Apple claimed 87.4 percent of the tablet market before the Galaxy Tab hit the scene, according to an IDC study of tablet share. Apple had a near-monopoly of the tablet market last summer. Analysts also expected 17 million tablets to have shipped by the end of the year, almost all of which would still have been iPads.

Of course Android would have cut into Apple’s share in the fall with 1.5 million Galaxy Tabs estimated sold and will likely cut into it even deeper in 2011 with the Motorola Xoom for one. RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook could play a part as well.

This isn’t your granddad’s Monopoly game. The Resident Evil version ties the popular game in with the popular board game. It was created by a guy named Nick, who spent close to 4 years creating it.

Everything from the streets to the Community chest cards have a Resident Evil theme. There are also plans to create custom die-cast game pieces and custom money. And here I thought the only place where zombies and real estate intersected was Wall Street.

That is a weird sight. What you see above is a Monopoly board that looks nothing like a Monopoly board. For its 75th anniversary, Monopoly is trying something new. A circular board. Also digital currency. There is sure to be some controversy as some will love it and some will want to cling to the old game.

The change does make it easier to keep track of the cash, I like that. The circular board has to go though. Why not just make a kick-ass video game version and be done with it? What do you guys think? Do you like this one better? Or the old game?

Monopoly has so many incarnations at this point that you may think they can’t do anything new. Turns out they have some tricks up their sleeve. Monopoly is about to go online. On September 9, Hasbro will launch Monopoly City Streets, which is a live, worldwide version of the popular game.

Players get $3 million to start and will be able to put nearly any kind of building anywhere they want, thanks to Google Maps. You want a football stadium in the the middle of town, where it doesn’t belong? Your wish is granted. Could be a lot of fun.

The biggest game that EA sells has to be Madden NFL. The game is responsible for a huge chunk of the revenues that EA generates each year and it the most popular NFL football game going. EA Sports has the exclusive agreement to design and sell video games that are NFL based.

A U.S. district judge has denied the motion to dismiss a class-action suit against EA alleging unlawful and anticompetitive agreements in place with major football bodies. These exclusive agreements have stifled competition and allowed EA to up the price on its Madden NFL game by 70% according to the suit.

Remember that cool working Lego safe we featured awhile back? Well now somebody has created a fully functional Lego combination safe. Just put all of your valuables in this thing and they will be…well, not safe really. We’re talking Legos. But it might be fun to build one.

Just follow Merijn van Wouden’s lead and the link for detailed step-by-step instructions and a cool video to show how the mechanisms work. Hey, you gotta put your monopoly money somewhere.

It’s the one board game that everyone knows. Probably because we’re all greedy and love to buy property and collect money everytime someone lands on it. Well, if the board game version isn’t quite doing it for you anymore, an iPod version can now be downloaded from iTunes for $4.99.

How it plays out on such a small screen I have no idea. It was created by Electronic Arts, and uses the iPod’s click wheel to let you roll dice and buy, sell an trade properties, and build houses and hotels. It will run on iPod nano third-generation, iPod classic and fifth-generation iPods only.

Ok, so I have been sick of seeing Monopoly this and Monopoly that, for years now. Every time you turn around there’s a new one and I always imagine some lonely geek collecting each one and storing it away as they come out. But this latest Monopoly game I might actually buy and it might even make me want to play again.

This one features Mario, Luigi, Link, Zelda, Kirby, and other NES icons. The box comes with 6 collectible pewter tokens including Donkey Kong’s Barrel, Link’s Iron Boots, Hylian Shield, NES Controller, Mario’s Cap, and a Koopa Shell. I especially like the NES Controller. The Collectors Edition Nintendo Monopoly retails for just $33.00. As usual, it’s the same exact game. It just has Nintendo graphics everywhere.

With the buzz of the possible Microsoft takeover of Yahoo still fresh in the air, Google wasted no time in jumping in to say the deal could possibly create a monopoly which threatens “the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.” This, from Google’s chief legal counsel, prompted a quick response back from Microsoft’s chief legal counsel saying the merger will “create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.”

Google’s David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, had this to say on Sunday – “The openness of the Internet is what made Google — and Yahoo! — possible. A good idea that users find useful spreads quickly. Businesses can be created around the idea. Users benefit from constant innovation. It’s what makes the Internet such an exciting place.

Opera Software has filed a legal complaint to the European Commission against Microsoft over the companies web browser and how it is packaged with the operating system. As you may or may not have noticed, the Internet Explorer browser that comes with the Windows operating system has become part of the OS, and can’t really be removed or uninstalled. Because of this Opera Software is complaining that the tie Microsoft has between the OS and its IE browser is illegal since it does not give competing browsers a chance on the highly dominate Windows OS. Opera is also saying that Microsoft is hindering interoperability by not following the commonly accepted web standards.

Opera is asking that Microsoft be forced to “unbundle” their web browser and operating system allowing other browsers, such as Opera’s, to be able to compete more fairly. They are also asking that Microsoft adhere to common Web standards so that developers creating hosted applications and web sites do not allow or need specific code written for viewing on Internet Explorer compared to other browsers.

According to the Spread Firefox blog over 400 million downloads of the Firefox web browser have occurred since it’s launch just 3 years ago in November of 2004. The post spelled out a little history of the spread of Firefox, citing 25 million downloads in the first 99 days of the browser being available. Within a year they had over 100 million and another 100 million the year after that.

This 400 million downloads doesn’t necessarily mean that there are 400 million installations of the browser running out there, but …