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According to leaked documents, the National Security Agency (NSA) targeted flaws in the Firefox web browser to attempt to descramble communications over TOR.

The Onion Router - or TOR - is a network that seeks to provide anonymity to users communications either within the network, or with servers based on the Internet. When visiting a website through a browser configured to use TOR, the traffic back and forth bounces through several servers that could be anywhere worldwide in order to make it difficult for both ends of the communication to know the location/identity of the other.

Only the Exit Node - the last TOR node before accessing a web server - could potentially have access to unencrypted data but still would not be aware of the other end of the communication.

From leaked documents published by the Guardian, it appears the NSA was unsuccessful in breaking TOR, and so decided another route; attack the browser and even infect the computer of a potential target in an effort to unmask them and their communications.

Browser flaws could open up the possibility of being unmasked as they could force an unencrypted, un-tunnelled connection between the target computer and a third party server. It also leaves browsers open to the delivery of a malware payload.

According to Bloomberg, Apple's iTunes Radio will become available in several more countries beyond the United States in 2014.

The report cites sources familiar with Apple's plans for iTunes Radio, which became available with the release of iOS 7 in the United States. It became the primary competitor to Pandora over night, and now Apple seeks to 1-up its rival by expanding to territories beyond its current reach.

It intends to launch iTunes Radio in the United Kingdom and Canada at some point in 2014, while it also expects to expand into Australia, New Zealand and Nordic countries during the year.

Apple is able to expand so quickly because it negotiated rights agreements with major record companies, while Pandora relies on rights granted by the state for Internet radio services in order to operate. Unless Pandora can strike similar deals, it may be quickly outpaced on the International stage by Apple.

Apple's Eddy Cue said recently that the iPhone-maker plans to launch iTunes Radio in over 100 countries.

Microsoft has updated its YouTube app for Windows Phone, but don't be fooled as it has turned into nothing more than a shortcut to the YouTube mobile site.

If you have been following the Windows Phone YouTube App saga, you know that Microsoft and Google got into a public fight over apps developed and made available for the Microsoft platform. At one point, Microsoft's YouTube app featured no advertisements at all, and allowed users to download videos from the service, both in violation of YouTube policies.

Google eventually blocked out the app and made demands of Microsoft to remedy the situation, but so far they have failed to reach a point of agreement over an app.

Microsoft accuses Google of double standards by demanding that it make a HTML5 app, but not requiring the same of apps made for its own Android OS, or Apple's iOS.

Microsoft's latest YouTube app update suggests that Microsoft has given up, as it does little more than redirect to the YouTube mobile site. Tapping the YouTube icom will literally just redirect you to m.youtube.com.

Some of the biggest names in tech have formed a new group that aims to make Internet access more affordable in developing countries.

Among the group are Microsoft, Intel, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and more, and their goal is to reduce the high cost of Internet access in developing regions of the world. In some places, entry level Internet access could cost easily as much as 30 percent of monthly income.

While new technologies have the power to make Internet access more available than ever before, there is still considerable issues with the cost in some regions. The newly formed Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) aims to fight this problem through policy change.

"Policy change can help new innovation take hold and flourish; outdated policies can stifle progress," Google's blog reads.

Initiated by the World Wide Web Foundation, A4AI includes members from the technology, government, and nonprofit worlds, from developed and developing countries. A4AI has a specific goal in mind: to reach the UN Broadband Commission target of entry-level broadband access priced at less than 5% of monthly income worldwide.

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation App will be included in the next update for the PlayStation Vita handheld.

The update was revealed through Twitter by Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios, while responding to questions from other users.

He also referred to the new PlaySation app as "PS4 Link".

Ouya now has 25,000 registered developers, according to the company.

As it stands, owners of the $100 Android console can download around 465 games or apps from the Ouya store. The company announced the milestone of 25,000 registered developers, but did not elaborate on the number of active developers for the platform.

The Ouya console was released four months ago as the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Since then, it has received a mixed response from gamers at best.

According to Julie Uhrman, chief exec at Ouya, around 27 percent of Ouya owners have purchased games. The company expects this figure to rise.

Sony has confirmed that the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4 DualShock 4 controller will work with Windows PCs and Windows games right out of the box.

Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida confirmed the news via his Twitter stream. (Embedded below)

The exec says that basic functions such as the analog sticks and buttons will work without issue. The more advanced features of the controller, such as the touch pad and motion sensors, were not mentioned, but will likely not work at launch as Sony really has no reason to invest in such functionality.

Sony has not used Xinput in the past, like Microsoft does for their Xbox controllers, so it is unclear whether Windows PCs will recognize the DS4 as a DS4 or as a generic controller.

@Napo2k for basic functions, yes

— Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) October 4, 2013

Multiple Korean sources are reporting that Samsung will be first to market with a flexible, curved display smartphone.

The tech giant could launch the phone as early as this week, with the tentative name "Galaxy Round."

By using a plastic panel, the display will be more durable and cheaper to produce. The device could also feature the thinnest bezel of any smartphone, due to its flexibility.

It is unclear how much the Round will cost, but it is expected to specs similar to the recently unveiled Galaxy Note 3.

LG today announced they would be building a 6-inch curved display for launch in November. The race is on.

Despite skipping cameras with optical image stabilization (OIS) for their current generation of devices, Samsung appears to be working on new modules for next year's flagship devices.

The company has revealed a new 13MP camera with OIS and improved low-light performance.

GSMA says the new "module can correct up to 1.5°," beating out the HTC One's camera at 1°.

In addition, the low-light performance for video and stills are up to eight times better than current models.

The module will go into mass production in the early months of next year.

Valve has unveiled the specs for its upcoming Linux-based Steam Machine console.

The company is only releasing 300 prototype consoles this year, with the intent of getting PC-based gaming into the living room.

Ranging from low-end to extremely high-end, the prototypes will run on either an Intel Core i7-4770 (4x3.5-3.9GHz, 8MB L3, 22nm, 84W), and Intel Core i5-4570 (4x3.2-3.6GHz, 6MB L3, 22nm, 84W) or an Intel Core i3 (unspecified).

The boxes will come with 16GB of DDR3-1600 RAM and internal storage of 1TB/8GB hybrid drives.

For graphics the cards will range from the high-end GeForce GTX Titan (2688 CUDA cores, 837-876MHz, 6GHz GDDR5), the mid-range GeForce GTX 780 (2304 CUDA cores, 863-900MHz, 6GHz GDDR5) and GeForce GTX 760 (1152 CUDA cores, 980-1033MHz, 6GHz GDDR5) to the lower-end GeForce GTX 660 (960 CUDA cores, 980-1033MHz, 6GHz GDDR5).

Future versions of the console will be user upgradeable, a major differentiation from the PlayStation and Xbox, which only allow storage upgrades, at most.

For the first time in a decade, sales of digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) have fallen, following the trend of other standalone point-and-shoot cameras, which have long fallen prey to improving smartphone cameras.

"You're talking about a 10-15% decline [in DSLR shipments] all over the world. Which is kind of shocking because that market's been growing double digits for almost ten years," says Christopher Chute, market intelligence firm IDC's research director of worldwide digital imaging.

Chute adds that the global digital camera sales declines are accelerating every quarter, with shipments in the Q2 falling 36 percent to 19.2 million. DSLR shipments fell 10.9 percent in the quarter to just 4 million.

Broken down by brand, Fujifilm and Sony are down 35 percent year-over-year, Canon is down 23 percent and Nikon is down 18.2 percent.

An angry shareholder has filed a class action lawsuit against BlackBerry, claiming that the company misled its investors about the future.

The suit will represent all shareholders who purchased BlackBerry stock between September 27th, 2012 and September 20th, 2013.

In the suit, shareholder Marvin Pearlstein alleges that 'executives misrepresented the state of BlackBerry's operations, including how well the BlackBerry 10 line of smartphones would fare against Android and iPhone.

Pearlstein says the company misled its investors last year by saying they were "progressing on its financial and operational commitments," and that BlackBerry 10 was being well-received by developers and carriers. "In reality, the BlackBerry 10 was not well received by the market, and the company was forced to ... lay off approximately 4,500 employees, totaling approximately 40% of its total workforce," the complaint reads.

Last September, BlackBerry shares reached lows at under $6 per share, but rebounded by February to over $17 per shares. They have since collapsed to $8 per share.

Clearly not seeing the backlash that was brought upon Yahoo when they began doing the same, Microsoft has begun recycling older, inactive Live, Outlook and Hotmail email accounts.

Perhaps worse, the company has not mentioned such practices in their service agreements although it does read that you must log in "periodically, at a minimum of every 270 days, to keep the Microsoft branded services portion of the services active" otherwise your "access may be canceled."

Following reports that it has begun recycling emails, Microsoft confirmed that is the new policy. "The email account is automatically queued for deletion from our servers. Then, after a total of 360 days, the email account name is made available again," says the software giant.

Yahoo was criticized for a similar move, as many new users still received emails that were addressed to the old user of the account, including sensitive information from Web services.

Google, owner of the second most popular email service on the Web, Gmail, says they will never recycle inactive or deleted accounts: "Once you delete your Gmail address, you won't be able to use that same username (username@gmail.com) in the future."

According to a longer form NYT article, the original iPhone cost Apple at least $150 million to develop and would have seriously hurt the company had it not been successful.

In the report, a senior Apple exec is quoted as saying the company spent over $150 million to develop the device, which was released in 2008.

Besides just the monetary investment, there was also a huge time and opportunity cost, as the company placed its best engineers on the project. Reads the article, "Many top engineers in the company were being sucked into the project, forcing slowdowns in the timetables of other work."

By moving the top engineers to the iPhone project, it caused rifts in other divisions. Says one hardware engineer who was in charge of the radios in the iPhone, "It was a big '[expletive] you' to the people who couldn't get in [to work on the iPhone]. Everyone knows who the rock stars are in a company, and when you start to see them all slowly get plucked out of your area and put in a big room behind glass doors that you don't have access to, it feels bad."

Thanks to leaked LG internal service manuals, we now have even more specs for the upcoming Google Nexus 5.

The pictures of the manual have been taken down by LG, lending to their credibility.

Here are the specs:

4.95" 1080p display (IPS TFT for those interested)
32GB internal storage
2GB RAM
MSM8974 aka Snapdragon 800 at 2.3GHz
8MP OIS rear camera, 1.3MP front camera
2300mAh battery
Sensors: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Compass, Proximity/Ambient Light, Pressure
Slimport compatibility
Micro SIM slot
Notification light
Wireless charging
NFC
Bluetooth 4.0
UMTS/GSM/CDMA/LTE compatibility