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Apple has significantly updated their MacBook Pro with Retina display line of notebooks.

Starting with the 13-inch model, the new laptop is 0.71 inches thick and 3.46 pounds, will be powered by a latest-generation Haswell core 15 processor at 2.4GHz, include 4GB RAM, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, a 128GB SSD and an incredible 9 hours of battery life.

The 15-inch base model will add a Haswell 2.0GHz Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD along with new Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics. Additionally, the device has 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Thunderbolt 2 ports. The notebook will have a very impressive 8 hours of battery life, as well.

With the refresh specs also come some price cuts, as the 13-inch model will start at $1299 and its larger brother will start at $1999.

According to a new report, HTC is planning an Android smartwatch.

The device will have a camera, but other specifics are unclear including price.

HTC has struggled mightily this year, and just posted their first every quarterly loss. The company, which once controlled over 15 percent of the smartphone market, now has around 3 percent.

Samsung and Sony have already unveiled smartwatches and Apple is expected to do so next year.

Soon to be overshadowed by Apple's new tablets, Microsoft has made their Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets available.

The tablets are on sale at Microsoft retail stores, www.MicrosoftStore.com, and a handful of retailers in 21 initial markets.

Microsoft says if you pre-ordered, you should be receiving your tablet within 24 hours.

Surface Pro 2

The Pro 2, which comes with the full version of Windows including legacy app support for hundreds of thousands of your favorite applications, has seen its share of hardware updates, as well.

For the display, it remains a 10.6-inch panel with 1080p resolution, but Microsoft says the tablet has 50 percent better color accuracy and better graphics performance.

Under the hood is a 1.6GHz Core i5 Haswell processor which will give users 75 percent better battery life than the previous model, a huge boost. When added to the Power Cover (check our other post), the tablet will have over 300 percent better battery life than the first-generation model. For connectivity, the device has three USB 2 ports, a single USB 3 port, mini DisplayPort and Ethernet. There is an included stylus, as well.

Although it is certainly not a unique call, Tokyo-based analyst firm Advanced Research Japan says Apple will begin selling UltraHD TVs in 2014.

Analyst Masahiko Ishino says the company will begin selling 55-inch and 65-inch models starting in the Q4 next year.

Apple has been rumored to be building HDTVs since at least 2010, and in 2011, Apple founder Steve Jobs told his biographer that the company had "finally cracked" how to build the TV with a user interface that could wirelessly sync with all of Apple's other devices, including Macs and iOS. CEO Tim Cook said earlier this year that TVs remained an "area of intense focus" for Apple but so far they have only released the Apple TV set-top box, which the company had admitted is more of a hobby.

The TVs are expected to be priced at $1500 to $2500, which would place them in the highest price range for current model TVs, but on the low end of 4K TVs. LG Display will supply over 70 percent of the LCDs, Samsung will supply the GPUs and Corning will supply Gorilla Glass 3 screen protection, says the analyst.

Earlier this month we reported on Full Screen Mario, a browser-based HTML5 version of the original Super Mario game.

As expected, Nintendo and its copyright lawyers are not fans of the game.

Full Screen Mario is an open-source effort started by college student Josh Goldberg. It recreates Super Mario using just HTML5, letting you play the game in your browser as opposed to on a console. The site has seen lots of traffic since its launch, at some points even being overwhelmed.

Nintendo says the content infringes on their "intellectual property rights," and has asked the student to take the site down. Goldberg admits he never got permission from Nintendo, and also admits he "didn't care" about copyright because he started the project as a programming exercise.

Netflix reported their quarterly earnings yesterday, smashing analyst expectations.

The company saw revenue grow to $1.11 billion and earnings of 52 cents per share. It also managed to hit the high end of its guidance adding 1.3 million domestic subscribers.

As of September 30th, the streaming company now has 31.1 million U.S. subscribers, surpassing rival HBO.

Moving internationally, the company added 9.19 million subscribers, also better than expected. The company has invested significantly in international expansion and it appears to be paying off.

Netflix has also been rumored to be on the verge of some more major deals. Marvel is creating five new original series for streaming providers, and Netflix is of course in the running. Additionally, the company has reportedly been in talks to be added as a standalone app or channel for cable company's set-top boxes.

AT&T has announced today that it will sell or lease 9700 cell towers to Crown Castle International, one of the largest wireless tower operators in the world.

Under the terms of the deal, Crown Castle will buy 600 towers outright and will have the rights to run another 9100 for an average lease of 28 years for $4.85 billion in cash.

Additionally, the operator has the right to acquire the towers outright for $4.2 billion into the future.

AT&T will lease the network capacity of the towers for the next decade, paying $1900 per month per tower, with rent going up 2 percent per year to account for inflation.

"This deal is good for AT&T and our shareholders," Bill Hogg, an AT&T senior vice president for network planning and engineering, said in a statement. "This deal will let us monetize our towers while giving us the ability to add capacity as we need it. And we'll get additional financial flexibility to continue to invest in our business, maintain a strong balance sheet and return value to our shareholders."

Crown Castle runs towers in the U.S.' top 100 markets and all over Australia.

SoftBank, the new owner of wireless carrier Sprint, has taken a large 57 percent stake in U.S. wireless device distributor Brightstar.

The Japanese co. will pay $1.26 billion for the stake, valuing the privately held distributor at $2.2 billion.

SoftBank will increase its ownership to 70 percent "over the next five years, or upon certain events," although it is unclear what those events may be.

As part of the deal, Brightstar will "become the exclusive provider of handsets, accessories, and services to certain SoftBank telecommunications affiliates," with the company prepared to buy $20 billion in handsets, accessories, and services through these connections.

In addition, Brightstar will also "have a preferential right to provide services including distribution, supply chain, handset insurance, buy-back and trade-in, multi-channel retail, and financial services to certain SoftBank telecommunications affiliates."

The distributor purchases handsets from over 100 manufacturers and then supplies them to carriers. The company also handles many trade-in and buy-back programs for larger retailers and carriers.

Aereo has confirmed that the service will launch in Detroit on October 28th.

Currently, it is available in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Salt Lake City, Houston, and Dallas and a planned Chicago launch has been delayed.

Additionally, the company says it will expand to Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and San Antonio, but without a timetable.

If you live in Detroit, the counties covered are Lapeer, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Oakland, Sanilac, Saint Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne.

The startup's service, which costs $8 per month, allows users to watch free, OTA content on any mobile device along with a free remote DVR. Aereo does not pay any re-transmission fees as it uses tiny digital TV antennas for each user in its own facilities and links to the streams.

The company has faced significant backlash since launching in 2011. Last year, CBS, NBC, Fox and other smaller broadcasters filed a copyright suit claiming unauthorized access to their content. So far, two federal courts have sided with Aereo and the company continues to expand and innovate.

Earlier this year, Google added voice calling to their desktop version of the Hangouts messaging platform, and has now expanded that capability to iOS.

iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch owners can now make free calls within the US and Canada, and you can also use your existing Google Voice number.

The company says there is no current voicemail support, so it is clearly not a Google Voice equivalent as of yet.

Additionally, the update adds the ability to send and receive animated GIFs that will play in your thread without needing to click through to the browser.

Although it had been leaked last month, Lenovo has now officially announced the A10 Android-based laptop.

The notebook runs on Android 4.2, has a 10.1-inch HD display, a 1.6GHz quad-core Cortex A9 processor, 32GB internal storage and 2GB RAM.

Lenovo uses a customized Android user interface when in 'laptop mode' including an app launcher, task bar, a status bar "for quick, intuitive access to the app library and desktop," and a built-in file manager that supposedly works like Windows search.

In addition, the device can be flipped to "stand mode," which is optimized for touch-enabled apps and entertainment and may not necessarily utilize the full-sized keyboard.

The convertible will go on sale in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific starting at $250 USD (equivalent).

According to new research from Northeastern University, the U.S. took down nearly 11 million legal, legitimate files when it raided and shut down cyber locker Megaupload last year.

For their research, the school looked into the percentage of legal and copyright-infringing content on six file-hosting services. They found that infringing content did outnumber legit content on all of the file hosting sites, but the volume of legal files was much higher than the government would have you believe.

The school (along with colleagues around the globe), examined tens of millions of files that were uploaded to FileFactory, Easy-share, Filesonic, Wupload, Megaupload and Undeadlink. Each of the sites, except for FileFactory, went down after Megaupload, most by their own accord.

In order to see if files were infringing or not, the researchers extracted metadata from the site's uploads using a link checker. The researchers "controlled for several factors including split archives, and then manually determined the legitimacy of the files based on random samples of 1,000 uploads per site," says TorrentFreak.

Google has finally made the Chromecast Android app available to international users of the device.

The app should be available in the Google Play Store of your respective country but the search giant has not released a full list.

Chromecast hardware itself is also still not available outside of North America but Amazon and some other retailers have reportedly shipped the device (possibly by accident) and others have simply had American counterparts ship them the dongle.

Now with the restrictions lifted on the app, it is quite possible that the hardware's availability is set to increase, as well.

An unemployed Chinese couple has been accused of selling their newborn baby for 50,000 yuan (about $8000 USD) and then using the money to buy an iPhone, among other items.

Mr. Teng and Ms. Zhang, as they are been referred to in the Chinese media, are set to stand trial in Shanghai for auctioning off their child to the highest bidder.

Making matters worse, prosecutors say the couple hid the woman's pregnancy for all nine months, even going as far as to tell neighbors that she had a stomach tumor when the bump became visible. Almost immediately after birth (at home), the couple handed the baby over to the buyer who then deposited the funds into their bank account.

For their defense, the couple says due to their lack of jobs, they were selling the baby in its own best interest. They hoped the child would be placed in a "good, stable home and receive a good education. We did not give the baby away for money but in order to give it more security."

Despite that claim, the couple used thousands of dollars within days of the birth on the iPhone, expensive sneakers and more.

Microsoft removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from its Windows Store earlier this morning, as they investigated a 'situation.'

Read the post: "Windows RT 8.1. Microsoft is investigating a situation affecting a limited number of users updating their Windows RT devices to Windows RT 8.1. As a result, we have temporarily removed the Windows RT 8.1 update from the Windows Store. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience. We will provide updates as they become available."

It remains unknown what the real "situation" is that is keeping Microsoft from returning the download, but it follows reports that Windows 8.1 users were also having issues updating from Windows 8.

Reportedly, although unconfirmed by Microsoft, the update has been failing due to a boot configuration error.

(Pic via Verge)