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Intel, during an interview, has stated it has grand plans to be a "big player" in the phone market within 5 years.

Noted CFO Stacey Smith: "Intel doesn't go into markets to be a small player. It's a billion-unit market, so there's huge opportunity for us."

Intel has been trying for years to compete with Qualcomm, who dominates the smartphone market for chips. The company has signed deals with 5 customers this year, with the first device to feature an Intel chip going on sale in India next week.

Says Smith: "As of a week ago, we had zero share. As of this week, it's zero-point-something, because the first phones are selling." The company expects to have "meaningful" phone sales by the Q2 2013 and "five years from now, we want to be a significant portion of the market."

Orange, Motorola, Lenovo, ZTE and India's Lava International each signed deals to build Intel-based phones.

Intel has announced its purchase of supercomputing assets from Cray Inc.

The final price is $140 million and should give the company a leg-up in the ultra high-performance computer market.

74 Cray employees will join Intel when the deal closes at the end of the quarter which Cray says will also lead to cost savings for the company in the next few years.

Additionally, the Cray Chief Executive Peter Ungaro says the agreement "dramatically strengthens our balance sheet and increases our options for further growth, profitability and creating shareholder value." Intel made a similar comment, saying "interconnect is another area in high-performance computing that's ripe for innovation. Cray has the best-in-class personnel and IP to do that with."

Cray's assets will help Intel which has been moving quickly into supercomputing. The assets will help the company reach "exascale" computing performance (quintillion operations per second) by 2018, says Intel.

The software company Micro Focus has accused the Australian police department of using its ViewNow software without authorization.

Micro's software gives access to the COPS criminal intelligence database. Additionally, the company is accusing the police of sharing the proprietary software with third-parties, all without licensing it. The company is demanding $10 million in damages.

This is not the first time the New South Wales police have been accused of piracy. In 2008, IT members of the department were found to have hundreds of pirated movies on their hard drives.

Micro Focus says (via TF) they used to license the software but have not in the last two years while the police used it and shared it with Ombudsman's Office, the Department of Correctives Services and the Police Integrity Commission. All without permission from the software company.

Says managing director Bruce Craig: "When someone pirates your software you think who am I gonna call, the police? In this case, they're the pirates. This is potentially a crime that has to be handled as a civil matter because everybody's got their hands dirty. The victims can't go to police - it's the police who are doing the stealing."

Samsung has listed all their devices which will be updating to Android 4.0 ICS in the coming weeks.

Notably, however, is the fact that those with T-Mobile as their carrier will not be getting the stated update until the future.

T-Mobile devices that will not be getting the update are the Exhibit II 4G, Galaxy S Blaze 4G, and the Galaxy S II.

Says the company of its talks with the carrier: "We are in close communication with T-Mobile to ensure that eligible devices are upgraded to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the coming months and will provide updates as we have additional details to share."

The full list (via slash):

Verizon:
Galaxy Tab 10.1
Galaxy Tab 7.7

An updated RAZR smartphone seems to be on the way.

The new model will feature a 720p screen, while most of the rest of the specs will remain similar.

If accurate, the phone will also be adding Android 4.0.3 ICS, which the RAZR has not added yet.

Outside of the screen and OS, the rumored HD will have a dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor, 16GB internal storage and likely include a large 3000mAh battery for extended battery life.

Although no one seems to like it, Slash says the new device will launch with Motorola's overlay interface "Motoblur" in its latest iteration.

China's ZTE has noted today it expects to ship over 100 million smartphones by 2015.

The phone maker began selling very low-end feature phones in Africa in 2001 and has evolved into a smartphone maker that is popular in Africa and Asia but not in the U.S. or western European nations.

Despite a drop in margins on their phone sales, the company sold 15 million smartphones in 2011 and expects to sell up to 50 million this year. The company is the world's fourth-largest handset producer and is also a popular telecoms gear maker.

Overall, 472 million smartphones were sold in 2011, with Samsung and Apple being a few of the top sellers.

The company will look to take bigger share in Europe with their first quad-core phone, the Era. The phone runs on Android 4.0, has a 1.3GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, a nice 4.3-inch 960 x 540 qHD display and a thin form factor that is only 7.8mm thick. Additionally, the phone has 8GB internal storage, 1GB RAM, quad-band support with HSPA+ 42, Wi-Fi, UMA (Wi-Fi Calling), Bluetooth 3.0, HD Voice capability, Dolby-engineered sound, and DLNA.

As part of their earnings report this afternoon, Apple announced its revenue from China, which is exploding on a daily basis.

iPhone sales were up 500 percent year-over-year thanks to the release of the iPhone 4 in the last quarter of the year.

Revenues jumped to $7.9 billion for the quarter and is now at $12.4 billion after six months. The last fiscal year, the company only made $13.3 billion revenue from China, so it is clear they will smash that figure very soon.

Says CEO Tim Cook: "It is mind-boggling that we can do this well. For China - the sky's the limit there. I've never seen so many people rise into the middle class who aspire to buy Apple products. It's quickly become #2 on our list of top revenue countries."

Charts via Crunch:

Early last year, Voltage Pictures filed a lawsuit against 24,583 defendants for allegedly downloading and sharing pirated copies of the Oscar-winning picture "The Hurt Locker."

In October, the studio let nearly all of those defendants off the hook, voluntarily dismissing them "without prejudice."

This week, the same studio has come back for round two, filing a new suit against 2514 defendants who allegedly shared the movie via torrents between April and July of 2010.

All of the defendants are IP addresses from Charter Communications in Florida but they remain anonymous for the time being, as the ISP has not sent names or addresses of those accused.

The studio has filed a motion to expedite discovery of the IP addresses, and that could lead to names being revealed and settlement letters sent.

Skype has launched their anticipated Video and Voice app for the handheld console today.

The PlayStation Vita will now give gamers a chance to video chat or voice call friends and family around the world using Skype.

North American gamers can download the app now, but anyone in Europe and Asia will have to wait tomorrow to download their region-specific version of the service.

Using the app, users can make free calls to Skype numbers or purchase credit to make calls to all other numbers via 3G or Wi-Fi depending on what Vita you purchased.

Probably most important for fans, the app can remain in the background while you play a game. You can also use either the front or rear cameras to make video calls.

After years of rumor, the cloud-based Google Drive is finally here.

Google has announced the service via their blog as "A place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff."

The cloud service will be similar to others where you can upload all your videos, photos, Google Docs, books and more.

Features:

Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.

Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just... there. You can access your stuff from anywhere?on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We're also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.

As they have done for the last few years with regularity, Apple has smashed their earnings expectations for the quarter.

The company posted profit of $12.30 per share, up from $6.40 year-over-year. $12.30 per share equates to a profit of $11.6 billion.

Revenue jumped 59 percent to $39.2 billion, up from almost $25 billion last year during the same period.

Says one analyst of the result: "Apple once again surprises on the upside despite expectations that iPhone sales would lag. Clearly iPad results are driving results, as well as international sales. This is consistent with Apple continuing to capture market share against Android."

Apple sold 35.1 million iPhones, 88 percent growth year-over-year. iPad sales exploded to 11.8 million, 105 percent growth. While Mac sales were expected to fall, they instead grew 7 percent to 4 million.

Following its long-term trend, iPod sales fell to 7.7 million, a 15 percent decline.

Facebook reported its quarterly earnings today, reaching a milestone of 900 million users.

Profit for the quarter fell to $205 million, down 12 percent year-over-year, even though revenue grew 45 percent to $1.1 billion for the period.

As expected, the company increased operating systems for marketing, sales and research and development. Money went towards mobile efforts as well as new advertising services and acquisitions.

Reported earlier, Facebook also purchased 650 patents from Microsoft, adding to the 750 they purchased from IBM in an effort to fend off a large Yahoo lawsuit.

Analysts expect Facebook to have $6.1 billion in full-year revenue, compared to $3.7 billion last year.

As has been rumored since the iPhone 3G, sources are reporting today that Apple will launch an "iPhone Nano" this year to takeover the entry-level market.

The China Times (translated by BGR) is reporting that Apple is working on the low-cost iPhone, citing sources within the supply chain.

Apple's smartphones retain their value extremely well and the hugely outdated iPhone 3GS from 2009 still sells for $200 or even more if it is "unlocked" to work with multiple carriers. The number is too high to compete with entry-level Android devices, and subsidized Windows Phones.

If accurate, the report states Apple will release the low-cost model at the same time it unveils the iPhone 5 in October.

Once again, just like every year, consider this rumor for now.

Microsoft has announced their fully revamped SkyDrive cloud storage platform today, offering new users 7GB free space if they have never tried it.

Anyone who signed up for the beta of SkyDrive, which lacked many features and has been around for over three years, will still be able to get 25GB (as before), with the links provided at the end of this article. Maximum file size is now 2GB, up from 700MB, a welcome change.

The new update adds the bonus ability to create and edit Microsoft Office documents right in the Web interface on Windows or Macs. No app installation is required.

What's new:

SkyDrive for the Windows desktop (preview available now). View and manage your personal SkyDrive directly from Windows Explorer on Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista with this new preview app available in 106 languages worldwide.

Fetching files through SkyDrive.com. Easily access, browse, and stream files from a remote PC running the preview app to just about anywhere by simply fetching them via SkyDrive.com.

SkyDrive storage updates. A new, more flexible approach to personal cloud storage that allows power users to get additional paid storage as their needs grow.

Microsoft and Facebook have announced today a deal in which Facebook can purchase some of the patents the software giant recently acquired from AOL.

Facebook can purchase the portion of patents for $550 million. Microsoft just acquired the whole portfolio for $1 billion.

Earlier in the month, Microsoft secured the rights to own or assign 925 patents and patent applications while licensing another 300. After today's agreement, Facebook will own 650 of the patents and applications plus licenses on the other patents purchased by Microsoft.

Says the Redmond giant: "Today's agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction. As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio."

The transaction is expected to close soon.