Matt Peckham, Nate Ralph

In a move that seems like it will encourage piracy rather than curb it, the U.S. government is adding new warning messages that can't be skipped at the outset of DVD and Blu-ray movies. And there won't just be one--there will be two, one to "warn" and one to "educate."

According to Ars Technica, the move is on behalf of both the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. Ars notes that six major movie studios will employ the notices immediately.

T-Mobile is promising to bring all its unlocked iPhone subscribers 3G and 4G LTE service as part of its ongoing network overhaul.

While T-Mobile USA doesn't sell the iPhone itself, last summer it claimed to have more than one million subscribers wielding unlocked iPhones on its network. But those subscribers have been limited to sluggish 2G speeds, a problem the company's CTO Neville Ray says it is working on; the company plans to shift some of its spectrum, allowing iPhones to run at full 3G speeds.

Myspace has agreed to bury the hatchet with the Federal Trade Commission over charges it misled millions about how their personal information was being used. The settlement is essentially a hand slap that bars Myspace from further privacy misrepresentations. It requires that the social networking site implement "a comprehensive privacy program" as well as submit to routine privacy assessments for the next 20 years.

The settlement ends an FTC investigation arising from a complaint that Myspace shared personal information without first asking for permission from users. Myspace claimed it had adhered to its policy stating that it wouldn't disclose a user's personal information unless it first gave notice and received permission to do so.

Facebook just made interacting with timelines, news feeds and tickers a little easier, thanks to a new feature the company is calling "Action Links." The links appear beside the "Like" and "Comment" areas at the base of each update and basically operate as context-sensitive ways of triggering an action that's unique per the app referenced by the update.

Take Foursquare, the location-related social network for users on the go: If someone you're following checks into a location that pops in their feed, you'll now see a "Save This Place" link beside the timestamp. Hover over it, and you can either add the app (if you don't already have it), or click it to save the location in your own Foursquare collection. Sure enough, in my feed this morning, I spied someone checking into their office, and the "Save This Place" link added their location to my Foursquare to-do list.

Barnes & Noble is dropping its Nook e-reader prices for a limited period leading up to Mother's Day, May 13 for its Nook Simple Touch and Nook Color. The price drops come on the heels of news that B&N will take a $300 million investment from Microsoft to do battle against Amazon and Apple and craft a Nook app for Windows 8.

From May 1 to May 12, Barnes & Noble says it'll knock $20 off its Nook Simple Touch as well as the higher-priced Nook Color. The black and white Simple Touch typically goes for $99 ($79 during the sale, or 20% off), while the Color model retails for $169 ($149 during the sale, or 12% off). As a bonus, the company says it'll throw in a Nook gift bag "made of matte art board laminated for extra strength" and "grosgrain handles ... anchored by sturdy powder-coated metal grommets." The bags usually go for $3.95 each.

Don't cut your cable cord quite yet. Hulu may soon require you prove you're a paying cable subscriber before you can uses its video streaming service. According to a report in the New York Post the move is said to be at Hulu owners' News Corp., Comcast and Disney's asking. The logic behind it is simple: TV companies are worried about hemorrhaging revenue as audiences shift to viewing content for free online, a process sometimes referred to as "cord-cutting."

(See related: Cutting the Cord: How to Ditch Your Cable Company)

The Mad Catz Major League Gaming Pro Circuit controller has arrived, and it is good. However, its premium construction and tweakability come at a steep cost that only hardcore gamers (or generous gift-givers) can stomach. That's why we ran it by the four top gamers in the PCWorld office to see whether the quality is worth the cost.

When it comes to console gamepads, you used to be able to count on the original manufacturer's controllers to be the gold standard for quality and feel, and the third-party peripheral makers were relegated to throwing in mostly-useless features onto sub-par pads and hoping they could undercut Nintendo or Sony's gamepads by a few bucks. The MLG Pro Circuit controller ($100) changes the game; you could opt for a standard wired Xbox 360 controller for $30 ($35 for wireless), or spend over three times that for the MLG Pro Circuit controller.

Surf Google's homepage this morning and you'll notice a photorealistic metal zipper bisecting a stitched-in version of Google's logo from page top to bottom. Click the zipper slider and the page splits in two, the slider falling along the zipper's teeth as each side falls back to reveal the doodle's inspiration: Gideon Sundbäck.

Sundbäck was the Swedish-American credited with developing the zipper, of course. He was born in 1880 to parents who farmed in Sweden, eventually moving to Germany to study engineering before emigrating to the U.S. in 1905 where he took a job with Westinghouse Electric. Shortly thereafter, he left to work for the Universal Fastener Company, where he became head designer.

Raise your hand (or your phone) if you've ever lost a particularly lovely Draw Something sketch — a pocket-sized pièce de résistance — to the digital void. Now put down those hands, then bring them together for a round of applause: The game's creators just added several new long-awaited features, including one that finally lets you save your favorite finger-sketched roughs.

The update — for iOS with Android support to follow — lets players save drawings to their device's photo libraries, comment on other players' drawings, and upload pictures direct to Facebook and Twitter (so no, the kids haven't hijacked your friend such-and-such's timeline, it's probably just someone trying to draw Elvis again).

Want to turn your bulging library of digital video discs into high-definition video streams that you can access anytime without spending a fortune?

Walmart claims it has the answer: The company's rolling out its disc-to-digital movie store conversion program today, allowing you to bring supported DVD or Blu-ray discs--the company's joined hands with several Hollywood studios--to any Walmart store and unlock access to a streaming version of the video through Vudu.com, Walmart's digital content delivery service.

It's been a rough week for Instagram purists.

Last Tuesday the popular photo-sharing app debuted on Android, opening the once iPhone-only Instagram service to the Android masses. And then on Monday, Facebook announced that it was acquiring Instagram for $1 billion--raising worries among some about what the new overlord's intentions might be.

It's almost time for systems based on Intel's Ivy Bridge chips to take their place in the spotlight. CNET says it has learned that the first of several Ivy Bridge-related announcements will transpire on April 23.

Ivy Bridge is Intel's codename for its follow-up to the Sandy Bridge processor family. Ivy Bridge shrinks the manufacturing process from 32 nanometers to the 22nm Tri-Gate process Intel detailed last year. Older processors are based on "planar" or flat 2D transistors, but there's only so much headroom in chips based on 2D processes. By switching to 3D transistors, Intel promises we'll see a 37 percent increase in transistor switching speed as well as roughly half the power consumption of 2D transistors.