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As expected, Google and toymaker Mattel have updated the View-Master for 2015, integrating Android and adding a 360-degree view of animated environments.

The original View-Master was released in 1939, and let kids slide cardboard disks with stereoscopic images into the red plastic device to view via the viewfinder.

For the 2015 model, the View-Master will work with a customized Mattel app, and other apps that are also compatible with Google's 'Cardboard' VR headset. Mattel will sell reels/disks that launch the "user into an augmented reality environment based on the subject of the reel (examples include San Francisco, Dinosaur Adventure, Solar System)."

Mattel is also expected to resell many of the 10,000 disks available for the original system. The new View-Master will go on sale later this year for $29.99. Three-pack reels will cost $14.99.

While Nintendo has notoriously kept their popular first party games off of smartphones and attached to their consoles, it appears that the Mii avatars will be making an appearance on your mobile device.

"In the past, I have opposed making smartphone and tablet versions of Nintendo titles. Prices for content aimed at smartphones and tablets are falling quickly," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. "I am still wary of the category. We intend to develop products that will allow customers to identify with Nintendo products and make people pay attention to Nintendo games.

"For example, some Nintendo game consoles incorporate Mii, which creates a digital avatar to represent players. It would be fun for players to use their Mii characters as icons on social media. We are currently developing an application that will allow users to do that."

There are no other known details about the app except that Iwata says it will be released later this year.

Earlier this week, Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi held a press event in San Francisco where they announced an expansion to the U.S.

Global VP Hugo Barra announced that their Mi.com online marketplace will be available in the U.S. later this year, but without phones or tablets. Instead the site will sell Xiaomi's fitness bands and other accessories like headphones.

When asked about why the popular phones (like the Mi4) will not be headed to the U.S., Barra cited a handful of problems including hardware certification, software testing and logistical issues.

Regardless, the move into the U.S. is a huge step for Xiaomi, which has quickly become the third-largest smartphone maker in the world behind Apple and Samsung thanks to razor thin margins and cheap high-end devices.

Apple users rejoice! The tech giant is finally bringing two-step authentication to some of your services, including iMessages and FaceTime for Mac, iPad and iPhone.

As with other services that use two-step authentication, you will log in with your Apple ID and password and then you will need to provide a second identification code before using video chat or messaging. The second step will be required if you log in to the services from a new device or log out on your main device.

Apple will send the secondary code via text to your registered phone or to the Find My iPhone app.

Apple has announced this week that iOS apps can now be larger than ever.

Previously, apps had a maximum size of 2GB but that limit has now been stretched to 4GB. For the most part, developers that need that kind of size are game makers, and the extra space could allow for longer gameplay.

Says Apple: "The size limit of an app package submitted through iTunes Connect has increased from 2 GB to 4 GB, so you can include more media in your submission and provide a more complete, rich user experience upon installation. Please keep in mind that this change does not affect the cellular network delivery size limit of 100 MB."

The tech giant introduced the 2GB limit when the App Store first launched and the new move is the first ever increase. In 2013, developer Square Enix notably said their Final Fantasy VII game could not be released for iOS due to the limitation.

AfterDawn launched its first mobile app last year and today we'd like to thank users who have installed it, regularly use it and have provided excellent feedback.

While based in Northern Finland, AfterDawn has staff in a handful of countries and on multiple continents. We all speak English but most of the staff speaks multiple languages, and of course our services are provided in different languages too. One thing we all have in common though is a bit of an addiction to news content, primarily technology-related news, and every day links bounce back and forth across staff, many of which have been collected and added to "read later" lists that always grow longer and never shorten.

It seems natural then that the first time we decided to throw an app into the wild, it was a news app. HIGH.FI automatically pulls news headlines from hundreds of sources on all topics and allows you to very easily customize the type of news you want to see.

Thank you for 10,000 installs on Android!

It was first made available to Windows Phone 8 users in June 2014, and later became available for Android on September 9. Today, we realized that it has been installed more than 10,000 times on Android devices and there's more every hour, while it has previously hit 7,500 on Windows Phone 8.

Wedbush Securities managing director and video game industry analyst Michael Pachter had some interesting comments about the Xbox One and its pricing during the D.I.C.E. Summit, and the analyst believes that Microsoft will keep the current "promotional pricing" forever.

For the first year of their respective launches, the PS4 outsold the Xbox One every month, and usually by a hefty margin. Last September, Microsoft announced that it would be unbundling the Kinect motion control system, thus dropping the price from $499 to $399. "The truth is that Kinect was a really great concept that didn't address a real world problem. Kinect allowed players to voice control and motion control things, but most of us didn't need that. I don't need to say "Xbox on." I don't mind pressing a button on my controller – that's all you have to do. It's not that hard. It's actually harder to say "Xbox on," says Pachter.

After the unbundling, sales improved but the PS4 continued to rule. Then, Microsoft added 'promotional pricing' to the mix, dropping the console from $399 to $349 and bundling free games or free Xbox Live cards. Pachter doesn't think the pricing will ever come out of its current "promotional" status.

Target has announced the shut down of their failed Target Ticket video-on-demand service.

Ticket allowed users to rent or purchase films and TV shows, as long as those videos were UltraViolet-compatible.

The company has said on March 7th the service will shut down for good, and all apps for smartphones, consoles and set-tops will shut down, as well.

Target made "the decision to end the services offered on Target Ticket and will be focusing efforts on other entertainment offerings."

As part of the shutdown, Target will let you transfer your account and user library to CinemaNow, as well as any credit you might have.

Sony has leased out the rights to Spider-Man to Disney (Marvel), meaning Marvel will put out the next film while Sony keeps the rights to the popular comic hero.

Allegedly, Marvel has been offering billions to get Spider-Man back, but Sony is still not willing to sell. Over time, the franchise has brought in $4 billion in revenue, making it one of the biggest blockbuster series in movie history.

Marvel and Sony have not exchanged any money for the latest deal, by Marvel is still likely to make a mint due to owning the merchandising rights to Spider-Man.

The upcoming standalone Spider-Man film will hit theaters on July 28th, 2017, and Andrew Garfield will be replaced after playing Spidey in the last two "Amazing Spider-Man" films.

Microsoft has acquired Israeli digital pen maker N-trig, the company that has been making the pen for their Surface Pro tablets.

Details were not disclosed but most reports have the purchase price at around $200 million.

The deal makes sense for both companies since Microsoft was already accounting for 79 percent of their revenue and was also a large stakeholder. N-trig also had some recent financial troubles and its investors, who have invested $130 million since 1999, were urging a sale.

Microsoft does appear to have overpaid, given that N-trig lost $117 million in 2014 and had just $5 million cash left on hand.

Samsung Display has confirmed this week that OLED is the future, planning to invest $3.6 billion to build OLED panels in the future.

The new production line would build small and medium-sized OLED displays for smartphones and tablets, with the potential for smaller TVs, as well. The investment would take place between now and 2017.

This year, Samsung Display will focus on curved panels like the ones found in the Galaxy Note Edge.

Samsung is not the only company investing in OLED. LG Display is expected to invest about $1 billion in its existing large-panel OLED production line.

Microsoft has announced that its Xbox One console with Kinect will be discounted for the coming weeks.

"For two weeks, starting Sunday, Feb. 8 through Saturday, Feb. 21, fans will receive $50 off any Xbox One with Kinect in the U.S. at most major national retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, Toys R Us and Walmart, as well as Microsoft Stores," says the company.

For the past months, the Xbox One without the motion control system has been on sale for $350 or less, but it has been hard to find sales on the Kinect model.

If you were in the market for the Xbox One but want the gesture and voice control of the Kinect system, this might be your chance.

EA CFO Blake Jorgensen has said this week that he believes tablets are key to the future of gaming, especially as they get more powerful moving forward.

"What gets us the most excited is the power, the computing power, of mobile devices and the speed at which that's growing," says Jorgensen. "What that might mean is that a tablet, three or four years from now, has more power than what a typical console has. And that will open up a whole new set of people to console-style games that are much more immersive, much deeper, much more character-driven than simply a static mobile game that you might play for a small burst of time while you're waiting for the bus."

"And so we're looking for ways that we can essentially blend those two models to have a more immersive but movable game experience," he added. "Could be in your living room, could be on the bus, or it could be in a friend's house. Much more portable than it is today. And that for us is a huge opportunity."

In case it was not obvious, EA plans to invest more in tablet gaming in the future.

NVIDIA has sent out press invites for an event on March 3rd in which the company will show off a device/service that is "5 years in the making" that will "redefine the future of gaming."

It is unclear what the product will be, but there is a chance that the company will unveil a sequel to the powerful Nvidia Shield or Nvidia Shield Tablet.

Nvidia recently announced their Tegra X1 chipset and its ridiculous specs and any new device will likely feature the chipset. The X1 has a NVIDIA Maxwell 256-core GPU, 64-bit ARM CPU, H.265 video decoding and 4K playback at up to 60fps.

Of course, the event may not unveil a tablet or gaming handheld but there is a good chance that it will.

We will know more on March 3rd.

As we launched our first mobile app this year, it has been interesting to observe the small, but very important differences there are between the three major mobile app markets: Apple iOS (iTunes App Store), Android (Google Play) and Microsoft's Windows Phone (Windows Phone Store).

All three markets allow users to review the apps they have downloaded and all three stores emphasize the importance of user reviews, to the point where it is almost impossible to rank well in app charts if your app doesn't have good user reviews.

So, we feel that it is important to understand those little differences between the three stores and what is important for you, as a developer, when you plan your app strategies.

Ability to respond to reviews

One of the key differences is the developer's (in-)ability to respond to the reviews the app gathers. Both, negative and positive feedback often require some level of reply from the developer – if for nothing else, for common courtesy.

iOS

• developers can't reply / respond to reviews, at all

Android

• developers can reply to all reviews and the replies from the developer are visible in the Play Store for everybody (reply is shown underneath the review the reply is for)

replying to an Android app review

Windows Phone

• Starting from WP8.1, developers can reply to all reviews (written by users using WP8.1 or newer version of the Windows Phone). Replies are private and sent directly to the reviewer's email address, alongside with a link to update his/her review accordingly, if there's a need to do so (say, user complained about a bug in v1.0 and gave the app 1-star rating. Developer replies that they have now fixed the bug and that the new v1.1 is available -> user is encouraged to update the review accordingly)

replying to a Windows Phone app review

Localization

Sometimes people react to apps very differently depending on which country they live in, what language they use, etc.

iOS

• Reviews are local, meaning that the reviews & ratings given by Brazilian users are visible only to Brazilian users. Furthermore, the average rating of the app is local: same app can have average rating of 4.5 / 5 in United States, but only 2.2 / 5 in France (say, maybe badly translated app experience or something similar)

Android

• Reviews are local, but the average star rating is global. Thus, the actual review texts given in Swedish are visible only to Swedish users, but the star ratings given by Swedish users affect the average rating value (=average rating is the same for all users).

Android app reviews; Italy vs Finland

Windows Phone

• Similar to iOS, reviews AND the average rating is local. Same app can have totally different average rating in different countries and only locally given reviews are visible to specific country's users.

Average rating for the same app, in Finland and in United States

Version-specific rating

When you launch your app, it is likely to be somewhat buggy at first, no matter how much effort you put into your testing process. When real users start using your app, you'll learn how to improve your app's visuals, fix the bugs, etc.