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A day after announcing the console would launch in North America and Europe in November, the company confirmed that the Xbox One will not reach Asia until 2014.

The software giant says the rollout is part of a "staged approach" to marketing the new console.

Alan Bowman, Microsoft's regional vice president for sales and marketing in Asia, says the company is working hard on "ensuring a great experience for customers" in the region, including the addition of more localized content and services.

Notably, Bowman says the device will only be released in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and India; leaving China and Japan out. The company says those nations are high-growth for consoles, and have seen decent sales for the Xbox 360.

The console will sell for $500 in the U.S. when it is released.

A group of 86 Internet firms and civil liberties groups have written an open letter to the United States Congress demanding that NSA spying be stopped.

The letter coincides with the launch of StopWatching.us, which can be signed by netziens who oppose the NSA's domestic and foreign data spying programs.

The group is demanding that Congress act to reform the controversial PATRIOT Act, used recently to force Verizon to hand over data on millions of subscribers. It also calls for the FISA Amendment Act to be reformed.

"Now is the time for Congress to act. We don't need a narrow fix to one part of the PATRIOT Act; we need a full public accounting of how the United States is turning sophisticated spying technology on its own citizens, we need accountability from public officials, and we need an overhaul of the laws to ensure these abuses can never happen again," Mark Rumold, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said.

Here is the full text of the letter, along with the identities of all 86 behind it.

Dear Members of Congress,

We write to express our concern about recent reports published in the Guardian and the Washington Post, and acknowledged by the Obama Administration, which reveal secret spying by the National Security Agency (NSA) on phone records and Internet activity of people in the United States.

Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 (PS4) will reportedly drop region locking - meaning games bought in any territory should work with any PS4 console.

Region locking is a practice common with forms of digital media intended to lock a movie or game to a specific territory. This is done for a variety of reasons, but the most obvious is to discourage the importing of content from regions where they have lower prices than in richer economies.

Movies on DVD, for example, have often been sold for very low prices in regions of Asia where street piracy is rampant. In order to stop consumers in the Western World from simply buying in bulk from developing countries, region locking was enforced. This led to entire databases of "region hacks" for DVD players being built, and gave another reason to make hardware modifications to games consoles.

Now, according to Shuhei Yoshida, President of Worldwide Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, the PlayStation 4 will be region free when it launches this holiday season.

And yes, PS4 is region free :D

-- Shuhei Yoshida (@yosp) June 11, 2013

Google has written an open letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI director Robert Muller seeking to release more information about National Security requests that it receives.

The letter (full text quoted below) hints that media reports about Google's compliance with National Security requests - specifically Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests - for user data, have been overblown.

However, Google's hands are tied by non-disclosure obligations, meaning it cannot specify in its own transparency reports how many FISA requests it gets, and how many accounts they cover. The letter seeks to end such non-disclosure obligations so that Google can provide real numbers to the public to counteract press assertions.

Dear Attorney General Holder and Director Mueller

Google has worked tremendously hard over the past fifteen years to earn our users' trust. For example, we offer encryption across our services; we have hired some of the best security engineers in the world; and we have consistently pushed back on overly broad government requests for our users' data.

We have always made clear that we comply with valid legal requests. And last week, the Director of National Intelligence acknowledged that service providers have received Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests.

Google has confirmed that it has closed the acquisition of Israeli maps firm, Waze.

Speculation that Google was close to a deal at around $1.3 billion to buy the firm has been around for several weeks now, with Apple and Facebook also thought to have been interested.

Google's Brian McClendon took to the official company blog to announce the acquisition, but didn't elaborate on financial terms.

"We've all been there: stuck in traffic, frustrated that you chose the wrong route on the drive to work. But imagine if you could see real-time traffic updates from friends and fellow travelers ahead of you, calling out "fender bender...totally stuck in left lane!" and showing faster routes that others are taking.

To help you outsmart traffic, today we're excited to announce we've closed the acquisition of Waze. This fast-growing community of traffic-obsessed drivers is working together to find the best routes from home to work, every day.

The Waze product development team will remain in Israel and operate separately for now. We're excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google's search capabilities.

A U.S. International Trade Commission judge has found that Netflix does not infringe 4 patents held by Rovi Corp, in a preliminary decision dated June 7.

The preliminary decision appeared on the ITC website on Monday, ahead of a planned final decision by the ITC on the patent infringement case in October.

Rovi has already managed to secure settlements with LG Electronics and Mitsubishi for infringing patents related to interactive television program guides. In its complaint against Netflix, Rovi charged that the Internet streaming giant infringed four of its patents.

ITC Judge David Shaw issued a preliminary decision that Netflix didn't infringe any of the patents, and also found one of the patents to be invalid.

"We are pleased that the majority of the patents involved were confirmed valid," Samir Armaly, a Rovi executive vice president of worldwide intellectual property, said in a statement.

"We will continue to seek to license companies to the technologies that we've developed and to protect our intellectual property from unlicensed use."

The finale of the third season of hit TV show Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show episode so far, according to TorrentFreak.

Within 24 hours of its broadcast, it had already been downloaded a million times. At one point, the episode was being shared by 170,000 peers. The first episode of the same season was being shared by 160,000 people shortly after it aired.

The majority of downloads of the season finale were in Australia, followed by the United States, Canada and then the UK.

Earlier this year, Director David Petrarca seemed to brush aside any concerns over the claims that Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show.

HBO programming president Michael Lombardo also seemed to downplay the situation in April, when he told Entertainment Weekly that it was a "compliment of sorts" for the show.

"The demand is there. And it certainly didn't negatively impact the DVD sales. Piracy is something that comes along with having a wildly successful show on a subscription network," Lombardo said.

Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 (PS4) console will come with an upgradable 500GB hard disk drive, it has been confirmed.

The next generation of PlayStation gaming was shown off at E3 last night, and received a generally positive response from the industry.

Sony today released some more information (through its Japan sites) about the upcoming console, including that it will feature a 500GB HDD as standard, which is the same internal storage that will come with an Xbox One console. Shuhei Yoshida, President of Worldwide Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, also confirmed that owners can choose to upgrade the internal storage, same as with the PS3 console.

A PlayStation Eye camera has also been priced at $60 (one will not be included with the console), which additional DualShock 4 controllers will retail also for $60.

More Info (JP, PDF): Sony Japan

AMD has unveiled its 'first-ever' 5GHz FX-9590 CPU, available from system integrators globally beginning this summer.

It also unveiled the new 4.7 GHz FX-9370 CPU. Both new processors feature the "Piledriver" architecture, and AMD Turbo Core 3.0 technology to dynamically optimize performance across CPU cores and enable maximum computing for the most intensive workloads.

"At E3 this week, AMD demonstrated why it is at the core of gaming," said Bernd Lienhard, corporate vice president and general manager, Client Products Division at AMD.

"The new FX 5 GHz processor is an emphatic performance statement to the most demanding gamers seeking ultra-high resolution experiences including AMD Eyefinity technology. This is another proud innovation for AMD in delivering the world's first commercially available 5 GHz processor."

The new AMD FX CPUs will be available from system integrators globally beginning this summer. Two models will be available:

• FX-9590: Eight "Piledriver" cores, 5 GHz Max Turbo
• FX-9370: Eight "Piledriver" cores, 4.7 GHz Max Turbo

Sony concluded their E3 event today by pricing the upcoming PlayStation 4, and blowing the Xbox One out of the water in doing so.

The console will sell for $399 in the U.S., $100 less than the Xbox One.

Additionally, Sony confirmed the console supports used games and does not require always-on Internet for authentication.

Microsoft should have their work cut out for them moving forward.

Apple used the stage today to officially unveil iOS 7, the first true rehaul of the dated operating system.

Even CEO Tim Cook admitted the new OS was the biggest change to the platform since iOS was first introduced in 2007 with the iPhone.

From a design standpoint, Apple has made everything sharper, flatter and slimmer, and frankly it looks much, much better.

The company has added a new control panel that slides up from the bottom of the home screen and gives access to your most frequent settings such as airplane mode, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, brightness and also adds a new flashlight, quick access to AirDrop, AirPlay and a slider for your current music.



Here is a look at all the updated icons, redesigned with new a color palette and fonts:

Taking the complete opposite stance from Microsoft, Sony unveiled some details of the PS4 to massive applause.

The PlayStation 4 will not impose any restrictions on used games. Sony says if you own the game, it is your right to trade it in, sell it to a friend, play it on another PS4, whatever you choose.

Additionally, you will not need an Internet connection for authentication, ever, and you can play your single player games without interruption for as long as you want.

Microsoft, on the other hand, requires authentication every 24 hours.

Well done, Sony.

Sony just unveiled the PS4 for the first time.

Take a quick peek:

In response to Dish Network's unsolicited bid of $25.5 billion for the carrier, SoftBank has upped their own bid by 7.5 percent, to $21.6 billion.

The original bid had been $20.1 billion for a 70 percent stake. The revised bid will be $16.6 billion to Sprint shareholders and another $5 billion in new capital, leading to a 78 percent stake.

SoftBank is the third biggest carrier in Japan and is actively looking to break into the U.S. market.

Dish, on the other hand, has been looking for ways to offer a bundle of television, Internet and mobile services and CEO Charlie Egan has money to spend.

A decision on the bids is expected this week.

Earlier today, during their E3 keynote presentation, Microsoft revealed a plethora of new games headed to their upcoming Xbox One console.

While many are destined to be hits, long time Xbox fans were sure to be excited by the announcement of Halo 5, long the flagship title for Microsoft.

In the teaser trailer, a cloaked Master Chief muddles his way through a desert before ending up at a Promethean colossus.

There was little else revealed, but the game is expected to be titled, simply, 'Halo.'

Check the trailer: