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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.

The operator of the defunct RockDizMusic music piracy site has been sentenced to three years in prison.

U.S. authorities had accused 23-year-old Rocky Ouprasith of running the site that allegedly infringed thousands of copyrighted tracks. Ouprasith will also have to pay near $100,000 in fines and restitution.

Ouprasith pleaded guilty to infringing the copyrighted music that had a total value of $7 million between 2011 and 2014 when authorities shut down the site. The site owner was making about $4000 a month in advertising, and in a Skype chat message he wrote that the site brought in about $80,000 revenue in 2013, alone.

In an effort avoid getting caught, Ouprasith used servers in Russia and The Netherlands. At the time the site was shut down, the RIAA claimed it was the second largest music piracy site in the U.S. The site offered thousands of singles, albums and mixtapes for download.

Swiss watchmaker Movado has unveiled new smartwatches today, both of which have classic Movado style and some basic smart features.

What's interesting about the devices is that they both have analog displays (meaning no touchscreens), and can connect via Bluetooth to Android 4.4 or newer or iOS 8 or newer devices.

The Movado Museum Sport Motion "is a fine Swiss watch of simple, modern design. Inside it uses patented MotionX® smartwatch technology to track your daily steps and sleep patterns, and deliver "get active" alerts. Movado Motion is easy to set-up and sync with your paired smartphone or tablet, Android 4.4.3 or later, or iOS 8 or later, when you download and install the MotionX-365 app. It features automatic local time/date sync, and the battery has a 2-year life and never needs recharging."

Movado's BOLD Motion "has Bluetooth connectivity, engineered by HP, Android and iOS compatible, 44 mm stainless steel case with black PVD-finished bezel, round black dial with teal LED indicators; haptic phone call, appointment, email, text message, social media alerts; recharger for smart module; black silicone strap with stainless steel buckle."

From a design standpoint, this author is a fan of Movado and likes these watches, but it's hard to really see a huge need for the "smart" features of the watches.

Microsoft and Code.org have announced a partnership in which Minecraft will be used to teach kids the basics of programming.

The 14-level tutorial is available for free and it will look like the classic Minecraft game except that you will need to use programming principles to play and move ahead.

Code.org's co-founder Hadi Partovi explained that the tutorial is part of the site's 'Hour of Code' event that tries to get as many kids as possible to try coding for one hour at least once per year. "The goal of one hour is to teach you that this is something that you can do and it's more fun than you thought. Frankly, it's to hook you to want to learn more," Partovi said. "The stereotypes you hear in pop culture make people think this is just for one group. We want to break those stereotypes, demystify the field and break the barrier of intimidation and show this is fun."

Over 60 million students tried it out last year, and this year's event is on December 7th.

The hacktivist collective better known as 'Anonymous' has declared war on ISIS following the Paris terrorist attacks.

Posting on YouTube, the collective says the terrorist attacks will not "go unpunished" and that anyone who supports the extremist group can expect cyber attacks.

"That's why Anonymous activists from all over the world will hunt you down. Yes, you, the vermin who kill innocent victims, we will hunt you down like we did to those who carried out the attacks on Charlie Hebdo," says the video. "War is declared. Prepare yourselves. Know this, the French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger."

After the Charlie Hebdo attack, Anonymous was key in getting 25,000 ISIS-supporting Twitter accounts kicked off the service and the group also took down a French site that was full of extremists.

It has been suggested today, although unconfirmed, that the ISIS terrorists could have used game consoles to hide their messages and plan the Paris attacks that have killed 132 innocent people.

According to sources, police seized at least one PlayStation 4 following their raids in Belgium yesterday.

Both French and American officials say the terrorists used encryption and other sophisticated methods to plan the coordinated bombings and shootings.

While it is unfair to lump popular consoles in with terrorists, reports have brought up some interesting and scary methods in which people could have communicated secretly. Besides the PlayStation's online chat messaging and voice call capabilities, "it has been suggested for example terrorists could spell out an attack plan in Super Mario Maker's coins and share it privately with a friend, or two Call of Duty players could write messages to each other on a wall in a disappearing spray of bullets."

This is not the first time it has been implied that video game communities could be used by criminals to communicate secretly. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden showed documents that the NSA and the UK equivalent, GCHQ, were both infiltrating communities like 'Second Life' and 'World of Warcraft' to monitor messages.