Latest news

Pepsi (yes, the soda giant) has officially unveiled their Pepsi Phone P1s for China.

The device has relatively high-ends specs and will sell for just $110.

Full spec sheet:

5.5-inch (1080 x 1920 pixels) Full HD 2.5D Curved Screen display
1.7 GHz Octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor with Mali 450-MP4 GPU
2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, microSD expansion slot
Hybrid Dual SIM (second nano SIM slot can also be used as microSD slot)
dido OS 6.1 based on Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
13MP rear camera with LED Flash
5MP front-facing camera
Fingerprint sensor
Dimensions: 152.2 ×76.2×7.7 mm; Weight: 158g
4G LTE / 3G, WiFi 802.1 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
3000mAh battery

According to sources, Google is aiming to have a Chinese version of the Google Play store available in the nation next year.

The store will comply with Chinese laws for sensitive content, meaning it will be censored and not connected to the other international stores.

Google has been out of China since 2010 after they refused to censor their search results and just pulled their services.

The search giant is expected to use the Play Store as a gateway to begin offering more services in China, like Gmail or possibly YouTube.

Yahoo has infuriated a few of its email users today as it tests out a feature that will block access to your email if you are running an ad blocker.

Users trying to log in to their Yahoo email saw an error message that told them to "please disable ad blocker to continue using Yahoo Mail."

After receiving complaints, Yahoo confirmed the move. "At Yahoo, we are continually developing and testing new product experiences," Yahoo said. "This is a test we're running for a small number of Yahoo Mail users in the U.S."

It seems that ad blocking is really hurting companies that rely on ads.

In the wake of the company's bankruptcy, Rdio has announced that it will stop accepting new customers this Monday.

Additionally, all existing premium subscriptions will be cancelled at the time of your next billing date and you will stop seeing recurring payments taken from your credit/debit card.

"After your subscription ends, you can continue listening to Rdio Free (ad-supported stations on mobile or ad-supported, on-demand songs, albums, and playlists on the web) until the service goes offline," added Rdio. The service is expected to be shut down permanently within the next 90 days.

Internet radio giant Pandora acquired the talent and key tech of Rdio for $75 million following the bankruptcy announcement, so Rdio fans may want to check out Pandora.

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 now has PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility, with more games coming in the future.

"We are working on utilizing PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation ... We have nothing further to comment at this point in time," said Sony.

As part of the new Star Wars: Battlefront PS4 bundle, gamers are able to download Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter and Star Wars Racer: Revenge and Super Star Wars, all available running in emulation.

In fact, the PS2 logo appears whenever you launch the old games and the button prompts are all mapped as if you are using a DualShock 2.

It will be very interesting to see which games are released next, but expect more bundles in the future.

According to a new report, LG has canceled their anticipated 2nd-generation Watch Urbane with LTE connectivity.

The watch's release has been suspended indefinetely "due to an unspecified hardware issue."

AndroidPolice, who was in the middle of testing the device for a review, received this email from LG: "We understand that you are currently reviewing our latest smartwatch; however, late in the quality assurance process for the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE, our engineers were made aware of a hardware issue which affects the day-to-day functionality of the device. After further investigation, the decision was made to cancel the rollout of the Urbane 2nd Edition LTE due to the complicated nature of the issue."

The device was set to be the first Android Wear watch with mobile connectivity and voice call capabilities, so this latest news is a blow to Google and Android Wear.

Activist investor Starboard Value has asked Yahoo to not sell their stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba but instead sell their core search and ad businesses, all of which are struggling.

The hedge fund has a large stake in Yahoo, and they have been trying to take Yahoo private for some time without success. Starboard says the company's "current net cash holding and the funds raised from a sale of the business could be returned to shareholders through buybacks and dividends."

Yahoo had planned to spinoff their Alibaba stake, currently worth about $30 billion, but the U.S. IRS ruled that the transaction would not be tax-free as previously suggested. If it is taxable, shareholders could pay $12 billion on the transaction, significantly killing its value.

As of writing, all of Yahoo is valued at just $31 billion.

Amazon has finally moved ahead in securing your account, adding two-factor authentication.

Other giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have been using two-factor for some time, so it's great that Amazon finally to jump on the bandwagon.

For Amazon, you want to log into your account, head over to account settings and finally to "Advanced Security Settings." In there you can set up two-factor, which will require a code sent to your phone or for you to download an Authenticator app.

For those who are interested, the Amazon FAQ page is here.

Google says that games and apps that contain ads will soon be listed in the Google Play Store with a new "ad-supported" label, making it easier to know what you are really getting when you download those "free" apps.

Until now, the label had been solely used in the 'Designed for Families' section but it will roll out to all in January.

The new label will show up right below the "install" button for the apps, making it nearly impossible to miss.

For devs, you will need to log into your Play Developer Console and check off whether the apps contain ads before January 11th to stay in compliance.

According to multiple reports out of Europe, the ISIS terrorists responsible for the recent Paris attacks were using smartphones without encryption, sending messages out in the open.

Authorities found a phone from one of the attackers in a trash can outside the Bataclan concert hall and were able to access the data on the phone including maps of the concert hall, and text messages saying "we're off; we're starting," Additionally, the police were able to trace the phone's movements for the whole day.

Alleged mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud previously had multiple plans thwarted, including one on a French-bound train and another in Belgium in January. Authorities say he did not use encryption when planning those attacks, either.

Intelligence agencies were quick to blame encryption and lack of surveillance for not being able to track the terrorists better, but that may not have been as big an issue as believed.

Two days before its official release, Adele's latest album "25" is now freely available on the Internet.

Over the past few days, there have been rumors of leaks especially after a UK record store uploaded a few minutes of each track, but the full album never made it online until now.

Regardless of the leak, '25' is expected to be one of the most purchased albums of the year. Adele is also said to have rejected streaming licenses for the album, at least for the time being, meaning if you want it legally then you will have to head over to a place that sells CD (where?) or head over to iTunes or Google Play and download them.

According to Canaccord Genuity, Apple's total share of smartphone industry profits is now up to 94 percent, even though the company only ships 14.5 percent of the world's smartphones.

Samsung had 11 percent share and the number is above 100 percent because quite a few smartphone makers report negative income every quarter.

For the last quarter, Apple shipped 48 million smartphones, good for 14.5 percent share of the global market. Samsung was estimated at 81 million, or good for 24.5 percent share.

The average selling price (ASP) for iPhones in the quarter was an incredible $670, and Apple has 39 percent margins. Samsung's ASP was $180.

Following in the footsteps of its parent company, MetroPCS has begun offering 'Music Unlimited' and 'Data Maximizer' features allowing customers to stream music without using their monthly data allotments and stream more video with the same data.

Music Unlimited gives you unlimited data access to 30 streaming services including the most popular like Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, Slacker, iHeart Radio, and Google Play Music. The 'Data Maximizer' service 'optimizes' the video being streamed to ensure you save data. The company promises you'll be able to watch up to 3x the video you were before with the same amount of data. If you opt-in to the Data Maximizer, your video will stream at 480p.

You must be a subscriber to the company's $40, $50 or $60 plans to get access to Music Unlimited and the Data Maximizer is available to all. The $40 plan includes 3GB of LTE and unlimited EDGE if you go over, the $50 plan has 5GB LTE and the $60 plan gives you 8GB.

According to a new report, Samsung is looking to integrate its high-end security features like KNOX and fingerprint sensors into their budget smartphones moving forward.

Additionally, the phones could get access to Samsung Pay, Samsung's new mobile payments service that is only available on the latest Galaxy devices.

While component costs were a big reason only high-end devices included fingerprint scanners in the past, it is clear that those prices are more than reasonable now. Chinese smartphone OEM Coolpad recently released their Coolpad Note 3 flagship with a fingerprint sensor in India for $135.

Samsung does not market their budget phones in the U.S. and other developed nations, for the most part, but the company has over majority market share in quite a few emerging markets like Turkey, Egypt, India and Portugal and continues to target those markets for growth.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden made some interesting comments during a recent interview, suggesting that everybody should be running an ad blocker, if not for the ads but just for security's sake.

Says Snowden: "We've seen internet providers like Comcast, AT&T, or whoever it is, insert their own ads into your plaintext http connections. ... As long as service providers are serving ads with active content that require the use of Javascript to display, that have some kind of active content like Flash embedded in it, anything that can be a vector for attack in your web browser -- you should be actively trying to block these. Because if the service provider is not working to protect the sanctity of the relationship between reader and publisher, you have not just a right but a duty to take every effort to protect yourself in response."

His point adds to recent headlines for these "malvertising" attacks where ad networks host files that are disguised as advertisements, and unwittingly put their viewers at risk.

Snowden is not the only person using ad blockers and their popularity has surged tremendously over the past few years. In fact, some reports have users jumping 41 percent year over year to over 200 million.