SONY CUTS PRICE OF PS3 TO $249

Sony announced on Tuesday that it is lowering the price of its 160GB PlayStation 3 console to $249, down from the console’s original $299 price tag. In addition, Sony will now sell the 320GB version of the PlayStation 3 for $299 instead of $349. The Japanese consumer electronics firm also dropped the price of the system in Japan and in Europe. The move is likely an effort to tackle Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, which has been the best-selling console in the United States for past seven months according to the latest data from The NPD Group. Recent rumors have suggested Sony is already working on the PlayStation 4, which could launch as soon as next year to compete with Nintendo’s Wii U and Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox.

PHOTOS USED IN APPLE'S INJUNCTION AGAINST SAMSUNG TABLET IN GERMANY ALTERED

Apple has been suing Samsung in various courts across the globe. Apple's beef is that Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is too similar to the iPad 2. Recently, Apple filed, and won, an injunction in Germany to keep Samsung from importing and selling the Galaxy in that country.

It has now come to light that the photos used for comparison of the two products, supplied to the court by Apple's lawyers (page 28 of filing), have been altered to make the Galaxy Tab more similar to the iPad than it really is. In the photo above you can see that the tablets look remarkably similar, in reality they are not.

Samsung's tablet measures 10.1" x 6.9" x 0.3" with an aspect ration of 16:10 while the iPad2 measures 9.5" x 7.31" x 0.34" with an aspect ratio of 4:3. You can see by the picture below the size difference between the two. Did Apple purposely alter the photos to make its case or is this a result of an overzealous lawyer in Germany?

RUMOR: APPLE iPAD 3 DELAYED UNTIL 2012

Digitimes reports that Apple’s plans for a Retina Display iPad launch this fall have been terminated; if they even existed in the first place. According to the report’s sources, Apple’s initial plan was to produce 1.5-2 million units in the third quarter and 5-6 million in the fourth quarter of a new iPad, but these orders have apparently been cancelled.

The report also believes that plans for the new product’s launch were cancelled due to yield rate issues in the production of the 2048 x 1536 Retina Display. Apple will likely stick to their annual release cycle and release a Retina Display iPad during spring 2012.

FCC PROBING SAN FRANCISCO BLOCKING OF WIRELESS IN BART STATIONS

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating actions last week by the transportation authority in San Francisco which interrupted wireless service in commuter stations in an effort to foil protesters who had planned demonstrations.

FCC spokesman Neil Grace said in a statement on Monday that the agency is "continuing to collect information" about the actions by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and "and will be taking [steps] to hear from stakeholders about the important issues those actions raised."

In particular, Grace alluded to potential public safety problems that could arise when the authorities interrupted service, an action that has caused a national outcry over whether BART exceeded its authority.

GOOGLE BUYING MOTOROLA MOBILITY

Google has announced it is acquiring handset maker Motorola Mobility for $40 per share or $12.5 billion. Google will making Motorola Mobility a "dedicated Android partner" to "enhance competition in mobile computing" and "supercharge the Android ecosystem." Google CEO Larry Page said "Motorola Mobility's total commitment to Android has created a natural fit for our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers."

The acquisition also give Google access to Motorola Mobility's treasure chest of patents which it can use to help defend itself against lawsuits.

Motorola Mobility has been a strong Android partner to Google and launched the flagship Droid lineup for Verizon. Google will continue to operate its new toy as a separate business and not morph it into an in-house hardware wing.

NOKIA GOES AFTER ANDROID TO GAIN US MARKET SHARE

Nokia’s head of North American sales Chris Weber sat down in an interview Business Insider recently and explained how the Finnish company will regain its market share in the United States by writing “one of the greatest turnaround stories in history.” Weber said that Nokia will release a number of new smartphone models running Microsoft’s Windows Phone Mango operating system and will compete with Android by pricing several of them lower than the cheapest Android models.

Weber reconfirmed that Nokia is still on track to release its first Windows Phone handset this year, likely the SeaRay device we’ve seen leaked, but said the majority of its phones will begin to land next year. Business Insider also said that Nokia is deeply integrated with Microsoft’s plans for a complete tablet, PC and mobile phone ecosystem, which loosely suggests Nokia may have a tablet in the works, too.

FIREFOX 6 OFFICIALLY RELEASING ON TUESDAY AUGUST 16, AVAILABLE NOW

In typical Mozilla fashion, a complete build of Firefox 6 is now unofficially available for your downloading pleasure, three days ahead of schedule. If you're looking for a major facelift to the desktop edition, you won't find one here -- most of the new features aren't cosmetic. Perhaps most visibly, you'll find the domain name of the page you're parked on highlighted in the address bar. On the Android side, version 6 makes much bigger promises, like a "fresh visual style in Chrome Gingerbread," enhanced image scaling, and, perhaps most importantly, it's "faster and uses less memory." We've downloaded the desktop version of the browser ourselves, and we've found the release quite snappy. If you're not afraid of a little pre-release downloading, you can catch the (desktop) fox at the source links below.

Windows
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AMAZON REMOVING DUPLICATE eBOOKS

Under the idea of "private label rights," authors can do just that: sell their works to others who can rebrand and resell them. This week, Amazon cracked down on duplicate ebooks in its Kindle Store, pulling titles because they "diminish the experience for customers." One copycat who got the smack down called it a "kick in the pants" when his 22 titles got yanked. He did, however, admit he had the swift one coming. Aping authors can expect more book banning as Amazon continues to rid itself of "undifferentiated or barely differentiated versions of e-books."

LEAK: WINDOWS PHONE MANGO RTM

For those who've longed for Twitter integration and multitasking capabilities on your Windows Phone, the folks at xda-developers have a weekend project you're bound to flip over: the final version of Mango has leaked, and it's available for download today. Internally, it's known as build 7720, and it requires the post-NoDo update dubbed 7392. Alternately, users of Mango beta versions 7661 and 7712 may hop on board, too. If you've got a couple hours to spare, a full list of instructions -- along with the operating system itself -- is included in the source. So far, the software has been confirmed to work on the HD7, Mozart, Trophy, Focus, Arrive, Venue Pro and Optimus 7. As always, proceed at your own risk, and best wishes for your tropical getaway.

SOCIAL MEDIA CRACK DOWN BEGINS IN UK, TEEN ARRESTED FOR BBM

Lending further gravity to the proposed crackdown being bandied about in British parliament, an Essex teen has been arrested for sending a BBM that ran afoul of the Serious Crime Act of 2007. The 18-year old, now free on bail, allegedly used the service to encourage copycat attacks of the violent rioting that's swept London, and is set to appear in court on September 1st. It's the second known case to put RIM's private messaging service -- "popular among urban teenagers" as a cheap texting alternative -- in the UK's legal hotseat. For its part, the Canadian electronics maker has since reached out to police, promising to aid the investigation "in any way [it] can." Although no decision has yet been made to extend law enforcement's powers over social media services, such as Twitter and Facebook, arrests like these seem to indicate a murky free speech future.

QR CODES SCANNED BY 6.2 PERCENT OF SMARTPHONE USERS

QR codes may be turning up in more places than ever these days, but are people actually using them? According to market research firm Comscore, at least some of them are -- 14 million in June in the US alone, to be specific, or about 6.2 percent of all smartphone users. As for who makes up that slice of the smartphone market, Comscore says that just over 60 percent are male, 53 percent are between the ages of 18 and 34, and 36 percent have a household income of $100k or more. Folks are also apparently more likely to scan QR codes at home than at a retail store, and magazines and newspapers edge out websites or product packaging when it comes to the top source of the QR code being scanned. So, not exactly an explosion in use, but still fairly impressive for a weird-looking barcode that was rarely seen outside of Japan until a few years ago.

LEAKED: AT&T LETTER DAMAGES AT&T CASE FOR T-MOBILE ACQUISITION

Yesterday a partially-redacted document briefly appeared on the FCC website --accidentally posted by a law firm working for AT&T on the $39 billion T-Mobile deal (somewhere there's a paralegal looking for work today). While AT&T engaged in damage control telling reporters that the document contained no new information a careful review of the doc shows that's simply not true. Data in the letter undermines AT&T's primary justification for the massive deal, while highlighting how AT&T is willing to pay a huge premium simply to reduce competition and keep T-Mobile out of Sprint's hands.

While AT&T is busy telling regulators the deal will increase network investment by $8 billion, out of the other side of their mouth AT&T has been telling investors the deal will reduce investment by $10 billion over 6 years. Based on historical averages T-Mobile would have invested $18 billion during that time frame, which means an overall reduction in investment.

For the first time the letter pegs the cost of bringing AT&T's LTE coverage from 80% to 97% at $3.8 billion -- quite a cost difference from the $39 billion price tag on the T-Mobile deal. The push for 97% coverage apparently came from AT&T marketing, who was well aware that leaving LTE investment at 80% would leave them at a competitive disadvantage to Verizon. Marketing likely didn't want a repeat of the Luke Wilson map fiasco of a few years back, when Verizon made AT&T look foolish for poor 3G coverage.

The letter also notes that AT&T's supposed decision to "not" build out LTE to 97% was cemented during the first week of January, yet public documents (pdf) indicate that at the same time AT&T was already considering buying T-Mobile, having proposed the deal to Deutsche Telekom on January 15. In the letter, AT&T tries to make it seem like the decision to hold off on that 17% LTE expansion was based on costs. Yet the fact the company was willing to shell out $39 billion one week later, combined with AT&T's track record with these kinds of tactics, suggests AT&T executives knew that 80-97% expansion promise would be a useful carrot on a stick for politicians.

The reality appears to be that AT&T is giving Deutsche Telekom $39 billion primarily to reduce market competition. That price tag eliminates T-Mobile entirely -- and makes Sprint (and by proxy new LTE partner LightSquared and current partner Clearwire) more susceptible to failure in the face of 80% AT&T/Verizon market domination.

Regardless of the motivation behind rejecting 97% LTE deployment, the letter proves AT&T's claim they need T-Mobile to improve LTE coverage from 80-97% simply isn't true. That's a huge problem for AT&T, since nearly every politician and non-profit that has voiced support for the merger did so based largely on this buildout promise. It's also a problem when it comes to the DOJ review, since proof that AT&T could complete their LTE build for far less than the cost of this deal means the deal doesn't meet the DOJ's standard for merger-specific benefits. [Broadband Reports]

8 GRAMS OF THORIUM COULD REPLACE GASOLINE IN VEHICLES FOR LIFE

1958 Ford Nucleon model

The price of oil is on an upward spiral due to increasing demand and diminishing supplies. Short of finding vast new untapped reserves buried somewhere under out feet, we need to find an alternative sooner rather than later.

Charles Stevens is an inventor and CEO of Laser Power Systems. His idea is to replace the gasoline engine with an electricity generator that doesn’t require a battery. He is proposing the use of the rare earth mineral thorium in conjunction with a laser and mini turbines that easily produce enough electricity to power a vehicle.

Thorium is abundant and radioactive, but much safer to use than an element such as uranium. When thorium is heated it becomes extremely hot and causes heat surges allowing it to be coupled with mini turbines producing steam that can then be used to generate electricity. It also helps that it has a very large liquid range between melting and boiling point.

Combining a laser, radioactive material, and mini-turbines might sound like a complicated alternative solution to filling your gas tank, but there’s one feature that sells it as a great alternative solution.

Stevens has worked out you’d require a 227kg, 250MW thorium engine in order to power a typical road car. Within that system 1 gram of thorium produces the equivalent of 7,500 gallons of gasoline. So if you fit the Thorium engine with 8 grams of Thorium, it will run the vehicle for its entire lifetime without needing to be refueled while all the time not producing any emissions. The engine lasts so long in fact, that it could be taken from one vehicle and used in another as and when they wear out.

The issues to overcome are the radioactivity and the mining of thorium to make this engine possible. Stevens says the radioactivity can easily be contained with aluminium foil. As for the mining, the reserves are there, with 440,000 tons alone in the U.S., we just need the mining facilities to extract it in large enough quantities. With the potential benefits that is sure to happen.

Stevens admits that his biggest hurdle isn’t the thorium and laser aspects of the system, but the mini turbines which have to be made small enough to fit inside a vehicle while generating enough electricity. Even so, Stevens believes he’ll have a working prototype by 2014 and the potential to not only replace, but improve upon the gasoline-powered engines we rely on today.

SAN FRANCISCO SUBWAY SHUTS DOWN CELL SERVICE DURING PROTESTS

The operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) subway system temporarily shut down cell service last night in four downtown San Francisco stations to interfere with a protest over a shooting by a BART police officer, a spokesman for the system said today. "BART staff or contractors shut down power to the nodes and alerted the cell carriers," James Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART, told CNET. The move was "one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform," he said in an initial statement provided to CNET earlier this afternoon.

Activists had planned to protest the fatal shooting of Charles Blair Hill, who BART police said went after them with a knife before an officer shot him on July 3. "Organizers planning to disrupt BART service...stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART police," said the original BART statement. "A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees, and demonstrators."

The initial statement from BART said the subway system had asked the wireless carriers to suspend the service in the stations, but Allison later said BART itself pulled the plug and notified the providers after the fact.

RUMOR: iPHONE 5 UNVEILING ON SEPTEMBER 7TH

Apple plans to hold this year’s “iPod media event” on September 7th, Japanese-language news site Kodawarisan reported on Friday. The company’s September event has historically been dedicated to the iPod line, with Apple having unveiled its latest iPod touch, iPod shuffle and iPod nano models at last year’s event. With a new iPhone model due to be released in September or October, however, it seems very likely that Apple will use its annual September media event to unveil the iPhone 5 rather than just refreshed iPods. The spotlight has moved off of Apple’s iPod lineup over the past few years — Apple even removed its “iPod” branding from the Music app in iOS 5 — so it seems highly unlikely that the company’s line of media players will continue to warrant a dedicated event.

LEAK: ANDROID ICE CREAM SANDWICH REVEALED

The first images and details surrounding Google’s next major Android release have seemingly been revealed. Mobile site RootzWiki claims to have received images and details from a source with an early build of Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich,” and it has published two images of the OS running on a Nexus S. The site says this Ice Cream Sandwich build is “still very early in the works and not 100% functional,” and it speculates that the OS will not be released in the near future as a result.

Among the features reportedly found in Android 4.0 are a new blue theme in place of Gingerbread’s green theme, a camera with an integrated panorama feature and various Honeycomb-like UI details. The site’s source says that Ice Cream Sandwich will be made available for the Nexus S following its release, but the Nexus Prime will be the first device to launch with the new OS

GOOGLE+ GETS GAMES

Google announced on Thursday that it is following in Facebook’s footsteps yet again by adding games to its Google+ social network. “We want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web,” the company said in a blog post. “That means giving you control over when you see games, how you play them and with whom you share your experiences.”

Thankfully we won’t be bombarded with Farmville requests and updates on Mafia Wars: “games in Google+ are there when you want them and gone when you don’t,” the company said. A new ‘Games’ button will be added to the top of the Google+ stream that will bring users to the gaming page.

Launch titles include Angry Birds, Bejeweled Blitz, Bubble Island, City of Wonder, Collapse! Blast, Crime City, Diamond Dash, Dragon Age Legends, Dragons of Atlantis, Edge World, Flood-It!, Monster World, Sudoku, Wild Ones, Zombie Lane and Zynga Poker. Google will be rolling out the update to its users gradually and it will be available to all users “soon.”

APPLE WORKING ON PICO PROJECTORS FOR iPHONE

Apple may be working on pico-projector technology that could be used with its iPhone and Mac products according to a patent filing discovered by UnwiredView. The patent, titled “Projected display shared workspaces,” shows how one might be able to use an iPhone or Mac to project content onto a larger open space, such as a wall, by attaching a small pico-projector.

In addition, users could control the projection using multitouch gestures on their iPhone screen or Mac trackpad. The patent reminds us of AT&Ts LG eXpo, which had its own projector accessory but wasn’t much of a hit with consumers.

FTC INVESTIGATING GOOGLE'S ANDROID

Antitrust investigators with the Federal Trade Commission are focusing on Google’s Android operating system and web search services, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Reportedly, there is some concern that Google prevents its Android partners from implementing services provided by Google’s competitors to their smartphones.

One example comes from backin May, when Google blocked Motorola from using Skyhook Wireless’ location services on its phones. The FTC is also investigating whether Google promotes its own services over its rivals, and whether it actually uses data that its competitors have collected, such as local reviews, to populate its own results.

The FTC announced that it was opening an investigation into Google’s business practices on June 24th and, at the time, Google said that it was not clear what the FTC’s concerns were. The search giant said that it will cooperate fully and will continue to follow its five pillars: “do what’s best for the user,” “provide the most relevant answers as quickly as possible,” “label advertisements clearly,” “be transparent,” and “loyalty, not lock-in.”

SETI COMES BACK; CONTINUES SEARCH FOR ET

Four months after going into financial "hibernation," SETI's Allen Telescope Array has been temporarily resuscitated thanks to an infusion of publicly raised funds from the SETIStars program, and Ms. Jodie Foster. The web campaign for those-who-believe raised over $200,000 in just 45 days, enough cash to get the Paul Allen-funded dishes scanning the skies for at least five more months. Tom Pierson, the institute's CEO, is hoping to secure long-term funding for the project from the U.S. Air Force, which could use the array during the daytime "to track orbital objects that otherwise might pose a threat to the International Space Station and other satellites."