News written by Matti Robinson (December, 2014)

Sony Pictures' controversial comedy The Interview was released a couple days ago on Google Play and Microsoft's Xbox service after Sony themselves released the movie online. Now Apple jumps on the bandwagon a couple of days later, reports Recode.

The movie starring James Franco and Seth Rogen was given the green light by Sony after cancelling the premiere because of threats. Hackers who obtained confidential data in a security breach have been threatening Sony and the theaters for possible releases. The threats have not materialized.

The reason behind Apple's reluctance to add the movie immediately after Sony had contacted the online distributors to release the film was not revealed. The prices are the same $6 for rental and $15 for purchase as they are in the competing services.

The malware that penetrated the cyber defenses of Sony and allegedly captured terabytes of data was a difficult one to deal with, says FBI official to the Congress.

Speaking to the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee assistant director of the FBI's cyber division Joseph Demarest said that nine out of ten corporate cyber defenses would have been helpless against the malware.

Malware that the security company Sony hired to investigate called "unprecedented" did not penetrate because of lack of preparation. According to Demarest the attack could have posed serious threat even to state government security systems.

Ars Technica notes that there has yet to be any clarification on behalf of Sony, the security company Mandidant or the FBI what made the malware unprecedented and so dangerous. And even if Sony is let off the hook on cyber defense, it is still under question if they could have prevented a leak of such magnitude.

Netflix has been increasing their portfolio of tv shows steadily during the past couple of years. The pace is only going to get higher says the Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos in an interview at a media conference.

Sarandos said that customers will be able to expect as much as 20 premieres a year from Netflix in five years. These premieres would be either brand new Netflix original tv shows or new season premieres. That would mean that in average there would be a new premiere almost every two weeks.

Sarandos also made it clear that it is always in Netflix's interest to increase the availability of its service and new regions will be added in the future.

In addition to increasing its tv show production the streaming giant is launching more original movies to further reduce the dependence on Hollywood studios and their content.

The Chinese love their slim smartphones. The world's thinnest smartphone has been a three horse race between Oppo, Gionee, and Vivo – all of which are from China. Now the latter has introduced the newest king of the hill.

Called Vivo X5Max the slimmest smartphone on the planet is just 4,75 millimeters thin. Regardless of its thinness the phone is packed with almost everything you'd expect from a modern smartphone. It has a 5.5 inch Full HD display, 13 and 5 megapixel cameras, 16 gigs of microSD expandable memory and 2 gigs of RAM.

The phone is powered by the mid range Snapdragon 615 chip that is a quad-core SoC with 64-bit capabilities that can be taken advantage of as soon as the phone gets updated to Android Lollipop.

The battery is "only" 2200 mAh due to the thinness but Vivo has managed to retain the 3.5 mm audio plug unlike its competitor Oppo.

Vivo says that X5Max packs the audio experience you'd expect from its siblings, and even surpasses them. Also the karaoke function gets a mention.

Vivo begins selling the phone in China this Friday for what is just under $500. There is no word on European or US variants.