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According to the latest figures by Strategy Analytics, Android tablets now account for 27 percent of the market.

In the Q3, 4.5 million Android tablets were shipped, with Apple taking the lion's share at 67 percent.

Apple sold 11.1 million units during the quarter (read: sold not shipped) and the rest of the pie was WebOS, BlackBerry and Windows tablets.

Windows had a 2 percent share, BlackBerry had 1 percent and the rest came from the WebOS firesale.

Overall, sales increased 280 percent year-over-year to 16.7 million units.

Apple has announced today that the MacBook Pro line will see improved specs, with the price remaining the same.

The 13, 15 and 17-inch models will all see the across-the-board upgrades.

Starting at $1200, the 13-inch Pro will now run a 2.4Ghz dual-core Intel i5 processor, 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive.

The larger models will run on 2.4GHz quad-core i7 processors, 4GB RAM and 750GB hard drives.

For the GPUs, the smaller models come with AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 512MB RAM or you can upgrade to an AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 1GB RAM for $400 more. The 17-inch model will run the AMD 6770M with 1GB RAM.

Surprisingly, Apple has decided to stick with older Bluetooth tech instead of upgrading to 4.0 like it did for its MacBook Air refresh this year.

Netflix has said today it will expand its streaming catalog to the UK and Ireland starting next year.

The move will put Netflix in direct competition with Amazon's LoveFilm, which has literally been called "the Netflix of the UK" for some time now.

There was no word on the pricing, but the service costs $7.99 per month in the U.S.

Netflix is not likely to introduce their DVD-by-mail service in the new nations.

The Watch Instantly streaming library now has 21,000 titles. The full catalog is available to U.S. users and Canadian users have a smaller catalog. The company is expanding, this year, into Latin America and the Caribbean.

Anonymous has taken credit for taking down 40 child pornography sites and leaking the names of 1500 members of one of those sites.

Starting last week, Anonymous members were browsing "the Hidden Wiki," a secret 'guidebook' site that indexes hundreds of "underground" pages that are invisible to to search engines and to regular everyday users.

The 1589 pedophiles of a child porn picture sharing site called Lolita City got their info posted to Pastebin.

All of the sites taken down are part of a "darknet," invisible, anonymous and encrypted. Some of the hidden sites in the TOR-based darknet include ways to get fake IDs, steroids or even hire assassins.

To access the site you must have a TOR browser plug-in installed.

Anonymous says they found a site called "Hard Candy" initially, which promised links to child pornography. All of the sites linked were hosted at Freedom Hosting. The group issued a warning to the host to take down the links immediately, which they refused to do. The group then took down the server. It was back up the next day but Anonymous took it down, once again.

Google has announced that their digital movie rental store for Android devices is now live in the UK.

The store offers 1000 films, and the rentals start at £2.49.

New titles like 'Green Lantern' and 'Fast & Furious Five' are available as well as British classics like 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.'

As is standard, the titles must be viewed within 48 hours after you hit play, but you have 30 days to start watching the movie.

The Android Video app is available at market.android.com/movies.

(Pic via Hexus)

Hackers got the best of Microsoft's popular YouTube channel this weekend.

The channel, which has 8 million views and over 25,000 subscribers, had 5 videos posted to it and now sits blank.

Posted to the channel by the hacker earlier in the day was the message "I DID NOTHING WRONG I SIMPLY SIGNED INTO MY ACCOUNT THAT I MADE IN 2006 :/."

Says Microsoft of the situation:

We are aware that someone has altered the YouTube channel devoted to Microsoft videos. We are working with YouTube to rectify the situation.

Microsoft has signed their 10th Android patent deal this weekend, coming into money via Compal Electronics of China.

The company has coerced deals out of Samsung, HTC, Wistron, Quanta, Acer and General Dynamics Itronix.

As with past deals the patent agreement covers all Android or Chrome OS tablets, smartphones and e-readers Compal creates.

Compal, while not a household name in the U.S., produces smartphones/tablets/e-readers for third parties and has a massive $28 billion revenue per year.

Says Microsoft (via Crunch):

We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Compal, one of the leaders in the original design manufacturing, or ODM, industry. Together with the license agreements signed in the past few months with Wistron and Quanta Computer, today's agreement with Compal means more than half of the world's ODM industry for Android and Chrome devices is now under license to Microsoft's patent portfolio.

During the company's quarterly conference call, AT&T mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega noted that following the release of the iPhone 4S, iPhone 3GS demand has increased significantly.

AT&T dropped the price of the now two-year old device to $0 with 2-year contract, the first time an Apple smartphone has been available for free.

Added Vega (via Rumors):

We have another device that I think is going to dramatically change those people that are on smartphones and quick messaging devices, the [iPhone] 3GS, which is free with a 2-year contract. We've seen a tremendous, tremendous demand for that device even though it's a generation old. And actually, we're getting more new subscribers coming on the 3GS on the average than other devices. So we also have an inventory sold out on that device.

Earlier this year, cloud gaming company OnLive started a challenge on its Facebook page.

If the company's Facebook page got 62,791 "likes," the company would offer every user one game for $1.

As of today, the number has been hit and OnLive is making good, with no fine print.

Any game in the library is yours (if you have an account) for $1, including newer games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

OnLive says new users can just log-in and have access to the cheap game while existing users will be sent a promo code.

According to the latest comScore "Video Metrix" figures, 182 million U.S. Web users watched online video content in September, with a total of 39.8 billion videos viewed.

On average, each viewer watched 19.5 hours for the month.

Google Sites (aka YouTube) led the way with 161 million uniques, with legal music video service VEVO in second at 57.3 million. Google sites accounted for 18.6 billion of the videos viewed.

Microsoft Sites were in third at 54 million uniques followed closely by Viacom Digital at 53 million.

Also notably, Hulu saw 27 million uniques for the month.

Full chart (via comScore):

MetroPCS, the fifth largest carrier in the U.S., has turned into the front runner for AT&T, T-Mobile assets including spectrum and subscribers.

The companies are forced to sell the assets if they want the $39 billion merger to go through.

People familiar with the deal say MetroPCS' deal would be under $3 billion and is still being negotiated.

AT&T is said to have approached MetroPCS, Dish Network, Leap Wireless and others to sell off the assets. Metro has the strongest balance sheet, and the largest cash hoard.

MetroPCS has 9.1 million subscribers, compared to 91 million for AT&T and 34 million for T-Mobile. The spectrum would help them cut capital costs and expand.

According to multiple sources, Google is potentially looking into buying Yahoo.

The search giant would partner with two private-equity firms to fund the purchase, which would be only for Yahoo's core business.

While the talks are early stage and Google could just be seeing what the selling price is for a rival, there is little chance a deal would pass anti-trust regulators, regardless.

Google is said to be looking into the deal as it would love to sell ads on Yahoo's web sites, some of which, like Yahoo Finance and Mail bring in hundreds of millions of visitors per month.

Yahoo, which is up for sale after dumping their CEO and seeing their stock struggle, has seen a rumored plethora of potential suitors including AOL, Alibaba and Microsoft.

Vizio has noted today that they are bundling 90 free days of Hulu Plus to anyone who purchases the Vizio 8 tablet.

If you have already purchased the tablet, update the application and the 3-month freebie will be installed.

The tablet runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, weighs 1.2 pounds, has an 8-inch screen with 1024x768 resolution, Wi-Fi only, 1GHz processor, 4GB storage, MicroSD slot, HDMI slot, three speakers and a front-facing video camera for video chat.

Vizio's main selling point on the tablet outside of the price is its integration with VIA, which will control not only all Vizio devices in the house but also "up to 95 percent of all home theater accessories, including televisions and sound systems" with its IR controller.

The tablet retails for $299 but is cheaper on Wal-Mart and Amazon.

Despite a two-week union strike from 40,000 of its workers, Verizon had a strong earnings quarter, mainly thanks to brisk sales of Android and iPhone phones.

The carrier activated 2 million iPhones in the quarter, while rival AT&T activated 2.7 million.

Overall, Verizon activated 1.3 million new wireless users, with 882,000 going under new contracts.

Francis J. Shammo, CFO of Verizon, noted of the iPhone activations (which were considered light):

We anticipate that the strong demand we're seeing for the new iPhone 4S will bring even more new customers.

Although it was abundantly clear the carrier was going to have the device, Verizon has finally made it official.

The Galaxy Nexus, unveiled earlier this week as the new Android 4.0 flagship device will be available "later this year," says the carrier.

For Verizon, the specs of the device are:

· 4G LTE customers can expect fast download speeds of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps in 4G LTE mobile broadband coverage areas
· Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich
· First smartphone to feature a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display (1280 x 720)
· 1.2 GHz dual-core processor with 1GB RAM
· 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, zero shutter lag and 1080p full HD video capture
· 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chatting
· Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled
· Android Beam allows customers to quickly share Web pages, apps and YouTube videos with friends by simply tapping compatible phones together
· Support for Google mobile services, Android Market, Gmail, Google Maps 5.0 with 3D maps, Google Earth, Movie Studio, YouTube, syncing with Google Calendar and a redesigned Google＋ app