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Last year, Google launched its Android One platform to bring affordable handsets to the developing world but the program quickly disappeared.

Even Google admitted that Android One had "not delivered to expectations" with Google's own Rajan Anandan also confirming that "we had a few hiccups."

Android One had quite a few partners in the developing world, all of which were aiming to create higher volume devices with standardized specs and all running on a stock or near stock Android.

In the coming weeks, Google will 'reboot' the program, starting in India. Google's ultimate goal is to sell handsets for well under $100 in most areas, and in India the "sweet spot" is 'between Rs.2,000 ($31) and Rs.3,000 ($47).'

Browser maker and online advertising firm Opera Software has said this weekend it may be seeking a sale of the company after another quarter of less than expected earnings.

Opera says the search for a partner or a sale is "in response to strategic interest in the company from a number of parties."

The company said its Q2 revenue grew 45 percent to $146 million, below all analyst predictions and profits were $29 million compared to the expected $30.6 million.

Worst of all, due to a drop in revenue from their advertising business, the company is now expecting revenues of $600-$618 million for the fiscal year, compared to their previously forecasted $630-$650 million.

T-Mobile, long the smallest of the major mobile carriers, has now surpassed Sprint to take sole control of third place.

According to their recent earnings reports, T-Mobile USA now has 58.9 million customers, ahead of Sprint at 57 million. For the quarter, T-Mobile added 2 million new customers, crushing Sprint who managed to gain, but only 675,000.

Despite the title loss, Sprint has actually been doing a good job in turning around its struggling business.

"Over the past year, Sprint has made meaningful progress in our turnaround by improving our network performance and enhancing our overall value proposition," new CEO Marcelo Claure noted.

Regardless, we should expect some gloating from boisterous T-Mobile CEO John Legere.

Following the terrifying, headline grabbing Stagefright bug, manufacturers are quickly moving to secure their devices.

Google, Samsung and LG have all announced that there will now be monthly OTA security updates for all of their devices moving forward.

"LG will be providing security updates on a monthly basis which carriers will then be able to make available to customers immediately. We believe these important steps will demonstrate to LG customers that security is our highest priority," noted LG.

Samsung said essentially the same thing: "Samsung Electronics will implement a new Android security update process that fast tracks the security patches over the air when security vulnerabilities are uncovered. These security updates will take place regularly about once per month."

A few days ago, Google announced their updates. "The first security update of this kind began rolling out today, Wednesday August 5th, to Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 7, Nexus 9, Nexus 10, and Nexus Player."

Motorola and Alcatel have also promised StageFright patches but did not promise monthly updates.

Stagefright, which is being called the worst Android vulnerability ever, would have allowed attackers to take over a device just by sending an MMS message. It would not have mattered if you opened the message or not, as most phones are set to auto-retrieve MMS. Google says anyone with Android 4.0 or newer is protected, but there are apparently still 100 million devices out there running Android 2.2, 2.3 or earlier. Yikes.

According to NPD data, U.S. watch sales plummeted in June, as smartwatches finally took a little bite of the industry.

Retailers sold $375 million in watches during the month, a huge 11 percent drop year-over-year, the largest such decline since 2008.

Splitting the industry up, NPD says watches that cost under $1000 are most at risk of losing share, and the $100 to $149 range saw a huge 24 YoY decline in June. The average Android smartwatch costs $150-$300 and the Apple Watch starts at $349.

"In the short term, brands at accessible price points are going to have to think very seriously," said NPD's Fred Levin.

For Apple, the Apple Watch still appears to be an experiment and sales are nowhere near its core device sales. For the last quarter, the company is expected to have sold about 2.1 million watches. By comparison, it has sold over 60 million iPhones (at higher prices) for the last couple of quarters. However, that figure is large compared to traditional watch sales, which were under 1 million for June.

Opera has announced the acquisition of Bemobi, a subscription-based mobile app discovery platform that specializes in Spanish speaking markets.

Bemobi offers users unlimited access to paid mobile apps for a weekly fee, and the charge is added to their carrier bill. The carrier part is important in many Latin American nations since credit cards and even bank accounts are relatively hard to come by.

The company says it has 6 million active subscribers.

How will Opera, a browser developer, use the service? Good question. According to Opera, thanks to their existing connections with carriers (some of which pre-install mobile Opera on their phones), Opera will look to leverage such relationships and combine the services to "bring innovative app-discovery and monetization services across the globe and position Opera as the global leader in this space."

Rovio's latest franchise game, 'Angry Birds 2,' has seen over 25 million free downloads in its first week of availability.

Comparing the figure to the original Angry Birds, Rovio creative director Patrick Liu says it took 9 months for the original game to reach the milestone.

Of note, downloaders seem to be actually playing the game as well. 1.4 billion birds have been launched and 300 million levels have been completed since launch, added Liu.

Unlike the original, however, Angry Birds 2's freemium model is a bit aggressive. You can buy gems (basically extra lives and birds) for as cheap as $0.99 or you may not be playing for too long in one sitting.

The European Commission has concluded their investigation into Apple Music and claims of anti-competitive behavior.

Rivals services such as Spotify have asked authorities across multiple countries to investigate Apple and its launch of Music. The main issue at hand is the fact that Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all paid apps and all in-app purchases from apps purchased through the app store. Spotify, for example, is $9.99 a month for a premium subscription but the company has to charge $12.99 through the App Store to ensure they get the same margin for their service.

While the investigation found no wrongdoings or illegal activity, the EU will continue to monitor the entire industry, says the report. Additionally, the regulators will continue to seek information from rival streaming services.

U.S. regulators continue to look into the claims.

If you were in the market for an Xbox One, and potentially for a new TV, Best Buy has a great deal for you.

Starting tomorrow, and through Saturday, August 15th, Best Buy is offering the popular Xbox One (with Halo: The Master Chief Collection or Assassin's Creed Unity and Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag) and a 1080p 40-inch Samsung Smart TV for just $500.

The deal is pretty great given the MSRP for the Xbox bundle is $350 and the TV normally sells for $429.

Here is the TV set in question, but you will have to wait until tomorrow to get in on the deal.

One-time Taiwanese smartphone giant HTC has said this weekend that there will be job cuts in the future for the company as it tries to stymie falling profits.

In addition, the smartphone maker will release less models in the future, instead returning to just high-end models that it hopes can compete against Apple and Samsung. High-end models also come with much higher margins.

"The cuts will be across the board," Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang said. "They will be significant." The cuts are expected to be made in the Q3, Q4 2015 and Q1 2016.

As recently as 2011, HTC had over 10 percent of global smartphone shipments but has since fallen out of favor as Samsung and Apple control the high-end and Chinese OEMs control the low end. The company now has less than 3 percent of global shipments.

At the end of July, Chinese startup OEM OnePlus announced their next flagship device, the OnePlus 2.

With high-end specs and a low price, the device immediately gained the attention of the tech world and it appears there is certainly some interest in the smartphone.

The company revealed yesterday that 2 million people had signed up for the company's invitation reservation list, and as of writing that number has just about hit 3 million.

If you buy a OnePlus 2 you will get a 5.5-inch 1080p display powered by a custom Snapdragon 810 v2.1 processor and 3 or 4GB or RAM depending on the model you choose. The selfie cam clocks in at 5MP while the standard camera is 13MP with OIS and two-tone flash. The phone is also the first device to launch with the USB-C connector, will include a fingerprint scanner and runs on Android 5.1 with the OxygenOS user interface overlay on top.

Most importantly, OnePlus has managed to keep their margins razor thin and keep the price low, as well, with the 16GB storage/3GB RAM model selling for just $329 and the 64GB/4GB RAM model selling for just $389.

The phone is available on August 11th.

If you have been following the smartphone industry for a few years it should be painfully obvious that Apple is about to release a new iPhone – or a few – in couple months. This is also what BuzzFeed's John Paczkowski says, citing inside sources.

According to Paczkowski, Apple is going to organize the event on the week of September 7, most likely on Wednesday the 9th. That would make it the same day as last year.

In addition to new iPhones Apple will reportedly reveal a new Apple TV, and even new iPads – although still maybe not an iPad Pro. Apple likes to spread the products out a bit and have a separate event for iPads but this might not be the case this year.

Apple has updated its website and the store link is nowhere to be found. The web store that sells all Apple products and selected accessories has now been integrated in to the product pages.

As you might imagine Apple doesn't want to remove its store altogether. Instead, it has made it easier to buy the products straight from the product pages. The accessories have now been moved under the appropriate Apple product.

There are some other changes as well. Under Music you can now find Apple Music, iPods, and iTunes. And there is a completely new Bag icon on the right that acts as your shopping basket, as well as Account information, Favorites and Orders.

Apple's Eddy Cue told USA Today earlier this week that the company "thrilled" about the Apple Music numbers. According to Cue, Apple Music has accumulated a total of 11 million subscribers during the first month.

Apple Music launched in early July with a three month free trial that has now been activated by over 11 million people. Two million of those accounts are so called family plans, which can be used by up to six family members.

After the three month trial expires Apple Music single subscription will cost $9.99 and the family plan five dollars more at $14.49. The numbers while "thrilling" do not really tell how many will opt to pay for the subscription and how many are just to trying it out for free.

Spotify told in July that it has currently 20 million paying subscribers and another 55 million that are using their music service's ad-supported version. Apple Music does not have a free model, but one of the Apple Music's unique features is the free to listen Beats 1 online radio.

Chinese startup OnePlus will introduce a second smartphone this year before Christmas.

Co-founder Carl Pei made the announcement during an interview, but did not elaborate much more except to say that it "may or may not" be more powerful than their recently announced flagship OnePlus 2.

"When I saw the prototype for [the new] phone I was like 'Holy sh*t, that's going to be my daily driver,' but then when the OnePlus 2 production version came out it's also super nice, so it's really hard to decide now what to use," Pei said. "It's going to be amazing, but today I'm not going to talk about it."

The OnePlus 2 will begin shipping this month.