News written by Andre Yoskowitz (November, 2015)

The UK has withdrawn a law that allowed residents to make personal copies of their own music or videos.

In June, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, the Musicians' Union, and UK Music asked for a judicial review of the 'private copying exception' law and the judge ruled in favor of the groups.

It is now once again illegal to make personal backups of your music, movies or e-books and it is also illegal to rip CDs and DVDs to digital files. It is also illegal to upload your own music to the cloud unless it is through a service like Apple or Amazon that you pay for.

As with most UK copyright rulings of the past few years, there was no point except for the music industry to claim they have "fought piracy" in some way. There have been no cases in recent memory of music or movie trade groups suing anyone for personal format shifting and it would be nearly impossible to even find out if someone had done so. In other words -what a waste of time.

Lenovo, the world's biggest PC maker, has partnered up with Razer to build new gaming desktop PCs.

The co-branded PCs, to be known as Razer Edition Lenovo PCs, are being shown off as prototypes this weekend at the Dreamhack Winter event in Sweden and the looks are certainly nice.

Lenovo has promised that beyond just looks, the computers will integrate popular Razer software like Razer Comms, Synapse, and Cortex, tools that help gamers manage and optimize the settings for their various games. Notably, the companies say there will be no added bloat to the operating system, which is a nice relief.

"Gaming is one area of the PC market that's actually growing," Lenovo's Victor Rios added. "For us, what's also been exciting, is that it's relatively stable."

Microsoft has begun rolling out the beta version of their Cortana digital assistant to iOS device owners.

A few lucky users who signed up to learn more about the app have received emails to test out the service.

Cortana is Microsoft's version of Apple's Siri and Google's Google Now, although there are plenty of users out there that find Cortana to be far superior to its rivals. The voice-activated digital assistant can help you with your alarms, calendar, texting, phone calls and tracking your shipments, your favorite team's scores, your flights, and more.

Because the app is being distributed through TestFlight, there can be a maximum of just 2000 testers at any given time but if the beta is available now, there is hope the app could go live for all in a few months.

Sony's Shuhei Yoshida has confirmed this week that the company is working on a Remote Play app to stream PlayStation 4 gaming to the PC.

The President of Sony's Worldwide Studios for Sony Computer Entertainment says the upcoming app will work on both Windows and Mac OS X.

Microsoft's Xbox One introduced its own remote play over the summer, but it only works for Windows 10 devices, which will make Sony's offering more accessible for those 10 percent of you out there with Macs.

Unfortunately, there is no timetable for the release of the PS4 Remote Play app.

Motherboard has revealed this week that Chinese kids toy maker VTech was recently breached, losing personal information on 5 million parents and over 200,000 kids.

Among the data stolen were names, email addresses, passwords and home addresses for the parents and names, genders and birthdays for the kids. Sadly, the kids' information can be linked to their parents meaning their addresses and identities are completely exposed.

The breach is one of the largest of all-time, and shockingly VTech didn't know about it until Motherboard reached out to them. "On November 14 [Hong Kong Time] an unauthorized party accessed VTech customer data on our Learning Lodge app store customer database," Grace Pang, a VTech spokesperson, told the site at the time. "We were not aware of this unauthorized access until you alerted us."

Data from the breach has not showed up online, and the hacker behind the attack said they had no plans to use the data. They did explain that the attack was simple - an SQL injection - and they were quickly able to gain root access to database servers. The passwords were stored with a basic MD5 hash but plenty more of the data had been stored in plaintext including answers to "secret questions" and recovery email addresses, suggesting that your other accounts could be in trouble if someone malicious had accessed the data.

OnePlus has begun its Black Friday sale today, allowing you to purchase the new OnePlus X and OnePlus 2 all weekend without needing an invite.

The "unlimited sale" is available now until the 30th.

Additionally, OnePlus is discounting quite a few of their accessories up to 90 percent off, and everything accessory is at least 10 percent off. For example, screen protectors are just 50 cents and their own USB cables (including USB-C) are $5 or cheaper.

Check out the deal here.

After two years, Sony's latest console has hit a new milestone - 30 million units sold.

The PlayStation 4 remains the most popular of the next-gen consoles, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales are expected to keep the sales growing.

Sony says the company has sold 30.2 million units worldwide as of November 22nd, claiming the PS4 has "the fastest and strongest growth in PlayStation hardware history."

By comparison, Microsoft has reportedly sold 16 million Xbox One consoles, beating the PS4 in monthly sales only twice since the consoles launched.

"We are sincerely grateful that gamers across the globe have continued to choose PS4 as the best place to play since launch two years ago," said Andrew House, President and Global CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "We are committed to bringing engaging games and entertainment services to users worldwide. Thanks to the support of our partners, PS4 continues to be the premier platform for game and interactive entertainment innovation."

Now that the Xbox One can play Xbox 360 games using emulation, there has been a call to bring older generation Xbox games to the console.

Xbox engineering boss Mike Ybarra says "nothing's impossible" in regards to bringing first-generation Xbox games to the new console, although he did say the team is focused on making more and more 360 games work rather than looking back.

Phil Spencer also said emulation for the original console was a possibility but agreed that the team "[needs] to finish 360 backwards compatibility for now."

Looking forward, we can expect to hear more about Xbox emulation, but there is little chance of seeing such a feature this year or next.

Fossil has launched their Android Wear-powered Fossil Q Founder this week, a $275 smartwatch that is more fashionable than the average smartwatch.

"Technology is a major disruptor in many industries right now – even fashion. But to successfully merge the two, you need to have the fashion design expertise and focus on it first," said Jill Elliott-Sones, chief creative officer at Fossil. "What's most exciting about Q Founder is not only how it looks, but the true flexibility it offers our customers. Thanks to its ability to pair with both iOS and Android devices, and the personalization opportunities it brings, we're more accessible to more people, and able to complement even the most unique personal styles."

The Fossil Q Founder is also the second Android Wear device to use Intel guts, while nearly all other watches have Qualcomm and Texas Instruments under the hood.

According to a new report, China UnionPay and Apple have reached an agreement to bring Apple Pay to China through UnionPay's POS network.

The agreement will be finalized if card-issuing banks agree to the deal.

UnionPay is the nation's largest clearing network and payment processor, and they reportedly hope to introduce Apple Pay next year.

China is a massive market. Mobile-payment transactions jumped 134 percent last year to 22.6 trillion yuan ($3.5 trillion).

According to a new report, Amazon Prime Instant Video subscribers will soon be able to add TV and movie channels to their existing catalog of content, making the service into a cable rival.

The new features could go live before Christmas, say the sources, and each service available will be available from separate pages within Amazon Prime Video, so they can easily be distinguished.

It is unclear which services have partnered with Amazon but we will likely know a lot more in the near future.

Facebook's new notification system for state-sponsored attacks has already helped the U.S. State Department discover that their accounts had been compromised by Iranian hackers.

It appears that the attackers were looking to gain access to credentials for "officials who focus on Iran and the Middle East," including email and social media logins.

"It was very carefully designed and showed the degree to which they understood which of our staff was working on Iran issues now that the nuclear deal is done," a senior official noted. "It was subtle."

Adele's latest album, '25,' is available via Pandora, despite the artist and label specifically keeping it away from streaming services.

By early reports, '25' is the fastest selling album of all-time, beating out NSYNC's 15-year-old 'No Strings Attached' and that figure is certainly notable given that Adele and her label have kept the album away from Spotify and other popular streaming services.

Because Pandora is a radio service, the labels had not say in what songs can or cannot be streamed via the service. Of course, you cannot choose what you hear via Pandora, only the genre or playlists or the artists you'd like to hear, but you cannot choose the specific tracks.

"This is a unique situation to the US market," added Benny Tarantini, PR head for Adele. "As it turns out, Pandora is licensed through government statute in the US, and as a result record companies cannot withhold from webmaster radio services."

Giant Chinese smartphone OEM Xiaomi has launched their first all-metal devices this week, the Redmi Note 3 and the Mi Pad 2.

The Note has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, runs on the MIUI 7 operating system and is powered by a MediaTek Helio X10 processor and 2GB RAM. The phone has dual cameras (13MP/5MP), has dual-SIM support, 16GB or 32GB of internal storage and a huge 4000 mAh battery. Additionally, the phone has a fingerprint scanner.

For the 16GB model, Xiaomi has priced the device at RMB 899 ($140) and the 32GB model with 3GB RAM will set you back RMB 1,099 ($172).

Second, the company revealed their 7.9-inch Mi Pad 2 tablet, a device which promises to be much thinner and lighter than its predecessor at 6.95mm and 322g.

The Mi Pad 2 has an Intel Atom quad-core 2.24GHz processor and 2GB RAM to power the 2048×1536 pixel display. The device has a gigantic 6,190mAh battery, dual cameras, and a USB-C port. Interestingly, the device has a reading mode that specifically cuts down on blue light to avoid eye strain.

Priced to perfection, the 16GB model will sell for RMB 999 ($156) and the 64GB version will cost RMB 1,299 ($203).

Both devices go on sale in China on November 27th, but don't expect them in the U.S.

Earlier this month, T-Mobile announced "Binge On," a feature that will allow you to stream movies and TV from services like Netflix and Hulu without touching your monthly data. The only catch is you need to reduce your video quality to 480p, for all video, even when you aren't streaming.

Now, as an incentive to get you to opt-in, T-Mobile is offering 3 months of free unlimited LTE if you sign up for Binge On. If you opt-in, your unlimited data will be turned on December 1st, at no extra charge.

If you opt-out of Binge On, the LTE promo disappears, as well, T-Mobile notes. If you don't want to have your video at lower quality, T-Mobile offers unlimited LTE with 14GB of tethering for $90 a month.

According to new reports, Apple is looking to launch Apple Pay in China by February.

The company has inked deals with China's four largest state-run banks, suggesting that Apple Pay users can hook up the mobile payments service to their local bank accounts.

It is unclear what cut Apple will get for the service in China. In the U.S., it gets 0.15% of all credit card transactions and 0.5 cents per debit card transaction. When those numbers are extrapolated to millions or billions of transactions in China, the revenue could become significant.

Apple pay works for the iPhone 6 and 6S using NFC tech and has been very popular in the U.S. since launch.

Adele's new album '25' is poised to become the top selling record of all-time thanks to strong digital downloads.

The album looks ready to sell at least 2.5 million copies in its first week, meaning it will beat NSYNC's current record of 2.42 million. Their album "No Strings Attached" was released in 2000.

On iTunes, '25' had 900,000 copies sold on its first day, a record for the service.

One big reason for the high sales is the fact that Adele has denied legal streaming music services of the album, and the artist's record label appears to be on top of taking down pirated copies on warez sites and YouTube relatively quickly.

Square has begun rolling out its new, updated mobile payment readers to local businesses around the U.S., giving them support for chip cards and Apple Pay.

Apple and Square initially announced the new reader in June at Apple's WWDC event, and Square just went public last week so the rollout is certainly a big deal for them.

"Until now, technology like our new reader has been out of reach for local businesses," said Jesse Dorogusker, head of hardware at Square. "Now Square sellers across the country can quickly and easily accept the new forms of payment that are crossing their counter tops."

Merchants will have to pay $49 for the new reader.

Google received 15,659,212 URL takedown requests for the week of November 19th, a ridiculously high number that is almost double the requests it received for the same week last year.

For the past month, Google has received over 65 million URL takedown notices for copyright infringement and all the notices came from just 5492 copyright owners.

The most takedown notices came from 'rivendell,' 'Degban,' and the BPI, who combined for about 30 million.

As always, the Google transparency report is a great read and worth checking out: Google

Amazon has announced a new free cloud software program called Amazon Storywriter aimed at screenwriters.

The hope for Amazon is that writers will help the company expand its own original video content, including movies and TV series. Amazon will also allow WGA members to upload directly to the site moving forward, and Amazon will also allow drama series submissions.

Until now, Amazon Studio had taken scripts for feature films, primetime comedy series, and series for kids under 14.

Any screenwriter will now be paid better, as well. Previously, Amazon could buy the exclusive rights to a film for $200,000 or a TV script for $55,000 and then pay $10,000 to extend that exclusivity another 18 months. Now, if Amazon wants to buy the script, "they will reach out and offer a paid option that matches or exceeds any applicable guild minimum, and the writer can choose to accept or reject the offer."

The free software will help new writers with styling issues by auto-formatting as you type and also supports FDX, Fountain and PDF import.

Airbnb has raised another $100 million, valuing the company at $25.5 billion and proving that not all unicorns are dead.

The company had revenue of $340 million in the third quarter, with total bookings topping $2.2 billion. Both of the numbers were year-over-year growth of 90 percent and total nights booked were 23.8 million for the quarter, up from 11.3 million year-over-year.

Airbnb makes money by taking 3% of every booking and also charges guests anywhere from 6-12%.

Despite the huge growth, the company is not likely to be profitable for some time. The home rental company said earlier this year it expects to lose $150 million, thanks in part to a strong US dollar and significant investments in marketing, R&D and growth.

Massive hotel chain Starwood has announced that the point-of-sale systems for 54 different hotels in the U.S. and Canada were hit by malware and credit card details were taken.

Starwood owns hotels such as Westin, Sheraton and W and says the affected dates are from November 2014 to October 2015. Your credit card details were likely taken if you used the hotel's restaurants or gift shops.

The company's president Sergio Rivera says there is no evidence that the company's reservation systems were affected so if you stayed at the hotel but didn't buy anything you should be fine.

Just like other companies, Starwood is offering a free year of identity protection and credit monitoring.

If you were considering switching from Android to Windows Phone, Microsoft has got you covered.

Their latest app, AppComparison, will search through your currently installed Android apps and let you know which ones will be available when you transition to Windows 10 Mobile.

If your app is compatible (and it's probably not) then Microsoft will show you comparable apps for Windows.

In addition, "the application also introduces you to some of the most popular Windows Phone applications" which includes flagships like Spotify, Netflix, and Facebook.

If you are actually looking to switch from Android to Windows 10 Mobile, you can check the free app here.

Pepsi (yes, the soda giant) has officially unveiled their Pepsi Phone P1s for China.

The device has relatively high-ends specs and will sell for just $110.

Full spec sheet:

5.5-inch (1080 x 1920 pixels) Full HD 2.5D Curved Screen display
1.7 GHz Octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor with Mali 450-MP4 GPU
2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, microSD expansion slot
Hybrid Dual SIM (second nano SIM slot can also be used as microSD slot)
dido OS 6.1 based on Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
13MP rear camera with LED Flash
5MP front-facing camera
Fingerprint sensor
Dimensions: 152.2 ×76.2×7.7 mm; Weight: 158g
4G LTE / 3G, WiFi 802.1 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
3000mAh battery

According to sources, Google is aiming to have a Chinese version of the Google Play store available in the nation next year.

The store will comply with Chinese laws for sensitive content, meaning it will be censored and not connected to the other international stores.

Google has been out of China since 2010 after they refused to censor their search results and just pulled their services.

The search giant is expected to use the Play Store as a gateway to begin offering more services in China, like Gmail or possibly YouTube.

Yahoo has infuriated a few of its email users today as it tests out a feature that will block access to your email if you are running an ad blocker.

Users trying to log in to their Yahoo email saw an error message that told them to "please disable ad blocker to continue using Yahoo Mail."

After receiving complaints, Yahoo confirmed the move. "At Yahoo, we are continually developing and testing new product experiences," Yahoo said. "This is a test we're running for a small number of Yahoo Mail users in the U.S."

It seems that ad blocking is really hurting companies that rely on ads.

In the wake of the company's bankruptcy, Rdio has announced that it will stop accepting new customers this Monday.

Additionally, all existing premium subscriptions will be cancelled at the time of your next billing date and you will stop seeing recurring payments taken from your credit/debit card.

"After your subscription ends, you can continue listening to Rdio Free (ad-supported stations on mobile or ad-supported, on-demand songs, albums, and playlists on the web) until the service goes offline," added Rdio. The service is expected to be shut down permanently within the next 90 days.

Internet radio giant Pandora acquired the talent and key tech of Rdio for $75 million following the bankruptcy announcement, so Rdio fans may want to check out Pandora.

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 now has PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility, with more games coming in the future.

"We are working on utilizing PS2 emulation technology to bring PS2 games forward to the current generation ... We have nothing further to comment at this point in time," said Sony.

As part of the new Star Wars: Battlefront PS4 bundle, gamers are able to download Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter and Star Wars Racer: Revenge and Super Star Wars, all available running in emulation.

In fact, the PS2 logo appears whenever you launch the old games and the button prompts are all mapped as if you are using a DualShock 2.

It will be very interesting to see which games are released next, but expect more bundles in the future.

According to a new report, LG has canceled their anticipated 2nd-generation Watch Urbane with LTE connectivity.

The watch's release has been suspended indefinetely "due to an unspecified hardware issue."

AndroidPolice, who was in the middle of testing the device for a review, received this email from LG: "We understand that you are currently reviewing our latest smartwatch; however, late in the quality assurance process for the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE, our engineers were made aware of a hardware issue which affects the day-to-day functionality of the device. After further investigation, the decision was made to cancel the rollout of the Urbane 2nd Edition LTE due to the complicated nature of the issue."

The device was set to be the first Android Wear watch with mobile connectivity and voice call capabilities, so this latest news is a blow to Google and Android Wear.

Activist investor Starboard Value has asked Yahoo to not sell their stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba but instead sell their core search and ad businesses, all of which are struggling.

The hedge fund has a large stake in Yahoo, and they have been trying to take Yahoo private for some time without success. Starboard says the company's "current net cash holding and the funds raised from a sale of the business could be returned to shareholders through buybacks and dividends."

Yahoo had planned to spinoff their Alibaba stake, currently worth about $30 billion, but the U.S. IRS ruled that the transaction would not be tax-free as previously suggested. If it is taxable, shareholders could pay $12 billion on the transaction, significantly killing its value.

As of writing, all of Yahoo is valued at just $31 billion.

Amazon has finally moved ahead in securing your account, adding two-factor authentication.

Other giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have been using two-factor for some time, so it's great that Amazon finally to jump on the bandwagon.

For Amazon, you want to log into your account, head over to account settings and finally to "Advanced Security Settings." In there you can set up two-factor, which will require a code sent to your phone or for you to download an Authenticator app.

For those who are interested, the Amazon FAQ page is here.

Google says that games and apps that contain ads will soon be listed in the Google Play Store with a new "ad-supported" label, making it easier to know what you are really getting when you download those "free" apps.

Until now, the label had been solely used in the 'Designed for Families' section but it will roll out to all in January.

The new label will show up right below the "install" button for the apps, making it nearly impossible to miss.

For devs, you will need to log into your Play Developer Console and check off whether the apps contain ads before January 11th to stay in compliance.

According to multiple reports out of Europe, the ISIS terrorists responsible for the recent Paris attacks were using smartphones without encryption, sending messages out in the open.

Authorities found a phone from one of the attackers in a trash can outside the Bataclan concert hall and were able to access the data on the phone including maps of the concert hall, and text messages saying "we're off; we're starting," Additionally, the police were able to trace the phone's movements for the whole day.

Alleged mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud previously had multiple plans thwarted, including one on a French-bound train and another in Belgium in January. Authorities say he did not use encryption when planning those attacks, either.

Intelligence agencies were quick to blame encryption and lack of surveillance for not being able to track the terrorists better, but that may not have been as big an issue as believed.

Two days before its official release, Adele's latest album "25" is now freely available on the Internet.

Over the past few days, there have been rumors of leaks especially after a UK record store uploaded a few minutes of each track, but the full album never made it online until now.

Regardless of the leak, '25' is expected to be one of the most purchased albums of the year. Adele is also said to have rejected streaming licenses for the album, at least for the time being, meaning if you want it legally then you will have to head over to a place that sells CD (where?) or head over to iTunes or Google Play and download them.

According to Canaccord Genuity, Apple's total share of smartphone industry profits is now up to 94 percent, even though the company only ships 14.5 percent of the world's smartphones.

Samsung had 11 percent share and the number is above 100 percent because quite a few smartphone makers report negative income every quarter.

For the last quarter, Apple shipped 48 million smartphones, good for 14.5 percent share of the global market. Samsung was estimated at 81 million, or good for 24.5 percent share.

The average selling price (ASP) for iPhones in the quarter was an incredible $670, and Apple has 39 percent margins. Samsung's ASP was $180.

Following in the footsteps of its parent company, MetroPCS has begun offering 'Music Unlimited' and 'Data Maximizer' features allowing customers to stream music without using their monthly data allotments and stream more video with the same data.

Music Unlimited gives you unlimited data access to 30 streaming services including the most popular like Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, Slacker, iHeart Radio, and Google Play Music. The 'Data Maximizer' service 'optimizes' the video being streamed to ensure you save data. The company promises you'll be able to watch up to 3x the video you were before with the same amount of data. If you opt-in to the Data Maximizer, your video will stream at 480p.

You must be a subscriber to the company's $40, $50 or $60 plans to get access to Music Unlimited and the Data Maximizer is available to all. The $40 plan includes 3GB of LTE and unlimited EDGE if you go over, the $50 plan has 5GB LTE and the $60 plan gives you 8GB.

According to a new report, Samsung is looking to integrate its high-end security features like KNOX and fingerprint sensors into their budget smartphones moving forward.

Additionally, the phones could get access to Samsung Pay, Samsung's new mobile payments service that is only available on the latest Galaxy devices.

While component costs were a big reason only high-end devices included fingerprint scanners in the past, it is clear that those prices are more than reasonable now. Chinese smartphone OEM Coolpad recently released their Coolpad Note 3 flagship with a fingerprint sensor in India for $135.

Samsung does not market their budget phones in the U.S. and other developed nations, for the most part, but the company has over majority market share in quite a few emerging markets like Turkey, Egypt, India and Portugal and continues to target those markets for growth.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden made some interesting comments during a recent interview, suggesting that everybody should be running an ad blocker, if not for the ads but just for security's sake.

Says Snowden: "We've seen internet providers like Comcast, AT&T, or whoever it is, insert their own ads into your plaintext http connections. ... As long as service providers are serving ads with active content that require the use of Javascript to display, that have some kind of active content like Flash embedded in it, anything that can be a vector for attack in your web browser -- you should be actively trying to block these. Because if the service provider is not working to protect the sanctity of the relationship between reader and publisher, you have not just a right but a duty to take every effort to protect yourself in response."

His point adds to recent headlines for these "malvertising" attacks where ad networks host files that are disguised as advertisements, and unwittingly put their viewers at risk.

Snowden is not the only person using ad blockers and their popularity has surged tremendously over the past few years. In fact, some reports have users jumping 41 percent year over year to over 200 million.

The operator of the defunct RockDizMusic music piracy site has been sentenced to three years in prison.

U.S. authorities had accused 23-year-old Rocky Ouprasith of running the site that allegedly infringed thousands of copyrighted tracks. Ouprasith will also have to pay near $100,000 in fines and restitution.

Ouprasith pleaded guilty to infringing the copyrighted music that had a total value of $7 million between 2011 and 2014 when authorities shut down the site. The site owner was making about $4000 a month in advertising, and in a Skype chat message he wrote that the site brought in about $80,000 revenue in 2013, alone.

In an effort avoid getting caught, Ouprasith used servers in Russia and The Netherlands. At the time the site was shut down, the RIAA claimed it was the second largest music piracy site in the U.S. The site offered thousands of singles, albums and mixtapes for download.

Swiss watchmaker Movado has unveiled new smartwatches today, both of which have classic Movado style and some basic smart features.

What's interesting about the devices is that they both have analog displays (meaning no touchscreens), and can connect via Bluetooth to Android 4.4 or newer or iOS 8 or newer devices.

The Movado Museum Sport Motion "is a fine Swiss watch of simple, modern design. Inside it uses patented MotionX® smartwatch technology to track your daily steps and sleep patterns, and deliver "get active" alerts. Movado Motion is easy to set-up and sync with your paired smartphone or tablet, Android 4.4.3 or later, or iOS 8 or later, when you download and install the MotionX-365 app. It features automatic local time/date sync, and the battery has a 2-year life and never needs recharging."

Movado's BOLD Motion "has Bluetooth connectivity, engineered by HP, Android and iOS compatible, 44 mm stainless steel case with black PVD-finished bezel, round black dial with teal LED indicators; haptic phone call, appointment, email, text message, social media alerts; recharger for smart module; black silicone strap with stainless steel buckle."

From a design standpoint, this author is a fan of Movado and likes these watches, but it's hard to really see a huge need for the "smart" features of the watches.

Microsoft and Code.org have announced a partnership in which Minecraft will be used to teach kids the basics of programming.

The 14-level tutorial is available for free and it will look like the classic Minecraft game except that you will need to use programming principles to play and move ahead.

Code.org's co-founder Hadi Partovi explained that the tutorial is part of the site's 'Hour of Code' event that tries to get as many kids as possible to try coding for one hour at least once per year. "The goal of one hour is to teach you that this is something that you can do and it's more fun than you thought. Frankly, it's to hook you to want to learn more," Partovi said. "The stereotypes you hear in pop culture make people think this is just for one group. We want to break those stereotypes, demystify the field and break the barrier of intimidation and show this is fun."

Over 60 million students tried it out last year, and this year's event is on December 7th.

The hacktivist collective better known as 'Anonymous' has declared war on ISIS following the Paris terrorist attacks.

Posting on YouTube, the collective says the terrorist attacks will not "go unpunished" and that anyone who supports the extremist group can expect cyber attacks.

"That's why Anonymous activists from all over the world will hunt you down. Yes, you, the vermin who kill innocent victims, we will hunt you down like we did to those who carried out the attacks on Charlie Hebdo," says the video. "War is declared. Prepare yourselves. Know this, the French people are stronger than you and will come out of this atrocity even stronger."

After the Charlie Hebdo attack, Anonymous was key in getting 25,000 ISIS-supporting Twitter accounts kicked off the service and the group also took down a French site that was full of extremists.

It has been suggested today, although unconfirmed, that the ISIS terrorists could have used game consoles to hide their messages and plan the Paris attacks that have killed 132 innocent people.

According to sources, police seized at least one PlayStation 4 following their raids in Belgium yesterday.

Both French and American officials say the terrorists used encryption and other sophisticated methods to plan the coordinated bombings and shootings.

While it is unfair to lump popular consoles in with terrorists, reports have brought up some interesting and scary methods in which people could have communicated secretly. Besides the PlayStation's online chat messaging and voice call capabilities, "it has been suggested for example terrorists could spell out an attack plan in Super Mario Maker's coins and share it privately with a friend, or two Call of Duty players could write messages to each other on a wall in a disappearing spray of bullets."

This is not the first time it has been implied that video game communities could be used by criminals to communicate secretly. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden showed documents that the NSA and the UK equivalent, GCHQ, were both infiltrating communities like 'Second Life' and 'World of Warcraft' to monitor messages.

Rdio, the music streaming service that was once valued as high as $500 million, has filed for bankruptcy and will be shutting down soon.

Internet radio giant Pandora has picked up the pieces of the company, acquiring "key" assets for $75 million. Pandora says many of Rdio's employees will be offered a position at Pandora and the company "expects to offer an expanded Pandora listening experience by late 2016, pending its ability to obtain proper licenses."

The deal is pending Rdio's ability to get bankruptcy protection from creditors, and if so, then Rdio will begin to "wind down" all Rdio-branded services. In fact, Pandora is not buying the Rdio name or its operating business but just its talent and technology so once this deal clears Rdio will be gone for good.

"The Rdio team built an acclaimed product and technology platform that has consistently led innovation in the young streaming industry. I'm pleased that many members of the Rdio team will continue to shape the future of streaming music, applying our tradition of great design and innovative engineering on an even larger stage with Pandora," added Anthony Bay, chief executive officer of Rdio.

Just months after Nintendo announced that the game would be delayed, we have an official release date for Star Fox Zero for Wii U.

Nintendo says the game will be available April 22nd, 2016 but there was no word as to why it was delayed in the first place. The initial release date was said to be this month, but it appears the company needed an extra six months for development.

The company released a new trailer, as well, and the graphics still look pretty sub-par, even for Wii U, but there is hope that that can be improved by the time the game launches.

Additionally, the company showed off the Gamepad support, allowing gamers to use the accessory for aiming while the TV shows off a more "cinematic experience." It seems strange to make the large screen cinematic while you are stuck staring down at a tablet to aim.

Thanks to 'Halo 5: Guardians,' the Microsoft Xbox One was able to overtake the Sony PlayStation 4 in sales last month.

According to The NPD Group, Halo 5 was the best selling video game of the month, as well.

Microsoft marketing head Mike Nichols proudly boasted the numbers, as well: "The strength of the greatest games lineup in Xbox history drove record Xbox Live usage for October and made Xbox One the best-selling console in the U.S. with 81 percent growth compared to October 2014. We saw amazing fan excitement, commercial success and critical acclaim in October for Halo 5: Guardians, which was the best-selling game in the U.S., and other Xbox One titles launching earlier this fall, including Forza Motorsport 6, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Harmonix's Rock Band 4, and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Syndicate."

This is only the second time this year that Microsoft outsold Sony (they did it in April) and overall the company is pretty far behind in total sales since launch but it's not inconceivable to see Microsoft start winning more months especially if more exclusives are upcoming.

According to developer Bethesda and retailers, 'Fallout 4' a global smash hit, selling 12 million units around the world in just 72 hours.

The post-apocalyptic RPG series has always been popular but it has never seen sales like this, which some retailers have called "record sales" for a game. The game has brought in $750 million in revenue since its launch on the 10th.

It's unclear if Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition and Fallout 4 bundles have been included in the figures, but we will assume that they were.

With the strong sales, Fallout 4 beat Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Halo 5, and it also set the record for most concurrent players on Steam beating out the aforementioned hits.

Vizio's smart TVs are tracking your viewing habits and sharing it with advertisers - and you probably don't even know it's happening.

Dubbed "Smart Interactivity," the tracking method is turned on by default for over 10 million smart TVs the company has sold in the past few years.

Vizio confirms this is true, saying in a statement that "customers'non-personal identifiable information may be shared with select partners ... to permit these companies to make, for example, better-informed decisions regarding content production, programming and advertising."

That's just the beginning, however. After the company tracks what you view, it records your IP address and then works with data brokers to connect the IP address to other personal information such as age and gender and even income. This profile is then passed on to advertisers who may target ads to your PC or smartphone.

During a recent earnings conference call, Vizio specifically noted its ability to provide "highly specific viewing behavior data on a massive scale with great accuracy." Luckily, not all is lost as users can choose to opt-out of the tracking but if you are buying a Vizio smart TV you may want to think about who's watching.

Mozilla has announced the launch of Firefox OS 2.5 Developer Preview for Android, an experimental build aimed at devs.

The open-source giant says there are a couple of interesting features integrated into the alpha build:

Add-ons: Just like the add-ons we've come to love in desktop browsers, Firefox OS add-ons can extend just one app, several, or all of them, including the system app itself.
Private Browsing with Tracking Protection: A new Firefox privacy feature, Tracking Protection allows users to control how their browsing activity is tracked across many sites.
Pin the Web: Pin the Web removes the artificial distinction between web apps and websites and lets you pin any website or webpage to your home screen for later usage.

The Developer Preview is an app that lets you run and test out the Firefox OS as a home screen on your Android device without needing to flash the operating system over your existing Android OS.

Google has announced offline support for the popular Google Maps navigation app on Android.

The new update will allow users to cache their trips or entire areas while connected to Wi-Fi and users can later pull up their routes using a basic version of navigations that does not include live traffic.

"You can download an area by searching for a city, county or country, for instance, and tapping "Download" on the resulting place sheet, or by going to "Offline Areas" in the Google Maps menu and tapping on the "+" button. Once downloaded, Google Maps will move into offline mode automatically when it recognizes you're in a location with spotty service or no connectivity at all. When a connection is found, it will switch back online so you can easily access the full version of Maps, including live traffic conditions for your current route. By default, we'll only download areas to your device when you are on a Wi-Fi connection to prevent large data fees," reads Google's post.

Available now for Android, Google says an iOS release is coming soon, as well.

Earlier this week, Swiss watchmaker Fossil announced the acquisition of fitness wearable startup Misfit for $260 million.

The deal is expected to close by year's end, and co-founder and CEO Sonny Vu will remain with the company to serve as president and CTO of connected services for Fossil Group.

Fossil says it plans to incorporate the Misfit tech into traditional looking watches, and that it will continue to produce Misfit products into the future with the Misfit brand name.

Misfit had raised over $64 million from venture capitalists over the past two years before its acquisition.

According to security researchers Eric Taylor and Blake Welsh, over 10 million MetroPCS subscribers were vulnerable to having their personal information stolen via a flaw in the site's payment page.

Anyone with some know-how and your phone number could have accessed your home address, MetroPCS plan and your phone's serial number.

The flaw brought back memories of 2010 when developer 'Weev' was able to harvest 114,000 iPad user email addresses from a vulnerability in AT&T's website.

Motherboard tested out the flaw before MetroPCS fixed the bug and well before they posted the report. Says the article: "When I tested the flaw, I asked a friend if I could use her as a guinea pig. All I needed to find out her data was use a Firefox plugin to send an HTTP request to MetroPCS' website using her phone number. Once I did that, I saw her full name, home address, the model and serial number of her phone, as well as how much she was paying a month for her subscription. My friend confirmed that the data was accurate."

Most scary was the fact that hackers could have potentially used the information to "clone" the victim's phones and intercept all messages.

Early users of the new Apple iPad Pro have reported that the giant tablet has a USB 3.0-compatible Lightning connector, a fact that Apple has strangely kept relatively quiet about.

All existing Apple devices use the old USB 2.0 standard which allows for data transfer speeds up to 480Mbits while USB 3.0 allows for speeds up to 6Gigabits. Having the faster speeds is ideal to the iPad Pro's target market: graphic designers and video editors who work with very large files.

There is, of course, a large caveat. Apple has not yet begun selling a Lightning-to-USB 3.0 adapter, so you are stuck with your default transfer cables for the time being.

The Turkish government has blocked access to Reddit, once again bringing harsh censorship in the nation.

All the government had to say was "After technical analysis and legal consideration ... administration measure has been taken for this website."

In Turkey, the government uses a controversial censorship law to shut down websites and services across the nation. Internet Law No. 5651 can be evoked without court authorization and has been used in the past to block access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Getting more technical, the site is banned at the DNS level, say experts, meaning if you truly miss Reddit that much you can try to get around the ban using a foreign DNS service.

According to new reports, Verizon will bring back activation fees on November 15th, a fee that many thought was gone forever when T-Mobile started their war on the industry.

Verizon will charge $20 for all customers adding a new line of service, at least if you go on a payment plan but it is unclear if the fee still applies if you are bringing your own device to the carrier.

The carrier actually ended their activation fee, which was formerly $40, this summer when it ended two-year contracts.

Ever since rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z acquired high fidelity music streaming platform Tidal this year, there have been questions about whether the service can compete against heavy hitters like Spotify, Apple, and Google.

It appears that a few major executives from the company also agree with those questions.

CIO Vania Schlogel left the company over the summer, after leading the company's search for investments and heading PR, as well. Schlogel is the third high level executive to leave since Jay-Z's purchase, following former CEO Andy Chen and Chen's replacement Peter Tonstad.

Despite star-studded co-owners like Madonna, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, Daft Punk, Rihanna and Jack White, most industry insiders see little chance of the company lasting another year.

UK carrier EE has announced a deal to add 25 channels to its new TV service, which will still cost just £4.99 a month.

Among the new channels include offerings from Discovery, National Geographic, Sony, Cartoon Network and UKTV channels like Alibi and Gold.

"EE TV customers have always loved being able to pick and choose premium channels without the commitment of a fixed contract or a hefty monthly fee," said Simeon Bird, director of EE Broadband and TV. "It's a great addition to EE TV's On Demand section, which already contains a huge range of movies, entertainment, music, kids and international content."

EE TV has all of Freeview's 64 TV channels, and also gives the option to subscribe to Sky Sports and Sky Movies.

A big part of your childhood is coming back.

Nintendo announced last night that the original Pokemon games; Red, Blue and Yellow will be headed to the Nintendo 3DS handheld.

The games will be exactly like the originals except that they will online functionality so you can trade Pokes or battle with friends without needing a physical cable link like you needed back in the 90s.

There was little else said, but we should know more about pricing and availability soon.

Apple has announced today that Beats Music will officially shut down on November 30th.

"Beats Music ends on November 30. Your subscription will be canceled, but you can move your picks and preferences over to Apple Music right now.

All the pros that curated music for you are still crafting more amazing experiences. Plus, on Apple Music, you'll get even better recommendations based on music you already listen to and love, 24/7 global radio with Beats 1, exciting material from your favorite artist, and more," says the company.

Apple Music costs $9.99 per month and gives you access to millions of tracks, curated playlists and Beats 1 radio.

According to a new report, Hulu is looking to sell a stake to Time Warner that will value the company at $5 billion and bring a ton of new content to the service.

If accurate, Time Warner would become an equal shareholder with Disney, Fox, and Comcast (NBC), each of which would bring their stakes down to 25 percent from the current 33.3 percent.

Time Warner, who owns HBO, Warner Bros., TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network and more, would add content to Hulu that would also have the double positive of taking content away from rivals like Netflix.

Hulu has been aggressively expanding their content catalog this year, outlaying over $1 billion to bring in a deal with Epix and an increasing amount of original content.

Massive taxi-hailing startup Uber has signed a new deal with navigation pioneer TomTom to use the company's digital maps and traffic data within its smartphone apps.

Uber says the new deal will not affect current traffic information it uses, which includes Google Maps and Apple Maps, but will compliment existing tech.

The app has been looking to bolster its digital maps and traffic info for some time and was an active bidder for Nokia's HERE maps service before it was eventually sold to a group of German carmakers for $2.7 billion.

Mozilla has taken its Firefox for iOS browser out of beta, making it available to all.

The company launched a public beta of the software in September and has been fixing bugs based off feedback ever since.

While Firefox is popular for desktop (by most accounts it is the #3 browser on the planet), it has some major competition in the mobile space. Apple pre-installs Safari on their iOS devices, Google's Chrome is incredibly popular, and other competitors like Opera also have market share due to interesting features like data compression and faster speeds.

If you are a Firefox desktop user, you can bring over all your bookmarks, history, saved tabs and more.

You must have iOS 8.2 or newer installed to use the app, which is available here.

Sony has announced today that the PlayStation Vue Internet TV service is now available via Amazon devices.

As of today, the service is available through the Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick and Sony promises that Google's Chromecast will soon get in on the action.

Says Sony: "You can access PlayStation Vue on Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV Stick using your existing PlayStation Vue account...from there, you can select individual channels from PlayStation Vue's nationwide offerings, such as SHOWTIME and Fox Soccer Plus, or purchase multi-channel packages available in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco Bay Area, and Miami TV markets."

In addition, Amazon is offering a free Fire TV Stick for new users who sign up for PlayStation Vue Core or Elite subscriptions and pay one month. The Core package costs $54.99 per month and the Elite is $64.99.

Google has announced today that Android Wear now supports cellular connections, expanding the existing Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support.

"No more worrying about Bluetooth or Wi-Fi--your watch will automatically switch to a cellular connection when you're out of range. As long as your watch and phone are connected to a cellular network, you'll be able to use your watch to send and receive messages, track fitness, get answers from Google, and run your favorite apps. And yes, you'll even be able to make and take calls right from your watch, for when your hands are full, or your phone is elsewhere," says Google.

The first device that will include cellular support is the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE (that's a mouthful) with a few more expected for the coming months. The Urbane 2 will be available through AT&T and Verizon.

Sony has announced their first batch of 4K (UHD) Blu-ray discs, although they are unlikely to make you upgrade in the near future.

The films don't have a set release date but are expected to be available in the Q1 2016. In addition to being built for your 4K-capable TV, the UHD titles will also support HDR for brighter and sharper picture.

Included in Sony's random first batch of films are The Amazing Spiderman 2; Chappie; Hancock; Pineapple Express; Salt and The Smurfs 2.

While most of the films have their fair share of fans, there is very little incentive to upgrade past your current DVD, Blu-ray or digital copy of most of these films. Luckily, Sony has announced more titles for the future, although most will not be worth upgrading to either.

In 2016, you can expect Fury, Captain Phillips, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Men In Black, Ghostbusters, The Fifth Element, Bad Boys, The Da Vinci Code, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Leon: The Professional, Lawrence Of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Guns of Navarone, Taxi Driver, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Third-party Instagram client 'InstaAgent' has been removed from both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store after it was discovered it was stealing passwords and posting photos without permission.

The app was found to be storing your Instagram username and password in unencrypted text, and the app was then sending the details to an unknown server.

InstaAgent was popular as it promised to let you see "who viewed your profile," a feature that is not included in the official app.

The app had over 100,000 downloads from the iOS App Store alone, so there is a good chance that hundreds of thousands of accounts have been compromised. If you ever used the app, it stands to reason that you should be changing your password before finishing this article.

Source:

"Who Viewed Your Profile" #Instaagent will send your Instagram Username and Password to an unknown server! pic.twitter.com/8uZJljJdtO

-- David L-R (@PeppersoftDev) November 10, 2015

Google has announced today that it will end support for the Chrome browser for many older operating systems in April 2016.

Windows XP and Vista users, as well as OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, OS X 10.7 Lion, and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion users will lose security updates and other support at that time.

Why the end of support? "Such older platforms are missing critical security updates and have a greater potential to be infected by viruses and malware," says Google, which is obviously true. Additionally, Google notes that "these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft and Apple" which makes them even more vulnerable.

Google had initially stated they would end support for XP and Vista in April 2015 but has since delayed that move as it's clear that there are still millions of users on the old platforms.

Apple has released the beta version of Apple Music for Android this week, the first true user app Apple has created for the operating system.

In reality, the app is the third from Apple for Android but the first was an app to help users migrate to iOS and the second was a controller for their Beats hardware.

"We've obviously been really excited about the response we've gotten to Apple Music. People love the human curation aspects of it, discovery, radio," said Apple SVP Eddy Cue. "But from the moment we got into music, many, many years ago, we've always wanted to do things for everyone when it came down to music. Part of that was letting you enjoy your music no matter where you were and what products you were using."

Of course, that is a nice way of saying that Apple was tired of missing out on 1 billion Android users who can add to profits, but it will also help consumers who have moved from Apple to Android and don't want to lose their existing service (you can keep your Apple ID and downloaded music).

Apple Music for Android comes with a 3-month free trial, costs the same as its iOS counterpart afterward, and requires Android 4.3 or newer.

T-Mobile US has announced this week that many of their subscribers will soon be able to stream unlimited video without worrying about it counting towards their data caps.

"Video streams free," T-Mobile CEO John Legere said Tuesday. "Binge on. Start watching your shows, stop watching your data."

The deal applies to anyone who pays for at least 3GB of data per month and at launch the company has included 24 popular streaming services. Notably missing are YouTube and Facebook, but included are most of the biggest services in the world like Netflix, Hulu, Watch ESPN and HBO Go/Now.

As part of the new "Binge On" service, there is one huge caveat. If you enable it, T-Mobile will degrade the video quality from 1080p in many cases to "DVD quality" aka 480p.

Regardless, T-Mobile continues to make its service chock full of interesting and consumer-friendly features that other carriers have scrambled to add after the fact.

According to new reports, Pandora is preparing to expand internationally and has already tried to acquire rights to play songs outside of the U.S.

The company has targeted the UK as an important expansion point, and the entire move makes sense as Pandora has struggled recently with growth in the U.S.

Pandora's stock has fallen nearly 50 percent since September, following reports that rivals were taking major market share and over the costs of a legal settlement with the RIAA over royalties for tracks written before 1972. The settlement, as well as a deal to stop seeking lower royalty rates, seems to be working for Pandora as the major record labels finally seem open to working with them, a key motion for any type of expansion.

Any future plans, however, are likely on hold until the end of the year when the Copyright Royalty Board sets new rates. It is rumored that the RIAA wants Pandora to pay 78 percent of their entire revenue in royalties, compared to the current 44 percent they do now.

Microsoft has announced that over 100 Xbox 360 games will soon be available to play via your Xbox One - the start of their "Xbox One Backward Compatibility" platform.

The software giant also says more games will be announced on a "regular basis" starting next month. If you already own the digital copy of the games, you will see them start to download to your HDD on the 12th if you want them.

This week, Swiss luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer unveiled their first smartwatch, the Connected Watch.

The watch was built in partnership with Google and Intel and will run on Android Wear with custom TAG watch faces and features like restaurant recommendations and golf trackers.

For fans of design, the Connected Watch is easily one of the nicest looking smartwatches ever, based on the classic Carrera model. The case and buckle are made of titanium in Switzerland, and TAG is offering 7 different vulcanized rubber straps to match the buckle. The face is relatively large, at 46mm, and the watch is not thin either at nearly 13mm thick.

Everything under the hood is standard and well known to smartwatch fans or owners, but the Connected Watch is missing a speaker and GPS. The company promises 30 hour battery life, but it will interesting to see real world tests.

TAG's watch is available now and sells for $1500 retail.

Comcast has reset over 200,000 customer passwords after a Dark Web marketplace seller began offering a purported 590,000 Comcast email addresses and their passwords, in plain text.

The seller was offering 100,000 accounts for $300 or the whole list for $1000.

It appears that Comcast was the only buyer of the list, and their security team found 200,000 of the accounts were active, leading to the mass reset.

Comcast says their systems and apps have not been compromised so it remains unclear on how the list came to be. Most likely, the list was recycled from other data breaches and combined.

Even though it hasn't really been producing Betamax or MicroMV items since at least 2002, Sony has finally and officially killed off the two brands.

Sony was still selling minimal amounts of Beta and MicroMV cassettes, but sales will cease in March of next year.

For those of you who remember, VHS beat out Betamax back in the late 70s and early 80s to become the dominant media until the advent of the DVD in the 90s.

Apple has confirmed that its massive 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro tablet will go on sale online this Wednesday, November 11th.

The company also noted that it will be available in stores later in the week alongside the new Apple Smart Keyboard and the Apple Pencil.

"The early response to iPad Pro from app developers and our customers has been incredible, and we're excited to get iPad Pro into the hands of customers around the world this week," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "iPad Pro is the most powerful iPad we've ever made, giving users the ability to be even more creative and more productive with the epic 12.9-inch Retina display, powerful 64-bit A9X chip and groundbreaking Apple Pencil and new Smart Keyboard. We can't wait to see what they do with iPad Pro."

iPad Pro measures 12" x 8.68" x 0.27" (305.7mm x 220.6mm x 6.9mm) dominated by a 12.9‑inch Retina display with a resolution of 2732 x 2048 (264ppi). It weighs 1.57lb (713 grams) for the Wi-Fi only model, and slightly heavier at 1.59lb (723 grams) for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.

Snapchat has announced that its videos and snaps are being viewed 6 billion times per day, up from 2 billion just six months ago.

While the numbers are certainly large, there is some question as to how the numbers are skewed. Rivals such as Facebook, won't count a video view until it's been played for three seconds and Google's YouTube counts usage in hours, not views. Snapchat counts a view whenever a video is played, even for a few milliseconds. And all videos are just seconds long.

Regardless, Snapchat is definitely being validated for its flurry of new features, including Stories and the ability to replay, rewind and more.

Sony has announced that their Internet TV-powered PlayStation Vue subscription service will be adding Disney products like ESPN, The Disney Channel and local ABC affiliate channels.

In total, the service will get 18 channels which will join local NBC, Fox and CBS affiliates and a number of cable channels from popular media providers totaling 110 total channels.

Vue is available in just a handful of metros, and costs $50 per month to start, but it remains unclear whether Disney's additions will raise the price of the service.

The service is compatible with the PS3 and PS4 as well as on iOS devices that have downloaded the PlayStation Vue mobile app.

Full list of new channels: ABC local affiliate, ABC Family (becoming Freeform in January), Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Disney XD, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN College Extra, ESPNU, ESPNEWS, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Classic, ESPN Goal Line, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN Bases Loaded, Fusion, Longhorn Network, SEC-ESPN Network.

Verizon has confirmed this weekend that they too will carry the BlackBerry Priv slider, joining AT&T among the major U.S. carriers.

Unfortunately for fans, Verizon did not give a time frame for release except to say it's "coming soon." The news is somewhat surprising as BlackBerry had originally said it would be a GSM-only device.

BlackBerry's first Android phone has a curved 5.4-inch QHD display, is powered by a Snapdragon 808 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (expandable to 2TB), dual 2MP/18MP cameras, a large 3410 mAh battery and a full physical keyboard.

According to new data from research firm Slice Intelligence, only men appear to be buying the new Apple TV set-top.

Slice uses email receipts from millions of consumers to gather data, and during the device's first week of availability over 90 percent of Apple TV buyers were males, mostly between the ages of 35 and 44.

Interestingly, sales were high enough to push Apple to the top of the streaming set-top hardware market, beating out Amazon.

Between all four generations, the Apple TV now has 31 percent share, ahead of Amazon at 27.5 percent and Roku at 25.3 percent.

See some more interesting figures here: Slice Intelligence

AMD has been sued for allegedly misleading customers about how many cores were contained in their Bulldozer processors.

The class action suit claims that while the Bulldozer line was advertised widely as having 8 cores, it really only had four functional cores.

At the core of the issue (no pun intended) is how AMD designs their multi-core Bulldozer chips. The company uses "modules" that combine the functions of two discrete cores into a single package. Windows counts each module as separate cores, but they share a single FPU.

The suit claims that since the cores cannot work independently, this results in performance degradation and the average consumer will not understand the difference between modules and independent cores. By advertising 8 cores and not "conveying accurate specifications," thousands of consumers were duped into believing their Bulldozer CPU could perform like a true octa-core processor, added the suit.

AMD is facing damages (statutory and punitive), litigation expenses and possible injunctions on the CPUs.

Tencent, China's largest social network and online gaming company, has announced new deals with Hollywood that will give the company distribution rights for James Bond and Star Trek in the nation.

In the first deal, with Paramount Pictures, Tencent will become the exclusive online distributor in China for the studio's future feature films including 'Star Trek Beyond.'

The second deal, with MGM, will give the company rights in China for the James Bond franchise including the newly released 'Spectre."

Paramount's distribution deal will begin in April, and will be good for 12 months. Another expected blockbuster is the sequel to Tom Cruise's 'Jack Reacher.' It's unclear how long the MGM deal is for, but both agreements include on-demand PPV and subscription video on demand.

E-commerce giant Alibaba will buy Chinese online video provider Youku Tudou, following months of speculation and an initial offer from Baba in October.

Alibaba already owned a fifth of the company, and will pay $27.60 per share in cash for the company.

Youku CEO Victor Koo says he will continue to lead the company and its operations after the deal closes.

"We are confident that we will strengthen our market position and further accelerate our growth through the integration of our advertising and consumer businesses with Alibaba's platform and Alipay services," added Koo.

Google has purchased Fly Labs, the company behind the popular Clips, Fly, Tempo and Crop on the Fly video editing apps for iOS.

The app maker says current employees will be integrated into the Google Photos team, suggesting at the very least that the search giant is considering adding some video editing features to its cloud-based photo service.

Fly Labs say their apps were downloaded over 3 million times and over 20 million videos were created using the tools. At the end of 90 days from the acquisition, Google will be pulling the apps from the Apple App Store.

Fans of Warcraft now have the first trailer for the upcoming live-action Duncan Jones-directed film based on the franchise.

In the trailer we see orcs fleeing their dying world, en route to the human world.

The movie is scheduled for release in June 2016.

Google has released its updated platform numbers for the end of October, with Android Marshmallow making its first appearance following the launch of the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X.

In addition to the new Nexus phones, the Nexus 6 also got the update to Marshmallow, which is officially 6.0.

KitKat (4.4) and Lollipop (5.0/5.1) remained the big winners, at 37.8 percent and 25.6 percent respectively, but quite a few older versions still have respectable numbers. Google's ultimate goal is to have everyone using the same operating system, but there are too many older phones out there that aren't upgradeable.

Check the full numbers here.

According to new reports, Google has begun thinking about co-developing Android chips from their own designs and the company may begin looking for a partner in the near future.

In doing so, Google will match Apple who uses their own A-series chip set in their iPhones and iPads to ensure a consistent experience across their ecosystem.

For the most part, Android phones are powered by Qualcomm or Samsung chips, so Google would most likely have to develop the new chips with one of them to be able to build at the volume and scale necessary.

The report also speculates that the chips could first be tested with next-generation Nexus flagship devices, before making their way to other OEMs.

The BBC has launched the BBC Store this week, a digital service allowing consumers to buy and download their favorite programs.

Over 30 years of select BBC programming will be available and anything bought from the BBC Store will be playable via the BBC iPlayer.

Additionally, you can search and buy directly through the BBC iPlayer, as well, giving you the option to download a legacy catalog and stream new content too.

"Of course, BBC Store will feature current BBC favourites including Doctor Who, Sherlock, Top Gear and David Attenborough's natural history programmes as well as recent hits like Poldark and The Fall and children's favourites like Sarah & Duck," adds the company.

In relatively shocking news, research firm Strategy Analytics has said today that Samsung's fledgling Tizen OS has surpassed BlackBerry in global market share.

After years of delays, Samsung finally launched Tizen this year on commercial devices, including two smartphones, the Gear S2 smartwatch and some TV.

Says the company: "According to the latest published report from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) services: Global Smartphone OS Market Share by Region : Q3 2015, Android registered a slight year-on-year increase in marketshare, while Apple gained traction, driven by strong demand for new iPhone models. Microsoft, BlackBerry and Firefox drifted down, while Tizen posted tangible growth and overtook BlackBerry being the fourth largest OS platform for the first time ever." The actual figures are behind a paywall, but it's hard to imagine that Tizen has market share above 2 percent, meaning BlackBerry has fallen very, very far.

Source:
Strategy Analytics

The MPAA has confirmed this week that they were responsible for the shutdown of scene release group YIFY and its parent site YTS following lawsuits against Popcorn Time devs.

The studios that back the MPAA sued three Popcorn Time developers in Canada, leading to the shutdown of the service's main fork at popcorntime.io in late October. There had been rumors that internal strife between the founding team over whether or not some features would bring a lawsuit and those rumors were true.

It turns out that the MPAA obtained an injunction on October 16th for the Popcorntime.io site. The lawsuit accuses the devs of copyright infringement and also names the service's VPN provider, VPN.ht. At the same time, the MPAA was threatening a multi-million lawsuit against the alleged operator of YTS, who lives in New Zealand.

"This coordinated legal action is part of a larger comprehensive approach being taken by the MPAA and its international affiliates to combat content theft," MPAA head Chris Dodd touted. "Popcorn Time and YTS are illegal platforms that exist for one clear reason: to distribute stolen copies of the latest motion picture and television shows without compensating the people who worked so hard to make them."

Konami has confirmed the closure of Kojima Productions LA, with 35 people losing their jobs.

The publisher did note that it will still continue to support Metal Gear Online mode for Phantom Pain, which had been the main reason that Kojima LA was still open.

"Konami has made the decision to close its Los Angeles Studio, effective immediately, due to the product development resources being restructured into a more centralized unit. This facility contributed to the recent Metal Gear Solid games. Konami will continue its operations to support all Metal Gear Solid titles, including the recently launched Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and Metal Gear Online. Metal Gear Online is still scheduled to release for PC Steam in January 2016," added the publisher.

The latest move is just the next step in an escalating feud between Konami and legendary developer Hideo Kojima in which the new Silent Hill sequel was canceled and Kojima was allegedly fired during the development of Metal Gear.

Activision has acquired 'Candy Crush' maker King Digital Entertainment for $5.9 billion, betting large on the casual mobile gaming market.

The selling price was $18 per share, way below the price King priced at last year went it went public, rough for most investors but still at a price much higher than what shares traded at earlier this week.

Candy Crush has been in decline for most of the last two years but is still played by millions every month.

Combined, the two companies now have over 500 million active monthly users for their games. "Other than YouTube or Facebook there isn't a worldwide network that has a bigger number of audience members," said Bobby Kotick, Activision's chief executive. "A big part of the opportunity is to explore the intellectual property that exists at Activision Blizzard and see if it makes sense in that network."

According to Nest founder and former Apple SVP Tony Fadell, Steve Jobs actively spoke about the potential for building an Apple Car back in 2008.

"We had a couple of walks," Fadell said, in which they asked questions such as, "If we were to build a car, what would we build? What would a dashboard be? And what would this be? What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?"

Of course, at that time the company was busy introducing the device that would change the smartphone world - the iPhone, and Jobs decided against building a car at that time. Rumors have remained practically every year since then, however, with plenty of people still expecting an Apple Car in the coming years.

No matter what, Fadell believes we are still in the "early days" for the evolution of the car, and the tech industry will likely be at the forefront of this new revolution although that can be up to 10 years away, he notes.

Following the major takedown of scene release group YIFY, it seems that the large public torrent tracker Demonii will shut down, as well.

The YIFY group, an icon in the movie piracy world, also ran the YTS website and apparently operated Demonii also.

Demonii says it had 44,682,991 peers and over 4.8 million torrents, making it one of the largest public torrent trackers available.

For the time being, the tracker remains up, but expect it to be down within the week.

If you're a fan of the Fallout series, you will be able to try out Nuka-Cola Quantum soon thanks to a new partnership.

Fallout developer Bethesda has teamed up with Jones Soda to release the soda on November 10th at Target stores.

The release coincides with the release of Fallout 4, and Bethesda has been offering fans quite a few collectibles ahead of the game's release.

Major European carrier Vodafone UK announced today that hackers had accessed 1827 customer accounts this week, taking names and mobile telephone numbers.

Additionally, the attackers potentially had access to bank sort codes and the last four digits of bank account numbers, as well.

"This incident was driven by criminals using email addresses and passwords acquired from an unknown source external to Vodafone," said Vodafone in a statement.

Everyone affected has been notified and have told to expect more phishing attempts.

The event marks the second time this week that a British telecom company has been hacked. TalkTalk recently saw information on 1.2 million customers stolen including over 20,000 bank account numbers.

Proving yet again that consumers are willing to try most things if the price is right, HTC lowered the price of their flop, the Re Camera, to $50 and it quickly sold out.

The camera was built to compete against GoPro with supposedly easier ergonomics shaped like a periscope, but sales have been non-existent at its $200 MSRP.

HTC dropped the price to $50 temporarily, possibly to clear inventory, and the ploy worked, as the Re is now sold out but showing the original $199 price tag.

The camera offers a 146-degree wide-angle lens, a 16-megapixel 1/2.3-inch sensor and lets you use your Android or iOS phone as a viewfinder.

Source:
HTC

According to the carrier, the hackers that attacked TalkTalk last week walked away with less information than expected, but there was a still a large amount of data stolen.

Overall, the attackers took email addresses, names and phone numbers for 1.2 million customers, 21,000 bank account numbers, 15,000 customer DOBs and 28,000 partial credit and debit card details. The middle six digits of the cards are missing, so are basically unusable for the attackers.

TalkTalk's chief executive, Dido Harding, noted: "Given the potential size of this attack, we decided to be as open, honest and transparent as we could because we wanted to keep our customers informed and ensure they had the advice and support they need. Today, we can confirm that the scale of the attack was much smaller than we originally suspected, but this does not take away from how seriously we take what has happened and our investigation is still ongoing.

"On behalf of everyone at TalkTalk, I would like to apologise to all our customers. We know that we need to work hard to earn back your trust and everyone here is committed to doing that."

TalkTalk customers have been informed of the data stolen and are likely to see an increase in phishing attempts over the coming weeks and months. So far, two teenagers have been arrested in connection with the hack.

Google's mergers and acquisitions are at its lowest figure since 2009, with the company spending just $250 million so far in the first 9 months of 2015.

By comparison, Google spent nearly $5 billion in the first 9 months last year, and $1.3 billion in the first nine months of 2013.

BI compiled a nice list of Google's previous M&A:

2014 (first nine months): $1.1 billion on non-named acquisitions, plus $2.5 billion on smart appliance maker Nest, $517 million on Dropcam, and $478 million on satellite company Skybox Imaging.
2013 (first nine months): $369 million in non-named M&A, plus $969 million for Waze.
2012 (first nine months): $1.1 billion in non-named M&A, plus $12.4 billion for Motorola Mobility.
2011 (first nine months): $502 million in non-named M&A, plus $676 million for ITA Software, $151 million for Zagat, $114 million for DailyDeals GmbH.
2010 (first nine months): $626 million in non-named M&A, plus $179 million for Slide, $681 million for AdMob, $123 million for On2 Technologies.

Amazon has announced today that if you order Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and use the company's Prime Now same delivery service you can get the game delivered to your door at midnight on launch day.

The only caveat is that you have to live in one of 20 major metros - Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Miami, Minneapolis, Orange County, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle.

Additionally, if you order snacks, Amazon will deliver those, as well.

"Why wait in lines on release night when we'll bring Call of Duty: Black Ops III right to your door? We're making it easy for hardcore gamers to download the app, reserve a coveted delivery window for midnight delivery and sit back while the game comes right to their doors. Our Prime customers will be on their way to ranking up before they know it, and all without having to leave the comfort of their house," said Stephenie Landry, Amazon's worldwide director of Prime Now. "We love offering exclusive opportunities for our Prime members and the gaming community, and now they can get the most anticipated game of the year, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, moments after it is released."

Amazon has updated their Prime Music service this week, adding some highly requested features.

The company will now allow desktop and mobile users to download songs for offline playback, and mobile users can now download the songs to your phone's SD card (if you have one) allowing you to save precious internal storage.

Additionally, the service is now supported via Android Wear, the popular smartwatch operating system. The support allows for browsing via your watch and playback control.

Finally, Amazon also added a "New to Prime" tab to find the latest releases and a "Popular" tab to see the top songs and albums in the U.S. at that time.

The RIAA has asked the courts to issue a default judgement against the new Grooveshark music service, demanding $17 million in piracy damages and 'willful counterfeiting' damages.

The original Grooveshark settled its lawsuit with the RIAA earlier this year, but the new Grooveshark was started a few days later using the name. The RIAA sued almost immediately, and Namecheap and CloudFlare both eventually shut down the domain and their servers.

Grooveshark stayed around for a while, moving from domain to domain but is now shuttered for good.

"Defendants' Counterfeit Service prominently featured counterfeit replicas of the Grooveshark Marks as well as identical graphical elements taken from the original Grooveshark website," the RIAA said in their motion. "Plaintiffs have provided conclusive evidence that infringing copies of MP3 files that correspond to each of the Works-in-Suit have been streamed, reproduced, and distributed via the Counterfeit Service to computers located in New York."

The RIAA has asked for full damages for 89 infringing tracks, $400,000 for cyberquatting and $4 million for willful counterfeiting of the Grooveshark trademark, which is owned by the record labels. While the courts will absolutely side with the RIAA, there is very little chance the labels ever see a dime since the alleged operator is located somewhere in Europe.

A month after releasing their first Android app (to help consumers migrate to iOS), Apple has launched a second app for the operating system.

Apple's Beats Pill+ app is a companion to Apple's Beats Bill+ portable Bluetooth speaker, letting users queue up tracks and other basic DJ features.

The app, comically, has terrible ratings from users that are mostly just mad at Apple putting anything in the Google Play Store but nothing compares to Apple's Move to iOS app that has over 30,000 1-star reviews.

If you are interested, you can check out Beat Pills+ here.

According to the latest figures from Pew Research, 68 percent of American adults have smartphones now, and 45 percent have tablets.

The figures are significant since in 2011 the smartphone figure was 35 percent and the tablet figure was almost non-existent.

Breaking down the smartphone number further, we have 86 percent ownership for the 18-29 age group, and 83 percent for those in the age 30-49 range.

With the increase in tablet and smartphone ownership has come a decline in desktop and laptop ownership. 78 percent of adults under 30 own a desktop or laptop, down from 88 percent in 2010. In total, 73% of U.S. adults own a desktop or laptop computer, down from 80 percent in 2012.

In total, mobile phone ownership is almost fully saturated, with 92 percent of American adults owning a mobile phone of some kind.

Amazon has removed all listings for the Google Chromecast and the Apple TV, taking down direct competitors to its own Amazon set-tops and streaming sticks.

Besides selling it directly, Amazon has also removed third-party reseller listings and even new and used devices sold by Amazon users through the marketplace.

Taking it one step further, if you search for the items you will instead get a recommendation for the Amazon Fire TV or the Amazon Fire TV stick.

As part of their decision to stop selling the items, Amazon says "It's important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion." This, of course, doesn't make too much sense since Chromecast's SDK is open and Amazon could have added support pretty easily.