News written by James Delahunty (December, 2015)

Samsung will pay $548 million to Apple by December 14, the latest news in a patent dispute that stretches back almost five years.

Apple filed the complaint against Samsung in early 2011, accusing the South Korean consumer electronics giant of patent infringement related to certain features in its smartphones. The iPhone maker ultimately won and was initially awarded $1 billion (it had sought $2.5 billion), which was later reduced to $548 million.

In a joint court statement, Samsung has pledged to pay Apple the $548 million by December 14, if Apple produces an invoice before the coming weekend.

The South Korean firm hasn't thrown in the towel fully yet, however, and asserts its right of reimbursement in the event of more favourable legal judgements in the near future.

"Samsung further reserves all rights to reclaim or obtain reimbursement of any judgment amounts paid by Samsung to any entity in the event the partial judgment is reversed, modified, vacated or set aside on appeal or otherwise, including as a result of any proceedings before the USPTO addressing the patents at issue or as a result of any petition for writ of certiorari filed with the Supreme Court."

To show off how tough its new Volvo FMX is, Volvo allowed a 4 year old girl to drive one with a remote control.

The video was filmed in Serbia in a closed-off gravel pit with all buildings empty, locked and sealed. The remote control system was specially made for the the experiment, which saw little Sophie torture the full-size dump truck and thoroughly enjoy it.

"This live test was set up to demonstrate the sturdiness and mobility of the Volvo FMX," Volvo's video description reads.

"A unique cage construction, cast-iron front plus corners and skidplate of high-grade steel make this a very tough truck indeed. And thanks to Automatic Traction Control – a revolutionary new feature that automatically engages the front axle when you need it – you won't get stuck."

It's an excellent PR stunt for Volvo's product, and worth a watch!

EFF files a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that Google collected and data mined children's personal information.

Google has rejected the Electronic Frontier Foundation's concerning claims with regard to how it collects and uses data when child students use school-issued devices, like Chromebooks, and Google's own Google Apps for Education (GAFE) core and non-core services.

Key among the EFF's complaint is the Google Sync service used by the Chrome web browser, and how Google utilizes student's information when using non-Core (or "consumer") services, including YouTube, Maps and Books.

We'll now take a look at the EFF's allegations about Google's practices, and the response from the Search giant, based on the information available publicly at this time.

EFF's Spying on Students campaign

The FTC complaint has arisen as a result of a noble cause, which is the EFF's "Spying on Students" campaign. Its goal is simply to raise awareness about privacy risks associated with devices and software provided by schools to children as young as 7 years old.

As part of this program, the EFF examined Chromebooks sold to schools by Google, and also examined its GAFE Core services (including email, Calendar, Talk/Hangouts, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Sites, Contacts and the Apps Vault) and non-Core services as used by students.

The MPAA may have had success in knocking out the most popular fork of the 'pirate Netflix' known as Popcorn Time, but as usual another fork has risen form the ashes.

The movie industry trade group managed to force PopcornTime.io development into uncertainly with lawsuits in Canada, forcing developers to back off. Other variants of the application were still available and working though, and efforts were made to force the PopcornTime.io application to work again.

Out of those ongoing efforts to keep that popular variant alive comes a new fork, Popcorn Time Community Edition (PTCE). It is parked at Popcorntime.ml, which provides downloads for the new PTCE fork for Windows, Mac and Linux.

The development team already lost two members due to legal action from Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN.

"We wish the two developers all the best and we really miss them, other than that we have no comment on that or the legal debate regarding this software," PTCE developers told the TorrentFreak site.

"Popcorn Time will probably never go away, despite the efforts made by organizations such as BREIN, the MPAA and others. Instead of fighting this great software they should embrace it."

Google's Chrome browser for Android is getting a new improvement that can save up to 70 percent of data usage while browsing the web.

The Data Saver mode is made to reduce the amount of data downloaded when you open a webpage, and by impeding the loading of images it can reduce data usage significantly and improve the experience on a slow connection.

A user can load the image by tapping on any individual image, or there's an option to tap to load all images.

Chrome users in India and Indonesia will be the first to get this expanded Data Saver mode, with additional countries in the coming months.

When available, it can be enabled in the Advanced Settings in the browser.


More Info: support.google.com

The Pinnacle of V mod touches on almost every aspect of the GTA V universe, including the weather, the vehicles, weapons, people and more.

The most striking and immediately noticeable changes are to the visuals, where almost everything gets some kind of improvement or change. Brand new 4K textures are added for Clouds, Water, Stars, the Moon, Plants and Grass, Blood, Fire Spries, Coronas, Rain Drops and Splash Textures, Cloud Noise and Vehicle Bottom Shadows.

Every car, truck, van, SUV, commercial, utility, transportation, water, and air vehicle has been modded to provide realistic deformation, top speeds, weight, handling, crash physics, avoidance control, AI control and more!

The mod brings the city to life too, with population levels changed to reflect areas of the city, the time of day, the day of the week etc., meaning that there are now rush hours in Los Santos if you use the mod. Relationships between characters are also altered, with gangs and police battling it out on the streets, and the player enjoying better encounters with animals.

Weapons have also been modified to have realistic recoil, bullet spread, tracer fx, muzzle flash fx, reload animation speeds and more. Bullets now will travel at a realistic speed rather than being instantly delivered to the target, while some materials in the game can now be shot through and destroyed with gunfire.

A recent and significant win in court for the Pirate Bay will face an appeal as media companies stay determined to have the torrent site blocked everywhere they can.

On Friday, the Diustrict Court of Stockholm refused to order ISP Bredbandsbolaget to block access to the Pirate Bay website. The block had been sought by entertainment and media companies that have been fighting to get rid of the Pirate Bay for more than a decade.

Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry wanted the court to force the Swedish Internet service provider to block access to the site and asserted that failing to do so bestowed culpability on the ISP for copyright infringement committed by subscribers.

There are similar blocks either already in effect or coming soon in most European countries now.

The loss in Sweden came as a shock to the copyright holders however, given that the block campaign has been successfully implemented almost everywhere else in Europe, and Sweden is the home of the notorious Pirate Bay.

The decision was unanimous however. "A unanimous District Court considers, therefore, that it is not in a position to authorize such a ban as the rights holders want and therefore rejects their request," said presiding Chief Magistrate Anders Dereborg.

Music streaming services are probably the future, but Adele clings to the past when it comes to the consumption of music.

The superstar's new album, 25, is only available to stream via Pandora as she continues to snub several major platforms that consumers turn to for their music needs. She's not the first major music artist to be cold on music streaming and she won't be the last, but at least she is acknowledging that music streaming is "probably" the future.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the artist reveals she isn't a subscriber of any of the music streaming services, and she really prefers having music on CDs.

"It probably is the future, but, eh," she said. "There are kids I know who are, like, nine who don't even know what a f**king CD is! I've got my CDs out on display in my house just to prove a point. Maybe CDs will have a massive comeback like vinyl did."

She probably shouldn't hold her breath on that one. While CDs are certainly better than the Destiny's Child cassette tapes she still owns, they are fragile, prone to scratching and damage and who didn't have a CD player laser slowly wither and die on them more than once? Even worse, they take up space!

Sony has announced two tempting PlayStation 4 (PS4) bundles that will sell for a limiting time this month.

The Star Wars Battlefront Standard Edition PS4 bundle and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection PS4 bundle will be available for $299.99 for just under two weeks - between Sunday, December 6, and Saturday, December 19. So if you didn't pick up a console on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you haven't completely missed out.

Star Wars Battlefront Standard Edition PS4 bundle



The Star Wars bundle includes a jet black 500GB PlayStation 4 console and DualShock 4 controller. It comes with Star Wars Battlefront, and a digital voucher to download Super Star Wars, Star Wars: Racer Revenge, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, and Star Wars Bounty Hunter.

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection PS4 bundle

Facebook founder & wife pledge to donate 99 percent of Facebook shares to good causes as they announce the birth of daughter Max.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are celebrating the birth of their daughter Max by announcing that 99 percent of their shares in Facebook will be given away to good causes, currently worth about $45 billion. The announcement was made as part of a publicly-posted letter to Max by her Dad on Facebook.

"Like all parents, we want you to grow up in a world better than ours today," Mark writes.

Throughout the letter, Mark reflects on the fight against disease and human suffering, observing that medicine has only really been grounded properly in Science for less than a century, and yet has eliminated many diseases completely and alleviated much human suffering.

Beyond medicine, Zuckerberg also speaks of equality and the cost of inequality. Promoting equality, Zuckerberg argues, is about ensuring that every has access to opportunities regardless of the circumstances they are born into. Without these opportunities, our society is robbed of the potential so many have to offer.

"The only way to achieve our full potential is to channel the talents, ideas and contributions of every person in the world," Zuckerberg writes.