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Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos has likely made some people very happy today with his update on 'Arrested Development.'

Sarandos says the fourth season of the cult classic show will debut all ten of its episodes simultaneously on the streaming service, foregoing the week-to-week standard of most broadcast and cable content.

The revelation came during NAB, where the show's creator Mitch Hurwitz and most of the cast took the stage to discuss the return of the series.

Netflix has promised the return of the show "sometime" in 2013 with some expecting a February debut.

The streaming service will have 5 original programs in 2013 and already debuted the first, Lilyhammer, a few months ago. Netflix was looking into reviving the expensive and cancelled Fox show "Terra Nova," but decided against it in March.

Late-night TV show host Conan O'Brien has announced today that he will voice a character in the upcoming Halo 4 game.

Halo 4 is one of the year's most anticipated games and Microsoft recently announced the sequel will launch on November 6th.

Besides O'Brien, his right-hand man Andy Richter will also voice another character. Both characters will be two Marines that Master Chief encounters along the way.

Franchise director Frank O'Connor says both will be "living out a real moment" although he did not elaborate.

O'Brien would say nothing more than that he is a "clerk in a loading dock," with "a gun, but I don't know how to use it."

Yesterday's Gmail outage actually affected up to 35 million people, a lot more than the 6 million that Google initially admitted to, says the search giant.

After fixing the bug, the company said the issue affected "less than 2 percent" of Gmail users. Later in the afternoon, however, Google changed that figure to "less than 10 percent."

Google first confirmed the problems at a bit past noon and finally solved the issue at 1:45 PM.
The outage was caused by a bug that Google did not specify.

Millions of users complained yesterday that they could not access their email and Google confirmed they were working on the issue via Google Apps Status Dashboard. Altogether, the outage stopped access to the service for about an hour.

Gmail has over 350 million active users, so it is assumed that the bug could have affected up to 35 million people.

Last year, Google shocked the world by purchasing Motorola Mobility for $12 billion.

At the time, the search giant said it was buying the company for one reason alone; patents.

It appears that is not entirely true, as BI is reporting that Google is instead looking to get into the hardware business, following Apple's model of offering the hardware and the software and being the seller, cutting out middle-men.

The word comes via those in Google's inner circle, who continue to be briefed on future plans.

There is, of course, one huge caveat with Google's plan; its current partners. Major Android partners like HTC and Samsung are said to be furious with the development and have even already committed more support for Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 Apollo.

Oracle considered building its own smartphone in 2009 and would have purchased either Palm or RIM to do so.

The shocking news came out today during testimony in the Google-Oracle patent infringement case.

CEO Larry Ellison admitted the company looked into buying Palm in 2009 but saw that webOS was not competitive with iOS and Android. Additionally, the company looked into buying RIM, but the BlackBerry maker was significantly more expensive then than it is now.

Finally, the company considered making a Java smartphone, but wisely decided against it.

The billion dollar lawsuit brought by Oracle revolves around patents allegedly violated by Google in the Android platform. Android is partially based on Java, which Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun MicroSystems in 2009. Google openly admitted to copying some lines of code from Java but also believes Oracle is only entitled to minuscule royalties.

A federal judge has ruled today that Apple and Samsung's CEOs must meet in a mandatory mediation session to try to settle their handful of smartphone patent disputes.

Judge Lucy Koh gave the execs 90 days to meet in a conference with Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero. Apple's CEO is Tim Cook and Samsung's is Gee-Sung Choi.

Reads the order: "As the parties have indicated in their joint statement, the chief executive officer and general counsel of Apple and the chief executive officer and general counsel of Samsung shall appear and participate."

Apple first sued Samsung early last year over the Galaxy line of tablets and phones, and Samsung quickly counter-sued over patents used in the iPhone.

The current battle between the two giants is just one of the many out there between web-connected device makers. Microsoft is currently embroiled in cases against HTC, Barnes & Noble and others, while Apple is also in cases against Motorola and others. Google is facing a billion dollar lawsuit from Oracle over Android patents, in a trial that just recently got underway.

According to a new report, Zynga tried to purchase 'Angry Birds' maker Rovio for $2 billion but was obviously rebuffed.

The offer came late last year, but Rovio has much bigger plans for its future.

In a recent interview, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said his company is looking for more big-money acquisitions into the future, following the company's $180 million purchase of 'Draw Something' creator omgpop.

Notes Pincus: "We love finding great, accomplished teams that share our mission and vision. If we ever see breakout opportunities that massively accelerate social gaming at Zynga, we'll aggressively pursue those, too."

In 2010 and 2011, Zynga spent $147.2 million on buying 22 companies.

According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, Apple's Mac sales for the Q1 may fall short of expectations.

Says the analyst: "We believe the buy side is currently looking for worldwide Mac units to be up 14 percent y/y (year over year) in the March quarter. We believe Apple could potentially miss its Mac number."

Munster used data from research firm NPD which estimated Mac sales actually fell five percent last quarter compared to the same quarter in 2010.

Macs currently account for 15 percent of Apple's overall revenue.

Munster does say he believes iPad and iPhone results will cover any deficit in Mac sales, and most analysts in the industry tend to agree with that sentiment.

Apple is the most valuable public company in the world, valued at $568.47 billion.

IKEA has announced the launch of the IKEA TV, a web-connected device that will be the centerpiece of their new UPPLEVA furniture range.

UPPLEVA, which means "experience" in Swedish, will integrate the LED TV, a sound system with wireless speakers and CD/DVD/Blu-ray players into an all-in-one self-assembly piece.

Most of the electronics will be made by Chinese manufacturer TCL while IKEA built all the furniture around it, aiming to hide all cables. Additionally, the companies have combined all the controls into a single remote. The furniture will allow the remote's signals through, thanks to its design, leaving the device hidden.

The LED TVs will be available in gray, black and blue and in four different sizes, 24", 32", 42" and 46".

As with other furniture from the company, the set is ready for assembly at home. The cheapest set will cost $955 and will be available in Sweden, France, Poland, Germany and Italy in June and worldwide by the beginning of next year.

The extremely popular Kickstarter project "Pebble" has broken Kickstarter records in just 5 days.

Previously, the funding record for a project was $3.34 million by point-and-click video game Double Fine Adventure. The game took 34 days to raise that amount of funding.

Says the Pebble team in a note to backers: "We are the most funded Kickstarter project ever thanks to you! The Pebble team and I really appreciate your commitment and backing. It's been an incredible couple of days and we're amazed at how many people share our vision. We're working extremely hard to produce the best Pebble we can."

The Pebble currently has 26,600 backers and has raised $3,830,579 including 7 buyers of $10,000 "mega distributor" packs that entitle them to 100 of the watches in any color.

Pebble is a smartwatch that syncs with iOS and Android via Bluetooth, including the addition of apps.

Google first confirmed the problems at a bit past noon and finally solved the issue at 1:45 PM.

The outage, which affected "less than 2 percent" of Gmail users, was caused by a bug that Google did not specify.

Millions of users complained this morning that they could not access their email and Google confirmed they were working on the issue via Google Apps Status Dashboard. Altogether, the outage stopped access to the service for about an hour.

Gmail has over 350 million active users, so it is assumed that the bug affected around 6 million people.

Apple has announced today that the third-generation iPad will be hitting 12 new markets on Friday.

The new nations to get access to the tablet are South Korea, Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, St Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.

One week later, the device will reach 9 more countries; Colombia, Estonia, India, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, South Africa and Thailand.

Apple did note that 4G LTE models will only be available in North America, but all other models and colors will still be available in the new territories.

Retail pricing starts at $499 USD for a Wi-Fi only 16GB version.

After years of complaints, Microsoft has listened to its consumers and will be releasing only four different versions of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

There will be one version for home use, one for business users, one for devices running ARM chips and finally one for large enterprises who buy in bulk.

"Windows 8" is for home use while "Windows 8 Pro" is for business users, "Windows 8 Enterprise" is for bulk buyers and "Windows RT" is the final name for Windows on ARM. Windows RT cannot be purchased individually as it will come preinstalled on PCs and tablets that run ARM processors. The operating system will run touch-based apps on Windows Runtime, including touch version of Microsoft Office suite apps like Word and Excel.

There was no word yet on pricing or availability.

Microsoft's decision should be a welcome move to many consumers who were confused with all the options of, for example, Windows 7 which came with three different "Home" versions and 6 versions total.

According to IHS iSuppli, the Nokia Lumia 900 costs has $209 cost of materials, making it one of the cheaper smartphones to build on the market.

The cost of materials does not include about $8 for manufacturing and R&D costs.

AT&T sells the Lumia 900 for $49-$99 depending on where you purchase it (with contract) and $450 off-contract.

Says IHS: "For the Lumia 900, Nokia and Microsoft worked in close partnership with Qualcomm to develop and optimize the software stack in order to take full advantage of the hardware." That same strategy has been used by Apple for years now on the iPhone and the company has the highest margins in the industry.

AT&T's online store is listing both versions of the Windows Phone device as sold out.

The carrier noted last week that sales of the device were blowing away expectations and it seems he telling the truth.

Amazon also has the cyan version back-ordered, although they do have stock of the black model. Calls to AT&T brick-and-mortar stores revealed most are sold out in-store, as well.

It is unclear whether the news is good or bad for Microsoft and Nokia. If the sell out is due to large demand then certainly the companies will be excited by the prospects. However, if the sell out is a supply-side issue, there may be more problems we do not know about.

There was an early software glitch that affected handsets trying to access the Internet and AT&T has admitted that many affected users simply returned their devices, which would also have an affect on current inventory.

Nokia has since issued a fix for the glitch.