NPD Group Inc

Microsoft's Xbox 360 video-game console moved to the top of the U.S. market in February. The software giant's console had been number two behind the Nintendo Wii for nearly three years.

The popularity of the new BioShock 2 game may have been behind Microsoft's sales of 422,000 Xbox 360s in February, an eight percent increase from a year earlier, according to NPD Group. Nintendo sold 397,900 Wiis and Sony sold 360,100 PlayStation 3 consoles in February.

Competitors in the fast-moving tablet-computer category are lining up to take on Apple's iPad. Hewlett-Packard is the latest to preview its upcoming slate product, and other companies like Lenovo, Sony, Dell and Acer are similarly positioning their products.

The HP tablet runs Windows 7, and was first previewed by Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. HP published some details on its company blog last month and updated the information with a posting Monday that includes two promotional videos. The videos show a tablet device running Flash and responding to hand gestures.

Score one for Hollywood. RealNetworks agreed this week to settle lawsuits with major movie and TV studios for its RealDVD product, which allows users to copy DVDs onto hard drives.

As part of the settlement, RealNetworks will pay the studios $4.5 million to cover legal costs. In its announcement, RealNetworks said all parties have agreed to the "terms of a permanent injunction that will prohibit RealNetworks from distributing or supporting RealDVD or any other technology that enables the duplication of copyrighted content protected by the Content Scramble System, ArccOS or RipGuard."

Score one for Hollywood. RealNetworks agreed this week to settle lawsuits with major movie and TV studios for its RealDVD product, which allows users to copy DVDs onto hard drives.

As part of the settlement, RealNetworks will pay the studios $4.5 million to cover legal costs. In its announcement, RealNetworks said all parties have agree to the "terms of a permanent injunction that will prohibit RealNetworks from distributing or supporting RealDVD or any other technology that enables the duplication of copyrighted content protected by the Content Scramble System, ArccOS or RipGuard."

Sony Corp. said a glitch has knocked PlayStation 3 users off the game console's online network, and the company warned that data loss could occur if gamers continued using the machines.

Sony said in a blog post Monday that the problem was likely caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system, reminiscent of the Y2K bug a decade ago. The problem is affecting older PlayStation 3 models, but not the newest slim version that went on sale in September.

U.S. video game retail sales dropped 13 percent in January, another down month for the industry after a difficult 2009.

In all, Americans spent nearly $1.2 billion on video game systems, software and accessories during the month, market researcher NPD Group said Thursday.

Software sales fell 12 percent from the same month a year earlier, to $597.9 million.

January does not tend to be a big month for video games, which sell heavily during the holidays, though it is when many people trade in the gift cards they got for Christmas.

La consola Wii se vendió más que la PS3 y la Xbox 360 juntas en EE UU en diciembre, según los datos de NPD Group. La consola de Nintendo y el juego Call of Duty fueron las estrellas del videojuego en Navidad.

Network-attached storage, or NAS, may be one of the best-kept secrets in personal technology.

"It is one of the fastest-growing categories of data storage, but most consumers still haven't heard of NAS," said Seema Lindskog, director of product marketing at Western Digital, a hard-drive manufacturer that also sells NAS products. "Most people are still using external hard drives for backup."

Given the craze surrounding the iPhone, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre and Nexus One, it may seem that nearly everyone has a smartphone.

But most consumers in the United States use simpler, much lower-cost phones.

According to data from the Nielsen Co., about 82 percent of cell phones in use in the United States are limited-function phones, the kind that typically sell for less than $50 or are given away with two-year service contracts.

Given the craze surrounding the iPhone, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre and Nexus One, it may seem that nearly everyone has a smartphone.

But most consumers in the United States use simpler, much lower-cost phones.

According to data from the Nielsen Co., about 82 percent of cell phones in use in the United States are limited-function phones, the kind that typically sell for less than $50 or are given away with two-year service contracts.