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A certain board by the name of ICANN has given final approval on Jun 19th to allow the expansion of new Top Level Domains or TLDs. With this major change it will allow companies to change their own brands into domain extensions or to make broader generic extensions such as .SPORTS, .BANK, etc. Though this is really long time coming as the expansion was actually first announced about three years ago.
“ICANN has opened the Internet’s addressing system to the limitless possibilities of the human imagination. No one can predict where this historic decision will take us,” said Rod Beckstrom, President and Chief Executive Officer of ICANN. “Today’s decision will usher in a new Internet age,” said Peter Dengate Thrush, Chairman of ICANN’s Board of Directors. “We have provided a platform for creativity and inspiration, and for the next big dot-thing.”

Microsoft has finally released a development kit for the Kinect for Windows. Currently the Kinect is a camera/motion/mic device that is use to play certain XBOX 360 games and get around the XBOX360 interface. Well Microsoft and starting to acknowledge the expansion of said product and has introduced a dev kit for people wanting to make programs in Windows specifically for the Kinect to be attached to a PC with Windows 7 on it. The beta release of the free Kinect software development kit, or SDK, could fuel the grassroots Kinect applications that have until now been considered hacks as Microsoft did not have any formal development software for this product on the PC side. Microsoft says it’s also working on a version of the SDK for commercial software programs. Microsoft isn’t giving a timeframe for the release of a commercial version of the SDK, and it isn’t talking about how the sensor could ultimately be integrated into its own PC products. However, it’s not difficult to envision the sensor being used to control the new Windows 8 interface, or working in conjunction with Skype for video conferencing, after Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype is complete.

There seems to have been a loophole in laws the pirating of movies, TV shows and other intellectual property. Well that is starting to become closed, as the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday has approved to make illegal streaming of video over the internet a felony charge in many cases around the US. So now the law goes to the full Senate for consideration of making it a full blown law. The Commercial Felony Streaming Act (S. 978), introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), reconciles a disparity between the current law and streaming of content and peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading. What this will do is go after illegal streaming of video for commercial purposes. The penalty is increased to up to five years in prison when it involves 10 or more instances of streaming over a 180-day period. The retail value of the streamed video must exceed $2,500, or the licenses to the material must be worth more than $5,000. So if you are running a site that streams movies and TV shows to people illegal be on your toes because they are coming after you!

The strange thing about this article is that I honestly didn’t know that Facebook didn’t have an app for the iPad. Well that is all going to change, it has been said that in the coming weeks Facebook is going to launch a free iPad app that has been designed and optimized for the iPad tablet. The app has been in production at Facebook for almost a year, going through several design iterations, and is now in the final stages of testing, according to these people, who declined to be named because they were discussing confidential product plans. Apple also plans to help Facebook promote the new application by featuring it prominently in the App Store, said a person familiar with the plans for the app.

Tumblr has been around for four years and now it has more blogs than WordPress which happens to be eight years old. The blog counter on Tumblers site is over 20 million blog. Which is over eight five thousands blogs more than WordPress give or take a few and given the fact that WordPress has had a four year head start you would figure it would be destroying Tumblr blog wise. WordPress does have some pretty strong accounts, hosting such sites as the NFL, CNN and TED. Though Tumblr blogs do bring something different to the table, from what I have read it is a cross between Facebook profiles and websites, who would have thought right?

Yet another internet based company is coming to the stock market. Pandora Media Inc, an interactive internet radio company sold 14.7 million IPO shares with prices ranging from $10-12 a share. This is a strong showing for Pandora as it has been going through some struggles and needed to build some capital like this to survive in the marketplace. From what I have read Pandora is a fast rising company and the revenue is growing with the company. The problem is that they are still not profitable on a net or operating basis. The company has issues with generating enough revenue from advertising to counter the royalty expenses and that it will continue to run at a loss for at least through the fiscal 2012 which is set to end in January. So with this IPO hopefully Pandora can make more strides in the interactive radio business.

From yesterdays article I did tell you that rumors were about the iPhone being unlocked well the rumors are true. The Apple store has the unlocked GSM iPhone 4 at the lovely price of $649 and $749. The 16GB and 32GB versions will be on sale. As with unlocked iPhones sold internationally, the device will work on all Apple-supported GSM networks around the world. Apple also takes care to note that an iPad 3G micro-SIM card will not work in the unlocked iPhone 4.

In the U.S., customers with unlocked GSM iPhones can choose from AT&T and T-Mobile, though data transmission on the T-Mobile network will occur over the slower EDGE protocol because the carrier’s 3G network is incompatible with the iPhone.

There have been rumors circulating all over the place that the US might finally get the unlocked iPhones. The model numbers, MC603, MC604, MC605, and MC606, all line up with the GSM versions sold abroad but without the regional suffixes that normally applies to international unlocked phones, such as B for Britain or C for Canada. These have been supposedly appearing in Apple stores. There is no confirmation on this however and everything here is just rumor and speculation to this point. However Apple has been known to sell unlocked iPhones in other countries. In the US Apple really had no incentive to do such a thing and of course the legal agreement they once had with AT&T to be exclusive also had something to with it I am sure. Although from what I have been reading an unlocked iPhone won’ do you much good, you could use it on the T-mobile network but there are massive limitations due to no native 3G support for their network and Sprit doesn’t have proper CDMA support. So Verizon and AT&T were only the real companies that could handle the iPhone to massive extents, so who knows why Apple would be releasing unlocked iPhones into the American market but I am sure if an announcement is to be made the reasoning for it will come along with it.

Today I am focusing on the Playstation Vita which is the new handheld console of the Sony family. Looks like an original PSP with a touch screen to me. But is that all it really offers is a wonderful touch screen? So the cost of this will be $249 with wi-fi and $299 with 3G. 3G is going to be exclusive to AT&T it looks like so if want to use 3G you will have to hook up with their data plans like the iPad. So here are the main differences between the PSP and the new PS Vita:
• Advanced portable entertainment system
A high performance CPU / GPU combined with OLED enables rich, visually striking graphics never seen before on a portable entertainment system. PS Vita also adopts the Super Oval Design form factor, which fits comfortably in users’ hands.
• Revolutionary User Interface
A unique multi-touch pad on the rear, with the front touch display. Two cameras on it’s front and rear, as well as three motion sensors, gyroscope, accelerometer, and electronic compass.
• LiveArea™
Every game title for PS Vita will be provided with a space called “LiveArea™” where users can share the fun and excitement with other players.
• Location-based services
SCE will provide location-based services on PS Vita as part of the basic features utilizing PlayStation Network. The new application called “Near,” developed specifically for this service and the network, will be pre-installed in the system.
• Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity
PS Vita is equipped with 3G in addition to Wi-Fi.
• Closely coordinated with PlayStation Suite
The newly developed and released game content for Android based portable devices can also be enjoyed on PS Vita.

As many people know the Electronic Entertainment Expo came to a close Thursday night. Over this weekend I am giving you a 2 day breakdown of the two major system announcements at E3. This part is going to focus the announcements of the Wii U and what it will bring to the table for people. First with the Wii U I am already reading reports that the unveiling of this new console has some missteps that Nintendo wishes they could get a redo on. First is that they felt the majority of the reveal was focused on the controller and the fact that is a nice screen is touch. Satoru Iwata had this to say on the reveal.
“Because we put so much emphasis on the controller, there appeared to be some misunderstandings”, he said. “We should have made more effort to explain how it works.”
“We haven’t made any kind of blunder, but I should have shown a single picture of the new console, then started talking about the controller,” Iwata added. “The console is not drastically different, and Wii U is about the controller. The console itself will be almost invisible.”
The problem is the controller really is the only cool thing about it. The original Wii had motion play and now it will be in HD but the PS3 and XBOX 360 have had does for years. So the only real draw to this console will be the fact that you have a really cool controller that you can use in a variety of ways and well Nintendo is really just making a HD console that uses a DS as your controller only it is one big screen opposed to two smaller ones.