Kodak to shutter digital camera production this year

This year has not been a kind one for Kodak. Last month, the photography pioneer announced that it was filing for bankruptcy (and suing Samsung, incidentally), and now the company has let it be known that it will be dropping out of the digital camera business -- and then some -- marking an end to its line of digital point-and-shoots, pocket camcorders and digital photo frames. Production will end the first half of this year. The future for the company will hold printers, brand licensing, enterprise services and photo labs. Kodak will, however, continue to honor warranties on existing products.

Microsoft Store hacked in India, passwords stored in plain text

Frequenters of India's online Microsoft Store were briefly greeted with the suspicious visage of a Guy Fawkes mask this morning, following a hack that compromised the site's user database. According to WPSauce, Microsoft Store India's landing page was briefly taken over by a hacker group called Evil Shadow Team, who, in addition to putting a new face on Windows products, revealed that user passwords were saved in plain text. The group's motivations are unknown, though the hacked page warned that an "unsafe system will be baptized." The store is now offline, suggesting that Microsoft may have regained control. Read on for a look at the compromised password database.

Google TV Facebook page teases new announcement

Since Eric Schmidt made the rather bold proclamation that "most" new TVs would have Google TV embedded by summer 2012, we've all been waiting for something "big" from Mountain View. Well, if you can believe the services' Facebook page, "big announcements" are just what we can expect Monday. A post on Google TV's profile leaves a lot to the imagination, but while speculation is already jumping sky-high (Google TV Nexus, anyone?) the possibilities range all the way from new product announcements to minor service / feature expansions or contests -- so set your alert levels accordingly. Of course, if it were really a big deal then you'd think the news would come out on Google+, right?

Update: Just that fast, the official blog has revealed the big announcement and it's.... an updated version of the YouTube app. For what it's worth, the new version is supposed to be faster with smoother navigation when it starts rolling out "in the next few days." It also adds a "Discover" feature for browsing by category, new channel pages and better tie-ins for related videos, which should help viewers browse its growing library of premium content, but isn't exactly the big announcement some may have anticipated. Check the blog for more details and return to DEFCON 5.

HTC Endeavor specs revealed in leaked ROM: Tegra 3, 720p, Sense 4.0

HTC fans spent the last couple of days (i.e., their weekend) unpicking a leaked ROM Update Utility for an officially non-existent handset called the 'Endeavor.' The specs revealed so far include a 1280 x 720 display spread over 4.7-inches, a quad-core Tegra 3 processor, eight-megapixel rear shooter, front-facing camera, NFC, 1GB RAM and the new ICS-adapted version of HTC's Sense UI. These leaked specs tally with an earlier tip-off to MoDaCo, which further hinted at a 1.5GHz clock speed and Beats Audio. There's also a bunch of screenshots showing off the Sense 4.0 skin that we already glimpsed in a fuzzy HTC Ville video -- and it conspires to look both new and deeply familiar.

Samsung unveils Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), offers Ice Cream Sandwich on a seven-inch platter

It looks like Samsung has just taken the wraps off its latest tablet offerings, with the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) -- an ICS-laced follow-up to the company's original seven-incher. Available in both 3G and WiFi varieties, this redux doesn't mark a huge departure from its predecessor, packing a 1GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and a 1024 x 600 LCD. The big changes, however, come in the software department, with the Galaxy Tab 2 shipping with Android 4.0 straight out of the box. Other than that, you'll find a three-megapixel rear-facing camera, a VGA shooter up front, Bluetooth capabilities, and HSPA+ connectivity. No word yet on pricing or availability, but it's worth noting that we first saw this announcement hit Samsung's RSS feed earlier this morning, and it appears to have been pulled since then. It all looks awfully official to us, but when it becomes officially official, we'll be sure to update this post accordingly. Until then, be sure to head past the break for a shot of its backside.

Firefox on Windows 8: Metro build is in the works

We all know that Windows 8 will have a split personality, with a Windows 7 style "Classic" desktop environment working hand-in-hand with a finger-friendly Metro UI. Given that Firefox has a significant market share in the PC web browsing market, it's only natural for Mozilla to accommodate both parts of Microsoft's new OS. According to its 2012 Strategy & Roadmap, the company has plans for a proof-of-concept Win8 Firefox release in Q2 of this year. In that document, Mozilla reveals that a "simple evolution" of its existing browser will work with the "Classic" environment, but brand new new front-end and integration code is needed for Firefox to play nice with Metro. The plan is to build a Gecko-based browser that brings full Firefox capabilities and can handle Windows 8's unique requirements like being suspended by the OS when it's not being viewed and supporting multiple "snap" states to ensure a good browsing experience when multiple apps are open.

US gives its blessing to Google's Moto purchase

When it rains, it pours. Just hours after European regulators gave the green light to Google to snatch up Motorola Mobility, the US Justice Department gave the couple its own blessing. The $12.5 billion purchase has drawn serious scrutiny from both regulators and Big G's own partners, though, consensus seems to be that Mountain View is more interested in Moto's patents than in entering the hardware business. Though the Justice Department doesn't see the merger as an immediate threat to competition, it did issue a stern warning that it "will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action to stop any anticompetitive use of SEP (standard essential patent) rights." The concern is an understandable one since all the major players in the mobile space, Motorola included, have been at each other's legal throats for some time now. There are still a few more interested parties who will have to give their own consent to the combination including China, Israel and Taiwan. But, with two of the biggest potential blockades giving Google the thumbs up, it's looking more and more likely that the purchase will go through.

Cisco: mobile connections will hit 10 billion by 2016, helped by tablet boom

That Cisco's always been prescient. Three years ago, the networking giant predicted a 66-fold increase in worldwide mobile data traffic -- a surge that was expected to dovetail with the spread of 4G networks. With us so far? Sounds pretty obvious sensible, right? Well, the company's got more wisdom to share from its crystal ball: the outfit's just released its annual mobile data traffic forecast, and the marquee stat is that there will be an estimated 10 billion mobile connections by 2016. And though Cisco expects the bulk of these (8 billion) to take the form of cell phones, it also foresees a rise in tablets: there will be 5 billion of them, the company says, and that's not even counting all those WiFi-only models floating around (Cisco tallies WiFi traffic in a different forecast, released later in the year). If the market does indeed swell to 5 billion cellular-connected tablets, that would represent a 25 percent jump over today's global figure. Moreover, Cisco estimates that by 2016 21 percent of those 5 billion tablet owners will be relying solely on mobile data to get their internet fix.

Vlingo co-founder explains data-collection issues

With Carrier IQ and O2's most recent data-snooping, people's vigilance about what information cellphones transmit is increasing. Using a Galaxy Note, AndroidPit found that every four minutes, Vlingo's voice-recognition app was sending a packet of data to an unencrypted server. The packet contained your GPS co-ordinates, IMEI (unique device identifier), contact list and the title of every song stored on your device -- without proper warning in the privacy policy you agree to when starting up the app. We spoke with co-founder John Wynn, product marketing head TJ Leonard and communications manager Erin Keleher, who gave us a full and frank discussion about what's going on and the steps it's taking to remedy the situation

Samsung's earnings call liveblog

Do you like numbers? What if we said those numbers were amounts of money -- very large sums of money? If we've caught your attention, then perhaps you'd like to join us as we bring you Samsung's earnings call live, straight into your eye holes courtesy of our fancy new liveblog viewer. Click on through and join on. We promise your net fun ratio will be in the positive.

Samsung 2011 Q4 earnings official: $42 billion in sales, $4.7 billion operating profit

It might not be making as much money as the competition in Cupertino, but that doesn't mean Samsung isn't raking in cash at an astonishing clip. We reported earnings estimates a few weeks ago, but now it's official that the firm posted a 5.3 trillion won ($4.7 billion) operating profit in Q4 2011. That represents over a 2 trillion won ($1.8 billion) increase year over year. In all, it pulled in 47.3 trillion won ($42 billion) in sales, thanks in no small part to the over 300 million phones Sammy sold last year. While mobile accounted for roughly 40 percent of company sales and half of its operating profit (2.6 trillion won, or $2.3 billion), its semiconductor business did almost as well, raking in 2.3 trillion won ($2 billion) in profit over the same period. Samsung's Display Panel business outperformed 2010 -- buoyed by strong sales in LED televisions -- as sales were up almost 20 percent, to 8.55 trillion won ($7.6 billion).

Well the call just finished up, and Sammy provided some prognosication for 2012. It anticipates the mobile business to continue to grow, with LTE and and new market segments (read: Galaxy Note) helping drive sales. TV sales are also expected to remain on the uptick, as Samsung anticipates demand to continue growing due in part to the London Olympics and roll-out of more Smart TVs.

Toshiba announces color e-reader in Japan, hopes people buy more e-books from its store

If you're gonna be late to a party, you should at least be fashionably late. That's the mindset behind Toshiba's entry into the dedicated e-reader space with its new 7-inch BookPlace DB50. Toshiba hopes adding an e-reader alongside its existing AT200 and Thrive tablets will push more eyeballs towards the 100,000 or so titles in its BookPlace online bookstore. The ¥22,000 ($284) BookPlace DB50 sports a TFT-LCD screen with an LED backlight, a 1GHz Freescale i.MX535 processor, 8GB of internal flash memory and a microSD slot. The device also measures 120mm wide, 190mm tall, 11mm thick and weighs 330 grams (11.6 ounces), with battery life rated at up to 7.5 hours. Toshiba did not mention the operating system in its release though the hubbub in the Interwebs is that it will use customized versions of Linux and Android Gingerbread. The Japanese debut is pegged for February 10th and the company is apparently considering a release outside the country, too.