A ccording to The Wall Street Journal, the popular webmail service will soon launch a new feature for sharing content and status updates with friends

T he announcement included the Apple iBook store, which in subsequent days provoked an e-book pricing firestorm, leading Amazon.com to temporarily halt sales of Macmillan e-books and paper books over the weekend. Reactions to Amazon's pulling the plug on Macmillan, and Amazon's subsequent capitulation, took off in all directions. Meanwhile, some Amazon.com e-book buyers blasted Macmillan, vowing they won't pay more than $9.99 for a first-release e-book, and will take a pass on e-books that cost as much as $14.95, the price Macmillan is proposing. (Read More...)

V erizon temporarily blocked traffic from some Web sites affiliated with the 4chan online forum on Monday after finding that some affiliate sites were apparently launching network attacks. Last summer, due to a DDOS attack emanating from IP addresses connected to 4chan, AT&T temporarily blocked access to 4chan... without giving a full explanation for why. The reported block is not affecting users of Verizon's home services, such as DSL or FIOS, and is only actively dropping connections from port 80, "no other subdomain/IP/port is affected". (Read More...)

T he Wall Street Journal reports on a research note from Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope based on meetings with Apple executives revealing that the company has apparently left the door open to future price cuts on the iPad should customer demand not meet expectations. Many observers were surprised by Apple's entry-level price point of $499 for the iPad, with general consensus having been that pricing would come in significantly higher. Not today, or tomorrow, but a price drop a week -- or even a day -- before it goes on sale might give the iPad an incredible boost. (Read More...)

I BM on Monday launched its latest Power7 processor, which adds more cores and improved multithreading capabilities to boost the performance of servers requiring high up time. A Power7 chip can run 32 tasks simultaneously, which is quadruple the number of cores on the older Power6 chip. The new chip also has TurboCore technology, which allows customers to crank up the speed of active cores for performance gains. (Read More...)

B arnes & Noble said Monday that its popular nook e-book reader is back in stock online and will be rolling out in the majority of the bookseller's U.S. stores this week. Customers also will be able to enjoy exclusive Valentine's Day-themed online content this month, the company said. The nook differs in several ways from many of the e-readers announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, which suffer from either high prices or little access to consumer channels, said Forrester Research Vice President James McQuivey. (Read More...)

G oogle leaps language barrier with translator phone from The Times Online reports Google is working on a new tool that would bring instant translation to people. You would speak to it in any language, Google would then convert that and spit it back in the language of choice. In Douglas Adams's humorous sci-fi novel series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a special kind of fish is mentioned - the Babel Fish. (Read More...)

T he chief executive of SAP Leo Apotheker is leaving the top job, and the company board, after less than a year in the job. He was joint-CEO of the backoffice software group from April 2008 to May 2009, in order to ensure a smooth takeover from his predecessor, Henning Kagermann. Bill McDermott, who was head of field operations and Jim Hagermann Snabe - previously head of product development. (Read More...)

M aybe not literally, but one Electronic Arts executive has hinted that at least one of the gaming behemoth's titles is headed to Facebook, further blurring the line between social-networking applications and the game industry. Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS which continues to try to move its business " beyond the console is bringing Madden NFL to Facebook. A big economic shift is likely involved, since Madden NFL would presumably be ad- and virtual goods-supported on the social network. (Read More...)

M icrosoft says that extensive testing and conversations with OEMs indicate that Windows 7 is handling notebook batteries exactly as intended - despite user claims that upgrades to the new OS have caused significant degradation to battery life. As we reported in late January, various laptop owners - including a string of posters to Microsoft's TechNet forum - have said that after upgrading their laptops to Windows 7, they have seen a decrease in battery life. The software maker initially thought that there might be a problem with the firmware in some PC models causing an error message to appear where one was not warranted. (Read More...)

A new study has found that 14 percent of iPhone users upgraded to iPhone OS 3.1.3 in less than a week of availability, while a new hack to exploit Apple's latest update has been released. Released last Tuesday, iPhone OS 3.1.3 was a minor update, bringing a battery reporting fix, fixing an issue where third-party applications would not launch, and patching a number of security holes. The iPhone dev-team has released an update to their popular jailbreaking software, PwnageTool, for Mac OS X. The new PwnageTool - version 3.1.5 - boasts the ability to properly jailbreak Apple's recently released 3.1.3 iPhone/iPod Touch firmware. (Read More...)

A s the new flagship in Canon's Digital Rebel line, the Canon EOS Rebel T2i complements the Canon EOS Rebel XS and the Canon EOS Rebel T1i. What's notable here is that Canon has taken features from its recent Canon EOS 7D -- an $1800 model-and brought those features downstream to a model half that price. The Rebel T2i uses the same 18 megapixel sensor as the 7D, but its channel reader is lower (four-channel for T2i, versus eight for 7D). (Read More...)

G oogle Inc. lowered a fee charged on customers who drop its new Nexus One phone early, following an inquiry from federal regulators examining fees charged consumers who break cellphone contracts early. The change occurs just after the FCC formally sent letters to various operators and Google about wireless early termination fees. The WSJ reports that a Google representative said the company had been working with T-Mobile to lower the equipment fee. (Read More...)

F ormer Intel executive Rajiv Goel has pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy and securities fraud in connection with the Galleon insider trading case. Goel is the tenth person to plead guilty in the case, which the FBI and the US attorney's office in Manhattan call the largest hedge fund inside trading case in US history. Those charged also included Robert Moffat, the former senior vice president and general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group. (Read More...)

H oping to boost revenue, MySpace Music has begun experimenting with audio advertisements that users must hear before listening to music for free online. The 30-second ads began appearing last week when users listen to songs on artist profiles, album pages, playlists and pop-out players. The ads are impossible to avoid, unlike the visual, banner ads that can be put out of sight in background windows as users listen along while doing other Web surfing or computer work. (Read More...)

A s more and more of our friends and favorite organizations start publishing updates online, being able to organize them well is becoming even more important. Niche-popular desktop social media stream-reader Tweetdeck issued a software update this morning and the most striking change is in its handling of user groups. Here are five ways that the new Tweetdeck gets groups right, and that Facebook, the world's dominant social-media-stream reader by a long-shot, could learn from what Tweetdeck is doing. (Read More...)

B ack in the summer of 2008 Italian government officials demanded that broadband ISPs in the country begin blocking users from accessing popular BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay. Many ISPs obliged, but oddly decided instead to direct users to the website of the IFPI (the overseas equivalent of the RIAA). In the end the Pirate Bay managed to defeat the order with an appeal, and the end result was that all the publicity simply drove more user traffic to the website. (Read More...)

A fter the story a few weeks ago about Paypal suspending the account of Wikileaks, and blocking it from removing money in the account, many people pointed out how risky it is to leave any money in a PayPal account. PayPal has apparently halted personal payments in India, and aren't allowing merchants to remove money from their accounts. MORE Angie Mohr has more: Commercial payments will not be affected in the interim and Indian merchants can still charge their customers around the world and receive payment into their PayPal accounts as always... However, the company does not detail the nature of the concerns. (Read More...)

F rench nuclear company Areva has just taken its first step into the solar market with the acquisition of Ausra, a Mountain View, Calif.-based maker of solar thermal equipment. The deal represents a major new market for Areva, while simultaneously propping up Ausra, which weathered some hard knocks last year. Last year at this time, the solar startup provider scrapped plans to build several massive plants across the southwest and California deserts. (Read More...)

C hina's third-largest online game operator NetEase.com said it has suspended new user registration for World of Warcraft (WoW) in China and will reapply for a license to operate the expansion pack of Activision Blizzard's hit game. New user registrations would be halted for a week from Monday in the run-up to the Lunar New Year holiday, the company said in a statement posted on its WoW China website, www.warcraftchina.com on Sunday. The China operator of World of Warcraft, one of the world's biggest online games, said Sunday it will seek new government approval for the game, dragging it further into a turf war between two Chinese regulatory agencies. (Read More...)

G oogle's increasing profile continued with a major advertising spot in the most sought after ad breaks in global television - with the search giant paying for a slot during the American Superbowl. The Superbowl is traditionally one of the most sought after advertising events of the year, and Google was so excited with the web reaction to its slightly twee Parisian Love promo that it plumped for a prime TV spot. But the Mountain View, California company broke with tradition and bought a one-minute Super Bowl spot which ran during the second half of the game between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, won 31-17 by the Saints. (Read More...)

N etflix, the Web's hottest video rental service, is worried that bandwidth providers could abuse their position as the gatekeepers of Internet access to hamstring competing Web-video distributors. As the Federal Communications Commission continues to consider proposals for Net neutrality regulations, Netflix recently asked the agency (PDF) to adopt rules that protect Web video fans from anti-competitive practices. "Network operators control the delivery pipes and generate significant revenue from content that travels over those pipes," Netflix wrote to the FCC. (Read More...)

A OL has taken another step closer to selling off its ICQ instant messaging service, culling seven bids to four "serious" ones, said sources close to the situation. BoomTown reported news of the sale of ICQ by AOL (AOL) in November, part of a deleveraging of units from the newly independent Internet company as it focuses more on its content and advertising business. Prodigy and Compuserve were on their way out and this new service AOL was the darling of the time. (Read More...)

A ccording to Sydney's The Daily Telegraph, twins Angela and Maryanne Vourlis had just woken up on their 20th birthday. Like most young adults, they logged onto Facebook Facebook to check their walls and inboxes for birthday greetings. Instead of finding happy birthday wishes, the two twins found messages of "RIP Bobby" (their brother) and "RIP Chris Naylor" (a friend of his) all across their Facebook news feeds. (Read More...)

L ast month, the U.S. government granted $37 million to 17 projects developing light-emitting diodes for various applications ranging from lighting systems to screen technologies. All the while, ongoing research and development is finally driving down the costs and increasing the efficiency of LEDs and their organic, increasingly popular cousins. Most of the work taking place at big companies like Cree and Bridgelux are all about bringing down these costs to make the technology practical for everyday consumers. (Read More...)

S ourceForge, the world's largest open source software development website, has backed off a widely unpopular, end-of-January decision that had banned entire countries from accessing the site's vast assortment of open-source software projects. In a blog post Sunday, SourceForge announced that it has instead handed over responsibility of navigating international trade laws to individual project administrators. In late January, however, the company began automatically blocking IP addresses from those countries, arguing that its need to follow the laws of the land supersede any wishes to keep the open source community as open as possible.