While Sony's Blu-ray format now has an undisputed monopoly over the high definition video market, recent reports from the NPD Group noted that sales related to the standalone Blu-ray player have been rather anemic over the past few months. In our full article, you can find out NPD Group's analysis on the situation and why the Blu-ray format still doesn't seem to be picking up despite its lack of competitors.

If you're a fan of Google's Picasa Web Albums and you're trigger happy with your camera, you'd love this new camera from Panasonic. This gadget directly uploads your photos to Picasa straight from your camera. Details in the full article.

TiVo Inc. has just announced that it has struck a deal with image sharing website Photobucket and Google's Picasa Web Albums that will give consumers the ability to view and share photos.

The company also mentioned that the photos will be displayed at the highest possible resolution, which means that TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD subscribers will be able to enjoy their photos in high definition. More details via the "read more" link below.

In an effort to combine the spirit of the Christmas season with that of  concern for the environment, Tishman Speyer Properties, manager and co-owner of the Rockefeller Center in New York, has decided to go for a "greener" Christmas tree this year with the use of energy-saving light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Aside from that, Tishman Speyer has an alternative source of electricity for the Rockefeller Center complex.

Find out what it is after the jump!

So you're driving along and you need directions. You then go to the gas station and ask... the gas pump? Google is installing screens on gas pumps that will show its mapping service.

The greatest advantage of this new service is probably not having to ask random people for directions anymore. Google has already released Google Maps for mobile phones last year so this is just the next step. Find out more about Google's new map service in the full article.

The mobile market won't see a Googlephone for now, but Google is still bent on making an impact on the mobile industry. The internet giant will be trying to develop easily accessible applications on mobile phones, and provide an open-source mobile phone operating system to let third-party software developers go crazy in making applications for Google-optimized phones.

Google already approached a number of mobile phone manufacturers and conferred with them about the production of handsets specifically made compatible for the use of Google software, like the ever-useful Google Maps, Gmail and YouTube, among others.

However, since the internet mogul is planning on releasing an entirely open platform mobile operating systems, there is the issue of privacy as well as data security - two pressing matters that should be addressed.

Will Google be able to push through with their ambitious project? Only time can tell.

A bit of bad news for Google Video users: the media you rented or bought from the web giant's online store will no longer be viewable after the site is shut down by the parent company.

Google said there will be no refunds for any of the transactions, but compensation will come in the form of credits in Google Checkout, the company's online paying service.

The decision to shut the site down came after top officials decided that the Google Video service has become irrelevant due to the success of YouTube, which it also owns and uses to sell videos.

The move was branded as a big mistake by analyst David Card of Jupiter. He also added that the shutdown and the no-refund policy are making consumers more wary of digital media purchases.

"We've seen a physical format-device combo go out of manufacture before: wax cylinders, 8-tracks," says Card. "But can you think of any consumer-purchased medium that actually becomes unusable while there are players that still work?"

If you know your basic internet culture, you probably already know that the question on every other person's mind online is "what insanely innovative stiff will Google come up with next?" Today, we have the answer for you: Google-owned YouTube is coming to mobile phones soon.

The most popular video sharing site in the world has signed a deal with the fifth-largest mobile handset maker in the world today, LG Electronics of South Korea.

At the core of the agreement is the development of a mobile phone which can access the YouTube server and deliver streaming clips on the go. It's never been done or attempted before, but LG says a working design could be seen as early as this year. "LG Electronics will unveil a mobile handset that fully supports the YouTube service for the first time in Europe in the second half of this year," said the company in a statement.

Right now, YouTube has around 100 million users worldwide, driving up the demand to have it in every appropriate medium. It has some 70,000 user-created content which are readily accessible and are steadily on the rise.

The United States accounts for a mere fraction of all web activities coming from mobile devices, but Microsoft is still going full throttle in support of the technology and is redesigning MSN specifically for your phone.

MSN is accessible to most current handsets and supplies users with all the standards such as news, weather reports, sports updates and business advisories. Much of that is retained after the overhaul but it's all been tailor-made for whatever device you use.

When you access the site via your mobile phone, data regarding the handset is automatically fed to the server so that the site can be made to match your phone's capabilities.

Microsoft won't be seeing a cakewalk in the mobile portal market, though. Big boys Yahoo and Google are also constantly improving their services to gain a foothold in the industry's gold mine: Mobile web advertising.

The current mobile internet user base in the US stands at about 32 million. Studies, however, show that rapid growth is coming as the technology becomes more accessible. Estimates reflect that there may be as many as 110 million users within the next four years.

If you're hunting for a new memory stick and by any chance missed the last deal we covered, don't worry because here's another one: Online retail store Buy.com is currently offering SanDisk 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo for just US$ 56.99.

First, the above mentioned memory stick comes bundled with SanDisk MicroMate reader - an adaptor allowing the memory stick to be used in full size MS slots. Then, and we're pretty sure you are all familiar with this one, Google will slash down the price even more if you purchase the product through its Checkout service.

The said service will effectively bring the total price to just US$ 46.99. Buy.com mentioned that the item will ship for free so no need to worry about hidden charges or something. If you want to know more, the Read link below will take you to the site's product page.