News written by Andre Yoskowitz (December, 2014)

Chinese smartphone startup Xiaomi has raised $1.1 billion in funding at a massive value of $45 billion, making it one of the world's most valuable private technology companies.

Among the new investors are All-Stars Investment, DST Global, Hopu Investment Management, Yunfeng Capital and GIC.

Xiaomi has risen from unknown to the world's third-largest smartphone maker in under five years, overtaking veteran companies like LG, Lenovo and Sony.

The company sells extremely cheap but high quality smartphones and other devices (including fitness bands and tablets) and is working on building an ecosystem of apps and other services. Xiaomi currently only sells devices in China, which some believe has stunted some of their potential for profit.

According to Sony Pictures, 'The Interview' made $15 million in revenue in online sales and rentals during its first 96 hours of availability.

After the major theaters balked at playing the film on the big screen, Sony decided to release it on Christmas as a $6 rental or a $15 purchase via Xbox Video, Google Play and a few other proprietary on-demand pay streaming sites.

The studio said there were about two million transactions in total but Sony did not break down how many were sales versus rentals.

While the majors did not release the film, a few independent theaters played the movie on about 300 screens, generating an additional $3 million from Christmas until Sunday.

One-time photo giant Kodak, newly out of bankruptcy, will try its hand in the mobile device arena starting with the launch of an Android smartphone at next month's CES event.

The company has teamed up with the Bullitt Group for the devices, which will eventually include a line of tablets, as well.

Reads the press release: "Aimed at - but not exclusively for - consumers who want a high-end experience but aren't always as comfortable using increasingly complicated mobile devices as they would like to be, the range of smartphones and tablets will come pre-loaded with bespoke image capture, management and sharing features to offer a rich user experience.

In addition, advanced remote management software will be pre-installed, allowing family members and friends to provide help and support if needed."

Besides the smartphone and tablet, Kodak also says it will launch a Web-connected camera.

Last year, the MPAA seemingly shook up the file sharing industry when they announced they had won a suit against once-popular file hosting site Hotfile and agreed to an $80 million settlement.

According to a new report, however, that headline figure was way exaggerated, and that the cyber locker really settled for just $4 million.

The news comes via a leaked Sony Pictures email. "The studios and Hotfile have reached agreement on settlement, a week before trial was to start. Hotfile has agreed to pay us $4 million, and has entered into a stipulation to have an $80 million judgment entered and the website shut down," read the email from Sony's SVP Legal.

Hotfile was allowed to continue operating after the settlement was entered, but they had to implement an MPAA-approved filter that would supposedly remove all unauthorized content from the their servers. Instead, Hotfile just shut down.

It does appear that the payment was made, in full, but it is unclear how much the MPAA paid out in attorney's fees for the high-profile case.

Since the launch of iOS 8, Videolan's popular media player VLC has been silently absent from the App Store. It appears after three months of silence, it may be returning.

Videolan has not given any update to the disappearance of the app except to say that they did it and not Apple. There was word that the app would return eventually but with no clear timetable.

Felix Paul Kuehne of Videolan says your wait is most likely almost over, however, as the app will return "but probably early next year due to the iTunes Connect holiday shutdown."

Most likely that means the app has been submitted to Apple for approval and that the code is ready to run.

The annual shutdown is in effect from December 22nd to the 29th so iOS fans could see the best media player app available in time for the new year.

According to Kim Dotcom himself, the larger-than-life founder of MEGA helped save Christmas for gamers.

Yesterday we reported that hacking group 'Lizard Squad' had taken down both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network through a large DDoS attack. Late in the evening, however, access to the networks was slowly being restored, as new console owners finally got a chance to try out their multiplayer gaming.

Dotcom was able to get the DDoS to stop by pretty much bribing the attackers with potentially lifetime free vouchers to Mega's encrypted cloud service.

The Mega founder sent out 3000 free subscriptions that normally cost $99 each, so that he could get back to gaming and so that Lizard Squad would not attack the networks again in the future.

Amazon has made over $200 of apps free as long as you download the Amazon App Store for Android.

There are games and apps from all over the spectrum, and we have a picture of all the apps, below.

"The Muscular System Manual" is the biggest "savings" of all the apps, down from $65 to free, but there is little doubt that it is one of the more unpopular apps and probably had a hard time selling at its original price tag.

Additionally, Amazon has some nice discounts on ebooks, Instant Video titles and most of their hardware devices.

Amazon says the free apps promo will end on December 26th.

A group of hackers calling themselves the 'Lizard Squad' have taken down both Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network today, denying gamers access to multiplayer gaming and other online downloads.

The Lizard Squad confessed to hitting both networks with DDoS attacks, and is using the attack to gain followers on Twitter. The group was asking for favorites and retweets to bring the networks back online, and have done so multiple times before shutting them down again.

Sony confirmed the service issue, but did not mention the DDoS. Microsoft did not acknowledge.

Whatever demands the group wanted, they do not appear to have been successful in getting what they wanted. "Lizard Squad" first issued the threat of taking down both networks on Christmas last week.

A rival group, "FinestSquad," has been working on getting Lizard Squad off Twitter, and is also giving advice to Sony and Microsoft on how to avoid the DDoS attack.

As of 1pm today, Sony Picture's satirical comedy 'The Interview' starring James Franco and Seth Rogen is available online for rental and purchase, hours before a few independent theaters release the film on the big screen.

The controversial movie is available via Google Play, YouTube Movies, Xbox Video and Sony's own SeeTheInterview. A rental will set you back $5.99 or you can own the movie for $14.99.

Sony's online rollout, the day before the film was originally set to be released in theaters, is easily the highest-profile film to make its debut on the Web. Depending on its success, it could also be a harbinger for the future of film releases.

Google added a little statement with the release: "Last Wednesday Sony began contacting a number of companies, including Google, to ask if we'd be able to make their movie, "The Interview," available online. We'd had a similar thought and were eager to help--though given everything that's happened, the security implications were very much at the front of our minds.

Of course it was tempting to hope that something else would happen to ensure this movie saw the light of day. But after discussing all the issues, Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country (however silly the content might be)."

According to an angry email from music publisher Sony/ATV CEO Marty Bandier, Pharrell and other music artists are not being paid properly for their popularity on the Internet Radio giant Pandora.

In fact, superstar Pharrell made just $2700 in publisher and songwriter royalties from his 43 million streams of the hit "Happy" for the first quarter of 2014, a measly $63 per million streams.

"This is a totally unacceptable situation and one that cannot be allowed to continue," Bandier wrote. "We at Sony/ATV want these digital music services to be successful because they are a great way for music fans to listen to music and have the potential to generate significant new revenues for everyone. However, this success should not come at the expense of songwriters whose songs are essential for these services to exist and thrive."

Others in the industry pointed out that Bandier's numbers did not include performance rights royalty rates, and that Pharrell's earnings were likely around $25,000 - although that figure is nothing to be too proud of either.

Pandora was quick to respond:

Sony Pictures has confirmed that the now infamous 'The Interview' will get its Christmas release date, after all.

CEO Michael Lynton added in a statement: "We have never given up on releasing The Interview and we're excited our movie will be in a number of theaters on Christmas Day. At the same time, we are continuing our efforts to secure more platforms and more theaters so that this movie reaches the largest possible audience."

Independent theater chains will show the films although it appears as of now that only about 200 screens will be playing the comedy.

Most notably, THR says that Sony will almost definitely release the movie on VOD simultaneously, meaning consumers will able to download and watch the film from home.

"I want to thank our talent on The Interview and our employees, who have worked tirelessly through the many challenges we have all faced over the last month," Lynton added. "While we hope this is only the first step of the film's release, we are proud to make it available to the public and to have stood up to those who attempted to suppress free speech."

Last week, we reported that Apple shut down their Russian online store due to the "extreme" depreciation of the Russian currency, rubles.

At the time, Apple said: "Our online store in Russia is currently unavailable while we review pricing. We apologize to customers for any inconvenience."

The store is now back up in the nation, but consumers will have to pay up heavily to get their new iPhone. Apple has raised the price of the iPhone 6 by 35 percent, with the base model now selling for 53,990 rubles (about $1000 USD). In November, Apple raised the price 25 percent and the combined price jumps now make Russia one of the most expensive places in the world to get an iPhone.

Russia's national currency, the ruble, has been demolished in recent weeks against the strength of the US Dollar, and it now takes 54 rubles to get one USD. More much of the last five years, the rate was about 20:1. The currency has recovered somewhat in the last week, when it touched 80:1.

Disney has confirmed that Walt Disney World Resort in Florida will begin accepting Apple Pay and Google Wallet tomorrow.

Any guest with an iPhone 6, 6 Plus, and the upcoming Apple Watch will be able pay quickly and securely using any card they have linked to their Apple Pay accounts. Any Android device with NFC and Google Wallet will also be able to make payments, although Wallet has been much less popular among consumers.

Disney also confirmed that most other contactless payments services, like contactless RFID credit cards, will also work.

Most stores, bars, ticket sales booths and quick-serve restaurants or snack stations will accept the payments.

Finally, in a few months, Disney says the Disneyland Resort in California will get contactless payments.

According to multiple reports, North Korea is having its second day of intermittent Internet blackouts.

Yesterday, most of North Korea's Internet network was down for a good portion of the day, but was restored during the evening.

There has been rampant speculation about the source of the downtime, with many accusing the U.S. of retaliating for the attack on Sony Pictures. Other reports had claimed China was to blame, but the Chinese government has denounced any such reports.

Earlier this week, the FBI formally blamed North Korea for the devastating hack on Sony Pictures that led to 100 terabytes of sensitive data being stolen. President Obama promised a "proportional response" to the alleged hackers.

Even with widespread downtime, it is unclear how many are really affected. Most citizens only have access to a government-approved intranet, while North Korean officials and other "trusted elite" have access to the true World Wide Web.

The team behind Popcorn Time has made a few changes to their Mac and Windows versions of the software and made a strong promise for the upcoming iOS update.

First, the Windows version has been updated to beta 5.1:

After learning about how awesome beta 5.0 is, but also what's not working so well in it, we worked hard on solving the issues and we believe we managed to fix many bugs that were bugging you guys!! First of all, Chromecast should work well again for those who experienced issues with it recently... So go a head and enjoy a good movie on your TV screen again, no problemo!

Other than that we fixed many player issues, the cache folder bug and we increased download speed, enabled support of a bigger variety of torrents and in general we improved the watching experience, so go and watch something and tell us how it feels!!

First of all to the burning question you all are probably asking: Why isn't Mac on beta 5.X yet?
Well, with all that's been going on recently, we had to invest a lot of time making sure that Popcorn Time will not be shut down, and that time took a bite from the time we had for development.

Read more...

Sony attorney David Boies has seemingly confirmed that the studio will eventually release 'The Interview,' although the when and the how are still very much unclear.

Boies stated that the now infamous comedy "will be distributed." He added, "Sony only delayed this. Sony has been fighting to get this picture distributed. It will be distributed. How it's going to be distributed, I don't think anybody knows quite yet. But it's going to be distributed."

This is a stark change from last Wednesday, when the studio said there were "no further release plans" for the film following its theatrical cancellation. There have been reports that Sony will release the film via their free streaming service - Crackle, but that is nowhere near confirmed.

The attorney also added to President Obama's recent comments about the attack. "I think that what we have to do is use the president's recognition of the importance of this issue as a rallying cry, so that all Americans can unite against what is really a threat to our national security," added Boies. "If state-sponsored criminal acts like this can be directed against Sony, it can be directed against anybody."

Amazon has dumped the price of their new Fire HDX 8.9 tablet, giving consumers a chance to get the device at 30 percent off.

The 32GB/Wi-Fi model is selling for $300 today, down from $430. If you need cellular data and more storage, the 64GB/LTE model is down to $414 from $594, a pretty decent deal given the specs.

Amazon's tablet has an 8.9" "HDX" display with 2560x1600 resolution, a 2.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM and an Adreno 420 GPU for smoother gaming and video playback.

In addition, Amazon has added free one-day shipping for all buyers of the tablets for the next day, ensuring you can get it by Christmas.

Interested parties can check the tablets here: Amazon Fire HDX 8.9

In 2012, social networking giant Facebook purchased photo sharing giant Instagram for $1 billion. At the time, many cited the deal as a sign that the tech world was in a bubble.

Just two and a half years later, the acquisition is looking like the steal of the century.

Large international bank Citigroup has raised their valuation of Instagram significantly, valuing the company at over $35 billion. Last year, the bank had placed a valuation of $19 billion on the company, in of itself a huge increase from the original purchase price.

Instagram now has over 300 million monthly active users and Citigroup believes the photo sharing service could eventually bring in over $2 billion in annual revenue.

Anonymous, the group behind some of the largest corporate cyber attacks in recent history, claims the FBI are wrong in claiming North Korea is behind the hack on Sony Pictures.

Last week, the FBI claimed that the North Korean government was responsible for the attack on Sony's servers, which netted the hackers as much as 100 terabytes of sensitive information. The hackers also then threatened movie theaters if they showed the comedy "The Interview," which was eventually forced to be canceled by Sony since no one would distribute it.

At the time, the FBI claimed that "technical analysis of the data deletion malware used in this attack revealed links to other malware that the FBI knows North Korean actors previously developed. For example, there were similarities in specific lines of code, encryption algorithms, data deletion methods, and compromised networks." Additionally, the FBI found IP addresses that were associated with Korean infrastructure that were communicating with the IPs hardcoded into some of the malware used during the hack.

Many saw an obvious connection, but there were quite a few doubters, as well. For their part, North Korea still denies any involvement and has proposed a joint task force to find the real culprits. Guardians of Peace, the group that took credit for the attack, also mocked the FBI's investigation, calling the officials 'idiots.'

Less than a week after Sony announced they were canceling the release of 'The Interview' and that they had 'no future plans for its release," we have some encouraging news this weekend.

Sources claim the studio will release the now infamous comedy for free on Crackle, their free streaming service that has a catalog of older content.

Sony canceled the release after their attackers threatened terrorist attacks against movie theaters and movie goers. The movie theater chains refused the show the film, and Sony says that streaming sites also refused to take the film for distribution.

It will be interesting to see if the studio will keep their original release date of Christmas, December 25th.

It appears that being the most powerful couple in entertainment is not enough to compete with Minecraft money.

Markus 'Notch' Persson, the creator of the blockbuster game, became a billionaire in September when Microsoft acquired Mojang AB for $2.5 billion. Notch is said to have owned 70 percent of the gaming studio, netting the developer $1.75 billion before taxes.

The dev is now the proud owner of a $70 million mansion in Beverly Hills, California, outbidding Beyoncé and Jay Z, who were expected to win.

Curbed has an apt description of the ridiculous house: "It's outfitted with a candy room, a car showroom, vodka and tequila bars, a 54-foot curved glass door that opens onto the pool, eight bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, apartment-sized closets, and a movie theater, and even the listing called it 'an overwhelming sensory experience.'"

You can see more pictures at the source.

President Obama bluntly stated yesterday that Sony "made a mistake" in caving to the threats of hackers that have stolen terabytes of data and threatened movie goers.

The President says the U.S. "will respond proportionally" to the cyber attack, which the FBI has blamed on North Korea.

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States" he said. "Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don't like, or a news report that they don't like -- or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don't want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. That's not who we are. That's not what America is about."

"Sony is a corporation. It suffered significant damage, threats against some employees. I am sympathetic to the concerns they faced. Having said that, yes I think they made a mistake [in canceling the release of the film]," Obama added. "That's not what America is about...I wish they'd spoken to me first. I would have told them, 'Do not get into a pattern in which you're intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks'."

Another major retailer has confirmed a security breach, this time with 1.16 million credit and debit cards compromised from office supply giant Staples.

Says the company: "Staples' data security experts detected that criminals deployed malware to some point-of-sale systems at 115 of its more than 1,400 U.S. retail stores. Upon detection, Staples immediately took action to eradicate the malware in mid-September and to further enhance its security. Staples also retained outside data security experts to investigate the incident and has worked closely with payment card companies and law enforcement on this matter.

Based on its investigation, Staples believes that malware may have allowed access to some transaction data at affected stores, including cardholder names, payment card numbers, expiration dates, and card verification codes. At 113 stores, the malware may have allowed access to this data for purchases made from August 10, 2014 through September 16, 2014. At two stores, the malware may have allowed access to data from purchases made from July 20, 2014 through September 16, 2014."

Staples is offering anyone affected a free year of identity theft protection including credit monitoring and identify theft insurance.

Steam has begun their annual holiday sale, letting gamers get thousands of games and DLC packs for as much as 90 percent off normal prices.

Over 15 days, the deals will be available to anyone with a Steam account and there will be sets of "featured deals" that rotate every 24 hours and will include what Steam considers to be the best deals of the day.

More example, today's Featured Deals include:

Dark Souls II - 63% off
Metal Gear Solid V – Ground Zeroes - 33% off
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth - 40% off
Total War: ROME II – Emperor Edition - 75% off
Sniper Elite 3 - 50% off
Euro Truck Simulator 2 - 85% off
State of Decay - 75% off
Space Engineers - 50% off
Rocksmith 2014 - 66% off

The Steam Holiday Sale will run until 10AM PST, January 2nd.

Check out the sale here, which includes some very, very recent games like Telltale Games' 'Game Of Thrones': Steam Holiday Sale

National Geographic (NatGeo) has announced the winners of their annual Photo Contest, a stunning 19 images from lucky amateurs and seasoned professionals.

There were over 9200 submissions from 150 different countries, and all the winners were chosen from three categories: people, places and nature.

The grand prize winner won $10,000 and an all-expenses paid trip to Washington D.C.

Here are 12 of my favorite shots, in no order except for the top photo of the year - "A Node Glows in the Dark" at the top:

Social networking giant Facebook has been auto-enhancing your photos, and will continue to do so unless you opt-out.

The auto-enhance began with the most updated iOS app, but will likely expand to other operating systems in the near future.

Facebook seems to think that if your picture needs some help in the brightness or contrast areas, it can do a pretty good job at helping you out. The first time you upload an image, Facebook will give you a pop-up message letting you know it's being enhanced.

When an image might require auto-enhance, a small wand will appear in the lower-left of your app, allowing you to adjust the enhancement or even turn it off.

If you don't like Facebook messing with your photos, you can turn off the "Enhance Automatically" setting forever.

Source:
Digits

Amazon has confirmed the launch of Prime Now, a service in NYC that promises delivery in as quick as an hour between 6am and midnight. Right now, there are 25,000 eligible items and 9 eligible zip codes, which will continue expanding into next year.

You must have a $99 per year Amazon Prime subscription to use Prime Now, and the expedited delivery will cost just $7.99 for one-hour delivery and free for two-hour delivery.

For the past few weeks, Amazon has been testing the service with bike couriers in downtown Manhattan. The e-tailer has leased a building across from the Empire State Building for merchandise and office space.

To use Prime Now you must download the Prime Now mobile app, which allows you to search and order in seconds.

Former Anonymous and LulzSec hacker Hector 'Sabu' Monsegur does not believe North Korea had the capability to commit such a cyber attack as the one that was perpetrated against Sony Pictures.

"For something like this to happen, it had to happen over a long period of time. You cannot just exfiltrate one terabyte or 100 terabytes of data in a matter of weeks," Monsegur added. "It's not possible. It would have taken months, maybe even years, to exfiltrate something like 100 terabytes of data without anyone noticing."

Sabu led some of the most brazen attacks on corporations in the U.S. before he was eventually arrested and flipped as an informant for the FBI.

"It could be [North Korea]. In my personal opinion, it's not," Monsegur said. "Look at the bandwidth going into North Korea. I mean, the pipelines, the pipes going in, handling data, they only have one major ISP across their entire nation. That kind of information flowing at one time would have shut down North Korean Internet completely. They don't have the technical capabilities. They do have state-sponsored hackers very similar to China, very similar to Russia and very similar to our good old USA."

Following yesterday's decision by Sony to cancel the release of 'The Interview,' Paramount Pictures has blocked theaters from playing the decade-old 'Team America: World Police' in its stead.

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a popular independent theater chain, had planned to replace The Interview with Team America but now says the cancellation is "due to circumstances beyond our control" and that screenings have "been canceled by Paramount Pictures."

Team America was a supermarionation film that focused on ex-North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il's plans to take over the world and "Team America"'s plan to stop him.

The last 24 hours mark a sad time for Hollywood, which has bowed to the demands of cyberterrorists.

The Xbox One continues to improve its entertainment capabilities, adding Pandora and few other new apps to its repertoire.

Reads Pandora's release statement: "Pandora for Xbox One is a best-in-class application native to Xbox One and loaded with really exciting and innovative new features. We customized our HTML5-based Pandora for TV interface specifically for the Xbox One, and also stayed true to Pandora's mission of being the effortless source of music for Pandora listeners. Pandora on Xbox One takes advantage of all the functionality the platform has to offer and our team built the application to look amazing on the biggest screen in your home."

Xbox gamers will be able to "Snap" Pandora, meaning they can still play music even while gaming. Additionally, the app uses Kinect Gestures and Voice Commands and the app will also have a "persistent mini-player, which provides quick access to playback controls while browsing within the application."

According to Pandora, the move was a natural fit. 76 percent of their young male users who also game were using Pandora in the background while they were playing games anyway.

Over the last 11 days, Microsoft has been running their "12 Days of Deals" promotion for the holidays, offering discounts on everything from games and consoles to PCs and more.

For the final day (tomorrow), the company is slashing the price of their 12-month Xbox Music subscription to $49.90 from its usual $99.90. If you live near a Microsoft Store, you can get the annual pass for just $29, a very good deal even if you are not a fan of Microsoft.

Xbox Music works similar to other unlimited streaming services like Spotify and Google Play All Access, allowing you to stream a catalog of over 30 million tracks and listen from your console, mobile device and Windows computer.

Microsoft says the deal is limited to 3 per customer, and you will receive a code via email to sign up. The deal starts at 8am EST on December 19th.

Earlier this week, Madonna's yet untitled 2015 album was supposedly leaked to the Internet.

The artist quickly took to Instagram to let fans know that the tracks were from "unfinished demos stolen long ago" and also urged fans to not download and listen.

Madonna later made another post that called the leak "artistic rape" and a "form of terrorism," but that post was deleted almost immediately and thankfully for the artist as it was a huge over-exaggeration and completely insensitive.

The upcoming album, likely to be called 'Iconic,' will feature production from big name acts like Avicii, Diplo and Ryan Tedder. A few of the leaked songs, including 'Rebel Heart' and 'Bitch I'm Madonna,' feature sounds that could certainly fit in with what we know about the legitimate album.

Interested parties can likely find the album on YouTube before it is taken down.

A little over a month after Plex released an app for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, the personal media streaming company has released apps for the Sony PS3 and PS4.

Reads the company's post: "We noticed this meteoric rise just a week ago [to fan requests for the support], and--jolted out of our usual slack-jawed complacency--we set ourselves up with some intravenous caffeine drips and coded for three days straight. In less time than it took to create, well, the Universe, we had the app running on the PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®4, so we took the rest of the week off and played a bunch of hacky sack.

OK, in all honesty, it did take us a bit longer than that. Like, we actually started working on it before the Xbox One app. But we're finally done, and we're super happy to tell you that it's launching today in Europe and most of Asia. The US launch will happen in the near future (along with other locations), but we don't have a date for you yet. And let's be real, hasn't your spouse been bugging you about moving to Italy since they watched A Good Year? Now might be the perfect time. Crush grapes with your bare feet, get fleeced by an opera-singing gondolier, and use Plex on the PlayStation® before ze Americans."

According to numerous media outlets, U.S. government officials will announce tomorrow that North Korea was indeed behind the devastating hack on Sony Pictures.

The accusation certainly raises questions, as the attack by a foreign government could be considered an act of war, especially given the damage caused and the alleged reasons for the hack: embarrassment and monetary damage.

Investigators suspect the attack was carried out by North Korea's elite government "Unit 121" hacking team, the same group that had been linked to other large-scale attacks against South Korean targets.

The U.S. officials do have concerns that blaming North Korea outright could put their ally Japan in danger, given their closer geographical proximity.

Despite the expert routing of the traffic away from the original attackers, there were still plenty of links back to North Korea from the offset. The group claiming the hack, "Guardians of Peace," used broken English and skeleton graphics in their initial warnings matching similar warnings from previous attacks on South Korean banks and telecoms. The attack code was also written in Korean and written during Korean working hours.

Sony Pictures has now decided against ever releasing 'The Interview' in any form, almost guaranteeing themselves a $100 million loss on the film.

A spokesman made the quick and blunt statement tonight that "Sony Pictures has no further release plans for the film."

The studio made the decision tonight to cancel the release of the Seth Rogen and James Franco comedy, after the major movie theater chains in the U.S. decided to not show the film following terrorist threats against movie theaters and movie theater patrons.

By never releasing the film in any kind of media, the studio will guarantee themselves a nearly $100 million loss on the production of the movie, marketing and promotion expenses, and broken contracts. The budget of the film itself was $42 million.

Sony could still sell the rights to the film to another studio, but there are likely to be few suitors unless the price is so low that it potentially worth the risks.

Following news that all the major U.S. movie theater chains would not be showing 'The Interview,' Sony Pictures announced it was canceling the release of the film, which was slated to open on Christmas in the U.S.

While a minority praised the move, which was made because the cyber criminals threatened terrorist attacks on movie theaters, most of vocal Hollywood seems to be outraged by the decision.

Here are a few of the most notable tweets on the decision:

Just hours after major U.S. theater chains said they would not screen the film following terrorists threats, Sony has canceled the release of 'The Interview,' a comedy in which Seth Rogen and James Franco are sent to North Korea to assassinate Kim Jong Un.

The movie had been scheduled for release on December 25th.

Earlier today we reported that Regal Entertainment, AMC Entertainment, Cinemark, Carmike Cinemas, and Cineplex Entertainment all blocked showings of the new film, which would have accounted for 23,000 screens in North America.

Reads Sony's statement: "In light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film The Interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25 theatrical release. We respect and understand our partners' decision and, of course, completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theater-goers.

Sony Pictures has been the victim of an unprecedented criminal assault against our employees, our customers, and our business. Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private emails, and sensitive and proprietary material, and sought to destroy our spirit and our morale – all apparently to thwart the release of a movie they did not like. We are deeply saddened at this brazen effort to suppress the distribution of a movie, and in the process do damage to our company, our employees, and the American public. We stand by our filmmakers and their right to free expression and are extremely disappointed by this outcome."

Apple has stopped online sales of its products in Russia today citing the "extreme" depreciation of the Russian national currency, the ruble.

Russia's currency has been decimated in the past few months, and fell as much as 19 percent today against the US Dollar, falling to as low as 80 ruble per USD, before settling at 67.

"Our online store in Russia is currently unavailable while we review pricing," said Apple in a curt statement. "We apologize to customers for any inconvenience."

The ruble had traded at about 20 ruble per dollar for the better part of the last five years.

Last month, as the collapse of the ruble was gaining steam, Apple raised the price of its iPhones by 25 percent to protect themselves, but the depreciation has gotten too steep now.

Source:
Bloomberg

NBCU has joined CBS, HBO and others in offering live streaming of their broadcast programming online and on mobile devices.

Unlike the aforementioned company's service, however, you will need to have a TV subscription to get access to the live streaming.

The online service will launch this week while mobile viewing will launch early next year. In addition to the broadcast live streams, there will also be additional video-on-demand content.

Just like with other services, to access the content you will have to login with your pay TV credentials (usually your email and password) and then authorize the device.

Massive photo sharing service Instagram has added two new filters this week, the first additions to the service since December 2012.

"Photography trends have evolved," said Instagram in a statement. "We've seen tremendous creativity within the community, not only in the moments they share, but in the time spent carefully composing and editing photos and videos to bring out emotions and make them beautiful."

Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Perpetua, and Aden are the new filters, and each offers "less dramatic" changes to your photos.

Instagram has two dozen filters, but you have the option to re-arrange your favorites and hide ones you may never use to keep the list smaller and more manageable.

Back in September, Square Enix released a trailer for the upcoming Final Fantasy XV (aptly named because it is the 15th game in the series), but there was one problem for us in North America: The trailer wasn't in English.

Three months later the trailer is now available in English, and gamers can get pumped again (the last version did have subtitles, so you could follow it).

The trailer promises to be a "sneak preview" of the game which is still likely over a year away, but Square Enix has promised a demo will launch sometime in 2015. For now, enjoy the preview and the four protagonist's roadtrip through some fantasy sci-fi world.

Google has noted this week that Android or iOS smartphone users will now be able to control their Nest smart thermostat with voice controls via the Google widget or via Google Now.

For example, using the "OK Google" command will allow you to say additional phrases like "change the temperature to.." or "set Nest to..." and your device will adjust accordingly.

In addition, there will be a new Google Now card that will display when the system had adjusted itself.

As with most apps, you will need to opt-in to give Google access to your Nest account, and to enable the Nest Google Now card. Just like with many voice commands, the abilities are limited, at least for the time being, but it is still very cool to be able to change the temperature without having to get up.

Windows Phone owners can now download BBM 2.0 (BlackBerry Messenger), which offers a plethora of new features.

The key new features include "privacy and control features including timed messages and message retraction." Less important are the addition of BBM Stickers that can be used within chats.

Rather than go through all the new features, here are a few videos from the team at BlackBerry showing off what's new:

According to new figures from research firm Gartner, 301 million smartphones were sold in the Q3 2014, up 20 percent year-over-year.

Perhaps most notable in the report is the fact that Apple and Samsung's duopoly is starting to see some decline, with the two companies accounting for just 37 percent share, down from 44 percent last December.

Chinese startup Xiaomi managed to crack the top five, taking share from a struggling Samsung and taking 5.2 percent global share. Chinese giant Huawei gained slightly, taking 5.3 percent share, and third place in global share. Apple, on strong sales of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, increased to 12.7 percent share. Samsung remained the clear leader, but its share collapsed year-over-year from 32 percent to 24.4 percent.

"From a regional perspective, emerging markets exhibited some of the highest growths ever recorded, with Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa achieving the highest increase in the third quarter of 2014, with sales of smartphones growing almost 50% year-over-year," says Gartner director Robert Cozza. Developed markets, however, are almost completely saturated.

From an operating system standpoint, it is no longer a competition as Android had 83.1 percent share.

Eon Productions, the producers behind the newly announced James Bond 'SPECTRE' film have confirmed that an early version of the script was stolen as part of the 100 terabytes of data taken when Sony Pictures was hacked last month.

"Eon Productions is concerned that third parties who have received the stolen screenplay may seek to publish it or its contents," Eon added, also letting those who share it that the script would be protected by UK copyright laws.

SPECTRE just began filming with Daniel Craig returning as Agent 007, and the film is set for release next November.

Bond is one of Sony's biggest draws, and 2012's 'Skyfall' brought in $1.1 billion, the most ever for a movie in the franchise.

According to a new filing, the Chinese smartphone giant booked a profit of just $56 million last year, a shockingly low figure given the fact that Xiaomi is the fourth largest smartphone maker in the world.

The number reflects tiny margins for the company, which was founded in 2011 and now sells millions of high-quality but cheap devices in China.

Xiaomi had revenue of $4.3 billion for the year, but an operating margin of 1.8 percent. By comparison, Apple has margins above 28 percent. The company has long said that it sells the hardware almost at cost to get as many handsets out there so they can sell software and services. Amazon has tried a similar model, but they too were not successful.

Regardless, with a global smartphone market share of 5.6 percent, Xiaomi has certainly made a brand for themselves, and most in the industry value the company at over $10 billion.

Following Verizon's sale of its share in Vodafone earlier this year, there had been speculation that the European carrier would be returning to the U.S. The company has now confirmed those plans.

The company has introduced wireless services for its "400 multinational (MNC) customers based in the United States and a further 500 Vodafone MNC customers that are based outside the United States but have a strong US presence."

Here is the full proposition:

-An unrivaled international wireless footprint, with networks in 27 countries (including 16 Vodafone markets with 4G LTE networks) extending to more than 75 countries through partner market relationships

-Proven total communications products and services for enterprise, from telecommunications expense management and security products to cloud services and Vodafone OneNet fixed-mobile converged products and services enabling employees to collaborate and communicate on any device on any network, anywhere

-Ongoing expansion of the world's most advanced IP-VPN global network, with 91 points of presence (PoPs) rising to 212 PoPs by the end of 2015 to span 67 countries

Read more...

According to a new report, LG is preparing to unveil a new TV with 8K resolution at the upcoming CES event in Las Vegas.

The 55-inch TV has a ridiculous 7,680 x 4,320 pixel resolution and 'over 20 display driver integrated circuits installed. The TV also has 500 nits brightness because "unlike conventional displays that use RGB sub-pixels, LG added a W sub-pixel to increase the brightness."

LG built a prototype last month and was so happy that it decided to airlift it to Vegas for CES, which begins on January 5th.

For any demos, LG will use "3D images generated by an unnamed high-quality Nvidia GPU" as there are currently no video sources with support for 8K. While the TV seems out of this world for the current environment, the sources believe LG will move to add an 8K model to their lineup in 2015. "With the know-how acquired from making the prototype, if LG finds good grounds to commercialize the display for mass production, it will do so. LG has already finished up approving the technological viability of the 55-inch, 8K display, and is now starting preparation to commercialize it to make it a product," reads the report.

Google has made their new Nexus 9 tablet available with LTE, just over a month after the tablet was released (sans cellular data).

Available at the Google Play Store for $599 with 32GB internal storage, the tablet is also available directly through T-Mobile for the same price or for $24.99 per month for two years with $0 down.

The HTC-built Nexus 9 has a 8.9-in. IPS LCD display with a 2048-x-1536 resolution (4:3 aspect ratio) which Google says is part of the company's "new focus on productivity." Under the hood is the crazy powerful Tegra K1 64-bit processor, and 2GB RAM. HTC has added dual front-facing stereo speakers for improved audio playback, and added their own BoomSound audio software enhancements. The 6700 mAh battery should give you 9.5 hours of active use.

Running on the new Android 5.0 Lollipop and all its features, Google has included a "tap to wake" option that was seen in the past on LG's tablets as 'Knock On." You have to tap the screen twice to turn on the display without needing to hit the power button.

Google has confirmed that while the Nexus 5 is on its last legs, it isn't totally dead yet.

The search giant says the year-old device will be available through Google Play and a few remaining retailers throughout the Q1 2015.

While Google is not saying goodnight to the device just yet, it is becoming increasingly hard to find one. The Google Play Store has removed all the additional colors that were available, with the exception of the standard black, which is still available in 16GB and 32GB models but supply goes in and out.

The Nexus 5 recently just received the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, which has been either a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask. Many have seen performance improved after the update, but many others have seen their devices freeze and reboot often and sluggish performance.

Sony Pictures has been forced to stop filming following the massive hack that has paralyzed the company in the past weeks.

Sources claim that glitches from the computer network that was taken down has led the studio to be unable to process payments. Most of the company's computers remain offline or unusable and the rest are experiencing significant technical glitches. Many at Sony Pictures have taken to using pen and paper while their systems are down.

Security experts have estimated the cyber attack will cost Sony nearly $100 million, but it is unclear if those experts took into account an extended freeze on shooting when creating their models.

Hackers got away with potentially 100 teraybytes of data in the breach, including pre-release movies, hundreds of thousands of emails, contracts for its stars and executives, and social security numbers and addresses for nearly 50,000 employees.

Besides the obvious monetary damages, the PR has been a nightmare for Sony. Many emails from executives have gone viral, showing that those with power at Sony Pictures often insulted, belittled or just generally disliked the actors, directors and producers their company was promoting.

Nintendo has confirmed that its Amiibo line is a huge hit in the U.S.

Amiibo is a set of toys that use NFC to communicate with Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games, allowing characters and other data to be transferred across platforms.

Nintendo says that sales of the toys nearly matched Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, which puts the figure in the 700,000 range.

Additionally, Nintendo reported that their new Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire games also saw 1.5 million combined units sold, leading to one of the best months in quite some time for the Japanese game maker.

Source:
GI.biz

Ford has announced that its new in-car entertainment system, newly updated to version 3, has replaced Microsoft with BlackBerry for the underlying operating system.

Sync 3 uses a variant of BlackBerry's QNX operating system, after the first two versions ran on a variant of Windows.

While Microsoft has often boasted of its in-car system and its partnership with Ford, but QNX offers more modern features. A few examples are capacitive touchscreen support, pinch and zoom gestures, Wi-Fi OTA updates, and support for Siri.

A few of the launch apps that are supported are Spotify, iHeartRadio and NPR One.

Ford said that "hardware and software decisions were based on identifying the technology that would best meet the expectations for performance by our customers."

Twitter co-founder and board member Ev Williams had some choice words for rival social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.

Speaking during a recent interview, Williams said: "It's a question of breadth versus depth. Why is users the only thing we talk about? The crazy thing: Facebook has done an amazing job of establishing that as the metric for Wall Street. No one ever talks about, 'What is a [monthly active user]?' I believe it's the case that if you use Facebook Connect -- if you use an app that you logged into with Facebook Connect -- you're considered a Facebook user whether or not you ever launched the Facebook app or went to Facebook.com. So what does that mean? It's become so abstract to be meaningless. Something you did caused some data in their servers to be recorded for the month. So I think we're on the wrong path.

If you think about the impact Twitter has on the world versus Instagram, it's pretty significant. It's at least apples to oranges. Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It's this realtime information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter -- important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter. If that's happening, I frankly don't give a shit if Instagram has more people looking at pretty pictures."

Google has begun shutting down its operations in Russia, closing out its engineering office and relocating employees.

The search giant says the Russian government has become very restrictive, asking Google to remove over 250 links from its search results in the last six months. As with all tech companies in Russia, data about Russians must stay within the country's borders and it is unclear if Google has been complying.

Despite the shut down, some Google team members will stay around. "We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers and we have a dedicated team in Russia working to support them," the company added.

With the move, Google has now pulled out of Russia and China and had their services restricted in Spain and other nations.

Instagram has announced 300 million monthly active users, a huge jump year-over-year, and a number that surpasses Twitter.

The huge growth and the large active base will likely help the company to attract advertisers. The company recently began allowing for video ads and sponsored posts.

"As Instagram gets bigger, we're focused on helping you discover photos and videos from people who you care about, whether it's a friend or your favorite musician," says Instagram's CEO Kevin Systrom.

Additionally, users now share over 70 million photos/videos per day, a staggering figure.

In his blog post, Systrom also noted that celebrity and brand accounts will have new verification badges so you can ensure you are following the correct people. In addition, Instagram has been taking down thousands of spam and fake accounts in order to "do everything possible to keep Instagram free from the fake and spammy accounts that plague much of the web."

In December 2009, a relatively unknown Finnish game developer called Rovio Entertainment released the first 'Angry Birds' title for iOS and the game quickly became a hit.

For about three years, the game was the top paid app in iTunes, and all new titles in the series all jumped to #1 quickly after launch. The game has also been a top hit for Android since launch, where most of the titles are freemium.

In its branding, Angry Birds has expanded to "Seasons," "Rio," "Space," "Star Wars," "Friends," "Star Wars II," "Go!," "Epic," "Stella" and most recently, "Transformers." Additionally, the developer released "Bad Piggies" as a spinoff from the series in 2012.

Rovio has struggled in recent times, with interest waning for each new game. The developer had to fire 110 employees earlier this year to continue its profitability and streamline operations.

Google has unveiled their Google Play 'best stuff of the year' report for 2014, showing off the most downloaded and most popular apps of the year.

The lists include top news app, top entertainment app and even the most downloaded movies and TV shows.

iOS device owners saw a similar list earlier this month and many of the same names and titles are on that list, as well.

Take a gander:

APPS

Most Downloaded Apps by Category in 2014
Education: Duolingo
Health & Fitness: MyFitnessPal
Music: Pandora
Photography: Flipagram
Social: Facebook
Entertainment: Netflix
Sports: NFL Mobile
Travel: TripAdvisor

GAMES

Top Downloaded Games in 2014
Candy Crush Saga
Don't Tap The White Tile
Farm Heroes Saga
Subway Surfers
Clash of Clans

MOVIES & TV

Movie of the year: Frozen
TV show of the year: The Walking Dead
Comeback Movie: Toy Story
Most searched actor on Google Play: Robin Williams

MUSIC

Album of the Year: Frozen: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Song of the Year: Dark Horse by Katy Perry
Song of the Summer: Fancy by Iggy Azalea
Fastest Growing Genre: Soundtracks (fueled by Frozen, Guardians of the Galaxy, Despicable Me 2, The Lego Movie and The Great Gatsby soundtracks)

Microsoft has continued its new trend of releasing apps outside of its own ecosystem, unveiling a slew of MSN-branded apps for iOS, Android and Amazon.

The apps are all free and were originally developed for Windows 8 and Windows Phone devices.

Among the new apps are News, Weather, Sports, Food & Drink, Healthy & Fitness, and Money.

MSN's portal page still receives 400 million users per year, and the name still resonates with consumers. Previously, the apps were branded as Bing, which has less recognition despite being more modern.

Each of the apps are newly coded for their respective platforms, and not just ports, says Microsoft.

As rumored, the popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga is now available for Windows Phone.

The game is freemium, with in-app purchases consisting of extra lives, moves and other bonuses.

Candy Crush is the hit money-maker for casual gaming parent King Digital, since its release in 2012 for iOS and Android and Facebook.

Microsoft has proudly announced the launch of Minecraft Pocket Edition for Windows Phone 8.1 today.

Reads the press release: "Windows Phone users can join the vast community of more than 100 million Minecraft players today with the launch of Minecraft: Pocket Edition for Windows Phone 8.1. Now available on Windows Phone, iOS and Android, Minecraft: Pocket Edition lets players bring their Minecraft worlds with them virtually anywhere.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition includes Minecraft's Survival and Creative modes so players can craft, create and explore on the go – as long as they have thumb strength and battery to burn. With a local Wi-Fi network, players can engage in multiplayer gameplay and team up with friends to explore new biomes, fight monsters, and craft infinite new worlds together."

The game will cost in line with other editions of Minecraft, selling for $6.99.

Two months after they were unexpectedly pulled from Apple's online and brick-and-mortar stores, audio products from Bose are back on the virtual shelves.

It still remains unclear why the products disappeared without a word in October, but the timing coincided with the recent closing of the company's acquisition of Beats Electronics.

Bose had a lawsuit against Beats over the tech used in noise-cancelling headphones but the case settled in early October, just before Bose's products magically disappeared from Apple's stores.

Beats offers many similar products, so the dropping of the Bose inventory could have been a way for Apple to boost sales ahead of Black Friday/Cyber Monday, or potentially the product of behind the scenes negotiations.

Nokia's HERE navigation app is now available to all on Android as following months as a closed beta.

The company says there had been over a million downloads of the beta for the operating system, with a good portion of the "testers" coming from the U.S. and Germany. Now, everyone with access to the Google Play Store can download the application.

Previously, interested parties had to sideload the app after downloading the APK from here.com.

Says Nokia: "The app you can download from Google Play brings voice-guided navigation for 18 new countries and territories: Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Cyprus, Iraq, Libya, Mauritania, Mauritius, Nepal, Paraguay, Saint Helena, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Zambia, Zimbabwe. The addition of these 18 new countries brings the total number of freely navigable countries to 118. Additionally, we improved the stability and performance of the app, and fixed a voice-related navigation bug."

The crowdfunding campaign for the open-source Jolla Tablet has come to an end this morning.

Jolla fans were able to take the funding high enough to reach the company's second stretch goal, meaning the Sailfish OS will add split screen support in addition to the microSDHC slot (expandable to 128GB) that was reached with the first stretch goal.

Sadly, the device will not be getting a 3G radio for cellular data, as the campaign needed to hit $2.5 million to "unlock" that reward. The campaign closed at just over $1.8 million.

The Jolla Tablet has a 7.85-inch display with 2048x1536 resolution, a 64-bit quad-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, dual 5MP/2MP cameras, 32GB internal storage (expandable via microSD) and a small-ish 4300mAh battery.

Jolla is expected to start shipping the tablet in May. See more of the device via the official page.

SimCity 2000 - the classic city-building PC game, is available for free for a limited time letting you re-live the 90s all over again.

Normally priced at $5.99, the game is free on EA's Origin platform for the time being, as part of EA's "On the House" promo.

Reads the page: "One of the most beloved retro EA games is now available On the House on Origin. Now you can step back in time absolutely free.

This classic title goes way beyond building a city. You'll be laying down districts, assuring everyone has power and water, acting as the mayor, and making sure to keep your citizens happy, healthy, and wealthy. The game's iconic art style will transport you back in time.

Want to play now for free? Just log in to Origin, head to the On the House page, and download SimCity 2000 to your "My Games" library. You'll be able to play it whenever you want."

The game available is the "Special Edition" version, released in 1995 for Windows and DOS gamers.

Source:
EA Origin

According to a new report, HBO will release its standalone streaming service in April, right alongside the premiere of the new season of "Game of Thrones."

The service will be different than the current HBO Go streaming service, and the technology backing the software will also be different. The new tech will supposedly keep outages and lag to a minimum, even during episodes of extremely popular shows like "Game of Thrones" and "True Detective."

HBO's current CTO, Otto Berkes, resigned today as HBO decided to outsource its work to a tech firm called MLB Advanced. Reportedly, Berkes knew about a memory leak in HBO Go that was leading to downtime of the service when server loads were high, but did not care to fix it.

"Recently HBO's management decided to partner with a third party to assist HBO in bringing our OTT service to market in 2015," Berkes wrote in his resignation. "This is a change in direction from what I planned with HBO and the approach will not utilize my overall capabilities. Therefore, I feel that this is the right time for me to move on from HBO so that I am able to fully pursue my passion building world-class technology teams, products and businesses."

According to cybersecurity experts, Sony Pictures could be looking at a loss nearing $100 million from the massive hack that took down their network and exposed terabytes of sensitive data.

Sony, as a company, knows well the price of such a breach. In 2011, the company had costs above $170 million following the breach of the PlayStation Network that exposed data on over 100 million people.

While the latest attack did not expose customer data, over 50,000 employees and former employees have had their social security numbers and other data leaked. The company also had a few of its films leaked to the Web months before they hit theaters, which could lead to "an impairment charge of $83 million" for lost ticket sales and more.

In addition, there will be a major cost to investigate the hack, repair all damaged servers and PCs, and upgrade systems to avoid future attacks. For a few days, productivity at the studio even stopped completely as employees had to use pen and paper since their computers were unusable.

Sony has not estimated their costs, yet, as it assesses the full impact of the breach. The company did have insurance, by cybersecurity insurance will likely only cover a small portion, especially if it finds that Sony was negligent.

The crowdfunded Jolla Tablet is near the end of its funding campaign, and just within reach of their next $1.75 million stretch goal.

Based on the Sailfish OS, the Jolla Tablet has a 7.85-inch display with 2048x1536 resolution, a 64-bit quad-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, dual 5MP/2MP cameras, 32GB internal storage (expandable via microSD) and a small-ish 4300mAh battery.

Earlier this week, Jolla hit the first $1.5 million stretch goal, which was to add 128GB mciroSDHC support. As the page read at the time: "Once we reach the first goal, every Jolla Tablet will be upgraded to support microSDHC cards up to 128GB! You'll never have to worry about running out of space again. Currently Jolla Tablet supports cards up to 32GB, besides having 32GB internal storage."

At $1.75 million, Jolla will add Split Screen capabilities to Sailfish. Says Jolla: "Split screen allows you to view and use two apps simultaneously, enhancing Sailfish OS' multitasking capabilities even further. Split screen is the most wanted Jolla Tablet software feature by our community at together.jolla.com, and we're thrilled to offer it to you as one of the goals! Split screen will be available to you as a software update during Q3/2015."

Infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay has been taken down today following a raid by Swedish police in which servers, computers and other equipment were seized.

Other torrent sites and even Pirate Bay's forum Suprbay.org is down too.

"There has been a crackdown on a server room in Greater Stockholm. This is in connection with violations of copyright law," read a statement from Paul Pintér, police national coordinator for IP enforcement in Sweden.

It is unclear if the raid was aimed at The Pirate Bay, although it seems very likely given the high profile of the site and its ire in the global anti-piracy community.

We will keep you updated on the situation.

According to a new report, luxury Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer is preparing to unveil a smartwatch at next month's CES event.

CES 2015 starts on January 5th and there is expected to be a plethora of new wearables revealed for release in the Q1 or later.

The new rumored watch will run on an Intel processor and it expected to be able to measure steps, burned calories, and sleep patterns.

It is unclear if the watch will have a touchscreen, but it is not expected to, with the design rumored to be similar to the Withings Activité or the HP Chronowing.

Source:
BI

According to new reports, Vimeo Pro users can now upload their content in 4K and make it available for others to download.

For the time being, streaming in 4K is being blocked by Vimeo but it is not out of the cards for the future. Vimeo CTO Andrew Pile noted that "It's pretty early for streaming but the new iMac is gonna be a turning point." Apple's latest device has the capability of streaming 5K content, which is way beyond what any mainstream service currently offers.

Vimeo On Demand is where you will find the most content in the future, as users have been able to upload 4K videos to the service, but Vimeo was transcoding it to lower resolutions.

With the move, Vimeo joins Amazon, Netflix and YouTube in offering limited 4K content.

Source:
Gigaom

Grooveshark, the music streaming service that has been almost completely destroyed by copyright lawsuits, is looking to reinvent itself next year with a legal radio service.

If accurate, the reports claim the radio service will launch as soon as next month, and cost just 99 cents per month for streaming without ads.

Grooveshark will call the service "Broadcasts" and it will be a direct rival to Pandora, the $4 billion public company with strong ties to the music industry. Grooveshark has 30 million users and Pandora has 80 million.

Broadcasts will get to use the government-mandated royalty rates for Internet radio stations, and will not require direct negotiations with the labels that have been trying to shut them down.

Source:
Nasdaq

Sony has announced an interesting new concept to sell its PlayStation 4 console: a bundle where you get to pick which game you want.

Starting today, Sony is offering a 500GB PS4 with a digital download voucher that can be used for either Destiny, Far Cry 4, LittleBigPlanet 3, or NBA2K15.

Called the "Four Games. One Pick. PlayStation 4 Bundle," Sony is making the bundle available for $399.99, the normal price of the console without a game included.

Here are Sony's description of the games:

Destiny – The ultimate Destiny experience is on PS4, with exclusive content including an additional multiplayer map, Strike mission, an expanded repository of exotic weapons and gear, and player ships. Don't forget, the first Destiny expansion, The Dark Below, is coming out on Dec 9, and it includes exclusive content for PlayStation gamers: a new Strike, The Undying Mind, and an exotic shotgun, The 4th Horseman. Destiny Expansion I: The Dark Below will be available for $19.99.

Far Cry 4 – A game many are calling a contender for game of the year, Far Cry 4 will take you on a breathtaking adventure through the perilous and wild region of the Himalayas struggling under the regime of a despotic self-appointed king. PS4's exclusive "Keys to Kyrat" feature allows you to send up to 10 keys to your PSN friends, so they can join you in Kyrat for a two-hour online co-op session, even if they don't own a copy of the game.

Read more...

Analysts seems to believe Nintendo has turned a corner and will return to strong profitability this year on the back of popular first-party titles.

The most recent bullish analysts believe Nintendo can see its profits reach $305 million for the year, a huge improvement over last year's $193 million loss.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has stuck by his guns for the last couple of years, as the industry begged the company to start releasing their most popular IP for mobile devices and for other consoles. New hits like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart have boosted Wii U sales significantly this year, and the latest hit - Amiibo - has seen sales of over $1 billion in the U.S. alone.

Shockingly, despite being on the market for two years, the Wii U only has 53 games available and the small catalog is a big reason why the company has only moved 7 million units over its lifetime.

Source:
BBG

Last week, we reported that the new Capcom Street Fighter V would be a PC and PlayStation 4 exclusive, leaving Xbox One gamers in the dark.

This week, Microsoft's Phil Spencer responded via Twitter to the news, simply stating that Microsoft cannot be a part of every business deal for exclusive games, and that the company would rather invest in its own "Killer Instinct" title.

Reads the tweet: "Business deals happen. We won't do all of them. When we have a 1st party franchise in a genre I'd rather invest in ours."

Of course, Microsoft does invest in third-party games, as well, recently making "Rise of the Tomb Raider" a timed exclusive when it launches next year.

James Franco was the host of this week's 'Saturday Night Live' sketch show, and the actor tried to make light of the recent Sony Pictures hack in which the entire company's network was taken down and terabytes of data was stolen including contracts, social security numbers, addresses, internal passwords and full-length screeners of movies like 'Annie' and 'Fury.'

Joking, Franco said: "Something pretty crazy happened this week. I have this movie called 'The Interview' coming out at Sony and this week Sony Studios got all their computers hacked. This is true. These hackers have leaked real personal information about everybody that works at Sony. Social security numbers, emails, and I know eventually they're going to start leaking out stuff about me. So before you hear it from someone else, I thought it would be better if you hear it from me."

"Soon you'll know that my email is CuterThanDaveFranco@AOL.com. My password is LittleJamesyCutiePie -- and this is all just a real violation of my personal life."

'Interview' co-star Seth Rogen then joined Franco and made a few more jokes. As part of the leaked documents, the world learned that Rogen was paid $8.5 million for the movie, and Franco was paid $6.5 million. The film is about two journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jung-un. North Korea publicly denounced the film.

Video sharing site Dailymotion has been fined €1.3 million after a court ruling by the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed copyright infringement.

The site had been accused by infringing copyrights of the private national French TV channel TF1 and the news service LCI.

Legal action was brought against Dailymotion in 2007, and TF1 initially won in 2012, but with a much lower judgement. The new fine is five times higher than the previous.

In its ruling, the court found that the video sharing site did not take any action against users that TF1 identified as unauthorized posters of their content.

Square Enix has managed to piss off an entire fan base this weekend, announcing that a port of 'Final Fantasy VII' is headed exclusively to the PlayStation 4 next year.

Gamers had been eagerly awaiting the announcement of an HD-remastered version, but it looks like the game will be exactly like the PC version, just released to have gamers pay again for the same thing on a different console.

Enix says the game will be available starting in March, but did not reveal pricing. The PC version costs $11.99.

See the gameplay "experience" video here:

'God of War' fans (myself included) were delighted to learn this weekend that Sony is actively working on the next title in the series.

Sony's Santa Monica Studio has confirmed the game is under development but also noted it is in early stages.

Creative Director Cory Barlog says the company will introduce more of the game in "the next year or two," suggesting PS4 owners will have to wait up to three years before they can get to killing mythical beasts and gods of legend.

Barlog also would not answer if Kratos would remain the protagonist of the new game, having starred in all the others to date.

The crowdfunded Jolla Tablet has reached its latest milestone, their $1.5 million stretch goal.

Based on the Sailfish OS, the Jolla Tablet has a 7.85-inch display with 2048x1536 resolution, a 64-bit quad-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, dual 5MP/2MP cameras, 32GB internal storage (expandable via microSD) and a small-ish 4300mAh battery.

By reaching the stretch goal, Jolla will add 128GB mciroSDHC support. As the page reads: "Once we reach the first goal, every Jolla Tablet will be upgraded to support microSDHC cards up to 128GB! You'll never have to worry about running out of space again. Currently Jolla Tablet supports cards up to 32GB, besides having 32GB internal storage."

The next stretch goal is set at $1.75 million, which will add Split Screen capabilities to Sailfish. Says Jolla: "Split screen allows you to view and use two apps simultaneously, enhancing Sailfish OS' multitasking capabilities even further. Split screen is the most wanted Jolla Tablet software feature by our community at together.jolla.com, and we're thrilled to offer it to you as one of the goals! Split screen will be available to you as a software update during Q3/2015."

It is good to see the success of the tablet, as the open-source device has some interesting features.

Clothing retailer Bebe is the latest company to confirm a data breach of sensitive customer information.

Bebe says attackers managed to steal customer names, card numbers, expiration dates and verification codes for cards swiped in stores between Novembr 8th and November 26th of this year in the U.S. and U.S. Virgin Islands.

Online, mobile and international orders were not affected, at least, added the company. Bebe has 174 retail stores and an additional 35 outlet stores.

Security expert Brian Krebs was first to note the hack, and says the hackers likely exploited vulnerabilities in the cash register system and installed malware to steal mag stripe data from millions of cards.

"Our relationship with our customers is of the highest importance," said Bebe CEO Jim Wiggett. "We moved quickly to block this attack and have taken steps to further enhance our security measures."

In the past year, personal data on over 200 million Americans has been compromised thanks to lax security within retailer's systems.

Source:
Krebs

The YouTube for Android app has been updated to include the Material Design interface overhaul of Android 5.0 Lollipop.

With the update, YouTube adds a white background, a full navigation drawer and a tabbed toolbar in bright red.

YouTube's launch icon has been updated as well with more vibrant colors that match Google's other new updates.

On the technical side, the app has added support for "advanced search," a welcome relief for heavy YouTube users.

Source:
AndroidPolice

The US Marshals Service has confirmed that only 11 bidders took part in their second Bitcoin auction for the currency seized from illegal online marketplace Silk Road.

In the first auction, 45 bidders took part in the auction, with a total of 63 bids. The latest auction may have reflected a lack of enthusiasm or an investor exhaustion, with only 27 total bids for the 50,000 coins with a dollar value of $19 million. The first auction was for 30,000 Bitcoins.

Last June, when the first auction concluded, there was only one winner: Thomas Draper, a venture capitalist. Draper is assumed to have paid above market price in order to win all the available coins, which at the time was $570. Draper has taken a wash in his investment so far, with prices down at about $370 as of writing.

In total, there were 173,991 Bitcoins seized from the Silk Road raid and from its alleged operator, Ross Ulbricht.

Source:
NYT

Yesterday, we reported that CBS pulled their content from Dish Network in 16 major metro cities after months of failed licensing negotiations between the two.

Today, the programming is back, as the companies have reached a "multi-year deal covering carriage payments, streaming rights" and ends the two's dispute over Dish's Hopper DVR and its ability to remove commercials.

The Hopper and its "AutoHop" feature was a big enough deal that CBS had sued Dish, and it seems that Dish has caved as part of the new deal. AutoHop is disabled for CBS programming for the first seven days after a program airs on CBS networks. Dish has long defended AutoHop, and its convenience for customers. The company says AutoHop does exactly what all TV watchers with DVR do anyway: fast forward through the commercials.

On Dish's end, the satellite TV company also gets rights to Showtime VOD content and Showtime Anytime, as well as all CBS programming and affiliate programming.

Source:
Deadline

2014 has undoubtedly been a year to forget for retailers and customer data, as many prominent companies have seen severe security breaches leading to the loss of names, addresses, credit card numbers and other sensitive information of hundreds of millions of Americans.

The related fraudulent charges and the costs to replace credit and debit cards has led banks to lose over $400 million on just one single scandal this year (Target), and thanks to a early court ruling, the banks can now move forward with lawsuits against retailers that have been negligent with their security.

In the Target incident, nearly 50 million cards were compromised and in the past the banks have borne the costs of replacements but until this year, the breaches have never been so large. The new ruling allows banks to sue the merchants if there is enough evidence to prove that the company was "negligent" in securing their networks and customer data.

In the case of Target, a number of banks sued claiming that Target "ignored security software alerts and disabled some of its security features" before they were attacked, and the judge agreed.

"Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that Target's actions and inactions -- disabling certain security features and failing to heed the warning signs as hackers' attack began -- caused foreseeable harm to plaintiffs," Judge Magnuson wrote in his ruling. "Plaintiffs have also plausibly alleged that Target's conduct both caused and exacerbated the harm they suffered."

As is becoming standard procedure in the industry, CBS has pulled its programming from the Dish Network in 16 metro cities in the U.S., including NYC, LA and Chicago following failed licensing negotiations.

"Dish has dragged its feet at our many attempts to negotiate in good faith," said CBS in an official statement. "Behavior like this is why Dish has a long history of depriving customers of the programming they have paid for." Dish has lost programming from CNN and other large content providers over past disputes. A dispute with AMC left 'Walking Dead' fans without their show for over 9 months.

The two companies have been in negotiations for at least the last six months, and CBS offered two extensions in just the last week.

Dish was quick to respond: "CBS has chosen to black out their local channels, but remain optimistic that the channels will return quickly as both sides are continuing to work tonight to finalize an agreement."

According to a new report, Google will launch a second-generation model of the Google Glass headset next year, one that is powered by an Intel processor.

The new model will offer increased battery life compared to the current Explorer Edition model, and will likely see other upgrades, as well.

So far, Google has tweaked the glasses to include compatibility for prescription glasses and also to increase the RAM, but otherwise little else has changed.

Reportedly, the new Intel chip will come with a partnership that includes Google marketing Glass to "hospital networks and manufacturers, while developing new workplace uses for the device" as it appears that Intel is looking to promote the device in the workplace.

It is unclear which low-powered Intel chip will power the new device, but it will likely be similar to the chip powering the company's new MICA bracelets.

Twitch, the undisputed king of streaming video game gameplay, now has a big-time rival.

Valve, the company behind Steam, has unveiled Steam Broadcasting, allowing gamers to watch their friends (or strangers) play and to allow their friends to watch them play, all with just one simple click.

You can visit any gamer's profile, see what they are playing and start watching; as long as they have made their gaming public. You have the option to be public, completely private, or have it limited to your Steam friends.

The service is currently in open beta so you can try it out now.

According to a new report, both Sony and Microsoft had great Black Friday weeks, moving consoles at record paces.

Sony sold over 550,000 units for the week ended November 29th in the U.S., stronger than any Black Friday week its predecessor PS3 had.

Microsoft, thanks to bundles and a price cut across the board, sold a whopping 720,000 units in the U.S., easily outselling its rivals.

The Xbox One's sales set a record in the U.S., outselling every console in history for the Black Friday holiday week, according to the site. Keep in mind, VGChartz is normally very shaky with their information, and even the sourced article has errors and typos, but the news would not be shocking.

Microsoft dropped the price of their consoles by $50 to $349 MSRP, and that included bundles like Assassin's Creed. Some retailers even dropped the price to $329 to move units. The PS4 also saw some discounts, but nothing along the lines of those seen by the Xbox One.

Microsoft has finally approved the app, and Windows Phone owners can download it now.

The massively popular desktop media player VLC is now available in an early beta form on Windows Phone devices, with an official launch likely due before the end of the year.

VLC has been around in different stages of completion for Android and iOS for some time now, and the apps are popular due to their ability to play MKV, AVI, MP4 and other popular media file types that the native media apps cannot. Apple removed VLC for iOS with the launch of iOS 8 and it has still not returned, giving Windows Phone users a big leg up on the operating system.

Windows Phone has been sorely lacking such an app, but with VLC, that time appears to be coming to an end.

Source:
Windows Phone Store

The teaser trailer for the latest Star Wars took the world by storm last week and now we have what appears to be a firm date for the next one.

New reports claim that the next Star Wars trailer, expected to be more than just a teaser, will play ahead of "Avengers: Age of Ultron," which is expected to be the biggest Disney movie of the year (at least until Star Wars comes out).

Age of Ultron is slated for release on May 1st, 2015, and as geeks know, "Star Wars Day" is May 4th, so the timing seems right.

Many expected the next trailer to be on Super Bowl day in early February, given the audience of over 100 million that will be tuned in, and that likely remains a possibility. However, fans will definitely be getting a trailer in May.

See the original teaser here:

A week after hackers took down the networks of Sony Pictures and stole 11 terabytes of data, more personal data has been released today, including the social security numbers of nearly 50,000 past and present employees.

Among those with leaked information were celebrities like Sylvester Stallone, Rebel Wilson and Judd Apatow.

Besides the socials, hackers released much more info, as well. Credit card info, social media accounts, computer passwords, home addresses, salary information and contracts are also available now for all to see. Some of the leaked personal data comes from as far back as 2000. On the corporate side, there were passwords and logins for expensive research and data services such as Bloomberg, ComScore and Lexis Nexis leaked, and even the logins for Sony's Amazon and FedEx accounts.

Sony Pictures truly failed its employees with lax security as the documents were kept without encryption, and in plain text labeled files as obvious as "YouTube login passwords.xlsx," for example.

It is unclear where the destructive malware originated, but a handful of security experts have cited how similar the attack was to 2013 attacks by North Korea against South Korea. In fact, North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un promised "merciless retaliation" if Sony did not ban showings of its new film "The Interview," a comedy in which Seth Rogen and James Franco are sent to interview Un and then kill him. North Korea, for its part, has denied any involvement.

Spotify has gotten into the holiday spirit, discounting their premium package for new customers.

Anyone new to the service can get the Premium subscription for just $0.99 for 3 months, when it then reverts back to the normal $9.99 per month.

A premium account gives you unlimited, ad-free access to the entire Spotify catalog and it also gives you the ability to stream from mobiles and other devices. You can also save songs and playlists for offline listening.

Spotify also offers a free ad-supported service and a cheaper "unlimited" service that gets rid of the ads, but doesn't give you mobile access.

Check out the deal here.

Google's excellent new operating system, Android 5.0, is currently on just 0.1 percent of handsets, meaning nearly nobody has gotten to test it outside of the tech media world.

By comparison, Android 2.2, released in early 2010, is still on 0.5 percent of handsets.

Of course, the numbers make sense given that Android 5.0 Lollipop was released to November 12th, and is still only available for a handful of devices. The Nexus 6, which we reviewed here, is still extremely hard to come by but the figure should pick up when all the carriers announce firm release dates.

Other notable devices that aren't in the Nexus line, like the LG G3 and the Moto X, also have seen limited rollouts of the operating system.

Android 4.4 KitKat remains king, with 33.9 percent share, followed by Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at 21.3 percent and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean at 20.4 percent.

Barnes & Noble and Microsoft have unceremoniously ended their partnership in the Nook digital venture of the bookstore.

Earlier this year, Microsoft invested $300 million for a stake in Nook, and today the deal is over, with Microsoft taking a significant loss and no real gains from the partnership.

Microsoft has sold "all of its $300 million convertible Series A preferred limited liability company interest in exchange for an aggregate purchase price equal to (i) $62,425,006.63 in cash and (ii) 2,737,290 shares of common stock."

With B&N shares currently at around $21, Microsoft will get to leave with $119 million in equity, down quite significantly from their original investment.

Of course, the company's stock could go much higher to offset the loss, but things are not looking good for Nook. YoY quarterly revenues decreased 41.3% from 2013 to just $64 million. Device sales fell 63.7% YoY.

According to Google, PSY's 'Gangnam Style' reached a view count so high that it actually broke YouTube's view counter, forcing the company to upgrade its code.

Says the company:

"We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer (=2,147,483,647 views), but that was before we met PSY. "Gangnam Style" has been viewed so many times we had to upgrade to a 64-bit integer (9,223,372,036,854,775,808)!

Hover over the counter in PSY's video to see a little math magic and stay tuned for bigger and bigger numbers on YouTube."

The new updated storage can support 9 quintillion views, even though that never will never be hit.

Sony is taking advantage of the 20 year anniversary of the launch of the original PlayStation console by launching a special edition PlayStation 4 in the gray colorway of its two-decade old predecessor.

Reads the press release:

20 years is a long time! In 1994, many outsiders thought that Sony was slightly crazy to launch the original PlayStation into an incredibly competitive gaming market. Who could blame them? Sony was (and is!) famous for engineering great electronics, audio equipment and many other consumer devices. But game consoles?!

Sony Computer Entertainment, founded by my mentor Ken Kutaragi, was a project borne out of sincere passion and deep admiration for the craft of game development. The mid '90s were an exciting time for game developers, driven by the explosion of powerful but affordable 3D graphics rendering hardware and the birth of many young and adventurous development studios. The original PlayStation was meant to embody that sense of adventure and discovery, that sense that anything was possible.

We sincerely thank you for joining us on our exciting 20-year journey. You have made every bump and scrape we took along the way worthwhile. And there's so much more to come! :D

2014 is undoubtedly the year of the phablet.

Samsung started the trend years ago with its Galaxy Note, which was an experiment but quickly became one of their top sellers. Apple entered the ring this year with their iPhone 6 Plus, confirming that the "mass market" is finally ready for Apple to offer something without a tiny screen.

Most recently, Google released the Nexus 6, its first technical phablet, and the company's showcase for their latest Android operating system.

Each device offers strong performance, a massive screen, and a large price tag.

Check out the specs and key features of the year's most important phablets:

As they do every year, Google has launched a new Nexus device to showcase their latest and greatest Android iteration.

This year, Google decided to go big with the Nexus 6, a device firmly in the phablet category with its six inch display. Google also decided to step away from their low-end pricing for a high-end device model that had served them well with previous Nexus phones, starting the Nexus 6 at $650 unlocked, in-line (albeit cheaper) with unlocked prices for popular devices like the iPhone and Galaxy Note.

Google also decided this was the year that Nexus would become more than just a techie's dream phone, and struck deals with all the major U.S. carriers for retail launches of the device. In the past, only one or two of the majors every received or marketed a Nexus phone.

Today, we review the T-Mobile GSM version of the phone, as the carrier was the first to launch the handset in the U.S., even after a minor delay.

Specs, Performance and Design