In December, while much of the U.S. was up in arms over extending payroll tax cuts and the detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) was hoping his own pet project could be snuck through committee: HR 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). In very broad language, in its current form SOPA requires Internet service providers to block access to websites that engage in activities related to content piracy, including removing such sites from their DNS servers (that’s what turns www.unwinnable.com into the IP address needed to connect to us), with the intention of making them, for all intents and purposes, disappear off the Internet entirely. (more…)

Unwinnable’s Dave Trainer was recently invited by Turtle Beach to test drive their new Modern Warfare 3 licensed headsets. Turtle Beach has teamed up with Infinity Ward to create the perfect set of cans for racking up those kill streaks. Dave’s hour and a half of testing gameplay and listening to explosions and falling shells casings was more than enough to know that Turtle Beach and Infinity Ward are a match made in heaven. He sat down with Sr. Manager of Marketing & Development Christopher Bridle to chat about these new headsets, the game and what’s next for Turtle Beach. (more…)

Steve Jobs, the visionary who founded Apple and led it to the top of the tech heap, has died after a long battle with cancer. He was 56. (more…)

Apple announced its latest smartphone, the iPhone 4S, at a press event yesterday at their Cupertino headquarters. While the iPhone 4S represents an upgrade to the existing iPhone rather than the rumored new device that was expected, the bigger news is that Sprint joins AT&T and Verizon as the US-based carriers authorized to cell the iPhone. The iPhone 4S packs an upgraded processor (the A5 that powers the iPad 2), an 8 megapixel camera, and iOS 5, and now comes as a single device that operates on both AT&T’s GSM and Verizon/Sprint’s CDMA networks. All three carriers will begin selling the device on October 14.

The iPhone 4S also includes Apple Siri, a voice-activated mobile assistant that had been available as a standalone app for iOS.  The service has been shut down, and Siri is expected to appear as an exclusive for the iPhone 4S.

In addition to the announcement of the iPhone 4S, CEO Tim Cook also announced that iOS 5 will be available for the iPhone 3 and up on October 12, and price cuts for older models. The iPhone 3GS will now be available for free with an AT&T contract, while the 8GB iPhone 4 will see its price reduced to $99.

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Don is waiting for the Nexus Prime to come to Verizon. Convince him otherwise @UnwinnableDonB

Steve Jobs announced last night that he is stepping down as CEO of Apple, the company he founded in his garage with Steve Wozniak in 1976. This, of course, isn’t the first time Jobs has left Apple. Apart from medical leaves of absence in the last seven years, Jobs was fired from the company in 1985 amid slumping sales after the company introduced the Macintosh. Jobs would return as a consultant in 1996 after founding NeXT Computing and planting the seeds that would lead to the formation of Pixar. Jobs took the CEO’s chair the following year. (more…)

Hewlett-Packard announced in a press release earlier today that it plans to “discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones.” This move comes six weeks after the launch of the HP TouchPad tablet, and two weeks after HP announced steep discounts on the device, amid reports that the device has sold far below expectations. (more…)

Today marks Minecraft‘s mobile debut on the Android Marketplace. While it is currently available exclusively to the PlayStation-branded Xperia smartphone, this is still a long-awaited moment for Minecraft fans. The $6.99 download features multiplayer over WiFi, randomly generated worlds and a slew of blocks to build that giant Recognizer from Tron you and your crafty friends have been dying to create on the go.

Get downloadin’!

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Seriously, build a giant Recognizer with @Erock88 on Twitter!