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Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console will not support external storage, and is not DLNA-complaint.

In the "Ultimate FAQ" released by Sony ahead of the November 15 launch (North America) of the next generation PlayStation, Sony has revealed that external storage is not supported for the PS4, though you can still swap out the internal HDD as you could with the PS3.

"PS4 is equipped with a 5400 RPM SATA II hard drive. Users can choose to install a new hard drive so long as it complies with these standards, is no thicker than 9.5mm, and is larger than 160GB," the FAQ reads.

The FAQ also revealed that the PS4 is not DLNA complaint, which might upset some users as it has consequences for support for some home network entertainment functionality. The FAQ also detailed the launch line-up.

Read the Ultimate FAQ at the PlayStation blog.
 

Nokia wants imports and sales of the HTC One smartphone blocked in the United Kingdom after a patent victory over the Taiwanese firm.

A UK court found that technology used in HTC smartphones infringed a patent filed in 1998 for the design of a modulator. HTC protested the case by pointing out that the disputed technology was used in a chip it acquired from Qualcomm.

Under law in the United States, HTC could be protected by the "exhaustion doctrine" which determines that rights of a patent owner are exhausted once a protected article has been sold. In this case, Qualcomm's chip contains the disputed technology that Nokia claims rights on, and Qualcomm sold them to HTC.

However, a High Court judge in the UK noted that the U.S. situation did not override Nokia's rights from having registered the patent in Europe, and that the sale of the chips to HTC from Qualcomm took place in Taiwan, meaning the exhaustion doctrine under U.S. federal law would not be applicable anyway.

"If the licensee has no right to sell in the UK, then a purchaser from the licensee cannot be in a better position," wrote the judge.

An Internet Service Provider has been blocked from enforcing speed caps on customers who exceed a monthly data limit.

Deutsche Telekom has been told by a German court that its plans to limit its customers' data speeds after they reached a monthly limit would put them at an "unreasonable disadvantage."

Initially, the provider had hoped to enforce a 384kbps download speed limit on fixed-line customers who exceeded a monthly data cap. After public outcry, it pushed up the speed limitation to 2Mbps. However, some Deutsche Telekom customers in areas covered by fiber have services up to 200Mbbps, meaning the provider would be giving them only 1 percent of what they are paying for.

Verbraucherzentrale NRW, a German consumer lobby group, brought Deutsche Telekom to court to fight the planned speed caps, and now says there is no legal basis upon which the provider can enforce one.

Deutsche Telekom is studying the ruling and considering its options.

Sony has revealed 22 launch titles for the PS4 console which will be available from November 15.

The game launch details were included in the PS4's "Ultimate FAQ", and Sony cautions that the game list is subject to change before the launch date itself.

The launch titles for PS4's North American launch are:

SCE Worldwide Studios

• Flower
• Killzone Shadow Fall
• Knack
• Resogun
• Sound Shapes

Third-Party Titles

• Angry Birds: Star Wars (Activision)
• Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag (Ubisoft)
• Call of Duty Ghosts (Activison)
• DC Universe Online (Sony Online Entertainment)
• FIFA 14 (EA Sports)
• Battlefield 4 (Electronic Arts)
• Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft)
• Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
• Lego Marvel Super Heroes (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
• Madden NFL 25 (EA Sports)
• NBA 2K14 (2K Sports)
• Skylanders SWAP Force (Activision)

Indie Titles

• Contrast (Compulsion Games)
• Pinball Arcade (FarSight Studios)
• Super Motherload (XGen Studios)
• Tiny Brains (Spearhead Games)
• Warframe (Digital Extremes)

Valve's Steam PC game distribution service has hit a new milestone with 65 million users, up over 15 million in the past 12 months.

The mega-popular Steam now also counts more than 3,000 games. This year also marks the tenth anniversary of the Steam platform.

Steam gamers saw the introduction of several new service features during the year, including Family Sharing, Steam Trading Cards, Early Access, and support for Linux titles. Through Steam Machines, Valve is also preparing an attempted invasion into the living room space dominated by consoles.

"The main goal of Steam has always been to increase the quality of the user's experience by reducing the distance between content creators and their audience," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve.

"As the platform grows, our job is to adapt to the changing needs of both the development and user communities. In the coming year, we plan to make perhaps our most significant collaborations with both communities through the Steam Dev Days and the Steam Machines beta."

One of Dell's Ultrabooks has been hit with complaints that the device reeks of cat pee, which the company is blaming on the manufacturing process.

Customers took to Dell's online support community with a very odd complaint about the Latitude 6430u Ultrabook. Apparently, the keyboard area of the device smells like cat urine, and the problem seems to affect a number of users in different areas.

"The machine is great, but it smells as if it was assembled near a tomcats litter box. It is truly awful!," one owner complained on Dell's support community forum.

"Same experience. I thought for sure one of my cats sprayed it, but there was something faulty with it so I had it replaced. The next one had the same exact issue. It's embarrassing taking it to clients because it smells so bad," another complained.

More users followed with the same issue later on.

Dell now claims to have fixed the issue, saying it was related to the manufacturing process. It is not a health hazard and is not in any way related to bio-contamination. New models on the market will not have the stinky issue.

PS3 users in the U.S. can download the new Redbox Instant by Verizon app for their consoles.

The app provides access to thousands of streaming movies. You'll also be able to find and reserve new releases on DVD and Blu-ray at more than 43,000 Redbox kiosks from your PS3.

At a cost of $8 per month, users get access to thousands of movies available to stream, and four DVD rental nights at the Redbox kiosk, every month. If you want Blu-ray, that'll cost $1 more.

You also have the option to purchase or rent new digital releases on-demand, without needing a subscription, making it a one-stop shop for you to find what you want to watch at any given time.

The PS3 app also has "The Playlist", a specially-curated collection of Redbox Instant by Verizon movies from its subscription movie library, just for you. It will update frequently and will feature themes like "Stuff Blowing Up," "Movies With Balls," and "Beards On Film."

Internet Service Providers must block 21 more websites linked to Internet piracy, according to a court order in the UK.

The new group of websites that are to be made unreachable to UK residents follow the Pirate Bay, and seven other piracy-linked websites that have been ordered blocked in the region. The new list includes sites such as FilesTube, Torrentreactor and Abmp3.

"We asked the sites to stop infringing copyright but unfortunately they did not and we were left with little choice but to apply to the court," said Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive.

The court order mandated that all the sites must be blocked in the UK by today (Wed, Oct 30). The full list of sites to be blocked is as follows:

• Abmp3
• BeeMP3
• Bomb-Mp3
• FileCrop
• FilesTube
• Mp3Juices
• eMp3World
• Mp3lemon
• Mp3Raid
• Mp3skull
• NewAlbumReleases
• Rapidlibrary
• 1337x
• BitSnoop
• ExtraTorrent
• Monova
• TorrentCrazy
• TorrentDownloads
• TorrentHound
• Torrentreactor

The practice of enforcing blocklists on ISPs is the latest tactic in the fight against Internet piracy, though the practice of state-enforced censorship is facing predictable criticism. It has also led to the growth of censorship-sidestepping measures, such as using the portable PirateBrowser (or alternatively the TOR Browser that is it based on) which makes websites blocked in this way reachable in most cases.

Netflix has signed a new deal with Showtime to make all seasons of the popular series 'Dexter' available for streaming.

One of the highest-rated shows of all-time (and also one of the most pirated), Dexter recently saw its series finale.

The streaming giant says the first four seasons will be made available in the U.S. at the end of this month and the final four seasons will be made available on January 1st of next year.

"We're thrilled to have Dexter, one of Showtime's highest-rated shows, on Netflix, and so quickly after it completed its record-breaking run," Ted Sarandos, Netflix chief content officer, added.

Showtime parent CBS used to offer the first couple of seasons of Dexter on Netflix, but removed them in 2011.

Amazon has officially rolled out their Kindle MatchBook program today.

The program allows publishers and authors to bundle their physical books with a discounted ebook edition for those that want a hard copy and better portability.

At launch, 75,000 titles are included and buyers will be able to add the Kindle version of their book for $2.99 or less.

HarperCollins, Macmillan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Amazon Publishing, Wiley, Chronicle Books, and Marvel have made a few titles available, and thousands of self-published authors have joined up.

Of all the majors, HarperCollins was the only to reach deep into the thousands, making 9,000 titles available. However, just nine of the books were published in the last three months so it looks like Harper is using the program to boost its older titles.

Russ Grandinetti, VP of Kindle Content adds that he expects the program to "keep expanding rapidly in the months ahead."

In early October, Adobe confirmed that cyber attackers hit the company hard, with the exploit leading to data on nearly 3 million customers being compromised. Besides 2.9 million Adobe IDs and passwords being stolen, full customer names, encrypted credit/debit card numbers, and expiration dates were also compromised for many of the customers.

Additionally, "source code for numerous Adobe products" was also stolen in the attacks.

It appears now that that original number was just the tip of the iceberg. The data breach has impacted at least 38 million users, the company now confirms, and the source code leak now includes the company's extremely popular Photoshop family of products.

AnonNews posted a 3.8GB file over the weekend including 150 million username and hashed password pairs taken directly from Adobe.

Adobe, for their part says they have not seen any unauthorized activity on any Adobe ID that has been stolen: "So far, our investigation has confirmed that the attackers obtained access to Adobe IDs and (what were at the time valid), encrypted passwords for approximately 38 million active users. We have completed email notification of these users. We also have reset the passwords for all Adobe IDs with valid, encrypted passwords that we believe were involved in the incident--regardless of whether those users are active or not."

According to the WSJ, BlackBerry executives recently met with Facebook to see what kind of interest there was for a potential bid for the company.

The meeting in of itself has renewed speculation that Facebook wants to build its own smartphone. So far, the company has relied on third parties like HTC to show off dedicated Facebook apps and user interfaces.

BlackBerry has been struggling to keep its businesses afloat and recently made themselves available for sale, as a whole or in pieces. The company has also recently announced it will no longer market phones to the general public, instead moving to only enterprise and government customers.

Although values fluctuate depending on what analysis you use, the company does have some marketable assets. A large patent trove is expected to bring in $2 billion, and the company's enterprise and security network is expected to bring in the same amount. The company also has $2.5 billion in cash, but it is burning through it quickly.

Earlier this week, LG announced its hotly anticipated curved G Flex smartphone.

The device goes on sale in Korea in November, with no timetable for a global launch as of yet.

G Flex devices feature a 720p 6-inch curved P-OLED, which LG claims is ultra-light, ultra-thin and flexible. The device runs on Android 4.2.2, is powered by a 2.26GHz Snapdragon 800, an Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB RAM and a 3500mAh battery.

In addition, the device has a 13-megapixel rear camera, and a 2.1-megapixel front camera. The OLED panel is also built with plastic substrates, for better durability. The display also includes Real RGB technology for all three sub-pixels in one pixel, increasing brightness.

As is becoming standard, Google has leaked the upcoming 2014 edition of the Nexus 10 tablet through their Google Play hardware site.

The new flagship tablet will run on a powerful quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB RAM and a 9500mAh battery.

Google has packed the tablet with a 10-inch 2560x1600 resolution display at 300 ppi and Gorilla Glass 3.

Additionally, the tablet has 32GB internal storage, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, dual cameras 8.0/2.1 MP, Android 4.4 KitKat and a standard micro USB port.

The tablet is 7.99mm thick, compared to the new iPad Air at 7.5mm, and heavier as well at 1.28 pounds compared to 1 pound for the Air.

There was no word on price, but it is expected to sell for $449.

After making huge waves by creating popular original series like 'House of Cards' and 'Orange is the New Black," Netflix is reportedly looking to get into the feature full-length film business with a similar model.

Suggested by Netflix's content head Ted Sarandos, the streaming company will back a "big" movie, which would be made available on Netflix on the same day it goes into theaters.

By becoming a first-run distributor like they do for TV and more recently, stand-up comedy, Netflix hopes to attract even more subscribers that may have been off-put by the company's lack of major movies.

"What we're trying to do for TV, the model should extend pretty nicely to movies. Meaning, why not premiere movies on Netflix, the same day they're opening in theaters? And not little movies -- there's a lot of ways, and lot of people to do that [already]. Why not big movies? Why not follow the consumers' desire to watch things when they want?" added Sarandos.