News written by Andre Yoskowitz (October, 2013)

Apple has confirmed today that some iPhone 5S handsets were hit by a manufacturing defect that causes the battery to drain much quicker than it should.

"We recently discovered a manufacturing issue affecting a very limited number of iPhone 5S devices that could cause the battery to take longer to charge or result in reduced battery life," said Teresa Brewer, an Apple spokeswoman. "We are reaching out to customers with affected phones and will provide them with a replacement phone."

The company did not confirm the exact amount of affected customers, but suggested the figure was in the thousands.

Unlike what many customers believed, Apple says the issue is not battery related.

Microsoft has asked for EU antitrust approval of its purchase of Nokia's mobile businesses.

The deal, announced earlier this year, also includes a long-term 10-year licensing agreement of Nokia's patent portfolio.

Microsoft will pay $5 billion for the mobile phone division, and $2.17 billion for the patent trove. The company says the transaction will close in the Q1 2014, pending approval by shareholders and regulatory approval, including the EU antitrust ruling.

The software giant is making a large, bold investment in the future of Windows Phone, expanding their partnership with Nokia from early 2011 that saw the start of the Lumia brand of smartphones. Microsoft is looking to "accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing."

European Commission officials have until December 4th to decide on the acquisition.

Intel, who has long tried to create a Web-based subscription TV service, is reportedly preparing to hand over controls to the project to Verizon.

The sources say the two companies are in end stage negotiations, but it's unclear whether Verizon would take over the entire Intel Media unit, or if Intel would keep some creative control.

In 2011, Intel began its venture into Web TV by hiring Erik Huggers, who previously led web video for the BBC. Huggers was put in charge of creating an Intel-built set-top box and an Intel-branded pay TV service that could be accessed via desktops, the set-top or other Internet-connected devices.

As expected, Intel had issues gaining content for the "OnCue" service due to its lack of connections in the industry, and a mid-July 2013 launch was pushed back indefinitely.

Sprint, the third-largest carrier in the U.S., has said it will gradually offer faster LTE speeds than its rivals; Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

The company wants to expand its proposed 'Spark' service, which reaches up to 50-60 megabits per second speeds but will first launch in just five cities, LA, Tampa, Miami, Chicago and New York.

LTE speeds from Verizon, for example, reach about 12 megabits/s, but its network already covers most of America.

While the speeds seem good in theory, issues of power consumption, battery life and heat have yet to be seen in real world examples.

Sprint even demonstrated speeds of 1 gigabits per second to reporters, which it said could make online multiplayer gaming or 4K streaming a possibility on mobile.

AT&T dismissed the presentation, but declined to comment on any of their own high-speed offerings: "A demo counts as much as making a touchdown with no other players on the field," said the carrier.

Sprint says that Spark will be available to 100 million people in the U.S. by the end of 2014, and the company is upgrading its antennas and receivers to use 8 transmitters, capable of handling tri-band frequencies and a spectrum range that can handle 180 megabit speeds, theoretically, by the end of 2015.

Nintendo revealed today that they sold just 460,000 Wii U consoles for the 180 day period ending September 30, 2013.

The shocking figure comes as part of the company's latest earnings report.

This most recent quarter was an improvement over the last quarter, with the gaming giant selling 300,000 units compared to 160,000. The console was obviously helped by a price cut and new higher profile releases such as Pikmin 3 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.

Thanks to a weak yen, the company did manage a $6.1 million profit, which was a decent turnaround for the company that lost $168 million last year.

Nintendo had internal targets of 9 million Wii U sales by the end of the company's 2014 financial year (year ended March 2014). That target seems utterly impossible, as the console has yet to reach 4 million units sold since launch.

The 3DS had a much better quarter, selling 3.89 million units, along with software sales hitting 27.38 million units thanks to new first party titles like Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D. Pokemon X and Y are expected to help next quarter's 3DS sales improve even more.

Netflix has signed a new deal with Showtime to make all seasons of the popular series 'Dexter' available for streaming.

One of the highest-rated shows of all-time (and also one of the most pirated), Dexter recently saw its series finale.

The streaming giant says the first four seasons will be made available in the U.S. at the end of this month and the final four seasons will be made available on January 1st of next year.

"We're thrilled to have Dexter, one of Showtime's highest-rated shows, on Netflix, and so quickly after it completed its record-breaking run," Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer, added.

Showtime parent CBS used to offer the first couple of seasons of Dexter on Netflix, but removed them in 2011.

Amazon has officially rolled out their Kindle MatchBook program today.

The program allows publishers and authors to bundle their physical books with a discounted ebook edition for those that want a hard copy and better portability.

At launch, 75,000 titles are included and buyers will be able to add the Kindle version of their book for $2.99 or less.

HarperCollins, Macmillan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Amazon Publishing, Wiley, Chronicle Books, and Marvel have made a few titles available, and thousands of self-published authors have joined up.

Of all the majors, HarperCollins was the only to reach deep into the thousands, making 9,000 titles available. However, just nine of the books were published in the last three months so it looks like Harper is using the program to boost its older titles.

Russ Grandinetti, VP of Kindle Content adds that he expects the program to "keep expanding rapidly in the months ahead."

In early October, Adobe confirmed that cyber attackers hit the company hard, with the exploit leading to data on nearly 3 million customers being compromised. Besides 2.9 million Adobe IDs and passwords being stolen, full customer names, encrypted credit/debit card numbers, and expiration dates were also compromised for many of the customers.

Additionally, "source code for numerous Adobe products" was also stolen in the attacks.

It appears now that that original number was just the tip of the iceberg. The data breach has impacted at least 38 million users, the company now confirms, and the source code leak now includes the company's extremely popular Photoshop family of products.

AnonNews posted a 3.8GB file over the weekend including 150 million username and hashed password pairs taken directly from Adobe.

Adobe, for their part says they have not seen any unauthorized activity on any Adobe ID that has been stolen: "So far, our investigation has confirmed that the attackers obtained access to Adobe IDs and (what were at the time valid), encrypted passwords for approximately 38 million active users. We have completed email notification of these users. We also have reset the passwords for all Adobe IDs with valid, encrypted passwords that we believe were involved in the incident--regardless of whether those users are active or not."

According to the WSJ, BlackBerry executives recently met with Facebook to see what kind of interest there was for a potential bid for the company.

The meeting in of itself has renewed speculation that Facebook wants to build its own smartphone. So far, the company has relied on third parties like HTC to show off dedicated Facebook apps and user interfaces.

BlackBerry has been struggling to keep its businesses afloat and recently made themselves available for sale, as a whole or in pieces. The company has also recently announced it will no longer market phones to the general public, instead moving to only enterprise and government customers.

Although values fluctuate depending on what analysis you use, the company does have some marketable assets. A large patent trove is expected to bring in $2 billion, and the company's enterprise and security network is expected to bring in the same amount. The company also has $2.5 billion in cash, but it is burning through it quickly.

Earlier this week, LG announced its hotly anticipated curved G Flex smartphone.

The device goes on sale in Korea in November, with no timetable for a global launch as of yet.

G Flex devices feature a 720p 6-inch curved P-OLED, which LG claims is ultra-light, ultra-thin and flexible. The device runs on Android 4.2.2, is powered by a 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800, an Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM and a 3500mAh battery.

In addition, the device has a 13-megapixel rear camera, and a 2.1-megapixel front camera. The OLED panel is also built with plastic substrates, for better durability. The display also includes Real RGB technology for all three sub-pixels in one pixel, increasing brightness.

As is becoming standard, Google has leaked the upcoming 2014 edition of the Nexus 10 tablet through their Google Play hardware site.

The new flagship tablet will run on a powerful quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB RAM and a 9500mAh battery.

Google has packed the tablet with a 10-inch 2560x1600 resolution display at 300 ppi and Gorilla Glass 3.

Additionally, the tablet has 32GB internal storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, dual cameras 8.0/2.1 MP, Android 4.4 KitKat and a standard micro USB port.

The tablet is 7.99mm thick, compared to the new iPad Air at 7.5mm, and heavier as well at 1.28 pounds compared to 1 pound for the Air.

There was no word on price, but it is expected to sell for $449.

After making huge waves by creating popular original series like 'House of Cards' and 'Orange is the New Black," Netflix is reportedly looking to get into the feature full-length film business with a similar model.

Suggested by Netflix's content head Ted Sarandos, the streaming company will back a "big" movie, which would be made available on Netflix on the same day it goes into theaters.

By becoming a first-run distributor like they do for TV and more recently, stand-up comedy, Netflix hopes to attract even more subscribers that may have been off-put by the company's lack of major movies.

"What we're trying to do for TV, the model should extend pretty nicely to movies. Meaning, why not premiere movies on Netflix, the same day they're opening in theaters? And not little movies -- there's a lot of ways, and lot of people to do that [already]. Why not big movies? Why not follow the consumers' desire to watch things when they want?" added Sarandos.

Nvidia has updated its Shield handheld console to Android 4.3, giving access to thousands of Android games through its new 'console mode' support.

In order to control the games, Nvidia has made hundreds of profiles available from the cloud for the most popular touch-based Android games. Additionally, you can use the handheld's "Gamepad Mapper" to create your own custom controls, as well.

Furthermore, the update adds support for PC game streaming through Nvidia GameStream. A few of the most notable games include Batman: Arkham Origins and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

Another part of console mode is the ability to pair their gaming device to a TV via Bluetooth controller and play the Android games or watch HD movies. GameStream can also be used to stream and play the PC games on your TV.

All-star leaker @evleaks has shown off the upcoming Nexus 5 in a new colorway, white (with black trim), and a release date.

The two-tone device has a black front, white back plate, and black accents including the camera and volume rocker/power button.

Additionally, the post says the device is "coming on 11/1" although it is unclear if it will be available on that day or just announced by Google.

Thanks to a plethora of leaks, we know the 16GB model of the device will sell for $349 unlocked, come with Android 4.4 KitKat, a 5-inch 1080p display, a 2.3+ GHz Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, and dual 8/2 MP cameras.

In white. 11/1. pic.twitter.com/5SSmtTGUg7

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) October 27, 2013

Apple has reported their quarterly financial results this afternoon, having another standard strong quarter.

The company reported $7.5 billion profit on revenue of $37.5 billion, slight growth from the same quarter last year where they reported $36 billion.

Investors were generally satisfied, although gross margins fell from 40 percent to 37 percent, a steep decline that has spooked investors and analysts.

iPhone sales came in at 33.8 million, a large jump year-over-year from 26.9 million. The iPhone 5S and 5C were only on sale for 10 days of the quarter, but Apple sold at least 9 million of the devices, which they confirmed as their launch weekend figures.

iPad sales were flat, at 14.1 million, given that everyone expected the company to unveil new devices this month (which they did). The Mac line of computers reached 4.6 million devices sold, also flat and iPod sales continued their demise, at 3.5 million units sold and a negligible $573 million in revenue.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has announced a new partnership with Samsung that will bring the company's TVs and tablets courtside during game time.

Samsung will supply all the courtside monitors that referees use to review calls.

The new deal is for three years, and will also include customized video content for all Samsung devices, including TVs, tablets, and smartphones. The NBA previously had deals with Haier and HP.

For Samsung, the deal is another way for the company to offer exclusive software and services to its customers, especially its Galaxy device users. Two years ago, Samsung tied up with NBA star Lebron James for its latest Galaxy smartphone, and then last year announced a major deal with Jay-Z with a long-form commercial during the NBA Finals.

Speaking during the company's quarterly earnings report today, CEO Tim Cook says to expect new products in new categories next year.

Cook did not speak of any specifics, but did give some hope that new products are finally coming from the tech giant.

"If you look at the skills Apple has from hardware and software services...no one has skills like this," Cook said. "We obviously believe we can use our skills to build other great products in areas we do not participate in today."

The company has been rumored to be working on an HDTV, a smartwatch and possibly a 4K UltraHD television set. The rumors have intensified over the last two years, but Apple has never confirmed what products it has been working on.

The popular warez site UploaderTalk is sending shockwaves across the industry as it has been purchased by the anti-piracy company Nuke Piracy.

The site collected data on users, file hosters and other websites for a full year before being sold, being a piracy 'honeypot' that has users terrified. The term honeypot refers to a facility that runs, encourages criminal behavior, and then collects incriminating data under false pretenses.

As an added bonus to rub it in, the operator of UT, who goes by the moniker WDF posted this on the homepage: "That's right – the biggest swerve ever. I, WDF, work for the anti-piracy people! UT was set up for a number of reasons. But mostly to be a sounding board, proof of concept ... and to collect data. I collected info on file hosts, web hosts, websites. I suckered shitloads of you."

WDF was formerly a senior member of the filesharing site WJunction, and UT was designed to attract pirates that upload for profit, using file hosting affiliate programs.

According to researchers at the University of Twente, the ultimate goal is to create a storage disk that will outlast "the human race itself."

The team has a goal of 1 million years, with a stretch goal of 1 billion years for an upcoming disk that will help preserve vital information forever.

"Whether it is music, art, literature, or scientific breakthroughs, people have tried to ensure preservation of information for future generations," reads the research team's published paper. The storage idea has been dubbed "gigayear" by the team. "At some point humanity as we know it will cease to exist and slowly all our achievements will disappear. Given sufficient time, all memory of humanity will be erased."

Of course, it is impossible to try to test the discs for longevity, but the team has used accelerated aging tests. The discs are "fabricated with tungsten and a protective silicon nitride layer." "A disk with data in the form of QR codes has been fabricated and was able to survive the temperature tests, and therefore will survive 1 million years of storage according to theory."

Wikipedia has confirmed they have begun piloting a service that sends articles via SMS (texts), with the service aimed at users in Africa and other nations where data plans are not as abundant.

The encyclopedia has teamed up with carrier Airtel to offer the service for free, with initial testing taking place in Kenya.

Dan Foy, technical partner manager for the Wikimedia Foundation, says the trial run will be active for 90 days: "Throughout most of the developing world, data-enabled smartphones are the exception, not the rule. That means billions of people currently cannot see Wikipedia on their phones."

The service, dubbed Wikipedia Zero, can be activated by dialing *515#. After activating, users will receive a text informing them how to search.

Africa has a large mobile phone population, but data plans are not as popular. Texting services, even those to send money or music, are very popular on the continent, however.

Samsung has confirmed that its Galaxy Gear smartwatch will be getting expanded support in the coming weeks.

Currently, the device only works with the new Galaxy Note 3 and the 2014 model Galaxy Tab 10.1.

According to leaked documents, the Note 2, Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4, and Galaxy S4 Active will all get Gear support, starting with the S4 on Monday and ending with the Active on December 24th.

Each of the phones have to get Android 4.3 before support can be added for the Gear.

Any interested buyers in the Google Moto X now have the ability to get it cheaper.

The phone is now just $99 on contract when using AT&T's Moto Maker customization site, or if you are buying from US Cellular or Sprint, as well. If you are moving to US Cellular, the carrier is even adding a $75 gift card, effectively taking the price down to $25.

Verizon has not reduced the price, and AT&T says the standard black and white models still cost the original $199, so it actually pays to customize.

If you need more storage, the 32GB model has dropped to $150, from $250.

It is unclear how well the phone has been selling, as the original price point placed the phone against more powerful competitors, such as the Galaxy S4, HTC One and the iPhone.

Activist investor Carl Icahn wrote an open letter to Apple this week, not-so subtly demanding for the company to complete a $150 billion share buyback to increase shareholder value.

Apple has over $147 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet and has already approved a three-year $60 billion buyback program.

Icahn has 4.7 million shares in the company, after initially purchasing 3.4 million at $467 per share. The company trades at $525 per share today. At its peak, in September 2012 following the launch of the iPhone 5, Apple traded at $705 per share.

The letter in its entirety:

Dear Tim:

It was a pleasure meeting you for dinner at the end of September. When we met, my affiliates and I owned 3,875,063 shares of Apple. As of this morning, we owned 4,730,739 shares of Apple, an increase of 22% in position size, reflecting our belief the market continues to dramatically undervalue the company, even when taking into account the recent market appreciation, which in turn makes our proposal unchanged with respect to a $150 Billion buyback. We were pleased to hear at our dinner that you appreciated our input and that you would speak to us again in three weeks to continue the dialogue. In anticipation of doing so soon, we aim to reiterate in this letter the point of view already expressed to you directly with the hope of effectively summarizing it for the company's board of directors and our fellow shareholders.

Read more...

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 will require an immediate update right of the box, otherwise many features will be useless to you.

The 300MB update will allow you to playback DVDs/Blu-rays, allow you to use Remote Play on the PS Vita and play games as they are being downloaded in the background. Additionally, the update will add the ability to record and upload gameplay.

Even with the update, Sony adds that "some features will not be available at launch, such as "suspend/resume mode" which is a feature that keeps the PS4 system in a low power state and promptly takes users back to their game."

The PS4 launches on November 15th in North America.

Read more about the 1.50 update here.

Amazon has posted their quarterly results today, showing another loss but seeing growth skyrocket.

The company saw revenue jump 24 percent year-over-year to $17.1 billion, while overall they had a loss of $41 million.

"It's been a busy few months--we launched a new Paperwhite and new Kindle Fires to positive reviews and surprised people with the revolutionary Mayday button--average Mayday response times are just 11 seconds!" Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a press release.

The black hole that is Living Social led to the loss for this quarter, as the company wrote down $132 million in losses on the daily deal site.

Amazon says it expects a net loss next quarter, as well, of $500 million, but revenue will see large growth to over $25 billion.

Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission has fined Samsung today for their efforts to undermine the reputation of local smartphone maker HTC.

The agency says Samsung organized an Internet campaign to praise their own devices on numerous sites, while slandering HTC phones at the same time.

Samsung will have to pay New Taiwan dollars 10 million ($340,000 USD). Much smaller fines were levied on two Taiwanese trading companies that it claimed were responsible for the actual posts.

This is not the first time the FTC has fined Samsung this year, hitting the company with a $100,000 fine for misleading advertising about the features of the Galaxy Y Duos.

A few weeks back, Instagram announced it would be adding advertisements to the popular photo sharing service.

The company has now revealed the first ad, giving U.S. users a 'preview' of what life will be for Instagram moving forward.

There is still no specific date for when the ads will launch in full, but the company did confirm again that 'occasional' in-feed images or even videos are coming soon.

Reads the blog post:

Our focus with every product we build is to make Instagram a place where people come to connect and be inspired. Building Instagram as a business will help us better serve the global--and ever growing--Instagram community, while maintaining the simplicity you know and love.

As always, you own your own photos and videos. The introduction of advertising won't change this.

Example ads:

Multiple sources are reporting that HP is actively looking to sell off their mobile-computing patents, with CEO Meg Whitman looking for ways to add cash to the company's reserves.

Part of those patents and intellectual property is WebOS, the defunct smartphone operating system made popular by Palm before it went under and was acquired by Whitman's predecessor.

HP has been removing "restrictive conditions that made the patents unattractive to buyers" say the sources, which should allow for higher prices.

The company, which remains the world's second-largest PC maker, acquired WebOS (and Palm) for $1.2 billion in 2010, with the expectation they would build phones and tablets and use the well-regarded operating system in printers and other hardware. This never happened and the company wrote down the entire acquisition before shutting down the division entirely and open sourcing the code. The code was then sold to LG this year for an undisclosed amount, while HP retained the patents.

Twitter will IPO with 70 million shares, pricing at $17-$20 as the company hopes to raise $1.4 billion.

The updated numbers come via an amended S-1 filing revealed today.

"Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for the common stock. It is currently estimated that the initial public offering price per share will be between $17.00 and $20.00," the amendment reads. "Our common stock has been approved for listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "TWTR."

Additionally, it was revealed that most of the company's directors and top executives are selling small portions of their stock. For example, chairman Jack Dorsey will sell 0.6 percent of the company, or about $60 million worth, while co-founder Evan Williams will sell 1.6 percent and keep the other 10.4 percent.

The company is expected to IPO the week of November 6th.

According to Billboard, YouTube is developing its own premium subscription on-demand music service, one that should rival Spotify in scope.

Just like rivals, YouTube's service will be built around mobile listening and will include a free tier and an unlimited premium tier.

Google, YouTube's parent, already offers a subscription service, its Play All Access, with music from the major labels and indies. Premium features would include unlimited streaming without ads, and the ability to cache music for offline periods.

Making the free option different than rivals is the fact that it is expected to include mobile access. Spotify charges $10 for that luxury.

The service is expected to launch before the end of the year.

LG has announced today that it will be releasing its first Firefox OS-based smartphone, the Fireweb.

The low-end 4-inch device has a 480x320 resolution, is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm processor and 4GB internal storage. The 5MP camera has autofocus and LED flash, unlike previous Firefox phones.

LG has made the device available in Brazil, and it costs $449 BRL ($207 US) off-contract and $129 BRL ($59 US) on-contract, perhaps too expensive given the specs and fledgling operating system.

The Firefox OS is now available on phones in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay.

HP CEO Meg Whitman has confirmed that the company will be entering the 3D printer market starting in the Q3 2014.

"We are excited about 3D printing," Whitman added. "We want to lead this business. HP labs is looking at it."

Whitman noted that it was natural to get into the business given the company's long history with printers.

There are, of course, issues with 3D printing in its current state, but HP wants to get in early: "To print a bottle can take eight to ten hours. That's all very interesting, but it is like watching ice melt. 3D printing is in its infancy. It is a big opportunity and we are all over it. We will have something by the middle of next year."

The exec adds that their printer will be aimed at service providers. "How do we commercialize to print faster, at lower price points? To enable service providers?" asked Whitman.

According to the Verge, Amazon has been trying to finalize their oft-rumored set-top box in time for the holidays but they have run into more delays.

The box, which would compete directly with WD Live, Roku, Apple TV and others, is expected to run on a modified Fire OS, and would have allowed for third party apps in addition to all standard Amazon apps such as shopping, Amazon MP3 and Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Development of the box has been reported on since at least April, with the work being done at Amazon's R&D division better known as Lab126.

The sources claim the delay will push the hardware into next year, missing out on the lucrative holiday season in the U.S. (and possibly abroad).

As promised, Aereo has arrived for Android devices.

For the time being, only Android smartphones and tablets with 4.2 or higher can use the service.

Currently, it is available in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Salt Lake City, Houston, and Dallas and a planned Chicago launch has been delayed. Additionally, the company says it will expand to Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and San Antonio, but without a timetable.

The startup's service, which costs $8 per month, 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.

Microsoft has finally confirmed that Instagram will be making its way to Windows Phone handsets.

In addition, the video sharing tool Vine and the popular news reading app Flipboard will also be made available for the platform in the next few weeks.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has 150 million users and is the most popular photo and video sharing app on the Web. Many have cited the lack of the app as proof that developers do not care for the Windows Phone environment, which lacks in quality apps when compared to Android or iPhone.

Windows Phone sales have increased over the year, and the biggest seller, Nokia, is said to have sold 8 million Lumia units during their most recent quarter, the seasonally slow Q3. Perhaps more big-name apps will be headed to Windows in the near future.

During their annual iPad event, Apple took time to mention some milestones the company has hit.

The iOS App Store has reached 1 million apps, up from 900,000 in June, as almost exponential growth continues. Over 60 billion total apps have been downloaded, as well, up 10 billion from a similar announcement in May.

By comparison, Google's Android Play Store also has 1 million apps and reached the 60 billion plateau a few short months ago.

CEO Tim Cook says these downloads have led to $13 billion being paid out to developers since launch.

Finally, the exec noted that the new iTunes Radio has been a hit, with over 20 million users trying it out and playing over 1 billion song.

Nintendo has confirmed that it has ended production of the Wii console for the Japanese market.

The console debuted in late 2006 and quickly became a runaway hit, with demand far exceeding supply for the entire first year of its availability.

Global sales of the console reached 100 million this June, making it one of the best selling consoles of all-time and placed sales far ahead of rivals by Sony and Microsoft.

Nintendo says production will continue on a limited basis for markets outside of Japan, but really it looks like the company is just trying to liquidate any remaining inventory and some smaller spot orders.

The company will now devote all of its production in the console market to the Wii U, which has been a huge failure, falling way short of the gaming company's own internal expectations. The Wii U has been so bad that major developers have even stopped producing titles for it.

Apple has unveiled their iPad Mini with Retina display today, a huge update to their popular tablet.

The new device will have a 2048 x 1536 resolution, matching that of the iPad Air, and under the hood is the new 64-bit A7 processor.

Apple would not say when the tablet will be available except to say "in November," starting at $399 for Wi-fi/16GB model and in white/silver or gray/black.

The company has been rumored to be seeing manufacturing delays for the Mini Retina display.

In addition, last year's iPad Mini will see a small price drop to $299. If you want 128GB model of the iPad Mini 2, that will cost you $699 to start.

Apple unveiled their latest full-sized iPad today, the newly branded iPad Air.

The design is very similar to the iPad Mini and the new device is much lighter and thinner than any of its predecessors. In order to keep the display size the same, the bezel has been shrunk again, as well.

iPad Air tablets are just 7.5mm thin and weigh 1 pound, 20 and 28 percent reductions, respectively.

Under the hood is the 64-bit A7 processor and M7 motion coprocessor, a 5MP iSight camera, MIMO 802.11n support and 10 hours of battery life. The Retina 9.7-inch 2048 x 1536 resolution display remains the same.

The new iPad Air will be available starting November 1st for $499 (16GB/Wi-Fi) in space gray and black r silver and white.

Apple announced today that there latest operating system update, OS X 10.9 Mavericks will be available starting today.

Best of all, the update is free through the Mac App Store.

As with all OS updates, Apple promises increased speed and battery life efficiency and the update will overhaul the aesthetics to better match that of iOS 7 and its cleaner design.

In addition, the OS will have an improved notification system, including inline replies, support for multiple monitor and full screen applications, a complete refresh of Finder and a new "iCloud Keychain" to better save your passwords.

Many of the apps have been updated, as well, some adding new functionality.

The update is available to everyone running OS X 10.6 or higher and now leaves Microsoft as the only company that charges for their operating system.

After teasing it earlier this year, Apple has launched the new desktop powerhouse Mac Pro, set for release in December.

The new Pro is built in the U.S. and can support 4K video editing.

Apple's latest is 10 inches high, 6.6 inches in diameter (it's a cylinder), and weighs 11 pounds.

The base model starts at $2999 and features a 3.7GHz Intel Xeon E5 with 10MB L3 cache and Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz, 12GB (three 4GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory, Dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM each. Flash storage shockingly starts at just 256GB, but can be configured up to 1TB.

For connectivity there are four USB 3.0 ports, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, dual gigabit ethernet, and HDMI 1.4 UltraHD.

Apple has significantly updated their MacBook Pro with Retina display line of notebooks.

Starting with the 13-inch model, the new laptop is 0.71 inches thick and 3.46 pounds, will be powered by a latest-generation Haswell core 15 processor at 2.4GHz, include 4GB RAM, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, a 128GB SSD and an incredible 9 hours of battery life.

The 15-inch base model will add a Haswell 2.0GHz Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD along with new Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics. Additionally, the device has 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Thunderbolt 2 ports. The notebook will have a very impressive 8 hours of battery life, as well.

With the refresh specs also come some price cuts, as the 13-inch model will start at $1299 and its larger brother will start at $1999.

According to a new report, HTC is planning an Android smartwatch.

The device will have a camera, but other specifics are unclear including price.

HTC has struggled mightily this year, and just posted their first every quarterly loss. The company, which once controlled over 15 percent of the smartphone market, now has around 3 percent.

Samsung and Sony have already unveiled smartwatches and Apple is expected to do so next year.

Soon to be overshadowed by Apple's new tablets, Microsoft has made their Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets available.

The tablets are on sale at Microsoft retail stores, www.MicrosoftStore.com, and a handful of retailers in 21 initial markets.

Microsoft says if you pre-ordered, you should be receiving your tablet within 24 hours.

Surface Pro 2

Although it is certainly not a unique call, Tokyo-based analyst firm Advanced Research Japan says Apple will begin selling UltraHD TVs in 2014.

Analyst Masahiko Ishino says the company will begin selling 55-inch and 65-inch models starting in the Q4 next year.

Apple has been rumored to be building HDTVs since at least 2010, and in 2011, Apple founder Steve Jobs told his biographer that the company had "finally cracked" how to build the TV with a user interface that could wirelessly sync with all of Apple's other devices, including Macs and iOS. CEO Tim Cook said earlier this year that TVs remained an "area of intense focus" for Apple but so far they have only released the Apple TV set-top box, which the company had admitted is more of a hobby.

The TVs are expected to be priced at $1500 to $2500, which would place them in the highest price range for current model TVs, but on the low end of 4K TVs. LG Display will supply over 70 percent of the LCDs, Samsung will supply the GPUs and Corning will supply Gorilla Glass 3 screen protection, says the analyst.

Earlier this month we reported on Full Screen Mario, a browser-based HTML5 version of the original Super Mario game.

As expected, Nintendo and its copyright lawyers are not fans of the game.

Full Screen Mario is an open-source effort started by college student Josh Goldberg. It recreates Super Mario using just HTML5, letting you play the game in your browser as opposed to on a console. The site has seen lots of traffic since its launch, at some points even being overwhelmed.

Nintendo says the content infringes on their "intellectual property rights," and has asked the student to take the site down. Goldberg admits he never got permission from Nintendo, and also admits he "didn't care" about copyright because he started the project as a programming exercise.

Netflix reported their quarterly earnings yesterday, smashing analyst expectations.

The company saw revenue grow to $1.11 billion and earnings of 52 cents per share. It also managed to hit the high end of its guidance adding 1.3 million domestic subscribers.

As of September 30th, the streaming company now has 31.1 million U.S. subscribers, surpassing rival HBO.

Moving internationally, the company added 9.19 million subscribers, also better than expected. The company has invested significantly in international expansion and it appears to be paying off.

Netflix has also been rumored to be on the verge of some more major deals. Marvel is creating five new original series for streaming providers, and Netflix is of course in the running. Additionally, the company has reportedly been in talks to be added as a standalone app or channel for cable company's set-top boxes.

AT&T has announced today that it will sell or lease 9700 cell towers to Crown Castle International, one of the largest wireless tower operators in the world.

Under the terms of the deal, Crown Castle will buy 600 towers outright and will have the rights to run another 9100 for an average lease of 28 years for $4.85 billion in cash.

Additionally, the operator has the right to acquire the towers outright for $4.2 billion into the future.

AT&T will lease the network capacity of the towers for the next decade, paying $1900 per month per tower, with rent going up 2 percent per year to account for inflation.

"This deal is good for AT&T and our shareholders," Bill Hogg, an AT&T senior vice president for network planning and engineering, said in a statement. "This deal will let us monetize our towers while giving us the ability to add capacity as we need it. And we'll get additional financial flexibility to continue to invest in our business, maintain a strong balance sheet and return value to our shareholders."

Crown Castle runs towers in the U.S.' top 100 markets and all over Australia.

SoftBank, the new owner of wireless carrier Sprint, has taken a large 57 percent stake in U.S. wireless device distributor Brightstar.

The Japanese co. will pay $1.26 billion for the stake, valuing the privately held distributor at $2.2 billion.

SoftBank will increase its ownership to 70 percent "over the next five years, or upon certain events," although it is unclear what those events may be.

As part of the deal, Brightstar will "become the exclusive provider of handsets, accessories, and services to certain SoftBank telecommunications affiliates," with the company prepared to buy $20 billion in handsets, accessories, and services through these connections.

In addition, Brightstar will also "have a preferential right to provide services including distribution, supply chain, handset insurance, buy-back and trade-in, multi-channel retail, and financial services to certain SoftBank telecommunications affiliates."

The distributor purchases handsets from over 100 manufacturers and then supplies them to carriers. The company also handles many trade-in and buy-back programs for larger retailers and carriers.

Aereo has confirmed that the service will launch in Detroit on October 28th.

Currently, it is available in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Salt Lake City, Houston, and Dallas and a planned Chicago launch has been delayed.

Additionally, the company says it will expand to Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and San Antonio, but without a timetable.

If you live in Detroit, the counties covered are Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Sanilac, Saint Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne.

The startup's service, which costs $8 per month, 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.

The company has faced significant backlash since launching in 2011. Last year, CBS, NBC, Fox and other smaller broadcasters filed a copyright suit claiming unauthorized access to their content. So far, two federal courts have sided with Aereo and the company continues to expand and innovate.

Earlier this year, Google added voice calling to their desktop version of the Hangouts messaging platform, and has now expanded that capability to iOS.

iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners can now make free calls within the US and Canada, and you can also use your existing Google Voice number.

The company says there is no current voicemail support, so it is clearly not a Google Voice equivalent as of yet.

Additionally, the update adds the ability to send and receive animated GIFs that will play in your thread without needing to click through to the browser.

Although it had been leaked last month, Lenovo has now officially announced the A10 Android-based laptop.

The notebook runs on Android 4.2, has a 10.1-inch HD display, a 1.6GHz quad-core Cortex A9 processor, 32GB internal storage and 2GB RAM.

Lenovo uses a customized Android user interface when in 'laptop mode' including an app launcher, task bar, a status bar "for quick, intuitive access to the app library and desktop," and a built-in file manager that supposedly works like Windows search.

In addition, the device can be flipped to "stand mode," which is optimized for touch-enabled apps and entertainment and may not necessarily utilize the full-sized keyboard.

The convertible will go on sale in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific starting at $250 USD (equivalent).

According to new research from Northeastern University, the U.S. took down nearly 11 million legal, legitimate files when it raided and shut down cyber locker Megaupload last year.

For their research, the school looked into the percentage of legal and copyright-infringing content on six file-hosting services. They found that infringing content did outnumber legit content on all of the file hosting sites, but the volume of legal files was much higher than the government would have you believe.

The school (along with colleagues around the globe), examined tens of millions of files that were uploaded to FileFactory, Easy-share, Filesonic, Wupload, Megaupload and Undeadlink. Each of the sites, except for FileFactory, went down after Megaupload, most by their own accord.

In order to see if files were infringing or not, the researchers extracted metadata from the site's uploads using a link checker. The researchers "controlled for several factors including split archives, and then manually determined the legitimacy of the files based on random samples of 1,000 uploads per site," says TorrentFreak.

Google has finally made the Chromecast Android app available to international users of the device.

The app should be available in the Google Play Store of your respective country but the search giant has not released a full list.

Chromecast hardware itself is also still not available outside of North America but Amazon and some other retailers have reportedly shipped the device (possibly by accident) and others have simply had American counterparts ship them the dongle.

Now with the restrictions lifted on the app, it is quite possible that the hardware's availability is set to increase, as well.

An unemployed Chinese couple has been accused of selling their newborn baby for 50,000 yuan (about $8000 USD) and then using the money to buy an iPhone, among other items.

Mr. Teng and Ms. Zhang, as they are been referred to in the Chinese media, are set to stand trial in Shanghai for auctioning off their child to the highest bidder.

Making matters worse, prosecutors say the couple hid the woman's pregnancy for all nine months, even going as far as to tell neighbors that she had a stomach tumor when the bump became visible. Almost immediately after birth (at home), the couple handed the baby over to the buyer who then deposited the funds into their bank account.

For their defense, the couple says due to their lack of jobs, they were selling the baby in its own best interest. They hoped the child would be placed in a "good, stable home and receive a good education. We did not give the baby away for money but in order to give it more security."

Despite that claim, the couple used thousands of dollars within days of the birth on the iPhone, expensive sneakers and more.

Microsoft removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from its Windows Store earlier this morning, as they investigated a 'situation.'

Read the post: "Windows RT 8.1. Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT devices to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience. We will provide updates as they become available."

It remains unknown what the real "situation" is that is keeping Microsoft from returning the download, but it follows reports that Windows 8.1 users were also having issues updating from Windows 8.

Reportedly, although unconfirmed by Microsoft, the update has been failing due to a boot configuration error.

(Pic via Verge)

The Pirate Bay's browser attempt at anti-censorship, PirateBrowser, has surpassed 1 million downloads.

About a half of a percent of Pirate Bay users are accessing the site using the browser, says TorrentFreak.

When asked about the success of the browser, TPB added, "I guess that a lot of people want to see the websites their governments and courts are trying to hide from them."

PirateBrowser is a mix of the Tor client (Vidalia), FireFox Portable browser (with foxyproxy addon) "and some custom configs" to allow you to circumvent censorship. Although it has Tor in it, anonymity is not the point of the Pirate Browser.

As an added kick, the browser comes with pre-loaded bookmarks including The Pirate Bay, IsoHunt, Fenopy, EZTV, KickassTorrents, Bitsnoop, H33T and more.

Get the browser here: PirateBrowser at AfterDawn

More and more users are accessing YouTube via their mobile devices.

Google says mobile devices now account for 40 percent of all traffic to YouTube, jumping from 25 percent in 2012 and just 6 percent in 2011.

The search giant has been investing heavily in mobile, and not just on Android. The company recently took back control of its YouTube app on iOS from Apple, and has been significantly improving the experience.

Hunter Walk, a former director of product management tweeted the figure this week. Walk adds that YouTube formed the mobile team in 2007, a full year before Android and iOS got into the mix and before mobile data was even a real feature for phones. The company made sure to transcode video to be played on mobiles and made sure to get the app pre-installed on the iPhone.

Who is the YouTube of mobile & tablets? YOUTUBE! We made early bet & now accts for 40% of traffic. Great job @dobry2000 & team!

-- Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) October 17, 2013

Apple has begun recalling flash storage drives that were used in previous generation MacBook Air ultrabooks.

The 64GB and 128GB drives were used in systems sold between June 2012 and June 2013, and Apple says all those affected can get a free replacement at an Apple retail store or an Apple authorized service provider.

Apple "also recommends backing up your data on a regular basis until you receive a replacement drive."

In addition, if your drive has failed and you had to pay for a replacement, Apple will refund you.

If you think you may be affected, check Apple's support page here.

Lorain Wong, HTC's head of global public relations, corporate and internal communications, has left the company just four months after joining.

The exec had previously worked for AT&T and CBS Evening News, as well as leading cable provider Asia Global Crossing's marketing communications team for a decade.

HTC says Wong has resigned for personal reasons but will remain as a consultant for another four months.

There has been an exodus from the struggling smartphone maker, with six senior executives leaving in the past two years including the previous marketing boss John Wang and even Chief Financial Officer Winston Yung.

The news is somewhat surprising as HTC recently rebranded the entire company and began an expensive marketing campaign with Robert Downey Jr. as the spokesperson.

Regional American carrier U.S. Celluar has announced that it will be getting the new iPhones starting next month.

After promising in May that it would get all iPhones moving forward, the carrier had not given a concrete release date for the new iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S flagships.

Pricing has not been revealed yet, but the carrier will announce that next week.

The iPhone 5C features the same specs of last year's iPhone but includes new colorways and a plastic back. The iPhone 5S features a 64-bit processor, a fingerprint scanner and completely rehauled internals.

PC giant Lenovo has signed an NDA to examine BlackBerry's books, as it looks to purchase parts of the company.

Reuters says any bid for the entire company would be met with extensive regulatory huddles and is likely not worth the attempt for the Chinese company.

BlackBerry has been exploring a sale or other strategic 'alternatives' since August and has seen significant interest for different parts of the company, including its patent trove valued at over $2 billion.

The company received a $9 per share bid for the entire company from its largest shareholder, but investors do not appear to believe that deal will ever take place as the stock has traded down to $8.20 since the offer was made.

BlackBerry's most marketable assets are its secure network, which still handles millions of confidential messages and emails daily, its patents, and its messenger application. Its consumer and enterprise hardware business is considered a blackhole, and does not appear to have any interest but could mark an easier entry point to the North American market for Lenovo if they so chose to look into that division.

Sony has unveiled the price for their upcoming PlayStation 4 console today for Brazilian gamers, and the price is outrageous.

The electronics giant says the console will sell for Brazilian Real 3,999 in the country, the equivalent of about $1830 in US Dollars.

Games will be no better, selling for Real 179, or about $82 in USD. The increased costs are due to import fees, taxes and tariffs, and South America generally has a smaller gaming audience for next-gen consoles as markets saturate for previous generations.

The rival Xbox One will also sell at a premium, selling for Real 2199, about $1010, but clearly a huge discount to the Sony system.

Ubuntu 13.10 aka Saucy Salamander, is now available and with it comes the first truly mobile version of the Linux distribution.

While the distro does support smartphones and tablets, there are no Ubuntu mobile devices available just yet, with parent company Canonical stating that early 2014 could be a possibility. There are a few Nexus devices that can run the software currently, however.

As with all new operating systems, there are a few glaring issues right out of the gate. There are practically no native mobile apps, and as of yet Ubuntu Touch cannot be run as a full desktop version using HDMI as promised.

Canonical says this is because the mobile-friendly display server, Mir, is not ready for a full desktop version, yet. The company says "outstanding technical difficulties" means the feature will launch with April's 14.04 release.

"The desktop at this stage doesn't fully support the new graphics architecture that is now enabled on the phone OS," Richard Collins, Canonical's product manager for mobile, added (via Om). "It's something we are working very rapidly towards."

Google, which has still not confirmed the device despite pictures, specs, manuals and now an official listing being leaked, has revealed the price for their upcoming Nexus 5.

The device, which is likely to be unveiled at the end of the month, will start at $349 for the 16GB model, likely meaning the 32GB internal storage model will launch at $399.

From what we know of the specs, the Nexus 5 will have a 5-inch 1080p display, be powered by a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB RAM, dual cameras 8MP/2MP and the new Android 4.4 KitKat right out of the box.

Check the leaked pics here (via Google Play Store):

Samsung has kept their promise of getting Android 4.3 out to Galaxy S4 owners by the end of October.

The update has begun rolling out today, starting in Germany but will eventually get to all carriers across the globe, even the notoriously slow U.S. wireless industry.

Earlier this year we reviewed the horrible Acer Iconia W3 tablet, the first Windows 8 tablet to market at the 8-inch form factor.

This week, Acer has unveiled the second-generation model, the W4, which runs on the newly launched Windows 8.1.

Acer's latest has the same 8-inch display, but this time with a 1,280 x 800, optically bonded IPS display for improved anti-glare and daylight use.

Under the hood is a new Bay Trail processor at 1.8GHz which should improve performance significantly, and the tablet has 32GB internal storage, dual 2MP/5MP cameras, a microSD slot, a microHDMI port and a standard micro-USB port for charging.

Acer is also including a full copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 edition for productivity.

The tablet will go on sale later this month starting at $330.

Microsoft has gleefully reminded consumers that its Windows 8.1 operating system is now available across the globe as a digital download and upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.

Starting tomorrow, the OS will be available as a packaged DVD product and on new computers, adds the software giant.

As part of the launch, the customer is also giving away $10 promotional Windows Store gift cards to 810 people everyday that Tweet their new Start screen along with the hashtag #Mystart on Twitter.

Windows 8.1 brings a lot of features that should improve the experience of Windows 8 including improved multitasking, the return of the Start button (in a basic respect), the introduction of a better universal search, improved native Windows 8 apps and the ability to make the desktop your default when you open the computer rather than the Live Tile page.

Get the update here: Windows.com

The once-popular torrent index site isoHunt will shut down for good following a settlement with the MPAA and Hollywood studios.

In addition to shutting down, the settlement terms include a $110 million penalty against the site and its owner, Gary Fung.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Chooljian says shes has canceled a planned hearing due to the new settlement. Despite winning the original case against them (which began in 2006), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in March ruled against isoHunt, claiming "there is more than enough unrebutted evidence in the summary judgment record to prove Fung offered his services with the object of promoting their use to infringe copyrighted material."

Finally, the settlement will prohibit Fung from "further profiting from the infringement of MPAA member studio content."

Reads the MPAA's statement: The news "sends a strong message that those who build businesses around encouraging, enabling and helping others to commit copyright infringement are themselves infringers, and will be held accoutbale for their actions."

T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere has strongly suggested today that the carrier will be receiving data-enabled iPads following Apple's upcoming October 22nd event.

The carrier first began offering iPhones back in April and has never carried iPads.

Consumers have long been able to insert T-Mobile SIM cards into their iPhones and iPads, but an official deal with Apple would allow users to walk into retail stores and purchase the tablets pre-loaded with a T-Mobile SIM card and optimizations for the company's fledgling LTE service.

On October 22nd, Apple is expected to introduce the iPad Mini 2 with Retina display and Touch ID, and a fifth-generation iPad with the new A7 64-bit processor.

What has two thumbs and is excited for October 22? #thisguy http://t.co/gQvJ1a1axD

-- John Legere (@JohnLegere) October 16, 2013

According to a new report from ATD, Twitter is looking to release a standalone app for messaging, alongside an overhaul of its current private messaging features.

Sources say the updates are coming in "the near future" and the company has been working on such features for some time.

The move comes at a time where global cross-platform messaging apps have seen huge jumps in popularity, with services like WhatsApp and Line seeing over 200 million users. Social networking giant Facebook has its own messaging app, and BlackBerry has been working on its own BlackBerry Messenger.

Among the evidence that Twitter has been working on the service update is the fact that it recently began testing allowing users you are not following to send direct messages.

It appears that Amazon may have let the cat out of the bag on the Google Nexus 5, with the retailer listing a launch date for the smartphone alongside a Nexus 5 case.

The Ringke Fusion for Nexus 5 is available on the e-tailer's site, with a ship date of October 31st, teasing that the phone will made available on that same day.

Included with the listing is a render of the Nexus 5, just like the ones we have seen over the past month, but one that has not been confirmed by LG or Google yet.

The device is expected to feature a 5-inch 1080p display, a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB RAM, dual 8MP/2MP cameras and the new Android 4.4 KitKat.

Check the listing here: Ringke Fusion for Nexus 5

UK music retailer HMV has finally begun selling digital music, just months after emerging from bankruptcy after being purchased by Hilco, a retail restructuring firm.

HMV digital MD James Couglan said of the new store: "I'm excited to say that we're putting music ownership back into focus with the launch of our new digital music products. For the first time, music lovers have the ability to experience the traditional feel of HMV on the high street and have the option to discover and build a digital music collection, delivered and managed across devices, from HMV, the Home of Entertainment."

"An exciting vision is unfolding and I look forward to announcing further developments regarding our plans for 2014 in the coming weeks - this is just the beginning!"

As with other rival stores, you can download content directly from the app or the web store, and the music can be saved directly into your iTunes or WMP libraries.

The app is available now for iOS and Android.

LG has announced that their G Pad 8.3 tablet is now available in the U.S.

Among the powerful specs are an 8.3-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200 pixels / 273 ppi) display, a 1.7GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 Processor, 16GB eMMC internal storage, 2GB RAM, dual 5MP/1.3MP cameras, Android 4.2.2 and a large 4,600mAh battery,

The device will sell for $350 and is now available online and will be available in-store at Best Buy starting on November 3rd.

"From its light weight to its sleek design, LG G Pad 8.3 is the ultimate complement to the Android smartphone experience," said James Fishler, senior vice president, marketing, LG Electronics USA. "LG G Pad 8.3 delivers top-notch viewing and entertainment for Android users with its impressive Full HD screen and useful, intuitive multitasking tools like those found in LG G2."

Some new LG-exclusive features:

Amazon has announced that its new Kindle Fire HDX is now up for pre-order in the UK and Canada.

The flagship tablet will begin shipping on November 14th in the UK and November 26th in Canada, and both will sell at a premium to the U.S. model.

For the 7-inch model, the pre-order price is $254 CDN/£199 and the 8.9-inch model, with more internal storage, starts at $284 CDN/£229.

The displays feature very nice resolutions, 1920x1200 at 323 ppi for 7" and 2560x1600 at 339 ppi for the 8.9" and under the hood are quad-core Snapdragon 800 processors running at 2.2GHz. Amazon boasts that they are the only company offering clock speeds above 2GHz.

In addition, the company has dropped the weight of the larger tablet to 13.2 ounces, 34 percent lighter than the second-generation Kindle Fires. The tablets will launch with Fire OS 3.0, which upgrades and improves on many of Amazon's popular features such as X-Ray, Cloud Collections and Goodreads. The company says battery life is much improved, as well, with up to 11 hours of mixed use, and 17 hours of reading.

Amazon has added dual stereo speakers with Dolby Digital Plus audio and virtual 5.1 multi-channel surround sound, and dual cameras, 2MP/8MP with 1080p video recording capability.

Vizo has unveiled the sequel to its Co-Star set-top box, dubbed the Co-Star LT.

The $80 box offers 1080p streaming, 3D, advanced HTML5 support and Vizio's Internet Apps Plus platform.

An interesting feature of the Internet Apps Platform is that it allows you to watch live TV while you browse through streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu Plus and YouTube allowing you to never not have something running.

Vizio says you can sync up your smartphone with select content, and the mobile device can then be used as a second screen, allowing you to switch between your TV and phone/tablet seamlessly.

"The latest generation of VIZIO Internet Apps Plus represents years of forward-looking development and design. Delivering more power through a new full-screen mode and enhanced multi-screen viewing features, the platform offers an incredibly intuitive and seamless entertainment experience," said Matt McRae, VIZIO Chief Technology Officer. "The Co-Star LT stream player's unique ability to integrate live TV and streaming apps, offers standard HDTV owners a simple upgrade option. One of the most advanced smart TV experiences on the market, the new VIZIO Internet Apps Plus platform also gives users access to the added convenience of second-screen interactivity."

Microsoft has unveiled its new GDR3 (General Distribution Release) for Windows Phone 8, showing off the features of the operating system.

The update will begin rolling out to Windows Phone owners later this month and continue until the end of the year, including a number of enhancements for future hardware.

GDR3 will offer Start screen support for screens between 5-7 inches, and can now support resolutions up to 1080p.

Additionally, the operating system will now support Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 quad-core SoC, meaning future devices will be much more powerful.

On the software side, Driving Mode is now available, you can close individual apps within the multitasking menu, you can assign custom ringtones for texts and the "other" category within settings has been broken down into more specific categories.

Full press release here.

Lenovo has unveiled their first 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablet, the Miix 2.

The device has a 1200x800 resolution, has up to 128GB internal storage, and more importantly runs on the new efficient quad-core Intel Bay Trail processor.

On the front there is a 2MP camera and a 5MP camera, on par with other rival devices. Additionally, a full version of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 is pre-installed.

"Many users want the convenience of a smaller screen tablet, but do not want to lose the performance and convenience of a powerful, quad core Windows 8.1 device. With the Lenovo Miix2 8-inch, users can take advantage of a small, light form factor without sacrificing performance," said Bai Peng, vice president and general manager, notebook business unit, Lenovo Business Group. "The Lenovo Miix2 8-inch is a great example of how thoughtful design can deliver the best of both worlds."

Bloomberg has reported today that the rumored HTC Amazon smartphone could be made available only to Amazon Prime subscribers.

It was reported earlier this week that HTC would be the manufacturer to build the rumored Amazon devices, and that at least one of the three devices is close to completion.

Amazon has yet to confirm the existence of the devices or even their development and sources say the final decision on moving the project to mass production has not even been decided yet.

The company's Prime service costs $79 per year and gives members free 2-day shipping on millions of items as well as free access to the company's large streaming library.

Tim Cook took to Twitter to celebrate the approval of Apple's new 'spaceship' campus.

The Cupertino City Council unanimously approved the development plans, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2015. Employees will start moving into the new campus by mid-2016.

Construction had been slated to start last year, but was delayed by budget concerns and the required approval by the council.

Cook's tweet:

Our home for innovation and creativity for decades to come. Cupertino City Council Gives Unanimous Approval for Apple's New Campus

-- Tim Cook (@tim_cook) October 16, 2013

After a recent controversy in which Google was asked to explain why their Google Fiber Internet connection banned servers, the company has updated their terms of service to explicitly allow home servers.

The original ToS had banned business servers and a Fiber FAQ stated that the "use of applications such as multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, home security and others which may include server capabilities but are being used for legal and non-commercial purposes are acceptable and encouraged." The issue was that Google's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) specifically said all servers were banned.

This has now been updated.

Reads the updated AUP: Customers can not "operate servers for commercial purposes. However, personal, non-commercial use of servers that complies with this AUP is acceptable, including using virtual private networks (VPN) to access services in your home and using hardware or applications that include server capabilities for uses like multi-player gaming, video-conferencing, and home security."

Despite reports that Microsoft was considering killing off the standard 'back' button in Windows Phone with the upcoming release of 8.1, the rumors are not entirely true.

The hardware requirement for the button is likely to disappear, but Microsoft will still replace that with an on-screen equivalent.

In addition, Microsoft is experimenting with removing the hardware requirement for Start and search, as well, as it will help OEMs save slightly on hardware costs. Those buttons will be replaced with virtual ones, as well.

The move will be well known to Android device owners, as they went through a similar transition starting in 2010.

Microsoft continues to test apps that use the back button to ensure functionality still works, before making a decision, say the sources.

Despite Microsoft ending support for its old Windows XP operating system, Google will not give up on their Chrome browser, issuing updates until at least April 2015 for XP users.

Google rightly notes that browsers are one of the major points of attack for malware, and keeping Chrome up-to-date might help XP users stay safe after Microsoft ends their security updates for the operating system.

Users with XP can only use up to Internet Explorer 8 if you want to stick with Microsoft, which is a heavily outdated browser in terms of functionality. Microsoft recently released IE11 for Windows 8.1.

Many business customers are still making the transition from Windows XP to Windows 7 (or in some rare cases, Windows 8), and Google's move may be a play on stealing away some Internet Explorer users while these transitions occur.

By most accounts, Windows XP is still the second most popular OS in the world, at around 30 percent share.

T-Mobile has confirmed that it will be retiring all grandfathered service plans and moving customers to its new Uncarrier/Simple Choice plans, along with new rates.

The carrier's statement:

"Maintaining thousands of rate plans is the norm in the industry, but we think it creates unnecessary complexity. Simple is better, which is why we're reducing the number of older plans in our systems. We're giving customers on these plans the opportunity to choose a plan that best meets their needs. For the vast majority, their plan will provide similar or better features at a comparable price."

Angry customers using plans from over five years ago have taken to forums to vent about the move, but the vast majority of customers will see little change to their current plans. In fact, T-Mobile has even discounted some plans for existing users, including one who posted the letter he received. (Below)

T-Mobile offers their Simple Choice Plan starting at $50 per month with unlimited voice, texting, international roaming and 500MB of 4G data (and throttled speeds after that).

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich says consumers should expect new lows in prices for their favorite electronics this holiday season.

The exec says he expects $99 tablets, $299 Haswell-based laptops, and $349 convertible hybrid tablets and laptops.

Bay Trail chips, the codename for the latest and most efficient processors, offer twice the built-in graphics capability and up to 50 percent better battery life than previous generation models and will be available by this holiday season.

"We continue to see touch adoption come along," Krzanich added, noting there will be 10 models available at $299 using the ultra-efficient chips.

According to the WSJ, Apple has slashed orders for the less popular iPhone 5C for the Q4.

Sources say Apple has told its two manufacturers to reduce orders, as it appears demand is not what was expected for the smartphone.

Apple released the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S last month in 11 markets, with a global expansion expected for this month and next. The flagship 5S features a 64-bit processor and a fingerprint scanner and sells for $100 more the iPhone 5C, which has last year's specs but new colorful backplates.

Pegatron and Hon Hai (the parent of Foxconn) will cut orders by 20 and 30 percent, respectively.

In addition, a component supplier was reportedly told that iPhone 5C part orders would be cut by 50 percent, suggesting that shipments will likely slow well into the new year.

On the other hand, Apple has been quickly increasing iPhone 5S orders ahead of the holiday.

Verizon Wireless has announced a new option for phone buyers, same-day shipping if you live in Philadelphia.

If you place an order before 10AM online during weekdays, you can have the phone delivered before 7PM that same day.

Same-day shipping does come at a premium price, $19.99, but Verizon was already charging $14.99 for next-day shipping for those in a rush.

The pilot program will roll out to New York City, San Francisco, Dallas, and Pittsburgh soon, as well.

Marvel is reportedly looking to extend their programming significantly, creating original shows for streaming services.

The report claims that Marvel has four different original TV shows and a miniseries totaling 60 episodes, that it will shop to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and others.

At this point, the initiative is still in its first stages, and there is no word on which characters the shows are based on or who will play said characters.

There is little doubt that original programming from Marvel will sell for a premium given the returns Marvel's movies and shows have brought in the past five years.

One of the most prolific software pirating scene groups, LineZer0 (Lz0), has retired from the scene this week.

First launched in 1999, the group says a four-year old leak has compromised their security and sent the group to an early retirement after over 30,000 releases. The group stuck mainly to software and games for handhelds like the iPad.

TorrentFreak reports that over the weekend, somebody in the scene released information "that was obtained as part of a security breach against Lz0 in 2009." Most of the data was related to long since closed sites and pirates that have left the scene, says the group, but they decided still to shut it down. "We've shared a long and fun road, and we're sad that this is how it ends," Lz0 noted.

Although the scene will miss the crew, another 10 groups will likely show up in its place.

Ubisoft has announced that it is delaying the launch of its highly anticipated 'Watch Dogs' game until next spring.

The game had originally been set for release on current-gen consoles on November 19th and on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One during their launch periods.

"We know a lot of you are probably wondering: Why now?" Ubi notes. "We struggled with whether we would delay the game. But from the beginning, we have adopted the attitude that we will not compromise on quality. As we got closer to release, as all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place in our last push before completion, it became clear to us that we needed to take the extra time to polish and fine tune each detail so we can deliver a truly memorable and exceptional experience."

In addition, Ubisoft says it is delaying their racing game 'The Crew' until next spring, as well.

Ubisoft did not respond to questions as to what would happen to Sony and Microsoft pre-order bundles with the game. It appears that those customers will likely be offered a plain console instead.

Nintendo has another certified hit on their hands, the latest in the blockbuster Pokemon franchise; Pokemon X and Pokemon Y.

The company says they have sold over four million copies in just 48 hours of availability around the world.

Says the gaming giant: "...when combining and comparing regional data for previous launches, Pokémon X and Pokémon Y would be the fastest-selling Nintendo 3DS games of all time and are tracking ahead of the last Pokémon RPG titles, Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2, by more than 70 percent."

The previous fastest-selling Pokemon titles were Diamond and Pearl, which hit 1.75 million units sold during its launch week in 2006.

There have been 34 million Nintendo 3DS handhelds sold to date, so the 4 million number is certainly significant given the small time frame. Nintendo has sold 245 million copies of Pokemon, starting with the original in 1996. The best selling is Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl, at 17.63 million for the DS followed by Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire at 16.22 million for the Game Boy Advanced.

A new Financial Times report claims that struggling smartphone maker HTC will build the oft-rumored Amazon phones.

Three devices are supposedly in development, with one "in the advanced stages" and near completion.

None of the devices are expected for this year, but 2014 seems like a strong possibility, says the report. One of the devices is expected to use a 3D interface, although little is known about what features it will employ.

HTC would not comment but did say, "We have been very focused on building our own brand, but we have also been very open to co-branding and collaborating with carriers and other technology brands."

The company could certainly use a victory, just weeks after it reported its first ever quarterly loss.

Apple has confirmed they will be holding an iPad press event on October 22nd, two weeks after the date was leaked by multiple online sources.

The company is expected to have a busy day planned, unveiling the Retina iPad Mini, the fifth-gen iPad, new Macbook Pros, and the release date and price of the powerful desktop Mac Pro.

In the invitation, Apple has left the tagline "We still have a lot to cover," giving credence to the fact they are expected to have lots of the aforementioned announcements.

The iPad Mini with Retina will likely be the biggest announcement, as the tablet is also expected to include the new Touch ID fingerprint scanner. The iPad Mini, a thinner, lighter 7.9-inch version of its flagship tablet, has become a huge hit since its launch last October.

As with most Apple launches, the tablets will likely go on sale on October 30th, a week after their unveil.

According to new a Juniper Research whitepaper, mobile device users continue to leave their phones and tablets unprotected from malware.

In fact, as much as 80 percent of smartphones remain unprotected, says the report.

This year, 325 million phones will have mobile malware protection installed, but Juniper believes that number will jump to 1.3 billion by 2018.

Android has become a major target for malware makers, due to its more open nature when compared to iOS and Windows Phone. Fortunately for the criminals, Android is the most popular operating system in the world, by a long shot.

After months of leaks, HTC has finally officially unveiled the HTC One Max.

The device boasts a 5.9-inch 1080p LCD display and HTC has kept the same aluminum look and feel of the smaller One smartphone.

Under the hood is an older 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (with a microSD slot for expansion) along with free 50GB Google Drive storage and a 3300mAh battery. The device also includes the UltraPixel camera from the One.

Making the device different is a fingerprint scanner on the back, which will allow you to log in using your own touch. So far, reviews have panned the scanner, claiming it does not work on par with Apple's Touch ID scanner.

The device runs on Android 4.3 with HTC's own Sense 5.5 user interface.

Apple has announced today that Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts will be joining the company as a senior vice president and member of the executive team, reporting directly to CEO Tim Cook.

Ahrendts will be in charge of "strategic direction, expansion and operation of both Apple retail and online stores," says the press release.

"I am thrilled that Angela will be joining our team," said Cook. "She shares our values and our focus on innovation, and she places the same strong emphasis as we do on the customer experience. She has shown herself to be an extraordinary leader throughout her career and has a proven track record."

"I am profoundly honored to join Apple in this newly created position next year, and very much look forward to working with the global teams to further enrich the consumer experience on and offline," said Ahrendts. "I have always admired the innovation and impact Apple products and services have on people's lives and hope in some small way I can help contribute to the company's continued success and leadership in changing the world."

Sony PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed that the upcoming PSP Vita 2000 model will lose Sony's own proprietary charger.

In its place will be a standard microUSB, which should allow for easier charging (and cheaper replacement chargers).

Sony has been moving towards standardized ports recently, on their smartphones and smartwatches.

The PCH-2000 model is so far only available in Japan.

Check the post here:

PS Vita 2000を使っていて何気に嬉しいのはMicro USBでスマホの充電器で充電出来ること。#充電ismylife pic.twitter.com/LvYhCbSKkB

-- Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) October 13, 2013

Sony has announced today that it will produce Netflix's latest original program, a one-hour psychological thriller.

The news is huge for Netflix as Sony is the first major Hollywood studio to produce original content for the streaming giant.

"We're willing to do different things and bet on the future," adds Steve Mosko, president of Sony Pictures Television. "We're pumped up--it's a challenge to show a major studio can be in business with one of these services."

There are little details known about the show, but the creators say it will explore "the complex bonds between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and the rivalries, jealousies, and betrayals at the core of every family."

Other studios are also said to be in talks to produce new content for the streaming service, including Fox and WB.

Although we have the letter available online, BlackBerry will post a message to its loyal users in 30 major news publications tomorrow spanning 9 countries.

The company hopes to calm down frazzled consumers and investors who literally have no idea whether the company will even exist when they wake up tomorrow.

BlackBerry is quick to back their security, productivity, EMM and social networking potential.

The letter in its entirety:

To our valued customers, partners and fans,

You've no doubt seen the headlines about BlackBerry. You're probably wondering what they mean for you as one of the tens of millions of users who count on BlackBerry every single day.

We have one important message for you:

You can continue to count on BlackBerry.

How do we know? We have substantial cash on hand and a balance sheet that is debt free.

We are restructuring with a goal to cut our expenses by 50 percent in order to run a very efficient, customer-oriented organization.

These are no doubt challenging times for us and we don't underestimate the situation or ignore the challenges. We are making the difficult changes necessary to strengthen BlackBerry.

One thing we will never change is our commitment to those of you who helped build BlackBerry into the most trusted tool for the world's business professional.

Read more...

Nokia is looking to boost Lumia sales in the UK by offering freebies including a subscription to Netflix.

One British retailer, 4u, is offering six months of free Netflix to Lumia buyers while major carrier Vodafone is offering up to 12 months of free Netflix depending on which Lumia you purchase.

"Nokia's Free Netflix Subscription promotion in conjunction with Vodafone and Phones 4u in the U.K. is just one example of a sustained program of marketing activities for the rest of year," a Nokia representative noted. "Nokia will continue to invest significantly in promoting its Lumia 1020 flagship devices in all media channels as well as working closely with our operator and retailer partners to deliver campaigns and propositions across our entire portfolio."

The company did not reveal what other promotions they would be offering with Lumia sales.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has announced this week that the government is working on a new secure email system that will shield official emails from spying by the NSA and other countries.

"We need more security on our messages to prevent possible espionage," Rousseff added.

The president has ordered the Brazilian Federal Data Processing Service, (SERPRO) to implement the system throughout the federal government. The agency has already created secure systems for online tax returns and is also in charge of new passports.

"This is the first step toward extending the privacy and inviolability of official posts," Rousseff noted. Rousseff recently filed official complaints against the NSA and other intelligence agencies at the United Nations General Assembly. The president's official communications were revealed in the media following leaks by Edward Snowden.

Rapper Daz Dillinger has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Rockstar Games, accusing the studio of using his tracks in Grand Theft Auto V without his permission.

The game features the tracks "C-Walk" and "Nothin' but the Cavi Hit."

Dillinger claims that the company offered him an "offensively" low $4,271 for use of the songs, which he declined.

The rapper says the C&D letter is about "respecting an artist's work. Rockstar didn't do that here and I can't let them get away with it." Dillinger demands that Rockstar pay him more for the songs or destroy all unsold copies of GTA V.

Cable pioneer and Liberty Media chairman John Malone has said today that the industry should join together to create a Netflix rival.

The companies could bundle the service with broadband, and lower programming costs, says Malone.

For example, Malone says Comcast's Xfinity video streaming product could one day be shared amongst the major cable companies and become a national brand. He also used HBO as an example, saying the network "has made us all rich."

Another possibility would be for Hulu to be "bought and syndicated" by cable companies. Hulu was up for sale this year before its owners decided to instead invest more and pull the auction.

Malone praised Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings, saying the service is now big enough to purchase exclusive national content at good prices. Cable has struggled to do the same. "The cable industry has been very slow (which has) created a window of opportunity to the over the top guys," he added.

Activision Blizzard has completed purchasing itself back from majority owner Vivendi after federal officials allowed the transaction to be completed.

The deal had been announced in July but was suspended in September after shareholders sued the company. Activision has purchased back 429 million shares for $5.83 billion.

In a separate transaction, an investment group led by Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and chairman Brian Kelly purchased 172 million shares for $2.34 billion.

With the purchase, the group now owns about 25 percent of the company. Vivendi will keep 83 million shares and a large 12 percent stake.

"With the completion of this transaction we open a new chapter in the history of Activision Blizzard," Kotick said in a statement. "We expect immediate shareholder benefits in the form of earnings-per-share accretion and strategic and operational independence. Our audiences and our incredibly talented employees around the world will benefit from a focused commitment to the creation of great games. Our shareholders and debt holders will have the benefit of an energized, invested, deeply committed management team focused on generating long-term, superior returns, and effectively managing our capital structure."

AT&T has confirmed that all new customers will only be able to buy Mobile Share data plans, which cost more but allow you to share data between multiple devices including tablets.

The new move will begin on October 25th with the elimination of all older plans. The company says it making such a move because its data-share plans are now its most popular, by far.

If you are an existing customer, you will remain grandfathered for life unless you decide to move to a data-share plan.

AT&T has faced increased competition from major rival Verizon and smaller rival T-Mobile, which has better prices and keeps increasing its phone selection and features.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has been great with Apple predictions and leaks, states that next year's sixth-generation iPad will have 40 percent higher pixel density than that of current models (including the yet-to-be released 2013 version), a huge boost.

There had been speculation that the next iPad could move away from the 9.7-inch form factor and get larger (such as 11.6-inches), but Kuo dismisses those rumors, at least for this year.

Kuo also discusses next year's iPad Mini successor (third-generation), and says that since this year's model will introduce a Retina display, there will be no resolution updates next year.

Apple will introduce its fifth-generation iPad and second-generation iPad Mini later this month on October 22nd.

Although Google has kept mum on the Android Jelly Bean update to its Google TV platform, it appears at least one team is working on it.

GTV Hacker team member CJ Heres has posted the open sourced code for LG's Google TV devices and a hacked ROM for the upcoming "Android TV" update (Jelly Bean).

The new ROM uses Linux 3.4.5, the same version as Jelly Bean, and is shown working on a Sony Google TV set-top. The ROM comes complete with NDK support and the ability to run a barebones XBMC (minus video streaming). Supposedly, the software was pulled from a Chinese Android device.

Google has confirmed that it will "bring the latest experience of Android and Chrome to devices," including Chromecast-esque features. There is still not timetable for this update.

Yahoo has acquired the young startup Bread, shutting down the service but integrating the tech and its employees.

Bread is a URL shortener that allowed users to make money through interstitial ads that promoted causes or products and was shown to people who clicked through links using Bread's URL shortener.

Both companies announced that Bread has shut down its service, and all links will go dead in the next 30 days. Yahoo recommends that if you still require shortening, use bit.ly.

Bread had raised $3.5 million since launching in 2011, and investors included Marc Ecko and Troy Carter.

CEO Alan Chan added: "When we launched Bread in 2011, our goal was to help social media influencers and publishers better monetize their online content. In Yahoo, we found a company that shares our vision. We are thrilled to join Yahoo's advertising team in Sunnyvale where we will be working on developing next-generation solutions for social and mobile publishers and advertisers."

Yahoo wrote in a statement: "We have acquired Bread, a company that created a simple way for social media influencers and publishers to monetize their content. The team's focus on delivering creative and targeted advertising across social media, desktop and mobile devices aligns perfectly with our mission to delight and inspire users."

Magnolia Pictures, an indie movie distributor in the U.S. has sent strange DMCA takedown requests to Google, asking the search giant to remove links to a few of their movie's IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes pages.

Thankfully, it appears that Google has refused to do so and has whitelisted many of the bigger sites.

Among the takedown requests are for URLs linking to a trailer and the IMDb listing of "Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie," the RT pages for "I Give It a Year" and "Mr. Nobody" and also a few news/blurb articles in Salon.

TorrentFreak says this not the first time Magnolia has done this, either. The distributor previously sent notices to remove Hollywood Reporter articles and other non-infringing links.

DMCA takedowns have become big business for Hollywood, with Google now removing up to 8 links per second.

Adam Boyes, Sony Computer Entertainment's VP of publisher and developer relations, has been quoted as saying video game exclusives serve little benefit.

"Right now exclusives are just a way for [console makers] to brag louder," said Boyes. "Nobody gains from exclusivity in perpetuity."

While exclusives certainly help to boost hardware sales, especially during new launches, Boyes says locking down games serve no benefit over the long run.

Sony has been big on exclusives, and now owns thirteen first-party studios including Naughty Dog, the maker of Uncharted, Last of Us, (and for some nostalgia, Crash Bandicoot). Additionally, it has paid a premium to indie studios to bring games to the PS4 before the Xbox One. That being said, Sony has also been encouraging multiplatform publishing, as they know having developers be successful is a win for everyone. "Developers now have the option to deliver on a huge number of platforms," Boyes noted. "We want developers to be successful."

As they do every year, Microsoft has unveiled new Xbox 360 holiday bundles for the U.S.

Microsoft has confirmed it will support the Xbox 360 for three more years, and there will be at least 100 new games released for the console in that time period.

The bundles are as follows:

250GB Holiday Bundle

The Xbox 360 250GB Holiday Value Bundle features two great games, Halo 4 and Tomb Raider, and 1 Month of Xbox Live Gold for a limited time this Holiday. Price: $299.99

4GB Kinect Holiday Bundle

The Xbox 360 4GB Kinect Holiday Value Bundle features two great games, Kinect Sports 2 and Kinect Adventures. It also includes 1 Month of Xbox Live Gold. Price: $299.99

250GB Kinect Holiday Bundle

The Xbox 360 250GB Kinect Holiday Value Bundle features three great games, Kinect Sports 2, Kinect Adventures, and Forza Horizon. It also includes 1 Month of Xbox Live Gold. Price: $399.99

Early this morning, a press release was distributed announcing Samsung's acquisition of Swedish fingerprint biometrics company Fingerprint Cards.

Both companies have since denied the report, but official news outlets like Business Wire are still hosting the release.

Fingerprint Card's Swedish customer operative, Helén Rigamonti responded to inquiries, stating that "we are looking into our procedures, but we followed all of our security procedures and we can't exactly tell you what happened as of now."

The acquisition would have made sense for Samsung, as its only real rival, Apple, recently unveiled the Touch ID fingerprint sensor for the iPhone 5S.

The Mercury News has posted some pictures of a model of Apple's upcoming 'spaceship' campus.

Apple has dubbed the building "Campus 2," and it is almost one mile in circumference with 3.1 million square feet.

The location will house an Office, Research and Development Building, a 1,000 seat Corporate Auditorium, a Corporate Fitness Center, 300,000 feet of Research Facilities, a Central Plant, a 150-acre interior courtyard and be home to 12,000 employees.

Located on a 175-acre plot of land bounded by North Wolfe Road and East Homestead Road, the structure will be completed in 2015 if the Cupertino City Council accepts the proposal on Oct. 15.

Multiple sources have reported that Nokia's oft-rumored 'Sirius' tablet is on its way, with a launch date set for the third week of November.

Sirius will officially be known as the Lumia 2520, and will be the rumored 10.1-inch Windows RT 8.1 device that has been spoken about for months now.

As is now standard, Nokia will price itself out of the market at $499, as there will be very little excitement for a Windows RT device that is priced the same as the latest iPad.

Although unconfirmed, it appears the device will have a 1080p display with ClearBlack polarizer technology, a quad-core Qualcomm 8974 (ARM) chipset, 32GB internal storage and 2GB RAM. On the software side, Nokia has had included some unique features such as "StoryTeller," allowing you to create full stories from your photos.

According to analytics firm Chitika, Chrome browser usage for iOS devices in North America has doubled since launch in June 2012, although the numbers are still tiny.

The Google browser has now jumped to 3 percent of iOS Web traffic, up from 1.5 percent when it launched.

Google should probably be excited by the growth as Apple has locked down its browser defaults, making Safari the go-to for any link you may click within an app.

Adds the firm: "While Chrome usage share on iOS devices rose only about 0.3 percentage points following September 22, keep in mind that iOS has an incredibly large existing user base meaning that usage changes need to be exceptionally great to cause a significant impact. In this realm, Google still has work to do, but the recent growth is a likely indicator that Chrome is regaining some traction in the iOS browsing space."

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai has revealed part of the company's plan to remain profitable into the future; smartphones.

For the immediate future, however, Sony has dropped out of the U.S. and Chinese smartphone markets, choosing to focus on Europe and Japan instead.

Currently, Japan and Europe account for 60 percent of the company's smartphone sales, and the company is the seventh largest smartphone maker in the world.

"Those two are the most important areas for us and we'll put substantial resources there. But not yet for the U.S. and China," Hirai noted. "It's not realistic to try to do everything at once. In the U.S. we'll start gradually."

Sony, despite building well-received devices, has practically no share in the U.S. Only T-Mobile USA even offers Sony devices in the States, and in China, it has priced itself out against competitors like ZTE.

For the fiscal year ended March 2014, Sony has set modest expectations for 42 million smartphone sales. The market leaders, Samsung and Sony, sold 218.2 million and 135.9 million phones respectively in their last fiscal year.

According to multiple reports, Apple will bring its iTunes Radio streaming service to Canada and the UK next year.

The service launched on September 18th alongside iOS 7.

Besides the aforementioned nations, New Zealand, Australia and some Nordic countries are expected to receive the platform, as well.

Canada would certainly be excited to receive the service, as Pandora, Spotify and Google Play All Access have never crossed the border due to licensing and royalty issues.

Apple reached 11 million unique iTunes Radio users after 5 days but has not revealed figures since.

Rockstar Games, which has been faced with server, gameplay and connection issues for its Grand Theft Auto V online multiplayer, will reward gamers with a $500,000 in-game cash "stimulus package."

While the GTA Online situation is now "much smoother (touch wood!)," the developer wants a way to start fresh with "players who experienced cloud server errors, connection issues, and lost game progress and characters."

Any gamer who has played the online mode since the game's launch will see the in-game cash deposited to their accounts in two separate $250,000 installments. The first will hit by the end of next week and the second will hit at the end of the month.

If you want to receive the cash, the developer notes that you will have to have to install a new update, one that will 'fix any remaining problems with game-progress and vehicle-purchase loss.'

Just hours after user manuals leaked online, Lenovo has confirmed it will soon be launching an Android-based notebook.

Dubbed the IdeaPad A10, the notebook will have a small 10.1-inch touchscreen display and run on the latest Android operating system.

The manuals say the device can be opened up to 300 degrees, and the keyboard will include the signature Android buttons for "home screen" and "back."

Given the leaked specs, the device is expected to be cheap. It runs on an ARM-based Rockchip quad-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, has 2GB RAM, 16GB or 32GB internal flash storage and a 0.3MP front-side camera. For connectivity, the device will include an HDMI port, USB ports and a microSD slot.

Despite Windows 8's growth over the past year, the operating system has not made a dent in the business market, at least not according to one major player.

Toshiba says 99 percent of its enterprise sales are for Windows 7 devices. The electronics maker, which has a 5.7 percent share of the global PC market, sold about 850,000 desktops and notebooks last quarter.

B2B product marketing manager at Toshiba, Cindy Zwerling, was asked about what their enterprise customers were doing ahead of the official April 2014 retirement of Windows XP.

"Windows 7 is clearly the enterprise operating system at this time," she added. "But there are pockets of the corporate population that use [detachable] tablets, and might be running Windows 8. But for your standard clamshell notebook? It's Windows 7."

"From a business perspective, I would say 99 percent of our sales are Windows 7," she concluded. "At this point, there are few exceptions in corporate America in the enterprise space for Windows 8."

Vonage has purchased VoIP company Vocalocity for $130 million.

The company will look to improve its position in the small-to-mid size enterprise business with the new acquisition.

Chief Executive Marc Lefar says the company will pay $105 million in cash and $25 million in stock and calls the move "transformative."

Vonage has 2.3 million VoIP/communications customers, but has a tiny presence in the lucrative business market. Vocalocity has 21,000 business customers, with the average customer paying $230 per month, well above what the average Vonage customer pays.

According to an in-depth report by Quartz, Foxconn forced almost 1000 engineering students to accept internship positions to build the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4.

The students, from the Xi'an Institute of Technology, were allegedly told that they would not graduate if they did not participate in the internship. The students were then forced to work night shifts and overtime in violation of company practices.

"Immediate actions have been taken to bring that campus into full compliance with our code and policies," Foxconn responded after an internal investigation. The company is also "reinforcing the policies of no overtime and no night shifts for student interns, even though such work is voluntary, and reminding all interns of their rights to terminate their participation in the program at any time."

This is not the first time Foxconn has been accused of forcing students to work under the threat of not graduating.

SimplyGames, the popular UK retailer, has been accused of profiteering over forcing customers to pay for an unofficial (and expensive) PS4 bundle if they want to keep their pre-orders.

Trading Standards, the group that enforces consumer related legislation in the UK, has said the practice is illegal and akin to profiteering. The group added that "swift injunctive action is needed" to block the retailer.

Earlier this week, SimplyGames shocked consumers by stating that anyone who pre-ordered a PS4 would need to pay £470 to stay in queue, being offered a number of bundles that are not affiliated with official Sony bundles.

"You can have a contract where the price agreed is the price at the time of delivery, such as a new car on a long waiting list. Here the seller cannot control the product price months down the line," says Trading Standards Institute (via CVG). "This appears to be profiteering. The seller is raising the price hoping people either drop out or pay more. If they drop out the seller can resell at a higher price to another customer. It is illegal and up to the Home Authority to intervene if the seller is UK based. This is one of those occasions when swift injunctive action is needed to prevent consumers being ripped off."

According to multiple reports, Apple is preparing to slash production on its iPhone 5C, moving down to 150,000 units per day from as much as 300,000 per day before launch.

By one measure, (China's gray market), the iPhone 5C has already been priced way down to $500, much lower than Apple's $725 retail price in the nation.

Apple said opening weekend they had sold 9 million new iPhones, but did not break down how many were iPhone 5S and how many were iPhone 5C.

Most reports claim at least 6 million of the devices sold were the higher-end 5S models.

Last week we reported that Microsoft had approached HTC in an effort to get the company to begin offering Android phones that can also dual-boot Windows Phone 8.

Microsoft is said to be dropping the licensing fee for Windows Phone significantly, if not outright removing it, if the OEMs will agree to such a situation.

New reports state that the software giant has now approached Samsung and Huawei, as well, with similar propositions.

Samsung, the report states, is actually working on such a device, a dual-boot tablet that will offer Android and Windows RT, and interesting development.

In addition, the new reports states that along with dropping the licensing fee, Microsoft will compensate companies for any "necessary adaptation costs."

T-Mobile, which continues to be far-and-away the most consumer-friendly wireless carrier in the U.S., has unveiled its latest service, free unlimited international data and text services starting at the end of this month.

For customers with the new T-Mobile Simple Choice plans, the international roaming is free in over 100 countries, including countries that cover "pretty much everywhere people travel, about 95 percent of where people go."

Besides free data and texting, you can also make voice calls at 20 cents per minute. International roaming has historically been one of the bigger scams in the wireless industry with other carriers charging up to $18.99 per megabyte, and 15 cents per text sent or received.

T-Mobile does admit that the data will be very slow 2G speeds, just 128KB/s on average, good enough for emails, quick social networking, GPS mapping and basic music streaming but not too much else. You can upgrade to 3G roaming for a price, with daily, weekly, and two-week packages available.

Ubisoft has released the PC requirements for 'Watch Dogs,' after an incorrect leak last week led to confusion.

One of the most notable requirements is a 64-bit OS.

Requirements (via CVG):

Minimum requirements:

Supported OS: Windows Vista SP2 64bit, Windows 7 SP1 64bit, Windows 8 64bit
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66Ghz or AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0Ghz
RAM: 6 GB
Video Card: 1024 VRAM DirectX 11 with Shader Model 5.0
Sound Card: DirectX 9 compatible Sound Card
This product supports 64-bit operating systems ONLY.

Recommended requirements:

Processor: Core i7 3770 @ 3.5Ghz or AMD FX-8350 @ 4.0Ghz
RAM: 8 GB
Video Card: 2048 VRAM DirectX 11 with Shader Model 5.0 or higher
Sound Card: Surround Sound 5.1 capable sound card
Supported video cards at time of release:
nVidia GeForce GTX460 or better, GT500, GT600, GT700 series
AMD Radeon HD5850 or better, HD6000, HD7000, R7 and R9 series
Intel Iris Pro HD 5200.

Apple has announced global launch dates for the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S.

The devices will hit 35 new countries in the next month.

Here is the full list for October 25th:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, French West Indies, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Reunion Island, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand.

Albania, Armenia, Bahrain, Colombia, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, India, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

The Anonymous-affiliated pro-Palestinian group KDMS has attacked the websites of WhatsApp, AVG, Avira and Alexa over the last 24 hours.

While claiming responsibility for the attacks, the group defaced the sites with messages that ended with "long live Palestine."

All the sites were hosting by Network Solutions, who is also a domain name registrar.

Avira, the Internet security group, was quick to respond: "It appears that our account used to manage the DNS records registered at Network Solutions has received a fake password-reset request not being initiated by anyone at Avira. Network Solutions appears to have honored this request and allowed a third party to assume control of our DNS."

Later in the day, KDMS also claimed responsibility for an attack on the massive hosting company Leaseweb.

While the DNS redirections and cyber vandalism are relatively harmless, there is the bigger issue of whether there was an data leaked, including emails. So far, there is no indication as to whether any data has been leaked.

In a very brief period of time, Rockstar's latest blockbuster, 'Grand Theft Auto V' has shattered entertainment records and made its way into the Guinness World Records book.

The hit game sold 11 million copies in its first 24 hours of availability, leading to $1 billion in sales within 3 days.

Among the records it has smashed are highest revenue generated by an entertainment product in 24 hours, the fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion, the best-selling video game in 24 hours, the best-selling action adventure game in 24 hours, the fastest video game to gross $1 billion, and highest grossing video game in 24 hours.

The previous owners of many of those records were Grand Theft Auto IV and the Call of Duty series.

"GTA totally deserves to be recognised as an icon of modern British culture," noted Guiness World Records editor-in-chief, Craig Glenday. "Gaming is no longer a niche hobby, as GTA 5 has proved, and how exciting that it's taken on the might of Hollywood and won. I'm also doubly proud as a Dundonian to welcome this home-grown series back into the Guinness World Records book."

According to multiple reports, Apple will unveil their new iPads at a press event on October 22nd, just a month after unveiling the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

Additionally, the company is expected to unveil more details of the Mac Pro and the latest operating system, Mac OS X Mavericks.

The fifth-generation iPad will be thinner and lighter and run on the new Apple A7 chip with 64-bit processing.

Perhaps more importantly for the company, the second-generation iPad Mini is expected to upgrade to a Retina display, use a variant of the A7 and add the new Touch ID fingerprint sensor, making it a heavyweight in the industry.

More news when the date is confirmed by the company.

Sony has confirmed that the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4 DualShock 4 controller will work with Windows PCs and Windows games right out of the box.

Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida confirmed the news via his Twitter stream. (Embedded below)

The exec says that basic functions such as the analog sticks and buttons will work without issue. The more advanced features of the controller, such as the touch pad and motion sensors, were not mentioned, but will likely not work at launch as Sony really has no reason to invest in such functionality.

Sony has not used Xinput in the past, like Microsoft does for their Xbox controllers, so it is unclear whether Windows PCs will recognize the DS4 as a DS4 or as a generic controller.

@Napo2k for basic functions, yes

— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) October 4, 2013

Multiple Korean sources are reporting that Samsung will be first to market with a flexible, curved display smartphone.

The tech giant could launch the phone as early as this week, with the tentative name "Galaxy Round."

By using a plastic panel, the display will be more durable and cheaper to produce. The device could also feature the thinnest bezel of any smartphone, due to its flexibility.

It is unclear how much the Round will cost, but it is expected to specs similar to the recently unveiled Galaxy Note 3.

LG today announced they would be building a 6-inch curved display for launch in November. The race is on.

Despite skipping cameras with optical image stabilization (OIS) for their current generation of devices, Samsung appears to be working on new modules for next year's flagship devices.

The company has revealed a new 13MP camera with OIS and improved low-light performance.

GSMA says the new "module can correct up to 1.5°," beating out the HTC One's camera at 1°.

In addition, the low-light performance for video and stills are up to eight times better than current models.

The module will go into mass production in the early months of next year.

Valve has unveiled the specs for its upcoming Linux-based Steam Machine console.

The company is only releasing 300 prototype consoles this year, with the intent of getting PC-based gaming into the living room.

Ranging from low-end to extremely high-end, the prototypes will run on either an Intel Core i7-4770 (4x3.5-3.9GHz, 8MB L3, 22nm, 84W), and Intel Core i5-4570 (4x3.2-3.6GHz, 6MB L3, 22nm, 84W) or an Intel Core i3 (unspecified).

The boxes will come with 16GB of DDR3-1600 RAM and internal storage of 1TB/8GB hybrid drives.

For graphics the cards will range from the high-end GeForce GTX Titan (2688 CUDA cores, 837-876MHz, 6GHz GDDR5), the mid-range GeForce GTX 780 (2304 CUDA cores, 863-900MHz, 6GHz GDDR5) and GeForce GTX 760 (1152 CUDA cores, 980-1033MHz, 6GHz GDDR5) to the lower-end GeForce GTX 660 (960 CUDA cores, 980-1033MHz, 6GHz GDDR5).

Future versions of the console will be user upgradeable, a major differentiation from the PlayStation and Xbox, which only allow storage upgrades, at most.

For the first time in a decade, sales of digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) have fallen, following the trend of other standalone point-and-shoot cameras, which have long fallen prey to improving smartphone cameras.

"You're talking about a 10-15% decline [in DSLR shipments] all over the world. Which is kind of shocking because that market's been growing double digits for almost ten years," says Christopher Chute, market intelligence firm IDC's research director of worldwide digital imaging.

Chute adds that the global digital camera sales declines are accelerating every quarter, with shipments in the Q2 falling 36 percent to 19.2 million. DSLR shipments fell 10.9 percent in the quarter to just 4 million.

Broken down by brand, Fujifilm and Sony are down 35 percent year-over-year, Canon is down 23 percent and Nikon is down 18.2 percent.

An angry shareholder has filed a class action lawsuit against BlackBerry, claiming that the company misled its investors about the future.

The suit will represent all shareholders who purchased BlackBerry stock between September 27th, 2012 and September 20th, 2013.

In the suit, shareholder Marvin Pearlstein alleges that 'executives misrepresented the state of BlackBerry's operations, including how well the BlackBerry 10 line of smartphones would fare against Android and iPhone.

Pearlstein says the company misled its investors last year by saying they were "progressing on its financial and operational commitments," and that BlackBerry 10 was being well-received by developers and carriers. "In reality, the BlackBerry 10 was not well received by the market, and the company was forced to ... lay off approximately 4,500 employees, totaling approximately 40% of its total workforce," the complaint reads.

Last September, BlackBerry shares reached lows at under $6 per share, but rebounded by February to over $17 per shares. They have since collapsed to $8 per share.

Clearly not seeing the backlash that was brought upon Yahoo when they began doing the same, Microsoft has begun recycling older, inactive Live, Outlook and Hotmail email accounts.

Perhaps worse, the company has not mentioned such practices in their service agreements although it does read that you must log in "periodically, at a minimum of every 270 days, to keep the Microsoft branded services portion of the services active" otherwise your "access may be canceled."

Following reports that it has begun recycling emails, Microsoft confirmed that is the new policy. "The email account is automatically queued for deletion from our servers. Then, after a total of 360 days, the email account name is made available again," says the software giant.

Yahoo was criticized for a similar move, as many new users still received emails that were addressed to the old user of the account, including sensitive information from Web services.

Google, owner of the second most popular email service on the Web, Gmail, says they will never recycle inactive or deleted accounts: "Once you delete your Gmail address, you won't be able to use that same username (username@gmail.com) in the future."

According to a longer form NYT article, the original iPhone cost Apple at least $150 million to develop and would have seriously hurt the company had it not been successful.

In the report, a senior Apple exec is quoted as saying the company spent over $150 million to develop the device, which was released in 2008.

Besides just the monetary investment, there was also a huge time and opportunity cost, as the company placed its best engineers on the project. Reads the article, "Many top engineers in the company were being sucked into the project, forcing slowdowns in the timetables of other work."

By moving the top engineers to the iPhone project, it caused rifts in other divisions. Says one hardware engineer who was in charge of the radios in the iPhone, "It was a big '[expletive] you' to the people who couldn't get in [to work on the iPhone]. Everyone knows who the rock stars are in a company, and when you start to see them all slowly get plucked out of your area and put in a big room behind glass doors that you don't have access to, it feels bad."

Thanks to leaked LG internal service manuals, we now have even more specs for the upcoming Google Nexus 5.

The pictures of the manual have been taken down by LG, lending to their credibility.

Here are the specs:

4.95" 1080p display (IPS TFT for those interested)
32GB internal storage
2GB RAM
MSM8974 aka Snapdragon 800 at 2.3GHz
8MP OIS rear camera, 1.3MP front camera
2300mAh battery
Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Proximity/Ambient Light, Pressure
Slimport compatibility
Micro SIM slot
Notification light
Wireless charging
NFC
Bluetooth 4.0
UMTS/GSM/CDMA/LTE compatibility

BlackBerry, which recently received a $4.7 billion offer sheet, has also been in talks with Cisco, Google and SAP about bids for either the entire company or parts.

The first offer, by Fairfax Financial Holdings, is dependent on whether they can get the partners and financing to take the company private. So far, shareholders have met that bid with skepticism, but Fairfax seems confident and has put a large breakup fee in place should it not be able to pull through.

In addition, Intel, LG and Samsung are said to have fleeting interest in pieces of the company.

It appears that most of the interested parties are looking to BlackBerry's secure server network and patent portfolio, although the value of the divisions are still in a wide range. The value of the licensing agreements are expected to be cut in half in the next 18 months, and half of BlackBerry's $3 billion in cash is expected to be used through in the next 18 months, as well, meaning any buyer should just bide their time.

Microsoft, which for years has touted its Security Essentials anti-virus package, has now said users should use third-party applications on top of MSE, as it will never be the best option.

In an interview, the company admits it has turned its AV app into a "baseline program," and that the app will "always be on the bottom" of the AV software rankings, where it has languished in the last two years after a few years on top.

Microsoft also adds that "the company is just sharing its virus tracking findings with the security industry so they can develop better antivirus programs."

MSE (or Windows Defender in Windows 8) has always been an extremely light-weight app, and it was popular for not being annoying like more commercial programs like McAfee and Norton.

A few great free options if you want to move away from MSE are Avira, Avast and AVG.

Rockstar Games has posted an update for gamers who have been frustrated by bugs plaguing the online experience of GTA V.

The servers appear to be overwhelmed, and the recently launched multiplayer mode for PS3 and Xbox 360 has seen slow load times for many.

Reads the post:

-For PlayStation 3 users, a PlayStation Network server issue was detected that was limiting the amount of possible concurrent users. This was preventing most players from accessing GTA Online altogether and as of this morning, that problem was resolved.

-There is an issue that is preventing some players from getting through the first tutorial mission across both platforms. Many players have been able to get through this with repeated retries, and we are working on unblocking this for everyone as soon as possible.

-This morning, we experienced some instability across the GTA Online services which is affecting even people who have progressed beyond the tutorial mission. We are identifying these issues now and are working to restore stability for users as soon as possible.

Read more...

According to Bloomberg, Microsoft has approached struggling smartphone maker HTC, asking them about adding Windows Phone to their Android devices.

Supposedly, Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft's operating systems unit, is asking to have Windows Phone loaded as a dual-boot option on HTC's Android smartphones, with Microsoft even going as fat as to eliminate the licensing fee for the operating system.

The talks are preliminary, and could go nowhere, say the sources. HTC, which was the first company to make a Windows Phone, has not released one since June and there are no current plans for any into the future.

Microsoft owns around 4 percent of the global smartphone market, and some of its Nokia Lumia phones have become hits in their own right. It is clear, however, that the company will need to make drastic concessions (like making Windows Phone a second option) if it wants to control more share.

Just two weeks after the phone launched, Best Buy has already dumped the price of the Apple iPhone 5C.

Until October 7th, the device will sell for $50 with contract after using a gift card, a 50 percent discount from its MSRP.

With all new purchases, customers will get a $50 gift card that can be applied to the same purchase. The gift card deal is also extended to Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

"We view ourselves as a company that offers consumers something they can't get anywhere else -- all the phones, all the plans, all the carriers -- and look for any opportunity to delight our customers," says Sandra Tollefson, a Best Buy official.

Walmart and Target have already dropped the price of the devices, to $79 with contract.

Read our review here: Review: The colorful 'new' iPhone 5C

Apple and Samsung are once again in a legal spat.

The Cupertino giant has accused Samsung of 'unlawfully obtaining sensitive information about the terms and conditions of its 2011 patent license agreement with Nokia' and is now seeking sanctions.

In the motion, Apple claims that Dr. Seungho Ahn, a Samsung executive, knew the terms of the settlement and leveraged that knowledge to 'negotiate other potential patent settlements in Samsung's favor.' In the complaint, Apple says the licensing terms were given to Samsung's lawyers clearly marked "Highly Confidential -- Attorneys' Eyes Only", but the files were shared anyways.

During a meeting between Samsung and Nokia on June 4, 2013 to discuss a patent license deal, Dr. Ahn "informed Nokia that the terms of the Apple-Nokia license were known to him" and then stated that "Apple had produced the Apple-Nokia license in its litigation with Samsung, and that Samsung's outside counsel had provided his team with the terms of the Apple-Nokia license."

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer received $1.26 million in pay and incentives for fiscal 2013, despite taking a dock in pay for the Surface's failures.

The exec's base salary was $697,500, and the bonus was $550,000. The incentive bonus was only 79 percent of the total for which he was eligible. Last year, Ballmer received 91 percent of his eligible bonus.

Reads the company's proxy statement:

The companyfaced challenges due to weakness in the consumer PC market. While the launch of Windows 8 in October 2012 resulted in over 100 million licenses sold, the challenging PC market coupled with the significant product launch costs for Windows 8 and Surface resulted in an 18% decline in Windows Division operating income. Slower than anticipated sales of Surface RT devices and the decision to reduce prices to accelerate sales resulted in a $900 million inventory charge.

Netflix for iOS has been updated this week, adding a couple of notable new features.

If you are running iOS 7, you will now have access to HD streams and AirPlay support.

Earlier this year, Netflix added 1080p streaming support to Android devices and now your iPad and iPhone will have the same.

Adds the streaming giant: "With our latest app, you can now also start streaming over AirPlay. This new feature is very simple and works on all iOS 7 devices. You can choose a title to watch on your iPhone or iPad and start playback. If there is an Apple TV device connected to the same Wifi network, an AirPlay icon appears. Press the AirPlay icon and playback will move to your Apple TV."

Additionally, you can use you iOS device as a remote control for the Apple TV during Airplay.

Adobe has confirmed that cyber attackers got the best them, with an exploit leading to data on nearly 3 million customers being compromised.

Besides 2.9 million Adobe IDs and passwords being stolen, full customer names, encrypted credit/debit card numbers, and expiration dates were also compromised for many of the customers.

Additionally, "source code for numerous Adobe products" was also stolen in the attacks.

Reads the company's release:

Our investigation currently indicates that the attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our systems. We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders. At this time, we do not believe the attackers removed decrypted credit or debit card numbers from our systems. We deeply regret that this incident occurred. We're working diligently internally, as well as with external partners and law enforcement, to address the incident. We're taking the following steps:

Read more...

According to sources, Google is planning on releasing a native Google Music app for iOS as soon as this month.

Google Music, along with its new Music All Access streaming service, have been noticeably absent from iOS since launch. Google Play allows you to save all your music in the cloud, and stream it from Android devices or on the web. It also allows you to download your music back whenever you log in to your Google account. All Access is similar to Spotify in which you get access to millions of songs to stream, at home and on mobile devices.

The sources say Google is still internally testing the app, but it should launch by the end of the month.

For the time being, there are a couple of unofficial apps in the App Store, and you can always use the limited Web application if desperate. Both options are not great at this point, however.

After hinting at an IPO filing via Twitter last month, the company has made their filing public and in turn revealed key statistics about their operations.

The company will trade with the ticker TWTR, and the filing reveals hope that the company can raise $1 billion in its initial offering, with stock valuing the company at around $15 billion.

Filed as an S-1 thanks to the recently signed JOBS Act, companies with less than $1 billion in annual revenue can file confidentially and they only need two years of audited financial statements and historical financial data. Without the Act, the company would have needed three years and five years of the documentation, respectively.

In its IPO, Twitter states it has over 200 million monthly active users, and 500 million tweets per day. Revenue jumped from 2011 to 2012 by nearly 200 percent, up to $315.9 million. The companies losses decreased by 38 percent, to $79.4 million. Since inception, the company has lost slightly over $400 million but still has $375 million in cash on hand.

Evan Williams, one of the company's founders, will be the big winner in the IPO. Owning 12 percent of outstanding shares, Williams is expected to become a billionaire overnight. A few other firms and individuals will net $300 million or more in profits on the IPO.

Thirteen alleged members of Anonymous have been indicted this week due to their part in "Operation Payback," a series of attacks in which the group avenged The Pirate Bay and Wikileaks.

The thirteen are charged with attacks between September 2010 and January 2011 on the MPAA, RIAA, Bank of America, Visa and Mastercard. The defendants are charged with organizing the DDoS attacks on the websites of the major corporations.

Anonymous attacked the MPAA and RIAA for their parts in getting The Pirate Bay banned in numerous countries, and the financial institutions were attacked because they began blocking funds to Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange.

Reads the indictment: "The defendants planned and executed a coordinated series of cyber-attacks against victim websites by flooding those websites with a huge volume of irrelevant Internet traffic with the intent to make the resources on the websites unavailable to customers and users of those websites."

Kevin Packingham, the chief product officer for Samsung Mobile, has abruptly left the company.

Packingham was directly involved in introducing the Galaxy S and Note lines. The company did not provide any details on whether the exec left voluntarily or not.

All the company would say is: "Kevin Packingham has departed Samsung Mobile. We thank Kevin for his contributions and wish him well in his future endeavors."

During his two years with the company, Packingham was involved in the negotiations that brought the Galaxy S3 to all the major carriers. He was able to do so by telling the carriers that Samsung would do all the marketing investment for their device, guaranteeing the devices would be hits.

"The change that happened was it took a lot of burden off the carriers," Mr. Packingham said earlier this year. "People were coming into their stores and they didn't have to pay for that demand."

In February, Google announced the Pixel Chromebook, a touchscreen notebook with the 'highest resolution screen, ever."

Consumers may have been impressed by the specs, but not by the price, as the Pixel retails with a $1300 price tag, simply too much for a computer that becomes a lot less useful when you don't have an Internet connection.

Caesar Sengupta, vice president of product management for Chromebooks, has confirmed that high sales were never in the cards for the Pixel. "Big sales were never the broad goal for the Pixel," he added. Google really intended the device to be a high-end touchscreen reference device to inspire developers to build touch-enabled Chrome apps.

When the device first launched, Google even noted that it was aimed at "power users who have fully embraced the cloud."

Chromecast, Google's recent launched $35 Wi-Fi HDMI dongle, has added Hulu Plus support, a huge boost for the platform.

Hulu Plus, which costs $8 per month, gives access to thousands of episodes from Fox, ABC and NBC including the latest episodes aired during the week.

The new move does come with one condition, however; you must be using an Android or iPad tablet or an Android smartphone app to Chromecast. Unlike Netflix, where you can cast from within the Chrome browser, as well, you cannot do so with Hulu.

iPhone is currently not supported.

As of this week, the Hulu apps have updated and now include the Cast button within the viewing window.

Netflix has confirmed another expansion to their streaming catalog, adding new seasons of popular shows.

The service has added the final seasons of both "The Office" and "30 Rock," alongside the latest seasons of Parenthood and Parks and Rec.

Netflix has an ongoing deal with NBC, last updated in 2011.

If you are a superfan of the show, you can now binge watch all 192 episodes of The Office, start to finish, and all 135 episodes of 30 Rock.

For the time being, the updated seasons are available only in the U.S.

Late last month, Apple unveiled two new iPhones for their loyal consumers, the iPhone 5C and the iPhone 5S.

The 5S would be the new flagship device while the iPhone 5C would take the place of the iPhone 5 at a lower price point. The "C" in 5C stands for "communication" but it might as well stand for color as the device was made to stand out with a new lineup of colorful models.

Apple has used their marketing muscle (and let's face it, genius) in creating the iPhone 5C, which is not a new device at all, but it is certainly made to look and feel like one. When launched with the updated iOS 7, which in itself is more colorful and refined, Apple does a fine job of making a repackaged iPhone 5 seem like a brand new phone.

On to the phone itself, continue with our review to see if the device is worth your $99 (on contract), or $550 (off contract).

There have been a fair share of Apple iWatch rumors over the years, but only a few have really ever stuck.

One of those is that the company will almost certainly use a flexible OLED screen for the wearable device, and today we have another report claiming the same.

Chosun Ilbo reports that Apple has been prototyping the flexible displays, and that "a prototype of the 1.5-inch has already been made."

Additionally, 1.3 and 1.4 inch devices are being tested, as well.

As always, Apple has never confirmed the existence of the watch, which means it is definitely in the works, potentially with a 2014 release date.

The popular torrent tracker H33t.eu has gone dark.

Once a very popular site, the original H33t was taken down after court orders were obtained by Universal Music Group for copyright infringement.

In fact, H33t.com's nameservers were completely wiped from the domain records of its domain registrar Key-Systems, says TF.

The nameservers for the .EU doimain have been deleted, as well, and the site remains down.

A few commenters on the original source have found ways to access the files, but they require a workaround.

According to Quartz, Twitter will make its IPO filing public this week.

The social network filed with regulators on September 12th to go public, but it did so confidentially and with no timetable. The "S1" it filed is available for companies with under $1 billion in revenue.

Twitter is expected to be valued as high as $15 billion.

Sources say Twitter will pick the NYSE over the Nasdaq for its IPO, following Nasdaq's disastrous handling of the Facebook IPO last year.

If all goes well, Twitter will be a publicly traded company before the week of November 28th.

As the company continues to prove that it can do nothing right, BlackBerry has announced that it is still committed to releasing BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for Android and iOS despite a failed launch a week ago.

The company had planned to launch the app last week, but it only made its way to the Australian iOS App Store before being pulled. A leaked Android .APK also broke the company's servers. Since then, the company has stayed mum on details of the app, leaving fans in the dark.

Today, BlackBerry gave a little update on the app:

Still 100% committed to bringing #BBM to Android and iPhone. Sign up at http://t.co/mr8J7pUDAT to know when #BBM4All

-- BBM (@BBM) September 30, 2013

Toshiba has announced today that it will layoff 3000 from its struggling TV division, a full 50 percent of the employees in that division.

In addition, the company will end production at two of its three overseas factories. It was unclear whether its factories in China, Indonesia or Poland would be the ones being closed.

Outsourced production would be increased by 100 percent, and 400 staff members that are being moved to other business units.

Toshiba's TV division has been losing money for two years straight due to weak sales for new devices in Europe and also at home, in Japan. The company recently announced it would cut back over $100 million in costs between its PC and TV divisions in 2013, and then double that figure next year.

According to TorrentFreak, the 'Breaking Bad' finale set a record for most pirated downloads in its first 12 hours of availability online.

Over 500,000 downloaded and shared the episode via just a few popular torrent sites, with most of the downloaders coming from Australia, the U.S. and UK.

"Data gathered by TorrentFreak shows that 12 hours after the first copy of the episode appeared online, more than half a million people has grabbed a copy through one of many torrent sites. Never before have so many people downloaded a Breaking Bad episode, making it a strong contender for a top spot in our most-pirated TV-shows of the year chart," the site wrote.

Despite being available live on TV in the U.S., TF believes most still find downloads more convenient: "One of the explanations for this defiant behavior is that these downloaders simply prefer to torrent the show out of habit. As reported earlier, even among those who have a Netflix subscription, many prefer to grab a copy via torrent sites as they find it more convenient."

Alleged internal documents from Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo appear to reference the oft-rumored Sony Xperia Z1 Mini.

The company recently launched the 'Honami' Xperia Z1, but following in the footsteps of other manufacturers, there will be a 'mini' version of the device.

In the documents, the phone is referenced to as the 'Sony Xperia Z1 f.'

The phone will be powered by a quad-core 2.2 GHz Snapdragon 800 and include the difference making 20.7 MP camera. The display will be much smaller, at 4.3" (720p) compared to the full-sized 5" 1080p display of the Z1. The phone will also be 127 x 64.9 x 9.4 mm vs 144 x 74 x 8.5 mm and the battery will be significantly smaller at 2300 mAh vs 3000 mAh.

Reports are coming in this week that Microsoft's Internet Explorer zero-day (CVE-2013-3893), which remains unpatched, has been exploited for at least three months now.

Microsoft first acknowledged the vulnerability earlier this month, and has issued one of their "Fix It" tools to help contain the dangers until a full patch is released.

Researchers at FireEye say the attacks can be tied to a Chinese hacking group and the attacks have been aimed at Japanese organizations.

Says researcher Alex Watson of Websense: "Our ThreatSeeker Intelligence Cloud reported a potential victim organization in Taiwan attempting to communicate with the associated malicious command and control server as far back as July 1, 2013. These C&C communications predate the widely-reported first use of this attack infrastructure by more than six weeks, and indicates that the attacks from this threat actor are not just limited to Japan."

"Websense Threat Intelligence indicates that the threat actor's attacks were not limited only to Japan as previously reported. The use of separate IP addresses, domain registrations, and permutations to dropper locations indicates a high degree of segmentation between attacks and different teams using the same tool sets, exploits and C&C infrastructure."

Lenovo has unveiled their Vibe Z flagship device today, following the launch of the Vibe X at this year's IFA event.

The Z has a metal body but a similar design to its older brother, and the company has said the phone is aimed at young adults outside of China.

On the spec side, the Vibe Z has a large 5.5" display with 1080p resolution, is powered by a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset, 2GB RAM and an Adreno 330 GPU.

At launch, the device will run on Android 4.2.2.

For cameras, the device has a 13MP rear sensor with LED flash, and the front has an overkill 5MP sensor. Overall, the phone is just 6.9mm thick.

According to Korean daily Hankyung, Apple is going to cut down Samsung's share of building the upcoming A8 chip used in the future iPhone 6 and future iPads.

Supposedly, most of the manufacturing will now be done by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), with the company to be responsible for up to 70 percent, with the rest covered by Samsung.

Despite years of rumors that Apple is looking to take away share from its biggest rival, that so far has not come to fruition.

Samsung was the main manufacturer of the new A7 64-bit processor, and is the only company that can easily fulfill full Apple orders.

Apple signed the deal with TSMC in June.