Microsoft has decided that it’s time to eliminate some of the "racier" apps that are available on Windows Phone 7's app store. The announcement was made by Todd Brix, Microsoft's senior director for Windows Marketplace, on the company's blog.

Users of the iOS version of Rock Band were surprised to receive a notice from the game warning them that it was going to expire on May 31. First noted by this Reddit thread and pictured to your left, the notice warned users that the $4.99 app was going to expire at the end of the month, but iTunes is still selling the app without such a warning and EA is incommunicado on the story as of this writing.

Casual game giants Dena and Gree have agreed to enforce a new policy that will restrict how much 16 - 17 year-old consumers can spend on in-app purchases, according to a news report from Japan Times. The new self-regulating policy, according to that report, is in response to reports that Japan's youth in that age range are spending ridiculous amounts of money on in-game purchases. The company's might also be trying to avoid national in-app spending laws in Japan.

A game called Occupied Forever can't get certified from Microsoft for release in China because the flushing sounds it contains apparently offend Asians. At least that's what Austrian indie developer Christian Zangl claims Microsoft told him when they rejected his game from Windows Phone Marketplace in the region.

According to a CNET UK report, Sony's Xperia S phone has a serious issue with heat that can turn the handset's screen yellow if it gets too hot. In a statement issued to CNET UK, Sony confirmed that it knows about the issue, but also said that the problem only affects a small number of Xperia S handsets.

Angry Birds maker Rovio has acquired Futuremark Games Studio for an undisclosed amount of money, according to an announcement made by the company today. Rovio says that this acquisition is part of its "rapid expansion" into entertainment, publishing, animation, and retail. Futuremark Games Company develops games such as Shattered Horizon, Hungribles, and Unstoppable Gorg. Last summer Rovio purchased Kombo Animation Studio.

New data from research firm Newzoo reveals that more than 100 million consumers in the United States are playing games on various hand-held and mobile devices including smartphones, tablets, and iPods. The amount of users playing games on portable devices has grown by more than a third compared to last year, according to Newzoo data. In Europe smartphone and tablet gamers (from seven key territories) has also increased to 70 million, a 15 percent year-over-year increase.

Following last month's ruling by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that wireless carriers must give their shareholders an opportunity to vote on net neutrality rules, Verizon has brought the issue to shareholders in a new resolution. At the same time, the company’s board of directors is strongly urging its shareholders to reject the resolution.

One year after launching its Appstore, Amazon offers around 1,000 games and apps, and that it has sold "millions" of them to Kindle Fire and Android device owners. The company did not give a specific number. While it's a good start, Amazon's App Store is way behind Google's 300,000 apps and 10 billion downloads, and the Apple's 585,000 apps and 25 billion downloads.

How do you get a multiplayer app about drawing pictures with a friend to be downloaded 20 million times? We have no idea, and it seems like the company that makes Draw Something has no clue as to why the app is really popular either. OMGPOP's CEO Dan Porter told Business Insider that the app has racked up over 20 million downloads in only five weeks - it was released on February 1.

The Apple iOS and Android versions of Minecraft: Pocket Edition have sold more than one million copies, according to a tweet from Mojang developer Daniel Kaplan. The mobile version of the popular world-building game debuted exclusively on Soy's Xperia, but was released on all Android platforms, and later on iOS.

If you are an AT&T mobile customer with an unlimited data plan, then you know the painful truth about throttling. AT&T has been throttling - or slowing down - customers who have an unlimited plan and have hit a certain milestone amount of data usage. Customers using as little as 2 - 3 GB have had their connections slowed down to a point they considered unusable despite what AT&T has claimed.

On February 22 EA Mobile pulled its iOS Battlefield 3 spin-off game from the Apple App Store after users complained about the game's lack of depth and a number of serious issues including connection problems and control issues. Today Vox Games has been told by an EA Mobile rep that development on the game has been halted and permanently shelved - never to return to Apple's devices.

AT&T has concocted a new way to deal with the rise of data usage among subscribers: charge app makers and bandwidth-eating services a fee. Those who supported the FCC's net neutrality rules (but publicly demanded stricter legislation on mobile carriers) are saying "I told you so" over this news. In a recent conversation with the Wall Street Journal, AT&T’s senior executive vice president of network and technology John Donovan, said that app makers might choose to pay for data in hopes of bringing in new customers.

According to Google's Mobile blog, 850,000 android devices are activated on a daily basis worldwide, and over 300 million have been activated to date. Google's SVP of mobile and digital content Andy Rubin revealed the numbers. Rubin also noted that more than 450,000 apps are now available on the Android Market, or three times the number of apps that were available last year. He also said that over 1 billion apps are downloaded every month. From the blog:

In 2011 AT&T warned its heavy data using mobile customers that it would reduce their connection speed if said usage inched in to the "top five percent." AT&T is defining that metric as anyone who uses more that 2.1 GB of data a month. As chronicled in this NYT blog post, one of AT&T's customers hit the 2.1 GB mark and had his connection throttled. The problem, that customer says, is that he has a data limit of 3GB a month because a legacy unlimited plan.

By Kevin Dent

I started to play Triple Town as of last weekend; I had a blast and even more so when I see that they were actively supporting it with frequent updates. Then I started to hear some rumblings in the industry about how another game basically ripped it off.

Since then, we have seen Spry Fox issue proceedings against Lolapps. Most of us have read about it and shook our heads; I want to take the rhetoric out of it. I wanted to just look at the basic facts.

Valve has started the closed beta testing phase of a new Steam App for both Android and iOS devices. While the device won't let you do too much beyond being social with your Steam friends and mucking about with your account, it's a first step into the world of mobile devices for Valve's popular PC games distribution platform.

Those who use jailbroken iPhones and enjoy pirating software are in for a rude awakening as Apple uses the DMCA to take out a frequently used service - Apptrackr. According to Apptrackr developer "Dissident," Apple has sent what he calls "huge takedown notices" to cut off access to pirated apps found through the software. Apptrackr has decided to move the physical location of its servers outside the United States to get around Apple's legal maneuvers and is also employing a form of redirection to avoid "direct" links to infringing content.

According to new data released by app analytics firm Flurry, 1.2 billion applications were downloaded for Android and iOS devices between December 25 and December 31. Earlier in the week the group predicted that in that same period it expected new Android and iOS device activations to be right around 6.8 million. Now they are saying that the number is probably closer to 20 million.

Mojang business developer Daniel Kaplan recently told Gamasutra that he did not know what version 1.0 of the mobile versions of Minecraft - Minecraft Pocket Edition for Sony's Xperia Play and iOS - would look like.

"Oh, wow, I really don’t know, said Kaplan. "I can't answer that."

An interesting report on ShackNews reveals that some PC modifications created for Grand Theft Auto III will actually work with the recently released Android and iOS versions of the game. While the process of getting them to work is a bit cumbersome and might be complicated for some users, the results can lead to importing new cars, textures, songs, and more into the game.

AT&T has officially announced that its merger plan with T-Mobile is pushing up daises, but it also takes a few shots at the government for running interference to kill the deal. The $39 billion deal with T-Mobile parent company - Germany-based Deutsche Telekom - fell apart after government regulators from the FCC and the Justice Department took AT&T to task over what the company claimed the deal would accomplish. The Justice Department sued to block the deal in late August, calling it anti-competitive and warning that  it could raise consumer prices.

The RIAA has given Google bad marks for its fight against piracy in 2011, according to this Ars Technica report. One year ago Google made several promises to combat piracy on various web sites and the RIAA's report card says that those promises have not been met with swift action or progress.

According to the BBC, British telecommunications powerhouse BT has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that its Android mobile operating system and other services it provides infringe on six patents it holds. The lawsuit alleges that Google’s Android, Google Music, Google Maps, Google Search, Google Places, Google Offers, Google+, and Google's location-based advertising infringe on various patents it holds.

California has launched a new eCrime unit to combat various online crimes. The new law enforcement unit created by California Attorney General Kamala Harris and announced Tuesday, aims take on various "cyber crimes" such as email scams, online fraud, piracy, child pornography, and real-world theft of computer gear by organized crime.

"Today's criminals increasingly use the Internet, smartphones, and other digital devices to victimize people online and offline," Harris said while unveiling the unit in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose.

Amazon said today that Kindle has been selling more than a million units a week, and that Kindle Fire is the biggest product launch in the company's history. Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle, said that Kindle Fire "is the most successful product" Amazon's ever launched and that it's been Amazon's best-selling product for 11 straight weeks. He didn't give details.

According to this Ars Technica report, Apple has allied itself with a known patent troll to take out its enemies. The company has had some covert dealings with Digitude Innovations, a company that enjoys being paid in patents so it can beat the hell out of companies in court.

On Tuesday Microsoft revealed an app store for Windows 8 apps. Some of the features being touted by Microsoft's Antoine Leblond at the time included an app discovery system inside and outside of the online marketplace, built-in app trials, support for x86 and ARM-based hardware, and a flexible business model. What he didn't talk too much about were the store's new terms of service. A section of it informs users that the company reserves the right to remotely "kill" or "remove" access to apps for security or legal reasons.

OnLive brings its cloud-based gaming services to smartphones and tablets with a new app for iOS and Android. The app allows those that subscribe to the service to stream playable PC games to smartphones and tablets. Some companies, such as Rockstar Games are even working with OnLive to tailor the experience; the company is creating a specific touch screen interface for L.A. Noire as part of a collection of 25 games with reconfigured controls ready for the launch.