Hello and welcome to TechRadar's daily round up of the bite-size tech canapés spotted around the web today.
Samsung phones - Samsung quietly unveiled the Samsung Star 3 and Star 3 Duos, a couple of cheapo touchscreen phones, the latter of which can handle two SIMs at the same time. [Samsung]
BlackBerry Betas - The eighteen of you who own a BlackBerry PlayBook may want to head over to the BlackBerry Jam Zone to register your slate for beta access to BlackBerry Tablet OS 2.0. [BlackBerry]
Xoom update - Android 4.0 may prove a little more exciting to Motorola Xoom owners; the Ice Cream Sandwich update has begun rolling-out to Wi-Fi only models in the US. [Android Community]
SOPA fall-out - On to the world wide web, where yesterday's site blackouts from the likes of Wikipedia and Reddit are setting tongues wagging. This US-focused number crunching shows who was actually affected by each of the website close-downs and makes for interesting reading. [Actionable Insights]
Online spend-fest - Piracy issues aren't stopping online sales from reaching heady new heights – Kelkoo reckons that web sales went up by 14 per cent in 2011, taking over £50 billion in the process. [PA]
YouTube film festival - Aspiring filmmakers may like the sound of the YouTube film festival that was launched today – although it's only online to begin with, 10 finalists will be sent off to the Venice Film Festival (where Wes Anderson usually showcases his new flicks) to have their 15-minute films judged by a jury led by Ridley Scott. Oh and you can win a £324,000 grant to make another one. Remember us when you're famous. [Yahoo]
Google+ filming - If you're low on tech, you might want to use Google+ to record your video – er, yeah, you read that right: Google+. As well as video chatting on the social network, you can now record videos using your webcam and publish them straight to your circles. [Google+]
PSN downtime - Sony wants to pre-empt any suspicions that it's been hacked or that it's protesting SOPA by letting gamers know in advance that the PlayStation Network will be down for maintenance today until 9pm PST (5am GMT on 20 January). [PlayStation Blog]
InstaWinPho – Darling of the social-networking photography scene Instagram may – shock horror – make it to Windows Phone before it comes to Android. What will all you Android-owning wannabe-hipsters do? Just smear a bit of Vaseline on the lens, you'll get by (please don't do this or sue us if you do). [The Next Web]
WhatsApp doc? – Having been cruelly yanked from the iOS App Store yesterday, popular instant messaging app WhatsApp is back after defeating a couple of pesky security issues. [Electric Pig]
