News written by Andre Yoskowitz (December, 2013)

Chinese security firm Silenstd has posted proof that the Nokia Lumia 920 has been jailbroken.

Silenstd posted a video sent to them from a Chinese hacker called "POANDSOUL," who is allegedly creating a Cydia-esque app store for the Windows Phone platform. Cydia is the popular app store built for jailbroken iPhones and iPads which allows for developers to create apps that do not have to go through Apple's stringent rules.

The hack can be enabled through the phone's micro USB port, and will not require hardware mods.

If real, it could be a game changer for Windows Phone, which is a well received operating system that cannot really compete with Android or iOS due to lack of apps.

Samsung has begun offering a new massive 110-inch Ultra HDTV in South Korea that will go on sale around the globe soon with a price tag of $150,000.

The TV is the size of a king-sized bed and the Ultra HD resolution has 8 million pixels, four times that of 1080p displays.

China and the Middle East will get the device in the next 30 days, say the reports, followed by other major nations in the "next 9 weeks."

While consumer demand is not expected to be too high, especially given the price tag (not to mention the size) but Samsung is also targeting government agencies and other corporations that need large displays for video conferencing.

Even so, Samsung says it has already received 10 orders for the set in the Middle East.

Netflix has confirmed that it is testing a single-user standard definition streaming plan that will cost $6.99 per month.

The standard streaming plans cost $7.99 per month and allow users to to watch SD and HD streams on two devices at one time.

TechCrunch notes that the plan will likely be used primarily by smartphone users, where an SD stream will not make too much of a difference from an HD stream given the smaller screen.

Netflix does say that while it is testing the service, there is a chance that it will not go live for everyone.

HTC has released a long and thorough infographic explaining the update process for your Android devices and why they usually take a really, really long time.

Titled "The anatomy of an Android OS update," HTC shows off either the 8, 9 or 12 step process to get an update and includes carrier device updates, unlocked device updates and Google Play/Nexus edition updates.

One of the biggest criticisms of Android has been its fragmentation, exemplified by Android 2.3 (which was released in early 2011) still having 24 percent share of the Android market.

Check the infographic here:

After being unveiled at the Nokia World 2013 event in October, Nokia's 6-inch Lumia 1320 has gone on sale in China this week, soon to be followed by Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and others.

The device features a 6" 720 x 1280 pixel supersensitive IPS-LCD panel with Gorilla Glass 3 protection and 245ppi. Under the hood is a 1.7 GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400, 1 GB of RAM and a tiny 8 GB of internal memory that will need to be expanded with the microSD slot. The 1320 has a 5 MP camera with flash on the back but no front-side camera.

For connectivity, the device has 4G LTE and HSPA+ capability along with all other standards. To power the massive screen, the 1320 has a 3400 mAh battery.

Roku set-top boxes, popular due to their small size, relatively cheap prices, and access to numerous streaming services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, League Pass and many more, have been rooted, at least temporarily.

While the company is open to developers and custom channels, the hardware itself has stayed secure and locked down; at least until this week.

The GTVHacker team known for cracking the Google TV software found a way to root the Roku 2 and Roku 3 and run its own commands as root. The team says they used development password field to get in.

Roku 2 boxes remain rooted even after reboots due to a modification of the initial boot loader. The Roku 3 requires the commands every boot due to having updated software. The Roku 2 will be able to run XBMC once it is ported, which the team expects will be rather soon.

According to a new Der Spiegel report, the NSA's elite hacking unit (TAO), in collaboration with the CIA and FBI, intercept deliveries of laptops and other computer accessories in order to implant spyware, keyloggers and other hardware bugs.

The TAO can divert deliveries to "secret workshops" through a method called interdiction, where the devices are then bugged by trained agents. US intelligence agencies then have remote access to the machines.

Although it is unclear which Americans are being targeted, one popular product the NSA is using is a USB "hardware implant" which they have been using since 2009.

Der Spiegel came upon the information through internal NSA documents. NSA agents order the bugs and other tools through a "mail-order spy catalog" which offers backdoors into both the hardware and software of nearly all major computer and computer parts makers like Cisco, Juniper Networks, Dell, Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor, Samsung, and Huawei.

As longtime Netflix users know, the films and TV shows available via the streaming service change regularly.

For the period of December 29th to January 4th, however, many of the most popular films on the service in the U.S. are set to disappear.

TV shows seem to have been spared for the most part with the exception of a handful, but over 75 of the most popular films will expire (most on January 1st).

Here is the list (via Reddit):

LIST APPLIES TO NETFLIX USA STREAMING MARKET:

----------TV SHOWS--------------
EXPIRING JANUARY 1, 2014
Dark Shadows (original from late 1960s)
Saturday Night Live The 2000s
Mr Bean
The Kids In The Hall
Perfect 10 Model Boxing (Volume 1)

-----------MOVIES-----------------
EXPIRING DECEMBER 29, 2013
Transformers Dark Of The Moon

EXPIRING JANUARY 4, 2014
Alice In Wonderland (1951 Disney)
Immortals
Dynamite Warrior

EXPIRING JANUARY 1, 2014
The Rundown
Brick
Being John Malkovich
Back To School
Battle Of Britain
Born On the Fourth Of July
Braveheart
Body Of Evidence
Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo
Man On The Moon
Lionheart
1492 Conquest Of Paradise
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
FX
Do The Right Thing
Desperado
Up In Smoke
Can't Hardly Wait
Capote
Biloxi Blues
Seed Of Chucky
Jarhead
As Good As It Gets
In The Name Of The Father
Inside Deep Throat (documentary)
I'm Gonna Get You Sucka
In Like Flint
Hard Target
Foxy Brown
Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell
Gallipoli
Half Baked
Flashdance
50 First Dates
For The Love Of The Game
The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas
The Bad News Bears
The Russia House
The Secret Of Nimh
Revenge OF The Ninja
Roman Holiday
Rob Roy
Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back
Remo Williams
Requiem For A Dream
Quigley Down Under
Pumpkinhead
Platoon
Once Upon A Time In Mexico
October Sky
Mystery Men
The Skulls
Titanic
Ronin
Romeo And Juliet (1968)
Tales From The Crypt: Bordello Of Blood
Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight
The Woman In Red
Top Gun
Street Fighter
TNT Jackson
Serpico
Seed Of Chucky
Scary Movie
Running Scared
Troll II
True Grit (1969)
War And Peace
Talk Radio
War Games
We Were Soldiers
What Dreams May Come
Windtalkers
World Trade Center
The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes
The Odd Couple (1968)
The Mask Of Zorro
The Great Train Robbery
The Faculty
The Dream Team
Best Of Times
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot
Species

Nokia has posted their thirteen favorite Windows Phone apps for 2013.

As posted by the top Windows Phone maker (with little surprises):

BBC iPlayer

What is it? The official mobile app for BBC television and radio

Why it's a favourite: This, the official iPlayer app for Windows 8 phones, came out back in May and has been going strong since: it's a fantastic resource for UK TV and radio fans, with wifi and 3g streaming (though not live streaming). Lovely interface, great content.

Angry Birds Go!

What is it? A racing game

Why we love it? This is Mario Kart with feathers: the Angry Birds have gotten wheels and, we guess, an appropriate amount road rage. It's 3D, you can play as the Birds or the Pigs (oink!), there are special powers to unleash for each charcter, and a whole bunch of different tracks and game modes. More importantly for Birds fanatics, it's free! Get downloading pronto lest e beat you to the finish line...

Read more...

Another trailer for the extremely highly-anticipated 'Titanfall' game has revealed the Atlas class titan.

Earlier in the month, trailers revealed the powerful "Ogre" and "Stryder" titans.

The Atlas, by contrast, is the workhorse: "As a multi-role Titan, the Atlas excels where all other models fall short. The Atlas represents the state-of-the-art in weapons platforms and provides good protection and increased mobility over the Ogre chassis.

Whether the mission demands reconnaissance, rapid assault, fire support, tactical support, or a combination of all these, Atlas frontline elements are dependable, powerful and, importantly, get results."

Titanfall will hit the Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on March 11th with the potential for a beta starting next month.

Rakuten's Wuaki.tv on-demand movie and TV streaming service has reached one million subscribers, thanks to a surge in UK users since its launch there in September.

The company says there are now 125,000 UK-based subscribers. The service is only available in Spain, Andorra and the UK.

What makes the service different from major rivals like Netflix, is that Wuaki offers unlimited streaming from a limited catalog and also the option to buy or rent digital titles a la carte. In other words, the company is a mix of Netflix and iTunes.

Rakuten has been adding apps over the past few months, and is now supported on iOS, Android and the Xbox 360 in addition to normal desktop use.

Following days of outages triggered by a Christmas traffic surge, Nintendo's eShop is back online for all systems.

Nintendo confirmed the platform was back a few hours ago after resolving all the necessary issues. At the time, the gaming company had said the outage was caused by a "one-time surge in demand" caused by the holidays. In addition, there was a surge in new Nintendo Network accounts from new console owners and 3DS accounts were also converted to the Nintendo Network at the same time.

The company has been working on unifying all of its online platforms to the Nintendo Network ID for the last few weeks, instead of having console or handheld owners being tied to their individual devices.

Still down, however, are the Pokemon Bank and Pokemon Transported apps, which were set to launch on Friday. Pokémon Bank is a paid application and service for Pokémon X and Pokémon Y that allows gamers to deposit, store, and manage their Pokémon on the Internet. Transporter allows for transferring of games to older Pokemon Black and White games.

French independent broadcasting authority, the Superior Council of Audiovisual, says it wants to tax all media companies so they can contribute to financing French culture.

Because sites like Facecbook, YouTube and DailyMotion "fall into the same category as video-on-demand services," they should be subject to French cultural protection laws that include taking a portion of revenue from such companies to subsidize productions.

"These platforms have been developing partnerships with audiovisual publishers and content providers for years, with which they share revenues from advertising," the report noted.

The report also claims that the entire video-on-demand market has seen revenue grow to 252 million euro in 2012 from 97 million euro in 2009.

For the time being, the sites seem to be safe as the law can only be applied to websites based in France, which Facebook and YouTube are certainly not. The organization hopes to change the legislation soon to demand all video-on-demand services be included.

For the holiday season, Amazon says that Chromebooks have easily topped their best-selling notebooks list.

The Acer C720 topped the list, followed by Samsung's Chromebook. In seventh place was a higher internal storage model of the Acer Chromebook.

Research firm NPD Group went even further, saying Cromebooks accounted for an astonishing 21 percent of all US commercial notebook sales in 2013. "Commercial" sales are defined as notebooks sold to businesses, schools, government and other organizations. Perhaps more notably, Chromebooks accounted for 10 percent of all computers and tablets sales, says the Group.

In 2012, Chromebooks sales were nearly non-existent, at two-tenths of a percent of total sales.

"Tepid Windows PC sales allowed brands with a focus on alternative form factors or operating systems, like Apple and Samsung, to capture significant share of a market traditionally dominated by Windows devices," says the NPD Group. After stumbling hard with Windows 8, Microsoft was forced to begin developing their next update, Windows 8.1, almost immediately after the original's release.

Apple has filed a new motion to renew its ongoing efforts to stop sales of Samsung products in the U.S.

Samsung was found to have infringed on three key utility patents and in other cases owes Apple nearly $1 billion.

In July 2012, a jury ruled against Samsung but the request for an injunction on Samsung products was thrown out. Apple recently appealed, successfully, that district court ruling.

The patents in question related to the tap-to-zoom and pinch-to-zoom UI functions seen on all smartphones now, but also related to the design of the smartphones.

Samsung could have continued to stall the process, but instead will let it go to trial again as the smartphones in question from the ruling are much older devices with little commercial value to the company.

Apple and Samsung have another patent case scheduled to begin in March of next year.

According to Reuters, a hacker secretly took over a BBC server and then tried to sell access to the system on Christmas Day.

It is unclear if any buyers purchased access, but BBC's security team believes they have re-secured the site.

BBC would only say that "we do not comment on security issues."

The server managed a small, obscure password-protected website, so it is also unclear whether any data was stolen in the attack. The site in question was ftp.bbc.co.uk.

Hold Security LLC, a cybersecurity firm that secretly monitors forums for stolen information, first revealed the attack. The firm said that while observing a Russian hacker known as "HASH" or "Rev0lver," they saw attempts to sell access to the server.

Sony has announced today that it will not sell its lithium-ion battery division, despite shopping it for some time.

The company has decided it can make the division profitable again with ever-growing demand for the batteries and a weakening yen.

Sony has been planning to sell the unit since 2011 as competition from South Korean rivals, which can manufacture cheaper, has grown fierce.

Earlier this year, it appeared Sony was going to sell the unit to a joint venture of Nissan Motor and NEC Corp, but the negotiations eventually stalled.

Sony, and its new CEO Kazuo Hirai, have been trying to turnaround the company after years of deepening losses. Hirai has been re-focusing the company on gaming, mobile devices and cameras and looking to sell off units that are not "core." The company recently sold the Gracenote music-matching software division to Tribune for $170 million.

Nokia has pulled their HERE Maps application from the iOS App Store citing compatibility issues with iOS 7.

The company released the app last November for iOS 6, a couple of months after Apple released its own mapping solution that has improved significantly since its unveiling.

While Nokia had initially come out of the gate swinging with its own offerings for iOS and Android, the HERE Maps app for iOS has been left for dead, with no updates in the last ten months. iOS has seen significant updates in the last ten months, and Nokia has not even updated the bugs in the original app.

Nokia says that the "app was simply not optimized for iOS 7 so we decided to remove it," making sure not to blame Apple in the process.

There will likely not be too many upset users, as Google Maps and Apple Maps are much more robust (and constantly updated) applications.

Google has made some notable tracks and albums free through the Google Play Store for its end-of-year Play Picks 2013 promotion.

Kanye West's "Yeezus" and Chvrches' "The Bones of What You Believe" are completely free and 20 tracks including popular hits from MIA, Drake, Arcade Fire and Lana Del Rey are also free.

You can download the tracks using your Google Wallet account, or you can provide a credit card number (even though it won't be charged).

You can check the freebies here: Play Picks 2013

Online music streaming service Rdio has shut down its movie/TV on-demand service Vdio due to a lacking customer experience.

Says the company: "We have decided to discontinue the Vdio beta service. Despite our efforts, we were not able to deliver the differentiated customer experience we had hoped for, and so Vdio is now closed."

Any purchase has been refunded and will become unavailable for further streaming. As of yesterday, the company stopped accepting new transactions and has been offering Amazon gift cards as refunds for purchases or unused rentals.

Vdio, which is available in the US, UK and Canada, was similar to existing on-demand video services like Google, iTunes and Amazon.

It appears Rdio was never able to differentiate the store from its larger rivals.

According to Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, multiple PC makers will stage a "rebellion" against Windows at the upcoming CES event, following another year of falling sales of traditional laptops and desktops.

Dubbed "PC Plus," the new devices will run both Windows and Android simultaneously. "A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well," Bajarin wrote. "They are doing this through software emulation. I'm not sure what kind of performance you can expect, but this is their way to try and bring more touch-based apps to the Windows ecosystem."

The machines will be able to switch from Windows to Android and back, instantly, most likely with an Android emulator running within its own window allowing for full access to Android apps and games while on your laptop/desktop.

Yet another former HTC executive has been charged with leaking company secrets. Another five employees were charged with taking kickbacks and falsifying expenses.

The former vice president of design for HTC, Thomas Chien, has been charged with leaking a smartphone interface design that had not been launched yet, and Chien is also accused of preparing to form a company with co-conspirators using the leaked info.

In addition, the six employees were charged with taking 33.57 million New Taiwan dollars (US$1.12 million) in kickbacks and other falsified records from suppliers. Three individuals from the unidentified supplier were also charged.

Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Although demand has been relatively low since launch, Nvidia has rolled out some notable updates for its Tegra Note 7.

The tablet is now up to Android 4.3 as its base operating system, and the company has added AOHDR to the camera along with new updates for the DirectStylus pen technology.

You can expect the OTA update in the next few days if you do own the tablet and it seems that the most notable update is the addition of always-on high dynamic range photos. While the option is seen on nearly all tablets and smartphones now, the Tegra Note has real-time instant processing, removing the lag normally seen by melding three photos (high, low, regular exposure shots).

Left-handed tablet users have seen the DirectStylus pen technology updated, allowing them to use their strong hand and rest their palms on the display without interference. Overall, the software is also now more responsive, has a new notification bar control and more help support.

Finally, Nvidia added an easier way to transfer your internal storage files to the microSD card.

Copyright holders stepped up their efforts to get infringing links taken down, sending 235 million DMCA takedown requests to Google so far in 2013.

Google allowed 91 percent of the search engine takedown requests, meaning only 21 million URLs were left untouched. Most of these were illegitimate or just duplicates of previous requests, says TorrentFreak.

The number of requests has grown exponentially in recent years. In 2011, Google received just 10 million notices, followed by 50 million in 2012. At the current rate, Google might be hit with 1 billion notices next year.

Looking further into the numbers, the music industry (led by the BPI and RIAA) sent an astonishing 72.5 million notices, followed by Twentieth Century Fox, Froytal Services (porn industry) and Microsoft at 19.3, 19.2 and 10.4 million takedown notices, respectively.

Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Asia, is now an investor in BitPay, the startup aiming to become the largest payment service provider for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies.

The investment was made through Li's venture capital company, Horizons Ventures, a company which had major successes as early investors in Facebook, Waze and Skype. Li is worth about $30 billion.

So far, the startup has raised an estimated $2.7 million.

Bitcoin, the leading virtual currency (of the moment) has come under fire recently after regulators in China and India issued warnings against using the currency and China's leading Bitcoin exchanges even outright banned deposits in Yuan. Bitcoin's value has skyrocketed from $14 per coin last December to settle at about $750 per coin as of today. The currency did see a crash just last month, diving to $450 from a high of $1242.

BitPay has processed over $100 million in transactions for 2013, with its merchant base now exceeding 15,500.

Invincea, the venture-backed security software company, has announced its acquisition of the premiere sandboxing solution Sandboxie.

Reads the press release:

The two pioneering brands in Windows Containment technology are Invincea and Sandboxie. Not coincidentally, they are also the leading brands by market share [footprint & sales] in Windows Containment globally. Invincea's acquisition of Sandboxie consolidates these two market leading brands and provides a tremendous opportunity for advancement in endpoint security.

Sandboxie has been an early pioneer in Windows Containment with a global deployment of hundreds of thousands of users and over 1,000 firms trusting it to secure its endpoints. Adding Sandboxie to Invincea's portfolio was a strategic move to expand our business globally, to address the small and individual market, and provide a pathway for Sandboxie fans to an enterprise ready solution – Invincea FreeSpace™. Sandboxie fans have no need to be concerned by its new ownership. You've been running under the Invincea umbrella for some time now and we have been working with Sandboxie Founder, Ronen Tzur, to ensure a smooth transition to new ownership. We will grow Sandboxie's user base and continue to support and enhance the Sandboxie solution.

According to online porn aggregator/indexer PornHub, the majority of U.S. visitors to the site are now from mobile devices, surpassing desktop users by the highest margin ever.

The massive site, which has nearly 15 billion visitors so far this year, says 49 percent of global visitors visited using a smartphone or tablet, up from 38 percent in 2012.

U.S. watchers appear to be a major driver of mobile viewing as it was the only country to have a majority of its traffic come from mobile devices. 52 percent accessed the site from smartphones, with another 10 percent visiting from tablets.

Porn watchers in the UK loved their tablets, with 15 percent accessing the site from their iPads, Kindles and Android tabs.

There are some more figures that aren't necessarily safe for work, but can be viewed here.

According to reports, Japanese carrier Softbank, the parent of Sprint, is in the final stages of talks with T-Mobile USA parent Deutsche Telekom over acquiring the U.S.' fourth largest carrier.

The deal would be worth just over $19 billion and would be funded using shares of Sprint, say the sources. Softbank wants to purchase the majority of T-Mobile's shares, which trade publicly.

Deutsche Telekom is said to prefer a cash deal over a share swap, however, which could add time to the negotiations. Softbank has also spoken to numerous banks about funding for such a cash deal.

A merger of the two companies could possibly break the current U.S. duopoly of Verizon and AT&T, as a combined T-Mobile/Sprint/MetroPCS would have about 99 million subscribers. Both AT&T and Verizon have over 110 million subscribers each.

According to Torrentfreak, 'Game of Thrones' was the most pirated TV show of the year, not unexpectedly.

The finale of the HBO fantasy series saw over 5.9 million downloads via BitTorrent, beating out the estimated TV viewership of 5.5 million.

Competition was strong this year, and the series finale of "Breaking Bad" and the latest season of "The Walking Dead" also saw strong piracy, garnering 4.2 million and 3.6 million downloads, respectively.

Earlier this year, Game of Thrones set the record for "most people sharing a copy of an episode simultaneously" at 170,000 and the piracy throne is unsurprising as most of the other shows on the list are available on cable or broadcast TV and also available on services like Hulu and Netflix after they have aired. HBO has not licensed its programming to other streaming providers, no matter the price.

Attached is the full list, which uses "data by TorrentFreak based on several sources, including download statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers." The site does note that since many private trackers, cyberlockers and online streaming services are impossible to include, the piracy figures posted are a lot lower than they otherwise would be.

Earlier this year, when the struggling smartphone maker put itself up for sale, BlackBerry co-founders Michael Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin indicated they may want to put in a bid to purchase the company and take it private.

Already owning an 8 percent share in the company, the move did not seem too far fetched.

As of this week, however, Michael Lazaridis now has a 4.99 percent stake, and says any bid to acquire the company is off the table.

BlackBerry recently cleaned house, starting with a new CEO and other executives and announcing an end to their consumer handset business. Last week, the company announced a $4.4 billion quarterly loss due to excess inventory of failed phones, but the company's stock has surged suggesting the bottom has finally been reached and investors are willing to give the new management team a breather.

The company announced a manufacturing deal with Foxconn that will remove most of the risks of a failed device, due to inventory management and a stake in the revenue of the device by BlackBerry's new Taiwanese partner.

Sony and Panasonic have announced the end of their OLED production partnership.

The companies had been developing new OLED tech, but there are still no true mass-market models of the ultrathin, vibrant TVs. Sony released an 11-inch model back in 2007 to start the OLED train, but costs remain high for creating larger devices. Samsung released a 55-inch OLED TV this year, but prices have kept demand low.

Both tech giants agreed to partner up early last year to help reduce costs and share production facilities. The companies are ending the current alliance but could team up again in the future, say the sources.

Earlier this year, at CES, the companies unveiled a 56-inch prototype OLED using new production technology.

Furthermore, the new push to 4K UltraHD resolution TVs has put OLED and any other new tech on the backburner for the time being.

Although it was never confirmed by Nokia, it has become clear that the company had begun working on an Android smartphone before it was purchased by Windows Phone maker Microsoft.

Prolific leaker @Evleaks has now posted pictures of the alleged prototype, codename "Normandy."

The device will never see the light of day due to Nokia's device and services division being acquired by Microsoft for over $7 billion.

Check the pics here:

Seagate announced earlier this week that they had acquired Xyratex, the premier maker of hard drive disk (HDD) testing gear, for $374 million which includes the $80 million the company had on its balance sheet.

Xyratex will be integrated directly into Seagate's supply chain. The deal will strengthen Seagate's "vertically integrated supply and manufacturing chain for disk drives and provide uninterrupted access to important capital equipment."

HDD have reached capacities as high as 5TB for consumer drives (which require extensive testing), and the vertical integration of Xyratex should help the company bring in up to $600 million in new revenue by fiscal year 2015, says Seagate.

"This is a strategically important acquisition for Seagate as we continue to focus on delivering best-in-class storage solutions for our customers," said Dave Mosley, President of Operations and Technology at Seagate. "As the average capacity per drive increases to multi-terabytes, the time to test these drives increases dramatically. Therefore, access to world-class test equipment becomes an increasingly strategic capability. As a premier provider of HDD testing equipment, Xyratex is an important partner and we are excited to integrate these important capabilities which will considerably streamline our supply and manufacturing chain for our core HDD business. We are also pleased to acquire Xyratex's storage systems and high-performance computing business, which provides us additional opportunities to serve our customers with a broader array of storage solutions."

Multiple reports are claiming that HP is looking to get back into the the smartphone business, aiming new devices at emerging markets.

Supposedly the new 6-inch phablets will sell off-contract for less than $250, which would certainly be a stretch as even the best value 5-inch smartphones now sell for $350 off-contract.

There have been rumors for months of HP itching to get into smartphones (after a failed attempt with Palm), and CEO Meg Whitman even noted that new devices were not expected for 2013 but could be a reality in 2014.

Moving into consumer mobile devices earlier this year, HP already released Android and Windows 8 tablets as well as their Slate 7 tablet.

Sony has agreed to sell of its Gracenote audio-recognition software division to Tribune for $170 million, following a few months of searching for buyers.

Tribune, which provides digital data on TV shows and also movies along with its print media divisions, will integrate Gracenote into its existing media-services division.

Sony has been actively looking to narrow its focus and Gracenote did not really fit the plans after being acquired for $260 million in 2008. The unit provides over $150 million in annual sales.

Gracenote provides the technology that lets iTunes, Windows Media Player, Soundhound (and more) to identify songs when transferred from CDs, or downloaded from sites.

"Together we will become an even greater force in the global entertainment data business," Shashi Seth, president of Tribune Digital Ventures, said in the statement.

Somewhat quietly, both Apple and LG released the best 8-inch tablets on the market over the last couple of months.

With a larger display and a $100 cheaper price tag, it would appear right off the bat that the G Pad 8.3 may have the upper hand, but after using the tablets for weeks it is clear the "fight" is much, much closer, with both tablets performing excellently across the board.

Read ahead to compare and contrast would one writer argues are the best tablets in the world at their size.

Specs and Design

According to CEG TEK International, a company that "provides first-in-class copyright, trademark and brand protection offering in-depth business intelligence and comprehensive anti-piracy solutions to rights & content owners worldwide," classic holiday film "Home Alone" was 2013's most pirated in the genre.

The company measured measured activity on global BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks and came up with a list of the most pirated holiday related films.

Daily demand for the films was about 185,000, says the company, with Home Alone seeing 20,169 of those hits.

CEG TEK says they used "proprietary detection software, designed with several unique abilities, including tracking without actively participating in peer-to-peer networks, download demand activity was measured in the days leading up to Christmas."

Here is the full list:

According to Benzinga, gamers want the PlayStation 4 this holiday season, more so than any other console.

The poll asked three questions: "Which game system would you like to receive this Christmas?," "Which game system are you most likely to give as a gift?" and "What devices do you already own?" The company says the PS4 owned every question.

41 percent of respondents wanted the PS4 for the holidays, beating out the Microsoft Xbox One at 37.3 percent. 9.8 percent wanted a Nintendo Wii U, which is probably only due to its cheaper price tag. The Wii U was followed by the PS Vita at 5.9 percent and then the Nintendo 3DS at 3.9 percent.

Earlier this month we reported that Google Play Books had been updated to allow for native uploading from your mobile device.

Users with EPUB and PDF books were able to upload the files directly to your Books account, without needing to first send it to your computer and log in to the website like you had to do previously. When opening the book from your file manager or email, the new option reads "Upload to Play Books."

The PDF uploading portion was always said to be experimental and indeed I had many issues with it when trying out the service. Clearly others did, as well, as Google has pulled the option for PDFs for the time being, leaving just EPUB.

Google says the code should bring back PDF support in the future, but there is no timetable.

Google has taken the excellent step of protecting Chrome users from browser toolbars that can be added (usually unwittingly) when installing extensions or other software.

Says Google: "Today we're announcing an update to the Chrome Web Store policy: extensions in the Chrome Web Store must have a single purpose that is narrow and easy-to-understand. While this has always been the intent of the Chrome extension system, not all extensions have lived up to this ideal. These multi-purpose extensions can crowd your browser UI and slow down your web browsing - sometimes significantly. We're making this policy change to fix these problems and give users more control over their browsing experience."

Chrome extensions were always supposed to serve a single purpose, allowing for a single visible UI surface when using the browser. Toolbars, which can add search bars and other features revolving around the toolbar maker's products, clearly did not fit into the Chrome mold. Google was unable to stop them, however: "Unfortunately, in some cases, we couldn't enforce these design goals technically. With content scripts, extension developers have full control over the page, so they can put up as much UI as they want, even going as far as to create toolbars in the page. Others used content scripts to create extensions with more subtle features bundled together that were harder to attribute to specific extensions. In many cases, the Chrome Web Store helped by showing poor reviews when users had noticed bad behavior from a particular extension, but in other cases the connection wasn't clear."

Although there have been plenty of complaints about the Nintendo Wii U, one large one has been the amount of actual gaming time you can get out of your GamePad.

Nintendo will try to remedy that situation by making its high-capacity GamePad battery available in the U.S. for $32.

The 2,550mAh battery had been available in Japan since the summer, and had been well received. Battery life using the new battery is increased to about eight hours from the tablet's usual four hours, giving gamers more time without needing to be plugged into the wall.

You can order the product via Nintendo here.

New Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins revealed some impressive figures for the streaming service for the end of 2013.

In terms of revenue, Hopkins says the company will reach $1 billion for the first time, up from $695 million in 2012. The company has seen similar growth figures every year since coming out of beta in 2008.

Hulu Plus subscribers have reached 5 million, each paying $8 per month to get mobile access to TV shows and movies and back catalogs for popular shows.

Hopkins says over 2.5 million paying subscribers stream Hulu exclusively on devices rather than on their computers. Hulu Plus is most popular on consoles, Chromecast, and of course Android, iOS and Windows Phone smartphones and tablets. Additionally, the company refreshed the user interface for Hulu Plus on hundreds of devices, including the Apple TV, SmartTVs, Roku, PlayStation, Xbox and the Wii, adds Hopkins.

BLU Products, the company aiming to control the extremely low-end market in Latin America and elsewhere, has unveiled its Life Pure smartphone, one with specs that can almost rival today's more expensive and high-end devices.

The Life Pure will sell unlocked for $340 and include a 5-inch 1080p display, dual 13MP/5MP cameras, 32GB internal storage, be powered by a mid-range 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek and 2GB RAM and will run on Android 4.2. Unfortunately, there is no LTE support for the device but it does support HSPA+.

"The Life Pure as its name suggests is art in its purest form, created from a single piece polycarbonate using the latest CNC technology, then each individually hand crafted, resulting in beautifully designed hardware," said Samuel Ohev-Zion, CEO of BLU Products. "When combined with equally stunning software, the final result is a device that should be appreciated as different and captivating to look at."

Luxury phone maker Gresso has unveiled a line of titanium Android smartphones, starting at the ridiculous price of $1800.

The base limited edition "Radical" smartphone, the R1, sells for $1800 and uses grade 5 titanium as its casing. Reads the site (which is full of grammatical errors, as well, which I've left in): "Smartphone case is executed of solid titanium plate. Titanium key advantages are its unique protection properties - the case holds extreme mechanical stress, is resistant to compression and bending. Titanium case machining process is time-and-labor consuming. Namely because of that products made of titanium are highly valued. Milling of such a hard material is executed within 9 hours at high-tech equipment."

Under the hood is a very mediocre device, including a low-end quad-core 1.2GHz processor, Android 4.1.2, 36GB internal storage, dual-SIM capabilities, an 8MP camera and a 4.5-inch 960 x 540 display. Gorilla Glass protects the display and the glass portion of the back of the phone.

The device is heavy (understandably) at 7.75 ounces.

Nokia has won an injunction against struggling smartphone maker HTC over patent infringement, a potentially devastating decision for HTC.

The decision affects all of HTC's Android devices, and means Nokia could potentially get all those devices banned in Germany.

HTC's infringing patent is related to the way a PC chooses appropriate drivers when connected via USB. To avoid a full injunction and ban on their devices, HTC will have to modify its methods or begin licensing the tech from Nokia.

Nokia was pleased with the decision: "Nokia is pleased that the Regional Court in Munich, Germany has today ruled that a number of HTC products infringe Nokia's patent EP 1 246 071, which covers USB functionality in mobile phones. Today's judgment is another significant milestone in our on-going dispute with HTC, enabling Nokia to enforce an injunction against the import and sale of all infringing HTC products in Germany, as well as to obtain damages for past infringement. This patent is also already in suit against HTC in the UK. Read more...

Even though Winamp's supposed shut down date of December 20th has come and gone and the software is still available, streaming giant Spotify has released a "tribute" to the media player, a new client dubbed "Spotiamp."

Says Spotify: "To honour the engineering skill and passion that goes into building wonderful software that millions of people enjoy we would like to share a small tribute to honour the great legacy of Winamp. Spotiamp is a fully functional music player where you can login using your Spotify Premium account and stream music. We hope this will give you some nice memories of the days before Spotify!"

The new client is extremely lightweight, just like Winamp, and uses Winamp's familiar design and UI.

Also incredibly, Spotiamp supports Shoutcast and Winamp visualization plugins, such as Milkdrop2, which are easily some of the most popular features of the media player.

The team over at CyanogenMod are having a good week, as the operating system has seen a new milestone, 10 million downloads.

Earlier in the week, the team announced that the Oppo N1 was the first handset to receive Google certification to launch with CyanogenMod pre-installed with Google's suite of apps and Play Store.

CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik revealed the milestone, pointing to the official CM Stats page for future updates.

Taking a look at the breakdown, "official" CM downloads are above 5.5 million while unofficial downloads tallied over 4.5 million.

The most installed versions are the 10.1 and 10.2 nightlies (based on Android 4.3), which have 1.15 million and 700,000 downloads, respectively.

Samsung Galaxy devices appear to be the most popular for the operating system, as user opt to remove Samsung's bloat and optimize the powerful hardware.

Google has updated its iPhone version of Google Play Music, adding some features that will put the app closer to par with its Android sibling.

The app was released last month, but had not been designed for the new minimalist iOS 7 interface.

Besides the aesthetics, the app now supports the "I'm feeling lucky" radio, the ability to search for your music based on genre and create stations based on genre, as well.

The full changelog, for new version 1.1.0.988:

- UI updated for iOS7

- Added support for I'm feeling lucky radio

- Auto-playlists (including Thumbs Up playlist) added to playlist view

- Genre radio stations added for All Access users

- Added ability to search for genres

Without disclosing financials, Apple and China Mobile have confirmed that the iPhone is headed to the world's largest carrier.

After years of negotiations and more recently, weeks of nearly daily rumors, China Mobile's 740 million subscribers will have access to 4G-capable iPhones.

China Mobile will begin offering the 5S and 5C starting on January 17th, with pre-orders going live on Christmas.

"Apple's iPhone is very much loved by millions of customers around the world," China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua said in a statement. "We know there are many China Mobile customers and potential new customers who are anxiously awaiting the incredible combination of iPhone on China Mobile's leading network. We are delighted that iPhone on China Mobile will support our 4G/TD-LTE and 3G/TD-SCDMA networks, providing customers with high-speed mobile service."

Apple CEO Tim Cook mirrored the thoughts: "China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network," Cook said. "iPhone customers in China are an enthusiastic and rapidly growing group, and we can't think of a better way to welcome in the Chinese New Year than getting an iPhone into the hands of every China Mobile customer who wants one."

The well-received Roku line of set-top boxes have been updated this week with a native YouTube app.

Roku 3 players in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland all have access to the built-in app and billions of videos.

Other devices, including the Roku 2 XS, are expected to get the app update early next year.

Roku 3 owners will get access to HD video, "Send to TV" smartphone/tablet pairing and other features.

.@RokuPlayer Awesome videos and #Roku3? Time for a dance party: http://t.co/sPHAzBqDKB Let's break it down: http://t.co/hbS1vYq9ld

-- YouTube (@YouTube) December 17, 2013

Four years after launching, music discovery startup ExFM will be shutting down on January 15th, including their iOS and Android apps.

Only hardcore fans will be able to continue using the service past January 15th, through a crippled Chrome browser extension.

ExFM had raised $2.75 million from investors during its time, and the service was popular for a time, but there were too many issues. Says the company:

After an amazing four years of sweat and tears, we're ever-so-reluctantly accepting the reality of sustaining the Exfm platform as it exists today. The high costs of processing millions of new songs every month while attempting to keep that data relevant and useable is monumental. The technical challenges are compounded by the litigious nature of the music industry, which means every time we have any meaningful growth, it's coupled with the immediate attention of the record labels in the form of takedowns and legal emails. Today, subscription services are gaining in popularity and enjoy the blessings of most major labels at a non trivial cost to those companies.

Popular photo sharing service Snapchat has been updated for iOS, including interesting new features like "Replay."

The Replay option allows you to view the picture or video a second time, just one time per day, the first time the service has allowed you to ever view messages again after they've played the first time.

Additionally, the service has added the ability to use "flash" with your front camera by completely whiting-out the screen while taking your selfies, new filters and also an overlay option with real-time data like weather and speed.

If you want to take advantage of the new features you will have to head to settings, "Additional Services" and turn them on. To edit a photo with overlays and filters, just swipe left or right on the screen.

CEO Evan Spiegel also noted that a more major update was in the works for the new year.

Large e-tailer Overstock.com has announced that it will begin accepting Bitcoin as a payment option in the Q3 2014.

CEO Patrick Byrne says the company is still working on the logistics of accepting the currency. They may create their own proprietary system for transactions or work with Bitcoin payment processors like Coinbase. There will be no cost to implement the system, says Byrne, so it is something they'll leave in place unless literally nobody is using it.

The company has over $1 billion in revenue per year. Just like other companies, Overstock will likely convert the Bitcoin right back to dollars after accepting them, unless they can find a tool to hedge risk if keeping the currency in actual Bitcoin.

"It will put [Overstock] at a competitive edge if, and only if, the general population starts thinking and using bitcoin," concluded Byrne. "We're willing to take the first step and see."

Finnish smartphone startup Jolla has launched its online store, making the Jolla smartphone available to all European customers after being available as a pre-order earlier this month.

The shop is open for EU customers as well as Switzerland and Norway, selling for €399 including VAT.

If you purchase via the new online shop, the expected shipping time is 2-4 weeks due to logistics issues, says Jolla.

The Jolla smartphone uses the Sailfish OS, which was created by former Nokia employees that had worked on the now defunct MeeGo operating system.

Featuring a 4.5-inch IPS LCD with 540 x 960 resolution (245 ppi), the device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, dual-core at 1.4 GHz, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and dual 2MP/8MP cameras.

Valve has announced that the Steam Holiday Sale is now in full effect, starting Thursday and ending at 10AM PST, January 2nd.

The company is offering huge sales on hundreds of games, and there will be specific eight hour "Flash" sales as well as "Community's Choice Voting Sales."

Deals refresh every 24 hours, so it is worth checking every day.

View the sale here, which include up to 80 percent off titles:

Steam Holiday Sale 2013

Facebook creator and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Friday that he sold 41.4 million shares of Facebook stock, worth over $2.3 billion, in order to pay a tax bill.

The stock was then offered to new investors as part of a 71 million share offering.

Zuckerberg's voting power in the company was slightly reduced, to 56.1 percent from 58.8 percent because his shares have 10 times more power than common A shares.

The executive will use most of proceeds to pay a massive 2013 tax bill.

Facebook's stock has risen 100 percent this year.

According to new reports, Samsung will finally unveil its first commercial Tizen OS devices at February's Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

In fact, Samsung will have its own specialized event the night before the MWC is set to begin, on February 23rd, where attendees are expected to see "an exclusive sneak preview of the newest Tizen devices as well as an opportunity to learn about the major milestones that the Tizen project has hit since last year's event."

Samsung has been trying to break away from its dependence on Google's Android operating system, but its own Tizen operating system has been delayed multiple times.

Tizen OS 3.0 will be the first mature version of the software, and the first for commercial devices like smartphones. Carriers like Orange and DoCoMo have already signed agreements with Samsung to stock Tizen devices starting in the second half of this year.

EU antitrust boss Joaquin Almunia has rejected Google's latest offer to settle a European Union anti-trust investigation, claiming there were not enough concessions.

The chief says the search giant is now quickly running out of time, and is risking a large fine if they do not satisfactorily settle soon. If they do not settle soon, the fine could be as large as $5 billion.

Google has been under investigation by the European Commission antitrust regulators since 2010 over complaints that they block competition, such as Microsoft and Foundem, from search results. The Commission asks 125 Google competitors for feedback on the settlement, and they have rejected each of the deals so far.

"The latest proposals are not acceptable in the sense that they are not proposals that can eliminate our concerns regarding competition," Almunia added. Google's latest offer apparently did not remove concerns about vertical searches, which are the specialized searches for individual products.

After being initially announced last month, Oppo's N1 smartphone running CyanogenMod has been blessed by Google and will go on sale on December 24th.

The handset will run CyanogenMod 10.2 and it has cleared Google's stringent compatibility test suite (CTS) meaning Google's Play Store and suite of apps will be pre-installed.

Says CyanogenMod: "It is still a bit surreal, but we are so proud of the effort the entire team took to make the CyanogenMod OS as solid as it is. We had a lot of fun with this video (provided below), showing the unique features of the N1 itself, and some of the many CM features many of you already know and love."

The N1 features a 5.95-inch 1080p display, a 1.6GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600, 2GB RAM, 3600 mAh battery and a very intriguing rotating camera that allows you to use the better rear camera for video chat and portrait shots, as well. Additionally, it has a rear touch panel for taking photos, scrolling and more. Unfortunately, the device does not support LTE but has GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and WCDMA support (850/900/1700/1900/2100MHz).

Netflix has announced it will stream the second season of 'House of Cards' in 4K Ultra HD, and the company has promised more 4K updates for next month's CES event.

Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt says 4K content will be available through smart TV apps available on upcoming 4K TVs, and the manufacturers will be named at CES: "We're not naming specific manufacturers, but we have several of the major TV vendors who are going to be producing 4K capable TVs – they'll be announcing them at CES."

Unfortunately, your new PS4 and Xbox One will not have the functionality for the time being: "The new game consoles may eventually be 4K-capable but the ability to take 4K out of the box and drop it into a separate television is lacking some standards and HDMI 2.0, and it's just a little premature. So we probably will see that, but right now we're talking about 4K Netflix built into the smart TV."

Besides House of Cards, the company expects to have a large 4K category in the future, as well. "The trick here is that since it's going to take a while until there is a material catalogue in 4K, it's important for us to get out front and begin to push it," says Hunt. "We're one of the few folk working all the way through from soup to nuts – we've got the original content production on one end, and we're working closely with the CE manufacturers on the other end, and we've got the whole delivery pipeline in between. So I think we can be instrumental in beginning the shift of production towards 4K."

Windows Phone owners have been given another gift by Microsoft.

Microsoft has emailed current Windows Phone owners an invite to activate a bonus of 20GB of free SkyDrive storage for the next year.

You will have until the end of January to activate the bonus, says the software giant.

SkyDrive has become a significant driver for Microsoft, with most promotions including free cloud storage. For example, The Surface 2 comes with 200GB free SkyDrive storage, which Microsoft hopes will keep customers around well into the future.

BlackBerry yesterday reported their quarterly earnings, taking yet another massive writedown and awful results.

However, thanks to a new deal with Foxconn and an expectation that the worst is finally behind them, the company's shares surged 15 percent.

The deal, a five-year partnership with the Taiwanese manufacturer, will initially be for low-end devices that will go on sale in emerging markets such as Indonesia. Unconventionally, BlackBerry will not pay upfront for device components nor will it do its own inventory management, instead Foxconn will take a share of profit on each device and ensure that inventory is controlled.

Additionally, Foxconn will also help develop, design and distribute the handsets.

For the quarter, the company posted a $4.4 billion loss, as smartphone sales were almost non-existent. Overstock of BlackBerry 10 devices led to a $1.6 billion writedown for the quarter, as the company sold just 4.3 million handsets during the quarter, 3.2 million of which were BlackBerry 7 devices, some of which are up to three years old.

Yet another report has surfaced that Amazon is preparing to launch a Kindle smartphone in the Q2 2014.

A new report from hit-and-miss Taiwanese supply chain outlet Digitimes claims that Primax Electronics has received orders from the e-commerce giant
for compact camera modules (CCM) that include floating point technology, with each new smartphone includes six CCMs.

The new report gives credence to previous rumors that the Kindle smartphone will have four front-facing cameras allowing for 3D rendering and also motion control without needing to touch the screen. The other two cameras will be the standard front and rear for pictures and video chat.

Amazon is said to be working with HTC to build the upcoming devices.

AOL, which announced last month to significant outcry that media player Winamp and its companion Shoutcast radio service would be shutting down forever, appears to have saved the companies.

The company is reportedly finalizing negotiations to sell the products, and leave them alive for the future. It was previously reported that Microsoft could be a willing acquirer, but there was no comment from the Redmond giant.

Winamp and Shoutcast came under the AOL umbrella in 1999 when AOL purchased parent company Nullsoft.

A visit to Winamp.com today proves the software is still available and the online platform is still up and running, as well.

TechCrunch says sources are extremely confident the deal will be announced soon.

Sharp has unveiled their "Meibus Pad" today, boasting the best specs ever for a Windows tablet.

The Meibus has a 10.1-inch 2,560 × 1,600 IGZO display, an Intel Atom Z3770 "Bay Trail" processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage and pre-installed Windows 8.1 Office.

Additionally, the device will have built-in LTE support, a rare occurrence for a full Windows tablet.

Aesthetics are nothing too out of the ordinary, and the tablet is 9.5mm (0.37-inches) thick and weighs 1.3 pounds.

The tablet goes on sale in January in Japan.

According to Bloomberg, Sony has hired Qatalyst Partners to look into a sale of its Gracenote audio-recognition software business.

Gracenote will become its own independent company, and has been owned by Sony since 2008.

The sources say Gracenote has revenues between $100 and $200 million per year.

Gracenote powers iTunes' track identifying software, and is also the basis for some song-recognition services and apps that rival Shazam. Gracenote tech is also used in most of Sony's consumer products, including TVs and smartphones/tablets.

Sony has been actively looking to trim the amount of divisions and the amount of products it offers.

The infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay has moved domains again, just days after relocating to Peru.

Peru suspended the domain name with prior notice, killing off the thepiratebay.pe site. Peru's National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) ordered the shutdown claiming "The use of thepiratebay.pe domain can help users avoid infringement by connecting, sharing files and downloading files."

The site can now be found at thepiratebay.gy, using Guyana's country code top-level domain.

Pirate Bay officials didn't seem to phased, and they did not seem too worried in the first place, adding "We have some 70 domain names left, so eventually we will find one that sticks. A few domains have been prepared so we can switch over whenever's needed."

In the last week, the site has been moved from their .SX domain, their .AC and now their .PE.

Read the company's very brief Facebook post.

LG has announced that they will unveil a massive 105-inch curved Ultra HD TV at next year's CES event.

The TV will easily be the "largest curved TV ever made" as noted by the company, and it will feature a 5120 x 2160 resolution and a 21:9 aspect ratio "CinemaScope" screen.

LG says the resolution will allow for reduced letterboxing during movie watching, and will also allow for "additional information without covering up the program itself."

"With a resolution of 11 million pixels, the 105-inch curved LCD panel is proof of our continued leadership in the next generation display market, offering exceptional world-class value to our customers," notes LG Display's Yong-kee Hwang.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has revealed today on Twitter that the new Mac Pro will go on sale tomorrow, right off the assembly line of the company's new plant in Texas.

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.

Base models start 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.

Microsoft has noted this week that the board will not select a new CEO until early next year.

John Thompson, the Microsoft director in charge of leading the search for the new CEO to replace long-time executive Steve Ballmer, says the list of candidates has been pruned, but the board requires more time.

"We identified over 100 possible candidates, talked with several dozen and then focused our energy intensely on a group of about 20 individuals, all extremely impressive in their own right. As you would expect, as this group has narrowed, we've done deeper research and investigation, including with the full Board. We're moving ahead well, and I expect we'll complete our work in the early part of 2014," adds Thompson.

Ballmer announced earlier this year that he would be retiring after a decade as CEO and over 30 years with the company.

Current Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Microsoft's enterprise boss Satya Nadella are the most oft-rumored candidates, but there are clearly more than a handful still in the running.

Sony has announced that their PlayStation Mobile app has been expanded to new countries across Europe and Australasia.

The app is now available in Finland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Belgium and New Zealand.

If you own a PlayStation certified smartphone/tablet, you can download the free PS Mobile app and get full access to games.

Purchased games can be played on up to three devices, with Sony specifically noting a smartphone, a tablet and their own Vita handheld console.

The service launched with 21 games last year and has slowly grown to over 50 titles.

The U.S. Secret Service has confirmed that it is investigating a massive data breach at major retailer Target that could involve millions of shopper's credit and debit card information.

According to Krebs on Security, which has broken high-profile security incidents in the past, the breach began on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, and involves the theft of information from nearly all of Target's brick and mortar stores in the U.S.

Target has 1800 stores in the nation. The report claims online purchases do not appear to be involved, just the data that would allows thieves to create counterfeit cards and even possibly withdraw from ATMs using stolen PINs.

Krebs reported that the breach was ongoing from Black Friday until December 15th.

Target, Mastercard and Visa did not comment on the initial report.

Although speculation and evidence has mounted for months, China Mobile and Apple have still not announced their long-awaited pact for the iPhone.

Xi Guohua, chairman for the carrier, said they have no iPhone announcements to make at this time as the company remains coy on a timetable.

China Mobile is the world's biggest carrier with over 740 million subscribers and Apple is the world's second largest smartphone maker.

Multiple American media outlets had reported that the announcement was definitely expected for this week, but there is no indication that the deal will be signed in the next couple of days.

When the deal is struck, industry analysts say the deal could give Apple another 20 million handset sales in the first year, a seventh of their expected 2013 total sales.

Two years after the popular private tracker Swebits closed down, one of its uploaders has received a suspended jail sentence, 160 hours community service and a massive $652,000 damages award.

The uploader shared over 500 movies, but the fine was just for one film: a pre-release CAM version of "Beck – Levande Begravd."

Anti-piracy group Antipiratbyran brought the case, and the rightsholders had called the man the "worst ever" individual movie pirate in Swedish history, demanding a one year prison sentence.

Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Pontén says the damages award was the largest ever for a piracy case, adding that "[The $652,000] refers to compensation and is equal to what the man would have paid if he had bought a license to distribute the movie for free downloads. "The man also has to pay damages for other losses such as disturbing the market and goodwill losses. This shows what damages are caused to the creators and rights holders by the illegal file-sharing of one movie."

LG has announced they will be introducing an all-in-one based on Google's Chrome OS operating system.

The company will unveil the computer at the upcoming CES event next month.

Dubbed the "Chromebase," LG has included a 21.5-inch 1080p IPS display and will sell with a full keyboard, mouse and other accessories, but can also be used independently.

Perhaps most notably is that the computer runs on Chrome OS, Google's operating system which for the most part requires an Internet connection as offline function is minimal.

"Simple to operate for all types of users, the award-winning LG Chromebase computer represents the successful combination of simplicity, power and greatdesign," said Hyoung-sei Park, head of the IT Business Division at LG Electronics. "LG Chromebase is the wave of the future for desktops, expected to be widely adopted not only at home, but especially in schools, hotels, call centers and other business settings."

Samsung has made their first entry into the mobile device gamepad market, launching the "Smartphone GamePad" for Android devices running versions 4.1 or better.

Differentiating itself from recent gamepads released for the iPhone, the GamePad is a standalone device that connects via Bluetooth, rather than a controller that attaches directly and extends the phone.

If you have a Samsung Galaxy device with Android 4.3 or higher, you will have an optimized experience, says the company, including NFC connect support.

On the hardware end, the GamePad weighs just 0.43 pounds, has two standard analog sticks, an eight-way D-Pad, four action buttons and two shoulder triggers. The companion "Mobile Console App" lets users browse and download/purchase supported games.

Alongside their announcement of the top free and paid applications for the iPhone, Apple also revealed the top apps for their tablet line.

The iPad and iPad Mini saw many of the same top apps as its smaller brother, but there was one clear difference: social media was notably absent from the iPad list with the exception of Facebook.

Temple Run and Angry Birds, in multiple varieties, appeared all over the lists, and Candy Crush Saga topped the figures, just like on the iPhone.

Here are the full lists:

Apple has released some interesting figures for its App Store, revealing the top iPhone apps, both paid and free, for the year.

Earlier this year, the company announced that its App Store had reached 60 billion total app downloads of its 1.05 million apps.

The Cupertino giant broke down the top apps by free and paid, and also revealed the top grossing apps of the year.

Topping the free list (as well as the top grossing) was 'Candy Crush Saga,' the cross-platform blockbuster that brought in millions in revenue from in-app purchases. On the paid end, Minecraft: Pocket Edition unsurprisingly topped the list.

The rest of the free list was dominated by social media and photo/video sharing. Check the full lists here:

Breaking Bad spinoff show 'Better Call Saul' will be available on Netflix in 2014.

The show will air in the U.S. on AMC starting in September 2014, and Netflix will begin streaming it around the globe shortly afterwards.

Bob Odenkirk, who played Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, will reprise his role as the sleazy lawyer and Breaking Bad creator and writer Vince Gilligan will write the show, as well, exciting fans of the original.

Netflix offered a similar deal with Breaking Bad's last season, airing it in Europe hours after it aired in the U.S.

Sprint has announced that 70 new markets now support the carrier's LTE network.

There were some major cities included, like St. Louis and San Diego, but mainly the additions were smaller, rural areas across the nation.

The carrier's rollout has been different than other major carriers, as Sprint continues to rollout out small cities along with bigger cities, but there is still notable missing areas, like San Francisco.

By the end of the year, the carrier says it expects 200 million Americans to be within LTE support by the end of the year, within striking range of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, all of which have had more successful rollouts.

For those in congested areas, Sprint has begun slowly rolling out 'Spark,' a higher bandwidth, faster network that can theoretically allow downstream speeds above 50 Mbit/s.

Amazon Studios has announced today that its lineup of original content for 2014 will be shot in 4K Ultra HD resolution.

The 3,840 x 2,160 pixel resolution is starting its long journey to the mainstream, and companies like Amazon and Netflix have already begun to integrate it to their streaming services.

"As a premium original content creator, we're excited about 4K and the future of Ultra HD technology, particularly as we move into drama series next year," said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. "All of the pilots and series we produce next year will be shot in 4K. That includes our first ever drama series that we will greenlight next year--we think customers are going to love watching these series in the highest resolution ever available to consumers and we can't wait to deliver it."

In an effort to boost sales of their Kindle Fire HDX, Amazon has begun a new partial money down, no interest financing option for the tablet line.

Here's how it works:

Make your first payment at checkout to get your new Kindle Fire HDX. Pay the remaining balance in 3 equal installments every 90 days.

No interest
No finance charges
No hidden fees
No credit check or application required

To get started, click on the button below. Add any eligible Kindle Fire HDX or Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" tablet to your cart. At checkout, we'll charge 25% of the device price, plus any applicable tax and shipping charges in full. The remaining balance will be automatically billed to your credit card in three equal installments every 90 days.

@Evleaks has released a small image of the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update, showing that Microsoft is moving away from hardware buttons to virtual buttons into the future.

The company has been internally testing the on-screen buttons for some time and the new addition could lead to smaller bezels and potentially larger screens for future models.

For manufacturers, the removal of the physical button requirement will help lower costs, as well but it is optional and OEMs can choose to stick with physical buttons for their devices.

Microsoft will unveil the OS update at next year's BUILD 2014 conference.

Partial Windows Phone "Blue" screenshot. pic.twitter.com/LnV9h0MMKL

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) December 14, 2013

Google has confirmed its acquisition of robotics engineering maker Boston Dynamics, a company that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon.

The company builds robots such as the BigDog, which can stay upright, walk with almost perfect balance over uneven terrain and run faster than humans.

While it is unclear what Google's larger picture is, Boston is the eight robotics company to be purchased by the search giant in the last year. The company's robotics division is led by former Android boss Andy Rubin. Boston Dynamics has not sold the robots commercially, but has worked with the Pentagon, including building a set of humanoid robots named Atlas. Atlas' goal is to be able to operate in the event of natural disasters or man-made catastrophes like the Fukushima power plant meltdown.

Here are a few videos of the company's products:

According to the latest beta, Apple's upcoming iOS 7.1 will bring a new Car Display mode.

The update allows customers to "attach an iOS device to a compatible car center console via either wireless protocols or over a USB cable. An iOS interface for managing Maps, Messages, and Music then appears on the car's display."

Apple's latest beta for iOS 7.1 has added the ability to enable the "Car Display" mode in the Settings app. Additionally, the source code shows a large increase in reference to the car mode from beta 1 to beta 2.

The update is set for an early 2014 release.

According to the SMB email management company Intermedia, Apple ruled small and medium-sized business activations for 2013.

The company says over 190,000 iPhones and iPads were activated on its network for the period ended October 31st, beating out Samsung at the number two spot with just 29,000 activations.

Posting the figures in its annual "2013 Small + Medium Business Mobile Trends Report," the company says Apple accounted for 76 percent of all activations so far for 2013. Intermedia is one of the world's largest "third-party providers of hosted Exchange, delivering integrated email, calendars, contacts and other business tools to nearly 700,000 business users."

Motorola was far down in third at 13,800 activations for the same period, and Microsoft Windows Phones saw the largest growth at 93 percent, but the baseline figure was tiny.

Microsoft's Nancy Tellem says Microsoft will see it first original programming for Xbox early next year, a little bit later than expected.

Tellem is the president of entertainment and digital for Microsoft, who added: "We're hoping we will be able to put something up in the first quarter, at minimum second quarter."

The programming will be available on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One for Xbox Live subscribers.

Tellem was put in charge in 2012, and adds that "I'm incredibly ambitious and impatient" and although the content is taking longer than expected, "reflecting on what we've done and what lies ahead, it's been pretty good." One major project is based on the blockbuster series Halo, and is produced by Steven Spielberg.

Xbox Live has 48 million subscribers currently, and there are about 75 million Xbox consoles active around the world, giving Tellem a large audience for her slate of shows.

According to a new report, Apple will release the oft-rumored iWatch in October 2014, after having testing multiple prototypes.

Supposedly, the watch will also include wireless charging capabilities, allowing for the device to charge from as far as three feet away.

Battery life still appears to be an issue for Apple, with previous reports claiming the prototypes could only last up to 2 days on a charge, and the company not ready to release it until that it is extended to 4-5 days. The new report claims Apple has been using a tiny 100 mAh battery for their prototypes, which is extremely small when considering the Samsung Galaxy Gear and its poor battery life has a 315 mAh battery.

It also remains unclear what size display the watch will feature, with most reports claiming it will be either 1.3-inches or 1.7-inches.

Valve's new Linux-based operating SteamOS is available for download this week, coinciding with the launch of the company's Steam Machine hardware beta, which 300 users received.

For the time being, the OS is not aimed at novices, and should be tested by "intrepid Linux hackers," says the company.

"At this point the OS itself is not yet a finished product for a non-technical user. SteamOS Beta is an early, first-look public release of our Linux-based operating system. The base system draws from Debian 7, code named Debian Wheezy. Our work builds on top of the solid Debian core and optimizes it for a living room experience. Most of all, it is an open Linux platform that leaves you in full control. You can take charge of your system and install new software or content as you want," reads the website.

Additionally, Valve published an FAQ including installation guides, minimum requirements and what the OS can do. The download clocks in at about 1GB.

Ubisoft has unveiled its new "Snowdrop" gaming engine, a truly "next-gen" system that incorporates features previously only seen on high budget feature films.

The publisher is using the new engine for its upcoming game "Tom Clancy's 'The Division.'" There's little in the way of details but Ubisoft has released a 2-minute clip showing off some of the incredible features we will see in the game.

For starters, the engine supports dynamic day and night cycles, dynamic global illumination, dynamic weather including snow melting on cars over time if the sun comes out or weather gets hotter, and real-world damage to surfaces/items/buildings when you shoot at them.

The game is set for launch in 2014 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

On Friday, the WSJ reported that Sprint is preparing to bid on rival carrier T-Mobile USA in a deal that will cost them over $20 billion.

The report claims Sprint will explore antitrust issues before proposing any deal, which will take months, suggesting a mid-2014 bid, at the earliest.

A merged Sprint/T-Mobile would be a major competitor to market leaders Verizon Wireless and AT&T, especially as Sprint and T-Mobile offer the best values for their plans, offering as low as $60 a month for unlimited everything plans.

Both companies have significantly expanded their LTE offerings in recent months, and are competitive on that front, although Verizon is the clear winner as far as national support goes.

Before any deal could be completed, the companies would have to get FCC approval that the deal would not lead to higher prices for consumers. AT&T was rejected from buying T-Mobile in 2011, due to antitrust issues, but Sprint and T-Mobile are the third and fourth largest carriers in the nation, so a combination would make them competitive with the current almost-duopoly of Verizon and AT&T.

Samsung announced earlier this week that it has merged its mobile devices/wireless and digital imaging divisions.

The move should lead the company to create a better synergy and improved camera imaging tech for its smartphones and tablets.

"We will transplant the brand, sales networks, software competency and manufacturing competitiveness of the Wireless Business Division into the Camera Business Division, and integrate the technical know-how of the two business divisions into competency for differentiating our smartphones," adds the company.

Samsung has certainly experimented with merging the two technologies in the past, releasing the Galaxy Camera, a high-end digital camera running on Android with touchscreen capabilities.

Google has launched a new help site called Google Tips, providing customers with guidelines and tips on how to use their consumer products.

Each card (Google Now users know about these) describes the product and you can flip the card to learn more about how it works. You can share the cards with your social networks and via email.

The site has cards for the following thirteen products: Search, Gmail, Chrome, Android, YouTube, Maps, Docs, Drive, Play, Calendar, Keep, News, and Google+.

To access any part of the site you must be logged in to Gmail, as expected.

Blockbuster is now officially dead, with all stores closed and all employees laid off.

The 91 remaining Blockbusters open in the UK were unable to avoid the fate of their American counterparts and will close down on December 16th. All remaining 808 employees will also lose their jobs.

"It is with regret that we have to make today's announcement. We appreciate this is a difficult time for all concerned and would like to thank staff for their professionalism and support over the past month," said Thomas and O'Reilly, administrators of the bankrupt business. "Unfortunately, we were unable to secure a buyer for the group as a going concern and as a result had to take the regrettable action to close the remaining stores."

In the U.S., all 300 remaining stores will be closed out by January by its owner, Dish Network. For the UK stores, the company is liquidating and will offer 90 percent discounts on most items still in stock.

Oppo has announced that their upcoming flagship, the Find 7, is "coming soon" with an expected launch in the next two months.

If the rumored specs are to be believed, the device will be a monster. Powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 805 and 3GB RAM, the smarpthone has a 5.7" 2560 x 1440 pixel display and dual 13 MP / 5 MP cameras.

Additionally, it is rumored to have a large 4000mAh battery as well as the standard Wi-Fi, LTE, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS features.

The company recently launched its N1 device, which uses CyanogenMod as its operating system and also includes a special rear touchpad for easier scrolling.

Walmart is preparing to drop the price of the iPhone 5C to just $27 with a new contract, down from its standard price of $99.

The company offered a similar deal for Black Friday, but that was $45 and included a gift card.

Apple's device has not sold as well as its brother, the 5S, and Apple has reportedly cut production by as much as 40 percent for the cheaper, plastic model. It appears that Walmart is looking to get rid of excess inventory into the holiday season.

Additionally, the iPhone 5S will drop in price to $127 with contract, down from $199, and the first-generation iPad Mini will come with a $50 gift card.

The sale starts tomorrow at 8am and extends until Christmas Eve.

Google has updated their Sheets spreadsheet application, making it much more powerful including the ability to work offline, aiming directly at the heart of the market leader, Microsoft Excel.

The new applications supports larger spreadsheets with up to "millions of cells" and says that "scrolling, loading and calculation are all snappier, even in more complex spreadsheets."

Sheets has also added "filter views" to let you "quickly name, save and share different views of your data." Calculations have been made easier, as well, with function help guiding you as you type and highlighting errors. Additionally, "with the improved conditional formatting, you can add rules to change the colors and styles of cells in your spreadsheet based on custom formulas."

Most importantly, you can now work offline, editing spreadsheets when you are on the go and may not have a connection. When you log back into an Internet connection, your document will automatically sync.

Google's popular $35 HDMI dongle Chromecast has just seen its largest expansion yet, ten new applications.

Until now, the Chromecast only supported Netflix, HBO Go, Pandora, YouTube, Hulu Plus and Google Play Movies, TV and Music.

Reads the post:

Just in time for the holidays, 10 new apps have been added to the Chromecast family. Beginning today you can enjoy action sports, news, music videos, and more with the addition of VEVO, Red Bull.TV, Songza, PostTV, Viki, Revision 3 and BeyondPod.

And for those many holiday gatherings, you can also cast your personal media straight to your TV using Plex, Avia, or RealPlayer Cloud apps. There's no need to huddle around small screens when you can share your own photos and videos using your phone, tablet, or laptop.

Rovio has officially released their latest blockbuster, the Mario Kart-inspired "Angry Birds Go" racing game.

The game includes the same birds and pigs you have become accustomed to, and allows gamers to race karts down different tracks using power ups and gaining coins to be able to upgrade their kart.

Each level has different game modes, as well, including time trials, boss races, standard races and even a "smash the fruit" level where you must smash enough fruit on the track to unlock coins.

The game is free for Android and iOS but there are time playing restrictions unless you purchase in-app upgrades for your character's "energy bar."

Google has taken this week to add a substantial new lineup to its Google Play hardware store, including most recently the Sony Xperia Z Ultra and the LG G Pad 8.3 tablet.

The tablet has an 8.3-inch 1080p ISP display, thin bezels, and is just 8.3mm thick, just slightly thicker than the iPad Air.

Having used the non-Google Play model of the tablet, we found it to be one of the best Android tablets, ever, and a strong competitor to the iPad Mini with Retina, despite a lower resolution display.

Under the hood is a quad-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, a microSD slot, NFC and Bluetooth 4.0, dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, dual cameras and a 4600mAh battery.

Gaming accessory maker Mad Catz has launched their entry to the Android game console market, the "Mojo" box.

The Mojo is available for sale now after first being unveiled at the E3 expo in June.

Running on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, the device allows you to play your Android games on your big screen TV, as well as access your apps and media you may already have on your phone or tablet. There is full access to the million-app strong Google Play Store.

Powering the Mojo is a Tegra 4 processor, 16GB internal storage, a microSD slot, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

The most important part of the console is its gamepad, which Mad Catz explains:

To maximize control over controller-compatible games and apps, M.O.J.O. comes with a GameSmart C.T.R.L.R Mobile Gamepad which mobilizes gameplay without forfeiting the familiarity of the console-style controller you know and love. C.T.R.L.R offers three different gaming modes and enhanced portability for where ever the game may take you. Here are some cool features of the C.T.R.L.R Mobile Gamepad:

Read more...

Sony's highly rated Xperia Z Ultra smartphone has finally gotten its own Google Play edition and stock Android.

Available to U.S. buyers, the powerful device has a massive 6.4-inch, 1920 x 1080, 342ppi display, a waterproof/dust-resistant design, and is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm 800 processor at 2.2GHz and 2GB RAM and a 3,000 mAh battery.

The device comes with stock Android 4.4.2 KitKat, and has 16GB internal storage (with a microSD slot).

Additionally, the smartphone is just 6.5mm thin, even thinner than the new iPhone, and has dual cameras; 8MP with a Sony Exmor RS sensor and 2MP upfront.

The device is unlocked and supports all bands of GSM/UMTS/HSPA+/LTE.

Check it here.

According to XBL head Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, the Xbox One has already reached the 2 million units sold milestone.

The company says the pace of sales is "record setting" for Xbox since its launch on November 22nd.

Among the other milestones:

Over 83 million hours in games, TV, and apps on Xbox One since the system launched
39 million Xbox One achievements unlocked
595 million total Gamerscore achieved on Xbox One
At peak demand, customers were ordering the Xbox One console at over 1000 units per minute on Amazon.com

Dell has unveiled their first ChromeOS device today, the Chromebook 11.

The device is aimed at teachers and students, and features an 11.6-inch display while weighing just 2.9 pounds for easier portability.

Under the hood is a 1.4GHz Celeron processor and small 16GB SSD, and Dell is including a Wyse PocketCloud app for easier sharing in the cloud. There will be two models, one with 2GB RAM and the other with double, with the 2GB model expected to be aimed at the schools that may need to cut costs.

Most importantly, Dell promises 10-hour battery life, which would make it easily the best Chromebook available for longevity.

The device will go on sale in January with an expected price under $300.

Sprint has announced that their faster "Spark" LTE network is now live in Chicago, just a month after the carrier confirmed it was merging 800 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz LTE spectrum to be able to offer speeds as high as 50 Mbps.

The carrier says that "as part of Sprint's Network Vision program, the company undertook a massive initiative to "rip and replace" equipment from its 38,000 cell sites across the country" and that Chicago is the first to see the upgrades.

For the time being, the LTE network will only work on tri-band phones, which for Sprint mainly means high-end devices like the Samsung Galaxy Mega, HTC One Max and LG G2.

"Sprint's investment in upgrading our network infrastructure has required a massive team of dedicated engineers and technicians to systematically install new, modern 3G and 4G LTE-capable equipment," said Bob Azzi, Sprint chief network officer. "This process involved equipping Sprint cell towers in the Chicago area with state-of-the-art network technology. It took us more than a year to complete and, although there have been some service interruptions, we expect our customers will find the improved Sprint wireless experience worth it."

Google Play Books has just updated to version 3.1.17, bringing with it a major feature fans have been asking for for over a year; native uploading from your mobile devices.

With the update, you can directly upload your EPUB or PDF files to your Books accounts, without having to log in to the website and doing it that way.

Open the book from your file manager or email, and a new option will be to "Upload to Play Books."

In testing the service out, Google Play Books had some issues with some PDFs, saying it could not display the books but one EPUB I tried worked just fine. Could be a work in progress.

Here is the rest of the change log:

Books open more quickly and smoothly.
Upload EPUB or PDF files to your library from your phone or tablet. From email or Downloads, touch the file to open it and choose Upload to Play Books.
Improved look and feel of highlights and notes.
Lower brightness settings, for better reading in low light.
Read any book in landscape view.
Dismiss recommended books in Read Now.
Additional improvements in performance, stability and accessibility.

New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg has announced this week that the Harlem neighborhood will get the largest free public Wi-Fi network in the nation, spanning just under 100 city blocks.

The network will stretch from 110th to 138th Streets between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Madison Avenue.

Already in progress is the first phase, spanning between (110th to 120th between Frederick Douglass and Madison), with phase two (121st to 126th)set to be completed by February 2014 and the final phase to be completed by May.

"Our new Harlem wireless network brings critical connectivity to residents and visitors, giving them 24/7 access to everything from education materials for kids, to information about Harlem's rich history and attractions, to everyday needs like paying bills, checking library hours – or even just keeping tabs on the Knicks and Nets," said Mayor Bloomberg. "In 2013 being successful requires being connected; thanks to the Fuhrman Family Foundation and the Mayor's Fund, we are wiring nearly 100 blocks in Harlem and giving 80,000 New Yorkers another tool for success."

Apple has added new channels to its Apple TV set-top box, including popular ones like Crackle and Bloomberg.

Additionally, the company has added Korean channel KORTV and a "Watch ABC" channel that lets cable subscribers watch local content from ABC affiliates.

In the last few months, Apple has significantly added to the set-top's app catalog, adding PBS, Yahoo Screen, Disney, Vevo, WatchESPN, HBO Go, and Major League Soccer.

The company is also reportedly in talks with Time Warner Cable to added TWC TV and its thousands of hours of on-demand content for Time Warner Cable subscribers.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has said that the company will likely kill off device subsidies into the future.

"When you're growing the business initially, you have to do aggressive device subsidies to get people on the network," he said. "But as you approach 90 percent penetration, you move into maintenance mode. That means more device upgrades. And the model has to change. You can't afford to subsidize devices like that."

The wireless carrier just introduced new pricing plans that reward customers who keep their older devices, or bring their own, allowing them to save up to $15 per month on their service bill. Additionally, the company also introduced its "Next" program, which allows for no-money down and 0 percent financing for smartphones but adds to the monthly bill.

"If you are a customer and you don't need to upgrade your device, you can get unlimited talk and text and access to the data network for $45 all-in," adds Stephenson. "You can use your own device or finance it. I think this will be very powerful. It's where we see the market going."

As part of its press event today, Spotify has also announced it will be expanding to 20 new markets, its largest expansion ever.

After the rollout is complete, the streaming giant will be available in 55 markets and the new additions are mainly in South and Central America.

The new markets include Bolivia, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Malta, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Slovakia and Uruguay.

CEO Daniel Elk also noted that this year users have streamed 4.5 billion hours of music, with 1.5 million new playlists being created every day.

Led Zeppelin, one of the most celebrated rock bands of all-time, has finally embraced the streaming model, making their tracks available on Spotify.

The band had made their music available for digital purchase via iTunes, Google Music, and Amazon since last year but had so far rejected on-demand streaming services like Spotify, Rdio, iTunes Radio and others. Curiously, the music has been available on Pandora, however.

According to reports, the band's management has been negotiating with streaming services since at least January, with Spotify clearly the highest bidder.

The legendary @LedZeppelin is here! Stream the albums as they're released this week, #OnlyOnSpotify http://t.co/XLCptyaeSr #StreamZeppelin

-- Spotify (@Spotify) December 11, 2013

As has been rumored for the last few weeks, Spotify has expanded their free desktop streaming service to mobile, at least if you own an iOS or Android device.

CEO Daniel Ek says Spotify Free for mobile will only work on "Shuffle" mode which means you can pick featured (or artist/genre) playlists and stream those. You will not be able to select your tracks on-demand like on the desktop version or in the premium models.

Spotify has over 24 million active users, and 6 million paid subscribers and has spent millions this year expanding the service and adding features including "Discover" and "Browse" to help users find new music.

The company also announced some other great additions to the service which will be updated on Afterdawn after the conclusion of the press event.

Oppo's N1 device is now on sale, in limited quantities.

The company, known for its quality receivers and Blu-ray/DVD players, recently introduced cheap yet powerful Android devices. Cyanogen, which recently became a real company and raised money as it tries to take on Android, Windows Phone and iOS, announced Oppo as its first partner back in September.

N1 devices feature a 5.95-inch 1080p display, a 1.6GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600, 2GB RAM, 3600 mAh battery and a very intriguing rotating camera that allows you to use the better rear camera for video chat and portrait shots, as well. A limited quantity will be built with CyanogenMod already pre-installed, while the rest of the production will start with Android but have the application and instructions ready for Cyanogen. Additionally, it has a rear touch panel for taking photos, scrolling and more.

Thanks to a new unofficial Xbox One hardware mod, gamers can use other controllers on their console, including a keyboard and mouse and also the PS4's DualShock 4.

The CronusMax USB device plugs into the console's controller port and enables other controller support. The device was previously released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC but this month's update adds Xbox One support.

Besides the DS4, the device also enables the Xbox 360 controller, DualShock 3, Wii Remote and Wii U Pro Controller.

Additionally, you can mod the functionality, adding macros and button combos that will be "100% undetectable online" and will certainly lead to unfair advantages, most notably in FPS titles.

Just two days after most Nexus users started getting OTA push updates for the new Android 4.4.1 KitKat update, Google has replaced it with Android 4.4.2.

Reportedly, Android 4.4.1 had some stability issues that were quickly and quietly patched by Google. The change log for 4.4.2 is the same as 4.4.1, which greatly improved the camera quality of the Nexus 5.

The lag has been reduced, shutter times are faster, colors are improved and there is less motion blur. As a Nexus 5 user myself, I found the update helpful, although auto-focus issues still seem to be a problem.

Google was so quick to replace 4.4.1 that honestly I didn't even get to install the original OS as it was pushed to my device last night. Regardless, Google seems to be on top of it, and the updates so far for the camera are a welcome relief as the camera was the biggest disappointment of the device.

Once havens for piracy, ranging from Asian soup operas to the latest Hollywood blockbuster, China's largest Internet video companies Youku, Baidu, Sohu and Tencent have all begun cracking down on the unauthorized video, instead opting for legal distribution and higher advertising revenue.

Youku, the largest Internet video site in China at 32 percent market share, says it now spends a billion yuan ($164 million) on legal distribution licenses so they can play popular content like "The Walking Dead." The move is expected to drive the company to its first ever quarterly profit.

The company employs at least a dozen employees who search specifically for pirated content, although they have run into some challenges. "The biggest challenge is that there are more new ways to pirate video as the technology develops," Lu Changjun, the head of Youku Tudou's Internet police squad (via Reuters).

Baidu, Tencent and Sohu all said they never ignored pirated material or willfully uploaded such content, but each admitted that they lost copyright infringement suits filed by Chinese content creators.

Time Warner Cable's incoming CEO Rob Marcus has said the company is "certainly open" to offering popular streaming service Netflix via its cable set-top boxes.

Marcus confirmed that consumers find Netflix particularly attractive because it is available on nearly every Internet connected device, and that Time Warner Cable has also "been out there on the forefront of making our video available on an increasing number of IP-enabled devices."

"When TWC TV is on Roku, it's sitting right next to Netflix," Marcus concluded. TWC TV gives subscribers access to over 300 live TV channels and over 5000 hours of VOD offerings. It is available on iOS, Android, PC, Samsung Smart TVs and the aforementioned Roku set-tops. It is expected to be available through Apple TV soon.

According to sources, Yahoo has been in serious discussions to acquire photo-sharing site Imgur.

Imgur was created in 2009 by a college student who was annoyed by the other photo-sharing options on the web, most of which require users to watch ads or register. The site is used by Reddit, one of the largest sites on the planet, for its community.

The photo sharing service recently surpassed 100 million users, strong growth as the site reported 30 million users at the beginning of 2012.

Imgur makes tiny revenue through ads, memberships and (more recently), sponsored images.

It is unclear how much Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is willing to bid for the service, but following a $1 billion purchase of Tumblr (which has less users and likely less revenue), the purchase price could be large. Imgur has no current financial backing.

According to Paul Thurrott, Microsoft is planning to bring the entire Start Menu back with the next edition of Windows.

Codenamed "Threshold," Microsoft will supposedly bring back the Start menu, although it may only appear as an option for those that only keep desktop mode as their default.

For Windows 8.1, Microsoft brought back the Start button itself, but it is mostly cosmetic. An entire Start Menu will be reminiscent of all Windows operating systems before the launch of Windows 8, bringing easier search, access to programs and quick start apps along with control panel and computer options.

Additionally, the new update could add the ability to run "Modern" apps on the desktop, rather than the way it is now where you can choose the Modern interface, or Desktop with Modern apps run alongside. The new update will allows Modern apps to appear as separate windows on the desktop interface.

Finally, Windows RT will be done away with, say the sources, as Microsoft moves to a more simplified version of the operating system that will work across ARM-based Windows tablets, Windows Phone 8 (or 9) and even PCs. The standard Windows will live on for the PC market with full support for legacy apps.

According to their website, China Mobile will begin taking pre-orders for the iPhone starting on Thursday.

The carrier's advertisement comes with a "4G is here!" slogan, letting customers know they can pre-order the iPhone 5S and high-end Android smartphones, as well, all of which will run on the company's newly approved 4G LTE network.

"Customers can begin to preorder for our new 4G services from Dec. 12 through the company's website and some dedicated branches in Shanghai. But we will only start providing commercial 4G services after Dec. 18," added the company, in an emailed response.

China Mobile has not yet revealed pricing for the iPhones but will hopefully do so before Thursday.

The carrier has over 720 million subscribers.

Android-based operating system maker Cyanogen LLC has added another great feature to their CyanogenMod software; encrypted text messaging by default.

The company joined up with open source secure texting app maker Open Whisper Systems "to integrate encryption seamlessly into a phone's firmware."

If you are running CyanogenMod, all texts to other CyanogenMod users will be encrypted using Open Whisper System's TextSecure technology. It doesn't matter what SMS app you use either, says the company.

"We want everyone to have access to advanced secure communication methods that are as easy and reliable to use as making a normal phone call or sending a normal text message," Moxie Marlinspike, co-founder of Open Whisper Systems says. "The collaboration we've done with Cyanogen takes us substantially closer to our goal of completely frictionless secure communication. Users don't have to do anything special or different, it just happens."

Qualcomm has unveiled its first 64-bit Snapdragon processor today, detailing the entry-level mobile chip that includes some powerful features.

The Snapdragon 410 is expected to power phones that sell for under $200, but does include 4G capabilities and much improved graphics.

One Qualcomm executive, following the release of the iPhone 5S and its 64-bit processor earlier this year, called 64-bit mobile processing a "gimmick" that provides "zero benefit" for consumers. The company backtracked on his statements within hours, but the new chip release now seem awkward given his comments.

The company says the 410 will be available by the Q3 2013, and the full line of Snapdragon processors will be updated to 64-bit models throughout the year, as well.

According to recently revealed documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA has been monitoring online gaming communities like Xbox Live, World of Warcraft and Second Life since at least 2008.

The agency has been infiltrating RPGs, posing as players, purportedly to root out potential terrorist communications.

Besides the NSA, British counterpart GCHQ was also involved in the operations, say the documents.

The files did not suggest that any terrorists were ever caught, but there were apparently so many undercover agents at one time that there was talk of starting a "deconfliction group" to prevent agents from spying on each other in the networks.

Both Blizzard and Microsoft say they are not aware of any surveillance on their players but most certainly did not grant permission to do so if anyone was spying.

Apple has announced expanded availability for its popular iTunes Match service.

The service is now available in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden at a price of 249 kr ($38 USD) and 25 euro in Finland. By comparison, iTunes Match is $24.99 a year in the U.S.

Introduced in 2011, iTunes Match lets iTunes fans "match" their existing libraries with supposedly higher quality versions of the tracks directly in Apple's iCloud. After you match, the content is saved to iCloud and can then be accessed anywhere you have Internet.

Additionally, you can download your previously purchased music on any device, as well.

Most countries where iTunes is available now have iTunes Match, with one notable holdout being Japan.

It seems smartphones with full physical keyboards may not be dead after all.

@Evleaks has posted images of the LG Optimus F3Q, which he says will launch for T-Mobile USA.

There are little details about the device other than its 5-row QWERTY keypad and that it has LTE and NFC support, but more details are sure to leak soon. Additionally, the device will use LG's own user interface on top of Android.

LG introduced the Optimus F3 for T-Mobile and it was a low-end device so the F3Q is expected to be low-end, as well, but with the keyboard it will have its niche following.

LG Optimus F3Q, for T-Mobile USA pic.twitter.com/Lysho2CFJs

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) December 6, 2013

Thanks to spectrum they acquired when merging with MetroPCS, T-Mobile USA has begun rolling out their faster LTE network in major metros.

The carrier will eventually offer the faster (20-by-20) service to "90 percent of the top 25 U.S. markets" which will offer double the amount of spectrum as the company's current LTE network.

T-Mobile's initial LTE service is available in 40 of the U.S.' top 50 markets.

The news comes on the heels of Verizon Wireless announcing the launch of AWS LTE, which offers speeds theoretically as high as 150 Mbps with an expected rollout for the next year. Additionally, Sprint says it will be boosting LTE speeds in the next three years, as well, using spectrum acquired from Clearwire.

All LTE-capable T-Mobile devices will work with the new network.

The US DOJ has announced that thirteen 'Anonymous' members have pleaded guilty for their part in a 2010 attack on PayPal.

All of the defendants admitted to carrying out the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attack at the time, which temporarily took down the PayPal site and service.

The attack was retribution for PayPal suspending the accounts of WikiLeaks.

Ten of the hackers plead guilty to felony charges, but they can change it to a misdemeanor if the defendants do not violate their agreements before sentencing.

The defendants will be sentenced next December.

Nowadays, it seems like every other week a major corporation or website is seeing an attack on their databases, with email addresses, passwords and other personal info being stolen by the attackers.

A new website wants to make it easier to see if your information has been stolen, by integrating the stolen databases into one larger database that you can search by your email.

Computer scientist Troy Hunt created "Have i been pwned?," allowing you to search the hundreds of millions of accounts exposed by the breaches at Adobe, Gawker, Yahoo and Stratfor (among others).

For example, thankfully my two main emails were not "pwned" but an older one was found to be part of Adobe's leak. As explained by the site: "Adobe. The big one. In October 2013, 153 million accounts were breached with each containing an internal ID, username, email, encrypted password and a password hint in plain text. The password cryptography was poorly done and many were quickly resolved back to plain text. The unencrypted hints also disclosed much about the passwords adding further to the risk that hundreds of millions of Adobe customers already faced."

Earlier this week we reviewed the excellent and cheap Motorola Moto G smartphone, which retails for $179 (8GB) or $199 (16GB) unlocked and off-contract.

A new teardown of the powerful device reveals that the components within the 16GB model cost Motorola about $123, leaving thin margins for its maker, especially when compared to high-end devices like the iPhone 5S, HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4.

At $123 for component costs, and including expected costs for R&D, marketing and shipping (along with operating expenses), Motorola makes under $10 per unit sold, razor thin margins. By comparison, Samsung has about a 28 percent margin on its S4, and Apple has a 31 percent margin on its iPhone 5S.

Verizon has quietly acquired CDN provider EdgeCast Networks for $350 million, gaining access to the company's roster of large clients.

EdgeCast provides CDN for major tech startups like Hulu, Twitter and Pinterest, among others.

Enterprise sales and growth has stagnated for Verizon, who expects EdgeCast to provide a new profitable revenue stream right out of the gate. Verizon recently acquired digital media streaming company UpLynk, as well, in their ongoing efforts to stream more content over their network.

Outside of standard CDN offerings, EdgeCast launched a CDN service for just e-commerce companies, and a DNS routing service.

EdgeCast has over 6000 clients.

A new image has been making its way across the web this week, promising Xbox One gamers a way to enable dev kit mode for their console and add backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games.

Microsoft has quickly dismissed the method, stating that you will brick your console if you try the six-step method.

Rather than give you backwards compatibility, Microsoft warns the console will stay in a constant reboot cycle.

Bungie and Activision's upcoming blockbuster 'Destiny' will be released on September 9th, 2014, giving the publisher ample time to perfect the game.

The game had originally been scheduled for "the spring" but it appears that the game was not ready, at least not by Bungie's standards:

"We promised to redefine what players should expect from a Bungie game. We said we wanted to change the way people play games together. We set our bar high. For us, Destiny represents a once in a lifetime opportunity," Bungie adds. "We believe this is the right decision for our game, our studio, and our passionate community."

PlayStation 3 and 4 gamers will get an exclusive beta over the summer, and Xbox gamers will get the beta at a later date.

The most recent gameplay trailer:

Major computer hardware maker MSI has unveiled what it calls the world's first 3K-resolution gaming notebook.

Featuring 2880 x 1620 resolution, the 15.6-inch display promises "sharper, brighter and crisper graphics resulting in an unmatched visual experience," says the company of its new GT60 2OD-261US notebook.

Under the hood is a Core i7-4700MQ processor, a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card, 16GB DDR3 RAM, a 128GB SSD/1TB HDD combo and a Blu-ray ROM.

"Gamers demand the most out of their systems and are constantly trying to attain a more complete experience, starting from system performance to multimedia effects. The GT60 with 3K graphics immerses the portable gamer into a realm never before experienced," stated Andy Tung, vice president of sales for MSI Pan America Region. "The 3K graphics in our latest workstation gives professionals an edge by increasing efficiency and productivity."

Just one month after being sworn in as FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler has already made a controversial move.

The TV spectrum auction would have opened up the spectrum currently held by broadcast television to wireless carriers, but the auction is said to be one of the more complex in history. Wheeler is the third FCC head since 2012, when the auction was first announced.

"Policy challenges are only part of the picture," Wheeler wrote in his announcement. "We must also get the enabling technology right."

WaPo explains what the auction would entail: "According to the basic framework, TV station operators will be offered money in exchange for relinquishing their rights to the airwaves. The affected stations will then have to decide whether to share a channel with existing operators or exit the industry entirely. Then the FCC will auction off the reclaimed spectrum to wireless carriers, such as AT&T and Verizon, who intend to use it to upgrade their cellular networks."

All four major carriers are expected to bid significantly on the spectrum.

After the failure that was Google TV and the success that is the Google Chromecast, a new report claims that Google is preparing an Android set-top box for next year dubbed the 'Nexus TV.'

The new device will run on the latest Android and include access to popular streaming apps like HBO Go, Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and Vudu and also include access to gaming (like Ouya). The device is rumored to also include a Kinect-esque motion sensor and can be controlled from any Android device.

According to the report, the set-top will be ready to ship in the Q2 2014. Former Android boss Andy Rubin is said to have demoed the device at this year's CES event but it has never been officially promoted by the company.

The new report suggests that a touchpad remote could also be included, as well, for those without Android devices. Additionally, the device will be "aggressively priced," says the report, which could suggest a sub-$50 price tag.

The Supreme Court has announced this week that it will review software patent law, most specifically what kinds of software are eligible for patent protection.

Alice Corporation, which holds a patent for a computer system that facilitates financial transactions, has had the patent challenged by CLS Bank International in the case watched by the whole software industry.

The court's eventual decision will decide the circumstances in which companies can be sued for using software in their products.

Giants like HP, Google and Facebook have all asked the Supreme Court to also look at another similar case, one brought by a company called WildTangent. What is at stake is huge, and could spell the end of patent trolls that destroy innovation and bleed companies, large and small.

Patent 'trolls' file lawsuits against tech companies using (usually) extremely vague patents, forcing the companies to spend money on litigation rather than research and development. Trolls hold and hoard patents the single intent of suing companies with them.

The Motorola Moto X continues to see its Android 4.4 KitKat rollout.

U.S. Cellular subscribers are starting to get the OTA update, following T-Mobile USA, AT&T and Verizon which received it in the last week. Outside of the Nexus 5, the Moto X is the only device to have Android 4.4, not even last year's reference device, the Nexus 4, has it.

Remaining carriers without the update include Sprint, who has not given a timeframe, and Republic Wireless, which said the update is coming early next month.

The Moto X runs an almost stock version of Android, but includes so very nifty applications for migrating data from old devices, and more.

Android 4.4 adds aesthetic enhancements, updated to the phone dialer, the camera/gallery and enhanced NFC support.

Apple paid its lead law firm over $60 million to help the company in its patent battles against rival Samsung.

The revelation comes via Apple legal documents filed this week.

Apple has so far been the big winner in the ongoing war, with juries awarding Apple damages of nearly $1 billion over the last two years.

The Cupertino giant is asking U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to order Samsung to pay a quarter of Apple's legal fees, which would amount to a bit above $15 million. "Awarding fees to Apple 'flows quite naturally' from the jury's willfulness verdict as well as Samsung's extensive record of willful, deliberate, and calculated decisions to copy the iPhone, in blatant disregard for Apple's IP," Apple's attorneys added in the filing.

Apple also added that it received a significant discount from its lead firm, Morrison & Foerster's, due to their longtime relationship. It is unclear how much more the company would have had to pay had they been a smaller company with less clout.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally has committed to stay with the automaker until at least the end of 2014, says the company's board director, ending much of the speculation that the executive would jump ship to take the helm at tech giant Microsoft following the retirement of Steve Ballmer.

Since Ballmer's announcement earlier this year, most reports had slated Mulally as a favorite for the position as far as external candidates went.

Mulally, when asked, said he preferred to talk about the new global Mustang and that "there is no change to the plan," of him staying with the carmaker. He added, when asked about hearing his name repeatedly for the job: "I think that people are looking for leadership, and I can understand that, but I love serving Ford."

Ballmer, who was with Microsoft for over 30 years and replaced founder Bill Gates as CEO, will be stepping down by next August but the board is looking to replace him quicker than that.

Other 'top' choices include Stephen Elop, the former CEO of Nokia, Microsoft's business development boss Tony Bates (former CEO of Skype) and Satya Nadella, the head of cloud and enterprise.

It's a rare sight whenever you see rivals Sony and Microsoft working together, but the giants are working together at least for one service, the Xbox's music matching service.

Xbox Music is powered by Gracenote, which provides music recognition, metadata and most other features of the service. Gracenote is owned by Sony's digital music division.

The service is available across all of Microsoft's platforms, including Xbox, Windows Phone, Windows 8 and Windows RT and is also available on iOS and Android.

To get access to the Gracenote-powered features, you will have to purchase Xbox Music Pass which allows you to identify music tracks (and albums), "unlock them in the cloud, and stream them across their devices." All purchased tracks, no matter where they were acquired can be stored in the cloud. The pass costs $10 per month.

"A big frustration for music fans is having to completely rebuild their collections when switching between streaming or download services," added Stephen White, the president at Gracenote. "Gracenote music recognition and data will make it easy for Xbox Music users to migrate their collections to the cloud without searching, repurchasing, or even uploading."

Millionaire entertainment mogul Ryan Seacrest has invested over $1 million in a new startup that will bring a full QWERTY keyboard to the iPhone 5/5S.

The "Typo Keyboard" will be unveiled officially at the CES event in Las Vegas next month, and Seacrest (who is also a co-founder) is expected to invest over $5 million into the concept.

In the company's press release, they give a bit more back story into Seacrest's involvement: "The back story of Seacrest's interest in this -- for many of his friends and colleagues, carrying two phones was a habit: One for typing and correspondence and an iPhone for virtually everything else. One night, Ryan and his friend Laurence Hallier, CEO of Show Media, were out to dinner and both had phones on the table. Two people, four phones!"

Rival offerings did not live up to their expectations and Seacrest and the company have taken the last two years to develop the Typo, which doubles as a case, as well.

See it here:

Three years after launching its LTE network, major American carrier Verizon wireless has now introduced a faster, higher capacity LTE network in major metros across the nation.

A few of the lucky cities include New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C., where users will have access to theoretical peak speeds of 150 Mbps although real-world speeds will likely fall to 50 Mbps or slower due to millions of simultaneous users connected.

Verizon Wireless Chief Network Officer Nicola Palmer confirmed the launch to Om today.

For the speeds, Verizon is using AWS spectrum it acquired in 2002, which includes networks utilizing a full 40 MHz of spectrum, double what most of the U.S. now uses as LTE from Verizon. Some cities will get 30 MHz AWS spectrum.

Verizon confirmed that speeds on its current LTE networks have suffered due to congestion and the carrier now advertises 5-12 Mbps speeds for its smartphone offerings.

Digital currency Bitcoin has seen its price fall to $877 after hitting highs of $1155 following a few pieces of key news out of China and a large run up that saw prices triple in just a few months.

First, the Chinese Central Bank announced that banks and payment systems are banned from using the currency, and warned individuals of using it, as well.

"Bitcoins are virtual goods that have no legal status or monetary equivalent and should not be used as currency," said the Chinese central bank statement. "Ordinary people are free to participate in transactions at their own risk."

Later in the day, massive Chinese search engine Baidu said it would stop accepting Bitcoins for its music service.

View this great video explaining Bitcoin here:

Bitcoin Explained from Duncan Elms on Vimeo.

Google has announced news that should make plenty of users happy; the ability to download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data.

By doing so, you can archive your emails or calendars (if you are into that) or even export them to other services.

The data downloads in MBOX format and Google says you can customize what you are downloading to include just certain labels and calendars.

Google added the functionality to its existing Google Takeout service, which lets you archive your Google product data, including Google+, YouTube, Google Contacts, Google Drive, Google Voice, Google Profile, Google location history and Google Hangouts.

Some lucky users will have the ability starting today, but all Gmail users will get it by the end of the month.

Spotify, the popular music streaming service, is preparing to launch a free mobile service in the near future, says the WSJ.

The company, which currently offers a premium tier at $10 a month which includes unlimited mobile streaming, will begin to offer a free, ad-supported version of the same service.

Spotify has already come to licensing agreements with the major labels for such a service. The company is said to have been negotiating for almost a year with Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group over the royalty rates.

The streaming service has 6 million paying subscribers and over 20 million total active users.

What is interesting about the new free mobile service, is that it will allow for a limited amount of on-demand tracks, but will mainly be an equivalent to Pandora or iTunes Radio, which is a user-customized radio station.

Apple continued its U.S. dominance for the quarter ended October, with 40.6 percent share for its market leading iPhone.

Samsung took second at 25.4 percent share, followed by Motorola, HTC, and LG to round out the top five.

As far as operating systems go, Android remains king at 52.2 percent share, followed by Apple at 40.6 percent and BlackBerry and Windows Phone accounting for the rest.

Samsung grew faster than Apple, but still has a very long way to go if it wants to surpass the Cupertino giant. Motorola actually gained share, one of the few times in the last five years it has done so, while HTC saw another steep decline. LG stayed mostly flat.

Acer has unveiled a new AIO this week, moving back to its Windows roots.

The Aspire Z3-600 features a 21.5-inch 1080p display, two Harman Kardon speakers, USB.3.0, HDMI (with MHL support), an Intel Pentium J2850 quad-core processor, Intel HD Graphics, 4GB RAM, and a 750GB hard drive.

Acer's latest will run on Windows 8.1.

Adding to portability, the device has a flexible stand and a built-in battery with 2.5 hours of battery life.

Acer has priced the AIO at $779 and will go on sale in the next two weeks.

AT&T has launched their new "Mobile Share Value Plans" in an effort to help customers save on their monthly bills if they bring their own devices.

Says AT&T: "With the 'No Annual Service Contract' options, smartphone customers can save $15 a month on Mobile Share Value plans. Customers can receive these monthly savings when they: Get a new smartphone for no down payment with AT&T Next; bring their own smartphone; purchase a smartphone at full retail price; or when their smartphone is no longer under contract and they switch to the new plans.

All Mobile Share Value plan customers will benefit from shared data plus unlimited talk and text on their phones. Consumers will have the ability to connect up to 10 devices, including tablets and other wireless devices, while business customers will be able to connect up to 10, 15, 20 or 25 devices, depending on the plan."

AT&T will still be more expensive than similar T-Mobile or Sprint plans, but the plans are a step in the right direction for those who do not care about paying upfront for their devices.

The new plans go into effect on December 18th.

Twitter and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom have entered a strategic partnership today "to create a unique experience" for Telekom devices starting next year.

While the partnership is somewhat strange given that past partnerships with other software developers have been to give subsidized access to premium services, Twitter does not have a premium service.

What will the new deal entail? "In collaboration with Deutsche Telekom, Twitter will create a unique experience for Deutsche Telekom devices. This experience will include a way for people to keep up with Twitter right from their homescreen, and Deutsche Telekom will make it available on selected Android smartphones starting next year. Deutsche Telekom customers will have instant access to what's happening in the world in real time, right out-of-the-box.

"Deutsche Telekom will be a preferred partner for Twitter when it comes to innovative marketing, advertising and customer services opportunities on Twitter," reads the press release. Additionally, the carrier will get access to new Twitter "tools and innovations" before everyone else.

According to Apple, 74 percent of iOS users are now running the latest iOS 7 operating system, a high figure given the the OS has only been available for less than three months.

In October, Apple reported the OS was installed on 64 percent of devices, so it appears adoption is growing and iPhone 5C/5S and iPad Air sales are strong.

The company has not revealed exact hardware sales figures since the new devices launched, but we will know next month with the company's quarterly earnings report.

iOS 6 is still on 22 percent of devices, with older versions still surviving on 4 percent of devices. Those numbers will likely not budge too far in the near future, as older devices may not be able to update to iOS 7 due to hardware limitations.

Apple's new and upcoming iOS 7.1 will tweak the software keyboard, tweak HDR photos and other stability and performance enhancements.

One of the most popular apps in the Google Play Store, "Brightest Flashlight," which has been downloaded over 50 million times and reviewed over 1 million times, has been sanctioned by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for sneakily selling your personal information to advertisers.

The app, built by Goldenshore, sent your location and a unique ID to advertisers who could then better target their marketing. Users were aware of this, but opting out did not change whether data was sent or not. The developer has agreed to pay a fine to the US Federal Trade Commission after the application "left [consumers] in the dark about how their information was going to be used," adds Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Rich says the app maker "deceptively failed to disclose" that it would use user data even after users opted out via the app's settings page. The app still shared the data automatically, making the privacy options completely pointless.

As part of their FTC settlement, Goldenshore must delete all personal information it has gathered, redraft their privacy policy, and make sure that the option for users to opt in or out is actually real. If Goldenshore fails to do so, they will be hit with a $16,000 fine for every violation. At 50 million users, that number could be gigantic.

Sony has announced that there will be an extended PlayStation Network (PSN) maintenance scheduled to take place on Monday, November 9th for European PlayStation gamers.

The maintenance will last eight hours, from 16:00 to 00:00 GMT.

Online gameplay is still expected to be available for users who sign into their PSN account in the period before the downtime have the authentication details cached. If the details are not cached you will be able to sign in once the maintenance starts, or play your games online.

The move comes on the heels of Sony resetting passwords for thousands of PSN accounts as a precaution after "detecting irregular activity" on the network.

Heads up > There will be Network maintenance on PSN - Monday 9th/Tuesday & 10th Dec between 16:00 and 00:00 GMT. Thanks for your patience.

-- PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU) December 6, 2013

Once again, rumors have emerged that Apple is looking into building a larger iPad.

The sources claim Foxconn has already built five prototypes of a 12.9-inch iPad with 4K resolution and some with 2K resolution.

2K resolution models will debut in the first half of 2014, followed by the 4K models later in the year. The 4K model would be released during the normal product cycle in October.

Somewhat misleadingly, the report does not specify any specific resolutions. The current iPad Air with its 2,048 x 1,536 pixel resolution, is already a '2K' display.

WSJ and other Asian publications have previously reported on the purported large iPads.

President Barack Obama may be the last person still using a BlackBerry.

While speaking with youths about his healthcare law, Obama says he is not allowed to use Apple's iPhone smartphone 'for security reasons,' therefore sticking with his BlackBerry. The President does use an iPad, however.

Obama says he fought to keep his BlackBerry after becoming President in 2009, although he said just 10 people have his personal email address. None of our previous presidents used emails during their presidency.

BlackBerry has seen its share of struggles since 2008, losing nearly all of its market share to Google and Apple and seeing senior executive turnover.

According to the WSJ, China Mobile has signed their long-awaited iPhone deal with Apple, bringing the popular device to the world's largest carrier.

China Mobile has over 700 million subscribers, which should lead to a nice boost in sales for Apple.

At an upcoming December 18th event, China Mobile will show off their new 4G network. Officials with the carrier have long said they would wait to introduce the iPhone until after their 4G network was up and running.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced earlier today that it had approved licenses to China Mobile and its rival carriers to operate the broadband networks.

Apple, despite having deals with other Chinese carriers, has struggled to break out in the nation due to major competition from Android makers that offer devices at half the price of the iPhone, or less.

Analysts believe the deal will add 20 million iPhone unit sales per year, a massive increase to Apple's already large sales.

In November, Motorola Mobility took the wrapping off its Moto G device, an entry-level smartphone that the company hopes will help it dominate the low-cost market.

Google has priced the phone at $179 off-contract and unlocked, a new low for an Android device with such specs, and a clear way to distance the operating system from rival iPhone, which sells for $600 or more off-contract.

While the device does not offer the same specs as the top models in the market like the Nexus 5, Moto X, HTC One, Galaxy Note 3 or the iPhone 5S, it comes at a price lower than each of those cost even when taken with a two-year contract.

We will explore whether the Moto G offers the best Android 'bang for your buck' and whether or not it has a place among the market leaders.

Specs and Design

OCZ Technology, just days after announcing bankruptcy, has announced that they have signed an asset purchase agreement with Toshiba where the company will buy all of OCZ's assets in a chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding for $35 million.

Under the agreement, Toshiba will acquire OCZ's client and enterprise SSD businesses, and OCZ will "continue to operate and serve existing and future customers during this process."

Throughout the process, Toshiba has also agreed to provide "DIP (Debtor-in-Possession) financing to ensure that there is adequate capital and flash supply to support the business during the contemplated sale period."

"Over the past year, OCZ has dealt with numerous issues which have stressed the company's capital structure and operating model, posing a challenge to achieving near term profitability. The combination of NAND flash supply constraints and credit issues have impacted our ability to satisfy the demands of our customers; this combined with increased pricing pressure in our industry have contributed to our on-going operating losses. On an operational basis, we completed a complex investigation, several restructurings and a multi-year restatement that added significantly to our working capital requirements," stated Ralph Schmitt, CEO of OCZ. "We have been working diligently on this partnership with Toshiba and we believe that this is the best outcome under our current corporate conditions."

Yesterday, Motorola tried to offer a Cyber Monday sale on their flagship Moto X, but the company's site could not handle all the traffic.

The company dropped the price of the Moto X to $350 unlocked, making it one of the better tech deals of the day, until buyers were met with errors.

Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside apologized for the downtime: "I want to apologize to our customers and fans for the issues we experienced on our website with our Cyber Monday promotion. I want you to understand what happened, and what we are doing to rectify the situation.

First, we misjudged the overwhelming consumer demand for Moto X, which was far greater than we expected. Second, our pre-sale site testing was not sufficiently extensive. Testing failed to reveal weaknesses caused by large volumes of concurrent orders flowing through the MotoMaker customization engine. Thus, when we opened the promotion this morning, an extraordinary spike in concurrent orders caused our website to go down.

We couldn't fulfill orders. The site became unstable. While some orders were filled, many customers tried all day to place their orders, unsuccessfully. Customers were left frustrated.We have since found a solution that we believe addresses the concurrent order issue."

Once-popular cyberlocker Hotfile has settled its long-standing lawsuit with Hollywood and the MPAA, meaning the service will soon shut down for good unless they can "effectively implement 'digital fingerprinting' tech" that will block users from uploading unauthorized files to their servers.

Following the settlement, owner Anton Titov must pay damages totaling $80 million to the major movie studios.

The MPAA was quick to claim victory, stating that this is the first case in which a "US court has ruled on whether so-called cyberlockers like Hotfile can be held liable for their infringing business practices."

Hotfile had received a shocking 10 million DMCA notices before the lawsuit was filed in 2011 and at its peak was one of the largest lockers on the planet.

MPAA chairman Chris Dodd added: "This judgment by the court is another important step toward protecting an internet that works for everyone. Sites like Hotfile that illegally profit off of the creativity and hard work of others do a serious disservice to audiences, who deserve high-quality, legitimate viewing experiences online."

After recently announcing that the PlayStation 4 sold over one million units in its first 24 hours of sale, Sony has updated its system sales totals as of December 1st.

The company says 2.1 million consoles were sold worldwide since launch on November 15th, with 700,000 coming from Europe, Asia and Australia in the two days since its launch on November 29th.

Reads the Sony blog post:

In what is shaping up to be a historic year for gamers, I'm delighted to share an important new milestone with you. PS4′s North American debut on 15th November was PlayStation's largest ever, with more than one million gamers picking up a PS4 in just 24 hours. Now, with PS4′s global launch expanding to a total of 32 countries worldwide, including Europe and Latin America, I'm proud to announce that more than 2.1 million PS4s have been sold.

It's an impressive and record-setting accomplishment for our company and for our industry, and we couldn't have done it without you. I want to personally thank PlayStation fans, both old and new, for your vote of confidence. The best part: the PS4 journey has just begun. In addition to an incredible line-up of PS4 games from the best developers in the world, we will continue to introduce valuable new features and services to PS4 in the months and years ahead.

Read more...

The U.S. Department of Justice has approved of Microsoft's plans to acquire Nokia's mobile devices and services business.

A notification by the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition confirmed the approval as of November 29th.

"We look forward to the date when our partners at Nokia will become members of the Microsoft family, and are pleased that the Department of Justice has cleared the deal unconditionally," added Microsoft.

Nokia shareholders approved the deal last month, and other authorities have approved the deal, as well, since it was announced earlier this year.

The next, and biggest hurdle, will be European Union approval. The European Commission has until December 4th to decide on whether the bid violates EU competition rules.

Microsoft agreed to acquire the divisions for $7.2 billion along with licensing of important mobile patents.

According to the latest Kantar figures for the quarter ended October 31st, Windows Phone has been gaining traction around the globe, most notably in Italy.

The operating system reached a record 16.1 percent of the Italian smartphone market, besting Apple at 10.1 percent. In the UK, the OS hit 11.9 percent and France saw a record high, as well, at 12.5 percent. In France, the market share doubled from last year.

In the major smartphone markets of U.S., China and Spain, the operating system commanded 4.8 percent, 3.5 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.

EU5 nations (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom) saw Windows Phone share increase to 10.2 percent, behind iOS at 15.8 (down from 20.8 percent) and Android at 70.9 percent.

Full chart:

According to a new report out of the UK, the new iPhone 5S is killing its brother, the cheaper plastic iPhone 5C, by a 3-to-1 sales margin.

Kantar Worldpanel does add in their report that Apple has appealed to a broader audience with the 5C, and it has attracted new buyers to iPhone. Almost half of all iPhone 5C purchasers switched from feature phones or Android rivals, mainly from Samsung or LG. 80 percent of iPhone 5S buyers were upgrading from the iPhone 4, 4S or 5.

Similar figures have come out, globally, and Apple has reportedly scaled back iPhone 5C production by as much as 50 percent and moved that supply over to the 5S to tackle extra demand.

During a '60 Minutes' airing last night on CBS, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled his plans for the future of delivery: Amazon Prime Air.

The service will use 8-propeller drones to transport items from Amazon fulfillment centers directly to customer's homes, all in 30 minutes or less.

Bezos did note that the service will require clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and that the group isn't expected to make any drastic decisions until 2015. Bezos did say he expects Prime Air to go live in "four to five years" but the Amazon site itself says the deliveries could go live as soon as the FAA gives clearance.

The "octocopters" are completely unmanned and use internal GPS to deliver the items, all of which must be 5 pounds or lighter and smaller than certain undisclosed dimensions.

Of course, there are many issues to deal with before launch, not least of which is safety for pedestrians in the vicinity of a delivery.

According to 'industry sources,' the Samsung Galaxy S5 could be coming as soon as February or March, well earlier than the one-year anniversary of the S4.

The sources claim the Galaxy S5 could see production start as soon as January, shipping alongside a new Galaxy Gear 2.

If the sources are to be believed, the device will be a major force, including a 5-inch flexible display with 560ppi, a 64-bit processor, 3GB RAM, a 16MP camera and a massive 4000mAh battery to make sure you make it through the day on one charge.

February, just in time for the annual Mobile World Congress, could be a great time to unveil the device, as Samsung looks to continue its streak as top smartphone maker in the world.

Earlier this week, an poster going by Reckz0r posted to pastebin about an 'exploit' for the new PlayStation 4 that would allow the console to be jailbroken.

The pastebin had links to a PS4 Devkit, and a full jailbreak package, but the files did not really exist and there were no mirrors to the links.

Reckz0r even went as far as to post a screenshot of conversations between himself and "playstation" on Twitter to explain why the files were taken down. Of course, Sony would never directly contact a hacker via Twitter, especially one claiming to have exploited their latest hardware.

With another fake exploit, the developer has once again sullied his name. Last year he posted a fake Xbox Live hack and copy/pasted other exploits and claimed them as his own.

More info here.

LG's flagship will see the Android 4.4 KitKat update before end of March.

The Canadian division of the company confirmed the update for the Q1 2014 finally bringing the device to the latest operating system enjoyed by owners of the LG-built Google Nexus 5.

All local carriers will receive the update at the same time, so that at least should make owners more excited that they will not have to wait months for the update while other carriers could already have it.

The device runs on Android 4.3, has a 5.2-inch 1080p IPS panel, a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 SoC, 3GB RAM, dual cameras 13MP/2.1MP, 16 or 32GB internal storage, 24 bit/192kHz HiFi playback, and a non-removable 3,000mAh battery.

Chinese giant ZTE confirmed earlier this week that the company is working on a smartwatch. Lu Qianhao, the company's head of handset marketing strategy, confirmed the device, with the expectation that it will hit the market before the Q2 next year.

Initially, it was suggested that the watch would pair to ZTE smartphones, but CEO Richard Yu says the goal is to eventually have it sync with many major Android models.

New reports says the watch will accept SIM cards, allowing for stand alone phone calls. Video calling will also be enabled using the front-side watch camera.

If accurate, a micro SIM slot would make the watch unique, and certainly more useful than the Galaxy Gear or the Sony Smarwatch 2.

As expected, ZTE will sell the device in China first, but eventually it is expected to make its way to the EU and U.S.

PlayStation UK head Fergal Gara has implied that the PlayStation 4's lifecycle could be shorter than the PS3's was, at least in some markets.

The PS3 launched in 2006 and Sony has stated they will support the system for at least a decade.

Gara says (via CVG): "I think there's reason to believe that the next cycle might be shorter in markets such as the UK. It's probably a sign of the times and how much has changed in seven years, but I think the willingness and the appetite to pick up new technology fast has probably changed quite a bit."
Sony launched the PS4 in the U.S. on November 15th, and in the UK on the 29th.

The PlayStation Network saw additional downtime this week, following the launch of the PlayStation 4 in Europe.

Just as with the North American launch, users reported issues signing into their new console.

Sony officially acknowledged the issue yesterday, saying "We are aware some users are currently experiencing issues logging into PSN on PS4 due to the heavy traffic we are receiving, we're investigating and will update. Thanks for your patience."

European console owners must also download mandatory system update 1.51, which incorporates all current patches seen on North American consoles.

Researchers have found a new and scary Linux worm that is infecting home routers, set-top boxes, security cameras and other devices with an Internet connection.

Linux.Darlloz can target devices that run on Intel-made CPUs, so right now the threat is considered 'low-level.'

Symantec researcher Kaoru Hayashi says minor modifications could make the worm potent, if they incorporate available executable and linkable format (ELF) files. Those ELF files can attack devices running on ARM, PPC, MIPS, and MIPSEL architectures.

"Upon execution, the worm generates IP addresses randomly, accesses a specific path on the machine with well-known ID and passwords, and sends HTTP POST requests, which exploit the vulnerability," Hayashi explained (via Ars). "If the target is unpatched, it downloads the worm from a malicious server and starts searching for its next target. Currently, the worm seems to infect only Intel x86 systems, because the downloaded URL in the exploit code is hard-coded to the ELF binary for Intel architectures."

In 2011, massive flooding in Thailand caused hard drive manufacturers like WD, Toshiba and Samsung to halt production in the nation, causing a shortage in hard drive supply and an almost 50 percent jump in prices as demand continued its exponential growth.

According to cloud data backup provider Blackblaze, prices have finally stabilized back to pre-crisis levels, although still higher than if the crisis had never occurred and the long-term trend had continued.

During that time, hard drives have gotten more efficient and larger drives, including 4TB, have become more mainstream.

A few of Blackblaze's charts:

HTC has confirmed that a new colorway of the powerful One smartphone flagship is headed to Europe, gold.

"Building on the all metal design of the HTC One, and the recent success of the HTC 18 carat gold MOBO phone, we are excited to have developed our own gold device, offering yet more choice to consumers," said Philip Blair, President of HTC EMEA.

The device will be the same as its silver counterpart, featuring a high-end unibody casing, a 4.7-inch 1080p display with 468 ppi, a quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, Bluetooth 4.0/NFC/LTE and a 2300 mAh battery.

There was no word on release date, whether it would be available outside of Europe, or pricing.