The latest report from research firm NPD Group reveals that just 29 percent of core gamers are planning on buying a next generation console as soon as they become available. Those aren’t exactly the sort of numbers that Microsoft and Sony were probably hoping to hear but if recently releases from Nintendo and Sony in the form of the Wii U and PS Vita are any indication, they could be pretty accurate.

NDP Group polled more than 6,000 people in the survey but only 887 qualified for their definition of a core gamer. Core gamers are described as players over the age of nine that play games for five or more hours per week on an Xbox 360, PS3, PC or Mac. Furthermore, they must play at least one game that fits into any of the following genres: play action, adventure, fighting, flight, massively multi-player, racing, real time strategy, role-playing, shooter or sports game.

In January, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai said sales of the PS Vita were on the low end of expectations and just last month, the company announced plans to slash the price of the portable gaming system by as much as 33 percent in Japan. Sony said the move was a result of feeling increased competition from free and cheap games sold on smartphones and tablets.

I would venture a guess that a lot of the success of next generation consoles hinges on the initial launch price. If Sony and Microsoft are dead set on launching at a price point that’s deemed too expensive, odds are it’ll be some time before they are able to make strides on the new platforms.

The Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit settlement that had Samsung paying more than $1 billion for patent infringement has been halved by the case's federal judge today.

The reason for the reduced settlement is that the August jury awarded damages improperly and excessively for the Samsung devices that infringed upon Apple's patents, according to Northern District of California Judge Lucy Koh.

As software patent blog Foss Patents explains it more indepthly, "the jury set only one damages figure per product, but half a dozen different intellectual property rights were found infringed."

The 14 infringing Samsung devices are the Galaxy S2, Galaxy Prevail, Gem, Indulge, Infuse 4G, Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, Exhibit 4G, Galaxy Tab, Nexus S 4G, Replenish, and Transform.

This leaves Apple with about $598.9 million from the $1.05 billion in damages the jury had originally awarded the company.

Apple vs. Samsung retrial

In addition to halving the Apple vs. Samsung settlement, Judge Koh ordered a new trial to sort out the improperly calculated damages.

The case has the potential to move Washington D.C. to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which handles patent appeals, surmises the Mercury News' Howard Mintz, covering on the legal affairs beat.

There's also a second Apple vs. Samsung legal battle going on over Samsung's newest phones, and Siri is front and center of that spring 2014-set case.

Judge Koh, however, wants the two warring companies to go one lawsuit at a time, urging Apple and Samsung to finish the appeals process before moving onto this new court case.

As more and more users adopt cell phones and smartphones using 4G networks, the bandwith is becoming more and more clogged.

Anticipating the next leap in network coverage, Japan's NTT DoCoMo mobile operator teamed with the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) to conduct the first 10Gbps wireless test.

The study went down in December, and used a mobile station (i.e. - a van loaded with equipment) to attempt transmission in the 400MHz bandwidth of the 11GHz spectrum.

Using some two dozen different antennas, NTT and TIT were able to maintain an uplink rate of 10Gbps while traveling at a consistent speed on the road.

Like a 5G

NTT DoCoMo is hoping to run more tests uploading at 10Gbps on the 5Ghz (5G) "superhigh frequency band," despite that wavelength being troublesome for wireless transmissions.

Superhigh frequency bands don't typically allow signals to travel over long distances, and become even more unreliable when trying to transmit in and around buildings.

Lower frequencies (like 3G, 4G, and 4G LTE) have been the preferred method for mobile carriers to this point precisely for that reason, but NTT has reason to suspect it will be able to find a solution.

It's unlikely 5G will become readily available any time soon, so those of you who just upgraded to 4G or 4G LTE networks won't have to worry about being outpaced just yet.

The future applications remain a mystery pending further testing, but NTT's research could provide insight into a whole new way for data to be transmitted from mobile devices in a few years.