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Google has announced the new "Android Device Manager" service, allowing you to easily track a missing/lost device and keep the stored data safe.

Reads the release:

Locate and ring your misplaced device
If you ended up dropping your phone between those couch cushions, Android Device Manager lets you quickly ring your phone at maximum volume so you can find it, even if it's been silenced. And in the event that your phone or tablet is out of earshot (say, at that restaurant you left it at last night), you can locate it on a map in real time.

Protecting your personal information and data
While losing your phone can be stressful, Android Device Manager can help you keep your data from ending up in the wrong hands. If your phone can't be recovered, or has been stolen, you can quickly and securely erase all of the data on your device.

You will need Android 2.2 or higher, a Gmail account and the service will be available later this month. Additionally, there will be an Android app, as well.

Following the across the board $150 cuts to its failed Surface RT tablet, Microsoft has announced it will be discounting the more popular Surface Pro by $100, as well.

The cut is good for the 64GB and 128GB models and is valid until August 29th.

So far, the cuts have been confirmed for U.S., Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with all other regions expected to see the cuts at some point.

The 64GB model now sells for $799 and the 128GB sells for $899.

"We've been seeing great worldwide success with Surface RT pricing and keyboard-cover promotions over the past several months and are proud to offer Surface Pro at more affordable prices starting today," says Microsoft.

Google has sent the Android 4.3 update OTA for the Google Play Editions of the HTC One and the Galaxy S4.

The updates are 160MB (SGS4) and 185MB (HTC One) and are build JWR66V.

Coming just a week after the official launch of the Android 4.3 program, Google has come through with their promise of keeping Google Play Edition updates speedy, if not on par with Nexus updates.

As with all 4.3 updates, the OS now includes Bluetooth upgrades, updated widgets and some other minor updates.

A few pics:

Twitter has announced they have updated their rules to curb abuse on the microblogging site.

The move comes after recent headlines that journalists had been threatened on the site, with the tweets going as far to threaten rape and bombings.

Following the news, 120,000 users signed an online petition begging Twitter to add a "report abuse" button.

The new rules add an "in-tweet" report button, and the rules now specifically ban any kind of abusive tweets. Twitter's senior director for trust and safety, Del Harvey says "It comes down to this: people deserve to feel safe on Twitter. We want people to feel safe on Twitter, and we want the Twitter rules to send a clear message to anyone who thought that such behaviour was, or could ever be, acceptable."

Earlier this week, Google unveiled the Moto X flagship, with a $199 price tag on contract.

There is an unlocked model coming, as well, but that price is unclear as of yet. Some consumers may balk at paying that price given that they can purchase the latest iPhone for the same, and Motorola knows this.

Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside says there are more devices coming under the Moto X brand by the end of the year, including cheaper versions of the flagship X built for prepaid customers and emerging market customers.

Woodside says price-sensitivity is more stated outside of the U.S., where carrier subsidies are almost non-existent. "The experience of devices you can get for less than $200 is subpar right now," Woodside said. "We want everyone to have access to affordable smartphones." The CEO says you should not need to buy 2-year-old tech just to get a good (cheaper) smartphone experience.

Other smartphone makers have been making similar moves in the recent past. Nokia has unveiled good sub-$150 Windows Phones, and Samsung and HTC are offering "Mini" versions of their flagships.

According to Strategy Analytics' latest figures, Google has run away with the smartphone market with Android now on 80 percent of all devices.

"Global smartphone shipments grew 47 percent annually from 156.5 million units in Q2 2012 to 229.6 million in Q2 2013. Growth was driven by strong demand for Android models across all price-tiers in developed and developing markets, such as the US, China and Brazil. Android now accounts for an impressive 8 in 10 of all smartphones shipped on the planet," said Scott Bicheno, Senior Analyst.

A year ago, Android was on 70 percent of devices, so growth has been clearly accelerating.

Moving down the line, Apple's iOS remains entrenched in second, although share fell to 13.6 percent. Windows Phone increased slightly to 3.9 percent while all others (including BlackBerry) took the remaining 3 percent.

What can Microsoft do? Linda Sui, Analyst at Strategy Analytics, added, "Microsoft is making steady progress in the smartphone market due to strong support from Nokia. However, we believe Microsoft's WP8 platform still needs to improve in at least two areas before it truly takes off. First, the license fee charged to smartphone makers for WP8 must be more competitive to compete with Android in lower price-bands. And second, Microsoft must dramatically accelerate its support for advanced technologies, such as octo-core chipsets, because WP8 continues to lag behind Android in the premium smartphone category."

Earlier this week, Google unveiled the Moto X flagship, with carrier support from all the majors in the U.S.

AT&T and Sprint were quick to boast about the brick-and-mortar and online availability of the phone, but Verizon and T-Mobile were more muted.

Verizon has now confirmed that it will carry the device in stores and online, but T-Mobile users will not have that luxury.

The carrier has confirmed that the device will only be available online.

"The Moto X optimized for T-Mobile's 4G LTE network will initially be available through Motorola's channels," T-Mobile noted. "We do not plan to stock Moto X devices immediately in our stores but are working closely with Motorola to make the Moto X a great experience for T-Mobile customers. Any news about distribution in our stores would come at a later date."

Last month, Apple was found guilty of price-fixing in the ebook market.

The Department of Justice, along with 33 U.S. states and territories, have proposed "remedies" which are tough restrictions that should mean Apple can never illegally conspire to raise prices ever again.

Reads the full statement from the DOJ:

The department's proposal, if approved by the court, will require Apple to terminate its existing agreements with the five major publishers with which it conspired – Hachette Book Group (USA), HarperCollins Publishers L.L.C., Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC, which does business as Macmillan, Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Simon & Schuster Inc. – and to refrain for five years from entering new e-book distribution contracts which would restrain Apple from competing on price. Under the department's proposed remedy, Apple will be prohibited from again serving as a conduit of information among the conspiring publishers or from retaliating against publishers for refusing to sell e-books on agency terms. Apple will also be prohibited from entering into agreements with suppliers of e-books, music, movies, television shows or other content that are likely to increase the prices at which Apple's competitor retailers may sell that content. To reset competition to the conditions that existed before the conspiracy, Apple must also for two years allow other e-book retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble to provide links from their e-book apps to their e-bookstores, allowing consumers who purchase and read e-books on their iPads and iPhones easily to compare Apple's prices with those of its competitors.

Additionally, the Department of Justice is asking the court to appoint an external monitor to ensure that Apple's internal antitrust compliance policies are sufficient to catch anticompetitive activities before they result in harm to consumers. The monitor, whose salary and expenses will be paid by Apple, will work with an internal antitrust compliance officer who will be hired by and report exclusively to the outside directors comprising Apple's audit committee. The antitrust compliance officer will be responsible for training Apple's senior executives and other employees about the antitrust laws and ensuring that Apple abides by the relief ordered by the court.

Yahoo has paid over $60 million for the failed social browsing startup Rockmelt.

The company will shut down the app and browser, but use its engineers and technology to boost its media and mobile properties.

Rockmelt, launched in 2010 and backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, was originally a desktop browser that eventually become just an iOS app.

The sources say Yahoo paid mostly in cash, with some stock incentives for existing employees of the startup.

As part of the deal, Rockmelt founders (ex-Netscape engineer Tim Howes and former OpsWare employee Eric Vishria), will become head of engineering for all Yahoo mobile products and VP for media products, respectively.

"The parallels between Yahoo! and Rockmelt are obvious: we share a common goal to help people discover the best personalized content from around the web," said Yahoo product heads Mike Kerns and Adam Cahan.

Time Warner, following a month-long dispute with CBS, has dropped the top broadcast network from many of its largest markets.

The following stations have been dropped from the following markets:

• New York: WCBS and WLNY (Ind)
• Los Angeles: KCBS and KCAL (Ind)
• Dallas: KTVT-CBS and KTXA (Ind)
• Boston: WBZ-CBS and WSBK (Ind)
• Pittsburgh: KDKA-CBS and WPCW-CW
• Chicago: WBBM-CBS
• Detroit: WKBD-CW
• Denver: KCNC-CBS

Additionally, Showtime, TMC and Flix have all gone off the air, as well.

The companies have been fighting over retransmission fees. Retransmission fees are the money that cable companies pay TV station owners just for the right to broadcast their signals. CBS and Time Warner's existing contract ended in June. Time Warner, in ads played across New York City, say CBS was trying to raise the fee 600 percent.

"We deeply regret this ill-advised action, which is injurious not only to our many affected viewers, but also to Time Warner Cable itself," said CBS, in a statement. "What CBS seeks, and what we always have sought from the beginning, is fair compensation for the most-watched television network with the most popular content in the world. We will not accept less."

Last month we reported that Android Jelly Bean (4.1-4.3.x) had finally surpassed the aged Gingerbread (version 2.3) as the most used version of the OS.

Today, Google's latest figures show that Jelly Bean has now moved above 40 percent share, up from 37.9 percent last month. Gingerbread is still in second, at 33.1 percent share, followed by Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.x) at 22.5 percent.

Breaking down Jelly Bean, 34.0 percent are still on 4.1.x with just 6.5 percent on 4.2.x. Android 4.3, which just launched this week for Nexus devices and the Nexus 7 tablet, did not manage to get on the list.

There are also somehow 3.8 percent of people using Donut, Eclair and Froyo which were all released between 2009 and 2010.

Full list:

Google has officially unveiled the Moto X today.

As leaked for the past few months, the device 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.

Also as leaked, the Moto X is available in over 500 combinations, due to 18 different back plates, two amounts of internal storage, and different front plate colors and volume/power rocker accent colors.

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.

All four major U.S. carriers will be offering the phone for $199.99 with contract (for 16GB), and regional provider U.S. Cellular will also offer the smartphone. AT&T, however, will exclusively allow you to customize the design.

O2 has announced that August 29th is the launch date for their 4G LTE network.

Off the bat, the network will be available in just London, Leeds and Bradford with an extension to 10 more cities by the end of the year.

O2 will compete directly with EE, which has been offering 4G in 95 cities for some time, at a price cheaper than O2's cheapest monthly tariff.

The carrier, which is owned by Telefonica, says its basic 4G tariff will cost £26 a month. EE charges £21 a month for voice and data, or £15 a month for just data.

O2 also admitted that speeds would be slower than EE at launch, but eventually match.

Netflix has rolled out their 'Profiles,' enabling multiple users to create their own profiles within the same account.

Since launch, profiles has been one of the most requested features, as multiple family members (or roommates) often use the same account and have different tastes in movies and TV shows.

Netflix's recommendation engines do not have a chance to make real recommendations when the previously viewed content is coming from a mix of people.

When customers log in now, they will see different colored tiles representing each user on the account. When clicking through, you will be led to your own personal Netflix page and personalized recommendations.

Amazon Studios has announced they will be greenlighting five new original pilots for kids.

The pilots are a mix of cartoons, animated and live-action shows and will come from established producers as well as one newcomer.

As with the other shows they have approved, the pilots will be available for free streaming through Amazon Instant Video in the U.S. and the LoveFilm service in the UK.

Amazon will accept viewer feedback to see which shows will go into full production. "For the first time we are offering live-action and animated programming for older children and continuing with entertaining, educational, programming for preschool-aged children -- it's going to be a lot of fun," Amazon Studios director Roy Price added.

The five shows are (via Variety):

"Gortimer Gibbon's Life on Normal Street," live-action adventure show created by David Anaxagoras, a first-time writer discovered through Amazon Studios' open submission process;

"Grid Smasher," show mixing puppetry and CGI created by Dan Clark, whose credits include "Yo Gabba Gabba!" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles";