Latest news

The team over at Popcorn Time has released the latest Android beta of the software, including some sure to be well-accepted features like free VPN.

Reads the latest post:

"Beta 2.1 is out and now you all can watch movies and TV shows with free VPN sponsored by Kebrum.com!!! Awesomeness.

Get it at: http://www.popcorn-time.se

What else is new on 2.1?

Support for Android 4.0 and above
Improved, faster download speed!!!
Support for many more devices which were not supported before. If it still doesn't work on your device, report it on: http://forum.time4popcorn.eu/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1098
Smoother watching experience
Many bug fixes (that annoying search function bug? Gone!!! Take that you bugger! ;-) )
improved Chromecast support
We're here for you guys, working, improving, changing, adding awesome features!
Popcorn Forever."

Popcorn Time is affectionately known as the "Netflix of Piracy" due to its ability of letting users quickly search and find any film they want and watch it in up to 1080p quality.

Sony has joined competitors in announcing large, curved 4K HDTVs for the mass market.

The consumer electronics maker has unveiled 65 and a 75-inch S90 models, both of which are less curved than existing LG or Samsung TVs. Sony says this helps for a more immersive experience and improved viewing angles for larger groups.

Powering the TV is an UltraHD Triluminos display with Sony's own "X-tended dynamic range" for darker blacks and better brightness. The TV also has advanced HD-to-4K upscaling capabilities, active 3D and even angled speakers and subwoofers for 4.2 surround sound.

If you are into "social viewing," there is a live football mode for tweeting and photo sharing while you watch.

Priced well out of the range of the average family, the TVs are expected to cost $5000 and $7500, respectively.

Microsoft has confirmed that its Windows Phone Store now has over 300,000 apps and games with "hundreds more" being added on a daily basis.

The company hit its last milestone, 200,000, in December 2013, so the growth rate has certainly increased in the last year.

Windows Phone is still missing many of the more popular iOS and Android apps, but the gap has been closing. Both of the bigger stores have over 1 million apps and games and are priorities for developers.

If a new leak is to be believed, the upcoming Nexus 8 tablet will have awesome specs to go along with the latest Android operating system.

It has been long rumored that HTC's "Volantis"/"T1"/"Flounder" tablet is really the next Google Nexus device, and we now have alleged specs for the Volantis.

The device will have a 2560 x 1600 resolution 8.9-inch display, right in between the Nexus 7's 7-inch display and the Nexus 10's 10.1-inch display and more in line with newer high-end form factors.

Under the hood, the tablet will be powered by a 64-bit Nvidia Tegra K1 processor (which kills the competition, see our review here) and 4GB RAM. Additionally, it has an aluminum body, premium compared to the rubber and plastic of its other iterations. Volantis will launch with Android 5.0 "L"

The device's cameras will also get an upgrade, up to 1.6MP/8MP.

Pricing and availability has not been confirmed but expect $399 and a launch in October.

Samsung and Barnes & Noble have sent out a press invite for an event on August 20th in which the two companies will officially launch their co-branded Galaxy Tab 4 Nook.

The companies are holding the event at B&N's flagship Union Square retail store in NYC.

Back in June, the companies revealed they were developing the GT4Nook, with an August launch date. The company's own Nook tablets were sales failures, and last year B&N announced it was partnering with bigger OEMs to build any future Nook-based products.

There are likely to be more announcements at the event, which only generally promised "to bring together the best of both worlds."

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 4 has a 7-inch 720p display, 1.5GB RAM, a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and dual cameras.

Microsoft has selected an end-of-life date for older Internet Explorer browser versions, giving users until January 12, 2016 to use all versions before IE 11, if they want to keep up-to-date security that is.

The tech giant will no longer provide security updates for the browsers or any other tech support after the date, if you are using IE 8-10, which many corporations still use despite being heavily outdated.

In its post, Microsoft lists the reasons to update anyways, including speed, usability, security and third-party developer support. "Protection against malicious software increased from 69% on Internet Explorer 8 in 2009 to over 99% on Internet Explorer 11.," adds the company, a huge difference.

If you are unsure how to upgrade, Microsoft also created a few sites to help with the migration, including one for consumers, one for enterprise and one for developers.

Read more or get updated here.

Microsoft's hit Surface Pro 3 will be available to a lot more people in the near future.

The company has announced that the tablet will be available in 25 new nations by August 28th.

Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and the UK will all have the tablet available by the end of the month, with most taking pre-orders starting this week.

Many of the countries will also see sales just in time for the back to school season.

Netflix has finally overcome HBO in subscriber revenue, reporting $1.146 billion in revenue for the last quarter compared to $1.41 billion for HBO.

The streaming giant has 48 million paid subscribers, and 35.1 million in the U.S.

HBO has 127 million paying subscribers in total, but that includes HBO 2, HBO Family, Cinemax and more.

Says Netflix CEO Reed Hastings: "Minor milestone: last quarter we passed HBO is subscriber revenue ($1.146B vs $1.141B). They still kick our ass in profits and Emmy's, but we are making progress. HBO rocks, and we are honored to be in the same league. (yes, I loved Silicon Valley and yes it hit a little close to home.)"

Book retailer Barnes & Noble is now working with Google for same-day delivery of books in some metro areas including Manhattan in New York, West L.A. and San Francisco.

Market leader Amazon offers local delivery in some areas, and now B&N (with some help from a tech giant), is looking to challenge them with a low cost alternative.

"We think we're going to get new customers and incremental sales" through the deal says Barnes & Noble chief merchandising officer Jaime Carey. "The speed to market they are offering our customers and their customers is really incredible."

Google added: "We're excited that people in San Francisco Bay Area, West LA and Manhattan will be able to use Google Shopping Express to get same day deliveries from Barnes & Noble, joining our existing retail partners like Target, Costco and Staples."

The news comes on the heels of Amazon's expansion of their same-day delivery service, adding new locations in NYC, D.C., Philly, Dallas, Baltimore and Indianapolis. Amazon delivers much more than just books, however, at $5.99 for Prime subscribers.

For the new partnership, Google Shopping Express members get free same-day delivery and non-members pay $4.99.

According to a new report, Microsoft is working on bringing a retail store to Fifth Avenue in New York City, near the now iconic Apple "cube" on 59th and 5th.

The tech giant is negotiating a deal at 677 Fifth Ave. near 53rd St., right in the middle of a plethora of high-end luxury stores.

At 8700-square feet over two stories, the space was previously occupied by fashion brand Fendi, which has since moved on to Madison Ave. The deal will not be cheap for Microsoft, with prices topping $3000 per square foot for ground floor space on Fifth Ave.

Microsoft still has a small retail presence on the east coast, but has been expanding rapidly into metropolitan areas like Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Microsoft only has one other retail store in Manhattan.

After making an ill-received tablet last year and a better-received gaming handheld, Nvidia has come back with a vengeance combining the two with the new Shield Tablet.

The device, which is a full Android tablet at its core, can double as a gaming console, adding much more functionality than standalone devices can offer. Nvidia, which rules the PC video card market, knows gaming and has emphasized that expertise.

Under the hood, the company has also packed in high-end specs to a premium-feeling device with a price tag that is certainly competitive, but the company will have a battle against more well known consumer names like Samsung and Apple and Google.

Read ahead to learn about the powerful multi-function Nvidia Shield Tablet.

Specs, Display, Performance and Design

The Shield Tablet is powerful, plain and simple. The company has used their own brand new Tegra K1 processor clocked at 2.2GHz with a 192-core Kepler GPU. In every benchmark test, the processor destroys the competition and it shows when playing games or even just watching any kind of content. The processor is backed by 2GB of RAM, and the display is a nice 8-inch 1920x1200 IPS LCD.

Just hours after it was reported that French carrier Iliad is looking to increase their bid for the U.S.' fourth largest carrier, T-Mobile US, it appears their main suitor Sprint is ending their pursuit.

Sprint, now owned by Japanese carrier Softbank, is said to be dropping their bid due to the insurmountable regulatory hurdles that such a merger would have caused in the U.S. Anti-trust agencies in the U.S. have long said they do not want more consolidation in the U.S. wireless market and are content with four big players although Verizon and AT&T each have over double the customers and spectrum of Sprint and T-Mobile and operate as a duopoly in some areas.

Softbank had been in advanced negotiations with T-Mobile parent Deutsch Telekom for over three months. Financing concerns are also said to have caused the end of discussions.

T-Mobile has been gaining subscribers at the fastest pace in the industry for the last two years, thanks to customer friendly new plans and features, while Sprint continues to lose customers and lose hundreds of millions of dollars per quarter.

Microsoft has confirmed that the expected Windows 8.1 update is coming on August 12th.

The company did not call the update pack "Update 2" as expected, meaning it should be on a much smaller scale than Update 1 from earlier this year.

Among the updates are trackpad stability improvements, enhanced SharePoint Online integration and a reduction in login prompts, and a large Wi-Fi API update (Miracast Receive) for third party devs. Update 1, on the other hand, improved external device support and rehauled the user interface, making the update a huge deal for the operating system.

Moving forward, there may not be an "Update 2" as Microsoft plans to make smaller but more frequent updates. "Rather than waiting for months and bundling together a bunch of improvements into a larger update [...] customers can expect that we'll use our already existing monthly update process to deliver more frequent improvements[.]"

You can read more about the updates here.

Earlier this month, French carrier Iliad made a surprise bid for rising star T-Mobile U.S., offering $15 billion for a 56.5 percent stake.

Many believe that bid was completely dead on arrival, but it now appears that Iliad is speaking with investors and other companies in order to improve their bid, including speaking to cable and satellite giants Cox, Dish and Charter.

T-Mobile majority owner Deutsche Telekom has been in negotiations with the U.S.' third largest carrier, Sprint, for a $32 billion merger, but that deal has so many regulatory hurdles that an official bid has not even been made.

Besides the cable and satellite companies, Iliad is also talking to pension funds and sovereign wealth funds, seeking investors to help increase their bid. Sources claim investment banks can secure $13 billion in debt, and Iliad founder and billionaire Xavier Niel is planning to put up 1 billion euro of his own wealth. Additionally, the company will raise 2 billion via a stock sale, diluting current shareholders.

Iliad shook up the French market since launch in 2012, and has plans that start as low as 2 euro a month. T-Mobile has done similar in the U.S., offering innovative "Uncarrier" features and "Simple Choice" plans that start as low as $50 for individuals and $100 for families of 4.

21st Century Fox and its chairman Rupert Murdoch have withdrawn their massive $80 billion bid for rival Time Warner.

The media giant says Time Warner was unwilling to negotiate and Fox's share price continued to fall since the bid was revealed last month, causing worry.

Time Warner owns some highly coveted properties including Warner Bros. Entertainment, HBO, TNT and TBS and the acquisition would have been the largest since AOL's $160 billion acquisition of Time Warner at the height of the tech bubble in 2000. That purchase was an unmitigated disaster, and led to write-offs in excess of $100 billion.

Murdoch, infamous for overpaying for what he wants and being aggressive, says the original bid was friendly, "However, Time Warner management and its board refused to engage with us to explore an offer which was highly compelling. The reaction in our share price since our proposal was made undervalues our stock and makes the transaction unattractive to Fox shareholders." The chairman says this should end any further exploration of a deal.

Time Warner's shares fell 11 percent on the news, making the shares much more attractive than they were even seconds before the news. Fox shares rose over 5 percent.