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Valve has announced this week that a Steam app is headed to Android and iOS devices.

The application will support screenshots, chat, groups and be able to purchase games on the run.

Gabe Newell, Valve boss, says: "Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale.. these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone."

For now, the app is available in closed beta, with Valve sending out invites "as the service ramps up."

Hundreds of users have complained of "random lockups" of their Transformer Prime after updating to Android 4.0 ICS, but that should be a problem of the past, soon.

Asus says it "hope[s] to have a fix available in early February" for the issue.

Most of the users who had the issue saw lockups of the tablet while browsing or in high-performance mode. There are about 400 replies in the XDA Developers thread in response to the issue.

The first ever quad-core tablet has been marred by issues since its launch, including Wi-Fi signal and Bluetooth problems. The tablet has built-in GPS but it so useless Asus has removed it from the spec sheet.

Furthermore, Asus is releasing an unlock tool for the bootloader next month, as well, making it easier for devs to create custom ROMs.

CEO Tim Cook has noted this week that employees will be given a major discount on Apple products, starting in June.

Employees already get 25 percent off Macs and iOS products, but in a few months they will also be given an extra $500 off Macs and $250 off iPads. For example, the low-end Macbook Air will cost just $250 after the discount and new credit. Whether you hate Apple or not, $250 for the MBA is an extremely good deal.

The new credit comes with a few caveats, says 9to5, which are you must be working for Apple for three months to use the credit and you can only use the credit once every three years.

Mac Minis are excluded since they are so cheap already, but everything else seems fair game on the Mac end.

Seems Apple is putting some of that $97.7 billion in cash to good use.

A number of angry users are contemplating suing the U.S., following the loss of terabytes of legal files when Megaupload was taken down last week.

Despite its title as a "piracy haven," hundreds of thousands of users used Megaupload to share personal videos, photos, research data and more. All of those files are possibly gone now that the site remains offline, and in the possession of the U.S. Department of Justice.

There is still a chance users will get their files back, but it is not a foregone conclusion.

According to Freak, Pirate Parties around the world are preparing to file an official complaint against the U.S: "The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended."

Additionally, "For this reason Pirates of Catalonia, in collaboration with Pirate Parties International and other Pirate Parties, have begun investigating these potential breaches of law and will facilitate submission of complaints against the US authorities in as many countries as possible, to ensure a positive and just result. This initiative is a starting point for legitimate internet users to help defend themselves from the legal abuses promoted by those wishing to aggressively lock away cultural materials for their own financial gain."

CVG is reporting this week that Nintendo is considering changing the name of the upcoming Wii U console.

Citing "sources close to the platform," Nintendo may looks to rebrand in the very near future. Nintendo allegedly cited public confusion over the 3DS, which has similar packaging and obviously, a similar name to its predecessor, the DS and DSi.

Indeed, president Satoru Iwata told investors last year that Nintendo learned "a bitter lesson" from the 3DS name fiasco.

The Wii U, which was revealed at E3 last year, is a very tiny console with a touchscreen controller that powers the gaming and the console. The Wii U means "Wii (we) can all play as a family or in group formats and yet can be played in "unique" (hence U)."

Motorola shipped 1 million Android tablets in 2011.

According to the company's quarterly earnings, it appears that Motorola shipped 200,000 tablets during the Q4 pushing the total to about 1 million.

Motorola brought the first Honeycomb tablet to market in February 2011 with the launch of the XOOM. More recently, the company introduced the Droid XYBOARD 8.2 and XYBOARD 10.1, but each of those went on sale in January, likely meaning shipments will be included in the next quarter's earnings.

There are three models of the Xoom available, a Wi-Fi-only, a 3G-only, and a 3G/4G model, which was the last to be released.

Altogether, 10.5 million Android tablets were shipped in the last quarter of 2011, compared to 15.2 million iPads, making Motorola's share minuscule.

Google has hinted at it for months, but it's finally done; the Android hardware "Menu" button is dead and will no longer be needed going forward.

Starting in the next few months, all Google-approved Android devices will launch without a hardware Menu button.

Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich tablet users should be used to soft keys instead of hardware keys, but everyone running Gingerbread (like 98 percent of us) have likely grown accustomed to pressing an actual button.

Replacing the Menu button is the Action Bar, which Google explains is "A window feature at the top of the activity that may display the activity title, navigation modes, and other interactive items." Google has kindly asked all devs to begin using the Action Bar in their coding, saying: "In order to provide the most intuitive and consistent user experience in your apps, you should migrate your designs away from using the Menu button and toward using the action bar. This isn't a new concept - the action bar pattern has been around on Android even before Honeycomb - but as Ice Cream Sandwich rolls out to more devices, it's important that you begin to migrate your designs to the action bar in order to promote a consistent Android user experience."

The New York Times is reporting that South Korea is preparing to increase their already fast Internet speeds.

South Korea already has the fastest residential speeds in the world, with every household having a connection that downloads at about 16 Mbits per second.

Reads the report: "By the end of 2012, South Korea intends to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second. That would be a tenfold increase from the already blazing national standard and more than 200 times as fast as the average household setup in the United States."

While South Koreans download at over 16 Mbits per second, the average American is running a much slower connection at 4.6 Mbits per second. There are, of course, 100 Mbit connections in the U.S., but they are certainly not commonplace.

While having superior speeds, South Koreans also pay less, paying the equivalent of $38 USD per month. The average American is paying $46 per month for their connection.

A bigger list of average speeds found here: Global Internet connection speeds

Earlier this month, chip maker Qualcomm launched their GameCommand application for Android devices.

The app shows off what games in the market are optimized for their Snapdragon CPUs, including single and dual core models. To even download the application you need to have a device with a Snapdragon CPU.

Dave Durnil, Director of Advanced Content and Gaming at Qualcomm (via AandMe), says the second, much-improved version of the app is coming next month at the Mobile World Congress. The updated app will bring the ability to add custom RSS feeds and new filters to sort games by publisher, size, etc.

Additionally, tablet layout support will be much improved.

Finally, and most notably, Qualcomm has now invested in an in-house studio which will create 1 major Android title every year. The studio currently has one "mini-title," the popular "Desert Winds."

Sophia Stockton of MidAmerica Nazarene University walked into a police station today in Kansas to report that the textbook she had ordered from Amazon had come with a little extra surprise, a bag of cocaine.

Stockton says when first opening the book, a clear plastic bag fell out filled with white powder. Scared the powder might be dangerous, the student took the book and bag to the local police station.

Officers tested the substance, which turned out to be cocaine: "He put some gloves on and put it in a plastic bag, he took it back to test it and like 10 minutes later he came back and said, 'Did you happen to order some cocaine with your textbook?,'" said Stockton.

Stockton says the book came from Amazon, not a third-party vendor, and it came entirely wrapped. The book was ironically "Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues."

Police destroyed the cocaine and have asked Amazon for comment.

During Netflix's quarterly earnings report, CEO Reed Hastings made it clear that the company's possible endeavor in to game rentals is dead.

The CEO simply stated the company has "no plans to enter video games."

During the summer, as Netflix prepared to spin-off its DVD-by-mail service into "Qwikster," the company hinted that it was preparing to get into the game rental business, making Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii titles available by mail. Within weeks, however, Qwikster was dead and the game rental idea was put on the shelf.

With Netflix bowing out, GameFly remains the only major by-mail rental outfit for games, but the price can be hefty at $16 per month for one game out at a time, and $23 for two.

Although the company did not disclose why it killed the idea, it is likely because the expense of signing deals with major publishers was too much to handle for the company that is expanding streaming internationally and building its catalog at a fast pace.

According to Kotaku, Microsoft's upcoming console will play Blu-ray discs, catching up to Sony 7 years after the launch of the PS3.

Another part of the report that will certainly be notable if true, is the notion that Microsoft will "incorporate some sort of anti-used game system" in the new console. It is unclear how this system would work, but it will likely not be foolproof, regardless.

Additionally, Microsoft is likely to launch the console with the Kinect 2 motion control system including a built-in processor. The processor would allow the Kinect to process motions more accurately and smoother.

Microsoft would only say this: "As an innovator we're always thinking about what is next and how we can push the boundaries of technology like we did with Kinect. We believe the key to extending the lifespan of a console is not just about the console hardware, but about the games and entertainment experiences being delivered to consumers. Beyond that we don't comment on rumors or speculation."

Android is well on its way to controlling the tablet market, although Apple continues to see impressive growth in the sector, as well.

Apple, which at one point had 97 percent of the global market share, is down to 57.6 percent share, followed by 39.1 percent for Android. In the Q4 2011, Apple sold 15.4 million iPads while a handful of manufacturers including Asus, Motorola, HTC and Samsung sold 10.5 million Android-based tablets.

Microsoft was a distant third with 1.5 percent share, with 400,000 Windows 7 tablets being sold during the quarter.

To show how strong Android's growth is, Apple had 68.2 percent share in the Q4 2010, and Android was in second at 29 percent. Says one analyst: "Dozens of Android models distributed across multiple countries by numerous brands such as Amazon, Samsung, Asus and others have been driving volumes. Android is so far proving relatively popular with tablet manufacturers despite nagging concerns about fragmentation of Android's operating system, user-interface and app store ecosystem."

Just a few months after acquiring Napster US, Rhapsody has announced their acquisition of Napster International.

The company will now operate the music service in Germany and the UK.

Adds Rhapsody president Jon Irwin: "The acquisition of Napster and its subscriber base in the UK and Germany gives us an ideal entry to the European market. Through the benefit of scale, the strength of our editorial programming and strategic partnerships, we can now bring the Napster service to even more consumers on a variety of platforms."

Current Napster subscribers will be migrated to "the Rhapsody infrastructure" in March, gaining features and keeping their current libraries.

Rhapsody, which launched in 2001, is the first and largest subscription music service in the U.S. with 1 million paying subscribers and 14 million tracks available. The service is popular as it is available on all smartphone platforms.

Microsoft has confirmed it is working on bringing 'Xbox experiences' to Android and iOS devices.

Xbox Live, the company's online gaming and social network, remains compatible with just Windows Phone devices for now, but that should change within the year.

Says a spokesman to Forbes: "While the Xbox Live experiences and games always work best on the Windows platform, we understand that some Xbox fans may be using other types of devices. To satisfy that need, we are working to extend a few of our Xbox experiences and titles to other platforms."

Microsoft already has a "My Xbox Live app" on iOS but the app only helps you track your achievements and talk with friends.

Additionally, Microsoft recently announced the end of its points currency on Xbox Live, which will move back to actual dollar amounts by the end of the year. Many had criticized the currency and its exchange rate as many people were left with small amounts of points that were useless and required a new block purchase just to buy an item they wanted.