A letter signed by 33 organizations and nine individuals asks the top ranking lawmakers in the House of Representatives (Reps. Bob Goodlatte and John Conyers) and the United States Senate (Sens. Patrick Leahy and Charles Grassley) to make an exception for unlocking electronic devices to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Recently a petition signed by over 110,000 Americans asked President Barack Obama's administration to make the same exception.

While GREE made a lot of developers upset when it discontinued the OpenFeint platform in December of last year, the co-founder of the social mobile platform will soon have something to replace it. Late last year GREE shut down the OpenFeint platform, feeling that Apple's GameCenter was dominating the space. Much to the chagrin of developers using that platform, they were not given enough time to migrate their game data to another platform and lost a lot of the user data they were storing in the OpenFeint cloud.

Sony has decided to unload its holdings in mobile game developer and publisher DeNa, according to this Reuters report. Sony has reportedly sold all of its shares in the company to Japanese-based investment firm Nomura Securities for $438 million.

Former Square Enix and Taito executive Keiji Fujita has joined Japanese mobile ad network and game publisher Adways, the company announced today. Fujita will take the reins of the company's San Francisco office, which will serve as the home of the U.S. subsidiary, Adways Interactive. Keiji Fujita will serve as the Vice President of Game Business. The company also announced that it is looking for non-Japanese free-to-play mobile games to launch in the Japanese market. It will be on the hunt for such properties at Game Connection America 2013, where it will be present as an exhibitor.

At a hearing yesterday US District Judge Lucy Koh told Apple and Samsung that both sides need to limit their cases to 25 patent claims each, and no more than 25 allegedly infringing products could be listed. Judge Koh threatened to put the whole case on hold unless both sides narrow the case down and accused them of overbroad accusations.

"As this case as it is currently framed, I'm refusing to go forward," Koh said.

Just take your best shots," Koh said. "I don't want a lot of sausage filler."

Earlier in the week reported on a petition over at WhiteHouse.gov asking the administration to direct the Librarian of Congress to rescind the October 2012 decision that removed unlocking mobile phones (commonly referred to as jailbreaking) as an exception to the DMCA. The petition went on to ask the White House - if it could not compel the Librarian of Congress to change that decision - to champion a bill that makes unlocking phones permanently legal.

Free-to-play mobile game Puzzle & Dragons from Japanese developer and publisher GungHo Online Entertainment supposedly generated around $65 million during January - or about $2 million dollars a day. These startling sales figures come from data collected by Japanese industry consultant Serkan Toto, who reports that the puzzle and RPG hybrid title has generated around $65 million in sales on iOS and Android in Japan last month.

Popular crowd funding platform Kickstarter has launched an app for iOS devices today that allows users to have more streamlined access to their favorite projects. The app promises the community the ability to "discover new projects, watch project videos, and get updates from projects and your friends." For project creators looking to get some funding from the community the app allows you to "stay connected with your backers, track your project’s progress, and post updates from wherever you are."

If you are one of the many thousands that backed the Ouya Kickstarter or plan on getting one of the tiny Android based home console systems when it hits retail in June then you should be happy to hear that Double Fine and the Word With Friends co-creator are working on games for it.

Chillingo founders Joe Wee and Chris Byatte announced jointly on EA's blog the launch of a new indie developer program that highlights quality independently developed mobile titles through the company's third party mobile publishing services. The program is called 100% Indie and its core is located at www.100percentindie.com.

Mobile game developer and publisher GREE announced details on a new $10 million fund to invest in and foster long-term relationships with "talented developers in the free-to-play mobile games industry." The fund is appropriately called the GREE Partners Fund, and will be administered by GREE International’s VP of Publishing and Partners, Jim Ying. The fund will allow GREE to invest an aggregate of $10 million through equity investments of $1 million or more.

During 2012 S2 Games, the developers behind the popular MOBA Heroes of Newerth, doubled its workforce and launched a mobile gaming division called iGames. To make room for these latest additions and continued growth of the company in 2013, S2 announced that it has relocated its headquarters to a corporate suite in the Portage Trade Centre, outside Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Hackulous closed its doors for good, according to a report from TorrentFreak. The entire community that catered to offering cracked apps for Apple's iOS devices seems to have unceremoniously died or shut down yesterday. This includes Apptrackr, the web-based partner index for cracked apps; and Installous, an app used by millions to transfer those cracked apps to iOS devices.

The Federal Trade Commission released a report on Monday that came to the conclusion that the majority of mobile apps aimed at children collect and transmit data that they shouldn't such as the device being used - and they do not disclose this fact to the parents. According to the report, around 60 percent of 400 popular kids’ apps made for phones and tablets running Android and iOS transmitted information about the device to the app’s developer or to a third party such as an ad network.

UK developer Rebellion finds itself in a tough situation this morning. Multiplayer servers for its Sniper Elite game have been shut down at the request of Glu, but Rebellion claims it was not informed about the servers being closed. The company has apologized to owners of the game and is telling the community that the decision was made without its consent.

Paul Johnson from UK-based developer Rubicon has deleted a scathing rant posted earlier today aimed at Windows RT and Microsoft claiming that his game Great Big War Game made just £52 from the Windows RT marketplace in its first week on sale. Johnson claims that the Windows RT port cost his company an estimated £10,000.

Mobile games publisher and developer GREE has laid off 25 employees today. The layoffs are directly tied to the shut down of its mobile social gaming platform, OpenFeint.

According to All Things D, Apple has secured the regulatory approvals it needs from China to bring the iPhone 5 to the region, and this morning the company announced a release date for the phone: Dec. 14. Apple will launch the iPhone 5 after it launches the Wi-Fi versions of the iPad Mini and its fourth-generation iPad on Dec. 7

Zynga Mobile's UK General Manager Matthew Wiggins has left the company after serving in the position for a little over a year and a half. Wiggins made the announcement that he was leaving the company via his personal blog.

"It's been quite a ride," Wiggins wrote. "I wish all the best for the good and talented people who I leave behind."

Veteran game designer Don Daglow wanted to make a smartphone-based baseball game called Tony La Russa's Baseball With Fans so he launched a Kickstarter appeal to raise $249,000. Unfortunately after only a week of activity, the project only managed to bring in about $2,440 of that goal from 23 backers.

Gree apologized today for how it handled the closure of OpenFeint - announced earlier this week. The company also said that it was sorry for putting developers that used the technology in a tough situation. Speaking to PocketGamer, SVP of marketing and developer relations Eros Resmini said that it had originally planned to give developers a full year to migrate to a new platform, but did not elaborate why it decided to pull the plug now. The planned shutdown was announced earlier in the year.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal (registration required to read the story), Apple director Bill Campbell shared a story about a meeting with Zynga chief executive officer Mark Pincus, where he described his demeanor as discouraged and being almost in tears about the fate of the company he created.

Microsoft is building its own 7-inch gaming tablet, according to "multiple sources familiar with plans within Redmond" who have confirmed the details to The Verge. According to that report, the initial hardware planning for the Xbox Surface device is underway. The Verge describes it as a mini Xbox platform.

Zynga will shut down two of its games in early December, with plans to close 11 additional titles later on down the road. This news follows word that the company would close its Boston offices and reduce five percent of its workforce from offices in Austin, the UK, and Japan.

Foursquare has teamed up with Google, the Voting Information Project, the Pew Center on the States, Engage, and the New Organizing Institute to help voters make the most of the 2012 elections.

A new game for Android devices called Whack a Candidate: Election' 12 charges you with suppressing the vote of the political party you don't like by whacking them in the face with the "Hammer of Justice." The game is much like whack-a-mole but the field is a map of the United States. When a candidate or their vice-presidential running mate pops up on the map you whack them with a hammer to stop them from scoring votes in a given state.

Big Fish Games has launched the first real-money gambling game in the United Kingdom through a partnership with Betable. The Big Fish Casino U.K. app lets players gamble for fun or make best with real cash via a new slot machine title. The game uses technology from Betable, a company hoping to take advantage of even more social mobile games in the future by enabling online gambling options.

Last Thursday we broke the story that social and mobile game developers Spry Fox and 6Waves had quietly settled a lawsuit related to their respective mobile titles, Triple Town and Yeti Town. In its original lawsuit Spry Fox accused 6Waves' Lolapps of blatantly copying its match-three game Triple Town when it released its game Yeti Town.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is not happy with the direction of Apple. He has called the company "arrogant' while speaking out against the iPhone 5's design in a recent interview with Tech Central.

Wozniak says that Apple is arrogant for refusing to make the iPhone 5 larger. The phone is a bit smaller than competitors' phones - like Samsung’s Galaxy S III. Wozniak thinks this is a big mistake.

T-Mobile and MetroPCS announced today that they have come to an agreement to merge the two companies. The combined entity will use the T-Mobile brand and will have a total of 42.5 million subscribers. While it won't change the dynamic of its current position in the U.S. market (it's #4), it will gain access to more space on the airwaves. T-Mobile USA’s German parent, Deutsche Telekom AG, will hold a 74 percent stake in the new entity, while MetroPCS Communications shareholders will own the remaining 26 percent.