News written by Andre Yoskowitz (February, 2015)

Dropbox has announced a partnership with the world's largest carrier, Vodafone, in an attempt to jumpstart international growth.

The company hopes that the deal could give Dropbox tens of millions of new international users, an area where it would like to continue to see large growth.

Beginning next month, some of Vodafone's customers will automatically see Dropbox as the default service to back up and sync their content on their Android devices. If you don't have an account, you will need to sign up for a new one, flush with 25GB of free storage space.

Dropbox currently has 300 million users and international customers account for 70 percent of that figure.

Over time, Vodafone will pre-install Dropbox on all new Android handsets sold and will also promote the service for Apple iPhone buyers.

Disney XD has picked up the 'Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales' mini-series, five 22-minute episodes that will retell the first 6 movies in the series with Lego protagonists.

The series will air later this year, concluding before the hotly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens blockbuster opens worldwide on December 18th.

According to the writers, the original and prequel movies will be retold through the eyes of popular droids C-3PO and R2-D2. The droids have been kidnapped after the events of Return of the Jedi, leading them to tell their story of what happened, from the very beginning.

There was little other details, but Star Wars and Lego fans should be very excited.

Three months after T-Mobile users got their hands on the Google reference device, Verizon subscribers may finally be on the verging of getting the Nexus 6 themselves.

Thanks to leaked in-store marketing materials and a promo video leaked accidentally by Verizon, it appears the Nexus 6 could be headed to the U.S.' largest carrier on March 11th.

At launch, the phone will have VoLTE and Lollipop 5.1 but no other noticeable differences.

Check out our review here: Review: The Massive Nexus 6 is the Perfect Device for Android Lollipop

Source:
Phandroid

Popular Swiss watch maker Swatch has introduced its first smartwatch today: The Swatch Touch Zero One.

The company had announced last month that their first smartwatch was coming, but what we are seeing is different than what most expected. The watch is being marketed to beach volleyball players, and many of the features of the watch itself for created with volleyball in mind.

For your money, you get a curved touchscreen, built-in backlight, tap and swipe gesture controls and Beach Volleyball functions like a step counter, a "power hit" counter and "power clap" counter. The watch will be able to differentiate between attack hits, low hits, high hits and 'high fives.' The Power Hit counter will rate the hit on a scale of 1 to 100, with professionals likely to see 80s or higher.

The watch syncs with your Android and iOS phone, acting as a fitness tracker not unlike other watches and bands like the Fitbit.

Unlike other current smartwatches, the battery will last for "months," says the company. If accurate, that would be a huge selling point. Keep in mind that it is unclear whether the watch uses Bluetooth or NFC, and whether it can sync texts, phone calls and other notifications.

Though we would forgive you if you forgot, Netflix used to be a DVD-by-mail rental company before becoming a streaming giant.

In 2005, Netflix acquired Walmart's failed DVD-by-mail service, which had 60,000 subscribers in exchange for promoting Walmart's online DVD sales and for a cut of revenue made off of previous Walmart subscribers.

After the deal, class action lawsuits were filed, alleging that the deal kept prices artificially high. At the time, Blockbuster was offering a 3U plan (3 discs out at a time, unlimited per month) for $15.99 while Netflix was charging $19.95 for the same deal. The suits alleged that Netflix would have dropped their prices to match had it not been for the Walmart deal.

Walmart decided to settle the suit for $27 million in 2011, meaning all 1.2 million claimants will receive a gift card for $12. Netflix, on the other hand, took the battle to court and has now beaten the charges since the subscribers could not adequately prove they were injured by the deal.

Read the ruling from 9th Circuit chief judge Sidney Thomas:

A hands-on video for the new HTC One M9 has leaked today, a day ahead of the phone's official unveiling at Mobile World Congress.

Over the past week, nearly all details of the phone have been leaked including press shots and full spec sheets but the video does confirm a few features.

The power button has been moved to the side, the design is two-tone, and the Ultrapixel tech camera has been moved up front for better low-light selfies.

Other than the changes, the phone looks very similar to the critically acclaimed HTC One M8 which was released last year.

Take a peak at the hands-on here before the announcement tomorrow:

Just a day after legal services in China began streaming a censored version of the film, a pirated copy of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' has hit the Web.

Tencent's QQ.com streamed the censored film in HD, which was promptly ripped and packaged for download. As with other Web rips from Chinese sources, there are large hardcoded Chinese subtitles.

Most people who want to see the movie likely want to for the explicit sex scenes that made the book popular, so this release is not for them. Downloaders have called the film a "PG-13 version," as Chinese censors took a knife to it.

By all accounts, there are about 6 minutes worth of scenes missing.

Disruptive taxi startup Uber has admitted today that the company had a security breach, in May of last year.

In its release, the company says there was a one-time access to Uber's database by a third party, and that 50,000 current and former drivers were affected.

Names and driver's license numbers were stolen, but Uber says it is unaware of any fraud or other misuse of the info.

The company broke down the events as they know it:

•On September 17, 2014, we discovered that one of our databases could potentially have been accessed by a third party.
•Upon discovery we immediately changed the access protocols for the database and began an in-depth investigation.
•Our investigation revealed that a one-time unauthorized access to an Uber database by a third party had occurred on May 13, 2014.
•Our investigation determined the unauthorized access impacted approximately 50,000 drivers across multiple states, which is a small percentage of current and former Uber driver partners.
•The files that were accessed contained only the name and driver's license number of some driver partners.
•To date, we have not received any reports of actual misuse of any information as a result of this incident, but we are notifying impacted drivers and recommend these individuals monitor their credit reports for fraudulent transactions or accounts.

According to new sources, Google is considering partnering with Chinese OEM Huawei for the next Nexus flagship devices.

Every year, Google launches a Nexus smartphone and a Nexus tablet, each serving as reference devices for the latest iteration of Android. For 2014, Motorola built the Nexus 6 and HTC built the Nexus 9 tablet.

Neither Google nor Huawei has confirmed the rumor.

Despite being unknown outside of China, Huawei brought in nearly $12 billion in revenue last year from Android smartphone sales.

It will be interesting to see which way Google decides to go for 2015.

Source and mockup image:
SlashGear

The Sony Xperia M4 Aqua has been leaked ahead of the Mobile World Congress event, showing off the company's waterproof flagship.

If the rumors are correct, the device has a 720p 5.2-inch display, 2GB RAM, a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 610, 16GB internal storage, Android 5.0 and dual 5MP/13MP cameras.

From what has leaked we can see a familiar Xperia design, including a dedicated camera button.

Take a look here:

Samsung has announced it has begun mass producing 128GB Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 embedded memory chips for next-generation smartphones.

"With our mass production of ultra-fast UFS memory of the industry's highest capacity, we are making a significant contribution to enable a more advanced mobile experience for consumers," said Jee-ho Baek, Senior Vice President of Memory Marketing, Samsung Electronics. "In the future, we will increase the proportion of high-capacity memory solutions, in leading the continued growth of the premium memory market."


According to Samsung, UFS "memory utilizes 'Command Queue,' a technology that accelerates the speed of command execution in SSDs through a serial interface, significantly increasing data processing speeds compared to the 8-bit parallel-interface-based eMMC standard.

As a result, Samsung UFS memory conducts 19,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) for random reading, which is 2.7 times faster than the most common embedded memory for high-end smartphones today, the eMMC 5.0. It also delivers a sequential read and write performance boost up to SSD levels, in addition to a 50 percent decrease in energy consumption. In addition, the random read speed is 12 times faster than that of a typical high-speed memory card (which runs at 1,500 IOPS), and is expected to greatly improve system performance."

A number of Chinese streaming sites have backtracked on their promise to stream the uncensored full version of 'Fifty Shades of Grey,' citing 'special reasons.'

The movie, which features sexual bondage and has been a hit across the globe, set February box office records in the U.S. The book on which it is based upon, was a best-selling hit, as well.

LeTV.com, iQiyi.com and QQ.com had each said on Weibo that they would stream the film but just posted apologies. "We pray that everyone won't have to watch a 'big-head' version when it becomes available," LeTV said, referring to recent films and TV shows that censor out low necklines by zooming in on the women's faces during scenes.

The aforementioned site did say it would release the uncut version for premium subscribers.

Even though the Apple Watch is at least two weeks away from launch, luxury design company Brikk has already announced a line of Apple Watches that cost as much as $75,000.

We are a couple of weeks away from learning the pricing and availability of the different models of the Apple Watch, but many have speculated that the high end 'Edition' model will cost $10,000.

Brikk has placed 30 different models of the smartwatch up for pre-order, starting at $7500, and each watch is a teardown of the original which is then "rebuilt with luxury materials" including diamonds.

Besides the diamonds, you can choose from 24-karat yellow gold, 18-karat pink gold, and 950 platinum and you can also choose between the standard 38mm face or a larger 42mm for extra money.

At the very base price, you get the Lux Watch Standard with a leather strap and a single row of 0.5 carat diamonds. The $75,000 model gets you a titanium band and 11.3 carat diamonds on the face and strap. The top model requires a non-refundable $10,000 deposit. It even comes with an "aluminum zero" case with carbon fiber and suede interior.

Swedish telecom hardware maker Ericsson has sued Apple for patent infringement, filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC).

Apple allegedly refused Ericsson's offer to have a court ruling determine licensing terms between the companies.

Ericsson's patents are related to the 2G and 4G/LTE standards used in all of Apple products and Ericsson wants an injunction on the affected products and also damages.

The previous licensing agreement expired a month ago. At that time, Apple filed a lawsuit claiming that the patents were not essential to the industry's standards, and that Ericsson was charging exorbitant royalties fees.

If Ericsson wins, Apple will have to pay at least $250 million a year in royalties, depending on how many iPhones are sold.

Panasonic has unveiled their first 64-bit Android smartphone, the awfully named Eluga U2.

The device runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop, has a 5-inch 720p IPS display, a 64-bit quad-core Snapdragon 410 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and a 2500mAh battery. The cameras are 5MP/13MP, providing clearer selfies than most existing phones.

Most importantly, the phone will be priced at $250 unlocked when it launches, although it is unclear if it will ship outside of Asian markets.

Paired with the recently announced Lumix CM1 and its DSLR-esque, it appears that Panasonic is back in the game.

Google SVP and head of Android and Chrome Sundar Pichai has said today that some popular products may soon breakaway from Google+, starting with Hangouts and Photos.

Currently you need Google+ to have access to the other products but that could change soon. "I think increasingly you'll see us focus on communications [Hangouts], photos, and the Google+ stream as three important areas, rather than being thought of as one area," Pichai noted.

Hangouts, which allows users to chat, video chat and send photos, is popular among Gmail and Android fans but has nowhere near the popularity of WhatsApp or even Facebook's own Messenger service. That's okay, says Pichai: "Things like WhatsApp are a great example of success that others have had on Android, which we see as welcome innovation on the platform. In the aggregate, we also care about building great services for people. At that level, we view communications as an important area. But that doesn't mean the answer is always a vertical service. We do have products like Hangouts which we will invest in and evolve. But we also care about the platform in these areas, how we evolve the platform so we support others to do these innovations as well."

Sony has confirmed that its oft-rumored Z4 tablet is ready for primetime, with launch expected on March 3rd during the Mobile World Congress event.

Posted on their on Xperia Lounge app before getting pulled, the device has a "stunning 2K display" (likely 2048 × 1536 resolution), "the latest ultra fast processor" (likely the Snapdragon 810) and "industry leading battery performance" (hopefully 12 hours+).

The teaser of the design shows a thin device with curved edges, familiar to owners of the Z3 Compact.

We will know the full specs and prices next week.

According to a new report, Motorola has confirmed that its Moto 360 smartwatch will soon get MotoMaker customization, allowing users to pick and choose what they want for their watch.

Motorola says the new addition to its MotoMaker site is coming in March, and that the options available at launch are 'just the beginning.'

There will be three different finishes; black, silver and gold and eight different band styles. You can also choose the default watch face you want.

Moto 360 through MotoMaker will be available in the U.S., UK, France and Germany and will most likely launch before Apple's Watch event on March 9th.

Aereo, the now-defunct online TV service, saw its assets sell for just $2 million in bankruptcy auction.

The company said it was expecting a low floor price of $4 million so the final results were less than encouraging.

TiVo purchased the company's trademark, customer database and some other assets while RPX Corp (a patent risk-management co.) acquired the company's patents. IT consultant Alliance Technologies purchased some of the antennas. Altogether, the auction had 10 total bidders, below expectations.

"We are very disappointed with the results of the auction," William Baldiga, a lawyer for Aereo at Brown Rudnick LLP, said in a statement Thursday. "This has been a very difficult sales process and the results reflect that."

Aereo used thousands of tiny OTA antennas to stream live TV to subscribers with the ability to DVR. The broadcast giants sued and the case eventually got to the U.S. Supreme Court where Aereo lost. The company filed for bankruptcy about 5 months later.

Apple has sent out press invites for a special event on March 9th at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.

Although it is unconfirmed, there is little question that Apple will use the event to unveil prices and a firm release date for the highly anticipated Apple Watch.

Apple's base 'Sport' model will cost $349, followed in higher price by the steel Apple Watch and then the gold Apple Edition.

Speaking to sources and getting his bearings in the watch world, connected insider John Gruber recently posted that he believes the steel Apple Watch with sport band will start at $749, while the Edition models will retail for $10,000 or higher.

We will know in two weeks.

Google has purchased the entire '.app' top-level domain (TLD) for $25 million.

In 2012, Google applied for a few new TLDs including .android, .docs, .app and more. ICANN, the group that controls the world's domains, began auctioning the TLDs in June and other tech giants have already acquired their own TLDs for millions of dollars.

At $25 million, however, Google's investment dwarfs previous purchases including '.tech' which sold for $6.7 million and '.buy' which sold for $5 million.

"We've been excited and curious about the potential for new TLDs for .soy long. We are very .app-y with .how, at a .minna-mum, they have the potential to .foo-ward internet innovation," a Google spokesperson said, making references to some of the search giant's other TLDs.

After about 15 months of exclusivity, Spotify appears to have lost their hold on the popular Led Zeppelin discography.

As of this week, fans can find the artists on Rdio, Beats Music, Google Play Music, Xbox Music, Deezer and a few others including Jay Z's new high fidelity Tidal service.

Zeppelin was one of the notable holdouts in the streaming world until their deal with Spotify in 2013. A few others like Metallica and Prince still refuse to offer their catalogs via streaming but hopefully that will change in the near future.

In 2013, Target had a massive data breach in which 70 million customers had their credit and debit card information stolen.

Today, the company has finally revealed the losses it took from the breach, a staggering $162 million.

In 2013, the company booked a $61 million gross loss and $191 million for 2014. Cyber attack insurance covered $90 million over the two years. Those figures could get larger in 2015 as the retailer faces a number of class action lawsuits.

In recent months, attacks on retailers and other companies have escalated, culminating with a breach by Anthem Health, one of the largest health insurance companies in the U.S.

Motorola has unveiled their second-generation Moto E today, adding a larger display and LTE for the same low price: $149.

The new smartphone has a 4.5-inch screen (540 x 960 resolution), 4G LTE networking and an improved Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor. Additionally, the device has a 5MP rear camera, a VGA front side camera, and 8GB internal storage to go with Android 5.0 which is basically stock.

Almost identical to its predecessor in design, the backplate has different color options.

If you don't need LTE, you can get the 3G model for $119, making the phone even a better value.

Earlier today, Lenovo.com got defaced by someone claiming to be the Lizard Squad, an embarrassing take down and more bad PR for the company still reeling from the fallout of pre-installing adware on some of their PCs.

At around 4PM, visitors to the site saw a slideshow of teens with 'Breaking Free' from High School Musical playing in the background.

The attackers are said to have hijacked Lenovo's domain record, having the ability to redirect Lenovo.com to a third-party server. In the source code of the hijacked pages, you can find the sentence "the new and improved rebranded Lenovo website featuring Ryan King and Rory Andrew Godfrey."

Both names have been identified as members of Lizard Squad, but it is unclear if they were really behind the attack.

According to sources, YouTube is still not profitable, despite being owned by Google for nearly a decade.

Thanks to Google's new push for premium ads, revenue for the site increased by 25 percent to $4 billion in 2014, but profits were still elusive.

Google says most of their traffic comes directly from YouTube.com or from their mobile apps, but the sources claimed differently, saying a majority of the traffic comes from embedded videos or from links on social media, for example.

Additionally, the audience is very narrow and is dominated by younger people. One source estimates 'that 9% of viewers account for 85% of online-video views,' a staggering figure. Even YouTube's CEO admitted that he had never heard of YouTube star PewDiePie (who has 35 million followers) until he became CEO at the company.

It will be interesting to see the next steps for YouTube in its long road to profits.

Netflix has announced today that it will be expanding its original programming for kids with the addition of five new shows, include some remakes of 'classic' shows.

'Inspector Gadget,' the classic 80s cartoon, has been signed up for a 26-episode reboot and the popular British animated show 'Danger Mouse' will also get a remake.

Rounding out the rest of the lineup is an animated series called 'Bottersnikes & Gumbles,' based on books by the same name, the PLAYMOBIL-based SUPER 4 and the live action series about a toy shop called 'Some Assembly Required.'

Gadget will go live on March 7th, followed by SUPER 4 in April and Some Assembly Required in August. The other two shows will hit in early 2016.

OnePlus One owners will have to wait a little bit longer for a stable version of Android 5.0 Lollipop.

While you can currently use an alpha nightly build of CyanogenMod 12S to get your Lollipop kicks, those waiting for a fully stable release will need to wait a few more weeks until March to get.

OnePlus One founder Carl Pei says the global model will get the stable CM12S while the Indian model of the device will get the company's own OxygenOS.

Pei blamed the delay on "proprietary drivers, code, QA, certifications."

According to IDC, Android and iOS continue to take share of the smartphone operating system market, now at an astounding 96.3 percent.

For the year ended December 31st, 2014, Android and iOS accounted for 96.3 percent of all global smartphone shipments, up from 93.8 percent year-over-year.

"Many of the same drivers were in play for Android and iOS to tighten their grip on the market," said Ramon Llamas, Research Manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team. "A combination of strong end-user demand, refreshed product portfolios, and the availability of low-cost devices – particularly for Android – drove volumes higher."

Android amazingly surpassed one billion units shipped, up 32 percent year-over-year. Apple shipped an incredible 192 million iPhones, up 25.6 percent YoY, thanks to a strong fourth quarter. Windows Phone grew 4.2 percent to 34.9 million units shipped, and BlackBerry continued its collapse, down another 70 percent to just 5.8 million units. The "Other" category, which includes Tizen, Cyanogen, Firefox and Sailfish saw substantial growth percentages, but only managed to take 0.6 percent share.

Check the data here:

Earlier this week, LG teased their latest smartwatch, the Watch Urbane, easily one of the nicest looking smartwatches to date.

The all-metal device is available in gold or silver, and the default watch face is "as close to analog" as you will find on an Android Wear device.

LG also highlighted the band customizations in the small video.

To read more about what we know about the watch, read here.

Pebble, the team behind the original e-paper display Pebble smartwatch, unveiled the Pebble Time today, and it's already crushing Kickstarter records.

The new smartwatch has a color display, is thinner than its predecessors, and runs a fully revamped version of the Pebble operating system including a new user interface dubbed Timeline. The new watch also includes a built-in microphone for text replies, but the functionality can be expanded in the future.

Each Pebble Time has three buttons on the side. The top button takes you app notifications from the past, the bottom button takes you to future notifications (calendar events) while the middle is for the 'present,' any connected app.

The Pebble Time also promises the best battery life yet, 7 days per charge, crushing Android Wear rivals and the upcoming Apple Watch.

In less than a day, the Kickstarter campaign has reached over 35,000 backers and $7,467,755 in funding. The device will ship in June at $199, but Kickstarter backers can get it in May at just $179 if you go quick.

Check out the campaign here: Pebble Time on Kickstarter

Thanks to AT&T and T-Mobile, we have another look at the upcoming Samsung Galaxy 6 ahead of its unveiling on March 1st.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere and AT&T both posted tweets showing off the S6's curved display, which is at least the fifth teaser in the last month for the device.

Samsung has added the curved display, which appears to be on both sides (not sure how that works) and the fake leather on the back has been replaced by a metal back.

Take a look:

In 2013, Google unveiled their Chromebook Pixel, a high-end notebook running on Chrome OS that was aimed at developers.

The notebook was not too popular given its $1300 price tag (especially compared to other Chromebooks at $299), but Google has a confirmed a sequel is on the way.

Google's Renee Niemi said the device is 'coming soon' and that like its predecessor, it will also be a "proof of concept.'

The last Pixel had a high-resolution display, a touchscreen, 4G LTE support, and a sleek high-end design. The new notebook is expected to have a 13-inch display with 3200x1800 resolution.

Due to its price and its status as a device aimed specifically at developers, Niemi noted there would be limited supply.

Mozilla has released Firefox 36 to the public today, giving fans of the browser a stable version while the beta moves to 37 and the nightly alphas move to 39.

On the surface, the update is minor but there are some tweaks under the surface that users should certainly appreciate.

Firefox 36 adds full HTTP/2 support, a newly released update to the HTTP protocol which should lead to faster browsing, reduced bandwidth usage and better security for connections.

Additionally, the update includes Partial Media Source Extensions (MSE) support, allowing for better support of native HTML5 playback on YouTube, but only for videos at 720p or under.

Finally, Firefox 36 adds 'Flash Protected Mode' which runs Flash as a 'low integrity process.' Basically, if you're terrified of having Flash run but have to have it installed, the protected mode should work wonders.

The rest of the list (via ghacks):
•Pinned tiles on the new tab page are included in Firefox Sync.
•The -remote startup parameter has been removed from Firefox. It was used to execute commands in an already running instance of the browser (e.g. open a new url)
•Uzbek locale added.
•Insecure RC4 ciphers are no longer accepted if possible
•1024-bit RSA keys are phased out.
•The Crash Reporter is displayed when the shut down hangs.
•Connect Developer Tools and Firefox for Android using WebIDE
•JavaScript code that is evaluated dynamically can be debugged now
•Promise rich output in the web console
•Additional paste options in markup view
•Support for meta name="referrer" added
•EMCAScript 6 Symbol data type enabled by default
•Improved ES6 generators

After weeks of rumors, Google has officially announced their acquisition of Softcard from the U.S. carriers that started it.

The search giant will use the technology to upgrade their floundering Google Wallet tap-and-pay NFC app and better take on Apple Pay.

Reads the press release:

We first introduced Google Wallet's tap and pay feature in 2011, and since then, mobile payments have grown rapidly. You can use the Google Wallet app on Android devices, on any carrier network, to tap and pay anywhere NFC is accepted. Over the years, we've received great feedback from people who use this feature and we've continued investing to make it easy and secure for more people to pay with their phones. A big part of this is working with other innovators in the industry to help provide a seamless experience across a wide range of phones and stores.

So today, we're excited to announce that we're working with AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless, as well as their mobile payments company Softcard, to help more Android users get the benefits of tap and pay. Under this relationship, the Google Wallet app, including the tap and pay functionality, will come pre-installed on Android phones (running KitKat or higher) sold by these carriers in the US later this year. We're also acquiring some exciting technology and intellectual property from Softcard to make Google Wallet better.

Pebble is scheduled to announce their next smartwatch tomorrow, and there is now almost no question that the watch will feature a color display.

Besides the color e-paper display, the new watch is also expected to be thinner and include a revamped version of the Pebble operating system.

From a design standpoint, the device seems 'sportier' than the Pebble Steel, including larger bezels and smaller buttons than all previous models. Battery life is expected to match that of the original Pebble, which promised 3 days per full charge.

Fans will also likely enjoy the redesigned operating system, which is powered by former members of the WebOS development team. There will be plenty of more details tomorrow. For now, we have one leaked photo of the smartwatch, compliments of Pebble themselves.

The connected Apple insider John Gruber has done his research and believes the most expensive Apple Watch models will cost over $10,000 when its released.

Apple's base 'Sport' model will cost $349, followed by the steel Apple Watch and then the gold Apple Edition.

Speaking to sources and getting his bearings in the watch world, Gruber believes the steel Apple Watch with sport band will start at $749, while the Edition models will retail for $10,000 or higher.

It will be interesting to see if consumers are willing to pay high-end watch prices for a smartwatch.

To read more about Gruber's thought process on the pricing, read here.

Lenovo pre-loaded the adware Superfish on some of its recent consumer PCs, and it will now have to pay the price.

Angry consumers have proposed a class-action suit against both Lenovo and Superfish, claiming fraudulent business practices and the disregard of privacy.

Superfish plugs itself into your software, adding product recommendations into search results. However, the software can also hijack your connections and leave your PC vulnerable to remote attacks.

Lenovo installed the software on their G Series, U Series, Y Series, Z Series, S Series, Flex, Miix, Yoga and E Series.

Security advisors and Lenovo have already released fixes to safely remove Superfish and its certificates but the damage has been done as some of these PCs have been infected since September.

The class action suit is seeking damages from both companies.

After being first announced last week, Google's YouTube Kids app is now available for iOS and Android.

The app gives access to both shows and music, with the additional options for educational viewing.

Most important for parents is the addition of parental controls. Parents can control the content, the volume levels and the amount of time their kids can spend in front of the app. Comments are also disabled, which is a good thing not just for kids but for the human race.

Check a bit more about the apps here:

The Edward Snowden documentary 'Citizenfour' won Best Documentary last night, despite the controversy of Snowden's leaked secrets.

Directed by Laura Poitras, the film documents her meeting with Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald. Snowden revealed thousands of NSA documents that seemingly confirmed the agency was spying on Americans.

"The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals don't only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself. When the most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that control," Poitras said during her acceptance speech. "Thank you to Edward Snowden for his courage, and for the many other whistleblowers, and I share this with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists who are exposing truth."

Snowden has been charged with treason and will spend the rest of his life in jail if he is ever brought to the U.S. Snowden is currently living in Russia and Poitras says the film was made in secret and edited in Germany.

Sprint has taken the carrier wars to the next level this week, offering more shared data than any other carrier at a cheaper price.

As part of their Family Share Pack plan, you can get up to 10 lines with unlimited talk, text, and 12GB of data for $90 a month.

Sprint said they will be reducing their data access charge from $25 to $15 for each handset, and if you are transferring from a different carrier, that fee is waived entirely.

The deal is good until March 2016. Comparatively, the deal is good but you have to keep in mind that you are signing up for the Sprint network, which has easily the slowest LTE of all the major U.S. carriers.

Source:
Sprint

Voltage Pictures, infamous for suing tens of thousands of unauthorized downloaders of their films, has agreed to stop suing kids, physically disabled people, and the mentally disabled.

The company has sued tens of thousands of downloaders of 'The Hurt Locker' and 'Dallas Buyers Club' in the U.S., Canada and Europe, normally suing a 'John Doe' IP address and then getting a judge to rule that the ISP must provide their identity.

Most that are accused choose to settle out of court for a couple thousand dollars, and Voltage has been able to make a business out of it.

However, as other companies have seen in the past from mass lawsuits, the targets are not always what you would expect. A Voltage executive said that the company "would not pursue an autistic child, people who were handicapped, welfare cases, or people that have mental issues" any longer. Does Voltage really care about those people though? It seems that they care more about PR: "That kind of press would ruin us."

Snapchat has updated their "Safety Center" community guidelines, imploring minors to stop sending nudes.

As part of the 'Parent's Guide to Snapchat' in the Safety Center, the photo sharing and messaging app posted the following:

"Keep it legal: Don't use Snapchat for any illegal shenanigans and if you're under 18 or are Snapping with someone who might be: keep your clothes on!

What not to Snap:

Pornography
Nudity or sexually suggestive content involving minors (people under the age of 18)
Minors engaged in activities that are physically dangerous and harmful
Invasions of privacy
Threats
Harassment or Bullying
Impersonation
Self-Harm"

The move makes obvious sense. The app first gained popularity from people looking to exchange nudes that self destructed in seconds, but has since evolved into much more. In many states, as well, having a photo of a person under 18 is technically considered child pornography, even if you yourself are under the age of 18.

Earlier this month, The Pirate Bay relaunched after nearly two months of downtime but with one group notably missing: moderators.

Now that security issues have been resolved, the moderator team is back with access to the back end of the site.

The team has a large job ahead of them, as spammers and scammers have been using the past few weeks to upload fake torrents and place spam and scam comments across legit torrent files. Fake torrents are most often littered with malware but some are less malicious and just include the incorrect file.

"I don't know how many torrents have been removed so far, but it is in the hundreds. Some fakers had eight or nine pages under their account," longtime TPB moderator Agricola noted.

New accounts have been banned for the time being, to help the cleanup, and the old title of "helper" has also been removed.

HTC' latest flagship, the One M9, has been leaked in all its glory, a week before its expected official unveiling.

Thanks to a German retailer, we have specs and pictures of the upcoming device.

Powering the smartphone is a 2GHz octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (with microSD slot), and a 2,840mAh battery.

Although the resolution is unclear, the device has a 5-inch display, which will be at least 1080p. The device runs Android 5.0 and HTC's own Sense 7 UI. The UltraPixel camera will sit on the front and the standard camera will have a 20MP sensor.

In both colorways, (gold/silver and black), the smartphone does look very similar to last year's popular One M8 and except for the camera bulge and the power button moving, it looks otherwise the same.

Regardless, we will know next Sunday officially when the Mobile World Congress event starts and HTC officially announces the phone.

Last month, Jay Z's investment company PPB acquired the Swedish streaming company Aspiro, the parent of services Tidal and WimP.

Before the bid, however, it seems that the service was in dire straits, financially. At the time of the bid, the company's board said "given the current strategic plan and the associated capital needs, the company is not fully funded for the coming twelve months." More simply, without extra funds the service would not have lasted the next year.

In addition, the board said that 'although it has many promising growth initiatives, primarily related to the expansion of Tidal... these initiatives are currently unprofitable and capital consuming,'

Last year, the company had a loss of €8.9m on revenue of €31.9m. Aspiro has 503,000 paying music subscribers, with 78 percent of those coming from telcom bundles.

Kickstarter has posted this week that the 'Exploding Kittens' campaign is now the most backed ever, and also the highest funded project in the games category.

The card game was created by Xbox game designers Elan Lee and Shane Small but the heavy hitter is artist Matthew Inman, who illustrates the extremely popular The Oatmeal comics.

When the campaign closed, 219,382 backers had pledged $8,782,571. The amount of backers was double the previous record holder, Reading Rainbow, and the funding was over $180,000 more than now second place Ouya, the Android set-top console.

How does the game that just raised $8 million work? You draw cards from the pile and if you get one that is exploding, you are dead. There are other cards that can be used to defuse the bomb and others that give you special abilities for the game. In all reality, the game is "a highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette."

Google wants its failed Google Wallet service to be able to compete against the popular Apple Pay mobile payments system, and could be willing to pay for it.

The search giant is hoping to unveil a new version of the payment service at its developer conference later this year, one that will include partnerships with carriers, OEMs and more importantly, banks and payment networks.

To be able to make such an event happen, the WSJ suggests that Google will have to offer more revenue to each player involved.

The biggest problem, at this point, is the fact that there are dozens of Android manufacturers, and none of them necessarily have loyalty to Google outside of using the Android operating system. Many use their own user interface and have pre-loaded apps that benefit the company's own ecosystem.

Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone maker, is expected to release its own payment service next month after completing its acquisition of LoopPay. After investing hundreds of millions on such a service, there is little incentive to team up with Google Wallet.

Apple, which controls the software ecosystem and the hardware, does not have such problems. Apple Pay, after just months of release, now accounts for over 65 percent of all contact-less payments.

Samsung, who has spent the better part of the last two weeks posting teasers for their upcoming 'Unpacked' event has seemingly confirmed that its upcoming Galaxy S6 will indeed be metal, a step away from its plastic predecessors.

According to the teaser video, the device will be "beautiful, sleek and powerful," (but really what else could they say) and will also be made of metal.

Additionally, consumers can expect the device to have an accurate color palette just like the Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge, which certainly seems reasonable and is a relief.

Samsung will officially unveil the device during its Unpacked event on March 1st during the Mobile World Congress event.

Check the teaser here:

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest tech news pieces of the week was the fact that Lenovo pre-installed Superfish, an adware program that could be easily exploited to give anyone unencrypted access to your PC if they are on the same Wi-Fi network.

Lenovo, who first did not take the threat seriously, was bombarded by criticism and has now released a tool to help users remove Superfish.

Says the company:

In addition to the manual removal instructions currently available online, we have released an automated tool to help users remove the software and certificate. That tool is here: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish_uninstall
We are working with McAfee and Microsoft to have the Superfish software and certificate quarantined or removed using their industry-leading tools and technologies. These actions have already started and will automatically fix the vulnerability even for users who are not currently aware of the problem.

We ordered Superfish preloads to stop and had server connections shut down in January based on user complaints about the experience. However, we did not know about this potential security vulnerability until yesterday. Now we are focused on fixing it.

Since that time we have moved as swiftly and decisively as we can based on what we now know. While this issue in no way impacts our ThinkPads; any tablets, desktops or smartphones; or any enterprise server or storage device, we recognize that all Lenovo customers need to be informed. We apologize for causing these concerns among our users for any reason – and we are learning from experience and improve what we do and how we do it. We will continue to take steps to make removal of the software and underlying vulnerable certificates in question easy for customers so they can continue to use our products with the confidence that they expect and deserve.

Google has announced that their to-do-list/calendar/email app 'Inbox' is now available for the iPad and Android tablets.

Additionally, Inbox now supports Firefox and Safari in addition to Chrome. If you have the app, you can sign in at inbox.google.com.

A rundown of the highlights of Inbox:

• HIGHLIGHTS - Get the most important information without even opening the message. Check-in for flights, see shipping information for BUNDLES - Similar messages are bundled together so you can deal with them all at once. And get rid of them with one tap.

• HIGHLIGHTS - Get the most important information without even opening the message. Check-in for flights, see shipping information for purchases, and view photos from friends right up front.

• REMINDERS: More than mail, you can add Reminders so your inbox contains all the things you need to get back to.

• SNOOZE: Snooze emails and Reminders to come back when you are ready to deal with them: next week, when you get home, or whenever you choose.

• SEARCH: Inbox helps you find exactly what you're looking for-- from your upcoming flight to a friend's address-- without having to dig through messages. Read more...

Apple, who has allegedly had hundreds of engineers working on a car, would like to begin production on their electric vehicle by 2020, reads a new Bloomberg report.

If accurate, Apple's car could be ready to compete with Tesla and GM, both of which are fighting to bring the first electric car that can go over 200 miles per charge and cost less than $40,000, a major price point for consumers.

While Tesla has the leg up in the technology of the electric car world, Apple could very quickly catch up with the $178 billion in cash it is sitting on. The company has been hiring battery, car and robotics experts, and there are an expected 200 engineers working on the project now.

In fact, Apple has been so aggressive in hiring, that has been accused of "poaching" employees from battery maker A123 Systems and others like LG Chem, Samsung, Panasonic and Johnson Controls. Experienced car makers take about 5 to 7 years to bring a new concept and vehicle to market, says industry experts, but Apple has no experience in the space and is still trying to keep the same time frame.

Research firm Strategy Analytics has predicted today that the Sony PlayStation 4 will end up outselling the Microsoft Xbox One by over 30 million units during their respective lifetimes.

Over the next four years, the PS4 "is on path to reproduce the success of the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii." To replicate either of those consoles would be impressive given that they sold over 100 million systems during their time.

By 2019, Sony will have a global install base of 80 million PS4, says Strategy Analytics, crushing the Xbox One at 57 million.

The Wii U is already nearing its peak and will reach a 17 million install base by 2018 before reaching saturation.

"Despite reports to the contrary, the game console market is not dead," concluded Strategy Analytics senior analyst Eric Smith. "Core gamers have moved faster to this current generation than in any previous generation. The main difference in this generation is that casual gamers who bought a Wii are remaining largely on the side lines as free-to-play casual games and midcore games on tablets and smartphones have captured this segment of consumers."

Say what you will about their products or the company itself, but Apple's architectural designers do have a flair for the aesthetic.

Their latest store, in Hangzhou, China, takes minimalist to the next level.

The ceilings of the store are 50 feet high but there are no columns. The glass panels reach all the way from the floor to the ceiling and the entire second floor is free floating without suspension.

"Every aspect of the store has been optimized, minimized, and de-cluttered," say the architects at Foster + Partners.

See some pics here:

Microsoft is offering 100GB of free OneDrive storage to all Bing Rewards members with valid Microsoft email addresses.

The software giant offers 15GB of free storage just to start, similar to, if not more than services like Google, Amazon, Apple and Dropbox. OneDrive is built-in to Windows 8 and promises to automatically sync all your files without any hassle.

In an effort to get more consumers to try out OneDrive over rivals, Microsoft is offering 100GB of free storage for the next two years, as long as you sign up for Bing Rewards.

Whether or not you care to use OneDrive or not, the offer is hard to beat. 100GB free with no strings.

Head here to claim your free storage: Bing Rewards Dashboard. If you aren't a Bing Rewards member, it takes one click to do so once you are logged in.

Samsung announced yesterday that it would be acquiring LoopPay, the mobile payments service.

More specifically, LoopPay is a "mobile wallet solutions provider that turns existing magnetic stripe readers into secure, contactless receivers." Because it can do so, LoopPay's tech works in nearly all existing point-of-sale terminals meaning no added investment on the side of the merchants.

"This acquisition accelerates our vision to drive and lead innovation in the world of mobile commerce. Our goal has always been to build the smartest, most secure, user-friendly mobile wallet experience, and we are delighted to welcome LoopPay to take us closer to this goal," said JK Shin, President and Head of IT and Mobile Division at Samsung Electronics.

Samsung previously had an investment relationship with LoopPay, and those funds helped to build the tech.

"LoopPay is focused on delivering a digital wallet solution that is dependable for consumers around the world, one that provides more value from card issuers and the merchants that serve them," said Will Graylin, CEO of LoopPay. "We are excited to join the Samsung family to continue our goal of making smartphones trusted, secure smart wallets and unlock the limitless possibilities of mobile enabled commerce."

Rovio has announced the latest game from its third-party publishing division: Jolly Jam.

Jolly Jam is out for Android and iOS, and the game is a basic puzzle game with matching, similar to the ever popular Candy Crush. Players take on different levels and beat bosses by matching fruit. "Draw a box around jellies jam 'em and help Prince Jam save Jelly Kingdom in this fresh and fruity puzzler!" says the developer.

Rovio Stars is the publisher of the game, and Jolly Jam is their fourth release after Tiny Thief, Juice Cubes and Plunder Pirates. Parent Rovio helps the studios develop their games and then helps with distribution while taking a large cut of the revenue.

The Finnish casual gaming company has nearly 200 million monthly active players, so the ability to cross-sell is strong. Let's see if Jolly Jam can catch on like Angry Birds did.

Starting this weekend, ISP AT&T has announced it will match Google Fiber's speed and price in Kansas City.

Google Fiber costs just $70 a month and offers 1Gb/s download speeds, far and away the fastest operator in the nation that averages about 10Mb/s downloads.

AT&T is not the only ISP feeling Google's squeeze. Time Warner has quietly tripled their speeds in Kansas City without raising the price a cent. Small regional ISP Consolidated Communications has also begun offering a gigabit fiber service for $69.95.

Google Fiber is available in 3 regions now, with 4 more coming in the very near future and 5 other regions already announced.

Dear Google, New York desperately awaits your arrival.

Videolan has posted a changelog for the upcoming 3.0 version of the popular media playback software and among the changes is the addition of Chromecast support.

If the support stays when the final version is released, users will be able to play nearly all media files from VLC on the big screen through the $35 HDMI dongle.

The company has also said Chromecast support is headed to their VLC iOS and Android apps in the future but the iOS app remains on hiatus from the App Store as the company works out whatever conditions are keeping Apple from blocking it.

Read the full changelog here: Videolan Git

Sony CEO Kaz Hirai has said today that the company will look to boost its profits by 2500 percent by 2018 by focusing solely on their PlayStation and camera sensor divisions.

The new strategy will likely see Sony exit the TV and smartphone markets, where it has been effectively squeezed out of any profits by Samsung, Apple and smaller Chinese OEMs with razor thin margins.

"The strategy starting from the next business year will be about generating profit and investing for growth," Hirai said. For the failed TV and smartphone divisions, the company "will not rule out considering an exit strategy."

Over the past few years, Sony has tried to narrow its focus, but the profits have been slow to come. The company already spun off the TV business to its own separate entity and sold off its once popular PC division.

Additionally, entertainment will remain a focus for the company including streaming music.

Hunter Moore, once dubbed 'the most hated man on the Internet,' has plead guilty to ID theft and hacking charges and will face up to 10 years in prison.

Moore founded and operated the 'revenge porn' site IsAnyoneUp.com, which in its heyday had nearly 30 million views per month. Moore was arrested last January and has now plead guilty to unauthorized access to a computer, aiding and abetting unauthorized access of a computer, and identity theft.

IAU allowed anyone to post nude and other explicit images of people without their express permission and Moore then posted their Facebook page, full name and usually city of residence next to the pictures to ensure that everyone knew exactly who they were viewing.

At the time the site started, posting the photos was not explicitly illegal (but highly immoral), but there are now 16 states with laws against posting nude photos without permission. However, Moore was also paying another person, Charles Evens, to steal nude photos from victim's email accounts, which is unquestionably illegal. Evens apparently was able to compromise the accounts using social engineering. "Basically, he was impersonating these victims' friends and was able to get confidential information that would allow him to access their accounts," said assistant US attorney Wendy Wu in 2014.

The U.S. Marshals service has announced they will be auctioning off another 50,000 bitcoins seized during the takedown of the original Silk Road underground marketplace.

As of writing, the coins will be worth $11 million, but of course they may not reach market value in an auction setting.

The next auction will take place on March 5th, from 8:00 EST to 14:00 EST, and all bids must come from serious pre-registered participants. To bid, you must be registered by March 2nd, and all winners will be notified on March 6th.

Because very large bidders are hard to come by, the auction will be split into 20 blocks: 10 for 2000 bitcoin and 10 for 3000 bitcoin. The current market value for one bitcoin is $235.

The agency has auctioned off over 100,000 bitcoins seized from the Silk Road and its operator Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was recently convicted of a plethora of federal crimes and will serve at least 20 years in prison.

Hulu has unveiled 'Watchlist,' a new feature that will replace the current 'Shows you watch,' 'favorites' and 'queue' lists which are never quite as effective as you need them to be.

Watchlist is a new favorites list that will smartly rearrange your content so that shows you like the most are given priority, especially above something you may have queued and then forgotten about.

Reads the blog post: "Watchlist makes it easy to save any episode, clip, movie or show that you'd like to watch later. Simply add it to your Watchlist by clicking the "+" button on PCs, iPhones, and iPads or the "add to Watchlist" button on gaming consoles, connected TVs and set-top boxes and Android devices. When you start watching a new show, future episodes will automatically be added to your Watchlist.

Watchlist dynamically tailors the order of your content to match how you watch TV. Shows that have new episodes or shows you're binging on will be prioritized in the Watchlist order over shows or movies you haven't started yet. Watchlist even learns from you, and gets smarter over time. The more content you watch on Hulu – the more personalized Watchlist will become. For example, if you always watch the latest episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine the moment it's available each week, Watchlist will make sure it's the first thing you see. When you get caught up on that, the next show you're watching will make its way to the front."

In what may be a bizarro world, a new report shows that flip phone shipments rose in Japan in 2014 while smartphone sales fell for the second year in a row.

Market research firm MM Research Institue reported that flip phone shipments rose 5.7 percent year-over-year in 2014 to 10.58 million while smartphone shipments fell 5.3 percent to 27.70 million in the same time period.

There could be a very simple answer as to why the old school devices are making a comeback. Japanese consumers pay extremely high smartphone fees and rates, especially compared to other developed nations, while flip phone rates and fees are among the lowest on the planet.

Of course, a flip phone will still allow you to text, make phone calls, access email and most have at least a basic browser, which appears to be good enough for some consumers. Big companies like Panasonic and NEC have pulled out of the smartphone market (which is dominated by Apple and Samsung there also) but continue to make flip phones to stay relevant in the market with 130 million mobile customers.

BlackBerry has finally found U.S. carrier support for its latest devices, the strange 'Passport' and the 'Classic.'

AT&T will begin selling the two devices starting this week, on February 20th, both with contract and without. Both can also be financed through the AT&T Next program. The carrier says the Passport will sell for $200 with contract or $650 without, guaranteeing no one will purchase it, while the Classic will sell for $50 on contract and $420 without.

Interestingly, the carrier model of the Passport has rounded edges compared to the sharp edged model that is currently sold direct from BlackBerry and on Amazon. The Classic is exactly the same inside and out as current models being sold.

The Passport will be an AT&T exclusive, while the Classic will be temporarily an exclusive before it heads to Verizon later this year.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has confirmed their latest milestone: 5 million Raspberry Pi units sold.

With the new milestone hit, the bare bones do-it-yourself mini computer has made the Foundation the best-selling UK computer maker ever.

Aimed originally at schools and students who were learning to program, the board has clearly become a minor hit outside of the educational world.

The mini computer sells for just $35 and there are plenty of operating systems around that can be easily run on the computer with just an SD card. The company also just announced a second-generation model with more RAM and a better processor that will be able to run a variant of Windows 10.

According to CEO Jerry Shen, ASUS is actively considering moving away from Android Wear for its upcoming smartwatches in an effort to have better battery life.

Shen did note, however, that at least one model of their second-generation ZenWatch will run Android Wear but all other future devices are up in the air.

"The major concern is about saving power," Shen said. "We will continue to work with Google on Android Wear, and we will have another (smartwatch) that is not based on Android Wear and features a longer battery life."

By running on a MediaTek chip with a different less battery-intensive operating system, ASUS hopes to achieve battery life of up to 7 days. Most current Android Wear devices have two days or less of battery life.

The second-generation ZenWatch is expected in the Q3.

Earlier this month, Dell took the ultrabook industry by storm with its 2015 XPS 13, starting at $799 with a nearly bezel-less display and an extremely tiny frame.

ASUS has just unveiled their rival, the ZenBook UX305, the "world's slimmest 13.3-inch ultra" at just 0.48-inch thin.

The device has a 13.3-inch 1080p display with anti-glare, a brand new Intel Core M processor, 10 hours of battery life and a "solid aluminum frame enhanced with diamond-cut highlights." The ultrabook has 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD, three USB 3.0 ports and an ethernet port.

To go along with its thin frame, the ultra weighs in at 2.6 pounds, in line with the XPS 13 and the MacBook Air.

Most notably, the ultrabook will sell for just $699, undercutting the Dell XPS 13's lowest model by $100 with more RAM and internal storage.

Ahead of the upcoming Mobile World Congress, LG has unveiled their latest smartwatch, the Watch Urbane with a sleek metal face and looks that rival those of non-smart watches.

Similar to its predecessor, the G Watch R, the new Urbane has a a 1.3-inch 320x320 P-OLED display at 245 pixels per inch, a 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, 4GB internal storage, 512MB RAM and a 410mAh battery.

Feature wise, there is a heart rate monitor, a barometer and it's IP67 dust/water resistant but don't take the watch when you go swimming.

The body is now either silver or gold finish, and the bands are stitched leather, giving a high-end look.

"LG Watch Urbane is an important part of our strategy to develop wearable devices that are worn and viewed as everyday accessories, not electronic gadgets," Juno Cho, LG CEO and President, said in the press release.

It is unclear when the watch will be released, nor has the company provided a price range but given the specs expect the watch to come in at $299.

The U.S. government has its first conviction of a Megaupload employee, nearly three years after a raid took down the site for good.

Andrus Nomm, a coder for the site living in the Netherlands, plead guilty to criminal copyright infringement, and as part of the plea agreement, Nomm also had to admit that Megaupload stored copyright-infringing content and that he downloaded such files from Mega's servers.

Nomm was one of seven Megaupload employees indicted after the raid, but the first to be convicted. For taking the plea bargain, Nomm will spend one year and one day in prison.

The DOJ says Nomm admitted he was "was aware that copyright-infringing content was stored on the [Megaupload] websites, including copyright protected motion pictures and television programs, some of which contained the 'FBI Anti-Piracy' warning. Nomm also admitted that he personally downloaded copyright-infringing files from the Mega websites. Nomm continued to participate in the Mega Conspiracy."

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom blasted the U.S. legal system, as did his attorney, but says he understood why Nomm took the deal. "The US Justice system: An innocent coder pleads guilty after 3 years of DOJ abuse, with no end in sight, in order to move on with his life," Dotcom said. "I have nothing but compassion and understanding for Andrus Nomm and I hope he will soon be reunited with his son."

In case you missed it earlier this weekend, Steam's 'Valentine's Day Co-Op Sale" is still going strong, with titles discounted as much as 80 percent.

There are 32 games on sale as of writing, with the sale slated to end on Monday at 10AM Pacific Time.

If you've been meaning to get on some games that are funner in co-op mode, now may be your chance.

Check the full sale here: Steam Co-op Sale!

If you have the time for a longer-form video, Kara Swisher had a great interview with President Barack Obama, and the pair discussed the President's thoughts on privacy, cyber warfare and other tech-related topics.

Obama was in Silicon Valley for the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection.

Here is a full transcript of the President's executive order that came out of the Summit, which will specifically "promote private sector cybersecurity information sharing," meaning if a company is hacked there will be better information sharing with the government without the risk of fines or penalties.

Check out the full interview here:

Despite what Taylor Swift would have you believe, there is money to be made on streaming services like Spotify.

Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' hit song 'Uptown Funk' is a certified hit and one of the most popular tracks in the world. According to MBW, the song is making nearly $100,000 per week on Spotify alone thanks to millions of plays.

Since its release on the streaming service on November 10th, 2014, the track has been played 125.9 million times. Spotify estimates $0.007 is paid to rightsholders per play, meaning the song has brought in nearly $900,000 in revenue.

At around 15 million plays per week, the song is bringing in $100k per week, a number shared by Ronson, the record label, the publisher and any co-writers.

As reported previously on Afterdawn, how much the artists get is a subject of debate. If you do not include taxes or platform costs, the labels take 73 percent, songwriters take 16 percent and artists get 11 percent, but it is hard to imagine an artist struggling while getting $11,000 a week from just one platform.

King Digital, the gaming company behind the hit 'Candy Crush' series, has announced the acquisition of Z2, the maker of 'Metalstorm' and 'Battle Nations.'

The deal is relatively cheap at $45 million upfront with $105 million extra if milestones are met in a certain timeframe.

"Through this acquisition, the company will incorporate a proven team focused on contributing to our diversification into new genres," King wrote in its release. "Z2 will be our first game studio in the United States."

King, which has 1200 employees across 9 gaming studios, will add all 100 Z2 employees. "We look forward to welcoming them to King and joining forces to push this opportunity together," said the studio.

Z2's CEO Lou Fasulo was very excited for the move: "King is predominantly known for their immensely popular puzzle games. Z2 has had great success in casual to mid-core builder, strategy and action games -- this combination extends their capabilities to new game genres."

According to the WSJ, Apple is working on an electric car to compete with Tesla and any upcoming competitors in the space.

The report claims that Apple has hundreds of employees secretly working on the project, which is codenamed "Titan."

At least in prototype, the Apple electric car looks like a minivan, which would make sense if the company is aiming the product at families.

If Apple decides to continue with the project, industry watchers believe it could be half a decade before we see an Apple car on the road. The report says Apple CEO Tim Cook approved the project a year ago, and put product design Vice President Steve Zadesky in charge. Zadesky was a former engineer at Ford.

Reportedly, Zadesky was given permission to create a 1000-person team and take whatever employees necessary from different divisions in the country. Right now, the team is researching "robotics, metals and materials consistent with automobile manufacturing." Besides Zadesky, Apple also recently hired Johann Jungwirth, the former CEO of Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America.

As expected, Google and toymaker Mattel have updated the View-Master for 2015, integrating Android and adding a 360-degree view of animated environments.

The original View-Master was released in 1939, and let kids slide cardboard disks with stereoscopic images into the red plastic device to view via the viewfinder.

For the 2015 model, the View-Master will work with a customized Mattel app, and other apps that are also compatible with Google's 'Cardboard' VR headset. Mattel will sell reels/disks that launch the "user into an augmented reality environment based on the subject of the reel (examples include San Francisco, Dinosaur Adventure, Solar System)."

Mattel is also expected to resell many of the 10,000 disks available for the original system. The new View-Master will go on sale later this year for $29.99. Three-pack reels will cost $14.99.

While Nintendo has notoriously kept their popular first party games off of smartphones and attached to their consoles, it appears that the Mii avatars will be making an appearance on your mobile device.

"In the past, I have opposed making smartphone and tablet versions of Nintendo titles. Prices for content aimed at smartphones and tablets are falling quickly," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. "I am still wary of the category. We intend to develop products that will allow customers to identify with Nintendo products and make people pay attention to Nintendo games.

"For example, some Nintendo game consoles incorporate Mii, which creates a digital avatar to represent players. It would be fun for players to use their Mii characters as icons on social media. We are currently developing an application that will allow users to do that."

There are no other known details about the app except that Iwata says it will be released later this year.

Earlier this week, Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi held a press event in San Francisco where they announced an expansion to the U.S.

Global VP Hugo Barra announced that their Mi.com online marketplace will be available in the U.S. later this year, but without phones or tablets. Instead the site will sell Xiaomi's fitness bands and other accessories like headphones.

When asked about why the popular phones (like the Mi4) will not be headed to the U.S., Barra cited a handful of problems including hardware certification, software testing and logistical issues.

Regardless, the move into the U.S. is a huge step for Xiaomi, which has quickly become the third-largest smartphone maker in the world behind Apple and Samsung thanks to razor thin margins and cheap high-end devices.

Apple users rejoice! The tech giant is finally bringing two-step authentication to some of your services, including iMessages and FaceTime for Mac, iPad and iPhone.

As with other services that use two-step authentication, you will log in with your Apple ID and password and then you will need to provide a second identification code before using video chat or messaging. The second step will be required if you log in to the services from a new device or log out on your main device.

Apple will send the secondary code via text to your registered phone or to the Find My iPhone app.

Apple has announced this week that iOS apps can now be larger than ever.

Previously, apps had a maximum size of 2GB but that limit has now been stretched to 4GB. For the most part, developers that need that kind of size are game makers, and the extra space could allow for longer gameplay.

Says Apple: "The size limit of an app package submitted through iTunes Connect has increased from 2 GB to 4 GB, so you can include more media in your submission and provide a more complete, rich user experience upon installation. Please keep in mind that this change does not affect the cellular network delivery size limit of 100 MB."

The tech giant introduced the 2GB limit when the App Store first launched and the new move is the first ever increase. In 2013, developer Square Enix notably said their Final Fantasy VII game could not be released for iOS due to the limitation.

Wedbush Securities managing director and video game industry analyst Michael Pachter had some interesting comments about the Xbox One and its pricing during the D.I.C.E. Summit, and the analyst believes that Microsoft will keep the current "promotional pricing" forever.

For the first year of their respective launches, the PS4 outsold the Xbox One every month, and usually by a hefty margin. Last September, Microsoft announced that it would be unbundling the Kinect motion control system, thus dropping the price from $499 to $399. "The truth is that Kinect was a really great concept that didn't address a real world problem. Kinect allowed players to voice control and motion control things, but most of us didn't need that. I don't need to say "Xbox on." I don't mind pressing a button on my controller – that's all you have to do. It's not that hard. It's actually harder to say "Xbox on," says Pachter.

After the unbundling, sales improved but the PS4 continued to rule. Then, Microsoft added 'promotional pricing' to the mix, dropping the console from $399 to $349 and bundling free games or free Xbox Live cards. Pachter doesn't think the pricing will ever come out of its current "promotional" status.

Target has announced the shut down of their failed Target Ticket video-on-demand service.

Ticket allowed users to rent or purchase films and TV shows, as long as those videos were UltraViolet-compatible.

The company has said on March 7th the service will shut down for good, and all apps for smartphones, consoles and set-tops will shut down, as well.

Target made "the decision to end the services offered on Target Ticket and will be focusing efforts on other entertainment offerings."

As part of the shutdown, Target will let you transfer your account and user library to CinemaNow, as well as any credit you might have.

Sony has leased out the rights to Spider-Man to Disney (Marvel), meaning Marvel will put out the next film while Sony keeps the rights to the popular comic hero.

Allegedly, Marvel has been offering billions to get Spider-Man back, but Sony is still not willing to sell. Over time, the franchise has brought in $4 billion in revenue, making it one of the biggest blockbuster series in movie history.

Marvel and Sony have not exchanged any money for the latest deal, by Marvel is still likely to make a mint due to owning the merchandising rights to Spider-Man.

The upcoming standalone Spider-Man film will hit theaters on July 28th, 2017, and Andrew Garfield will be replaced after playing Spidey in the last two "Amazing Spider-Man" films.

Microsoft has acquired Israeli digital pen maker N-trig, the company that has been making the pen for their Surface Pro tablets.

Details were not disclosed but most reports have the purchase price at around $200 million.

The deal makes sense for both companies since Microsoft was already accounting for 79 percent of their revenue and was also a large stakeholder. N-trig also had some recent financial troubles and its investors, who have invested $130 million since 1999, were urging a sale.

Microsoft does appear to have overpaid, given that N-trig lost $117 million in 2014 and had just $5 million cash left on hand.

Samsung Display has confirmed this week that OLED is the future, planning to invest $3.6 billion to build OLED panels in the future.

The new production line would build small and medium-sized OLED displays for smartphones and tablets, with the potential for smaller TVs, as well. The investment would take place between now and 2017.

This year, Samsung Display will focus on curved panels like the ones found in the Galaxy Note Edge.

Samsung is not the only company investing in OLED. LG Display is expected to invest about $1 billion in its existing large-panel OLED production line.

Microsoft has announced that its Xbox One console with Kinect will be discounted for the coming weeks.

"For two weeks, starting Sunday, Feb. 8 through Saturday, Feb. 21, fans will receive $50 off any Xbox One with Kinect in the U.S. at most major national retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Toys R Us and Walmart, as well as Microsoft Stores," says the company.

For the past months, the Xbox One without the motion control system has been on sale for $350 or less, but it has been hard to find sales on the Kinect model.

If you were in the market for the Xbox One but want the gesture and voice control of the Kinect system, this might be your chance.

EA CFO Blake Jorgensen has said this week that he believes tablets are key to the future of gaming, especially as they get more powerful moving forward.

"What gets us the most excited is the power, the computing power, of mobile devices and the speed at which that's growing," says Jorgensen. "What that might mean is that a tablet, three or four years from now, has more power than what a typical console has. And that will open up a whole new set of people to console-style games that are much more immersive, much deeper, much more character-driven than simply a static mobile game that you might play for a small burst of time while you're waiting for the bus."

"And so we're looking for ways that we can essentially blend those two models to have a more immersive but movable game experience," he added. "Could be in your living room, could be on the bus, or it could be in a friend's house. Much more portable than it is today. And that for us is a huge opportunity."

In case it was not obvious, EA plans to invest more in tablet gaming in the future.

NVIDIA has sent out press invites for an event on March 3rd in which the company will show off a device/service that is "5 years in the making" that will "redefine the future of gaming."

It is unclear what the product will be, but there is a chance that the company will unveil a sequel to the powerful Nvidia Shield or Nvidia Shield Tablet.

Nvidia recently announced their Tegra X1 chipset and its ridiculous specs and any new device will likely feature the chipset. The X1 has a NVIDIA Maxwell 256-core GPU, 64-bit ARM CPU, H.265 video decoding and 4K playback at up to 60fps.

Of course, the event may not unveil a tablet or gaming handheld but there is a good chance that it will.

We will know more on March 3rd.

Google has announced that for "Safer Internet Day" the search giant is offering 2GB of free, permanent Drive storage if you complete a "Security Checkup."

You have until February 17th to complete the checkup, which takes less than 5 minutes (unless you're having problems or someone is hijacking your account) and the checkup will go over the following:

Ensures your account recovery information is current
If we detect suspicious activity in your account, we use your recovery info to get in touch and make sure no one but you gains access.
Lets you review recent sign-in activity
Reviewing this lets you validate the sign-ins are coming from you and not someone who shouldn't be using your credentials.
Confirms the apps and devices that access some account information
This step lets you monitor this list and remove apps and devices that don't need access to your account any more.

Once you complete the checkup, you will see three green checkboxes showing your account is safe and that you are eligible for the free data, which will rollout starting on the 28th.

Once popular file sharing site RapidShare has announced it will shut down on March 31, 2015, with the site's administrators advising users to secure their data as soon as possible.

Started in 2002, the site became extremely popular as it allowed paying users to get fast access to unauthorized movies, music, games and any other files that were shared on warez sites. At one point, the site was one of the 50 most popular on the planet, controlling up to 5 percent of the Internet's total traffic.

Of course, such popularity also brought unwanted attention from the major copyright holders, and with that came lawsuits.

In the past few years, Rapidshare began taking down more pirated content and began to market itself as a cloud storage service. They even took down their free service, which allowed non-paying customers to download some files for free daily at slower speeds. The latter was the final nail in the coffin for the site, which could no longer compete with other sites in any respect.

R.I.P RapidShare.

KickassTorrents, the site that became the most popular torrent tracker on the planet after The Pirate Bay went down, has had their kickass.so domain name seized but were able to quickly make a comeback.

The Somalian registry has banned the domain name, effectively taking down the site, which was left to revert back to its kickass.to domain, based in Tonga after being offline for hours.

As the site and its operators look to evade law enforcement and lawsuits, it has flipped domains in the past, using the .to top-level-domain before moving to the .so one last year.

It is unclear why the registry seized the domain name, as Somalia is regarded as a piracy safe haven for the most part. Perhaps complaints from top copyright holders were enough to move the needle.

Source:
Ernesto

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has gotten into the smartphone business after taking a large stake in Meizu.

The company has paid $590 million for a minority stake in the company, which has a 2 percent share of the Chinese smartphone market.

Alibaba will use the deal to get more exposure for their own mobile operating system by placing it on Meizu handsets. Meizu will get access to Alibaba's e-commerce sales channels and other resources in exchange.

In China, the once fragmented market is quickly becoming a three-horse race with Xiaomi, Apple and Samsung leading the way. The top five brands in the country accounted for about 60 percent of all sales in the last quarter.

For Alibaba, the move is an expensive experiment to try to reach out to even more of China's 550 million mobile Internet users, who will then potentially be hooked on Alibaba's core products.

The world's largest chipmaker is preparing to end an anti-trust investigation brought by the Chinese government against it over a year go following 'significant' progress made between the two parties.

Qualcomm is preparing to pay $1 billion to end the dispute, which had claimed uncompetitive practices in the nation, and will likely reduce their royalty rates by a third on patents used in China.

The fine would be the largest ever paid by a company in China.

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said "The NDRC will soon release a new antitrust settlement. Qualcomm will be fined several times the total amount the NDRC fined last year."

Qualcomm gets half of its revenue from China, and a lot of its profits from high margin royalties from licensing. The NDRC had been telling firms to delay signing new licensing agreements while the dispute was still open.

Dish's new online TV streaming service is no longer invite-only, meaning any would-be consumer can sign up today.

Sling TV gives live access to over 10 channels that can be watched online, at a price cheaper than any standard cable or satellite package.

The new service will cost $20 per month and includes the following channels: TNT, TBS, CNN, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, the Disney Channel, Galavision, El Rey Network, a Maker Studios channel and ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN 3. AMC will be added soon. For $5 extra, there are add-on packages for additional sports channels, or additional news channels, or a family package aimed at kids.

While in theory, the practically ala carte service is great for cord cutters, especially given the access to ESPN and big-time sports programming, but under the hood there are quite a few caveats, as well. Only one person can watch Sling TV at any given time. You will need a streaming device and the Sling TV app to get the TV on your big screen. Roku will support it out of the box, Apple TV will not. Local broadcasting is missing such as NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC. DVR features like fast forward and rewind are available on a channel-to-channel basis.

Research firm Canaccord Genuity's Mike Walkley posted a note to clients today in which he reveals some interesting and possibly shocking facts about Apple and their place in the mobile industry.

In the Q4 2014, Apple captured a shocking 93 percent of all the profits in the industry, thanks to a strong upgrade cycle to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Samsung had the rest of the share as Microsoft, Lenovo, BlackBerry, LG, HTC and Sony all combined for a dud.

For the entire year, Apple brought in 79 percent of the industry's profits, with Samsung taking 25 percent and LG taking 1 percent. The numbers add up to above 100 because Microsoft and Lenovo both lost money for the year.

Additionally, Walkley expects there to be 650 million iPhone users by the end of 2018, nearing a third of the world's estimated total at that time: "We believe the strong iPhone 6 replacement sales should continue during C'15, as we estimate only 15% of the current estimated 404M iPhone installed base has upgraded to the new devices. We also anticipate continued strong share gains for the larger screen iPhones from high-tier Android smartphones during C'15 driving strong growth in the iPhone installed base and model the iPhone installed base growing to 487M subscribers exiting C'15 up 20% Y/Y. Longer term, we anticipate a gradually moderating rate of growth for the installed base from C'16 through C'18 and estimate 650M iPhone users exiting C'18. We note this base would only represent 1/3rd of an estimated 1.82B global premium smartphone subscribers anticipated by C'18. Finally, we anticipate steady long-term iPhone replacement sales within this growing iPhone installed base, and we believe this combined with our modest installed base growth expectations position Apple for steady sales of roughly 210M-215M iPhone units annually between C2015 to C2018."

As they have done in previous generations, Microsoft and Sony are very likely to be designing second-generation models of their Xbox One and PS4 consoles, ones that will be likely slimmer and potentially cheaper.

One feature that we can definitely expect, at least according to Netflix, is 4K resolution support.

Netflix CPO Neil Hunt says that Sony has "promised" 4K support for the upcoming hardware revision and Forbes independently confirmed the Xbox One.

Says Forbes' John Archer, speaking of an elaboration on Hunt's blurb: "Namely that he believes that when both the PS4 and Xbox One consoles do their traditional two-year hardware refresh (which would be due around October or November) they will add the necessary components to deliver 4K video playback."

If accurate, the consoles would most likely have to see some particular hardware and software revisions. HDMI 1.4 ports would likely have to be upgraded to 2.0 (which allows for 4K at 60fps) and HDCP 2.2 protection would have to be included as well.

Popular streaming video service Netflix will be available in Cuba starting today, at the same rate of $7.99 that Americans have enjoyed for years.

"We are delighted to finally be able to offer Netflix to the people of Cuba, connecting them with stories they will love from all over the world," said Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings. "Cuba has great filmmakers and a robust arts culture and one day we hope to be able to bring their work to our global audience of over 57 million members."

With the announcement, Netflix has become on of the first companies to take advantage of the relaxation of U.S. government's embargo on trade with Cuba for the first time since the 1960s.

The U.S. goverment is aiming to have U.S. telecoms provide better Internet and other communications services in Cuba, where it has been severely lacking for decades.

Google Nexus 9 tablet owners rejoice; if you wanted CyanogenMod 12, you now have access.

As part of the new nightlies release, there is support for the Nexus 9 (codename flounder in the code), and it is available for download.

CyanogenMod 12 is based on stock Android 5.0 Lollipop, which is also what the Nexus 9 runs on. You will get the Material Design goodness and Cyanogen's speed and other tweaks.

Keep in mind, the nightlies are normally alpha or if you're lucky, beta versions of the software so they cannot be expected to run perfectly.

Try it out here.

OnePlus has announced that its flagship One smartphone will finally have set sales dates following a year of invite-only and flash sales.

Every Tuesday, for a full 24 hours, the device will go on sale in 16GB Silk White and 64GB Sandstone Black. If you want different storage or color options, you will still have to go through the invite system, although there seem to be plenty of invites going around today.

Says the company: "Over the past few months, we've been exploring new ways of making the OnePlus One easier to purchase. The overall amount of available invites has increased significantly, but we've also held pre-order and open sales events, allowing for purchases without the need for an invite. During these events, we have been collecting data and fine-tuning our production schedules.
Today, we're glad to announce that we're making it even easier to buy the One.

Every Tuesday, we will open up sales for 24 hours, starting at 8 am London time (midnight in Los Angeles; 4 pm in Hong Kong). The OnePlus One will be available without an invite in both 16GB Silk White and 64GB Sandstone Black."

Check out the device and more info here.

Thanks to 9to5Mac, we have some details about how Apple finally plans to use Beats Music, which they acquired last year.

According to the report, Apple plans to release their new service later the year, integrating the existing Beats foundation into iOS, Apple TV and iTunes. Apple will update their existing Music app for iOS devices, and is currently doing so.

Cloud streaming will be very important to the service, and there will be a search feature that allows users to search the iTunes/Beats catalog and their own store music. You will be able to create playlists, save songs to your personal library and even dictate where specific tracks get saved (iOS, PC, cloud-only).

Beats Music featured human-curated playlists from DJs, music producers and others, and it seems that Apple will keep those, and add new ones. Existing Beats subscribers can easily merge their accounts with their Apple ID or iTunes profiles and merge all existing libraries to the new service.

Apple is also said to be creating their first Android app developed in-house.

Notably, Apple is looking to charge just $7.99 per month, two dollars less than nearly all streaming services including Google, Spotify, Rdio and even Beats Music.

Corning has announced this weekend a new type of protective display glass that can potentially rival the more expensive scratch-resistant sapphire crystal.

'Project Phire' will combine the strengths of Gorilla Glass (used currently in most high-end smartphones) with scratch-resistance on par with sapphire crystal.

James Clappin, Corning's president of Glass tech, says the company will sell the material later in the year. "We told you last year that sapphire was great for scratch performance but didn't fare well when dropped. So, we created a product that offers the same superior damage resistance and drop performance of Gorilla Glass 4 with scratch resistance that approaches sapphire."

Gorilla Glass is used in over 3 billion devices, including the latest iPhones, but there had been worries within Corning that Apple would move to sapphire through its partnership with GT Advanced. GT Advanced filed for bankruptcy late last year and had a public falling out with Apple, killing that notion, at least for the latest iPhones.

While Gorilla Glass is hard to break, it scratches easier than sapphire and vice versa. Project Phire shows just how important scratch resistance is going to become in the industry moving forward.

According to the latest IFPI report out of Norway, music piracy has been eliminated in the nation in just 5 short years.

In the countrywide survey, only 4 percent of Norwegians under the age of 30 said they use illegal file-sharing platforms to get their music, down from 80 percent in 2009. Only 1 percent of Norwegians admitted that unauthorized file sharing was their main or only source of acquiring music.

So what changed? Legal options. 75 percent of Norway's music industry income comes from streaming, including Spotify and Tidal, and 80 percent of those surveyed claim streaming is their main source of music now.

IFPI Norge MD Marte Thorsby noted: "We are now offering services that are both better and more user-friendly than illegal platforms... In [the past] five years, we have virtually eliminated illegal file sharing in the music industry."

"We have managed to reintroduce a healthy economy in music industry. We must simultaneously not forget that we are only in streaming's infancy, and that we will probably see major changes in the coming years. Younger audiences are using streaming services to the greatest extent. When older audiences [start] embracing these services we will probably see a somewhat different distribution of revenues. Hopefully this will also involve a better economy for several Norwegian artists and record companies."

Tidal, the high-quality music streaming service recently acquired by rapper Jay Z, is already planning a major expansion.

The service will expand to 22 new countries in the Q1 2015, including Austria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, South Africa and Turkey.

Currently, Tidal is only available in the US, UK, Scandinavia, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands yet still parent company Aspiro says Tidal and their other streaming service Wimp have 500,000 paying subscribers.

Tidal CEO Andy Chen added: "We continue to accelerate our expansion, as demand for our product keeps rising. Besides directly from consumers, we are also seeing a very strong growth from new home audio partners. We now have 37 confirmed partners to offer Tidal across the broadest selection of home audio systems."

"After just three months live with Tidal in the US, we are already seeing 18% of streams coming from home audio systems, increasing steadily month by month, as new integrations get up and running. Experiencing Tidal on high-quality home audio systems and headphones proves just how good high-quality music streaming can sound. 2015 will be the year a lot of people discover that."

Amazon has unveiled "Kindle Convert" today, a tool that will allow you to turn your physical books into e-books.

The app, for Windows 7 and 8, costs $19 and and let's the books move into the digital age including adjustable fonts, dictionary lookup and Amazon's own Whispersync.

You will need to scan the pages of the books with a home scanner "capable of producing .jpeg, .tiff or .pdf files with 300-600 DPI, 24-bit depth for color and 8-bit depth for greyscale or black and white."

So far, reviews for the tool are pretty brutal, with many claiming that the quality is just not there yet, but for the price it might be worth a shot for those with rare books or books from their children, etc. that need to be preserved.

On Friday, the WSJ had a very interesting piece for gamers, claiming that Netflix is working on a live-action television show based on the hit "Legend of Zelda' series.

The show would be about a young boy named Link who must rescue a princess named Zelda in the fantasy word of Hyrule. Netflix even allegedly suggested the show was "Game of Thrones" but for a family audience.

Netflix is actively working with Nintendo but is still seeking writers for the show. The first 'Zelda' game was released by Nintendo in 1987 for the NES and there have been nearly 20 other since. It remains one of Nintendo's most popular franchises.

Neither company would confirm or deny the rumor, but it has certainly gotten the gamer community excited.

Thanks to a new report from Ernst & Young in conjunction with French record label trade group SNEP, we can see that artists and songwriters continue to get screwed by the major record labels.

The report broke down where the money that consumers are paying towards Deezer and Spotify really goes; and it's not going into the artist's pockets.

Of the 9.99 euros that are paid for a premium subscription to either service, 46 percent goes to the labels, 21 percent goes to the actual platform (making sure Spotify stays up and running for example), 17 percent goes to tax, 10 percent goes to the songwriters and publishers and just 7 percent goes to the artists. For those keeping track, that's 70 cents going to the artists for every $10 that is brought in.

If you do not include taxes or platform costs, the chart looks even more embarrassing, with the labels taking 73 percent, songwriters taking 16 percent and artists getting 11. Pretty stark. These figures are not including the other fees and import royalties that many artists have built into their contracts even though digital music does not have returns or breakages.

Judging from this report it is very clear why artists like Taylor Swift have pulled their music from streaming services: it's just not worth it when the label is taking all of their money.

After nearly two years of development, Canonical has confirmed that the first Ubuntu smartphone is scheduled to go on sale in Europe starting next week.

In conjunction with OEM partner BQ, the BQ Aquarius E4.5 Ubuntu Edition (yikes) will sell via flash sale for €169 (near $190 USD). The time and date will be revealed via the BQ and Ubuntu Twitter and Facebook accounts, meaning if you are interested you better start following.

The device has a 4.5-inch display, a quad-core 1.36GHz MediaTek processor, 1GB RAM, dual-SIM suport and a microSD slot to expand on the 8GB of internal storage.

Twitter, eBay, Amazon and Yelp among others will have Ubuntu native apps at launch, and Spotify and Dropbox are supported via third-party apps. Despite the long development time, the first version of Ubuntu is expected to need some polish and refinement.

Source:
TNW

According to Microsoft's Gabriel Aul, the first upcoming Windows 10 Technical Preview will support Windows Phone devices that only have 512MB of RAM.

Aul is Microsoft's Engineering General Manager and had been responding to support questions on Twitter.

Keep in mind that Aul only confirmed the first Technical Preview would support the older less powerful devices, so it is unclear whether subsequent releases will have the same support.

Microsoft has not fully confirmed its supported Windows Phones for Windows 10 Technical Preview, but we should know more in the coming weeks.

Google has started offering Chromecast owners $6 in Google Play credit.

The search giant is marketing the credit as a Valentine's Day gift so you can rent a romantic movie and stay in. Of course, you can get whatever you want with the credit and it does not appear to have an expiration date.

To take advantage, you must be logged into the same Wi-Fi network as your Chromecast and then click here. You will see all your current offers (I had 5) and you just have to confirm your Chromecast serial with Google to accept the credit. You can also use the mobile app if you prefer on iOS and Android.

Don't forget to hit "Redeem."

Adobe has released security updates for their Flash Player across platforms, addressing critical vulnerabilities as it had rated as "Priority 1."

The updates, for Windows, Mac and Linux, will patch "vulnerabilities that could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system." The bug is "actively being exploited in the wild via drive-by-download attacks against systems running Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows 8.1 and below."

Adobe recommends all desktop, Chrome, IE and Firefox users update to the latest version of their software.

The updates will "resolve memory corruption vulnerabilities that could lead to code execution," "type confusion vulnerabilities that could lead to code execution," "resolve heap buffer overflow vulnerabilities that could lead to code execution," "resolve a buffer overflow vulnerability that could lead to code execution," and "resolve null pointer dereference issues."

Source:
Adobe

Earlier this week, electronics retailer RadioShack officially filed for bankruptcy, with plans to sell around 2000 of its stores to its largest shareholder and closing the rest permanently.

As part of the bankruptcy plan, major carrier Sprint will open up "mini-shops" in up to 1750 of the remaining stores, doubling their brick-and-mortar presence in the U.S.

Sprint would occupy about a third of the retail space in each store, and Sprint would sell devices, accessories and monthly plans. In addition, Sprint would be the main brand in marketing materials and on storefronts.

RadioShack has not been profitable since 2011, and has seen declining sales since at least 2008. The company will look to keep paying its employees while it restructures in bankruptcy, and the company is also looking to sell all of its international assets.

Toy maker Mattel and search giant Google have sent out press invites for an event on February 13th in which the two companies are expected to unveil a new device or service.

The companies are inviting the media to "view what's possible" and the invite itself is an homage to the View-Master toy.

It is unclear what the companies are planning but the reference to View-Master suggests a toy with potentially some Google Glass functionality built in. Potentially, the View-Master could be making a comeback.

Check the invite here:

Thanks to a plethora of embarrassing emails leaked in December by hackers, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal has stepped down from her role at the company.

"I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home," she said in a statement. "I have always wanted to be a producer. [Sony Entertainment CEO] Michael [Lynton] and I have been talking about this transition for quite some time, and I am grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to pursue my long-held dream and for providing unparalleled support. As the slate for the next two years has come together, it felt like the right time to transition into this new role. I am so grateful to my team, some of whom I have worked with for the last 20 years and others who have joined more recently. I am leaving the studio in great hands. I am so proud of what we have all done together and I look forward to a whole lot more."

Pascal was the executive who green-lit 'The Interview' and many of the emails leaked showed Pascal's thoughts about celebrities and directors in the industry, none of which were kind so she was an easy figure to place blame on.

Following a campaign from some of the biggest directors in the game, Kodak has signed a new deal to keep movie film stock in use for the major Hollywood studios.

"Film has long been – and will remain – a vital part of our culture," said Jeff Clarke, Kodak chief executive office, in a statement. "With the support of the studios, we will continue to provide motion picture film, with its unparalleled richness and unique textures, to enable filmmakers to tell their stories and demonstrate their art."

Many new and upcoming films used actual film, including "Boyhood," "The Grand Budapest Hotel," "Interstellar," "Foxcatcher" and the coming "Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens," "Batman v. Superman - Dawn of Justice" and "Ant-Man."

Directors such as JJ Abrams, Judd Apatow and Quentin Tarantino all campaigned to make sure film stayed alive in an age that is quickly moving completely to all-digital. Apatow says digital and film "are valid choices, but it would be a tragedy if suddenly directors didn't have the opportunity to shoot on film. There's a magic to the grain and the color quality that you get with film."

Yelp has just announced their Q4 2014 earnings and full-year results, showing strong growth year-over-year.

The business review site brought in $377.5 million in revenue for the year, up 62 percent year-over-year. Most importantly, Yelp was profitable for the first time ever, totaling $36.5 million for the year.

Overall, the total reviews on the site grew to 71 million, up 35 percent YoY, from 72 million unique mobile users and a total of 135 million monthly unique users. Desktop usership has peaked, and remained flat.

Yelp also announced nearly 100,000 active local business accounts and 84,000 local advertisers. Nearly one-third of the advertisers are paying between $300-$500 per month.

The company says its goal is monetize the international markets now, as only 3 percent of revenue has come from outside the U.S.

Source:
Forbes

Popular watch maker Swatch is preparing a smartwatch for release in the coming 2-3 months, looking to take a piece of the burgeoning industry.

Notably, the device will not have to be charged, will be able to make mobile payments via NFC, and will work with both Windows and Android.

Chief Executive Officer Nick Hayek, who previously said the company would not race to be first in the race to develop a smartwatch due to ongoing consumer resistance, says the time is right (or possibly necessary) now.

Hayek noted that in the future, a few of their latest patented tech will be used the smartwatch, such as a battery that has double the life of previous models: "We'll implement all of those into new products. Some of them, such as the battery, will take a few years though, and are also destined for other industries, like the automotive industry."

Swatch would not be the first Swiss watchmaker to try a smartwatch. Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) and their TAG Heuer brand have announced a smartwatch with GPS and fitness tracking for later this year.

Health insurance company Anthem (better known by their Blue Cross Blue Shield brand) is the victim of one of the largest breaches in history, with intimate personal data on 80 million former and current user being stolen.

"Anthem was the target of a very sophisticated external cyber attack," Anthem president and CEO Joseph Swedish said this morning. Among the data stolen were names, birthdays, medical IDs, Social Security numbers, full addresses, emails and employment info including work addresses.

The stolen database had 80 million customer's data in it, but Anthem does not believe everyone has been affected. Regardless, the company confirmed the number is certainly in the tens of millions. Anthem says no medical records were stolen in the breach.

"Anthem's own associates' personal information -- including my own -- was accessed during this security breach. We join in your concern and frustration and I assure you that we are working around the clock to do everything we can to further secure your data," Swedish added.

If you are a current or former customer of Anthem please check www.anthemfacts.com or call 877-263-7995. It is also important to start monitoring your credit if you are not already doing so.

Under Armour has announced this week the acquisition of MyFitnessPal and Endomondo in an effort to create the world's 'largest digital health community.'

With the two companies combined, UA's new digital health community will have 120 million users. MyFitnessPal was purchased for $475 million and Endomondo was acquired for $85 million. Both apps allow iOS and Android users to set goals, track their fitness activity and chat with others in the community for support and advice. MFP became popular due to its database of recipes that can be used for meals based on your available ingredients and calorie count.

"By combining a community of 120 million unique registered users, we are developing a digital ecosystem that provides us with unparalleled data and insight into making every athlete better," said Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank. "Understanding the evolving needs of our athletes -- how they interact, how they consume, and ultimately how they strive to live healthier lifestyles -- will be key inputs to forging deeper relationships and becoming more relevant to how the consumer shops."

As has been rumored for months, telecom giant BT has agreed to acquire EE, the UK's largest wireless carrier.

The deal values EE at $19 billion (12.5 billion euro), and will give BT the biggest 4G LTE customer base in all of Europe. Altogether, EE has 31 million subscribers.

BT has been looking to get back in the mobile market for the last two years, and became an MVNO last year using EE's network.

EE has 7.7 million 4G LTE users, far and away the largest in Europe, where the speedy mobile networks are still being adopted.

"This is a major milestone for BT as it will allow us to accelerate our mobility plans and increase our investment in them. The UK's leading 4G network will now dovetail with the UK's biggest fibre network, helping to create the leading converged communications provider in the UK. Consumers and businesses will benefit from new products and services as well as from increased investment and innovation," said BT Chief Executive Gavin Patterson. "The deal provides an attractive opportunity for BT to generate considerable value for shareholders, with significant operating and capital investment efficiencies supported by our tried and tested cost transformation activities. The enlarged BT will offer significant opportunities for employees as we lead the creation of a world-class digital infrastructure for Britain."

Verizon Wireless, looking to keep up with the insane customer growth rival T-Mobile is seeing, has slashed data plan pricing across the board for new and existing customers.

As part of their More Everything service, nearly every data plan has been reduced by $10 a month, and new GB tiers have been added to give users more options. The new tiers go as high as 20GB and only the 500MB and 10GB tiers have not seen any change.

"Just about a year ago, Verizon Wireless expanded what customers experience with a shared data plan when we introduced MORE Everything on the best 4G LTE network," said Verizon Wireless chief marketing officer Nancy Clark. "As the market leader, we are committed to delivering customers the solutions and value that make sense for their lifestyles."

In addition, Verizon will allow some qualifying customers to add smartphones to the "Verizon Edge" plan for $15 per month and a $15 or $25 discount off your total monthly bill. Edge allows for shared data, and allows customers to pay no upfront cost for a new phone and then finance it for 24 months.

Twitter has signed a deal with search giant Google to have tweets be visible in search results immediately after they are posted.

The new deal gives Google access to Twitter's "firehose," the stream of data from all of the company's users. Until now, Google had to crawl Twitter's site, but no longer.

Twitter had already signed similar deals with Microsoft and Yahoo, but the combined search share of Bing and Yahoo is much smaller than Google.

For both parties, the deal should have great synergies. Google will add tons of great, relevant information for their searches, and Twitter will be able to monetize their users' data when they are logged out.

Unlike Android, that remains wildly fragmented, Apple's latest operating system has seen mass adoption from iPhone and iPad users.

According to the Cupertino giant, iOS 8 is installed on 72 percent of iOS devices, up from 68 percent last month.

The number is particularly notable because of how many issues iOS 8 has had since launch. The original launch of iOS 8 was met with a few bugs, especially Wi-Fi issues. iOS 8.0.1 was a disaster and even led to some devices being bricked before Apple pulled the update. Subsequent updates have added stability and it appears that adoption has followed.

Google's latest Android, version 5.0, was released in November and is installed on just 1.6 percent of devices.

Ross Ulbricht, who went by the name 'Dread Pirate Roberts' online, has been convicted on all counts for running the illegal, anonymous bazaar, the Silk Road.

The Silk Road underground marketplace allowed users to purchase drugs, buy counterfeit products, and trade child pornography while paying with Bitcoin digital currency.

In just 3 hours of deliberations, the jury found Ulbricht guilty on all seven charges which included 'trafficking drugs on the Internet, narcotics-trafficking conspiracy, running a continuing criminal enterprise, computer-hacking conspiracy and money-laundering conspiracy.'

Prosecutors had alleged that Dread Pirate ran Silk Road from 2011 until its raid in 2013, and that over $200 million in Bitcoins were used to purchase illegal merchandise on the site in that time. Ulbricht was also accused of arranging to murder five people who threatened to expose sellers on the Silk Road.

In his defense, Ulbricht claimed that he was set up to take the blame by former Mt. Gox founder Mark Karpeles. The jury didn't buy it. On Ulbricht's computers they found Silk Road maintenance logs, weekly reports, online chat transcripts and over $13 million worth of bitcoins, which were then traced back to Silk Road.

Universal Pictures has confirmed the release date for the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic, just two days after we saw our first leaked scene pics from outside of Cupertino.

The film will debut in theaters on October 9th and will reportedly cover Apple founder Steve Jobs through three major launches; the original Mac, the NeXT, and the iPod. The script is based on Walter Isaacson's hit authorized biography on Jobs.

Directed by Danny Boyle, the movie features Michael Fassbender as Jobs and Seth Rogen as co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Universal acquired the film from Sony Pictures in November after the producers had a falling out with Sony's studio co-chairman. The arguments were infamously leaked when Sony Pictures' emails were released to the web following December's cyber attack on the studio.

Source:
AVC

In an effort to get into the brick-and-mortar business, it appears that Amazon is in talks with bankrupt retailer RadioShack to buy some of their over 4000 locations.

The stores would be used to showcase Amazon's hardware, which is now an entire lineup including a phone, tablet, e-reader, set-top box, and HDMI streaming stick. They could also be used as drop off and pickup centers for online buyers.

Major U.S. carrier Sprint and retailer Brookstone have also discussed buying thousands of locations from RadioShack in bankruptcy.
"This is a year in which we intend to grow our distribution dramatically," CEO Marcelo Claure said. "You are going to see the opening of more and more Sprint stores as this is one area that we work on."

If true, Amazon is hoping the move will put them on more even ground with Apple and Microsoft, whose brick-and-mortar locations have been popular and crucial in showing off products to consumers that do not only want to buy online.

Despite the devastating cyber attack that crippled the company for weeks, it appears that Sony Pictures Entertainment still eeked out a small profit for the fiscal Q3 ended December 31st.

Sony said today that SPE had a provisional (pending audit) profit of ￥24.3 billion, or $20 million USD. The profit was 90 percent lower than the same quarter last year, thanks mainly to the attack and also lower theatrical revenue across the board. Overall revenue is expected to be $1.63 billion, down 23 percent year-over-year.

Notably, "the quarter is expected to include approximately $15 million (1.8 billion yen) in investigation and remediation costs" related to the hack, added the company. Of course, the company faced more questions related to the cyber attack. "We don't think the leaking of unreleased films online or the damage to the IT systems will cause a significant loss. We had insurance against cyberattacks, and will be able to recover a significant portion of the costs, which will likely be be paid out in the next fiscal year [after April]," said Kazuhiko Takeda, vice president at the corporate planning and control dept.

We will have official numbers in the coming weeks, especially related to the attack.

The team behind Popcorn Time, after a brief hiatus, have returned with updates to their Windows, Mac and Android versions.

As the team says, the updates are mainly for the UI and for general performance and stability. Reads the post: "Getting this software to work flawlessly in one hell of a challenge and with these releases we're getting so much closer to this desired goal...

Also the content is of higher quality this time around, and we're doing our best to make sure you won't have movies that don't play, specific episodes in a series you're watching that get stuck.. We're doing our best to make sure the video will run smoothly without stuttering, looping, pausing... That the sound quality will be even higher than it already was, that the download will be quicker and that the overall watching experience will rock your world! Even more than before. It worked beautifully when testing it, and if it works beautifully for all of you... Well, we may be able to start fantasizing on crossing out the word BETA before the version number ;-)"


Here is the changelog for the Mac and Windows versions, which now move to beta 5.2:

New interface for Mac Os X!
Metadata errors fixed! (0/0 peers,0kb/s, 100% and then back to info page issues are under this category).
Magnet links support
Initial download progress fix
Torrent engine stability updates
Seek and download bar fixes
Brazilian Portuguese subtitles fix
Cache bug fixed.
Updater improvements – From the next version on there will be no need for you to re-install every time we offer a new version!

According to a new report, tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon have been paying to have their ads whitelisted through the popular ad-blocking extension software Adblock Plus.

The report claims that the paid deal between the makers of Adblock Plus (Eyeo) and the tech companies allows the ads to get through the filter which would otherwise block them.

Eyeo has confirmed that they do indeed have a whitelist that is part of their "acceptable ads" program which allows "less aggressive" ads to bypass the filter. Users of the plugin can choose to accept the "acceptable ads" whitelist in which "by doing this you support websites that rely on advertising but choose to do it in a non-intrusive way."

Apparently, addition to the acceptable ads program is free for small companies, big companies are paying large fees to ensure their ads make it through.

Microsoft and the Raspberry Pi Foundation have confirmed that the software giant will be offering a version of Windows 10 for free for Raspberry Pi micro PCs.

"We see the Maker community as an amazing source of innovation for smart, connected devices that represent the very foundation of the next wave of computing, and we're excited to be a part of this community," said Kevin Dallas, General Manager, Windows IoT (Internet of Things) Group.

Yesterday, the Foundation showed off the Raspberry Pi 2, which added 1GB of RAM and a quad-core processor for the same $35 price tag opening up the possibility of more advanced software like Mathematica, or Windows.

"Raspberry Pi 2 is a surprisingly powerful device that opens up the world of computing and programing to a huge range of people and skill levels. We are excited about our work with the Raspberry Pi Foundation and to share that Windows 10 will support Raspberry Pi 2. We will be sharing more details about our Windows 10 plans for IoT in the coming months," added Dallas.

It appears that we finally have some scene pics of the upcoming Apple biopic, which features Michael Fassbender and Seth Rogen as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

The movie has been filming around the Bay Area for the last few weeks, within walking distance of Apple's current Cupertino headquarters.

Universal is behind the film, which began filming at Jobs' childhood garage, and emails leaked in December implied that the entire film could be shot in just a few weeks although it is unclear if that timeline has changed. Sony Pictures originally owned the script before dropping it in November.

The new film centers around the notable launches of the original Mac, the NeXT cube and the iPod.

Some pics:

As we have reported for the past few months, Google's latest version of Android is struggling to see adoption.

Into its third month of availability, the operating system is only installed on 1.6 percent of devices, a way lower figure than the install base for Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which was released in 2011.

Android 4.4 KitKat continued to take share, and now stands at 39.7 percent, still slightly below Jelly Bean, which encompasses Android 4.1-4.3.x and has 44.5 percent.

Lollipop remains available for very few devices, most notably Google's own Nexus line. Android 5.0 is easily the search giant's best mobile OS to date, and it is a shame that so few have been able to test it.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the sequel to their popular micro PC, the Raspberry Pi.

The new, updated Raspberry Pi 2 has an improved processor and double the RAM but keeps the amazing price of $35.

"It's a major leap forward in terms of computing power for users," says Mike Powell, a technology development manager for Pi distributor Element14. "A whole wave of new applications are now possible."

The Pi 2 has a quad-core, ARMv7 processor with a clock speed of 900MHz and 1GB of RAM. The original "Model A" Raspberry Pi had a single core ARMv6 processor at 700MHz with 512MB RAM.

Since its inception, the Pi has been aimed at students that are looking to learn coding. With the added RAM and processing power, there will certainly be the ability to use more power-intensive programs now.

Samsung has sent out press invites for an "Unpacked" event in which the company will reveal an upcoming Galaxy flagship device.

The event will take place on March 1st in Barcelona. Samsung has used 'Unpacked' to unveil Galaxy Note and Galaxy S flagships in the past.

In the past weeks, there have been 'leaks' and rumors about the S6, which is expected to depart from a plastic case to a more premium metal design. Additionally, there are rumors that the device will have a curved display, similar to last year's Galaxy Note Edge.

Besides the phone, Samsung is also expected to release a round smartwatch.

Reportedly, Alibaba has invested $10 million in Ouya, the Kickstarter darling that never made a splash with consumers.

Ouya, which started by building tiny Android-based set-top consoles for gamers, has mostly migrated to becoming a software provider, and that means that Alibaba is planning to integrate the Ouya operating system and its 1000 game strong lineup into their own set-tops.

When Ouya first hit Kickstarter, it was an instant hit, reaching $8.5 million in funding in 2012. However, the set-top saw a few delays and by the time it came out, the PS4 and Xbox One were just months away from hitting shelves. Within months, Amazon and Nvidia also killed Ouya by offering casual gaming on the big screen, at the same price and with more features.

Since overhauling and getting out of the hardware business, Ouya has partnered with Madcatz and Xiaomi who have integrated the software into their more popular hardware. Certainly, Alibaba could help increase that existing network, as well.

Rap mogul Jay Z is preparing to buy his own music streaming service.

The rapper and entrepreneur is currently in the process of buying the Scandinavian music streaming company Aspiro for $56 million.

Through his company, Project Panther Bidco Ltd, Jay began looking into Aspiro for some time ago and found the service to be "an innovative high-quality company with strong future growth potential."

Aspiro, which is not a household name in the U.S., has two ad-free services; WiMP and Tidal. WiMP is available in Europe while Tidal offers high-def audio and music videos in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Late night talk show host Conan O'Brien released a hilarious video yesterday of NFL stars Marshawn Lynch and Rob Gronkowski playing the upcoming 'Mortal Kombat X' for PS4, ahead of tonight's Superbowl.

In the segment, which is part of the comedian's "Clueless Gamer" series, the players fight to the death, and their reactions to fatality moves are notably funny.

Check out the full video here:

Finnish startup Jolla has started a second funding campaign for its Jolla Tablet on Indiegogo, adding more storage.

The original campaign closed in December, with $1.8 million in funding. Buyers of the original tablet can upgrade for $25, or new buyers can purchase for $249.

In addition to the upgrade to 64GB internal storage, the device also has a larger battery (4300mAh to 4450mAh) and has added a gyroscope and compass sensors. Finally, the device has a microSD slot with 128GB support but with a major caveat: "Due to Microsoft's licensing limitations cards over 32GB that are formatted in Jolla Tablet will not be readable with Windows computers or devices that advertise microSDXC support (cameras/phones/tablets)." Jolla has not paid to license exFAT for the OS.

The Jolla Tablet has a 7.85-inch display with 2048x1536 resolution, a 64-bit quad-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM and dual 5MP/2MP cameras.

Get the tablet here: Indiegogo

Disney Chairman and CEO Bob Iger has confirmed the release dates for the upcoming Star Wars Episodes VII-IX, delighting fans of the blockbuster franchise.

Following this years release of Episode VII, better known as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Episodes VIII will hit theaters in December 2017 and Episode IX will be released in December, 2019.

Iger wrote in Disney's annual shareholder letter: "As one of the few people allowed to visit the set during filming... and one of the fewer who's seen most of the footage... I can assure the millions of 'Star Wars' fans who have spent the last decade hoping for a new movie this one will be worth the wait. And it's only the beginning of a new era of exceptional 'Star Wars' storytelling; next year we'll release our first standalone movie based on these characters, followed by 'Star Wars: Episode VIII' in 2017, and we'll finish this trilogy with 'Episode IX' in 2019."

The Force Awakens is scheduled for release on December 18th, and there is little question that it will be a billion dollar hit. There are a few in the industry that believe it could even beat the original Star Wars' box office gross, which adjusted for inflation was $1.48 billion.

The Pirate Bay has figuratively risen from the ashes today, after nearly two months of downtime following a police raid by Swedish authorities back in December.

The infamous torrent tracker has replaced its iconic pirate ship logo with a phoenix, at least for the time being.

Back in its original form, including the .se domain, the Pirate Bay had promised a return by February 1st. Some features remain down, and there are no ads yet on the site but the actual torrent magnets appear to be back up, as are user accounts. Over the last hour, I have seen 502 errors intermittently, meaning not all is well yet with the site.

Uploaders are likely to be in overdrive mode for the coming days, as the latest uploads are from early December, the day the servers were raided.

In its downtime, clones and rivals have emerged, most notably isoHunt's "The Old Pirate Bay," which now has millions of unique daily visitors. It will be interesting to see if the original site can take back its visitors.

According to IDC, Apple narrowly missed out on becoming the world's top smartphone maker in the Q4 following its record quarter of 74.5 million iPhones sold.

Samsung shipped 75.1 million smartphones for the quarter, good for 20.01 percent market share, beating out Apple at 19.85 percent. Compared to the same quarter last year, Samsung's shipments declined 11 percent compared to Apple whose growth was up 46 percent. The rest of the top five also saw major growth.

Lenovo/Motorola shipped 24.7 million, good for 6.59 percent share and 77.9 percent growth, followed by Huawei in fourth place with 23.5 million units shipped for the quarter. Xiaomi has insane 178.6 percent year-over-year growth, as it took fifth place.

In total, 375.2 million smartphones shipped for the month, 28.2 percent growth for the industry.

"Most of the industry expected an extremely strong holiday quarter from Apple, especially with regards to the iPhone. However, worldwide shipments of 74.5 million units beat everyone's expectations," said Ryan Reith, Program Director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "Beyond the record-setting quarter, a few impressive things stand out with regard to Apple. First, at a time when average selling prices (ASPs) for smartphone are rapidly declining, Apple managed to increase its reported ASPs in the fourth quarter due to higher-cost new models. Second, the growth of iPhone sales in both the U.S., which is considered a saturated market, and China, which presents the dual challenges of strong local competitors and serious price sensitivity, were remarkable. Sustaining this growth and higher ASPs a year from now could prove challenging, but right now there is no question that Apple is leading the way."

Earlier this month, OnePlus announced that it would be unveiling its own Android ROM after a falling out with lead Android fork maker Cyanogen.

On February 12th, the company will reveal more about the custom operating system, which will be released only for OnePlus One and OnePlus Two devices.

Codenamed 'OxygenOS,' the operating system is "open, customizable, and free of bloat and unnecessary features." "We've spent a lot of time thinking about what this ROM means to us and our fans. We realized that, like everything we do, our true goal is to make the product that we ourselves would want to use--to make great technology more accessible for everyone," OnePlus added in a statement.

Since its falling out with Cyanogen, which provided the CyanogenMod operating system, OnePlus has been using stock Android for its devices.

Earlier this week, Sony announced the end of their own Sony Music Unlimited service and the introduction of PlayStation Music, powered by Spotify.

PlayStation Music + Spotify will be available in 41 markets "by Spring," says Sony.

Reads the post:

We know how important music is to our community of gamers, and this partnership combines the best in music with the best in gaming. PlayStation Network users will enjoy the convenience of linking your accounts to Spotify, making it easy to sign-up with your existing ID and subscribe to Spotify's Premium service. You can also use Spotify while playing games on PS4, enabling you to soundtrack your gaming sessions with your favorite songs in the background. Want something heavy and rocking for an intense Destiny Raid? How about some old school hip hop while taking the field in Madden NFL? With more than 30 million songs and 1.5 billion playlists, Spotify on PlayStation Music has it covered. As we get closer to launch we look forward to telling you about some of the other great features that will be available exclusively through Spotify on PlayStation Music.