It's a day not many of us will admit to dreaming about, but here it is, officially licensed Wii Lightsaber and Blaster accessories.

Officially licensed by both LucasArts and Nintendo, the Star Wars line of Wii accessories includes both a Star Wars Lightsaber and Clone Trooper Blaster. The former comes in both green and blue (whooshy noises not included), while the Clone Trooper Blaster has slots for both the Wiimote and the nunchuk.

Manufactured and distributed by Bensussen Deutsch & Associates, Inc. the two will be launched in conjunction with Star Wars - The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes this fall. No word on price just yet.

Who's going to buy one? Sure, they're kind of stupid, but realistically, they probably won’t cost that much given that they're just plastic clip-ons for your current hardware. Unfortunately, word on the street is there won't be support for Wii MotionPlus as Republic Heroes does not support Motion Plus.

And just because we can, here's the Star Wars kid. Look at him go!

A trojan is collecting FTP information from popular websites such as Amazon, the BBC, Symantec, and more.

According to Jacques Erasmus, the CTO of security tools firm Prevx, he recently came across the "biggest compromise of its type," referring to a "cybercrime" server where a trojan is uploading FTP login information captured from infected machines. What makes this particular trojan so spectacular is the source credentials it is stealing: Amazon, Monster, McAfee, Symantec, and thousands more high profile sites, comprising a list of more than 68,000.

Earlier today, Erasmus told The Register that this type of breach would be bad news for the compromised sites, as hackers could upload drive-by download scripts and other harmful applications. The company's initial investigation showed that the FTP information was collected over the past few weeks, and that some of the information remains valid. Previx has contacted many organizations already including Bank of America and more.

Erasmus explained that a variant of the zbot trojan is swiping and uploading the FTP login data to a server hosted in China. The information is stored in plain text and left open for anyone to acquire and use. Although Prevx has filed an abuse complaint against the service hosting the illicit server, Erasmus did not say whether the company has investigated the parties responsible for the theft. He also said that Prevx is currently scanning potentially vulnerable websites for any signs of abnormal activity, but has not found anything dangerous as of this writing.

So where is the trojan getting its source FTP information? "The data is harvested from users' machines, when they get infected," Erasmus told The Register. "A typical scenario might be that a web designer for one of the organizations gets infected, his stored ftp login details get compromised, and so the attacker in this case is able to log in to the ftp site and compromise the website pages."

For now, this is the only information Erasmus and Prevx was willing to offer. Hopefully the company will get things under control before hackers begin to infiltrate major websites. While many organizations have already changed FTP login information, the fact that some information "remains valid"--without offering exactly what websites remain vulnerable--is enough to make any Web surfer feel somewhat paranoid.

Although consumers are still pinching pennies, the sudden drop in PC shipments is beginning to subside.

Here's a bit of good news to get your morning started right: the PC market is showing signs of recovery. George Shiffler, principal analyst at Gartner, said that the freefall of PC shipments is "skidding to a halt" thanks to a continued interest in netbooks and competitive PC prices. Unfortunately, because of the continued effects of the global recession, PC shipments will still decline, but at a much slower rate than originally expected: 6-percent in 2009 compared to 6.6-percent projected earlier.

While that may not sound entirely positive, Shiffler said that the concluded freefall would set the stage for a healthy market recovery in 2010, as PC shipments are expected to actually grow by 10.3-percent next year. With a strong first quarter, the PC market has actually stabilized according to Gartner. The analyst group expects to see a strong fourth quarter as well, as the new forecast predicts that the global economy will be on the recovery path by the end of the year.

As for the current freefall slowdown, Shiffler said that consumers are responding really well to the falling prices of PCs. "We've pierced new price points for laptops, and not surprisingly, people are responding to that," Shiffler told Computerworld. He explained that netbooks have triggered new lows in laptop prices--under $300 in fact--that is now affecting the mainstream laptop market, pressuring resellers to push lower prices into the $500 price range, even $400 in some cases. Unfortunately, with netbooks getting larger with wider screens, larger keyboards, and more mainstream-like features, the line between netbook and laptop is beginning to blur.

Shiffler also added that Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 operating system will not be a factor in the market recovery during Q4 2009. In fact, he said that consumers are not going to buy new PCs simply because of the heralded OS. He suggested that Microsoft counter the market slowdown by advertising what new features Windows 7 will offer to PCs, however that may not convince consumers to spend big bucks on the new OS. Shiffler also added that enterprise users will not upgrade to Windows 7 for at least a year after its initial release so that Microsoft can work out any initial problems.

On a whole, the news puts a positive spin on current economic conditions, and paints a bright future for the PC market in 2010.

Sony plans to build upon its popular PlayStation Network and provide content and services to many Sony products

Amidst the restructuring of upper management and a reassessment of where the company has "missed the target" over the last few years, Sony is setting its sights for Spring 2010. While specific details were not offered, the company plans to roll out a new service that may ultimately link all of its products together, whether it's the PlayStation 3 console, HDTVs, or other multimedia devices. Many gamers already experience the service to some extent via the PlayStation Network, however the current content distribution system--now offering movies and television shows in addition to new and older PlayStation games--will serve as a template to the new service.

Unlike its rivals, Sony has the upper hand, as the current PlayStation Network already has a user-base of 23 million. In addition, the PlayStation Network offers a few additional features such as the virtual world called PlayStation Home, and Life with PlayStation, a service that offers news feeds, weather, and camera feeds from around the world. While the former would likely stay with the PlayStation 3 platform, Life would be ideal for HDTVs and Sony mobile devices. The service would be a huge plus in the TV market where Sony still remains strong, but could lose footing if a competitor offers more than just hardware.

"We can no longer afford to only offer great TVs. Otherwise, we set the stage for someone to become the Google of the TV," said Robert Wiesenthal, the head of strategy for Sony's entertainment business, told CNN Money.

Sony's Kazuo Hirai, who oversees the company's networked-products and services group, said that the new distribution service would actually overlay the backbone of the PlayStation Network, but will be "broader and more open." Not only would brand loyalists be rewarded with discounts and premium services, but the new service would make many tasks easier, such as video editing, transferring camera images to a TV, and sharing content with friends (the word "storage" was mentioned although no specifics were provided).

On a financial standpoint, Sony is in a position to make acquisitions that will "accelerate the effort" although no additional details were provided. Naturally, the company is remaining somewhat hush hush over the entire project, and understandably so, however Hirai seemed confidant that the first glimpse of the new service will appear by next spring. "It's now a matter of what all the services need to look like for each device, and coming up with a rollout plan," he said. "It's like city planning here, and we can start small. We don't need to build New York City overnight."

GM's first Volt hits the streets.

The Chevy Volt is a big deal not only for GM, but also for the entire automotive industry looking at electric and hybrid technology. While Toyota currently leads the charge with its Prius, the Chevy Volt takes it a step further by offering plug-in for electrical recharge.

The Volt’s been in development for more than two years, and isn’t slated to hit the streets until late next year, but the first test vehicle hit the ground earlier this week. GM managed to get crank out a pre-production model more than a week ahead of its original Fourth of July goal. That first car started its build on June 1.

Chevrolet Volt Vehicle chief engineer Andrew Farah wrote in a company blog, “We’re producing a few Volts per week now, but we’ll quickly ramp up to 10 per week and will have approximately 80 pre-production vehicles built by October.”

Farah continued, “Most of these vehicles will be used for testing and validating the production intent design as well as developing the final vehicle software and controls - we’ll also use them to tune the vehicle’s overall driving experience. Some of these Volts will have very short lives as they’ll be used in safety and structural integrity testing.”

Check out the pre-production Volt on the road in the video below.

More on the Chevy Volt:

• GM 2011 Chevy Volt Officially Unveiled Inside and Out
• Chevy Volt First Build on June 1

It seemed the entire world ground to a halt yesterday when news of Michael Jackson’s death was first announced by celebrity gossip site, TMZ. Then, people all over the globe sprang to life, passing along the tragic news through whatever medium they could.

Aside from the usual television, radio and internet news reports, the news was being circulated via email, text message, Facebook, Twitter and more.

While my immediate reaction to the CNN tweet that said Michael Jackson had suffered cardiac arrest was to check The Superficial, it turns out an awful lot of folks just Googled the singer's name. In fact so many people typed his name into Google that the search engine thought something sinister was afoot.

Google confirmed to the BBC that when millions of people Googled Jackson at the same time, it feared it was under attack. Users were instead shown a page that read, "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application."

"It's true that between approximately 2.40PM Pacific and 3.15PM Pacific, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson and saw the error page," said Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker.

Google was not the only site brought down by the sudden passing of the King of Pop. The Twitter Fail Whale was on show for all to see as the site saw the number of updates per second double and intermittent crashing. Facebook status updates reportedly tripled. Being the first to break the news, TMZ’s website was inaccessible for some people, as was Perez Hilton’s blog as people rushed to verify the news.

However one of the bigger issues people had was with CNN. The site’s twitter was updating with news that the singer was had suffered cardiac arrest and was in a coma while other sites were reporting that Jackson had already passed away, something that did not go unnoticed by its followers.

iPhone 3GS is about to get pwned.

The iPhone 3GS (now new and improved with no space between the 3G and S) has been out in parts of the world for a full week, and hackers are already looking for exploits in order to jailbreak and unlock the device to set it free.

Fortunately for iPhone 3GS owners not content with being confined, famed iPhone hacker George Hotz claims to have found an exploit in the latest Apple phone. The exploit isn’t a newly discovered hole, however, as it’s something that was already found five months ago.

“I verified that it is still vulnerable to the 24kpwn exploit present in the iPod Touch 2G. This is great news for all of you,” Hotz wrote in his blog. “Basically, this means if someone makes a tethered jailbreak, it easily becomes untethered, because the boot chain is broken. Expect big things soon.”

The Dev-Team behind the jailbreaking and unlocking tools wrote in its blog in response to Hotz’s findings, “That means we can use the same sort of technique used by our current redsn0w tool to jailbreak and unlock the iPhone 3GS. … This is great news, but how did it happen?  Why didn’t Apple fix this in their normal cat&mouse fashion?  Well it seems this bootrom was cut in about the August 2008 timeframe, so the unintended early reveal of 24Kpwn earlier this year didn’t affect the iPhone 3GS.”

So, there you go – iPhone 3GS owners, standby for pwnage.

Yesterday the developer of Hottest Girls took full responsibility for its removal from the App Store. Now Apple says the application was removed from the App Store for violating the terms of the iPhone Developer Program.

In a statement to CNN, Apple said that it would not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content and claims ATG added the topless images to the application after a more PG version which only contained women in bikinis had been approved by Apple. Check out the full statement below.

“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.”

Developer ATG has yet to address the statement from Apple and the site today still advertised Hottest Girls as "Sold Out". The homepage of ATG now displays a note that says since Hottest Girls was updated to include topless images, a lot of other applications are claiming to contain porn but hastens to add that this is false advertising.

"For those interested in buying "porn" apps:
We noticed that many apps are starting to claim that they have "porn" in their apps, because of the publicity Apple is receiving recently. There is no "porn" in their apps. It is just a marketing scam. Any developer can rate their own apps as 17+ with frequent nudity, even if there is no nudity in their apps. Also, Apple has made it very clear that pornography was not allowed in the App Store. Some developers even write their own 5-star reviews (you can tell because when you click their names, it just contains all 5-star reviews for the apps from the same developer) and have misleading description. The developers we noticed who do this are: MacPhun LLC, McApp, Athletic Model Guild, Small View Media. We do not know why Apple has not done anything about this. The last time we checked, false advertising was illegal in the U.S."

Is this the first Bing lawsuit?

Fans of Kayak, the handy tool for travelers that finds you the cheapest flights across multiple airlines might notice a similarity between the site and a similar service offered by ‘decision making’ engine, Bing.

Bing’s travel search and its similarity to Kayak didn't go unnoticed when Microsoft launched Bing at the beginning of June. However, Kayak claims that Bing’s travel search is confusing its users and Wired.com reports that Kayak sent a legal letter to Microsoft regarding the issue.

“We have contacted them through official channels about concerns about the similarities between Bing and Kayak,” Robert Birge, chief marketing officer at Kayak, told Wired.com. “From the look and feel of their travel product, they seem to agree with our approach to the market.”

Microsoft is denying the whole thing and claims that while it is discussing the matter with Kayak, the software was independently developed by Microsoft and Farecast.

“We are discussing the matter with Kayak,” a Microsoft representative said in emailed statement, according to Wired. “Bing Travel is based on independent development by Microsoft and Farecast.com, which Microsoft acquired in 2008. Any contrary allegations are without merit.”

Have you ever used Kayak? More importantly, are you among the folks that saw Bing travel search and said, “hey, this looks a lot like Kayak!” Let us know in the comments below.

Check out the full story here.

Yesterday the web went wild about Hottest Girls, the first Apple-approved iPhone application to feature nudity. “But what about about iPhone owners of the female persuasion?” you asked.

Enter Hottest Guys, a new application from the developer of Hottest Girls. As you can imagine, the app's countless images of shirtless men is causing very little fuss.

Still, if you want to get your hands on pictures of “shirtless handsome hunks, gorgeous guys in jeans, muscle-bound farmers, athletic jocks in swimwear, stunning studs in uniform, beautiful young models, athletes at the gym or pool, hot beach boys and surfers, cute guys next door and more,” then Hottest Guys is still available for download (it’s not “sold out” nor has it been pulled) and is currently being offered at an introductory price of 33 percent off its regular $1.99 price.

For any of you wondering, the Hottest Girls application is still listed as “sold out” on the developer’s website and ATG’s blog offers no information as to when it may be back up and available. A message that appeared yesterday, but has since been removed, told fans that the application was pulled because high demand was putting too much pressure on ATG’s servers and that yes, the topless pictures would still be there once Hottest Girls became available again.

Click here to download Hottest Guys. Anyone?