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A U.S. District Judge is to scrutinize a proposed settlement from Facebook resulting from a lawsuit over its advertising practices.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco gave preliminary approval to a proposed $20 million settlement from Facebook to settle a case brought against it over its "Sponsored Stories" program. However, on Friday, plaintiffs told the judge that Facebook's settlement did not do enough to keep content created by minors out of the hands of advertisers.

Facebook said it would pay $20 million to settle the proposed class action, to compensate class members and said it would also make changes to its policies to give users more control over how their content is shared. Plaintiffs lawyers estimated changes as worth up to $145 million, a figure which Seeborg found to be highly speculative.

Children's Advocacy Institute attorney Robert Fellmeth told the Judge on Friday that minors' content should not be shared with advertisers. Seebord though, reminded him that his role is only to determine whether Facebook's settlement offer is fair.

A U.S. federal judge in Seattle has dismissed a patent infringement case filed by Triton against Nintendo.

Triton had accused Nintendo of infringing its patented technology (U.S. Patent No. 5,181,181) with the Wii MotionPlus accessory. It initially filed its lawsuit in Texas but Nintendo won a transfer of the case to Seattle.

In Seattle, U.S. Federal Judge Judge Richard A. Jones heard Triton's legal arguments before promptly rejecting the case.

"We feel vindicated by the court's ruling," said Nintendo of America deputy general counsel Richard Medway.

"Nintendo's track record demonstrates that we vigorously defend patent lawsuits, like the Triton lawsuit, when we believe that we have not infringed another party's patent. Consumers respect Nintendo because we develop unique and innovative products, and because we respect the intellectual property rights of others."

Research conducted by UK-based consumer product testing group 'Which?' found Samsung's Galaxy S4 provided the best performance and battery life.

Which? tested all major smartphone vendors' flagship smartphones using its Geekbench 2 test. The test measures process and memory performance of smartphones and assigns them a speed rating based on the results.

The GeekBench 2 test gave Samsung's Galaxy S4 a score of 3188. In second place was the HTC One, with a score of 2798.

The Galaxy S4 also did well in battery life tests, scoring the highest for average call time on a charge (1,051 minutes) and the highest for average Internet usage with 405 minutes.

Versions of the mega-popular Minecraft have reached over 7 million sales for the Xbox 360 console, according to the developer.

Mojang announced on Twitter that the Xbox 360 version of the game had reached 7 million sales, but did not break down the numbers to indicate whether it was combined sales of the XBLA download and the disc sales. Minecraft on XBLA hit 6 million sales at the end of March.

Combined sales of Minecraft for Windows PCs, Macs and Linux systems have crossed over 11 million.

Minecraft on Xbox has now sold 7 million copies!!! CRAZY! =D

-- Daniel Kaplan (@Kappische) June 28, 2013

Google is allowing third parties to borrow its Street View Tekker gear in order to capture more hard to reach areas.

If you represent an organization such as a tourism board, non-profit, government agency, university or research group that would like to take photos with the Trekker for future inclusion on Google Maps, then you can apply to borrow Google's gear.

The Street View Trekker allows for people to carry the equipment on their backs while walking, so areas where vehicles or even bicycles can't reach can be covered.

Recently, Street View got imagery from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. That was the first time the service had covered a skyscraper.

Nintendo does not believe that it is releasing too many Mario games, saying that keeping old popular franchises fresh with innovation keeps them relevant.

Nintendo senior director of corporate communications Charlie Scibetta said that the Japanese gaming firm releases new Mario titles based on fan freeback, and that so long as every new Mario iteration is innovative in its own way, the brand will stay fresh and relevant.

"We think we're putting out the right number of Mario games based on what fans are asking for, based on what our own developers' creative visions are," Scibetta said.

"The key to that is as long as there's innovation is occurring within the gameplay, as long as there's new features, then marrying the characters and the IPs that people love is the right call from our standpoint."

Nintendo is criticized often for relying too much on old IPs rather than aiming to develop new blockbuster IPs.

"You could call all the games that we're making here new IP in the sense that they're new gameplay experiences," he said. "They just happen to also have the IP that people associate with."

Earlier this week, BlueStacks announced its new GamePop Mini offer, which provides a free console with a 12 month subscription.

It is the mini version of the GamePop console, which sells for $129. It also will run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. In order to get a GamePop Mini, you need a 12 month subscription to the GamePop service at $7 per month, which technically means the console will cost you $84.

"We have always planned on having a free console option," said BlueStacks CEO, Rosen Sharma.

"The biggest value of the GamePop service is its content – not the box. Hardware costs have come down so fast that we're able to undercut the rest of the market. With the free promotion we've been doing in June we're already seeing a ton of adoption. That volume then attracts more developers and therefore more and better content. It's building momentum."

BlueStacks touts 500 mobile gaming partners. Recently it announced its "Looking Glass" technology that will allow iOS-only developers to easily launch on GamePop.

"We want to make things as easy as possible for app developers to come on board," said Ben Armstrong of the company's developer relations team.

Microsoft has bolstered its apps for cloud-based services with new SkyDrive Pro apps for Windows 8 and iOS for SharePoint Online users in Office 365.

The apps let you access, view, and upload your documents from anywhere to Microsoft's cloud storage service. You can use the SkyDrive Pro apps to view documents in your SkyDrive Pro folder, select specific content to take offline when you are travelling or have low bandwidth, organize your content by creating new folders, and upload new content and share with others.

The Apps are available from the Windows Store and the Apple App Store.

Thanks to a leaked roadmap, we now know the release dates for a few major phone launches coming to the T-Mobile USA carrier.

Among the most important devices are the Sony Xperia Z and the Nokia Lumia 925. Additionally, the yet-unknown T-Mobile 768 (likely a ZTE or Huawei device branded by T-Mobile) will launch during the month, as well.

All three devices will launch on July 17th, three days after the company announces a "Major EIT Release," likely to be additions to carrier's "UNcarrier" plans.

The two high-end devices are expected to sell for $99.99 down and $579 total (24 monthly payments of $20).

Roadmap via T-MoNews:

Although the show's first season will not reach the streaming service until July 11th, Netflix has renewed the upcoming 'Orange is the New Black' for a second season.

The comedy is Netflix's most recent original program, following the launch of House of Cards, Hemlock Grove and a new season of Arrested Development.

OITNB is written by Weeds creator Jenji Kohan and follows the story of a woman sentenced to 15 months in federal prison.

The show will be available in all Netflix regions on July 11th.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced a major collaboration with Unity Technologies, the maker of the game engine and developer tools.

The joint effort will be for the Xbox 360 and the upcoming Xbox One, allowing developers unlimited access to the tools.

Says the company (release):

Marking one step in our ongoing commitment to provide the best developer environment for creators, this collaboration will make it even easier for developers to bring popular games, entertainment and apps to Microsoft platforms.

Developers who build games published by Microsoft Studios now have access to Unity tools for Xbox 360 and Xbox One free of charge and can create interactive 3D and 2D experiences. Unity will develop tools for Xbox One, including support for features like multiplayer matchmaking, SmartGlass, enhanced Kinect gestures and recognition, and the power of the cloud.

Adobe has announced this week that it will be acquiring major digital marketing software company Neolane for $600 million in cash.

The company operates the platform for managing digital marketing campaigns over multiple platforms.

Adobe says the move will "bring critical cross-channel campaign management capabilities to the Adobe Marketing Cloud." Adobe is best known for building Flash and packaging Photoshop and Acrobat.

The company's Marketing Cloud is a tool set that includes analytics, social, advertising, targeting, and web experience management solutions.

Neolane, which was privately held, has major clients such as Bridgestone Tires and Barnes & Noble among others. Their platform automates and executes digital marketing campaigns across the Web, email, social, mobile, call center, direct mail and point of sale.

Adobe expects the deal to close next month.

Microsoft has confirmed that it will no longer charge devs to update and patch their Xbox 360 titles, a huge update to previous policy.

The software giant has always charged a large fee when developers first submit their games to be certified and approved for release. Microsoft then offered one title update (patch) for free. Any subsequent re-certification, however, could cost tens of thousands of dollars, a figure that most indie developers simply could not afford even if they needed to desperately patch their game.

Confirmed by Xbox boss Larry Hryb, the new policy of making all re-certifications free of charge applies to both Xbox Live Arcade games and full retail games.

There is, of course, some fine print. If developers are deemed to "make an excessive number of re-submissions due to an update failing certification, Microsoft reserves the right to issue a charge."

"Microsoft eliminated fees for Title Updates on Xbox 360 Arcade games in April 2013," a spokesperson concluded. "We're constantly evaluating our policies and implementing feedback. While our development policies are confidential, and will remain so, we're pleased to say that this is just one of many ongoing changes and improvements we've made to ensure Xbox is the best place possible for developers and gamers."

MIT professor Dina Katabi and graduate fellow Fadel Adib have announced today a new tech that could allow you to see through walls, sort of.

Dubbed "WiVi," which is a mix of Wi-Fi and "vision," the tech will allow viewers to "see" any persons moving behind a wall.

As explained by the professor, "the subtle reflections of wireless inter signals bouncing off a human could be used to track that person's movements." In the duo's previous experiments, however, the tech had very limited use since it required a wireless router already be in the room being tracked or a large specialized radio.

The new tech use the same wireless antennas seen in your smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices and technically could be eventually embedded into your devices. The biggest issue is the ability to cancel out all interfering signals. Wi-Fi bouncing off walls, for example, are thousands of times more powerful than a reflection off a human body.

WiVi "sends out two wireless signals, one of which is the inverse of the other. Te two signals cancel each other out unless they hit a moving target – such as a human. To silence the noise, we change the structure of the Wi-Fi signal so all the undesired reflections cancel."

Despite promising to update their PlayBook tablet to the new BB10 operating system in 2013, BlackBerry has decided against the idea, citing performance issues.

CEO Thorstein Heins revealed the information yesterday during the company's fiscal Q1 2014 earnings report. The company's stock cratered 28 percent after the report thanks to an unexpected loss and poor guidance for earnings moving forward.

"Our teams have spent a great deal of time and energy looking at solutions that could move the Blackberry 10 experience to PlayBook. But unfortunately, I am not satisfied with the level of performance and user experience, and I made the difficult decision to stop these efforts and focus on our core hardware portfolio," Heins added.

The PlayBook has been dead for some time. The company was forced to fire sale it just months after launch, dropping the price from $500 to $300 and then $169 just to move inventory. Even at its current price, only 100,000 PlayBooks were sold during the recent quarter, compared to 19.5 million iPads and over 20 million Android tablets.