This month started out with some tension when North Korea decided to go deaf-dumb-and-blind to the rest of the world, and go ahead with their planned rocket launch on April 5. The launch was officially to put a communications satellite into orbit, but is still widely considered a disguised missile test. The UN Security Counsil condemned the launch of the long-range rocket launch, saying it contravened UN bans. Turns out, North Korea doesn’t care.

Yesterday, the verdict in the Pirate Bay case was announced, and it might have been a surprise to the part of the audience that respond to their aliases more than to their names.

Nokia, with its 120 000 employees in 120 countries and a record market share of $40 in late 2007, has painted the economical downturn in its numbers for the first quarter. Destocking by operators and distributors has lead to 19% fewer devices shipped, and profits dropped by 90% in Q1 2009. The Finnish communications giant’s net income is down to 122 million euros, from 1.2 billion for the same period last year.

YouTube is in talks with Sony Pictures over licencing full-length feature films through the video broadcasting website, according to CNET News this week. YouTube, which was aquired by Google in 2006, is slowly cleaning up its reputation for hosting uncleared content, the bulk of which has been user submitted. Instead, in the fight for an increasingly restless audience, they have been working on getting premium content from the media powerhouses.

Makani Power is an exciting start-up in California, with a team of sail makers and kite designers fronted by a MacArthur genious grant recipient and a World Cup windsurfer. They build what they refer to as super-kites, aimed at harnessing energy from high altitude winds, and have already successfully been able to generate enough power to supply five average households with one not-too-big kite. With millions of dollars from Godzilla Google, they are determined to tap in to a constant source of energy, and generate the cheapest and cleanest energy yet. Wait, what, an actual solution?