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Ericsson is in active talks to buy Microsoft's IPTV business, MediaRoom.

The division currently creates software used to deliver TV over the Web. Microsoft has large clients such as AT&T.

A deal could be announced in the coming weeks, and could net Microsoft $1 billion, or higher. Annual sales have been around $350 million per year for the last three years.

"This would make sense for Ericsson as it provides for a more complete offering," said Alexander Peterc, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas. "Still, the technology started to get hyped about 10 years ago and may have reached its peak already, so I don't see this as a growth market."

100 million people will use IPTV services from phone companies this year, but most of the growth is in China and Japan. In the U.S., AT&T offers MediaRoom via its U-Verse service. U-Verse had 4.5 million subscribers at the end of 2012.

According to Frank Shaw, the head of public relations at Microsoft, Windows Phone outshipped the Apple iPhone in seven countries during the fourth quarter.

While Shaw did not reveal the countries, NYT did some digging with research firm IDC and found the nations. The countries were Argentina, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Ukraine and Croatia.

The numbers are not all that impressive, however, given that South Africa, Ukraine and Croatia each saw less than 100,000 Windows Phone unit shipments during the quarter.

Argentina would be a large win for Microsoft, but the IDC does note that high government levies and taxes have lead to a huge gray market for phones, most notably the iPhone, which means the numbers could be skewed.

Russia and Poland are traditionally big Nokia fans, and it appears that has not changed.

When Amazon released its Kindle Fire HD lineup, the company also introduced a few new features including "X-Ray for Movies," which integrates IMDB into any movie you may be watching on the tablets.

X-Ray for Movies allowed you to discover names of actors that are on the screen, and see their most popular movies/TV appearances right from within the playback area.

Today, the company has expanded the service to TV "bringing the seamless, fully-integrated X-Ray experience to TV shows."

"X-Ray has been one of the most loved features on Kindle Fire HD since it launched last September," said Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "For people who are passionate about movies and TV, there is no better way to watch than on Kindle Fire HD, which combines an exceptional viewing experience with the unbelievable power of the over 100 million pieces of data in IMDb's catalog."

"For over 20 years we have been cultivating a vast database of movie, TV and celebrity content," said Col Needham, IMDb Founder and CEO. "Can't remember where you've seen the actor playing Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey? No problem. Simply tap on the screen and you'll see a full filmography, where you'll realize that Hugh Bonneville was also in Notting Hill. Our vision is to make X-Ray available on every movie and TV show--we're excited to make another big step forward today, and we are working hard to add X-Ray to more TV shows and movies in the future."

Google's augmented reality glasses, Google Glass, will only have 8000 users this year.

The search giant took applications from over a hundred thousand people last month to join the "Glass Explorer Program." As part of the application process, you had to tell Google what you would do with the glasses if you had them.

Applications were taken via social networks and had to include the hashtag "#ifihadglass."

By some accounts, there were 145,000 mentions of #ifihadglass, although it is unclear whether all were real "applications."

Google is selling the Glasses for $1500 and the company will be notifying all the winners this week.

According to sources, Google will use the Nexus 5 to focus on the camera and battery life, not continuing the ongoing race to have the biggest, largest resolution display.

If the rumors are accurate, the company will keep a 720p IPS display instead of moving to a 5-inch 1080p OLED like rivals. The display will be 4.5-inches but 88 percent of the front will be the screen, meaning the bezel will be almost non-existent. The phone will have the extremely powerful Snapdragon 600 and 3GB RAM, giving it otherwise high-end specs.

In regards to the camera, the flagship will include a Nikon branded 9-megapixel triple prism sensor, which would likely be the best camera ever in a smartphone but much slower than CMOS sensors.

Netflix has announced its next original program will be the sci-fi thriller "Sense8."

The show will be directed by the Wachowski brothers, the team behind "The Matrix" and J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5.

"Andy and Lana Wachowski and Joe Straczynski are among the most imaginative writers and gifted visual storytellers of our time," said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. "Their incredible creations are favorites of Netflix members globally and we can't wait to bring Sense8 to life."

"We're excited to work with Netflix and Georgeville Television on this project, and we've wanted to work with Joe Straczynski for years, chiefly due to the fact his name is harder to pronounce than ours, but also because we share a love of genre and all things nerdy," added Andy and Lana Wachowski. "Several years ago, we had a late night conversation about the ways technology simultaneously unites and divides us, and out of that paradox Sense8 was born."

The first season of the series will be 10 episodes and will be made available in the Q3 2013.

According to Jason Mackenzie, HTC's president of global sales and marketing, the upcoming One flagship is seeing decent pre-orders in the U.S.

The company has seen "several hundred thousand" pre-orders so far.

Mackenzie also says the initial response to the phone has "been fantastic."

Says the exec (via Focus): "We are seeing our strongest initial response for any smartphone we've ever designed with several hundred thousand people in the U.S. pre-registering to purchase the new HTC One."

The company was forced to delay launch of the phone due to supply issues with the new Ultrapixel camera.

I'm surprised it took so long to manifest, but the latest rumor claims Apple's oft-rumored HDTV will have a 4K resolution, otherwise known as "Ultra HD."

Perhaps more notably, the sources say the device could reach consumers by the end of this year.

Digitimes, the Taipei-based publication, says the TV will have a 3,840-by-2,160 pixel display, voice and motion controls and internet connectivity. While the publication has been extremely wrong on many rumors over the past year, their display industry sources have been somewhat better.

Apple is said to be working with Foxconn on the UHDTV and is actively seeking a "reliable" panel supplier. LG is the expected supplier due to Apple's ongoing fight with Samsung.

HTC is preparing to kill its long-standing "Quietly Brilliant" tagline, as new CMO Benjamin Ho wants to refresh the image of the struggling brand.

Ho says the company has not "been loud enough" in the past, but will need to be now if it wants to compete against market leaders Samsung and Apple.

Moving forward, and starting with the new flagship HTC One, the company will use marketing themes such as "bold," "authentic," and "playful." '"Bold" demonstrates that HTC will be more aggressive in the marketing of its new products, "authentic" is said to reinforce its focus on innovation, and "playful" is meant to reference HTC's development of features that are based on consumer demand,' reads Verge.

Ho added that the company will be boosting its digital marketing budget by 250 percent this year, throwing money at some of their issues.

The HTC One was recently confirmed to be delayed due to camera component shortages, and will now be released in the U.S. in late April, just weeks ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which will undoubtedly be the biggest launch of the year until the iPhone 5S or 6 steals some of its thunder.

According to Bloomberg, Intel is making headway in its talks with Time Warner, NBCU and Viacom in an effort to obtain TV and film media for its upcoming pay-TV service.

Allegedly, the media companies have signed off on the outlines of the service, but are now working out financial terms.

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.

The company is said to be starting negotiations with News Corp. (Fox) and is in very early stage talks with CBS and Disney.

Speaking at this week's Gaming Developers Conference, Facebook proudly boasted its social gaming stats.

The social networking giant now has 250 million monthly gamers, with 200 games boasting over 1 million active users.

In August 2011, the monthly gamer figure was 205 million, which jumped to 235 million by August 2012.

Additionally, the company says they paid out $2 billion to developers in 2012, a huge 30 percent increase from 2011.

Finally, the social network announced that a full 55 percent of the top 400 iOS apps are currently integrated with Facebook, with the company actually driving 263 million clicks to either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store from mobile devices.

As we reported earlier, T-Mobile USA used their major press event to reveal they will be offering the iPhone, including the iPhone 5.

However, that was not all the carrier had in store for customers, as it also unveiled a new LTE network and new monthly plans that offer significant savings when compared to bigger rivals AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

The 4G LTE service is available now in Baltimore, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Jose, California and Washington, D.C. The carrier says they expect to reach 100 million people by June and 200 million by the end of the year, putting it ahead of Sprint but still behind AT&T and Verizon which started their LTE rollouts in 2012. Many of those not in the LTE areas already have 4G HSPA+ network access, however, which offers speeds comparable to mid-end LTE.

After years of not offering the popular device, T-Mobile will begin offering the iPhone starting on April 12th.

The carrier will offer the iPhone 4, 4S and 5, and the iPhone 5 will be compatible with the company's 3G, 4G HSPA+ and LTE networks.

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.

T-Mobile also notes that the iPhone 5 will support "HD Voice," which the company defines as high definition voice calling with background noise reduction.

Google has opened up its Play hardware store to Indian buyers.

Just days after opening up the Google Play Books store, buyers in India can now purchase some Google hardware to read it with.

The first device available is the popular Nexus 7 tablet, but only the 16GB Wi-Fi model.

Google is selling the tablet for 15,999 rupees ($294) with an estimated delivery by April 5th.

Microsoft has unveiled details of their upcoming Xbox Live sale.

The list of games and DLC will be available to both Xbox Silver and Gold members.

Microsoft says the sale will begin on Tuesday, March 26th and last until Monday the 1st.

Additionally, on the 1st, a whole new list of deals will be made available but only for one day.

(List via CVG)