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Nvidia has updated its Shield handheld console to Android 4.3, giving access to thousands of Android games through its new 'console mode' support.

In order to control the games, Nvidia has made hundreds of profiles available from the cloud for the most popular touch-based Android games. Additionally, you can use the handheld's "Gamepad Mapper" to create your own custom controls, as well.

Furthermore, the update adds support for PC game streaming through Nvidia GameStream. A few of the most notable games include Batman: Arkham Origins and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

Another part of console mode is the ability to pair their gaming device to a TV via Bluetooth controller and play the Android games or watch HD movies. GameStream can also be used to stream and play the PC games on your TV.

All-star leaker @evleaks has shown off the upcoming Nexus 5 in a new colorway, white (with black trim), and a release date.

The two-tone device has a black front, white back plate, and black accents including the camera and volume rocker/power button.

Additionally, the post says the device is "coming on 11/1" although it is unclear if it will be available on that day or just announced by Google.

Thanks to a plethora of leaks, we know the 16GB model of the device will sell for $349 unlocked, come with Android 4.4 KitKat, a 5-inch 1080p display, a 2.3+ GHz Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, and dual 8/2 MP cameras.

In white. 11/1. pic.twitter.com/5SSmtTGUg7

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) October 27, 2013

Apple has reported their quarterly financial results this afternoon, having another standard strong quarter.

The company reported $7.5 billion profit on revenue of $37.5 billion, slight growth from the same quarter last year where they reported $36 billion.

Investors were generally satisfied, although gross margins fell from 40 percent to 37 percent, a steep decline that has spooked investors and analysts.

iPhone sales came in at 33.8 million, a large jump year-over-year from 26.9 million. The iPhone 5S and 5C were only on sale for 10 days of the quarter, but Apple sold at least 9 million of the devices, which they confirmed as their launch weekend figures.

iPad sales were flat, at 14.1 million, given that everyone expected the company to unveil new devices this month (which they did). The Mac line of computers reached 4.6 million devices sold, also flat and iPod sales continued their demise, at 3.5 million units sold and a negligible $573 million in revenue.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) has announced a new partnership with Samsung that will bring the company's TVs and tablets courtside during game time.

Samsung will supply all the courtside monitors that referees use to review calls.

The new deal is for three years, and will also include customized video content for all Samsung devices, including TVs, tablets, and smartphones. The NBA previously had deals with Haier and HP.

For Samsung, the deal is another way for the company to offer exclusive software and services to its customers, especially its Galaxy device users. Two years ago, Samsung tied up with NBA star Lebron James for its latest Galaxy smartphone, and then last year announced a major deal with Jay-Z with a long-form commercial during the NBA Finals.

Speaking during the company's quarterly earnings report today, CEO Tim Cook says to expect new products in new categories next year.

Cook did not speak of any specifics, but did give some hope that new products are finally coming from the tech giant.

"If you look at the skills Apple has from hardware and software services...no one has skills like this," Cook said. "We obviously believe we can use our skills to build other great products in areas we do not participate in today."

The company has been rumored to be working on an HDTV, a smartwatch and possibly a 4K UltraHD television set. The rumors have intensified over the last two years, but Apple has never confirmed what products it has been working on.

The popular warez site UploaderTalk is sending shockwaves across the industry as it has been purchased by the anti-piracy company Nuke Piracy.

The site collected data on users, file hosters and other websites for a full year before being sold, being a piracy 'honeypot' that has users terrified. The term honeypot refers to a facility that runs, encourages criminal behavior, and then collects incriminating data under false pretenses.

As an added bonus to rub it in, the operator of UT, who goes by the moniker WDF posted this on the homepage: "That's right – the biggest swerve ever. I, WDF, work for the anti-piracy people! UT was set up for a number of reasons. But mostly to be a sounding board, proof of concept ... and to collect data. I collected info on file hosts, web hosts, websites. I suckered shitloads of you."

WDF was formerly a senior member of the filesharing site WJunction, and UT was designed to attract pirates that upload for profit, using file hosting affiliate programs.

According to researchers at the University of Twente, the ultimate goal is to create a storage disk that will outlast "the human race itself."

The team has a goal of 1 million years, with a stretch goal of 1 billion years for an upcoming disk that will help preserve vital information forever.

"Whether it is music, art, literature, or scientific breakthroughs, people have tried to ensure preservation of information for future generations," reads the research team's published paper. The storage idea has been dubbed "gigayear" by the team. "At some point humanity as we know it will cease to exist and slowly all our achievements will disappear. Given sufficient time, all memory of humanity will be erased."

Of course, it is impossible to try to test the discs for longevity, but the team has used accelerated aging tests. The discs are "fabricated with tungsten and a protective silicon nitride layer." "A disk with data in the form of QR codes has been fabricated and was able to survive the temperature tests, and therefore will survive 1 million years of storage according to theory."

Wikipedia has confirmed they have begun piloting a service that sends articles via SMS (texts), with the service aimed at users in Africa and other nations where data plans are not as abundant.

The encyclopedia has teamed up with carrier Airtel to offer the service for free, with initial testing taking place in Kenya.

Dan Foy, technical partner manager for the Wikimedia Foundation, says the trial run will be active for 90 days: "Throughout most of the developing world, data-enabled smartphones are the exception, not the rule. That means billions of people currently cannot see Wikipedia on their phones."

The service, dubbed Wikipedia Zero, can be activated by dialing *515#. After activating, users will receive a text informing them how to search.

Africa has a large mobile phone population, but data plans are not as popular. Texting services, even those to send money or music, are very popular on the continent, however.

Samsung has confirmed that its Galaxy Gear smartwatch will be getting expanded support in the coming weeks.

Currently, the device only works with the new Galaxy Note 3 and the 2014 model Galaxy Tab 10.1.

According to leaked documents, the Note 2, Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4, and Galaxy S4 Active will all get Gear support, starting with the S4 on Monday and ending with the Active on December 24th.

Each of the phones have to get Android 4.3 before support can be added for the Gear.

Any interested buyers in the Google Moto X now have the ability to get it cheaper.

The phone is now just $99 on contract when using AT&T's Moto Maker customization site, or if you are buying from US Cellular or Sprint, as well. If you are moving to US Cellular, the carrier is even adding a $75 gift card, effectively taking the price down to $25.

Verizon has not reduced the price, and AT&T says the standard black and white models still cost the original $199, so it actually pays to customize.

If you need more storage, the 32GB model has dropped to $150, from $250.

It is unclear how well the phone has been selling, as the original price point placed the phone against more powerful competitors, such as the Galaxy S4, HTC One and the iPhone.

Activist investor Carl Icahn wrote an open letter to Apple this week, not-so subtly demanding for the company to complete a $150 billion share buyback to increase shareholder value.

Apple has over $147 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet and has already approved a three-year $60 billion buyback program.

Icahn has 4.7 million shares in the company, after initially purchasing 3.4 million at $467 per share. The company trades at $525 per share today. At its peak, in September 2012 following the launch of the iPhone 5, Apple traded at $705 per share.

The letter in its entirety:

Dear Tim:

It was a pleasure meeting you for dinner at the end of September. When we met, my affiliates and I owned 3,875,063 shares of Apple. As of this morning, we owned 4,730,739 shares of Apple, an increase of 22% in position size, reflecting our belief the market continues to dramatically undervalue the company, even when taking into account the recent market appreciation, which in turn makes our proposal unchanged with respect to a $150 Billion buyback. We were pleased to hear at our dinner that you appreciated our input and that you would speak to us again in three weeks to continue the dialogue. In anticipation of doing so soon, we aim to reiterate in this letter the point of view already expressed to you directly with the hope of effectively summarizing it for the company's board of directors and our fellow shareholders.

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 will require an immediate update right of the box, otherwise many features will be useless to you.

The 300MB update will allow you to playback DVDs/Blu-rays, allow you to use Remote Play on the PS Vita and play games as they are being downloaded in the background. Additionally, the update will add the ability to record and upload gameplay.

Even with the update, Sony adds that "some features will not be available at launch, such as "suspend/resume mode" which is a feature that keeps the PS4 system in a low power state and promptly takes users back to their game."

The PS4 launches on November 15th in North America.

Read more about the 1.50 update here.

Amazon has posted their quarterly results today, showing another loss but seeing growth skyrocket.

The company saw revenue jump 24 percent year-over-year to $17.1 billion, while overall they had a loss of $41 million.

"It's been a busy few months--we launched a new Paperwhite and new Kindle Fires to positive reviews and surprised people with the revolutionary Mayday button--average Mayday response times are just 11 seconds!" Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a press release.

The black hole that is Living Social led to the loss for this quarter, as the company wrote down $132 million in losses on the daily deal site.

Amazon says it expects a net loss next quarter, as well, of $500 million, but revenue will see large growth to over $25 billion.

Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission has fined Samsung today for their efforts to undermine the reputation of local smartphone maker HTC.

The agency says Samsung organized an Internet campaign to praise their own devices on numerous sites, while slandering HTC phones at the same time.

Samsung will have to pay New Taiwan dollars 10 million ($340,000 USD). Much smaller fines were levied on two Taiwanese trading companies that it claimed were responsible for the actual posts.

This is not the first time the FTC has fined Samsung this year, hitting the company with a $100,000 fine for misleading advertising about the features of the Galaxy Y Duos.

A few weeks back, Instagram announced it would be adding advertisements to the popular photo sharing service.

The company has now revealed the first ad, giving U.S. users a 'preview' of what life will be for Instagram moving forward.

There is still no specific date for when the ads will launch in full, but the company did confirm again that 'occasional' in-feed images or even videos are coming soon.

Reads the blog post:

Our focus with every product we build is to make Instagram a place where people come to connect and be inspired. Building Instagram as a business will help us better serve the global--and ever growing--Instagram community, while maintaining the simplicity you know and love.

As always, you own your own photos and videos. The introduction of advertising won't change this.

Example ads: