According to market research done by NPD, the Nintendo Wii outsold competitors for the month of January in the game console wars, rounding out the month with 436,000 game consoles sold.

The game console battle continues to be a heated one between the Sony PS3, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii all attempting to sway gamers to their newly released consoles with additional features and incentives. While the Wii console came out ahead in sales last month, Playstation 2 sales were actually the runner up for the best selling game console of January, and incidentally was also the best selling console of 2006. In January the Playstation 2 sold 299,000 units with the Xbox 360 close behind at 294,000 and then the PS3 with 244,000 units sold.

Sales were down a little bit for all three console makers from …

Are surgeons who regularly play video games better equipped to operate on you?

A study by an Iowa State University psychologist indicates that Surgeons who play video games more are skilled and less likely to make mistakes than their non-playing counterparts.

The study identifies a strong relationship between time spent playing video games and the surgeon’s capabilities performing laparoscopic surgery. Laparoscopic surgery is a surgical technique where operations in the abdomen are performed through small incisions – normally less than 1.5 cm – as opposed to the larger incisions needed in traditional procedures.

“We found that laparoscopic surgeons who played video games were quicker and more accurate, and you typically don’t tend to see those two elements working together when it comes to surgery. So these were surprising results,” said Douglas Gentile, an assistant professor of psychology at Iowa State

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Viacom will become a major content provider to the Joost global broadband television service, according to an announcement on Tuesday. This marks the first big licensing deal for Joost.

As a partner, Viacom will offer television shows and movies from its MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures divisions. Using Joost, consumers can watch Viacom content on their computers for free.

Viacom made headlines a mere two weeks ago after the media company pulled clips from Google’s YouTube online video sharing service due to copyright concerns.

Joost provides advanced television viewing features such as links to related content or websites based on the program. The interface is customizable through a variety of plug-in applications that provide social networking features such as instant messaging, message boards, and news tickers.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Joost is currently available in …

In a recent interview with 1UP Phil Harrison, president of studios worldwide for Sony, said that the long term plan for the Playstation3 is to add digitally downloaded content to the existing built-in hard drive, including movies and TV shows.

Harrison stated that having the downloaded content was part of a 10-year plan, but also noted that the technology is already there to make this possible and its likely that it will come to fruition soon. This media download service would put the PS3 in direct runnings with the Microsoft Xbox which currently has a similar service, and could help its running against the Nintendo Wii which does have internet based interactive content through the Wii Channels, but does not download media to the game console.

“Well we made a very conscious decision in putting a hard drive in every machine and …

In a Monday conference call to investors Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that sales expectations for the company’s new operating system, Windows Vista, had been “overly optimistic” – but not by the software titan that made the program. Instead, Ballmer dumped blame on aggressive expectations by analysts who had stars in their eyes rather than reasonable sales expectations. “Some of the Windows revenue forecasts I’ve seen are overly aggressive,” Ballmer was quoted as saying. “You shouldn’t think of a huge surge in fiscal year ‘08 relative to ‘07. There are a few who think we are going to do so much better than PC growth.”

After five years spent in development Vista launched to retail at the start of this month. Microsoft has reportedly spent around half-a-billion dollars alone to market the latest version of Windows to …

Adobe has released its 1.0 version of the Photoshop Lightroom software which will bring the product out of its year-plus beta period and available for retail purchase. The Lightroom software is a digital photographers ‘toolbox’ used for managing, developing and presenting a digital photo library.

The product is available initially for $199, but will go up to $299 starting in May. If you are currently using the beta 4.1 or previous, it will expire at the end of February and you will have two months to take advantage of the $100 discount.

Lightroom 1.0 has some additional features which help filtering through large collections of photos by keywords and a new Key Metadata Browser for key information tags. It also has an improved ranking system with colored labels and a feature to pick or reject items. The Develop module has some new features for comparing versions of …

Sirius Satellite Radio and rival XM Satellite Radio have announced a $13 billion all-stock merger of equals. Press releases on both companies’ Web sites confirm the merger.

The terms of the agreement state that XM shareholders will receive a fixed exchange ratio of 4.6 shares of SIRIUS common stock for each share of XM they own. XM and SIRIUS shareholders will each own approximately 50 percent of the new company.

The merger is expected to provide greater programming and content choices for subscribers as well as accelerated technological innovations. Subscribers will now have ready access to entertainers such as Oprah Winfrey and shock-jock Howard Stern.

The name newly merged company and the location of its headquarters has not been disclosed. Media executive Mel Karmazin, the current Sirius CEO, will lead the new company as CEO, while Gary Parsons, now chairman of XM, will …

Three climbers stranded on Oregon’s Mt. Hood after falling from a snowy ledge on Sunday are equipped with Cellular Phones and Mountain Locator Units to aid rescuers.

The three climbers – two women, a man, and a Labrador – are able to maintain contact with rescue officials with a cell phone. The climbers also have at least one mountain locator unit with them to assist rescuers.

Mountain locator units or Personal Locator Beacons (PLB) are lightweight devices that attach to clothing and emit a signal which can help rescuers pinpoint the location of missing or stranded climbers. When activated, the beacons send out a distress signal that allows the beacon to be located by the satellite system. The devices can transmit GPS coordinates in the emergency satellite transmission.

The devices can be rented for as little as $5 at mountaineering outfitters …

Scientists in Japan have discovered a method to grow teeth from single cells in lab dishes and transplant them into mice.

The method involves the use of primitive cells that are injected into a collagen mold. The cells were taken from the tooth germ – a mass of tissue that has the potential of developing into a tooth. The cells eventually mature into a structure that shares the qualities of teeth, including dentin, enamel, dental pulp, blood vessels, and periodontal ligaments. Once transplanted to a mouse, the teeth grew and developed normally.

This is a significant breakthrough in regenerative therapies and demonstrates the possibilities of developing bioengineered organs to replace organs failing from age, disease, or injury.

Stem Cell research is the source of great controversy and heated debate due to the techniques used to obtain and use them. With current technology, starting a stem …

A new search engine in Cuba will allow you to search anything as long as it is one of Castro’s speeches.

The new Cuban Internet search engine does not connect users to the World Wide Web, but instead runs on Cuban servers limited to a Cuban Intranet. With the website, users can navigate through Cuban news media, government sites, and a special section containing the speeches of President Fidel Castro.

The sale of computer equipment is strictly regulated in Cuba. The Cuban government passed laws back in 1996 as soon as the Internet increased in popularity to control Internet access and monitor e-mail.

To access the Internet, Cubans must have official permission. Government Internet centers have been set up that allow Cubans to access their e-mail and browse a special Intranet consisting of websites chosen by the authorities. To use these public …

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker has long been considered by bird-watching enthusiasts to be “The Holy Grail” of bird watching. The bird is an extremely rare member of the woodpecker family, and is officially listed as an endangered species and even considered extinct by many people.

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker made headlines back in 2004 when a kayaker in Arkansas reported seeing one. In 2005 a team led by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology also reported spotting the elusive bird. In September 2006, a team of ornithologists from Auburn University and the University of Windsor also published a paper detailing evidence for the existence of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in northwest Florida. In 2006, a $10,000 reward was offered for any information that leads researchers to an Ivory-bill nest.

In order to get conclusive evidence that the Ivory-Billed is not extinct, scientists …

Macrovision CEO Fred Amoroso has written an open letter to address his feelings on the letter that Steve Jobs wrote regarding digital rights management (DRM) of Apple iTunes music along with offering his companies services to manage the Fairplay DRM.

In the letter from Jobs last week, he had addressed concerns rising with iTunes consumers about the DRM restrictions on downloaded music, which include the number of devices and computers that a single downloaded music file could be transferred to. While Apple is not the only company that has a DRM that restricts its downloaded music to its own music players, Apple has been under increased ridicule due to the large popularity of iTunes and iPods.

In his letter Jobs had also proposed that they do away with a DRM all together and allow purchased music …

January marks the first time Wikipedia has made the top ten list of most popular Web sites in the U.S.

In a report from comScore Networks, the online encyclopedia officially came in ninth with 42.9 million unique visitors last month, just behind Ask Network with 49 million and ahead of The New York Times (#10). This is a significant improvement over last January where it languished in 33rd place with 18.3 million unique visitors.

Much of Wikipedia’s recent U.S. success may be attributed to some generosity from Google. A report from Hitwise indicates that Google traffic to Wikipedia is up 166% Year over Year. The analysis showed that for the week ending Feb 10, 2007, 70% of Wikipedia’s upstream visits came from search engines – 50% from Google alone.

The …

The OLCP (One Laptop Per Child) group has announced a confirmed order of one million of its low-price XO notebooks produced through Quanta, who manufactures notebook PC’s for Apple, Dell and HP as well as OLPC.

We had reported last month about the new inexpensive XO laptops from the OLPC initiative which are intended for use in remote villages and run on very little power to connect children to information and to each other. The challenges were to make a device that is low cost, durable and useful enough to help improve the economies, knowledge and general lives of people in remote areas.

This confirmed order is good news not only for the OLPC project, but also in the effort to bring the costs of manufacturing the laptops closer to the $100 mark. Currently the notebooks are selling for around …

Late Thursday Cisco gave Apple one more week to respond with a formal reply in federal court to the trademark infringement lawsuit Cisco filed for the iPhone name.

Cisco had already granted Apple an extension earlier this month, but this additional extension may be further indicators that the two companies are coming to a resolution outside of the courtroom.

“Cisco is fully committed to using the extra time to reach a mutually beneficial resolution,” the company said in a statement.

This trademark dispute between Apple and Cisco comes as a result of both companies branding products with the iPhone name. Cisco had acquired the iPhone trademark through a company it had purchased in 2000. Only a month before Apple rumored to announce a much anticipated mobile phone inspired from its popular iPod players, Cisco launched iPhone branded …