In its first 24 hours, Firefox 4 was downloaded 7.1 million times, followed by a second day boost of 8.75 million, blowing away the previous Guinness World Record record for single-day software downloads.

The previous record was held by Firefox 3.0, which saw 8.1 million downloads in one-day in 2008.

After a year of development, 12 betas and two RCs, Firefox 4 launched to much fanfare last week.

The new record will be unofficial because there were no Guinness representatives on-site this time around to independently audit the number.

Mozilla also crushed Internet Explorer 9's download numbers, with Microsoft reporting 2.3 million downloads for the first 24 hours. That number may be deceiving, however, as many Internet Explorer users are in corporate environments where updates are controlled by the IT team and are normally rolled out slowly. An overwhelming majority of Firefox downloaders are personal and "power" users, not corporate, says CW.

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Earlier in the month, Warner Bros. announced it would begin renting digital copies of films via Facebook, starting with the blockbuster hit "The Dark Knight."

Today, the studio has added that it will add five more films to the offering, including two "Harry Potter" movies.

As of tonight, The Dark Knight, Yogi Bear, Life As We Know It, Inception, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets will be available.

Says Warner Bros. president of Digital Distribution Thomas Gewecke (via THR):

We're pleased to expand our test with a variety of titles that will appeal to a broad audience. These titles have substantial followings on Facebook. The fan pages for 'Harry Potter' and 'Inception' alone are two of the most popular and active communities on the site.

The rentals cost $3 and users will be able to watch it for 48 hours from within their FB account.

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Motorola Mobility has launched the Wi-Fi-only model of the Xoom tablet this weekend, for $599, giving a users with no need for 3G/4G a chance to get the device for cheaper.

The device is available at stores like Best Buy and Staples, and online via Amazon and other e-tailers.

Unlike its more expensive 3G counterpart, the Xoom Wi-Fi will not require a data contract.

The powerful tablet has 10.1-inch display, 1280x800 resolution, a Nvidia Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 32GB onboard memory (expendable via SD), a 5MP dual-LED flash standard camera and a 2MP front-side camera for video conferencing.

Although unconfirmed, rumor has it that Sam's Club will sell the model at a highly discounted $539 price point.

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Mozilla has launched a Firefox for Android (and Maemo) release candidate (RC) this weekend, available in 10 languages.

The browser is available through the Android Market, or for manual install.

In the release, the app adds better support for Firefox Sync, faster scrolling, bug fixes and an overall improved experience.

Because it is Firefox 4, the browser adds Firefox Sync, Awesome Screen, tabbed browsing and Firefox Add-ons.

Video of the updates:

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DroidLife has reported this weekend that the HTC Thunderbolt will be getting the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update in the Q2.

The Q2 begins April 1st and ends at the conclusion of June.

Thanks to an email sent to a customer, DroidLife says the confirmation is in this message:

Dear John,

Congratulations on obtainng the HTC Thunderbolt. We understand how important it is that your device meets your needs.

John, Bluetooth manufacturers make their devices to be compatible with our phones. We do not make our phones to be compatible with the thousands of Bluetooth devices in the market. Bluetooth manufacturers conduct the testing to see if complete compatability is achievable. It is the software in the Bluetooth devices which dictates whether they work or not. Our software in the phones, ensures that the phone can pair and turn on the Bluetooth. Anything else, goes to the Bluetooth manufacturer for troubleshooting. You would need to speak with the car manufacturer to ensure that full compatibilty is achievable. The Thunderbolt does have a text to speech feature.

We are excited to announce that the Thunderbolt will receive the Gingerbread (Android 2.3) update in Q2 2011. Stay tuned for details as we get closer to the update availability.

New User Features
UI refinements for simplicity and speed
Faster, more intuitive text input
One-touch word selection and copy/paste
Improved power management
Control over applications
Internet calling
Near-field communications
Downloads management
Enhancements for gaming
Performance
Native input and sensor events
Open API for native audio
Native graphics management
Native access to Activity lifecycle, window management
Native access to assets, storage
Robust native development environment
New forms of communication
Internet telephony
Near Field Communications (NFC
Rich multimedia
Mixable audio effects
Support for new media formats
Access to multiple cameras
New Platform Technologies
Media Framework
New media framework fully replaces OpenCore, maintaining all previous codec/container support for encoding and decoding.
Integrated support for the VP8 open video compression format and the WebM open container format
Adds AAC encoding and AMR wideband encoding
Linux Kernel
Upgraded to 2.6.35
Networking
SIP stack, configurable by device manufacturer
Support for Near Field Communications (NFC), configurable by device manufacturer
Updated BlueZ stack
Dalvik runtime
Dalvik VM:
Concurrent garbage collector (target sub-3ms pauses)
Adds further JIT (code-generation) optimizations
Improved code verification
StrictMode debugging, for identifying performance and memory issues
Core libraries:
Expanded I18N support (full worldwide encodings, more locales)
Faster Formatter and number formatting. For example, float formatting is 2.5x faster.
HTTP responses are gzipped by default. XML and JSON API response sizes may be reduced by 60% or more.
New collections and utilities APIs
Improved network APIs
Improved file read and write controls
Updated JDBC
Updates from upstream projects:
OpenSSL 1.0.0a
BouncyCastle 1.45
ICU 4.4
zlib 1.2.5

We apologize John, for any inconvenience that you may have experienced.

To send a reply to this message or let me know I have successfully answered your question log in to our ContactUs site using your email address and your ticket number XXXXXXXXXXX.

Sincerely,
Carol
HTC

The news should be welcome to Thunderbolt owners as Gingerbread was not given a timetable at launch.

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Google and Microsoft lead the BrandDirectory 2011 list of most valuable brands in the world, with a few other tech companies taking in place in the top 10, as well.

IBM took 4th, Vodafone took 5th, Apple took 8th and AT&T rose to 10th.

Wal-Mart was last year's winner but fell to 3rd in 2011.

BrandDirectory uses financial and business criteria to determine each company's rank, and there overall "brand value."

Google's brand was determined as being worth $44.2 billion, up a whopping 23 percent from 2010. The company was the only one to receive a AAA+ brand rating, thanks to its ventures that aren't commercial, but have positive effects on the brand and the world. One such example is Google's profit-less move to help those in Egypt with no Internet connection to send texts using Google Voice. Another was the service created to help in the rescue efforts in Japan following this month's earthquake and tsunami.

Read the full list here: BrandDirectory Top 500

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Amazon may be on the verge of creating a "digital locker," giving users a chance to store their existing movie and music libraries in the cloud.

Even if the content was not purchased from Amazon, the deal would allow the film, books, and music to be stored on company servers.

The giant e-tailer has not yet been granted all the necessary licenses but is actively negotiating and may even announce the service before it has obtained them.

Amazon is in a race for the cloud service, as Apple and Google are rumored to be actively creating similar platforms.

A cloud service for media seems to be the ideal situation for the future, as consumers will never be without their content, as long as they have an Internet connection.

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Media companies urge UK Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to voluntarily block access to piracy websites.

They are being urged to block access to sites like the Pirate Bay and Newzbin2, as an alternative to media companies targeting end users for copyright infringement. In total, rights holders already have a list of about 100 top priority sites it would like to see blocked by UK ISPs.

In the voluntary system, content owners would have to pass evidence to the ISPs that a certain website is used primarily to aid copyright infringement. ISPs would then take action against the site. However, there are some concerns that are holding ISPs back from committing to any such system.

Firstly, they believe an impartial judge should decide whether a website is aiding illegal activity and should be blocked. Secondly, who would be liable for legal ramifications if a website were incorrectly flagged and blocked off from UK users?

The communications minister, Ed Vaizey, is attempting to push through such a voluntary system as the anti-piracy measures in the Digital Economy Act are fiercely opposed by providers. BT and TalkTalk have reportedly spent more than £1 million in legal fees challenging the act, and it faces a delay of at least 12 months. Both providers have 8.4 million customers in the UK between them.

"Cheaper than notice sending would be site blocking," said one rights holder present at the government meetings. "We're more interested in site blocking than mass notification letters. We don't want to target end users, the mass notification system is long winded – we want something now."

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Encoding.com moves Vid.ly project from private to public beta.

Vid.ly is intended to be a program-universal video URL service for all content creators. The idea is the Vid.ly domain only hosts videos that are guaranteed to play back on all mobile phones and with all web browsers. For content publishers, there is chaos in the video ecosystem with the growing number of devices and lack of standardization across platforms.

With Vid.ly, all videos are pre-transcoded to all popular web and mobile formats, so that when an end user requests a video, Vid.ly detects his device and serves the correct and optimized video. Publishers can embed the HTML5 code provided by Vid.ly directly into their web pages or Flash players, or can share the provided short URL via SMS, Facebook, Twitter or other social media outlets.

"We've seen a tremendous response to the Vid.ly private beta. It's clear that Vid.ly elegantly solves a complex problem for video content producers," said Jeff Malkin, President of Encoding.com.

"We have incorporated suggestions and feedback from our private beta participants and have fine-tuned the service. Now, using the cloud-based scalability of Vid.ly's 'engine,' Encoding.com, we are able to easily expand the service for an open beta and will soon announce the commercial release of Vid.ly Pro."

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A report by Ofsted in the UK has said that some of Britains design and technology classes are lagging behind.

It said that too many teachers in England are failing to keep pace with rapid technology innovation around the world. Teachers are making too little use of modern technology in their classes according to the report, which was constructed from inspections of 89 primaries, 89 secondaries (high school) and two special needs schools.

The report wasn't all that bad, marking D&T success in 60 percent of primary schools and 50 percent of secondary schools as good or outstanding. In the best environments, the teaching was challenging with interesting tasks that are relevant for the pupils. In such cases, the students could benefit from up-to-date information and communication technology.

Unfortunately, in a quarter of primary schools and the other half of secondary schools, there wasn't enough opportunities for the students to develop knowledge of electronics, computer aided design and other high-priority areas. That being said, no school was found to have an "unsatisfactory" level of its teaching in the curriculum.

"Most pupils in the schools visited enjoyed designing and making products, solving real problems for people in their communities and further afield, and seeing their ideas taking shape," said Ofsted chief inspector Christine Gilbert.

"This was vitally important to them. Achievement and provision in D&T was best where up-to-date technologies were used and explained accurately. But the variation between the best and weakest provision is unacceptably wide."

In China and France in particular, the study of computer aided design, electronics and robotics is emphasized to prepare students for the rapid expansion of technology is not expected to slow down any time soon.

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Reports suggest that Motorola Mobility is working on a web-based operating system for mobile devices.

A report by InformationWeek cites a source close to the company in claiming that Motorola Mobility has amassed experienced mobile and web engineers to work on a new web-based operating system platform. The company could use it as an alternative to Google's Android operating system in its products.

Motorola has hired ex-employees from Apple and Adobe. Gilles Drieu, VP of software engineering at Motorola Mobility, formerly of Apple, joined Motorola five months after leaving Apple. He has worked with WhatWG and W3C, and is reportedly a good candidate for heading up the OS project.

Motorola Mobility has not denied that it is working on an operating system, but did reaffirm its support for Android. "Motorola Mobility is committed to Android as an operating system," a company spokesperson told InformationWeek.

"Google is shooting itself in the foot," the source said, citing concerns about Android fragmentation and product differentiation.

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China's search heavyweight is said to be testing a new web browser internally.

Baidu has confirmed that it is testing a web browser internally, designed for use with desktop PCs. Spokesman Kaiser Kuo said that the browser "dovetails" with Baidu's "box-computing" technology. Baidu emoployees are currently testing the new software.

This could put Baidu in direct competition with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google's Chrome browser.

Baidu shares rose to their highest level on the Nasdaq on Friday since trading began back in 2005. In the past year, the stock has surged 40 percent. Google's scale back of operations in China in a dispute over a cyber attack on its services has helped Baidu to continue capturing search share from the U.S. company.

There has also been talk about Baidu being involved in the development of a mobile operating system that would directly compete with Android and iOS. The company has been asked about such rumors, and neither confirmed or denied them.

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IHS iSuppli shows how Intel kept itself right on top of the processor market in 2010, much to the pain of rival AMD.

Both companies are the top two manufacturers of microprocessors in the world, but the gap between their market share is sobering for anyone looking to take on Intel. Intel claimed 81 percent of sales during 2010, representing a small increase of 0.4 percent over 2009.

AMD on the other hand claimed 11.4 percent of the market, a decline of 0.9 percent over the previous year. Focusing on just the fourth quarter, there was a 12.2 percent drop for AMD in Q4 2010 compared to the same time period a year earlier.

The overall revenue in the market for microprocessors jumped 25 percent in 2010, weighing in at about $40 billion.

It will be interesting to see how the market changes over the coming years as analysts expect millions of tablet devices (and other portable technology) to ship. iSuppli expects that by 2015, 240 million such units will ship. The tablet market reached 17.4 million in 2010, mostly driven by Apple.

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Popular digital music service Spotify will soon broadcast its first live gig for its users.

The first ever live gig broadcast by Spotify will be from Koko in London, featuring a headline DJ set by Elly Jackson from La Roux, with other acts including Pony Pony Run Run, The Naked and Famous and Delphic. The event is part of the Nissan Juke "Behind the Hit" campaign.

The show is set for April 5 at Camden's Koko. "Giving our users access to great live music in their own home is the next step in the Spotify experience," said Jonathan Foster, General Manager, Europe, Spotify.

The DJ set will include a track "Helly" by Ben Daniels, a winner of Nissan Juke's Behind the Hit competition.

"The aim of the 'Behind the Hit' competition was to find an uplifting song that sets the mood when you're driving for a night out. We feel we've done that with Helly and look forward to the first public hearing at Koko and through Spotify," said Andy Jackson, online marketing manager for Nissan GB.

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The NPD Group reported earlier this week that P2P piracy in the United States declined significantly in 2010.

The market research firm said that the rate of users sharing pirated content on P2P networks dropped to 9 percent during 2010, down from 16 percent reported in 2007. This is a dramatic reversal in the trend of increasing Internet piracy over the last few years.

NPD argues that online piracy is not a fundamental problem for the media industries, because the rates are so low. That opinion clashes violently with the declaration in the IFPI's Digital Media 2010 report that the industry will struggle for its very survival unless piracy is dealt with. However, it mirrors a tone from Warner Music which estimated in a presentation to the FCC that only 13 percent of American's piracy music.

The record label said the actions are harmful, but admitted that pirates do spend money on content too and tend to "drive discovery for others."

The decline in P2P use is strongly linked to the shut down of LimeWire in late 2010. "Limewire was so popular for music file trading, and for so long, that its closure has had a powerful and immediate effect on the number of people downloading music files from peer-to-peer services and curtailed the amount being swapped," said Russ Crupnick, NPD analyst.

"In the past, we've noted that hard-core peer-to-peer users would quickly move to other Web sites that offered illegal music file sharing. It will be interesting to see if services like Frostwire and Bittorrent take up the slack left by Limewire, or if peer-to-peer music downloaders instead move on to other modes of acquiring or listening to music."

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