Sony Relents: Personal Information Compromised.

It appears that PlayStation owners have quite a bit more to worry concerning the PSN outage. Sony has come forward in their latest update and finally revealed the severity of the breach:

Certain PSN and Qriocity service user account information was compromised” during an illegal intrusion between April 17 and April 19. Among the personal data that was accessed: name, address, email, birthdate, PSN network login/password, PSN handle, PSN password security answers, and possibly credit card information.

Sony further adds that while they haven’t found any evidence of credit card information being stolen, “they can’t rule it out at this point”, but to “remain vigilant in reviewing credit card accounts and information”.

The admission by Sony is even worse than previous rumors that hackers had merely found a way to illegally download material from PSN without paying. Now they can make completely (looking) legal purchases with stolen identities and credit cards. Add in the fact that Sony waited a solid 10 days and gave the hackers a head start doesn’t exactly help customers.

Oh yeah — Sony hopes to have the PSN back up within a week. Larger snippet of Sony’s announcement after the break…

Motorola Backing Off Locked Bootloaders. Promises More Dev-Friendly Devices In The Future.

The Australian-based Irwin Proud is winning his (and many other Android users’) fight against Motorola’s increasingly tight control over their Android devices. A campaign started by Irwin has garnered 8,820 signatures asking Motorola to get rid of locked bootloaders. And as hinted at a few sentences prior, Motorola is listening.

Its important to note that Motorola’s uber un-locking move wouldn’t be universal across the board (unfortunately), and that it will ultimately be up to carriers to give the final yes/no as to whether or not a particular device will ship with an unlocked bootloader.

“We completely understand the operator requirement for security to the end user, and as well, want to support the developer communities desire to use these products as a development platform.”

Even though it’s still a rather strict approach considering Android’s “open” nature, it’s a direct 180 from Motorola’s previous statements on the matter. Of course the irony in it all is that Motorola’s original break-through device that brought the company back from the brink of extinction was the 1st-gen Droid — a completely unlocked, dev-friendly device. Of course, Motorola also has to deliver on their promise.

All we can do now is hope that change comes, that Motorola gives in to consumers’ pleas, and that stock Android ships on more phones. Fair enough?

PSN Network May Be Down, But You Can Still Watch Netflix.

The ongoing PlayStation Network outage is the worst event to happen to Sony’s online gaming community thus far. For not only are online games down for the count, but other networked apps such as Hulu too. There is one app that still works though — Netflix.

Many are reporting that the movie streaming service doesn’t work as it requires logging into the PSN, and as such throws up an error when attempted. However, if you log in as normal and back out of the error message that pops up, you’ll find a perfectly unscathed Netflix app ready and waiting to occupy your now gameless nights. Have fun!

Thanks to everyone who sent this in…

Facebook Adding Friend Suggestions To iOS News Feed? Dis-Like.

The above image comes by way of AppAdvice reader @JamesTratt. Notice anything different? How about the annoying friend suggestion within the timeline? Yeah, if this is part of Facebook’s new updated service/app in which they can make changes faster as it uses the mobile news feed instead of specialized iOS API, we’re not enthused.

Having friend suggestions on a high resolution desktop monitor is one thing. There’s wasted space everywhere. On a mobile device, however, it’s an entirely different tune.

We’ll add that we’ve personally only seen the friend suggestion pop up in our iOS Facebook apps once. Thankfully we haven’t seen the same tom foolery hit the few Android devices we have in house — at least not yet. Feel free to share your experiences with us…

Larger Carriers Don’t Want FCC To Mandate Interoperability On 700MHz Networks.

In a move that shouldn’t surprise most, AT&T and Verizon are voicing their disapproval of a proposed plan by the FCC to mandate interoperability between 700MHz networks and the accompanying hardware. The growing problem is that as carriers build out their networks (specifically LTE networks) across the recently auctioned off 700MHz spectrum, roaming from one network to another will be increasingly difficult and costly because there isn’t yet one “do-it-all” chip. Instead, individual carriers have hardware designed specifically for their network frequency.

It makes sense for smaller carriers to want this interoperability so that roaming is affordable and possible. Larger carriers such as AT&T and Verizon, however, add that requiring interoperability will add cost and size to future handsets. Not only that, but a universally supportive chip will take years to develop — or so they say.

We’ll go out on a limb and say that most people won’t mind a millimeter or two here or there if it means consistant access across the country regardless of network. Hell, we’d take a slightly thicker phone if it meant 30-60 minutes more battery life. Hopefully an agreement can be formed so that both sides — larger and smaller carriers — are relatively satisfied.

Nexus S 4G Hitting Sprint May 8th.

Sprint customers holding out for the latest and greatest “pure” Android experience have until May 8th to set aside the necessary finances. On that day, the Google Nexus S 4G will launch featuring an un-touched Android interface, 1GHz processor, NFC capabilities, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and of course 4G WiMAX technology. While it isn’t the best of the best any longer considering many dual-core offerings are now amongst us, Sprint doesn’t have any such choices to begin with.

Look for the Nexus S 4G on May 8th for $199 w/ a 2-year contract.

iBuyPower And Walmart Team Up: Custom PC Building Comes To The Masses.

Custom PC building is about to get a lot more mainstream thanks to a new partnership announced today between Walmart and iBuyPower. Starting at $578, customers will have to chose between 5 different computer cases, AMD and Intel K-series processors, 3 different memory and hard drive configurations (each), AMD and Nvidia graphics cards, a trio of optical drives, and finally, three different versions of Windows 7. All systems will feature a standard 1-year warranty on parts and labor.

Hardcore PC enthusiasts may balk at the stripped down selection, but that’s the ticket here. Enabling an easier and more beginner level approach to custom PC building is a great idea in getting more people into the hobby. With that said, what better way than to buddy up with Walmart?

For now, the new partnership is online only. Hopefully sales go well enough that this DIY approach can creek into local stores. Interested parties can check out the configuration page now live on Walmart’s website. Also be sure to check out the handy graph just after the break which shows every hardware option available…