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According to sources, BlackBerry's new flagship, the Z10, will reach AT&T on March 22nd.

The screen will be available online and in stores around the U.S. on that day, say the sources.

North America has long been BlackBerry's biggest market, and the company makes 20 percent of its revenue from the U.S. alone. The Z10 is available in 21 nations, but U.S. carriers often have longer testing periods for new phones.

Rivals Verizon and T-Mobile USA have both said they expect to offer the device by the end of the month, as well.

Sprint announced earlier this month that the will not be offering the Z10, instead opting for the Q10, a lower-end model that includes a full physical keyboard akin to older BlackBerry devices.

According to a research survey posted earlier this week, legal movie sales increased after cyberlocker Megaupload was shuttered last year.

Wellesley College assistant professor of economics Brett Danaher and Carnegie Mellon University professor of information technology and marketing Michael D. Smith say the closure led to increased digital sales and rentals for two major movie studios in the U.S. and in 12 other countries.

"We conclude that shutting down Megaupload and Megavideo caused some customers to shift from cyberlocker-based piracy to purchasing or renting through legal digital channels," the researchers said (via WSJ).

Online revenue was 6-10 percent higher than it would have been had the sites not been closed, concluded the research. To complete the research, the researchers used data "provided by the two studios on digital transactions in the months following the January 2012 closing of Megaupload."

After the shut down, "weekly digital sales of movies from the two studios to grow by between 10,500 and 15,300 units from what would otherwise have been expected. Rentals grew between 13,700 and 24,000 units a week."

Earlier this week, EA released its newly updated 'SimCity' title to critical acclaim.

However, the consumer feedback has been less than stellar (that is being extremely generous) due to the game's "always-on" DRM requiring a user be connected to the Internet and logged in to EA's Origin at all times to play, even in single player mode.

The load on EA's Origin servers has meant most players that put down $60 to download the game have been unable to even log in or try their new game.

On Amazon, the game has as 1.2/5 stars, with 1500 of the 1750 ratings coming in at 1 star. In fact, the game has been rated so low that Amazon even temporarily halted sales of the game until today. The page still has this warning: "Many customers are having issues connecting to the "SimCity" servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed. Please visit https://help.ea.com/en/simcity/simcity for more information."

As compensation, EA will offer all buyers a free title. On March 18, all customers with activated copies will receive details via email on how to redeem their free EA game, which will be downloadable through the Origins digital store.

HBO has confirmed that it will make all episodes of its original shows available to international markets within one week of its U.S. broadcast.

Previously, the company's shows, including the most pirated show of 2012, Game of Thrones, would take weeks if not months to reach international audiences. This of course led to piracy, as fans of the shows could watch their favorite programs within hours of its broadcast instead of waiting.

If your market has HBO Go streaming, the shows will be available via that platform within a week, as well.

It is unclear what had changed in HBO's internal technical architecture that allows for the quicker availability, and HBO declined to specify.

Recently, the company announced that HBO was giving all of its international markets the option to simultaneously air Game of Thrones with its U.S. launch.

Spotify has made its browser-based beta Web player available to users in the UK a few months before its full launch.

The Web-player will compliment your existing desktop application, or can replace it, says the company.

"We're letting a number of users in the UK test out a beta version of our basic web player, which we're gearing up to release later this year," says the company. The streaming service had been testing a closed beta for a couple of months.

If you are in the UK, open your favorite browser, head to play.spotify.com and re-enter your login credentials.

Right now, the Web player is pretty bare, but expect it to be robust in the near future.

Google has confirmed it will be laying off another 10 percent of Motorola Mobility's employees, following the 4000 it laid off last year as part of a major restructuring plan.

The new count will be 1200 employees.

Adds a Google spokesperson: "These cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer. It's obviously very hard for the employees concerned, and we are committed to helping them through this difficult transition."

The new layoffs will affect workers in the U.S., China and India. Motorola Mobility had 11,113 employees as of the end of last year.

It has long been assumed that Google purchased Motorola, at a hefty price tag of $12.5 billion, for only two reasons. The first reason was the company's patent trove, which undoubtedly has and will help with any future battles with Apple and others in the space. The second was Google's fear of Samsung, which is the most popular Android phone maker, and whose devices are now almost synonymous with the operating system itself. If Samsung were to gain even more share, Google will likely integrate Motorola into its Android division and use it for hardware purposes, with the Google branding known to Nexus phone and tablet owners.

Movie fans in China were delighted this week when the state censors unblocked IMDB, the world's largest movie and actor database.

The site had been blocked from access in the nation since 2010.

Both the English and Chinese language versions were unblocked, although it is unclear if the move is part of a larger media relaxation in China. All media is tightly-controlled by the government, part of the so-called "Great Firewall."

Originally, IMDB was blocked due to its promotion on the homepage of a documentary on Tibet. China blocks all notions of Tibet.

(Image via Tweak)

Rovio, in an effort to boost sales of the aging game, has made the original Angry Birds free for iOS users, including iPad owners.

Additionally, the games are App of the Week in the App Store, which usually leads to a huge increase in downloads.

This marks the first time the games have ever been free for iOS, despite being free on rival operating systems (with ads) such as Android. The iPhone version used to cost $0.99 and the HD iPad version cost $2.99.

Of course, the games remain "freemium," meaning you can purchase power-ups and other bonuses from within the game itself.

Although unconfirmed by Intel, it appears that the upcoming high-end Ivy Bridge E chip has been delayed.

The chip, which is set to replace the company's powerful Core i7 3970X, had been slated for a Q3 release.

According to sources, there was no real reason behind the delay except that Intel's server team did not want to launch the chip in the relatively slow Q3.

The Core i7 3970X launched in November, 2011, and is based on Sandy Bridge.

Intel has priced the new processor at $999 MSRP.

(Pictured is old roadmap)

According to Digitimes, Apple and Samsung will add wireless charging capabilities to their new 2013 models.

Other OEMs, including LG, Nokia, Motorola and HTC have moved towards the Qi standard in the past year, although sales of the wireless charging accessories have been lackluster.

For its part, Samsung is widely expected to add Qi support for the Galaxy S IV and the Galaxy Note III although it is unclear if it will be built-in or require a special back cover or case.

Apple is said to be considering similar, although Apple often lags on a technology until it is more widely adopted or they believe the consumer is ready for it.

Roku has introduced their third-generation set-top box this week, aptly named the Roku 3.

The new set-top has an enhanced remote that includes "private listening" and a headphone jack (with headphones) and a more powerful processor under the hood.

Additionally, the company has refreshed the user interface which promises to make browsing and navigation "more fluid." The updated UI will also be rolled out to all existing second-generation Roku devices over the current coming weeks.

"Roku 3 introduces thoughtful new features that customers will love," added founder and CEO Anthony Wood via the press release. "The intuitive new interface makes it easy to find movies and shows quickly while the private listening mode is perfect for late-night streamers who don't want to wake up the family."

Outside of the private listening, the remote will also have motion control, allowing for easier playing of certain games, including Angry Birds Space.

Just like its current high-end boxes, the Roku 3 has USB ports, a microSD card slot, dual-band Wireless N, an ethernet port and 1080p support.

Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition (DCDC) has announced agreements with Lionsgate, Universal, Disney, Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures with each receiving "theatrical digital-delivery services" in North America.

DCDC itself is a coalition of AMC Theatres, Regal Entertainment Group, Cinemark Theatres, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. The group "has created a satellite and terrestrial digital-distribution network capable of delivering feature, promotional, preshow and live digital-cinema content to theaters," says THR.

The group's ultimate goal is to move North America completely to digital cinema, reducing distribution costs significantly for the theaters and studios. Today, studios still often ship film prints or even hard drives.

"Our goal is to drive the cost of distribution as low as we can get it," DCDC spokesman Randolph Blotky says. "We'd like to drive it to zero over the course of time."

DCDC service is expected to begin mid-summer with theater appliances that are "one-port access to thousands of screens, for both movies and alternative content, from all content providers."

Microsoft has confirmed today that they have temporarily stopped pushing Windows Phone 7.8 updates.

The software giant is working on a fix for multiple software glitches with the release and it is unclear how long the suspension will be in place.

Phones such as the Nokia Lumia 800, Lumia 900 and Lumia 610 are all affected, adds Nokia.

Nokia says the glitches are minor and the update rollout should resume quickly.

Windows Phone 7.8 is a bridge between the old WP 7.5 OS and the newer WP 8, which requires better hardware specs than seen on the aged phones. 7.8 takes some of the new features of WP 8 such as resizable live tiles, but leaves out quite a few others.

It has taken quite some time, but Android 4.x has finally surpassed Google's ancient Android 2.3 Gingerbread in OS share.

Android 4.0.x is on 28.6 percent of devices, Android 4.1.x is on 14.9 percent of devices, and the more recent Android 4.2 remains relatively unloved (outside of Nexus devices) on 1.6 percent of devices. Altogether the operating systems account for a 45.1 percent share, beating out Gingerbread which remains on 44.1 percent.

Somewhat shockingly, operating systems released before Gingerbread still account for 9.6 percent share, despite their firmware being released as far back as 2009.

As can be implied, fragmentation remains a large problem for Android, as carriers often take extended periods to send updates since they require testing and (usually) carrier-based bloatware to be added.

Check the figures here: Google Devs

Exactly one year ago, Google merged its Android Market with a few of its other services to create the Google Play Store.

The Store offers hardware, ebooks, music, videos and of course apps and games.

In order to celebrate the birthday right, Google is offering discounts on books, video rentals and music, with a few apps and games highlighted, as well.

The anniversary part will extend to the rest of the week.

Check the deals here, daily: Google Play Promotion