News written by James Delahunty (October, 2013)

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console will not support external storage, and is not DLNA-complaint.

In the "Ultimate FAQ" released by Sony ahead of the November 15 launch (North America) of the next generation PlayStation, Sony has revealed that external storage is not supported for the PS4, though you can still swap out the internal HDD as you could with the PS3.

"PS4 is equipped with a 5400 RPM SATA II hard drive. Users can choose to install a new hard drive so long as it complies with these standards, is no thicker than 9.5mm, and is larger than 160GB," the FAQ reads.

The FAQ also revealed that the PS4 is not DLNA complaint, which might upset some users as it has consequences for support for some home network entertainment functionality. The FAQ also detailed the launch line-up.

Read the Ultimate FAQ at the PlayStation blog.
 

Nokia wants imports and sales of the HTC One smartphone blocked in the United Kingdom after a patent victory over the Taiwanese firm.

A UK court found that technology used in HTC smartphones infringed a patent filed in 1998 for the design of a modulator. HTC protested the case by pointing out that the disputed technology was used in a chip it acquired from Qualcomm.

Under law in the United States, HTC could be protected by the "exhaustion doctrine" which determines that rights of a patent owner are exhausted once a protected article has been sold. In this case, Qualcomm's chip contains the disputed technology that Nokia claims rights on, and Qualcomm sold them to HTC.

However, a High Court judge in the UK noted that the U.S. situation did not override Nokia's rights from having registered the patent in Europe, and that the sale of the chips to HTC from Qualcomm took place in Taiwan, meaning the exhaustion doctrine under U.S. federal law would not be applicable anyway.

"If the licensee has no right to sell in the UK, then a purchaser from the licensee cannot be in a better position," wrote the judge.

An Internet Service Provider has been blocked from enforcing speed caps on customers who exceed a monthly data limit.

Deutsche Telekom has been told by a German court that its plans to limit its customers' data speeds after they reached a monthly limit would put them at an "unreasonable disadvantage."

Initially, the provider had hoped to enforce a 384kbps download speed limit on fixed-line customers who exceeded a monthly data cap. After public outcry, it pushed up the speed limitation to 2Mbps. However, some Deutsche Telekom customers in areas covered by fiber have services up to 200Mbbps, meaning the provider would be giving them only 1 percent of what they are paying for.

Verbraucherzentrale NRW, a German consumer lobby group, brought Deutsche Telekom to court to fight the planned speed caps, and now says there is no legal basis upon which the provider can enforce one.

Deutsche Telekom is studying the ruling and considering its options.

Sony has revealed 22 launch titles for the PS4 console which will be available from November 15.

The game launch details were included in the PS4's "Ultimate FAQ", and Sony cautions that the game list is subject to change before the launch date itself.

The launch titles for PS4's North American launch are:

SCE Worldwide Studios

• Flower
• Killzone Shadow Fall
• Knack
• Resogun
• Sound Shapes

• Angry Birds: Star Wars (Activision)
• Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag (Ubisoft)
• Call of Duty Ghosts (Activison)
• DC Universe Online (Sony Online Entertainment)
• FIFA 14 (EA Sports)
• Battlefield 4 (Electronic Arts)
• Just Dance 2014 (Ubisoft)
• Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
• Lego Marvel Super Heroes (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
• Madden NFL 25 (EA Sports)
• NBA 2K14 (2K Sports)
• Skylanders SWAP Force (Activision)

• Contrast (Compulsion Games)
• Pinball Arcade (FarSight Studios)
• Super Motherload (XGen Studios)
• Tiny Brains (Spearhead Games)
• Warframe (Digital Extremes)

Valve's Steam PC game distribution service has hit a new milestone with 65 million users, up over 15 million in the past 12 months.

The mega-popular Steam now also counts more than 3,000 games. This year also marks the tenth anniversary of the Steam platform.

Steam gamers saw the introduction of several new service features during the year, including Family Sharing, Steam Trading Cards, Early Access, and support for Linux titles. Through Steam Machines, Valve is also preparing an attempted invasion into the living room space dominated by consoles.

"The main goal of Steam has always been to increase the quality of the user's experience by reducing the distance between content creators and their audience," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve.

"As the platform grows, our job is to adapt to the changing needs of both the development and user communities. In the coming year, we plan to make perhaps our most significant collaborations with both communities through the Steam Dev Days and the Steam Machines beta."

One of Dell's Ultrabooks has been hit with complaints that the device reeks of cat pee, which the company is blaming on the manufacturing process.

Customers took to Dell's online support community with a very odd complaint about the Latitude 6430u Ultrabook. Apparently, the keyboard area of the device smells like cat urine, and the problem seems to affect a number of users in different areas.

"The machine is great, but it smells as if it was assembled near a tomcats litter box. It is truly awful!," one owner complained on Dell's support community forum.

"Same experience. I thought for sure one of my cats sprayed it, but there was something faulty with it so I had it replaced. The next one had the same exact issue. It's embarrassing taking it to clients because it smells so bad," another complained.

More users followed with the same issue later on.

Dell now claims to have fixed the issue, saying it was related to the manufacturing process. It is not a health hazard and is not in any way related to bio-contamination. New models on the market will not have the stinky issue.

PS3 users in the U.S. can download the new Redbox Instant by Verizon app for their consoles.

The app provides access to thousands of streaming movies. You'll also be able to find and reserve new releases on DVD and Blu-ray at more than 43,000 Redbox kiosks from your PS3.

At a cost of $8 per month, users get access to thousands of movies available to stream, and four DVD rental nights at the Redbox kiosk, every month. If you want Blu-ray, that'll cost $1 more.

You also have the option to purchase or rent new digital releases on-demand, without needing a subscription, making it a one-stop shop for you to find what you want to watch at any given time.

The PS3 app also has "The Playlist", a specially-curated collection of Redbox Instant by Verizon movies from its subscription movie library, just for you. It will update frequently and will feature themes like "Stuff Blowing Up," "Movies With Balls," and "Beards On Film."

Internet Service Providers must block 21 more websites linked to Internet piracy, according to a court order in the UK.

The new group of websites that are to be made unreachable to UK residents follow the Pirate Bay, and seven other piracy-linked websites that have been ordered blocked in the region. The new list includes sites such as FilesTube, Torrentreactor and Abmp3.

"We asked the sites to stop infringing copyright but unfortunately they did not and we were left with little choice but to apply to the court," said Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive.

The court order mandated that all the sites must be blocked in the UK by today (Wed, Oct 30). The full list of sites to be blocked is as follows:

• Abmp3
• BeeMP3
• Bomb-Mp3
• FileCrop
• FilesTube
• Mp3Juices
• eMp3World
• Mp3lemon
• Mp3Raid
• Mp3skull
• NewAlbumReleases
• Rapidlibrary
• 1337x
• BitSnoop
• ExtraTorrent
• Monova
• TorrentCrazy
• TorrentDownloads
• TorrentHound
• Torrentreactor

A U.S. District Court has found Apple did not violate patents held by WiLAN related to CDMA and HSPA.

In September 2011, WiLAN sued a bunch of tech firms in Texas alleging infringement of U.S Patent No. RE37,802. Since then, it has managed to squeeze settlements and license agreements with six of the seven defendants: Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc., Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, HTC Corporation, Novatel Wireless, Inc. and Sierra Wireless Inc.

Apple was not in the mood to settle the case however, and trial proceedings began October 15, 2013. The outcome of the jury trial determined that Apple did not infringe the patent in question, and found that two of WiLAN's claims were invalid.

WiLAN does not expect the decision to impact on the license agreements already struck with other firms over the patents, adding it was disappointed with the Jury's decision and is currently reviewing its options with trial counsel, McKool Smith.

Ebay is seeking to expand its one-hour delivery services with the acquisition of Shutl.

The auction giant provides a similar service in San Francisco and New York, and now with the acquisition of Shutl is preparing to expand it across more than twenty other U.S. cities, while also bringing the service to the United Kingdom.

Basically, if the Ebay seller and buyer are located in the same area, the rapid delivery service can be used.

Shutl already operates in the UK, with clients such as Argos, Warehouse and Schuh. Customers can choose between a delivery as soon as possible, or select a one-hour window within which to receive the goods. It touts a record delivery time of under 14 minutes.

There is a cost to convenience of course, with Shutl charging up to £6.99 for the rapid delivery.

Facebook has changed its policies regarding violent video content again in a row over a video showing a woman being decapitated.

Facebook had ignited a storm when it refused to remove a video showing a masked individual decapitating a live woman, despite multiple complaints over the nature of the content. One of the complainants was the Australian police force.

As the story became more widespread, Facebook made changes so that a content warning was shown on the video, and said it would move to make users more aware of the nature of questionable violent content.

However, that wasn't enough to satisfy critics, including British Prime Minister David Cameron.

"It's irresponsible of Facebook to post beheading videos, especially without a warning. They must explain their actions to worried parents," Cameron tweeted. Of course, Facebook didn't "post" the content itself as the tweet suggests, but when made aware of it being available on its site, it certainly was Facebook's problem then.

Other critics questioned why its OK to post an extreme video showing a vile act of murder in the real world, and yet a picture of a woman with fully exposed breasts - non-violent imagery of body parts possessed by roughly half the human race - would be removed upon receipt of a complaint.

Microsoft has confirmed that a back-end change made by Twitter is causing Windows Phone devices to use excessive amounts of data downloading profile images.

Twitter is currently in the process of transitioning its profile pictures from one server to another, and apparently has made a change that is causing data woes for some Windows Phone users. Microsoft has confirmed that the built-in Twitter feature (within the People hub) is to blame for excessive data use reported by users.

In an attempt to provide a temporary solution for the problem, Microsoft has made changes to only sync Twitter accounts once per day, but has admitted its options are limited until Twitter resolves the back-end problem itself.

Removing a Twitter account from a Windows Phone device will stop the drain completely if you are concerned about data usage, until Twitter implements a permanent fix for the issue.

Users of TiVo's Roamio Plus and Roamio Pro boxes can now stream recorded content remotely to their iPhones or iPads, as long as there is a Wi-Fi connection available,

Apps for Android will be coming later on, while the iOS apps will also have to be tweaked to allow streaming over LTE networks.

For now, if Wi-Fi is available remotely then the updated TiVo app can stream live or recorded content from the Roamio Plus or Roamio Pro boxes. Content can also be downloaded locally to the device, though this is probably subject to content owner restrictions.

"Until now, your shows have been locked up in your set top box at home," said Jim Denney, Vice President of Product Marketing at TiVo.

"Now with a TiVo Roamio DVR, whether it's a hotel in Denmark, the waiting room at the dentist office, when you're stuck at the airport, or at the gym, out-of-home streaming gives you the level of choice, control and freedom that consumers have come to expect from TiVo."

(via: Engadget)

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center has found that around a third of all U.S. adults get news through Facebook.

Around two thirds of all U.S. adults use Facebook. Just under 80 percent of those surveyed by Pew said they find news when checking up on their friends on the social network.

"People go to Facebook to share personal moments - and they discover the news almost incidentally," Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research at Pew, said.

Still, only 4 percent of Facebook "news consumers" described the social network as the most important way they get their news.

The research is being conducted by Pew in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, probing changes in how the U.S. public obtain news.

Younger Americans look more to social media, like Twitter, to keep up to date with news than with traditional media sources like television and print media.

Xbox LIVE Gold users will now be able to access PBS content on their Xbox 360 consoles.

The PBS app for Xbox 360 will feature hundreds of videos from PBS stations, including full-length episodes from new primetime programs as well as the PBS archives, with new national and local content updated daily. Content from programs such as NOVA, Frontline, American Experience and Austin City Limits will be available.

Xbox 360 users will access and personalize their PBS experiences by identifying their local PBS station, which will provide them access to locally produced content along with signature PBS programs.

"This launch is an important next step in our strategy to make PBS content available through a variety of platforms, while maintaining the connection between the viewer and their local PBS station," said Jon Brendsel, Vice President of Product Development, PBS Digital.

"While PBS member stations will always be the first place to find high-quality PBS programming, the launch of our Xbox 360 offering recognizes that viewers are looking to engage with their local station in the time and manner they choose."

More Info: pbs.org/xbox

Samsung has sold over 40 million Galaxy S4 units since the smartphone was launched six months ago, according to the company.

In the first two months of availability, the Galaxy S4 sold 20 million units and reached 30 million after four months on the market. Since then, sales of the Samsung flagship smartphone slowed down but have still crossed the 40 million milestone.

That's according to Samsung chief executive JK Shin, and the company has gone on to release the curved Galaxy Round, the Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy Gear.

The Galaxy S4 has a 5-inch, 1080p Super AMOLED display, a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T processor (upgraded to 800 in limited LTE-A model), 2GB of RAM and with 16GB internal storage (upgradable to 64GB via microSDXC).

Microsoft has confirmed that 8 users can use Party Chat on Xbox One at launch.

Allowing 8 users to join a Party Chat matches the limit of the Xbox 360 and that of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) for voice chat, announced earlier this week by Sony.

"At launch, up to eight people will be able to join a Party Chat at a time on Xbox One," a Microsoft representative told Game Informer.

Xbox One launches in selected markets around the world from November 22, priced at $499 in the United States and €499 in the European Union (£429 in the UK).

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has announced that its iPlayer apps for Android and iOS have been downloaded over 20 million times.

In September 2013, a record 70 million TV requests came from mobiles and tablets, compared to just 5 million in September 2010, and TV requests from mobile devices now make up 41 per cent of all iPlayer requests, compared with just 6 per cent three years ago.

Christmas Day 2011 and 2012 were the most popular days so far for downloads of the iPlayer apps, with 229,200 and 385,600 downloads respectively, driven by lucky owners of new phones or tablets who go on an app binge.

iPlayer usage spikes at night time, around 10pm as people catch up with their favorite programmes in bed. It then rises again in the morning during commuting hours.

"With over 20 million downloads of the app and record-breaking BBC iPlayer requests on handheld devices, we are thrilled that viewers are increasingly taking their favourite BBC shows with them to watch whenever and wherever they are. And with tablets the top of many people's Christmas list for 2013, we expect this to continue to grow even further," Dan Taylor, Head of BBC iPlayer for BBC Future Media said.

Target will carry the Ouya Android microconsole nationwide from this month, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman has revealed.

The retailer has been an official partner of Ouya since launch, but has only offered it in selected stores. From this month, Ouya will be sold across its 1,800 U.S. stores.

Ouya will also roll out demo kiosks to Target stores, while the retailer will promote the microconsole with in-store video ads and a $10 game card with the purchase of the $99 console.

Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman also said that the company is in talks with Wal-Mart about selling the console, and will expand the availability of the console across Western Europe.

Ouya has been available since June, the end result of a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Microsoft has dropped the cost of a Surface Pro tablet by a further $100, following the release of the Surface Pro 2.

The price cut is only applicable to the United States and Canada up until December 31. It follows Microsoft's decision to cut the product by $100 back in August, and is clearly aimed at reducing remaining stock of the first generation Surface Pro now that the second is here.

The price cut applies to both the 64GB and 128GB models, pricing them at $699 and $799 respectively.

The Surface Pro 2 upgrades to an Intel Core i5-4200U 1.6Ghz, with Microsoft saying it is 20 percent faster, has 50 percent better graphics performance and operates quieter than the first generation Pro. Up to 512GB of internal storage is available, and with either 4GB or 8GB or RAM. It runs Windows 8.1.

(via: Engadget)

Samsung has been fined $340,000 after an investigation found it was behind an astroturfing campaign aimed at praising its products and attacking competitors.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) in Taiwan announced in April this year that it was investigating claims that Samsung was using an army of paid commenters to market its products and bash those of a competitor in Taiwanese Internet forums.

At the time, the media identified the victim as HTC Corp.

The FTC found that Samsung was indeed behind such a campaign, using a large number of hired writers through third-party firms. Two firms were fined over $100,000 for their part.

Samsung has been fined $340,000, though the FTC report does not identify HTC as a target.

Google is providing parental controls through a new 'supervised users' feature that is now in beta.

This means that kids could use their parents' chromebooks (or browser) as a supervised user, allowing the parent to visit chrome.com/manage to review a history of web pages visited, and to manage a block list of sites and other permissions.

Chrome beta for Windows, Mac and Linux has the feature built in now.

Samsung Electronics has apologized to Chinese consumers following a state TV programme about problems with its devices.

A programme broadcast on China Central Television (CCTV) highlighted issues with the Galaxy S3 and Note2 models available in the Chinese market. According the report, software crashes were being caused by internal multimedia cards in the devices.

"As far as management problems caused inconvenience to our customers, we offer our sincere apologies," Samsung Electronics said in a statement on its Chinese website.

It also said it would fix the devices free of charge and refund any customers who had previously paid to have their devices fixed by an authorized service center.

Earlier this year, CCTV also criticized Apple for using different warranty and customer service policies in China than in other countries.

The BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) apps for Android phones and iPhones was downloaded more than 10 million times in just 24 hours.

The app quickly shot to the number 1 spot in the Apple App Store free app rankings in the first 24 hours in more than 75 different countries, including the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. On Google Play, it received more than 60,000 five star reviews in its first day.

Over six million people had opted to be alerted when BBM became available for the platforms before launch, and one million had installed an unreleased leaked version for Android several weeks ago.

"We committed to delivering a BBM experience on iPhone and Android that was equal to that on BlackBerry 10. That means bringing BBM Video, BBM Voice and BBM Channels to Android and iPhone customers too," BlackBerry's official blog reads.

Dead Rising 3 will not be available at launch for the Xbox One console in Germany because the game has been refused an age-rating in the country.

The Bundeprüfstelle für Jugendgefährende Medien (BPJM) refused an age-rating to the game but did not clarify the reasoning. The likely reason is for the violent content of Dead Rising 3, as the BPJM can be very strict on age ratings for games depicting acts of violence.

"Dead Rising 3 will not be released in Germany as part of the Xbox One launch line-up on November 22, having been unable to attain an age-rating upon review by BPJM (Bundeprüfstelle für Jugendgefährende Medien), the country's entertainment software self-regulation body," a Microsoft representative said.

"While Microsoft is disappointed with this decision, we respect the views of the review panel and have withdrawn Dead Rising 3 from Germany's Xbox One launch line-up."

The news was reported by Games Welt (German).

(via: GI.biz)

The head of the UK's National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU), Andy Archibald, has said that the Dark web will evolve in attempt to evade authorities.

The UK's National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) is a branch of the National Crime Agency, and it just secured its first conviction of a 27-year old Croydon man for carrying out phishing attacks while attempting to defraud institutions.

A main focus for the NCCU will be services like the Silk Road, which was shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States at the start of of the month. The Silk Road allowed users to buy and sell drugs and other items. It was masked as a TOR Hidden Service for years before FBI agents managed to unmask its alleged operator from clues he had left on the Internet.

While the Silk Road was a major boost for law enforcement against the Dark web, Archibald warns that such busts will force it to evolve.

"[Online anonymity service] Tor evolves, and will resecure itself," he said, reported by the BBC.

"The success we've had may not necessarily mean that by the same routes and same approaches we can get into other criminal forums. We have to continually probe and identify those forums and then seek to infiltrate them and use other tools. It's not simply a case of because we were able to infiltrate Tor on this occasion that we'll be able to do it next time around as well."

Valve has clarified that its Steam Machines will use graphics chips from AMD and Intel too, despite its own prototype models using NVIDIA chips exclusively.

The prototype units all use NVIDIA cards for graphics, and will ship to testers ahead of the launch of commercial Steam Machines next year. Intel and AMD are also invited to the Steam Machines party, it has been confirmed.

"Although the graphics hardware that we've selected for the first wave of prototypes is a variety of Nvidia cards, that is not an indication that Steam Machines are Nvidia-only," Valve marketing director, Doug Lombardi, said in an interview with Maximum PC.

"In 2014, there will be Steam Machines commercially available with graphics hardware made by AMD, Nvidia, and Intel. Valve has worked closely together with all three of these companies on optimising their hardware for SteamOS, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future."

(via: GI.biz)

A fraud investigation is underway in Sweden after a press release falsely claimed that Samsung was going to buy Fingerprint Cards for $650 million.

The press release was issued by Cision, and shares in the Swedish company soared 50 percent. The Swedish Economic Crime Authority has launched a fraud probe into the incident after both Samsung and Fingerprint Cards said there was no truth to the acquisition report, and that they had never been in talks.

Fingerprint Cards makes fingerprint scanners to lock access to computers and mobile phones, and so following the release of the iPhone 5S with its Touch ID fingerprint lock, the move seemed genuine on Samsung's part.

Cision says that it was the subject of a sophisticated fraud, but Fingerprint Cards' CEO Johan Carlstrom believes the fake press release could have easily been detected.

"With a bigger press release, they should call to make sure," he said.

"There are only two people authorised to send press releases and that is the CEO and financial officer. In those cases they are sent from our e-mail addresses, and this one was not."

Missing episodes of Doctor Who from the 1960s have been discovered and are available from iTunes.

The missing episodes were found by Philip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive. Eleven episodes in total were found, nine of which that had not been seen in 46 years. The episodes are from two Doctor Who 6-episode stories; The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear.

All six episodes of The Enemy of the World have been rediscovered, while five of the six episodes of The Web of Fear are also now available. Episode three of The Web of Fear is still missing but the BBC Worldwide restoration team has reconstructed this part of the story using a selection of the 37 images that were still available from the episode along with the original audio, which has been restored.

Morris discovered the lost episodes by tracking records of tape shipments made by the BBC to Africa for transmission. His investigation led him to a television relay station in Nigeria.

"The tapes had been left gathering dust in a store room at a television relay station in Nigeria. I remember wiping the dust off the masking tape on the canisters and my heart missed a beat as I saw the words 'Doctor Who'. When I read the story code I realized I'd found something pretty special," Morris said.

Amazon has removed several "abuse-themed" ebooks from its Kindle Store after they were pointed out in media reports.

The ebooks on question reportedly depicted rape, incest and bestiality, in clear violation of Amazon's policies. The titles are all self-published material, and Amazon and other retailers get a cut of the sale.

Barnes & Noble are also removing similar themed ebooks after they were brought to its attention.

"When there are violations to the content policy that are brought to our attention, either through our internal process or from a customer or external source, we have a rapid response team in place to appropriately categorize or remove the content in accordance with our policy," Barnes & Noble said in a statement.

The BBC News website also found that yhe search function automatically suggested explicit topics to users typing seemingly innocuous keywords, without age verification or other restrictions.

U.S. broadcasters have petitioned the highest court in the land to review legal cases surrounding Aereo, a service that retransmits broadcast signals over the Internet.

Aereo is a premium service that allows subscribers to view broadcast TV content. It literally assigns subscribers to miniature antennas that pick up the publicly accessible signals and broadcast them to play on a variety of devices. The company believes that this setup complies with laws and regulations in the United States.

Broadcasters on the other hand are diametrically opposed to Aereo. They argue that Aereo's retransmission of content amounts to a "public performance" which has not been authorized by copyright holders.

So far, Broadcasters have failed in the courts to stop Aereo. A New York federal judge refused to grant a sought injunction because each Aereo subscriber was receiving a private, transmission stream. Broadcasters then failed to get the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the decision of the lower court. Aereo also won a case in which a Boston TV station challenged the service in court.

Broadcasters filed a petition for writ of certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to have the ultimate say on this. While the broadcasters have had no joy stepping on Aereo, they have had success in similar cases against Film On X in L.A. and Washington district courts. Film On X also uses antennas and provides digital streams to users. This, Broadcasters feel, amounts to evidence that different courts were delivering conflicting ruling on the legality of such services.

Google will start to use the names of some users, along with photos and comments in advertising.

The new ads will use personal information of some Google+ users, though there will be a way to opt out entirely and users under the age of 18 will be excluded automatically. It will be part of new "shared endorsement" ads that will resemble social ads used by Facebook.

If a user has publicly endorsed a product or service by clicking +1, or used rating or wrote reviews on products or services shared on other Google services, like the Play Store, then that information could be used too.

Even though Google+ users will be able to opt out, the changes to Google's terms of service policy has some privacy and digital rights activists speaking out.

"It's a huge privacy problem," said Marc Rotenberg, of privacy group EPIC, adding that Google users "shouldn't have to go back and restore their privacy defaults every time Google makes a change."

Rotenberg is suggesting that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) review the policy change by Google, in case it violates a consent order Google entered into in 2011, barring it from retroactively changing the privacy settings of users.

Users of Apple's iPhone 5S smartphone are reporting crashes that are accompanied by a blue screen on the device.

Most people can remember the good old Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) that happened now and then with Windows. In newer versions of Windows it is not blue, but essentially the same thing.

Now it appears Apple has gotten its own blue screen of death with the new iPhone 5S, only it contains no information at all on the crash, it just pre-empts a reboot.

The problem seems to occur when using Apple's iWork apps, particularly when multitasking. One apparent workaround, according to The Verge, is to disable iCloud syncing for Apple's Pages, Keynote, and Numbers apps. The problem persists even on iOS 7.0.2 which was released to fix lockscreen bugs.

Here is a video demonstration of the blue screen crash on an iPhone 5S.

Brazil's competition watchdog will investigate potential anticompetitive practices by the Google, following complaints form Microsoft and domestic businesses.

The complaints are very similar to those that prompted an EU anti-trust probe into Google's business practices that is just now approaching resolution. Among those who complained to Brazil's antitrust group, Cade, are Microsoft and some domestic Brazilian companies.

Microsoft accuses Google of obstructing advertising campaigns across multiple search engines, giving an unfair advantage to its own Adwords business.

Buscapé and Bondfardo, two Brazilian price comparison outfits, is accusing Google of reproducing reviews from their users without allowing competing services to reuse information on the Google Shopping website. They also accuse Google of giving unfair prominence to Google Shopping in search results by displaying photos and other information alongside the search results.

It is this favouritism to its own non-Search service that convinced the European Commission to initiate its case against Google.

One of the world's most addictive and iconic games has been born yet again, and this time its in pure HTML5.

Full Screen Mario is an open-source effort started by Josh Goldberg. It recreates Super Mario using just HTML5, letting you play the game in your browser.

In addition to the Super Mario we all know and love (admit it!), you can also play randomly generated levels which can result in some surprising and very difficult situations. If you are the creative type, you can build your own level, or you can just stick to recreated Super Mario levels.

Either way it is pretty cool to see.

Check it out: Full Screen Mario

(via BoingBoing)

Istagram for Android is catching up to the iPhone app with photo straightening.

The feature has been available to fix crooked pics on iPhones for a while now, but it took until today for Instagram to push out an update for Android that included photo straightening.

For those who use it to capture video, the update also adds sound and data usage controls.

Today's Android update includes photo straightening and new sound and data usage controls for Instagram videos: http://t.co/nH3gArR2Fy

-- Instagram (@instagram) October 10, 2013

A class-action lawsuit against Google over the secret storing of cookies in Safari despite users' settings has been dismissed.

Delaware Judge Sue Robinson dismissed the case, finding that the plaintiffs had failed to prove any real harm had been done, and failed to convincingly argue that Google violated their rights. At issue is Google's storing of cookies in the Safari and Safari mobile browser even when users had privacy settings that should prevent it.

Google had been using a flaw in the Safari browser to do so, and when it was caught the company claimed it was a mistake. However, it was later revealed that Google was doing something similar with Internet Explorer.

The company found itself on the end of a $22.5 million fine from the FTC for its actions in August 2012.

However, in the class-action lawsuit, Judge Robsinon foudn no evidence that the cookies themselves caused tangible harm to users, and the information the cookies provided to Google (URLs) fell short of the criteria demanded by the Wiretap Act.

Google now faces another lawsuit over GMail keyword scanning.

BlackBerry co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin might be considering a bid for the seriously troubles company.

A securities filing made on Thursday opened up the possibility that the pair may be assessing their options, perhaps providing an alternative to the Fairfax $4.7 billion deal. Some analysts have questioned whether even the Fairfax proposal can secure the financing required.

Lazaridis and Fregin could then face the exact same problem. Between them, they own about 8 percent of BlackBerry's shares. It could also be possible that they are considering joining the Fairfax bid.

BlackBerry wouldn't comment on the reports, just repeating that it is looking at alternatives for the time being.

John Lewis, a UK department store chain, is expecting the Xbox One console to outsell the PS4 out of the gate.

The person responsible for tech buying at John Lewis is Jonathan Marsh, who said that while the chain is stocking both consoles, the expectation is that the Xbox One will outsell the PS4 after launch. Marsh cites the game line-up and Xbox Live as a major factor for that belief.

"We are expecting more interest in the Xbox One," Marsh said.

"We are stocking both the PS4 and the Xbox One but if we were to back one, we are thinking that Xbox One will appeal a bit more to our customers in terms of the experience it creates."

Back in July, analyst Colin Sebastian also predicted the Xbox One would outsell the PS4 this year due to supply constraints, but at the same time, the mood from the public leans toward the PS4 in polls.

EE has said it will provide mobile services for fixed-line operator BT, replacing Vodafone.

Vodafone had a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) partnership with BT for the past nine years but withdrew from talks about continuing the partnership earlier this year.

Now Britain's largest mobile provider, EE, said it will take Vodafone's place and provide service to BT, the country's largest fixed-line operator.

BT has a limited number of mobile customers across the public service, and to private businesses.

EE is joint-owned by Orange and Deutsche Telekom.

Mobile operators in Britain have been stunned by proposed increases in the license fees they must pay to use spectrum in the country.

If they were to go through, Britain's major mobile service providers could see their license fees rise more than 400 percent. Vodafone, for example, would see its fee rise from £15.6 million, to £83.1 million, while EE would jump from £24.9 million to £107.1 million. Three would see its rates rise from £8.3 million to £35.7 million.

Ofcom justifies the proposal based on the rates paid by operators in equivalent European markets, arguing that by comparison the rates in the UK are very low.

But operators told the BBC that the hike was excessive, with Vodafone saying it was disappointed. Others fear that the cost increase may pass on to consumers.

"The size of these figures may come as bad news to the mobile networks, but more worryingly could sound alarm bells for consumers," said Adam Kirby, telecoms expert at uSwitch.com.

"The proposed new costs reflect a huge leap in the amount networks will have to pay the regulator for using the spectrum - our concern is that it will be consumers who are left to foot the bill."

Best Buy is running a trade-in scheme on Microsoft's first-generation Surface tablets, guaranteeing at least a $200 gift card for your tablet.

Still, even if you do get a $350 card for a high quality Surface Pro, that's still quite a cut down. To qualify, the device must not have a damaged screen, or have any liquid damage of any kind.

Best Buy will run the Surface promo throughout the month, until October 21, just a day shy of the release of Microsoft's upgraded Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2.

The Surface Pro 2 upgrades to an Intel Core i5-4200U 1.6Ghz, with Microsoft saying it is 20 percent faster, has 50 percent better graphics performance and operates quieter than the first generation Pro. Up to 512GB of internal storage is available, and with either 4GB or 8GB or RAM. It runs Windows 8.1.

According to a report, Google is set to drop the, 'Google TV' brand and switch to 'Android TV' instead.

The report comes from GigaOm, citing a source that said Google intends to phase out Google TV but a re-branded Android TV will follow. Of course, Google TV is already based on Android anyway.

Google seems to be experimenting with its living room efforts, having launched the Chromecast dongle to beam content from a variety of compatible devices and services directly to TV over a network.

Google TV has been waiting for an update for some time now, so its likely that the re-branding will come with it.

(via: The Verge)

The alleged operator of the recently-shut Silk Road online drug market has been sent to New York to face charges.

Authorities in New York charged Ross Ulbricht with operating the drug market, which let users buy and sell drugs using BitCoin. US magistrate judge Joseph Spero ordered Ulbricht to New York to face the charges, which Ulbricht's attorney denies.

He was arrested on October 1 at a public library in San Franciso. Court documents claim that he was talking with a co-operating witness at the time.

Ulbricht was also charged in a Baltimore court with soliciting the murder of a former worker. According to the FBI, he unknowingly hired an undercover agent to commit the murder.

Since the shut down of the Silk Road, several arrests have been made in different areas of the world, including four in the United Kingdom, and one of the allegedly most prolific dealers in Seattle.

Sony planned to release the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console bundled with the PlayStation camera, and may yet still offer such a bundle.

President of Sony Computer Entrainment, Andrew House, said that the original consideration was to bundle a camera with the PS4 by default, but that the company just couldn't reach the magic price point of $400 and made a marketing decision to axe it.

"Certainly for the earlier part of the lifecycle, the vast majority of the audience that we speak to tells us that their primary wish is for the full controller interface and there's not necessarily a huge emphasis being placed on camera interaction," he told Business Spectator.

The magic price touted by Sony was always to be $200 less than the PlayStation 3 (PS3) was at launch in 2006, when it debuted for $600.

Microsoft made the decision to bundle Kinect with every Xbox One console, which added $100 to the price at launch.

House did indicate however that Sony may bundle the camera as standard at a later date.

Microsoft is working hard to have Steve Ballmer's successor as Microsoft chief executive officer in place by the end of the year.

According to Bloomberg, the board is probing options it has for Microsoft's third CEO in its entire history, after co-founder and chairman Bill Gates and current CEO Steve Ballmer.

Bloomberg sources say the board is being advised in its head hunt by former Cisco exec and current managing director of private equity firm Silver lake, Charles Giancarlo.

Among names being thrown around as a potential successor to Ballmer are former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, Ford Motor Co CEO Alan Mulally, EBay Inc. CEO John Donahoe, former Microsoft exec Paul Maritz and Microsoft executive VP responsible for Business Development, Tony Bates.

Whoever the successor is, they will have to continue Ballmer's strategy of focusing Microsoft on providing devices and services to pull back ground dominated by rivals like Apple and Google. The new CEO will also have to integrate the acquired Nokia phone business into Microsoft.

According to an exclusive report by Variety, U.S. broadcasters are preparing to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to examines their legal dispute with Aereo.

Aereo is a premium service that allows subscribers to view (and record) broadcast TV content. It literally assigns subscribers to miniature antennas that pick up the publicly accessible signals and broadcast them to play on a variety of devices. The company believes that this setup complies with laws and regulations in the United States.

Broadcasters on the other hand disagree, and have sued Aereo to stop the service form proliferating any further. So far, they have been unsuccessful in their efforts, with district courts backing Aereo and the refusal by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the case.

While the broadcasters have had no joy stepping on Aereo, they have had success in similar cases against Film On X in L.A. and Washington district courts. Film On X also uses antennas and provides digital streams to users.

Broadcasters consider the rulings in favor of Aero and against Film On X as evidence that circuit courts are issuing conflicting opinions, which is grounds for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and examine the issues.

Microsoft's Major Nelson (Larry Hryb) has said that the next Xbox Console may support a keyboard and mouse if developers ask for it.

The Xbox 360 console has limited keyboard support for text input, but has never supported mice. In a Newegg TV interview, Hryb said that if developers would like support built in for the use of a keyboard and mouse, that is something Microsoft would be willing to do.

"We'll certainly have this great SDK for developers to do what they like. If that's something they're interested in doing, we'll certainly help them do that," he said.

Hryb did acknowledge however that PC and console gaming styles don't match up and that won't change even if you can use a keyboard and mouse for input.

"We kind of have this concept of when you're playing a PC game you're leaning forward," Hryb said.

"With an Xbox game, sometimes you lean back. You're just kinda having fun. And I don't want to incite the religious debate that will ensue, because I'm very aware. We want to provide a gaming experience that people enjoy, certainly with Windows--that's our other large gaming platform at Microsoft. So there's something there, but right now we're really focused on really the console space."

Microsoft continues to support the development of a Do Not Track standard across browsers, it has said in a public statement to the W3C.

The Redmond-giant has implemented Do Not Track (DNT) in its Internet Explorer 10 and Internet Explorer 11 browsers, but admits that DNT relies on stakeholders collectively agreeing on what DNT means and how websites should respond to the DNT signal.

The W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group aims to define a DNT standard to work across the entire industry.

As part of the ongoing process, the W3C asked members of the working group to respond to a public online poll by October 9. The Public Online poll offers five options for members to choose (they can pick more than one), which you can get more details on at: w3.org

Here is Microsoft's public comments on the poll and its support for the DNT standard:

Telecom firms in the European Union are asking the European Commission to reconsider plans to reform the sector across the 28-nation bloc.

Neelie Kros, European Commission for digital agenda, is championing reforms aimed at bringing the level of cellular and broadband services in the EU up to that of global competitors, like the United States. As things stand, in the single European market there are more or less 28 separate telecommunications markets.

The reforms are a mixed bag for telecoms operators. On one hand, they seek to end potentially lucrative charges in the European Union, such as roaming fees charges to EU citizens travelling across borders. On the other hand, the reforms will remove regulatory red tape making cross-border business in the EU easier, as well as harmonising the sales of mobile spectrum throughout the entire bloc.

However, telecoms operators believe that killing off roaming fees - while extremely popular with citizens of EU member states - will deprive operators of revenue that they need to modernise networks.

Additionally, they favor more consolidation in the European market as a way to return to growth. Neelie Kroes is probably not opposed to consolidation in the sector, but EU competition regulators are concerned that less carriers in the EU will reduce competition and result in higher costs to the consumer.

Despite a Microsoft rep indicating that the Xbox One console will record all achievements automatically, that won't be the case.

An Xbox Australia representative had said that the new generation Xbox console would automatically record the moment a player unlocks all achievements, but that has been denied by Microsoft director of product planning Albert Penello.

"It won't be automatic for every Achievement. It's a feature that developers can unlock for achievements, OR, for instance, have hidden in the game for doing something cool or discovering something hidden," Penello said on NeoGaf. "Basically, we allow developers access to Game DVR and they can put conditions on an automatic recording. But not every Achievement will automatically be recorded."

The Xbox One Game DVR feature will record footage of the game in the background, which players can later share Online. At launch, sharing will be limited to uploading to Xbox Live, but support for social services like Facebook will come after.

Mad Catz has announced that its M.O.J.O. micro-console running Android will ship December 10, and is available to pre-order for $249.99.

It also revealed some technical specifications of the console it previewed in January at E3. The M.O.J.O is powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 4 T4OS 1.8GHz processor, with 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage. Storage is upgradable through support for SDXC, up to 128GB.

For connectivity, the M.O.J.O outputs via HDMI in 1080p, has a USB 3.0 slot, USB 2.0 slot, supports Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi.

On the software side, the M.O.J.O runs Android 4.2.2 and is compatible with games from Google Play, NVIDIA's Tegra Zone and the Amazon Appstore.

The M.O.J.O micro-console and its GameSmart C.T.R.L.R Wireless Gamepad (compatible with some other Android devices) ship on December 10, but will be available only in limited quantities.

More Info & Pre-Order: madcatz.com/mojo/en-us

Nintendo has launched its own online store in the United Kingdom, shipping out orders from its own stock rather than re-directing to third parties.

In the United States, Nintendo's online store lists its products but redirects users to third party retailers to make a purchase. In the newly launched UK store, Nintendo takes and processes orders from its own stock, provides free shipping with orders over £200 qualifying for next day delivery.

In addition to selling its home and handheld consoles; the Wii, Wii U, 3DS and DS, Nintendo will also sell exclusive bundles through its own UK store, and offer extended warranty.

There is no indication that Nintendo plans to bring similar in-house online stores to any other region at this time.

Visit the new Nintendo UK store at: store.nintendo.co.uk

(via: Engadget)

PayPal is to introduce a new feature that enables customers to pay for goods and services using a QR code or a PIN.

It works by using your smartphone with the PayPal app which allows you to enter a PIN or shows a QR code that a merchant can scan.

For the consumer, the benefits beyond the payment convenience include the ability to automatically redeem any special offers, gift cards, merchant rewards programs or other forms of payment that might be saved in their PayPal wallet in one quick transaction.

For merchants, the benefit is the ability to accept the digital transactions without the need to switch to new technology. Utilizing the millions of 2D barcode scanners already sitting on store counters and 40+ million payment terminals available around the world, this offers an easy way to give customers the benefits without investing in new technology.

If the merchant already has a mobile app, they can also integrate PayPal's new 'payment code' into the app for full support.

More details will be made available on this new system before its roll-out in Q1, 2014.

Skype for Android 4.4 improves the quality of video calls and brings a new UI experience to the Android application.

The update will also be available for Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HDX tablets. Tablet users will now see a new interface that puts conversations first, displaying your most recent calls and chats.

With good network conditions, users will experience up to four times the video resolution of previous versions with better clarity and frame rates. There are also some other bug fixes and improvements:

• Accessibility improvements with full support for TalkBack screen reader
• Updates that address incoming call issues, including one that was causing phones to reboot
• Additional changes to audio routing
• Display and UX enhancements when switching orientation

Russian police have reportedly arrested a man alleged to be behind two infamous exploit kits used by cybercriminals to spread malware.

According to reports, the man arrested used the alias Paunch and is responsible for the distribution of the Blackhole and Cool exploit kits. While the Russian authorities did not confirm the arrest, Kaspersky Labs expert Alexander Gostev said anonymous sources had confirmed it to him.

Blackhole dominated the so called "crimeware" market, sold for an annual license fee of up to $1,500. It targeted vulnerabilities in very popular software, such as JRE, Flash, PDF readers and so on. It could be used as part of the creation of malicious websites, for example, that could target visitors running vulnerable software.

Combined with a successful hack of a popular website, these tools could yield strong results for their operators.

"If it's true that the brains behind the Blackhole has been apprehended it's a very big deal - a real coup for the cybercrime-fighting authorities, and hopefully cause disruption to the development of one of the most notorious exploit kits the web has ever seen," said Graham Cluley of Sophos.

Comcast and Twitter have announced a deal that will allow you to get more control over some content directly from tweets.

The deal will result in a "See It" button becoming visible on some tweets that are linked to NBCUniversal programming. By tapping the See It button, Twitter users (and Xfinity TV customers) will be able to tune-in to those programs in several ways.

A See It menu will provide options including the ability to tune to live TV or start a show On Demand on their set-top box, tune in to a show online or on their mobile device, set DVRs, set reminders or even buy theater tickets through Fandango.

"See It is a simple yet powerful feature that creates an instant online remote control," said Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO, Comcast Corporation.

"Comcast is taking a leap forward in social TV by enabling Twitter users to more easily find and view the shows they want to watch and discover new shows. Twitter complements the live viewing experience and is an ideal partner for Comcast and NBCUniversal."

Panasonic will reportedly get out of the plasma TV panel production business by the end of March next year, according to a report.

Sources familiar with Panasonic's plans told the Reuters news agency that the company seeks to end its production of plasma TV panels by the end of its financial year, which ends March 2014.

The move is no surprise given that Panasonic's losses in its TV business have contributed to monstrous losses in recent years. A strong yen has also given it a major disadvantage over flat panel television rivals, such as South Korea's Samsung and its domestic rival LG Electronics.

On top of that, plasma televisions have declined in a market dominated by LCD, which has witnessed considerable improvements and innovation over recent year. According to DisplaySearch, only 6 percent of TV shipments in 2012 were plasma, compared to 87 percent for LCD.

According to Reuters sources, Panasonic will book an impairment loss of more than 40 billion yen with the closure of its plasma factory in Western Japan.

Microsoft has paid a security researcher a reward of $100,000 for detailing a bug and attack method on Windows 8.1.

James Forshaw, a security researcher at Context Information Security, got the $100,000 bounty from Microsoft by showing how to work around protective measures in the preview version of Windows 8.1. He also previously got a cash reward for finding an Internet Explorer 11 bug.

"The reason we pay so much more for a new attack technique versus for an individual bug is that learning about new mitigation bypass techniques helps us develop defenses against entire classes of attack," said Microsoft's Katie Moussouris.

Microsoft has paid out $28,000 for bugs found affecting Internet Explorer 11 - the browser at the core of Windows 8.1 - as part of a reward program that was initiated in June and is set to run for a year.

Samsung has unveiled its new Galaxy Round smartphone, confirming rumors about an upcoming Samsung device with a curved display.

The device will be launched in South Korea over the coming days through carrier SK Telecom. It features a 5.7-inch curved OLED display (1080p), and weighs 154g.

As a result of its unique curved design, users can take advantage of round integration experiences like the Roll Effect that enables the user to check information such as the date, time, missed calls and battery easily when home screen is off, and the Gravity Effect for creating visual interaction with the screen by tilting the device.

Further technical details and information about available outside South Korea are unavailable at this time. It will launch in South Korea beginning tomorrow in "luxury brown" for the equivalent of around $1,000.

Some of Samsung's older smartphones and tablets will be banned from import and sale in the United States.

Apple filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in 2011, accusing Samsung of infringing its patents in some of its smartphones and tablet products. In August, the ITC found that some of the products did infringe Apple's patents and banned their importation into the country.

The ban could have been overturned within a 60 day period by U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, but he declined to do so.

"After carefully weighing policy considerations, including the impact on consumers and competition, advice from agencies, and information from interested parties, I have decided to allow the commission's determination," Froman said in a statement.

He recently overturned a ban imposed on Apple products for patent infringement. Needless to say, Samsung is less than pleased.

"We are disappointed by the US Trade Representative's decision to allow the exclusion order issued by the US International Trade Commission. It will serve only to reduce competition and limit choice for the American consumer," a spokesperson said.

The new HP Chromebook 11 has been shown off this week, available for just $279.

The new 11-inch HP Chromebook 11 weighs just 2.3lb. It is powered with a Sasmung Exynos 5250 CPU, 2GB of RAM and 16GB SSD storage. It support 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. It charged via microUSB for more convenient travel.

Its magnesium frame has no sharp edges with a completely screw-free design, and no air vents or fans. The new Chromebook's screen has a 176-degree viewing angles so you can see even when looking at it almost completely sideways.

The speakers are located under the keyboard rather than on the bottom of the chromebook for better sound.

Google also throws in 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage for free for two years, and a 60-day free trial of Google Play Music All Access.

It is available now for just $279 from all the usual suspects.

Amazon appears to be shipping Chromecast outside of the United States, despite Google not yet expanding the product beyond the territory.

Android Central noticed that Amazon had added new shipment options for territories outside of the U.S., including full shipping and import costs. Orders have been placed for the device to the UK and as far as Australia by some customers.

Chromecast provides a way to stream content to a television from a variety of devices over a home WiFi network, as long as your TV has a spare HDMI input it can plug into. Priced at just $35, it may be worth placing an order.

(via: Engadget)

British police have arrested four men as part of an ongoing investigation into the Silk Road, a dark web drug market that was shut by the FBI this month.

Three of the arrests were made in Manchester, and the fourth in Devon. They were arrested on suspicion of drug offenses by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA).

"These arrests send a clear message to criminals; the hidden internet isn't hidden and your anonymous activity isn't anonymous. We know where you are, what you are doing and we will catch you," said Keith Bristow, director general of the NCA.

"It is impossible for criminals to completely erase their digital footprint. No matter how technology-savvy the offender, they will always make mistakes."

Indeed, alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht appeared to unmask himself through a number of mistakes that led the FBI to him, rather than a failure of the TOR network that protected the source of the Silk Road server.

Executive chairman and former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, has claimed that Android is more secure than the iPhone.

Gartner analyst David Willis asked a question of Eric Schmidt during the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo where he touched on Android's security reputation.

"If you polled many people in this audience they would say Google Android is not their principal platform... When you say Android, people say, wait a minute, Android is not secure," Willis commented.

Schmidt was having none of it. "Not secure? It's more secure than the iPhone," he declared, drawing laughter from the audience.

Schmidt went on to tout Android 1 billion+ device activations and the stringent security testing it undergoes.

Recently, a U.S. government report highlighted the lack of a upgrade path for many devices running Android, which can leave them vulnerable to malware attacks.

Microsoft has paid bug hunters a total of $28,000 for finding and reporting security vulnerabilities in the preview version of Internet Explorer 11.

As the primary browser app in Windows 8.1, Internet Explorer 11 is likely to be probed by malware authors the world round, and Microsoft sought to minimize the risk that serious bugs will be found after launch, with a bounty program announced in June.

As part of the program, Microsoft is paying up to $11,000 per vulnerability discovered, depending on how serious it is. The reward program is set to run for a year.

So far, Microsoft has paid a total of $28,000 to six researchers for reporting a total of 15 bugs in the preview release of Internet Explorer 11.

Voice actors for Grand Theft Auto V have dismissed criticisms that the game encourages violence in children as hypocritical.

Since the game was launched last month, it has enjoyed overwhelming success on the market with over $1 billion in sales in three days. Criticism of the games content was entirely expected though, as it comes around with every release of a new GTA.

"Anyone who has any conception at all about the games and hasn't played them should go play the games before they open their mouths," Ned Lukes, who voices Michael in GTA V, told PC Advisor.

"As an actor, I got to go out and do all these crazy things and then go back home to my wife and my son and go out in the back yard and throw a baseball around like a normal all-American dad. I think that's what these games are. People who take them too seriously and go, 'Oh, this is life.' No, this isn't life. This is imagination. It's just fun. You definitely don't want GTA raising your children. But it's not a bad release from them, when you need to get away."

The BBC is to update iPlayer to cater more to the personal tastes of each user.

Tony Hall, director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), is to outline the changes today in a keynote speech.

The new iPlayer will be aimed at giving BBC viewers/listeners the power to more easily personalize the content they get from the publicly-funded group. For example, BBC Radio 1 has already revealed it will have its own iPlayer channel that will have exclusive performances and interviews that are not broadcast elsewhere, in a bid to appeal to younger audiences.

The changes are likely to spark an old debate however. If this is the direction the BBC is taking, then the continued requirement to pay the fixed licence fee will be called into question. If you can personalize the type of content that you want to see from the BBC, then why pay a blanket fee toward the BBC's entire content production?

A launch is planned in 2014, with content available both in the UK and internationally. Mobile apps are also expected to be announced for BBC radio programmes with exclusive content.

According to leaked documents, the National Security Agency (NSA) targeted flaws in the Firefox web browser to attempt to descramble communications over TOR.

The Onion Router - or TOR - is a network that seeks to provide anonymity to users communications either within the network, or with servers based on the Internet. When visiting a website through a browser configured to use TOR, the traffic back and forth bounces through several servers that could be anywhere worldwide in order to make it difficult for both ends of the communication to know the location/identity of the other.

Only the Exit Node - the last TOR node before accessing a web server - could potentially have access to unencrypted data but still would not be aware of the other end of the communication.

From leaked documents published by the Guardian, it appears the NSA was unsuccessful in breaking TOR, and so decided another route; attack the browser and even infect the computer of a potential target in an effort to unmask them and their communications.

Browser flaws could open up the possibility of being unmasked as they could force an unencrypted, un-tunnelled connection between the target computer and a third party server. It also leaves browsers open to the delivery of a malware payload.

According to Bloomberg, Apple's iTunes Radio will become available in several more countries beyond the United States in 2014.

The report cites sources familiar with Apple's plans for iTunes Radio, which became available with the release of iOS 7 in the United States. It became the primary competitor to Pandora over night, and now Apple seeks to 1-up its rival by expanding to territories beyond its current reach.

It intends to launch iTunes Radio in the United Kingdom and Canada at some point in 2014, while it also expects to expand into Australia, New Zealand and Nordic countries during the year.

Apple is able to expand so quickly because it negotiated rights agreements with major record companies, while Pandora relies on rights granted by the state for Internet radio services in order to operate. Unless Pandora can strike similar deals, it may be quickly outpaced on the International stage by Apple.

Apple's Eddy Cue said recently that the iPhone-maker plans to launch iTunes Radio in over 100 countries.

Microsoft has updated its YouTube app for Windows Phone, but don't be fooled as it has turned into nothing more than a shortcut to the YouTube mobile site.

If you have been following the Windows Phone YouTube App saga, you know that Microsoft and Google got into a public fight over apps developed and made available for the Microsoft platform. At one point, Microsoft's YouTube app featured no advertisements at all, and allowed users to download videos from the service, both in violation of YouTube policies.

Google eventually blocked out the app and made demands of Microsoft to remedy the situation, but so far they have failed to reach a point of agreement over an app.

Microsoft accuses Google of double standards by demanding that it make a HTML5 app, but not requiring the same of apps made for its own Android OS, or Apple's iOS.

Microsoft's latest YouTube app update suggests that Microsoft has given up, as it does little more than redirect to the YouTube mobile site. Tapping the YouTube icom will literally just redirect you to m.youtube.com.

Some of the biggest names in tech have formed a new group that aims to make Internet access more affordable in developing countries.

Among the group are Microsoft, Intel, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and more, and their goal is to reduce the high cost of Internet access in developing regions of the world. In some places, entry level Internet access could cost easily as much as 30 percent of monthly income.

While new technologies have the power to make Internet access more available than ever before, there is still considerable issues with the cost in some regions. The newly formed Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) aims to fight this problem through policy change.

"Policy change can help new innovation take hold and flourish; outdated policies can stifle progress," Google's blog reads.

Initiated by the World Wide Web Foundation, A4AI includes members from the technology, government, and nonprofit worlds, from developed and developing countries. A4AI has a specific goal in mind: to reach the UN Broadband Commission target of entry-level broadband access priced at less than 5% of monthly income worldwide.

Sony has confirmed that the PlayStation App will be included in the next update for the PlayStation Vita handheld.

The update was revealed through Twitter by Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony Computer Entertainment's Worldwide Studios, while responding to questions from other users.

He also referred to the new PlaySation app as "PS4 Link".

Ouya now has 25,000 registered developers, according to the company.

As it stands, owners of the $100 Android console can download around 465 games or apps from the Ouya store. The company announced the milestone of 25,000 registered developers, but did not elaborate on the number of active developers for the platform.

The Ouya console was released four months ago as the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. Since then, it has received a mixed response from gamers at best.

According to Julie Uhrman, chief exec at Ouya, around 27 percent of Ouya owners have purchased games. The company expects this figure to rise.

Symantec has managed to shrink the ZeroAccess botnet by around a quarter, cutting off over 500,000 computers from the yet-unidentified operators of the notorious network.

The botnet hit as many as 1.9 million infected "zombie" PCs. Unlike other botnets that have been dismantled by targeting centralized command and control services, ZeroAccess uses a decentralized system where groups of infected computers communication new instructions from the operators of the networks.

Those unlucky enough to be part of the botnet likely have their computer used to mine BitCoins and carry out click fraud.

Symantec managed to cut off a huge chunk of zombie PCs from the botnet by poisoning the communications between infected computers. It started its operation when it noticed an updated ZeroAccess malware was going through the network which would make it much more difficult to disrupt communications.

ISPs have been informed about computers that have been axed from the botnet by Symantec, so that their customers can be told they are running infected machines.

The European Commission has indicated that it is closer to a settlement with search giant Google in a three-year old anti-trust probe.

After being told by the European regulatory body that it needs to go back and come up with more concessions, Google has reportedly provided more offers to Commissioners that could end the case.

"We have reached a key moment in this case. Now with significant improvements on the table, I think we have the possibility to work again," competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia told the European Parliament.

Specifics of Google's concessions were not revealed but they are expected to make Google's search results more clear. For example, Google's own services will be clearly identified as such in search results, while its rivals may also be able to attach their own corporate logos to results.

Website will also be able to control better what content from their site is shown on Google's results.

In 2010, a group of rivals in search and e-commerce complained to the European authorities that Google was abusing its dominant position in search to push its own other services ahead of those that compete with it.

The FBI has arrested the alleged operator of the Silk Road marketplace and has taken the hidden service offline.

The Silk Road was a marketplace for buying and selling narcotics, existing as a Hidden Service on The Onion Router (TOR) network. It enabled users to buy and sell narcotics - both illegal and prescription drugs - using the BitCoin digital currency.

For years the site operated without being located by law enforcement agencies, who instead had to rely on sting operations to attempt to disrupt the trade of drugs.

If you attempt to visit the Silk Road now, you will get the following notice.

According to a report, a small group of Microsoft investors are lobbying the Microsoft board to push Bill Gates out as chairman of the Redmond-based software giant.

Gates co-founded Microsoft 38 years ago and has been one of the biggest names in technology ever since. The success of Microsoft's products has made him one of the wealthiest individuals in the world, allowing him to focus primarily on philanthropic efforts after stepping down as Microsoft chief executive.

While he is still a popular figure at Microsoft, Reuters is citing sources familiar with a move at Microsoft by three of its top investors to have him step down as chairman. The investors, and the sources, remain unnamed.

Their argument is that the presence of Bill Gates as chairman will make it extremely difficult for a new chief executive to take the company in a new direction. Steve Ballmer is set to leave Microsoft very soon, though the board has insisted that his strategy will remain on course.

Gates owns roughly 4.5 percent of Microsoft, making him still the largest individual shareholder. He has been selling around 80 million shares of Microsoft per year under a pre-set plan, which if left continue will deplete his stake in Microsoft by 2018.