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Intel has intensified their talks to buy content from media companies in an effort to introduce set-top boxes and an Internet TV service.

Apparently, the company is willing to pay a major premium, as much as 75 percent higher than traditional cable rates, in order to secure these deals.

Intel has yet to close any programming deals, however, say the sources, perhaps leading to some desperation on their part. So far, CBS, News Corp. and Viacom have all reached deals in principle over how the content could be used, but no actual licensing deals have been made.

The service is expected to be launched by the end of the year, but will obviously require more work. Intel is still in talks with Comcast for NBCU content, but those talks have not been as successful as the other media companies.

Intel is creating their own set-top box that would deliver content through your Internet connection and give you more flexibility in regards to what channels you want, instead of paying a flat fee for hundreds of bundled channels you may never watch. The service would offer live and on-demand channels. Intel is said to also be looking for access to a cloud-based DVR. Customers could view the content on mobile devices, as well.

Samsung has promised to reveal new products on June 20th at a press event in London.

One of the devices is the Galaxy S4 Zoom, the company's smartphone/digital camera hybrid. Sam was able to get a picture of the device, which should be interesting especially if having a high-end camera with your phone is important to you.

The device has a 4.3" qHD sAMOLED display, runs on Android 4.2.2, a 1.6GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, a microSD slot, and the standard Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi and A-GPS. It is unclear whether the device will have LTE support.

Amazon has announced the launch of its free online took dubbed "Storyteller," which automatically converts scripts into "dynamic and professional storyboards."

The software is currently in beta, but will automatically identify scenes, locations, characters and more from any script that you have uploaded to Amazon Studios. Afterwards, "it 'casts' these objects from a library of assets that includes 'thousands' of characters, props and backgrounds."

If you believe the automatic conversion does not do justice to the ideas/concepts you have in your mind, Amazon allows you to upload your own images and change positions, facial expressions and more of the characters. You can also add captions for additional dialogue or explanatory actions.

After you are done editing, the storyboard can be published to Amazon Studios, where peers can leave feedback.

"We've found that many writers want to see their story up on its feet in visual form but find it harder than it should be to create a storyboard," said Roy Price, Director of Amazon Studios. "Storyteller provides a digital backlot, acting troupe, prop department and assistant editor – everything you need to bring your story to life. We want to see great stories turned into movies and television shows and we'll continue to develop new features and tools."

SoftBank has been in talks with Deutsche Telekom AG for a deal for T-Mobile USA in case its long-standing bid for Sprint falls apart.

The Japanese carrier bid $20.1 billion to take a 70 percent share of Sprint, but Sprint recently received a $25.5 billion counterbid from Dish Network, leaving the company's future up in the air.

T-Mobile USA is the fourth biggest carrier in the U.S. and has a market value of about $15 billion.

Telekom has a 74 percent stake. MetroPCS has the rest.

On June 12th, Sprint shareholders will vote on whether to give SoftBank final approval to purchase the company.

Snapchat has raised almost $100 million in new funds, valuing the company at over $500 million.

The service allows Android and iOS users to send and receive photos and videos that disappear after a certain amount of time (under 10 seconds).

Two months ago, the company raised $13.5 million from Benchmark Capital and the new $100 million is from undisclosed investors.

Snapchat has seen huge growth in value since February when it was valued at $70 million. CEO Evan Spiegel says users upload 150 million images per day, up from 20 million last October. The app has 5 million active users.

It is unclear why the valuation is so high, especially since the app has yet to monetize its userbase.

According to multiple reports, Sony Music Entertainment has signed a deal with Apple for the upcoming iRadio service, meaning all of the majors are now signed up.

Universal Music and Warner Music are said to have made deals within the last month.

The service is expected to be advertising-supported and will compete directly with Pandora, allowing users to build custom stations based on tracks, artists and genres.

Sony Music is a joint venture between Sony/ATV Music Publishing and the estate of Michael Jackson. The licensing deal will be for a two-year introductory period and gives Sony a full 10 percent of all advertising revenue generated by their catalog via the service.

10 percent is more than double that standard 4 percent that companies like Pandora pay, and leaves margins much much lower for Apple.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, infamous as one of the co-founders of The Pirate Bay torrent tracker, is facing even more hacking charges, this time in Denmark.

Warg had just stood trial in Stockholm over major hacking charges and is awaiting a decision.

The co-founder and an unnamed 20-year-old Danish man have been in arrested and are accused of accessing the country's driver's license database, social security database and stealing the emails and passwords of over 10,000 police officers and tax authorities.

If convicted of all charges, both men could face six years in prison.

Warg had stood trial in Sweden over charges of hacking Logica, an IT firm that works with Swedish tax authorities. That attack eventually led to 9,000 Swedes having their personal identity numbers unveiled.

After months of delays, Amazon has finally put the Kindle Paperwhite and Fire HD up for sale in China.

The Paperwhite with Wi-Fi costs $138 (849 yuan), and the 16GB Kindle Fire HD will sell for $245 (1499 yuan). For the time being, the 3G model of the Paperwhite and all other Kindle Fire are not yet available and it's unclear if they ever will be.

Amazon has always said they are planning a full lineup launch for the nation.

If you are looking to purchase the device, Suning is the exclusive retail channel, adds the company.

Amazon has been actively expanding their presence outside of their high-traffic areas, including opening a store in India that so far only has books and DVDs.

TiVo announced this morning that it finally settled a dispute with Motorola, Time Warner Cable and Cisco over DVR patents.

The company will collect $490 million, which is much less than analysts and industry insiders had estimated, sending TiVo's shares down 20 percent today. Even TiVo had once suggested the amount could be upwards of a billion, so the amount was somewhat shocking.

Cisco and Google will now enter a patent-licensing agreement with TiVo to use the technology. Altogether, TiVo has now collected $1.6 billion in awards and settlements related to use of the patents.

Motorola and Cisco had been providing the DVRs to Time Warner for six years, and the case was set for trial next week. TiVo has already settled with Dish, AT&T, Verizon and others, most of which now license the patents. Cisco says it will pay $294 million of the damages.

Apple is preparing to begin an in-store iPhone trade-in program this month, one that will allow users to turn in their older iPhones to help pay for a new iPhone 5.

The electronics giant has joint up with Brightstar Corp., a major mobile-phone distributor, to create the program.

As with most trade-in programs, Apple benefits in many ways. Fans upgrade to the latest devices, and Apple gets to resell the older phones overseas. Customers who may not be savvy enough to sell their phones themselves on sites like eBay should find the ability to trade-in an added bonus.

Brightstar currently works with AT&T and T-Mobile USA for all types of smartphones, including iPhones. For example, AT&T will pay up to $200 for mint condition iPhone 4S models. With contract, the iPhone 5 costs just $200 so some consumers could pay nothing up front for their new device.

Samsung's stock fell 7 percent today following multiple reports that sales of its new flagship Galaxy S4 have slowed.

The reports also highlighted the fact that Samsung recently introduced two other models of the S4, which should hurt their profit margins due to a lower price tag.

Despite becoming Samsung's fastest selling device right after it launched in April, sales have slowed considerably, say analysts. "Sales of high-end handsets are lagging behind expectations, while low- to mid-end handsets are selling briskly worldwide," noted Kim Young-chan, an analyst at Shinhan Investment Corp. "As the portion of low- to mid-range handsets is expected to increase in Samsung's overall mobile phone business, this has also sparked concerns about thinning margins and lower growth."

Altogether, the drop accounted for a loss of $12 billion in the company's market value.

During the ongoing Computex 2013 show, Intel unveiled their latest generation Atom chipset.

The processor is quad-core, based on the Trail-T SoC, with built-in 4G LTE and 4K support. The chips are designed for Windows 8 and Android tablets.

Just like the new Haswell processors, the Atoms are built on a 22nm process.

Intel is planning octo-core SoCs later this year. The company says the quad-core CPUs deliver twice the performance of current generation chips, when in a single-threaded situation.

Finally, the company promises over "8 hours of battery life on a 30Wh battery while playing a 1080p@30 fps video."

After extreme backlash and outcry over their purported anti-consumer Xbox One, Microsoft has finally come clean, unveiling the official policies for Kinect, used games and online connectivity.

Internet Connectivity

In regards to Internet connectivity, rumored had it that the Xbox One would use "always-on" DRM, meaning an Internet connection is required at all times to play a game, even in single player mode. Microsoft has confirmed the Xbox One will use a restrictive DRM but it is not "always-on." You will be allowed to play on your home console for 24 hours without a connection, but after that you will need to login again to continue playing and get another 24 hours. If you log in with your Xbox account to someone else's console, you will need Internet every hour, even in single player mode. Blu-ray, DVD and TV watching is not affected.

Just days after it began shipping its 4th-generation Core series processors (Haswell), the company has also updated its requirements for Ultrabook devices.

Thanks to the huge power efficiency boost of Haswell processors, the baseline requirements to get certified have been increased.

Ultrabooks must include better graphics performance, battery life of 9 hours while idle, 6 hours of HD video playback and also 7 days of standby.

Additionally, the company has broken down ultrabooks into four different variants; Responsive, Mobile, Stylish and Protected. (Pictured)

Following the unveiling of Nexus editions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One flagships, the latest rumor has Sony getting in on the action, building a Nexus model of their Xperia Z flagship.

The device is set for launch in July through Google Play just like all other Nexus phones.

Sony has been quietly working on AOSP (Android Open Source Project) versions of Jelly Bean 4.2.2 for some time and an alpha version for the Xperia Z and Xperia Tablet Z is now available. A fully working version of stock Android would need to be available before the phone could launch as a Nexus later this year.

The hardware itself has been very well received by critics and users alike.

Sony has not confirmed nor denied the rumor.