In order to get the Raspberry Pi's pricing down to a low point, there had to be some cuts made to its abilities. First of which, was the cull of MPEG-2 decoding. MPEG-2 licensing fees would've increased the Raspberry Pi's pricing by at least 10%.

But, it looks like the foundation has found a way around this, and for just $3.16, users can purchase an individual MPEG-2 license for each of their boards through the organizations' online store. The same goes for Microsoft's VC-1 standard, which can be purchased for $1.58.

H.264 encoding isn't left out, with OpenMax components needed to develop applications with H.264 functionality, and are now enabled from the latest firmware. With CEC tagging along for the ride, we're also looking at XBian and OpenELEC operating systems that can use a single IR remote to control a Raspberry Pi, a TV and other connected goods.

CNET are reporting that the 13.3-inch Retina MacBook Pro displays have gone into production, with NPD DisplaySearch analyst, Richard Shim, telling the site "The supply chain indications are that it's for a MacBook Pro 13.3 -- not a MacBook Air".

Shim continues to reveal that the displays are being made by Samsung, LGD and Sharp. He also reveals that the launch supplies for the 13-inch model will be much better than the 15-inch model, which goes to show just how popular the 13-inch MBP really is. Shim continues "with the 15.4 it's production of a few hundred thousand units versus one or two million for the 13.3".

So, we're looking at a considerable jump in stock, and I think this model will be the one that really dukes it out with the Ultrabooks. It'll be interesting to see what resolution the 13.3-inch model ends up getting.

The work of a Stanford ant biologist, and a computer scientist have found that harvester ants on the hunt for food, use a similar method to that of the protocols used to control traffic on the Internet.

Deborah Gordon, a biology professor at Stanford, have been studying ants for more than 20 years. When Gordon discovered how the harvester ant colonies were sending out more ants to get food, she called in Balaji Prabhakar, who is a professor of computer science at Stanford, who is an expert on how files are transferred on a computer network.

At first, he didn't know why Gordon had called him, as ants had nothing to do with his field, but the next day, he realised:

Waiting for the next Samsung smartphone or tablet? Well, you could be waiting just a bit longer than expected due to Apple's decisive win over Samsung on Friday. Since Samsung was found to be infringing on basically every single patent Apple asserted, Samsung will likely redesign phones and tablets that are currently in the works to avoid being sued again.

"The verdict is worse for Samsung than what many had anticipated, and it will have to change some products in its pipeline," Chang In Whan, president of Seoul-based KTB Asset Management Co., said. "There could be delays in developing and releasing new models, which together with a potential sales ban could weigh on corporate value."

However, a spokesman for Samsung has said that the verdict won't affect the current product launch schedule. Being forced to do things that are radically different from Apple could, in the end, wind up better for Samsung and the consumer market as a whole. If they have to reinvent the UI or physical design of the phone, they may come up with something far superior.

Here's a bit of a weird one, and a sign of the changing times. A park in Israel is designed to teleport visitors back to ancient biblical times so that they can see how people of the Old Testament lived. Now, the donkeys that are used for transportation have been outfitted with Wi-Fi hotspots, something I'm pretty confident they didn't have back then.

The device is hung from the donkey's neck like a feedbag and provides wireless Internet access so users can surf the web, update Facebook and Twitter, or send e-mails to family and friends. "You take some pictures, you want to change your picture on Facebook - you can do it," Goldberg, the park manager, said.

Peter Scherr, a visitor from New York: "It has been used as a working animal for 5000 years," he learned, reading from a Wikipedia page on his iPad. "There are more than 40 million donkeys in the world. That's a lot of donkeys!"

Your broadband Internet connection may get a little bit more expensive if the FCC goes ahead with a plan to tax it. Right now, the FCC has asked for comment on several different proposals designed to raise money for the Connect America Fund, a fund used to bring broadband access to rural Americans, and a tax is among the proposals.

AT&T, Sprint, and Google have all supported the tax, likely because it would increase their revenues. The tax would be similar to the fee already paid on landlines and cellular phones. This fee goes to the Universal Service Fund, a fund that was designed to ensure every person in America had access to phone service.

"Today we propose three goals for contribution reform: efficiency, fairness, and sustainability," Genachowski, chairman of the FCC, said. "And we underscore that any reforms to the contribution system must safeguard core Commission objectives, including the promotion of broadband innovation, investment, and adoption."

Apple currently have the new iPhone close to release (if all rumors, and their event is to be believed to be the launch event for the iPhone), a smaller, 7.85-inch iPad and now a newly redesigned iPod touch coming out.

GizChina is reporting with photos of what they're calling a new case for the next-gen iPod touch, showing a less-tapered design. The case shows off a wider rear camera hole, which could be just big enough to allow an LED flash to be added. There's still the "mystery hole" that the Macotakara report noted on, which is located in the lower corner of the rear shell versus the center.

As you can see from the photos these cases suggest that the next generation iPod touch will have a new design (at least to the rear) and seem to be have a much less pronounced taper to the edges when compared to the current iPod touch 4.

Flash Memory Summit 2012 - It really didn't matter where you were standing at Flash Memory Summit, within ten feet was a product with either LSI or LSI SandForce silicon.

For years, LSI has played a significant role in several markets, video processing, encoding and so forth, but their largest presence has been enterprise storage. SandForce, before joining LSI was known for their consumer SF-1200 and SF-2200 controllers, but these products were created from their enterprise counterparts, SF-1500 and SF-2500. The enterprise SandForce parts were successful on their own, but by adding three letters to the SandForce name, LSI SandForce flash processor units are now displacing the competition from the enterprise sector.

These are not DDR3 DIMMs, they are Viking SATADIMMs using LSI SandForce SF-2500 Series FPUs. These products draw power from the DRAM bus, but are enterprise SSDs in an innovative form factor that allows for unprecedented scalability.

It looks as though some specs and images have leaked of HTC's upcoming Proto handset. The photos show off the Proto's change to HTC's usual chassis that the One series sports.

The picture above shows off a matte black finish, with capacitive Android navigation buttons. As you can see, there's no front-facing camera, so it looks like we won't be doing any video calling or 'selfies' for the social network of your choice. HTC's Proto sports Beats Audio branding, which means the company seems to still be working with Beats, for now.

The Proto should be close to the One V when it comes to its innards, expecting to sport a 4-inch WVGA screen, 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, and a Snapdragon dual-core 1GHz processor. It should measure in at 9.62mm in thickness.

I'm sure most of our readers have been following the legal proceedings in the Apple v Samsung lawsuit. Yesterday, Apple was awarded just over $1 billion in damages for Samsung willfully infringing on their patents. However, Apple's Tim Cook says in a memo to employees that it wasn't about the money, it was "about values."

The memo, sent to Apple corporate employees, is an interesting read:

Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.