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According to new reports, Microsoft is planning to release a digital-only "slim" Xbox One later in 2016.

If true, the new console will cost less than the current MSRP of the Xbox One, $350.

Microsoft blogger Brad Sams calls the reported console a "lightweight Xbox One," and expects it will launch in time for the holiday season.

To lose its weight and keep the price down, the new Xbox One will only allow for digital downloads and will not have a disc drive. Says the blogger: "I have heard from internal sources that the company is considering plans for a lightweight Xbox One that may only be for Windows store games and would compete with the Apple TV. But it's not clear if these plans have been scrapped."

The idea is certainly interesting, especially if the price drops significantly under that of the original Xbox One (let's say, $199) and if the new console includes some extra home entertainment features.

It has been five months since Windows 10 was released in late July and the pace at which it has been adopted surpassed that of its predecessor by quite a margin. New figures reveal that Windows 10 will soon overtake Windows 8.1.

Net Applications' figures show that Windows 10 has increased its marketshare another 1 percent since November. The pace has slightly slowed down but still hovers around one percent per month.

One in ten computers (with desktop OS) now run Windows 10 and it is expected that Windows 10 will overtake both Windows 8.1 and Windows XP within the first month in 2016. However, there's a long way still to beat the Windows 7's over 55 percent share.

All Windows operating systems still have a commanding 91.3 percent share as OS X is at 7 percents and Linux at 1.66%.

Just as the calendar was set to turn to 2016, ride-hailing service Uber celebrated another massive milestone: 1 billion rides.

A couple in London took the 1 billionth trip in an Uber car, just another milestone as the company continues to grow exponentially across the globe.

"Their £5 London uberX ride together on Christmas Eve from London Fields, Hackney to Hoxton in Ara's blue Honda Insight Hybrid was the billionth Uber trip," the company wrote. "One billion. That's a whole lot of riders and drivers sharing the road, special moments, and celebrations together. Certainly far more than we ever imagined when we got started in San Francisco five and a half years ago."

One of the most popular RPGs of the early 2000s, Final Fantasy IX, is headed to PC and mobile devices next year.

Developer Square Enix said the game will be released first in Japan to be followed by Europe and North America, although the time frames are still unclear. It is also unclear if the game will be released for Android and iOS, although it is expected to launch for both.

Just like they have done with past ports, Square Enix will add auto-save and graphical improvements to FFIX.

One of the most popular messaging apps WhatsApp is down. Nearly a billion people have been suffering from the outage for the majority of the past four hours.

According to Down Detector, a site that detects services for downtime, the first reports came in four hours ago. After that the problem appeared to be resolved a couple of times but only for a moment.

As of this moment WhatsApp seems to be down again – or still – but the company is promising to work on a fix as fast as possible.

Obviously today is one of the busiest days for the messaging platforms as people are celebrating the New Year. Hopefully WhatsApp will be able to resolve the situation before your obligatory "Happy New Year" texts.

According to multiple sources, a 'security breach' may be to blame for the abrupt end to what has so far been a plentiful DVD screener season.

The release groups behind the encodes promised 40 leaks by the end of the year, but the last couple of dozen may never make it to your favorite warez sites.

It appears that the FBI is targeting members of the release group Hive-CM8, the group responsible for most of the screeners out now, including The Big Short, The Revenant, Hateful 8, Steve Jobs, Bridge of Spies and more.

Apparently, a person using the screen name 'Sup3rman,' quickly and easily exposed some basic details of a major uploader by checking the source of the screenshots attached to the releases. While the information was and is available publicly, there is speculation that the "expose" has scared off the group for the time being.

Verizon has decided to take the fight to its growing rivals, offering up to $650 to switch carriers and end your contract early.

Says the company: "Now is the best time to switch to Verizon and receive up to $650 per line. Verizon will buy out your contract and cover early termination fees and device or lease buyouts from your old wireless provider. A family of four who've been waiting for the right time to switch to Verizon can use the incentive on each eligible line and receive up to $2,600."

There are a number of caveats to getting that large sum, however. You must port your number from another carrier, you must purchase a 4G LTE smartphone with new device activation and you must trade-in your existing device. The trade-in must be in good working condition and the new line must remain active for at least six months.

In addition, if you switch now to an XL or XXL plan, you get an extra 2GB of bonus data, per month, forever.

According to numerous reports, Beatles songs were streamed 50 million times in the first 48 hours after they became legally available on sites like Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play.

For years, the Beatles' music was unavailable digitally due to contract disputes, but it seems the remaining members of the group and the estates of the others have agreed it is finally time to move on.

The most popular track, so far, is 'Come Together,' with over 2 million streams and on Spotify, 65 percent of listeners to the Beatles catalog were under the age of 34, an interesting statistic given that the group broke up in the 1970s.

According to TorrentFreak, 'Game of Thrones' is the most pirated TV show for the fourth year running, followed by 'The Walking Dead.'

The site estimates 14.4 million downloads via public torrent trackers for the 2015 season finale, handily beating out the competition. By comparison, the site estimates that 8.1 million viewers watched the finale on TV or via HBO Go or HBO Now.

The Walking Dead and fellow runner-up 'Big Bang Theory' each saw significant pirated downloads, but legitimate TV viewership was even higher.

TF bases their figures on several sources but does not go too much in-depth into how they are calculated. One thing to note is that streaming and cyberlocker downloads are not included so these numbers are possibly very low compared to real figures.

As people celebrated Christmas et al., Amazon celebrated record-setting holiday season for Prime. The company also doubled the number of Amazon devices.

According to the stats more than 3 million new people joined the Amazon Prime just in the third week of December alone. Amazon Prime shipped over 200 million items for free during the holiday season and the Christmas Eve was the busiest Prime day ever.

Amazon also sold twice as many devices compared to last year which held the record previously. The two of the top 3 most popular items on Amazon were their own products (#1 Fire tablet and #3 Fire Stick).

A record number of people also accessed Prime Music, Prime Video, and other services. The company has listed all the records, interesting facts about the most popular products, and all kinds of information about the services here.

Samsung has announced the Galaxy A9 today for the Chinese market, the high-end model for the company's metal designed A-series line.

The device has a 6-inch 1080p SAMOLED display with 2.5D curved glass, runs on Android 5.1.1 and is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 652 processor. Additionally, the high-end device has 3GB RAM, at least 32GB internal storage, a microSD slot, dual 13MP/8MP cameras with OIS and ƒ/1.9 aperture and a giant 4000mAh battery.

Finally, the glass and metal designed phone is just 7.4mm thin and includes a fingerprint sensor in the home button.

Pricing was unconfirmed but will be revealed next month before the phone's launch.

Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal has invested in ride-sharing service Lyft, valuing the company at near $5 billion.

The Prince's holding company will pay $105 million for a 2.3 percent stake. Even at a large $5 billion valuation, the ridesharing app has just a fraction of the value and drivers of market leader Uber, who has expanded around the globe.

Al-Waleed is not the first international investor for Lyft, which is U.S.-only currently. Chinese ride-sharing service Didi Kuaidi has also invested and so have smaller local companies around the globe.

By comparison, Uber has a market value of around $65 billion, making it one of the largest private companies on the planet.

Yesterday, Valve was forced to shut down the Steam store after users were able to see personal information in other people's accounts through their own dashboard.

While it was unclear what was going on, Valve was quick to shut the store to avoid unauthorized access.

Within a few hours, the store was back and everything was back to normal. Added Valve: "Steam is back up and running without any known issues. As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved. We believe no unauthorized actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information and no additional action is required by users."

The most notable holdouts in the streaming era, the Beatles, now have their music available via the most popular streaming services.

As of this morning (Merry Christmas), Spotify, Apple Music, Slacker, Tidal, Microsoft's Groove, Rhapsody, Deezer, Google Play and Amazon Prime will all have access to the Beatles catalog. Pandora is notably absent from the list, but they also do not make on-demand deals although you could hear Beatles tracks if you get the right radio shuffle.

Both Google and Microsoft have launched Santa tracking sites, giving kids a chance to check where Santa is currently flying and learn fun facts about the city/country/continent he's currently visiting.

Microsoft's tracker is in partnership with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) while Google is using its own software. For both, you can click on points of interest and see information about the locations while Microsoft's offering will also work through Cortana and bring up tidbits of info.

Check out more info here and here.