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Samsung has announced today that their camera/smartphone hybrid, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, is available in Europe, sporting LTE radios.

"Promising a faster than ever connection, the LTE capabilities allow users to experience the connected features of the Galaxy S4 Zoom with greater speed, so that they are able to connect with their world easily and quickly," adds the company.

The LTE models are available via Deutsche Telekom, Tele2, Telia Sonera, and Orange.

The device is notable thanks to a large 16MP CMOS sensor and 10x optical zoom lens with dual Xenon flash and optical image stabilization. A feature dubbed Zoom Ring which lets you instantly take pictures and send them while on the phone with someone.

As promised, Verizon and Best Buy have put the Moto X up for sale.

The device will sell for $199 with a two-year contract.

Google's Moto X has a 4.7-inch AMOLED 720p display, Android 4.2.2 (with minor Motorola bloat), a 10MP "ClearPixel" camera, and a new Motorola X8 chipset that includes a powerful 1.7GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4, an Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB RAM and built-in specialized processors for natural language processing.

The Moto X has a motion-sensitive Active Display, always-on Google Now voice commands and a camera activation gesture that requires just two wrist twists.

Ahead of its launch next week, we have some more leaked information about Samsung's Galaxy Gear smartwatch.

The smartwatch will have a 2.5-inch, 320x320 OLED display, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage and an integrated 4MP sensor camera which allows for 720p video recording.

Part of the new leaked info, sources claim the Galaxy Gear will have 10 hours of battery life.

Samsung has said the watch will not have a flexible display, nor is it a guarantee the device will ever go to mass production.

The Gear will be unveiled on September 4th.

Microsoft has made all of their recent Microsoft Surface price cuts permanent.

Beginning on August 29th, Surface Pro, Surface RT and Touch Cover prices will begin rolling out to all markets where the devices are sold.

This means the Surface Pro will start at $799, the Surface RT will start at $399 and the Touch Covers will start at $79.

If you are curious to the pricing in your local market, Microsoft says to check here.

"The customer response to recent Surface pricing and keyboard-cover promotions has been exciting to see, and we are proud to begin rollout of Surface Pro, Touch Cover and Surface RT bundles at even more affordable prices starting August 29," added the company. The price cuts had original been temporary and set to end today.

Rockstar Games has announced that the Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack will include 240 tracks from a multitude of artists.

The 240 licensed songs will be played on 15 music stations, two dedicated talk radio channels and "somewhere in the proximity of 20 movies' worth of score".

A few of the noted artists are Camilo Lara, DJ Pooh, Jesco White, Pam Grier, Bootsy Collins, Kenny Loggins, Flying Lotus, Alchemist, and Oh No.

"For this game, which is set in our version of modern-day Los Angeles, what was important for us was to capture that feeling of LA and California," Rockstar soundtrack supervisor Ivan Pavlovich said. "We approached the radio stations as the musical soundscape [you experience] as you fly into LA. One of the things we've never done in a GTA game before is a pop station; exploring that made so much sense in the context of LA."

The game will have its own original score, with game audio differing based on the player's distinct actions. "The score plays during missions and the open-world gameplay, and during online play," Pavlovich said. "It's completely dynamic, and engineered very similar to what we've done in the past with our interactive stem system--it responds to what you're doing with your character."

According to retailer ePrice, the Samsung Galaxy Note III will go up for pre-order on September 16th.

The company is unveiling the flagship device next week on September 4th at the IFA event.

Two weeks later, the Note III will go on sale, shipping on September 27th.

For now, ePrice only confirmed the dates for Taiwan, but there is little chance that the device will not be debuting in plenty of other countries at the same time.

Among the leaked specs are a 5.68" 1080p Super AMOLED screen, 3GB of RAM, 3,200mAh battery and 4K video capture to go along with an Exynos 5 Octa or a Snapdragon 800 processor depending on where you live.

Netflix has taken their original programming to a new frontier, comedy.

Aziz Ansari's new special, Buried Alive, will debut exclusively on Netflix on November 1st. The high-profile comedy special is Netflix's next step in their fight with HBO, who has long premiered standup from popular comedians.

Netflix will also promote the special with the same time and money as they did their other original programs, such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.

The company recently told investors that they would be expanding into stand-up and documentaries. The company has said the streaming service "has become a big destination for fans of these much loved and often under-distributed genres."

Ansari has previously sold his specials directly through his website as a digital download and Buried Alive will be available to buy for $5, but after Netflix's premiere.

YouTube has dumped its video response feature after only about four in every million users clicks on a video response.

Video responses on YouTube stretch back very far, but as much as the feature makes sense it simply isn't popular at all with YouTube viewers.

Currently video responses have a click-through rate of .0004% -- in other words, only 4 out of every 1 million users who sees a video response clicks on it.

"So, on September 12 we're going to retire this little-used feature as we work to develop more effective fan engagement tools for creators," YouTube's Creator blog reads.

It tells content creators to encourage fans to upload videos with specific titles, hashtags or descriptions instead, so they can be found via search for a user looking for responses.

Rockstar Games is not planning to release Grand Theft Auto V on the next-gen PlayStation 4 (PS4) console.

A tweet from Sony UK suggested that the hotly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto V was coming to the PlayStation 4, Sony's next generation console due to be released in November.

"GTA V is going to be amazing, especially on the PS4," the Sony UK tweet read. The Twitter account was also used to re-tweet comments from a user about the game on the upcoming platform.

Since then, Rockstar Games have told GameSpot that the tweet was simply a typo, and that the game is not coming to the PS4 console as of yet.

Sony UK also apologized for the mix-up on Twitter.

"Apologies for the typo about GTA V. It's due for release on PS3 on September 17th," the company said.

Rockstar released the "official trailer" for the game today. See it here.

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI sent a memo to U.S. police and emergency services warning about attacks on mobile devices running Android.

According to the memo, over 79 percent of attacks on mobile devices in 2012 were on devices running the Android operating system. Given the popularity of the mobile OS and its open source architecture, it draws more attacks than other operating systems, such as Apple's iOS, which accounted for only 0.7 percent of attacks.

Half of the attacks on Android phones were in the form of so called "text trojans", which are malicious apps that send premium-rate SMS messages in the background. More serious attacks include fake Google Play stores and malware that can steal information and track what a user is doing.

One major issue with Android, according to the memo, is the large portion of devices running unsafe versions of the OS. Roughly 44 percent of Android users were still using Gingerbread, which was released in 2011. The memo notes that a number of serious security vulnerabilities have been fixed in later versions.

"The growing use of mobile devices by federal, state, and local authorities makes it more important than ever to keep mobile OS patched and up-to-date," it said.

Microsoft has made it clear they have no plans to release an Xbox One without the Kinect motion control system.

Corporate vice president Phil Harrison says the system is an integral part of the console.

"Absolutely no plans at all," Harrison noted when asked if a cheaper non-Kinect bundled model would be available. "We think Kinect is an integral part of our platform. All of the magical experiences that you get, both as a games-player and also the way you navigate the system are made even more amazing because of Kinect."

Because it comes bundled with Kinect, Harrison says developers can design projects for the "widest possible install base."

"Xbox One is Kinect," Harrison concluded. "They are not separate systems. An Xbox One has chips, it has memory, it has Blu-ray, it has Kinect, it has a controller. These are all part of the platform ecosystem."

Vodafone and O2 have begun rolling out 4G mobile services in the United Kingdom, a year after rival EE first launched its own 4G service.

Vodafone will initially provide 4G service to parts of London, while O2 will also launch 4G services in London, Leeds and Bradford. Three, the largest mobile network in the UK, will begin rolling out 4G services from December, starting with London, Birmingham and Manchester.

EE has been offering 4G in the UK for almost a year after communications regulator Ofcom allowed the firm to use licensed spectrum for its service. The other carriers in the region protested the green light for EE because they had to wait for Ofcom to auction off spectrum for 4G services.

However, Vodafone and O2 are being accused of dragging their feet on 4G to sell it as a premium service.

"The UK's mobile networks are hedging their bets with 4G," Steven Hartley, principal analyst at telecoms consultancy Ovum, told the BBC. "They are trying the same strategy they used when they rolled out 3G, which is to offer 4G as a premium service to consumers, in an effort to move them onto expensive phone tariffs."

A U.S. judge has found that Hotfile is liable on charges of copyright infringement, in a case dating back to 2011.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) touted the finding in an e-mailed statement to the press, but the official written judgement remains sealed for fourteen days for confidential and other information to be redacted.

Nevetheless, the MPAA is jumping for joy that the still-in-business Panama-based cyberlocker service apparently failed to convince the court that it is a legitimate service that is protected from liability for infringing user uploads under the safe harbour provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

"This decision sends a clear signal that businesses like Hotfile that are built on a foundation of stolen works will be held accountable for the damage they do both to the hardworking people in the creative industries and to a secure, legitimate Internet," said Chris Dodd, chairman and CEO of the MPAA.

"We applaud the court for recognizing that Hotfile was not simply a storage locker but an entire business model built on mass distribution of stolen content. Today's decision is a victory for all of the men and women who work hard to create our favorite movies and TV shows, and it's a victory for audiences who deserve to feel confident that the content they're watching online is high-quality, legitimate, and secure."

Microsoft is in "advanced stage" talks to invest in popular check-in service Foursquare.

Despite the nature of the talks, they may not lead anywhere, as Microsoft is not the only company Foursquare is having discussions with.

The news comes a day after Foursquare released apps for Windows 8 computers and tablets, following a promise to do so in June.

It is unclear what the investment will actually entail, but it would not be surprising if Microsoft wants to integrate Foursquare's data into its Bing search engine and Maps applications.

Microsoft's talks with Foursquare about a strategic investment are said to be at an advanced stage.

-- Dina Bass (@dinabass) August 29, 2013

Verizon Wireless is in talks with Vodafone Group to buy back the 45 percent of their company that they do not own.

The sale would be in the area of $130 billion, making it one of the largest transactions of all time. Verizon is working with six major banks to raise $60 billion to finance the buyout.

Vodafone and Verizon have been partners in the venture for over a decade, and it has been very lucrative for Vodafone as Verizon pays them a hefty dividend when possible. The deal began in 1999 back when Vodafone outbid Bell Atlantic for Airtouch Communications, at the time, the largest wireless communication company on the planet. Bell and Vodafone then merged assets to create Verizon Communications.

The companies have intensified talks in the last weeks, after reports of the buyout surfaced earlier this year. As part of the deal, Verizon will sell back its 23 percent stake in Vodafone Italia, valued at about $5 billion.

M&A in the industry have been swift this year, starting with T-Mobile USA merging with MetroPCS, and more recently, Softbank acquiring Sprint for $21.6 billion.