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Piracy is an ongoing problem. Growing concerns from many different media outlets have caused things like SOPA to try and be enacted into government but one person has spoken out about piracy and says it might not be such a bad thing in the end, depending on how it is being done, Mikael Hed the chief executive of Rovio Mobile said. He went on to explain that no matter what they do and that he feels action should only be taken in the cause in which the piracy is actually causing harm to the brand and ripping off its customers. Hed feels that piracy actually helps the brand by building more of a fan base. I suppose in Hed medium that could be true and I suppose if someone was pirating music and loved what they heard they may be willing to support them in the future whether it be through concerts or clothing lines or even things that the artist endorses. Once again it all comes down to greed and it looks like Hed understand that is willing to take a stand on it.

I am not surprised at Apple being so protective over their products that they would put new employees on work that is not actually real until they can be trusted but for it to come out is pretty funny. Going over the things I read that Adam Lashinsky put a little tidbit from his new book called “Inside Apple” and apparently this former Apple employee confirmed this. It was reported that a new engineer would work on fake products for the part of career in Apple and also was interviewed for just about 9 months from what he said. Above is a video that will shed a little bit more on this subject.

So it looks like the tablet market is starting to grow. Android is accounting for just over 39% of the market share in Q4 2011 which is up over 29% a year ago. Now the biggest deal here is that the power of the iPad has dropped from 68.2% to 57.6%. Which means that Android is narrowing the gap on tablet sales but let’s face it, it is really thanks to the cost effective Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble Nook. This was a study done by a Strategy Analytic Peter King. Though if you look at the market structure these 2 products barely phase the iPad because they are in different markets. The Fire and the Nook are honestly considered eReaders with some nice benefits of being able to use nice apps and surf the web.

For all you gamers out their Steam now has an application on their iOS device or their Android devices. Sadly however you will not be able to play games through this app but be able to purchase games and install them on your PC. It will also let you interact with your steam friends as well. Right now Steam doesn’t have any mobile games that you could actually download on your device but I am sure this is the starting point of that happening. There are still some minor issues with this app as it is really only optimized for the smaller screened devices so mainly phones or ipods. The device needs to run iOS 4 and for your Androids it can Android 2.1 or newer and can use it on 4.0.

The big wigs at Warner Bros. have decided on a new DVD strategy that honestly will piss more people off in the long run that help but I am sure the WB is just figuring that people will just buy the movies because they are so good. They are delaying all new DVD movie releases from being available on your favorite rental services like Netflix, Blockbuster and Redbox. The companies would have to wait 56 days from release to be able to rent it out. The companies could buy the DVD’s out right and be able to have them for rent day one but that would be too expensive. Now companies like WB are trying to get more people to buy their properties instead of renting them, well let me tell you something moves like this is exactly why there is piracy in this world. The outright greed that greed that WB has to hurt the consumer by making them pay for a DVD that they normally get from their rental services is just ignorant in my mind and is why the media corporations are so screwed up and why they will never win the fight against piracy. They need to stop being greedy and work together to help make things more cost effective to the consumer and not bully consumers into buying their products. I hope this blows up in the face of the WB and they change their strategy. I would love to hear from you readers and if you agree or disagree with my stance and why.

So with the known fact that the Wii U will be on sale this holiday season and Nintendo is reporting some major losses. The full fiscal year of 2011 was a loss for the major video game company. They are looking at about a 65 billion yen loss which equals about an $835 million dollar loss and it also had to change its sales estimates for final part of the period. The 3DS at 16 million between April 2011 and March 2012 but Nintendo will be around 14 million in sales. The Wii sold over 94 million units to date. It looks like the holiday season can’t come soon enough to the people over at Nintendo and hopes that the Wii U will be there for the holiday season and that the sales should be high for a system from Nintendo that will actually have HD.

In my quest to the find the fun and unique tech stuff sometimes I come across stuff that I think might actually be a pretty good idea. A company by the name of Boxee has been getting people to stream TV shows and movies for some time now through the PC. Now you could also get a Boxee box in which you could stream the same stuff from the computer onto your TV. Well this new little piece does require you to have a Boxee box but is pretty cool if you are interested in not paying for cable but still want to get your local channels. With this you just plug it into the back of your Boxee and it will give you the ability to watch Live over the air TV. With Boxee currently you could just watch what was available through the service but now you have the ability to watch local channels as well and that is big. Especially for people trying to save a buck on high end antennas or have been thinking about purchasing cable. This for only $49.99 isn’t so bad and if you have Boxee I would recommend getting this as an addition to your Boxee Box.

For all of you Xbox Live gamers out there, news on the wire is that Microsoft is going to be discontinuing its online currency know as Microsoft points. This is not going to happen until the end of year according to most reports. This move is not only going to affect just the Xbox as it will change what developers do for the Windows Phone and also the Zune. The change will be exactly like how normal transactions would take place, it would be best on the region you are in and set up an account that will use real money instead of the Microsoft points. Obviously if you have Microsoft points on your account when the change is officially made you will have those points converted into your currency. Just for those who don’t know what the points are used for, they are there to make purchase of all kinds which include games, downloadable content for games you already own, clothes and accessories for your online avatar, and many more things. This is a big step for Microsoft but a good one, now if you want something you just buy it, unlike now where depending on what you want you will have to buy a certain number of points to get it. For example the minimum purchase on points is 400 which equals about $5. Most stuff for your avatar is going to be under 400, so will be around say 180 or 200. So if you want to make a single purchase for your avatar you are actually having to spend the $5 on 400 points to get something that is around 180 and yes your points stay with you but sometimes you just want to spend $2 and not $5. Thoughts?

Apple has done a bang up job in introducing the new college books to the iBooks platform. A book from McGraw-Hill sells its text books for normally around $75. If you wanted to get the electronic version from Apple you are looking $15 for the electronic book. The reason they can sell for so less is because there is no production cost and the volume is massive. Also once a student buys the text book it is theirs and it cannot be transferred over to another student which means no more used text book sales which means more for McGraw-Hill. Right now it has been reported that around 350,000 text books have been sold. iBooks seems to be starting off on the right foot here and I can see this saving students tons of money and making tons of money for publishers and Apple. I remember back in the day when I went to college and had a bill over $400 on text books, bring that down to around $100-150 now that is much more manageable. So what are your thoughts on this?

If you want to create a Google account normally you would just sign up with whatever email address you wanted and bam you were all set. Well now Google is making you create not only a gmail account but also a Google+ profile to sign up for a Google account. This looks like Google starting to mold their services together, mainly get as many people as possible to join Google+. Pictured above is what the new site looks like when wanted to start a Google account. It is very interesting that Google is basically forcing you to be part of Google+ and have a gmail account to use their services as an account. Google is really starting to mastermind something here and integrate everyone into Google+. What do you think?