PLAYSTATION NETWORK RETURNING TO ASIA TOMORROW SAYS SONY

Good news, Asia -- the PlayStation Network is finally coming back. Today, Sony announced that it will restore its gaming network across the continent, more than a month after falling prey to a crippling data breach. The company's PSN services are already up and running across other parts of the world and, beginning tomorrow, will light up once again in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and even Japan, which had been harboring serious reservations about the network's security. Gamers in South Korea and Hong Kong, meanwhile, will have to wait a little longer before returning to normalcy, though Sony is hoping to completely resolve the issue by the end of the month. The company certainly seems eager to put this saga to bed, and for understandable reasons. The incident has already cost Sony an estimated $171 million in revenue -- not to mention the untold numbers of suddenly wary consumers.

SHARP HALTS PRODUCTION AT TWO LCD PLANTS IN JAPAN

Toshiba, Hitachi, and Panasonic already said they would shutter their liquid crystal display plants for a month following the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck the country on March 11. Now, Japan's largest exporter of LCD TVs, Sharp, has suspended production at its two biggest factories, thanks to a shortage of a gas used in the manufacturing process. The Osaka and Mie plants, which have a combined capacity of 172,000 sets per month, won't reopen until May 6, at the earliest. Until then, the company claims it has enough TVs in its inventory to last about a month. One JP Morgan Chase analyst estimates that the company stands to lose 50 billion yen ($590 million) this fiscal year due to the freeze.

VERIZON AND TIME WARNER JOIN AT&T OFFERING FREE CALLS TO JAPAN

AT&T is not the only phone company, wireless or landline, that is offering free calls/texting to Japan. Verizon and Verizon Wireless customers (post-paid for Verizon Wireless) will be able to call Japan for free retroactive to March 11th through April 10th. They will also be able to receive free text and multimedia messaging to Japan during the same time period. Residential landline customers will be able to make calls to Japan during the program period at $0 per minute. Those landline customers with the Verizon World Plan will be able to call Japan without using any minutes from their monthly bank of allotted minutes. The company is even extending the program to Verizon Prepaid Phone Card charges for long-distance calls placed to Japan from the United States.

Time Warner Cable Digital Phone and business class will be able to make free calls to Japan through April 15th. The program will even be retroactive back to March 11th.

AT&T OFFERING FREE CALLING/TEXTING TO JAPAN

AT&T is now offering free calling and texting to Japan due to the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit the island nation last week. AT&T will be offering this to all its customers between now and March 31st.

NINTENDO RESERVES RIGHT TO BRICK YOUR 3DS FOR PIRACY

Nintendo is not holding back with its threats to cut gamers off if they decide to download and play pirate games on the 3DS. Retailers in Japan are being warned by Nintendo that it will disable a 3DS if illegal games are detected running on it. This deactivation process will be activated through firmware.

The warning from Nintendo has led to some retailers issuing a warning to customers stating they cannot accept any 3DS hardware that has been customized in anyway. This is purely because they cannot guarantee the hardware will continue to function when they resell it.

LEAKED: STATE DEPARTMENT CABLES CONFIRM ACTA WAS DESIGNED TO PRESSURE DEVELOPING NATIONS

A series of leaked State Department cables confirm what many people said from the beginning about ACTA: that it was designed by US special interests as an "end run" around existing international intellectual property groups, since those groups had actually started listening to the concerns of many other nations about how overly strict intellectual property laws were stifling innovation, economic growth and were, at times, a threat to human safety. This point had been made by ACTA critics for quite some time, but now the leaked State Department cables effectively confirm it:

One of the core objectives is to circumvent international organizations in charge of "intellectual property", where maximalist countries such as the US and the EU have been facing growing opposition from developing countries. Not just WIPO and WTO, but also the OECD: Initially, the Japanese proposed to ask the OECD for some help in drafting the agreement, but US officials suggest a different process, stressing that that they have sufficient in-house expertise, and insist on avoiding any collaboration with international organizations

The full cable on this matter makes it clear that the US had a big plan and that plan involved bringing together only "like-minded" countries, and Japan was gleeful about this.

From there, the plans become even clearer. The idea is to first do all of this with those "like-minded" (i.e., protectionist) countries, and then use the agreement to try to pressure those developing nations and other nations concerned about the expansive problems of intellectual property law into "joining." In other words, stack the deck first with those who benefit most, and then use international pressure to force the agreement on those who aren't comfortable with the end result of such laws.

JAPAN EMBRACING 3D TECHNOLOGY

Tokyo-based researchers BCN, cited by CrunchGear, report that a cool 57 percent of all Blu-ray recorders sold in Japan last month had 3D playback functionality built in, while 23 percent of all 40-inch-plus TVs sold had the ability to relay stereoscopic imagery. Both those numbers are major leaps in popularity within the nation itself and also easily dwarf penetration rates for 3D hardware in other parts of the world. 3D has apparently grown a lot more affordable in Japan, but lest you think these data are just a symptom of people upgrading their equipment without regard to its third-dimension skills, word is that there's still a chunky 30 percent premium associated with adding 3D to your BR recorder purchase. So, it would seem the trendsetting Japanese are leading from the front on this one.