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The unlocked Google Nexus 5 appears to continue to show strong demand (or dwindling supply).

Google's recently unveiled flagship sold out of initial supply through the Google Play Store within hours and moved to expected 1 week shipping and then 2 week shipping before the launch day was completed.

As of writing, the smartphone is now on 3 to 5 week backorder, depending on which variant you want. The 16GB models, in black and in black/white, are on "4-5 week" backorder, the black 32GB model is on 3-4 week backorder and the white 32GB model (clearly the least popular), is on 2-3 week backorder.

The flagship has a Full HD IPS 4.95" 1920x1080 display (445 ppi) protected by Gorilla Glass 3, runs on the brand new Android 4.4 KitKat and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 at 2.3GHz, 2GB RAM, and an Adreno 330 GPU. The phone weighs just 4.59 oz, has a premium glass design, a 1.3MP front facing camera, an 8MP rear facing camera with Optical Image Stabilization, a 2,300 mAH battery and wireless charging capabilities.

Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin has explained why Call of Duty: Ghosts renders at 720p on Xbox One.

It emerged last week that Call of Duty: Ghosts would render at 720p on the Xbox One console, which had some gamers scratching their heads since it will render at 1080p on the PS4.

According to Rubin, the problem was in the framerate. Infinity Ward wanted 60fps, but couldn't get it while rendering in 1080p.

"It's very possible we can get it to native 1080p [resolution]. I mean I've seen it working at 1080p native," Rubin told Eurogamer.

"It's just we couldn't get the frame rate in the neighborhood we wanted it to be. And it wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't that it was like last minute. We had the theoretical hardware for a long time. That's the thing you get pretty quickly and that doesn't change dramatically."

He told GameSpot that the game renders at 720p on the Xbox One, and then upscales to 1080p for TV output.

Nokia has announced that Samsung Electronics has extended a patent license agreement with the Finnish company.

The South Korean CE giant extended a phone patent agreement it has with Nokia by an additional five years, according to Nokia. Nokia will receive additional compensation from Samsung, beginning next year.

Nokia has agreed to sell its phone business to Microsoft. That deal is currently being mulled over by regulators in the European Union. The Finnish company did opt to hold onto its lucrative patent portfolio however.

Western Digital's HGST announced its new hermetically sealed (air-tight) 6TB Ultrastar He6 hard disk drive (HDD) that's filled with helium gas instead of air.

Filling it with the noble gas instead of air makes it possible for the Ultrastar He6 to use a 7-Disk design (7Stac) rather than a 5-Disk design, with helium being only one-seventh the density of air.

The high-capacity HDD is intended for use in enterprise environments, particularly data centers that require ever increasing amounts of storage capacity. Not only does the drive have the highest capacity for a standard 3.5-inch form factor, it also uses 23 percent lower idle power per drive, and boasts 49 percent better watts-per-TB.

"With ever-increasing pressures on corporate and cloud data centers to improve storage efficiencies and reduce costs, HGST is at the forefront delivering a revolutionary new solution that significantly improves data center TCO on virtually every level – capacity, power, cooling and storage density – all in the same 3.5-inch form factor," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, HGST.

"Not only is our new Ultrastar helium hard drive helping customers solve data center challenges today, our mainstream helium platform will serve as the future building block for new products and technologies moving forward. This is a huge feat, and we are gratified by the support of our customers in the development of this platform."

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has said that reported NSA spying on Google data servers is outrageous.

Recent media reports have suggested that the U.S. Government targeted links between Google's data centers located around the world. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google chairman Eric Schmidt didn't hold back on condemning the activity if shown to be true.

"It's really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that's true. The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people's privacy, it's not OK," Schmidt said.

"The Snowden revelations have assisted us in understanding that it's perfectly possible that there are more revelations to come."

He told the WSJ that Google has complained to the NSA, to Congress and even to President Barack Obama in the wake of these revelations.

Outside of the reports about Google's data centers, Schmidt also spoke on other data gathering activities carried out by the NSA.

"The NSA allegedly collected the phone records of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk. It's just bad public policy...and perhaps illegal," he said.

Elements of the Italian government support measures that would boost tax revenue from Google, Yahoo, Amazon and other major web giants.

Instead of simply taxing the companies directly, a bill has been tabled that oblige companies that advertise and sell online in Italy to do so only through agencies that have a tax presence in the country. The extra revenue to such agency would translate to extra tax to the government. The plan is to raise €1 billion in additional revenue.

The bill was drafted by lower house budget committee Chairman Francesco Boccia, who said it was unacceptable that online companies pay tax abroad on revenue from sales they makes in Italy.

"We shouldn't be trying to raise resources by hiking taxes on fuel, cigarettes or small retailers while our online purchases are raising the profits of companies that have no interest in developing our economy," Boccia said on his website.

Opponents of the proposal have gone as far as to say it is based on wishful thinking that lacks knowledge of how Internet commerce and advertising work.

The Italian government is far from the only one complaining about the level of tax revenue from multinationals however, who are very skilled at paying as low overall tax as possible.

The BlackBerry circus continues.

After failing to find a buyer for the entire company, BlackBerry has announced it has scrapped its tentative $4.7 billion plan to go private and will instead remain public with a new $1 billion investment from multiple shareholders.

CEO Thorsten Heins will be replaced, and is stepping down immediately with John Chen taking over on an interim basis. Chen was the former CEO of Sybase Inc.

The company's stock collapsed 17 percent today, following the news that it would sell $1 billion of convertible debt to large shareholder Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. and a number of other institutional investors. Fairfax owns 10 percent of BlackBerry already, and will buy at least $250 million of the new convertible debt. Fairfax had offered $4.7 billion to buy the company in September but it is clear that that deal had some issues.

As part of the deal, CEO Heins will step down and make way for Chen, who will also become chairman. Chen says he needs "a little bit of time" to build a workable plan for the company, but it wants to be a business-focused service. "Obviously there are a lot of assets there," Chen added.

Owners of Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 tablet have noticed a considerable increase in battery life following a firmware update.

While the SurFace Pro 2 already considerably improved battery life over its predecessor, the firmware update has pushed it even further with up to 20 percent extra battery life being reported. Of course it depends on what you are doing with the tablet that will determine the change.

The firmware update lets the Marvell Wi-Fi chipset to operate at lower power states, so the battery improvements will be noticeable for normal browsing habits.

The Surface 2 with Windows RT has not had the same battery improvement through firmware update.

The last Chromium build for Mac can enable a restriction that forces a user to re-authenticate when trying to view a plain text password.

It was pointed out by François Beaufort on Google+. Once you enable the chrome://flags/#enable-password-manager-reauthentication flag, the re-authentication will start to show when trying to view plain text passwords in chrome://settings/passwords.

Google has come under fire recently for how easy it is to view plain text passwords that have been saved by the Chrome web browser. This latest experimental flag hints that Google might address the problem by allowing Chrome users to protect access to plain text passwords.



(Image Credit & Source: François Beaufort)

Amazon is cutting the prices of its Kindle tablets and e-readers for just one day to celebrate rule changes from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA announced last week that air passengers can now use portable electronics during take-off and landing, meaning you can use your gadgets through flights from departure to arrival - though there are still restrictions on cell calls and Internet access (below 15,000 feet).

Still, Amazon sees reason to celebrate by cutting 15 percent off Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX 7 and the $69 Kindle - but if you want to avail of these offers you must hurry up because it is only for today.

In order to receive the discount, customers must enter ThhnksFAA at the checkout (yes, that's how the press release spells thanks).

With the discount code, the $69 Kindle can be bought for $59 today. The Kindle Fire HD drops to $118 with the promo code and Kindle Fire HDX 7 drops to $195.

The November 15 launch of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console in the United States has another confirmed launch title: Need for Speed Rivals.

Shiny new gaming consoles are a beautiful thing, and it's always exciting when a major launch date is on the horizon. It's hard to believe that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) launch is not even two weeks away now, but when we unbox our consoles we will want to get a feel of what they can do. Launch titles are extremely important in that way, and the more the merrier.

Sony, Ghost Games & Electronics Arts have announced that Need for Speed Rivals will be a PS4 launch title this month, dropping on November 15 in the North American market. Rumors had suggested recently that the game was being pushed back to a later date, so this is welcome news.

The game is scheduled to be released for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on November 19, and will of course launch for the Xbox One on November 22 alongside the new Microsoft console.

Nintendo has announced that it will launch the Wii mini console in the United States this month, bundled with Mario Kart Wii.

The Wii mini will be available starting mid-November at a a suggested retail price of only $99.99, bundled with the Mario Kart Wii game and a red Wii Remote Plus controller and a red Nunchuk controller.

Wii mini is a redesigned version of the extremely successful 2006 console that claims a library of more than 1,300 games. It is matte black with a red border.

"Wii mini offers the same fun experience as Wii, which has been enjoyed by millions of people around the world," said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing.

"And it comes packaged with Mario Kart Wii, a multiplayer Mario racing game that is one of the best-selling Wii games. At such a great price, it is an extraordinary value for shoppers this holiday season."

Since its 2006 launch, Nintendo has sold more than 100 million Wii consoles around the world, beating the pricier Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 rivals of the currently winding down generation.

At $99.99, the Wii mini is an affordable way for those left who never bought a Wii console to give the platform a try.

According to multiple sources, AT&T is preparing for a potential takeover of Europe's biggest mobile carrier, Vodafone.

The complex deal is in early stages, as AT&T needs to know what assets it would retain after the acquisition, and what assets would be sold to others.

If such a deal were to fall through, AT&T also has its eyes on UK-based carrier EE.

AT&T has been actively looking to get into the European mobile market, and approached Verizon Communications earlier this year to try to purchase Vodafone's European operations. Verizon dismissed the deal as too complicated, and did not want to slow down their own $130 billion purchase of Vodafone's stake in U.S. carrier Verizon Wireless.

If merged, Vodafone and AT&T would form the largest wireless telco in the world, with a market capitalization exceeding $250 billion, and over 500 million wireless subscribers.

A survey into what 12-17 year olds want this holiday has found Apple's iPhone and iPad are popular, but boys covet the next generation PlayStation 4.

The survey was performed on behalf of Ebates, a cash-back shopping site. It found that Apple's iPhone is the most wanted product this year among all kids aged 12-17. Over 32 percent of overall respondents wanted the Apple smartphone while just 12 percent wanted a device made by Samsung.

Girls pushed the iPhone into the top spot though, since 41 percent of them wanted an iPhone. Breaking it down by gender though shows that boys prefer Sony's next generation PlayStation 4 (PS4) console this holiday season.

As for parents of teens who took part, over 54 percent identified an Apple product as being their intended purchase for their kids during the holidays.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Bill Gates branded prioritizing Internet access in poor countries ahead of malaria research a 'joke'.

Known worldwide as the co-founder of Microsoft, its former chief executive and being unbelievably rich, Bill Gates spends most of his work time now on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goals of the Gates foundation are to fight poverty and disease in the developing regions of the world, and to advance education in the United States.

Warren Buffet is one of three trusties that control the foundation, along with Bill and Melinda Gates. The three were recognised in 2007 as the most generous philanthropists in America. Bill Gates has donated $28 billion to the foundation thus far.

Malaria is an obvious target for the Gates Foundation. in 2010, there were an estimated 219 million cases of Malaria with an estimated 660,000 deaths. It is one of the diseases that disproportionately affects poor countries not just in rates of infection, but the impact it has on resources. A malaria vaccine has been a holy grail for researchers - including the U.S. military - for decades but thus far efforts haven't produced the revolutionary weapon against the disease that it coveted.