Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois has made news this weekend with his claim that the iPad (and similar tech) has lead to the elimination of thousands of American jobs.

The representative is a big fan of the efficiency of the iPad, and has even proposed that all Illinois students eventually be given one as a learning tool, but says it does not help the growing problem of unemployment.

Says Jackson:

A few short weeks ago I came to the House floor after having purchased an iPad and said that I happened to believe, Mr. Speaker, that at some point in time this new device, which is now probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now Borders is closing stores because, why do you need to go to Borders anymore? Why do you need to go to Barnes & Noble? Buy an iPad and download your newspaper, download your book, download your magazine.

The representative also goes into how the publishing industry, especially for textbooks, is being hurt.

Watch the video here:

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Somewhat surprisingly, the aged PSP handheld has beat out the new Nintendo 3DS for a second consecutive week in Japanese sales.

MediaCreate says the PSP moved 35,478 units for the week ended April 10th, followed by the 3DS at 32,910 units.

If adding all iterations of the DS, Nintendo won handily with the DSi LL and DSi selling 8,386 and 8,035 units, respectively.

The two-week boost in PSP sales has been attributed to the release of Final Fantasy IV: Complete Collection, which continues to be a strong seller for the PSP.

Sony will be releasing its new NGP (PSP2) later this year boasting incredible specs like dual micro-analog sticks, a 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen with 960×544 resolution, a multi-touch panel on the back and a quad-core ARM cortex processor.

The company has also added tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, standard and front-side cameras, GPS, an electric compass, Wi-Fi and 3G support, and access to Android gaming.

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Google has sent out emails today letting users of the defunct Google Video service that their videos will soon be gone as the company finally completely shuts down the hosting service.

The search giant asks everyone to move their content over to YouTube, which is also owned by Google.

If you do have content, you may want to go get it quickly as the service shuts down on May 13th.

Copy of the email (via USAT)

Dear Google Video User,

Later this month, hosted video content on Google Video will no longer be available for playback. Google Video stopped taking uploads in May 2009 and now we're removing the remaining hosted content. We've always maintained that the strength of Google Video is its ability to let people search videos from across the web, regardless of where those videos are hosted. And this move will enable us to focus on developing these technologies further to the benefit of searchers worldwide.

On April 29, 2011, videos that have been uploaded to Google Video will no longer be available for playback. We've added a Download button to the video status page, so you can download any video content you want to save. If you don't want to download your content, you don't need to do anything. (The Download feature will be disabled after May 13, 2011.)

We encourage you to move to your content to YouTube if you haven't done so already. YouTube offers many video hosting options including the ability to share your videos privately or in an unlisted manner. To learn more go here.

Here's how to download your videos:
Go to the Video Status page.To download a video to your computer, click the Download Video link located on the right side of each of your videos in the Actions column.

Once a video has been downloaded, "Already Downloaded" will appear next to the Download Video link.
If you have many videos on Google Video, you may need to use the paging controls located on the bottom right of the page to access them all.

Please note: This download option will be available through May 13, 2011.

Thank you for being a Google Video user.

Sincerely,
The Google Video Team

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Google has acquiesced to the movie, TV and music industries, agreeing to send those that post copywritten work to "Copyright School" before they can use the service again.

Violators will have to watch the embedded video and then pass a short test before they can upload videos again.

The video itself is a corny cartoon, but goes over the basics of copyright infringement and how it can affect an industry.

Mostly, however, the video illustrates how you can get in trouble for uploading the works.

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Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has once again taken to openly opposing AT&T's proposed acquisition of rival carrier T-Mobile for $39 billion.

Said Hesse:

We just cannot let this happen. If the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger is allowed to go forward it can also push the wireless industry from competition to duopoly.

The duopoly would feature Verizon on the CDMA side and AT&T on the GSM side, leaving smaller carriers like Sprint with two monsters to compete with.

AT&T says their acquisition will help the company address growing capacity limitations.

The FCC and DOJ are currently looking into the merger, to see if it will violate any anti-trust laws. The acquisition is expected to close in 2012, if passed.

In response to Hesse, AT&T has pointed to comments the CEO made just months ago in which he called the carrier market "hyper competitive" capable of handling consolidation:

Given that Sprint is a major competitor to AT&T in the hyper competitive wireless market Mr. Hesse describes, no one should be surprised that they would oppose this merger. But it is self-serving for them to argue that the highly competitive wireless market they cited only months ago is now threatened by the very type of transaction they seemed prepared to defend previously.

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