The US Justice Department has ended its two-year criminal probe of backdated stock options at Apple, and have not filed charges against current and former executives, including Steve Jobs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Apple, along with other companies, have admitted that they backdated certain option grants, including two awarded to Jobs, in order to take advantage of more favourable prices for the grants. It is not illegal, so long it is disclosed, but many have failed to do so.

Jobs has maintained that he knew that the options were backdated, but he was not aware of the accounting implications. Both Apple and the Justice Department declined to comment.

It is not over yet, as Apple is in a shareholder lawsuit alleging that several executives committed securites fraud in failing to disclose the company’s practice of backdating.

For animation studios, computers need to contain high quality chips and high quality components or else your animation would look crap. Upgrading, however, is a different story - as they want to get the “next-big” thing.

And taking that up is Dreamworks Animation and the have signed a deal to replace their AMD-powered computers to brand new Intel-powered computers from HP. HP provided the now-obsolete computers powered by AMD chips.

The chips will be used to help the studio to produce films n stereoscopic 3-D. The first film that will be using the new computers will be “Monsters vs. Aliens”, who will make its debut on March 27, 2009. The financial deal were not disclosed.

The battle of the DVRs has begun, with Seven bringing out the TiVo to compete with the Foxtel’s iQ - claiming it would help bypass pay-TV subscriptions - whatever that means.

But the new machine, which has a RRP of $699, will have limited content due to the fact that we don’t have enough content on the free-to-air channels. TiVo’s main success is where that channels from FTA, Cable and Satellite TV users can use TiVo and not the selection of the provider.

As well, users will now have to have a broadband connection to access certain features.

The device will come with two high-definition tuners - allowing users to record two programs while watching a pre-recorded show. The device will also store the last 30 minutes of TV programs, and would allow viewers to catch up to shows that they missed if they arrived home late.

Sadly, you won’t be able to skip advertising - which was one of the reasons that the TiVo became so popular.

Currently on FTA, you can get ABC1, ABC2, ABC3 (which is basically the same as ABC1), SBS, SBS World News, Seven, Seven HD, Ten, Ten HD, Nine and Nine HD. But expect more SD services coming soon after it was deregulated just this year.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some of the IT giants are teaming up to stop potential patent-infringement lawsuits against them.

Their plan is to buy up key intellectual property before it falls to other parties who could use it against you. They claim, from their sources, that Verizon, Google, HP, Ericsson and Cisco have joined a group known as the "Allied Security Trust".

The companies will pay $250,000 to join and will put in $5 million into the organization to buy patents. Not one of the companies mentioned commented about the story.

Intel, the world’s largest microchip maker, had announced on Friday that it had received a civil subpoena from the Federal Trade Commission, which has been examining informally its pricing and sales rebates for more than a year.

This investigation follows the assault by regulators in Europe and Asia, and the subpoena sees Intel forced to comply with the investigation, while it wasn’t forced to comply before the subpoena was issued.

All three investigations are looking at the same issue: the practises it used to computer makes that have prevented AMD expanding its sales.

The South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission fined Intel for US$25 million after finding that it had violated antitrust laws in South Korea. In 2005, Japan found that Intel had violated antitrust laws, and Intel agreed to change its practises.

AMD is also pursuing a private antitrust lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware in 2005, but the trial date has been pushed back to 2010.

As well, it is understood that many PC makers received subpoenas last week.

South Australia will follow New South Wales and Victoria in the cashless smartcard ticketing for its public transport with $29 million over three years to kick start the system.

The system will include its 812 buses, 99 trains and 15 trams; with the new system to be implemented in 2009/10 but to be operational until 2013. As well, it has been working on the specifications for the project for about a year, and it should be finalised in another three months, when the tender process.

However, the South Australian goverment will choose its supplier with caution, after seeing their state-wide counterparts battling their ticketing systems; with the NSW cancelling their Tcard project after giving a fourth extension to have the ITSL to implement the system.

Victoria’s myki is also suffering, with another funding increase and won’t surface until 2012.

OpenSocial has said that AOL is officially joining the initiative to standardize how social-networking applications work, according to TechCrunch.

Not much is mentioned, but it is Bebo - which AOL bought for $850 million - is already part of OpenSocial, and it is integrated with the Facebook platform as well.

It is unknown if AOL will also support the recently announced fbOpen (Facebook Open), its platform to compete with the Google-backed OpenSocial. But with Bebo supporting the Facebook platform, it could move to fbOpen soon.

News.com.au is reporting that Telstra will attempt an Australian first by beaming a live hologram from Melbourne to Adelaide tomorrow morning.

The telco giant has claimed that the hologram will reproduce a real-time image of its CTO Dr. Hugh Bradlow as he gives a talk in Melbourne. It is hoping to wow its business audience in Adelaide to show its broadband network’s data capacity.

The media release, issued today, did not detail the technology.

Despite holograms have been developed over 50 years ago, they were static (non-moving) and dynamic, or motion, holograms are still relatively new. Holograms use three lasers and a photosensitive screen to capture light waves and interference.

It then creates a three-dimensional image of the person in mid-air.

It will present a real-time media conference with the hologram following the event.

The Victorian Government has today announced an extension to its contract with the operator of the existing Metcard system, OneLink, until 2012 as the already overdue myki service may not see the light.

The Transport Minister has said that the miki system, which costs $m500 million and was due to be released last year, was to be ready in 2010.

The setback may cost taxpayers another $216 million to get it running. As well, the system has been plagued with computer faults, but has launched trials in Geelong. A spokesman has confirmed that the results have gone well.

"The minister is awaiting a full brief on the test results and myki status but has been told good progress has been made," he told Australian IT.

Promotion for the new Apple Store in Sydney (Alex Serpo/ZDNet.com.au

Apple has released some advertising promoting a brand new Apple Store coming to Sydney soon, with a giant banner where it will be located, at the CBD.

The store, located at the corner of George Street between King and Market Streets, has been speculated to cost Apple around $23 million to build the site. Rumours have also mentioned that Apple is expected to launch stores in Chadstone soon.