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Fitbit has launched two new fitness trackers today, the Charge HR and Surge, both of which reflect your activity stats right from their enlarged displays.

Both trackers also tell the time, monitor your sleep better than past models and have caller ID linked to your synced phone. The Charge HR takes your heart rate continuously all day and the Surge also includes GPS, text notifications and music control making it a free full-featured smartphone.

Fitbit showed off the devices at an event in October but did not have a time frame before they went on sale. That day is today.

"With Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Surge, features like heart rate tracking are made simpler by being continuous and automatic so the technology works no matter what you're doing," said CEO James Park.

Due to their added features and tech, the Charge HR costs $149.95 while the Surge will set you back $249.95.

Sony's controversial 'The Interview' is now the company's "#1 online film of all time."

The comedy featuring Seth Rogen and James Franco has brought in $31 million from 4.3 million rentals and purchases online from December 24th through January 4th. From 300 independent theaters, the film also brought in $5 million.

After the major movie theaters pulled the film before release following terrorist threats, Sony Pictures released the film online via Google Play, Xbox Video, YouTube Movies and proprietary sites for $6 as a rental or $15 to purchase.

On New Year's Day, major telecoms, cable and satellite providers also added the film on-demand, adding to the revenue. The movie has a leg-up on other online-only releases given the fact that it was scheduled to be a major Hollywood release. The movie had a $44 million budget with an extra print and advertising (P&A) budget expected to be around $20 million.

Sony Computer Entertainment says they have sold 18.5 million PS4 units since launch in late 2013, meaning the console remains the top current-gen system.

The Japanese giant noted that 4.1 million units were sold worldwide during the holiday season, which was extremely fruitful for all the major consoles.

At its current pace, PS4 sales "represent the fastest and strongest growth" of any PlayStation console in the history of the company, adds Sony. Additionally, Sony now has 11 million PlayStation Plus subscribers paying around $50 per year for online multiplayer and other features.

The PS4 is currently available in 123 countries and territories.

Former smartphone heavyweight HTC has announced their first quarterly revenue growth since late 2011 thanks to stronger than expected mid-range phone sales.

For the Q4, sales grew to NT$47.9 billion ($1.5 billion), up from NT$42.9 billion ($1.34 billion) year-over-year (YoY).

In addition, the company had net income of NT$470 million ($14.7 million), much higher than the expected NT$210 million.

Overall, the company still had a full-year revenue decline, for the third year in a row, but HTC seems to be settling in with a new strategy of mid-range devices to compliment their higher end offerings like the M8, which is critical lauded but has to compete directly with the iPhone.

Samsung has announced a new portable SSD that is the size of a credit card and almost just as light.

The new T1 supports storage up to 1TB, has built-in security software and supports AES 256-bit data encryption giving it a leg up over other drives especially in regards to privacy.

At 2.1 x 2.8 x 0.36 inches and 0.9 ounces, the drive is tiny and can be carried around easily. Due to being an SSD, the T1 has a (sequential) transfer rate at 450 MB/s - impressive speeds.

Of course, speed, style and security in one package don't come cheap. The 250GB model will set you back $179, the 500GB model costs $299 and the 1TB model will lighten your wallet by $599. The drives start shipping on January 20th.

Source:
Mashable

Major satellite provider Dish is planting the seeds to end conventional TV as we know it.

The new 'Sling TV'service will cost $20 per month, be available online, and include 10 popular channels: TNT, TBS, CNN, Food Network, HGTV, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, the Disney Channel, ESPN, and ESPN2.

While in theory, the practically ala carte service is great for cord cutters, especially given the access to ESPN and big-time sports programming, but under the hood there are quite a few caveats, as well.

Only one person can watch Sling TV at any given time. You will need a streaming device and the Sling TV app to get the TV on your big screen. Roku will support it out of the box, Apple TV will not. Local broadcasting is missing such as NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC.

At $20, the service is still expensive especially since most cord cutters will be paying $7.99 for Hulu, $7.99 for Netflix and whatever price the standalone HBO Go will cost, but the Sling TV is a right first step to unbundling expensive TV packages with hundreds of channels you don't care about.

Sony has unveiled monthly PlayStation Now subscriptions, a move that should help consumers get more bang for their buck.

Previously, 3 month rentals cost as much as $50, and some one-day rentals were as high as $5, huge sums considering many older games can be purchased to own, used, for under $20.

The new offerings are all-you-can-eat for 30 days or 90 days for just $20 or $45, respectively.

"I'm pleased to announce that starting January 13th, we'll launch a subscription service for PlayStation Now that will provide instant and unlimited access to a catalog of more than 100 PS3 games," PlayStation Now's director of marketing, Peter Jamshidi, in a blog post. "And since you're using PlayStation Now, you can enjoy the freedom to quickly discover and play a wide range of full games without downloads, installs, or patches (not to mention trips to the store)."

The subscriptions will be first available for PS4 in North America, and later in the year for other devices including PlayStation TV.

Panasonic has unveiled the first Blu-ray player with native 4K support today at CES, although the device is still just a prototype.

There was little else revealed, except for a bland black design and HDMI ports, but the company is expected to bring a player to market in the late Q3 2015.

All 4K UHD Blu-ray players into the future will be developed based on the parameters set by the UHD Alliance, which is led by Samsung, Panasonic, Fox, Warner Brothers and more. The Alliance sets standards and is also in charge of managing distribution.

4K TVs are all the rage now despite a major lack of content, and many more were announced today in just the first day of CES.

According to sources, Verizon has had discussions with AOL with the massive telecom looking to either acquire the smaller Internet company or join up in order to expand their mobile-video library and ad tech.

By acquiring AOL, or teaming up, Verizon could easily merge AOL's "programmatic advertising technology" (automated ad buying and selling) with mobile video that continues to see strong growth for the U.S.' largest carrier.

Verizon should have little problem acquiring AOL if it chooses to, given that AOL has a market cap of $3.5 billion compared to Verizon's $200 billion but Verizon has been stockpiling billions in order to buy wireless spectrum at an upcoming auction so may not have cash available.

AOL, besides its ad tech, also has significant online content and brands including the Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget. The media properties boast about 200 million uniques per month. Additionally, AOL still somehow has 2.3 million paying dial-up customer which would most likely be converted to Verizon's fast FiOS broadband service.

Although not every tech merger makes too much sense, the synergies in this deal are plentiful especially given the new focus of the two companies.

Earlier today, Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp announced that attackers stole $5 million worth of the digital currency, shutting down trading on the exchange for the day.

CEO Nejc Kodric says most of Bitstamp's reserve are safe but the attackers did net 19,000 bitcoins, over $5 million at the current trading price of $275 USD.

Kodric says that the vast majority of holdings are kept in "cold storage" making them inaccessible for quick online transfers and therefore theft, but the attackers managed to empty out Bitstamp's operational wallet which is used for day-to-day transactions and site business.

Although on a much smaller scale, the theft brings back memories of Mt Gox, which was once the largest exchange until it was pillaged with hundreds of millions in Bitcoins stolen. The site eventually shut down.

The Internet Archive has significantly upgraded their free old-school gaming library, which now has nearly 2400 MS-DOS games available to play right from your browser.

Previously, the IA had hundreds of Atari and arcade games available with the use of emulators.

A few of the more notable games you would remember include Prince of Persia, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D and Bomber 3D.

Internet Archive says the in-browser emulator is still in beta and you can expects some bugs.

Lenovo went crazy today at CES, unveiling a plethora of new products including a few new powerful smartphones.

The newly unveiled P90, available next month overseas, is the first device to feature a 64-bit Intel Atom processor and its other specs should ensure a slick experience.

Featuring a 5.5-inch 1080p display, the device is powered by the quad-core 64-bit Intel Atom clocked at 1.8GHz, 2GB RAM, Android Lollipop (with Lenovo's Vibe 2.0 user interface on top), 32GB internal storage and a huge 4000mAh battery that promised up to 36 hours of life. The standard camera is a 13MP OIS shooter and the "selfie" cam is 5MP with built-in selfie features. The device also has an Intel LTE-A FDD/TDD modem which means theoretical download speeds of 150 Mbs if your carrier offers anything close to that.

The P90 will be available from Lenovo's site for just $499 in Pearl White, Onyx Black and Lava Red.

Massive car maker Volkswagen has announced that its cars will get Apple CarPlay and Android Auto later this year.

Announced today at CES, the company says the two user interfaces built for car dashboards will work with VW's MIB II dash devices. MIB II also adds support for MirrorLink, which adds better syncing support for smartphones by "integrating the apps and operating layout of numerous smartphones (including Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony) into cars."

Apple unveiled CarPlay last year, and VW was notably absent given their market share in the casual and luxury car markets.

"The two inventions of the century, the car and the computer, are gradually coming closer together. We need to design future mobility to be even more intelligent and even more networked," said Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of Volkswagen AG.

The car company did not give an exact release date but did say MirrorLink, CarPlay, and Android Auto are all rolling out in the US and Europe later this year.

Roku has announced today that upcoming models will include streaming 4K Ultra HD support, meaning the set-tops will be the first in the industry with native support for the high resolution video.

Additionally, the company signed up Chinese manufacturing heavy hitter TCL as its first partner for 4K TVs that run Roku's Roku TV platform.

Netflix was announced as Roku's first 4K streaming content provider, which is unsurprising given Netflix's "huge" 4K library of about 20 movie and TV titles including the full seasons of AMC's hit "Breaking Bad."

Besides the 4K announcements, Roku also announced more partners for its Roku TV platform: Insignia and Haier. Insignia is Best Buy's house brand and Haier is a well-known low-cost TV maker.

Authorities in the UK have arrested 22-year-old Vinnie Omari on suspicion of fraud, less than a week after the group Lizard Squad took down Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live on Christmas via a large DDoS attack.

Omari was arrested as part of an investigation into thefts of PayPal accounts, but the investigators also took the suspect's phone, computers, Xbox One, flash drives and will search his emails and more "in relation to the hacking of the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live systems over the Christmas period."

Earlier this month, Omari and Finnish teen Julius Kivimäki made appearances on Sky News to comment on the downtime. Big time security expert Brian Krebs identified both and linked Omari to proposed sales of Mega vouchers on a hacking forum. This is notable because Mega founder Kim Dotcom offered 3000 vouchers for the service to the Lizard Squad to get them to drop the DDoS so he could get back to gaming.

Kivimäki was arrested last year for his part in a large botnet, and was found to have over 3000 stolen credit card numbers.

Krebs has a very interesting piece on the Lizard Squad, who he basically calls script kiddies and "angry" teens.