Samsung Electronics will quit using Symbian in favor of their own in-house open operating system according to SVP Don Joo Lee. Samsung plans to continue using the Windows Mobile and Android operating systems too. This year Samsung shipped roughly 200 million mobile devices. This number is expected to increase by 10-20% in 2010.

Bada will support applications made by developers using Samsung’s software development kit. “Bada” means ocean in Korean. While details about a Bada application store has not been fleshed out, we do know that Samsung plans to integrate the Bada store will be integrated with their European app store.

This Chinese kid bought a stun gun on Mop.com and decided to see what would happen if he used it on himself while holding . It supposedly was powered by 5 million volts. Supposedly this kid was unconscious for 6 hours according to another post he made on Mop.com. Many YouTube users believe he is faking it because when you are electrocuted, usually you do not pass out and it is difficult to pull away from the electricity. What are your thoughts? Real or fake? This video is quickly rising on the view count of YouTube.

Broadpoint AmTech Inc. analyst Mark McKechnie estimated that 100,000 Verizon Droid mobile phones were sold over the weekend. In terms of specifications the Verizon Droid was intended to challenge the iPhone. The iPhone remains as king when it comes to selling the most number of units on an opening weekend, but clearly the Droid has made an impact on mobile phone competition. At least more so than the Palm Pre when comparing opening weekend unit sales.

When the original iPhone first launched, it sold about 270,000 units on the opening weekend. However the original iPhone had a much higher cost. And then iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S had about 1 million units sold on their respective opening weekends, thus creating the benchmark that many other mobile companies are striving for. The Palm Pre sold about 50,000 units on their opening weekend which was a record sales day for Sprint. If the Verizon Droid did end up selling 100,000 units in the opening weekend, then that means that about 50% of the company’s inventory has been bought.

What does this mean for the telecommunications market in general? What this means is that the iPhone has a small rival which may just help Verizon retain some of their customers from switching to AT&T. The Android Market will see an increase in sales too. It will be a fraction of the sales that Apple makes on the iTunes App Store, but we will definitely start hearing some developer success stories about how much they made from the Android Market in the near future.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), Boingo Wireless, Airport Marketing Income, Advanced Wireless Group and several other wireless companies are partnering to set up free Wi-Fi in airports as a holiday gift. If and when this project does come into fruition, it will further enhance Google’s motto “Don’t Be Evil.” I know a lot of people that will appreciate this gift especially those who get stuck in long lay overs.

“We’re very happy to extend our Holiday Wi-Fi gift to the millions of people who will spend time in airports over the next few months,” stated Google VP of Search Products and User Experience Marissa Mayer. “We know that this is a very hectic travel season for people, and we hope that free Wi-Fi will make both traveling and connecting with friends and family a little bit easier.”

Below is a list of airports that are participating in the Google airport WiFi initiative:
* Austin (AUS)
* Baltimore (BWI)
* Billings (BIL)
* Boston (BOS)
* Bozeman (BZN)
* Buffalo (BUF)
* Burbank (BUR)
* Central Wisconsin (CWA)
* Charlotte (CLT)
* Des Moines (DSM)
* El Paso (ELP)
* Fort Lauderdale (FLL)
* Fort Myers/SW (RSW)
* Greensboro (GSO)
* Houston (HOU)
* Houston Bush (IAH)
* Indianapolis (IND)
* Jacksonville (JAX)
* Kalamazoo (AZO)
* Las Vegas (LAS)
* Louisville (SDF)
* Madison (MSN)
* Memphis (MEM)
* Miami (MIA)
* Milwaukee (MKE)
* Monterey (MRY)
* Nashville (BNA)
* Newport News (PHF)
* Norfolk (ORF)
* Oklahoma City (OKC)
* Omaha (OMA)
* Orlando (MCO)
* Panama City (PFN)
* Pittsburgh (PIT)
* Portland (PWM)
* Sacramento (SMF)
* San Antonio (SAT)
* San Diego (SAN)
* San Jose (SJC)
* Seattle (SEA) — rolling out this month
* South Bend (SBN)
* Spokane (GEG)
* St. Louis (STL)
* State College (SCE)
* Toledo (TOL)
* Traverse City (TVC)
* West Palm Beach (PBI)

In the video above Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman discuss the partnership between the two companies. It is cool that LinkedIn is getting a real-time status update boost with the help of Twitter but comparing it to peanut butter and chocolate just seems off-putting. Especially as they look at each other in the video when they make the comparison. To Stone’s credit, I did enjoy his interview with Stephen Colbert.

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As of this week Google Street View now indexes all 50 states in the United States. Hawaii was the last state that got added to Google Street View. Using Street View you can now take a virtual vacation of the beaches in Oahu and Maui. The announcement was made by Google Product Marketing Manager Laura Melahn on the Google Blog.

At the University of New Mexico, a couple of players at Brigham Young seemed to be pushing Elizabeth Lambert’s buttons. Lambert responded back in a manner that gained some attention from the camera. In the above video Lambert was elbowed in the chest by Brigham player Carlee Payne. Lambert responded by walking up to Payne shortly after being elbowed and punching her in the back.

Towards the end of the clip, you will also notice Lambert pulling Brigham Young player Kassidy Shumway by the hair and pushing her on the ground. You might think Lambert was being abusive for no reason, but if you look closely you will notice that Shumway was pulling up Payne’s shorts. Perhaps Shumway and Payne knew that Lambert had a short temper and decided to mess with her. But Lambert did end up getting suspended shortly after the above video became a viral hit. Personally I think that the two Brigham Young players should have received some sort of suspension for their behavior too. These three players showed unsportsmanlike conduct and there is video evidence that shows that with over 1 million people watching.

After the jump is another video of the incident being covered by ESPN. ESPN’s video coverage shows even more abusiveness taking place where a girl gets tripped and takes a ball to the face shortly after. Remind me never to let my non-existent daughter ever play soccer for Brigham Young or University of New Mexico.

When you do a Google search using keywords on business or web companies, it is likely that you will find articles by TechCrunch, Mashable, Pulse2, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal on the top pages. This is because Google favors these online publications for providing users with valuable content. We benefit from people doing these searches and finding our websites and so do all the other blogs out there. That means more ad revenue for us. The more hits you get on the web, the more money you make. Its a simple formula. If Rupert Murdoch wants to remove The Wall Street Journal from Google, so be it. Thats less competition for us.

Personally I think it is an idiotic move for the WSJ to cut themselves off from Google since they supposedly receive 25% of their traffic from the search engine. However Murdoch would rather have a smaller amount of paid traffic than a larger number of people looking at content for free according to the interview. How will people find it if they don’t know it exists? Will cutting yourself from the world make people just give in and pay? It is highly unlikely because more people are starting to get their content online than pay for it. If you don’t believe me, ask someone that works for your local newspaper. I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan and The Ann Arbor News basically went out of business. The Ann Arbor News cut off the circulation to only Thursday and Sunday and changed their name to AnnArbor.com. Some of the staff members at The Ann Arbor News were absorbed into AnnArbor.com and the rest were laid off.

People may argue that they are willing to pay for content online assuming it is credible journalism. The Wall Street Journal has been a household brand for well over a century now so that proves that they are credible. But they started in a time when the invention of a computer was just a dream. Welcome to 2009, Murdoch. Its going to be a bumpy ride for print companies.