The two-year war between HD DVD and Blu-ray officially ended Tuesday morning as Toshiba waved the white flag and declared it would stop producing HD DVD products.

The company, which began sales of HD DVD in March 2006 with the HD-A1 player, “decided it was not right for us to keep going with such a small presence,” said chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida. The Blu-ray format is now the definitive winner in the war and stands unopposed as the optical media replacement for DVD.

Jai Singh, an internationally recognized pioneer in online journalism, is leaving CNET Networks after more than a decade in executive editorial positions.

Singh joined the company in 1996 to create News.com, which quickly became a leading authority in technology news at the height of the Internet boom. His responsibilities were expanded two years ago to include CNET’s product reviews and other editorial operations, under the title of editor in chief and senior vice president of CNET.com.

Fictionwise, the new owners of eReader.com, have made the eReader Pro versions of its ebook software available for free. The enhanced Palm OS and Windows Mobile Pro application formerly sold for $14.95, then shortly following the purchase Fictionwise lowered the price to $4.95. According to the company the price cut is permanent. The price of the add-on font packs remains unchanged at $14.95 each. Versions of eReader Pro are available for a number of platforms including Palm OS and Windows Mobile.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has sued Motorola, over what the Canadian company says are patent infringements and “exorbitant” licensing fees, according to court documents. The civil action, filed on Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges that Motorola infringed on a number of patents held by RIM.

In addition, RIM alleges that Motorola “is demanding exorbitant royalties… for patents that Motorola claims are essential to various standards for mobile wireless telecommunications and wireless computing that RIM practices.”

Search titan Google and mobile phone carrier AT&T have been stunned by iPhone users usage patterns according to reports in recent days.

AppleInsider reports that Google has seen 50 times more search requests coming from Apple iPhones than any other mobile handset. They were so shocked, in fact, that they suspected that they had made an error tabulating their data.

During President’s Day weekend, T-Mobile is waiving the activation fee for customers signing up for new postpaid service. The $35 savings per line is available starting today through Monday, February 18th. Customers activating 5 lines will save $175.

DeluxeWare has released a new Weather application for Palm OS devices. While the Palm OS certainly has no shortage of weather apps, DeluxeWare has added some unique features and has released this first beta version as freeware. In addition to the usual weather and forecasting data, Weather supports a broad range of Palm OS devices and offers high-res+ support. It also has a “Weather Guard” feature that can add the current conditions to your Treo’s keyguard display.

Weather v0.12 is a beta release and support Palm OS 5 and higher devices. It is freeware and requires an Internet connection.

Ringo, by Electric Pocket, is a ring tone manager for your Treo that promises to make assigning ring tones to contacts and groups of contacts quick and easy. Is Ringo a star?

Read this Computing Unplugged article.

If you took your laptop in for repairs to a well-known big-box store only to discover the store’s tech contractor had lost the machine, lied to you about it, manufactured fake documentation and finally offered you a “We’re sorry” gift card–you’d be steamed.

That’s what allegedly happened to Raelyn Campbell of Washington, D.C. On her blog–at bestbuybadbuyboycott.blogspot.com–she tells a story of theft, lies, errors and cheapskate customer service. In fact, she was so mad that she filed a lawsuit. For $54 million.

A lawsuit filed last week over warrantless searches of laptops and other electronic devices at U.S. borders highlights an issue that all travelers, U.S. citizens and others, need to be aware of when entering the country, according to the executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives.

The suit was filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Asian Law Caucus, two California-based civil rights groups. It asks the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to disclose information on its policies for inspecting the contents of laptops and other electronic devices at the country’s ports of entry.

The lawsuit was prompted by what the two groups contended were the growing number of reports they were receiving from travelers who claimed to have been subjected to such searches. In most instances, the searches were conducted without apparent reason and with no details offered on what information might have been viewed or downloaded by customs officials, the suit alleged.