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The Dutch civil court lifts the ban on Playstation 3 imports, following Sony's legal disputes with LG.

Since Sony imports most of its consoles via the Netherlands, the ban hit shipments throughout the continent-- with reports placing the amount of PS3s impounded under the court order at around 300000.

Earlier this month LG filed a complaint claiming it owns the patents for the console's blu-ray drive's streaming technology. The South Korean company now faces damages charges-- although Sony will still have to defend the patent infringement claims in the courts.

Following that court date, Sony will either receive more damages from LG... or find itself owing royalties.

Go Sony Says Playstations Released After Seizure in Patent Fight (Reuters)

The Zune-- Microsoft's ill-fated mp3 player-- will never make it to Europe after all; not after Bloonmberg's report on Microsoft stopping the release of new Zune models.

Bloomberg's source says the company will shift focus to other devices, with the "Zune" name living on as a music shop/streaming service for PC, Windows Phone 7 and XBox 360.

The player never made it officially to Europe, with Steve Ballmer confirming Microsoft's plans (or lack thereof) for not releasing the device on our shores in October 2010.

The Zune managed to take over 9% of the US portable media player market 6 months after its November 2006 launch. An iPod Touch-rivalling HD model was released in 2009-- but by then the brand's market share fell to a mere 2%.

Should we start missing the Zune now? Not when we hardly even got to know it...

Go Microsoft is Said to Stop Releasing New Zune Models (Bloomberg)

Bigfoot Networks unveils its Killer wifi adapter family-- adapters the company says perform up to 5x better than the competition.

The performance boost comes thanks to range-enchancing 802.11n technologies, with data throughput rates of up to 450 Mbps (for the 1103 model) and 300 Mbps (for the 1102).

The adapters support IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n standards, operate on 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands and come in mini-PCIe form factor. Meanwhile Killer wireless optimisation allows the adapters to adapt data flow from different applications-- prioritising latency-sensitive network traffic for online games, HD video and audio.

Customers can also use Bigfoot's Visual Bandwidth Control software to view and control their applications' network traffic in realtime.

Go Bigfoot Networks Killer Wireless-N Adapters

DRAMeXchange reports the combined smartphone and tablet markets' demands for NAND flash memory will account for more than 50% of the world's total flash memory output for 2011-- keeping the memory industry robustly happy.

Smartphones will account for 43% of 2011 memory consumption, while tablets will make another 10% (an increase from 2010's 5%).

The analyst also says the tablet industry will continue its current growth-- even if Apple will remain market leader. Current predictions suggest tablet shipments will reach 52m units by 2H 2011, with the iPad (and its newly announced sequel) making up more than 75% of the total market.

Non-iPad tablets will have to work ever harder to adapt-- by improving their customer offerings (leading further hardware advancement) and further lowering their prices.

DRAMeXchange also has good news for the smartphone industry, predicting WW smartphone penetration rates will surpass 30% in 2011. Meanwhile eMMC (embedded MultiMedia Card) technologies will help speed up production-- thus further increasing NAND flash demand.

Go Tablets, Smartphones Will Consumer More Than 50% of NAND Flash in 2011