For those who haven't been following along through the Clearwire story, the wireless company has been going through a bit of turmoil as of late. Uncertainty, some changes and some money issues have been troubling the company for more than a year. Let's quickly recap to catch you up to speed.

• Clearwire Gets Some Help from Sprint for Future and Existing 4G Networks
• Clearwire Loses 3 Resellers
• Clearwire Might Skip on Upcoming Debt Payment
• Sprint's 4G Technological Evolution

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Wall Street Journal:Clearwire Cautions It May Need More Capital

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This week, we learned of an interesting story that is on the same strange level as that of Brazil arriving late to the PS2 party. Panasonic has announced that it has stopped producing VCRs in Japan. I had no clue they were still making them, but it is assuring to hear they have halted production of their antiquated effort. I suppose the realization of video content being streamed over the Internet or being stored on a DVR device has finally hit them. There aren't many places that even source the blank tapes anymore.

It should be noted that they have stopped production on the tape-playing machines in the domestic market at the end of 2011. Until inventory depletes, sales will continue on VCRs in Japan. However, Panasonic still does manufacture VCRs in China and Slovakia and they do still have plans to sell VCRs in other smaller countries, depending on the market environment.

This now puts the VCR to rest just like the Walkman and the 8-track. JVC had stopped production of the VCR back in 2006 and stopped selling them altogether shortly thereafter. Panasonic has not released sales numbers for their VCRs, and the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITIA) doesn't even track shipments of the devices, although it does track the car stereo cassette deck sales.

In the end, though, the VCR is now deceased. Rewind In Peace 1977-2012.

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Wall Street Journal:Panasonic Presses Stop on the VCR

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First there was Wii Motion Plus and now Hulu Plus. On February 16th, Nintendo inked a partnership with Hulu that will finally allow the Wii to stream movies and TV shows using Hulu Plus through the console. It took a while, but the good news is that the Wii now has the same popular lineup as that of the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

While it may be a little late in the game for the console platform, the 3DS will certainly get a boost with this move as consumers should expect Hulu Plus to hit the devices later this year.

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Mashable:Hulu Plus Now on Wii Coming to Nintendo 3DS Later This Year

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What happens after you post record profits and then your production facility's documents were hacked because people are starting to learn about the downright awful working conditions of the employees? If you're Apple, you are investigated and audited to make sure these allegations aren't true, even though reports of suicides and other deaths have been coming out of the Foxconn production plant for almost a year now.

The Fair Labor Association (FLA) has taken on the task of auditing Foxconn's Apple manufacturing facility this week. Instead of actually going through a process and conduct a complete investigation, however, the head of the organization has already stated that things are probably fine inside the workplace and the injuries are more than likely due to "boredom" and not anything else.

We have all of the details on the absurdity after the break.

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Reuters:Apple iPad plant conditions better than the norm: agency

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Motorola just seems to have a lot of ups and downs as of late. While their CES booth was certainly miles ahead of what was presented last year, the disaster of the "CES Best In Show" Xoom still looms. This week, Motorola can chalk another mistake to their "oopsies" column. Motorola sold a batch of Xooms to the one day, one deal site Woot who then resold those units between October and December 2011.

Everything would seem perfect except for the fact that out of 6,200 Xoom tablet that were refurbished, 100 of them "may not have been completely cleared of the original owner's data prior to resale." So a previous user's private data, possibly including credit card numbers and the like may still exist on these tablets, not to mention usernames and passwords to various sites, email accounts and other sensitive information. Like I said, oopsies.

The security mishap affects customers who purchased and then brought back a WiFi version of the Xoom to Amazon.com, Best Buy, BJ's Wholesale, eBay, Office Max, RadioShack, Sam's Club, Staples and a couple select standalone retailers between March and October. To fix this, they are providing these customers with two years of free credit protection service from Experian's ProtectMyID Alert system. Any customer who may be affected should contact 1.866.926.9803 and sign up for the service. Motorola (and common sense) says to change any and all passwords to any service that may have been downloaded to or visited from the tablet. Users who have done a factory or "hard" reset to the device prior to return obviously do not need to worry.

Woot is working with Motorola to find who purchased the units that may not have been completely reset so that they can wipe or replace the tablets. Concerned customers should also contact Motorola Mobility at 1.800.734.5870 or go to Motorola's Xoom Return page to see if their tablet is on the list of possibly affected devices.

The question is, is this a problem that exists a lot more than we realize and companies cover it up, or is this a one-off sort of thing? How comfortable does it make you feel? We want to know in the comments section below.

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eWeek:Motorola Xoom Tablets Sold With User Data on Woot

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