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T-Mobile USA was very satisfied with the first day sales of the iPhone.

After years of not offering the Apple flagship, the company recently announced it would sell the device, at a price cheaper than rival carriers.

"Today (Friday) has been gangbusters for T-Mobile," said Chief Marketing Officer Mike Sievert. "We experienced lines out the door this morning at nearly all of our almost 3,000 stores nationwide."

Of course, the lines mostly dissipated by later in the day, but it's not often that T-Mobile sees lines.

Thanks to the company's new "Uncarrier" plans, the iPhone 5 will sell with two options. You can purchase the device at full price at time of purchase, or purchase it for $99 upfront and pay out $20 a month for 24 months, for a total of $579 over two years. If you want an iPhone 4 or 4S, the installment plan cost is just $15 or $70 down with a $15 or $20 monthly charge, respectively.

According to a new IHS report, netbooks will go completely extinct by 2015.

At one time, (not so long ago) netbook sales were huge, but the launch of the iPad began their demise prematurely.

In 2010, 32 million units were sold, but in that year Apple unveiled the iPad. Sales dropped to 21 million the next year and 14 million last year as customers moved to ultrabooks and cheaper tablets that were more powerful and included touch features.

This year, sales are expected to fall to 4 million, and then less than a million next year as "last-time builds to satisfy contractual obligations to customers."

"Once a white-hot PC product that sold in the tens of millions of units annually," IHS added, "netbook computers are now marking their final days, with the rise of tablets causing their shipments to wind down to virtually zero after next year. The iPad and other tablets came in a new form factor that excited consumers while also offering improved computing capabilities, leading to a massive loss of interest in netbooks."

(Chart via Register)

According to Topeka Capital analyst Brian White, the oft-rumored lower cost iPhones are a "lock" for release this year.

White has been speaking with all suppliers he can in Asia for the last two weeks, picking up any news and gossip he can.

Reads the client note: "Yes, A Lower-Priced iPhone is in the Works and Expected This July. At the China trade show, we had the opportunity to interact with various suppliers and vendors, including those working with Apple. Our general takeaway around Apple is that a lower-priced iPhone and the iPhone 5S will be announced together in June and launched in July."

The phone is expected to have the same 4-inch screen of the iPhone 5, but with cheaper curved plastic hardware that will come in different colorways, similar to the recent generation iPod Touch.

White also says he expects the phone to sell unlocked for $400, compared to $600 or higher for the iPhone 5 (and the upcoming 5S).

Facebook has announced today that the Facebook Home user interface is available on five Android devices.

Besides the HTC First, which features the software, the UI is available for the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, and Samsung Galaxy Note II. HTC One and Galaxy S4 owners will have the ability to install the UI after the phones launch later this month.

Facebook's launcher is only available to U.S. users, however, for the time being.

As explained by the social networking giant, Facebook Home "brings your News Feed to the surface, for access to important social updates without opening up additional applications."

Additionally, Facebook Home includes; Cover Feed, a constant, fresh stream of photos and updates directly from your news feed and is always present as soon as you wake up your phone; Notifications that appear right on your home screen; Chat Heads, the mobile messenger that lets you jump in and out of conversations while you multitask; App Launcher, which lets you view your favorite apps and post right to Facebook from the same spot.

After four months, the Department of Justice has approved Google's sale of its Motorola Home set-top division to Arris for $2.35 billion.

The deal is expected to close next week. Arris is a provider of high-speed Internet equipment.

Google will own 7.85 percent of Arris after the deal, with Comcast taking a similar share for $150 million.

"We share a similar vision and strategy with Arris for the industry's migration to IP. The combination of our solutions, expert technologists and roadmaps promises to transform how service providers deliver the smart, simple connected home to consumers throughout the world," said Marwan Fawaz, executive vice president of Motorola Mobility.

While being outside of Google's realm, the set-top box business also proved to be a liability as TiVo is seeking billions in a patent lawsuit that is currently ongoing. The deal was finally approved in December after Google said it would foot most of the bill if TiVo were to win. TiVo has already won over $1 billion from Verizon, Dish and others for similar lawsuits implying the final settlement could be in the $300-$500 million range.

According to sources, Apple is on the verge of signing their first Internet radio licensing agreement, with an iRadio announcement "imminent."

As early as next week, the company could announce the agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG) and potentially Warner Music, as well.

The service will be similar to Pandora in allowing free streaming of music that is turned into playlists by algorithms designed to give users a good selection of music similar to what they have chosen as a base, whether it be artist, song or genre.

Pandora currently pays 12 cents for every 100 songs streamed, and reports claimed Apple was trying to leverage their iTunes power to get that down to 6 cents. The labels did not buy the bluff and new reports say Apple will pay prices "neck-and-neck" with existing services.

While Pandora is the current market leader with 200 million users, Apple and its army could certainly challenge that number if the service works as advertised.

Apple has settled a recent lawsuit in which they were accused of not honoring warranties of their iOS devices including the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In settling, Apple admits to no wrongdoing, and will pay out $53 million to tens of thousands of customers.

The case, which could have cost Apple a lot more if they did not settle, revolved around the so-called "white tape indicator" found in the device. The little strip of tape helps gauge water damage and will turn pink or red depending on the severity of the water damage. Apple refused to repair hardware without a white tape.

This is all fine and good, except for the fact that the tape maker, 3M, admitted that humidity could cause the damage, as well, not just direct water damage.

The settlement is for owners of the iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, and the first three generations of the iPod Touch who were refused repairs or replacements due to water damage. The payouts are expected to be large, even above $100.

USB-IF has announced this week that updated USB 3.0 specs have boosted peak bandwidth to 10Gb/s, ensuring the specification will now be able to compete with Thunderbolt.

The update to "SuperSpeed USB" will require new cables, but they are backward compatible with all existing USB connectors/cables.

"With the new SuperSpeed USB enhancement to increase performance up to 10Gb/s data rate, coupled with the USB power delivery specification capable of delivering up to 100 watts of power to USB-enabled devices, consumers will soon be able to have one USB cable to support all their needs," said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF president and COO.

The spec will still lag Thunderbolt, which can use full 10Gb/s bandwidth in both directions, using a single cable. USB 3.0 still cannot.

Rockstar Games has announced today that it has made all of its original 'Grand Theft Auto' radio stations available via iTunes and Spotify, a move that should delight fans of the series.

The official sets are available as playlists including all the radio stations you could listen to in your car during the games.

There is one note: "Please note that this is all the music from these stations that's currently available on each service – some songs don't yet exist on either Spotify or iTunes, but we're hoping to be able to add the original songs within our control where possible soon."

Another cool addition is "for those nostalgic for some of the commercials from these games, be sure to check out The Advertising Council repository if you haven't before - a proper collection of radio adverts from the archives of LC, VC and SA's historical radio dials..."

Head over to Rockstar to get all the links to every station: Official Grand Theft Auto Radio Playlists on Spotify and iTunes

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings shunned traditional media and took advantage of new federal rules in regards to disclosures of information via social media.

The exec posted on Facebook yesterday, disclosing that subscribers have watched 4 billion hours of video in the last three months alone.

Reads the post, "House of Cards fav quote: 'look at the bigger picture.' Over the last three months, you all watched over 4 billion hours on Netflix."

The company ran into trouble in July after Hastings revealed similar information on Facebook. The SEC began an investigation into whether it was appropriate for execs to reveal information that might move the company's stock via social media. It recently ruled that companies could do so but they must tell investors beforehand which sites they will be using. Netflix announced on Wednesday that it would disclose information via its blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

According to Iran's Fars state news, a Tehran scientist has registered his invention, "The Aryayek Time Traveling Machine."

The device can predict up to eight years into the future "in a print out after taking readings from the touch of a user," says Ali Razeghi, the inventor and managing director of Iran's Centre for Strategic Inventions.

Complex algorithms can predict so far out with "98 percent accuracy." Razeghi notes he has been working on the project for the last 10 years and has 179 registered inventions.

"My invention easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you," claims the scientist.

"Naturally a government that can see five years into the future would be able to prepare itself for challenges that might destabilize it," he added. "As such we expect to market this invention among states as well as individuals once we reach a mass production stage."

Of course, Razeghi took a parting shot at the U.S. and China: "The Americans are trying to make this invention by spending millions of dollars on it where I have already achieved it by a fraction of the cost. The reason that we are not launching our prototype at this stage is that the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight."

After months of rumors, it's official; LinkedIn has purchased popular newsreader app startup Pulse.

The sale price is reported to be $90 million, well above the initial rumors of $50 million last month.

Pulse, developed by Alphonso Labs, is available for iOS, Android and on desktops. The company says over 25 million people use Pulse to read their news, from 190 countries.

LinkedIn has been actively looking into ways to distribute content for users and Pulse is a highly-rated application.

Adam Orth, Microsoft Studios' creative director, has resigned from the company.

The exec started a major controversy last week by obnoxiously and sarcastically mocking those on Twitter that believed 'always-on' DRM was a bad potential choice for Microsoft's upcoming Xbox successor.

Orth started the controversy by tweeting that he "didn't get the drama" over rumors of the always-on DRM. Such DRM would require an Internet connection to play your games, even in single player mode.

The exec then went on to mock, comparing the DRM to owning a phone in an area you know has bad reception.

Microsoft had to come out with an official statement hours later, apologizing for the exec's tweets.

Samsung has announced today the launch of their Galaxy MEGA series,

The Galaxy MEGA 5.8 will have a 5.8-inch screen and the MEGA 6.3 will have a 6.3-inch screen, even larger than the company's own extremely popular Note series.

"We are aware of a great potential in the bigger screen for extensive viewing multimedia, web browsing, and more," said JK Shin, CEO and Head of IT & Mobile Business, Samsung Electronics. "We are excited to provide another choice to meet our consumers' varying lifestyles, all while maintaining the high-quality features of the award-winning GALAXY series."

The 5.8 runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), a 1.4GHz dual core processor, 1.5GB RAM, 8GB internal storage, dual cameras (1.9MP/8MP), a 2600mAh battery, and HSPA＋21/5.76.

On the high end, the 6.3 also runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), is powered by a 1.7GHz dual core processor, 1.5GB RAM, dual cameras (1.9MP/8MP), 16GB internal storage, a 3200mAh battery and LTE100/50Mbps, HSPA＋21/5.76 radios.

According to the WSJ, Microsoft is indeed developing their oft-rumored 7-inch Surface tablet.

The device will launch this year and will compete against the iPad Mini, the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD.

Besides the new tablet, Microsoft is also expected to drop the price of its existing Surface devices and flagship software.

Microsoft did not initially plan to offer a smaller device, but the huge success of the iPad Mini forced the company to change their mind.

Tablets are becoming increasingly important for manufacturers, as PC sales have fallen off a cliff in recent months. In fact, the Q1 saw a 14 percent dive year-over-year, the worst quarter in history thanks in part to slow sales of Windows 8.