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If new reports are to be believed, then Microsoft's final Lumia phone will launch on February 1st.

The Lumia 650 is ready, and we will have official details on February 1st, say the sources, although it remains unclear when the phone will actually be available for purchase.

Over the past few months, leaks have basically revealed the 650 in full, but the following specs are obviously subject to change:

Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos has confirmed that the streaming giant will throw down an obscene amount of money on content in 2016.

"Is there too much TV?" Sarandos asked. "We don't think there's too much TV. And if there is too much TV, someone else is going to have to slow down, because we have big plans for 2016 and beyond."

For the year, the company will have 600 hours of original programming, with the company spending $6 billion on content. This will include original shows and syndicated programming. "We are running a global network," Sarandos noted, "one that is not easily comparable either in business or cultural terms ... We're not courting advertisers because we're not targeting a single demographic."

At the same time, Netflix let fans know that the company's most popular show, 'Orange is the New Black,' will be back for its next season on June 17th.

WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum has announced today that the popular app now has 990 million users, suggesting it will hit the billion user milestone by the end of the month.

"On the one hand, this is a huge number," Koum noted. "On the other hand, it's a little embarrassing. We're about 10 million short," he added in jest.

With near one billion users, the next step is, of course, making the service profitable for its parent Facebook. The app used to cost $1 per year (a silly number for such extensive features), and Koum actually announced that the company is dropping that nominal cost, making the app free, forever.

"We've done really well in the consumer space, but there is whole other aspect of communication as you go through your day: You want to communicate with businesses," he says. "We've taken SMS technology for consumers and improved it. Now, we want to do the same with commercial messaging." Over the coming months, WhatsApp will be testing out ways to bring in revenue, likely starting with its large business user base. For example, you can message your buddies to go out to dinner and then message a restaurant to make a reservation, where they can respond back quickly.

Apple has confirmed that its popular ad-supported iTunes Radio (Apple Music Radio) service will no longer be free as of January 28th.

Moving forward you will have to pay $9.99 a month for Apple Music to have unlimited access to iTunes Radio. The continiously running Beats 1 radio station will remain free, however.

The company says only that "Beats 1 will be the premier free broadcast so you'll continue to get all the best music and culture there with world-class DJs like Zane Lowe and specialty programming from artists like Dr. Dre, Drake, Pharrell Williams, and more."

iTunes Radio launched in 2013 to rival Pandora and has been part of iOS ever since.

Following in the footsteps of Uber, ride-hailing app Lyft has dropped the price of fares in 33 cities to combat the slower trip traffic in the winter months.

Uber announced last week that it was dropping its fares by 10 percent in 100 cities.

"At Lyft we want to remain the most affordable option for passengers," a spokesperson added. "We also know that in January many people make resolutions to save money. So starting today, we are lowering prices in 33 markets to get people back on the road at a lower cost and help ensure our drivers are in high demand."

A few of the major metros to see reduced prices are Denver, LA, DC, San Francisco, Detroit and San Jose. Chicago and New York are notably absent from the list, as demand is always high there.

Google's experimental lab, Google X, will now be known just as X as the division tries to turn its experiments into profitable businesses.

Following the company's reorganization as Alphabet, Google promised investors that X and other investments outside of the core businesses would be refocused and this move will satisfy that promise. X is now Alphabet's 'incubator,' taking some of the more ambitious experiments, focusing on them, and then 'graduating' them to profitable standalone operations.

The criteria for deciding whether the projects live or die has also been refocused, with a group dubbed 'The Foundry' running the projects through the ringer.

A few of the projects that are being incubated within X are Project Titan, Project Wing and Project Loon. Titan is the company's robotics project, Wing is the drone delivery program and Loon is the Internet-supplying balloon project.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Microsoft's appeal over a class action suit that alleged that the Xbox 360 hardware had a defect that led to game discs being scratched and ruined.

In the suit, Xbox 360 owners claimed that the optical disc drive could not withstand even minor vibrations, leading the games to spin "out of control" and scratch during normal gameplay, eventually making the games unplayable.

Microsoft had refuted the claim, noting that only 0.4 percent of Xbox owners ever reported disc scratching and that those owners misused the console.

A 2012 ruling dismissed the class action claims, but a 2015 appeal reversed the original dismissal.

Apple's rise to the top and success after it has been unparalleled. But as the saying, or the song, goes "what goes up must come down". And according to some the downward curve might be in the horizon for Apple.

The Cupertino giant is such a massive company that sales slowing down affects major manufacturers, suppliers of iPhone and iPad parts. According to Wall Street Journal, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is warning about lowering first half revenue due to decrease in demand.

Also among companies suffering from lowering demand are camera manufacturer Largan Precision and casing manufacturer Catcher Technologies.

It's not entirely clear from what portion of revenue this decline comes from. But the companies agree that smartphone demand is the reason. All of the companies have been providing parts for iPhones.

TSMC has also lost a major deal with Qualcomm as Samsung will be manufacturing Snapdragon 820 that will be featured on most of 2016's highend smartphones. Apple's A9 chips are manufactured by both TSMC and Samsung.

While YouTube seems to be the perfect website for viewing videos that might not be entirely the case. There are some features that people have been wanting for a long time, and some of those are already found on other YouTube applications.

One these features is the Picture in Picture or PiP that lets you browse and search YouTube while continuing to play the video in a smaller window. This is especially useful when you are listening to music using YouTube and don't want to hassle with multiple tabs and don't want the music to pause.

This feature is already found on the mobile YouTube and now you can get it on your desktop YouTube experience with the new Chrome extension. It is currently on Beta and can be downloaded here.

According to a new report by IBD, Amazon Prime is now being used by 38 percent of American households, an incredible number if true.

Amazon Prime, which costs $99 for most people, allows users to order millions of products with free 2-day shipping, allows users to stream millions of songs and also includes a large catalog of films and TV shows to stream.

Another report recently noted that Amazon Prime customers are higher earners than the average American (and the average Target and Walmart buyers) with an average household income of $69,300. That number is 25 percent higher than Walmart shoppers, and 4 percent higher than Target buyers.

If the report is to be believed, that would suggest that Amazon Prime is now being used in over 47 million households, with Amazon seeing growth rates in the double digits every year.

Al Jazeera America, the cable channel launched in 2013 to rival mainstream media like CNN and Fox News, has shut down following years of no viewership.

The channel came to be after Al Jazeera purchased Al Gore's Current TV for $500 million. When the channel officially goes dark in April, Al Jazeera says it will "expand its digital presence in the United States." The expansion "would bring new global content into America."

At its peak, the channel had just 30,000 viewers, a far cry from viewership levels required to be profitable. Rivals averaged anywhere from 300,000 to 1.5 million viewers during the same periods.

CEO Al Anstey, said the "decision by Al Jazeera America's board is driven by the fact that our business model is simply not sustainable in light of the economic challenges in the U.S. media marketplace."

Netflix, which now offers their streaming service in 190 countries, says it will do its best to shut down proxy users who use the services to get around country-based content licensing restrictions.

Within the next few weeks, Netflix subscribers using proxies will be restricted to content from just their own countries, however, it is unclear how Netflix will pull off the feat.

VP of content delivery architecture David Fullagar did note the bigger problem is that Netflix's catalog is not equal across the world, but that Netflix is actively working on the complicated world of global licensing deals.

"We are making progress in licensing content across the world... but we have a ways to go before we can offer people the same films and TV series everywhere," he wrote. "For now, given the historic practice of licensing content by geographic territories, the TV shows and movies we offer differ, to varying degrees, by territory. In the meantime, we will continue to respect and enforce content licensing by geographic location."

MUBI, the "Netflix for independent films," is expanding to China.

The streaming startup has announced a partnership with Hong Kong-based Huanxi Media, a company that finances films specifically for the Chinese market.

MUBI China, as the joint venture will be known, comes with a $40 million investment for 70 percent stake from Huanxi and an additional $10 million investment in the MUBI parent company.

Offering a "curated online cinema," MUBI is very interesting in that it offers 30 films at a time to stream via mobile or desktop and a new title is added daily as one falls off.

"What we are seeing in China is that they are at the very, very beginning of VOD," says Efe Cakarel, the CEO and founder of MUBI. "The market is wide open." He adds that while Chinese companies like Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba have focused on user-generated video platforms or ad-supported premium content, "no one has quite established a subscription-based platform, which we think is the only viable platform to show premium content and make the economics work."

Google has announced today that the Nexus 5X will start at $349 moving forward, a $30 price drop for the newly launched device.

The smartphone is the smaller of the two Google flagships, the same way Apple has the 6s and 6s Plus, and the specs are still very solid, especially for the updated price.

Under the hood of the Nexus 5 is a Snapdragon 808 processor, 2GB RAM and a 2700mAh. The phone runs on Android Marshmallow, has a 5.2-inch 1080p display (with Gorilla Glass 3), the USB-C charging port, and the same 12MP camera of the Nexus 6P which includes 1.55-micron pixels for excellent night shots.

Check out the device here: Google Store

Amazon's popular voice-activated personal assistant Echo is about to get smaller.

According to sources, Amazon will be releasing a smaller, portable model of the Echo in the next few weeks, under the codename "Fox."

The new portable will sell for cheaper than its larger brother, which sells for $180. The Echo can answer questions (similar to Siri and Cortana), can create your Amazon shopping lists, can control your music and can even plug into smart home networks to turn off connected lights, for example. It can also tell you the weather, traffic and give you restaurant recommendations through Yelp.

Echo has been a surprise hit for Amazon, which clearly launched it as an experiment to test out its voice command software, Alexa. After the company dropped the price, it started selling wildly and now has over 30,000 reviews, with a 4.5/5 star overall rating.

Most recently, Amazon set aside $100 million to integrate its Alexa software into other consumer devices, including a deal with Ford to have Alexa in new cars allowing for garage doors to be opened by voice command.

Source:
WSJ