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It appears that Microsoft has been buying up Surface related domains in the last few months, ahead of the expected launch of the Surface Phone.

The software giant now owns surfacephone.com although the domain currently redirects to the main Surface website.

Of course, the moves don't mean Microsoft is actually building a Surface-branded phone, but there is little doubt at this point especially as Microsoft phases out the Nokia and Lumia brands.

In addition to surfacephone.com, Microsoft now owns surfacecar.com and surfacelaptop.com, which are interesting, but likely useless.

Rovio has released the first theatrical trailer for the upcoming Angry Birds Movie, set for release in May.

Reads the statement: "The movie takes us to an island populated entirely by happy, flightless birds – or almost entirely. In this paradise, Red (Jason Sudeikis, We're the Millers, Horrible Bosses), a bird with a temper problem, speedy Chuck (Josh Gad in his first animated role since Frozen), and the volatile Bomb (Danny McBride, This is the End, Eastbound and Down) have always been outsiders. But when the island is visited by mysterious green piggies, it's up to these unlikely outcasts to figure out what the pigs are up to.

Featuring a hilarious, all-star voice cast that includes Bill Hader (Trainwreck, Inside Out), Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, Sisters), and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones), as well as Kate McKinnon (Saturday Night Live, Ghostbusters), Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele), Tony Hale (Veep, Arrested Development), Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Ike Barinholtz (Neighbors, Sisters), Hannibal Buress (Daddy's Home, Broad City), Jillian Bell (22 Jump Street), Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black), Latin music sensation Romeo Santos, YouTube stars Smosh (Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla), and country music superstar Blake Shelton, who writes and performs the original song "Friends," the Columbia Pictures/Rovio Entertainment film is directed by Fergal Reilly and Clay Kaytis and produced by John Cohen and Catherine Winder. The screenplay is by Jon Vitti, and the film is executive produced by Mikael Hed and David Maisel."

Japan Display has confirmed it will begin mass production of OLED panels in 2018, hoping to have such displays used for upcoming Apple iPhones that are rumored to use OLED.

"We will take advantage of our advanced thin-film transistor technology in developing OLED screens," Akio Takimoto, chief of Japan Display's research center.

JD already supplies screens to Apple, but has been facing increased competition from companies like Samsung and LG.

Japan Display, which is majority owned by the government-backed Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ), could soon be merging with Sharp, if the company accepts INCJ's recent bid.

Sony has confirmed a new business structure for their existing PlayStation businesses, with the new company called Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Starting on April 1st, Andrew House will become SIE President and CEO. SIE merges Sony PlayStation Network Services, Sony Network International and Sony Computer Entertainment into one company based in the U.S. Local subsidiaries will also be set up home in Tokyo and in London.

"By integrating the strengths of PlayStation's hardware, software, content and network operations, SIE will become an even stronger entity, with a clear objective to further accelerate the growth of the PlayStation business," says House in a statement. "Along with our business partners, SIE will develop pioneering services and products that will continue to inspire consumers' imaginations and lead the market. We will work hard to maximize corporate value by coordinating global business operations across San Mateo, Tokyo, and London by leveraging local expertise."


Sony added: "It has become important for both SCE and SNEI to unify their business strengths under one entity with a single focus," and that the two former companies will "combine resources across their hardware, software, content and fast-growing network businesses, positioning [SIE] for enhanced competitiveness, continued expansion and market leadership in all areas."

Samsung has announced that they will be opening a New York-based studio dedicated to producing "new, immersive experiences" for Samsung VR headsets.

There was not much else revealed about the studio except that Samsung already inhabits the space and the exsiting marketing team there would not be moving.

Marc Mathieu, chief marketing officer of Samsung USA, would add: "At Samsung we love stories. And we love to help people tell stories."

Samsung has recently showed off its Gear VR headset and premiered their first virtual-reality sketch comedy series as the company tries to offer more and more content for VR early adopters.

As rumored, Spotify is launching a video streaming service to compliment its popular music streaming, and the product is ready to launch this week.

Reportedly, the service will have a 'heavy' mobile presence, launching for Android first and then on iOS next week. Spotify has been private beta testing the service in the US, UK, Germany, and Sweden for a few months.

Subscribers will be able to stream video from popular partners including Comedy Central, ESPN, MTV, BBC and Maker News.

At this point, however, it is still unclear what type of video content will be available and whether it will be exclusive. We should certainly have a better idea soon if the service really is launching this week.

Twitter's stock has been in steep decline for majority of the past year. The plunge didn't stop – quite the opposite – when co-founder Jack Dorsey was appointed as CEO in October.

Now the company is facing another huge problem as executives are leaving the company in an unprecedented pace. When the going gets rough and the times are tough it's very normal to see an exec or even two leaving the company. However, Twitter is having to deal with four high profile executives leaving the company in a very short timespan.

CEO Dorsey has been forced to give an official statement &ndash via Twitter of course. He goes on to dismiss "inaccurate press rumors", whatever they might be, but acknowledges that Alex Roetter, Skip Schipper, Katie Stanton, and Kevil Weil are leaving the company. According to Dorsey the CTO Adam Messinger is taking a responsibility of most of the work left undone and the COO Adam Bain will be taking additional responsibilities as well.

In addition the Twitter owned Vine GM Jason Toff is leaving to develop VR headsets, BGR reports.

Tweets by the public show many kinds of reactions. Some blame Twitter for not taking a strong enough stance against harassment and "violence", some have in the recent past even blamed the company for being partly responsible for ISIS attacks for not actively blocking them. Some think Twitter's downfall is not protecting the freedom of speech and advocating certain type of speech over another that was highlighted by hashtag campaign #JeSuisMilo.

Japan's struggling electronics maker Toshiba is likely to sell part of its chip business as the company hopes to rebound from years of falling revenues and a $1.3 billion accounting scandal that threatened to bankrupt the company.

The company has begun accepting bids and already has some early interest.

Any sale would exclude Toshiba's NAND flash memory division but will include businesses related to LSI and discrete chips. Those chips are used in industrial machinery, cars and home appliances. Together, sales for those businesses were $2.78 billion for the fiscal year ended March 2015.

Toshiba will use any funds to focus on its flash memory production capacity and its storage business.

Just like every corporation, ever, Google has been accused of skirting taxes in different countries but this time, the search giant has decided to pay some back.

Google parent Alphabet has settled in the UK and will pay £130 million in back taxes for the last decade.

From 2006 to 2011, Google made $18 billion in revenue in the UK but paid just $16 million in corporate taxes, using legal loopholes and subsidiaries to avoid higher tax rates.

Moving forward, the taxes paid will be more reflective of the company's actual revenue and profits. "We have agreed with HMRC a new approach for our U.K. taxes and will pay 130 million pounds, covering taxes since 2005," Google said. "We will now pay tax based on revenue from U.K.-based advertisers, which reflects the size and scope of our U.K. business."

Despite the fact that there is a lawsuit out there over the accuracy of Fitbit's heart rate monitors, at least one reputable publication has found the data to be accurate.

Consumer Reports tested the Charge HR and Surge through high-impact workouts and found it to be as accurate as chest-based heart rate monitors. The publication did note that the tracker's accuracy fell off when using the Charge HR in specific intense workouts, but that was fixed by moving the band up the arm from the wrist to the forearm.

The lawsuit should certainly be interesting because there are real concerns if the accuracy is wrong. It is not safe if the Fitbit is conveying a lower heart rate than what is really occurring. It is also unclear how comprehensive a test must be done to truly prove the accuracy of the popular fitness trackers.

According to sources, 16-year Apple executive Steve Zadesky is leaving the company, leaving a vacancy at the head of the company's electric car project.

Zadesky had been overseeing the project since 2014.

The sources say the departure was for personal reasons and did not specify when he will actually be leaving the company. For the time being, he remains with Apple.

Apple's car project, codenamed Titan, has a ship date of 2019 although there are very, very few details available at this time.

Last year, the FBI ran the world's largest child pornography site, allowing users to download disgusting images and videos while they tracked down the criminals.

This is the third time in as many years that the FBI infiltrated an illicit site, leaving it open to identify hundreds of users that would otherwise remain hidden and anonymous.

The site, known as Playpen, was under FBI control from Feb. 20 to March 4, 2015. The site had 215,000 registered users and 23,000 sexually explicit images and videos of minors.

While the tactics have drawn some ire, especially since the victims remain victimized, there does not seem to be a more effective way to find and identify the criminals and perverts.

"We had a window of opportunity to get into one of the darkest places on Earth, and not a lot of other options except to not do it," said Ron Hosko, noted a former senior FBI official. "There was no other way we could identify as many players."

Playpen launched in August 2014 and quickly became the largest child pornography site available in the dark web. In just the two weeks while it was under FBI control, 100,000 users signed up for the site and agents have found "true computer addresses" for 1300 of them, so far. 137 have been charged with crimes.

Google SVP of Ads & Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, had an interesting post this week going over some of the methods Google employs to fight off "bad ads."

"When ads are good, they connect you to products or services you're interested in and make it easier to get stuff you want. They also a lot of what you love about the web--like news sites or mobile apps--free. But some ads are just plain bad--like ads that carry malware, cover up content you're trying to see, or promote fake goods. Bad ads can ruin your entire online experience, a problem we take very seriously," starts Ramaswamy.

The exec says the company has invested millions in tech to ward off bad ads, and now employs 1000 people across the globe dedicated to doing the same.

In the last year, the company disabled 780 million ads for violating Google policy, a number much higher than past years since Google has improved their detection process.

Here is a rundown of some of the "bad ads" Google nuked in 2015:

Counterfeiters
We suspended more than 10,000 sites and 18,000 accounts for attempting to sell counterfeit goods (like imitation designer watches).
Pharmaceuticals
We blocked more than 12.5 million ads that violated our healthcare and medicines policy, such as ads for pharmaceuticals that weren't approved for use or that made misleading claims to be as effective as prescription drugs.
Weight loss scams
Weight-loss scams, like ads for supplements promising impossible-to-achieve weight loss without diet or exercise, were one of the top user complaints in 2015. We responded by suspending more than 30,000 sites for misleading claims.
Phishing
In 2015, we stepped up our efforts to fight phishing sites, blocking nearly 7,000 sites as a result.
Unwanted software
Unwanted software can slow your devices down or unexpectedly change your homepage and keep you from changing it back. With powerful new protections, we disabled more than 10,000 sites offering unwanted software, and reduced unwanted downloads via Google ads by more than 99 percent.
Trick to click
We got even tougher on ads that mislead or trick people into interacting with them--like ads designed to look like system warnings from your computer. In 2015 alone we rejected more than 17 million.
Creating a better experience
Sometimes even ads that offer helpful and relevant information behave in ways that can be really annoying--covering up what you're trying to see or sending you to an advertiser's site when you didn't intend to go there. In 2015, we disabled or banned the worst offenders.
Accidental mobile clicks
We've all been there. You're swiping through a slideshow of the best moments from the Presidential debate when an ad redirects you even though you didn't mean to click on it. We're working to end that. We've developed technology to determine when clicks on mobile ads are accidental. Instead of sending you off to an advertiser page you didn't mean to visit, we let you continue enjoying your slideshow (and the advertiser doesn't get charged).
Bad sites and apps
In 2015, we stopped showing ads on more than 25,000 mobile apps because the developers didn't follow our policies. More than two-thirds of these violations were for practices like mobile ads placed very close to buttons, causing someone to accidentally click the ad. There are also some sites and apps that we choose not to work with because they don't follow our policies. We also reject applications from sites and mobile apps that want to show Google ads but don't follow our policies. In 2015 alone, we rejected more than 1.4 million applications.

Last week, Netflix announced it would begin blocking subscribers who were accessing their streaming catalogs using proxies or VPNs.

This weekend, an Australian-based VPN called uFlix says that Netflix has begun blocking some of its users, leaving subscribers with the simple message on their screen: "You seem to be using an unblocker or proxy. Please turn off any of these services and try again."

Netflix's tactics do not appear to be too complicated, with the streaming giant identifying and then blocking IP addresses associated with VPNs or proxies. The VPNs can quickly and effectively get around the blocks by changing their servers, which will lead to an extended cat and mouse game between subscribers and the company.

Microsoft has updated its Office suite app for iOS, adding support for 3D Touch gestures and the Apple Pencil.

You can use the gestures to toggle 'Quick Actions,' and will let the different apps (Word, Excel, etc) to open up recent documents on launch, for example.

Additionally, there is a new "Draw" tab within the suite. You can use the Apple Pencil to write, draw or annotate text if you have an iPad Pro, or you can use your finger for any iOS device.

Finally, if you are running iOS 9, the apps are integrated into Spotlight so you can search for specific docs and have them show up in the universal search.