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Last month, Microsoft acquired Minecraft maker Mojang for over $2 billion, promising to keep the game available on all major consoles and operating systems, and adding new Xbox One and Windows Phone versions.

According to a Mojang dev, the company was already working on the port for Windows Phone, even before the major acquisition. Tommaso Checchi tweeted some photos of the "Pocket Edition" of the game listed in the app menu of his Lumia 635. Notably, that phone only has 512MB RAM, so the game should work on all Windows Phone 8 devices.

Added the dev: "Btw, here's another reason we've been pretty busy... The port is in the first stages though. It's kind of slow now and needs optimization, so in full Mojang style the release date is "soon"™. And nobody forced/threatened us if you're wondering! Actually, we started before the whole Microsoft thing :)"

Likely, the game is a few months away, but Windows Phones and Minecraft fans have something to look forward to.

HTC has released its rumored action camera, the "Re," its first device outside of the wireless mobile arena.

The waterproof camera will rival the GoPro Hero line, and will help HTC move away from its reliance on smartphone sales, which have been weak for the company for years now, including 12 quarters of declining sales.

With its strange design and a single wide-angle lens with 16MP sensor, HTC says the device is for consumers that may not be going on as crazy adventures as GoPro users. The device also has built-in Wi-Fi for quick uploading and live streaming to YouTube through a partnership with Google.

"This is the first time we have introduced something significant beyond the smartphone, and we want to see a continuation of that," Chief Financial Officer and head of global sales Chang Chialin.

At $200, the Re is significantly more expensive than the new entry-level GoPro Hero, but also half the price of the high-end GoPro Black4. It will be available via the major U.S. carriers, Best Buy, HTC's own site and eventually through Amazon and other retailers.

E-commerce behemoth Amazon will open their first ever physical store location this holiday season.

The pop-up store will be right near the Empire State Building in New York City, in a prime tourist area for the busy holiday months.

Reports say the store will act as a "mini-warehouse, with limited inventory for same-day delivery within New York, product returns and exchanges, and pickups of online orders." This gives the potential for a customer to order in the morning and pick up their item later that same day with just a quick train ride.

Most likely, Amazon will also showcase their Kindle hardware, allowing customers to actually try them out like Apple does in-store.

One thing is clear from the reports, however: Amazon is using the store as an experiment and their is no big plan to open retail shops around the U.S. Depending on the success, their could eventually be a rollout.

Source:
WSJ

Evan Spiegel, CEO and founder of Snapchat has confirmed that the service will be getting ads in the near future.

Speaking at a summit, Spiegel said "People are going to see the first ads on Snapchat soon. We think they're pretty cool."


The ads will integrate into Snapchat's Stories feature, but users can opt out of seeing them. The ads should not show up when sending normal messages to each other. Stories is a feature that lets users send snaps to fill out event "stories" like a football game or party. It is likely that companies can find targeted stories to place ads in.

Spiegel also confirmed that the ads would not be targeted by user using personal data.

It seems that if you are a current iOS user who likes to play classic games via game emulators, your time with those games is running short.

The new update will kill the "date trick" loophole that allowed anyone to install third-party emulators and unapproved apps by rolling back the date on the iPad or iPhone.

Reads the post from GBA4iOS, a popular Game Boy emulator app that required the date trick to operate because Apple does not allow it in the App Store:

Apple, it appears, is setting their eyes on the emulators community, starting by making the now-famous 'Date Trick' completely obsolete in an upcoming update. iOS 8.1 beta was seeded to developers yesterday and it's already causing panic among some iOS emulator aficionados. It was reported to me almost immediately by a source that the date trick wasn't helping at all in installing GBA4iOS 2.0 - that's when worry started to set in and I decided to investigate.

The 'Date Trick' fuels the emulator communities nowadays. Our website, iEmulators.com, relies on this to continue distribution and updates. Without it, everything looks bleak. Without GBA4iOS 2.0, everything seems... well, not-fun. Will iOS 8.0.2 become our perpetual purgatory so that we can continue to enjoy these things?

One of the biggest pieces of business tech news on Monday was the surprise bankruptcy of sapphire display supplier GT Advanced.

The company, which was worth $1.5 billion on Sunday night and is Apple's only sapphire crystal supplier, declared bankruptcy on Monday, catching investors off-guard. The company's stock fell 92 percent on Monday, only rebounding slightly since then. The company has a value of $175 million now, with many expecting that Apple will try to step in and help. Apple was equally as surprised as investors, at least according to their filing: "We are focused on preserving jobs in Arizona following GT's surprising decision and we will continue to work with state and local officials as we consider our next steps," read the updated regulatory filing.

However, a new report claims that Apple may have inadvertently pushed the company into bankruptcy. Reportedly, GTAT did not meet a required metric and Apple withheld the last portion of its loan to the the company. Says the report: "Apple had agreed to four prepayments to GT totaling $578 million -- contingent on meeting certain technical requirements -- to buy equipment for the facility. Apple didn't pay the final $139 million of its prepayment loans because GT didn't meet those technical milestones."

Topped by Apple and Google, the tech world once again dominated Interbrand's 'Best Global Brands' rankings.

Interbrand calculates the ratings by combining the company's "financial performance of the branded product and service," their "role in influencing customer choice" and "the strength the brand has to command a premium price or secure earnings for the company."

Apple retained the top spot with a value of $118.9 billion, followed closely by Google at $107.43 billion. Following a 21 and 15 percent rise, respectively, the list has two $100 billion companies for the first time in history.

"Apple and Google's meteoric rise to more than USD $100 billion is truly a testament to the power of brand building," said Jez Frampton, Interbrand's Global Chief Executive Officer. "These leading brands have reached new pinnacles--in terms of both their growth and in the history of Best Global Brands--by creating experiences that are seamless, contextually relevant, and increasingly based around an overarching ecosystem of integrated products and services, both physical and digital."

IBM took fourth place at $72.24 billion, followed by Microsoft at $61.15 billion. Other tech giants near the top of the list were Samsung at #7, Intel at #12, Cisco at #14 and Amazon at #15.

According to the hit or miss Taiwanese supply chain source Digitimes, Microsoft may be preparing to pull the plug on its Surface tablet line.

The sources say sales of the high-end Surface Pro 3 are not as high as the company would like as Microsoft has a hard time convincing consumers that they can replace their laptop with the tablet.

If accurate, the site says Surface Pro 3 sales may not even hit 1 million units, a key milestone that would indicate at least some viability.

In addition to the low sales, the report says Microsoft has not been "very aggressive" about Surface Pro 4 development and is more "likely to terminate" the line entirely. Following price cuts, the 2nd-generation Surface seems to be selling decently well, adds the site, although they estimate that the first and second generation tablets have combined to hit Microsoft with a $1.7 billion loss since launch in 2012.

Thanks to a leaked manual, we have specs and images of the upcoming Moto Droid Turbo, the latest in Verizon's "Droid" lineup.

The manual does not reveal all the specs, but we have enough to get a solid picture. The device runs on Android 4.4 with Moto's little helpful UI additions like Voice, Display, Assist and Connect. The smartphone has a QHD 5.2-inch display, a 21MP camera, Qi wireless charging and Turbo Charger support. In addition, the Turbo is said to have a "high-capacity long lasting battery."

It is unclear when the device is scheduled for launch, but Motorola is also expected to releases the Nexus 6 in conjunction with Google in the next week, so the month of October could be busy for the revived smartphone maker.

Last month, the company unveiled its Moto X refresh, the highlt-anticipated Moto 360 smartwatch and the cheap yet powerful unlocked Moto E.

Source:
Motofirmware

Twitter has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California seeking a means to reveal the actual number of national security related information it requests it receives.

Internet services like Twitter and Facebook can currently only inform its users publicly of the total number of data/information requests it receives from law enforcement and government agencies. Essentially, this means that it lumps together the total number of requests it receives from law enforcement agencies (mission persons' investigations etc.) and from national security entities.

They are not legally allowed to reveal how many of the total number of requests and orders received are related to national security, even if the number is zero.

According to Twitter, the firm is entitled under the First Amendment to respond to our users' concerns and to the statements of U.S. government officials by providing information about the scope of U.S. government surveillance, including what types of legal process have not been received.

It has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California asking the court to declare these restrictions on its ability to speak about government surveillance as unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Later this week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will also consider the constitutionality of the non-disclosure provisions.

Google is now enabling Chromecast users to use their own photos or choose personalized sources of backdrops to be shown on the TV screen when idle.

The feature had been promised for summer but seemingly slipped a bit, but it is available now. It allows users to use their own photo albums via Google+, or to select from other options for backdrops when idle.

You can, for example, see artwork from galleries and museums around the world via the Google Cultural Institute, satellite imagery from remote places on Earth via Google Maps and U.S. users can get images from the New York Times, the Guardian and others.

Setting it up is as easy as opening the Chromecast app on your device and selecting Backdrop from the left menu. This allows you to customize your sources for imagery. You can also get more information on pictures you see by selecting "Backdrop" from the left menu and tapping on the card to find out more.

Alternatively you can open the Google app on Android or iOS, tap the microphone and ask "What's on my Chromecast?"

The update is rolling out now.

More information: chromecast.com/backdrop

Kaspersky has detailed an interesting and naughty piece of malware that allowed attackers to steal cash directly from some ATM machines running an embedded Microsoft Windows OS.

The malware was active on at least 50 ATM machines in Eastern Europe, but there is some evidence that it has spread beyond the region to many other countries, including Canada, France, India and the United States. Kaspersky Lab's Global Research and Analysis Team came to this conclusion based on statistics of submissions made to the popular VirusTotal service.

It is targeted at ATM machines made by a major manufacturer, running a 32-bit embedded Windows operating system, and it is smart enough to hide itself using several tactics.

What is interesting is Kaspersky cited security camera footage at locations of infected ATM machines that show a bootable CD was used to infect them. It transfers the malware to the device, performs some checks and then edits the registry to boot the malware, which then interacts with ATM through the standard library MSXFS.dll. which Kaspersky informs readers is "Extension for Financial Services (XFS)."

It then runs in an infinite loop waiting for user input, but it will only accept commands by default on Sunday and Monday nights. It accepts multiple commands from an operator, who then must press the Enter button the keypad to proceed. Another clever trick is clearly intended at making it so only the right people can manipulate the machine, by requiring that a session key be entered.

Nintendo fans rejoice: The Wii U version of 'Super Smash Bros' finally has its release date.

The console version will be released on November 21st, a couple of months after the 3DS saw its own version launch. That game has already sold 2.8 million copies.

Using a $20 adapter, the game can use classic Gamecube controllers and Nintendo is selling Smash Bros-themed GameCube controllers for $30 if you want to go all out.

The game features 36 popular Nintendo characters and a plethora of new weapons and environments.

Just a couple of weeks after the iPhone 6 (and 6 Plus) survived the highly over-exaggerated 'Bendgate,' Apple has a new problem: "Hairgate."

Users are now reporting that the device catches your beard and other hairs and pulls them out.

Supposedly, the hairs get trapped between the aluminum and glass of the devices.

Of course, this latest "scandal" is overblown and not too serious, but something to keep in mind.

Amazon has announced that The Washington Post is now available as a free app for Amazon Kindle Fire tablet owners.

CEO Jeff Bezos acquired the newspaper last year, so the move is not too surprising.

The new app was developed by a group within TWP, and will offer a curated selection of news and photos. Free and pre-loaded for Kindle Fire owners, the app will also be available as a free download for iOS and Android tablets, although you will have to pay for a monthly subscription if you are not using an Amazon device.

Bezos purchased the paper for $250 million last year, picking up a legendary news outlet that was consistently losing tons of money. Since then, readership is up 60 percent and Bezos has actually hired 100 new reporters and other staff. Many believe the content has significantly improved since the acquisition.

Source:
BusinessWeek