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In the same report in which Sandvine concluded that Netflix accounted for over 32 percent of all U.S. downstream traffic, the broadband management company also revealed that torrents account for almost 35 percent of all upstream traffic.

Also of note, SSL traffic increased significantly year-over-year, thanks to an increase in VPN use as torrent users try to remain anonymous.

During peak hours, torrents are good for 34.8% of all upstream data transferred with HTTP in second at 7.5%.

Around the globe, torrent usage was high outside of the U.S., as well, at 21.6 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, and 17.4 percent in Europe.

According to sources, Tumblr feels Yahoo's expected $1.1 billion acquisition offer is too low, and will reject any offer in that price range.

A large acquisition is very likely, say the sources, but it may not end up being by Yahoo.

Previous reports had stated that Yahoo's board is expected to vote on the $1.1 billion cash bid at a special meeting tonight, with an announcement to be made on Monday.

The sources also claim that Yahoo has a lock-up agreement to prevent a bidding war, which could make other offers less likely, at least for now.

Tumblr's demographics fit perfectly into the range Yahoo is now trying to explore, 18-to-24-year-olds.

Twitter has announced a new partnership with the NBA (National Basketball Association) to stream video clips of highlights and recaps.

NBA Digital, which is a joint venture between the NBA and TBS, will post the highlights during the playoffs using the hashtag #NBARapidReplay. No matter the size of the clips, there will be short ads, as well.

CEO Dick Costolo has long said they are aiming to reach $1 billion in sales by 2014, and has been adding video content deal to boost ad revenues.

For example, Twitter recent struck a deal with ESPN to stream highlights from soccer, college football and other less popular sports.

Says the company, "people on Twitter are talking about what they're watching on TV. This is a great way to bring great content onto the platform and have marketers support it."

So far, Sony Pictures, YUM! and Sprint have signed on as advertisers.

Samsung has announced that it is confident they will surpass 10 million units sold of the Galaxy S4 by next week.

More importantly for the company, they expect it to sell over 100 million units during its lifetime.

"We are confident that we will pass more than 10 million sales of the S4 next week. It is selling much faster than the previous model S3," Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun said.

The device went on sale on April 27th around the globe and is available in 60 different countries.

"Samsung spent 50 days to pass the 10 million sales mark for the S3. The S4 will be Samsung's first '10 million seller' device less than a month after its official debut," Shin added.

The company is the biggest phone maker in the world.

While sales have understandably fallen in the last months ahead of the launch of the PS4 and Xbox Infinity, Microsoft remains the undisputed king in the U.S.

The software giant sold 130,000 units in April, giving it the lead for the 28th straight month.

Overall retail spending on the console, including hardware, accessories and software totaled $208 million, most of any console in the nation.

Microsoft will be unveiling the next-generation Xbox on May 21st.

The Pentagon has confirmed that some Apple devices have been cleared to run on defense networks.

iPads and iPhones running iOS 6 will now be allowed on the network.

Last week, the Pentagon said a number of BlackBerry and Samsung devices had been cleared, as well, including the BlackBerry 10 smart phones, BlackBerry PlayBook tablets and Samsung's Android Knox.

"This is a significant step towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of state-of-the-art devices and operating systems," Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart added.

Before today's news, the Pentagon had 600,000 mobile device users with 470,000 using BlackBerry and under 50,000 use Apple or Android as part of test programs.

According to multiple sources, Microsoft is planning a 7.9-inch Surface tablet that it expects to launch in late June.

Additionally, Samsung will be supplying the displays for the tablet.

Consumers have been moving away from the standard full-sized 10-inch tablets and towards smaller form factors which are more portable. Google's Nexus 7 and Apple's 7.9-inch iPad Mini have been major hits. Samsung recently unveiled an 8-inch Galaxy Note that can make calls.

Thanks to those tablets, the 7.5-8-inch market is expected to account for 12 percent of all tablet sales in 2013.

It appears that Yahoo's rumored acquisition of Tumblr is close to fruition.

The company's board will vote on Sunday night whether to approve a $1.1 billion all-cash offer for the photo blogging site.

If approved, the acquisition would be announced on Monday by CEO Marissa Mayer, who is said to have championed for the deal.

Yahoo has been actively looking to make their userbase younger and Tumblr's main demographic is 18-24-year-olds.

Tumblr would be the biggest of new CEO Marissa Mayer's purchases, which have included Summly, Astrid, Jybe and others in the $100 million or less range.

According to a new global poll by Bloomberg, Apple has lost its innovative touch, the "magic" that once led it to become the biggest public company in the world.

71 percent of all poll respondents say the company is no longer an industry innovator, with 28 percent saying they believe it is permanent. 43 percent believe Apple has just lost its way temporarily.

23 percent of respondents remained loyal, saying Apple is still the best in the business while the remaining 6 percent were unsure.

Despite the lack of innovation, the company remains a monster powerhouse in the smartphone and tablet industry. The iPhone accounts for over 60 percent of the smartphone industry's profits and the company brought in $41.7 in net income last year alone.

Apple's shares have struggled in the last year, falling from a high of $702 to just $433 today.

Last week we reported that the NVIDIA SHIELD "console" would be available for pre-orders through multiple retail partners starting on May 20.

Today, Nvidia has fast-tracked the launch, starting pre-orders three days early.

The 'console-grade' controller features a 720p display, powered by Tegra 4 and running Android. "SHIELD is the one device that taps into the planet's largest ecosystem of games -- spanning NVIDIA TegraZone, Google Play and Steam," NVIDIA's announcement reads. "Rediscover your Android games with the mobility, control and performance of SHIELD. Connect to your Google Play account to enjoy your favorite movies, music and apps."

NVIDIA SHIELD's specifications:

• Tegra 4 – The world's fastest mobile processor delivers rich graphics and unbeatable performance thanks to 72 GPU cores, four CPU cores and 2GB of RAM
• Console-grade controller – Precise control thanks to dual analog joysticks, a full-sized D-Pad, left and right analog triggers, full-sized bumpers and A/B/X/Y buttons
• Multi-touch display – 5-inch, 720p retinal multi-touch display for high-fidelity visuals
• Integrated speakers – Custom, bass reflex, tuned port audio system – we think this is SHIELD's sleeper feature
• Wi-Fi – 802.11n 2X2 MIMO game-speed Wi-Fi for game streaming
• Pure Android – Latest Android Jelly Bean operating system from Google, for access to Android games and apps
• There's more – NVIDIA put into SHIELD everything we would want in a premium mobile gaming device: 16 GB memory, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, a mini-HDMI output, micro-USB 2.0, a microSD storage slot, a 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack

DirecTV, the U.S.' second largest pay-TV provider, may be considering a bid for Hulu, say sources.

There has been plenty of interest for the streaming company, which offers current and past libraries of TV shows from ABC, NBC, the CW and Fox.

Among the would-be buyers are the Chernin Group, Time Warner Cable and Yahoo.

DirecTV would use the company to expand its "TV Everywhere" service, which makes TV available online to DTV subscribers.

Yesterday, Google announced that it had partnered with Samsung to offer an unlocked Galaxy S4 that runs on stock Android and does not include any Samsung apps or its TouchWiz UX overlay.

Speculation quickly grew that other OEMs would make a similar move, but HTC has at least dashed those hopes for their company.

"HTC is not currently planning a 'Nexus Edition' of the HTC One," said the company to SG.

The HTC One is widely regarded as the best piece of hardware to run Android, but there are plenty of critics of HTC's Sense user interface, which was recently updated to its 5th generation.

According to a new IDC report, Android now accounts for 75 percent share of the smartphone market.

For the Q1, IDC says Android and Apple shipped 199.5 million handhelds, up 59 percent year-over-year.

Combined, Android and iOS control 92.3 percent share of smartphone operating systems, leaving very little room for competition from BlackBerry and Windows Phone.

The news was not all bad for Microsoft, however, as Windows Phone surpassed BlackBerry during the quarter, shipping 7 million units good for 3.2 percent share. BlackBerry fell to 4th with 6.3 million shipments and 2.9 percent market share. WP saw 133 percent growth year-over-year, beating out all other OS.

Nokia shipped 79 percent of the Windows Phone devices during the quarter, with HTC accounting for most of the rest.

Multiple sources are reporting today that Yahoo is in active talks to purchase Tumblr, the popular photo blogging service.

The deal could go for as high as $1 billion, which would be the same ballpark as Facebook's acquisition of Instagram last year.

Yahoo has been actively looking to make their userbase younger and Tumblr's main demographic is 18-24-year-olds.

Tumblr would be the biggest of new CEO Marissa Mayer's purchases, which have included Summly, Astrid, Jybe and others in the $100 million or less range.

Spotify has announced they will be updating their desktop standalone application to display play counts for popular tracks when viewing the songs via an artist's profile.

Some users have already gotten the update but Spotify says it will take a couple of weeks to roll out.

"We're committed to making Spotify even more artist and fan-friendly and showing play counts is a clear step in that direction," said the company. "Now artists can get immediate feedback on how their music is performing on Spotify and fans can keep up to date with popular tracks."

The play counts are global.

In the screenshot below, you can see Daft Punk's latest,'Get Lucky,' has already been played over 22 million times.