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Last month, Google had their annual I/O developer conference, unveiling a plethora of new software, hardware and features over a sprawling two and a half hour event.

As a flashback (and maybe to make us remember), Google has put out their Google I/O 2014 highlights video, which includes the keynote, sessions, Developer Sandbox, and After Hours.

The video is short, but if you want to view the sessions or the entire keynote, you can still do so, in HD, here: Google Events

During their show, Google showed off the next iteration of Android, "L," Android Auto for cars, Android TV for the big screen, Google Fit for fitness tracking and updates to Google Glass, Chrome OS, Android Wear and everything in between.

Read our articles from Google I/O here: Google I/O 2014

Tech behemoth Microsoft is looking to cut some costs as it integrates its new Nokia handset unit, planning layoffs that would be the company's largest this decade.

The new restructuring could end up being the company's largest in its history, even surpassing the 5800 laid off in 2009 during the tail end of the financial crisis. Most of the layoffs will be in divisions that overlap with Nokia, most notably engineering and marketing.

While the plans are not yet public, new CEO Satya Nadella has been calling for sweeping changes including more focus on efficiency and reducing redundancies. The company plans to focus on mobile devices, the cloud and productivity software into the future, obvious choices as other revenue streams dry up. "Nothing is off the table in how we think about shifting our culture," Nadella said last week.

The company now has 127,000 employees, with almost 30,000 of those coming via the Nokia acquisition. There are almost certainly thousands of redundancies with numbers that big.

Expect more clarity next week during Microsoft's quarterly earnings report.

For gamers who missed out on the early alpha, the upcoming beta for the blockbuster "Destiny" game is right around the corner.

Starting on July 17th, PlayStation owners will get access to the two-week long beta, followed by pre-order holders on the 23rd. Until now, there was very little known about what the beta would entail but we now have a pretty clear picture.

Developer Bungie took to Reddit to post a brief snippet on what we can expect: Four story chapters, four multiplayer maps, a co-op strike mission and a full world to explore. Nice. The alpha, for comparison, only had two multiplayer maps and some minor missions.

The FPS role playing game from the development team behind Halo, has promised the most inter-connected world yet, allowing gamers to create a dynamic experience that is not controlled by the developers.

Destiny launches in full on September 9th for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

LG has developed a new 18-inch flexible OLED that can roll up like a newspaper.

The display has a resolution of 1200 x 810 but most impressively can be rolled up like a paper, sporting a 3cm radius.

While still in prototype, LG is confident that the displays will be available on large HDTVs in the near future. Says the company: "We are confident that by 2017, we will successfully develop an Ultra HD flexible and transparent OLED panel of more than 60 inches."

At that size, the displays would be much larger than anything we have seen to date. Curved displays have been used on a few smartphones but there has been no real practical use for them. Full flexible displays have been shown off in sizes ranging from 1 to 4 inches.

Many in the corporate world are excited for such displays as it would make presentations easier, especially when traveling where traditional screens may not be available.

Mobile fans who are tired of jumping from app to app are in for a treat.

The music ID/discovery app Shazam has been updated to allow for users to stream the full track rather than just a short preview, thanks to a partnership with Rdio. Both companies say the feature is free, as long as you have both services (Rdio needs a subscription).

Within the Shazam app, just click the Rdio preview button to listen to the full track, no need to be led to the external Rdio app. If you don't have the Rdio app, you will be prompted to install it.

"It's tedious to leave and come back," notes Daniel Danker, Shazam's chief product officer. "What we're launching today is supercharged with Rdio -- the play button gets an Rdio logo in it, literally every play button in Shazam will have one once it's connected."

Even better for Rdio users, the tracks previewed or listened through Shazam are collected into a playlist.

Connected KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has released another research note this week, claiming that Apple's alleged iPhone 6 phablet model could be delayed until 2015.

Apple is expected to announce a 4.7-inch iPhone 6 this fall, but there has also been speculation that the company will release a 5.5-inch phablet model, as well.

Kuo notes that Apple is already struggling to get production ready for the 4.7-inch model due to new technology for the display (Sapphire anyone?) and the colors on the redesigned metal casing. "These problems will likely be even more complicated with a larger size," he added. The in-cell touch panels in particular, appear to be having touch sensitivity issues on the sides of the display which is compounded as the size gets larger.

If the company can fix the issues, the 5.5-inch device will not be available until early December, or so, much later than an average iPhone launch.

Raspberry Pi, the cult classic micro-computer, is now in its "final evolution."

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced that Model B+ is now available for the standard $35 price, from manufacturing partners element14 and RS/Allied Components.

Supposedly, the new model is less "power hungry" but will keep most of the same features under the hood, including the same 512MB RAM.

Among the changes are:

General purpose input/output: The GPIO header now has an increased number of 40 pins for more reading from sensors or writing output.

USB: The Model B+ now has four USB 2.0 ports, up from two on Model B.

Lower power consumption: Model B+ uses less power of between 0.5W and 1W.

Micro SD: The old SD card slot has been replaced with a micro SD version.

Better audio: There is now a low-noise power supply.

Improved form factor: The USB connectors have been aligned with the board edge, composite video has been moved onto the 3.5mm jack, and there are now four squarely-placed mounting holes.

Microsoft will not allow Chromebooks to have another hot selling holiday season without at least trying to compete.

COO Kevin Turner revealed that Acer, Toshiba and HP will all release Windows laptops for under $250 this year, although Acer's is already available.

The Acer machine has a 15.6-inch display and a 2.16GHz Celeron processor along with a 500GB HDD. Toshiba's $250 device will have a 11.6-inch display, weighs just 2.4 pounds and has a 32GB SSD. There was no details on HP's $199 "Stream" Windows machine, but it's hard to imagine what specs are involved at such a cheap price.

"We are going to participate at the low-end," says Turner. "We've got a great value proposition against Chromebooks, we are not ceding the market to anyone."

While Microsoft is now competing on price, it remains to be seen if the underpowered devices can match the smooth performance of a Chromebook.

AdDuplex has put out their monthly report on Windows Phone, showing what phones are most popular for the platform, and where.

The report on the smartphone industry's third biggest OS is always interesting, especially since by all reports, the industry is a duopoly led by Android and iOS.

AdDuplex is a "cross-promotion network for Windows Phone and Windows 8 apps," allowing developers to promote their apps through other apps. This relationship allows the company to have in-depth knowledge across the globe of what phones are being used.

For the month, the top three most popular devices remained the Lumia 520, Lumia 625 and the Lumia 920, although each had smaller share than in May. The Lumia 520's successor, the Lumia 630, jumped to 20th place and should continue to prosper as 520 sales have flatlined.

There have been multiple reports in the past month suggesting that Apple is preparing to start production on its much-awaited iWatch smartwatch in September.

If connected KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is correct, however, production has already been delayed until November, suggesting inventory will be very low when the watch launches.

Kuo says the watch remains a hardware and software challenge for the company, even after years of development, and therefore the reported time frame is incorrect. While the watch could still launch in October, as expected, there will be tiny supply available. Kuo notes that there will only be 3 million iWatches sold in the Q4, down from an anticipated 10 million.

If previous reports are accurate, the iWatch will sport a 2.5-inch flexible AMOLED display with a sapphire glass cover, two components that Apple has either never used, or never used in such a large size. Apple is also said to having issues meeting high waterproofing standards.

On the software side, the iOS team is having issues redesigning for such a small screen while still keeping deep interoperability with the iPad and iPhone.

Last month, Samsung's head of Tizen, JD Choi, announced proudly that their first smartphone running the OS would be ready for sale in Russia in the Q3.

The expected launch was set for Thursday in Moscow, but as is becoming standard for Tizen, the launch was canceled and the phone delayed.

Samsung said little except to note that "the smartphone will appear on the Russian market later, when we can offer our users a fullest portfolio of applications." The Tizen team did still hold an event for developers in which prototypes were shown off, but the commercial launch still has no time frame.

In fact, the hall that was available for developers was less than half full, and a Samsung executive almost sadly told the crowd that the "most obvious advantage [of developing for the Tizen phone] is that you'll be at the top in a half empty store on a decent premium device." Well, I guess there's that.

Overall, the developers there seems relatively unfazed, likely due to developing thick skin after over three years of delays and setbacks.

Even though demand for PCs has picked up after nearly four years of declines, industry watchers remain skeptical that the industry has anywhere to go but down.

The industry temporarily got a boost this year as corporations and governments used the end of life for Windows XP as an excuse to purchase new Windows 7 or Windows 8 PCs, but a few companies have already claimed that that boost is coming to an end, and soon.

Most concerns come from the emerging markets including China, where demand is already falling again. The industry has been averaging at least 3 percent declines year-over-year since 2010 but saw flat shipments for the quarter ended June 30th.

Other concerns are due to PC's main rivals, tablets and now Chromebooks, the former of which has been seeing triple-digit growth (up until this quarter) and the latter of which remains a very popular item, at least within certain niches. The most recent quarter, in which tablet shipments actually fell, does show there is still demand for notebooks, as long as they are cheap and portable but how long that lasts is also unclear, especially if tablets keep moving towards convertible options that basically turns them into laptops.

We received an email yesterday from pirated movie streaming service Popcorn Time, showing off the upcoming features of its 2.0 version beta software for Android.

Reads the email:

Just wanted to let you know that we just released the new Android beta 2.0 version and for the first time "Androiders" can cast their favorite movies and TV shows to their TV's using their Chromecast device!!!

After the alpha with Chromecast for PC, now comes the Android's turn, and Mac will be next, hopefully in the upcoming weeks.

What else is new?

1. Automatic updates
2. Native UI
3. Faster download rate of movies/TV shows
4. Many bug fixes
5. More devices supported

We're also working hard on bringing built in free VPN, which we have available only on PC at the moment to Android and it should be ready for the next release (beta 2.1) which is a due soon.

The FCC has approved a new $2 billion fund that will help schools build school-wide Wi-Fi networks.

"Because of what we do today, 10 million kids will be connected next year who otherwise wouldn't. That's something to be proud of," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said.

The funds are guaranteed for the next two years with the "assumption" that funding for the networks will be in place in the future. No guarantees, however.

FCC's Wheeler was asked why the size of the program was not expanded, in which he responded that it was not prudent to just throw money at a program that had been started in the 1990s.

"I hope that going forward we will have the courage to fix this," Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel added. "I hope going forward we will be bold. Because this is not just a matter of getting schools and libraries connected -- it's a matter of our global competitiveness."

The $2 billion will come from a combination of unused funds and administrative cost-cutting, added the FCC.

A major deal is in the works between music service SoundCloud and the record labels.

The deal, which could close this month, will give the major record labels stakes in the service in return for not suing over copyright violations.

Each label (Universal, Warner and Sony) will receive between a 3-5 percent stake, as well as a percentage of future revenue in the startup. The deal will value the company at about $600 million, cheap compared to other services in the streaming music industry, and also cheaper than an investment round valued the company in February. The difference is likely due to the labels also exchanging licensing rights to millions of songs, thus getting them a discount on the investment.

SoundCloud has over 250 million monthly listeners. The site lets users upload music, podcasts and other audio and then quickly post that content to other sites including social media. In this way, the service is very different than other catalogs like Spotify or Rdio because most of the content is user-uploaded and not copyright music, although many mixes do include copyright tracks.