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Without providing any actual figures Sprint says the Palm Pre smartphone, which launched early June, broke its own records for first day and weekend sales. Palm, on the other hand, only claims “sales have been strong and growing.” Indeed the device appears to be off to a good start, but with both companies mum on hard numbers, we have only the estimates of analysts with which to gauge its success.

The latest estimates come from Edward Snyder at Charter Equity Research, who says his sources in the manufacturing and retail channels indicate that Palm had sold 300,000 phones last month, and that the company has yet to catch up with demand. Palm is said to be producing 15,000 Pre units each day and plans to ship more than 1 million total units throughout its first quarter since launch.

That may not seem like much next to Apple’s million-in-a-weekend sales, but it’s still pretty impressive considering Palm shipped just 351,000 phones in the entire quarter prior to the Pre’s debut.

Following the delivery of final specifications and first host controller samples, it appears that the SuperSpeed Universal Serial Bus standard, better known as USB 3.0, is about ready for a commercial rollout. According to a Nikkei report, Taiwanese PC vendors will be among the first to release computers equipped with the next-gen interface, which promises up to 5Gbps transfer speeds, or roughly ten times the speed of USB 2.0.

Citing rapid development in integrated circuits and the shipment of compliant controllers to PC manufacturers, the website claims the first USB 3.0-compatible PCs could appear by the end of the year, with 2010 seeing the start of a mass rollout. External storage is the likely first application of this technology. Unfortunately, USB 3.0 devices are not expected to reach its full potential at launch, with speeds probably reaching only 1.2Gbps initially. This is expected to improve as the standard matures though, as it was the case with its predecessor, paving the way for stuff like HD video streaming or backing up gigabytes of data in mere seconds.

Sony Walkman Turns 30: Memories of an Iconic Gadget @ PC World
Cash for Pirate Bay file-sharers @ BBC News
Super Geek Resume (pic) @ HardOCP
Wolfenstein PC Minimum Specs Announced @ Wolfenstein.com
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Microsoft’s latest foray into search, Bing, went live early June amid mixed reviews. So the obvious question many are asking is how has it fared against almighty Google in its first month? Not bad, according to research firm StatCounter, which claims Microsoft's share of the search market increased from 7.81 percent to 8.23 percent since the launch of its search portal.


That number is significantly lower than what was reported two weeks into Bing’s launch, however, showing many just took it for a spin and then moved back to their original search provider. Yahoo’s market share on the other hand stayed practically stationary last month, going from 10.99 to 11.04 percent, while Google’s share dropped slightly from 78.72 percent in May to a still dominant 78.48 percent of the market in June.

Microsoft’s gain may be small but is nevertheless important to the company, which is investing heavily in its online services business, refusing to cede the market to Google. One month is not enough to claim a strong comeback, though, we’ll have to wait and see if they can keep up the growth pace.

With Windows 7’s release looming on the horizon, Microsoft is busier than ever paving the way for it to arrive. Part of that is cleaning up loose ends with beta testers, hoping to get them spring for a license or at the very least upgrade to an RC release. For those who haven't bothered to update from the beta, Microsoft will be “encouraging” them through forced expiration of their copies.

Starting today, anyone still making use of Windows 7 Beta will find their operating system shutting down every two hours. Having such a “kill switch” built into the OS likely will cause privacy advocate and others to voice concerns, but for a beta release of Windows it is certainly an understandable move.

Windows already has a tough rep to beat in terms of security, with a lack of prompt updates being one of the most common causes of a compromised Windows machine. Microsoft clearly doesn't want old copies of a pre-release Windows 7 on the Internet. If you still happen to be using the beta, there's no better time than now to upgrade to the RC, which will remain active for another year.

Taiwan consumer regulators have ordered Dell to honor a pricing slip-up on their website that offered 19-inch LCD monitors for only NT$500 (around $15). The pricing mistake was posted late Thursday, and while it has been fixed since, news of the supposed bargain spread quickly via email, blogs and sites like Twitter. In the eight hours before Dell corrected the listing to the intended price of NT$4,800 ($148), 26,000 people had placed orders for nearly 140,000 displays.

Dell apologized and promised to offer “reasonable discounts” to those who ordered the incorrectly-priced monitors. Naturally, people were not happy. Taiwan’s Consumer Protection Commission said it has received 471 complaints about the mix-up and ordered Dell to complete orders for customers who had only ordered one monitor. Those who had ordered more than one should receive discounts on the second and further units.

According to the agency’s statement, if Dell doesn’t follow the directive, they will consider it a violation of Taiwan’s fair trade laws and seek legal recourse.

While for the most part the release of iPhone OS 3.0 has gone over successfully, there have been problems reported here and there. Without mentioning specific fixes, Apple has been preparing the 3.1 update for customer devices to address certain issues. A beta has already been released for developer perusal, with a public release hopefully available soon.

For those that have access to the beta, there are several tweaks worth noting – improved voice control, enhancements to the user interface, paste capabilities in the dialer application and more. There are also changes to MMS functionality, even though the majority of iPhone customers in the U.S. currently do not have access to such feature.

That might change soon, however, with AT&T expected to enable MMS access when 3.1 debuts. One issue that remains unclear, besides a specific launch date, is whether or not Apple will be fixing the 3G S overheating issues or any of the reported battery life issues across numerous models.

Following confirmation that that Microsoft’s Zune HD will include an Nvidia Tegra system-on-a-chip when it launches this coming fall, Nvidia has revealed the platform is set to debut in the smartphone segment as well. In an interview with TheStreet.com, Michael Rayfield, the company’s general manager of mobile business said he expects Tegra to show up in a handset from “one of the top five cell-phone makers” in Q4 2009.

While Rayfield wouldn’t mention which manufacturer that might be or any other details regarding the handset, TheStreet.com points to Samsung and Motorola as likely candidates. Considering Nvidia has only shown its chip working with Android and Windows Mobile or CE operating systems, we can probably rule out Nokia, Apple, RIM and some others. Additionally, the company has also said in a discussion with CrunchGear that Tegra-based devices should reach AT&T and T-Mobile by the end of this year for about $199.

For the past few months we’ve been hearing rumors about a slimmer, and potentially cheaper, version of the PlayStation 3. Alleged images of the console started making the rounds back in May, followed by a cease and desist letter, which ironically gave rumors a bit more credence. Things quieted down for a while, with no mention of the console at E3, but speculation is once again running rampant.

Somewhat coinciding with a report from Ars Technica last week, the Economic Daily News claims Sony indeed finalized a new PS3 form factor and has already awarded Foxconn and Pegatron with manufacturing contracts. They also assert the units are slated to be delivered this month, although that seems less plausible since it would give Sony and retailers no time to clear out both the 80GB and 160GB models – Ars’ fall release prediction is more likely due to this reasoning.

Of course, Sony could also align the pricing on current models to sell the slimmed-down version concurrently. Whatever the case may be, for now you should take this for what it is – a rumor.

Windows Live Hotmail has brought incoming POP3 access to the US, Canada and Brazil – something that should have happened years ago. This of course means that you’ll be able to have centralized access to your mail from Yahoo, AOL, Gmail and other services. Residents of the West are behind those in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, UK and Spain, which already had incoming POP3 access.

Configuring the new feature is pretty straightforward. Log into your Hotmail account and click “Add an e-mail account” on the left side of your inbox. Then, simply provide the email address and password for your other account and choose where you want the messages to appear. Naturally, you’ll also need to go and enable the POP3 services of your other account.

Then again, if you want speedier access and a more intelligent user interface, switch to Gmail and access multiple email accounts using that instead.

Having failed to compete against the likes of YouTube and Hulu, Joost is retreating from the consumer market and will instead focus on building white label video platforms for “cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators” – essentially licensing its technology to third parties. As part of the restructuring plan, Joost will also close its Netherlands office, lay off a large number of employees and appoint a new CEO.

Despite plans to focus on other lines of revenue, its Joost.com portal will continue to operate for the time being as they still have programming deals in place with a handful of networks; including CBS, Viacom and Warner Bros. The service officially launched in 2007 and was positioned to become the go-to destination for professionally produced video – mostly because of the reputation of its founders who also created Skype and Kazaa. However, Joost never quite resonated with users.

Some of its early mistakes included requiring users to download a software client, as opposed to YouTube which allowed streaming video directly from the site, and failing to sign the kind of premium content that made Hulu popular. They eventually re-launched as a web-based service and signed new content, but apparently it was too little too late.

The gaming community was recently shocked to learn that Zenimax would be acquiring id Software. Mixed feelings regarding the future of the company were tempered by an interview with John Carmack who said that no significant changes were planned. Now, he's back for another round with Tom Mustaine at his side to talk more about the future of Doom and other company prospects.

Speaking with Shacknews, Carmack and Mustaine both chimed in about where the Doom franchise is heading and their development experience on the iPhone, from hardware limitations to game design. It's clear from their commentary that more mobile titles are on the agenda, with DLC being a big priority. Carmack also brought out their willingness to experiment with game design, an important consideration given the difference in gaming platforms compared to 15 years ago.

The lengthy interview spans three pages and is focused primarily on id's mobile objectives. Some other projects they brought up are Doom Classic on the iPhone and Wolfenstein RPG, both geared specifically for mobile platforms. Whether you think id has a future or not, it's a great interview to read through.

HTC unveiled its Hero smartphone earlier this week, but the highlight of the launch was not so much the device itself as it was the custom Android interface it ran. Nicknamed Sense, the new interface brings added capabilities such as Flash support, an expanded Home screen with unique HTC widgets and tighter integration with social-networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately, due to licensing restrictions, it won’t be heading to any Google-branded phones like T-Mobile’s G1 and myTouch 3G.

Well, at least not officially. A home-brewed version of Sense has already been leaked onto the web, allowing users of the HTC Magic, Dream and T-Mobile G1 to unofficially upgrade their phones. The ROM apparently originated at HTC and was modified by two Italian hackers to work on the older devices.

Aside from the nice graphics there are a number of glitches to be found, however, like non-compatibility with auto-screen rotate and apparently Wi-Fi and Bluetooth don't work at the moment. Flash functionality and overall performance seems a bit laggy on the G1, too.

Needless to say, most users are better off keeping their current Android installation, but the curious types can still head to the Android HD Blog (translated) for instructions on how to get the new interface up and running on their device. You can also check out a hands-on video with HTC’s Sense hacked onto the G1 after the jump.

The Chinese government has announced new regulations that would limit the impact virtual currencies have on the country’s economy, by prohibiting their exchange for cash or real-world goods. The move is widely seen as a crackdown on so-called “gold farming,” in which people amass virtual money on MMO games (usually by repeating mundane actions over and over), and then sell it to other players for real cash.

A survey carried out in 2008 by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester estimated that up to 500,000 people worldwide were involved in gold farming activities. The practice is actually frowned upon and embraced by many depending on how you look at it – after all there are those who want to get ahead on games the easy way and others willing to make a living out of it.

The market is particularly strong in China, where it amounted to nearly $2 billion last year, according to the China Internet Network Information Center. In issuing the rules, the government said they were meant to cope with a growing number of problems associated with virtual currencies, including fraud concerns.

In a follow-up to yesterday’s announcement that StarCraft II would lack LAN support and the subsequent public outcry, Blizzard has gone on record to explain their controversial move. Unsurprisingly, the company’s decision was rooted in piracy, coming as an attempt to curb illegal downloads after the game is released. Bob Colayco of Blizzard told Joystiq that this “safeguard” against piracy wasn't an easy decision for them, indicating they knew many players would be unhappy with it.

Blaming piracy for stripping features is one way to explain their actions. Such tactics are becoming increasingly common, with more games requiring online verification to make full use of content. So why not do the same with StarCraft II, requiring some sort of online activation before LAN play becomes possible? Compare Steam and the EA Downloader, both of which even require occasional re-authentication of single player games to keep them functioning. What prevents Blizzard from incorporating measures such as this?