal last year and it was immediately shunned by the cable companies and the Motion Picture Association of America, which says AllVid does not provide enough protection against unauthorized movies and content, and may promote piracy.

The AllVid Tech Company Alliance says AllVid is "essential... to break down the wall separating the home network from [multichannel video programming distributor] networks -- not just poke a few holes in it." The proposal "will best enable innovation and new product entry across consumer electronics and computer platforms as the television platform has fallen behind other products and services in offering consumers the seamless and intuitive interface they now expect from other 'smart' connected products."

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