Latest news

A last second bidder has led to a $610,000 final auction price for coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

All the proceeds go to charity and so far the bidder, going by the name "a********s," has remained anonymous. The auction had stagnated at $605,000 until the last 30 minutes.

CharityBuzz hosted the auction, along with 118 others to support the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.

Earlier in the bidding process, bidding totals were running out of control as bidders looked for their 15 seconds of fame knowing they would be outbid. CharityBuzz then implemented bank qualification terms, which slowed the bids to a crawl.

The winner of the auction gets a 60 minute meeting with Cook at Apple's headquarters at a mutually agreed upon date.

An app for Twitch is now available for the Xbox 360 console, allowing you to watch live streaming of gameplay.

Around 800,000 people use Twitch to stream gameplay with 34 million viewers looking on online at Twitch.TV. Now an app for viewing has been made available for Xbox 360/LIVE Gold users, although it would appear to be only in the United States for now.

Users can view top channels by popularity or individual game and the dashboard features curated channels, tournaments and shows happening now.

Twitch will also host an exclusive broadcast following the May 21st Xbox Revealed event next week live at 3pm ET/12m PT.

Facebook has moved to block an app that let users play Russian Roulette with their Facebook account.

Specifically, Social Roulette had a 1 in 6 chance of deleting a Facebook account if a user decided to dare put their Facebook life in its hands. Apparently, Facebook found this app to "violate its platform policy" and so has prevented you from putting the proverbial gun to your Facebook profile's head.

To be more specific, the app could not completely remove an account, but it promised to remove all your posts, friends, apps, likes, photos, and games before deactivating your account.

"Everyone thinks about deleting their account at some point, it's a completely normal reaction to the overwhelming nature of digital culture. Is it time to consider a new development in your life?," the Social Roulette website reads.

"Are you looking for the opportunity to start fresh? Or are you just seeking cheap thrills at the expense of your social network? Maybe it's time for you to play Social Roulette."

For those who decided to give it a shot, they either ended up with a mangled deactivated account, or 5 times out of 6 they had a new message on their timeline that simply read, "I played Social Roulette and survived."

BlackBerry has announced a new BlackBerry Q5 smartphone, which aims at markets outside of North America and at a younger, more price conscious group.

The company was remarkably short on details about the new BlackBerry 10 (BB10) device, but it does retain the iconic QWERTY keyboard and a 3.1-inch touchscreen.

"BlackBerry is excited to bring a new BlackBerry QWERTY smartphone, the BlackBerry Q5, to our customers in selected markets around world," said Thorsten Heins, President and CEO of BlackBerry.

"The BlackBerry Q5 gives you the best of everything with its cutting-edge BlackBerry 10 functionality and a physical QWERTY keyboard. It is for youthful fans that are passionate, confident and bold, and it makes it easy for them to have fun, create, share and stay connected."

The new, lower-cost BB10 device will launch in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia (including the Asia Pacific region), and Latin America, beginning in July.

How much is low cost exactly? Well, we don't know, as BlackBerry failed to deliver that vital detail, prompting more frowns for analysts.

BlackBerry has confirmed that its popular BlackBerry Messenger - or BBM - will be available for users of Android and iOS devices this summer.

BBM will be supported on iOS 6 and Android 4.0, or later. It marks a change in BlackBerry's services strategy, where once BBM was a major drawing factor of BlackBerry devices. Now, with so many former customers using iOS or Android devices, the company is willing to open it up to other platforms allowing those lost customers to keep in touch with their old BBM contacts.

"For BlackBerry, messaging and collaboration are inseparable from the mobile experience, and the time is definitely right for BBM to become a multi-platform mobile service. BBM has always been one of the most engaging services for BlackBerry customers, enabling them to easily connect while maintaining a valued level of personal privacy. We're excited to offer iOS and Android users the possibility to join the BBM community," said Andrew Bocking, Executive Vice President, Software Product Management and Ecosystem, at BlackBerry.

BBM has more than 60 million monthly active customers, with more than 51 million people using BBM an average of 90 minutes per day. BBM customers collectively send and receive more than 10 billion messages each day, almost half of which are read within 20 seconds of being received.

Users of Outlook.com will be able to chat to users of Google's Talk instant messaging service, but video and audio chats are not supported yet.

Microsoft's revamped e-mail service is putting emphasis on integration of other communications services, recently building in Skype integration and allowing users to contact Facebook friends, Twitter and LinkedIn and so forth.

"We heard that some of you who switched over from Gmail still want to chat with friends stuck on Gmail. Today, we're excited to announce that you can now also chat with your Google friends," wrote Office Blogs' Douglas Pearce.

"And if you're working together on an Office document in SkyDrive, you can send an instant message to a Google contact with just a click. We're rolling out Google chat integration now, so look for it in your inbox over the next couple of days."

NVIDIA's Project SHIELD is now just 'SHIELD', and can be pre-ordered from several retail partners or the NVIDIA website from May 20.

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

Microsoft's upcoming major update for the Windows 8 operating system has officially been dubbed 'Windows 8.1', and will be available for free later this year.

The package of updates will address concerns some Windows 8 users have had with the latest home Desktop OS from Microsoft. Some rumored changes included restoring the Start Menu which was dropped in Windows 8 Desktop Mode, and the ability to boot directly to the Desktop interface rather than the tiled Start Screen.

Speaking at the JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in Boston, Tami Reller - Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Financial Officer, Windows - said that Windows 8 users will be able to get the Windows 8.1 update later this year as a free download from the Windows Store.

A public preview of the update will be made available on June 26 for those interested, timed with the Build developer conference in San Francisco.

Amazon has confirmed they have purchased Samsung's screen tech company, Liquavista.

Says Amazon: "We are always looking for new technologies we may be able to incorporate into our products over the long term. The Liquavista team shares our passion for invention and is creating exciting new technologies with a lot of potential. It's still early days, but we're excited about the possibilities and we look forward to working with Liquavista to develop these displays."

The tech, which is extremely power-efficient, will be integrated into upcoming Kindle e-readers. The company has been working on flexible e-displays that support full color and video.

It is unclear how much Amazon paid for the company, but the speculation is under $100 million.

Nintendo has won its appeal in a patent case which had threatened to block imports of the Wii console into the U.S.

The appeals court upheld a January 2012 U.S. ITC ruling in favor of Nintendo.

In 2008, Motiva LLC sued Nintendo claiming the Wii infringed on two patents for 'a system to track a game user's position and body movement.' The appeals court agreed with the ITC that the main motive behind Motiva's litigation was to win damages, not to license or make products using the patents.

"Motiva's litigation was targeted at financial gains, not at encouraging adoption of Motiva's patented technology," Circuit Judge Sharon Prost wrote. "There is simply no reasonable likelihood that, after successful litigation against Nintendo, Motiva's patented technology would have been licensed by partners who would have incorporated it."

Daft Punk streamed their entire new album, Random Access Memories, earlier today via iTunes days before the official retail release.

As expected, the album is available across the Internet now, on all your favorite piracy venues.

Just like iTunes did with Justin Timberlake's new 20/20 Experience, the artist has made their music available to the public in high quality, thus giving the casual pirate an outlet to listen to the tracks without needing to download it.

Check the tracks here (Hit view in iTunes): Daft Punk on iTunes

According to BGR, the HTC First, the first device to feature Facebook's "Home" interface, is about to be dropped from AT&T lineup of devices.

Allegedly, the sales have been so disappointing that exclusive carrier AT&T will be shipping all unsold inventory back to HTC once its contractual obligation to keep them in stores is satisfied.

If true, the news is terrible for HTC and Facebook, both of which were hoping to get the device into as many hands as possible. HTC released the First last month. The report even says the low-end and poorly reviewed HTC Status sold more during its first month than the First did.

Last week AT&T dropped the contract price of the First to $0.99 from $99, sparking conversations that the device was on its way out.

UK mobile operator EE has defended its user data selling practices after a report showed interest from the Metropolitan Police.

Wireless Operators around the world are amassing enormous amounts of data on their users' habits, and marketing it to a variety of potential buyers. EE, in the UK, has come under fire amidst media reports that the Metropolitan Police was interested in buying data.

However, EE blasted the initial report in the Sunday Times, saying it is misleading.

The Times report indicated that Ipsos Mori - which has a deal to sell on EE's user data - had held talks with the Metropolitan Police, and that information from 27 million customers was on offer, including gender, age, postcode, visited websites and so on.

"We would never breach the trust our customers place in us and we always act to comply fully with the Data Protection Act," a statement from EE said.

"The information is anonymised and aggregated, and cannot be used to identify the personal information of individual customers."

It said that Ipsos Mori only has access to data which has been anonymized and grouped into samples of 50 or more people. It does not sell on information that can be attached to any individual user.

The French government is reportedly flirting with the idea of taxing popular consumer electronics products as a way to maintain funding for cultural projects.

It is seeking to find sources of revenue to fund cultural projects during an economic downturn, which the government feels should be exempt from market forces. Since consumers in France spend more money on consumer electronics products like smartphones and tablets, rather than content, it is an area being seriously considered for "culture tax."

The relationship between the socialist government and the major technology companies has been cooling. Recently, Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg angered Yahoo! by blocking its attempt to buy a majority stake in French-owned Dailymotion.

Such intervention in the marketplace even seemed to stun Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, who has since denied any approval of the move.

Taxing popular products like Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy tablets is proposed by former Canal Plus CEO Pierre Lescure, who was tapped by the French government to find new ways to fund cultural projects.

"Companies that make these tablets must, in a minor way, be made to contribute part of the revenue from their sales to help creators," Culture Minister Aurelie Filipetti said, according to Reuters.

Aereo, the cloud-based DVR service that caused a legal stir when it launched, has simplified its pricing plans ahead of a launch in Boston this week.

Starting with a base plan of $8 per month, consumers will have access to Aereo's cloud-based antenna/DVR technology and 20 hours of DVR storage. For $12 perm month, subscribers will be able to utilize 60 hours of DVR storage.

All new Aereo members will get their first month for free, and can cancel at any time during the free month. Using Aereo's technology, consumers can pause, rewind and fast-forward any program that they are watching live, or save a program for future viewing.

Aereo works on 'smart' devices from tablets to phones to laptop computers. Aereo is currently supported on iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Chrome, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Safari, Opera, AppleTV (via airplay) and Roku devices.

"We looked at our data and it was clear, consumers want a more simple approach to pricing," said Aereo CEO and Founder Chet Kanojia.

"With our new pricing structure, consumers begin with one base plan and then have the ability to upgrade their membership to triple their DVR storage capacity. We want to make it simple and easy for consumers to access our technology and we believe this updated pricing plan accomplishes just that."