News written by Andre Yoskowitz (September, 2013)

Samsung has announced that their ChatOn messaging service has reached a "global subscriber base" of 100 million users.

The service is available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and on desktops, making it a truly cross-platform service similar to WhatsApp and others.

Reads the press release: "Samsung Electronics is proud to announce that ChatON now has a global subscriber base of over 100 million users. The service was launched in October 2011, hitting the 50 million subscriber mark in May 2013 and doubling that number to 100 million only four months later.

ChatON's growth can be attributed to the support it offers across international markets and various OS platforms. The service provides a seamless experience where users can access ChatON through PCs, Samsung feature phones, and all the major smartphone operating systems: Android, iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone. ChatON's multi-screen support also allows users to sign-in on up to five different devices using one Samsung account ID."

Thanks to a leaked log from the upcoming LG D820 (The Google Nexus 5), we now have most of the specs for the upcoming Android flagship.

The phone will feature a 4.97-inch, 1080p display with a massive 442ppi, will be powered by a Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor and 2GB RAM. The device will run on Android 4.4 KitKat and include 16GB internal storage for its base model.

For the cameras, the device will use an 8MP sensor on the back and a 1.2MP front-facing camera.

Additionally, the Nexus 5 will feature dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and GPS connectivity.

Wireless charging capabilities are built-in, and the phone has a 2300mAh battery.

The publisher behind Batman: Arkham Origins has confirmed that the Wii U version of the game will not include online multiplayer mode and will therefore cost $10 less.

Multiplayer is available for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC versions, but the Wii U will not have it. Warner Bros. Interactive says the open-world single-player campaign will remain the same as its brothers, however.

It appears that the Wii U console has such little usership that the publisher could not justify keeping online servers.

The game will be released on October 25th. Warner has priced the Wii U version at $50, compared to the regular $60.

While Sony has made a grand effort to make their digital distribution platform a success, it is certainly not without its problems, as seen by the recent Grand Theft Auto V launch this month.

A significant number of PSN users have reported failed downloads of the game, or other errors, some that have spanned days.

With a total file size approaching 18GB through the PlayStation Store, corrupted or failed downloads is not something you want to see, and Sony has apologized for the experience.

PlayStation UK head Fergal Gara says the experience will be completely revamped in time for the launch of the PlayStation 4, on November 15th.

"There are big innovations in the PS4 to make it more attractive," he added, including the fact that gamers can begin playing their PS4 downloads before it has completed. "We've done a lot of work on pre-delivering files. It's not perfect. It's not seamless. But it's a major area of focus"

Sprint CFO Joe Euteneur says the company is taking a "wait and see" approach in regards to BlackBerry and whether it will follow rival T-Mobile in its strategy of removing BB devices from its retail stores.

Euteneur says the company does not want to "rock the boat" with its business customers, who have always been the biggest consumers of BlackBerry devices.

T-Mobile no longer offers the devices in their stores, but continue to take orders online and in-store for direct ship.

Earlier in the week, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said their decision on BlackBerry would be based completely on their customer's wishes.

Thanks to French carrier SFR, Samsung fans now have a roadmap for when their devices will receive the latest Android update.

The flagship Galaxy S4 will allegedly receive the OTA update in October, while the older Galaxy S3 and the Galaxy Note 2 will receive their respective updates in November or December.

This roadmap may be different for U.S. carriers, who are infamous for being slow with updates for Android due to extensive testing and usually the addition of bloatware.

Google is expected to introduce Android 4.4 KitKat in the next month, so Galaxy owners will be a generation behind, at least for a number of months.

Samsung is rumored to be working on Galaxy F devices, moving away from the cheap looking plastic look of the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note line and moving towards more 'premium' designs.

The new devices will include high-end metal designs, and will be smaller than the Note in size, say the sources.

Outside of the metal design, the phones are also said to have "top-of-the-line internals." Such a move would allow Samsung to position the Galaxy S as a cheaper (yet still viable) option, just like Apple's new iPhone 5C.

For now, this is just a rumor, but one that makes perfect sense, and one that will likely be well received by consumers.

Earlier this month we reported on CyanogenMod becoming an official company, with plans to release an app that will make installing the operating system easier than ever.

We now have an idea on how the installer will actually work, but it's not as simple as originally implied.

When you first install the app it will guide you through the process of loading the operating system, a process which will require a PC. The app will link you to a URL where you will download a PC app that actually does the installation.

Sources that have been able to rest the installer, say the PC app does all the heavy lifting, with users really only forced to hit "next." Altogether the process takes 10 minutes or less.

Flashing the custom ROM will wipe your device, so as always it is pertinent to backup your device.

After over a decade at the helm, Microsoft announced earlier this year that CEO Steve Ballmer would be retiring.

Investors and Microsoft fans were generally happy about the news, and the company's stock jumped 7 percent on the day of the announcement.

The Verge was able to get footage of Ballmer's last speech to employees, and describes it as "powerful and touching footage -- one of the most influential men in the history of technology saying goodbye to the company he helped create."

Check the video here:

According to new ABI Research data, the global tablet market is now Android's to lose, following years of Apple dominance.

The firm says iOS has now "passed the baton to the Android ecosystem," and the firm cites three specific reasons this has happened.

For the Q2 2013, Android tablets sold tallied 30.5 million, compared to 14.5 million iPads. Of the $12.7 billion of revenue from tablet sales for the quarter, Apple finally fell below the 50 percent majority mark (but barely), leaving Android to control that metric.

Finally, the iPad's average selling price has fallen 17 percent over the last year thanks to strong sales of the iPad Mini while Android tablet prices have seen an increase of 17 percent in the same period.

As far as brands go, Apple was easily the top dog, with their 14.5 million iPad sales. Samsung came in second at 8.1 million units sold.

Microsoft may have finally turned a corner in its ongoing efforts to move users away from the aged Windows XP operating system.

While most market research firms show Windows XP as still controlling 33 percent (or higher) of the OS market, Microsoft's own figures have that number lower, at about 27 percent.

According to Paul Thurrott, this means there are still 405 million XP users around the globe, good for the second most of any operating system, behind Windows 7.

The operating system will be retired on April 8th, 2014, and Microsoft says it hopes only 13 percent of users will stick with the OS past the support date.

Intel has been forced to postpone the launch of its Internet TV service as it continues to seek partners to help it launch.

The company has been actively searching for content and content partners to help launch a TV service that it believes can compete with cable and satellite giants like Comcast, DirecTV and Verizon.

Intel Media had originally planned to debut the "On Cue" service in November, but that has been pushed indefinitely and sources say the entire project may have to scrapped if the company cannot get to a "workable solution."

Reportedly, the company has approached Netflix to team up but discussions have never gone anywhere. Netflix has long said they will not build a service that competes with traditional cable and satellite TV

Intel confirms they remain committed to searching for "prospective partners which have synergies," including other broadband companies.

Chinese tech site DoNews has posted what they claim are photos of the upcoming Apple iPad Mini 2 in champagne (gold) colorway along with a new Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

Additionally, the site says a "space grey" colorway will be unveiled, as well, just like the new iPhone 5S.

One important fact that remains unclear is whether the new tablets will have high-res Retina displays, but it would seem Apple will need to boost the resolution of the device to compete with new 7-inch devices with 1080p such as the Nexus 7 FHD.

Adding to the reliability of the photos are posts from @SonnyDickson, the same source who posted accurate iPhone 5S and 5C details a month ahead of launch. Dickson agrees with the colors and the Touch ID sensor.

Dickson also claims that the iPad mini 2 will use Apple's new A7 64-bit chip, making it a multitasking powerhouse.

Following announcements from Sprint and T-Mobile that the carriers will no longer be offering BlackBerry 10 devices in store, BlackBerry has begun selling unlocked Q10 and Z10 smartphones directly through their own site.

The move also follows a recent earnings report in which the company saw revenue fall 50 percent year-over-year and the company took a massive $1 billion writedown due to excess Z10 inventory.

Somewhat surprisingly given their precarious situation in the market, the devices are still highly priced. The Z10, available in white and black, will sell for $449 and will work with any GSM carrier.

The Q10, with its full keyboard that is still popular with enterprises, will sell for $550. The Q10 has a 3.1-inch Super AMOLED display, 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Plus processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, LTE connectivity, NFC, a microSD slot and a 2100 mAh battery.

It appears the Walkman brand is not dead just yet.

Sony has unveiled new Walkman devices, the high-end ZX1 and the F880 series.

Both media players have 1GHz dual-core processors, 854 × 480 touchscreens, WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, and "S-Master HX" digital amp along with HQ audio playback (192kHz/24bit) in AIFF, ALAC, FLAC and WAV. Both players run on slightly modified Android 4.1 bases and have access to the Google Play Store.

The ZX1, with its 4-inch screen, has 128GB internal storage and will be priced out of this world at 75,000 yen ($750 USD) when it launches in December.

A more budget-conscious option, the F880 has a 3.5-inch screen and 16,32,64GB options priced between 27,000 and 40,000 yen ($270-$400).

According to multiple sources, Motorola is planning the Moto DVX as a lower-cost followup to their popular Moto X flagship.

The device will be similar to the X, but only include the option for four interchangeable backplate colors as compared to the hundreds of different options available through the Moto X Moto Maker store.

Motorola's latest will be launched for lower-cost carriers, such as regional Republic Wireless, at the end of October.

Besides the lack of colors, the device is also expected to lack LTE support, and the design is expected to be "less polished."

The move follows CEO Dennis Woodside's recent comments that Moto X is a brand and there was the possibility of other devices to follow.

Toshiba has revealed their latest high-end gaming laptop, the Qosmio X75.

The device has a 17.3-inch 1080p display, a fourth generation Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M discrete graphics chipset with Optimus technology and 3GB of DDR5 video memory.

For storage, the X75 has an SSD boot drive, a 1TB hybrid hard drive, and a Blu-ray Disc re-writable optical drive.

In addition, the X75 packs quad Harman Kardon speakers and UltraHD (4K) output via HDMI.

If you are a video editing professional (or even an enthusiast), Toshiba has pre-loaded Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and Adobe Premiere Elements 11.

U.S. officials have said this week that Iran hacked or attempted to hack into unclassified Navy computers repeatedly over the past few weeks.

The officials say the attacks were brought by hackers working for the government or by groups approved by Iranian officials.

Government officials says the most recent incident was for the week starting September 15th, before a security update was put in place.

To date, Iranian-backed hacking groups have targeted U.S. banks and computer networks running energy companies. Attacking the military directly would be an escalation in the cyberwar. In the most recent case, the attackers "penetrated an unclassified computer network that is used for email and the service's internal intranet," officials added.

Fortunately, the officials said they believed that no information of significant value was stolen.

"We take these attempts seriously and work to learn lessons from every one of them," a department spokesman said.

Delta airlines has confirmed it will be distributing Microsoft Surface 2 tablets to pilots and Nokia Lumia 820 smartphones to flight attendants.

Nearly 19,000 flight attendants will receive the Windows Phone devices, and it is unclear how many pilots will receive the upcoming tablet.

Says the airline: "In less than two years, Delta cockpits will be paperless as we roll-out the Microsoft Surface 2 tablet running Windows 8.1 RT as our company-issued device. The 757/767 fleet will be the first to make the transition with the 777, 747 and MD88 as fast followers. Look for an announcement from Delta and Microsoft in the coming days about our partnership on the initiative."

Delta currently allows pilots to bring their own iPads, but it wants "current iPad Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) users to transition to a company-issued device."

French authorities have announced that they are fining Google over $400,000 for data privacy violations.

The National Commission on Computing and Freedom (CNIL) says Google has not satisfactorily responded to requests to be more upfront about how the search giant collects data from its users.

Regulators had also wanted Google to give users a chance to opt out of having their data centralized.

The CNIL said it will now launch formal sanction proceedings, and that the process could take a few months.

Google spokesman Al Verney quickly responded to the charges: "Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services. We have engaged fully with CNIL throughout this process and will continue to do so going forward."

The fine itself is laughable, as Google makes $400,000 in profit roughly every 20 minutes.

Microsoft has begun building its own cloud gaming service to compete with Sony's Gaikai.

The company showed off an internal prototype this week, demoing Halo 4 running from the cloud on Windows Phones and PCs.

Latency on a Windows Phone is down to just 45ms, say sources, and even better on PC.

Rival Sony will be using Gaikai streaming technology to make PSOne, PS2 and PS3 games available to owners of the upcoming PS4 and the PS Vita starting next year.

For the time being, Microsoft has stressed the service is just a prototype but it may eventually be launched for the Xbox One and other Windows devices. Microsoft's senior director of Xbox, Albert Penello, recently said in an interview that "We just have to figure out how, over time, how much does that cost to deliver, how good is the experience."

Valve has announced "a different kind of gamepad" this week, the Steam Controller.

The controller uses two circular trackpads rather than standard D-Pads or buttons.

Adds the company, "Driven by the player's thumbs, each one has a high-resolution trackpad as its base. It is also clickable, allowing the entire surface to act as a button. The trackpads allow far higher fidelity input than has previously been possible with traditional handheld controllers. Steam gamers, who are used to the input associated with PCs, will appreciate that the Steam Controller's resolution approaches that of a desktop mouse."

What Valve wants to do is make "whole genres of games that were previously only playable with a keyboard and mouse" playable in the living room. "In addition, games like first-person shooters that are designed around precise aiming within a large visual field now benefit from the trackpads' high resolution and absolute position control."

Additionally, the new controller also features "a new generation of super-precise haptic feedback, employing dual linear resonant actuators. These small, strong, weighted electro-magnets are attached to each of the dual trackpads. They are capable of delivering a wide range of force and vibration, allowing precise control over frequency, amplitude, and direction of movement."

After a year of speculation, China has officially approved plans to lift a long-standing ban on video game consoles in the nation.

The move is part of a broader plan that the State Council has approved for the free-trade zone located in the Chinese city of Shanghai.

China originally banned the consoles in 2000 mainly due to concerns over the effect of violent international games.

There is a condition of the newly approved plan, however, and that is that game developers must set up operations within the Shanghai free-trade zone.

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will now have a much bigger market to cater to with their next-gen consoles.

A week after the company pre-announced some parts of their quarterly earnings, the company reported another three months of heinous sales.

For the fiscal Q2 2014, BlackBerry had just $1.6 billion in revenue and reported a loss of $248 million. Revenue was down from $2.9 billion year-over-year, an almost shockingly high drop.

The company sold just 5.9 million smartphones to end users, and sadly most of them were older BlackBerry 7 devices, such as the Bold, which was released over two years ago.

Last week, BlackBerry announced it would take a writedown of nearly $1 billion due to an excess of Z10 inventory.

"We are very disappointed with our operational and financial results this quarter and have announced a series of major changes to address the competitive hardware environment and our cost structure," said CEO Thornsten Heins.

As previously rumored, Microsoft will indeed buy back your used iPhone for at least $200 in Microsoft Store credit.

To take advantage of the deal, all you have to do is "bring in your gently used iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 and get a minimum of a $200 gift card to the Microsoft store."

The company does the same for iPads, as well.

If you are looking to move away from Apple and into the world of Windows Phone, the deal could be good, especially if you have the old iPhone 4S, which is now three generations old.

The deal ends November 3rd.

HTC has announced that it will be selling back its remaining stake in headphone/audio tech company Beats Electronics.

The company will sell its remaining 25 percent stake for $265 million, making a large $85 million profit for a two year investment.

In addition, Beats will repay a $150 million promissory note, plus any accrued interest.

Two years ago, HTC took a 51 percent stake in the company for $300 million, and they began integrating the tech into their smartphones and even bundled some lower-end Beats headphones with many of their devices.

HTC, after having a number of extremely profitable years and market share growth, has collapsed, with shares falling over 90 percent since 2011. The company even warned that it may have its first quarterly loss since 2008.

In an effort to become relevant again, the company has hired Robert Downey Jr. to promote its smartphone brand through a new marketing initiative.

Netflix has announced that all subscribers will now have access to the highest quality streaming quality, 'Super HD.'

The SHD stream had previously been ISP-dependent.

As Netflix says, "this means that the great TV shows and movies on Netflix will look even better on HD screens with a higher bit rate stream, Super HD, that applies less compression to the 1080p image."

The streaming giant continued, "Netflix uses 'adaptive streaming' to dynamically adjust the video quality based on the available bandwidth. This means that the ability to receive Super HD depends on broadband quality and performance. Netflix members who subscribe to an ISP with a direct Netflix connection will get the best experience."

It is important to note that only a smaller percentage of titles even have the option of the higher quality streams.

As of this morning, Apple has pushed an OTA update to the Apple TV, adding new content.

The first app, Major League Soccer (MLS) will allow users to watch soccer games live.

In addition, Apple has added Disney Junior, which includes numerous shows aimed at kids.

Each channel will have its own fans, especially parents with younger children and sports fans. Over the last few weeks, Apple has added many new features to the device, including iTunes Radio, the Disney Channel, The Weather Channel, Vevo, and more.

Samsung has confirmed that they have region-locked the Galaxy Note 3 phablet, an extremely restrictive practice.

Being region-locked means buyers in Europe will not be able to use an American SIM when they travel (or vice versa, of course) and will have to stick with Wi-Fi or pay roaming fees.

UK retailer Clove first brought the fact to light, before Samsung confirmed the practice. Clove posted: "If you travel internationally (outside Europe) and usually insert a local SIM card when in those countries, the Note 3 will NOT be able to use the local network. It will lose all mobile connectivity with the exception of emergency calls. For example, if you travel to the USA and insert a SIM card issued in the USA, you will not be able to use the Note 3 for any voice calls, text messages and mobile data connection. It will work via a WiFi connectivity only."

Without a doubt the move is a black mark for Samsung, as there is no consumer-friendly reason to ever region lock a device, especially an unlocked one on the GSM standard.

VideoLAN, the group behind the popular open-source video playback app VLC, has updated the platform to version 2.1.

With the new update, the group has improved audio processing, most notably adding full support for surround sound output.

In addition, 2.1 adds 4K video playback support, although the group warns that it is in its early stages.

Finally, VLC for Android and iOS have been updated, as well, with support for more devices now included. If you have Windows Phone 8, Windows 8 or Windows RT, there are now "partial ports" of the applications available.

Get VLC here: VLC version 2.1 at Afterdawn

Samsung's Galaxy Note line, originally a surprise hit and now a standard bearer in the industry, has reached 40 million units sold.

The figure was confirmed by Samsung's general manager for Taiwan, Andy Tu, during the launch of the Note 3 in the nation.

Tu says about 10 million of the original Note were sold, followed by 30 million Note II.

Early expectations for the Note 3 are for the phablet to beat out its older brothers, but the phone has generally had less hype than in the past.

One news source says pre-orders for the device have been noticeably disappointing. However, we will have a better idea when the device actually launches.

Samsung has unveiled the pricing and availability of their "2014 edition" Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet.

The tablet, which will ship with a stylus, goes on sale on October 10th for $550, a surprising choice given Apple's next flagship iPad will sell for $500.

Galaxy Note 10.1 tablets have a high-resolution 2560 x 1600-pixel display and are powered by a quad-core Exynos processor and 3GB RAM.

"Last year's launch of the Galaxy Note 10.1 introduced the integration of S Pen capabilities to the tablet category and created a new experience for consumers," said Travis Merrill, vice president of tablet marketing at Samsung Electronics America. "We continue to evolve the Galaxy Note experience with the new Note 10.1 – 2014 Edition. With premium software features and a sophisticated design, we're delivering an exceptional and even more engaging tablet experience."

Pebble has announced that AT&T will be the exclusive carrier for the smartwatch.

The company set Kickstarter records last year by raising over $10 million, and this year began shipping to early adopters. The device is also available through Best Buy.

Starting on Friday, AT&T customers can purchase a Pebble in some retail stores and at att.com. The release should rollout to all AT&T stores by late October.

"The Pebble is fun, practical, and easy to use,"adds AT&T's director of Mobility's Accessory Portfolio, Michael Cowan. "It is simple to see why people have been clamoring to get their hands on it."

After a two day delay, a Swedish appeals court has reduced the hacking sentence for Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg in half.

The hacker will now face one year in prison for his part in hacking the Swedish IT company Logica and the Nordic bank Nordea. Svartholm was convicted of hacking, aggravated fraud and attempted aggravated fraud in the original case.

In the appealed decision, the Svea court dismissed the charges related to Nordea, citing new evidence that showed that Warg's computer may have been remotely operated during the incident.

Warg was also convicted in 2008 along with the other three founders of the Pirate Bay for copyright infringement.

According to DisplaySearch and iSuppli, Microsoft's oft-rumored Surface "Mini" will ship with a 7.5-inch display, slightly smaller than the iPad Mini but larger than the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7 FHD.

The current Surface tablets have 10.6-inch displays, which nobody else in the industry use, so Microsoft is not new to unique sizes for their devices.

Earlier this year, developer tools for Windows 8.1 referenced 7.5-inch tablets with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 1440x1080 resolution.

The device is expected to go into mass production later this year for a 2014 release.

Earlier this month, Microsoft began offering a buyback program for iPads, giving consumers at least $200 in store credits for used tablets.

It appears that now the company is expanding that buyback to iPhones.

Just like the iPad, Microsoft will offer at least $200 for working, used iPhones.

Microsoft Stores in the U.S. and Canada will offer the credit for iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 devices.

In addition, Microsoft is also offering Visa gift cards for older Apple devices as well as Android and BlackBerry phones.

Amazon has introduced new higher-end Kindle Fire tablets, dubbed HDX, in 7-inch and 8.9-inch varieties.

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

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

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

"It's been just two years since we introduced the first Kindle Fire, and the team is innovating at an unbelievable speed," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "2.2 GHz processor, 339 ppi display, new 34% lighter design, Fire OS 3.0, and new exclusive features like the Mayday button, X-Ray for Music, Second Screen, and Prime Instant Video downloads. We've worked hard to pack this much hardware, innovation, and customer obsession into these prices."

YouTube will be radically redesigning its comments section, a section which is globally infamous as being a cesspool for racism, anti-Semitic comments, sexism, homophobia and overall terrible grammar and fanboyism.

Starting today, the comments section will now be transformed into "conversations that matter to you," and will be tied to the commenter's Google+ account.

Google says the new goal is for relevance, not recency. YouTube has removed the reverse chronological order for new comments, where the latest comment shows at the top. For popular videos, like music, the comments can reach tens of thousands, making finding relevant conversations almost impossible to find.

Nundu Janakiram, a YouTube product manager, admits the comments needed much improvement. The new design will bring the more interesting discussions to the top and more relevant to you, such as posts from the video's creator, and people in your Google+ circles. More active discussions will be threaded, as well.

How did the company decide what is relevant? "This is a very complex problem," says Janakiram (via Verge). "Trying to surface meaningful conversations is something that takes work." They company used existing signals (up/downvotes) and completely new ones, 'like the level of engagement in threaded conversations.'

Markus "Notch" Persson, creator of Minecraft, had nothing but love for Valve's new Linux-powered operating system.

Read the tweets here, and read our original article on SteamOS after the jump.

Seriously, this overly drawn out steambox announcement thing is amazing news. Win8's been worrying me. <3 valve

-- Markus Persson (@notch) September 23, 2013

Valve is saving the entire gaming world, but I all I can do is mumble passive aggressively about crowbars.

-- Markus Persson (@notch) September 23, 2013

Valve has announced SteamOS, a linux-based free operating system aimed at bringing PC gaming into the living room.

Set to be available soon, SteamOS will be free forever and will help to bring better PC gaming into the living room. Not only does Valve claim to have achieved significant performance increases in graphics performance (and is working now on audio and reducing input latecy) but you can also stream games from your PC or Mac to a living room "machine" running SteamOS.

Read more...

Sony and Taco Bell have announced a new promotion in which gamers can receive free PS4s every 15 minutes from September 26th to November 10th.

The PS4 goes on sale on November 15th.

Says Sony: "You have six weeks to head over to your local Taco Bell for your chance to 'Play the Future First.' Taco Bell will mark their $5 Buck Boxes– which include a Crunchwrap, Crunchy Taco, Burrito Supreme and medium fountain drink – with a special code that you can text in for a chance to win a PS4 prize pack."

The prize pack includes the console, a copy of 'Knack,' and a one year PS Plus membership.

For more information, check here.

Over the last few years, Google has acquiesced to Hollywood and the music industry, blacklisting almost fifty piracy-related terms from appearing in Autocomplete and Instant Services.

According to Freak, Google has recently unbanned at least two of those terms, the most popular clients, 'BitTorrent' and 'uTorrent.'

BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the client, has long shown disappointment that Google labeled them as "piracy related."

For the last few months, the company has continuously pleaded to Google to get the name removed from filters, and those efforts appear to have paid off.

"This is almost certainly a result of that improving understanding helped by products like BitTorrent Bundle and BitTorrent Sync. They help those who are confused about BitTorrent understand that it is not a piracy website," a BitTorrent Inc. spokesperson added.

Electronics giants Samsung and LG have ended their year-long dispute over display tech patents.

The patents had led to a number of brutal lawsuits between the rivals.

"It was agreed that we two should focus more on cementing our leadership in the global market by cooperation, instead of engaging in all-consuming patent disputes," Samsung Display said in a statement.

"What's most important for both of us is upgrading our competitiveness globally," LG added.

The tech in question was mainly for LCD and OLED hardware, and the companies accused each other of stealing key engineers, as well.

According to research firm IDC, the Chinese smartphone market will likely reach over 450 million units shipped in 2014.

The major increase will be driven by new government issued 4G licenses, and the oft-rumored addition of the iPhone to China Mobile, which has over 700 million subscribers, more than most of the world combined.

For this year, IDC says 120 million 4G-enabled smartphones will ship, with total shipments reaching 360 million.

Samsung remains the leader in the country, with 18.5 percent market share, followed by Lenovo at 9.8 percent. Apple was in sixth place, but is expected to gain a decent percent of share following the release of their iPhone 5C and 5S this week.

Apple has declined to provide sales figures for China for the new devices, so far.

Spotify has expanded to Argentina, Greece, Turkey and Taiwan, meaning the platform is now available in 32 nations.

The music streaming company first expanded to Asia in April with releases in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, and Taiwan will play a big part in the expansion to the "Mandarin pop" industry.

Desktop streaming in the nation is free and premium (unlimited/mobile play) will cost $4.99 (NT$149), half of what it costs in the U.S. and other countries.

Adds Spotify: "We're delighted to announce that Spotify is available in Argentina, Taiwan, Greece and Turkey starting today. There are millions of songs on Spotify – from old favourites to the latest hits. Just hit play to stream anything you like!"

Apple recently revealed that 9 million new iPhone 5S and 5C were sold over launch weekend, beating out last year's iPhone 5 launch which saw 5 million units sold.

It appears, probably to Apple's delight, that the high-end 5S is clearly outpacing its cheaper plastic brother around the globe.

Analytics firm Localytics says that for every iPhone 5C being activated in the U.S., there are 3.4 iPhone 5S units doing the same. In Japan, that factor is 3.7x, and there are similar figures in other nations.

The 5C is still widely available (with one day shipping time from the Apple online store), while the 5S has a shipping date of October, at the earliest.

So far, the 5C, which lacks 64-bit processing and the new fingerprint scanning Touch ID but has colorful varieties, seems to be a flop (by Apple standards) but it may also be too early to tell given that there is still stock of the iPhone 5 out there.

In addition to showing off two new tablets today, Microsoft also unveiled new and updated accessories for the devices.

The Type Cover 2 now comes with backlit keys, the Power Cover adds typing ability and will add 2.5 times more battery life, and the new docking station pretty much turns your tablet into a full-fledged PC.

Via Microsoft (with pictures added):

Touch Cover 2. Thinner and lighter than the original Touch Cover, measuring only 2.75 mm thin, Touch Cover 2 features backlit keys for even better readability. Touch Cover 2 is more rigid, registers keystrokes with greater accuracy and features updated sensors that support a variety of gestures across the entire keyboard. Touch Cover 2 has an estimated retail price of $119.99. It will be available for pre-order on Sept. 24 in all markets where Surface devices are available for pre-order.

Read more...

Alongside their announcement of a Surface RT sequel, the company also unveiled the sequel to their flagship, the Surface Pro 2.

The Pro 2, which comes with the full version of Windows including legacy app support for hundreds of thousands of your favorite applications, has seen its share of hardware updates, as well.

For the display, it remains a 10.6-inch panel with 1080p resolution, but Microsoft says the tablet has 50 percent better color accuracy and better graphics performance.

Under the hood is a 1.6GHz Core i5 Haswell processor which will give users 75 percent better battery life than the previous model, a huge boost. When added to the Power Cover (check our other post), the tablet will have over 300 percent better battery life than the first-generation model. For connectivity, the device has three USB 2 ports, a single USB 3 port, mini DisplayPort and Ethernet. There is an included stylus, as well.

Microsoft used a press event today to unveil the new Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2 (sequel to the Surface RT) along with a plethora of new accessories and updated keyboards.

Surface 2, which comes on the heels of a huge writedown due to excess Surface RT units, is vastly improved from its predecessor.

The tablet will now feature a 1080p ClearType display, a Nvidia Tegra 4 quad-core processor (with 'dramatically' increased CPU speed, 25 percent better battery life, a USB 3.0 port and improved bus speeds for the memory and Wi-Fi. Additionally, it is lighter and thinner and built from two pieces of magnesium, as opposed to three.

Microsoft says the tablet should run 300 percent faster than the RT, which was generally panned by critics and consumers alike for its lackluster performance.

Finally, Microsoft also says it improved the camera sensor to manage the light better when using Skype or other webcam videos. Surface buyers will also receive 200GB of free SkyDrive storage, for two years, and a year of free international calling and Skype hotspot access. The base product (with 32GB) will sell for $449 and go on sale on October 22nd. Pre-orders go live tomorrow.

Earlier this year, The Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was found guilty on multiple cases of hacking.

The prosecution and the defense have taken the case to appellate courts, but it appears the Court of Appeal's decision has been delayed, as the decision was due today.

After a quick two-week trial for his part in hacking the Swedish IT company Logica, Svartholm was convicted of hacking, aggravated fraud and attempted aggravated fraud. He was sentenced to two years in prison.

In appeal, the court reassessed the evidence and allowed new testimony, as well.

The decision is now expected for next Wednesday.

Major phone leaking @Evleaks has posted purported press images of the upcoming Nokia Lumia 929, which may be a phablet.

A phone recently hit the FCC, the Nokia RM-927, which is set for Verizon, and has a 5-inch display.

The press photo shows a device with a plethora of home screen tiles, so it definitely has a larger screen than we are used to for a Windows Phone 8 device but most likely not as big as the rumored 1520's 6-inch display.

New devices from Nokia are expected on October 22nd.

Here are the photos:

Nokia Lumia 929, for Verizon, in black, 2013. Also coming in white. pic.twitter.com/YrEsqYPOtS

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) September 21, 2013

By popular demand: pic.twitter.com/FhdECeCoea

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) September 22, 2013

AT&T has confirmed this week that it is exploring options to sell its wireless broadcast towers, but any sale would depend on the terms for their own ongoing use of the towers.

The company would sell the towers and then lease back some space from the new operators to ensure there is no interruption of their cellular services.

Analysts believe the towers could fetch up to $5 billion.

A few of the names seen as potential acquirers are Crown Castle International Corp, American Tower Corp and SBA Communications Corp.

LinkedIn, the world's most popular professional-networking site, was recently sued this week by customers who are accusing the site of "appropriating their identities for marketing purposes by hacking into their external e-mail accounts and downloading contacts' addresses."

While there have been hundreds of complaints, even on LinkedIn's own forums, the company had called the suit meritless, and written a large response via their blog.

The post:

As you may have read recently, a class action lawsuit was filed against LinkedIn last week. The lawsuit alleges that we "break into" the email accounts of our members who choose to upload their email address books to LinkedIn. Quite simply, this is not true, and with so much misinformation out there, we wanted to clear up a few things for our members.

We do not access your email account without your permission. Claims that we "hack" or "break into" members' accounts are false.
We never deceive you by "pretending to be you" in order to access your email account.
We never send messages or invitations to join LinkedIn on your behalf to anyone unless you have given us permission to do so.
We do give you the choice to share your email contacts, so you can connect on LinkedIn with other professionals that you know and trust. We will continue to do everything we can to make our communications about how to do this as clear as possible.

Read more...

Mozilla, which has delayed the browser multiple times, has finally released a preview of the upcoming Firefox for touchscreen Windows 8 machines, including tablets.

The browser is now available in the "Aurora" release channel, after spending over a year in the more obscure (and highly unstable) Nightly dev channel.

As a stable release, Mozilla still has a January or February 2014 release timeframe.

Similar to Microsoft's Modern/Metro version of Internet Explorer, the new Firefox gets rid of most of the header and other interface elements that can clutter a browser window. In their place are swipe gestures and two buttons on the side of the screen, one for opening new tabs and the second for going back. That's it.

Under the hood is the same Gecko engine as the standard Firefox and there is support for WebGL and Mozilla's asm.js for high-performance JavaScript apps. There is also support for Windows 8 charms, accelerated HTML5 video and WebM and H.264.

Last week, after Apple officially unveiled the iPhone 5C, Nokia's marketing team headed to Twitter to seemingly mock the company for its latest product, which features multiple colors.

The tweet read, "thanks, Apple" and included an image of the Lumia family (in all its colorful varieties) with the text "imitation is the best form of flattery."

It was a small poke at Apple, but fans seem to have responded in force to the tweet. The tweet has 39,600 retweets and counting and Twitter admitted it was one of the top corporate tweets in history.

Apple is expected to sell over 3 million iPhone 5C this weekend, a figure similar to what Nokia sells in Lumia devices per month.

Thanks, #Apple ;) pic.twitter.com/x4w3r8Ghcy

-- Nokia UK (@nokia_uk) September 10, 2013

LinkedIn, the world's most popular professional-networking site, has been sued this week by customers who are accusing the site of "appropriating their identities for marketing purposes by hacking into their external e-mail accounts and downloading contacts' addresses."

The customers hope to make the suit into a group class action, and have asked a federal judge to ban the company from repeating the same alleged violations. Additionally, they are demanding that LinkedIn return "any revenue stemming from its use of their identities to promote the site to non-members" and they are seeking additional damages.

As part of their complaint, the customers cite that even "LinkedIn's own website contains hundreds of complaints regarding this practice." LinkedIn has over 230 million users and has seen rapid growth in recent years.

"LinkedIn is committed to putting our members first, which includes being transparent about how we protect and utilize our members' data," says LinkedIn, which has vowed to fight the 'meritless' suit.

The complaint says that LinkedIn required all members to provide an email address as their username on the site, and then used that information to access those email accounts, in an effort to steal contacts. "LinkedIn pretends to be that user and downloads the e-mail addresses contained anywhere in that account to LinkedIn's servers," they added. "LinkedIn is able to download these addresses without requesting the password for the external e-mail accounts or obtaining users' consent."

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), which was expected to go live for Android this morning, has still not made its way to the Google Play Store.

The iOS app has begun its rollout in some nations, but has not hit North America, either.

The app is free on both platforms. Android users will need to be running 4.0 or higher to get the app, and iPhone users will need iOS 6 or higher.

BBM for Android and iPhone features:

• BBM Chat – Enjoy real, immediate conversations with friends on Android, iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones. Not only does BBM let you know that your message has been delivered and read, it also shows you that your friend is responding to the message.
• More than chat – With BBM you can share files on your phone such as photos and voice notes, all in an instant.
• Keep your group in the loop – Multi-person chats are a great way to invite contacts to chat together. BBM Groups lets you invite up to 30 friends to chat together, and go a step further than multi-chat by sharing photos and schedules. And, with Broadcast Message, you can send a message out to all your BBM contacts at once.
• Post Updates and stay in the know – BBM lets you post a personal message, profile picture and your current status, and lets your contacts know instantly in Updates.
• Your unique PIN – Every BBM user has a unique PIN that maintains your privacy, so you don't have to give out your phone number or email address to a new or casual contact.

Mike Lazaridis, one of the co-founders of BlackBerry, has been speaking to private equity firms about a potential bid for the failing company.

Lazaridis stepped down as co-CEO in 2012, as the company searched for a new direction.

The former exec has had conversations with the Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group about an offer, but the talks are preliminary and could lead to nothing.

As the company continues to search for a buyer, or other 'strategic alternatives,' its shares continue to collapse and reached $8.73 per share on Friday. At its peak in 2008, shares traded at $144, meaning it has seen a 94 percent drop in five years.

Lazaridis co-founded the company in 1985 and is one of its largest shareholders.

It appears that Apple fans around North America are updating their devices to the latest iOS 7, at a record pace.

According to Chitika, in the first two days of availability (Wed-Fri), nearly 32 percent of North American iOS web-based traffic has come from the new operating system.

iOS 6, released last September, took three days to reach the 30 percent mark.

The latest operating system is one of Apple's biggest design changes since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, changing to a "flatter," more professional design, with more built-in features than before.

Spain, infamous for being a hotbed of piracy, has increased the jail time admins of piracy sites can face for their crimes.

The country, facing trade sanctions from the U.S. and strong criticism from Hollywood, appears to be at least trying to move away from its title as one of the kings of piracy.

As part of the new law, site owners who are making money "from linking to copyrighted material provided illegally by third parties, whether it be 'direct or indirect profit,'" can face up to six years of jail time along with fines.

The law goes into effect early next year.

Until this new law, Spanish authorities could only prosecute uploaders and sharers of the illegal content. Now, downloaders and other users will not face any punishment and P2P platforms and search engines are excluded, as well.

Google has announced that their mobile payment app Google Wallet is now available for iOS devices.

The app will bring over most of the features known to Android users, including transfers to friends and family, loyalty card tracking and local offers.

iOS does not support NFC yet, however, so tap-to-pay will obviously not work, and that feature is one of the main points of using Wallet (or rival payment services).

On the security side, the app is locked by PIN and if your device gets lost, the app can be disabled and wiped remotely via Google's site.

Check the app here, if you are running iOS 6.0 or higher.

The RIAA and MPAA have begun distributing new research about the perils of piracy on the entertainment industry, trying to get Congress to take a second look into potential legislation on the matter.

Additionally, the trade groups are once again accusing search engines of not doing enough to direct traffic away from well-known pirate file sharing sites.

"We invite Google and the other major search engines to sit down with us to formulate a plan that goes beyond promises of action and actually serves its intended purpose of deterring piracy and giving the legitimate marketplace an environment to thrive," RIAA Chairman Cary Sherman told a House panel (via 3N).

MPAA boss Christopher Dodd added, "as the internet's gatekeepers, search engines share a responsibility to play a constructive role in not directing audiences to illegitimate content".

Legislators have shied away from sweeping legislation following last year's try at CISPA, which was met with massive criticism from the general public and from major corporations. Smaller measures have been taken, such as credit card processors like Visa and Mastercard blocking access to businesses that thrive off piracy, and ad networks have also pulled business from warez sites. Google also tweaked its algorithms to give 'less visibility' to certain sites.

Terry Myerson, Microsoft's former Windows Phone boss and now head of Microsoft's mobile operating systems group, has detailed the company's plans for the future of Windows RT and the company's longstanding promise of a common app and developer tool between the different Windows platforms.

Myerson says the company has organized its new OS groups around three key points; commonality, the cloud, and tailored experiences for devices.

"The first of those is that we really should have one silicon interface for all of our devices," says the exec (via Verge). "We should have one set of developer APIs on all of our devices. And all of the apps we bring to end users should be available on all of our devices."

Microsoft is finally working on multi-platform compatibility, meaning a Windows phone app will work on a Windows 8 tablet, just like how Android and iOS operate.

BlackBerry investors have taken another beating today, as the company reported a near billion dollar loss and announced it would cut 4500 jobs, about 35 percent of its global workforce.

The company's shares closed down 18 percent, after falling as much as 25 percent. Shares are now down to their lowest point since last November.

For the quarter ended 8/31, the company says it expects to lose between $950 million and $995 million.

BlackBerry 10 sales were extremely weak, and the company has a large stockpile of unsold Z10 phones leading to a good portion of the quarter's losses. The company says 3.7 million smartphones will have been sold to end users in the quarter. Sales to retailers and carriers are no longer counted if those devices don't sell, in an effort to be more transparent.

Sadly, of those 3.7 million devices, the majority are older BlackBerry 7 phones, like the Bold, which were released in 2011.

After laying off 4500 more employees, the company will be down to 8000 employees. At its peak, the company employed 20,000.

Popular music video streaming service Vevo will be blocking YouTube's upcoming offline viewing mode for mobile apps.

The new feature will go live in November, and will allow users to download the videos and play them offline for up to two days.

Vevo is one of YouTube's biggest content suppliers, with videos reaching tens of billions of views every year. Unfortunately, they are not fans of the new offline mode: "We're not going to allow viewing of our music videos or other programming in offline mode," says a Vevo spokesperson.

All of YouTube's largest partners will have the ability to opt out before the service goes live.

Sprint has confirmed their recently leaked early-upgrade smartphone program, 'One Up.'

Like rival plans, One Up will let wireless subscribers change their phones once per year, while paying monthly installments for the device. Additionally, the plan will work with tablets, as well.

Sprint unlimited everything plans start at $65 per month.

With most high-end smartphones (priced at $550), you will pay an additional $27 per month for the phone with One Up (after taxes), and there is no down payment necessary for the device.

Sprint says you will save, over the course of a year, $208 over T-Mobile's plan, $500 over AT&T's plan and $539 over Verizon's plan.

Verizon has announced that their updated FiOS app will bring live TV watching to your favorite mobile devices, while using a mobile data connection.

For the time being, the service will only extend to nine cable channels; BBC America, BBC World News, EPIX, NFL Network (iPad-only), HGTV, DIY, the Tennis Channel and Scripps Networks Interactive channels, Food Network and Travel Channel.

The app, for iOS and Android, is dubbed FiOS Mobile.

Last year, the app launched for iPad with 75 channels of live TV, but you needed to be connected to Wi-Fi to use it. With the updated app, if you are using Wi-Fi, you still have access to all 75 channels, and additionally local affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox and UniMas and Univision if you are in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Finally, the app has added on-demand content, like FiOS's 45,000 Flex View titles.

Sony has officially unveiled the Bravia Smart Stick, a new Google TV device that plugs directly into your TV.

The dongle will sell for $149.99 and will only work with Sony Bravia TVs from this year (and into the future).

Featuring 8GB of on-board storage, the device plugs directly into the MHL port of Bravia TVs, and a provided USB cable is the power source. Additionally, the Smart Stick comes with a voice-activated remote control, allowing users to better control their content and entertainment.

"The BRAVIA Smart Stick answers the question, 'What's on TV,' with 'whatever you want to watch'" said Jamie Marsh, TV marketing manager for Sony Electronics Home Entertainment & Sound Division. "It brings the full power of Google services to your TV. From the apps in the Google Play store to the power of Google search, the BRAVIA Smart Stick integrates seamlessly with Sony's own BRAVIA apps and navigation to deliver an amazing connected TV viewing experience."

The FCC has approved AT&T's proposed acquisition of Atlantic Tele-Network's (Alltel) retail wireless business.

Although the agency says the transaction "will likely cause some competitive and other public interest harms in several local markets" it is approving the deal since AT&T has accepted a number of conditions.

One such condition is that AT&T must maintain Alltel's CDMA network through June 2015.

The approval was not a guarantee. In August, FCC stopped reviewing the transaction because they said AT&T did not provide enough information on how the carrier would integrate Alltel's prepaid customers to its network.

Besides the agreement to keep the CDMA network running, AT&T also agreed to ensure that all of Alltel's CDMA network footprint would be covered by the company's own HSPA+ faux-4G service within 15 months of the transaction closing. Additionally, 75 percent of the footprint must have access to LTE within 18 months.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, all Alltel customers will be provided "a handset comparable to his or her existing handset, at no cost to the customer and without requiring a contract extension."

Major retailer Target has dropped the price of the iPhone 5C to $79.99 on contract, $20 below the phone's MSRP.

The phone went on pre-order this week and goes on sale in stores tomorrow.

Walmart made a similar announcement earlier in the week, dropping the price of the 5C and the flagship iPhone 5S to $189 from $199.

These prices are for the base 16GB models, as both retailers will sell the 32GB version for the full $199.

Sharp has introduced a new 70-inch Aquos 4K Ultra HD LED TV for the U.S. market.

The company had initially projected a mid-August launch for the TV, but supply issues kept it off shelves until now.

Besides the high-end specs, the TV is also THX-certified and will sell for $7,499.99 MSRP.

"For the past several years the focus with high-end television panels was on delivering a more exciting experience through size. With the introduction of our AQUOS 4K TV, we now offer consumers an even more life-like TV experience coupling size with resolution and clarity," said John Herrington, President, Sharp Electronics Marketing Company of America.

The TV will upscale all non-4K content to 4K using Sharp's own 'Revelation 4K Upscaler.'

Check out the TV here.

Microsoft has revealed the pricing scheme for Windows 8.1, which is set for release on October 18th.

If you have Windows 8 installed, 8.1 is a free update via the Windows Store.

However, if you don't have Windows 8, Windows 8.1 is going to cost you. Base price for the operating system is $120, and Windows 8.1 Pro will set you back $200.

Microsoft notes that 8.1 will be slightly different than 8: "One shift to note in Windows 8.1 is that we will be offering "full version software" at retail and online for download that does not require a previous version of Windows in order to be installed. The copy of Windows 8 that is currently available for sale at retail and online is an "upgrade version." This shift allows more flexibility for customers in specific technical scenarios and is in response to feedback we've received. It will be easier for those consumers who want to build PCs from scratch, run Windows 8.1 in Virtual Machine (VM) environments, or run Windows 8.1 on a second hard drive partition."

Dish Network has struck another victory as a NY judge has ruled to not issue a preliminary injunction against the company's 'Hopper' technology, a set-top DVR that allows for ad-skipping.

The hardware will remain legal in New York now, against the wishes of ABC, which had requested the injunction.

Besides ABC, CBS and other companies have all separately sued Dish over the Hopper and its native software, the AutoHop.

The decision marks the second victory for the company, as a judge in California made a similar ruling in July in a case brought by News Corp. (Fox).

ABC was understandably not happy: "Today's ruling is only a preliminary decision and the first step in the judicial process. We continue to firmly believe that Dish's AutoHop and PrimeTime Anytime services breach our retransmission consent agreement with Dish, infringe upon ABC's copyrights, and unfairly compete with the authorized on-demand and commercial-free options currently offered by ABC and its licensees."

Google has made their popular document editing software QuickOffice free for all Android and iOS users.

The PRO version of the software previously cost $19.99, and includes powerful editing software for Microsoft Office documents, and other file types.

QuickOffice was purchased by Google over the summer last year, after being a longstanding top 50 app in the Play Store. The app is now integrated directly to Google Drive, Google's cloud storage solution.

As part of the promotion (which is permanent), users who get the app and log in with their Google account before September 26th will be given an extra 10GB of free storage within Google Drive.

Even though Canonical's crowdfunding efforts for the Ubuntu Edge fell well short, the Ubuntu Touch OS is still on its way.

The company now plans to release the OS on October 17th, after first announcing it back in January. In february, a preview release was made available for 20 smartphones including those made by Sony, Samsung and HTC.

Canonical QA community coordinator Nicholas Skaggs says the company "committed to delivering an image" of the OS for Android Nexus devices on that date.

For the time being, preview releases are still available and Canonical says interested users should download and forward any bus to their QA team.

Facebook has announced some shocking numbers about its photo volume since launch.

The social networking giant says over 250 billion photos have been uploaded since the site launched in 2004, and everyday, the company's 1.15 billion user uploads an average of 350 million photos.

Additionally, the company says 4.75 billion total pieces of content (comments, status updates, photos and more) are posted daily. 4.5 billion "Likes" and 10 billion messages are sent through Facebook Messenger everyday, as well.

The numbers decimate other photo sharing sites, as Flickr only sees 3.5 million photos per day and Instagram (owned by FB) sees 55 million per day.

It appears that the iPhone 5S' new fingerprint scanner is not restricted to just human prints.

TechCrunch put the device to the test and was able to successfully get his cat's paw print to lock and unlock the new smartphone using the Touch ID sensor.

Cats have similar (and unique) identifying prints like humans, so the site says no other cats were able to unlock his phone.

5S users have up to five Touch ID profiles, allowing people that use your phone most frequently to save their prints, as well.

Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, who was also formerly a high-ranking executive within Microsoft, will make $25 million in termination fees if Nokia shareholders agree to sell the handset business to Microsoft.

The software giant will pay $5 billion for the mobile phone division, and $2.17 billion for Nokia's patent trove when the deal is approved. Additionally, Microsoft extended at $1.5 billion loan to Nokia. The company says the transaction will close in the Q1 2014, pending approval by shareholders and regulatory approval.

Elop will make the money immediately alongside an announcement the deal has been approved, as he will also be standing down from his position. Microsoft will pay 68 percent of the fee.

The exec will head back to work at Microsoft after the deal closes, which has had many in the Finnish media calling him "a Trojan horse." Indeed, Nokia's handset business collapsed since he was named CEO and Microsoft was able to purchase the company for cheaper than anyone would have expected even just a few years ago.

Monster, the company behind those extremely overpriced HDMI cables and other accessories has launched their own lineup of tablets.

The devices will be sold exclusively at Walmart and will go on sale later this fall.

A 7-inch model will include an IPS capacitive display at 1280x800 resolution, an unspecified dual-core 1.5GHz SoC and 1GB DDR3 RAM.

The device has 16GB internal storage, a microSD slot, and dual 2MP/5MP cameras. For connectivity there is Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and GPS.

Monster also notes that the surface is "non-skid" and will come in eight different colors (pictured below).

The tablet will run on a slightly modified Android 4.1. The company did not reveal anything about their 10.1-inch model.

Apple has upped the limit for App Store downloads over data and not Wi-Fi, from 50MB per app to 100MB.

The move comes alongside the rollout of iTunes 11.1 and iOS 7, the latter of which is expected to already have been downloaded on 35 percent of all compatible iOS devices.

Apple most likely expects apps to get 'beefier' as they use the 64-bit processor in the iPhone 5S and updated GPU rendering.

If you are on a 3G/4G network, you will receive an error notice when trying to download an app above 100MB. You will then need to wait until you are on a Wi-Fi network to complete the download.

Apple CEO Tim Cook sat with Bloomberg, and within the interview he discussed Microsoft's recent acquisition of Nokia's handset business.

"Everybody is trying to adopt Apple's strategy," says Cook. "We're not looking for external validation of our strategy, but I think it does suggest that there's a lot of copying, kind of, on the strategy and that people have recognized that importance."

When asked about Nokia, which will still operate under its own name, Cook says the industry needs to read up on the story of the once prominent phone maker. "I think [Nokia] is a reminder to everyone in business that you have to keep innovating and that to not innovate is to die," said Cook.

Before the launch of the iPhone and Android, Nokia controlled as much as 80 percent of the smartphone market with its Symbian operating system. While the company continued to innovate on the design side of the hardware, the software fell behind to the point of no return and eventually the company had to strike a deal with Microsoft for Windows Phone.

When the company unveiled the PlayStation 4 earlier this year, it confirmed that since PS3 discs would not work with the device, gamers would be able to stream their favorite PS3 games using Gaikai, the streaming tech company they acquired in 2012.

Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida has now acknowledged that the service will be available to North American gamers early next year, for the PS4, the PS Vita and the new PS Vita TV set-top console.

The processing is taken care of in the cloud, and Sony says the service will launch with a "decent number" of titles.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo, who correctly called the 5C, 5S, fingerprint reader and new colors for the devices, has posted a new research note projecting the sales tally for the first weekend of sales.

The devices, which officially launch on Friday, after a week of pre-orders, has been sold out from most carriers and retailers. There have also been reports that the iPhone 5S has seen supply constraints overseas.

Kuo expects the company to sell between 6 and 8 million combined handsets by the end of the weekend. Even if the low-end of that projection is hit, it would be significantly higher than last year's record-breaking iPhone 5 launch.

The analyst also expects that the iPhone 5s will account for between 35% and 45% of total opening-weekend sales.

Earlier this month, Sony unveiled a new model of their PS Vita handheld.

The new Vita PCH-2000 is 20 percent thinner and 15 percent lighter than the original model while increasing battery life by one hour on average.

Additionally, the new device will be Wi-Fi-only and be a Japanese exclusive for the time being, launching on October 10th. Sony has hinted at potentially sending the handheld elsewhere but so far has not given any notice or confirmation of such a move.

The new Vita will be available in pink, black, blue, grey, lime green, and yellow color options), come with a micro-USB charger rather than Sony's proprietary port, and have 1GB internal storage. To save on costs, Sony has changed the display to an LCD rather than an OLED.

Furthermore, Sony will drop the prices of their memory cards, with the baseline 4GB card dropping to 1,554 yen ($15) and the high-end card, 64GB at 10,479 yen (about $105).

The device will sell for 19800 yen, about $190 USD.

Hulu, revived by its owners with a focus on content, has closed a deal with BBC Worldwide.

The deal will add 144 different BBC titles, including popular and high-rated programs such as Sherlock, Doctor Who and Luther.

Within those titles, there are over 2000 episodes, although a good portion will only be available to Hulu Plus subscribers.

Hulu had recently put itself up for sale, receiving billion dollar bids from Yahoo, DirecTV, and Time Warner, but its owners were not satisfied and instead invested $750 million into their company and new content.

The company will also increase original programming content, in an effort to better compete with Amazon and Netflix, which have been investing hundreds of millions on their own exclusive shows.

Eldar Murtazin, known for leaking Nokia info in the past, has reported that Microsoft is already pushing the company to cancel a few of its upcoming products.

Microsoft recently purchased Nokia's handset unit for over $7 billion and began licensing all of its patents.

Although the deal has not closed (it is expected to do so next year), Murtazin says Microsoft is pushing Nokia to cancel the upcoming Sirius Windows RT tablet, and at least half of the low-end Asha touchscreen music phones.

The software giant will pay $5 billion for the mobile phone division, and $2.17 billion for the patent trove when the deal is approved. Additionally, Microsoft extended at $1.5 billion loan to Nokia. The company says the transaction will close in the Q1 2014, pending approval by shareholders and regulatory approval.

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) has released its annual customer satisfaction ratings for personal computers, with Apple leading the way for the tenth year running.

ACSI includes traditional computers and tablets in their rating, and Apple finished the year with a satisfaction rating of 87, well above the competition.

The ratings take into account customer expectations, perceptions of quality, and perceptions of value.

Apple must be happy with the result as just last month, ASCI ranked the Galaxy S3 above the iPhone 5 for top smartphone satisfaction.

For the PC ratings, Apple topped the list at 87, followed by HP at 80, Dell at 79, and Toshiba at 78.

CyanogenMod, the popular custom Android developer has become a real company, Cyanogen Inc., raising $7 million in venture capital funding.

Founder Steve Kondik says the goal of the company is to make Cyanogen one of the most popular smartphone operating systems in the world. To get started on that goal, the company knows it needs to make the process of installing the software easier than it currently is.

Kondik calls the current installation process "hideous," and it does indeed need advanced Android knowledge to install the OS. It also requires root.

To remedy this, Cyanogen Inc. will bring a CM installer to the Google Play store in the next month. Android phone owners will download the app, click one or two buttons and install CM to their device.

CyanogenMod is a stock version of Android, along with streamlined features, additional personalization and added security features. CM also updates the OS regularly, so you will not have to wait for your carrier, or phone maker (HTC, Samsung) to approve and test all OS updates. That process normally takes months after Google releases their latest firmware.

The popular phone leaking @EVLeaks has posted the first picture of the upcoming Kindle Fire HD, which unfortunately appears to look exactly the same as its predecessor.

As with past models, the 2013 edition of the tablet will have large bezels and a similar form factor and shape.

Amazon had been expected to unveil the tablet this month, but may have pushed the launch to not compete directly with new offerings from Microsoft, Samsung and Sony. Apple is also expected to show off its latest iPad Mini next month.

Previous reports had claimed Amazon will be releasing three new tablets, including a 7-inch model with a 1,920 x 1,200 resolution and powered by a Snapdragon 800 Qualcomm aimed directly at the Google Nexus 7 FHD.

Another upcoming Kindle pic.twitter.com/qx3Zf9fHOt

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) September 15, 2013

According to multiple sources, Nokia has delayed the launch of the Lumia 1520 'phablet' following Microsoft's purchase of their handset division.

The phone maker had been expected to unveil the device this month, possibly alongside a Windows RT tablet.

Now, the launch event has been pushed back until at least October, say the sources. Both companies will still operate separately, so it is unclear what has caused the delay.

The Lumia 1520, from what we know via leaks, features a massive 6-inch screen with 1080p resolution, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB RAM.

On the back, a 21MP PureView camera will "take a dual shot consisting of a 16MP picture and a 5MP one for playing around with and sharing." 32GB internal storage is standard but there is also a microSD slot.

Microsoft has refreshed its Bing search engine, giving the design an overhaul, all the way down to its logo.

Lawrence Ripsher, Bing general manager of user experiences, says the new look shows that Bing is "no longer just a search engine on a web page," but an experience that integrates as part of Microsoft's new "One Microsoft" strategy to unify all of its brands.

Among the new features are "Page Zero" which is a beefed-up version of the auto-fill suggestions well known by all search engine users. Says the company: "We are introducing Page Zero, a new function in Bing that helps a user get an answer or take an action before they even seethe first results page. We do this by showing key tasks associated with the query while they're typing. This not only provides important information and services to them quickly, but enables them to see what kinds of things they can explore on Bing and across the Web. For example, if you type Katy Perry, we understand what you're looking for before you've even searched and give you a quick glance of who she is and suggest other popular search tasks associated with the singer."

Adobe has announced its quarterly earnings today, showing strong subscriber growth for its cloud-based bundled services.

Subscribers for Creative Cloud, the subscription-based version of its popular software bundle, also crossed the one million mark for the first time ever, after adding 331,000 subscribers in the third quarter.

CFO Mark Garrett says the company will top that figure in the fourth quarter, after closing more corporate contracts during the quarter than during the entire first half of the year.

Adobe began its move to a Web-based service last year, moving away from physical, licensed software.

Mozilla has confirmed that its Windows 8 'Modern' version of Firefox has been postponed, again, this time until January.

The company had estimated an early December launch for the touch version of the browser, following two prior delays.

A "Preview Release" will still be released on Tuesday along with the alpha build of Firefox 26.

"The goal of the Metro Preview Release is to gather feedback and defects from the larger Aurora community," Mozilla noted. "Whether or not the Metro Preview Release will graduate from Aurora to Beta and Release channels is still to be determined. At a minimum, it should significantly increase the number of testers and feedback."

Mozilla started developing their Modern edition 18 months ago, with a very basic preview released alongside Windows 8 in October 2012. At the time, the company expected the browser to be completed by January 2013. That clearly did not happen.

Tencent has announced it will acquire a large 36.5 percent stake in Sohu's Sogou search engine.

The search engine is the third-largest in China, but one of its fastest growing.

After the purchase, the company's share could increase to 40 percent in the future, says Tencent.

The company will pay $448 million for the share.

Sogou has 10 percent share of the market, ahead of Tencent's Soso search engine at 3.15 percent, but well below Qihoo 360 at 17 percent and Baidu at 66.4 percent.

Intel has purchased the Spanish artificial intelligence technology startup Indisys, a company that focuses on natural language recognition.

The deal was reportedly around €20 million ($26 million) and follows Intel's recent acquisition of Omek, an Israeli startup with specialties in gesture-based interfaces.

Indisys employees have joined Intel already, confirms the company: "Intel has acquired Indisys, a privately held company based in Seville, Spain. The majority of Indisys employees joined Intel. We signed the agreement to acquire the company on May 31 and the deal has been completed. However, I can confirm that the value of the transaction is not material to Intel."

Intel would not confirm how they are using the tech: "Indisys has a deep background in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and machine learning. We are not disclosing any details about how Intel might use the Indisys technologies at this time."

Following the launch of T-Mobile's Jump early upgrade program, rival carriers have scrambled to unveil their own services.

It is Sprint's turn now, with the company ready to debut 'One Up' on September 20th, say reports.

As with other services, customers will pay monthly installments for their new phones and have the ability to trade it in every year for a new one at no extra charge.

Making 'One Up' different is that, unlike T-Mobile, there is no additional fee per month. T-Mobile costs $10 extra per month to sign up for the program. Verizon and AT&T don't offer any discounts on your monthly service plan, but One Up does.

When broken down, One Up charges about 50 percent of the phone's retail price to let you use it for a year, before you can trade it in.

After long threatening to do so, Kim Dotcom has sued the New Zealand government over the illegal spying against him and the raid on his home and personal property.

The government admitted the spying was illegal, and a New Zealand court granted Dotcom the rights to sue earlier this year.

Dotcom and other plaintiffs are seeking about $7 million in damages. In court documents, Dotcom claims that the 'Five Eyes' spy-network (UK, US, Canada, NZ and Australia) were actively spying on him, illegally.

"The Prime Minister of New Zealand declined an independent inquiry into illegal spying," Dotcom told Ars. "Now my court case will uncover the truth about the [Government Communications Security Bureau] using X-Keyscore, Prism, and the Five Eyes spy cloud to spy on New Zealanders. The truth will come out."

Dotcom notes that the GCSB, New Zealand's version of the U.S.' National Security Agency had been spying on him "since at least December 16, 2011," well before the 2012 raid. Cameras were installed on adjacent properties to spy on Dotcom, reads the filings, and a hidden pencam was "used by Senior Constable Homan when he visited the Mahoenui Valley property on January 19, 2012, and that no search warrant had been obtained for this search."

AT&T, one of the ISPs that participates in the Copyright Alert System and its "six-strikes" system for copyright infringers, will in some cases terminate your account entirely if you are a repeat offender.

The CAS' main goal is to educate Internet users about copyright, whilst showing off legal alternatives.

Initial alerts will tell customers that their Internet is being used for unauthorized downloads, and subsequent alerts could range from more emails to mandatory educational courses online or even throttling of your speed.

AT&T, surprisingly, is taking it a step further telling alleged copyright infringers that an account termination is a possibility.

Here is the full CAS letter sent by AT&T (via TorrentFreak):

Copyright Infringement Alert

Dear (Primary Account Holder),

We are sending you this alert as part of our participation in the Copyright Alert Program -- an industry-wide initiative intended to help users understand their rights and responsibilities in the distribution of copyrighted content online.

Read more...

According to Reuters, a handful of private equity firms are looking into BlackBerry, but there has so far been a very lukewarm response to buying the whole company.

Instead, the buyers seem interested in different parts of the struggling smartphone maker.

The company is currently valued at just above $5 billion, but in a break up could be worth upwards of $10 billion. BlackBerry's assets include the "services business that powers its security-focused messaging system, worth $3 billion to $4.5 billion; a collection of patents that could be worth $2 billion to $3 billion; and $3.1 billion in cash and investments."

Of course, the hardware business is worthless, but will cost up to $2 billion to liquidate entirely.

The report says at least five PE firms have "signed confidentiality agreements or have agreed to meetings with the company to gain access to the company's books." The sale process will likely start in a few weeks.

The hits just keep on coming for the struggling smartphone maker.

HTC has confirmed it has laid off 20 percent of its HTC America division, which includes employees and contractors. The division only has 150 employees but it is still significant for any division to get hit for such a figure.

The statement:

Today's reduction in force is a decisive action by HTC Corp (US) to streamline and optimize our organization and improve efficiencies after several years of aggressive growth. Realigning its human resources against key strategic initiatives will help HTC more effectively advance into a new stage of growth and innovation. This is a hard decision that has direct impact on people who have contributed to the growth HTC has experienced the past several years. However, to achieve our long-term goals as a business and return maximum value to our shareholders, this is a necessary step to drive ongoing innovation, ensure our ability to create strong products like the HTC One, and forge strong customer relationships that solidify our future. HTC is proud of its employees and has a track record of hiring the best and brightest; we continue to hire in strategic areas and encourage impacted employees to apply for open positions that are a fit for their skills.

According to new reports, the upcoming high-end Nokia Lumia 1520 phablet will be launching on AT&T in November.

The device has a 6-inch screen with 1080p resolution, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB RAM.

On the back, a 21MP PureView camera will "take a dual shot consisting of a 16MP picture and a 5MP one for playing around with and sharing."

32GB internal storage is standard but there is also a microSD slot.

Additionally, the device will launch with the Windows Phone 8 GDR3 update and a 3400mAh battery for extended battery life.

From now until Monday, Best Buy will be giving you an iPhone 5 if you exchange your old smartphone.

The retailer is giving a guaranteed minimum $100 trade-in credit for old smartphones as long as you switch to the iPhone 5 on AT&T, Sprint or Verizon with a two-year activation in the store. The phone costs $99 with contract making the deal a pretty good one if you are willing to take a one-year old device.

After the promotion ends, the iPhone 5 will likely be gone for good from stores, replaced by the plastic iPhone 5C and the new flagship iPhone 5S. The 5C also sells for $99, and the 5S takes the $199 slot.

The deal is great for customers with old, working smartphones, especially devices that would not get you $100 elsewhere, even on Craigslist. The deal is good for Best Buy as it helps clear out inventory in the quickest way possible.

Microsoft has launched a new promotion in which it will buy back your Apple iPad 2, iPad 3, and iPad 4 for at least $200, payable as a Microsoft gift card.

Of course, there are catches. The devices must be "gently used" or better condition and you must bring the tablet into a Microsoft brick & mortar store (there aren't many).

The company hopes to convert iPad owners over to its struggling Surface brand of tablets.

Microsoft has slashed the price of their current generation tablets, ahead of September 23 in which the company will unveil two new devices, the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2.

The trade-in offer ends on October 27th.

With just a tweet last night, Twitter announced it was filing for an IPO, marking the highest-profile tech debut since Facebook.

In their tweet the company says, "We've confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale."

Filing for an S-1 means that Twitter has less than $1 billion in revenue, but growth remains outstanding at the microblogging site.

Twitter has been privately valued at over $10 billion, but could come to the market with an even bigger value given the service's extreme popularity.

Max Wolff of Greencrest Capital adds (via Reuters): "It's completely conquered mobile. It has an enormous social network. It's becoming a key utility as a second screen to TV and it's literally the first draft of history. Normally a company like Twitter would have been public for some time."

As of writing, Twitter has over 200 million active users and over 400 million posts per day. More importantly, the company has been at the forefront of breaking news, including Osama Bin Laden's death and Middle Eastern troubles.

We've confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO. This Tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.

-- Twitter (@twitter) September 12, 2013

Although the Blu-ray Disc Association has not confirmed, Singulus has claimed that they have been providing machine tech to support triple-layer Blu-ray Discs.

The Singulus BLULINE III discs can support up to 100GB of storage, enough to print a 4K (UltraHD) movie.

While the content will be available through streaming services like Sony Unlimited and Netflix, the huge size of the files makes discs a viable option.

The biggest question is whether current-gen Blu-ray players, including the PS3, will support the new discs via a firmware update. It absolutely seems possible, but there will still likely be 4K Blu-ray players in the future when the format becomes more mainstream.

Just days after Apple unveiled their two new devices, Walmart has already dropped the price on the iPhone 5C and 5S.

With a two-year contract, the devices will sell for $79 or $189, respectively, for the 16GB models. Apple sells the 5C for $99 and the 5S for $199.

Pre-orders begin on Friday and the devices will go on sale next week, on September 20.

Walmart says if you wait until the 21st, you can use the company's new trade-in program to save some money while exchanging your existing smartphone.

The iPhone 5 will also drop to $79, while the iPhone 4S has dropped to 97 cents with contract.

Although it has still not been confirmed, it seems to be a lock now that LG is building the Nexus 5, and we have already seen it in action thanks to an inadvertent Google slip.

The FCC has now posted pictures of a device that is made by LG and looks almost identical to the image we saw in Google's Android 4.4 statue video.

FCC's filings show off at least a prototype of the Nexus 5, which will certainly have an improved camera from its predecessor.

There is little else known about the phone but it is rumored to have a 5-inch screen, a quad-core Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM and LTE support.

After a year of fighting, Dell founder Michael Dell has succeeded in taking the company private through a leveraged buyout.

Shareholders voted in favor of the buyout, which will come from Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake.

The final price is $13.75 per share and will also include a 13 cent special dividend. With current outstanding shares, the total buyout price is $24.9 billion for shareholders.

When the process began in June of last year, the price was lower, but there has been significant investor opposition, including Carl Icahn who became the company's second largest investor in order to propose a 'structured recapitalization' which would have had Icahn and another firm buy 72 percent of Dell shares and leave the remaining to trade publicly.

The argument was that the Silverlake/Dell deal locked out investors from any future turnaround the company may have.

McDonald's has begun testing a mobile payment application in Austin and Salt Lake City ahead of a possible national rollout.

After you order with the mobile app, you can pick up your food in stores, at drive-thru windows, or curbside depending on your location. Using the system will also enroll you in a loyalty program and give you offers and special promotions.

The news comes via executive notes discovered by Bloomberg. "While many competitors are publicizing their efforts to get an initial foothold in the mobile arena, no one has developed a comprehensive solution that integrates all the opportunities this technology presents," reads the notes.

McDonald's would not confirm the report, however. "We're always looking at new technologies to make the McDonald's experience better for our customers," says a spokesman. "We are testing some of these technologies in a few markets, so it's premature to speculate on the decisions we may make after the tests, but we're excited to bring a cutting-edge experience in the future to our customers."

The fast food giant has 14,000 locations in the U.S., alone.

Asus has unveiled a new transformer tablet running on the efficient Intel Bay Trail processor architecture.

The device will run on the upcoming Windows 8.1 operating system, has a 10.1-inch, 1366 x 768 IPS display, 2GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage, a good portion of which will be taken up by the operating system.

Perhaps most importantly, the device will cost just $349 for the full Windows experience and keyboard.

Connectivity options include micro-USB, micro-HDMI, and a USB 3.0 port in the dock.

"The ASUS Transformer Book T100 is the perfect transformation of the Eee PC with full compatibility, detachable touch screen, immersive entertainment and enough battery for all-day computing," added ASUS Chairman Jonney Shih. "It is truly a game-changer for our mobile lifestyle."

Google has announced this week that their Chromebook family is about to get significantly larger.

New devices based on the new Intel Haswell architecture have been unveiled, from Acer, HP, Asus and Toshiba.

Some of these notebooks will cost as low as $199, and NPD recently reported that Chromebooks currently account for 25% of the $300-and-under computer segment.

Additionally, 20 percent of school districts, and 5000 schools, have deployed the notebooks to their students.

Haswell processors have significant improvements over previous models, including 200 percent battery life in some cases. In the real world, the Chromebooks should offer at least 12 hours of battery.

Motorola Mobility has confirmed today that the company is shopping 100,000 Moto X per week from its Texas manufacturing facility.

The Moto X is the first made-in-the-US smartphone, and teardowns have found that building here in the States only adds $9 or so to costs.

Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside has said the facility is capable of producing tens of millions of phones per year, but that kind of expansion will depend on demand.

The current pace of 100,000 units per week, Woodside says, is just the first phase of a much larger plan. "When you set up to ramp a factory you need a plan, and we have shipment targets we need to make with our carrier partners, and where we need to be right now is 100,000 units and that's where we are," Woodside added.

Woodside did not break down how many of the units were models being sent to wireless carriers and how many were custom-made models built by consumers through AT&T's Moto Maker service.

Dell has revealed their latest entry into the tablet market, a Windows 8.1 device dubbed 'Venue,' following the same brand as previous devices that were discontinued last year.

The tablet will have an 8-inch screen and run on Intel's new 'Bay Trail' Atom processor.

Neil Hand, vice president at Dell, says the tablet will be marketed to both businesses and consumers, and will feature long battery life and LTE capabilities.

There was little else shared about the tablet, but a full launch will take place on October 2nd.

Intel recently showed off their latest Bay Trail chips, which feature 8 cores.

Despite the company ignoring the set-top during their latest press conference, ATD is reporting that the company will unveil an updated version of the Apple TV next week.

Additionally, the updated hardware will come with updated software, as well.

The new Apple TV will be released on September 18th, the same day as the iOS 7 operating system.

Sources claim the company will tweak the AirPlay system, "allowing people who have purchased content from Apple's iTunes store to play that stuff on other people's TVs, via its AirPlay system."

Along with their other announcements yesterday, Sony also unveiled a new micro-console, the PS Vita TV.

The tiny console, at 6.5cm x 10.5cm x 1.3cm, will compete with Android-based gaming set-tops like the Ouya.

Allowing you to play Vita games on your TV, the hardware has a slot that lets you load games from the handheld and then play it with a standard DualShock 3 or 4 PlayStation controller.

Additionally, the hardware will let you use streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus and eventually will let you play your PlayStation 4 via Remote Play with DualShock 4, an impressive feature.

Finally, if you have a controller, you can play PSOne Classic and original PSP games, as well.

Virgin Media UK TV has added streaming giant Netflix to its cable offerings.

For the time being, Virgin will test Netflix for 40,000 customers who use TiVo set-top boxes, before rolling out to all 1.7 million of its TiVo customers. You will need a Netflix subscription to use the service.

Virgin will be able to search for Netflix shows on the same guide screens they use for pay-TV programs.

"It's a huge win for Netflix," said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. "Cable sees Netflix as a possible problem for them, an alternative to cable. This is an acknowledgement by Virgin that its customers want that type of service as well."

Virgin Media UK has 3.77 million customers, with 44 percent using TiVo set-tops for DVR.

"We're delighted to be bringing yet another groundbreaking service onto TV screens in millions of Virgin Media homes," Dana Strong, Virgin Media's chief operating officer.

Following the recent trend started by many retailers and Apple, Wal-Mart has started their own smartphone trade-in program.

The program will launch on September 21st at 3600 Wal-mart stores and additionally in 500 Sam's Clubs.

Steve Bratspies, EVP of general merchandise, notes that you will get anywhere between $50 to $300 in credit depending on the condition and type of phone, and as long as it is working.

To receive the credit, you must sign up for a new two-year contract with AT&T, Sprint or Verizon while at the store, or you can sign up for Wal-Mart's prepaid wireless plans.

So far, exact credit tiers have not been revealed, but a good condition iPhone 5 will get you the full $300 credit.

Apple has announced today that it will ship its 700 millionth iOS device next month.

In June, the company reported 600 million sales, so it appears that iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch sales have stayed steady.

Rival Android reached 1 billion device activations earlier this year, as the two operating systems continue to dominate the smartphone market.

Apple expects a nice sales boost this coming quarter, after releasing two new iPhones today, including a "cheaper" plastic model for the global markets.

Newly hired Intel CEO Bryan Krzanich spoke today during the company's Intel Developer Forum, telling observers that there will be tablets available "at price points below $100" during this holiday season.

The exec had previously said touchscreen laptops with new Haswell processors could fall to under $200 this year, but prices under $100 have traditionally led consumers to impulse purchases. The price point would also match those of high-end e-readers.

Of course, Krzanich would not comment on the quality or the capabilities of the cheap tablets but it could help Intel gain some more share in the market dominated by rival ARM-based processors.

Intel can support both Windows 8 and Android with their latest Atom line.

Sony has unveiled a new model of their PS Vita handheld.

The new Vita PCH-2000 is 20 percent thinner and 15 percent lighter than the original model while increasing battery life by one hour on average.

Additionally, the new device will be Wi-Fi-only and be a Japanese exclusive for the time being.

The new Vita will be available in pink, black, blue, grey, lime green, and yellow color options), come with a micro-USB charger rather than Sony's proprietary port, and have 1GB internal storage. To save on costs, Sony has changed the display to an LCD rather than an OLED.

Furthermore, Sony will drop the prices of their memory cards, with the baseline 4GB card dropping to 1,554 yen ($15) and the high-end card, 64GB at 10,479 yen (about $105).

The device will sell for 19800 yen, about $190 USD.

Buried deep in a press release, Samsung has confirmed the lifetime sales of its Galaxy Note line of smartphones.

The Galaxy Note and its sequel, the Note II, have sold 38 million devices ahead of the launch of the Note III, which was introduced last week.

Samsung CEO JK Shin says he expects "10 million units will be sold" of the new Note III right on launch, which is September 25th in 149 countries.

The Galaxy Note 3 has a 5.7-inch SuperAMOLED 1080p display with 368 ppi pixel density, 151.2mm x 79.2mm x 8.3mm dimensions, a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, (or 1.9GHz Samsung Exynos Octacore if you are in Europe), Android 4.3 with TouchWiz, a 13 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front camera, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi 802.11ac, LTE Category 4, a 3,200 mAh battery and an LED/IR combo making the phone into a controller.

Microsoft has sent out invites for a press event where they will unveil the new generation of Surface tablets.

There were no other details given about the event but the invite itself shows off a cartoon version of the tablet along with a Type Cover.

The new Surface Pro is expected to have a display higher than 1080p, an Intel Haswell processor for extended battery life and efficiency, and 8GB of RAM. The new lower-end Windows RT will have a 1080p display, a Tegra 4 quad-core processor and be available in white and black colorways.

Each will ship with Windows 8.1 variants, and there will also be a new "Power Cover," a Type-cover with a built-in battery that should extend the tablet into an all-day device.

According to Forrester analyst Charles Golvin, this is the year that will mark the end of the iPod Classic, Apple's high-capacity storage music players.

The device does not have a touchscreen, nor does it have the new Lightning dock connector and the MP3 player has not been updated in two years.

Anthony Scarsella, chief gadget officer of Gazelle.com, which buys and sells used Apple products (among other electronics), agreed with Golvin (via Wired). "It's been a couple of years since the iPod classic has been updated. We can assume it will be phased out, unless we see it updated on September 10th."

With a heavy lineup of new products expected tomorrow during their press event, Apple is not expected to unveil an updated Classic, which offers 160GB of internal HDD storage. By comparison, even high-end iPhones and iPod Touch devices only have 64GB flash storage.

iPod sales peaked in 2008, after 7 years as the undisputed king of the MP3 player market. The sales numbers have gotten so bad that Apple did not even report the figures during their latest earnings report.

A fake torrent of Grand Theft Auto V has hit the Internet, an elaborate hoax posing as a leak of the new game.

Fans of the game franchise looking to possibly begin the game earlier than its September 17th release date are warned to avoid the torrent as it is packed with malware and was created as a scam.

How the scam works is as follows: Users who download the game will get to a certain point in the installation where it says it cannot be completed until a survey is completed and a confirmation code is sent. In order to receive that code, you need to provide a valid mobile number and to send a text to a certain number provided.

With your number, the scammers sign you up for a premium service that charges your mobile bill daily until the service is cancelled.

While you are being scammed on your mobile bill, the installation finishes, installing the well-known malware, Trojan.GenericKDV.1134859 to your PC and leaving you with a pirated copy of the game 'The Cave.'

A little over a month after the Wi-Fi-only version of the Nexus 7 FHD went on sale in North America, Google has made the 4G LTE version available through the Google Play Store.

The new tablet will sell for $349 in the Store, above the Wi-Fi model at $229.

Additionally, the company says T-Mobile will sell the model in their stores starting next week, as well.

Get it here: Google Play Store

Nexus 7 with 4G LTE is now available on Google Play in the US [http://t.co/sY5XhbGDGP] and is coming to US T-Mobile stores in October!

-- Google Nexus (@googlenexus) September 9, 2013

Sony has confirmed the release date for its upcoming PlayStation 4 console in its home country of Japan.

The device will launch on February 22nd, 2014, and cost ¥39,980 ($400 USD), the same as it will in North America.

There will be three bundles available at launch, the standard, one with a free downloadable copy of 'Knack' and a one-year warranty extension and the third will include the PlayStation Camera for an additional $40.

Sony has noted that the delayed launch is the company can complete software that is tailored for the region.

Rival Microsoft has not given any timetable for a Japanese release.

Following a recent FCC leak and a Google video in which in employee was using an LG-built Nexus 5, there is now a detailed mock of the upcoming device.

The device is 131.9 x 68.2 mm, and has a screen of 126 mm with a 16:9 screen ratio.

Additionally, the phone will run on the new Android 4.4 KitKat, include LTE support, and Bluetooth 4.0.

Read the full FCC leak here.

The full mocks, via Verge:

Microsoft is preparing General Distribution Release 3 for Windows Phone 8, a new update aimed at upcoming hardware and current-gen high-end devices.

A poster in the WP Central forum says he purchased a device from Craigslist that includes the new update.

Taking a ton of screenshots, the poster showed off a new Driving Mode, which will mute calls and texts automatically when you are driving and connected to a paired Bluetooth.

Additionally, there is a new ability to close apps in the multitasking view, one of the operating system's most requested features. Microsoft is also adding support for custom sounds within texts, voice mails, emails, and reminders.

Finally, the OS will now allow Windows Phone 8 users to restore from backup using Wi-Fi.

Some pics:

A major fire at a Chinese plant run by SK Hynix is likely to cause a global disruption in supply of memory chips.

At any given time the plant is responsible for up to 10 percent of the world's supply of DRAM chips, and the plant also accounts for almost half of SK Hynix's production capability.

Hynix itself accounts for 30 percent of the world's share of DRAM chips. The company is one of the largest three suppliers, next to Micron and Samsung.

If production continues to be halted at the plant, shipments for 11 million notebooks and 10 million smartphones will be delayed.

Additionally, due to the supply crunch, prices have gone up 3 percent since the fire, the biggest one-month increase in over three years.

According to former WSJ reporter Jessica Lessin, Amazon is looking to give away its upcoming smartphone for free, trying to steal as much market share as humanely possible in the shortest amount of time.

Amazon has long been rumored to be working on a smartphone, but nothing has come of these rumors since 2011.

The etailing giant has had discussions with wireless companies about offering the device through their channels, but likely it will only be available through Amazon's own site. The phone will be free without a new contract, but it is unclear if it will require a subscription to Amazon Prime, which costs $79 per year.

If accurate, the move will fit exactly into Amazon's plans. CEO Jeff Bezos has long sold hardware at cost or with tiny margins in order to deliver content. An Amazon smartphone would be integrated into the company's music, video, TV, games and app ecosystem.

Multiple sources have confirmed that Microsoft will unveil a 'Power Cover' for its Surface Pro and upcoming Surface Pro 2 tablets.

The cover will include a built-in battery to 'significantly' increase battery life. It will also work just like the original Type Cover in that it will make your tablet a notebook by all purposes, with full typing capabilities.

Sources say the Power Cover will be compatible with the current-generation Pro, the upcoming Pro 2 and Surface RT 2, but not with the original RT.

The Power Cover will charge the Surface when in use, just like any external power supply. If connected, the Cover will charge will the Surface is charging, as well.

At 1.1 pounds, it is double the weight of the current-gen Type Cover and it is also thicker at .38 inches compared to .21 inches for the current model.

The Power Cover will ship this year, after the Surface RT 2 and Surface Pro 2 are released.

According to sources, Apple will release its next Mac operating system, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, by the end of October.

There had been speculation that the OS would be released alongside iOS 7 on September 20th, but this does not appear to be true.

For their last two Mac OS X releases, the company waited until the week of their quarterly earnings report. The company is expected to release their fiscal Q4 earnings the week of October 21st, which could work with the new report.

Apple, during their WWDC event, said the release will have improved features for power users, better battery life and much better responsiveness.

First, the new OS will have "Finder Tabs" with their own location and own view mode. Second, when you save a document you can now tag it, making it much easier to search for in the finder sidebar.

In 10.9, you can also access your menus across multiple displays, a big plus for developers.

A federal judge has issued an injunction against Apple following their loss in the ebook antitrust case.

In July, Judge Denise Cote concluded Apple was liable of conspiring with five major publishers to fix the prices of ebooks sold through the newly-created iBookstore.

The injunction will go in place next month and will last five years. Additionally, the court can continue to extend the injunction at the request of the Department of Justice or individual states.

As part of the penalties, Apple is now banned from "enforcing most-favored-nation clauses in any ebook publishing contracts for five years, and also forbids the company from entering into any book publishing contracts that contain them for five years." Apple had tried to get the provision to include only the publishers that had settled with the DOJ, but the injunction names all current and future publishers.

Additionally, Apple will have to stagger new contract negotiations with each of the publishers; HarperCollins, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Macmillan. All of the publishers are also required to enter new contracts with retailers that allowed the retailers to discount their books for two years, but this can be extended almost indefinitely with the new injunction.

According to the WSJ, Apple is preparing to ship cheaper iPhones to China Mobile, the largest carrier on the planet.

The companies have been negotiating for over three years, with talks intensifying in recent months as China has become Apple's third largest market in terms of sales.

China Mobile has 700 million subscribers, well ahead of European carrier Vodafone's 450 million subscribers and over six times more than the U.S.'s largest carrier, Verizon, at 115 million subscribers.

Apple is expected to launch new iPhones at an event on September 10th, and there is a separate Chinese event set for the next day.

China Mobile would not be getting the new iPhone 5S, however, but they will get the alleged new iPhone 5C, a lower-cost plastic version of the year-old iPhone 5. China Mobile's 3G network, which uses proprietary tech, is generally considered to be unreliable, and the radio was expensive for Apple to add, say sources. This seems to have been a hurdle that has been jumped, however.

Sony has unveiled two new 4K TVs and also its previously announced 4K video download service.

The service, dubbed 'Video Unlimited 4K,' will be available in the U.S. at launch, and eventually globally. At launch, there will be 70 full-length Ultra HD movies and TV shows, and by the end of the year there will be around 100.

To use the service, you will need one of Sony's 4K Ultra HD Media Players (FMP-X1). Rentals for films start at $7.99 and purchases will lighten your wallet by $29.99.

The FMP-X1 home server costs $700, comes with 2TB of storage and 10 free films. Of course, to take advantage you will need a 4K Ultra HD TV, which will set you back at least $3000 today, as well.

Motorola has confirmed that the Moto X will reach carrier Sprint tomorrow, followed by US Cellular later this month.

The device has been available through AT&T and Verizon for two weeks now.

Just like with rivals, Sprint will offer the phone for $199 with contract, and only in black and white colorways. AT&T allows exclusive access to thousands of different color combinations, including different backplates, front trim, and buttons.

US Cellular is adding a free Motorola Boom Bluetooth headset valued at $59.99 to anyone who pre-orders for them.

The HDMI Forum group has officially unveiled HDMI 2.0, a couple of days after most of its specs were leaked.

Bandwidth capacity has been increased to 18Gbps allowing for 3,840 x 2,160 resolution at up to 60fps.

Additionally, the standard now has support for up to 32 audio channels, "dynamic auto lipsync" and even more CEC extensions.

Furthermore, the standard will accept up to "1536kHz audio sample frequency, dual video streams for multiple users on a single screen, multi-stream audio to as many as 4 users at once and support for 21:9 widescreen displays."

The group says the connector itself will remain unchanged, an added bonus for backwards compatibility since high-speed Category 2 cables will support the new standard.

"We are pleased to continue our work in supporting the HDMI Adopter base as well as the entire HDMI ecosystem," said Steve Venuti, president of HDMI Licensing, LLC. "Adopters can now continue to develop new product functionality over the HDMI interface as well as look to HDMI Licensing, LLC as their single contact for all their licensing and administrative needs."

Earlier this week Microsoft announced that the Xbox One will support up to eight controllers.

Unfortunately, for Sony fans, the PlayStation 4 cannot match that kind of party. The company has confirmed the upcoming console will support four controllers.

The news is somewhat surprising, as even the PS3 supports up to seven controllers.

With the rise and ease of multiplayer online gaming, the news should not be a deal-breaker but may be an annoyance for some.

@RCognition 4

-- Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) September 2, 2013

Panasonic has announced it will be exiting the smartphone market in Japan, instead outsourcing production to emerging markets like India.

The struggling company, which has lost $15 billion in two years, has staked the entire company on turnaround efforts. The company is trying to move from consumer gadget maker to supplier.

As part of the plan, President Kazuhiro Tsuga says he would cut out any division that cannot meet a 5 percent operating margin minimum within three years.

Tsuga says the mobile division was likely to lose $11.02 million this year, following an $80 million loss last fiscal year. In 2001, the company had 19 percent of Japan's mobile market share. That share is now down to 7 percent. "It's not acceptable for the company to be bleeding red ink like this, so we have to think about ways to develop assets that we do have in a more effective direction," Tsuga added.

Despite exiting the consumer smartphone market, Tsuga says the company will develop enterprise smartphones similar to the "Toughbook" laptop PCs.

SoC maker Qualcomm has introduced their own smartwatch this week, the Toq.

The Android-based device uses the company's Mirasol low-energy display tech, which has struggled to catch on with other device makers. The tech will make reading the device in direct sunlight easier, and will make battery life significantly better than rival devices.

Qualcomm says the device will last five days per charge, compared to one day for the Galaxy Gear.

Users can connect to all Android 4.0.3 or higher devices to accept calls, read texts, notifications and reminders, as well as control music playback. Additionally, the device can pull stock quotes, weather and will feature different watch face designs.

For charging, you can "simply set the device down on its case to charge the Toq without the need for plugs or clunky cables" adds the company.

The 'limited edition' watch is listed at $300.

Samsung used their latest Unpacked event to unveil the Galaxy Note 3.

The latest model of the phablet is slimmer, bigger, lighter and more powerful, an impressive feat. On the design side, the bezels are much slimmer, and the edges are sharper, a marginal move from previous devices.

Samsung's latest has a 5.7-inch SuperAMOLED 1080p display with 368 ppi pixel density, 151.2mm x 79.2mm x 8.3mm dimensions, a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, (or 1.9GHz Samsung Exynos Octacore if you are in Europe), Android 4.3 with TouchWiz, a 13 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front camera, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi 802.11ac, LTE Category 4, a 3,200 mAh battery and an LED/IR combo making the phone into a controller.

After months of leaks and speculation, Samsung has finally made the Galaxy Gear smartwatch official today at the IFA event.

The device has a 1.68-inch sAMOLED display with 320x320 resolution and a 1.9MP BSI sensor and an auto-focus lens for the camera. The camera is intended for low-resolution shots on-the-go and up to 10 seconds of 720p video. Under the hood is an 800MHz processor and a small 315 mAh non-removable battery.

Additionally, there are two built-in mics (with noise cancellation), a single speaker, Bluetooth 4.0, an accelerometer and gyroscope, 4GB of internal storage and 512MB of RAM.

On the app side, there is third-party support, including access to fitness applications, sharing apps like Evernote and even other notable apps like Line and eBay.

Unfortunately, the device will only be compatible with the upcoming Galaxy Note III and the Note 10.1 tablet. As a companion device, the smartwatch will give you access to S Voice, Find My Device, the pedometer and other features.

Microsoft has finally announced the release date of the Xbox One console.

The system will go on sale on November 22nd, a week after the PlayStation 4 does in the U.S. and Canada.

Gamers in the UK, Ireland, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and NZ will see the console on the 22nd, at a cost of $499 /€499 / £429. Notably missing is Japan, which the Xbox 360 bombed in, but is a large territory for gamers as a whole.

Microsoft has called the release a "global launch" although the initial rollout was supposed to be larger. "Many more markets" will receive the console next year, adds Microsoft Xbox boss Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb.

The company also confirmed that the console is in full production and that the processor clock speed has been tweaked to 1.75GHz from 1.6GHz. "It means that the processing power to make those games that we've been showing off at Gamescom that already look great will look even better," corporate marketing VP Yusuf Mehdi added.

One of the most highly-anticipated new phones of the fall is the Sony Xperia Z1, codenamed 'Honami.'

Besides high-end specs, the phone is getting a lot of attention due to its high-end camera and the ability to snap-on real SLR lenses through one of the phone's port, effectively turning the device into a touchscreen DSLR.

Today, another leak about the phone has hit the Web, the fact that at least some markets will receive a free Sony smartwatch with their Honami purchase. The Sony SmartWatch 2, released in June, works with Android 4.0 (or higher) devices, and has 200 built-in apps.

Full specs (via PA) for the Honami, which will be officially unveiled tomorrow:

After weeks of speculation and leaks, Apple has finally confirmed a special event for September 10th at their headquarters.

The company is widely expected to unveil the iPhone 5S and a lower-cost plastic version of the iPhone 5, called the iPhone 5C.

Apple's event starts at 10 AM Pacific.

The iPhone 5S will come with the same frame as its predecessor, but with updated internals, a new camera, and new colorways.

Last month, Google announced it was dropping the price of the Nexus 4 smartphone by $100.

As of today, the 8GB model of the flagship is sold out in the Google Play Store, and Google says they will not be replenishing the inventory.

The 16GB model is still available, at $249, but that is also as supplies last.

Google is expected to release the Nexus 5 in the coming months, with LTE connectivity and updated internals.

Google made a surprise move today, changing the name of their upcoming operating system from Key Lime Pie to Kit Kat, as part of a marketing deal with Nestle.

The OS, which will be either Android 4.4 or 5.0, had been long confirmed by the media as Key Lime Pie until just this week, when Google added a giant Android mascot statue made of KitKat bars on their campus.

Despite the obvious cross-marketing involved, the company says neither side is paying the other for use of the brands: "This is not a money-changing-hands kind of deal," said John Lagerling, director of Android global partnerships. "We wanted to do something fun and unexpected"."

Lagerling says the decision was made last year to call the OS KitKat, even though developer files and documents continued to use KLP. "We realised that very few people actually know the taste of a key lime pie," he added (via BBC). "One of the snacks that we keep in our kitchen for late-night coding are KitKats. And someone said: 'Hey, why don't we call the release KitKat? We didn't even know which company controlled the name, and we thought that [the choice] would be difficult. But then we thought well why not, and we decided to reach out to the Nestle folks."

In a huge move for both companies, Microsoft has announced they have acquired Nokia's Devices & Services business, will license and use Nokia's patents and will also license and use Nokia's mapping services.

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

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

Although unconfirmed, it appears that T-Mobile USA will be dropping BlackBerry 10 devices from stores.

The carrier won't be dropping the devices completely, just moving to 'direct ship', meaning they will not carry the devices and just serve as an intermediary for consumers to purchase through.

One employee, posting to the popular Crackberry forums, added this: "My manager told me the other day that all blackberry 10 devices will now be only available via direct ship. I work at a corporate store in Cleveland I have to go check the Email but I'm not sure if this has just affected NorthEast Ohio."

Other reps from other states have made similar claims, but T-Mobile USA has not confirmed the news yet.

The news is just another in a long string of bad headlines for the dying smartphone maker.

Acer has revealed its new flagship smartphone, the Liquid S2, which is the 'first' phone with 4K-recording capabilities.

The phone has a large 6-inch IPS display with FullHD resolution and 368 PPI. Under the hood is a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and a 3300 mAh battery.

At 13MP, the rear camera has auto-focus, f2.2, 28 mm lens, BSI sensor, LED ring flash and 4K video recording. The front camera is 2MP and has a f2.2, 24 mm lens, 88° wide angle, BSI sensor and 1080p video recording.

For connectivity, the phone has LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and Wi-Fi 802.11ac/a/b/g/n.

Acer is quick to point out the features of the camera:

• BSI Sensors and LED Ring Flash: Sharper pictures in any environment
• Video Recording: 4K Ultra HD, fast full HD 1080p 60FPS, 4 x slow motion
• Full Panorama Pictures: Up to 27-megapixels in a single picture
• Quick First Shot: Take picture right from unlock the screen with automatic center-focus by tapping any location on the screen
• Smart Best Shot: Automatically detects photo type and takes multiple shots for best selection
• Tag Widget: Convenient photo browsing with scene tag.
• Favorite Mode: Create up to five profiles with customized effects, flash, capture mode and scenes
• Exposure Control: One finger focus and exposure adjustment
• Freehand Capture: Crop out anything on the screen using hand or a digital pen
• Live Screen™: Share ideas and journey through pictures and scribble

Sony has confirmed that the upcoming PlayStation 4 will do voice recognition through the PS Camera.

The company confirmed the news, but left little in the way of details. "We can confirm that PS Camera does allow voice recognition. We will share more details on this shortly."

During a presentation for retail staff, Sony revealed a slide that stated, "From navigational voice commands to facial recognition, the PlayStation Camera adds incredible innovation to your gaming." (Jump to the 5 minute 30 seconds mark.)

Sony, unlike Microsoft, decided not to bundle the Camera with the console, allowing consumers to make the choice and keeping the price down for the hardware.

After a month-long blackout, Time Warner Cable and CBS have reached a deal over retransmission fees and the channels are back in all major markets.

Besides just CBS, other channels returning are Showtime, The Smithsonian Channel, and CBS Sports Network. Affected cities were NY, LA, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Detroit.

CBS CEO Les Moonves wrote in an email to employees: "The final agreements with Time Warner Cable deliver to us all the value and terms that we sought in these discussions. We are receiving fair compensation for CBS content and we also have the ability to monetize our content going forward on all the new, developing platforms that are right now transforming the way people watch television."

Time Warner emailed subscribers: "We're pleased to announce that we've reached an agreement with CBS that will return their blacked out channels to our lineup immediately (including Showtime, TMC, Flix, Smithsonian, and the CBS broadcast stations in NY, LA, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, and Pittsburgh).

As in all of our negotiations, our main goal was to hold down costs and retain our ability to deliver a great video experience for our customers. We're pleased that we successfully achieved both. We hate that these fights have to happen--and that our customers get caught in the middle--but they do allow us to negotiate deals that provide better outcomes for our customers."

Three HTC executives have been arrested on suspicion of leaking trade secrets to the Chinese, causing the company's stock to fall to 8-year lows.

Vice president of product design Thomas Chien, research and development director Wu Chien-Hung and senior manager of design and innovation Justin Huang were all arrested all over the weekend.

Besides being accused of leaking the secrets, the three are also accused of filing 'fake commission fee claims' that totaled over $330,000.

HTC had filed a complaint last month accusing the executives of passing the trade secrets, and says the investigation and subsequent arrests will not have any impact on operations.

Authorities said the executives were readying a new mobile design company using stolen interface technology. The company would aim its products at Chinese vendors.

According to the latest market share data from NetApplications, Windows 8 saw its share grow significantly for August.

While still comparatively small, Windows 8 jumped 37 percent, moving from 5.40 percent to 7.41 percent.

Windows 7 jumped from 44.49 percent to 45.63 percent, with the two new operating systems taking share from the extremely aged Windows XP. XP fell to 33.6 percent, over a 10 percent drop from July.

Mac OS X (in all iterations) moved slightly to 7.28 percent.

It is unclear why Windows 8 saw such a large jump for the month, but there is the potential that the large price drops on the Surface tablets had an effect on the OS' share.

Verizon Communications has agreed to purchase Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion in one of the largest acquisitions of all time.

The company will finally have full access to the top U.S. wireless carrier, and its large profits.

Vodafone will use the proceeds to invest in their own networks and also to pay back investors through stock buybacks and dividends. Over $80 billion will be returned to shareholders and used to pay down debt. Verizon's CEO confirmed that the companies had spoken about merging, but that a sale was better for both.

The financial terms of the deal are as follows; Vodafone will receive $59 billion in cash, $60 billion in Verizon stock and another $11 billion from a deal that will close in the Q1 2014. Verizon raised $60 billion in bridge financing from multiple banks including JPMorgan Chase.

By purchasing the stake, the company says its earnings per share will jump 10 percent right off the bat. The added debt will likely keep the company from making any other large transactions in the coming years, however. After the deal, Verizon will have debt of $115 billion.

Although the current generation Asus PadFone Infinity has only been on the market for a few months, Asus is already working on its sequel.

The new A86 model, compared to the current-gen A80, will have many similarities but will include some new features.

Under the hood, the new tablet will run on a Snapdragon 800 SoC, compared to the older, but still powerful Snapdragon 600 in the A80.

Furthermore, the new tablet will be available in white, as well as black, compared to just black for the A80. The design, other than the color, will be identical, so the current dock will work.

The Padfone Infinity sells for $900 and is notable because it is a phone that uses a tablet as a dock to be a two-in-one device.

In 2011, Belgium began blocking the infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, following a court ruling.

This week, the country's ISP have added new torrent sites to their blockade, including many of the largest in the world such as Kat.ph, ExtraTorrent, BitSnoop and H33T. Anyone visiting the sites will be greeted by a "STOP" sign and a small message explaining that the sites are "considered illegal according to Belgian legislation."

The legislation in question was a lawsuit filed by the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) and two major ISPs, Belgacom and Telenet. The court ruled in favor of the ISPs first, but an appeal overturned that decision. The Pirate Bay has been blocked in the nation since that decision.

Of course, the ISPs and legislators have been slow to block the ever-changing domains for the sites, and KAT's latest, Kickass.to is still available.

The startup streaming music service Grooveshark has settled one of its outstanding lawsuits, with publisher Sony ATV Music.

Grooveshark, along with the settlement, has signed a licensing deal that will see the music added to its current catalog.

Says the startup: "We are excited to add Sony / ATV Music's impressive array of songwriters to our catalog further advancing our mission to empower creators with the best audio platform in the world."

Last month, the company signed a similar deal with EMI Music, thus avoiding another lawsuit over copyright violation claims.

Grooveshark began receiving the record labels' ire by allowing users to upload their own music to share with others, no matter if they were copyrighted or not.

VentureBeat got an in-depth look into the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which is set for unveiling on September 4th.

The site does note that the watch they got to look at was a prototype sent to select developers and partners so it may not reflect the final design although it will likely be very close.

After spending some time with the device and seeing an internal promotional video, the site reports that the smart watch is great as a fitness device and adequate as a smartphone companion. At 3-inches diagonally, the watch is huge, as most designer watches top out at 55mm (2.16 inches). The screen is square but bezels turn it rectangular, but with rounded corners.

The watch has Bluetooth to easily connect to the Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets, and it is likely also able to connect to all Android devices. Of course, the device also has built-in Wi-Fi. The device has a 4MP camera in the strap and tiny speakers in the clasp. You can use Samsung S Voice for voice commands, download Android apps, use swipe gestures, initiate calls from the watch to send to your Galaxy phone and integrate social media directly.

Activision has defended their yearly Call of Duty releases, saying "there's demand and excitement" every year for a new game.

CEO Eric Hirshberg added: "The cadence of the releases seems to have found a nice equilibrium with people's appetite. There's demand and excitement each and every time out. Then people are playing throughout the year."

The exec added that more people are playing Call of Duty now than have ever before, but Activision admits that "we don't take anything for granted." Activision uses two studios for the games, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, with each releasing a title every other year. Hirshberg says the companies always try to outdo each other, which leads to better games for consumers.

"Having alternating studios is one of the secrets to the franchise's success," Hirshberg said. "You have different creative people who are strong-willed and have minds of their own. Everyone gets what makes a great Call of Duty game. Treyarch and IW are the masters, and have built this thing. So, there's a lot of common DNA from year to year."

First depicted in pictures in the last weeks, we now have a couple of videos detailing the casings of the new iPhone 5S colors, 'champagne' and 'graphite.'

Additionally, the videos showcase the differences between the iPhone 5 and the upcoming 5S, which is set to be unveiled on the 10th.

The iPhone 5S will keep the same form factor as the iPhone 5, but with notable improvements under the hood.

Apple is also expected to unveil a plastic version of the iPhone 5 for the emerging markets, dubbed the iPhone 5C.

Research firm IDC has posted their latest data into the tablet market, and the company is forecasting a slowdown moving forward.

The firm predicted a slight drop for 2013 from their previous forecast in May, to 227.4 million from 229.3 million units shipped. Even with the downgrade, the number is still 57.7 percent higher than 2012's shipments, showing a healthy market for the devices.

IDC believes wearable devices will lead to tablets peaking sooner than expected, with devices including smartwatches and Google Glass. Additionally, 'phablets,' which are now above 6-inches, will cannibalize their larger siblings, as well.

Samsung will unveil their Galaxy Gear smartwatch next week, and Apple is expected to unveil a flexible-display iWatch in 2014.

New Zealand has passed a new bill this week, banning software patents in the nation.

The bill in its entirety will be posted as a link at the end of this article, but here is one of the most relevant parts:

We received many submissions concerning the patentability of computer programs. ... Open source, or free, software has grown in popularity since the 1980s. Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no "inventive step" in software development, as "new" software invariably builds on existing software. They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position. ...

[With regard to corporations fighting for proprietary software,] After careful consideration we concluded that developing a clear and definitive distinction between embedded and other types of software is not a simple matter; and that, for the sake of clarity, a simple approach would be best. We received advice that our recommendation to include computer programs among the inventions that may not be patented would be unlikely to prevent the granting of patents for inventions involving embedded software.

According to new info from the states' Attorneys General, millions of consumers are in line to receive refunds following five major publisher's admission to price fixing and Apple's recent court loss for the same crime.

Once the settlements are finalized, customers who purchased ebooks from the publishers between April 1st 2010 and May 1st 2012 will be eligible for up to $3.06 per book. The refund will be given back as a credit to the bookstore you made the purchases, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBookstore. If the book you purchased was a New York Times best seller, you are eligible for the full $3.06 and if it was not, you are eligible for up to $0.73 per book.

HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster settled in April 2012, but Penguin and Macmillan settled much later, meaning their damages have not been finalized even though they have been approved by the Department of Justice.

If you have not received an email from your digital bookstore, you will likely be receiving one this week.

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According to @evleaks, who has been extremely right with his leaks for a long time, the Moto X will drop to $100 on contract in the next quarter.

Additionally, the wood-grain back cases will be available at the same time, at a price of $50.

Google's Moto X has a 4.7-inch AMOLED 720p display, Android 4.2.2 (with minor Motorola bloat), a 10MP "ClearPixel" camera, and a new Motorola X8 chipset that includes a powerful 1.7GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4, an Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB RAM and built-in specialized processors for natural language processing.

The Moto X has a motion-sensitive Active Display, always-on Google Now voice commands and a camera activation gesture that requires just two wrist twists.

If you were considering buying the device, it may pay to wait another month.

Morgan Stanley has decided to hold off on upgrading employee devices to BlackBerry 10, citing the fact they do not know if the company can back the platform over the long-term.

The investment bank will choose to stay with BlackBerry 7 until it can get assurances that support for BlackBerry 10 is long-term. BlackBerry is currently exploring strategic alternatives including a full sale of the company.

An unnamed bank, said to be Bank of America, has reportedly started a small pilot program for 100 workers with BlackBerry 10, giving a 90 day window to monitor the phone's performance. Morgan Stanley has over 55,000 employees and a move to BB10 would certainly be a boost for the struggling phone maker.

The company has two new flagships, the touch-screen Z10 and the enterprise-aimed Q10 which has a full physical keyboard.

Canadian banks have upgraded to the devices, possibly because the devices were made available two months earlier in the country and also possibly due to brand loyalty to the Canadian company.

Target's long-awaited video download and streaming service, 'Ticket,' is ready for launch.

Consumers will be able to rent and purchase digital copies of their favorite movies and TV shows, and then stream them across any device they own including TVs, Blu-ray players, smartphones, tablets, consoles, and set-top boxes.

At launch, there will be 15,000 titles, ranging from classics to new releases. New movies will cost $15 to buy and rentals will cost $3.99/$4.99, on par with biggest rival, iTunes. A TV episode will cost $2.99 and a full season will cost in the range of $34.99.

Networks already signed up are ABC, AMC, CBS, CW, Fox, FX, HBO, The WB, NBC, Showtime, Starz, and USA.

While iOS and Android devices work out of the gate (among plenty of other devices), Crunch reports that only Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players will work with Ticket at launch, with Sony, Panasonic, Funai and Philips support coming in very near future.

LG has used a relatively quiet press release to unveil their iPad Mini rival, the G Pad.

The device will have a full announcement next week at the IFA 2013 event.

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

The device is heavier than the iPad Mini at 338 grams, but it does have a marginally larger display to account for the extra weight.

Among the new LG-exclusive features:

Slide Aside enables seamless multitasking by simply "sliding" currently open apps off to the side using a three-finger swipe
QSlide controls up to three different apps in one window with no interruption, especially convenient on a large screen
KnockON turns the device on and off by tapping the display twice

Bert Nordberg, part of BlackBerry's board committee, has said the company can survive as a niche smartphone maker, but they will have to sell off parts.

The board is in charge of exploring 'strategic alternatives' to keep the company afloat, including a sale of parts or the entire company.

Nordberg did not specify which parts of the company should be sold off.

The director did admit that being a tiny overall player in the global market is difficult and will only get worse for BlackBerry. Nordberg says most importantly, the "company needs to close the gap between its value on paper and how Wall Street perceives the company's worth," via Reuters.

BlackBerry is reportedly seeking to spin off its popular messaging service (BBM) into its own subsidiary with more independence.