Lenovo's senior specialist in marketing William Cai has said today that the company is currently working on a 23-inch tablet, one that should be available by the end of the year.

Cai says the tablet can be docked as an "all-in-one" solution or just used as a portable tablet to be moved around the house.

Most notably, the exec says the tablet is coming in 2011.

Concludes Cai (via TechRadar):

We think that there is potential for a 23-inch tablet. We'd have to take care of battery life and we are working to get the weight down.It's obviously not for full mobility use, but it could be moved from room to room in the house and used with a full keyboard, or as a television. Or you could lay it on a table top and use it for family games.

We're hoping that we can launch it later this year.

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Rovio and Microsoft have confirmed this week that the blockbuster game 'Angry Birds' is headed to Windows Phone 7 devices on May 25th.

Delayed for legal reasons, the game was originally set for a February launch on the platform.

The game will feature 195 levels and will be available in the Xbox Live portion of the app marketplace.

It is unclear if the game will be free or not.

Additionally, Microsoft has expanded the Windows Mobile App Marketplace to 35 countries and has announced major apps like Skype, Layar, Spotify and Amazon will be coming with the "mango" firmware update in September.

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Two days into the MIX11 event Microsoft has launched its first public beta of Silverlight 5.

The platform promises "dramatic video quality and performance improvements, and features that improve developer productivity.'

In total, there are about 40 added features/improvements.

TCM has all the updates:

- a XNA-based interface enabling 'stunning' 3D visualizations in apps

- support for running Silverlight applications with desktop features in the browser

- support for 64bit operating systems

- Hardware Decode and presentation of H.264 improve performance for lower-power devices to render high-definition video using GPU support.

- the TrickPlay function allows video to be played at different speeds and supports fast-forward and rewind.

- Improved power awareness that prevents the screen saver from being shown while watching video and allows the computer to sleep when video is not active.

- Remote control support

- Reduced network latency by using a background thread for networking

- Digital rights management advancements allow seamless switching between DRM media sources

You can get Silverlight 5 beta here: Silverlight.net

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Good Old Games, the retro games site has made some interesting comments regarding DRM (digital rights management) this week, claiming that instead of preventing piracy, it instead encourages it.

PR and marketing manager, Lukasz Kukawski went as far as to say DRM's effectiveness was "close to none."

Kukawski, via Bitgamer:

What I will say isn't popular in the gaming industry, but in my opinion DRM drives people to pirate games rather than prevent them from doing that. Would you rather spend $50 on a game that requires installing malware on your system, or to stay online all the time and crashes every time the connection goes down, or would you rather download a cracked version without all that hassle?

The manager also says the DRM is so abusive that some gamers will buy the game to support the developers and then just use a cracked version to avoid all the restrictions:

I know people that buy an original copy of the game just so they don't feel guilty and then they will play a pirated version which is stripped of all DRM. That's not how it should be. Let's treat legitimate customers with respect and they will give that back.

Concluding that DRM is absolutely useless, Kukawski says:

If you see the news on gaming portals that a highly anticipated title has leaked before the release date, and you can download it from torrents without any copy protection because it has been already cracked, how can you possible believe that DRM works in any way to reduce piracy?

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The Flip video camera brand, started in 2007 and purchased by Cisco in 2009 for $590 million has been dropped, with the company shutting down the whole division.

In its first year of availability, the Flip was a huge success, selling two million units.

Along with shutting down the full video camera division, Cisco says 550 jobs will be removed as part of a "reorganization plan to save money and expand offerings for customers." The company is looking to move those 550 employees to other divisions.

Although Cisco did not specifically cite it, the Flip has been made obsolete by smartphones, which almost all feature 720p video recording.

Most consumers do not want to have to carry around multiple devices when one can do all and analysts always questioned the purchase as it is far removed from Cisco's core businesses.

Regardless, with over $40 billion in cash still on-hand, Cisco can quickly forget the mistake.

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Clarifying a statement from last week in which he claimed "Angry Birds" was now the best-selling game on PSN, ever, Lazard Capital Markets' Colin Sebastian has apologized and reneged on the client note.

Correcting the statement, Sebastian says "Angry Birds was the most downloaded paid game through the PSN for January and February 2011."

The correction is huge as Angry Birds has only been available via PSN for over 3 months. The PS3 launched in 2006.

Angry Birds sells for $1.99 on the PS3, $.99 on iOS, and for free on Android (with ads). The game has been downloaded over 100 million times across the platforms.

The latest version of the game, Angry Birds Rio, a tie-in to the new movie, has over 10 million downloads since its launch on April 3rd.

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Valve has revealed many details about its upcoming Steam "experience" for the PS3, coming next week with the launch of "Portal 2."

Portal 2 is the first game to support Steam on a console, and the game will offer "cross-platform matchmaking, gameplay, friends, chat, and achievements," says the company.

Additionally, Steam for PS3 allows for game progress to be saved to the Steam cloud where they can continue playing their game on any PS3.

From within the Steam overlay, gamers have access to both their PSN and Steam friends, "displaying their in-game or online status and providing a quick pathway to text chats, player profiles, friend requests, and game invites. Steam Achievements are earned in lockstep with PSN Trophies and are also accessible within the Steam overlay."

To use Steam you must link your PSN account with your Steam account, which takes a few clicks after you insert Portal 2.

Finally, if you purchase the PS3 version, you will also be given an access code to play on your PC or Mac, as well.

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