Welcome once again; it's that time of the week where we can all sit back, relax, and take a look at the latest hardware-highlights:

Well, it was probably inevitable that this giant social-network would one day grow to the status that it has.  This is certainly some big news; however, there has been some concern as to what this happening means for the rest of us.  With this new ground for investors also means new ways in which Facebook will have to be funded.  A generous portion is payed for by advertisers, which the company divulges information to in order to bring you specific types of ads.  And with public status, the advertising department will have to go the extra mile in order to bring rake in the funds necessary to keep it afloat.  Still, we can only hope that things go well for Mr. Zuckerberg as this new chapter in the Facebook page begins.

"The finance world began the day eagerly awaiting Facebook's filing of initial public offering (IPO) paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

What is IPO?

When a company files IPO paperwork, it is allowing public investors to buy its stock. This means that Facebook will now be owned, partially, by individuals and companies who invest in it.

Why is Facebook going public?

When a company reaches five hundred investors, it legally has to begin making its financial records available to the SEC, according to Paul Sloan's "Three Reasons Facebook Has to Go Public." For some companies, like Facebook, doing so can be a burden. When a company reaches five hundred investors, it is in its best interest to go public. The investors then take some of the risk and put more money into the company's funds. This allows the company to make changes it may not have been able to make without that extra money."

Source: Yahoo!

I suppose so; the University of California, Berkeley, has been conducting numerous experiments with brain technology, and coming up with ways to potentially read people's minds.  The data gathered could prove to be rather useful to people suffering from mental disabilities and give them their own, unique form of communication.

"Someday, people whose ability to speak has been damaged by illness or injury may be able to vocalize anyway with the help of technology. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have made strides toward translating the words a person thinks into real speech.

The researchers used 15 patients undergoing neurosurgery as subjects.

They placed electrodes on the subjects' brains, then recorded the activity detected as the subjects listened to a conversation. This recorded data was reconstructed and played back.

Algorithms were used to process the data.

The subjects were exposed to both English words and nonsensical words, and the system worked equally well for both.

That means once the technology becomes practicable, it could be used anywhere.

"The approach was based on auditory features, so it's not specific to English," research team leader Brian Pasley, a post-doctoral student at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, told TechNewsWorld.

Details of the Research

Up to 256 surface electrode arrays were placed on the surfaces of the superior and middle temporal gyri of the participants' brains.

The superior temporal gyrus includes the primary auditory cortex, which is responsible for the sensation of sound, and Wernicke's area, which is involved in processing speech so it can be understood as language.

It's not clear how the middle temporal gyrus functions, but it's been connected with various processes, including distance contemplation, facial recognition, and accessing the meaning of words while reading.

The participants listened to words for five to 10 minutes while neural signals were recorded from the electrode arrays. Those signals were recorded and played back.

Pasley used two different computational models to match the spoken sounds to the pattern of activity in the electrodes. The better of the two reproduced a sound close enough to the original word that the researchers could correctly guess the word."

Source: Tech News World

"Arm Holdings, which designs chips used in smartphones such as iPhones, has seen its profits rise after agreeing more deals to licence its designs.

The firm's pre-tax profits rose 42% to $49.7m (£31.4m) in the last three months of 2011 compared with the same period in 2010. A record 2.2 billion chips using Arm technology were shipped in the period. For the whole of 2011, Arm Holdings' pre-tax profits rose to $156.9m, up 42% from 2010.

"In Q4 and throughout 2011 Arm has seen strong licensing growth, driven by market-leading semiconductor companies increasing their commitment to Arm technology, and more new customers choosing Arm technology for the first time," said chief executive Warren East."

Source: BBC

This seems to be a theme of the past few months, this time Samsung is under investigation for patents that were made roughly ten years ago.

"Samsung's European legal woes don't look to be abating anytime soon, as the EU today formally launched an investigation into the Korean manufacturers' competitive practices. At issue are, not surprisingly, a collection of patents that Samsung has used to launch a series of lawsuits against rival companies. The manufacturer maintains that these patents are essential to complying with European mobile standards, but the EU says Samsung may be in violation of a promise it made more than ten years ago. Back in 1998, the firm said it would license these essential telephonic patents to competing manufacturers, under the terms outlined in FRAND. The Commission explained the obligation and its potential ramifications in the following statement:"

Source: Engadget

As you no doubt have heard, Congress has actually listened to the overwhelming-opposition to, what was considered to be, a rather invasive piece of legislation.  However, the bill did not go down without a fight; as you've also no doubt heard, the popular file-sharing medium Megaupload was seized by the Department of Justice.  Since then, news outlets from all sides are speculating as to whether or not other, similar websites are just as at risk for the same treatment.

"On January 19th, the United States Department of Justice put the hammer down on file sharing site Megaupload, by charging its owners with online copyright infringement. Seven people and two corporations—Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited—were indicted by a New York grand jury and charged with a variety of crimes. If convicted on all possible charges, those involved face up to 50 years of jail time.

In the wake of this news, several file-sharing sites changed their operation methods. Filejungle and FileSonic eliminated third-party downloads, while Uploaded.to blocked American users from accessing the site. These three file-sharing sites worked preemptively to prevent similar fates, which raises an important question: what are the fates of file-sharing sites as a whole?

It's hard to know which websites, if any, will next taste the swift fist of justice, but there are a handful of choice suspects that are prime candidates for speculation. For example, the MPAA considers three online destinations as "rogue sites" for linking to copyrighted movie and television content: 1Channel.ch, Movie2k.to, and SolarMovie.eu. The reason for the MPAA's concern is obvious; all three sites act as pointers to sites that feature movie downloads for films that are currently in theaters (such as Underworld: Awakening)."

Source: PC Magazine

Finally, Facebook is going public ... experts claim they will raise around $10bn. It's a nice amount and it should cover the cost of buying start-ups, patents and other technologies, which Facebook needs to survive the next decade.

"Facebook will begin the process of becoming a publicly-listed company this week, valuing the social networking site at between $75bn (£48bn) and $100bn, reports suggest.

The company plans to file papers with the US financial watchdog on Wednesday, according to the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. The flotation later this year would raise about $10bn, they reported. This would be one of the biggest share sales seen on Wall Street.

It would dwarf the $1.9bn raised by Google when it went public in 2004. It would still, however, be some way short of the $20bn raised by carmaker General Motors in November 2010."

Source: BBC

No doubt the owners are happy to have restored a good chunk of their clientele; Netflix hasn't had the easiest of years, but luckily they seem to be on track once again and will hopefully be able to bring in more customers in the year 2012.

"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Netflix said Wednesday it began to add customers again last quarter, after a series of blunders damaged its sterling reputation with consumers and investors.

The streaming video and DVD-by-mail company said it gained a net 610,000 U.S. customers in the fourth quarter of 2011, including 220,000 streaming customers.

Netflix now has 24.4 million total customers, close to the 24.6 million it had before it angered subscribers with a 60% price hike in July, and then announced the separation of its DVD and streaming services in September. The company eventually canned the "Qwikster" plans, but not before 800,000 customers had fled Netflix.

Netflix appears to have recovered from the PR nightmare. The company said it began adding more streaming video service customers by December. Not only did last month's customer additions far outpace the company's expectations, but far fewer customers cancelled their service. Also, fewer migrated to DVD-only plans, which are more cost-intensive for the company."

Source: CNN

More speed!  That's what everybody wants, well it looks like our current high-speed internet may soon be left in the dust compared to this latest in Network Technology:

"Nothing screams World of Tomorrow quite like quantum dots. Alongside the possibility of paint-on solar cells, the technology could also multiply optic fiber bandwidth by up to ten times. The Photonic Network Research Institute at NICT has been able to crank up the capacity of the data transmission system by combining a light source and photonic crystal fiber. The quantum dots act as the light source, and via the NICT's new "sandwiched sub-nano separator structure" [above], they can be tweaked to work at 70THz -- far in excess of the 10THz frequencies typically used. Aside from optical communications, the potency of these high frequencies allow it to pass beyond skin, opening up the use of quantum dots to medical scanning and high resolution cell imaging. Is there anything these dots can't do? Catch a slightly more technical explanation in the video right after the break."

Source: Engadget

Well, it should come as no surprise that not every piece of software is completely safe.  The Apple app store has recently come under a bit of fire from a series of fake apps that slipped through the, usually through, approval process; however, none of these faux apps have been reported as malicious or virus-ridden, but it's always a good idea to be careful when searching for new things to download.

"Call it blind faith, but most of us iOS users assume every app in the App Store is safe. After all, Apple has a reputation for spending weeks or months reviewing an app submission before it can enter the App Store. When it inexplicably rejected apps like the "gay cure" app or the Google Voice app, I felt a sense of security. But today I learned, that sense is false.

Over the weekend, iPhoneography (via Sophos) discovered a fake version of Camera+, currently the 8th most popular paid app in the App Store, in the App Store. The fake Camera+ page looked identical to the real Camera+ page, except it lacked reviews and had a different developer's name. It was yanked once iPhoneography's Glyn Evans reported it to Apple and the developer of the real Camera+ app, tap tap tap. The developer showed some displeasure on Twitter:"

Source: PC Magazine