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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.

According to research firm IDC, the U.S. tablet market may already be reaching saturation, just four years after Apple unveiled the original iPad.

Says the firm: "It's becoming increasingly clear that markets such as the US are reaching high levels of consumer saturation and while emerging markets continue to show strong growth this has not been enough to sustain the dramatic worldwide growth rates of years past."

Overall shipments grew to 76.9 million in the Q4, up 28.3 percent year-over-year.

Apple remained the market leader for the quarter, shipping 26 million iPads, good for 33.8 percent share. Samsung came in second at 14.5 million units shipped, followed by Amazon at 5.8 million Kindle Fires shipped. Those figures gave the companies 18.8 percent and 7.6 percent market share, respectively.

Amazon saw a significant drop year-over-year, while Lenovo saw the biggest jump, at 325 percent from the same quarter in 2012.

Microsoft's board of directors are preparing to name current enterprise and cloud head Satya Nadella as the new CEO for the software giant.

Additionally, founder Bill Gates may be replaced as chairman, possibly by Microsoft lead independent director John Thompson. Gates would stay on for product development, however.

Outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer will leave the company once the replacement is selected, and investors are eagerly awaiting that time as Ballmer's tenure has been marred by failed expensive decisions.

Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992, and has been a high-level executive in divisions for cloud services, server software, Internet search and business applications. Microsoft has been moving towards hardware and cloud services, while continuing to print money through their legacy Windows and Office software.

In just two years, Nadella has boosted revenue 20 percent for Microsoft's server businesses (now cloud and enterprise).

Sony has confirmed that the slimmer model of the PS Vita released in Japan last year will replace the existing OLED model of the handheld for the European markets.

Once inventory is drained for the old model, no more will be manufactured for the continent. "The PS Vita PCH-2000 series will replace the existing PS Vita PCH-1000 series as stock of the older model is exhausted," says the company.

Sony released the slim Vita in Japan last October, with a 20 percent slimmer and 15 percent lighter design. The model also has an HD five-inch LCD screen, has better battery life, 1GB internal storage and replaces Sony's proprietary charing port with a micro USB.

The slim model will hit the UK first on February 7th for £180.

Master of the art of "leak" @Evleaks has posted images today with his tweets, seemingly confirming that the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S5 will have a 2K display and a fingerprint scanner.

The word comes via APK files for the S5, which are FingerprintService.apk and 3DTourViewer_WQHD_K.apk. It is unclear what features will come with the Fingerprint service, and whether it will be similar to Apple's TouchID.

WQHD, which is a shorthand for 2560x1440 resolution, which should lead to a massive PPI for the expected 5.2-inch device.

Smasung is expected to unveil the device at the end of February, so we will see if Evleaks is correct yet again. The S5 will go on sale at the end of April.

From Samsung Galaxy S 5. pic.twitter.com/9wn0gEYrA0

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) January 30, 2014

Also from Samsung Galaxy S 5. pic.twitter.com/sbJSH1mlkV

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) January 30, 2014

Microsoft has quietly started a promotion to bring over PS3 users to the next-gen Xbox One.

If you bring in a working Sony PlayStation 3, or an existing Xbox 360 S or Xbox 360 E to a Microsoft Store, you will receive $100 Store Credit to be used towards the purchase of an Xbox One.

Reads the ad:

Trade up and get your hands on the new Xbox One. Welcome to a new generation of games and entertainment. Where games push the boundaries of realism. And television obeys your every command. Where listening to music while playing a game is a snap. And you can jump from TV to movies to music to a game in an instant. Where your experience is custom tailored to you. And the entertainment you love is all in one place. Welcome to the all-in-one, Xbox One.

For a limited time, bring in your PS3, Xbox 360 S or Xbox 360 E and receive $100 of Microsoft retail store credit.

According to multiple sources, the Microsoft Xbox One will be getting some significant software and hardware updates this year.

First, sometime in March, the Xbox One will see its first major firmware update, with system fixes, and update for Xbox Live, new placement for social media and party-chat problems addressed.

Additionally, the white employee-only model will launch in October, and the 1TB internal storage model will see release a month later in November. Other potential updates are a Bluetooth adapter and a version without an optical drive.

We had previously heard that Microsoft was testing Blu-ray-drive-less consoles, but it appears closer to confirmed now.

Finally, Microsoft will be headed to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina in April.

PlayStation Now, which allows gamers to stream PlayStation games on the PS4, PS3, PlayStation Vita, tablets, smartphones and TVs is now available to select beta testers.

Sent directly to your email if you signed up to be a beta tester for the service, some users have already received their invites.

"You are invited to participate in the PlayStation Now Private Beta" reads the subject title, and a Neogaf thread appears to confirm that so far only PlayStation 3 owners have been receiving the invites.

The cloud service will go live in the Q2 in the US, the Q4 for Japan and the Q1 2015 for Europe.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has cut his salary in half following an earnings report in which the company saw a loss for its fiscal year, and slashed expectations for its Wii U console by over 60 percent.

Iwata will take the price cut for five months, and other board members will see their salaries reduced by up to 30 percent.

The company is prepared to a hold a conference tomorrow in which it will outline new business strategies that could include some content for mobile devices. Iwata says "how to utilise smart devices is the theme of our management policy conference (Thursday)".

Nintendo has been hit hard by terrible sales of the Wii U, which has been hurt by a limited game selection and now has brand new rivals in the Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox One.

In easily the biggest tech news of the day, Lenovo has agreed to acquire the Motorola Mobility smartphone business purchased by Google in 2011.

Lenovo finally gets their entry into the North American market (as well as a better foothold in Western Europe), and Google gets to dump a division that has been hemorrhaging money for years. Google purchased Motorola Mobility for its patents over two years ago for over $12 billion.

Google will receive $1.41 billion upfront (cash and shares) and the rest to be paid over the course of three years. Google will keep most of the patents but Lenovo will still receive 2000 patent assets, the Moto Mobility brand, and all of its trademarks. Lenovo will license the rest of the patents and IP.

"The acquisition of such an iconic brand, innovative product portfolio and incredibly talented global team will immediately make Lenovo a strong global competitor in smartphones. We will immediately have the opportunity to become a strong global player in the fast-growing mobile space," said Yang Yuanqing, chairman and CEO of Lenovo. "We are confident that we can bring together the best of both companies to deliver products customers will love and a strong, growing business. Lenovo has a proven track record of successfully embracing and strengthening great brands – as we did with IBM's Think brand – and smoothly and efficiently integrating companies around-the-world. I am confident we will be successful with this process, and that our companies will not only maintain our current momentum in the market, but also build a strong foundation for the future."

Just a month after the game was released for iOS and Android, Rockstar Games has released their GTA: San Andreas for the Windows Phone platform.

It is important to note that the game will not work with all Windows Phone 8 devices.

The Nokia Lumia 1520, 1320, 822, 820, 810 and HTC 8XT are supported. There are reports that other devices, including the Lumia 1020, run the game fine, so it appears that all you need is 1GB RAM.

Equally important to note is the game takes up about 2.5GB internal storage and requires Wi-Fi and the phone to be plugged in to download.

Get the game here.

Google has announced new prescription frames and sunglasses shades for their Google Glass eyewear.

The frames and shades are available now if you are a Google Glass early adopter, and will remain available through the general launch of the glasses later this year.

Among the new designs are "bold, curve, thin and split" choices and the sunglasses shades will come in "classic and edge" designs. With the new editions there are now a total of 40 different style combinations, says Google.

"This marks the next phase in the evolution of Glass as we move toward a wider consumer launch later in 2014," Google said in its statement.

The frames cost $225, the sunglasses are $150, and invited early adopters have to pay $1500 for the glasses. Google partnered with VSP for the frames and Google says those that "purchase the new frames take their device, the frames and their prescription to one of Google's preferred eye care professionals, who can cut and fit prescription lenses. For now, those professionals are only in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Google said VSP will reimburse members for their frames and lenses based on their prescription plan."

According to a report from the Korea Times this week, Samsung is actively developing a competitor to Google's Glass smart eye wear.

The aptly named Galaxy Glass could make its debut at the IFA event in Berlin.

An unnamed Samsung official is quoted in the report as saying "wearable devices can't generate profits immediately. Steady releases of devices are showing our firm commitment as a leader in new markets." The company made a similar statement when releasing the critically panned Galaxy Gear smartwatch at last year's IFA.

If true, it would appear that Samsung is willing to push profits aside to establish themselves as a market leader in future growth markets like smartwatches, eye wear and other wearables.

The Galaxy Glass would allow you to handle phone calls, listen to music and view emails and texts.

As forecasted last year by research firm IDC, smartphone shipments reached over 1 billion in 2013.

At 1.04 billion units, shipments were up 38.4 percent from 2012. Cheaper, low-end smartphones were seen as the big boost to the figures, with India and China and other emerging markets seeing most of their growth due to the cheaper phones.

Samsung continued to be king, with 313.9 million units sold and a 31.3 percent market share. Notably however, the company lost some share to its rivals during the fourth quarter.

Apple took second place with 15.3 percent and 153.4 million units shipped for the year. The company appears to have stagnated though, seeing the lowest year-over-year increase among all the top five vendors, by far.

Chinese giants Huawei and Lenovo came in third and fifth, with Lenovo seeing the largest annual growth. LG jumped to fourth after seeing significant growth, thanks to hits like the G2 and Nexus 5. Each of the companies had between 4.5 and 4.9 percent market share.

The Japanese business daily Nikkei has reported that Nintendo will create smartphone-based minigames for its more popular titles.

Following a rough quarterly earnings report this month, president Satoru Iwata told investors that the company was actively discussing ways to use mobile platforms like iOS and Android. Some more details from these internal discussions are expected by the end of the week, reads the report.

Besides the minigames, the company will also include playable demos of console titles, as well as exclusive videos and information. All of the content will be free.

Of course, the end game is to have gamers love the content so much that they go and purchase it on a respective Nintendo console.