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This week, Tennessee signed a bill that made waves across the web, with many sites claiming that sharing your log-in credentials for services such as Netflix could soon land you in the slammer. The actual story isn't that simple. The bill essentially adds onto laws pertaining to the theft of 'services' in the legal sense by covering more things that can be defined under the title. For instance, the original list included cable services, to keep folks from jacking free HBO -- now, stealing "entertainment subscription services" can make you a felon as well. Tennessee has always been a hotspot for the recording industry, so there's almost no question about what this bill was meant to fight; during a senate hearing for the bill, the RIAA itself explained that online music services could be pirated via password sharing. It also added, though, that users who share passwords "en-masse" are the focus, rather than individual cases like it had pursued in th...

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Seriously, even a few Engadget editors are chortling in joy. PSN and Qriocity service has been restored in the Americas, Europe, and Asia and to celebrate (and soothe the seething frustration of its customers) Sony has launched its "welcome back" program. To be eligible you'll have to have been a member before April 20th but, otherwise, it's relatively qualifier free. Fire up the PlayStation Store and head to the "Welcome Back" tab to claim your pair of free games (you've got five different options on the PS3 and four on the PSP). In addition everyone gets a month of PlayStation Plus gratis and there's a selection of "On Us" movie rentals available over the weekend. There are a few other freebies to placate the masses too, like 100 free items in PlayStation Home, while Current Plus and Music Unlimited Premium subscribers get a 60 and 30 day handout respectively. If you've got any burning questions yet t...

Can it be happening? Is Sony's security nightmare finally over? Seems to be. On Tuesday, Sony promised full restoration of its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services in the Americas, Europe, and Asia (excluding Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea) by the end of the week. Now Sony is proclaiming that today is the day for full restoration with details of its "welcome back" package to be announced from each region. The PlayStation Store is already up with a "huge lineup" of new games, demos, add-ons, themes, avatars, and videos along with an updated Playstation Plus. Hey, look on the bright side Sony, even though you've lost the confidence of millions of your customers, at least now they're aware of yourQriocity service. Full press release after the break. Update : Working fine for us from London. We signed in to the PlayStation Store and even fired up Black Ops multiplayer just for kicks. Update 2 : We're now seeing error "80710D36" occ...

Android 2.3 hit the web for Droid X owners earlier this week, but that update previously required a tethered, manual install. As of today, the update is available over the air, so cable-free purists can finally start cooking with Gingerbread on their Droid X handsets. We first saw 2.3 popping up on the device in March, but if you opted out of rooting your handset for an early look at the new OS, you can now get your feet wet with speedy navigation, a customizable dock, and an overhauled camera app.

Europe's already extensive broadband coverage may be expanding even further, now that Eutelsat's Ka-Sat satellite has officially gone into service. The new craft, which launched from Kazakhstan in late December, uses spotbeam technology to generate areas of connectivity that are about 250 kilometers wide, with each beam carrying a total capacity of 900Mbps. Unlike the Hylas 1, its reach will extend far across the continent, providing Tooway's high-bandwidth services to 13 million households in remote locations. Subscribers will have download speeds of up to 10Mbps and upload rates of 4Mbps, though they'll still have to put up with latency on the order of 250ms, making life even more difficult for Eastern European OnLive gamers. Of course, this access won't come for free, but Ka-Sat's 82-beam network structure significantly lowers its operating costs, allowing Eutelsat to offer prices that are on par with market rates. According to company CEO Michel de Ros...

Still bothering with that unofficial 2.3 update for your comparatively monstrous Droid X? Good news, eager beaver; right on cue, the bona fide Gingerbread update is rolling out to select Droid X owners this weekend, and if you aren't lucky enough to be included in the initial soak test, you can take matters into your own hands by visiting the source links below. Per usual, we'd caution against a manual install for those who aren't familiar with the process, particularly since the masses should receive it as the week forges on. Naturally, the v2.3.3 changes are subtle (at least in comparison to the changes seen in the leap from Eclair to Froyo), but hey -- an update's an update. Droid-Life (1) ,  (2) ,  Android Central

There's a pretty widespread outage of Skype going on right this minute, judging by the explosion of tweets relating to it. It's not universal, as we've been able to log in and use the internet communicator for both text and video chat, but something's definitely gone wrong. So far, we've noticed our OS X machines are ticking along just fine, but our Windows computers are not. Importantly, we had to upgrade one of our Windows desktops to "break" Skype, which indicates it could be a fault contained in the latest version, but then again, it could have simply been just a case of terrible timing. The iPhone andAndroid apps look to be unaffected, but skype.com is down and out. Skype is on the case right now and will have more details for us "soon." Update:  Skype has a solution for bringing tech savvy users back online. It requires deleting the shared.xml file, instructions for which are available for Windows 7, XP and Mac OS X (so yes, Apple compu...

Barnes and Noble's Nook app for Android just got a bit more bathroom-friendly. Yesterday, the company unveiled an update that supports magazines on devices running Android 2.1 or higher, allowing users to subscribe to publications and download single issues directly from their tablets. Once you update, you'll notice a new magazines section in the app's shop, where you can purchase, download and read to your heart's desire. The update also patches up a few bugs for HTC Thunderbolt, adds support for tablet users on Honeycomb and should help tide us over until later this month, when B&N may or may not announce something even bigger. Full PR after the break. Android Central Android Market ,  BusinessWire

What better way to market a game that isn't really a game than with an artist who isn't really an artist? Such was the rationale, apparently, behind Zynga's recent decision to partner with Lady Gaga, the freshly anointed face of FarmVille. As of May 17th, FarmVille users will be able to take a much-needed break from wasting their lives and visit GagaVille -- a neighboring but equally fake farm full of unicorns, crystals and terrible life decisions. There, visitors will be able to listen to unreleased tracks from Gaga's forthcoming album, Born This Way, which they can also download for "free," once they've dropped $25 of their parents' hard-earned cash on a Zynga gift card. The campaign will mercifully come to an end on May 26th, but not before Diet Madonna extends her corporate leviathan to every corner of Zynga's gaming universe, including Words With Friends, Mafia Wars and anything else your pre-teen cousin spends far too much time playing. Gaga...

Look out iTunes, Spotify has just launched its new music download service in Europe. What's more, the company that had been synonymous with music streaming will let you sync your downloaded MP3 playlist bundles to your USB-connected iPod classic, nano, or shuffle via a new "Devices" section of the Spotify app running on your computer. And listen up freeloaders, Spotify Mobile iOS and Android app users can now sync playlists wirelessly  without  a premium subscription (after purchasing the tracks, naturally). Here's a quote from Daniel Ek, Spotify CEO, sure to create some angst in Cupertino: "From today, Spotify really is the only music player you'll ever need. Our users don't want to have to switch between music players, but they do want to take their playlists with them wherever they go, on a wider range of devices, more simply and at a price they can afford. Now we've made that possible on one of the world's most popular consumer devices....

It's been one week since Google pulled the PSX4Droid emulator from the Android Market without warning, and today its lead developer has decided to take a stand -- ZodTTD's made a new version of the app free of charge, and is hosting it at his personal website as a downloadable APK. He now claims that not only did Google pull his app, the company has frozen his developer accounts, effectively restricting his ability to publish to (and profit from) the Android Market until this gets sorted out. We can't confirm his story at this point -- and we hear things may not be quite as cut-and-dried as he claims -- but we can tell you that if you happen to have a legally-obtained PlayStation BIOS and ROMs sitting around, you're only a few clicks away from being able to use them on your Android phone. Not a bad deal, eh? ZodTTD