South Korea’s LG Electronics Monday unveiled what it described as the world’s first watch-shaped mobile video phone.

The “3G watch phone” model has a touch-screen dialling system with a camera and a speaker built in to enable users to make video calls over a high speed internet connection, LG Electronic said in a statement.

It also recognises voices, transforms text to speech, has a Bluetooth function and plays MP3 music.

The product has a 3.63-centimetre (1.43-inch) screen and is 13.9 millimetres (0.56 inches) thick. It will be on display at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11.

LG Electronics said it plans to launch the handset in European markets sometime next year.

Netflix and LG Electronics said on Sunday that LG will soon introduce TV sets that can screen Netflix movies directly from the Web without an external box.

Last year, the U.S. DVD rental company and the Korean electronics giant launched set-top boxes and Blu-ray DVD players equipped with the same Netflix software.

Netflix, which is seeking to equip all home-entertainment screens with instant movie-viewing capability, also announced other partnerships, including one with Microsoft’s Xbox 360 to embed the movie software in its game consoles.

Netflix subscribers who buy one of these devices can hook it up to their TVs to watch movies that can be downloaded from the Internet instantly, as part of their monthly rental plan.

Subscribers can choose from about 12,000 movie titles and television episodes for instant viewing — an option the company introduced in 2007. Netflix’s entire library consists of more than 100,000 titles.

The new high-definition LG televisions, which will be on view at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, are targeted at those Netflix customers who want the convenience of Internet-to-TV movies without the clutter of a set-top box or an additional DVD player.

The Feb. 17 transition from analog to digital television broadcasts looms and as many as 8 million households are still unprepared, but the government program that subsidizes crucial TV converter boxes is about to run out of money.

People who still rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air signals - whether it is through rabbit-ear aerials on TVs or antennas on the roof - will see their screens go dark when the changeover happens. To avoid that, those people have to switch to cable or satellite TV, buy a television set with a digital tuner or buy a converter box that can translate digital signals from the airwaves into analog.

To subsidize the converter boxes, most of which cost between $40 and $80 and can be purchased without coupons, the government has been letting consumers request up to two $40 coupons per home. But any day now, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the arm of the Commerce Department in charge of administering the coupon program, expects to hit a $1.34 billion funding ceiling set by Congress.

Microsoft’s market share in the browser dropped below 70% for the first time in eight years, while Mozilla broke the 20% barrier for the first time in its history. It’s too early to tell for sure, but if Net Applications’ numbers are correct, then Microsoft’s Internet Explorer will end 2008 with a historic market share loss in a software segment Microsoft believes is key to its business

The Israeli Defense Force has launched its own YouTube channel to bolster its case for the air assault against Hamas. It includes footage of Hamas terrorists loading rockets into a truck in a residential neighbourhood. There are also clips of attacks on Hamas weapons sites and tunnels used for smuggling.

But some videos were removed after Hamas sympathizers flagged them as “inappropriate.” YouTube has a feature which allows users to label videos unsuitable, causing them to be deleted.

While some clips were later reinstated, the IDF said in a statement on its YouTube page: “We are saddened that YouTube has taken down some of our exclusive footage… it is imperative that we in the IDF show the world the inhumanity directed against us and our efforts to stop it.”

Meanwhile, Israel is developing an independent blog where the videos can be viewed without any issues.

The unlock works exclusively with baseband 02.28.00. This baseband is provided by the latest firmware update (2.2) from Apple. You’ll need to upgrade to this release using iTunes and then use QuickPwn to activate etc. There are plenty of tutorials about this on iclarified, bigboss, and other established tutorial sites. Because it works on 02.28.00, it is available to everyone on the planet. This means we don’t need to unnecessarily expose holes in earlier basebands, which is an important concern.

The alleged ringleaders of a Chinese counterfeiting gang that sold at least $2 billion worth of bogus Microsoft Corp. software were sentenced Wednesday to prison terms of up to 6 1/2 years, in what is believed to be the harshest penalties yet under China’s tightened piracy laws.

The punishments meted out against the 11 defendants, and announced by Microsoft Corp., could help China improve its image as a country that doesn’t crack down hard enough on copyright violators, though the technology and entertainment industries still say China has a long way to go. The sentences ranged from 1 1/2 to 6 1/2 years, according to Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft.

The fact that Microsoft, and not the Chinese courts, disclosed the sentences is not unusual. Lawyers are the only source of information in many cases in China because rulings often are not publicly announced. Court officials usually refuse to disclose details to reporters.

Right, so this is a weird one: gismodo getting tons of reports—tons—about failing Zune 30s. Apparently, the players began freezing at about midnight last night, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless. Updated 12:00PM

The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users ‘Z2K9′, due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country. According to tipster Michael, the Zune users experienced something like this:

Apparently, around 2:00 AM today, the Zune models either reset, or were already off. Upon when turning on, the thing loads up and… freezes with a full loading bar (as pictured above). I thought my brother was the only one with it, but then it happened to my Zune. Then I checked out the forums and it seems everyone with a 30GB HDD model has had this happen to them

This report is consistently corroborated by literally hundreds of others across the various Zune support and fan forums.

Microsoft in response: We are aware that customers with the Zune 30GB are experiencing issues with their Zune device. We are actively working now to isolate the issue and develop a solution to address it. We will keep customers informed on next steps via the support page on zune.net

Are photographs of a mother breast-feeding her child indecent? The social networking site Facebook has sparked a massive online debate — and protests — and after removing photos that expose too much of a mother’s breast.

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the website takes no action over most breast-feeding photos because they follow the site’s terms of use but others are removed to ensure the site remains safe and secure for all users, including children.

“Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate those terms (on obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit material) and may be removed,” he said in a statement.

“The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain.”

But Facebook’s decision to ban some breast-feeding photos has angered some users, including U.S. mother Kelli Roman whose photograph of her feeding her daughter was removed by Facebook.

Hewlett-Packard Co. could be breaking U.S. trade sanctions by using a third-party distributor to sell printers in Iran, The Boston Globe reported Monday.

According to the newspaper, HP signed a distribution deal with a Dubai-based company called Redington Gulf in 1997, two years after the Clinton administration put sanctions on Iran.

And while Redington, as a foreign company, falls outside U.S. regulations, the Globe reported that there is evidence HP knew its equipment would end up circumventing U.S. law. For example, in 1999, HP’s Middle East manager at the time, Albrecht Ferling, was quoted as estimating that sales in Iran would grow 50 percent a year, the Globe reported.

David Shane, a spokesman for the company, would not say whether HP plans to stop sales of its printers in Iran. He said Monday that “HP has a policy of complete compliance with all U.S. export laws.”

Sales of printers and ink are critical for HP, contributing about half of the Palo Alto-based company’s operating profit.

According to the Globe, Redington has helped make HP’s printers extremely popular in Iran. The newspaper cited a 2007 poll conducted by a local news organization that estimated HP printers had captured 41 percent of the market there.

Microsoft’s vision of your computing future is on display in its just-published patent application for the Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience. The plan, as Microsoft explains it, involves charging students $1.15 an hour to do their homework, making an Office bundle available for $1/hour, and billing gamers $1.25 for each hour of fun. In addition to your PC, Microsoft also discloses plans to bring the chargeback scheme to your cellphone and automobile — GPS, satellite radio, backseat video entertainment system.

Online retailer Amazon.com Inc on Friday reported its best holiday sales season yet, even as sales and traffic at U.S. store chains were the weakest in decades, sending its shares up nearly 4 percent.

Analysts have pointed to Amazon as a rare bright spot in this year’s holiday shopping season due to its scale and flexibility, as retailers try to outdo each other with deep discounts to lure consumers during a recession.

Online sales were also helped by winter storms that hit large sections of the United States on the last major shopping weekend before Christmas.

In a release titled “Amazon.com’s 14th holiday season is best ever,” the company said more than 6.3 million items were ordered on its site worldwide for the peak shopping day of December 15, amounting to 72.9 items ordered per second. On its peak day, it shipped more than 5.6 million units.

However, the company gave no financial details regarding the sales, such as how its margins fared with the discounts seen across the retail sector.