Latest ZomNomNom Game























There was a lab where a cure for gamer MMO addiction went wrong. Result? Zombies, of course. In order to not spoil the story, which is quite enjoyable thanks to a lovely comic like cutscenes, let's jump over the prologue and dive into Zomnomnom's gameplay, which is exactly an active defense game: you have to defend the leftmost part of the screen from the incoming waves of zombies coming from the right. To do so, choose any of your weapons and tap on your target zombie to shoot him down.

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Microsoft Sues Chinese Electronics Firms for Software Piracy





Microsoft has filed lawsuits against two Chinese electronics retail chains for allegedly allowing computers installed with pirated Windows and Office products to be sold at their stores.

The software giant said it filed the lawsuits against Gome Electrical Appliances and Buynow last week in separate courts located in Beijing and Shanghai.

A Gome store in Shanghai had sold PCs with unlicensed versions of Windows and Office, according to Microsoft. In Beijing, two vendors at a PC market operated by Buynow had also sold PCs installed with pirated products, the company alleged.

Microsoft did not specify how much it is seeking in damages. It is demanding in the lawsuits that both Gome and Buynow compensate Microsoft's losses and cease selling PCs with the pirated products.

Gome declined to comment on the lawsuit. Buynow said in a statement that the company is committed to protecting intellectual property rights, and already takes steps to ensure its vendors do not violate them. In this case, Microsoft failed to understand Buynow's procedures, and rashly filed a lawsuit, the company said.

The lawsuits mark the latest legal action Microsoft has taken to try and stop vendors in the country from selling pirated versions of its software. About 78 percent of software installed on China's PCs is pirated, according to a 2010 report from the Business Software Alliance.

Microsoft said it has made repeated attempts to resolve the problems with Gome and Buynow, but that pirated versions of its products continue to be sold at their stores. The company said it hoped the lawsuits would serve as a warning to other PC vendors involved in software piracy.

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Galaxy S3 owner your wait for Android 4.1 is almost over





The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update will wend its way to Galaxy S3 smartphones in the United States in coming months,Samsung announced in a press release. The specific launch dates will be revealed by each of the carriers, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and U.S. Cellular.

S3 owners will potentially be able to grab Android 4.1 either over the air or through Samsung's Kies software, which downloads the update to a computer and then syncs it with the smartphone. Each carrier will announce its own update method.

 
Beyond a taste of Jelly Bean, the update will bring new features to Samsung's TouchWiz interface and improvements to the camera.

Users will be able to apply different filters to their still and video shots, combine separate video clips directly through the phone, and take advantage of a low-light mode.

People new to the Galaxy S3 will find an easy mode with home-screen widgets for their favorite apps, contacts, and settings. The update will offer different keyboard options, including the Swype keyboard. And users will be able to block incoming calls and alerts for a specific period of time.

The S3's Android 4.1 update has been traveling throughout the rest of the world, and has already reached users in France, Spain, Romania, Austria, Sweden, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Poland.

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Apple ordered by U.S. court to reveal iPhone profit margins

 
Apple won its recent U.S. patent case against Samsung, but the company may have to pay a price by revealing key profit details about the iPhone.

Judge Lucy Koh has ordered Apple to go public with information about its sales, earnings, and profit margins on the iPhone. As a corporation, Apple does report unit sales on its various products each quarter. But it stops short of divulging how much profit it makes on each iPhone.

Apple has maintained that revealing such information would benefit its competitors. But apparently Koh didn't buy that argument.

"Apple has not established that public availability of its product-specific unit sales, revenue, profit, profit margin, and cost data would actually provide its competitors with an advantage," Koh said in her ruling yesterday. "As evidenced by the plethora of media and general public scrutiny of the preliminary injunction proceedings and the trial, the public has a significant interest in these court filings, and therefore the strong presumption of public access applies."

Apple still has a shot to avoid going public with its data. The matter is scheduled to go to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which will render its own decision.

Koh presided over the recent patent case between Apple and Samsung in which the latter was found guilty of patent infringement and ordered to pay penalties of more than $1 billion. Apple has ramped up the legal battle since the verdict.









The iPhone maker is now looking to ban the sale of 26 different Samsung products already on the market and wants $535 million in addition to the $1.05 billion in initial damages. Ironically, those factors played a role in Koh's decision.

"Such remedies would have a profound effect on the smartphone industry, consumers, and the public," she said. "As the extensive media coverage indicates, this is a truly extraordinary case of exceptional interest to the public. Apple's reasons would have to be very compelling indeed to overcome the unusually robust public interest in access."

Samsung is seeking a whole new trial, claiming that the verdict was tainted after the jury foreman failed to disclose his own legal dealings with former employer Seagate, a company in which Samsung is a major investor.

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Sony will bring various Xperia models








Sony today announced that it will provide Android 4.1 Jelly Bean updates for number of its Xperia models. A post on the company blog confirms that the update will hit the Xperia T, Xperia TX, and Xperia V in the first quarter of 2013.


Additional models listed as getting a Jelly Bean update include the Xperia S, Xperia acro S, Xperia ion, Xperia go, and Xperia J. The timing for these models, however, is not quite clear; Sony indicates availability will vary by market.


As far as earlier devices are concerned, Sony doesn't have good news for the 2011 Xperia smartphones. After "thorough evaluation", it has been decided that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will be the last update for these particular devices.

As far as earlier devices are concerned, Sony doesn't have good news for the 2011 Xperia smartphones. After "thorough evaluation", it has been decided that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will be the last update for these particular devices.

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Apple parts ways with hacker famous for iPhone










Apple's experiment with employing a hacker famous for jailbreaking the iPhone has ended.

Nicholas Allegra, also known as Comex, was hired at Apple after gaining fame with the JailBreakMe, a Web site that simplified the process of removing Apple-installed protections from the phone -- a practice Apple opposes. When Apple hired him as an intern in August 2011, Allegra was a high-profile member of the jailbreaking community, regularly publicizing security vulnerabilities in Apple's iOS software.

However, Apple ended the 20-year-old Brown University student's employment last week, Allegra revealed today.



The e-mail he didn't reply to was an offer to extend his employment at Apple as a remote intern, Allegra told Forbes. After not responding to the original e-mail, he learned that the offer had been rescinded.

"I wasn't too happy about it, but it didn't seem like I was able to fix it," he told Forbes. "So that's what it is."

CNET has contacted Apple for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Hackers have proven to be popular hires at tech companies these days. Charlie Miller, famous for his hacks on the iPhone and MacBook Air, joined Twitter last month, and well-known PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz, a.k.a. Geohot, had a brief stint at Facebook last year.

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