News written by Andre Yoskowitz (December, 2015)

According to multiple sources, a 'security breach' may be to blame for the abrupt end to what has so far been a plentiful DVD screener season.

The release groups behind the encodes promised 40 leaks by the end of the year, but the last couple of dozen may never make it to your favorite warez sites.

It appears that the FBI is targeting members of the release group Hive-CM8, the group responsible for most of the screeners out now, including The Big Short, The Revenant, Hateful 8, Steve Jobs, Bridge of Spies and more.

Apparently, a person using the screen name 'Sup3rman,' quickly and easily exposed some basic details of a major uploader by checking the source of the screenshots attached to the releases. While the information was and is available publicly, there is speculation that the "expose" has scared off the group for the time being.

Verizon has decided to take the fight to its growing rivals, offering up to $650 to switch carriers and end your contract early.

Says the company: "Now is the best time to switch to Verizon and receive up to $650 per line. Verizon will buy out your contract and cover early termination fees and device or lease buyouts from your old wireless provider. A family of four who've been waiting for the right time to switch to Verizon can use the incentive on each eligible line and receive up to $2,600."

There are a number of caveats to getting that large sum, however. You must port your number from another carrier, you must purchase a 4G LTE smartphone with new device activation and you must trade-in your existing device. The trade-in must be in good working condition and the new line must remain active for at least six months.

In addition, if you switch now to an XL or XXL plan, you get an extra 2GB of bonus data, per month, forever.

According to numerous reports, Beatles songs were streamed 50 million times in the first 48 hours after they became legally available on sites like Spotify, Apple Music and Google Play.

For years, the Beatles' music was unavailable digitally due to contract disputes, but it seems the remaining members of the group and the estates of the others have agreed it is finally time to move on.

The most popular track, so far, is 'Come Together,' with over 2 million streams and on Spotify, 65 percent of listeners to the Beatles catalog were under the age of 34, an interesting statistic given that the group broke up in the 1970s.

According to TorrentFreak, 'Game of Thrones' is the most pirated TV show for the fourth year running, followed by 'The Walking Dead.'

The site estimates 14.4 million downloads via public torrent trackers for the 2015 season finale, handily beating out the competition. By comparison, the site estimates that 8.1 million viewers watched the finale on TV or via HBO Go or HBO Now.

The Walking Dead and fellow runner-up 'Big Bang Theory' each saw significant pirated downloads, but legitimate TV viewership was even higher.

TF bases their figures on several sources but does not go too much in-depth into how they are calculated. One thing to note is that streaming and cyberlocker downloads are not included so these numbers are possibly very low compared to real figures.

Samsung has announced the Galaxy A9 today for the Chinese market, the high-end model for the company's metal designed A-series line.

The device has a 6-inch 1080p SAMOLED display with 2.5D curved glass, runs on Android 5.1.1 and is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 652 processor. Additionally, the high-end device has 3GB RAM, at least 32GB internal storage, a microSD slot, dual 13MP/8MP cameras with OIS and ƒ/1.9 aperture and a giant 4000mAh battery.

Finally, the glass and metal designed phone is just 7.4mm thin and includes a fingerprint sensor in the home button.

Pricing was unconfirmed but will be revealed next month before the phone's launch.

Saudi billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal has invested in ride-sharing service Lyft, valuing the company at near $5 billion.

The Prince's holding company will pay $105 million for a 2.3 percent stake. Even at a large $5 billion valuation, the ridesharing app has just a fraction of the value and drivers of market leader Uber, who has expanded around the globe.

Al-Waleed is not the first international investor for Lyft, which is U.S.-only currently. Chinese ride-sharing service Didi Kuaidi has also invested and so have smaller local companies around the globe.

By comparison, Uber has a market value of around $65 billion, making it one of the largest private companies on the planet.

Yesterday, Valve was forced to shut down the Steam store after users were able to see personal information in other people's accounts through their own dashboard.

While it was unclear what was going on, Valve was quick to shut the store to avoid unauthorized access.

Within a few hours, the store was back and everything was back to normal. Added Valve: "Steam is back up and running without any known issues. As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved. We believe no unauthorized actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information and no additional action is required by users."

The most notable holdouts in the streaming era, the Beatles, now have their music available via the most popular streaming services.

As of this morning (Merry Christmas), Spotify, Apple Music, Slacker, Tidal, Microsoft's Groove, Rhapsody, Deezer, Google Play and Amazon Prime will all have access to the Beatles catalog. Pandora is notably absent from the list, but they also do not make on-demand deals although you could hear Beatles tracks if you get the right radio shuffle.

Both Google and Microsoft have launched Santa tracking sites, giving kids a chance to check where Santa is currently flying and learn fun facts about the city/country/continent he's currently visiting.

Microsoft's tracker is in partnership with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) while Google is using its own software. For both, you can click on points of interest and see information about the locations while Microsoft's offering will also work through Cortana and bring up tidbits of info.

Check out more info here and here.

Two years after raising funds that valued the company at $650 million, Foursquare has raised money again, this time at a value of $250 million.

Additionally, the startup has also talked to potential acquirers which suggests that management and current investors may be ready to sell rather than continue to raise money through funding rounds.

Investors include the usual suspects like DFJ Growth, Microsoft, Silver Lake Partners, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

Overall, Foursquare has raised $120 million (including the new round) since launch in 2009 and the company currently has 50 million active users.

Microsoft has acquired Talko, the startup led by former Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie.

Talko lets users search phone conversations and add tags and bookmarks, a useful tech for companies that would like to allow workers to send pieces of conference calls to eachother or share notes from previous conversations. The tech also uses sound analysis to identify who is speaking on the conference call.

"[We are] pleased to announce today that Microsoft has acquired technology from Talko, maker of an innovative mobile app for on-the-go business communications. As part of the agreement, Talko employees will join the Skype team. Together, the new technology and talent will help us deliver great new features and capabilities in both Skype and Skype for Business," added Skype in a press statement.

Ozzie will not rejoin Microsoft despite his long relationship with the tech giant. Ozzie was formerly CTO and also Chief Software Architect (taking over for Bill Gates). In 1995, he sold his Lotus Notes software to IBM for $3.5 billion and is generally considered one of the best programmers of his time.

After four years of fighting, Kim Dotcom has lost his extradition battle as a New Zealand District Court judge ruled that the Megaupload founder could be sent to the U.S. to face copyright infringement charges.

The ruling implies that there is enough evidence for a case to be brought against Dotcom in the U.S., including charges of money laundering and racketeering.

Dotcom has already said he will appeal and the case will move to the New Zealand High Court. Dotcom's attorney Ira Rothkin said the ruling was based on "cherry-picked evidence" that completely ignored New Zealand's safe harbour laws.

As always with Megaupload, the best source for more information is Dotcom himself, and you can find his Twitter feed here: Kim Dotcom

Toshiba has said this morning that the company will report its largest net loss, ever, as it works on restructuring its unprofitable businesses.

The company will lay off 7800 employees, mainly from their consumer electronics division. The new cuts add to an already announced 2200, a total of 5 percent of the company's workforce.

Because layoffs in Japan are extremely expensive given worker's legal protections, the company says the rough quarter will culminate with a 550 billion yen ($4.5 billion USD) loss for the fiscal year ended March 31st.

"As a manager, I feel the responsibility deeply," said new president Masashi Muromachi. "My biggest task now is to ensure that we start recovering next year." Muromachi took over as president after a crippling accounting scandal was discovered that threatened to ruin the company and led to the resignation of the CEO and half of the board of directors.

Facebook has hit another nail into the coffin of Adobe's much-maligned Flash by switching to HTML5 for all Facebook web video.

Any video you upload or publish or view via the browser will be in HTML5 and not Flash, just like Facebook's current mobile and app experiences.

Daniel Baulig, engineer at Facebook, said: "Not only did launching the HTML5 video player make development easier, but it also improved the video experience for people on Facebook. Videos now start playing faster. People like, comment, and share more on videos after the switch, and users have been reporting fewer bugs. People appear to be spending more time with video because of it."

For the time being, Facebook will continue to support Flash-based games, but that seems to be the only support it will get moving forward.

Facebook has offered its employees up to $15,000 to move closer to their Silicon Valley headquarters.

To be eligible, "employees must buy or rent a home within 10 miles (16 km) of the Facebook campus at One Hacker Way," the headquarters located about 30 miles south of San Francisco.

There are hopes that programs like Facebook's will spur genrtification of nearby communites such as East Palo Alto, which are currently low-income and cheap compared to the ridiculously priced San Francisco.

"Our benefits at Facebook are designed to support our employees and the people who matter most to them at all stages of life," a Facebook spokesman added.

Videolan has proudly announced the launch of VLC for ChromeOS, allowing users to play their media via the cloud-based operating system.

"A few months ago, the Chrome team announced the possibility to run some Android applications on Chrome OS using the new Android Runtime for Chrome. Starting from that moment, we wanted to support this runtime," said the development team.

Going more in-depth, developer Jean-Baptiste Kempf added: "Usually, the mobile ports of VLC, like VLC for Android, VLC for iOS or Windows phone, use the native language of the platforms to create the interfaces and the media database.

For ChromeOS, the only solution we saw, before ARC was announced, was using PPAPI, NaCL and Javascript, but that would require to rewrite a complete interface in Javascript and would be a bit problematic for the database. That work would have taken months of work.

Therefore the ARC solution was a blessing, and helped us to recycle 95% of the Android code and optimizations we did in the last months (some are not released yet)."

With the new release, ChromeOS users can now play all video files, audio files and subtitle files supported by VLC and can also playback "streams, local and on the internet, include adaptive streaming like HLS or DASH."

Finnish startup Jolla has secured a third round of financing as it tries to fight mobile's duopoly with its own Sailfish OS.

Last month, the company was on the brink and had to lay off half of its staff and file for restructuring of existing debt but the new lifeline should buy them some time.

Noted chairman Antii Saarnio: "It's not often that you can actually recover from the very, very difficult situation but we have done it."

It's unclear who the investors are but we may know soon enough. "The total amount we can't unfortunately disclose yet because it is part of the bigger financing package," added Saarnio. "The next packages will be securing our growth and further investment to the operating system agenda. So that's why we don't want to start disclosing the size of the investment because it will basically start speculations on how long this money will last and so on.

"It's a sizable investment what we are receiving but it also includes some other instruments which we are continuing to negotiate at the moment. But at the moment we have received enough financing to continue the operations and stabilize the company's financial position."

Despite the new investment, it is hard to see the company surviving too much longer as there does not appear to be much demand for Sailfish at this time.

Plex, the home media streaming app, is now available for free on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.

To date, the apps were available in beta to Plex Pass customers, but now everyone can get their hands on the core app for free (without some of the features paying subscribers get).

The setup is very quick, and includes creating a Plex account, downloading the media server to your PC/NAS and then downloading the app on your console.

Plex can play nearly any format you have saved and it also catalogs your movies and shows with artwork, descriptions and more.

Microsoft has delayed the rollout of Windows 10 Mobile to existing Windows Phone users, with the company now planning to begin the launch in 2016.

Previously, Microsoft had said the rollout would begin this month, but there are some delays it appears.

Says the company: "This November we introduced Windows 10 to phones including brand new features such as Continuum and Universal Windows Apps with the introduction of the Lumia 950 and 950 XL. The Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will begin rolling out early next year to select existing Windows 8 and 8.1 phones."

It remains unclear which existing Windows Phones will get the upgrade and which will not although if you purchased in the last year you are likely to have an upgradeable phone.

GTA: Liberty City Stories is now available on iOS for $6.99 as developer Rockstar continues to bring popular titles to mobile.

The title will be very similar to the PSP version that launched a decade ago except that it will bring touch and gamepad support, improved visuals and cloud saving ability. Additionally, the game will feature "shorter, streamlined missions designed with mobile gameplay in mind."

"Get ready to head back to the East Coast as Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories returns to mobile devices. With shorter, streamlined missions designed with mobile gameplay in mind, this definitive open-world adventure has been remastered for iOS with extensive graphic enhancements, rebalanced touch controls, cross platform saves and native Retina screen support," adds Rockstar.

If you like to put on headphones while you're gaming, you can also play a custom playlist during the game rather than needing to listen to the radio stations.

Apple has somewhat surprisingly named its first Chief Operating Officer (COO) since 2011 when Tim Cook took over as CEO of the world's most valuable company.

Jeff Williams, who has been with the company since 1998, will take over the role and report directly to Cook. Apple also announced that marketing boss Phil Schiller is now head of the App Store, as well, previously the duty of Eddy Cue.

Williams was Apple's VP of operations and also oversees the Apple Watch and ResearchKit making his new title perfectly logical. Schiller will now be in charge of "nearly all developer-related functions at Apple" and it sounds like Cue will continue his business of diving into whatever needs help.

Netflix has announced that their HTML5 player is now available in Firefox, as long as you are running a Windows PC. If you are a Mac fan, your time is coming early next year.

Says the streaming giant: "Firefox ships with the very latest versions of the HTML5 Premium Video Extensions. That includes the Media Source Extensions (MSE), which enable our video streaming algorithms to adapt to your available bandwidth; the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), which allows for the viewing of protected content; and the Web Cryptography API (WebCrypto), which implements the cryptographic functions used by our open source Message Security Layer client-server protocol.

We worked closely with Mozilla and Adobe throughout development. Adobe supplies a content decryption module (CDM) that powers the EME API and allows protected content to play. We were pleased to find through our joint field testing that Adobe Primetime's CDM, Mozilla's < video > tag, and our player all work together seamlessly to provide a high quality viewing experience in Firefox. With the new Premium Video Extensions, Firefox users will no longer need to take an extra step of installing a plug-in to watch Netflix."

Last month, Microsoft made over 100 Xbox 360 games available to Xbox One gamers via their backwards compatibility program.

Today, there are 16 new titles playable, and Microsoft has promised to continue adding new titles throughout the year.

Full list:

Braid
DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION
Doritos Crash Course
Fable III
Halo: Reach
Hydro Thunder
Iron Brigade
Kane & Lynch 2
Motocross Madness
MS.PAC-MAN
Peggle
Portal: Still Alive
Spelunky
Splosion Man
Ticket to Ride™
Zuma's Revenge!

Apple has confirmed that their Apple Pay service is officially headed to China next year thanks to a partnership with China UnionPay.

UnionPay is in charge of running China's banking card industry and the companies have promised the service will expand to China "as soon as early 2016." Apple Pay has support from 15 of China's most popular banks but still requires certification from Chinese regulators. Apple appears to feel confident, given their press release.

"China UnionPay is dedicated to promoting payment innovations and providing secure, convenient mobile payment experiences for its hundreds of millions of cardholders, aligning multiple parties in the industry," said Chai Hongfeng, executive vice president of China UnionPay. "We're very excited to offer Apple Pay among a diverse set of innovative payment options that work with China UnionPay QuickPass."

"Apple Pay has revolutionized the way millions of people pay every day with their iPhone, Apple Watch and iPad," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "China is an extremely important market for Apple and with China UnionPay and support from 15 of China's leading banks, users will soon have a convenient, private and secure payment experience."

Netflix has created a new DIY guide to building a pair of "smart socks" that will know if you've fallen asleep while binging and will be smart enough to pause your show or movie if you do fall asleep.

The socks use 'actigraphy,' a method of activity monitoring that includes an accelerometer which can detect if you have stopped moving for an extended period of time. At that point, it can send a signal to your TV/set-top to pause your place. The socks also flash an LED light before pausing your viewing incase you are awake and just not moving at all for some reason.

Netflix's socks are part of their "Make It" series of DIY projects but the socks are not easy to build, even if you have some technical know-how. You need a pair of socks, an Arduino microcontroller, infrared LEDs, a battery, soldering iron and some more little components.

Thanks to a new domain registration, it appears that Ubisoft is preparing an Assassin' Creed collection anthology.

Ubi has registered "assassinscreedcollection.com", suggesting they are working on a collection for the action-adventure series although for the time being we will take that as speculation.

Like other publishers have in the past, there is a good chance the company will compile a group of remastered AC titles from previous consoles and sell it for PS4 and Xbox One.

Ubisoft has already gone down the collections road, releasing Assassin's Creed: The Americas collection, and Assassin's Creed: Heritage collection (for PS3 and Xbox 360) so the latest game could be similar.

Mac anti-virus provider MacKeeper has exposed 13 million customer records and left customer passwords vulnerable to cracking.

White hat researcher Chris Vickery said he found four IP addresses that directed him straight into the company's MongoDB database, where names, emails, usernames, password hashes, phone numbers, system info and IP addresses were all stored without protection (for the most part). The passwords were using the easily crackable MD5 hash, although they weren't even salted.

Even more shocking was that the database did not require any kind of administrator password or username to get in. Vickery used the Shodan 'hacker search engine' to find the open database.

Vickery tried to contact the company first but could not get through so he posted the issues on Reddit. The company then responded and fixed the issues within hours. "Analysis of our data storage system shows only one individual gained access performed by the security researcher himself. We have been in communication with Chris and he has not shared or used the data inappropriately," the MacKeeper team wrote in a blog post.

Authorities in the UK have arrested a 21-year-old man in London in connection with the VTech hack that left the personal data of 6.4 million children exposed.

The man could be charged with violating the Computer Misuse Act of 1990, even though there is no evidence that the man sold the data after taking it.

VTech, the Chinese company that builds educational toys for kids, was easily breached with an SQL injection, with profiles on 6.4 million kids (including gender and birth dates) exposed in addition to details from 5 million parent's accounts, all of which included full addresses, secret questions/answers,passwords, IP addresses and links to their kid's profiles.

Most of those affected are located in the U.S., France, UK and Germany and all have been notified.

Internet flash sale retailer Gilt Groupe is preparing to sell itself for $250 million, under a quarter of what it was valued in 2011.

In 2011, venture capitalists placed a valuation of $1.1 billion on the company, which was seeing exponential growth at the time.

Even more upsetting for investors is the fact that Gilt has raised $280 million in capital since 2007, suggesting most investors will lose on this deal. Hudson Bay Co., the owner of Saks Fifth Avenue, is the likely buyer.

In 2014, the company had $600 million in revenue and Hudson Bay plans to pair Gilt with its own Saks Off 5th brand discount site and stores, with the potential for Gilt popup shops.

Other flash sale sites have also struggled post-recession, as major retailers have made discounts the "norm" and popularity has waned significantly.

Google has updated their Maps for iOS app, adding a plethora of new, significant features.

The updated app adds offline navigation, adds real-time gas prices when you search for gas stations and also adds what times are popular for millions of business and locations.

Google's changelog says the app now allows you to "See popular times at more than a million places around the world" and "See up-to-date gas prices when searching for gas stations in the US and Canada," and soon you'll be able to download a map "and the next time there's no connectivity -- whether it's a country road or an underground parking garage -- Google Maps will continue to work seamlessly."

Android received the updates last month and now iPhone and iPad users can get in on the action.

Electronic Arts has announced it is launching an esports division to be run by current COO Peter Moore.

The new division, EA Competitive Gaming Division, will focus on creating competitions for popular EA franchises like Madden and FIFA and "includes initiatives to create competitive experiences with our games."

Moore has been COO for EA since 2011, and will now become Chief Competition Officer and executive vice president. Moore is not new to gaming competitions having helped run the EA Sports Challenge Series and the FIFA Interactive World Cup.

"The formation of the Competitive Gaming Division is a groundbreaking opportunity for Electronic Arts to celebrate your passion for play and competition," said EA CEO Andrew Wilson.

Earlier this year, Activision Blizzard announced their foray into esports, as did Microsoft Studios with other large studios expected to start their own divisions in 2016, as well.

Wal-Mart has announced its own mobile payment service, dubbed 'Walmart Pay,' as the massive retailer follows in the footsteps of other companies.

Walmart Pay is free and will be available for iOS and Android allowing cosnumers to pay with any major credit, debit, prepaid or Walmart gift card.

The launch of Walmart Pay seems to suggest that CurrentC, the mobile wallet service being developed for years now by a group of retailers (including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target and others) is nowhere near ready for the big time, despite millions of dollars spent in R&D and years of development.

Walmart Pay is a little different than current mobile payment options in that you choose the payment option within the Walmart Pay mobile app then scan a barcode at the register with your phone's camera. You are then sent an e-receipt.

The mobile payments app will be available nationwide in early 2016 but your nearest location may already be using it.

T-Mobile has announced yet another promotion for carrier switchers, this time looking for Verizon users.

From today until December 17th, any user that switches from Verizon to T-Mobile will get a $100 gift code to use towards premium Hulu plans. Basic Hulu costs $8 per month with ads, and the unlimited ad-free tier costs $12 per month.

"Verizon customers put up with a lot of sneaky tricks from Big Red these days. Overpriced data, shocking overage penalties and no early upgrade option – just to name a few," T-Mobile CEO John Legere added. "So while Verizon spends billions of dollars on TV ads screaming that 'better matters,' we are going to show their customers why the Un-carrier is better with a real gift, half-off the best accessories and a full year of Hulu that comes with unlimited LTE streaming with Binge On at T-Mobile."

Additionally, T-Mobile covers early termination fees if you come over from Verizon, and will switch your number over for free.

Two months after launching the Chromecast Audio, Google has already updated the features of the cast streaming hardware.

The Chromecast Audio allows you to stream your favorite music from your phone, tablet or PC directly to existing speakers as long as they have a headphone jack.

Here are the new features:

According to a new report, Apple is developing its own GPU, and it's been in the works for at least three years.

Says the report: "Apple is making its GPU to cut the cord from Imagination Technologies a company that makes its IP (Intellectual Property) for the GPU."

If accurate, Apple would soon be able to offer their phones and tablets with in-house SoCs that feature A-series CPUs and their own GPUs, likely improving their already hefty margins.

According to Valve, 77,000 Steam accounts are hijacked every month, and the company is trying to fight back.

The company says when they launched Steam Trading, the accounts began getting stolen at 20 times the rate they previously were, and while Valve protected the victims there were plenty of pitfalls for the full trading economy, especially as it diluted the value of rare items.

"What used to be a handful of hackers is now a highly effective, organized network, in the business of stealing and selling items. It would be easier for them to go after the users who don't understand how to stay secure online, but the prevalence of items make it worthwhile to target everyone. We see around 77,000 accounts hijacked and pillaged each month. These are not new or naïve users; these are professional CS:GO players, reddit contributors, item traders, etc. Users can be targeted randomly as part of a larger group or even individually. Hackers can wait months for a payoff, all the while relentlessly attempting to gain access. It's a losing battle to protect your items against someone who steals them for a living," says Valve in an open letter to users.

To counteract the hackers, Valve says it has "worked to improve account security features, closed loopholes, improved how and when we message users that their account is at risk, added self-locking, and created the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator (two-factor authentication)," and it is imploring users to sign up for the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator as soon as possible to protect their accounts.

It's been a long time coming, but we finally have the first X-Men: Apocalypse trailer six months before its theatrical release.

Directed by Bryan Singer, the film follows the story of Apocalypse, the first mutant ever and the most powerful, living for tens of thousands of years.

Says Fox: "Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction."

X-Men fan or not, the trailer looks great. Check it here:

Struggling gamemaker Rovio has just lost another major executive as CEO Pekka Rantala has stepped down.

Rantala had taken over the position from co-founder Mikael Hed just 16 months ago and will now be replaced by Kati Levoranta, the company's chief legal officer.

In stepping down, Rantala said "I feel now the time is right for me to step aside and move on to new challenges."

During his tenure, the company laid off over 30 percent of their workforce and has struggled to remain profitable, as new games have not gained traction like the original Angry Birds did.

Moving forward, a lot of faith is being placed in the Angry Birds movie set for release in 2016, and in cutting costs.
"We are now positioned to make the most of the release of The Angry Birds Movie in May," says new CEO Levoranta, "and some exciting developments in the games and consumer products portfolios throughout 2016."

A few days ago, the never-ending search for the true identity of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto took another strange turn, when two publications claimed to have unmasked the founder as Australian finance geek Craig Wright.

Today, an email was sent out from satoshi@vistamail.com, an email that once (or is still currently) used by the true founder of the currency with the email subject "Not this again" and the brief message that says "I am not Craig Wright. We are all Satoshi."

Of course, email addresses can be spoofed, so there is the possibility that the mystery will remain a mystery for longer. Additionally, the email was missing his cryptographic signature.

Regardless, the evidence is compelling for Craig Wright being the real founder until there is a formal denial.

Sony has given fans what they want, a dedicated PlayStation Messages app for iOS and Android allowing for better communication for gamers.

"Use PlayStation Messages to instantly see who's online and message your gamer friends and favorite groups from your mobile device. Always stay connected with your gamer friends to talk about the games you love to play even while you're away from your PS4 system," says Sony.

A breakdown of the features:

- Check your Friends List to instantly see who's online and what they're playing.

- Send text or voice messages as well as photos and stickers to your friends or a group with up to 100 players.

- Quickly access your favorite message groups from your favorites list.

HTC has delayed their Vive VR system until April 2016, despite having promised fans that early adopters could try it out by the end of 2015.

The system combines a headset with two tracking stations and two controllers, but other details are hard to come by.

At least, that lack of details should be a thing of the past soon when HTC has a Vive-related media conference in China on December 18th, and the company will be showing off the device again at CES next month.

Additionally, 7000 more units will be made available for devs at the beginning of next year. Unfortunately for HTC, Oculus' first consumer Rift has a scheduled launch in the Q1, as well.

The RIAA has settled its lawsuit with music streaming service Aurous for $3 million. The service had been sued just 72 hours after launching in October.

Aurous had acted like a "Popcorn Time" for music, allowing users to search and find music from third party services, for free.

In their lawsuit, the major labels had alleged copyright infringement (and it seems they were vindicated) and demanded tens of millions in damages. Founder and developer Andrew Sampson initially seemed like he wanted to fight the charges but both sides went quiet just a few days after the suit. Sampson and co-founder Danielle Astvatsaturova now have permanent injunctions from committing any infringing actions ever again.

Although the full settlement was for $3 million, there was a separate agreement signed outside of court, likely with a significantly lower monetary figure. Sampson has long said he did not make a dime from the site.

For their part, the RIAA was pleased with the settlement and how quickly it came to fruition. "Aurous appropriately agreed to shut down. It was the right thing to do. We hope this sends a strong signal that unlicensed services cannot expect to build unlawful businesses on the backs of music creators," Sherman added.

Mozilla has launched their very own ad-blocker for iOS devices, following in the footsteps of many others using iOS 9's new content-blocking API.

The new 'Focus' app takes its blacklist from the browser plugin Disconnect.me, which currently has a list of 5000 trackers including those associated with ad networks.

Focus allows you to control what ads you see, and what kind of tracking can be done on your browsing even on social networks.

CONTENT BLOCKING + TRACKING PROTECTION
- Offers next-level privacy by blocking many common Web trackers in Safari.
- Lets you control the types of page content allowed on your browser.

BROWSE FASTER
- With content blocking and tracking protection on, Web pages may require less data and load faster.

FROM MOZILLA -- A BRAND YOU TRUST
- Mozilla strives to improve the Web for all and has been voted one of the Most Trusted Internet Companies for Privacy.*

COMMITTED TO TRANSPARENCY
- Mozilla gives users transparency online so you can take control of your personal information and choose what content you want to block. We work to provide feedback to content providers and build a healthy, open Web.

Just a few weeks after the release of the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X, Google has discontinued sales of last year's Nexus 6.

Other retailers are still offering the device, at a discounted price normally starting at $350, but it remains to be seen if Google still has inventory or if what is out there is all that's left.

Despite great reviews when it launched last year, Google has stepped away from the gigantic 6-inch screen and its newest flagship has a 5.7-inch screen and upgraded specs making the Nexus 6 irrelevant.

Earlier this week, Sony confirmed the first PlayStation 2 games that will be available via backwards compatibility on the PlayStation 4.

Says Sony: "Hello everyone. As we continue our celebration of the PlayStation 20th anniversary, we want to take a look back at the heritage that helped propel us to the brand that we are today. PlayStation 2 holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers who have fond memories of playing some of the biggest franchises in gaming."

The games are available via the PlayStation Store in North America and Europe.

List:

Dark Cloud -- $14.99
Grand Theft Auto III -- $14.99
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City -- $14.99
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas -- $14.99
Rogue Galaxy -- $14.99
The Mark of Kri -- $14.99
Twisted Metal: Black -- $9.99
War of the Monsters -- $9.99

Each game also has trophy support, have been upscaled to 1080p, and include Remote Play, Live Broadcast, Share Play, Activity Feeds, and Second Screen support.

As a reminder to our readers, OnePlus' new OnePlus 2 flagship device is available now (and forever) without an invite.

Additionally, the mid-range OnePlus X is available without need for an invite from today until December 7th and a few accessories are up to 90 percent off.

The invitation system has been criticized in the past, but it has helped OnePlus to keep supply and demand in check and it has also helped to keep some mystery around OnePlus devices.

"The invite system has been crucial to letting us scale our operations and has given our fans a unique way to share OnePlus with the people in their lives. But we are always trying to enhance the OnePlus experience for you and taking risks to push ourselves and show real improvements. That's why we're making the OnePlus 2 invite-free...forever!

That's right; you'll never again need an invite to purchase the OnePlus 2. We're proud to be able to make the OnePlus 2 invite-free so soon and hope this will make getting your very own OnePlus 2 a cheerfully easy experience," added Carl Pei, co-founder of OnePlus.

Early last year, when Microsoft completed its purchase of Nokia's handsets division, the company decided it was in their best interest to cancel a number of devices the company was preparing to release.

Among those sent to the 'graveyard' were Lumia phones, tablets and even some smartwatches.

Thanks to prolific leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks), we have a leaked render of the Nokia Mercury tablet, although we have very slim details about the device.

Basically, the tablet looks like an enlarged Nokia phone although the bezels seem to be extremely thin and the tablet looks like it had a SIM slot and possibly a PureView camera.

According to multiple sources, YouTube is seeking streaming licenses for movies and TV shows for its new YouTube Red subscription service in an effort to better rival Hulu and Netflix in the increasingly competitive industry.

The move is unsurprising given who is currently running YouTube. Robert Kyncl, formerly of Netflix, is YouTube's chief business officer; Susanne Daniels, former programming head at MTV, is a top exec and Kelly Merryman, formerly a Netflix content executive, is also a high-level executive for YouTube.

YouTube Red costs $9.99 per month and offers ad-free YouTube video watching, background and offline playback and streaming music playlists and channels. Additionally, the company will have 10 of its movies and series starring YouTube stars and other actors.

If YouTube wants to compete it will need to put down a ton of money. Hulu will spend $1.5 billion this year on content, as will Amazon. Netflix is expected to spend $3.3 billion this year on licensed and original content.

Source:
WSJ

Struggling tech pioneer Yahoo! is considering selling itself, and the company's board of directors has met to consider a number of options.

The company, which mainly has value due to a large stake in Alibaba, has been looking to spin-off the stake, but there could be significant tax consequences for doing so. The board is also discussing whether to sell off their web businesses, which have seen significant declines in recent years, even after the high-profile hiring of CEO Marissa Mayer.

Mayer and the board are also facing a battle from activist investor Starboard Value, which is demanding that Yahoo sells their search and display advertising businesses and has threatened a proxy battle if Mayer does not change her plans to sell the Alibaba stake.

Currently, Yahoo has a market value of $33 billion, $31 billion of which is tied to the company's stake in Alibaba meaning its core business are worth $2 billion, a major decline from when Microsoft tried to buy the whole company in 2007 for a grossly overpriced $45 billion.

At Microsoft's most recent shareholder meeting, former CEO and major shareholder Steve Ballmer called out Microsoft's new reporting guidelines, call them in no uncertain terms, "bulls***."

Since his departure, the company has consolidated most of its departments and now does not report revenue or margins for its individual businesses in hardware sales and cloud computing. Instead, it uses a "revenue run rate," which is a projection moving forward if all current sales remain on pace. Ballmer was pissed about the lack of margin reporting.

"It's sort of a key metric -- if they talk about it as key to the company, they should report it," Ballmer added.

Additionally, the former executive said Microsoft has failed in the mobile space and will need to add Android app support to be able to stay relevant.

Regardless of his anger, Ballmer has nothing to be upset about. Since his departure, Microsoft's stock has jumped 96 percent as investors were grateful that he was gone and approved of new CEO Satya Nadela's decisions.

Source:
BBG

Nearly a year after Google acquired Songza, the search giant has confirmed the closure of the service.

On January 31st, you will no longer be able to use the Songza native app, but you can start using Google Play Music which has integrated the technology.

You can import playlists and your listening history into Google Play, but you will have to make sure that process is complete before the 31st of January.

"Thank you SO much for being a part of the Songza community over all of these years. We're really proud of the work that we've done on Google Play Music and we truly hope you'll join us there," adds the founders in a farewell video.

Amazon has boasted today that the Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend was the best ever for Amazon devices, with the e-tailer giant selling millions of tablets, set-top boxes and streaming sticks.

The top-selling item on the site was the Amazon Fire tablet, followed by the Fire TV Stick. The Fire TV set-top saw sales increase 600 percent year-over-year and the Amazon Echo assistant was the top seller for items above $100 on Black Friday.

Although Amazon did not reveal numbers, they also noted that the Kindle e-reader saw a nice boost in sales, thanks to price cuts.

"We're excited that millions of customers will be opening new Amazon devices this holiday season. This has already been the biggest holiday shopping season for Amazon devices, and we're energized by the year over year growth for all of our product categories," said Dave Limp, Senior Vice President, Amazon Devices. "With a sub-$50 price point for one or $250 for a six-pack, we've reached a tipping point with Fire--it is our fastest-selling tablet ever. We've already built millions--and we're ramping up production to build millions more."

Adobe has finally killed off Flash, although unfortunately it has only killed off the name and not the actual platform.

Flash Professional CC will now be known as Adobe Animate CC as part of the company's "ongoing commitment to evolve to support multiple standards," namely - HTML5.

Animate will include new features including high-quality stock art and vector brushes but the actual foundation for the development platform still exists and that means massive security issues and a generally horrible reputation.

Following the announcement, many in the industry asked why Adobe even bothers to support the platform given the fact that everyone has moved to HTML5. "There continues to be a huge amount of Flash content out there, especially video and gaming content, and we plan to do all we can to keep Flash Player stable and secure because it is the responsible thing to do," said the company in response.

According to Spotify, Drake was the world's most streamed artist in 2015, with 1.8 billion streams this year and 46 million listeners.

Rounding out the top five artists were Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Maroon 5 and Kanye West.

Rihanna was the most streamed female artist of the year, at 1 billion streams and 57 million listeners this year.

Of note, the "Most Streamed Song of 2015: Lean On (ft. MØ and DJ Snake) by Major Lazer," with 540 million streams and the most streamed album of the year was "Beauty Behind The Madness" by The Weeknd.

Check out some more interesting figures here: Spotify