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Microsoft hasn't seemed too interested in smartphones after acquiring Nokia's mobile phone business. Oddly the number of phones released has dropped drastically, even though Windows 10 should be living its heyday.

The executive VP of Devices and Windows, Terry Myerson, has however sent an email to employees assuring that smartphones have not been forgotten. In the email Myerson explains how Microsoft is still dedicated to developing Windows 10 as a mobile operating system.

Even more specifically, he says that Microsoft is going to make Windows 10 for small devices with ARM chips.

The company is obviously trying to calm the employees down after a horrific decline in Windows Phone sales. Just couple days ago Microsoft reported a 73 percent decline in quantity and nearly 50 percent decline in Windows Phone revenue.

According to the rumors, Microsoft is shifting smartphone strategy and moving them under the more successful Surface brand in 2017.

Apple has released the first quarterly earnings of 2016. As expected, the results weren't as impressive as quarters in recent history. The most significant drop was witnessed in iPhone sales.

The first time in years Apple had to tell shareholders that profits have declined compared to the corresponding quarter last year. The drop was orchestrated by a first in a history decline in iPhone sales.

Apple sold 16 percents less iPhones than year ago, amounting to 51.2 million phones. Also declining were iPad and Mac sales, just over 10 million and 4 million units respectively.

Even sales in China, which has been a big boomer for Apple for recent years, declined a hefty 26 percent.

Apple predicts this trend to continue in the second quarter as well. We might have to wait for iPhone 7 for more positive sales figures from Apple.

Nokia has announced their acquisition of Withings, the French health and wearables company.

The one-time handset giant will pay €170 million ($191 million) for the company, and Nokia says Withings will become a division of Nokia Technologies. NT currently houses the Ozo Camera and the Android-based N1 tablet.

"We have said consistently that digital health was an area of strategic interest to Nokia, and we are now taking concrete action to tap the opportunity in this large and important market," said Rajeev Suri, president & CEO of Nokia. "With this acquisition, Nokia is strengthening its position in the Internet of Things in a way that leverages the power of our trusted brand, fits with our company purpose of expanding the human possibilities of the connected world, and puts us at the heart of a very large addressable market where we can make a meaningful difference in peoples' lives."

Withings creates stylish fitness wearables and smartwatches including the popular Withings Activité

Dish Network and Viacom have signed a new licensing deal, meaning Comedy Central, BET, Spike, MTV, Nick and more are headed to the Sling TV service.

"We appreciate Viacom's willingness to continue with us on our journey as we work to deliver the best, most innovative television services available," said Charlie Ergen, DISH chairman and CEO. "This creative, bold and consumer-friendly approach extends a nearly 20-year-old relationship."

Bitcasa has discontinued its Drive cloud service, with the service shutting down completely on May 20th.

"We are discontinuing our Bitcasa Drive service in order to focus our full attention on our growing platform business," the company said. "All account owners must take action to avoid losing their files. For more information, please visit our Help Center. Thank you for being a Bitcasa Drive user. We have appreciated all of your support."

Bitcasa also offers the CloudFS API that lets companies embed the Bitcasa tech into their applications. The consumer product had too much competition, from notably larger companies like Amazon, Box, Google, Microsoft and Dropbox, and just did not have the name recognition.

In addition, Bitcasa got rid of unlimited storage in 2014, and then got rid of the 5GB free tier last year. They did offer a good deal, however, at 1TB for $10 per month.

When the service launched we reviewed the product, which at the time had promised to be the "infinite cloud storage solution." You can check that old review here: Afterdawn

After launching a year ago exclusively on the Apple TV, HBO Now is now available on some Samsung Smart TVs, the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One.

HBO Now is a $15 per month standalone streaming service that gives you access to HBO's large catalog of original shows, documentaries, movies, comedy specials and boxing without the need for a cable subscription.

Interestingly enough, you won't be able to sign up for HBO Now via your Xbox, so you have to actually sign up via your iOS or Android device, or through your Verizon and Optimum homepages if you use them as your ISP.

Samsung Smart TV owners can sign up directly through their TVs or through the other options.

Two cybercriminals convicted of creating the SpyEye botnet were sentenced this week to a combined 24 years in prison.

Aleksandr "Harderman" Panin, of Russia, and Hamza "Bx1" Bendelladj, of Algeria, were convicted of creating the software that infected hundreds of thousands of computers and helped steal millions from victims.

Panin received nine years for conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, as he was the core developer and distributor of SpyEye. Bendelladj received 15 years for his part in creating the botnet kit and for also running his own botnet using the kit, stealing 200,000 credit card numbers and causing tens of millions of dollars.

"It is difficult to over state the significance of this case, not only in terms of bringing two prolific computer hackers to justice, but also in disrupting and preventing immeasurable financial losses to individuals and the financial industry around the world," said John Horn, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

Facebook has announced today that over 1 million people now access the social media site through Tor for "a variety of reasons related to privacy, security and safety."

Reads the company's post:

Microsoft and Google have agreed to drop all pending regulatory complaints against each other and have also agreed to settle future issues amongst themselves before filing a complaint.

"Microsoft has agreed to withdraw its regulatory complaints against Google, reflecting our changing legal priorities," said a Microsoft rep. "We will continue to focus on competing vigorously for business and for customers."

The two companies say the deal has been in the works for some time, but neither would comment on the current EU inquiry against Android. Microsoft was instrumental in that complaint through their membership in FairSearch and ICOMP, two groups supporting the antitrust inquiry.

But that was a different era, with different leadership, and it appears that CEOs Satya Nadella and Larry Page are much more willing to embrace partnerships than the previous management team.

According to new reports, Samsung executives have been all over Silicon Valley this past week in efforts to secure more deals for their chipmaking business.

Samsung recently signed massive deals with Apple and Qualcomm and has been aiming to convince existing and new potential clients that it will rule the next generation of chip technology, just like it has with the current 14nm manufacturing process.

"We think we are leading again," Samsung Semiconductor senior director Kelvin Low added. "This is not a one-time success story."

The ultimate goal is to have a 10nm chip in production by the end of the year, and a new cost-optimized 14nm process, as well.

The Chinese government has banned Apple's iBooks Store and iTunes Movies store in the nation, following new regulations that put strict regulations on foreign online publishing.

The Chinese State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television had demanded Apple shut down the service pending the new rules. "We hope to make books and movies available again to our customers in China as soon as possible," said Apple when asked for comment.

China is Apple's second-largest market so it makes sense to have the stores brought up to "code" to ensure they are available to hundreds of millions of consumers.

Last month, the regulations came into effect, implicitly stating that all content must be stored on servers in China. Additionally, there were prohibitions made on foreign ownership in online publishing.

Earlier this week, Microsoft stated their Q3 2016 fiscal earnings report and unsurprisingly Windows Phone sales fell again while Surface sales increased.

Overall, the company made $3.8 billion in net profit on $20.5 billion in revenue, down year-over-year but still near record highs for the company.

Surface revenue was up large, at $1.1 billion for the quarter, 61 percent growth year-over-year, thanks to strong sales of the new Surface Book and Surface Pro 4.

On the other end of the spectrum, Windows Phone sales nosedived, with Microsoft selling just 2.3 million Lumia phones during the quarter, down 73 percent year-over-year. Revenue fell 46 percent for the phones.

Apple's "Project Titan" may have just gotten a new boss.

According to multiple reports, former Tesla VP of vehicle engineering Chris Porritt left the company in September 2015 and will begin working for Apple, likely as the head of their electric car project.

There has been some serious poaching between the two companies in recent years, with reports stating Tesla has hired over 150 Apple employees, some of which were poached directly. On the reverse end, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made it clear that nobody goes from Tesla to Apple. "Important engineers? They have hired people we've fired," Musk said. "We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard' If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding."

Porritt, however, was certainly an important executive. Before Tesla, Porritt worked at Aston Martin, creating the One-77, and before that he spent 10 years at Land Rover leaving as principal engineer in vehicle dynamics.

With the addition of Porritt, there may be some more proof that Project Titan isn't just vaporware.

Facebook has announced the addition of group voice calls to their popular Messenger app, starting with the latest update for iOS and Android.

Messenger currently has 900 million users, and Facebook says once you update you will see a "new phone icon" when in group conversations. Hitting the icon will start a phone call with everyone in the group.

The new addition gives Messenger nearly all the features of Skype, the only difference being that you need to have a Facebook account to use Messenger and not everyone cares to have one. Skype also offers group video chat, which we assume is Facebook's next logical update for Messenger.

Opera has added an incredible new perk to their web browser, a free and unlimited VPN.

If you download the developer version of the browser, you "Now, you don't have to download VPN extensions or pay for VPN subscriptions to access blocked websites and to shield your browsing when on public Wi-Fi," said the company.

Opera notes that nearly 500 million people have tried or are currently running VPNs to protect their browsing and that number could jump if a significant amount of Opera's nearly 100 million active users switch over.

In addition, Opera has improved their built-in ad-blocking software, making the browser pretty formidable.