Latest news

Millionaire entertainment mogul Ryan Seacrest has invested over $1 million in a new startup that will bring a full QWERTY keyboard to the iPhone 5/5S.

The "Typo Keyboard" will be unveiled officially at the CES event in Las Vegas next month, and Seacrest (who is also a co-founder) is expected to invest over $5 million into the concept.

In the company's press release, they give a bit more back story into Seacrest's involvement: "The back story of Seacrest's interest in this -- for many of his friends and colleagues, carrying two phones was a habit: One for typing and correspondence and an iPhone for virtually everything else. One night, Ryan and his friend Laurence Hallier, CEO of Show Media, were out to dinner and both had phones on the table. Two people, four phones!"

Rival offerings did not live up to their expectations and Seacrest and the company have taken the last two years to develop the Typo, which doubles as a case, as well.

See it here:

Three years after launching its LTE network, major American carrier Verizon wireless has now introduced a faster, higher capacity LTE network in major metros across the nation.

A few of the lucky cities include New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C., where users will have access to theoretical peak speeds of 150 Mbps although real-world speeds will likely fall to 50 Mbps or slower due to millions of simultaneous users connected.

Verizon Wireless Chief Network Officer Nicola Palmer confirmed the launch to Om today.

For the speeds, Verizon is using AWS spectrum it acquired in 2002, which includes networks utilizing a full 40 MHz of spectrum, double what most of the U.S. now uses as LTE from Verizon. Some cities will get 30 MHz AWS spectrum.

Verizon confirmed that speeds on its current LTE networks have suffered due to congestion and the carrier now advertises 5-12 Mbps speeds for its smartphone offerings.

Digital currency Bitcoin has seen its price fall to $877 after hitting highs of $1155 following a few pieces of key news out of China and a large run up that saw prices triple in just a few months.

First, the Chinese Central Bank announced that banks and payment systems are banned from using the currency, and warned individuals of using it, as well.

"Bitcoins are virtual goods that have no legal status or monetary equivalent and should not be used as currency," said the Chinese central bank statement. "Ordinary people are free to participate in transactions at their own risk."

Later in the day, massive Chinese search engine Baidu said it would stop accepting Bitcoins for its music service.

View this great video explaining Bitcoin here:

Bitcoin Explained from Duncan Elms on Vimeo.

Google has announced news that should make plenty of users happy; the ability to download a copy of your Gmail and Google Calendar data.

By doing so, you can archive your emails or calendars (if you are into that) or even export them to other services.

The data downloads in MBOX format and Google says you can customize what you are downloading to include just certain labels and calendars.

Google added the functionality to its existing Google Takeout service, which lets you archive your Google product data, including Google+, YouTube, Google Contacts, Google Drive, Google Voice, Google Profile, Google location history and Google Hangouts.

Some lucky users will have the ability starting today, but all Gmail users will get it by the end of the month.

Spotify, the popular music streaming service, is preparing to launch a free mobile service in the near future, says the WSJ.

The company, which currently offers a premium tier at $10 a month which includes unlimited mobile streaming, will begin to offer a free, ad-supported version of the same service.

Spotify has already come to licensing agreements with the major labels for such a service. The company is said to have been negotiating for almost a year with Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group over the royalty rates.

The streaming service has 6 million paying subscribers and over 20 million total active users.

What is interesting about the new free mobile service, is that it will allow for a limited amount of on-demand tracks, but will mainly be an equivalent to Pandora or iTunes Radio, which is a user-customized radio station.

Apple continued its U.S. dominance for the quarter ended October, with 40.6 percent share for its market leading iPhone.

Samsung took second at 25.4 percent share, followed by Motorola, HTC, and LG to round out the top five.

As far as operating systems go, Android remains king at 52.2 percent share, followed by Apple at 40.6 percent and BlackBerry and Windows Phone accounting for the rest.

Samsung grew faster than Apple, but still has a very long way to go if it wants to surpass the Cupertino giant. Motorola actually gained share, one of the few times in the last five years it has done so, while HTC saw another steep decline. LG stayed mostly flat.

Acer has unveiled a new AIO this week, moving back to its Windows roots.

The Aspire Z3-600 features a 21.5-inch 1080p display, two Harman Kardon speakers, USB.3.0, HDMI (with MHL support), an Intel Pentium J2850 quad-core processor, Intel HD Graphics, 4GB RAM, and a 750GB hard drive.

Acer's latest will run on Windows 8.1.

Adding to portability, the device has a flexible stand and a built-in battery with 2.5 hours of battery life.

Acer has priced the AIO at $779 and will go on sale in the next two weeks.

AT&T has launched their new "Mobile Share Value Plans" in an effort to help customers save on their monthly bills if they bring their own devices.

Says AT&T: "With the 'No Annual Service Contract' options, smartphone customers can save $15 a month on Mobile Share Value plans. Customers can receive these monthly savings when they: Get a new smartphone for no down payment with AT&T Next; bring their own smartphone; purchase a smartphone at full retail price; or when their smartphone is no longer under contract and they switch to the new plans.

All Mobile Share Value plan customers will benefit from shared data plus unlimited talk and text on their phones. Consumers will have the ability to connect up to 10 devices, including tablets and other wireless devices, while business customers will be able to connect up to 10, 15, 20 or 25 devices, depending on the plan."

AT&T will still be more expensive than similar T-Mobile or Sprint plans, but the plans are a step in the right direction for those who do not care about paying upfront for their devices.

The new plans go into effect on December 18th.

Twitter and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom have entered a strategic partnership today "to create a unique experience" for Telekom devices starting next year.

While the partnership is somewhat strange given that past partnerships with other software developers have been to give subsidized access to premium services, Twitter does not have a premium service.

What will the new deal entail? "In collaboration with Deutsche Telekom, Twitter will create a unique experience for Deutsche Telekom devices. This experience will include a way for people to keep up with Twitter right from their homescreen, and Deutsche Telekom will make it available on selected Android smartphones starting next year. Deutsche Telekom customers will have instant access to what's happening in the world in real time, right out-of-the-box.

"Deutsche Telekom will be a preferred partner for Twitter when it comes to innovative marketing, advertising and customer services opportunities on Twitter," reads the press release. Additionally, the carrier will get access to new Twitter "tools and innovations" before everyone else.

According to Apple, 74 percent of iOS users are now running the latest iOS 7 operating system, a high figure given the the OS has only been available for less than three months.

In October, Apple reported the OS was installed on 64 percent of devices, so it appears adoption is growing and iPhone 5C/5S and iPad Air sales are strong.

The company has not revealed exact hardware sales figures since the new devices launched, but we will know next month with the company's quarterly earnings report.

iOS 6 is still on 22 percent of devices, with older versions still surviving on 4 percent of devices. Those numbers will likely not budge too far in the near future, as older devices may not be able to update to iOS 7 due to hardware limitations.

Apple's new and upcoming iOS 7.1 will tweak the software keyboard, tweak HDR photos and other stability and performance enhancements.

One of the most popular apps in the Google Play Store, "Brightest Flashlight," which has been downloaded over 50 million times and reviewed over 1 million times, has been sanctioned by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for sneakily selling your personal information to advertisers.

The app, built by Goldenshore, sent your location and a unique ID to advertisers who could then better target their marketing. Users were aware of this, but opting out did not change whether data was sent or not. The developer has agreed to pay a fine to the US Federal Trade Commission after the application "left [consumers] in the dark about how their information was going to be used," adds Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Rich says the app maker "deceptively failed to disclose" that it would use user data even after users opted out via the app's settings page. The app still shared the data automatically, making the privacy options completely pointless.

As part of their FTC settlement, Goldenshore must delete all personal information it has gathered, redraft their privacy policy, and make sure that the option for users to opt in or out is actually real. If Goldenshore fails to do so, they will be hit with a $16,000 fine for every violation. At 50 million users, that number could be gigantic.

Sony has announced that there will be an extended PlayStation Network (PSN) maintenance scheduled to take place on Monday, November 9th for European PlayStation gamers.

The maintenance will last eight hours, from 16:00 to 00:00 GMT.

Online gameplay is still expected to be available for users who sign into their PSN account in the period before the downtime have the authentication details cached. If the details are not cached you will be able to sign in once the maintenance starts, or play your games online.

The move comes on the heels of Sony resetting passwords for thousands of PSN accounts as a precaution after "detecting irregular activity" on the network.

Heads up > There will be Network maintenance on PSN - Monday 9th/Tuesday & 10th Dec between 16:00 and 00:00 GMT. Thanks for your patience.

-- PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU) December 6, 2013

Once again, rumors have emerged that Apple is looking into building a larger iPad.

The sources claim Foxconn has already built five prototypes of a 12.9-inch iPad with 4K resolution and some with 2K resolution.

2K resolution models will debut in the first half of 2014, followed by the 4K models later in the year. The 4K model would be released during the normal product cycle in October.

Somewhat misleadingly, the report does not specify any specific resolutions. The current iPad Air with its 2,048 x 1,536 pixel resolution, is already a '2K' display.

WSJ and other Asian publications have previously reported on the purported large iPads.

President Barack Obama may be the last person still using a BlackBerry.

While speaking with youths about his healthcare law, Obama says he is not allowed to use Apple's iPhone smartphone 'for security reasons,' therefore sticking with his BlackBerry. The President does use an iPad, however.

Obama says he fought to keep his BlackBerry after becoming President in 2009, although he said just 10 people have his personal email address. None of our previous presidents used emails during their presidency.

BlackBerry has seen its share of struggles since 2008, losing nearly all of its market share to Google and Apple and seeing senior executive turnover.

According to the WSJ, China Mobile has signed their long-awaited iPhone deal with Apple, bringing the popular device to the world's largest carrier.

China Mobile has over 700 million subscribers, which should lead to a nice boost in sales for Apple.

At an upcoming December 18th event, China Mobile will show off their new 4G network. Officials with the carrier have long said they would wait to introduce the iPhone until after their 4G network was up and running.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced earlier today that it had approved licenses to China Mobile and its rival carriers to operate the broadband networks.

Apple, despite having deals with other Chinese carriers, has struggled to break out in the nation due to major competition from Android makers that offer devices at half the price of the iPhone, or less.

Analysts believe the deal will add 20 million iPhone unit sales per year, a massive increase to Apple's already large sales.