Latest news

Facebook turned 10-years-old today and as a thank you to its massive userbase of 1.23 billion, as unveiled a "Look Back" feature allowing you to search back into your digital history.

You can view a personalized movie or view a collection of your top photos, as well as a "thank you" card from the company. If you get access to the movie, you will be edit the posts that are featured.

"It's been an incredible journey so far, and I'm so grateful to be a part of it. It's been amazing to see how people have used Facebook to build a real community and help each other in so many ways," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted. "In the next decade, we have the opportunity and responsibility to connect everyone and to keep serving the community as best we can."

Facebook continues to press forward with its mobile products and recently unveiled "Paper" for iOS which breaks down the News Feed and other news articles into a format that works better on the small screen.

Geeksphone, the Spanish startup trying to disrupt the smartphone world, has revealed specs and images for its upcoming Revolution handset that runs on Android and Firefox OS.

The device allows for "seamless" switching between Android and Boot2Gecko (Firefox OS).

With a black colorway on the front and white on the back, the device resembles the Nexus 5 but includes the Geeksphone logo on top and three buttons on the bottom. The device features a 4.7-inch IPS qHD display.

Under the hood is a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 4GB internal storage and a microSD card slot. Additionally, the smartphone has a 2,000 mAh battery and dual 1.3MP/8MP cameras.

The company says the device will sell for €200 and begin shipping on February 14th.

Check the device here.

Microsoft, in its quest to get more smartphone owners to switch to Windows Phone and Windows, has started two new promotions.

The first promotion is a standard trade-in offer that will allow consumers to trade in smartphone and tablets for up to $250 in credit. Of course there are restrictions; as you must bring the device to a US or Canadian Microsoft store (there are few). Additionally, you must bring in a full working device with no cracks or water damage, and you must include original accessories. Finally, you must also remove any password protection (this will of course not be a problem if you reformat the device like you are supposed to).

A Microsoft Store employee will determine how much the trade-in value is, and the deal is good through March 2nd.

The second deal is for the popular and cheap Nokia Lumia 520/521, which will come with a full 12-month subscription to Xbox Music for $99 total. The subscription normally costs $100 per year, and the device sells for $65 unlocked on average depending on the retailer/carrier.

Microsoft has named Satya Nadella its third CEO in history, following a five-month search as current CEO Steve Ballmer retires.

The 46-year-old executive is EVP of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, one of the fastest growing divisions in the company. Nadella has been an employee for 20 years and was formerly VP in the company's business and online services divisions. Steve Ballmer has stepped down and Nadella will begin immediately.

In addition, founder and former CEO Bill Gates will step down as chairman and will now serve as a "technology advisor" for all new consumer products. John Thompson, of the board of directors, has been promoted to Microsoft's chairman position.

"During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella," added Bill Gates. "Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth."

According to the Japanese business daily, Sony is preparing to sell its PC business.

The company is in talks with investment fund Japan Industrial Partners, and the price is said to be about 50 billion yen ($490 million).

Under the current plan, Sony would unload the business which would then be re-opened as a new company with Sony remaining a small stakeholder.

Other reports had claimed that Lenovo Group was looking into a joint takeover of the Sony Vaio PC business overseas. Sony denied those reports.

Sony continues to focus its operations and sell or liquidate divisions that are not considered "core."

Sony Mobile has confirmed today that many of its older Xperia smartphones will no longer be receiving future upgrades, and will stay with their current firmware and version of Android.

Most of the phones are nearing two years old, and it must not be viable for the electronics maker to work on getting software updates for the old devices.

End-of-life models include the Xperia arc S, Xperia S, Xperia SL, Xperia ion, Xperia acro S, Xperia go, Xperia P, Xperia J, Xperia miro, Xperia sola, Xperia tipo and Xperia U.

Samsung's large 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 finally has a U.S. release date and price.

On the specs side, the tablet runs on Android 4.4, has a 2560 x 1600 pixel display, is powered by a Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB RAM, Wi-Fi/LTE and 8MP/2MP cameras.

Samsung has aimed to create "professional" tablets that can be used instead of a regular laptop. This is the same goal Microsoft has tried to achieve with their Surface Pro Windows tablets. For example, the Note Pro includes four-pane multiwindow multitasking and layered pop-up windows for multitasking. You can resize the windows and even open up the same app twice. Bluetooth accessories will be offered through Samsung.

The company has created a new home screen layout, as well, dubbed Magazine UI. The layout provides full tiles of apps with information that can be customized and configured. The tiles are similar to the live tiles in Windows 8.1 but that was probably the point. Note Pro 12.2 devices ship with an updated S Pen stylus.

Google has announced that it has opened up the Google Cast Software Development Kit (SDK) for developers, allowing them to build Chromecast support into additional apps and websites.

Says Google: "Chromecast makes it easy to enjoy all of your favorite online content on a TV screen with the simple press of a button on your phone, tablet or laptop. We want to make it easier for that content to get to your TV, so today we're releasing the Google Cast Software Development Kit (SDK) for developers who want to build Chromecast support into their apps and websites.

For the rest of us, that means even more of our favorite movies, TV shows and music will become available on Chromecast as developers work with the SDK. Just be on the lookout for the cast button in your favorite apps and websites across Android, iOS and Chrome."

Currently, there is a limited list of Chromcast supported services and apps; Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO Go, Pandora, YouTube, Google Play TV and Movies, Vevo, Plex, Songza, Google Music, Redbull.tv, PostTV, Viki and RealPlayer Cloud.

According to the most recent NetApplications data, both Internet Explorer and Chrome gained market share for January.

The month was the third of full availability for IE11, which finally surpassed its predecessor.

Altogether, IE gained just 0.30 percentage points to 58.21 percent while Firefox dropped 0.27 percentage points to 18.08 percent and Chrome fractionally gained 0.06 percentage points to 16.28 percent.

Safari, which is only used by Mac and iPad/iPhone owners, stayed flat at 5.80 percent.

Internet Explorer has made an impressive comeback since the beginning of 2013, following a dip under 55 percent for the first time ever.

The oft-reported Windows 8.1 Update 1 has leaked this week, now available on all your favorite P2P, warez and file sharing sites.

Microsoft is expected to officially release the update in early March.

Update 1 will be a welcome relief for mouse and keyboard users. In Metro apps, Microsoft has added close/minimize options to the top right, and the ability to snap apps using the mouse.

Additionally, when right-clicking Live Tiles, there is a new context menu with options for unpinning, resizing and more using a mouse. Shutdown will be easier than the million step process it currently is, with power options for restart, shutdown and sleep now easily accessible.

Finally, Microsoft has also made access to the control panel easier through the PC settings section.

(Pic via Verge)

Windows 8.1 continues to gain market share, after three months of full availability on the market.

That being said, Windows 8 in general continues to see slower adoption, at least compared to Windows 7, taking just 10.58 percent share between 8 and 8.1 for January.

Windows 8.1 grew to 3.95 percent, while Windows 8 fell to 6.63 percent, for a total growth of just 0.09 percentage points. Windows 7 dropped 0.03 percentage points to 47.49 percent, remaining the far and away market share leader.

The long-forgotten Windows Vista fell to 3.30 percent on its slow but sure path to zero, allowing Windows 8.1 to leapfrog it. Windows XP somehow gained some share back, up to 29.23 percent.

While still mostly irrelevant, OS X gained slightly to 7.68 percent and Linux dropped to 1.60 percent.

Net Applications uses data "captured from 160 million unique visitors each month by monitoring some 40,000 websites for its clients."

Speaking after the company's quarterly earnings report, Google CFO Patrick Pichette called the Nexus 5 a "very strong" performer for the company.

Pichette did not reveal actual sales figures, but claimed that the Nexus 5 and the HDMI dongle Chromecast were their best selling products. "We had great momentum on the Nexus 5 and Chromecast," added Pichette.

The Nexus 5, which has high-end specs and sells unlocked and off-contract for just $349, seems to be the first in the line of Nexus' to reach a greater consumer base. Previous devices were popular with developers and were used as reference devices since the phones get the latest Android versions first.

Google recently sold its Motorola Mobility handset business to Lenovo, following years of growing losses. Google purchased the company to take its patent trove in 2011.

While other firms reported that smartphone shipments broke 1 billion in 2013, Canalys believes the world got very close but did not hit the milestone.

The research firm says 998 million smartphones were shipped last year, up 44 percent year-over-year.

Android remained king, being the operating system on 79 percent of the shipped devices, up from 68 percent in 2012. Apple's share fell to 15 percent from 20 percent even though shipments increased to 154 million.

Microsoft had the strongest growth, with shipments increasing 90 percent to 32.1 million. Windows Phone now has just over 3 percent market share. BlackBerry continued its fall, shipping just 19.8 million units for the year.

Windows Phone is an interesting entrant to the current duopoly that is the smartphone market, but Microsoft/Nokia will still need a lot of work to move the needle.

Samsung was the top smartphone maker in the world, followed by Apple, Huawei and Lenovo.

Samsung has launched their Galaxy Note 3 Neo phablet today, a cheaper model of the popular Note smartphone.

The Note Neo 3 (which comes in HSPA+ and LTE+ models), has a 5.5-inch 720p sAMOLED display, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, a 3100mAh, an included S Pen stylus and a microSD slot. The LTE version has a "hexa-core combo that consists of a 1.7GHz dual-core A15 cluster and a 1.3GHz quad-core A7 cluster" and the HSPA+ version has a standard 1.6GHz quad-core processor.

Both will run on Android 4.3 at launch, with updates expected for the future. As with other Samsung devices, the Android base includes the TouchWiz user interface and its plethora of apps and features. If you own a Galaxy Gear smartwatch, compatibility is included right out of the box.

Amazon has said today that it is actively considering raising the price of its popular Prime service by up to $40.

The service currently costs $79 per year for most people and gives Amazon users free 2-day shipping on millions of items and access to the Amazon Prime Instant Video streaming service and free books via Kindle.

CFO Tom Szkutak cited higher costs of shipping goods as the reason for the potential price raise.

Amazon has never released exact figures, but there are over 20 million global Prime users. 19 million items on Amazon are Prime-eligible, and the company also offers discounts for mothers and students.

The company recently raised the price for free shipping for non-Prime members from $25 to $35, the first time that price had been raised in a decade.