Microsoft's decision to drop the Zune HD from its XNA development kit may actually be hints at plans for its sequel, leaks indicated on Tuesday. Multiple sources toldZDNet that the follow-up touchscreen player will be "similar to an iPod touch," indicating a more general-purpose role than the media-heavy Zune HD. With Windows Phone 7 as the only known mobile OS supported by XNA 4.0, the shift implies that Microsoft may use a variant of its phone OS to drive the next Zune....

Autodesk on Tuesday announced Maya 2011, along with updates to its Mudbox and FDX utilities for Mac OS X. The latest version of Maya features a redesigned user-interface based on Nokia Qt, with simpler customization and dockable elements. The graphics core has been revamped to improve performance with complex scenes, while also enhancing the viewport feedback....

Verizon tonight was caught distributing a memo to retail staff encouraging them to sell to iPad customers. The note obtained by Engadget encourages floor workers to promote the idea of using a Wi-Fi only iPad with a Novatel MiFi router. Mixing the two would not only save the $130 premium on an iPad with built-in 3G but would help users get off of AT&T's "overloaded network with limited coverage," according to the memo....

OWC has launched its OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini 1TB portable drive, which it claims is the first ever 2.5-inch 1TB drive shipped with a quad interface. The bus-powered drive has eSATA, USB 2.0, and FireWire 800/400 connectivity in a brushed aluminum, fanless enclosure. In addition to the new 1TB capcity, the drives are also available with 7200RPM 500GB drives and solid-state drives up to 200GB....

Former Sun CEO and president Jonathan Schwartz claims to have received a lawsuit threat several years ago from Apple CEO Steve Jobs. After Schwartz unveiled the prototype Linux desktop titled Project Looking Glass in 2003, Jobs allegedly called to personally notify Sun that its graphical effects were "stepping all over Apple's IP," according to Schwartz's personal blog....

Sony touted an industry first today as its PSN video service became the first service to get HD movies from all six major studios. Besides its own Sony Pictures, the company's deal will allow buying and renting HD on the PlayStation 3 from Disney, Fox, Paramount, Universal and Warner. No price changes were mentioned as part of the additions, but the agreement is non-exclusive....

Progressive rock band Pink Floyd on Tuesday sued its label EMI for allegedly breaking the terms of its contract through online sales. The complaint accuses EMI of knowingly "unbundling" the band's songs by letting those at iTunes and other online music stores buy some songs individually, against terms that insist all the content of an album be sold as one item....

UniPrint has launched UniPrint 7.0, intended for Mac network printing in server-centric physical or virtual desktop situations. It works in both 64- and 32-bit environments using a PDF-based universal printer driver, which in turn is designed for Citrix, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and other non-Windows host system servers. It allows administrators to manage a single universal print driver and, through the use of PDF conversion and compression, in theory save up to 90 percent of the network bandwidth consumed by other direct prin...

Samsung on Tuesday announced it will soon release the HW-C450 sound bar for simple home theater setups. The 2.1-channel system comes in black, while the HW-C451 will be available in silver. Apart from the color, the systems have an identical 280W power rating and sport Samsung's Touch of Color design. Their speakers are grill-less, and the subwoofer is wireless....

Apple should be able to churn out approximately 5 million iPads in the first half of the year, claims FBR Capital analyst Craig Berger. The number is higher than what some analysts have said Apple will sell in all of 2010, and is based on a dismissal of claims that the company is experiencing production setbacks. "We believe various news articles and competitor notes calling for a build delay were just false alarms," says Berger. At least one report has suggested that the delay to April 3rd is based on software issues....

Apple could have the bestselling e-book reader of all time in just three months on the market, according to an estimate from FBR Capital analyst Craig Berger. He believes that talk of hardware-related delays from competing analyst groups were just "false alarms" and that that Apple is purportedly set to ship 5 million iPads just in the first half of 2010. At this rate, the tablet would push past Amazon's unofficial lifetime record of 3 million Kindles in just the three-month span between early April and the end of June....

Apple has released a fourth beta of the iPhone 3.2 SDK, available through the company's developer portal. Little information has yet leaked out due to Apple confidentiality restrictions, but it is known to be build 10M2144, and a 2.5GB download. Mac OS X 10.6.2 is required to run the software....

Alchemist Guild has launched a new backup application for the Mac, Warehouse 1.0. The tool is built on Unix utilities and relies on a single-window interface for backing up files, whether to external hard drives, USB memory sticks or other Macs on a network. Any number of assigned tasks can be set, with options source folders, destination locations and up to four different backup modes....

Source R&D has announced the upcoming release of its Warpia Easy Dock, which lets users access the processing power of their notebooks via a desktop interface. The dock relies on Wisair's Wireless USB and includes a dongle that plugs into the notebook as well as a receiver that connects to a display, mouse, keyboard and speakers. The image from the notebook, along with peripheral data automatically transmitted to the desktop setup from up to 30 feet away, with resolutions as high as 1400x1050....

Dell today provided an official explanation for the disappearance of the Adamo XPS from most of its online stores. The Texas PC builder in a statement now argues that the ultraportable is actually "similar to a limited edition" and was never designed to be a long-term product. It was an "engineering marvel" meant to show what Dell could do and is simply nearing the end of its run, the company claimed....

Microsoft has released updates to its Mac software, Entourage and Office 2008. Office v12.2.4 offers several improvements to overall stability and performance. The company has also included a number of fixes that address security vulnerabilities, helping to prevent an attacker from overwriting the computer's memory using malicious code....

Today's deals from DealNN include a variety of items from iPods to portable storage devices. Newegg.com's Shell Shocker deal of the day for today is on the Samsung Story Station 1.5TB USB 2.0 external hard drive, now $99.99 after a $40 price cut. The Samsung Story Station features 1.5TB of storage space with two ways of backup; scheduled or in real-time SecretZone....

Araelium has introduced the first version of Querious, a database management tool. The software currently supports MySQL 5, and lets users view and edit data, as well as control users, indexes, queries and table schema. Direct, SSH and SSL connection types are permitted....