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According to Tech in Asia, cloud syncing service Dropbox is now unblocked in China after having been trapped behind the Great Firewall since 2010.

Besides the standard personal cloud syncing, the report confirms that publicly sharing files is also available.

Despite the site being back, it is doubtful that many in China will use it given the slow speeds to overseas servers and the general disinterest in the service compared to local offerings.

Services such as those from Tencent and Baidu, offer higher speeds and more space, some as high as 1TB compared to Dropbox's 2GB for free.

Konami has given eager gamers more details about the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, detailing the resolution and graphics for the game on each console.

The game is set for release on March 18th for the PS3, PS4, X360 and Xbox One.

PlayStation 4 gamers will get the most detail, with the game running at 60fps and a native resolution of 1080p. The Xbox One will get the same fps but a native 720p resolution.

If you are running a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 the game will upscale to 720p and run at 30fps. "Since Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is a multi-platform game, we have taken the opportunity to test the differences in how each version of the game looks and plays," added the publisher.

The design guru of Apple Jonathan Ive has disappeared from the Executive Profiles page on Apple website. The profile of Apple Senior VP of Design is still available via a direct link and the Google cache shows him on the Executive Profiles.

Last summer missing went the technologies executive Bob Mansfield who had been transferred. Therefore the removal doesn't necessarily mean that Jony Ive has left the company.

It seems that there are also other errors on the website currently so we'll be waiting for confirmation or correction by Apple.

Jony Ive has been an Apple executive since 1997 when he joined to lead the company's design team. After iOS boss Scott Forstall left the company Ive totally revamped the design of the mobile operating system as well.

Edit: Jony Ive is back on the page.

The world's biggest maker of displays for smartphones, Japan Display, is preparing for an IPO that could raise $1.7 billion for the company.

Japan Display has been incredibly successful due to its focus on small and medium-sized displays and now accounts for 17 percent share of the global market.

The company was formed from the death and then merger of the LCD units of Hitachi, Toshiba and Sony and was backed by the Japanese government to the tune of $2 billion in funding.

Apple uses Japan Display for the iPhone 5C and 5S, and the company has a large client base of top companies across the U.S. and Asia. Apple, however, is the most important as the Cupertino giant accounts for 30 percent of their revenue.

The company will use the IPO funding to "boost its production capacity and to develop new technologies."

Fans and users of the crowdfunding platform (myself included) were said to hear this week that the site had been hacked, with personal info being stolen by the attackers.

In emails sent to current users (and in a blog post), the Kickstarter team explains the situation and apologizes the best they can:

On Wednesday night, law enforcement officials contacted Kickstarter and alerted us that hackers had sought and gained unauthorized access to some of our customers' data. Upon learning this, we immediately closed the security breach and began strengthening security measures throughout the Kickstarter system.

No credit card data of any kind was accessed by hackers. There is no evidence of unauthorized activity of any kind on your account.

While no credit card data was accessed, some information about our customers was. Accessed information included usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and encrypted passwords. Actual passwords were not revealed, however it is possible for a malicious person with enough computing power to guess and crack an encrypted password, particularly a weak or obvious one.

As a precaution, we strongly recommend that you change the password of your Kickstarter account, and other accounts where you use this password.

According to a new report, Apple's head of acquisitions, Adrian Perica, had high-level discussions with Tesla CEO Elon Musk last spring, with Apple at the time considering buying the company or its battery factories.

This is not the first time we have heard of such a move, as over the fall, European financial analyst Andaan Ahmad wrote an open letter stating that Apple should partner with the luxury electric car maker, or buy it outright. His thesis was simple: buying Tesla would open up a huge new revenue market for the company, which has seen its growth practically peak.

If Apple is looking to purchase, they missed a cheap opportunity last year. Since the beginning of 2013, Tesla's market value has appreciated from under $5 billion to $24 billion today.

Additionally, Apple is also rumored to be exploring medical devices, "specifically sensor technology that can help predict heart attacks."

Apple has over $160 billion in cash and cash equivalents, enough to buy nearly any company it wants.

Microsoft has confirmed that it will still let OEMs sell new PCs with Windows 7 Professional pre-installed beyond its original lifecycle date of October 2014. Windows Pro is used by business customers.

Past October 31st, however, the OEMs will not be able to sell PCs with the consumer editions of Windows 7 pre-installed.

When pressed for reasons behind the change, Windows senior business program manager Shad Larsen said it had nothing to do with a lack of adoption for Windows 8 by enterprise customers or the upcoming end-of-life for Windows XP.

Rather, Larsen says business customers remain in the mid-cycle of deploying the Windows 7 operating system, so Microsoft wants to make it easier to have businesses buy it.

Looking farther out, Windows 7's end-of-life for free support is January 13th, 2015, with extended support through January, 2020.

HTC, during a Reddit AMA, has said they are focusing on Android updates, after a notably rough past of slow updates.

The company has made an effort to get all HTC One devices up to Kit Kat (Android 4.4), and despite delays, has succeeded as of February.

Into the future, all U.S. flagship devices will be updated to the latest Android for at least two years following their releases, a strong promise from the company. Just last month, the company confirmed that it could not update the One X or One X+ due to Nvidia's lack of support for the processing chip used in the One X+.

Because the company only confirmed for U.S. devices, it is unclear how international models will fare.

According to connected insider Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft will be releasing a full Office for iPad 'sooner than you think."

Foley believes the software will be released in the first half of this year, even before the touch-friendly Windows 8 version is launched.

Reads her note: "I hear Ballmer and the senior leaders of the company may have had a change of heart towards the end of last year. According to one of my contacts, Ballmer OK'd the suggestion by the Office team that they'd bring Office for iPad to market as soon as it was ready, even though that would likely mean before the Windows 8 version."

Former CEO Steve Ballmer is said to have objected to Office on iPad, but he is no longer in the position. Back in January, Microsoft VP John Case confirmed the software, saying "We have confirmed we are building an iPad version. The touch first versions of Office for Windows, those will likely be first. We haven't announced a date for iPad version."

Google has updated their Play Services SDK this week, meaning tons of Chromecast apps should be on the way.

The SDK has added support for the HDMI dongle, meaning developers can choose to add the functionality to their apps if they so choose.

Earlier in the month, Google made the announcement that the Chromecast SDK had been opened up to the developer public, but the company did note that the Android framework would need to be updated, as well.

Reads the new post: "Google Play services 4.2 is now rolled out to devices worldwide. The new release includes Google Cast APIs that let you bring content to the TV, updated Google Drive APIs, and more.

You can get started developing today by downloading the updated Google Play services SDK (r15) from the SDK Manager. API details and samples are also available in the updated documentation."

According to a new survey, about 1200 of 2000 iPhone users questioned said they will always switch to the latest iPhone when it is time to upgrade, admitting to blind loyalty for the Apple brand.

When those surveyed were asked why they would not consider other brands, 78 percent said they "couldn't imagine having a different type of phone now."

54 percent said they owned a previous version of the handset, and 37 percent said they bought a new one because they were familiar with the iOS interface. 28 percent said the iPhone seemed to be the best phone for them at the time of upgrade. Another 25 percent said most of their friends and family had iPhones and they wanted to keep Apple-only features like Facetime.

Breaking the iPhone down even more, 52 percent had a 5, 29 percent had a 4 or 4S, 10 percent had a 5C or 5S and 9 percent still had a 3/3GS.

According to new data from IDC, the Chinese smartphone market experienced its first slow down since 2011.

"The world has increasingly looked to China as the powerhouse to propel the world's smartphone growth and this is the first hiccup we've seen in an otherwise stellar growth path," says Melissa Chau, Senior Research Manager with IDC Asia/Pacific's Client Devices team.

Quarter-over-quarter, shipments fell 4.3 percent to 90.8 million units.

One of the main reasons cited for the "hiccup" is the fact that 4G TD-LTE networks went live on December 18th, with carriers and OEMs waiting for the launch before releasing full inventories. This is expected to boost the Q1 2014.

"There will certainly be future drivers to unlock further smartphone growth in China, as Apple demonstrated with its China Mobile tie-up in January, and the massive device migration to come of phones only supporting 2G and 3G networks to devices supporting 4G networks. However, we are now starting to see a market that is becoming less about capturing the low-hanging fruit of first time smartphone users and moving into the more laborious process of convincing existing users why they should upgrade to this year's model," adds Chau.

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has announced it is acquiring the popular VoIP, messaging company Viber for $900 million.

Rakuten, which is sometimes called the Amazon of Japan, has been moving from its retail roots (including owning Buy.com) and moving into the digital space with recent acquisitions and launches of Kobo, Wuaki.tv, and Viki.

Viber has over 300 million registered users, and its global base grew 120 percent in 2013.

"Viber understands how people actually want to engage and have built the only service that truly delivers on all fronts. This makes Viber the ideal total consumer engagement platform for Rakuten as we seek to bring our deep understanding of the consumer to vast new audiences through our dynamic ecosystem of Internet Services," said Rakuten Chairman and CEO, Hiroshi Mikitani.

Towards the end of last year, Viber launched a Skype competitor, with a free desktop service of their own to complement their mobile app for iOS and Android.

The NPD Group has released their latest figures today for game sales, and Microsoft has skewed the data to reveal that the Xbox 360 and Xbox One as a team have topped the list of sales for the month.

Microsoft says that combined, Xbox consoles sold 2.27 million units, good for 47 percent software market share. The company adds that Xbox One owners are purchasing an average of 2.7 games per new Xbox One console, a very decent rate.

Reads the press release:

During the month of January, Xbox* held five of the top 10 spots on the console game title list in the U.S.: "Battlefield 4," "Call of Duty: Ghosts" (Xbox 360 and Xbox One), "Grand Theft Auto V" and "Minecraft." Gamers love Xbox and our community has never been more vibrant on the industry-leading Xbox Live service. Since launch, over 2.6 billion global Gamerscore has been achieved, 165 million global achievements have been unlocked and 130 million global Game DVR clips have been uploaded.

Microsoft's EVP Tami Reller has announced today that the company has sold over 200 million Windows 8.x licenses, despite the struggles of the operating system.

The company says the figure does "not include volume license sales to enterprise," but does include upgrades to Windows 8 from older OS.

Back in May of last year, the company announced 100 million units sold, so the pace of sales is about 350,000 licenses per day since then. During its launch period, that average was over 450,000 per day.

Windows 7, in its comparable period from launch, had a stronger start seeing 240 million licenses sold as many were happy and excited to move away from the old Windows XP and the globally hated Vista.