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According to a new report, Toshiba is preparing to sell its image sensor business to Sony as part of its ongoing restructuring plans.

It is unclear how much Toshiba will sell the business for. New CEO Muromachi had promised to restructure Toshiba's lower margin businesses, starting with the image sensor division.

Sony is already one of the top manufacturers of image sensors, making the tech for Xiaomi, Micromax, and others.

A day after retailers leaked specs and assumed price for the device, BlackBerry has officially priced its Priv Android slider smartphone.

The device will sell for $699 unlocked, a massive price tag even for the powerful specs.

BlackBerry's first Android phone has a curved 5.4-inch QHD display, is powered by a Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (expandable to 2TB), dual 2MP/18MP cameras, a large 3410 mAh battery and a full physical keyboard.

The Priv will work with major U.S. GSM providers AT&T and T-Mobile and not with Sprint, Verizon or US Cellular. BlackBerry also says they have included their own security and privacy features including a tool called DTEK that constantly monitors your apps and the operating system for any security vulnerabilites.

Get it here for its November 6th release date.

Microsoft has confirmed that its new Edge browser will get the promised extension and add-on support, but in 2016.

The extensions, which are well known to Chrome users, were expected in the Windows 10 Fall Update but apparently did not make the cut.

Says Microsoft: "We're committed to providing customers with a personalized web experience, which is why bringing extensions to Microsoft Edge continues to be a high priority. We're actively working to develop a secure extension model to make the safest and most reliable browser for our customers, and look forward to sharing more in a future Windows 10 update in 2016."

Included in the Fall Update will be a few bug fixes and the addition of a preview pane when hovering the cursor over the tab.

Source:
Ars

According to the latest Q3 figures from Canalys, Huawei has now become the top selling smartphone vendor in China, beating out massive 'startup' Xiaomi.

It is Huawei's first time at the top, seeing 81 percent year-over-year growth. Xiaomi actually saw a decrease, but it has had double digit or triple digit gains for years now.

"Huawei's ascent to China's smartphone throne is a remarkable feat, especially in the context of an increasingly cutthroat and maturing Chinese smartphone market," added Canalys analyst Jessie Ding.

Canalys did not have full device sales just yet, but promised numbers early next month.

Internet radio giant Pandora has settled with the major record labels over royalties owed for tracks written before 1972, songs that aren't covered by federal copyright but are covered by most states.

Pandora will pay $90 million, a large sum that follows a $210 million settlement made by SiriusXM satellite radio earlier this year for the same copyright issues.

The settlement will cover all previous streams of pre-1972 music, and all streams until the end of 2016. At that point, a new licensing deal will have to be made or the music must be removed from the service.

"Pandora is excited to have found resolution with these record labels," said Pandora CEO Brian McAndrews in a statement. "We pursued this settlement in order to move the conversation forward and continue to foster a better, collaborative relationship with the labels."

Following claims that their new One A9 copies the design of the iPhone, HTC has struck back, stating that HTC actually pioneered the look.

"We're not copying. We made a uni-body metal-clad phone in 2013. It's Apple that copies us in terms of the antenna design on the back," said Jack Tong, president of HTC North Asia.

It is true that HTC created the design of a metal-clad phone with radio signals in the back when it unveiled the One M7.

"The A9 is made thinner and more lightweight than our previous metal-clad phones. This is a change and evolution, and we're not copying," he said.

You can read and see some pictures of the A9 in our announcement post here.

According to Windows insider Paul Thurrott, the Windows 10 Fall Update is slated for release next month.

Windows 10 build 1511 will be available to all Windows 7, 8.1 and Windows 10 users, and you won't have to reactive your Windows after the update.

The update comes with an improved Media Creation Tool (for backing up Windows), new features for Cortana, improvements for Edge and a ton of bug fixes.

You can see some more changes at the source.

Thanks to a couple of retailer leaks, we have the specs and price for the upcoming Android-powered BlackBerry Priv.

BlackBerry has been releasing minimal information about the device, but leakers like Evan Blass have outed the design through full mock ups.

If true, the leaked specs claim a 5.4-inch WQHD AMOLED, a 1.8Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 with 3GB RAM, 32GB storage (expandable to 2TB), a 37mm x 77.2mm physical keyboard and a large 3,410mAh battery. The main camera is a f/2.2/OIS lens with an 18MP sensor and the selfie cam is a weak 2MP but it does offer panorama.

While the specs are pretty nice, the leaked price is shocking. The pages show a $749 price tag for North America and £580 for the UK, which makes the Priv more expensive than a few iPhones and the Galaxy S6 Edge. It is also hundreds of dollars more expensive than the newly launched Google Nexus 6P.

It is nice to see BlackBerry thinking outside of the box, and I'm sure there are plenty of consumers still willing to take a physical keyboard but at that price tag BlackBerry has once again shot themselves in the foot.

Not even 48 hours after tickets went on sale, 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' has shattered records for pre-sales.

When the tickets went on sale, Fandango almost immediately crashed, and the company said its website traffic surged as high as 700 percent normal peak volumes.

'The Force Awakens' ended up beating the previous pre-sale record holder, The Hunger Games, by 800 percent, added Fandango.

AMC theaters said they sold out all 1000 shows in 12 hours, with 38 percent going to IMAX screens, netting $6.5 million in pre-sales, yet another record.

The latest installment of the Star Wars series is expected to be one of the biggest grossing films of all-time, although it has a long way to go to beat out Avatar at $2.78 billion.

Barnes & Noble has surprisingly announced a new version of their once popular Nook GlowLight e-reader.

The new GlowLight Plus has a new slimmer design, offers double the pixels of its predecessor (300ppi) and is also waterproof. The device also promises a glare-free screen.

It is unclear how much internal storage there is, but B&N promises enough room for thousands of books at one time.

The GlowLight Plus is available now for $129.99.

Hard drive maker Western Digital has announced their acquisition of memory card giant SanDisk for $19 billion in cash and stock.

There had been rumors for months that SanDisk was looking for a buyer and in the last week Western Digital was increasingly seen as a potential acquirer.

The move has synergies for both companies, including the merger of huge lines of SSDs, HDDs, and NAND storage.

"This transformational acquisition aligns with our long-term strategy to be an innovative leader in the storage industry by providing compelling, high-quality products with leading technology," said Steve Milligan, chief executive officer, Western Digital. "The combined company will be ideally positioned to capture the growth opportunities created by the rapidly evolving storage industry. I'm excited to welcome the SanDisk team as we look to create additional value for all of our stakeholders, including our customers, shareholders and employees."

Apple has quietly removed 250 apps from the App Store after it was discovered that the Youmi ad network was actually stealing private information including email addresses.

Most of the apps came from Chinese-based devs, and all used the Youmi SDK to build in advertising. Unfortunately, Youmi was also secretly taking user info and uploading it to their servers.

The move follows a research report from SourceDNA that stated the apps were the first they had ever seen to bypass Apple's stringent app review process. Combined, the apps have seen over 1 million downloads around the globe.

"We've identified a group of apps that are using a third-party advertising SDK, developed by Youmi, a mobile advertising provider, that uses private APIs to gather private information, such as user email addresses and device identifiers, and route data to its company server. This is a violation of our security and privacy guidelines.

"The apps using Youmi's SDK will be removed from the App Store and any new apps submitted to the App Store using this SDK will be rejected. We are working closely with developers to help them get updated versions of their apps that are safe for customers and in compliance with our guidelines back in the App Store quickly," concluded Apple.

Yahoo has confirmed this week that its plan to jump into the original streaming content business has not gone as planned.

During their recent earnings call, the company noted a $42 million write-down for its video division. "We thought long and hard about it," noted Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman. "What we concluded is [that] certain of our original video content, we couldn't see a way to make money over time. I'm thinking of Community, I'm thinking of Sin City Saints and so forth. So there, where we had spent money and had some assets on our balance sheet, we elected to write those off."

Community, which was a hit on NBC in its earlier seasons, was renewed for a final season on Yahoo, but Yahoo's service was not as easy to access compared to longstanding apps and services like Hulu and Netflix and it appears that Yahoo could not profit on the shows popularity.

Goldman agreed the streaming content did not go as planned but he did not rule out the company trying again in the future.

Following a similar announcement in different regions, Sony has confirmed that Europe will also be receiving a price drop for the popular PlayStation 4 console.

"Since the launch of PS4 our aim has always been to provide players with the best gaming experiences at the best value, and we've been thrilled with the amount of players who have joined our world," added Sony.

For the UK, the 500GB model PS4 will set you back £299.99, while most of mainland Europe will get the console for €349.99.

Additionally, Sony says New Zealand will see a price cut to $569.95 and Australia will, as well, to $479.95.

The newly released web version of Popcorn Time has already been taken down, but the site has quickly found a new domain.

Browser Popcorn was taken down by the MPAA, and its 15-year-old owner Milan Kragujevic posted a message to the old domain: "Browser Popcorn has been taken down by the E.V.I.L. money-grabbing s**tlords of America, The Motion Picture Association of Murica [sic]."

The site has now moved to browserpopcorn.gq after the MPAA made sure his original web host took the site down. "Basically, MPAA sent me a [cease and desist] letter and contacted my hosting provider and domain registrar and ordered them to take down the infringing content," Kragujeviche added. "I live in a country where copyright law is almost nonexistent, and simply I don't care. I will keep moving the website, changing domains and providers."