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KoryoLink, the only 3G operator in North Korea has seen strong growth in 3G userbase over the last 14 months, going from 1 million subscribers to 2 million.

The news comes via KoryoLink CEO Ezz Heikal, and later confirmed by a company spokesperson.

Koryo is a joint venture between large Egyptian company Orascom and the state-run Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC). KoryoLink begun in 2008 under Kim Jong Il but usage has rocketed since Kim Jong-un took over when his father passed.

Earlier this year, KoryoLink began selling uncensored 3G data packages to foreign business people, but the state stopped the practice just weeks later, leaving new subscribers with useless contracts.

North Koreans are blocked from using the 3G unless they go through the censored national Internet.

A Dutchman has been arrested in Spain this week over his alleged role in the major cyber attack on Spamhaus, the attack that some journalists took the liberty of calling the biggest in the history of the Internet.

Sven Olaf Kamphuis, part of the group Stophaus, has been arrested for the attack. The group has stated its goal is to shut down the anti-spam Spamhaus operation.

Kamphuis is expected to be transferred over to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service.

In March, the major DDoS attack "broke the Internet," although that claim has since been discredited. Spamhaus is a network that creates "a real-time blacklist of servers they believe are used to send out spam email." The company directly and indirectly filters up to 80 percent of all daily spam messages, which can sometimes total in the hundreds of millions.

For the first time ever, smartphones have outshipped feature phones over the course of a quarter, at least if IDC data released earlier this week is to be believed.

Overall, the mobile phone market grew 4 percent year-over-year for the Q1 2013 to 418.6 million units. The quarter is seasonably slow following the holiday hangover and a usually slow product release period.

Vendors shipped 216.2 million smartphones during the quarter, good for 51.6 percent share. Samsung and Apple remain the undisputed leaders.

"Phone users want computers in their pockets. The days where phones are used primarily to make phone calls and send text messages are quickly fading away," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "As a result, the balance of smartphone power has shifted to phone makers that are most dependent on smartphones."

The top smartphone OEMs:

The Chernin Group, headed by media heavyweight Peter Chernin, is producing a new series that will be distributed completely through social media, skipping TV.

Titled "@Summerbreak," the show will "air" through Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Instagram. AT&T is the sole sponsor of the show, which will launch this summer.

As explained by Variety, "'@SummerBreak' follows a group of real-life graduating seniors culled from high schools in the Westside area of Los Angeles for eight weeks before they depart for college and elsewhere. Instead of the traditional 30- or 60-minute episodic format, the series will play out 24/7 as a series of tweets with photos and videos attached."

Chernin is aiming to target younger viewers, especially on the devices they use the most, tablets and smartphones.

Another interesting point is the company can "adjust the series in real time based on audience data demonstrating which characters are drawing the most interest," unlike traditional media.

Search giant Google spent a massive $291 million on acquisitions during the first quarter, as the company continues to look for ways to boost their already robust revenue.

$150 million of those dollars went to patents and developed technology, with the biggest acquisition being $125 million for Channel Intelligence Inc., a maker of online marketing tools used by retailers.

Google has been actively moving away from its core search-based ad business, expanding into hardware, software and all other types of ads and marketing. The company spent $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility last year, adding a potent patent portfolio to protect Android.

"These acquisitions generally enhance the breadth and depth of our expertise in engineering and other functional areas, our technologies, and our product offerings," said Google in their quarterly filing to investors.

The WSJ has reported that Samsung is working on building a "rugged" version of its Galaxy S4 smartphone.

Supposedly the phone will be called the S4 Active and will be both waterproof and dust-proof.

Besides the added durability, the phone will be the same in appearance and specs as the flagship S4.

According to the report, Samsung is targeting a July release although it is unclear where the phone will be first released, and which carriers will offer it.

Additionally, the report also claims the company is building another 8-inch tablet that will likely not be part of the Note series.

In an unconventional launch, the mid-end Nokia Lumia 521 for T-Mobile has gone on sale via the Home Shopping Network (HSN).

The network has the phone starting today, priced very competitively at $150 without contract and with a bonus car charger and an extra screen protector.

If you want to be able to actually touch the phone, it will hit Microsoft retail stores and Wal-Marts on May 11th, for the same price.

Strangely, the phone will hit T-Mobile stores on May 22nd.

The phone has a 4-inch display, is powered by a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 512MB RAM, Windows Phone 8 and has 8GB internal storage.

AOL has shut down its AOL Music division and fired the entire remaining staff.

AOL Music operated the music.aol.com homepage, the sites for The Boot and Tour Tracker, as well as Spinner.

Dan Reilly, the site's editor, confirmed the entire staff was laid off, although that number is still unknown.

After AOL acquired the Huffington Post for $315 million in 2011, it has been slowly consolidating and closing out divisions including Politics Daily, PopEater and StyleList, all of which are now under the Huffington Post Media wing.

AOL Music was once considered a "top online music destination," and Spinner was one of the Internet's first radio services, eventually offering daily downloads, exclusive interviews, album streams and live performances. While once popular, Spinner has fallen out of touch, with interviews and downloads from artists with small followings.

Well, we all just got laid off. AOL Music is finished.

-- Dan Reilly (@danreilly11) April 26, 2013

LivingSocial, the failed daily deals site majority owned by Amazon, has confirmed a massive attack on their servers led to customer data being stolen by hackers.

50 million customers have had their names, emails, passwords and date of birth compromised, but credit card and other financial information were not.

The attack affected customers in all countries LivingSocial is available with the exception of Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Reads the internal memo from CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy:

Re: Security Incident
LivingSocialites –
This e-mail is important, so please read it to the end.
We recently experienced a cyber-attack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers. We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue.
The information accessed includes names, email addresses, date of birth for some users, and encrypted passwords -- technically 'hashed' and 'salted' passwords. We never store passwords in plain text.
Two things you should know:
1. * The database that stores customer credit card information was not affected or accessed.
2. * The database that stores merchants' financial and banking information was not affected or accessed.
The security of our customer and merchant information is our priority. We always strive to ensure the security of our customer information, and we are redoubling efforts to prevent any issues in the future.
To ensure our customers and merchants are fully informed and protected, we are notifying those who may have been impacted via email explaining what happened, expiring their passwords, and requesting that they create new passwords. A copy of the note is included below this email.
If you have any questions or concerns, please visit Pulse –https://pulse.livingsocial.com/intranet/Home/more_updates.html -- for a list of frequently asked questions. If you have additional questions that aren't answered in the FAQs, please submit them via email to XXX@livingsocial.com.
Because we anticipate a high call volume and may not be able to answer or return all calls in a responsible fashion, we are likely to temporarily suspend consumer phone-based servicing. We will be devoting all available resources to our web-based servicing.
I apologize for the formality of this note, which the circumstances demand. We need to do the right thing for our customers who place their trust in us, and that is why we're taking the steps described and going above and beyond what's required. We'll all need to work incredibly hard over the coming days and weeks to validate that faith and trust.
– Tim

According to Intel VP and CPO Dan Perlmutter, touchscreen notebook prices could soon hit new lows at $199, but they will run on Android, not Windows.

Intel's current CEO Paul Otellini made similar comments last month, but did not specify what operating system would be seen on the cheap devices. The Android notebooks would run on Intel's Atom processors, the company's response to efficient and powerful ARM tech like Qualcomm's Snapdragon.

"We have a good technology that enables a very cost-effective price point," Perlmutter added. When asked if Windows-based notebooks could hit the same price point, the exec said the price "depends on how Microsoft prices Windows 8. It may be a slightly higher price point."

Additionally, the exec says by the end of next year, notebooks running on Intel's more powerful Core line of processors with Windows 8 could sell for $399 to $499.

The usually reliable Paul Thurrott has reported on the upcoming Xbox successor.

Microsoft confirmed yesterday the console will be unveiled on May 21st at an event on their campus.

Thurrott says the system will be released in early November and will cost $299 with subscription or $499 without. The "subscription" cost is $10 per month for two years and will require an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

The journalist also revealed some more great info on the console. Reads the report:

Windows 8 Core. The next Xbox is based on the "Core" (base) version of Windows 8. This suggests a common apps platform or at least one that is similar to that used by Windows 8. It also suggests that Microsoft could open up this platform to enthusiast developers. (That last bit is supposition on my part.)

No entertainment box. Microsoft originally planned to offer both a "full" version of the next Xbox (with video game playing capabilities) and a lower-end entertainment-oriented version, code-named "Yuma," that didn't provide gaming capabilities. But plans for Yuma are on hold, and no pure entertainment version of the next Xbox will appear in 2013 (or possibly ever).

Samsung posted another strong quarter, bringing in an net profit of 7.15 trillion won ($6.45 billion) for the Q1.

The profit was a 50 percent jump year-over-year. Revenues grew to 52.87 trillion won ($47.6 billion), thanks to extremely strong sales of smartphones. The IT & Mobile Communications division brought in 32.82 trillion in revenue by itself.

Samsung is said to have sold a record 69.4 million smartphones during the quarter, taking a 33.1 percent global share, its highest ever.

Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones for the quarter, giving them a 17.9 percent share. LG was third with 10.3 million units sold.

Nintendo has updated the firmware for the Wii U console, in an effort to improve performance and lag times.

Most critics of the system have blamed extremely long load times for even basic functions. The update should improve this lag.

Additionally, the change list notes that "you can now copy data between two USB drives directly, the console can automatically download and install updates in the background, and you can boot directly into the original Wii mode by holding down the B button during startup."

Nintendo also noted that another major update is slated for the summer to further address the same issues.

LG made an interesting statement today during their quarterly earnings report.

The company says it will introduce a smartphone using a flexible OLED screen by the end of the year, likely making it the first phone maker to do so.

Yoon Bu-hyun, the VP of mobile says his division is working very closely with LG Display to bring the phone to shelves by the Q4.

It is unclear how the screen will be used, but most expect a "wraparound" display, something similar to Samsung's prototype at CES (pictured). A wrap device will offer more viewable space and better viewing angles.

LG also promised curved OLED TVs last week.

Nintendo revealed its quarterly earnings this week, and it is becoming clear that the Wii U is a disaster for the company.

For the fiscal year ended March 31st, the company's revenue was just ¥635.422 (£4.2bn), 5 percent below their own forecast. Net income collapsed to ¥7,099m (£420.8m) for the most recent quarter, leading to a yearly loss of ¥60,863m (£403m), the company's second loss in as many years following a decade of strong profitability.

Nintendo specifically cited the yen and weaker than expected sales of the Wii U for their results.

The Wii U has only sold 3.45 million units since launch in November. The old and market saturated Wii sold 3.98 million units in the same time period. For the last quarter, only 300,000 Wii U were sold, a devastatingly low number.

Nintendo expects sales to pickup as a bevy of new games are set for release soon.