Latest news

Google has taken the excellent step of protecting Chrome users from browser toolbars that can be added (usually unwittingly) when installing extensions or other software.

Says Google: "Today we're announcing an update to the Chrome Web Store policy: extensions in the Chrome Web Store must have a single purpose that is narrow and easy-to-understand. While this has always been the intent of the Chrome extension system, not all extensions have lived up to this ideal. These multi-purpose extensions can crowd your browser UI and slow down your web browsing - sometimes significantly. We're making this policy change to fix these problems and give users more control over their browsing experience."

Chrome extensions were always supposed to serve a single purpose, allowing for a single visible UI surface when using the browser. Toolbars, which can add search bars and other features revolving around the toolbar maker's products, clearly did not fit into the Chrome mold. Google was unable to stop them, however: "Unfortunately, in some cases, we couldn't enforce these design goals technically. With content scripts, extension developers have full control over the page, so they can put up as much UI as they want, even going as far as to create toolbars in the page. Others used content scripts to create extensions with more subtle features bundled together that were harder to attribute to specific extensions. In many cases, the Chrome Web Store helped by showing poor reviews when users had noticed bad behavior from a particular extension, but in other cases the connection wasn't clear."

Although there have been plenty of complaints about the Nintendo Wii U, one large one has been the amount of actual gaming time you can get out of your GamePad.

Nintendo will try to remedy that situation by making its high-capacity GamePad battery available in the U.S. for $32.

The 2,550mAh battery had been available in Japan since the summer, and had been well received. Battery life using the new battery is increased to about eight hours from the tablet's usual four hours, giving gamers more time without needing to be plugged into the wall.

You can order the product via Nintendo here.

New Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins revealed some impressive figures for the streaming service for the end of 2013.

In terms of revenue, Hopkins says the company will reach $1 billion for the first time, up from $695 million in 2012. The company has seen similar growth figures every year since coming out of beta in 2008.

Hulu Plus subscribers have reached 5 million, each paying $8 per month to get mobile access to TV shows and movies and back catalogs for popular shows.

Hopkins says over 2.5 million paying subscribers stream Hulu exclusively on devices rather than on their computers. Hulu Plus is most popular on consoles, Chromecast, and of course Android, iOS and Windows Phone smartphones and tablets. Additionally, the company refreshed the user interface for Hulu Plus on hundreds of devices, including the Apple TV, SmartTVs, Roku, PlayStation, Xbox and the Wii, adds Hopkins.

BLU Products, the company aiming to control the extremely low-end market in Latin America and elsewhere, has unveiled its Life Pure smartphone, one with specs that can almost rival today's more expensive and high-end devices.

The Life Pure will sell unlocked for $340 and include a 5-inch 1080p display, dual 13MP/5MP cameras, 32GB internal storage, be powered by a mid-range 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek and 2GB RAM and will run on Android 4.2. Unfortunately, there is no LTE support for the device but it does support HSPA+.

"The Life Pure as its name suggests is art in its purest form, created from a single piece polycarbonate using the latest CNC technology, then each individually hand crafted, resulting in beautifully designed hardware," said Samuel Ohev-Zion, CEO of BLU Products. "When combined with equally stunning software, the final result is a device that should be appreciated as different and captivating to look at."

Luxury phone maker Gresso has unveiled a line of titanium Android smartphones, starting at the ridiculous price of $1800.

The base limited edition "Radical" smartphone, the R1, sells for $1800 and uses grade 5 titanium as its casing. Reads the site (which is full of grammatical errors, as well, which I've left in): "Smartphone case is executed of solid titanium plate. Titanium key advantages are its unique protection properties - the case holds extreme mechanical stress, is resistant to compression and bending. Titanium case machining process is time-and-labor consuming. Namely because of that products made of titanium are highly valued. Milling of such a hard material is executed within 9 hours at high-tech equipment."

Under the hood is a very mediocre device, including a low-end quad-core 1.2GHz processor, Android 4.1.2, 36GB internal storage, dual-SIM capabilities, an 8MP camera and a 4.5-inch 960 x 540 display. Gorilla Glass protects the display and the glass portion of the back of the phone.

The device is heavy (understandably) at 7.75 ounces.

Nokia has won an injunction against struggling smartphone maker HTC over patent infringement, a potentially devastating decision for HTC.

The decision affects all of HTC's Android devices, and means Nokia could potentially get all those devices banned in Germany.

HTC's infringing patent is related to the way a PC chooses appropriate drivers when connected via USB. To avoid a full injunction and ban on their devices, HTC will have to modify its methods or begin licensing the tech from Nokia.

Nokia was pleased with the decision: "Nokia is pleased that the Regional Court in Munich, Germany has today ruled that a number of HTC products infringe Nokia's patent EP 1 246 071, which covers USB functionality in mobile phones. Today's judgment is another significant milestone in our on-going dispute with HTC, enabling Nokia to enforce an injunction against the import and sale of all infringing HTC products in Germany, as well as to obtain damages for past infringement. This patent is also already in suit against HTC in the UK.

Even though Winamp's supposed shut down date of December 20th has come and gone and the software is still available, streaming giant Spotify has released a "tribute" to the media player, a new client dubbed "Spotiamp."

Says Spotify: "To honour the engineering skill and passion that goes into building wonderful software that millions of people enjoy we would like to share a small tribute to honour the great legacy of Winamp. Spotiamp is a fully functional music player where you can login using your Spotify Premium account and stream music. We hope this will give you some nice memories of the days before Spotify!"

The new client is extremely lightweight, just like Winamp, and uses Winamp's familiar design and UI.

Also incredibly, Spotiamp supports Shoutcast and Winamp visualization plugins, such as Milkdrop2, which are easily some of the most popular features of the media player.

The team over at CyanogenMod are having a good week, as the operating system has seen a new milestone, 10 million downloads.

Earlier in the week, the team announced that the Oppo N1 was the first handset to receive Google certification to launch with CyanogenMod pre-installed with Google's suite of apps and Play Store.

CyanogenMod founder Steve Kondik revealed the milestone, pointing to the official CM Stats page for future updates.

Taking a look at the breakdown, "official" CM downloads are above 5.5 million while unofficial downloads tallied over 4.5 million.

The most installed versions are the 10.1 and 10.2 nightlies (based on Android 4.3), which have 1.15 million and 700,000 downloads, respectively.

Samsung Galaxy devices appear to be the most popular for the operating system, as user opt to remove Samsung's bloat and optimize the powerful hardware.

Google has updated its iPhone version of Google Play Music, adding some features that will put the app closer to par with its Android sibling.

The app was released last month, but had not been designed for the new minimalist iOS 7 interface.

Besides the aesthetics, the app now supports the "I'm feeling lucky" radio, the ability to search for your music based on genre and create stations based on genre, as well.

The full changelog, for new version 1.1.0.988:

- UI updated for iOS7

- Added support for I'm feeling lucky radio

- Auto-playlists (including Thumbs Up playlist) added to playlist view

- Genre radio stations added for All Access users

- Added ability to search for genres

Without disclosing financials, Apple and China Mobile have confirmed that the iPhone is headed to the world's largest carrier.

After years of negotiations and more recently, weeks of nearly daily rumors, China Mobile's 740 million subscribers will have access to 4G-capable iPhones.

China Mobile will begin offering the 5S and 5C starting on January 17th, with pre-orders going live on Christmas.

"Apple's iPhone is very much loved by millions of customers around the world," China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua said in a statement. "We know there are many China Mobile customers and potential new customers who are anxiously awaiting the incredible combination of iPhone on China Mobile's leading network. We are delighted that iPhone on China Mobile will support our 4G/TD-LTE and 3G/TD-SCDMA networks, providing customers with high-speed mobile service."

Apple CEO Tim Cook mirrored the thoughts: "China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network," Cook said. "iPhone customers in China are an enthusiastic and rapidly growing group, and we can't think of a better way to welcome in the Chinese New Year than getting an iPhone into the hands of every China Mobile customer who wants one."

The well-received Roku line of set-top boxes have been updated this week with a native YouTube app.

Roku 3 players in the US, Canada, UK and Ireland all have access to the built-in app and billions of videos.

Other devices, including the Roku 2 XS, are expected to get the app update early next year.

Roku 3 owners will get access to HD video, "Send to TV" smartphone/tablet pairing and other features.

.@RokuPlayer Awesome videos and #Roku3? Time for a dance party: http://t.co/sPHAzBqDKB Let's break it down: http://t.co/hbS1vYq9ld

-- YouTube (@YouTube) December 17, 2013

Four years after launching, music discovery startup ExFM will be shutting down on January 15th, including their iOS and Android apps.

Only hardcore fans will be able to continue using the service past January 15th, through a crippled Chrome browser extension.

ExFM had raised $2.75 million from investors during its time, and the service was popular for a time, but there were too many issues. Says the company:

After an amazing four years of sweat and tears, we're ever-so-reluctantly accepting the reality of sustaining the Exfm platform as it exists today. The high costs of processing millions of new songs every month while attempting to keep that data relevant and useable is monumental. The technical challenges are compounded by the litigious nature of the music industry, which means every time we have any meaningful growth, it's coupled with the immediate attention of the record labels in the form of takedowns and legal emails. Today, subscription services are gaining in popularity and enjoy the blessings of most major labels at a non trivial cost to those companies.

Popular photo sharing service Snapchat has been updated for iOS, including interesting new features like "Replay."

The Replay option allows you to view the picture or video a second time, just one time per day, the first time the service has allowed you to ever view messages again after they've played the first time.

Additionally, the service has added the ability to use "flash" with your front camera by completely whiting-out the screen while taking your selfies, new filters and also an overlay option with real-time data like weather and speed.

If you want to take advantage of the new features you will have to head to settings, "Additional Services" and turn them on. To edit a photo with overlays and filters, just swipe left or right on the screen.

CEO Evan Spiegel also noted that a more major update was in the works for the new year.

Large e-tailer Overstock.com has announced that it will begin accepting Bitcoin as a payment option in the Q3 2014.

CEO Patrick Byrne says the company is still working on the logistics of accepting the currency. They may create their own proprietary system for transactions or work with Bitcoin payment processors like Coinbase. There will be no cost to implement the system, says Byrne, so it is something they'll leave in place unless literally nobody is using it.

The company has over $1 billion in revenue per year. Just like other companies, Overstock will likely convert the Bitcoin right back to dollars after accepting them, unless they can find a tool to hedge risk if keeping the currency in actual Bitcoin.

"It will put [Overstock] at a competitive edge if, and only if, the general population starts thinking and using bitcoin," concluded Byrne. "We're willing to take the first step and see."

After a relatively short wait, the latest version of Apple's iOS7 has been finally, successfully jailbreaked. The jailbreak is now available through evasi0n.com.

With the jailbreak, one can override the blocks Apple has put in place in its iPad / iPhone operating system. Thus, after installing the jailbreak, users can switch from the official App Store to alternative app stores, such as Cydia, that host material Apple wouldn't allow in its own App Store. Such material include violent (beyond the level deemed appropriate by Apple) games, pornography and apps that compete directly with Apple's own software.

Installing the jailbreak requires either a Windows or Mac computer, an USB cable and the jailbreakable device itself. Obviously, the device should be properly backed up before the process. And as always with jailbreaks, roots, etc the process itself should be done only by a person who knows what they're doing: jailbreaking, if gone bad, can "brick" your device and you'll most likely lose your warranty as well (depends on jurisdiction you live in).