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Last week, AMD executives laid out a plan for developing a new SOC (System On a Chip) architecture for all their processors.

CEO Rory Read, whose tenure at AMD began just five months ago, kicked off the presentations at AMD Financial Analyst Day by talking about the impact of ARM processors, mobile devices, and cloud services on the computing landscape, as well as the importance of relationships with OEMs.

He sees a situation similar to what happened in the 1980s, when mainframe dominance was first challenged by personal microcomputers. As an IBM employee for 23 years, starting in 1983, Read a had an insider's view of that transition. He believes the current environment is creating opportunities to compete with Intel in the same way early PC makers took on IBM.

He described how he sees AMD transitioning from the old PC oriented CPU paradigm, where speed and complexity were king, to what he called "an SOC kind of strategy." Rather than using the latest technology and running the risk of missed deadlines or disappointing products, he wants to focus on producing a single chip package with the features people already want and need.

Dropbox has announced that the official Android app has been updated to experimental beta version 2.0.9, bringing the ability for fans to get another 5GB free of storage space.

The new version also brings a new automatic Camera Upload feature. The feature has been available through third-party apps, but will now be built in.

Reads the presser:

-The app can now automatically upload photos and videos in the background using Wi-Fi or your data plan.
-No more size limit. So upload to your hearts content.
-If there are network issues, the upload will resume when those issues are resolved.
-Some performance improvements and bug fixes.
-You'll also get 500MB of free space on your first automatic photo upload.

RIM has dropped the price of their PlayBook tablet, again, actually bringing the device down to a price where buyers may step up and purchase it.

Following the second slash in under 6 months, the 16GB model now sells retail for $199, the 32GB for $249 and the 64GB model for $299.

At $199, the price makes the tablet appealing, especially when compared to the current champion in the 7-inch market, the Amazon Kindle Fire. The PlayBook has double the storage, HDMI ouput, dual cameras, a mic, GPS and other features not seen on the newer Fire.

There is one major catch, however. The Playbook runs on the PlayBook OS, which could discontinued at any time, literally, especially as the tablet continues to catch little traction.

Regardless, RIM is expected to launch their Playbook 2.0 OS later this year in a final effort to make a dent in the tablet market dominated by Apple and Android.

As a reminder before the big game, NFL.com and NBCSports.com will be live streaming the Super Bowl tonight for those who cannot get in front of a TV.

Super Bowl XLVI, between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, starts tonight at 6:30 PM EST.

In addition to the broadcast, the streams will have additional camera angles, in-game highlights, real-time stats and other enhanced viewing features.

Says the NFL: "Whether it's just for a quarter if somebody has to run out to the store to get something they forgot, now they can stay connected to the game. With such a big television audience, it will be interesting to see the expanded reach."

Finally, the games will be available on Verizon smartphones if you have the NFL Mobile app. If you have a 4G data plan, the app is free, but if you have a 3G-capable device only, Verizon Video subscriptions cost $10 per month.

Slovenia's Ambassador to Japan Helena Drnovsek Zorko has apologized for signing the ACTA agreement on behalf of her nation.

The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement resulted from efforts by the entertainment industry to mandate copyright law via international agreement. It was written in secret, with the input of movie and recording industry lobbyists, but with the general public provided information only via leaks from various parties to the negotiations.

Zorko says she was overworked and did not pay enough attention to the agreement before signing it. It has been signed by the U.S., Japan and 22 European nations.

Here apology is worth reading:

On Thursday, 26th January, 2012, I signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on behalf of the Republic of Slovenia, following the directive and authorisation of the Slovenian government. I signed the agreement because I was instructed to do so by the government, and because it is a part of my job.

Paul Thurrott has posted this week that Microsoft is removing the Start button from Windows 8.

There have been reports during the week that the button, which has been a standard on every Windows edition since at least 95, will be gone, and Thurrott says his "internal sources" within Microsoft have confirmed the move.

You will still be able to access the Start orb from the Windows button on keyboards or by hitting ctrl+esc on the keyboard. Additionally, if you "hover the mouse over the bottom left corner of the taskbar to bring up the Charms," you can mimic the Start orb function.

The Windows 8 Consumer Preview, aka beta, will be released soon, with a final version expected in the late summer of early fall.

Here is how the Windows 8 screen looks like without the Start Orb:

Microsoft has put the Nokia Lumia 900 up for pre-order, with $25 down payment, but only if you live near a Microsoft retail store.

There are mainly stores in only California, but there a few on the east coast, such as one in Atlanta. You can check the locations here: Microsoft Stores

Furthermore, even if you pre-order the device, Nokia and Microsoft are still not revealing the final price of the device.

The Lumia 900 has 4.3-inch AMOLED display, 1.4GHz single-core processor, Nokia's ClearBlack technology, LTE support, an 1830 mAh battery, 512MB RAM, 16GB internal storage and an 8MP Carl Zeiss camera with large aperture (F2.2) and wide angle focal length (28mm). The phone also has a 1MP front facing camera.

Brandon Watson, one of the top Microsoft execs for Windows Phone, has left the company and will be headed over to Amazon.

Says Microsoft: "We can confirm February 6th is Brandon Watson's last day at Microsoft. Brandon did a great job helping us build a vibrant developer community and we wish him well with his next adventure."

Watson was in charge of getting devs to build apps for the Windows Phone platform but will now do the same work for Amazon and their Kindle devices.

The news follows Microsoft's decision to replace the head of the mobile division, Andy Lees, with one of his VP's while moving Lees to a new role that remains a mystery.

Watson says he was mostly attracted to Amazon due to his love for the Kindle. In the past, Watson said his levels of reading have gone up significantly since getting a Kindle.

Starting tomorrow, Netflix will be offering its first ever original series, "Lilyhammer," to subscribers.

All eight episodes of the first season will be available right from the get-go.

Lilyhammer is the "story about a New York gangster living in Lillehammer, Norway, as part of a witness protection program." Steven Van Zandt, formerly of "The Sopranos," is the star of the show.

Later this year, Netflix will debut "House of Cards," starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher. Netflix had to outbid rivals like HBO and offer major incentives to the companies behind the political drama which is expected to be a hit. Additionally, the fourth season of the cult classic "Arrested Development" will be hitting the service in early 2013.

Netflix senior spokesman Steve Swasey has said Netflix will have five original shows running in 2013. The last two shows have not been purchased yet, but they are expected to be the prison comedy "Orange Is the New Black" and the thriller series "Hemlock Grove." Says Swasey: "By 2013, we'll have five original content programs. We're dabbling in original content with a pretty good mix of dramas, comedies and quirky series. We're excited about it."

According to a new report from firm Crittercism, iOS apps crash more often than Android apps do.

The smartphone app monitoring company collected data for 2 months from all versions of iOS and Android and came to the conclusion after breaking down all the data.

Crittercism says they found 23 different versions of iOS and 33 versions of Android, pretty much the entire range of versions ever made available for each smartphone OS.

As expected, the higher the OS build, the higher the crash rate, as devs rush to make their apps compatible with the latest firmware update.

More info here.

Electronic Arts reported its quarterly earnings on Friday and it appears that their new digital distribution platform Origin is doing very well.

The platform has 9.3 million registered users, almost 25 percent of large rival Steam, which was established well before Origins launched in May.

To date, Origin has generated "over $100 million in non-GAAP revenue since launch," read the report.

Into the future, Origin has signed 11 more publishers, including Trion, CD Projekt Red, Paradox Interactive and Robot Entertainment, so revenue and subscriber base should increase exponentially.

Finally, the upcoming blockbuster Mass Effect 3 will have an Origin requirement, meaning you can't activate the game without signing into Origin. Steam will not be getting the game.

As reported earlier this week by Cultofmac, iTunes Match is either unintentionally (or intentionally) converting some explicit rap songs to their more benevolent censored versions.

iTunes Match is Apple's $25/year service that converts your entire library to "iTunes quality" and then stores the library in the cloud.

A few of the artists that appear to get censored more than others are Kanye West, N.E.R.D and Eminem.

Apple has responded to word of the "glitch" and says it is working on it: "Apple is currently investigating the issue and working on a fix."

A gamer in Taiwan passed away at an Internet cafe last week, and no one noticed for a full 9 hours.

Chen Rong-yu, who was 23, suffered and died from a heart attack after playing League of Legends for almost 24 straight hours.

The gamer, playing in the cafe in New Taipei City, died but stayed in the same position, with his hands outstretched and on the keyboard. Rong-yu was known to take naps in his chair, so no one seemed to notice. There were 30 other people playing around him but no one noticed until rigor mortis had begun to set in. At that point, a waitress realized what had happened and called the police.

Rong-yu had a history of a bad heart, and initial tests say he died of a heart attack "brought on by low temperatures, fatigue and lack of movement," says the Mail.

According to the latest figures from Media Create, Sony PS Vita sales remain extremely slow, but the company doesn't seem to be bothered by it.

In fact, Sony CFO Masaru Kato had this to say on the matter: "As far as the sell-through, three weeks have passed and sell-through is 500,000. This was announced on the 10th of January. So as a start, I think we had a very good start.

Including software and hardware, we are carrying out the sales promotions and we do it to boost the sales, and we do not think we have any problems."

Current lifetime sales are at just 535,000 units in Japan, with only 18,942 sold last week.

The console heads to the U.S. and Europe on February 22nd.

Starting on Tuesday, gaming developer Ubisoft will begin to move its data from one third-party server farm to a new farm, thus killing the ability of some legitimate gamers to play their purchased games.

As AfterDawn has reported repeatedly, Ubisoft is one of a couple of companies who employs an "always-connected" DRM, which means you must always be connected to the Internet to play their games.

While online play will be down for mostly all Ubisoft games until the migration is done, games with the DRM like "the Mac OS X version of the original Assassin's Creed, however, will be completely unplayable, as will the OSX version of Splinter Cell: Conviction and the PC versions of Might and Magic: Heroes VI and Tom Clancy's HAWX 2," says Joystiq.

Yes, that means even the single player versions of the games will be unplayable. Pirates will be able to play the games, however.

There is no accurate timetable for the migration.