News archive (7 / 2013)

Nintendo has reported their quarterly earnings for the fiscal Q1 ended June 30th, finally swinging back to a net profit.

The company posted net revenue of $832.8 million and a net profit of $88 million. Despite being back in the black, the company sold just 160,000 Wii U for the entire quarter, a scary low figure given that Microsoft has been selling around 140,000 of the eight-year-old Xbox 360 every month for the last year.

Wii U units went on sale last November and the company hassoldjust 3.61 million units since launch, well below their prediction of 5.5 million by March.

Making matters worse, Wii U software sales were 1.03 million units, down 51 percent quarter-over-quarter.

Nintendo sold 1.4 million 3DS handhelds, and software was up large due to the release of Tomodachi Collection: New Life and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The aging Wii reached the 100 million unit plateau during the quarter, as well.

Microsoft has expanded its Office mobile suite to Android smartphones, but not tablets.

As long as you have Android 4.0 or higher and an Office 365 subscription, you will now have basic editing and reading, The company released Office for iPhone recently, as well, and the Android app is almost identical in looks and functionality.

Logging in the first time will require the 365 subscription to view and edit documents and there will be no free version released.

Office for Android includes very basic editing for Word, Excel and Powerpoint which should allow for correction, formatting, and comments.

All documents are stored in the SkyDrive cloud and Gmail and other email options for sharing are integrated.

The app is available in the U.S. Google Play Store but will "gradually" be expanding to 33 other languages and 117 markets.

Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua to discuss a partnership between the two companies.

China Mobile is the world's largest mobile carrier and the only one in China to not offer iPhones and iPads.

The talks could spark a long-awaited deal between the companies, letting Apple truly get into the nation with the world's largest smartphone population.

Greater China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), accounted for 13 percent of Apple's quarterly sales for the Q2, good for $5 billion.

China Mobile uses its own 3G technology, TD-SCDMA, which is slower and less efficient than the international standards used by rivals China Unicom and China Telecom. China Mobile has the lowest 3G adoption in China, at 18 percent.

A new South Korean government report found that 41 percent of the country's mobile phone owners now use LTE.

The country's first LTE network was just deployed almost two years ago, making the figure more impressive.

Data, via the Science, Creative and Future Planning ministry, estimated 22.9 million LTE subscribers, up 2.19 million from just one month earlier.

South Korea's average broadband Internet speed is the fastest in the world, with an average speed of 14.2Mbps.

Analyst firm Kantar has released their U.S. smartphone market figures for the quarter ended June 30th.

For the third straight quarter, Android took the top spot, at 51.5 percent, ahead of Apple at 42.5 percent.

Windows Phone saw the biggest growth, moving up to 4 percent from 2.9 percent year-over-year and BlackBerry disappeared, dropping from 4.0 to 1.1 percent.

Year-over-year, Android slightly dipped, while Apple saw strong growth.

It will be interesting to see the next few quarters, as Apple prepares its iPhone 5S and allegedly, a cheaper plastic version of the iPhone 5.

According to multiple sources, the Samsung Galaxy S II may no longer be receiving Android 4.2.2, or subsequent updates.

Owners of the two-year-old device were ecstatic earlier this year when the device was listed as getting Jelly Bean and beyond, but that may no longer be the case.

One source says that "due to adjustment problems in the TouchWiz interface," all plans for Android upgrades have been scrapped.

Galaxy Note owners may be getting the same disappointing news as the original phablet has the same hardware and software as the S II.

BGR has posted the alleged specs for the upcoming Amazon Kindle Fire HD 2 series.

Starting with the entry-level 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, the tablet will feature 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, be powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC (including four Krait 400 CPUs and Adreno 330 graphics) that has been clocked at 1.8GHz-2.0GHz.

Additionally, the device will have 2GB RAM, a 2MP front-side camera, 16,32 or 64GB internal storage and Wi-Fi and LTE connectivity. The device will run on Android 4.2.2 with Amazon's Kindle overlay.

Moving up, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD will have 2,560 x 1,600 resolution and all the same specs under the hood as its smaller cousin with the exception of an 8MP camera on the back. The current 8.9-inch model weighs 20 ounces, but that will supposedly be down significantly for the next-gen model.

Asus boss Jonney Shih has noted today that the company will be moving away from the failing Windows RT operating system.

Bluntly, the chairman says "the result was not very promising," when asked about RT-based device sales.

Windows RT runs a version of Windows 8 built for ARM processors, but the devices cannot use legacy Windows apps like Windows 8 Pro can, leaving options limited.

Moving forward, Shih says the company will focus on Windows Pro devices, along with their Intel processors. Shih noted what is very clear now; people still love to use classic Windows apps.

The company is not giving up on Windows, although Shih says he believes the 10-inch form factor is preferable to smaller 7 and 8-inch models.

Microsoft, via their annual 10-K disclosure, has confirmed their Surface line revenue.

From launch until June 30th, the company has made $853 million in sales of the Surface and Surface RT.

The company did not disclose the amount of units sold, nor did it provide the average sale price so it is unclear how many of each type of model were sold.

While it was not made official, other sources claim the company has sold somewhere in the range of 1.7 million units.

To put that figure in comparison, the company just took a $900 million writedown for excess Surface RT inventory, as the company dropped the price of the tablet $150 across the board.

Additionally, Microsoft says marketing expenses for the entire Windows division rose to $1 billion for the fiscal year.

HTC provided a bleak Q3 forecast this morning, stating that it believes revenue could fall as much as 30 percent from the Q2.

The drop would be much worse than was anticipated, and stymies any kind of turnaround the company may have anticipated.

HTC warned that it expects revenue this quarter to drop to T$60 billion ($1.9 billion USD), way below the analyst consensus of T$75.65 billion ($2.41 billion).

The company did say, at least, that it expects a little rebound in the fourth quarter.

At the current time, the company, which remains slightly profitable, seems to be on the verge of collapse. Executives have been leaving in droves, the company's smartphone market share is down to 2.5 percent (from a peak of over 10 in 2011) and the company's stock is down 44 percent this year, seeing levels not seen since 2005.

Canonical is just about to flatline in their campaign to get the Ubuntu Edge smartphone built for launch in 2014.

The company hoped to raise $32 million, far and away the most a crowdfunded campaign would have ever raised, and so far they have raised $7.4 million, breaking Indiegogo records. That being said, the current daily sales are not where they should be if the company hopes to get to $32 million in the next 22 days.

Check the sales charts here, from this morning (via NPU):




Original Story:

Earlier this week we reported that Canonical had launched their Ubuntu Edge smartphone via the crowdfunding site Indiegogo.

The first 5000 pledgers were able to get the device for an intro price of $600, unlocked, along with a shoutout on Canonical's founders page. After that, you had to purchase the phone for $830, but the Linux company seems to have a roadblock at that price and have opened up new pledge tiers.

Showing a strong belief that consumers still care about optical media, Sony and Panasonic have begun jointly developing a next-generation optical disc that can store, at minimum, 300GB.

The companies hope to have the disc available by 2015.

Both companies agree the discs will be marketed, at least initially, to professional industries that move large amounts of data, including high-definition film.

There could also be some consumer interest, if the price is right, being able to backup your entire life to one disc rather than the cloud or multiple flashdrives.

Last year, Sony introduced its optical disc archive system, housing "twelve optical discs within a compact cartridge as a single, high-capacity storage solution. Each disc within the cartridge holds 25GB capacity, offering a total range of storage capacities from 300GB to 1.5TB." The new discs could theoretically offer more than 300GB into the future, as well.

According to multiple reports, the new iOS 7 beta 4 operating system has references to biometrics in its code, suggesting the upcoming iPhone could include the long-rumored fingerprint scanner.

In the code, there is a new folder called "BiometricKitUI."

Here is an example of the text:

bplist00'
_"enroll.tutor.image.label.left.hand_fingerprint.image_#enroll.tutor.image.label.right.hand_fingerprint.status_

hPhoto of a person holding an iPhone with their left hand while touching the Home button with their thumb_;

A fingerprint that changes colour during the setup process._

iPhoto of a person holding an iPhone with their right hand while touching the Home button with their thumb_Recognition is

With little attention, Android boss Sundar Pichai has confirmed that Samsung is building the second-generation Nexus 10 tablet.

Samsung built the first-generation device, which was released in November of last year.

It is unclear what will be updated in the tablet. Last year's model had the extremely high-end 2560x1600 resolution, which will likely not be topped.

Under the hood, however, there is room to work. The first device featured a 32nm dual-core Samsung A15, which had some heating issues. The new device will certainly have a quad-core processor, but from whom is the question. Among the competition are Samsung's own Exynos 5420 (which is actually an octo-core), the Snapdragon 800 or even the Tegra 4.

Google will need to come with something impressive for the next Nexus 10, as the tablet was never too popular with consumers.

According to a new report, UK, U.S., Canadian, New Zealand and Australian spy agencies have all banned using Lenovo PCs due to remote access vulnerabilities that were found during security testing.

The internal ban has allegedly been in place since the mid-2000s "after intensive laboratory testing of its equipment allegedly documented "back-door" hardware and "firmware" vulnerabilities in Lenovo chips."

Lenovo has never gotten the required security certifications needed by most of the agencies, either.

Many of the exploits found could lead to backdoor/remote access by attackers.

There is, of course, the suspicion of China's ties to the world's biggest computer maker. China's Academy of Sciences is the majority shareholder of Legend Holdings, which in turn is Lenovo's largest shareholder.

Two white hat hackers, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, will publish a 100-page white paper on attacking the critical systems of two major cars at next week's Defcon convention.

Miller and Valasek were given a grant by the U.S. government to research and uncover software vulnerabilities in the Ford Escape and Toyota Prius.

The pair will also release the software they built for hacking the cars at the convention.

Through their research (via Reuters), the pair were able to find ways to "force a Toyota Prius to brake suddenly at 80 miles an hour, jerk its steering wheel, or accelerate the engine." They can also "disable the brakes of a Ford Escape traveling at very slow speeds, so that the car keeps moving no matter how hard the driver presses the pedal." In the wrong hands, both exploits can certainly be fatal, although the white hats will not be releasing any information on how to do these attacks remotely, meaning you will have to be in the vehicle and connected directly to the car's system for the attack.

Siemens CEO Peter Loescher will leave the company four years before his contract is over, following another poor pre-earnings report.

The company's board will select an acting President and CEO on July 31st.

One of the most valuable companies in all of Germany, the engineering group has had its share of struggles in recent years. Loescher started in 2007, a hire from outside of the company, to help Siemens out of a massive bribery scandal that had rocked their reputation in the industry and around the globe, and hurt their balance sheet.

Since starting, Loescher has quickly lost credibility, as well, as major projects have been hit by delay after delay and revenue and profits have fallen.

After setting a plan to increase revenue by 30 percent over three years, the CEO had to backtrack and instead set a new plan to cut down on expenses and increase profit margins; meaning over 10,000 jobs could be at stake. Earlier this week, the exec scrapped that plan, as well, showing how lost he appears to be when judging market demand for the company's products.

While Nokia has so far shied away from large screen devices, they have been rumored to be working on a "phablet" for some time now.

Now, thanks to ICT, we have the first alleged picture of the upcoming device (at least in part).

ICT has been very strong in their track record for leaks in the past, but definitely take this story with a grain of salt until Nokia confirms it.

In the photo we see the front case for the upcoming 6-inch device, which includes a very thin bezel and the standard Nokia branding and the standard Windows button.

Nokia is said to already be mass producing the device, and hopefully it will launch alongside this winter's Windows Phone update that allows for 1080p displays.

Despite struggles to get new, relevant devices to the public, BlackBerry has laid off 250 employees from its "New Product Testing" division, one of their research and development (R&D) groups.

The company laid off over 5000 employees last year in an effort to streamline operations and turn a profit, and those cuts are ongoing, confirmed CEO Thorsten Heins.

Last year, during the larger cuts, BlackBerry informed employees that if they were part of BlackBerry 10 services or projects they were likely safe. That does not appear to be the case anymore.

BlackBerry has only two more devices expected for this year, the mid-range A10 and Q5, which through leaked specs and pictures do not appear to be any more impressive than their flagship Z10 and Q10.

Reads BlackBerry's statement about the cuts (via Crunch):

I can confirm on the record, that BlackBerry on Tuesday informed 250 employees of their termination in Waterloo. These employees were part of the New Product Testing Facility, a department that supports BlackBerry's manufacturing and R&D efforts.

T-Mobile USA has announced this week that for a limited time you can now purchase high-end smartphones for $0 down, with just a small increase in monthly payments.

For example, before the new move, the iPhone 5 cost $145.99 down with payments of $21 per month for two years. Now, the device is $0 down with 24 months of $27 payments.

"The number of reasons not to switch to T-Mobile this summer is ZERO," added John Legere, president and CEO. "This is a fantastic offer and we're making it easier than ever for customers to get the latest amazing devices. Adding Zero Down in addition to JUMP!, and Simple Choice with no contract is all about making wireless work for consumers and shaking up this industry."

Zero down started yesterday, and will run for a limited period that the company has not specified. The JUMP program Legere mentioned costs $10 per month for insurance and allows you to upgrade your device for free twice per year, starting after six months.

To take advantage of both, you must be part of T-Mobile's no-contract Simple Choice plan, which costs $70 per month for unlimited text, talk and 4G data with no caps or throttling.

Netflix has announced that the final season of the hit show 'Breaking Bad' will air in the UK and Ireland immediately following the episode's original air date in the U.S.

Broadcaster AMC made a similar deal with Netflix UK for new episodes of "The Killing," making fans of the show overseas very happy that they will not have to wait 6 months or longer to legally see the episodes.

"We are thrilled to be bringing the highly-anticipated Final Season of Breaking Bad to Netflix members in the UK and Ireland on a first-run basis," said Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. "Breaking Bad is a once in a generation calibre of show and continues to be a huge success on Netflix."

Creator of the show, Vince Gilligan said, "Netflix has been instrumental in making Breaking Bad the success that it is – particularly in the UK and Ireland, where it has built an audience and become a huge phenomenon. I am delighted that fans there will be able to enjoy the end of Breaking Bad on Netflix so soon after it airs in the US."

Breaking Bad follows the story of Walter White, a chemistry teacher who becomes a crystal meth kingpin using his scientific background to help pay for his cancer treatments. The show's final season will start airing on August 11th.

Research firm IDC has released their global market share figures for the smartphone market for the Q2 2013.

While Apple and Samsung remain the clear leaders, the real battle is for third place.

IDC estimates Samsung shipped 72.4 million smartphones during the quarter, followed by Apple at 31.2 million. Samsung's figure is 43.9 percent higher year-over-year and Apple's is 20 percent higher.

Samsung has the lion's share of the market, at 30.4 percent, down from 32.2 percent during the same quarter last year. Apple, despite the growth, fell to 13.1 percent share.

LG, Lenovo and ZTE rounded out the top five, with each seeing incredible growth. On the low end, ZTE saw 57.8 percent year-over-year growth, while LG saw 108 percent growth and Lenovo saw a massive 130.6 percent jump. LG shipped a record 12.1 million smartphones, as did Lenovo at 11.3 million and ZTE at 10.1 million.

Starbucks seems to be one of the few companies to successfully implement mobile payments.

The coffee company has just announced that a full 10 percent of payments in the U.S. are now made using smartphones and the Starbucks app.

For those who have not used the app, it is very simple. You get a Starbucks gift card, register the number with the app, and load money online, through the app or in-store. You can then pay in-store using the digital version of your card. Each purchase helps you towards rewards, like free drinks and food items.

Additionally, Starbucks's loyalty cards in North America saw dollars loaded grow by 30% year-over-year.

Finally, the company will begin installing wireless charging mats in more stores, with a full rollout expected for the end of next year.

Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos recently spoke with 'Arrested Development' series creator Mitch Hurwitz at a Q&A at the Just for Laughs comedy conference in Montreal and their answers should make fans happy.

Sarandos asked Hurwitz, "are we going to do more?" to which he responded, "Definitely."

The creator than went through a number of possibilities for the series' return, including a movie then another season, another season with no movie, or an extended three-part episode in the interim. "Are you game for that?" Hurwitz then asked Sarandos. "Absolutely, in any form," was the response.

Arrested was recently nominated for three Emmy awards, helping Netflix to twelve total nominations.

Speaking at an internal town hall event, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that the company built way too many Surface RT tablets, and that the company is not selling as many Windows devices as it would like to.

Ballmer, alongside COO Kevin Turner, spoke about the company's recent $900 million writedown due to excess Surface RT units and also discussed the company's focus on getting Facebook's Instagram on the Windows Phone platform.

Microsoft recently slashed the price of the Surface RT by 30 percent across the board, in an effort to move inventory. "We built a few more devices than we could sell," admitted Ballmer (via Verge).

Ballmer also confirmed the next-generation Surface tablets, without giving away any details. The new tablet is expected to be a minor update, but with improved specs, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 CPU.

Moving to Windows (tablets, smartphones and PCs), Ballmer also confirmed "we're not selling as many Windows devices as we want to."

Activision Blizzard will become an independent company, buying back shares from Vivendi for $8.2 billion.

The company, the world's largest video game publisher, will purchase 429 million of its shares for about $5.83 billion in cash. Additionally, CEO Robert A. Kotick, co-chairman Brian Kelly and an investor group will purchase 172 million shares for $2.34 billion.

Vivendi will stay as a minority 12 percent owner, and Kotick and Kelly will keep their positions. Investors seem to like the plan, as Activision's stock jumped 16 percent today.

Activision, which makes blockbuster games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, will "emerge stronger" from the move, says Kotick: "We should emerge even stronger. The transactions announced today will allow us to take advantage of attractive financing markets while still retaining more than $3 billion cash on hand to preserve financial stability."

While the Google Play Store sold out of stock early, Amazon, Wal-Mart and Best Buy have all put the device up for sale, as well, four days early.

Available both online and in-store (for the companies with brick-and-mortar presence), the device was supposed to launch on July 30th.

Other retail partners like B&H, RadioShack, OfficeMax, and Staples will make the device available on its scheduled date.

The new tablet will keep its predecessor's 7-inch display, run on the latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, and include a 1080p resolution, a large upgrade.

Under the hood is a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, 2GB RAM, and Adreno 320 GPU, NFC, dual cameras 1.2/5MP, dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and wireless charging support if you have a Qi-compatible charger. Additionally, the Nexus 7 supports OpenGL ES: 3.0, which supports higher-quality reflections, lens flares and other shading during gameplay.

Wikimedia has announced today that mobile editing is now enabled for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The beta version of the editor is available now, but will require a Wikimedia account.

"For our first release, our primary goal was to create a fast, intuitive editing experience for new users and experienced editors alike, while still sticking with markup editing for now," Wikimedia's Juliusz Gonera noted via their statement. "We started simple so we could observe our users' needs and expectations."

The company added that 15 percent of its users now access the site from mobile devices, with that number growing at an increasing clip.

Editing is easy. Get an account if you don't already have one, and head over to Wikipedia. Look for the edit (pencil) icon next to a section you may want to edit, and click on it. You'll be able to see a preview before submitting, as well, just like on a desktop.

Thanks to a new $30 million program, 640,000 kids in the Los Angeles Unified School District will receive free iPads.

The first 31,000 will be given to kids this year, with the full rollout planned before September 2014. The goal of the program is to give students technological skills they may not have, and a better way to learn.

Adds Mark Hovatter, the chief facilities executive for the LAUSD: "The most important thing is to try to prepare the kids for the technology they are going to face when they are going to graduate. This is phase one, a mix of high school, middle school, and elementary students. We're targeting kids who most likely don't have their own computers or laptops or iPads. Their only exposure to computers now is going to be in their schools."

Every iPad will be pre-loaded with educational applications, as well as a few other apps that will help students with their studies.

The district has 1,124 schools (K-12), and the first deployment is hitting the first 49 of those schools.

Despite a small decline in mobile sales, Samsung posted a record $8.5 billion profit last quarter.

The company's operating profit was 47 percent higher year-over-year, but still slightly below analyst expectations.

On the surprise side, Samsung's mobile division revenue fell 3.5 percent from last quarter, but still rose 52 percent year-over-year to $5.6 billion.

Samsung says it expects smartphone sales to remain strong in the third quarter, but that sales will grow at a slower pace than previous quarters: "Entering into a typically strong season for the IT industry, we expect earnings to continue to increase. However, we cannot overlook delayed economic recovery in Europe and risks from increased competition for smartphone and other set products."

In other divisions, Samsung posted an operating profit of $1.6 billion for their semiconductor unit, and $1 billion for their display unit.

Mega, Box and Dropbox have a new competitor, Shared.com.

Shared allows users to drag and drop files into a cloud and share it with others, with others able to download without speed restrictions.

The site gives away 100GB free space, well above the competitors, with a file size limit of 2GB.

"We are taking additional time to understand the specific needs of our early adopters and making specific changes to accommodate suggestions from our first group of users," said Florian Cervenka, CTO of the project, when asked about traffic.

Try it out here: Shared.com

Microsoft has made its Internet Explorer 11 browser available as a developer preview for Windows 7 users.

The browser will be built into the upcoming Windows 8.1, and then made fully available for Windows 7.

With over 700 million Windows 7 users in the world, keeping the operating system updated with the latest software is a key part of Microsoft's strategy.

While the versions are similar, the Windows 7 IE11 preview will be missing some of the features of its Windows 8.1 version.

ZD has those differences listed:

-In the Windows 7 version of IE11, the URL bar remains at the top of the browser (like it is with IE10 on Windows 7). IE11 for Windows 8.1 puts the URL bar at the bottom.
-Support for up to 100 simultaneously opened tabs per window isn't enabled in IE11 on Windows 7. (Officials said this is because IE11 on Windows 7 is a desktop/Win32 app, not a "modern"/Metro-Style one.)
-IE11 on Windows 7 won't support for premium video extensions like the 8.1 version does. "There are many solutions available for Windows 7 customers to stream and view protected content online, those methods will continue to function for customers," a spokesperson confirmed. (Read: Silverlight and Flash.)
-No support for Google's SPDY protocol (the precursor to HTTP 2.0) in IE11 on Windows 7. IE11 on Windows 8.1 does support SPDY.
-IE11 on Windows 7 will not support Enhanced Protected Mode browser security enhancements. (IE10 on Windows 7 didn't, either.)
-The UI Responsiveness tab is disabled in the F12 developer tools. However, support for this will be coming by the time the final version of IE11 for Windows 7 is released, thanks to "an update to the underlying Windows 7 platform."

Sony has quickly confirmed which of its devices will be receiving the brand new Android 4.3 operating system.

There is no roadmap for the phones/tablets getting the OS, but here is the list:

Yesterday you probably saw Google announce the next version of Jelly Bean (Android 4.3) – we're already getting stuck in and can confirm we'll make 4.3 available for: Xperia Z, Xperia ZL, Xperia ZR, Xperia Tablet Z, Xperia SP and Xperia Z Ultra

Sony just recently upgraded their Xperia Z and Xperia ZL devices to 4.2, and the Xperia ZR and Xperia Tablet Z will see a rollout in August.

Google just announced Android 4.3 yesterday with the launch of the 2013 Nexus 7.

Geeksphone has made their first consumer "Boot to Gecko" smartphone available for pre-order today, the Peak+.

The device is not a certified Firefox OS device, but does use pre-release versions of the open-source operating system.

Upgrading from its developer cousins, the Peak and Keon, the Peak+ runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 1GB RAM, has 4GB internal storage (expandable with microSD), an 8MP camera and an 1800 mAh battery.

Out of the box, the Peak+ will run on Firefox OS 1.1, which has many bug fixes, and faster load times. Additionally it comes with 25GB of free cloud storage.

The Peak+ can be reserved for €149 with a September release date.

Facebook shares jumped 16 percent following a quarter of strong earnings.

The social networking giant reported higher daily visitor figures, and a large surge in mobile ad revenue. FB said 700 million people now use the platform daily.

While ad prices declined at Yahoo and Google, they increased 13 percent at Facebook for the quarter.

Overall revenue grew 53 percent to $1.813 billion, well above the analyst expectations of $1.618 billion. Total number of ads jumped 43 percent year-over-year, and revenue from e-commerce companies doubled in the same time period.

Facebook has 1.15 billion users, and 61 percent are active users.

According to multiple sources, Sony is in development of a film adaptation of the popular racing series 'Gran Turismo.'

Mike de Luca and Dana Brunetti, producers of The Social Network and Fifty Shades of Grey, have already signed on to the project.

The Playstation-exclusive game has sold over 70 million units to date, making it one of the most popular game series of all-time.

Dreamworks announced earlier this year that they were developing a Need for Speed movie, based off the game series, as well.

David Smith, BlackBerry's VP in charge of the now-defunct tablet division, has resigned.

The executive had been with the company for eight years and took over the PlayBook project right after its release in 2011.

Despite a promising unveiling, delays kept the device out of stores until a year after the iPad launched, and when it launched, it was missing email and calendar apps, completely destroying the company's reputation (or whatever it had left).

Additionally, the tablet launched at $500 with underwhelming specs and an underwhelming OS, leading to its early demise and a $500 million writedown for the company following a fire sale to sell off inventory.

Intel has teased today the existence of a new Haswell-based chip that can fit into ultrathin devices and will not require fans for cooling.

Earlier this year at Computex, the company showed off a fanless tablet that was met with intrigue.

Intel says the new chips run at a "scenario design point" (SDP) of 4.5 watts, allowing it to run comfortably cold if the chassis is designed to cool 4.5 watts of heat.

Verge adds that "the silicon can actually boost speed higher for short periods as the temperature allows, it gives manufacturers flexibility to limit the processor to fit in smaller devices."

Intel managed to bring its Ivy Bridge processors down to the 10-watt thermal range, and Haswell was 6 watts at launch.

PayPal has unceremoniously cut off the popular VPN provider iPredator.

The anonymity service that was started by a Pirate Bay co-founder, can no longer accept payments through PayPal, and the company has had all of its assets frozen for the next 180 days.

Although PayPal did not specify why the service was banned, it follows the recent news that iPredator's credit card processor Payson has stopped doing business with all VPN services.

"It's not a coincidence that we are banned from Payson, and then PayPal a few weeks after," noted Sunde.

PayPal has long taken a hard stance against BitTorrent sites, Usenet providers and cyberlockers but today's news may suggest that VPNs are now on the list.

Perhaps worse for the site is the fact that other credit card processors do not appear to be coming forward to take Payson's place: "One processor we talked with, to replace Payson, told us that we were on a blacklist of services that are prohibited to accept credit cards. This apparently happened shortly after Payson announced it could no longer process MasterCard and Visa payments for VPN providers," Sunde explained (via TF).

After unveiling their updated Nexus 7, Google used today's press event to unveil the Chromecast, a small media and Internet stick that can be plugged into your TV's HDMI port to sling content via Wi-Fi.

At a cost of just $35, the stick should unlock the Internet for those that do not have Smart TVs, set-top boxes or video game consoles. All new orders also receive three free months of Netflix, even if you are a an existing subscriber, effectively dropping the price to almost nothing (unless you don't care for Netflix).

More importantly, the Chromecast lets you sling content from Android and iOS phones and tablets, Chromebooks and on Mac and Windows PCs via the Chrome browser.

You can control your TV via the stick, as well, from your device, including playback and volume. If your TV cannot power directly from the HDMI, there is an adapter included, as well.

With the exception of Silverlight and Quicktime video, any other web video or audio source will play on the TV if it plays in your Chrome desktop browser. You'll be able to run Netflix, Pandora, HBO GO, Hulu and Rdio among others that are not normally easily played without specialized apps.

Earlier this week we reported that Canonical had launched their Ubuntu Edge smartphone via the crowdfunding site Indiegogo.

The first 5000 pledgers were able to get the device for an intro price of $600, unlocked, along with a shoutout on Canonical's founders page. After that, you had to purchase the phone for $830, but the Linux company seems to have a roadblock at that price and have opened up new pledge tiers.

1250 new buyers can purchase the phone for $675, the next 1250 can get it for $725 and the next 1250 can get it for $775. After that, the next 4500 get the device for $780. Earlier today the $625 tier sold out and the $600 tier sold out on day one.

So far, the company has raised $5.4 million of its $32 million campaign.

Here is the full spec list:

Dual boot Ubuntu mobile OS and Android
Fully integrated Ubuntu desktop PC when docked
Fastest multi-core CPU, 4GB RAM, 128GB storage
4.5in 1,280 x 720 HD sapphire crystal display
8mp low-light rear camera, 2mp front camera
Dual-LTE, dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, NFC
GPS, accelerometer, gyro, proximity sensor, compass, barometer
Stereo speakers with HD audio, dual-mic recording, Active Noise Cancellation
MHL connector, 3.5mm jack
Silicon-anode Li-Ion battery
64 x 9 x 124mm

Google used their Android and Chrome event this morning to announce the 2013 version of the Nexus 7, a wildly updated version of its popular tablet first released last year.

The new tablet will keep its 7-inch display, run on the latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, and include a 1080p resolution, a large upgrade.

Under the hood is a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, 2GB RAM, and Adreno 320 GPU, NFC, dual cameras 1.2/5MP, dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and wireless charging support if you have a Qi-compatible charger. Additionally, the Nexus 7 supports OpenGL ES: 3.0, which supports higher-quality reflections, lens flares and other shading during gameplay.

AT&T has announced their quarterly earnings today, including a record number of Android smartphone sales.

The company reported $3.82 billion in profit on revenue of $32 billion.

"This was a solid quarter for revenue and customer additions across our key growth platforms," noted CEO Randall Stephenson.

The giant telco added 551,000 postpaid subscribers and 632,000 total subscribers for the quarter.

More than 35 percent of customers now use the fast 4G LTE network, and 65 percent use either LTE or HSPA+ (a 4G-esque high-speed 3G network). The company also added that deployment of their 4G network is ahead of schedule, with full nationwide rollout expected before the end of 2014.

Apple reported their latest quarterly earnings this afternoon, beating analyst expectations due to better than expected iPhone sales.

The company reported profit of $6.9 billion on $35.3 billion in sales.

For the quarter, Apple sold 31.2 million iPhones, 14.6 million iPads, 4.5 million iPods and 3.8 million Mac computers. The iPad number was a lot lower than expectations, but iPhones made up for the difference.

"We are especially proud of our record June quarter iPhone sales of over 31 million and the strong growth in revenue from iTunes, Software and Services," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement. "We are really excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks, and we are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products that we will introduce in the fall and across 2014."

Apple's profit margin fell 5.9 percent year-over-year, and the company reported a year-over-year profit decline for just the second time in 10 years.

Last week, Apple purchased the local transit navigation service HopStop, likely to help boost its own iOS mapping app.

Since the acquisition, Apple has reduced the app's platforms, shutting down the recently launched Windows Phone app.

The app is gone from the Windows Phone Marketplace, and all support has been discontinued. If you already had it downloaded, launching the app gets you the error "HopStop no longer supports the Windows platform."

Android users need not fret, as the app is still available and supported.

Apple also recently purchased Locationary, tech that uses "crowd-sourced data to offer accurate and up-to-date listings of local businesses." The company introduced iOS Maps with 6.0 and has been updating it almost weekly since.

Bitcasa has launched its infinite cloud storage solution in Europe.

The offering, unlimited cloud storage space, will cost £7/€8 per month or £55/€60 per year if you sign up before August 31st. Afterwards, the price will permanently be 20 percent higher.

Here is some background on Bitcasa (which is a relatively small company still). Bitcasa is a start-up begun by former execs at Mastercard, VeriSign and Mozy and is the latest entrant to the cloud storage market. What makes Bitcasa different is that the service offers you truly infinite storage. In fact, when you add your first folder, you are told that you have over 500TB of remaining free space, and the start-up says that number is only there because Windows and Mac machines cannot display higher numbers.

The company's CEO says it can offer unlimited storage, "because 60 percent of their data is identical." Simply, when you "cloudify" a music track or movie, the chances are someone else has the same exact track or movie on their computer. Bitcasa uses "patented de-duplication algorithms, compression techniques, and encryption" to identify duplicate files and therefore the company only keeps a couple, (or even one) of of the files in its servers. By doing so, the company can keep its costs significantly down and offer infinite storage to its users.

LG has sent out invites teasing its upcoming G2 flagship.

The event will take place on August 11th at 11 AM with the company expected to devote most of the press event to the smartphone.

Among the features we know are rear volume controls and the new poster seems to confirm a fingerprint scanner.

LG goes on to say "To me, you are perfect" and notes that "we are learning from you" which could mean the company has been actively listening to feedback and critiques on its recent Optimus line.

Check the invite here:

According to the China Daily, China will lift its long-standing ban on foreign video game consoles.

Earlier this year, sources claimed Chinese government officials had confirmed the end of the ban, but it did not appear to be true at the time.

Console makers Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft should be happy with the decision, as they may have a chance to break into a market with over 1.5 billion citizens.

Of course, the ban will not be completely revoked, as manufacturers will need to sign China's new Shanghai free trade zone.

According to a new report, ARM processors will be capable of running at 3GHz in 2014.

The processors will be built by TSMC and GlobalFoundries, utilizing the 20nm manufacturing process for improved power efficiency.

Sources claim the new processors will be necessary to "stave off the recent incursion" of Intel's mobile Bay Trail processors. Intel's rival chips have been clocked at up to 30 percent faster than existing chips.

Major publisher Ubisoft has said today that it expects the upcoming "Watch Dogs" game to sell 6 million units, making it one of the biggest releases of the year.

The company says all of its expectations are for the game to match the original Assassin's Creed, which moved 6.2 million.

"What is true is that three months ago when we announced our results, we were kind of referencing that we, in our plan, we had built up Watch Dogs with expectation slightly below what Assassin's Creed 1 did when it was first released--and it was 6.2 million," added Ubisoft. "So after E3, what we said today was that we do feel that we can expect...slightly above the 6.2 million that Assassin's Creed did."

Watch Dogs will be released for the Xbox 360, Wii U, PS3, PC, PS4 and the Xbox One in November and December.

Just days after announcing their shows had received 14 Emmy nominations, Netflix has announced it will be creating even more original content, producing documentaries and standup comedy specials.

Reads their letter to shareholders: "Beyond series, we will be expanding our Originals initiative to include broadly appealing feature documentaries and stand-up comedy specials. Netflix has become a big destination for fans of these much loved and often under-distributed genres."

COO Ted Sarandos had hinted at the company's interest in comedy during an interview earlier this year.

Netflix has proved to be a hit-maker with its own original content, thanks to Arrested Development, House of Cards and the new Orange is the New Black.

Verizon has added a new, faster tier to its FiOS Internet service.

The new high-end connection will top out at 500 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream, but it will certainly not come cheap.

To purchase the connection as a stand-alone product will set you back $299.99 per month. The cable provider is also offering numerous bundles:

$310 per month when paired with Select HD, FiOS TV's sports-free video service;
$320 per month with FiOS TV Prime;
$335 per month with FiOS TV Extreme; and,
$355 per month with FiOS TV Ultimate.
The pricing on the above tiers is reduced by $5 per month when customers agree to a two-year contract.

If you are willing to go with a triple-play, Verizon has even more bundled offerings:

$330 per month with FiOS Select HD and FiOS Digital Voice;
$340 per month with FiOS TV Prime and FiOS Digital Voice;
$355 per month with FiOS TV Extreme and FiOS Digital Voice; and,
$375 per month with FiOS TV Ultimate and FiOS Digital Voice.

If you are a a business customer, the tier will cost $380 per month with a dynamic IP address or $400 per month with a static IP.

Netflix reported their quarterly earnings today, missing analyst estimates for a stronger quarter.

The streaming service added 630,000 U.S. subscribers for the fiscal Q2, thanks in part to 'Arrested Development,' which provided a measurable boost.

Analysts and investors had expected better than the posted revenue of $1.07 billion and net income of $29 million, although the growth in subscribers was in-line for this quarter.

Netflix says it expects to add anywhere between 690,000 and 1.4 million new U.S. subscribers in the coming quarter. Total subscribers are now up to 29.81 million in the U.S.

"Arrested Development already had a strong brand and fan base, generating a small but noticeable bump in membership when we released it," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings added. "Other great shows don't have that noticeable effect in their first season because they are less established."

The popular Ubuntu Forums have been hit by a security breach, exposing the user names, passwords and email addresses for 1.82 million registered users.

So far, it does not appear the data has been published online.

On Saturday night, unknown assailants defaced the Ubuntu homepage (see picture) and someone was able to gain access to servers. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, quickly issued an advisory letting all users know to safeguard other accounts and change their passwords.

The forums remained offline throughout the weekend.

"While the passwords were not stored in plain text, good practice dictates that users should assume the passwords have been accessed and change them," Ubuntu CEO Jane Silber wrote. "If users used the same password on other services, they should immediately change that password."

The passwords were "cryptographically scrambled using the MD5 hashing algorithm, along with a per-user cryptographic salt," added Silber, although many security experts find that to be insufficient to really protect data.

EA has confirmed that its oft-rumored 'Dead Space' film adaptation is in the works.

The publisher made the announcement during a Comic-Con panel discussing franchises moving from the small screen to the big screen.

Justin Marks, the writer behind the awful Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, has been signed on for the script. While he confirmed that the movie could not be 100 percent faithful to the game in execution, he would prioritize the main character's story in a way that is proper for a full-length film.

The first Dead Space game was released in 2008, followed by sequels in 2011 and 2013. Each have been well received by critics and gamers. The games follow protagonist Isaac Clarke who battles reanimated human corpses among other monsters.

Industry watchers expect the film to be released in late 2014.

Canonical has unveiled their upcoming Ubuntu Edge smartphone.

The company has put the device up via crowdfunding site Indiegogo and is looking to raise $32 million in the next month, a huge task.

Here is the full spec list:

Dual boot Ubuntu mobile OS and Android
Fully integrated Ubuntu desktop PC when docked
Fastest multi-core CPU, 4GB RAM, 128GB storage
4.5in 1,280 x 720 HD sapphire crystal display
8mp low-light rear camera, 2mp front camera
Dual-LTE, dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, NFC
GPS, accelerometer, gyro, proximity sensor, compass, barometer
Stereo speakers with HD audio, dual-mic recording, Active Noise Cancellation
MHL connector, 3.5mm jack
Silicon-anode Li-Ion battery
64 x 9 x 124mm

For those outside of its coverage area it may not be a big deal, but Time Warner Cable and CBS are in an ongoing battle over licensing fees to re-transmit the network's channels and programs.

If the dispute is not settled, CBS is expected to pull all of its programming from the major cable operator. Time Warner has argued that CBS is trying to renegotiate the fees at a rate 600 percent higher than the last contract, a massive jump especially for programming that is free with a digital antenna.

TWC has also threatened to recommend that all of its NYC customers (many millions) try Aereo if CBS does pull the content. Aereo allows users to watch free, OTA content on any mobile device along with a free remote DVR. Aereo does not pay any re-transmission fees as it uses tiny digital TV antennas for each user in its own facilities and links to the streams.

Although consumers have ignored it and Microsoft was forced to take a $900 million loss due to it, at least one company remains bullish on the long-term prospects of the Windows RT operating system.

Rene Haas, VP of computing at Nvidia, says the company's commitment to the OS "remains at a high level and hasn't changed."

Nvidia makes the Tegra 3 processor that powers the Surface RT and Lenovo's Yoga 11 RT tablet. The powerful quad-core Tegra 4 will be available for upcoming RT devices, as well.

"Surface RT is the very beginning of a long process and it's the first shot in a changing landscape," Haas added. "Microsoft is moving the entire Windows platform to something really mobile."

Microsoft recently took a $900 million loss due to excess Surface RT inventory and dropped the prices across the board by $150.

Overall, Haas seemed very encouraged by Microsoft and the platform, in general, adding that Nvidia employees all use Surface RT with Windows 8.1.

Weeks ahead of its official launch on August 1st, we now have more pictures and a full spec sheet for the flagship device.

Specs via source:

A dual-core Qualcomm S4 Pro MSM8960DT 1.7GHz CPU, Adreno 320 GPU. I'm still not sure what the "d" stands for in the processor model number, but it's likely the same as MSM8960T - confirmed by our photos
2GB of RAM - confirmed by our photos
720x1184 4.7" (about 4.5" without on-screen buttons) display - confirmed by our photos
2.1MP front-facing camera / 10.5MP rear camera with flash - confirmed by our photos
802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi (ac made it in, nice!) - confirmed by FCC docs
Android 4.2.2 on the unit being tested - confirmed by our photos
16GB internal memory, 12GB of which is user-accessible (on the unit being tested) - confirmed by our photos
NFC - confirmed by our photos
2,200 mAh non-removable battery - confirmed by FCC docs and first tipped off by @evleaks
XT1058 / "ghost" (this is the AT&T variant) - as shown in photos
128.5mm x 65mm - confirmed by FCC docs

The ever resourceful @Evleaks has revealed the press image for another upcoming device, this time the second-generation Google Nexus 7.

On July 24th, Android boss Sundar Pichai is expected to officially launch the tablet, which should be quite similar to the first-generation device but with updated specs.

From the image, we can see that the device will add a second camera (on the rear side) and the leaked specs are a large improvement, as well.

The 7-inch display is expected to now have a 1920x1200 resolution, a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM and dual rear-facing speakers for improved sound. Additionally, the device should be the first with Android 4.3.

Besides being available through the Google Play Store, the device will be available at Best Buy, Staples and other retailers, as well.

Endorse, the mobile coupon startup that shut down last month, has been acquired by Dropbox.

Launched in 2010, Endorse started with a web version before adding an iPhone app in 2012. In June, Endorse announced to its users that they had to begin transferring cash they had accrued over to their bank accounts.

Financial terms were not revealed, but it is hard to imagine the purchase price was too high given the fact the company was shutting down. Endorse raised $4.5 million from venture capitalists during an initial funding run.

Endorse's dozen employees are set to join Dropbox, say sources.

Nvidia has announced today that its Shield handheld gaming system will ship on July 31st, about a month after it was supposed to.

The company had delayed its launch after a "mechanical issue" with a "third-party component" was found in June.

Reads Nvidia's email:

We want to thank you for your patience and for sticking with us through the shipment delay of your SHIELD. We have great news to share with you - your SHIELD will ship on July 31st.

Our goal has always been to ship the perfect product, so we made sure we submitted SHIELD to the most rigorous mechanical testing and quality assurance standards in the industry. We built SHIELD because we love playing games, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Panasonic will plead guilty to U.S. government charges that it conspired to fix prices of laptop battery packs and auto parts for 15 years.

The Japanese electronics maker will pay $56.5 million in fines and 15 executives from multiple companies will serve jail time, ranging from one year to two years for their part in the scheme.

Starting in 1998, Panasonic was accused of working with other companies to "fix, stabilize, and maintain the prices of lighting equipment (HID ballasts)" that were later sold to Honda, Mazda and Nissan. Additionally, they fixed the prices of switches and sensors for auto steering wheels, doors, wipers, turn signals and the system's control system that were later sold to Toyota. This portion of the price fixing only lasted from 2003 to 2010, however.

On the laptop battery side, it wasn't Panasonic that conspired to fix prices, but instead Sanyo, which the company acquired four years ago for $4.5 billion. Sanyo and LG Chem fixed the prices of cylindrical lithium ion battery packs for laptop computers sold around the globe. The conspiracy lasted for all of 2007 and 2008 .

Google has sent out invitations to "a breakfast" with Android and ChromeOS boss Sundar Pichai.

While it is unclear what will be discussed, the assumption is Pichai will introduce more about the upcoming Android 4.3 Jelly Bean update and the next version of ChromeOS.

The event is on July 24th at 9AM Pacific.

From recent leaks, we know some of the 4.3 updates. A welcome update (as all Nexus users can attest too) is the update to the dialer. The phone will now automatically suggest your contacts as you dial numbers, like it used to before 4.2. You currently have to type out the full number or head to contacts to search. It is important to note that the new dialer autofill will not be turned on by default.

Additionally, the camera application will come with new minor updates. Another cool update is a setting that you can allow your Wi-Fi to be turned on to get a lock on your location before it is automatically turned off again. Apps will not send you push notifications asking you to try to hop on a Wi-Fi network anymore if you have that setting enabled. In a move that was likely spurred by the launch of Google Glass, 4.3 devices can now utilize Bluetooth Low Energy to save battery when linked to Glass or smartwatches (for example).

@Evleaks, the now-famous Twitter handle from which many big time leaks for smartphones and tablets have been made, has posted the first press shots of the upcoming Moto X from Google.

The device will launch on August 1st, and Google and Motorola have been teasing the device for months.

Google purchased Motorola Mobility in 2011 for $12.5 billion, mainly for its patent portfolio but also to use its hardware building capabilities. The Moto X will be the first phone to use Google's direction.

The device will have customizable hardware options, be built in the U.S., have mid-range specs and likely a very reasonable price tag.

Microsoft has announced it will be bundling Xbox Live Gold with its subscription Office 365 service.

Between this week and September 28th, any customer who purchases a 12-month Office 365 Home Premium subscription or the student 4-year Office 365 University subscription will get 12 free months of Xbox Live Gold.

So far, the offer is available in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. To make sure you are eligible, check here.

The online subscription includes access to full versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint and has reached over one million subscribers.

Netflix has responded to the outcry caused by a Tumblr page.

The page, dubbed "What Netflix Does" shows how the company crops movies, destroying the original aspect ratio and framing while streaming to your TVs and PCs.

Netflix says: We want to offer the best picture and provide the original aspect ratio of any title on Netflix. However, unfortunately our quality controls sometimes fail and we end up offering the wrong version of a title. When we discover this error, we work to replace that title as soon as possible.

Check out the crops here (I've created some examples below), along with screenshots and where these shots were taken (U.S, Canada, Mexico, etc): What Netflix Does Tumblr

During its quarterly earnings report on Thursday, Microsoft revealed that it is making more money now for its mobile phone division.

In their conference call, the company said that "Windows Phone revenue, reflecting patent licensing revenue and sales of Windows Phone licenses, increased $222 million for the quarter."

While that number seems impressive given the slow sales of Windows Phones, it is important to note that the "patent licensing revenue" cited is royalties that Microsoft makes off of Android sales.

The company has a very powerful patent portfolio and has cut deals with nearly the entire Android industry, minus Google and Motorola. Microsoft is said to make as much as $8 per unit sold from companies like HTC and Huawei, among many others.

So even though Windows Phone sales are improving (up to 12 million or so across Nokia, HTC, Samsung) last quarter, it still appears that most of its profits are coming from rival Android.

VLC, one of the most popular media player applications of all-time, is finally available again in the Apple App Store.

VLC for iOS is now available across the world as long as you have iOS 5.1 or later. The app is supported across the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

The new app, version 2.0, is open-source just as its desktop counterpart is, and the code will be made available online, licensed under the Mozilla Public License Version 2 and the GNU General Public License Version 2.

Apple pulled the first version of the VLC app in January 2011 because of conflicts with parts of the GPL license and the App Store's own rules. Being licensed under the MPLv2 should eliminate all those issues.

"We worked hard with all major copyright holders to not repeat history and we are confident to have achieved this goal," VideoLAN noted, via TNW.

Microsoft has announced this week that their aging Xbox 360 console has kept its position as the top selling console in the U.S. for the 30th straight month.

For June, the company sold 140,000 units, easily beating out the Wii, Wii U and PS3, says the NPD Group.

Additionally, Microsoft added the following:

*Total retail spend on the Xbox 360 platform in June (hardware, software and accessories) reached $197 million, the most for any console in the US.

*During the month of June, Xbox 360 held seven of the top 10 console game titles including: "Minecraft," "NBA 2K13," "Injustice: Gods Among Us," "Deadpool," "Call of Duty: Black Ops II," "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim."

According to their recent earnings report, Google slashed 5383 jobs at Motorola Mobility last quarter, streamlining the company that has been a massive money loser over the past few years.

The number is very significant, as Google employed 9,982 Motorola Mobility workers last quarter.

Reads the earnings report: "On a worldwide basis, we employed 44,777 full-time employees (40,178 in Google and 4,599 in Motorola Mobile) as of June 30, 2013, compared to 53,891 full-time employees (38,739 in Google, 9,982 Motorola Mobile, and 5,170 Motorola Home) as of March 31, 2013."

It appears that most of the reduction came due to the closing of a manufacturing deal between Motorola and Flextronics. Flextronics bought two plants, one in Taiwan and one in Brazil, keeping all the employees, as well.

Motorola also confirmed there were additional layoffs besides the Flextronics deal.

Nielsen has released new music industry data today for the first six months of 2013.

Although music sales fell, streaming music continues to rise, helping to stop some of the bleeding.

Overall sales of albums and track equivalents were down 4.6 percent year-over-year to 210 million units while streams jumped 24 percent to 51 billion.

For the six months ended June 30th, the most popular streamed track was Baauer's 'Harlem Shake,' streamed a massive 438 million times. Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" was a distant second at 187 million streams.

Digital sales continued to be strong, but the days of double digit growth in the market seem to be over. Digital album sales were up 6.3 percent to 60.8 million units, while CDs dropped another 14.2 percent to 78.2 million units. Single track downloads fell 2.3 percent to 682 million.

"Overall sales are down slightly in the first half of 2013, but there continues to be encouraging growth in digital album sales," noted David Bakula, SVP Nielsen Entertainment.

Google has officially unveiled the Chrome app launcher for Windows, taking it out of developer preview.

When installing to Windows 7 or Windows 8, the launcher is placed in the taskbar, the desktop, the menu bar and also in the start page.

The launcher allows you to very quickly launch your apps from the desktop, sign into all apps that use your Google identity and also sync your apps, bookmarks, history, passwords, and other settings across multiple devices.

ChromeOS has featured the launcher since version 21, but Windows users have only been able to use it via developer versions of Chrome, until now.

Get the launcher here: Chrome Launcher

Thanks to a few reports, we now appear to have the launch date and specs for the upcoming Nexus 7 successor.

The tablet (according to a leaked memo) will go on sale at Staples on July 31st, after the company's stores are stocked as early July 24th. This likely means the Google Play Store will offer the tablet slightly earlier than retail counterparts.

Google looks to have upped the price a bit, to $269 for 32GB.

Under the hood is a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, and a couple of new additions include dual cameras 1.2MP/5MP, a Slim Port and wireless charging capabilities.

The new Nexus will keep the same 7-inch display and launch with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.

Apple has purchased the local transit navigation service HopStop, likely to help boost its own iOS mapping app.

HopStop has Android and iOS apps, but the Android app may cease to be depending on Apple's thoughts on the matter.

The move makes sense for Apple as it upgrades its iOS Maps software. The company could potentially add bus, train, subway and other transit options, which rival Google has but they do not. Besides having transit info for 300 major cities, HopStop also has routes for driving, cycling and walking.

Apple also purchased Locationary, tech that uses "crowd-sourced data to offer accurate and up-to-date listings of local businesses."

The company first launched its own mapping solutions with iOS 6 in late 2012.

The former head of the CIA says he knows of hard evidence that links Chinese smartphone and equipment maker Huawei to spying for the Chinese government.

Michael Hayden, who was also the former boss of the NSA, says Huawei has "shared with the Chinese state intimate and extensive knowledge of the foreign telecommunications systems it is involved with. I think that goes without saying."

Huawei is also the world's second largest telecoms equipment maker, making the news even more startling. The company has steadfastly denied being linked to the Chinese government or the military.

Global Cyber Security Officer at Huawei, John Suffolk fought back, calling the comments "tired, unsubstantiated defamatory remarks" and challenged Hayden to present to evidence to the public. "Huawei meets the communication needs of more than a third of the planet and our customers have the right to know what these unsubstantiated concerns are. It's time to put up or shut up."

Major retailer Best Buy announced yesterday that it would be cutting the price of select 13-inch MacBook Pro models as part of its "Back-to-School" promotions.

For the sale, that ends on July 27th, Best Buy is offering $300 off for students and $200 off for everyone else.

The promotion is only good for 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro models, the entry-level 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD model and the higher-end 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, 750GB HDD version.

With the regular discount, the cheaper model will sell for $999 and the beefier model will sell for $1299. Take off an extra $100 if you are a student.

A new report claims LG is the supplier behind millions of Retina displays that are headed to the upcoming iPad Mini 2.

Although Apple has never confirmed its existence, the iPad Mini successor is expected to launch in October, likely alongside the iPhone 5S.

Taiwanese sources say LG is "making new headway" in producing the HD panels, and that they are looking to ship 2 million per month ahead of the expected launch date.

Another 1-2 million are earmarked for the next-generation full-sized iPad. The only real notable difference between current 9.7-inch iPad displays and the next-gen panels is the use of a single LED backlight bar, instead of the current two-module hardware.

The new report contradicts another which stated this year's iPad Mini would just be a minor refresh of last year's model.

It's finally official; the Moto X flagship will be unveiled on August 1st at a press event in NYC.

Over the past months, the sheer amounts of leaks for the Moto X has taken away some of the luster, as we now know what the phone will look like, what customized features it will have, and a good understanding of what is under the hood.

Motorola Mobility's flagship will allow consumers to customize the look of the phone and choose an engraving.

Through a site, buyers can choose from a palette of colors, one for the back case and another for the trim of the phone. Buyers can then engrave a name or a full message on the back cover and also upload a photo through the site to be the phone's wallpaper before you even receive it.

Because the phone is being built in a new factory in Texas, the personalized device can be delivered to U.S. buyers within days.

The unveiling is bound to have some extra goodies in store for would-be buyers, including the price.

Yelp has announced today the acquisition of startup SeatMe, which helps organize reservation space.

The purchase price was $2.2 million in cash and another 263,000 shares of Yelp common stock (valued currently at $11 million).

SeatMe, which was started to battle market leader OpenTable in the reservation space market, is a web service and iPad app.

Via the web service, restaurant owners can add a full online reservation system to their site or Facebook page and the iPad app lets the host manage tables while on the move. Besides the basics, the service allows for texting customers when their tablet is ready and noting seating preferences for returning customers.

Yelp will be integrating the SeatMe team to build their own reservation system, likely meaning existing deals with OpenTable will eventually expire. The assumption is that reservation system will eventually be expanded to include dentists and salons (for example).

Speaking during the company's quarterly earnings conference call, Google CEO Larry Page revealed some strong figures for Android.

Page says 1.5 million Android devices are activated daily, extremely strong growth from last year's similar report.

Additionally, the company says 900 million Android devices have been activated since the operating system launched in 2008, with 1 billion expected in the very near future.

At last year's I/O conference, Page noted that 400 million devices had been activated.

E-commerce giant Amazon has been rejected in their attempts to use .amazon as a new top-level domain name.

Thanks to objections by a large group of Latin American countries, a committee for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has blocked the attempt. ICANN is the international group responsible for governing the Internet.

ICANN has been reviewing applications for new domain suffixes submitted by companies, countries and other organizations.

Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay wrote a letter to ICANN asking the request to be denied due to their proximity to the might Amazon river: "In particular '.amazon' is a geographic name that represents important territories of some of our countries, which have relevant communities, with their own culture and identity directly connected with the name. Beyond the specifics, this should also be understood as a matter of principle."

The group also sent a letter to reject ".patagonia" (submitted by the cold-weather clothing company) as Patagonia is a geographical region in Argentina.

According to sources, Samsung is close to signing deals with the FBI and U.S. Navy for its devices.

The government has traditionally used BlackBerry smartphones, but Apple and Samsung have been making pushes to get into the market, with strong results so far. Samsung, for example, has created an enterprise devoted division within the company and collaborated with popular third-party software companies to increase email and general phone security.

Supposedly, the FBI order will be large while the Navy deal will be smaller, and neither has closed of yet.

All Samsung devices acquired by government agencies come equipped with the company's KNOX security software, an added interface layer on top of the stock Android.

The orders would be the first for Samsung since receiving US Department of Defense approval earlier this year. Apple's latest iOS and BlackBerry 10 also received approval.

Microsoft has reported its fiscal Q4 2013 earnings today, admitting to some unexpected losses and missing estimates.

The company has reported revenue of $19.9 billion and profits of $4.97 billion, much lower than the analyst estimates of $20.74 billion in revenue and $5.51 billion profit.

One of the biggest drags on earnings was the Windows RT-based Surface RT. The company has taken a $900 million writedown related to "Surface RT inventory adjustments." That most certainly means there is a ton of excess supply and the company just recently slashed the prices of the tablet from $500 base to $350 base.

The failing PC market certainly did not help matters as desktop and laptop sales fell double digits, again.

"While our fourth quarter results were impacted by the decline in the PC market, we continue to see strong demand for our enterprise and cloud offerings, resulting in a record unearned revenue balance this quarter. We also saw increasing consumer demand for services like Office 365, Outlook.com, Skype, and Xbox LIVE," said Amy Hood, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "While we have work ahead of us, we are making the focused investments needed to deliver on long-term growth opportunities like cloud services."

Although the company delivered very strong earnings, Google missed analyst estimates by a large margin, and the company's stock is currently down over 4 percent as a result.

For the Q2 2013, Google reported revenue of $14.1 billion and net income of $3.23 billion. Analysts had been expecting $3.6 billion in profits and $14.6 billion in sales.

Despite missing estimates, revenue was up 19 percent year-over-year, extremely strong growth for a company worth over $300 billion.

Looking into the numbers, total ad revenue jumped 15 percent and paid clicks were up 23 percent year-over-year.

Google's hardware division, which includes Motorola Mobility, accounted for a measly $998 million in revenue. That figure is expected to grow with this year's launch of the Moto X.

Chinese search giant Baidu has announced the biggest Internet company takeover in the nation's history, purchasing Android app distributor 91 Wireless.

The company will pay $1.9 billion for the company, which should help them keep market share against rivals like Tencent, Alibaba and Qihoo.

91 Wireless is majority owned by gaming firm NetDragon, and NetDragon has been actively exploring spinning off the subsidiary. 91 owns community websites, is the largest third-party app distribution platform in China and also offers e-reader software and customized launch screens for handsets.

The company was able to get so big in China due to Google's limitations in the nation. The official Google Play store is open for business in China, but does not carry paid apps.

There are an estimated 750 million smartphone users in China, with Android making up a majority.

Thanks to a new leak, we have a strong idea of what will entail the upcoming Android 4.3 operating system update.

4.3, which is still part of Jelly Bean, will be a minor update ahead of Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie, which is still expected for later this year.

A welcome update (as all Nexus users can attest too) is the update to the dialer. The phone will now automatically suggest your contacts as you dial numbers, like it used to before 4.2. You currently have to type out the full number or head to contacts to search.

It is important to note that the new dialer autofill will not be turned on by default.

Additionally, the camera application will come with new minor updates. Another cool update is a setting that you can allow your Wi-Fi to be turned on to get a lock on your location before it is automatically turned off again. Apps will not send you push notifications asking you to try to hop on a Wi-Fi network anymore if you have that setting enabled.

Finnish giant Nokia reported its second quarter earnings today, and they were once again not pretty.

Net sales were $7.5 billion (€5.7 billion) and the company reported an operating loss of €115 million ($150 million). Compared to last year, the improvement is large, however, as the company lost over $1 billion in the same quarter in 2012.

Perhaps more importantly for the company, Lumia Windows Phone sales increased significantly to 7.4 million units sold, up from 5.6 million devices last quarter.

Nokia's "mobile phone" segment, which includes Asha and other feature phones, saw sales drop 27 percent year-over-year to 53.7 million units and its smartphone segment (which includes Lumia and legacy devices) also fell 27 percent by volume due to the final death of Symbian.

CEO Stephen Elop saw a bright future, however, as he expects Lumia devices to finally stop declines in the smartphone segment. The bigger question is likely whether their mobile phone division can stop the bleeding, as well.

HTC has finally unveiled one of the industry's worst-kept secrets, the One Mini.

The compact version of their popular HTC One flagship includes the UltraPixel Camera, HTC BoomSound and HTC BlinkFeed.

While the One has a full 1080p screen, the Mini has a 720p 4.3-inch display with 341ppi. True to its name, the device is quite small, but really not that much thinner than its bigger brother. The dimensions of the new device are 5.2 inches tall by 2.5 inches wide by 0.36 inch thick.

Under the hood is a 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 and 1GB RAM, both large steps down from the One but should be reasonable performers.

There is no word on pricing or availability yet.

Just a few days after T-Mobile USA unveiled their "Jump" program for upgrading your phone multiple times per year, AT&T has unveiled a similar system.

Staring next week, AT&T Next will allow buyers to purchase new smartphones or tablets once per year without a down payment. You can trade in your existing device after 12 months or pay an installment plan for 20 months and then keep the device.

Unlike T-Mobile's plan, which costs $10 per month and allows users to upgrade their phone every six months, AT&T Next will only spread out the cost of the device over time and allow annual upgrades.

For example, a Samsung Galaxy 4 will cost $32 per month on top of your data and voice/text plan. It is unclear if the iPhone will be included.

Chinese PC giant Lenovo has opened a manufacturing plant in the U.S.

Lenovo, which is now the top manufacturer of PCs in the world, beating out HP, will beat Apple to the punch with American labor.

Apple recently announced it would build upcoming Mac Pros in the U.S.

Rival Google is also building the new Motorola X phone in the U.S., allowing for quicker delivery of customized shells and colors.

Major publisher Ubisoft has made it clear what kind of games they are willing to make.

Tony Key, the publisher's VP of sales and marketing, says the company is now only interested in video games that can be later developed into franchises.

"That's what all our games are about; we won't even start if we don't think we can build a franchise out of it," Key said. "There's no more fire and forget -- it's too expensive."

Giving examples, Key pointed to the massive marketing behind a series like Assassin's Creed and expressed hope that Watch Dogs could be a blockbuster franchise, as well. Key also noted that they would not be satisfied with Watch Dogs "until we're the biggest game of the year."

"You're making a huge bet on the development side, you've got to be all in," he said (via Verge). "It became very clear to us about two years ago that this is a blockbuster world we live in now."

PrimeSense, the company behind the gesture-based tech seen in Microsoft's popular Kinect sensor, has denied reports that is being acquired by Apple.

In the original report, it was noted that the purchase price would be in the range of $280-300 million.

However, sources speaking to TechCrunch say that price, and the talks in general, are not accurate.

The sources claim the report is "journalist delusion based on unverified and twisted hints. 280M? Come on! We're worth 10 times that. :)"

While maybe not in the works currently, a PrimeSense acquisition would make perfect sense, especially as the company reportedly is trying to get into the living room with a dedicated HDTV.

Intel has acquired gesture computing firm Omek.

The talks are said to have begun in March, and grinded on until this week.

Most reports have the purchase price in the range of $30 million to $50 million. The firm had raised $14 million since its inception, so it appears investors will make some good returns.

Omek will move all their employee's to Intel's computing division in Haifa, Israel.

The move "will help Intel push through barriers with perceptual computing, and gesture recognition with 3D cameras will all go towards improving the overall user experience of portable and desktop devices," say the reports.

According to sources, Microsoft has begun testing a Surface smartwatch prototype.

The company, who has been reportedly prototyping smartwatches, had now moved the devices over to their Surface team from the Xbox division.

Microsoft has been reportedly requesting 1.5-inch displays from component suppliers, and testing smaller devices with the Surface connector.

The removable wrist bands will come in blue, red, yellow, black, white, and grey, similar to how the Surface features colorful Touch covers.

Finally, the device (at least in protoype) uses Oxynitride Aluminum, a "translucent aluminum" is over 200 percent harder than glass. The prototypes run on a modified Windows 8.

In 2011, Sony made headline after headline when their PlayStation Network was breached and personal information on over 100 million customers were stolen.

The independent European authority, Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), fined Sony £250,000 over the breaching, saying they should have been better prepared. At the time, the ICO said "Sony is a company that trades on its technical expertise, and there's no doubt in my mind that they had access to both the technical knowledge and the resources to keep this information safe."

ICO, via its bio, is "set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals."

Sony had decided it would appeal the fine, but has now reversed that decision: "After careful consideration we are withdrawing our appeal. This decision reflects our commitment to protect the confidentiality of our network security from disclosures in the course of the proceeding. We continue to disagree with the decision on the merits."

It appears that HTC will be building their own phablet device, supposedly named the HTC One Max.

The 6-inch, 1080p device will rival the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 3, and Sony's Xperia Z Ultra.

Under the hood, the device will have a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and allegedly launch in September.

Samsung has unveiled their Galaxy Note devices during the IFA event each year (September 6-11), and this year should see the launch of the GN3.

The One Max is expected to look similar to the (pictured) HTC One.

Pebble, the smartwatch startup that became the highest-grossing Kickstarter campaign of all-time, has reached 275,000 watches sold.

Co-founder Eric Migicovsky says the company has received 190,000 orders through its site, following 85,000 through Kickstarter a year ago.

The company recently announced availability at Best Buy retail stores, and Migicovsky says The Pebble is sold out at many locations already.

After months of delays and many technical difficulties for early adopters, shipping seems to have stabilized for the most part, so the co-founder says priorities have shifted, this time to developers.

"Our focus as a company is now shifting to supporting third-party developers," Migicovsky says. "This means our developer tools will get better, we'll be focusing on how developers can get their tools out to users. It's in our best interest, as well as in the interest of developers to share this these stories."

The company has also now seen over 1 million downloads for its apps via Android and iOS.

Amazon has signed a new deal with Miramax that will add hundreds of films to their Prime Instant Video streaming service.

Among the more popular titles are "Pulp Fiction," "Good Will Hunting," "Life Is Beautiful," "The English Patient," "Kill Bill," "Amelie," "Reservoir Dogs," and "Trainspotting."

Prime is available on PC, Macs, iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Roku, most Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players and current-generation video game consoles.

Amazon Prime costs $79 per year and gives users free 2-day shipping on hundreds of thousands of items through the e-commerce site and free access to the streaming video service.

Rakuten, the quiet e-commerce giant behind brands like Buy.com and Kobo, has launched an official beta of its Wuaki video streaming sevice in the UK.

The company purchased Wuaki in 2012 from its Spanish owners. The site expects to roll out the service across Europe over the course of the next two years.

"The UK is the first stop in Wuaki.tv´s European expansion beyond the company's home market in Spain. Wuaki.tv has a long term aim of becoming a leader in the European VOD space, and is planning to complete launches in the main European countries, in addition to the UK and Spain, within the next 18-24 months," Wuaki's CEO Jacinto Roca noted. "A detailed plan will be confirmed in the next few months, following the UK launch and initial feedback and results in that market."

In the UK, the service will launch with "thousands of hours" of content, including TV and movies from Warner Bros., Disney, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox and the BBC.

Netflix has now moved into the "talks" stage for a new season of Arrested Development.

Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment confirmed the talks. Grazer is a producer of the series.

"We are in conversations with them to do another," added Grazer. "[Netflix is] interested in doing that."

The fourth season was released in May nearly seven years after the cult classic show was canceled after a three season run. Although the show launched to much hype, fans of the show were mixed in their reviews.

Netflix has recently invested heavily in original programming, and the strategy appears to be paying off. "House of Cards" and "Hemlock Grove" (not to mention Arrested Development) each saw strong viewership numbers and were renewed.

The streaming company's most recent series, "Orange is the New Black" debuted on July 11th.

Instead of selling the popular streaming service, NBCU, 21st Century Fox and Walt Disney have decided to cancel the auction after final bidding.

The companies will keep their joint ownership and also provide a $750 million cash infusion to help propel future earnings and growth.

"Hulu has emerged as one of the most consumer friendly, technologically innovative viewing platforms in the digital era. As its evolution continues, Disney and its partners are committing resources to enable Hulu to achieve its maximum potential," said Robert A. Iger, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company.

"We believe the best path forward for Hulu is a meaningful recapitalization that will further accelerate its growth under the current ownership structure," added Chase Carey, President and Chief Operating Officer of 21st Century Fox. "We had meaningful conversations with a number of potential partners and buyers, each with impressive plans and offers to match, but with 21st Century Fox and Disney fully aligned in our collective vision and goals for the business, we decided to continue to empower the Hulu team, in this fashion, to continue the incredible momentum they've built over the last few years."

Despite once announcing that they would be sticking to Android and not making Windows Phone devices, LG appears to be having a change of heart.

The mobile phone maker, according to a new report, is now working on their first Windows Phone 8 smartphone, with release expected for later this year.

Microsoft's operating system currently only has 3.2 percent global market share, and could certainly use extra models on the market, especially from one of the biggest five manufacturers on the planet.

LG's Managing Director for the Indian market Soon H Kwon is quoted as saying, "At home (South Korea), we are actually working on our Windows Phone 8 OS powered smartphone."

In prototype now, the company has not committed to actually shipping the phone, however.

Nintendo, who recently pushed out a software update for the Wii U, has said today that the update will not include the performance updates the gaming company promised for the summer.

The new update has a few minor updates, mainly bug fixes and minor support enhancements.

Nintendo's larger update has been delayed until the fall, although the timetable is unclear except that it will be near the end of September.

That update should drastically improve laggy performance of the console, President Iwata noted three months ago.

Microsoft will be cutting the price of the Surface RT tablet this week, in an effort to move stale unit stock.

The base model, which currently sells for $500, will drop to $350 including its 32GB of internal storage. The 64GB model will sell for $450, matching the price of the 32GB model with the special Touch Cover. The 64GB with Touch Cover will sell for $550.

Microsoft recently began selling Surface RTs to schools for $199 and has been also clearing out stock at partner conferences.

The company is expected to release sequels to the Surface RT, which runs on Windows RT, and the Surface Pro, which runs on a full version of Windows. The company is rumored to be testing a Snapdragon 800 for the RT and an Intel Haswell for the Pro.

While Microsoft did not confirm a day, Staples says the price cut will go into effect this Sunday.

According to Gartner, PC shipments fell for the fifth straight quarter, the longest streak ever recorded for the industry.

For the Q2, global unit shipments fell 10.9 percent to 76 million, and sales slid in every region recorded. The U.S. finally saw a slowing decline, with sales sliding just 1.4 percent.

Rival firm IDC reported a 11.4 percent slide for the quarter, which was actually better than their 11.7 percent projection.

Despite traditional triggers, such as the launch of Windows 8 and new, more efficient processors from Intel, sales have continued to slump.

Lenovo took the crown with 16.7 percent of all shipments, beating out long time king HP at 16.3 percent. Dell took third at 11.8 percent. Lenovo saw just a 0.6 percent drop for the quarter compared to a massive 4.8 percent decline for HP and a 3.9 percent decline for Dell.

According to BGR, BlackBerry is planning one last flagship for 2013, the A10.

The A10 will have a 5-inch SuperAMOLED display, a high-end dual-core processor, 2GB RAM and an updated design that is said to resemble the Galaxy S4, except rounder.

BlackBerry will shy away from quad-core processors again as a way to help conserve battery life for the device.

At launch, BlackBerry is expected to tout gaming capabilities, says the report.

Earlier this week, we reported on the first GTA V gameplay trailer, which featured 5-minutes of narrative and real footage from actual gameplay.

When asked, Rockstar Games has confirmed the footage came from the PS3 version of the game: "Just to clarify for those asking, this particular video was captured with footage from the PS3 version of the game."
Some had speculated that the footage had been taken from the oft-rumored but never confirmed PC version of the game.

A job listing recently called for a graphic programmer to join Rockstar Leeds. The post was removed but was already shared across the net: "Rockstar Leeds are currently looking for a talented graphics programmer to help bring our latest titles to the PC platform," it read, "working together with the other Rockstar studios, you will be responsible for maintaining the studio's uncompromising quality bar, delivering the highest quality PC experience possible."

GTA V will feature three protagonists, each of which are already established in the world, unlike in past games where you really have to start from the bottom. The game allows you to control all the characters at any time you want and others move to "autopilot" until you switch back.

While all the major publishers involved settled before going to trial, Apple tried their luck with a court case.

A federal judge has ruled today that Apple is guilty of conspiring with five major book publishers to raise e-book prices. U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan says she found "compelling evidence" that Apple repeatedly violated federal antitrust law by conspiring and eventually eliminating competition and raising ebook prices for consumers.

The case was brought by the U.S. DOJ and 33 U.S. states and should expose Apple to damages that could be in the hundreds of millions. The publishers settled for $166 million combined but Apple's share may be triple that.

"Apple chose to join forces with the publisher defendants to raise e-book prices and equipped them with the means to do so," Cote said in a 159-page decision. "Without Apple's orchestration of this conspiracy, it would not have succeeded as it did."

The "agency model" of pricing created by Apple in 2010 before the launch of the iPad, had publishers set the price for ebooks while retailers took a commission, normally 30 percent. This led to higher prices for consumers, with Cote saying average prices went up 18 percent.

During construction of the new Apple flagship store in Madrid, Spain, workers discovered 15th century ruins belonging to an old hospital.

The workers came across the ancient hospital while digging out the area for the store's basement.

Buen Suceso hospital, as it was called, was demolished in the 1850s to make room for more buildings. A church that was next to the hospital was also demolished at the time. The remains of the church were discovered in 2009 when construction workers were building the Cercanías light rail station.

Apple was actually informed they may find ruins while building the 6000 square-foot flagship before construction started.

While Apple had considered putting the hospital wall in a display case, it has decided instead on "changing the design of the store to symbolically trace the outline of the walls of the old hospital."

I've had about a week to review the highly-touted Acer Iconia W3, the first Windows 8 tablet in the new, popular 8-inch form factor.

While there is plenty to like, there is also plenty to dislike with this attempt, which is unfortunate as the tablet market really has stagnated recently, with the only real "innovations" coming in the form of aesthetics and larger (or smaller) display sizes.

The biggest pro, as can be expected, is the full version of Windows 8. Unlike its crippled brother, Windows RT, Windows 8 allows you to download and access all applications that are available for Windows on desktops. That means all your favorite programs for video playback (MPC, VLC, etc) and audio playback (iTunes, Winamp, etc) are available, as are your favorite torrent clients, download managers, anti-virus programs and your favorite desktop versions of anything that may run Adobe Flash or Silverlight (looking at you Android and iOS).

Rockstar Games has released a 5-minute long gameplay video for their upcoming blockbuster, GTA V.

This is the first video to show off actual gameplay, as past teaser trailers have have mainly displayed cut scenes.

GTA V will feature three protagonists, each of which are already established in the world, unlike in past games where you really have to start from the bottom. The game allows you to control all the characters at any time you want and others move to "autopilot" until you switch back.

In the demo, you can see a few new features like the ability to go skydiving and play tennis, or even meditate if you choose to.

In this author's opinion, the game looks incredible.

Check it out:

Designer Simon Oxley and his drawing of a bird in a tree were Twitter's first logo, but he did not receive much for his drawing.

Oxley designed the picture (below) for iStockPhoto, the subscription depository that offers hundreds of thousands of pictures that customers can pay to use for design and other projects.

Twitter's founders browsed the site when looking for a logo and selected Oxley's drawing. That decision made the designer about $4.

The designer says he spent just 30 minutes on the original drawing, and doesn't actually remember doing it.

Oxley is also famous for designing the GitHub Octocat. The cat-headed octopus rights were purchased by GitHub directly, avoiding iStock rules.

Sprint has made its first Windows 8 phone device available.

Last week, the carrier revealed plans to begin offering two Windows Phone 8 devices over the coming month.

On July 19th, the HTC 8XT will go on sale for $100 with two-year contract. The device has a 4.3-inch 800x480 display, is powered by a 1.4Ghz dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor, 1GB RAM, and 8GB of internal storage.

Additionally, the phone is the first with "BoomSound":

"Developed by HTC's award winning design team, the HTC 8XT is the first Windows Phone with HTC BoomSound™ - dual front-facing stereo speakers with a dedicated amplifier that deliver bigger sound with less distortion and more detail.. In addition, Beats Audio™ enables studio-quality sound, so listeners hear music the way the artist intended with unique audio tuning that delivers thundering bass, soaring midrange and crisp highs," reads the press release.

As part of Apple's beta update to iOS 7, it appears that lead designer Jony Ive has had a change of heart in regards to the company's move to a thinner font.

When first unveiled, iOS 7 moved away from its traditional thick font, moving the entire OS to Helvetica Neue Light. As of beta 3, Ive has moved back to Helvetica Neue at a regular weight.

The lightweight font had been one of the bigger criticisms of the completely revamped operating system.

Read up on the new operating system here: iOS 7 beta 3 to hit on July 8th

A number of years ago, the French government enacted a new law that would punish repeat offenders for piracy violations.

Internet users who were accused of pirating video games, movies, TV shows, music or other unauthorized downloads were first sent a letter. If you continued, a more threatening letter was sent and finally if you continued, a "third-strike" could mean the temporary shut down of your Internet connection and being blacklisted from joining other ISPs.

As of this week, the government has stepped away from the controversial method, removing the possibility of file-sharers to have their Internet cut off. Instead, alleged pirates will now be subjected to a system of automated fines.

The changes came thanks to a 700 page report "advising on policies for advancing entertainment industries in the digital age" by a nine-member panel published in June.

According to Apple blogger Mark Gurman, Apple CEO Tim Cook and other high-level executives recently held a summit in San Francisco with the heads of retail operations in an effort to brainstorm ways to sell more iPhones in-stores.

More importantly, Gurman says the executives "left the meeting feeling confident about Apple's fall product pipeline." The source said it was time to expect "an army of new products this fall."

During the company's quarterly earnings report, Cook made a similar statement, adding "We will have some really great stuff in the fall and all across 2014."

The next iPhone, expected to be the 5S, is expected to launch in September alongside a final version of iOS 7. The company could also potentially announce an HDTV or a smartwatch, as have been rumored for years now.

Mr. billion dollar movie, James Cameron, who helped make 3D mainstream again with his hit 'Avatar,' says Hollywood is forcing the tech on filmmakers not to enhance movies but just to maximize profits.

While Cameron says he hoped Avatar would "get as many people shooting in 3D as possible," 3D production has now "become a studio-driven top down process to make money." Additionally, Cameron adds that directors may not even have any say as 3D elements are added in post-production.

When asked for examples, Cameron cited two new hits, Man of Steel and Iron Man 3, as movies that did not really need 3D. "If you spend $150 million on visual effects, the film is already going to be spectacular [and] perfect," he added.

Cameron will use 3D for his upcoming Avatar sequels and likely for his next project, Battle Angel, based on the popular graphic novels.

Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch has resigned from his position, as of yesterday, as the company continues to review "its current strategic plan."

Lynch has been replaced by CFO Michael P. Huseby, who will now have the titles Chief Executive Officer of NOOK Media LLC and President of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Max J. Roberts will remain Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble College and Mitchell Klipper will remain as Chief Executive Officer of the Barnes & Noble Retail Group.

Lynch, who became CEO in 2010 after years at B&N's web division, was expected to help the company jump into a digital future, but so far they have failed. The company began its Nook brand, which was successful for e-readers but not so much for tablets. The underpowered tablets never saw strong sales and the company recently began a fire sale, dropping prices by as much as $130 for already cheap devices.

During the company's last earnings report, it was revealed that the Nook division only saw revenue of $108 million, down 34 percent year-over-year. The company has discontinued manufacturing Nook tablets, and will now license the platform to OEMs.

Over the last few months, there have been plenty of rumors about Nokia's expected step into the tablet market.

One such rumor was that the company was planning a Windows RT device, which features a crippled version of Windows 8 but works in an ARM architecture allowing for more compatibility with current processors and (usually) cheaper prices.

Today, the Verge has posted pictures of the device (via a gaming forum), which was cancelled so the company could create a full Windows 8 version.

In the photos, we can see a magnetic connector (as made popular by Macs and the Microsoft Surface) along with some other ports, a SIM slot, and other expected features.

The device ran on a Tegra 3 processor and the owner of the tablet says he received it from a Nokia employee as a gift. Check them here:

Every few weeks, Google updates its Android distribution data, showing off the popularity of each version of its operating system.

For the week ended July 8th, Android 4.1 (and higher) Jelly Bean is now on 37.9 percent of devices, making it the most used OS of the bunch. The extremely old Android 2.3 Gingerbread is now on 34.1 percent of devices, down from 36.5 percent last month.

Android 4.0.x Ice Cream fell to 23.3 percent from 25.6 percent, as more customers saw their phones updated to Jelly Bean.

Somewhat shockingly, Donut, Eclair, Froyo and Honeycomb still account for 4.6 percent of devices, almost as much as Android 4.2.

The data is collected by logging the devices that access the Play Store.

ZombiU, one of the Wii U's flagship games, was not even close to profitable, says its publisher Ubisoft.

Chairman and CEO Yves Guillemot says there will not be a sequel, citing the lack of sales.

The news is another bad hit for the struggling gaming company, which cannot retain third-party support and is increasingly dependent on its own library of Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda for sales.

Majors publishers like Electronic Arts (EA) have almost completely pulled support from the console. CEO Peter Moore recently stated "It's been a disappointment when you look at sell-through and, as a company, we have to be very judicious where we deploy our resources."

After releasing their preview version last week, Microsoft has announced a final version of Windows 8.1 will be available for OEMs by late August.

Windows CFO Tami Reller stated the company will have finalized the software by the end of August, slightly ahead of the expected September availability.

It is unclear when end users will be able to download the OS directly.

For more on what updates are coming in Windows 8.1, check our preview here: Windows 8.1 is here

You can also download the preview here: Download Windows 8.1 Preview ISOs

Originally reported as a $30 million acquisition, ATD is now reporting that Yahoo paid $48 million for smart email service Xobni, with the ability for employees to earn millions more in earn-outs if they remain with the company.

Initial investors will get a slight return, after investing about $39 million since 2008.

CEO Jeff Bonforte and other employees can receive up to $5 million per year in earn-outs as long as they stay with the company.

Original Story:

Yahoo has acquired the "smart" email service Xobni, continuing recent string of high profile purchases.

Xobni will be integrated into Yahoo's mail service, which has over 300 million users, but has been lacking in cutting edge features.

The 'smart' service "re-organizes email according to the user's social contacts, meshing connections from SMS history, phone calls and Facebook or Twitter," says the company. Xobni users will get the same service they have until July 2014 but paid premium services will be discontinued. By that time, the service is expected to be fully integrated into Yahoo.

According to research firm Gartner, global IT spending will hit $3.7 trillion this year, up just 2 percent from last year's $3.6 trillion.

The prediction is down from last quarter's forecast of 4.1 percent, mainly thanks to recent wild fluctuations in th exchange rates for the U.S. dollar.

Spending on IT devices (hardware) is expected to grow a measly 2.8 percent, down from the firm's forecast of 7.9 percent. The drop in notebook and desktop PC sales that exceeded double figures last quarter is not expected to relent, and new devices nor the release of Windows 8.1 is expected to help, says Gartner.

Tablet growth, while robust at a forecasted 38.9 percent this year, will not be able to make up the difference. Mobile phone growth will also remain strong at 9.3 percent.

"Exchange rate movements, and a reduction in our 2013 forecast for devices, account for the bulk of the downward revision of the 2013 growth," Gartner managing vice president Richard Gordon said in a statement. "Regionally, 2013 constant-currency spending growth in most regions has been lowered. However, Western Europe's constant-currency growth has been inched up slightly as strategic IT initiatives in the region will continue despite a poor economic outlook."

In 1997, Microsoft purchased a technology called WebTV, long before the boom of smart TV features and set-top boxes that we see now in even basic hardware.

For their $425 million, Microsoft never made a success of the tech, and they have now decided to cease operations as of September of this year.

One analyst, at the time, said WebTV "may be the product that could turn the World Wide Web into a mass-entertainment medium." It did not, and companies like Google and Apple have been trying to do the same in the last few years.

The WebTV kit consisted of the set-top, a keyboard and a remote and allowed users to surf the Web and check emails, but not too much else.

It was eventually broken up and converted into MSN TV, with most of the team sent over to work on Microsoft's MediaRoom or Xbox Live services.

OneGigabit, a new Vancouver-based startup, will offer fiber Internet speeds of one gigabit, equal to Google's pilot speeds in the U.S., and over 60 times faster than the average Canadian household.

More importantly, the company will charge only $45 to $65 per month, with no bandwidth caps.

It was recently reported that the average monthly Canadian Internet bill is $54 and the average downstream speed is 16.6 Mbit/s. A gigabit connection will have speeds of up to 1000 Mbit/s.

Fiber connections remain limited in Canada, as only certain neighborhoods have availability. The big three Canadian ISPs, known to be complete ripoffs no matter what they offer, sell fiber packages with download speeds of up to 250 Mbit/s for $115-$200 per month.

OneGigabit and its founder Eric Kunkhe plan to negotiate with real estate owners and developers in an effort to expand fiber connections to more citizens.

AndroidCentral has reported on the new Android 4.2 update for the HTC One.

The update just began hitting devices this week across the globe, with the full rollout expected to take three weeks.

HTC appears to have addressed many of the complaints for the device and its HTC Sense overlay, while adding a few new features, as well.

The company has added the Daydream screensaver, quick settings toggles, lock screen widgets, separated the power saver option, made screenshots instantly sharable, added new templates to the Highlights video app, and integrated the popular Instagram into their own BlinkFeed. You can also swipe up from the home screen to access Google Now, just like in stock Android.

Finally, the company has killed off the black menu bar that would show up in certain applications.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble have announced price drops on their respective tablets this weekend, in an effort to boost sales in Europe.

Barnes & Noble, which recently announced it would stop manufacturing tablets and instead license its Nook platform, has dropped the price to clear out any remaining inventory.

In the UK, the only country to have Nook tablets, the prices have been dropped to £99 for the 8 GB model 7-inch Nook HD (down from £129) and the 9-inch Nook HD+ has fallen to £149 from £179.

Amazon has also discounted their Kindle Fires across the board. The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD will now start at £139 (down from £159) in the UK and start at €169, down from €199 for the rest of Europe.

The BBC has announced it will be ending all 3D plans, at least until 2016.

The popular broadcaster has been trialing films and some sporting events in 3D for the last year, but has now decided the investment is not viable. A Doctor Who 50th anniversary special in November will be the last of the 3D broadcasts.

It is becoming increasingly clear that companies that tried to jump on the 3D bandwagon over the last two years have been severely disappointed by the results.

Just last month, ESPN announced it would be shutting down its 3D broadcasts by the end of the year, citing lack of adoption.

Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC's head of 3D, had easily the best explanation for why the general public doesn't care about 3D, saying it is "quite hassly" to get it to work. It should have been confirmed years ago, but it is now clear that nobody wants to put on glasses to watch TV and get a headache.

China has returned to the number one spot for world's top supercomputer for the first time since 2010.

As part of the biannually updated Top500 Supercomputer list, China's National University of Defense Technology's Tianhe-2 (a.k.a. "Milky Way 2") came out on top, with performance of 33.86 petaflop/s on the Linpack benchmark.

33.86 petaflops was over twice the performance of the top-rated computer of the last list.

The Milky Way 2 supercomputer runs on 48,000 Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors and 32,000 Xeon processors. Combined, the computer has 3,120,000 computing cores.

2012's champion, the Titan, was a Cray XK7 system with 17.59 petaflop/s performance.

The Titan is currently housed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Rovio has teased their upcoming iOS game, Tiny Thief, a "point-and-tap stealth adventure game taking place in a medieval fantasy world."

Set for release on July 11th, the game will first launch on the iPhone and iPad and within a few weeks for Android.

In the game, you play the role of the world's tiniest thief.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has confirmed that the company has killed the Wii vitality sensor before it was ever released.

The device in question was shown off at E3 in 2011 and never released. The fingertip sensor was supposed to check your pulse and "a number of other signals" but it appears it did not work on everyone. Only for 90 percent of people tested did the device work.

"The Wii Vitality Sensor is an interesting device, and we did various experiments to see what is possible when it was combined with a video game. But, as a result, we have not been able to launch it as a commercial product because we could not get it to work as we expected and it was of narrower application than we had originally thought," noted Iwata.

Iwata also added that if the technology can be improved to work for everyone, it may become commercially viable.

The FCC has formally approved Japanese carrier SoftBank's acquisition of Sprint, and approved Sprint's purchase of the rest of Clearwire and its 4G spectrum.

In their statement, the FCC says the deal would serve the public interest and "accelerate the deployment of mobile broadband services and enhance competition."

Softbank, Japan's third largest carrier, will pay $21.6 billion for a controlling 78 percent stake in Sprint, the U.S.' third-largest carrier.

As part of its approval, SoftBank has agreed to not use Chinese networking equipment in the U.S.

"We would like to thank Acting Chairwoman Clyburn, Commissioners Rosenworcel and Pai, as well as the staff of the FCC for their thorough review of these transactions," said Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. "Just two years ago, the wireless industry was at the doorstep of duopoly, but with these transformative transactions, we are one step closer to a stronger Sprint which will better serve consumers, challenge the market share leaders and drive innovation in the American economy."

According to multiple reports, Google has been paying the makers of Adblock Plus to not block their ads.

Adblock Plus is the most popular extension for both Chrome and Firefox, due to its ability to block banners, display ads and pop-ups during browsing.

The report claims that Google (and others) have been paying to be included on a "whitelist" that prevents blocking by the free browser extension.

Adblock Plus normally offers whitelisting for free to smaller websites under its Acceptable Ads whitelist, which states "unobtrusive ads should remain viewable as long as they aren't annoying."

In their FAQ, the company says "Managing this list requires significant effort on our side and this task cannot be completely taken over by volunteers. That's why we are being paid by some larger properties that serve nonintrusive advertisements."

Over the past few months, there have been many rumors about a lower-cost plastic iPhone, one that will sell at a lower price point than the current flagship and may come in multiple colors, like the iPod Touch.

Today, tech site Techdy has posted pictures and video of what they believe are legitimate front and back pieces for the alleged phone.

Supposedly, the front panel will be black, but the rear shell will be available in white, green, blue, pink and yellow.

Check the video for a full look at the supposed device, which is expected to be released in September.

Earlier this week, Google sent out invites to a special media event on July 10th and 11th.

In the poster, one of the people is jumping off a dock into the water with his hands and legs forming an "X," adding to speculation that the company would unveil the oft-hyped Moto X flagship.

This week, popular tech world podcaster Leo Laporte said he received a personal invite from Motorola's Guy Kawasaki, and speculated it would also be the X: "He said we'd really like you to come down to the Google campus for an event -- small group of journalists, 50 people, two groups; July 10th and July 11th... I'm thinking it's the phone."

A Cnet source claims, however, that a Moto X reveal is not in the cards for the event.

We will see next week.

The world's largest phone maker, Samsung, will be spending a huge sum to upgrade their R&D capabilities.

Samsung will be building five new R&D centers around Korea over the next three years, spending $4.5 billion to do so.

One research center, to open in Seoul in late 2015, will house 10,000 employees all focusing on design.

Besides design, the centers will also specialize on material and component development, as well as chips and display.

Samsung is known to invest top-dollar in R&D, spending $10.5 billion in 2012, alone.

After almost three years of blocking all donations to WikiLeaks via their processing channels, MasterCard has reversed course following a lawsuit that was filed in Iceland.

Since 2010, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Bank of America and Western Union have all blocked processing on donations to WikiLeaks after the group released thousands of classified US diplomatic cables.

Reads WikiLeak's press release:

WikiLeaks was notified of MasterCard International's change in position by VALITOR, the Icelandic partner for VISA and MasterCard.

On April 24, 2013 WikiLeaks and DataCell won a lawsuit, which had been running for two years, against VALITOR for breach of contract and blockading WikiLeaks' donations at the behest of VISA and MasterCard. The Icelandic Supreme Court ordered VALITOR to recommence processing donations to WikiLeaks.

VALITOR complied and reopened its payment gateway, but gave formal legal notice that it would terminate its contract and reclose the gateway on July 1, 2013, citing a unilateral termination clause in the contract.

According to multiple reports, the final bids have been submitted for Hulu by the company's July 5th deadline.

The streaming video site, owned jointly by Disney, 21st Century Fox (News Corp.) and Comcast (NBCU), has been up for sale since March.

Chernin Group, run by Peter Chernin, has submitted a joint bid with AT&T, and is now in the running with DirecTV and Guggenheim Digital Media, both of which have reportedly bid $1 billion for the company along with rights to future content.

The entire process has been private, so all financial details and reports about bids have come from anonymous sources. The decision is expected later this month.

HTC has announced their quarterly earnings report today, and once again the company has produced a stinker.

For the Q2 2013, the company had a profit of just $41 million on revenue of $2.35 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company had profit of $246 million on revenue of $3 billion.

The company's highly-rated One flagship device does not appear to have helped them at all, despite 5 million sales in the One's first 50 days after launch.

May was a strong month, following the release of the One, but June saw revenue drop 24 percent from the month before and 26 percent year-over-year.

The new results are a far cry from 2011 when the company averaged over $400 million in profits per quarter.

Microsoft's former Windows head Steven Sinofsky has signed a very lucrative "Retirement Agreement" as he leaves the company.

The exec has been rewarded 418,361 shares of Microsoft stock (currently valued at $14 million) but he also has signed a no-compete agreement which will block him from "accepting employment at certain competitors or encouraging certain customers of Microsoft to choose a competing offering to Microsoft products" until the end of the year. Additionally, Sinofsky cannot criticize the company in any way as part of his "not disparage Microsoft" clause.

Sinofsky announced he was leaving last November, right after the launch of Windows 8 and the criticism that came with it. Many sources had claimed at the time that Sinofsky had begun to clash with many other executives and the company itself over creative controls for Windows and Windows Phone.

Microsoft released a statement, as well: "Given Steven's 23 years of strong service at Microsoft, which included leading teams that produced six versions of Office and two versions of Windows, the company will continue to provide him with the economic value of the stock awards he earned during his employment, similar to the retirement benefits we provide employees who work at least 15 years and retire at 55 or older. This agreement provides a number of important considerations for Microsoft, including a commitment that Steven will continue assisting with intellectual property litigation until January 1, 2017."

According to multiple sources, Samsung has delayed their upcoming Tizen OS-based smartphone.

The phone had been expected for this quarter but appears to be delayed now until the Q4.

Allegedly, there are "development issues for the app store."

Tizen is the open-source Linux-based operating system backed by Intel, and Samsung's effort to not have all their eggs in the Android basket.

Motorola Mobility's upcoming Moto X flagship will allow consumers to customize the look of the phone and choose an engraving.

Through a site, buyers can choose from a palette of colors, one for the back case and another for the trim of the phone. Buyers can then engrave a name or a full message on the back cover and also upload a photo through the site to be the phone's wallpaper before you even receive it.

Because the phone is being built in a new factory in Texas, the personalized device can be delivered to buyers within days.

The phone will run on Android 4.2.2, and is currently being tested by Verizon and AT&T for release "soon." If you don't care for customizing, you can buy the standard version in stores.

Outside of the mid-range specs and customizable looks, the company will be introducing innovative gesture controls, such as flicking the phone a certain way to open up the camera app, for example.

Credit card processors Mastercard and Visa have begun banning VPN providers, taking a similar stance as they do with file-sharing services.

In one such example, Swedish payment service provider Payson sent an email to all customers stating they cannot accept Mastercard or Visa payments any more due to a recent policy change by the companies.

"Payson has restrictions against anonymization (including VPN services). As a result Payson can unfortunately no longer give your customers the option to finance payments via their cards (VISA or MasterCard)," reads the email (via TF).

Another anonymization provider, the Pirate Bay-backed iPredator VPN, showed anger at the move. Founder Peter Sunde added: "It means that US companies are forcing non-American companies not to allow people to protest their privacy and be anonymous, and thus the NSA can spy even more. It's just INSANE. For iPredator there are always other payment methods, like Bitcoin, but it's insane to censor a totally legit system that is there to avoid censorship and surveillance."

Nokia, in an effort to let more people across the globe have access to faster mobile broadband, has unveiled extremely cheap 3G-capable phones.

The new Nokia 207 and 208 have candy-bar form factors, 3G capabilities, Nokia's Xpress Browser (that compresses data to speed up browsing and eat less data) and will include apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.

Most importantly, the phones will cost just $68 and will ship later this quarter. Nokia also notes that a dual-SIM version of the 208 is in the works.

Nokia sold 336 million handsets last year, and is the second-biggest phone maker in the world behind Samsung. However, Nokia only sold 30 million smartphones last year, which are higher margin and bring in significantly more revenue than a feature phone.

Yahoo has acquired the "smart" email service Xobni for $30 million, continuing recent string of high profile purchases.

Xobni will be integrated into Yahoo's mail service, which has over 300 million users, but has been lacking in cutting edge features.

The 'smart' service "re-organizes email according to the user's social contacts, meshing connections from SMS history, phone calls and Facebook or Twitter," says the company. Xobni users will get the same service they have until July 2014 but paid premium services will be discontinued. By that time, the service is expected to be fully integrated into Yahoo.

"Did you ever meet someone who truly 'gets' you?" read Xobni's press statement. "That's how we feel about Yahoo. The power within every Xobni product is that it responds to how you communicate. Every day you demonstrate who and what is important to you. That can benefit not just your inbox or smartphone, but the many services you use. Yahoo gets that, and they want us to use our platform to make many Yahoo services better for you."

Earlier this week we reported that current Microsoft Entertainment (Xbox) head Don Mattrick was leaving the company to take the helm at struggling casual game maker Zynga.

Mattrick will replace Zynga founder and current CEO Mark Pincus, who may have been out of his league once the company went public last year.

It has been reported today that Mattrick will get a huge pay package for his services, with a base salary of $1 million, a sign-on cash bonus of $5 million and an annual bonus of $2 million.

Additionally, the exec will receive a stock grant of 9 million restricted shares that vest over the next three years. At Zynga's current share price, that stock is worth over $30 million. At the end of his first year with the company, Mattrick will also get another $11 million in shares (based on current valuation), taking his overall compensation package to $50 million.

If Zynga is satisfied with his performance this year, he will also be eligible for new stock valued at $7 million next year as a bonus/grant.

Rovio has just released a major update for its original 'Angry Birds' title on Android and iOS.

The game now has a new gameplay mode called "Egg Defender" in which the red bird gets special powers to attack the pigs, among other new features.

Rovio has added 15 new levels and added 73 new "pig contraptions" right from the game "Bad Piggies." Additionally, there are now moving targets, says the company.

You can get the game in your respective app store.

Teaser video:

Samsung Mobile boss JK Shin has confirmed that the company has shipped 20 million Galaxy S4 since launch, a strong figure only surpassed by the iPhone.

The flagship device launched 68 days ago, and it reached the 20 million milestone much faster than its predecessor, the Galaxy S III. In fact, at this same point in its life, the S III had reached just 12.5 million sales.

Samsung was not able to catch the pace of the iPhone, however, as the iPhone 4S sold 21 million in the same time frame from launch, and the iPhone 5 sold 24 million.

Regardless, the S4 is the fastest selling Android device of all-time and a massive hit for its Korean maker.

Great chart via Verge:

Samsung has acquired the media software (and now hardware maker) startup Boxee for $30 million.

The Israeli company had been looking for a buyer for the last few months after it appeared raising more money would be tougher than expected.

"We can confirm that Boxee will be joining Samsung. We'll have a formal statement on our website later this week," a Boxee spokesperson said, leaving out any other vital information. Boxee's 40 employees are expected to keep their jobs.

Since founding in 2007, the company has raised $30 million, so investors will at least get their initial investments back.

Boxee creates media software for desktops and also offers a set-top box that connects to many streaming services and includes the company's own software for playing local content. Samsung will most likely integrate the software into their Internet-connected Smart TVs into the future.

Five years ago, Michael and Xochi Birch sold their popular social network Bebo to AOL for a handsome sum of $850 million.

The Birches pocketed over $300 million from the sale and quickly after selling the company fell apart on a scale similar to MySpace, as Facebook became the dominant player in the space.

In 2010, private equity firm Criterion Capital purchased the site for $10 million from AOL (who wrote off the massive loss) in an effort to turn it around but they failed as well, declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year.

Michael announced on his Twitter today that they have purchased the company back for just $1 million, and try to re-invent it if they can. Nicely done, Birch family.

We just bought Bebo back for $1m. Can we actually re-invent it? Who knows, but it will be fun trying...

-- Michael Birch (@mickbirch) July 1, 2013

BSkyB, a major pay-TV broadcaster in Europe, has won a judgement in the UK against Microsoft over the use of the trademark "Sky."

The next stage will be an appeal from Microsoft and the judge has to decide on whether there will an injunction or financial compensation, or both.

In June 2011, Sky began the suit and concerns "an action for passing off and for infringement of two registered Community trade marks (CTMs) and two UK registered trade marks (UKTMs) for the mark 'SKY' by which the Claimants [BSkyB] seek to prevent the Defendants [Microsoft] from using 'SkyDrive' as the name for their cloud storage service throughout the European Union."

BSkyB provides mobile apps and had a cloud-based online service, as well, dubbed Sky Store and Share.

Microsoft, on its end, is fighting to invalidate four Sky trademarks "on the grounds of descriptiveness for cloud storage services." We tend to agree with Microsoft on this one, where SkyDrive is not easily confused with BSkyB's services, but the judge thought differently.

Sky says in a press statement: "Sky is pleased with the judgment handed down today by Mrs Justice Asplin. We regard any unauthorised use of the Sky name as a clear infringement of our well-established Sky brand. We remain vigilant in protecting the Sky brand and will continue to take appropriate action against those companies that seek to use our trademarks without consent."

Nokia has bought out Siemens stake in their joint NSN (Nokia Siemens Networks) venture.

The price, 1.7 billion euros, is less than industry analysts had expected so it appears Nokia may have gotten a good deal.

Nokia will pay 1.2 billion euros for the 50 percent stake and took out a 500 million euro loan from Siements due in a year to pay for the rest.

The joint venture just became profitable last year, and had been valued at just about 5 billion euro.

Nokia Siemens's headquarters will remain in Espoo, Finland, and CEO Rajeev Suri will keep his current position.

AMD has made it clear it has no plans to enter the smartphone and tablet SoC market.

There have been rumors of such a move for some time now, especially since rival Nvidia offers its Tegra chips for the ARM architecture.

Lisa Su, senior VP and general manager of global business units at AMD, had this to say when asked: "We really want to play to our strength in microprocessors, design and graphic capability. Gaming is a major focus for AMD. We are looking for areas to differentiate and gaming is a place where we can differentiate. We will continue to look for key opportunities. The traditional PC market is really changing as we see a lot of new form factors. The PC business is our key but we will look for opportunities that will help us grow."

Su says the company remains committed to its APU strategy and that by the end of the year, 20 percent of the company's business will be in semi-custom chips.

According to Kara Swisher, Microsoft is about to lose one of its top executives to Zynga.

Don Mattrick, the company's president of Interactive Entertainment (Xbox and more) will be leaving the company for a high-ranking position at struggling gaming company Zynga.

The sources speculate it could even be CEO, as Mattrick works with current CEO Mark Pincus, who founded the company. Zynga's shares jumped 10 percent following the report as it is clear investors believe Mattrick to be a better choice than Pincus.

Zynga has struggled mightily in recent years as its move to mobile has been slow and its core Facebook business has peaked.

Mattrick will be a big loss for Microsoft, as there does not appear to be a successor ready.

Take this as a rumor for the time being, as it could very well be a hoax, but allegedly an Asus representative has confirmed a few specs for the upcoming second-generation Nexus 7.

Via a live chat, the rep has posted almost a full list of specs for the tablet, including word that it will have the highest pixel density yet seen on a tablet.

The device is "confirmed" to have a 7" 1980 x 1200 pixel screen, a Snapdragon 600 processor, a 5 MP rear camera, 32GB internal storage, 2GB RAM, 4000 mAh battery, and LTE support.

Asus' device should be available by the end of the summer.

Check the screenshots here (via Arena):

After a month in which Nvidia launched three new cards from their popular GeForce GTX 700 series with no response from AMD, it appears the company may be working on new GPUs for next quarter.

According to new reports, AMD's engineers are working on the silicon used to produce the Radeon HD 9970 and HD 9950.

AMD will be skipping the 8000 line which has so far been reserved for OEM parts.

The cards are expected to launch in October, but other sources are claiming September. The card will be more powerful and faster than the GeForce GTX 780, but not on the level of the GTX TITAN.

Microsoft has announced today that their Skype for Android app has now surpassed 100 million installations.

To commemorate the event, the company is now releasing version 4.0 of the app.

Says Microsoft:

We started to reimagine what Skype would look like back when we launched our Windows Phone 8 app late last year. Our focus was simple: we wanted to deliver an app that makes your interactions easier and puts conversations first. Our Android team saw this great work and wanted to deliver an equally bold, beautiful, and modern design in this latest Skype for Android release.

We've completely redesigned Skype for Android to be faster and easier – especially when you're trying to fire off a quick message. Everything is at your fingertips. As soon as you open the app, you'll notice the clean new look listing your recent conversations – just tap on one to catch up and reply. When you tap or swipe over to the Contacts or Favorites tabs, tapping on a person brings you right into a messaging window so you can start a conversation. And from there video calls, voice calls and everything else are just one tap away.

Kantar has released their latest report on global smartphone market share, and Windows Phone has seen some respectable growth across the board.

In Italy, the operating system has moved up to 9.7 percent share, its highest around the world (at least reported). In England, share jumped to 7.8 percent, up almost 100 percent year-over-year and in France share jumped to 7.4 percent, over 300 percent growth year-over-year.

Moving to the U.S., the operating system is now at 4.6 percent share, up from 3.7 percent YoY.

On the other hand, BlackBerry saw a collapse for the ages. In most nations (check data below), the company saw a 70 percent or higher share drop. Worst was Spain where the OS went from 7 percent share in 2012 to just 0.1 in the latest report, a 98.6 percent loss.

Check the full report here:

According to a report in Korean media, Apple will launch a version of its iPhone 5S in South Korea that supports LTE-Advanced.

SK Telecom will carry the new iPhone on its recently launched LTE-Advanced network in South Korea. LTE-Advanced is true 4G wireless communication, offering considerable download speed improvements over the pre-4G LTE technology.

"SK Telecom is approaching Apple to put our LTE-A technology on the upcoming iPhone 5S. We are in the middle of negotiations," said an SK Telecom executive, requesting anonymity, told the Korea Times.

Samsung also announced its Galaxy S4 LTE-A for the same operator in Korea just last week. The SK Telecom network supports download speeds of up to 150Mbps, the fastest commercial mobile network in the world.

HP is reportedly going to re-enter the smartphone business despite its previous missteps in slicing a piece of the global smartphone pie.

It took a risky shot when it bought Palm for $1.2 billion, which produced devices that ran the much-praised WebOS software. However, in hindsight the move was a costly mistake for HP, but that doesn't mean it is done with smartphones just yet.

HP Senior Director Consumer PC and Media Tablets Asia Pacific, Yam Su Yin, was asked whether or not the company would release another smartphone.

"The answer is yes but I cannot give a timetable. It would be silly if we say no. HP has to be in the game," she said.

She also said that HP was focused on all segments, including tablet PCs, notebook PCs and all-in-ones.

Nintendo of America has failed in its attempt to gain control over the WiiU.com domain name after filing a cybersquatting complaint in February.

The WiiU.com domain is privately held, and Nintendo would like to take control of it for obvious reasons. However, the the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) declined to have the domain forcefully handed over to Nintendo.

WiiU.com was registered all the way back in 2004, around seven years before Nintendo first announced a Wii U console was on the horizon, in April 2011.

Nintendo will now have to try another approach to get the domain, like simply buying it from the current owner.

Microsoft is also seeking to get control of two domain names - XboxOne.com and XboxOne.net - both registered in December 2011 by a resident of London.

Regulators do differentiate between a legitimate use of a registered domain name, and the practice of intentionally registering large amounts of domain names with potential future trademarks in them, for whatever reason.

Germany has passed a law that sets fixed limits on the fines that can be imposed on Internet users who share music, movies or other material illegally.

The German government moved to impose limits in an effort to stop the practice of sending out massive numbers of messages to German Internet users demanding enormous sums of money for individual copyright violations.

"Some law firms have created a business model out of copyright-violation warnings. It has got out of control," said Germany's Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.

Under the new law, individual claims are limited to €1,000, and in the case of first time offenders the warning fine, to cover legal expenses, would be capped close to €200.

The Federation of German Consumer Organizations reports that over 4.3 million Germans down to the age of 14 have received warnings of this nature.

Copyright holders warn that this new law could give the wrong message to Internet users, while some digital rights advocates warn that the new law can still be abused due to a vaguely defined "special cases" exception.

Spain's Telefonica carrier will be the first to offer a smartphone running Firefox OS to consumers when it begins selling the ZTE Open on Tuesday, July 2.

Firefox OS is a smartphone operating system built by Mozilla that relies heavily on existing web technologies, such as HTML 5 to deliver apps and functionality to its users. It is described as a browser-based, open source operating system.

The ZTE Open is not a very powerful smartphone - Qualcomm MSM7225A Snapdragon, 1.0GHz Cortex 5 CPU, Adreno 200 GPU, 256MB RAM with 5.3-inch, 320x480 display - but it is not intended to rival smartphones coveted by the spec-anxious users.

Instead the ZTE Open is intended to provide a low-cost proof of concept of Firefox OS. Telefonica will offer the ZTE Open for €69, including €30 of balance for prepaid customers and a 4GB microSD card. For customers on contract, the ZTE Open costs €2.38 per month ex IVA for 24 months.

Apple has submitted a trademark application for 'iWatch' in Japan, according to the Japan Patent Office website.

The trademark application was submitted by the iPad-maker on June 3, but was only added to the website on June 27.

There has been plenty of speculation that Apple was going to release an iWatch device as the company - and the wider tech industry - explores the area of wearable technology as a potential new source of revenue.

Sony announced its new SmartWatch 2 last week, which combines with an Android phone to bring notifications, messages, updates and all kinds of stuff to a users' wrist.

Foxcon is also working on its own smartwatch device that will be compatible with iPhones.

Apple CEO Tim Cook did admit that Apple is exploring the area too, but appeared to be cautious about the willingness of consumers to wear tech.

"There's nothing that's going to convince a kid who has never worn glasses or a band or a watch to wear one, or at least I haven't seen it," Cook said.

Facebook has confirmed this weekend that their Instagram photo-sharing service was hit by a massive spam attack.

The network became flooded by photos of different fruits, each accompanied by a link to a diet regimen page.

One such example was a link to a fake BBC page with the headline "Tropical Fruit Burns 17 Pounds in 22 Days. Exclusive Offer for Readers."

Reads Instagram's reaction: "Earlier today a small portion of our users experienced a spam incident where unwanted photos were posted from their accounts. Our security and spam team quickly took actions to secure the accounts involved, and the posted photos are being deleted."

Additionally, URL shortener Bit.ly put up a warning page, as well, warning users of the attack in progress.

As part of their ongoing effort to focus the company on core products, Yahoo has announced it will be shutting down another dozen services.

AltaVista is probably the only service you have heard about or care about, but there were certainly niches for the products.

Here are the products and their shut down dates:

Yahoo! Axis (June 28, 2013)

If you installed the browser plug-in, it will no longer work. If you downloaded the app, it will continue to work, but won't be actively maintained. We encourage you to use the Yahoo! Search app for iOS and Android.

Yahoo! Browser Plus (June 28, 2013)

To see all of our current developer offerings, please go here.

Citizen Sports (June 28, 2013)

You can still get all the latest sports news on Yahoo! Sports, play fantasy sports like Fantasy Football, and stay up-to-date when you're on the go with our new Yahoo! Sports app for iOS and Android.

Yahoo! WebPlayer (June 30, 2013)

In its ongoing effort to make Yahoo mail modern and relevant, the company has integrated Flickr to the email service.

Additionally, the photo-sharing site has been integrated into notifications for Yahoo search results for images and video.

Yahoo acquired Flickr in 2005 for $35 million while it was still a fledgling company.

By integrating it into the email service, users will be able to send photos and albums easier directly from their Flick accounts. Yahoo says "Just click on the arrow next to the paperclip and choose "Share from Flickr," to access the feature."

Moving to the Search, users can now set alerts for specific keywords in Web searches, video searches and image searches. Yahoo will "send you a message when the topic you are following shows up in a search result."

The U.S.' biggest carrier Verizon, has made a 32GB model of the Samsung Galaxy S4 available online for $299 with contract.

Until this weekend, Verizon only had the 16GB version available for $199.

Of course, the phone has expandable memory via microSD, so the extra $100 to move up a model is definitely not worth it. High-end 16GB microSD cards sell for $10-$20.

Buyers will see their devices ship starting on July 3rd.