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Although unconfirmed, it appears that T-Mobile USA will be dropping BlackBerry 10 devices from stores.

The carrier won't be dropping the devices completely, just moving to 'direct ship', meaning they will not carry the devices and just serve as an intermediary for consumers to purchase through.

One employee, posting to the popular Crackberry forums, added this: "My manager told me the other day that all blackberry 10 devices will now be only available via direct ship. I work at a corporate store in Cleveland I have to go check the Email but I'm not sure if this has just affected NorthEast Ohio."

Other reps from other states have made similar claims, but T-Mobile USA has not confirmed the news yet.

The news is just another in a long string of bad headlines for the dying smartphone maker.

Acer has revealed its new flagship smartphone, the Liquid S2, which is the 'first' phone with 4K-recording capabilities.

The phone has a large 6-inch IPS display with FullHD resolution and 368 PPI. Under the hood is a 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and a 3300 mAh battery.

At 13MP, the rear camera has auto-focus, f2.2, 28 mm lens, BSI sensor, LED ring flash and 4K video recording. The front camera is 2MP and has a f2.2, 24 mm lens, 88° wide angle, BSI sensor and 1080p video recording.

For connectivity, the phone has LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and Wi-Fi 802.11ac/a/b/g/n.

Acer is quick to point out the features of the camera:

• BSI Sensors and LED Ring Flash: Sharper pictures in any environment
• Video Recording: 4K Ultra HD, fast full HD 1080p 60FPS, 4 x slow motion
• Full Panorama Pictures: Up to 27-megapixels in a single picture
• Quick First Shot: Take picture right from unlock the screen with automatic center-focus by tapping any location on the screen
• Smart Best Shot: Automatically detects photo type and takes multiple shots for best selection
• Tag Widget: Convenient photo browsing with scene tag.
• Favorite Mode: Create up to five profiles with customized effects, flash, capture mode and scenes
• Exposure Control: One finger focus and exposure adjustment
• Freehand Capture: Crop out anything on the screen using hand or a digital pen
• Live Screen™: Share ideas and journey through pictures and scribble

Sony has confirmed that the upcoming PlayStation 4 will do voice recognition through the PS Camera.

The company confirmed the news, but left little in the way of details. "We can confirm that PS Camera does allow voice recognition. We will share more details on this shortly."

During a presentation for retail staff, Sony revealed a slide that stated, "From navigational voice commands to facial recognition, the PlayStation Camera adds incredible innovation to your gaming." (Jump to the 5 minute 30 seconds mark.)

Sony, unlike Microsoft, decided not to bundle the Camera with the console, allowing consumers to make the choice and keeping the price down for the hardware.

After a month-long blackout, Time Warner Cable and CBS have reached a deal over retransmission fees and the channels are back in all major markets.

Besides just CBS, other channels returning are Showtime, The Smithsonian Channel, and CBS Sports Network. Affected cities were NY, LA, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Denver and Detroit.

CBS CEO Les Moonves wrote in an email to employees: "The final agreements with Time Warner Cable deliver to us all the value and terms that we sought in these discussions. We are receiving fair compensation for CBS content and we also have the ability to monetize our content going forward on all the new, developing platforms that are right now transforming the way people watch television."

Time Warner emailed subscribers: "We're pleased to announce that we've reached an agreement with CBS that will return their blacked out channels to our lineup immediately (including Showtime, TMC, Flix, Smithsonian, and the CBS broadcast stations in NY, LA, Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, and Pittsburgh).

As in all of our negotiations, our main goal was to hold down costs and retain our ability to deliver a great video experience for our customers. We're pleased that we successfully achieved both. We hate that these fights have to happen--and that our customers get caught in the middle--but they do allow us to negotiate deals that provide better outcomes for our customers."

Three HTC executives have been arrested on suspicion of leaking trade secrets to the Chinese, causing the company's stock to fall to 8-year lows.

Vice president of product design Thomas Chien, research and development director Wu Chien-Hung and senior manager of design and innovation Justin Huang were all arrested all over the weekend.

Besides being accused of leaking the secrets, the three are also accused of filing 'fake commission fee claims' that totaled over $330,000.

HTC had filed a complaint last month accusing the executives of passing the trade secrets, and says the investigation and subsequent arrests will not have any impact on operations.

Authorities said the executives were readying a new mobile design company using stolen interface technology. The company would aim its products at Chinese vendors.

According to the latest market share data from NetApplications, Windows 8 saw its share grow significantly for August.

While still comparatively small, Windows 8 jumped 37 percent, moving from 5.40 percent to 7.41 percent.

Windows 7 jumped from 44.49 percent to 45.63 percent, with the two new operating systems taking share from the extremely aged Windows XP. XP fell to 33.6 percent, over a 10 percent drop from July.

Mac OS X (in all iterations) moved slightly to 7.28 percent.

It is unclear why Windows 8 saw such a large jump for the month, but there is the potential that the large price drops on the Surface tablets had an effect on the OS' share.

Verizon Communications has agreed to purchase Vodafone's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion in one of the largest acquisitions of all time.

The company will finally have full access to the top U.S. wireless carrier, and its large profits.

Vodafone will use the proceeds to invest in their own networks and also to pay back investors through stock buybacks and dividends. Over $80 billion will be returned to shareholders and used to pay down debt. Verizon's CEO confirmed that the companies had spoken about merging, but that a sale was better for both.

The financial terms of the deal are as follows; Vodafone will receive $59 billion in cash, $60 billion in Verizon stock and another $11 billion from a deal that will close in the Q1 2014. Verizon raised $60 billion in bridge financing from multiple banks including JPMorgan Chase.

By purchasing the stake, the company says its earnings per share will jump 10 percent right off the bat. The added debt will likely keep the company from making any other large transactions in the coming years, however. After the deal, Verizon will have debt of $115 billion.

Although the current generation Asus PadFone Infinity has only been on the market for a few months, Asus is already working on its sequel.

The new A86 model, compared to the current-gen A80, will have many similarities but will include some new features.

Under the hood, the new tablet will run on a Snapdragon 800 SoC, compared to the older, but still powerful Snapdragon 600 in the A80.

Furthermore, the new tablet will be available in white, as well as black, compared to just black for the A80. The design, other than the color, will be identical, so the current dock will work.

The Padfone Infinity sells for $900 and is notable because it is a phone that uses a tablet as a dock to be a two-in-one device.

In 2011, Belgium began blocking the infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, following a court ruling.

This week, the country's ISP have added new torrent sites to their blockade, including many of the largest in the world such as Kat.ph, ExtraTorrent, BitSnoop and H33T. Anyone visiting the sites will be greeted by a "STOP" sign and a small message explaining that the sites are "considered illegal according to Belgian legislation."

The legislation in question was a lawsuit filed by the Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) and two major ISPs, Belgacom and Telenet. The court ruled in favor of the ISPs first, but an appeal overturned that decision. The Pirate Bay has been blocked in the nation since that decision.

Of course, the ISPs and legislators have been slow to block the ever-changing domains for the sites, and KAT's latest, Kickass.to is still available.

The startup streaming music service Grooveshark has settled one of its outstanding lawsuits, with publisher Sony ATV Music.

Grooveshark, along with the settlement, has signed a licensing deal that will see the music added to its current catalog.

Says the startup: "We are excited to add Sony / ATV Music's impressive array of songwriters to our catalog further advancing our mission to empower creators with the best audio platform in the world."

Last month, the company signed a similar deal with EMI Music, thus avoiding another lawsuit over copyright violation claims.

Grooveshark began receiving the record labels' ire by allowing users to upload their own music to share with others, no matter if they were copyrighted or not.

VentureBeat got an in-depth look into the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch, which is set for unveiling on September 4th.

The site does note that the watch they got to look at was a prototype sent to select developers and partners so it may not reflect the final design although it will likely be very close.

After spending some time with the device and seeing an internal promotional video, the site reports that the smart watch is great as a fitness device and adequate as a smartphone companion. At 3-inches diagonally, the watch is huge, as most designer watches top out at 55mm (2.16 inches). The screen is square but bezels turn it rectangular, but with rounded corners.

The watch has Bluetooth to easily connect to the Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets, and it is likely also able to connect to all Android devices. Of course, the device also has built-in Wi-Fi. The device has a 4MP camera in the strap and tiny speakers in the clasp. You can use Samsung S Voice for voice commands, download Android apps, use swipe gestures, initiate calls from the watch to send to your Galaxy phone and integrate social media directly.

Activision has defended their yearly Call of Duty releases, saying "there's demand and excitement" every year for a new game.

CEO Eric Hirshberg added: "The cadence of the releases seems to have found a nice equilibrium with people's appetite. There's demand and excitement each and every time out. Then people are playing throughout the year."

The exec added that more people are playing Call of Duty now than have ever before, but Activision admits that "we don't take anything for granted." Activision uses two studios for the games, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, with each releasing a title every other year. Hirshberg says the companies always try to outdo each other, which leads to better games for consumers.

"Having alternating studios is one of the secrets to the franchise's success," Hirshberg said. "You have different creative people who are strong-willed and have minds of their own. Everyone gets what makes a great Call of Duty game. Treyarch and IW are the masters, and have built this thing. So, there's a lot of common DNA from year to year."

First depicted in pictures in the last weeks, we now have a couple of videos detailing the casings of the new iPhone 5S colors, 'champagne' and 'graphite.'

Additionally, the videos showcase the differences between the iPhone 5 and the upcoming 5S, which is set to be unveiled on the 10th.

The iPhone 5S will keep the same form factor as the iPhone 5, but with notable improvements under the hood.

Apple is also expected to unveil a plastic version of the iPhone 5 for the emerging markets, dubbed the iPhone 5C.

Research firm IDC has posted their latest data into the tablet market, and the company is forecasting a slowdown moving forward.

The firm predicted a slight drop for 2013 from their previous forecast in May, to 227.4 million from 229.3 million units shipped. Even with the downgrade, the number is still 57.7 percent higher than 2012's shipments, showing a healthy market for the devices.

IDC believes wearable devices will lead to tablets peaking sooner than expected, with devices including smartwatches and Google Glass. Additionally, 'phablets,' which are now above 6-inches, will cannibalize their larger siblings, as well.

Samsung will unveil their Galaxy Gear smartwatch next week, and Apple is expected to unveil a flexible-display iWatch in 2014.

New Zealand has passed a new bill this week, banning software patents in the nation.

The bill in its entirety will be posted as a link at the end of this article, but here is one of the most relevant parts:

We received many submissions concerning the patentability of computer programs. ... Open source, or free, software has grown in popularity since the 1980s. Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no "inventive step" in software development, as "new" software invariably builds on existing software. They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position. ...

[With regard to corporations fighting for proprietary software,] After careful consideration we concluded that developing a clear and definitive distinction between embedded and other types of software is not a simple matter; and that, for the sake of clarity, a simple approach would be best. We received advice that our recommendation to include computer programs among the inventions that may not be patented would be unlikely to prevent the granting of patents for inventions involving embedded software.