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Electronic Arts has ruled out a return of its Online Pass program on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One games consoles.

Both next generation consoles will now support the playing of used games, which had prompted questions about how EA's recent decision to abandon Online Pass would be affected.

Speaking to Polygon, an Electronic Arts representative ruled out a return of the Online Pass system in the next generation.

"There is no change to our decision to discontinue Online Pass," the rep said. "It is dead."

EA said the decision to kill off Online Pass on both future games, and retrospectively on older titles, was down to customer feedback. Systems like Online Pass - which were also adopted later by other publishers - are widely seen as a way for publishers to get revenue out of the resale of video games.

The English Premier League is to request a court order forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to a Sweden-based sports streaming website.

The Premier League wants access to FirstRow1.eu blocked by all the major ISPs in the UK, following the lead of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) trade group which has been successful in forcing ISPs to block access to the Pirate Bay.

Some questions about a possible conflict of interest in this case have been raised by the Open Rights Group. BT, the largest ISP in the UK and the firm that typically challenged blocking demands on behalf of the industry, has recently paid £246 million to buy the rights to show Premier League football online.

"All of the major ISPs now have differing degrees of conflicts of interest," Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, said.

"Sky, BT, Virgin and TalkTalk all supply televisions services now, so we have to expect that there will be more reluctance to be as transparent as they have been in the past."

He also raised concerns that any increase in the pace of granting court orders to block websites will lead to legitimate websites being hit.

A charity in the UK is warning Internet users about a trend of webcam hacking, where hackers switch on webcams on compromised PCs to remotely view victims.

Childnet International is warning that webcams should be disconnected or covered up when not used, and shouldn't be left in bedrooms or other private areas. A BBC Radio 5 investigation found websites where hackers exchanged images and videos of people they had recorded after hacking a PC or a laptop.

Commons Home Affairs Committee chairman Keith Vaz urged teachers to talk to pupils in schools about the dangerous of using webcams, and called on manufacturers to improve security.

The BBC also tells the story of Rachel Hyndman, 20, from Glasgow, who was reportedly watching DVD while in the bath when she noticed that the smell LED light indicating that her laptop's webcam was active had turned on. "I was sitting in the bath, trying to relax, and suddenly someone potentially has access to me in this incredibly private moment and it's horrifying," she said.

"To have it happen to you without your consent is horribly violating."

Horrifying indeed, but is there really anything new to the story? For many years now, trojan horse malware (or now commonly called remote access trojans, or RATs) provided a hacker with considerable control over a victim's PC, including full hard drive access, full control over software that is run, the ability to capture screenshots or even record the screen, turn on a connected webcam or microphone and so on.

A court in Tokyo has sided with Apple in ruling that Samsung Electronics' devices infringed the iPhone maker's so called "bounce back" patent.

The same patent at the center of the dispute was deemed invalid by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office earlier this year, although the office did say that certain aspects of the bounce back feature on Apple's iPhones could be patented.

Samsung had changed some of its newer products since Apple first sued it over the feature, showing a blue line at the end of documents.

Apple has long accused Samsung of "slavishly cloning" the iPhone and iPad with its Galaxy-branded line of smartphones and tablet PCs. The two are engaged in court battles all over the world.

The French government is planning to introduce new restrictions that would stop Amazon from being able to offer discounts on books, while also offering free delivery.

French law already forbids discounts of more than 5 percent on books, to prevent smaller sellers from being crushed by huge retail chains. While Amazon doesn't offer more than a 5 percent discount on books - complying with the existing laws - it does offer free delivery services.

"I'm in favor of ending the possibility of offering both free delivery and a five percent discount," Frence culture minister, Aurelie Filippetti, told BFM news television on Friday.

"We need a law, so we're going to find a legislative window to introduce one."

Amazon can afford to take the losses that providing both discounts, and free delivery, can impose, whereas other booksellers cannot. The SLF book retailers' union backs the socialist government's plans, and has already sued Amazon in court.

"Today, the competition is unfair... No other book retailer, whether a small or large book or even a chain, can allow itself to lose that much money," Guillaume Husson, head of the SLF union, said.

Google has been given 35 days to destroy data it had collected from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in the UK.

The search giant had accidentally grabbed and stored data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in dozens of countries as its Street View vans took pictures for the popular service. Subsequent investigations had ordered Google to delete the data, which it pledged to do.

In the UK, it emerged last year that additional disks had more data accidentally collected from unsecured networks, prompting the UK Information Commissioner's Office to re-open the investigation.

It has ordered Google to destroy the data within 35 days and to report to it if any additional disks should emerge.

"Today's enforcement notice strengthens the action already taken by our office, placing a legal requirement on Google to delete the remaining payload data identified last year within the next 35 days and immediately inform the ICO if any further discs are found," said Stephen Eckersley, the office's head of enforcement.

"Failure to abide by the notice will be considered as contempt of court, which is a criminal offence."

The Office did not impose a fine on Google, however, saying that the breach failed to meet the levels required to justify a monetary penalty.

Facebook has revealed that a bug in its software could have exposed some personal information of more than six million of its users.

The social network giant said it received a report to its White Hat program (collaboration with external security researchers in order to weed out and fix problems) that identified a bug that could put the e-mail address and/or phone numbers of some of its users at risk.

The problem laid with the Download Your Information (DYI) tool and how Facebook uses some data to make friend recommendations. When people upload their contact lists or address books to Facebook, it tries to match that data with the contact information of other people on Facebook in order to generate friend recommendations. In this way, the service won't recommend that people invite certain contacts to Facebook if those contacts already have a Facebook account.

Due to the bug, some of the information used was inadvertently stored in association with people's contact information as part of their account on Facebook. As a result, if a person went to download an archive of their Facebook account through our Download Your Information (DYI) tool, they may have been provided with additional email addresses or telephone numbers for their contacts or people with whom they have some connection.

According to Digitimes, Apple and Samsung have begun developing ultra-thin heat pipes for their upcoming smartphones, with the potential to reveal "heat pipe-adopted models in the fourth quarter."

The companies would not be the first to launch such a model, as NEC just unveiled their Medias X06E, a smartphone with a 4.7-inch 1,280x720 OLED display, a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 4 processor and heat pipes for improved cooling.

Digi says the "conventional graphite plus foil cooling method is no longer able to dissipate enough heat in modern smartphone models efficiently" mainly thanks to the standardization of LTE chips.

Ultrabooks currently use heat pipes with diameters of 1-1.2mm, but NEC's has a tiny 0.6mm diameter. Due to Apple's tiny screens, that may have to be even smaller for upcoming devices.

According to Sony UK, the upcoming PlayStation 4 launch does not mean the company is dropping the price of the PS3.

UK Managing Director Fergal Gara says the aging console will not get a price cut following the holiday launch of the PS4.

"There's no plans as yet," Gara says. "The PlayStation 3 is a system where it hasn't been particularly easy to get the costs down."

Although the PS3 lost the company money on every console sold at launch, Sony has said the PS4 will be around breakeven right from launch. The PS3 launched at $499 and the PS4 will launch at $399.

As expected, Facebook yesterday announced that its popular photo-sharing application Instagram has been updated to include Video sharing features.

The move was made to rival Vine, Twitter's video sharing app for iOS and Android.

Instagram's updated platform allows for 15 second videos, much longer than Vine's 6 second video restriction.

Says Kevin Systrom, Instagram CEO:

Today, we're thrilled to introduce Video on Instagram and bring you another way to share your stories. When you go to take a photo on Instagram, you'll now see a movie camera icon. Tap it to enter video mode, where you can take up to fifteen seconds of video through the Instagram camera.

You'll also find that we've added thirteen filters built specifically for video so you can keep sharing beautiful content on Instagram. When you post a video, you'll also be able to select your favorite scene from what you've recorded as your cover image so your videos are beautiful even when they're not playing.

Popular cross-platform messaging app WhatsApp has reported 250 million active monthly users, a huge boost from the recently reported 200 million less than two months ago.

The company launched four years ago but did not become mainstream until last year. The company has a $0 marketing budget, making the growth even more impressive.

At 250 million users, the app is now in elite company amongst more established brands like Twitter and Skype.

The app itself costs just $1 per year, and gives access to unlimited messaging across platforms such as iOS, BlackBerry and Android.

According to multiple sources, HTC has signed A-list star Robert Downey Jr. for a new marketing campaign set for the next two years.

The deal is worth $12 million and will include television, print, and billboard advertising all around the world. Additionally, Downey will keep some level of creative control.

HTC recently dropped its long-time "Quietly Brilliant" tagline, claiming that the company now needed to be louder to keep up with rivals. All new campaigns will use the terms "bold," "authentic," and "playful."

Downey Jr. has been busy, coming off major hits like "Sherlock Holmes" and of course, "Iron Man" and "The Avengers." The actor is set to reprise his role as Iron Man in the Avengers sequel, slated for 2015.

Looking to end their long-standing bidding war, Sprint has increased their bid for 4G spectrum holder Clearwire to $5 per share, 14 percent higher than Dish's bid, and almost 40 percent higher than their own original bid.

The bid would allow Sprint to purchase the 50 percent of the company it does not already own. Additionally, Sprint managed to get major investor and board member support, so unless Dish counters with a massive increase this looks like the final purchase price.

Of the Sprint offer, Clearwire's CEO says, "The path that we took has created a fantastic value for shareholders. This deal is going to be simple for us to execute and we expect to close it quickly."

With the latest move, Dish has been rejected in both of its attempts to gain access to the U.S. wireless market. The company bid $25.5 billion for Sprint and was rejected, and $4.40 per share for Clearwire.

The original bid for Clearwire, last December, was $2.97 per share, prompting the bidding war between the companies and forcing Sprint to pay much more than they expected and hoped for.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, co-founder of the infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, has been sentenced to prison time for his part in hacking the Swedish outsourcing firm Logica.

Warg had been accused of accessing computers illegally and making illegal money transfers.

The prosecution argued and proved that Warg managed to transfer 24,200 Danish crowns but attempted to transfer 683,000 euros. "The hacking has been very extensive and technically advanced," added the prosecution. "The attacker has affected very sensitive systems."

Warg is already serving one year in prison for breaching copyright as owner of the torrent tracker, which remains active today.

The site is registered in Sint Maarten, a Dutch territory in the Caribbean.

Samsung Electronics has unveiled two new tablets today; the ATIV Q and ATIV Tab 3.

The new Samsung ATIV Q tablet allows users to experience both Windows 8 and Android (Jellybean 4.2.2) on the same device. Users will not only get access to Android apps via Google Play but also be able to transfer files, or sharing folders and files from Windows 8 to Android.

The ATIV Q features a 13.3-inch, 3200x1800, 275ppi display that sits over a keyboard that can be folded out for typing or set to act as a stand, powered by an Intel Core i5 (Haswell) processor and Intel HD Graphics 4400. It comes with 4GB DDR3L memory and a 128GB solid state drive.

It also features a 720p HD camera, 1 USB 3.0 port, 1 USB 2.0 port, HDMI,RJ45 and a microSD slot. The battery offers up to 9 hours on a full charge. The ATIV Q weights 1.29kg (about 2.8lb).