News written by Andre Yoskowitz (May, 2015)

After talks had stalled last month, it appears Intel has resumed negotiations to purchase chip maker Altera.

The new deal could be for as much as $16 billion, 15 percent higher than Altera's current market value.

A deal could be made in the coming days, say the sources although both companies have declined comment.

The deal would follow the largest chipmaker merger ever, a $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom by Avago.

Piriform's CCleaner software has been updated to support Microsoft's new Edge browser (Project Spartan), and all you Windows 10 fans can get it here at AfterDawn.

In addition to normal browsing cleaning improvements to the popular Firefox and Google Chrome browsers, the company says they have also "improved our system restore detection algorithm" for the full app.

Changelist:

According to Jon Peddie Research (JPR), Nvidia continues to take share in the graphics add-in-board (AIB) market, which now has very little competition left.

The report takes into account all AIB boards that carry discrete graphics chips and private RAM including those used in PCs, servers, workstations, and scientific instruments. The report also includes factory installed chips and those sold directly to customers.

Nvidia, thanks to their high-end GeForce GPUs, remains the market leader and continues to take share. There are actually only four GPU suppliers left: Nvidia, AMD, Matrox and S3, although Matrox and S3 only had max 0.10 percent share over the last year, combined, making them rather irrelevant.

AMD and Nvidia have 48 OEM partners, and a dozen PC OEMs offer the GPUs as part of their systems or as an additional option when building the computers.

For the Q1, Nvidia rose their share to 77.5 percent, while AMD struggles along at 22.5 percent.

Read the full report here.

Thanks to Microsoft's own Xbox One support page, we now know that the company is planning to release updated Xbox One controllers that include a standard headphone jack.

The page has since been updated, but it used to read that the refreshed controller will launch at E3, and that the headphone port will be "only available on controllers released after June 2015."

Other than the much-awaited feature, the controller looks to be exactly the same as current models. The headphone jack will be located near the bottom of the controller, as reflected by #16 in the image.

The update should be a welcome relief to gamers who may own expensive headphones but had no way to connect them without Microsoft's stereo headset adapter.

Following last week's leaked benchmarks, we have more alleged specs of the upcoming OnePlus Two.

According to the new report, the new device will feature a Full HD 1920 x 1080 display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC with Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB of RAM and dual 13MP/5MP cameras.

So far, the specs do not seem too out of the ordinary, although it is surprising that OnePlus went with an HD display rather than the more common high-end QHD displays.

The second-generation flagship is set to go on sale in a few months with an expected price around $400 USD.

According to Slice Intelligence, Apple has sold 2.5 million smartwatches, to date, but demand has already slowed significantly.

The firm studies consumer spending in the U.S., and it has taken a stab at the fledgling smartwatch industry.

Half of the sales came in the first 24 hours of availability, and since then orders have averaged under 30,000 per day.

Although demand has slowed, 30,000 daily sales means Apple could move 11 million units in its first year of sales, a strong number when the average sales price for the watch is around $400.

Unfortunately, we may not know exact sales of the Watch, even from Apple, as the company will dump the Watch sales in its "other" sales category that includes iPods and accessories like Lightning cables.

Just a few days after Samsung teased the device, the company has confirmed that the Iron Man Edition Galaxy S6 Edge is coming next week.

The second teaser image shows a little bit more of the smartphone, which appears to be red on the back plate with an Iron Man decal.

Outside of the colors and the decal, the device is expected to also include some Marvel apps and potentially videos.

Check out the teaser image larger here:

According to a new report, Google's upcoming Android M will include native fingerprint authentication.

The new feature will work similar to Apple's Touch ID but will also allow you to login to supported apps without the need to enter a password.

Just like existing fingerprint readers, the authentication will let you unlock your device and make purchases when browsing the Google Play Store.

Google's developer conference, I/O, is next week and the search giant is widely expected to introduce all of Android M's features.

LEGO has released another trailer for its upcoming "LEGO Dimensions" video game, and this time it features Christopher Lloyd.

The game will integrate the DC comics universe, Lord of the Rings, Back to the Future and plenty more.

In the trailer, Lloyd creates a portal to the LEGO world and remains in LEGO form.

Oculus VR has sent out press invites to a special event on June 11th, with more information about next year's consumer headset likely to be unveiled.

The company also announced that pre-orders for the consumer launch would begin later this year, so there is a good chance we will get a better look into the hardware specs of the device.

Earlier this month the company finally confirmed the release of the consumer model, which will follow a couple of developer models.

Oculus also released the minimum specs for your VR headset to ensure everything runs properly including an Intel i5-4590, a GeForce GTX 970 and 8GB RAM.

Thanks to some sharp eyes over at WholesomeGamer, we now have the rumor that Sony may be preparing to drop the price of the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.

On Sony's official retail loyalty site, there is a promotion running that will allow members to win prizes, and snuck in the fine print are the listed ARV (average retail value) of each prize.

The PS Vita is listed with an ARV of just $89 for the promotion and the PS4 is valued at $349. Those prizes are nice discounts from the current retail price of $200 for the Vita and $400 for the PS4.

While the price cuts would not be all too unexpected, and the documents could just be mistakes, but there is a possibility that Sony will cut later this year following the unexpected sales win by the Xbox One in April.

Major Chinese infrastructure maker Huawei is readying an operating system for Internet of Things devices that is just 10 kilobytes large.

'LiteOS' is the "lightest" software of its kind, says the company, and it will be used to power a large range of smart devices.

The company says it believe that "by 2025, a total of 100 billion connections will be generated globally and two million new sensors will be deployed every hour" but that current networks cannot support such growth.

"Huawei believes that standardizing ICT infrastructure will foster the development of Internet applications, including IoT applications. To address this, Huawei is launching our IoT OS, LiteOS," said Mr. William Xu, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Huawei.

LiteOS will be available to all developers, meaning IoT products could launch in the future built around the tiny OS.

In speaking about the operating system, the company says "LiteOS is the world's most lightweight IoT OS. It is small in size at 10KB and supports zero configuration, auto-discovery, and auto-networking. It can be widely applied to different areas including smart homes, wearable, connected vehicles and other industries. The LiteOS helps to simplify the development of smart hardware to enhance IoT connectivity."

EA has published a teaser trailer for this year's reboot of the popular Need For Speed racing series.

The game will be called 'Need for Speed' taking the series back to its basics after years of sequels and spin-offs.

"Need for Speed returns in Fall 2015 to PS4, Xbox One and PC in an action driving experience that unites the culture of speed. The new NFS game will feature deep customization, authentic urban car culture, a nocturnal open world, and an immersive narrative that pulls you through the game," reads the bio for the trailer.

Check it out here:

LG Display has unveiled a "wallpaper" OLED panel this week, so thin that it can stick to a wall with just a magnetic mat.

The 55-inch panel is just 0.97mm thick and weighs only 4 pounds, making it easily the lightest and thinnest display out there. LG's current 55-inch OLED panels are "fat" in comparison at 4.3mm thick.

Yeo Sang-deog, the head of LG Display's OLED division, says the company will continue to develop OLED as a primary drivers of revenue and growth. "We should be able to supply a satisfactory volume to our clients from July or August, which means we're hoping to buckle down production as well as promotion from the third quarter," he said.

Asus' Vivowatch smartwatch has begun shipping in Europe, a month after launching in the U.S.

The fitness watch has a 10-day battery life, a built-in heart rate sensor and features a 'Happiness Index' that bases how happy you are based on the amount of exercise and the quality of your sleep. In addition, there is a motion detector and a UV light sensor and the watch is protected by Gorilla Glass 3.

Vivowatches don't run on Android Wear like most smartwatches, however, instead running a proprietary OS on a monochrome 128x128 pixel screen leading to the extended battery life.

This week, Asus has begun shipping the fitness watch in Europe, priced at 149 euros, significantly cheaper than higher end rivals like the Apple Watch or LG Watch Urbane.

Check out the watch here.

Upon launch of the company's new iPhone Lightning Dock, it appears that Apple may have outed a new, updated iPhone 5c with Touch ID.

There have been rumors that Apple has been looking to update the 5c to closer match the iPhone 6 design, but there has been little official confirmation.

The image of the 5c posted with the dock shows an iPhone with the Touch ID fingerprint sensor and a thinner design that did indeed resemble the iPhone 6.

As of writing, Apple has removed the image.

Check out the dock here: iPhone Lightning Dock

After six years of predicting an Apple television is coming, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has finally thrown in the towel.

The analyst had confidently predicted an Apple TV set (not the set-top) every year since 2009, but it is clear one is not coming.

A recent Wall Street Journal report claims Apple considered launching its own TV plenty of times, but dropped the plans for good in 2014.

Munster sent a new note to clients titled "Facing The Reality of No Apple Television."

"Given how adamant we have been about the reality of an Apple television, it's hard to accept the reality of no Apple television," said Munster. "Our latest thinking prior to this story was that Apple would launch a television in 2016. Based on this report, we no longer expect a television to launch indefinitely."

Sony has announced an "Extended Play Sale" offering hundreds of TV episodes and games at discounts up to 60 percent.

Some of the titles are deluxe editions (game + season pass) and others are just season passes.

On the TV side, there are full catalog seasons available and seasons passes for current seasons that allow you to binge the episodes while they are still on TV including popular shows like Gotham, Arrow and The Flash.

The sale is good through Monday, May 25th. If you are a PlayStation Plus member, the discounts are extended to up to 80 percent off.

Check out the huge list of sales items here: Sony

The Chinese State Council has said today that the government will invest $182 billion to boost Internet speeds in the world's most populous nation by 2017.

This year alone, the government will invest 430 billion yuan ($69.3 billion) on network construction.

Overall, the goal is to jumpstart development of fiber optic broadband and mobile 4G networks in a country that currently ranks 82nd in the world in average Internet speeds.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang says the Interner and technology are "vital catalysts" for the country's shift to a services-oriented economy.

LG has created two variants to its newly launched G4 flagship, the G4 Stylus and the G4c.

The Stylus has a larger 5.7-inch display and comes with high-end stylus while the G4c is considered the 'budget' model and has a 5-inch display. The G4 flagship has a 5.5-inch screen.

Both phones look just like the G4, but under the hood, there are some differences. The phones have 1.2GHz quad-core processors, and 13MP/5MP cameras, slightly worse than the G4. The batteries are also different sizes.

The two phones will go on sale in the coming weeks across the world, including a 3G-only model of the Stylus which will be "exceptionally priced."

When Microsoft launched the Xbox One it included the Kinect motion control system with every console, forcing gamers to pay a $100 premium compared to the Sony PlayStation 4.

Ever since Microsoft dropped Kinect from its Xbox One as a necessary peripheral and dropped the price of the console, the company has managed to outsell its rival a number of times and that has led to a simple question: Is Microsoft dropping support for Kinect altogether?

According to Xbox head Phil Spencer, the company is not abandoning the Kinect, but the company will not focus at all on Kinect functions for gaming.

"It's not abandoned. We just developed Upload Studio 2.0, which has green screening that you can do with Kinect. We'll continue to build functionality to make it a valuable part of the ecosystem. That said, price point's really important for the console – we saw that over the holidays in the UK and US, where we did well when we dropped the price, which was great," said Spencer. "And I want to make sure consumers have choice on how much they value the functionality of Kinect when they buy a console. If you want to go buy a Kinect console [bundle], then they're still available."

Spencer continued: "[Kinect's] place will be earned through the experiences that are out there and the developers that show interest. We will continue to build functionality through voice and using the RGB and depth cameras, and we'll stay focused on that, but giving the consumers choice is pretty critical."

Eleven years after the release of Doom 3, we have the first very brief teaser trailer of the upcoming 'Doom' sequel.

Publisher Bethesda has confirmed a gameplay reveal at their E3 showcase on June 14th.

The trailer reveals little about the game, but we do get to see the super shotgun and a Revenant demon with its gun backpack.

'Doom 4' or whatever it will be called, was first announced in 2008, but clearly development has been delayed.

Kim Dotcom had some more harsh words for the big Hollywood studios, as he faces charges for copyright infringement thanks to his former ownership of Megaupload.

"If Hollywood had some smart people working for them, they would probably have the biggest Internet company on the planet," Kim Dotcom said in an interview. "Instead, it's companies like Apple and Netflix that steal their thunder and this opportunity to monetize the power of the Internet. They completely missed the train."

Dotcom ran Megaupload until 2012 when it was shutdown by a police raid. At the time, the site was responsible for over 25 percent of all traffic on the Internet. Dotcom has been accused of copyright infringement, wire fraud and racketeering and is facing extradition to the U.S. although it is nowhere near a guarantee that he will ever leave New Zealand.

The studios are now trying to bully Dotcom out of fear, he added: "It's like the candlestick maker that didn't like the light bulb when it came along." Dotcom says Hollywood encourages piracy by not releasing films globally at the same time but rather choosing to roll it out sometimes over months. "Because people don't get that access, they are looking for the stuff elsewhere. So it's a problem created by the content creators, I'm not responsible for that."

Today we have the first official trailer for the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic featuring Michael Fassbender in the lead role.

The teaser doesn't reveal too much about the film, but we do get to see Fassbender as the genius founder of Apple.

Steve Jobs is directed by Danny Boyle and also has Seth Rogen as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman.

Check out the trailer here:

HTC has confirmed today that they will stop producing their 'mini' line of products as the company focuses on devices with screens larger than 5 inches.

North Asia president Jack Tong said the smaller devices are no longer in fashion in the industry.

In fact, the company's most recent budget offering has lower-end specs but still has a 5.5-inch display.

Truthfully, Apple killed off the 'compact" smartphone market when it moved away from tiny screened devices and launched the iPhone 6 last year.

Spotify and Starbucks have announced a new deal in which employees and customers will be able to influence the in-store music played at local Starbucks locations.

The program will start with 150,000 U.S. Starbucks employees getting a Spotify Premium membership and followed by My Starbucks Reward members getting "unique access to Spotify." That program will then let employees and loyalty customers influence which songs make it to the store's in-store playlists.

"For over forty years, music has played a vital role in Starbucks Third Place experience – inspiring our partners and customers in unexpected ways that have helped to shape the global pop culture. And we are delighted and honored to bring Spotify directly to our customers," said Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks. "Throughout its history, Starbucks has worked closely with the music industry, offering a variety of artists a platform for their work. By connecting Spotify's world-class streaming platform into our world-class store and digital ecosystem, we are reinventing the way our millions of global customers discover music."

Spotify recently struck a similar deal with Uber, allowing riders to DJ from their seats.

In 2013, a jury ruled in favor of Apple in a blockbuster patent and intellectual property fight with Samsung, awarding the Cupertino giant $930 million in damages.

A new ruling by the U.S. appeals court has threatened parts of that verdict, meaning nearly 40 percent of the damages award will now be reconsidered.

The patent infringement verdict was upheld but a separate trademark verdict was thrown out. The trademark verdict had found that the iPhone's external appearance could be protected and was the most controversial ruling of the trial.

$382 million that was awarded for trade dress dilution will now be reconsidered. Apple was never able to gain an injunction on the offending smartphones, all of which are now years old and no longer available.

LG's latest flagship, the G4, has begun rolling out across the globe following its early launch in Korea.

The company says the device will launch in Hong Kong first, followed by Turkey, Russia and Singapore. Afterwards, the smartphone is headed to "most of Europe, North America, CIS, Southeast Asia, Middle East/Africa and South/Central America" over the course of the next month.

LG's latest has a large 5.5-inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel (QHD) display with better color reproduction, adds a bit of a curve (to help avoid shattering the screen if you drop it), is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage (microSD expandable), a 3,000mAh removable battery (no QuickCharging or wireless charging available however) and Android 5.1 with LG's own custom UI on top.

Notably, LG says its GPS nav and location services are "twice as accurate" as any other phone and the company has removed lots of bloat, so the devices will seem almost like stock. The company is also adding 100GB of free Google Drive storage for 24 months, at least for the U.S. model.

Earlier this month, streaming music service Grooveshark shut down and settled for millions of dollars with the major record labels.

The record labels took over control of the Grooveshark name, its patents and copyrights, and the existing database was completely wiped.

Just days after the site was shutdown, however, someone revived the brand with multiple domains, offering up a basic music search engine to find copyright music. Going by the name 'Shark' the new admin claimed that Grooveshark would rise again.

The record labels did not agree and quickly sued the new site over trademark infringement, copyright infringement, cybersquatting and counterfeiting. A District Judge was quick to rule in favor of the labels, issuing a restraining order. Additionally, domain registrar NameCheap was ordered to seize grooveshark.io and any other domains.

Within a day, the operator brought the site back at grooveshark.vc but that domain has since been seized, as well.

According to new reports, Netflix is in talks with Wasu Media Holding, the Chinese company backed by Alibaba's Jack Ma, looking to partner up in the nation of 1.4 billion people.

China's online video market is growing exponentially and is now valued at $5.9 billion.

Netflix plans "to be nearly global by the end of 2016," although they did not specifically confirm China as part of the plans.

A local partnership is necessary in the nation, where the government censors and controls online and TV content. Wasu has licenses to play content on mobile devices, PCs and set-top boxes, one of just 7 companies in the nation to have those.

"China is too big to have an asterisk next to it," Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said Friday in response to the reports. "There are a lot of operating constraints in China that are different to anywhere else. We don't have any operating partners anywhere else in the world, so that would be a new skill for us too."

The Chinese online video market is expected to grow to $12.9 billion by 2018.

Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi will launch their Mi Store outside of Asia starting on May 19th, in beta.

The store will launch in the U.S., UK, France and Germany offering accessories but not phones or tablets.

"For the 1st time ever, fans in US, UK, France and Germany can shop on mi.com (beta test) and purchase star accessories like the 5000mAh and 10400mAh Mi power banks, Mi Band and Mi Headphones! Very limited quantities will be available on 19 May, 1pm CEST (7am EST)," says the company.

Items like the power banks have been incredibly popular, especially at their cheap price points ($9.99 and $13.99) so it will be interesting to see how successful the company is in their endeavors outside of Asia.

CBS's on-demand streaming service, All Access, now offers local and live TV feeds to over 60 percent of U.S. consumers.

The service launched last October and the live feeds were limited to just 14 CBS owned and operated stations in major metros like NY, LA and Chicago.

Since then, CBS has expanded to 12 additional affiliate stations in 56 markets. Today's announcement adds an extra 13 affiliates, and the total markets are now up to 94.

The service costs $5.99 per month and offers 7000 episodes of classic and new CBS programs that can be streamed through your browser, on Roku, via Chromecast and on dedicated Android and iOS apps.

Sadly, the service does not offer live streaming for football games, which would be a huge draw in America.

Oculus VR has posted the minimum specs required to use the upcoming Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, specs that will guarantee a "better player experience of comfortable sustained presence."

The company does say the recommended specs configuration will hold for the lifetime of the headset meaning you won't have to keep updating your PC as each new generation of the Rift is launched.

Reads the statement: "Today, that system's specification is largely driven by the requirements of VR graphics. To start with, VR lets you see graphics like never before. Good stereo VR with positional tracking directly drives your perceptual system in a way that a flat monitor can't. As a consequence, rendering techniques and quality matter more than ever before, as things that are imperceivable on a traditional monitor suddenly make all the difference when experienced in VR. Therefore, VR increases the value of GPU performance.

At the same time, there are three key VR graphics challenges to note: raw rendering costs, real-time performance, and latency.

On the raw rendering costs: a traditional 1080p game at 60Hz requires 124 million shaded pixels per second. In contrast, the Rift runs at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over dual displays, consuming 233 million pixels per second. At the default eye-target scale, the Rift's rendering requirements go much higher: around 400 million shaded pixels per second. This means that by raw rendering costs alone, a VR game will require approximately 3x the GPU power of 1080p rendering."

Samsung has confirmed rumors that it is building an Iron Man-themed edition of its new flagship, the Galaxy S6 Edge.

The company has not revealed the device itself but instead teased the release box although we have seen mocks in the past weeks (see below).

Thanks to the premium metal design, the new phone makes an ideal showcase for an "Iron Man" device, building upon his own gold and red suit made of titanium and other metals.

Samsung and Marvel signed up for a cross-promotional deal last June.

Check out the mock here:

Microsoft has taken the reins in regards to future Windows Phone updates, promising that carriers will no longer be a hindrance in getting the latest update for your operating system.

Starting with the launch of Windows 10 Mobile later this year, all personal and business devices running the OS will get updates directly through Microsoft, meaning you won't have to wait weeks (or even months or years) for your carrier to approve and manipulate the update before it gets to you.

Says the company: "Here at Microsoft, we take our responsibility to keep Windows secure seriously. We ... proactively update supported devices with necessary updates to address issues. And today, we're announcing this continuous update process applies to all Windows 10 devices, including phones."

The carriers will not be left out completely, of course, as they will be part of the Insider group of testers that have input in new builds before Microsoft rolls them out.

Apple has operated their updates this way for years, which keeps fragmentation to a minimum. Android has been dogged by huge fragmentation issues since its launch, with nearly 25 percent of users still running versions of Android released in 2012 or earlier.

After a year-long hiatus, LG has returned to the Windows Phone market.

The new LG Lancet is a low-end device for Verizon at a retail price of $120, marking a cautious return for the electronics giant.

Running on Windows 8.1 (should be upgradable to Windows 10), the device has a 4.5-inch LCD, a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, dual cameras 0.3MP/8MP and 8GB internal storage expandable to 128GB with microSD.

More importantly is the fact that the Lancet is XLTE-ready and is the first Windows phone to have HD Voice Calling for clearer calls.

Mozilla has announced that the first Panasonic VIERA TVs running on the Firefox OS are now available for sale.

The TVs are available in Europe and will launch worldwide in the coming months.

"Through our partnership with Mozilla and the openness and flexibility of Firefox OS, we have been able to create a more user friendly and customizable TV UI. This allows us to provide a better user experience for our consumers providing a differentiator in the Smart TV market," said Masahiro Shinada, Director of the TV Business Division at Panasonic Corporation.

"We're happy to partner with Panasonic to bring the first Smart TVs powered by Firefox OS to the world," said Andreas Gal, Mozilla CTO. "With Firefox and Firefox OS powered devices, users can enjoy a custom and connected Web experience and take their favorite content (apps, videos, photos, websites) across devices without being locked into one proprietary ecosystem or brand."

There are six models running the operating system, the CR850, CR730, CX800, CX750, CX700 and CX680.

Mozilla's Smart TV operating system has a customizable UI that allows for quicker access to favorites including streaming channels, apps, websites, bookmarks and more.

Korean electronics giant Samsung has announced that its Samsung Wallet service will be shutting down on June 30th as the company migrates to the upcoming Samsung Pay service.

Any reservations or ticket purchase you may have made through the app will still be available after June 30th but all other features will be discontinued.

The Wallet service was created to let Samsung phone and tablet users place all their coupons, membership cards, boarding passes and mobile payment services in one place. By all accounts, the app was moderately successful and Samsung had deals with American Express, Expedia, United Airlines and other large companies.

Samsung Pay, the company's rival to Apple Pay, is expected to launch in the Q3.

For a couple of alleged pirates, ignoring those ISP copyright notices could be potentially disastrous.

Anti-piracy firm Rightscorp, on behalf of Rotten Records, has sued two Comcast customers who allegedly downloaded a 1994 album from Acid Bath and a 1995 album from D.R.I.

According to the suit, both of the alleged pirates shared the albums via the BitTorrent P2P network. Rightscorp was able to connect to their IP addresses and download the albums, later verifying that the downloaded copies were identical to the original and copywritten work.

Now, it is important to note that Rightscorp didn't just send one warning notice via Comcast demanding for the defendants to stop sharing. For the Acid Bath album, the pirate received 11 separate notices. For the D.R.I. album, the pirate received a shocking 288 notices between December 14, 2014 and May 12, 2015.

The lawsuit is seeking an injunction on further online infringement and of course, the deletion of the stolen works. In addition, Rotten Records wants attorney's fees and statutory damages as high as $150,000.

Microsoft has backtracked on previous announcements today, telling pirates that they will not be getting a free upgrade to Windows 10.

Earlier this year, Windows boss Terry Myerson said everyone with Windows 7 and 8.1 would get a free upgrade to Windows 10, including those without genuine copies. The statement made a lot of waves, but it seems it was for naught.

Myerson explained:

Streaming music player Rdio has launched a new $3.99 per month subscription tier, cheaper than the competition.

At the low-end tier, consumers get ad-free streaming at 320 kbps, unlimited track skipping and daily download access to 25 songs from Rdio's extensive catalog.

Most competitors offer an all-or-nothing package at $9.99 per month including unlimited ad-free streaming, track skipping, mobile access and unlimited downloads.

Rdio CEO Anthony Bay compared the new offer to flying: "We've all been flying airplanes that had business class only. There is no coach."

The service is available now on iOS and Android in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa.

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has announced completed work on the new Ultra HD Blu-ray specification that will support 4K resolution video.

"For years, Blu-ray Disc has set the standard for high definition picture and audio quality in the home. Ultra HD Blu-ray will do the same for UHD home entertainment," said Victor Matsuda, chair, BDA Promotions Committee. "The technical capabilities of Blu-ray Disc, in particular its significant storage capacity and high data transfer rates, will enable the delivery of an unparalleled, consistent and repeatable UHD experience."

In addition to offering content with resolutions up to 3840x2160, the new format also "enables delivery of a significantly expanded color range and allows for the delivery of high dynamic range (HDR) and high frame rate content. Next-generation immersive, object-based sound formats will also be delivered via the Ultra HD Blu-ray specification." Ultra HD Blu-ray will have space for 66GB on dual-layer discs and 100GB on triple-layer discs.

Also of note, there will be a "digital bridge" feature that allows consumers to view their content on numerous devices around the home.

All Ultra HD Blu-ray players will also be backwards compatible with Blu-ray discs, so you don't have to re-buy your whole collection for the 20th time. Expect more availability news throughout the summer, says the BDA.

Microsoft has revealed all of the editions of Windows 10 today, giving names to the operating system that will power mobile devices, desktops, business servers, the Xbox and even ATMs and other Internet of Things devices.

The operating system will launch in late July in 111 languages in 190 different countries.

Here is the full list:

Windows 10 Home is the consumer-focused desktop edition. It offers a familiar and personal experience for PCs, tablets and 2-in-1s. Windows 10 Home will help people do great things, both big and small. With it, they will be more productive and have more fun thanks to a long list of new innovations: Cortana, the world's most personal digital assistant; the new Microsoft Edge web browser; Continuum tablet mode for touch-capable devices; Windows Hello face-recognition, iris and fingerprint login; and right out of the box, a broad range of universal Windows apps like Photos, Maps, Mail, Calendar, Music and Video*.

We are also bringing the Xbox gaming experience to Windows 10, giving games and gamers access to the Xbox Live gaming community, enabling the capture and share of gameplay and giving Xbox One owners the ability to play their Xbox One games from any Windows 10 PC in their home.

Windows 10 Mobile is designed to deliver the best user experience on smaller, mobile, touch-centric devices like smartphones and small tablets. It boasts the same, new universal Windows apps that are included in Windows 10 Home, as well as the new touch-optimized version of Office. Windows 10 Mobile offers great productivity, security and management capabilities for customers who use their personal devices at work. In addition, Windows 10 Mobile will enable some new devices to take advantage of Continuum for phone, so people can use their phone like a PC when connected to a larger screen.

Read more...

Google and Nestlé have announced their new "YouTube My Break" campaign this week, turning 600,000 packs of KitKat candy bars into 'YouTube Break' bars.

Says Nestlé: "This forms one of 72 different types of 'breaks' to feature on more than 400 limited edition designs across 2 and 4 finger and Chunky bars as part of the campaign. More than 100 million of these specially designed packs will be produced in total over the course of the campaign."

Apparently, KitKat fans are also YouTube fans and the companies are using the campaign and "Google's voice search technology to deliver the world's most entertaining videos straight to its customers' mobiles. Searching for "KitKat YouTube my break" on their phone, users will be introduced to a KITKAT video followed by a playlist of the latest top four trending YouTube videos anytime, anywhere worldwide."

The deal follows 2013's launch of Android 4.4 KitKat, which was originally set to be codenamed Key Lime Pie before the product deal was struck.

Google has announced the debut of an Android One device in Turkey, the first of the line to land in Europe.

The goal of Android One is to bring cheap smartphones to the developing world with stock Android and made by a number of local OEMs.

Since its launch last September, Android One devices have launched in seven nations (including the latest in Turkey) but with the cheap price tag came super low-end devices and sales have been mediocre.

The new launch is in partnership with General Mobile and the device is the strongest we've seen yet from the Android One program. The 'General Mobile 4G' has a 5-inch 720p display with Gorilla Glass 4, 2GB RAM and dual 5MP/13MP cameras. The device is also the first to support LTE.

Google says the phone will sell for $250, higher than other Android One devices.

Mozilla has launched Firefox 38 this week for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Android, featuring a few notable updates in addition to the normal performance and stability fixes.

Firefox 38 has integrated Adobe Content Decryption Module (CDM) to add the ability to play DRM-wrapped content on Windows devices, and Mozilla explained the move to DRM: "We are enabling DRM in order to provide our users with the features they require in a browser and allow them to continue accessing premium video content. We don't believe DRM is a desirable market solution, but it's currently the only way to watch a sought-after segment of content."

In addition, all the releases are getting Ruby annotation support,, often requested in Japan where publications need the extra text to indicate a pronunciation or meaning of the sentence or characters. There were add-ons previously, but now the support is built-in natively.

The full rundown:

The Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission are both near ending their review of the proposed AT&T acquisition of DirecTV, and are unlikely to block such a deal.

AT&T proposed a $49 billion acquisition of the satellite TV giant.

Although the deal is likely to pass, regulators are expected to propose numerous conditions on the deal, some of which will require either one or the other company to sell off certain subscribers, assets or spectrum.

AT&T has already committed to expand access to broadband in rural areas, and will likely have to commit to concessions on streaming video. Companies like Netflix have complained that a combined company could squeeze out other online services and raise prices on streaming providers.

Verizon and Sprint have settled with the FCC and will pay out $158 million over charges of 'cramming,' a practice in which the carrier allowed third-parties to charge customers for services without their knowledge and then hid the charges deep in the billing statement.

AT&T settled last year for $105 million and T-Mobile settled for $90 million. Verizon will pay $90 million and Sprint will kick in the remaining $68 million.

Many of the unwanted charges were as expensive as $9.99 per month, and included services that provided daily horoscope text messages or 30 second ringtones. The charges would then show up on your bill under a non-descript banner. Verizon and Sprint "were unable to prove that these services were ever requested" when asked by the FCC.

None of the carriers will be allowed to 'cram' in the future.

"Consumers rightfully expect their monthly phone bills will reflect only those services that they've purchased," Travis LeBlanc, the FCC Enforcement Bureau chief, said in a statement. "Today's settlements put in place strong protections that will prevent consumers from being victimized by these kinds of practices in the future."

Check out the refund process here for Verizon and Sprint.

Google, noticeably absent from a quickly growing catalog of Apple Watch apps, has unveiled their first app for the platform: 'Google News & Weather.'

While Google News and Weather is not the most popular Google app out there, it should be a good test for the search engine giant in exploring the new watch platform. It will compete directly with Apple Watch apps from major media outlets like The New York Times and NPR, among others.

Just like in those competing apps, you can swipe through top headlines right from the watch, and read news from over 65,000 publications condensed into different categories like "Top News," "Technology" and "Sports." You can also see any local news.

Unfortunately, the app appears to be limited. There is a photo and a headline, but no option to see the full story or even a summary. You cannot use Handoff to continue reading on your iPhone. You can however, use a Force Touch gesture to save the article to your Safari Reading List.

Starting next week, Domino's will begin rolling out a 'tweet-to-order' system that will allow hungry consumers to order via Twitter.

Making it even easier, all you will have to do is send a pizza emoji to @Dominos to get the process started. "It's the epitome of convenience," says Patrick Doyle, CEO at Domino's. "We've got this down to a five-second exchange."

Twitter has 302 million monthly active users sending over 500 million Tweets per day, but the company continues to struggle to maintain profits. Such creative uses of the platform are the next step in Twitter's plans. "Our hope is that advertisers will keep innovating this way," said Twitter spokeswoman Genevieve Wong. "Twitter is the best platform to be creative like this."

Domino's has been among the most tech-savvy companies in regards to ordering letting consumers order through Smart TVs, Android Wear watches, their own voice app and Pebble watches.

Verizon Communications has announced today the purchase of AOL for $4.4 billion as the company looks to expand its advertising and mobile video services.

AOL has remade itself in the last decade and now offers premier tech for selling ads and delivering high-quality Web video, including on mobile devices.

"Certainly the subscription business and the content businesses are very noteworthy. For us, the principal interest was around the ad tech platform," said Verizon's president of operations John Stratton.

Verizon has already announced they will launch a video service for mobile devices later this year that offers free, paid and ad-supported content. Most of the content will be shorter than the average TV show (21 minutes).

AOL also has a significant content network which includes Engadget, Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Moviefone but there is already rumors that HuffPo could be spun off into its own company.

In 2000, AOL acquired Time Warner and the deal is widely considered the worst in history. AOL's value plummeted after the tech bubble burst in 2001, and the merged companies had to take a loss of over $100 billion.

Warner Music Group, the second-largest record label on the planet, has announced a major milestone in the industry's shift towards streaming.

The label says for the Q1 2015 (fiscal Q2), streaming music revenue surpassed revenue from digital downloads for the first time ever.

Overall, streaming revenue grew 33 percent while digital download revenue only grew 7 percent. Streaming is anchored by Spotify, Google and YouTube while digital downloads are still mainly the domain of one player: Apple. For its part, Apple has also confirmed that digital downloads have peaked and Apple is rumored to be exploring a major comeback for its Beats Music service.

"The rate of this growth has made it abundantly clear that in years to come, streaming will be the way that most people enjoy music," says WMG CEO Stephen Cooper. "We'll continue to collaborate with our streaming partners to expand their businesses, and more importantly, to ensure that copyright owners, artists and songwriters receive appropriate value for their work." Read more...

Fixstars has unveiled the world's first 2.5-inch 6TB SSD, the largest capacity drive in that form factor.

The company says the Fixstars SSD-6000M will use 15nm flash memory and have read speeds of 540MB/s and write speeds of up to 520MB/s for sequential access.

Satoshi Miki, the CEO of Fixstars Corporation, noted: "The unparalleled performance of our previous model's (The SSD-3000M) sequential I/O helped propel our SSDs and garner lots of attention. Since many of our customers desire even greater capacity, I am excited to offer a new solution and grow the product line with the inclusion of the larger SSD-6000M. Since our SSD's capacity is now able to compete with high-end hard drives, we feel our product can draw the attention of data centers as well."

The drive is expected to ship in July, with an unknown price tag.

Pioneering streaming service Rhapsody has taken out a $10 million loan as its losses unexpectedly deepen.

Thanks to a filing with the SEC, we know that the company had an $8.9 million net loss for the Q1, even though revenue grew to $46.3 million. The loss was a bit unexpected given that the company lost $1.6 million in the same period last year.

Rhapsody has been trying to stay relevant against larger rivals like Spotify, Google, Amazon and Apple and the company has been forced to make bigger investments than it has in the past.

CFO Ethan Rudin stated a few months ago that 2015 would be a very important year: "2015 is a watershed year, not just for Rhapsody but for streaming music in general. It's not a period in time in which we're taking our foot off the gas. It's an investment year. We're thinking a lot about new product, we're thinking a lot about promotional opportunities, and music sharing like this Twitter opportunity."

Rhapsody is not traded publicly but its results are visible thanks to RealNetworks, the 43 percent owner of the company.

Nintendo has confirmed that it is looking to release five mobile games by March 2017, and partner DeNA hopes to bring in $25 million (3 billion yen) in income per month from the games.

The first games will be launched by the end of the year, and CEO Satoru Iwata says it will carefully choose the characters used in its smartphone and tablet games.

Nintendo has not yet revealed the gameplay format, although it did note that the games would be (in part at least), free-to-play with in-app purchases. Outside of the F2P, the gaming giant will also "establish a new successful business approach in the mobile game industry."

Spotify has reported their earnings figures for 2014, showing huge growth in revenue and an even larger growth in losses.

For the year, revenue grew 45 percent to €1.08 billion from €747 million year-over-year. The company posted a loss of €162 million, up from €55.9 million in 2013, as investments paid a heavy toll on the bottom line.

The market leading music streaming company launched in new countries, including major players like Brazil and Canada and also spent millions on building mobile apps for the service that allow for free radio streaming on iOS, Windows and Android.

Usership also saw major growth, jumping to 60 million with 15 million paying subscribers, up from 36 million users at the end of 2013.

Over the past few months, there has been a persistent rumor that Chinese OEM Huawei is preparing to build the upcoming Nexus phone, and now we have an alleged spec sheet.

The specs come via Chinese IT analyst firm Pan Jiutang, who posted the data on microblogging site Weibo.

Last November, Google released the Nexus 6, built by Motorola to showcase Android 5.0 Lollipop. The new device will not be called the Nexus 7, however, since that name has been taken since 2013 for Google's previous flagship tablet and it is unclear what name the new phone will receive.

If the specs are accurate, and we will not know that for some time, the new Nexus will feature a smaller 5.7-inch QHD OLED screen, a Snapdragon 810 processor and a higher resolution rear camera.

We may learn a bit more at Google's upcoming I/O developer event.

Last month, Nokia confirmed it was strategically reviewing its HERE maps service with the possibility of selling it.

Today, we have a reported bidder, with the startup taxi service Uber allegedly bidding $3 billion for the business.

The sources noted that Uber is competing against major luxury automakers BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz who have teamed up with Chinese search engine Baidu to create a consortium to bid on the service.

While it certainly seems that HERE will be sold soon, Nokia Chairman Risto Siilasmaa would not confirm. "I'd like to stress that the review will not necessarily lead to selling of HERE. We strongly believe in the possibilities to develop HERE also as part of Nokia," he said.

The service has a book value of $2.2 billion without taking any growth into account, suggesting a $3 billion bid will be too small.

Source:
Reuters

Since its launch a little over a year ago, Google's smartwatch platform Android Wear has matured substantially, as has Android in general. The latest release, built on Android 5.1.1, brings quite a few new features and generally polishes the operating system making the experience better than what we've experienced in the past.

On the hardware side, it seems that every few weeks we see the launch of a new smartwatch from a top tech company, but so far none have really struck a chord with consumers, with the Moto 360 being the only possible exception. We have reviewed a few smartwatches here on AfterDawn, but none has ever been worth keeping. That leads us to the LG Watch Urbane, the latest offering from LG and the first Android Wear smartwatch to get 5.1.1. LG promises "timeless aesthetics" in a luxury package along with a premium price tag. Is the combination of the LG Watch Urbane and Android Wear 5.1.1 enough to get the casual consumer to finally embrace Android Wear?

After a year of strained relations, BlackBerry and T-Mobile are back in business.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere has confirmed that the BlackBerry Classic will launch on the 'Uncarrier' on May 13th, available for $0 down and 24 monthly payments of $18.33, or for a full price of $440.

The two companies have been at odds ever since T-Mobile sent out a marketing email with a coupon urging current BlackBerry customer to upgrade to the iPhone. BlackBerry CEO John Chen called the email "inappropriate" and eventually did not renew their licensing agreement.

Being that BlackBerry sales have cratered year after year and T-Mobile is the hottest carrier in the market right now, it is clear that BlackBerry was willing to let the past stay in the past.

"Together with T-Mobile, we hope to deliver highly differentiated solutions that appeal to our mutual users: the power professionals who depend on their smartphones to get things done and make things happen," said Chen at today's press conference.

Oculus VR has confirmed that the first retail consumer model of their highly anticipated Oculus Rift VR headset will launch in the Q1 2016, with pre-orders beginning later this year.

Says Oculus: "The Rift delivers on the dream of consumer VR with compelling content, a full ecosystem, and a fully-integrated hardware/software tech stack designed specifically for virtual reality. It's a system designed by a team of extremely passionate gamers, developers, and engineers to reimagine what gaming can be."

Developer kits have been available for early adopters (and Kickstarter backers) over the past year but the consumer model will have some design differences.

Reads the press statement: "The Oculus Rift builds on the presence, immersion, and comfort of the Crescent Bay prototype with an improved tracking system that supports both seated and standing experiences, as well as a highly refined industrial design, and updated ergonomics for a more natural fit."

Oculus has promised more details about the hardware, software, input and games in the coming weeks and months.

Gaming giant Nintendo has announced today that profits will double for the fiscal year, thanks to their long-awaited entry into mobile gaming.

In March, the company announced a partnership with DeNA to bring games to smartphones and tablets, and more recently the company announced a partnership with Universal Parks and resorts to bring their characters to theme parks.

Nintendo has forecasted an operating profit of 50 billion yen ($419.71 million) for the fiscal year ended March 2016, well ahead of the analyst estimates of 39 billion yen.

"We definitely want one game this year. And after that we want to come out with new applications, and make sure each one is a hit," said CEO Satoru Iwata.

DeNA CEO Isao Moriyasu said the company hopes the titles will bring in over 3 billion yen per month.

The Wachowski siblings, best known for creating 'The Matrix' and more recently 'Jupiter Ascending,' are back with a new sci-fi series exclusively on Netflix: Sense8.

The show follows the story of eight people around the world that can now tap into the minds of each other, including the ability to use their skills and physical abilities. As Netflix says: "One moment links 8 minds in disparate parts of the world, putting 8 strangers in each other's lives, each other's secrets, and in terrible danger."

All 12 episodes will be available on June 5th, and available in 4K for those that have the hardware for it.

Check out the very interesting trailer here:

According to OnePlus' CEO Pete Lau, the upcoming OnePlus 2 smartphone will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor.

The executive was discussing the phone with fans on Weibo (basically, the Twitter of China), and let some nice tidbits of info out.

In addition to confirming the device will launch in the third quarter and will have the 810 processor, Lau also suggested that 2500 yuan seemed like a "reasonable" price for the device when it launches. At current rates, the phone would sell for $400 in the U.S., much more expensive than its current OnePlus One cost when it launched.

The Snapdragon 810 will be an 'older' chip by the Q3, but the device maker is still expected to have high-end specs across the board for everything else. As rumored, the phone is expected to have a 5.5-inch QHD display, 3GB RAM and a fingerprint scanner that can outperform offerings from LG, HTC and market leader Apple.

If you owned a Nokia phone in the past two decades (let's face it, almost everyone did), then you have definitely played 'Snake' before.

Now, original creator Taneli Armanto is launching the inevitable smartphone sequel, set for release on May 14th for Windows Phone, Android and iOS.

The original game, first released for Nokia phones in 1997, had you controlling a snake and eating objects that made the snake longer, thus making it progressively harder to not hit your own tail or the sides of the screen, in which case you die.

'Snake Rewind' will have the same basic principles and will have 10 separate levels, new types of objects to eat and full high score and rankings leaderboards. The game is free, with in-app purchases.

Check out the trailer below:

Spotify has brought back their popular introductory trial offer for Spotify Premium: 99 cents for three months of the service.

Spotify Premium normally costs $9.99 per month and offers higher bitrate tracks, no ads, and the ability to play music offline and on mobile devices.

There is some small print, however, as anybody who has ever used a trial offer before or are already subscribed to Premium or Unlimited (no ads, no mobile for $4.99) you are ineligible.

Check out the offer here: Spotify Premium

Three months ago, Lenovo was found to have pre-installed the 'Superfish' malware onto PCs, making the computers highly vulnerable to attacks. This week, security researchers have unveiled yet another 'massive security risk' in Lenovo PCs.

Security researcher firm IOActive found major exploits in Lenovo's own update system that could have allowed attackers to completely bypass any validation check and then replace legitimate Lenovo programs with malware, including software to gain remote access to your PC or run commands.

All of the security exploits are found in Lenovo System Update 5.6.0.27 and earlier and were first discovered in February. IOActive worked directly with Lenovo on a fix before going public with the exploits. "Lenovo's development and security teams worked directly with IOActive regarding their Lenovo System Update vulnerability findings," Lenovo said in a statement, "and we value their expertise in identifying and responsibly reporting them."

If you haven't already, make sure to update your system with the patches.

Check out more information on the vulnerabilities and the patches here: IOActive

Year after year, cable and Internet giant Comcast is ranked as having the worst customer service in the U.S., and it appears that the company is looking to shed that horrible reputation finally.

As part of a new "multi-year customer experience transformation" plan, the company is creating 5500 customer service jobs.

Starting in the Q3 of this year, the company has set a goal to always be on time for customer appointments (wow, just wow) and to make sure techs are trained properly so they actually know what to do when they get to your home (sigh). If the tech is late or doesn't show up, customers will be credited with $20 off their monthly bill for that month.

On the back end, the company is rolling out new customer service tools to "simplify billing and create better policies to provide greater consistency and transparency to customers." Additionally, the company says phone calls to the company should be less painful now, and in-store visits shouldn't be like pulling teeth thanks to new software.

Comcast has been so bad, that a few phone calls with Comcast reps have even gone viral for how abusive they are and Comcast didn't even seem to care that they did. Hopefully, this really is a change for the better.

Roku and Sharp have announced this week that Best Buy will soon be selling Sharp Roku TV models, smart LED TVs that are built on the Roku OS.

"We are pleased to offer Sharp smart TVs that run the Roku OS and provide consumers with an easy and elegant way to enjoy their entertainment," said Vishnu Rao, director of technology planning for Sharp Electronics. "We believe the benefits of the Roku platform combined with the superiority of the Sharp brand makes an appealing combination for consumers looking for a great smart TV experience."

"Roku TV has garnered high praise. People love how easy it is to access all their TV entertainment sources from one simple home screen, including access to the biggest streaming channel line up in the industry," added Chas Smith, general manager of OEM for Roku. "Sharp is an exceptional brand, and these new Sharp Roku TV models offer consumers a fantastic smart TV experience we know they'll love."

The main page of a Roku TV allows you to personalize your favorite streaming apps and other entertainment choices including attached Blu-ray players, live TV and game consoles. The Roku TV streamlines multiple inputs into one interface. Additionally, you can find the availability of your favorite movies and TV shows on hundreds of different streaming channels, and you can also search for actors, directors and filmographies.

According to Windows insider Paul Thurrott, the Xbox One should be getting a DVR feature later this year.

Currently, Xbox owners have TV tuner capabilities, but you can only pause live TV, not record it.

While DVR makes 100 percent sense given the Xbox's media center tech and its HDMI-in support for cable boxes, there is a major logistic issue. The Xbox One has a standard 500GB hard drive, which may not be enough to record your favorite episodes and hold games that can be as large as 40GB each.

Of course, Microsoft could allow for recording to external hard drives or flash storage, but we won't know until later this year.

CRM king Salesforce apparently has a major suitor: Microsoft.

Salesforce has already hired two investment banks to help it respond to offers, and is open to being sold.

The company's suitor will have to pay a pretty penny to get into the customer relationship management business. Salesforce helps companies interact with customers including tech to organize marketing, sales, customer service, tech support and more.

Microsoft has a partnership with Salesforce to ensure their software integrates easily, and each company's CEO has said great things about the other company.

As of writing, Salesforce has jumped over 15 percent in the past few weeks and is now valued at near $47 billion.

Nvidia has announced they are winding down their Icera division, the team responsible for developing LTE modems.

The company purchased Icera in 2011 but was never able to compete with market leader Qualcomm, and more recently even with MediaTek or Intel.

Initially, Nvidia had a goal of integrating their own Icera modems into the popular and powerful Nvidia Tegra processors, but only one such hybrid exists - the Nvidia Tegra 4i - and it never made it to any device worth mentioning.

Noted Nvidia:

It took quite some time for Android 5.0 Lollipop to gain some traction but the latest Google operating system is finally reaching a significant milestone.

As of the period ended May 4th, Lollipop 5.0 is on 9 percent of Android devices and the latest Android 5.1 is on 0.7 percent of devices.

At the end of March, that figure was still floating around 5 percent so the growth has been significant in the last thirty days or so.

Android 4.4 KitKat fell a few percentage points to 39.8 percent but remains the dominant Android OS for the time being.

Sony has announced today that PlayStation Now subscriptions are headed to the PS3 on May 12th.

Gamers will have access to over 100 of the most popular PS3 games on their PS3, PS4 and some Sony TVs.

PlayStation Now allows for unlimited streaming of games for as low as $15 per month.

Additionally, Sony has added four new titles to the service including 'Fat Princess.'

Microsoft has filed lawsuit this week against a Verizon IP address that allegedly activated hundreds of pirated Microsoft products like Windows.

The Verizon IP address, 74.111.202.30, is said to have activated mainly copies of Windows 7 using "stolen" product keys, or keys that have been used more times than their license allows.

"As part of its cyberforensic methods, Microsoft analyzes product key activation data voluntarily provided by users when they activate Microsoft software, including the IP address from which a given product key is activated," the lawsuit reads. "Microsoft's cyberforensics have identified hundreds of product key activations originating from IP address 74.111.202.3...which is presently assigned to Verizon Online LLC. These activations have characteristics that on information and belief, establish that Defendants are using the IP address to activate pirated software."

Microsoft is seeking to impound all the infringing materials, statutory damages and attorney fees.

Check out a PDF of the lawsuit here.

According to Comcast's most recent earnings report, the cable giant has spent over $330 million in 'transaction-related costs' in its attempt to acquire Time Warner Cable, and Time Warner has spent over $220 million.

Comcast proposed to buy TWC in February 2014 for $45.2 billion and just canceled the proposed merger last month after it became clear it would never make it through Federal regulators.

In the Q1 alone, ended March 31st, Comcast had $99 million in costs related to the acquisition, and Time Warner Cable had $24 million in costs.

"The costs are mainly for legal fees and outside consulting firms--everything from Human Resources and IT consulting to banks and management consulting services," said Comcast VP of Government Communications Sena Fitzmaurice. "Communications and lobbying fees would be included--however, what is included has to be direct and incremental--so only those fees that are directly and incrementally associated with the deal."

At least there was one positive for Comcast shareholders: no break-up fee. The company says the deal was structured without an expensive break-up fee involved, which can sometimes reach into the billions. One recent example is AT&T's failed purchase of rival carrier T-Mobile in 2011. When the DOJ killed the merger, AT&T had to pay T-Mobile $4 billion in cash and spectrum, effectively reviving the carrier and allowing it to go on the offensive with pricing.

According to new reports, Samsung's Galaxy Tab S2 8.0 and Tab S2 9.7 tablets are coming next month, high-end successors to the Galaxy Tab S.

The tablets will be thinner than the standard bearer iPad Air, and both will be available as Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi/LTE models. Just like their predecessor, the tablets will launch around the globe including the US, Canada, Europe, China, Latin America, Hong Kong, Korea, and India.

Powering the tablets are a 64-bit Samsung Exynos processor, 3GB RAM and Android 5.0.2 out of the box. The S2 8.0 has an 8-inch SuperAMOLED display at 2048 x 1536 while its larger brother has a 9.7-inch model and the same resolution. The smaller device is just 260 grams and the larger model is 407 grams. Although there will be few that can actually use it to its full potential, the S2 has a Cat. 6 LTE modem allowing transfers up to 300Mbps.

Design-wise, it is expected to look just like the predecessor Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (pictured) but with the aforementioned 4:3 ratio.

Rare, the developer behind the massive hits Battletoads, Banjo-Kazooie and Goldeneye for Sega and N64 is preparing to launch a new game at the E3 gaming expo next month.

Both Microsoft, who acquired the company, and Rare, have both confirmed a new game is coming but has let few details slip.

While it is possible Rare is creating an entirely new game, nearly everyone expects a remake of one of the aforementioned IPs, with a Banjo sequel the most likely.

If indeed it is a new Banjo, there will be an interesting rivalry brewing. Most of the developers behind the original game are currently working on Yooka-Laylee, a platformer in the exact spirit and concept as B-K, but without the original IP or the big funding of Microsoft. Yooka-Laylee has raised $2 million on Kickstarter in just 48 hours showing that there is certainly a market out there for cartoon duos going on adventures.

Furthermore, Yooka-Laylee will be available for PC, Mac, Linux, PS4, Xbox One and Wii U, while any Rare game is expected to be an exclusive.

Earlier this week, Konami seemingly broke gamer's hearts when they announced that 'Silent Hills' had been canceled.

The game, the ninth in the popular horror survival 'Silent Hill' series, was to be directed by the legendary Hideo Kojima, in collaboration with film director Guillermo del Toro and voiced by The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus.

After the game was canceled, one gamer took to change.org to start a petition to have the game continue in its development and as of writing, there are now 70,000 signatures.

Reads the petition:

Dear Hideo and Guillermo,

hearing the cancellation of one of the most anticipated horror games is about the most heartbreaking thing horror fans had to swallow this year.

Since the first sight of the P.T Demo it was instant love, and it burned into the minds of everyone that this had to release at some point.

Although the reasons are not yet announced I am begging you along with countless others: Please continue the Development on Silent Hills, if the issue is money related, we would love to see a Crowdfunding campaign like Kickstarter to ensure you are getting all the financial help there is! We´d love to see it happen at some point and want to thank you for all the great games you have released so far!

According to a new report, Comcast is looking to build its own online video service that can compete with Google's YouTube.

"The proposed video service would mark a brand new chapter for Comcast, which would be able to play in a loosely regulated market, reach a national audience and possibly even make its service available outside the U.S.," reads the report. "It also may be necessary move, given that younger viewers have been gravitating toward Web videos made by a new generation of artists. One purpose of the service is to add new types of shows to Comcast's cable package, allowing people to watch them on TV screens."

If that is accurate, Comcast will look to use their 27 million cable subscribers to boost the service, especially with younger viewers that are turning away from traditional TV at a rapid pace.

Unfortunately for the company, YouTube is a name even your grandmother knows, so Comcast will have an uphill battle if it really wants to get into the online video sharing market.

IHS iSuppli has completed their component cost teardown of the Apple Watch this weekend, unsurprisingly reporting that the Watch is significantly cheaper to build than other Apple products.

The 38mm Apple Watch Sport, which has been the most popular seller due to its lower retail price, costs just $83.70 to build with a retail price of $349. With components costing just 24 percent of retail, there is a chance that Apple can be squeeze out higher margins than their average 40 percent they make on currently sold products after research and development, marketing, shipping and software costs are taken into account.

IHS confirmed that the Apple Watch Sport has 8GB of Toshiba flash storage, 512MB RAM from Micron, an accelerometer and gyroscope from STMicro and other interior components produced by Analog Devices, Maxim, Broadcam, NXP and STMicro.

The most expensive component was the display (OLED + cover glass) at $20.50 per unit, followed by Apple's own S1 processor at $10.20. Somewhat surprisingly, the box and charger and other packaging cost $9.

Check out the full teardown here: IHS iSuppli

According to a Samsung executive, the company's Samsung Pay mobile payments service is expected to launch in the second half of the year.

According to Samsung Electronics Managing Director Park Jin-Young, the service will first launch in South Korea and the U.S., rolling out to other nations later.

That being said, Park did note that "the consecutive release schedule to the rest of the other countries [...] in the second half of the year is still under discussion."

Samsung first announced the service during this year's Mobile World Congress event in Spain. Samsung acquired mobile payments platform LoopPay earlier this year as the basis of the technology for their own service which uses NFC and magnetic secure transmission (MST) to make payments.

Just a week after Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable was shut down by regulators, both Time Warner and rival Charter Communication have been in talks with smaller player Bright House for a potential acquisition.

Charter had agreed to acquire Bright House in March for $10.4 billion, but the deal was 100% contingent on Comcast's deal succeeding, and now has to be remade.

Bright House has a little over 2 million subscribers, but has steady cash flow and profits that make it attractive as a stepping stone to go after a larger fish, like Time Warner Cable, for example.

For Time Warner, an acquisition would be obvious as it would make their own company more expensive to purchase, would add on debt making them less attractive and take an asset away from a rival.

Many industry analysts believe a tie-up between Bright House, Charter and Time Warner is inevitable, and the combined entity would have around 25 million subscribers, close to Comcast's massive 27 million.

Uunity has announced full support for Microsoft's upcoming HoloLens holographic computing platform.

HoloLens, which we got to see a nice hands-on of at this week's BUILD conference, is a "self-contained holographic computer headset" running Windows 10 allowing for the rendering of HD holograms that can be projected anywhere, are interactive, and will blend in with the rest of the real environment you are in.

Says Unity of the partnership:

Although it was widely reported months ago, Microsoft has finally confirmed their acquisition of technology from digital pen tech developer N-Trig.

It had previously been reported that Microsoft was buying the entire company for $200 million, but that was false it appears, as Microsoft only acquired some technology at a price tag of $30 million.

"We can't wait to show you what we'll deliver for our Surface Fans in the future," said Stevie Bathiche of the Microsoft Surface team. "Digital pens have a ways to go to be as good as pen and paper on some dimensions, and we'll get there. But more importantly, adding the ability to capture and share the work you do with a digital pen opens up possibilities that traditional pen and paper just can't match. Today's investment is another step that will let us push that innovation forward."

N-Trig has over 100 patents and the company's digital pen has been available with the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet since last year.

Music streaming giant Spotify has raised another $350 million at a valuation of about $8 billion.

Reportedly, one of the largest investments came from Goldman Sachs, who was investing for its institutional clients.

Spotify has over 60 million monthly active users, 15 million of which pay for unlimited or premium subscriptions that cost $4.99 or $9.99 per month.

Free users can listen to music using the desktop app or their browser, or on mobiles but only in "radio" format similar to Pandora. All free accounts have to listen to ads every few tracks. Unlimited users get unlimited streaming with no ads, and premium subscribers get unlimited streaming, no ads, and full mobile access.

In their ongoing effort to crackdown on ridesharing apps, the Chinese government has raided Uber's offices in Guangzhou.

Uber, one of the largest private startups in the world, launched in 2013 in China following successful launches around the globe. Uber has infamously been on the wrong side of the law multiple times, however, and this appears to be no different. Chinese officials "inspected a company which is suspected of organizing private cars with are not qualified to provide passenger services, and of not having registered with the commercial authorities," read the reports.

During the raid, a few mobile phones were "temporarily confiscated" although it is unclear why.

The Guangzhou transport commission added that Uber's business model is a potential "illegal business activity," and that they will continue to look for "illegal operators who disrupt the transport market."

After a year of pumping out cheap low-range Lumia devices to target the masses, it appears Microsoft has a couple of high-end devices waiting in the wings for power users.

First, we have the Lumia codenamed "Talkman" which has a 5.2-inch QHD display, a sexta-core 64-bit Qualcomm processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (expandable with microSD), dual 5MP/20MP cameras and a large 3000 mAh battery. Furthermore, Microsoft wants to keep this device lighter and slimmer than the existing Lumia 930, say the sources.

Moving even higher up the spec chain is the Lumia "Cityman" which will feature a 5.7-inch QHD display, an octa-core Qualcomm processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (expandable), the same dual 5MP/20MP cameras and a 3300mAh battery.

Both devices will run Windows 10, and both device will have triple LED flash each of which has a different tone to allow for more natural colors.

Sources say you can expect the devices around the launch time of Windows 10, which is the end of July or early August.

Microsoft has announced that 3.7 million people have signed up for the Windows Insider Program to be able to test out Windows 10 for their PCs or mobile devices.

In January, Microsoft announced 2.2 million members, so growth has been significant for consumers looking to try out the upcoming multi-platform operating system before its launch in July or August.

Earlier this week, Microsoft informed that the Windows Insider program will continue to operate even after Windows 10 launches in retail, with Microsoft letting members test new features and patches early.

In addition, Microsoft said it could add new update rings including a "ludicrous" level that will provide you with daily updates.

Meerkat, the live-streaming video app, has beaten its rival app Periscope to Android.

The move is notable as the app lets users live stream their videos to Twitter and the company managed to beat Twitter and their own Periscope to the most popular mobile operating system in the world.

Meerkat for Android beta supports Android 4.2 and newer. The app already has over 1 million installs but the reviews are not great due to the bugginess.

For the most part, Periscope has been better received by critics and users due to a cleaner interface but Meerkat was the first of its kind on the market and now the first to Android.

Earlier this week, major retailer GameStop began buying and selling legacy consoles and games, an interesting move that should be of note for nostalgic gamers.

For the time being, stores in Birmingham and New York City (around 250 altogether) will accept trade-ins of the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and Sega Dreamcast, the original PlayStation and also the Nintendo 64.

By August, GameStop will begin selling the legacy consoles and games, as well.

"For hardware, we'll put it through a full triage: identify any issues, any cleaning that has to happen, any parts replacement that has to be done. On cartridges, we're gonna be cleaning, testing, and also taking a look at the batteries in there," GameStop senior director of pre-owned merchandising Jon Haes said.

All consoles and games will come with a 30-day warranty just like all other GameStop used merchandise. Keep in mind that many of the older consoles will require cables and inputs that your new TVs likely don't have, so be on the lookout for an adapter.

If you were in the market to relive your youth, this seems to be the best way to do it since each game and console will have to go through a strenuous testing and refurbishment and is guaranteed to work.

Sony has announced today that the company has sold 22.3 million PlayStation 4 units worldwide, having sold about 15 million of those in the last 12 months alone.

Thanks to the strong sales, Sony's Game and Network Services division saw revenues increase 33 percent year-over-year, making it easily the largest contributor of revenue for the company so far.

"This significant increase was primarily due to an increase in PS4 hardware unit sales, a significant increase in network services revenue, the impact of foreign exchange rates and an increase in PS4 software sales, partially offset by a decrease in PlayStation®3 ("PS3") hardware and PS3 software sales," read the report.

The PS3 is on its last legs, but the PS4 is more than happy to pick up the slack.

Ubisoft has unintentionally outed the fact that 'Watch Dogs 2' is real and it has developers.

Thanks to the LinkedIn profile of Senior Gameplay Programmer Julien Risse, we know that the game is in development, as Risse has been working on it.

There is little else known about the upcoming game, but it is expected we will see more at this year's E3 event in June.

Although most people probably thought it was shuttered years ago anyways, the music sharing service Grooveshark has officially shut down.

The record labels will take over control of the Grooveshark name, its patents and copyrights, and the existing database will be completely wiped. The decision comes on the heels of a court ruling this year in which Grooveshark was defeated, and could have faced damages of up to $150,000 for 5000 different infringing songs.

Grooveshark also apologized for its copyright infringements, and recommending popular services like Spotify.

Here is the full statement from Grooveshark:

Today we are shutting down Grooveshark.

We started out nearly ten years ago with the goal of helping fans share and discover music. But despite best of intentions, we made very serious mistakes. We failed to secure licenses from rights holders for the vast amount of music on the service.

That was wrong. We apologize. Without reservation.

As part of a settlement agreement with the major record companies, we have agreed to cease operations immediately, wipe clean all the data on our servers and hand over ownership of this website, our mobile apps and intellectual property, including our patents and copyrights.

Read more...

Microsoft has launched the fun and likely inaccurate website that uses facial recognition to guess your age.

You upload a picture to the site and Microsoft will spit back out your gender and your age, although some viral pictures show responses that have been hilariously wrong.

Microsoft is using machine learning to recognize millions of photos across the Web, with the end goal being "obtaining real time insights" on the data.

Says the Microsoft blog post: "We were playing with Microsoft's newly released Face detection API's through a webpage called http://how-old.net. This page lets users upload a picture and have the API predict the age and gender of any faces recognized in that picture. We sent email to a group of several hundred people asking them to try the page for a few minutes and give us feedback – optimistically hoping that at least 50 people would give it a shot. We monitored our real time analytics dashboard to track usage and, within a few minutes, the number of people using the site vastly exceeded the number of people we had sent our email to...We were shocked. Within a few hours, over 35,000 users had hit the page from all over the world (about 29k of them from Turkey, as it turned out – apparently there were a bunch of tweets from Turkey mentioning this page). What a great example of people having fun thanks to the power of ML!"

Just like last year, T-Mobile subscribers are getting a nice gift from the carrier, especially if you are a baseball fan.

Starting tomorrow, if you download the MLB At Bat app using your T-Mobile data connection (don't worry, it's only about 40MB), you will get a free Premium package that normally costs $19.99.

As per T-Mobile, At Bat Premium brings you every game:

•Stream the MLB.TV Game of the Day (blackout restrictions apply)
•Track every pitch
•Watch in-game highlights
•Access live look-ins on key plays

Check out more about the promotion here.