Here’s a story I first heard on Figure 4 Daily last night while farming for mageweave (no, I’m not lying): not only have DVRs not ruined the TV businesses, as we had been led to believe for so many years, but it turns out that the delayed viewings, and more accurate ratings, have given the networks exactly what they’ve always wanted. That, of course, is the opportunity to squeeze more money out of their advertisers.

While there’s no hard numbers, an analyst over at Capital Markets has called the sales of DJ Hero “modest.” Usually you want phrases like “brisk pace” and “exceeding expectations” when you release big ticket games like DJ Hero, but it doesn’t seem to be happening here.

Bias much, CBS? The network ran a report on 60 Minutes the other day (which shows how far off our radar the show is, seeing as though we just found out about it) that, according to TechDirt’s fantastic report, is basically a piece of MPAA propaganda. It makes all sorts of ridiculous claims that can easily be disproven by, you know, spending two minutes looking this stuff up.

Not that this should surprise anyone, but Apple has sold only 5,000 iPhones since last week when it officially launched. The phrase “officially launched” is key, since people there have been able to buy the iPhone on the gray market for some time now. And it’s a superior phone on the grey market, since the official phone doesn’t have Wi-Fi. That’s right: a smartphone nearly in 2010 that doesn’t have Wi-Fi.

The Family Guy-Microsoft story has been tearing this country apart for too long. No more! Seth McFarlane & Co. have found a new sponsor for their Almost Live special, and it’s none other than the movie Sherlock Holmes, which stars Robert Downey, Jr.

As I cleverly remarked in the official CrunchGear chat room, that a video game leaks a few days before its release is par for the course. When the biggest video game of the year leaks a full week before its release date, it’s worth noting. So that’s what I’m doing right now: Activision’s Modern Warfare 2 has leaked. It’s available where you usually find such things.

Working under the assumption that many of you have played BioShock, I point you in the direction of this week’s issue of The New Yorker, which has a quick review of two Ayn Rand biographies that may interest you. It’s pretty funny because while the game’s story, which is unreservedly great, is in part inspired by the Rand novel “Atlas Shrugged,” the New Yorker review doesn’t miss a beat in calling the author, well, a hack.

Clearly nobody has any idea what’s going on in China regarding World of Warcraft. The rules over there are such that Blizzard just can’t open up shop, but has to contract a local company to run the game for Chinese users. Fair enough, and Blizzard has contracted NetEase to do such a thing. The problem is that NetEase keeps running into problems getting the game’s expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, approved for public consumption.

New Yorkers now have to live with the threat of a $150 fine for texting and driving. (Incidentally, I know a fool-proof way to avoid paying the fine: put your stupid phone away while behind the wheel.) But in the UK? They don’t mess around with their punishments. The New York Times has a story today about a young woman who’s now serving 21 months in prison for her role in car accident that left someone dead. What was her role? That’s right, texting while driving.

Well, well, well, look what we have here. A new study shows that people who download music illegally are more likely to buy music than their non-pirating counterparts. Why’s that? It turns out that people who are into downloading music are actually into music, whereas people who don’t download music aren’t necessarily fans of music in general.

I think we’ve learned something today: not to buy stuff off the TV. QVC was selling, last night, a Nintendo Wii, Go Play Circus Star Games, and a bunch of accessories (golf club, tennis racket, etc.) QVC wanted $362.97 for the bundle, but if you look at the retail price for all this, it comes out to $239.97. Yes, that’s a $140 premium. For what?

Satellite radio fans! The Sirius XM SkyDock, first revealed a few months ago, is now available at wherever you buy your equipment. It’s a fully functional radio, but one that uses your iPhone (or iPod touch) as the interface. That is to say you’re iPhone isn’t the radio, but rather the interface for the SkyDock itself.

There’s two new Xbox 360 bundles coming your way, UK. To mark the arrival of Transformers 2 and Star Trek to DVD (and Blu-ray), Gem and Paramount pictures have put together these blurry bundles.

Residents of New York State, beware: texting and driving is now 100 percent banned. No, it’s not the first state to enact such a ban—far from it, actually—but sometimes things don’t register till they happen in your backyard. The law goes into effect today, and infractions carry a maximum fine of $150.

Not that USB 3.0 will be useful anytime soon—how long did it take manufacturers to finally get behind USB 2.0?—but Asus’ U3S6 should be, provided it’s not cancelled, the world’s first USB 3.0 + SATA 6.0 PCI-E card. Better news: it’s only $30.

So GameStop has what I can only call a scheme for Modern Warfare 2. (Have we officially decided to not call it Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2? Less words to type!) If you pre-order the game (Xbox 360 or PS3 version only) from there, and return it by December 13, you’ll receive a $40 in-store credit. In other words, if you pre-order the game, you’ll get to play it for one month for a grand total of $20.

‘Twas more than two years ago when some dopey radio show in California held a “hold your wee for a Wii” contest. Not the kind of publicity Nintendo wanted, no. A woman died, you’ll recall. Well, now a California jury has awarded $16.5 million to the woman’s family. That’s it, don’t click Read More because there’s nothing else. And there’s no pic because, come on, not necessary.

Can you even imagine what it must have been like to be an early explorer? Like, you leave Spain or Portugal on some rickety boat, and arrive in the New World. Cool and all, but, outside of shooting everything in sight, how do you communicate with anybody? What, do you point to the sun and say “sol,” and expect the other guy to repeat “sol”? That can’t be an efficient way to learn a language, especially when it’s, you know, a very real clash of cultures. If only they had (drum roll, please) something like Jibbigo Speech Translator English Spanish, which automatically translates from Spanish into English, and vice-versa.

How keen are you on touchscreens? Keen enough to navigate Windows 7 while using such a monitor? Acer has a new one, the T230H, which will allow you to do exactly that. A big selling point is that it’ll increase your productivity, but I’m not so sure.

The Motorola Droid, on Verizon Wireless, is, by all accounts, pretty OK. That’s fair to say, no? Yes, I believe it is. What’s lame, though totally to be expected, is that it’ll cost you $30 for a car kit. And you’d want said car kit in order to make that Google navigation application really fly.

Writing about patents really ought to be banned, since so many companies file so many patents every year that it’s silly to cherry pick this one or that one, drawing attention to something that may never exist. Be that as it may, today an Apple patent was discovered that shows a wireless headset that includes a media player. Think of it as “a Bluetooth” with a built-in MP3 player.

It hasn’t been the best couple of months for Nintendo. Profits were down for the six months leading up to September, which the company blames on the strong yen and the Wii’s price cut. Net sales, too, were down, some 34.5 percent. Fair enough, and those reasons are likely to explain Nintendo’s situation, but is there something else going on? I know Pat Buchanan, the older gentlemen that he is, always uses the phrase “the chickens have come home to roost,” and I think it’s applicable here. Perhaps Nintendo’s strategy of selling the Wii to the “casual” crowd (housewives and the like, to simplify this) has finally run out of gas?

Look at the AP, trying to stir up controversy where none exists. I’m sure by now you’ve seen the leaked Modern Warfare 2 footage (the video is down right now) that shows a terrorist situation inside an airport. The AP (and HuffPo) is making a big deal out of the fact that you can shoot civilians inside the airport. And? Are they trying to go with that weak argument, “Oh, violent video games make people violent”? How can people still believe that?

That’s right, I’m going to be that guy since CrunchGear is maybe one notch above a random message board. As I suspected, Ron from Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony. (Apparently East Side Dave is in another upcoming Rockstar game. Let’s speculate which one!) His voice is in the game (continuing the trend of XM 202 guys being in the GTA games), and I’m going to spend my evening tonight trying to find it. The sad part is that I’m not even lying. I literally have nothing better to do with my time