News written by James Delahunty (November, 2013)

The PlayStation 4 (PS4) launched in the UK and wider European area last night, and is already starting to burn through supplies.

The console went on sale at midnight and those who had pre-ordered waited to get their hands on Sony's shiny new system. Beyond pre-orders, it was a case of first-come first-served of course, but Sony reports that supplies are already running low.

"We are starting to sell out - very rapidly but [we] will continue to work with all parts of the supply chain including our partners at retail to get more, as and when we can," a Sony spokesperson said.

Sony will setup a stock tracker website to help consumers hoping to get a console before Christmas.

Those who had pre-ordered with Amazon had the option to get their console on launch day, but anyone who failed to pre-order before November 14 would have to wait until after Christmas to get the console shipped.

The absence of supplies is already seen driving web scams that hope to entice parents desperate to get the new consoles in time for the holidays, according to NetNames.

"To avoid falling victim to the latest online scams, consumers need to remember that if the price seems too good to be true, it probably is," said NetNames product director of brand protection, Haydn Simpson.

According to an advocacy group, Microsoft has made changes to Skype that will make monitoring and censorship of activity much more difficult in China.

The service had announced the end of an eight-year partnership with Hong Kong-based TOM Group, and has found a new partner in Guangming Founder (GMF), a joint-venture of Beijing-based newspaper Guangming Daily and the Founder Group.

According to advocacy group, GreatFire, Microsoft also has made changes to how its service works that should thwart Chinese monitoring and censorship activities.

"All user calls, chats and login information are encrypted and being communicated directly to Microsoft via HTTPS. This is a complete about-face for Microsoft from the TOM-Skype era, when all information was processed by TOM and stored by TOM on servers located in China with absolutely no privacy controls in place," the group said.

India's CCI has launched an investigation into Ericsson's patent dispute with Micromax after the latter filed a complaint with the body.

Swedish firm Ericsson sued Micromax in March of this year alleging patent infringement, and confirmed that the dispute is now being reviewed by India's Competition Commission.

"The CCI has now decided to refer the case to the director general for an in-depth investigation," Ericsson said in a statement.

While Ericsson claims it has attempted on multiple occasions to reach a license agreement with Micromax on FRAND - fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory - terms, Micromax alleges that it is using its dominant position to impose "exorbitant royalty rates."

It claims that royalties demanded for Ericsson patents should be based on the value of the technology used, rather than the sale price of a smartphone.

Google's policy of combining personal data from its multiple online services violated Dutch data protection laws.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) finds that the way in which Google pools users' data across its multiple services - such as GMail and YouTube - violates Dutch laws concerning data protection.

Ever since Google revamped its privacy policies in this way last year, many entities across Europe have been up in arms. Lawmakers and privacy advocates alike are concerned about individuals losing control of their personal information and how it is used, as much of it is stored outside of Europe.

In addition, the revelations about the scope of U.S. spying has raised even more concerns about data held by U.S. firms on European citizens.

"Google spins an invisible web of our personal data, without consent," said Jacob Kohnstamm, the chairman of the DPA. "That is forbidden by law."

Google feels that its privacy policy is in line with European laws and said it has cooperated with the Dutch group, and will continue to do so.

"Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services. We have engaged fully with the Dutch DPA throughout this process and will continue to do so going forward," Google said.

The U.S. Government has agreed to pay $50 million to a software company after it emerged that its software had been copied onto thousands of systems without licenses.

The software in question was provided by Texas-based Apptricity, which has provided logistics programs to the U.S. army since 2004. The company discovered in 2012 that its software had been copied onto thousands more systems than had been licensed for.

The software is used to track the movements of soldiers and key supplies. While the military could legally had the software used by around 500 users, Apptricity said there was an estimated additional 9,000 users beyond that.

During a presentation, a U.S. Army official had referred to the software as running on "thousands" of devices, which sparked Apptricity's curiosity.

The Texas firm sought $224 million but the U.S. has agreed to pay $50 million to settle the dispute.

"Apptricity is now incredibly energised to use the settlement resolution as a catalyst for aggressive investment in our team, our solutions and our untapped market opportunities," said Randy Lieberman, Apptricity's chief financial officer, reported the BBC News website.

Nokia has announced the latest version of its Imagine SDK (v1.0) for Windows Phone developers, providing the tools to create much more powerful imaging apps.

The iconic Finnish firm promised the SDK provides a boatload of new features and functionality to developers of Windows Phone apps for its Lumia-branded smartphones. A recent report from IDC found that Nokia accounts for a staggering 93.2 percent of all Windows Phone shipments.

App developers will want take every advantage possible of the hardware at their disposal, and the new Nokia Imaging SDK will make it possible to develop much more sophisticated, feature-rich, yet efficient, imaging apps.

It includes over 50 built-in features such as Sepia, Black & White, Mirror, Tones. The Chromakey feature enables "green screen" magic within apps, allowing the developer to provide a background to render objects in, and developers can now also create their own custom filters and add previously unseen effects.

The SDK is made to handle memory management more efficiently than the beta versions of the SDK too. It uses the Random Access JPEG (RAJPEG) format, enabling the selective compression and decompression of images, taking a load off the memory and CPU resource requirements.

Owners of Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 Wi-Fi models can start to get the Android v4.4 KitKat update starting today, though mobile data models still have to wait.

The Android Google+ page was used to announce the availability of the latest Android update for the 7-inch tablets.

"Starting today, Nexus 7 (2012 and 2013) and Nexus 10 will be getting a tasty update to Android 4.4, KitKat. Stay tuned, Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 versions with mobile data will be getting the update soon!" the Google+ page reads.

It was also announced on Twitter:

Starting today, Nexus 7 (2012 and 2013) and Nexus 10 will be getting a tasty update to Android 4.4, KitKat

-- Android (@Android) November 13, 2013

Hulu is in talks with several U.S. TV providers to bundle Hulu Plus subscriptions, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to the Wall Street Journal (behind paywall) report, Hulu is speaking to AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable and Verizon about bundling its premium Internet video streaming service with their TV subscription models.

In the case of AT&T, talks included bundling a Hulu Plus subscription with wireless broadband services.

Services like Hulu and Netflix would get immediate benefit from deals that would make their content available through set-top-boxes over cable networks. Netflix has signed three of such deals in Europe over the past few months, and has reportedly been talking with U.S. firms too.

The talks between Hulu and U.S. companies are described as being in the very early stages. Some already offer their own on-demand video services.

According to IDC's new Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android has surpassed 80 percent of the global smartphone market.

A recent study from Strategy Analytics found similar figures for Android, estimating an 81.3 percent share of the smartphone market for the Google-led operating system. IDC's figures show an 81 percent share of the market during the third quarter of 2013, up from 74.9 percent.

By contrast, iOS has dropped to 12.9 percent from 14.4 percent, though Apple's smartphone shipments were up just under 8 million units over the same period of 2012.

Total Q3 2013 smartphone shipments hit 261.1 million units, up from 186.7 million in Q3 2012. Android shipments rose from 139.9 million in 2012 to 211.6 million in 2013, with Samsung the main beneficiary with over 39 percent of all Android shipments during the quarter.

Windows Phone claimed 3.6 percent of the worldwide market, up from 2.0 percent over the same period of 2012. Shipments of Windows Phone devices increased from 3.7 million during Q3 2012, to 9.5 million in Q3 2013. Nokia claimed 93.2 percent of WP shipments.

Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony Worldwide Studios, has said that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) will get MP3 and CD playback abilities in a post launch update.

Yoshida said that the company was surprised by the reaction from consumers to the news that the PS4 would not support MP3 playback, or CD playback, right away. However, he said adding support was always intended, it just wasn't prioritized.

"The biggest surprise for us all internally at Sony was there are so many people who passionately reacted to our announcement that there's no MP3 support or CD support on day one. Its not like we actively decided; let's not do this feature so people will have to subscribe to Music Unlimited," he said in a a recent ep of GiantBomb's Interview Dumptruck.

"The focus has been more on the game features. Some of the features we wanted but we couldn't get in on day one. We didn't really think about MP3 or CD. We thought 'we're going to do that eventually.'"

The Sony bass also revealed that they are kicking around the possibility of DLNA support via an update. The Xbox One is currently in the process of being certified for DLNA.

Apple and Samsung are back in a U.S. court where a $1 billion damages award given to Apple is to be reassessed.

In August 2012, a U.S. jury found that Samsung had infringed patents held by Apple in the design of several of its Galaxy-branded smartphones and tablets. It awarded $1 billion to Apple. In March of this year, a judge found that the jury had incorrectly estimated $450 million of the damages and that it would need to be assessed at a new trial.

The $450 million chunk of the award could be increased or decreased. Apple originally had sought $2.5 billion in damages from the South Korean firm.

To this day, Samsung still denies that it stole anything from Apple, saying it was designing similar devices with a screen and single button before the iPhone was first revealed.

Apple did fail to get an import ban imposed on the products covered in the trial, but has appealed the Judge's finding that the company could be adequately compensated instead.

Both companies can still appeal the outcome of the new trial, and unless a settlement is reached, that is likely to happen.

Sony remains confident that it can keep up with supple and the expectations of analysts in selling 3 million PlayStation 4 (PS4) consoles by the end of the year.

Sony had previously set an optimistic estimate of selling 5 million PS4 consoles by the end of March 2014. Analysts expect that the Japanese consumer electronics giant can shift over 3 million before the end of 2013, thanks of course to the busy holiday season.

Jack Tretton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, said that Sony will have adequate supplies of the $400 console to handle demand during the holidays.

"This is a marathon, not a sprint, but getting out to a nice start is a good thing," Tretton said, reports Bloomberg.

"That hurdle has been cleared. We're very, very confident we're in great shape."

Sony's 2006 launch of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) console was hit by supply constraints not long after it landed on the market. It's European release had to be pushed back from the 2006 holiday season to March 2007.

This time around, Sony's PS4 launches in just two days in North America, on Friday, November 15. It then launches in Europe on November 29.

Google has now made it easier to figure out what tab in your browser is responsible for sounds or music coming from your speakers.

Have you ever had a pile of tabs open and suddenly hear sounds from an ad or video that is playing? All you can do about it is look through all of your open tabs to figure out which site is responsible for the sound, or of course mute your system altogether.

Google has finally made it a lot easier to identify the source. In the latest Chrome beta release, there will be a speaker icon visible on any tab that is currently playing sounds.



There are also icons for which tabs are being cast to your TV via Chromecast, and which tab is using your webcam.

The latest beta also adds an app launcher for Chrome in Metro mode on Windows 8, and will automatically block malware files.

Microsoft has announced that SkyDrive is coming to Xbox One on launch day and its Channel 9 offers a video demo.

The SkyDrive app on Xbox One lets you view all your photos and videos you have uploaded to SkyDrive and also view videos or photos that have been shared with you by other users of the cloud service.

You can open photo albums from channels in the OneGuide, play music alongside your slide show with Xbox Music, and control the whole app with gestures and voice, courtesy of Kinect. And, of course, you launch the app by saying "Xbox: Go to SkyDrive".

Here is a demo from Channel 9 featuring Jeff Henshaw, head of the Xbox Incubation team...

A Call of Duty app for iOS, Android, WP8 and Windows 8 has been released following the launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts.

The free app lets users create or join a clan, and communication with clan members through clan chat. After November 25, you can battle for territory against multiple Clans with locations on the Call of Duty Clan Wars map tied directly to Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer game modes.

Also coming later will be the ability to use a smartphone or tablet for various second-screen features. It will allow players to do things like make last-second changes to loadouts before a match begins or get extended information about players after a match ends.

Check this dmeo video about the app:

Netflix has launched on Virgin Media's service in the UK, coming to over 1.8 million Virgin Media TiVo homes.

To celebrate the launch, Virgin Media is offering a six-month gift subscription to Netflix to new or existing customers who sign-up to Virgin Media's Premiere or VIP Collections. Virgin Media TiVo customers on other packages will be able to make the most of the one-month free trial offered to all new Netflix members.

The brand new Netflix app complements Virgin Media's huge collection of On Demand entertainment, with over 6,000 hours all ready to watch instantly. This includes a choice of films from Virgin Movies, Sky Movies, PictureBox and now Netflix.

"With the addition of our Netflix app, Virgin Media customers have an unbeatable line-up of movies and TV series to choose from. Whether it's part of a subscription or pay-per-view, Virgin Media TiVo will help you find everything from the classic gem you've always wanted to watch to this summer's biggest hits, all seamlessly integrated for simple, easy viewing," said Dana Strong, Virgin Media's chief operating officer.

"People love watching with Virgin Media TiVo and we continue to lead the way as the fastest growing pay TV service in the country. In two years, 1.8 million homes have signed up to Virgin Media TiVo and what we believe is the best way to watch television."

Amazon has launched its own store to sell digital games and DLC for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles.

The Amazon store offers another venue to buy digital items for the Sony consoles, and probably will mean there will be more offers and promotions to look forward to.

FOr the launch of the store, Amazon is offering $5 PSN credit to anyone who buys select digital purchases and for those who participate in today's buy 2 get 1 free offer for PS4 games.

A list of games that qualify for the $5 credit includes Assassins's Creed IV Black Flag, Batman Arkham Origins, Battlefield 4, The Last of Us, FIFA 14 and more than you can see here.

"We will send you confirmation of your credit via email within two days after your qualifying order is completed," Amazon's store reads.

"This credit must be used by 12/31/2014 (and cannot be used on Amazon.com Gift Cards or PlayStation Network Gift Cards)."

More Info: Amazon PlayStation Network Store

Seiki is once again offering a relatively low cost 4K UltraHD TV - this time through Sears for $1,500.

The Seiki SE55UY04 is a 55-inch 4K UltraHD LED television for just $1,500, quite a lot cheaper than the competition on the market. It's not the first time Seiki turned heads with the cost of its 4K line-up, previously unveiling a 39-inch 4K TV for just $700.

The TV stats show a refresh rate of 120Hz for 1080p (30Hz for 4K), with image brightness of 320 - 400 cd/m2. It featues 2 USB inputs.

There's not much 4K content around but some manufacturers, like Sony, do have 4K products on the market. It is speculated that both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be updated in time to support 4K video playback too.

More Info: Sears

A Warez group has been exposed for collecting information on pirates who downloaded cracked software they released.

The group, "MeGaHeRTZ", has allegedly been including malicious elements in its cracks for popular software, including SmartFTP, DVDFab, FlashFXP, Incredimail, Traktor and BurnAware Professional.

Somebody noticed unusual firewall activity with a cracked version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro and investigated further, finding that the software had been e-mailing information back to a number of addresses, all of which have account names containing some variation of the MeGaHeRTZ group name.

The information it sent back included the username, computer/drive serial from the Windows API, and the host machines's IP address.

All software they released has since been "nuked", but its all out there now.

Cracked software containing malware is nothing new, but its very rare that the malware is added by the originating group. Typically the malware is added later and spread on P2P networks, file sharing forums or BitTorrent trackers.

A new Xbox One video from Microsoft touts that the console delivers ultimate realism that rivals Hollywood.

With the launch of the next generation console systems this month, new information and videos are coming thick and fast. Microsoft has posted another promotional video for its Xbox One console, due to be released November 22.

This video shows some of the Xbox One's features and some gameplay clips from Forza Motorsport 5, FIFA 14, Titanfall and Son of Rome.

The video clearly sells the Xbox One as the ultimate device for your living room's entertainment needs., reminding you of its movie and live TV abilities.

Check it out.

A non-profit copyright group backed by the MPAA and RIAA is trying to bring Hollywood's anti-piracy message to elementary school children.

The Center for Copyright Information (CCI) has commissioned a school curriculum aimed at elementary-aged children to teach them the value of copyright and creativity, according to an LA Times report.

The proposed curriculum is titled "Be a Creator," and it includes lesson plans, videos and activities for patents and teachers to educate students about the importance of "being creative and protecting creativity." Topics include "Respect the Person: Give Credit," "It's Great to Create," and "Copyright Matters."

"It's important to prepare children to succeed and thrive and learn how to share and create and move files in a way that's ethical and responsible," said Marsali Hancock, president of iKeepSafe, a non-profit that aids children in the digital environment which is also involved in the plan.

The LA Times references one 45 second video that shows a student browsing a photo collection to decide which he wants to share, post online or sell. "You're not old enough yet to be selling your pictures online, but pretty soon you will be. And you'll appreciate if the rest of us respect your work by not copying it and doing whatever we want with it," a teacher is supposed to say after the video.

Netflix and YouTube account for more than half of all downstream traffic in North America, trumping Amazon, Hulu and even filesharing traffic.

That's according to Sandvine's latest Global Internet Phenomena Report. Combined, Netflix and Amazon account for 50.31 percent of all downstream traffic in North America. It breaks down to 31.62 percent for Netflix and 18.69 percent for YouTube.

Rivals Amazon Instant Video and Hulu only account for 1.61 percent and 1.29 percent, respectively, and BitTorrent downstream is down to 4.05 percent - though BitTorrent upstream is in first place at 36.35 percent.

HTTP traffic accounts for 9.74 percent downstream, while iTunes claims 3.27 percent. Facebook downstream traffic is in 9th place with 1.31 percent.

Amazon will run a "buy two, get one free" promotion from Tuesday morning for PS4 games ahead of the console's launch on Friday, November 15.

The promotion will begin at 9 AM (PST), 12 PM (EST) on Tuesday (Nov 12), and is valid for a limited time only. Supplies are limited so you should probably put your order in as soon as you can on Tuesday. To avail of the promotion, you just need to enter the promotional code GR8TNESS at the checkout and the discount will be reflected in your Order Summary.

The promotion applies only to qualifying items displaying the offer message on the promotional landing page, and only to items sold and shipped by Amazon itself, not other sellers.

The promotion includes:

• Angry Birds: Star Wars - PlayStation 4
• Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - PlayStation 4
• Battlefield 4 - PlayStation 4
• Call of Duty: Ghosts - PlayStation 4
• FIFA 14 - PlayStation 4
• Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition - PlayStation 4 Standard Edition
• Just Dance 2014 - PlayStation 4
• Killzone: Shadow Fall (PlayStation 4)
• Knack (PlayStation 4)
• LEGO Marvel Super Heroes - PlayStation 4
• Madden NFL 25 - PlayStation 4
• NBA 2K14 - PlayStation 4
• Skylanders SWAP Force - PlayStation 4

The PlayStation 4 (PS4) UI/Dashboard was shown off at an event in Hong Kong several days ago.

Microsoft has already shown off the Dashboard of the Xbox One ahead of its November 22 launch, but even though the PS4 is only days away from its North American released, Sony has not done the same yet.

If you want to take a look at the Dashboard, a video has shown up that shows a demonstration of the PS4 dashboard. It is from a recent Hong Kong event, and is in both Japanese and Cantonese, but the Dashboard itself is very easy to understand.

The video is embedded below, but you should skip to around 4:40 to start the demonstration. Sony will likely provide something more informative in English before Friday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has identified a malware author as one of its most wanted, and is offering a reward up to $50,000 for information.

The FBI identifies the individual (pictured) as Carlos Enrique Perez-Melara. His alleged crime is authoring malicious software that he sold to customers to use to spy on people. At first, his spyware was called "Email PI" but changed its name to "Lover Spy" in summer 2003, sold to customers as a way to catch a cheating partner.

The Feds allege that the program would periodically send e-mail messages back to the purchasers of the service containing the acquired communications, including the victims' passwords, lists of visited websites, intercepted e-mail messages, and keystroke logs.

The malware was delivered to a victim by e-mail, posing as an electronic greeting card.

So what's the big deal? Of course, the use of such software and its marketing is illegal but isn't there more serious cybercrime to worry about than a piece of software that's over a decade old?

Well it would appear that Perez-Melara is coming under increased scrutiny because he is simply elusive. An arrest warrant was issued for the El Salvadoran on July 21, 2005, but in the eight years that have passed since, he has dropped completely off law enforcement radar.

Microsoft has admitted that it could have done more in the PC gaming space, and that it was probably too focused purely on console.

The comments came from Microsoft's Phil Spencer, who had some praise for Valve's Steam platform and some apparent regrets from Microsoft's point of view.

"Valve is right down the street from us. They've done a great job of keeping the PC ecosystem strong at a time where I don't mind saying that we could have been more focused on what was going on in PC gaming," Spencer told GamesBeat.

"We were probably too focused purely on console. With Steam, Valve has done an amazing job of building this thing that, in a lot of ways, we should have been building as well at Microsoft."

Spencer did have some warnings for Valve though, regarding the release of Steam machines and SteamOS.

"That's an evolutionary jump. They made the jump from building Half-Life to having a set of franchises to running Steam. They did a good job of learning through that. Now they're taking the next job to become a platform company--in some sense a hardware company, but in the truest sense more of an OS company. That's not an easy transition," he said.

Skype has performed a bit of a u-turn by announcing it will retain support for call recording and compatibility with hardware devices that use the service.

Skype had initially warned that Skype plug-ins and hardware would stop working with the service as soon as the old Desktop API was due to be retired. The change would also effect the use of Skype through third party applications.

However, Skype has now announced that it will retain support for hardware devices and for call recording until it determines alternative options or retires the current solution.

Unfortunately, third party applications will cease to work as previously communicated by the Microsoft service.

"The current Desktop API extensibility model wasn't built for the cloud connected world – as extensibility is only available on the Windows Desktop and Mac clients, leaving the Windows 8 store app, mobile apps, web experiences, and Xbox out of the [always] connected experience. The extensibility model of running only on one type of end point needs to evolve to benefit from this new design pattern," Skype's Noah Edelstein, wrote earlier this week.

The man who spilled loads of details and images to Twitter after receiving an Xbox One from Target by mistake has been invited to the Xbox One launch.

André Weingarten - aka @Moonlightswami - got a pleasant surprise when his standard edition Xbox One console arrived on Friday ahead of the its November 22 launch. He immediately went to GameStop and got Call of Duty: Ghosts which is already on sale.

When he returned home, he had to download a 500MB day one update and setup Kinect. He took to Twitter to spill details about the Xbox One and also posted an unboxing video to YouTube. Within hours however, the video was removed from YouTube on copyright grounds and Weingarten's console was banned from Xbox Live.

Seeing what had happened, Xbox's Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb reached out to Weingarten.

@Moonlightswami Love to know more about what happened w/ your console. Can you follow and DM me and I'll get this sorted out? Thanks.

-- Larry Hryb (@majornelson) November 9, 2013

Amazon has used its Amazon Video Games Twitter account to show off its growing stock of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console.

The PlayStation 4 launches this coming Friday, November 15, in North America. It will launch in Europe on November 29.

Amazon just wanted to show all of you who have made pre-orders and are eagerly anticipating the console's launch that it is filling its warehouses with them, getting ready to ship them out.

"Greatness has arrived. Will it be coming to you?" Amazon's Twitter account teases, with this picture.

Target has admitted that one of its distribution centers shipped Xbox One consoles to a small number of customers ahead of the its November 22 launch.

Over the past couple of days it became clear that Xbox One consoles had made their way into the hands of some people who pre-ordered them. A couple of them have been removed from eBay, after sellers listed them for a considerable write-up of their $500 value.

Target has admitted that the mistake was made by one of its distribution centers. Basically, Target had restricted the shipping of Day One edition Xbox One consoles until November 22, but didn't have such a restriction on the standard edition consoles which arrived later.

Most distribution centers realized the mistake in time and kept their stock in place, but apparently one jumped the gun and shipped to a small number of people.

"Due to a systems error, Target shipped a small number of video game consoles prior to the street date," a Target spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku.

"The vast majority of video game preorders are slated to arrive on the street date."

You can now have 2,000 friends on Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN) service, but you're still stuck on 100 on PlayStation 3.

Sony has increased the amount of friends you have have on PlayStation Network (PSN) from 100 to 2,000. The limit change had been previously announced and was expected to coincide with the launch of the PlayStation 4 this coming Friday, November 15.

However, Sony has made the change already and if you have a PS Vita you can already take advantage of the increase.

On the PlayStation 3, the limit remains 100 but even if you add extra friends through PS Vita, or through PS4 from next week, network servers will automatically filter your friend's list when you play on the PS3, showing your active friends.

If you own a Windows Phone 7 device, or a Zune device and have bought content from Xbox Video, then you'd better read this.

Microsoft has revealed that from February, Windows Phone 7 devices, Zune devices and the Zune PC client will no longer be able to play Xbox Video content. So if you have previously purchased content from Xbox Video, you won't be able to play it on that hardware/software.

"This update will allow us to more quickly and efficiently add the highest quality video content to the Xbox Video service," The Xbox Video Team said.

For content that you have purchased, you can still view it on your PC or Mac at XboxVideo.com, or on an Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows 8 / 8.1 PC or on a Windows Phone 8 device.

Support for Windows Phone 7 devices, Zune devices and the Zune PC client will be cut from "late February 2014."

You've been warned!

Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox One console will not play 3D Blu-ray movies at launch.

The Xbox One console of course packs a Blu-ray disc drive, but for those of you who have a 3D TV at home and enjoy the experience, don't expect to play your 3D movies on the Xbox One, at least for now.

Microsoft confirmed to CNET that 3D Blu-ray isn't supported right now, but didn't rule out adding the functionality at a later date. The PlayStation 4 (PS4) does support playback of 3D Blu-ray discs.

Still, the demand for 3D at home hasn't been overwhelming by any means. In the long run, support for 4K video output for example might be a more interesting development. HDMI 1.4 supports 4K2K (though at 30fps), so it's likely that both consoles will support video in 4K before long as more 4K TVs roll-out onto the market over the coming years, while the consoles age and update to stay relevant.

According to Sony, the PS4 does not currently support 4K but it has said in the past that the hardware is there, and it technically is (for video playback rather than gaming). Microsoft's 'Major Nelson' made a statement that every Xbox One console ships with a "4K HDMI cable", but that's a worthless statement given that all high-speed HDMI 1.4 complaint cables are technically 4K-ready. It doesn't tell you anything about playing 4K video with the Xbox One.

A Vodafone store was evacuated on Wednesday after an iPad reportedly exploded, filling the store with smoke.

Nobody was reported injured when the iPad combusted in a Vodafone store in Canberra, Australia. According to the reports, a burst of flames appeared from a charging port of an iPad demo model in the store.

Customers were evacuated from the store and the fire department were called in to handle the situation, as sparks continued to come from the charging port.

An Apple rep is reported to have visited the store later in the day to collect the device for testing to figure out the cause. So far the suspicion is circling around the charging station the iPad was at.

iPads and other electronic devices are powered by Lithium-Ion batteries, which under the right circumstances (damage, bad chargers etc.) have been known to burn up. Just this week, a Tesla Model S became the third electric vehicle from Tesla in just five weeks to experience a fire after it hit debris on a highway, damaging the battery. Even though car fires are certainly not uncommon with regular petroleum-powered cars, it still raises questions about Lithium-Ion safety.

Microsoft has revealed that Xbox Live Gold subscribers who buy Xbox One will get six moths free Skype group video calls and free worldwide minutes each of those months.

Skype's video calling is obviously a free service, but it charges a fee of $4.99 per month to be able to use group video calling. For Xbox One owners with an Xbox Live Gold membership, group calling will be free for six months.

Additionally, Redmond is giving 100 worldwide minutes free each month for six months, which will allow Xbox One owners to call mobiles and landline phones in over 50 countries.

Microsoft offers a similar deal to those who buy a Surface 2 tablet.

T-Mobile will begin offering the Nexus 5 smartphone to its customers online on November 14, and at its retail outlets from November 20.

The carrier will sell the in-demand Android smartphone for $449.99 - or $41.99 down and 24 equal monthly device payments of $17 with T-Mobile's Simple Choice Plan.

That's for the 16GB Nexus 5, which sells from Google Play for $349, and will work fine on T-Mobile's network. However, ordering the Nexus 5 from Google Play right now guarantees that you'll have to wait weeks to get the device.

Google is apparently selling the Nexus 5 at a loss, which is not something carriers simply cannot do. Sprint also offers the Nexus 5 online and at retail stores for $449.99.

Nexus 5 is co-developed by Google and LG Electronics. The LTE device packs a quad-core Snapdragon 800 SoC at 2.26GHz, with 2GB of RAM. It is available with 16GB or 32GB internal storage, and sports a 5-inch 1080p display and 8-megapixel rear-facing camera.

It is the first device to ship with Android 4.4 KitKat.

Target has reportedly shipped standard edition Xbox One consoles to customers who ordered recently.

One showed up on eBay with a hefty price tag of $1,000 but was promptly removed from the auction site. An unboxing video from Twitter user @Moonlightswami was also removed from YouTube on copyright grounds after a complaint from Microsoft Corporation.

After unboxing his Xbox One, @Moonlightswami successfully downloaded the day one update which reportedly adds up to around 500MB in size.

He then went on to start spilling details on the size of Xbox One game downloads and dumping images of the Dashboard.

Apparently, Microsoft wasn't best pleased and banned his console already, which has kicked off something of a furore on Twitter.

Check out his twitter feed for loads of pics and information: @Moonlightswami (warning, its very active)

You can now try out Forza Motorsport 5 on Xbox One at Microsoft Retail Stores ahead of the November 22 launch day.

The next-generation console is now on display and playable at Microsoft Retail Stores across the United States and Canada. There are more than 75 Microsoft retail stores across North America, which really isn't that many but you can find the closest location here anyway.

Everyone who tries out the Xbox One will be entered to win the Forza Motorsport 5 Living Room Sweepstakes. The winner will get a great Forza Motorsport 5 Living Room package with a Forza Motorsport branded playseat, Polk Audio N1 Gaming SurroundBar, Thrustmaster TX Racing Wheel Ferrari 458 Italia Edition, and a $2,000 gift card to use towards completing the living room with a big screen TV.

Major Nelson will even be around to talk about Xbox One when he visits the new stores at Fashion Show Mall in Las Vegas and at Penn Square Mall in Oklahoma City when they open later this month.

Sony has announced a "triple surprise" for early buyers of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console next week.

Buyers will get $10 Sony Entertainment Network wallet credit to use in the PlayStation Store. They will also get to check out PlayStation Plus through PS4 for free for 30 days.

Additionally, Sony will provide a 30-day free trial for its Music Unlimited service.

"Out of the box, you can immediately experience everything PlayStation Plus for PS4 has to offer and have access to millions and millions of songs through Music Unlimited," said Eric Lempel, Sony Network Entertainment VP.

"The $10 credit can be used towards anything in the store including new PS4 launch titles, such as Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, Battlefield 4, Call of Duty Ghosts, and Killzone Shadow Fall."

Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick believes that price cuts will come quicker for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One than they did for the current generation of consoles.

When the Xbox 360 launched it was priced at $300-$400 depending on the model you bought, and when the PS3 launched it was priced at $500-$600. It took Microsoft over 20 months to cut the price of the Xbox 360 consoles while Sony did so just seven months after - although the PS3 arrived on the market around a year after the Xbox 360 did.

This time around, we could see price cuts sooner according to Kotick.

"They've made more investments in the back office than ever before. I think you've got lots of efficiency in manufacturing costs that could potentially drive hardware prices down sooner in the cycle," Kotick said during a post-earnings financial call.

"There's no indication, from our perspective, that you're going to see anything other than a very successful next seven or eight years."

Microsoft will launch the Xbox One on November 22, priced at $500, with Sony launching the PS4 on November 15, priced at $400.

Google has alerted developers that extensions for its Google Chrome web browser must be hosted by the Chrome Web Store from January.

Google claims it is enforcing this policy in response to complaints from Windows users about malicious extensions that bypass the typical installation prompt and silently install, usually making changes to browser settings such as the homepage or search engines.

"Since these malicious extensions are not hosted on the Chrome Web Store, it's difficult to limit the damage they can cause to our users," wrote Erik Kay, Engineering Director, on the Chromium Blog.

"Starting in January on the Windows stable and beta channels, we'll require all extensions to be hosted in the Chrome Web Store. We'll continue to support local extension installs during development as well as installs via Enterprise policy, and Chrome Apps will also continue to be supported normally."

Kay explains that developers can choose to keep their extensions hidden on the Web Store if they like, but that protecting Chrome users is a key priority.

An Australian man who ran a Bitcoin wallet service claims that hackers have stolen over $1 million worth of Bitcoins.

Identified only as TradeFortress, the man said 4,100 Bitcoins (about $1.04 million) were stolen in two separate attacks on the service he operated. He would not report the crime to the police however, claiming Bitcoin transactions are virtually impossible to trace.

"I know this doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry, and saying that I'm very sad that this has happened is an understatement," he wrote on the website.

"Please don't store Bitcoins on an internet-connected device, regardless if it is your own or a service's."

Of course, there are many suggestions that this was an inside job, which he denied outright in an interview with ABC News.

The next instalment in the Star Wars franchise has been slated for a December 18, 2015 release as pre-production begins.

Shooting is scheduled to begin on the film in Spring, 2014 at Pinewood Studios.

Star Wars: Episode VII will be directed by J.J. Abrams, who directed Super 8, Mission Impossible III and Star Trek. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) will work on the script.

Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk wil, produce with Tommy Harper (Star Trek: Into Darkness) and Jason McGatlin (War of the Worlds) serving as executive producers.

"We're very excited to share the official 2015 release date for Star Wars: Episode VII, where it will not only anchor the popular holiday filmgoing season but also ensure our extraordinary filmmaking team has the time needed to deliver a sensational picture," said Alan Horn, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios.

Microsoft has listed digital entertainment apps that will be available for the Xbox One console between launch (November 22) and Spring 2014.

The apps have been listed by country.

"The list is just the first wave of third-party apps that are coming to Xbox One over the course of the next few months," Microsoft's Xbox news site reads.

"We will continue to announce more apps coming to the platform and both the Xbox One and Xbox 360 entertainment app portfolios will continue to grow weekly."

Here is the list:

Australia

• Crackle
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• Network Ten's tenplay
• Quickflix
• SBS On Demand
• TED
• Twitch

• Eurosport
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• TED
• Twitch

• Crackle
• Muu
• Netflix
• Saraiva Player
• Sky Online
• SporTV
• TED
• Telecine
• Twitch
• Vivo Play

• CinemaNow
• Crackle
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• Netflix
• Rogers Anyplace TV
• Sportsnet
• TED
• The NFL on Xbox One
• Twitch

• 6Play
• Canal+/CanalSat
• France 2,3,4,5
• La TV d'Orange
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• MyTF1
• MYTF1VOD
• SFR TV
• TED
• Twitch

• AmazonLOVEFiLM
• Eurosport
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• TED
• Twitch
• Watchever
• Zattoo

• Eurosport
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• Netflix
• TED
• Twitch

• Eurosport
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• Premium Play
• TED
• Twitch

• Clarovideo
• Crackle
• Machinima
• Netflix
• TED
• Televisa
• The NFL on Xbox One
• TV Azteca
• Twitch
• Veo

• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• Quickflix
• TED
• Twitch

• Eurosport
• Gol Televisión
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• RTVE
• TED
• Twitch
• Wuaki.tv
• Zattoo

• 4oD
• AmazonLOVEFiLM
• blinkbox
• Crackle
• Demand 5
• Eurosport
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• Netflix
• NOW TV
• TED
• Twitch
• Wuaki.tv

• Amazon Instant Video
• Crackle
• The CW
• ESPN
• FOX NOW
• FXNOW
• HBO GO (coming soon)
• Hulu Plus
• Machinima
• MUZU TV
• Netflix
• Redbox Instant by Verizon
• Target Ticket
• TED
• The NFL on Xbox One
• Twitch
• Univision Deportes
• Verizon FiOS TV
• VUDU

Microsoft has uploaded a 12 minute video giving us a tour of the Xbox One user interface (Dashboard), Kinect and apps on the soon-to-launch console.

The Xbox One demo is given by Microsoft's Marc Whitten and Yusuf Mehdi, showing off instant switching, biometric sign-in, watching Live TV, using the Kinect's 1080p camera with Skype, the game Digital Video Recorder (DVR) feature, OneGuide and plenty more.

It shows how responsive the Xbox One console is when switching between apps, such as switching from a game to Live TV and then returning quickly to the game, all with voice commands.

Skype does look excellent with the Kinect 1080p camera, which follows the caller around the room.

Here's the 12 minute demonstration video, enjoy:

Be warned: Microsoft's Xbox One console requires an immediate update on launch day without which it won't function properly at all.

Having a good Internet connection at home is obviously a boost for gaming nowadays - some would say an absolutely necessity even. Still, there are people who don't have a home Internet connection or perhaps an inadequate/unreliable connection.

For those folks, Xbox One launch day might be no fun at all as the system requires an immediate Day One update to function properly.

Even if you have a new game on a physical disc to play, you still need the update. That's according to Microsoft senior director of product management, Albert Penello, who was asked about it by Engadget.

The tech site proposed a scenario to him of a customer returning home to find their Internet connection is unavailable, but they have bought a game, so what can they do with an Xbox One out of the box without the update on launch day?

"Nothing. You need the Day One update," he said.

Ouch. That's not likely to affect most people who buy an Xbox One at launch of course, but it will be a real downer to those in areas where an Internet connection is either unavailable or unreliable.

Bloomberg is citing people close to Stephen Elop in reporting that he would make some big chances to Microsoft's traditional business practices as CEO.

The main shift Bloomberg's sources say would be to end Microsoft's use of popular applications like Word and Excel to drive demand for Windows operating systems. Elop would rather make these applications available on a broad variety of devices, including those made by rivals like Apple.

He would also reportedly considering selling healthy businesses, like Microsoft's Xbox business, if he didn't feel it was critical to the company's strategy. Microsoft's Bing - an expensive attempt to compete with Google - could also face being scrapped by Elop as CEO.

When he took over at Nokia, Elop made the decision almost immediately to stop development of Symbian, which was at the time the dominant smartphone operating system in the world, albeit in decline. He also cut 40,000 jobs at the Finnish giant to reduce operating expenses.

Bloomberg's sources say Microsoft would face similar re-adjustments, with job cuts and downsizing of teams.

The SD Card Association has announced the new Ultra High Speed Class 3 (U3) card format, made for devices that record 4K2K (UltraHD) video.

The new Ultra High Speed (UHS) Speed Class 3 (U3) symbol will indicate products capable of recording 4K2K video and will operate exclusively on SDXC UHS-I and UHS-II memory cards and devices and SDHC UHS-I and UHS-II memory cards and devices.

This SD card class defines 30 MB/s constant minimum write speed to be able to make such recordings without issues.

"The world's favorite SD memory card continues to evolve and meet shifting industry needs," said Brian Kumagai, president of the SD Association.

"Our new UHS Speed Class 3 standard will give consumers and businesses more flexibility and capability as the market shifts to 4K2K video formats. Both SDXC and SDHC memory card standards already offer the massive storage needed to support 4K2K video with enough room to store photos, music, documents and other data on a single portable card."

Windows 7 users can now download the latest version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer for the Windows 7 operating system.

Up until now, Internet Explorer 11 was only available as a release preview for the Windows 7. The final build of Internet Explorer 11 is now available to download, and it brings considerable performance improvements with it over IE10.

Pre-fetch and pre-render features deliver faster loading times than previous versions of the browser, and a "Flip Ahead" feature makes switching back and forth between pages on a site must faster.

Download Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 from: windows.microsoft.com

The Google Opinion Rewards app on Google Play will reward users for filling out periodic surveys with Google Play credits that can be used in the store.

For now it appears limited to the United States. It requires that you link it to your Google Wallet so your credits can be deposited, which Google claims will happen immediately after filling out surveys.

That can be done as part of the app setup, which also requires you enter certain information about yourself such as what age group you belong to.

When new surveys are available for you to take part in (typically 10 questions) it will show on your Android devices' notification bar.

Get the app at: Google Play

When the PlayStation 4 (PS4) launches next Friday, November 15, there will be 11 digital entertainment apps available immediately.

The apps available at PS4 launch include:

• Amazon Instant Video - Offering 150,000 titles to rent or purchase.
• Crackle - Sony Pictures Television multi-platform television network delivering original series
• Crunchyroll - For Japanese Anime enthusiasts
• EPIX - Stream more than 3,000 titles on-demand
• Hulu Plus - Unlimited instant streaming of popular shows like Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons etc.
• NBA Game Time - Stay connected to Live out-of-market NBA game action on the PS4 system with NBA LEAGUE PASS Broadband on an authenticated basis for subscribers.
• Netflix - It would be immoral not to include Netflix.
• NHL GameCenter LIVE - Instantly stream live out-of-market games in HD quality with your NHL GameCenter LIVE subscription.
• Redbox Instant by Verizon - Verizon subscribers can stream a library of movies and receive 4 DVD or Blu-Ray rental nights every month for new releases at the Redbox kiosk. On-demand available for non-subscribers.
• VUDU - Watch the world's largest selection of HD movies and TV shows,
• YuppTV - 150 Indian TV channels Live and on demand, including a selection of over 600 Movies to watch anytime, anywhere.

Photos posted to the Baidu Tieba forum allegedly show the back cover of HTC's 'M8', the successor to the HTC One.

HTC is expected to announce a new flagship smartphone around February, after the HTC One launch failed to turnaround the firms business despite good shipping numbers.

The back cover that allegedly is from an early M8 prototype is very similar that of the ONE, except it has an extra hole on top above the camera.

Suggestions are that the hole is there for a fingerprint reader as your index finger would naturally rest in that spot while holding the device.

The rumored specifications for the HTC M8 include the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, 3GB or RAM and that it will also be the first device to use HTC's upcoming Sense 6 UI.



Source: tieba.baidu.com

(Pic via: unwiredview.com)

Deal between Netflix and Disney's Marvel will bring the flawed heroes of Hell's Kitchen, led by 'Daredevil,' to the leading Internet streaming service.

The pair announced an agreement to bring multiple original series of live-action adventures of four of Marvel's most popular characters exclusively to Netflix, starting in 2015.

Led by a series focused on "Daredevil," followed by "Jessica Jones," "Iron Fist" and "Luke Cage," the epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking Netflix members deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell's Kitchen, New York.

The streaming service has committed to a minimum of four, thirteen episodes series, which will be followed by a culminating "The Defenders" mini-series event.

"Marvel's movies, such as 'Iron Man' and Marvel's 'The Avengers', are huge favorites on our service around the world. Like Disney, Marvel is a known and loved brand that travels," said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos.

"With 'House of Cards' and our other original series, we have pioneered new approaches to storytelling and to global distribution and we're thrilled to be working with Disney and Marvel to take our brand of television to new levels with a creative project of this magnitude."

Sony stripped a PlayStaion 4 (PS4) to its motherboard for Wired, showing off the design of its next generation console.

The tear-down - carried out by Yasuhiro Ootori - shows off the console motherboard, glimpses of the custom AMD processor and companion chip, the Wi-Fi antenna and so on. The specs of the PS4 have been public for a long time.

What is interesting in the tear-down is it shows how Sony packed the hardware and the power supply unit into such a small space, and how its cooling system will keep it all from overheating.

The tear-down pictures and video show how it moves heat of the relatively slim case (for the first design) using two heat pipes and a custom centrifugal fan.

Of course, once the PS4 is out in the wild we will see far more detailed tear-downs of the system, though we think we'll pass on such experiments with ours.

View pics of the PS4 teardown at: wired.com

View a video of the teardown at: wired.com

Microsoft are in talks with football giant Real Madrid about potentially acquiring the naming rights to the iconic Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

It is named after the former footballer and President of Real Madrid, Santiago Bernabéu, who was President of the club for 35 years and is credited with turning it into a giant in Spanish and European football.

Changing the name of the stadium is guaranteed to face opposition from Real Madrid supporters, but with Real Madrid reportedly close to €600 million in debt, such a deal would be welcoming to the executives at the top.

Real Madrid can afford to splash out up to €100 million - depending on what reports you read - on Gareth Bale and have broken the bank for players in the past, such as Cristiano Ronaldo (£80 million), because the Spanish club has very healthy revenues, with the latest Deloitte Money League report calculating they had become the first football club to break the €500 million revenue barrier.

In Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona get a much larger chunk of TV rights than others in the La Liga, whereas in other countries it is more equitable between clubs in the top leagues. It also reportedly managed to gain a 30 percent increase in a shirt sponsorship deal with the Emirates airline, whom it switched to from Bwin.

Rockstar had begun rolling out its stimulus package for Grand Theft Auto: Online, depositing $500,000 into players' in-game bank accounts.

The developer announced the start of the program on its blog yesterday. The GTA$500,000 deposit applies to all GTA Online players in the month of October 2013. It will take around two full days to complete, and Rockstar will update everyone on Friday.

The chaotic world of Grand Theft Auto Online was marred somewhat in its early days by bugs and problems experienced by players.

"Thanks go out to everyone for their continued patience and understanding while we worked through these issues, and we can't wait to bring more into the world of GTA Online," Rockstar staff write.

Verizon has revealed that the Nexus 7 won't be supported on its LTE network until after it had gotten the Android KitKat update.

The problem, according to Verizon is with the Jelly Bean OS running on the Nexus 7. The carrier claims that Google and ASUS requested that it halt the certification program for Nexus 7 after finding the issue, and not to resume until the KitKat update is pushed out for the device.

According to Google, that will only take a few weeks but it is a few weeks more that Nexus 7 owners will be locked out of Verizon after already been locked out since launch.

Here is a statement put out by Verizon (via: Engadget)

"During the certification process for the Nexus 7, Google, Asus and Verizon uncovered a systems issue that required Google and Asus to undertake additional work with the Jelly Bean OS running on the device. Since Google was about to launch its new Kit Kat OS, rather than undertake this work, Google and Asus asked Verizon to suspend its certification process until Google's new OS was available on the Nexus 7."

Kim Dotcom's MEGA cloud storage solution has exited beta with a bunch of improvements, and is promising some interesting new features for next year.

The service now loads faster after the code was made more efficient and dynamic feature fetching was implemented. The user interface has had a major revamp, dramatically reducing CPU overhead, while local caching will be used to speed up subsequent logins.

Navigating the site while file transfers are in progress is now supported. Your transfer queue will shrink to a small transfer widget in the lower left corner whenever you leave the file manager. User can also now use avatars and contact management has been improved.

You can now see the number of files a user is sharing with you, along with the last modified date/time. This is useful for tracking changes (in addition to the instant notifications).

Three of the biggest names on the web - and in business in general - are combining efforts to safeguard the Internet by offering cash rewards to hackers.

It is pretty standard in the industry now for tech firms to have bug bounty programs to entice white hat hackers to go bug hunting in their code. It fixes flaws that could be found by criminals and exploited in ways that could make their customers less safe, and their products less reliable.

The new Internet Bug Bounty has more ambition than just safeguarding some company's software, instead it seeks to find bugs that could threaten more damage to the Internet. The program is sponsored by Microsoft and Facebook, while a Google security expert who helped to develop the program will sit on a panel that evaluates submissions.

"We've selected some of the most important software that supports the internet stack, and we want you to hack it. If the public is demonstrably safer as a result of your contribution to internet security, we'd like to be the first to recognize your work and say "thanks" by sending some cash to you or your favorite non-profit," the program's webpage reads.

Cash rewards up to $5,000 are offered depending on where the bug is found and its consequences, but the cash reward can be increased if the panel sees reason to do so.

Sony is inviting you to watch the live PS4 All Access: Greatness Awaits launch event next Thursday night before the mid-night launch of the PS4.

PlayStation teams up with SpikeTV to cover the event live in New York City on November 14th starting at 11:00pm Eastern Time/Pacific Time on regular cable providers; and 11pm Eastern Time/8pm Pacific Time on DirecTV. You can also watch it on Ustream or from the PlayStation U.S. Blog.

"Tune in to see exclusive world premieres and announcements about the PS4 games that will define 2014 and beyond," wrote Sid Shuman, Playstation Social Media Manager.

Contrary to earlier reports, Microsoft's Xbox One console will not be receiving ad-supported free music streaming from Xbox Music.

Instead, Xbox One includes a very limited trial of Xbox Music that lets users play 15 songs free before they require a Music Pass, with new users able to sign up for a 30-day free trial.

That essentially means that the Xbox One is in the same boat as the Xbox 360 when it comes to the music streaming service.

A tweet by Albert Penello, who heads up Xbox One product planning, had indicated that Microsoft had moved to an ad-supported free model for the Xbox One.

He recanted his statement and apologized in a follow-up tweet this morning.

I was wrong about Music on XboxOne: You get 15 free song plays then need Music Pass for ad-free streaming. No ad-supported streaming. Sorry!

-- Albert Penello (@albertpenello) November 6, 2013

After introducing its 'Like' and 'Share' buttons in 2010, the social network giant has decided they need a make-over.

Say goodbye to the tiny thumbs-up Like button that has forced its way into your Internet life in the past three years. Facebook has decided that a blue button with a little 'f' icon and the word 'like' is the way to go to get your attention from now on.

Believe it or not, the Like and Share buttons from Facebook are on more than 7.5 million websites in the world, and are viewed more than 22 billion times daily by Internet users. Therefore, redesigning them is not a risk-free task.

Facebook has positive data on its side though, with Facebook's Ray C. He indicating that the change has already produced improvement.

"We're already seeing a favorable increase in Likes and Shares with the new design and will be rolling these buttons out to everyone in the coming weeks," he wrote.

Sony announced that it has sold 80 million PlayStation 3 consoles since it launched almost exactly seven years ago.

The 80 million figure is a sell-in figure, meaning its the number of consoles Sony has shipped to retailers. It is also the same figure as was revealed by Microsoft for life-time sales of the Xbox 360 console, which has been on the market a year longer than the PS3.

The PS3 system continues to gain strong support from 3rd party developers and publishers worldwide with the cumulative number of software titles released for the PS3 system reaching 4,332 worldwide, as of September 30, 2013.

As it heads into the holiday season for the seventh time, the PS3 will witness the release of Gran Turismo 6, from the popular series that has sold 70 million copies worldwide.

The launch of the PS3 also saw the launch of the PlayStation Network (PSN), which not claims more than 150 million cumulative registered accounts. The PlayStation Store offers a global catalogue of more than 222,000 digital content options, including 72,000 game content.

Sony's next generation console, the PlayStation 4, launches in North America next Friday.

Dish Network has announced that all Blockbuster retail stores are to close by January 2014, and the Blockbuster By Mail service is being axed too.

After rescuing Blockbuster in 2011 by buying it for $320 million, Dish has found itself closing store after store and laying off employees. At this point, there are only around 300 Blockbuster stores left in the United States, but they too will close down by January.

"This is not an easy decision, yet consumer demand is clearly moving to digital distribution of video entertainment," said Joseph P. Clayton, DISH president and chief executive officer.

"Despite our closing of the physical distribution elements of the business, we continue to see value in the Blockbuster brand, and we expect to leverage that brand as we continue to expand our digital offerings."

Additionally, the Blockbuster By Mail service that originally was setup to challenge Netflix' DVD mail service will cease operations mid-December.

The Blockbuster brand will live on however with Dish retaining its licensing rights. The Blockbuster @Home service will continue to be offered to Dish subscribers.

Some reviewers of the PS4 version of Call of Duty: Ghosts have noted framerate issues at certain points in the game.

Infinity Ward revealed last week that the Xbox One version of Call of Duty: Ghosts would render at 720p, and be upscaled to 1080p for video output by the console. The developer later explained that the problem arose when trying to keep a consistent 60fps framerate. The perception was that the Xbox One, for whatever reason, was incapable of rendering the game at 1080p when its nemesis - the PS4 - was.

However, numerous reviewers are noting problems with the framerate on the PS4 too. "The PlayStation 4 version... has noticeable technical issues, sometimes slowing to a crawl, particularly during set-piece moments with multiple effects," reports Joystiq in a review.

"Frame rate hitches happen throughout the campaign on PlayStation 4 and, in a series known for its Hollywood-inspired bombast, it detracted from the experience."

Now Gamer also reported issues with the multiplayer mode. "It's not something we've seen in any Call of Duty multiplayer before, so it stood out as particularly odd and unfortunate, given the frame-rate stutter is significant enough to let targets escape to safety or see you killed during the general mayhem."

The Silk Road appears to be back online and being run by some of those involved in running it before it was shut down by the FBI last month.

The administrator of the revived Silk Road is using the handle Dread Pirate Roberts, which is the handle the Feds allege was used by 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht who has been charged with running the service. Ulbricht is denying the charges.

There were some suggestions that the new Silk Road could be a scam, but Ken Westin, a researcher with security firm TripWire, said the site looks genuine. "It appears to be run by the same folks that were running it before," he said.

"They are not going to be able to kill it. It is going to be a game of cat and mouse with the FBI."

We checked to see if the site was online and were greeted with an edited law enforcement seizure notice that crossed out "been seized" and also added a stamp that reads "This site has risen again." A login prompt appears over the image when you place the pointer on it.

Microsoft is warning users of some of its Microsoft Office software that a zero-day flaw is being exploited in the wild by attackers.

The flaw affects Microsoft Office 2003, Microsoft Office 2007 on all Windows platforms, and Microsoft Office 2010 on Windows XP or Windows Server 2003.

Microsoft was made aware of attacks using a zero-day flaw in its software mostly in the Middle East and South Asia regions. It involves a specially-crafted Word document that, when opened, would exploit the vulnerability to execute arbitrary code on the system.

"An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights," Microsoft said in a security advisory, issued yesterday.

Microsoft has issued a temporary work around in the form of a "Fix It" download that you can get at support.microsoft.com.

Activision Blizzard has revealed that Call of Duty: Ghosts has surpassed $1 billion in sales to retailers already.

That's not to be confused with direct sales at retail to customers, which haven't been announced yet. Instead, "sell-in" sales are the number of copies shipped by the publisher to retailers. Call of Duty: Ghosts has launched for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (PS3), Wii U and on PC already. It is available to buy for the PS4 already but the console won't go on sale until November 15, and it's also an Xbox One launch title.

Its predecessor in the mega-pupular series, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, hit $500 million in retail sales on the first day, and proceeded to surpass $1 billion in 15 days. It held that record until September 2013, when Grand Theft Auto V generated $800 million in sales by the end of its first day on the market, and crossed $1 billion in three days.

How "Ghosts" will fare in sales through retail channels remains to be seen, but Infinity Ward was expecting sales to be slower initially as some gamers will wait until they buy an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4 before they pick up a copy.

Apple has given details about the number of information requests it has received from law enforcement agencies in the United States for the first six months of 2013.

Similar figures were already published by Yahoo and Facebook. They give an idea of the amount of requests a web giant receives for information on accounts/users from authorities, but they are short on specific numbers due to government-enforced restrictions.

Apple claims it received between 1000 and 2000 information requests from U.S agencies between January and June of this year (they can only reveal figures in ranges of 1000). Those requests affected between 2000 and 3000 accounts. The amount of times Apple complied with requests ranged from 0-1000 (yes, vague).

More specific numbers were given for device information requests though. In the 6 month period, Apple received device info requests 3,542 times, affecting 8,605 devices. Apple complied with 3,110 of the requests. Most of these requests involve lost or stolen devices.

Here is Apple's report (PDF): 131105reportongovernmentinforequests2.pdf

AMD has launched its new AMD Radeon R9 290 graphics card promising stunning UltraHD (4K) performance for $399, or €289 in the Eurozone (excluding VAT).

"With the AMD Radeon R9 290 GPU, AMD cements its position as the provider of ultimate gaming experiences," said Matt Skynner, general manager and corporate vice president, AMD Graphics Business Unit.

"We deliver on the promise of world-class performance and features with the R9 Series graphics cards. With new innovations like Mantle and AMD TrueAudio technology, AMD brings an exceptional gaming experience for enthusiasts while defying the limits of audio and visual realism."

AMD Radeon R9 290 feature information:

• 2,560 stream processing units
• Up to 947MHz engine clock
• 4GB GDDR5 memory
• Up to 5.0Gbps memory clock speed
• 320GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
• 4.85 TFLOPS Single Precision compute power
• API support for DirectX 11.2, OpenGL 4.3 and Mantle

Target is offering $200 in store credit in exchange for working, undamaged iPads - including the first generation iPad.

The exchange can only be made at a Target store, and the iPad must power on properly and not be scratched or damaged. In exchange, Target will issue $200 credit.

The promotional material for the Target offer suggests that the credit is being given "towards the purchase of a new iPad" but customers who have already availed of the offer said they could use it for anything. Still, be sure to ask first.

If you have an old 2010 iPad lying around, you could take it to a Target store and put it toward a newer iPad when you have the chance. You could pick up an iPad Air for $299 with the trade-in or an iPad mini without retina display for $99. But remember, according to the promotional material the offer is only in place "November 3rd thru 9th" so make up your mind soon.

More Info: Target

(Via: Engadget)

Internet radio service Pandora witnessed its market share grow last month, despite the launch of Apple's competing iTunes Radio service.

Pandora CFO Michael Herring said that hours of listening grew 9 percent in October over September, and its share of U.S. radio listening grow to 8.06 percent from 7.77 percent when iTunes Radio began operations.

"October data was in line with our expectations and showed the resilience of our business," he told a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco yesterday.

The service streamed 1.47 billion hours of content during the month of October, though the number of active users fell from 72.7 million in September to 70.9 million in October.

Pandora is considering whether to use some of the $400 million it raised in a stock offering in September toward overseas expansion beyond the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Such an expansion will force Pandora to seek licensing agreements with record companies.

At the Huawei Mobile Broadband Forum in London, the Chinese company revealed it expects 10Gbps mobile speeds by 2020.

To help achieve this goal, it announced it will invest $600 million in 5G technologies and solutions with the hope of getting high-speed mobile connectivity to the market faster.

"Today's theme is mobile broadband. In this area, we continuously invest in innovation. We started our investment in 5G early, in 2009, and we have demonstrated our 5G prototype capable of 50Gbps speeds," said Huawei's Eric Xu.

"We want to develop a system that will not break, that will support up to one billion connections and offer users speeds of up to 10Gbps. Of course, there are a lot of issues to work out before we get there. We are committed to helping the operators build more efficient and integrated systems, that can link people to people, people to things, and things to things."

Of course, proper 4G networks aren't even available in a lot of European countries at the commercial level, so true 5G technology is still a long ways away for the masses.

Microsoft is back attacking Google services again, with a new webpage and PDF that shows how Google uses content from e-mails to deliver ads.

On the "Keep Your Email Private" page, Microsoft is offering a PDF with information on "how they do it", as well as some screenshots showing ads that are strikingly similar to the content of emails.

For example, one screenshot shows how a mention of "Caribbean" and "South Africa" brought up ads for a Thompson Caribbean Holiday and cheap flights to South African locations. Another email that mentioned divorce proceedings produced an ad for legal advice.

"All email service providers protect your inbox by scanning for spam, phishing attempts and malware, but not all email providers use the words from your email to show you ads," Microsoft's document reads.

By scanning all of your sent and received email messages to display targeted ads, Microsoft said that people who have never even used the service are caught up in Google's advertising reach.

Of course, Microsoft's primary goal is to get users to switch to Outlook.

Have a look: www.keepyouremailprivate.com/HowTheyDoIt

Google has launched Helpouts to 'help people help each other' using the convenience of the web and video conferencing.

The goal is to make it possible to find help for almost any problem you might have like how to fix your garage door, or how to remove a computer virus; or it might be guidance completing a project, like building a deck, or to learn to have a basic conversation in a different language.

With Helpouts, you can choose who you get help from based on their qualifications, their availability, their price, their ratings and reviews. Brands already touted by Google as getting involved include Sephora, One Medical, Weight Watchers, Redbeacon (a Home Depot company), and Rosetta Stone.

Once you're in a Helpout, you can do more than just talk--you can share your computer screen, collaboratively edit a presentation, or record your Helpout.

Putting its money where its mouth is, Google offers a full money back guarantee if your experience lags your expectations.

For Now, Google Helpouts is starting small with only a few categories, but swing by helpouts.google.com and see what's available anyway.

A group of researchers are Cornell University have warned that the Bitcoin system is vulnerable to an attack that could allow a group to gradually take control over it.

The flaw, they allege, involves the process by which new Bitcoin is created. Bitcoins are mined by groups of computers working on a cryptographic problem, and at any given moment thousands of machines and many groups can be working to solve the same puzzle.

Here is where the Cornell researchers find the potential weakness. If one large mining group could game the system to keep the discovery of blocks quiet, then other groups may continue to mine to no avail while they move on. Hence, why it is described as a "selfish" attack.

"Once the system veers away from the happy mode where everyone is honest, there is no force that opposes the growth of really large pools that command control of the currency," wrote Professor Emin Surer.

You can read a more detailed description of the attack from Professor Surer on his blog post titled "Bitcoin is Broken".

Vitalik Buterin, technical editor of Bitcoin Magazine, is sceptical that such an attack would work in practice, because it would require that attackers change fundamental BitCoin software to manipulate the information sharing with the network.

Microsoft has a new ad for its Surface tablet that claims the device is for 'real work'.

If you recall, Microsoft promoted the Lenovo Yoga with Windows 8 over the iPad in an education setting with an ad that showed a class full of students struggling to type out promptly spoken words from the professor on an iPad, with the predictable exception being the one smiling student with the Windows 8 device using a real keyboard.

Now, without specifically mentioning the iPad, Microsoft has revisited education with a new ad showing a teacher promoting the Surface tablet as being for "real work."

"All my students have the brand new Surface, it has the new Windows, it comes with Office, has a real keyboard so they can do real work," he informs us.

"The battery lasts and lasts so after school, they can Skype, play games, or my favorite - do homework. Change is looking pretty good afterall."

As fascinated as Microsoft is with its own products, it has its work cut out for it as the iPad is clearly the more embraced device so far in an education setting. Just last week, Tim Cook said that Apple now owns 94 percent of the education market.

Sony is pushing out a system update for its PS Vita handheld console that includes PS4 Link - letting you connect with your PS4 system when it launches in ten days.

PS Vita 3.0 adds the PS4 Link app to the home screen. Using PS4 Link, you can use your PS Vita to remotely control a PS4 system, and play a range of PS4 games on your PS Vita screen. When you're playing a game on PS4 that supports second screen features, you can also display information from that game on your PS Vita and use it as a second screen. The previous "Remote Play" app on the PS Vita has been renamed to "PS3 Remote Play".

The update also brings improved Parental Controls to the PS Vita. Parents can use it to manage the duration of game play, and the use of games and videos that have parental controls. You can also control access to certain areas of the system, including the use of the Internet browser and Location Data.

Messaging improvements are also part of the update, with the Group Messaging application name and icon changed to Messages. You can now send and receive messages with friends and players on PS4 or on mobile devices installed with PlayStation App. The icon for the Party application has been changed. You can now voice chat and text chat with friends and players on PS4.

Call of Duty: Ghosts has been released but the developer behind the latest title in the franchise is prepared for slower sales due to the transition to next gen.

It took only 15 days for the previous CoD title, Black Ops II, to reach $1 billion in sales. Until the release of Grand Theft Auto V in October 2012, Black Ops II claimed the largest entertainment launch of all time.

With Call of Duty: Ghosts being released for PC, PlayStation 3 (PS3), Xbox 360 and Wii U today, sales will undoubtedly be very high, but Infinity Ward is expecting slower initial sales due to the release of Xbox One and PS4 later this month - both of which claim Ghosts as a launch title.

"Next-gen has historically created a bit of a challenge for all games from a numbers standpoint," Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin told the BBC News website.

"It's definitely something we're aware of. I know talking to a lot of people, figuring out what they're going to buy is a problem. I think it will be spread out a little bit - it's harder to do the day-one [sales]... but I think we're in a good spot."

Reviews for Ghosts have been mixed so far, but unlikely to hurt its commercial success.

Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin has explained why Call of Duty: Ghosts renders at 720p on Xbox One.

It emerged last week that Call of Duty: Ghosts would render at 720p on the Xbox One console, which had some gamers scratching their heads since it will render at 1080p on the PS4.

According to Rubin, the problem was in the framerate. Infinity Ward wanted 60fps, but couldn't get it while rendering in 1080p.

"It's very possible we can get it to native 1080p [resolution]. I mean I've seen it working at 1080p native," Rubin told Eurogamer.

"It's just we couldn't get the frame rate in the neighborhood we wanted it to be. And it wasn't a lack of effort. It wasn't that it was like last minute. We had the theoretical hardware for a long time. That's the thing you get pretty quickly and that doesn't change dramatically."

He told GameSpot that the game renders at 720p on the Xbox One, and then upscales to 1080p for TV output.

Nokia has announced that Samsung Electronics has extended a patent license agreement with the Finnish company.

The South Korean CE giant extended a phone patent agreement it has with Nokia by an additional five years, according to Nokia. Nokia will receive additional compensation from Samsung, beginning next year.

Nokia has agreed to sell its phone business to Microsoft. That deal is currently being mulled over by regulators in the European Union. The Finnish company did opt to hold onto its lucrative patent portfolio however.

Western Digital's HGST announced its new hermetically sealed (air-tight) 6TB Ultrastar He6 hard disk drive (HDD) that's filled with helium gas instead of air.

Filling it with the noble gas instead of air makes it possible for the Ultrastar He6 to use a 7-Disk design (7Stac) rather than a 5-Disk design, with helium being only one-seventh the density of air.

The high-capacity HDD is intended for use in enterprise environments, particularly data centers that require ever increasing amounts of storage capacity. Not only does the drive have the highest capacity for a standard 3.5-inch form factor, it also uses 23 percent lower idle power per drive, and boasts 49 percent better watts-per-TB.

"With ever-increasing pressures on corporate and cloud data centers to improve storage efficiencies and reduce costs, HGST is at the forefront delivering a revolutionary new solution that significantly improves data center TCO on virtually every level – capacity, power, cooling and storage density – all in the same 3.5-inch form factor," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, HGST.

"Not only is our new Ultrastar helium hard drive helping customers solve data center challenges today, our mainstream helium platform will serve as the future building block for new products and technologies moving forward. This is a huge feat, and we are gratified by the support of our customers in the development of this platform."

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has said that reported NSA spying on Google data servers is outrageous.

Recent media reports have suggested that the U.S. Government targeted links between Google's data centers located around the world. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google chairman Eric Schmidt didn't hold back on condemning the activity if shown to be true.

"It's really outrageous that the National Security Agency was looking between the Google data centers, if that's true. The steps that the organization was willing to do without good judgment to pursue its mission and potentially violate people's privacy, it's not OK," Schmidt said.

"The Snowden revelations have assisted us in understanding that it's perfectly possible that there are more revelations to come."

He told the WSJ that Google has complained to the NSA, to Congress and even to President Barack Obama in the wake of these revelations.

Outside of the reports about Google's data centers, Schmidt also spoke on other data gathering activities carried out by the NSA.

"The NSA allegedly collected the phone records of 320 million people in order to identify roughly 300 people who might be a risk. It's just bad public policy...and perhaps illegal," he said.

Elements of the Italian government support measures that would boost tax revenue from Google, Yahoo, Amazon and other major web giants.

Instead of simply taxing the companies directly, a bill has been tabled that oblige companies that advertise and sell online in Italy to do so only through agencies that have a tax presence in the country. The extra revenue to such agency would translate to extra tax to the government. The plan is to raise €1 billion in additional revenue.

The bill was drafted by lower house budget committee Chairman Francesco Boccia, who said it was unacceptable that online companies pay tax abroad on revenue from sales they makes in Italy.

"We shouldn't be trying to raise resources by hiking taxes on fuel, cigarettes or small retailers while our online purchases are raising the profits of companies that have no interest in developing our economy," Boccia said on his website.

Opponents of the proposal have gone as far as to say it is based on wishful thinking that lacks knowledge of how Internet commerce and advertising work.

The Italian government is far from the only one complaining about the level of tax revenue from multinationals however, who are very skilled at paying as low overall tax as possible.

Owners of Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 tablet have noticed a considerable increase in battery life following a firmware update.

While the SurFace Pro 2 already considerably improved battery life over its predecessor, the firmware update has pushed it even further with up to 20 percent extra battery life being reported. Of course it depends on what you are doing with the tablet that will determine the change.

The firmware update lets the Marvell Wi-Fi chipset to operate at lower power states, so the battery improvements will be noticeable for normal browsing habits.

The Surface 2 with Windows RT has not had the same battery improvement through firmware update.

The last Chromium build for Mac can enable a restriction that forces a user to re-authenticate when trying to view a plain text password.

It was pointed out by François Beaufort on Google+. Once you enable the chrome://flags/#enable-password-manager-reauthentication flag, the re-authentication will start to show when trying to view plain text passwords in chrome://settings/passwords.

Google has come under fire recently for how easy it is to view plain text passwords that have been saved by the Chrome web browser. This latest experimental flag hints that Google might address the problem by allowing Chrome users to protect access to plain text passwords.



(Image Credit & Source: François Beaufort)

Amazon is cutting the prices of its Kindle tablets and e-readers for just one day to celebrate rule changes from the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA announced last week that air passengers can now use portable electronics during take-off and landing, meaning you can use your gadgets through flights from departure to arrival - though there are still restrictions on cell calls and Internet access (below 15,000 feet).

Still, Amazon sees reason to celebrate by cutting 15 percent off Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX 7 and the $69 Kindle - but if you want to avail of these offers you must hurry up because it is only for today.

In order to receive the discount, customers must enter ThhnksFAA at the checkout (yes, that's how the press release spells thanks).

With the discount code, the $69 Kindle can be bought for $59 today. The Kindle Fire HD drops to $118 with the promo code and Kindle Fire HDX 7 drops to $195.

The November 15 launch of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console in the United States has another confirmed launch title: Need for Speed Rivals.

Shiny new gaming consoles are a beautiful thing, and it's always exciting when a major launch date is on the horizon. It's hard to believe that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) launch is not even two weeks away now, but when we unbox our consoles we will want to get a feel of what they can do. Launch titles are extremely important in that way, and the more the merrier.

Sony, Ghost Games & Electronics Arts have announced that Need for Speed Rivals will be a PS4 launch title this month, dropping on November 15 in the North American market. Rumors had suggested recently that the game was being pushed back to a later date, so this is welcome news.

The game is scheduled to be released for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on November 19, and will of course launch for the Xbox One on November 22 alongside the new Microsoft console.

Nintendo has announced that it will launch the Wii mini console in the United States this month, bundled with Mario Kart Wii.

The Wii mini will be available starting mid-November at a a suggested retail price of only $99.99, bundled with the Mario Kart Wii game and a red Wii Remote Plus controller and a red Nunchuk controller.

Wii mini is a redesigned version of the extremely successful 2006 console that claims a library of more than 1,300 games. It is matte black with a red border.

"Wii mini offers the same fun experience as Wii, which has been enjoyed by millions of people around the world," said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing.

"And it comes packaged with Mario Kart Wii, a multiplayer Mario racing game that is one of the best-selling Wii games. At such a great price, it is an extraordinary value for shoppers this holiday season."

Since its 2006 launch, Nintendo has sold more than 100 million Wii consoles around the world, beating the pricier Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 rivals of the currently winding down generation.

At $99.99, the Wii mini is an affordable way for those left who never bought a Wii console to give the platform a try.

A survey into what 12-17 year olds want this holiday has found Apple's iPhone and iPad are popular, but boys covet the next generation PlayStation 4.

The survey was performed on behalf of Ebates, a cash-back shopping site. It found that Apple's iPhone is the most wanted product this year among all kids aged 12-17. Over 32 percent of overall respondents wanted the Apple smartphone while just 12 percent wanted a device made by Samsung.

Girls pushed the iPhone into the top spot though, since 41 percent of them wanted an iPhone. Breaking it down by gender though shows that boys prefer Sony's next generation PlayStation 4 (PS4) console this holiday season.

As for parents of teens who took part, over 54 percent identified an Apple product as being their intended purchase for their kids during the holidays.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Bill Gates branded prioritizing Internet access in poor countries ahead of malaria research a 'joke'.

Known worldwide as the co-founder of Microsoft, its former chief executive and being unbelievably rich, Bill Gates spends most of his work time now on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The goals of the Gates foundation are to fight poverty and disease in the developing regions of the world, and to advance education in the United States.

Warren Buffet is one of three trusties that control the foundation, along with Bill and Melinda Gates. The three were recognised in 2007 as the most generous philanthropists in America. Bill Gates has donated $28 billion to the foundation thus far.

Malaria is an obvious target for the Gates Foundation. in 2010, there were an estimated 219 million cases of Malaria with an estimated 660,000 deaths. It is one of the diseases that disproportionately affects poor countries not just in rates of infection, but the impact it has on resources. A malaria vaccine has been a holy grail for researchers - including the U.S. military - for decades but thus far efforts haven't produced the revolutionary weapon against the disease that it coveted.

Viacom is persisting with its billion dollar lawsuit against Google's YouTube, despite previous defeats and drastic changes at the service.

Viacom originally sued YouTube before it had tools like Content I.D. that could be used to control the upload of potentially infringing content on the service. Even so, Viacom already lost this battle when a New York district court didn't agree with its case, and now Viacom is heading to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

YouTube finds protection in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, specifically the safe harbour provisions that protect service providers like it.

As long as YouTube - as a service provider - does not encourage or induce copyright infringement through its service, and responds and acts on legitimate DMCA requests, it should be safe under the provisions afforded to it in the DMCA, and so far it has.

However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is warning that Viacom's argument to the appeals court is challenging YouTube's protection under the safe harbor provisions and suggesting that YouTube actually induced copyright infringement.

The EFF makes two simple arguments against Viacom's position.

A report into the state of the major smartphone and tablet app marketplaces - the App Store and Google Play - has found that Google Play edged the Apple store by volume but lags far behind in revenue.

The third quarter 2013 report from App Annie shows that the Google Play store has 25 percent more downloads than Apple's App Store. The big sources of increasing downloads for the Google store are Brazil and Argentina, with game downloads leading the way.

"The increase in Google Play's downloads was primarily driven by Brazil and Argentina with the former climbing one spot in the rankings to #4 behind the US, South Korea and India. Games remained the leading category in Brazil, but gains made by the Communication and Media & Audio categories also helped them achieve their Google Play download ranking," said App Annie in its report.

While Google will be delighted to see its store deliver more apps to users, it only generated half the revenue that Apple's App Store did. Japan was the biggest source of revenue for Google Play, just ahead of South Korea. The United States was in third place.

In a revelation that nobody expected, Intel will fabricate 64-bit chips based on ARM architecture next year for a client.

Altera announced at the ARM developers conference that the iconic chipmaker will fabricate 64-bit ARM chips for it next year, which came as a surprise. Intel's ATOM chips compete directly with chips based on ARM architecture such as NVIDIA's Tegra, or Snapdragon's chips that power many Android smartphones.

Business is business though and if Intel would not fabricate the chips, somebody else would be happy to.

AppleInsider also notes speculation now that Apple may look to Intel for some of its A-series orders. The A-series SoC's that power its iPhones and iPads (A7 in iPhone 5s and iPad Air) are fabricated by smartphone arch-rival Samsung. Despite Apple striking a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. during the summer, reports circulated that the Taiwan firm was having yield issues due to the 20 nanometer process used in the upcoming A8.

Intel already is tapped by Apple for for its MacBooks, and of course both companies have worked on other projects like Thunderbolt.

The first YouTube Music Awards will be live tonight from New York, and of course you can watch the proceedings online.

The YouTube Music Awards kick off at 6PM E.T. from Pier 36 in New York City, co-hosted by Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts. Each nomination category was created YouTube users' views, comments, likes, subscriptions and shares.

In the lead up to the music awards, an International celebration of music was underway with performances from Seoul, Moscow, Rio and London. The show itself will feature performances from Eminem, Lady Gaga, and Arcade Fire.

Of course the first ever YTMA's will be streamed live online, and you can watch them below.

Skype is retiring the Desktop API in December, meaning that third-party add-ons and accessories may not function correctly or at all.

The Skype Desktop API was created in 2004 and it doesn't support mobile application development. This conflicts with Skype's goal of making the service better on mobile platforms. At the moment, Skype is working on significantly improving call quality and the speed of delivery of instant messages, all while lowering the drain on batteries.

"As people are using Skype on more devices, we're also working hard to create a more familiar and consistent Skype experience across all major platforms," the Skype blog reads.

From next month, the old Desktop API will be retired and so the functionality of recording add-ons or other third-party Skype apps will be hit.

Warner Bros. has apologized to gamers for a range of bugs affecting the Batman: Arkham Origins title across platforms.

Within the next week it promised to issue a patch that will address this range of issues. In particular, players have complained that sometimes they are unable to continue the Story Mode of Arkham Origins from the Main Menu of the game.

Others also said that the "FreeFlow Focus mode" was not unlocking upon reaching "Shadow Vigilante" rank 3, and of course the good old "infinite falling" and falling out of the world bug is back with Arkham Origins. A fix for that bug in particular will push you back to your previous save.

Xbox 360 gamers might have to wait a while for other annoyances to be fixed though, including corrupted saves and ongoing crashes/freezing on the platform. As a temporary workaround for story mode, Warner suggests you disconnect the Xbox 360 from the Internet.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has said he wished Apple and Google were partners in the future to make devices smarter.

In an interview with the BBC's Click, Woz admitted that sometimes Siri on his iPhone simply isn't as good as the Android alternative.

"Sometimes I say 'Go to Joe's Diner' and [Siri] doesn't know where Joe's Diner is. And very often usually I find out that Android does," he said. He believes the reason why Android has this extra knowledge is the access to Google's enormous search engine data.

"That is actually the future of intelligence probably for computers getting smarter and getting artificial intelligence. I wish to God that Apple and Google were partners in the future," he said.

Woz believes that encouraging openness and the sharing of information and methods would benefit everyone and the best of technology would result.

"I believe you should have a world where you've got to license something at a fair price. There are good things I see on Samsung phones that I wish were in my iPhone. I wish Apple would use them and could use them, and I don't know if Samsung would stop us," he said.

Ebay has reportedly removed around 30 items of 'Holocaust memorabilia' from its auction site, and apologized that the items were allowed to be listed.

The items were pointed out to eBay by the Mail on Sunday in the UK, including a complete Auschwitz uniform reportedly worn by a Polish baker who died at the Nazi camp. According to the newspaper, the auction giant offered to donate £25,000 to a suitable charity.

"We are very sorry these items have been listed on eBay and we are removing them. We don't allow listings of this nature, and dedicate thousands of staff to policing our site and use the latest technology to detect items that shouldn't be for sale," eBay said in a statement.

"We very much regret that we didn't live up to our own standards. We have made a donation to charity to reflect our concern."

Shoes, a toothbrush and yellow Star of David armbands were among the other items listed. The Auschwitz uniform was being offered for £11,300 by Viktor Kempf, a Ukranian man living in Canada, but he said he was selling the items to document them and fund history book projects.

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V took 'Game of the Year' at the Golden Joysticks awards last week.

The awards are the the largest publicly-voted video game awards in the world, with over 10 million casting votes for this year's awards.

A new addition to the ceremony is the Lifetime Achievement award, which was presented to Ken Levine (BioShock). "The great thing about the still-maturing nature of video games is you get to be inspired by the work of novices and veterans alike," he said.

"We're all figuring out day by day exactly what the medium is capable of."

Full List of Awards:

• Game of the Year: Grand Theft Auto V
• Hall of Fame: Activision: Call of Duty
• Lifetime Achievement: Ken Levine
• Best Newcomer: The Last of Us
• Most Wanted: Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• Best Indie Game: Mark of the Ninja
• Best Visual Design: BioShock Infinite
• Best Multiplayer: Payday 2
• Best Gaming Moment: Far Cry 3 - The Definition of Insanity
• Studio of the Year: Naughty Dog
• Innovation of the Year: Oculus Rift
• Best Storytelling: The Last of Us
• Best Online Game: World of Tanks
• Best Handheld Game: Assassin's Creed III: Liberation
• YouTube Gamer Award: Yogscast
• Best Gaming Platform: Steam
  
• Best Mobile/Tablet Game of the Year: XCOM: Enemy Unknown

A man has been arrested in England on suspicion of hacking into U.S. government networks.

Lauri Love is accused of hacking into U.S. government systems, including military systems, to steal confidential information and to disrupt operations. Three other co-conspirators - two in Australia and one in Sweden - remain unnamed.

Systems that they allegedly attacked included NASA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

"Such conduct endangers the security of our country and is an affront to those who serve," said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman in New Jersey.

He said that the hacking took place starting in October 2012, and let to personal data of U.S. military personnel being compromised.

Love was arrested by the cybercrime unit of Britain's National Crime Agency on October 25, and is currently out on bail.

A U.S. start-up claims it has developed software that can accurately answer Captcha prompts 90 percent of the time.

Captchas are a security measure that almost every Internet user has encountered: a graphic or sound that give a human a word to enter in order to fight spam bots. The software is modelled on how the human brain functions to recognise patterns according to its developer, Vicarious.

The Recursive Cortical Network software can operate and even "learn" to a degree by mimicking processes in the brain. The goal of the start-up is to develop the technology for robotics, medical image analysis and world domination - OK I made that last part up.

"The Vicarious algorithms achieve a level of effectiveness and efficiency much closer to actual human brains," Vicarious co-founder D Scott Phoenix said in a statement.

Luis von Ahn, a computer scientist who was part of the team that developed the Captcha system at Carnegie Mellon University, said it was difficult to verify the claims made by Vicarious, but said if necessary Captchas can always be make stronger by increasing distortion.

IMAX has formed a joint venture with Shenzhen's TCL Multimedia to offer expensive home cinema systems to the wealthiest people in China.

A pioneer in immersive 3D cinema experiences, IMAX will market expensive home cinema systems to China's wealthy elite. The home theater systems are expected to sell for up to $250,000 in the country, while it also is eyeing Russia, Hong Kong and the middle east for further expansion.

"China now is our second largest market in the world, and our fastest growing market," Imax chief executive Richard Gelfond said.

TCL estimates that the home theater market in China will grow 20 percent per year, as the growing rich in China look to buy more luxury goods.

IMAX has 131 screens installed in China, accounting for 16 percent of its total revenue.

A Microsoft document details how Xbox One Kinect users' data is protected under the new system.

Questions had been raised about privacy issues with the new Kinect, which can recognize and automatically sign in different players based on information it stores about them. The system measures distance between facial features and converts it into numerical data.

According to Microsoft, nobody would be able to look at this data and determine that it represents the person in question. Nevertheless, the information stays on the Xbox One console and is not shared with third parties or backed up to Microsoft servers.

Users are also in complete control over photos captured by the Kinect device during use, and can determine the sharing of data with titles like Kinect Fitness which track skeletal data.

An "Expressions" feature lets users control the Xbox One in ways using facial expressions, but this information cannot identify an individual user and is destroyed when a session ends.

The GameDVR feature on Xbox One can capture gameplay. In the case of multiplayer games, GameDVR will not capture audio chat. Footage captured with GameDVR can be set to "Blocked", "Friends Only" or everybody - determining its level of visibility.

Time Warner Cable lost more subscribers in the third-quarter than any other quarter in its history, and the CBS dispute is being blamed.

The cable co lost more than 306,000 subscribers between July and September, compared to a drop of 29,000 subscribers during the same quarter of last year. The company blames the CBS dispute which resulted in a CBS blackout on the network.

TWC had to provide over $15 million worth of credit to Showtime subscribers for losing service during the dispute too.

Its net income during the quarter dropped to $532 million, compared to $808 for the same period of 2012, while its average cost of programming per subscriber rose 8.4 percent to $34.10 per month.

U.S. technology and web giants have written a letter to the U.S. Congress asking it to do more to reign in NSA surveillance and make such programs more transparent.

Since the NSA revelations began there has been considerable confusion among Internet users - in America and worldwide - about exactly what is happening to their data. Some of the earliest reports suggested that the NSA has direct access to servers at companies like Google and could come and go as they pleased for users' information.

Google, and others, almost immediately denied that allegation outright and petitioned the U.S. administration to loosen rules on disclosing the types of government requests it gets. While they eventually were permitted to issue figures in transparency reports, they were not allowed to differentiate between them, which means that they could not separate national security requests from, for example, law enforcement requests for data related to missing persons.

This only continued the confusion and led to the misreporting that the NSA was behind 100% of all the data requests revealed by the tech companies.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, Apple and AOL have written a letter to Congress asking it to do more to make surveillance and government requests more transparent, as well as protecting the privacy of Internet users.

Netflix has added another useful deal with a European cable TV provider, marking its third in the market.

While there is continued speculation and reports about Netflix tapping Comcast in a similar deal in the United States, it has just added its third deal with a European cable TV provider. Denmark's Waoo service will now provide Netflix functionality to its pay TV customers. It has around 270,000 subscribers.

Previously, Netflix struck its first such deal with Virgin Media in the UK and followed it up with a deal with Sweden's Com Hem. Perhaps Netflix is seeking such a deal with a cable provider in all European states.

In the United States, Netflix is likely to sign a deal that will bring its app to set-top-box subscribers of a cable TV provider, and reports suggest Comcast is the most likely.

While seen as one of the major factors for declining subscriber tallies for cable companies in recent years, Netflix is also seen as a possible solution to stop or slow down subscriber loss, and may also entice cable customers to opt for more expensive, faster Internet packages.

A California driver was given a ticket when pulled over by a police officer for speeding and for wearing Google Glass while driving.

Cecilia Abadie posted a picture of the ticket given by the police officer on her Google+ page, seeking legal advice. Abadie claims the Google gear was not even switched on when the cop pulled her over.

On the ticket the officer described her infraction as: "Driving with Monitor visible to Driver (Google Glass)".

Cecilia used her Google+ page to ask if there are any other Google Glass wearers who have been ticketed for having them on while driving.

Commenting on her page, some users pointed out that Google Glass might be covered by exceptions in the state vehicle code 27602 that permits drivers to view displays that show maps, GPS and similar information.


More Info & Pic Source: Cecilia Abadie (Google+)

Eminem's latest studio album 'The Marshall Mathers LP 2' is available for streaming on iTunes Radio for U.S. users ahead of its November 5 launch day.

This marks the first time that an entire album is being given early access to exclusively through Apple's iTunes Radio service. The official Twitter account for Eminem announced its availability on iTunes Radio on Friday.

It is available through the First Play station on iTunes Radio for U.S. users only at the moment.

The decision to provide the iTunes Radio route may be in response to a leak of the album this week ahead of its release on Tuesday.

#MMLP2 full album stream now on iTunes for the US! Pre-order available worldwide: http://t.co/T3mVokwKGV

-- Marshall Mathers (@Eminem) November 1, 2013

Sony's PS3 PlayStation Store now supports adding funds through PayPal.

In January, Sony made it possible to add funds to a Sony Entertainment Network wallet using the PayPal service on the web. Now it has announced that you can use PayPal to add funds to your Sony Entertainment Network wallet via PayPal directly through the PlayStation Store on PS3.

When checking out from the cart on PlayStation Store, click "Add Funds", then click "PayPal" and transfer any amount from $5 to $150 (the maximum wallet balance amount).

Amazon has announced Kindle First, a new service that offers Kindle users (devices and apps) access to a selection of new e-books a month before official release.

Kindle customers will be able to choose an e-book from a selection picked by Amazon Publishing editors to buy for $1.99 - or for free for Amazon Prime members. You don't need a Kindle device to benefit from Kindle First.

Customers can also sign up to get a monthly e-mail alerting them of new Kindle First selections.

The debut Kindle First picks are Things We Set on Fire, by best-selling author Deborah Reed; No Place for a Dame, by best-selling romance author Connie Brockway; Silent Echo, by best-selling mystery author J.R. Rain; and We Will Survive: True Stories of Encouragement, Inspiration, and the Power of Song, by Grammy-award winning recording artist Gloria Gaynor. All books will be published in December but are available to Kindle First members starting today.

"Prime just keeps getting better for our members, and any customer will find something interesting in our Kindle First picks," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content.

"We also love that these amazing books by Amazon Publishing authors will get a chance to reach a much wider audience."

Microsoft is hoping to boost sales of Windows tablets this holiday season with better marketing and retail efforts.

To do so it will reportedly focus on making it clear what products it has on the market, as confusion over Windows OS versions is turning off some potential buyers. Right now there are products running Windows RT, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7.

There is also confusion over the hardware on the market. Microsoft will market Windows 8.1 as "the new Windows" to make it clear its the latest version of its consumer OS.

It will increase its spending on Windows retail to $405 million - up from $241 million - going the "store within a store" route that is followed by competitors like Apple.

Customers who buy Windows touch devices this holiday season will also get $25 gift cards for the Windows, Windows Phone or Xbox online stores.

It's primary goal is to sell 16 million Windows tablets during the busy holiday period, but it will also market its Windows 8.1 PCs as the "only PCs with touch," while also distributing a USB-based Windows 8.1 upgrade kit to retailers since only 20 percent of PCs shipped will have it installed.

Google has officially discontinued the iGoogle service as planned.

iGoogle was a customizable personal web portal that Google launched in 2005 that sought to provide a dynamic homepage that would retrieve information from Google services to one spot. In 2005, such a service was very useful but things have changed considerably on the Internet since.

Last July, Google said that the need for iGoogle was now gone.

"On November 1, 2013, iGoogle will be retired. We originally launched iGoogle in 2005 before anyone could fully imagine the ways that today's web and mobile apps would put personalized, real-time information at your fingertips. With modern apps that run on platforms like Chrome and Android, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time, so we'll be winding it down. Users will have 16 months to adjust or export their data," the Google Blog warned at the time.

iGoogle will now simply redirect to Google's homepage, as yet another one of Google's collection of services gets thrown onto the scrap heap.

Yahoo is seeking to entice bug hunters with rewards up to $15,000 depending on the severity of the bug found.

The web giant was criticized by security researchers for paying a measly $12.50 in Yahoo discount vouchers to security researchers at High-Tech Bridge for two cross site scripting (XSS) bugs they had reported. Yahoo's security head, Ramses Martinez, claimed later that he was behind the voucher reward program, and that he basically had been paying for them out of his own pocket.

Out of the embarrassment though has come a much healthier attitude toward white-hat hacking from Yahoo. The web giant has launched its new bug bounty program that allows white hats to submit bugs at bugbounty.yahoo.com and receive rewards between $250 and $15,000, depending on the severity of the bug discovered.

Yahoo has pledged to fix reported problems as quickly as possible, and gives the option for the bug hunter to be listed on its Wall of Fame that will show its top ten all time reporters.

"It is our hope that the official launch of this program will usher in a new, less-shirt-centric era for security at Yahoo. We look forward to open and productive collaboration with the community and doing our part to make the Internet more secure," wrote Martinez.

Microsoft's Xbox One console will support DLNA streaming and will play audio CDs, the company has confirmed.

Earlier this week, Sony revealed on an FAQ that the PlayStation 4 (PS4) console will not be DLNA complaint. Penny Arcade asked Microsoft for information about the media capabilities of the Xbox One.

The next generation Xbox is in the process of being DLNA certified. It also will play audio CDs - if you have any of those left - but its MP3 playback is a little different.

Microsoft said the system is a PlayTo receiver so it can have MP3 streamed from it using PlayTo supported devices like a Windows Phone or a computer running Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, or through Xbox Music Pass.

That suggests that the Xbox One may not play MP3 locally like the Xbox 360 can?

A Liberty Reserve co-founder has pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering for criminals.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) alleges that Liberty Reserve laundered up to $6 billion for identity thieves and drug dealers, or roughly $1 billion per year. Vladimir Kats, one of the alleged co-founders was arrested in Brooklyn earlier this year.

Kats had parted ways with Liberty Reserve in 2009, but still was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and several other serious crimes.

Other arrests were made in Costa Rica, where Liberty Reserve was based.

Liberty Reserve had more than one million users worldwide.

If you are still clinging to Microsoft's 12 year old Windows XP, you might want to consider planning an upgrade before April.

On April 8, 2014, support for Windows XP officially ends. After this date, the ageing operating system will no longer receive security updates, non-security hotfixes or free/paid assisted support options and online technical content updates.

Essentially, this means that as new bugs are discovered that affect Windows, Microsoft will not prepare or distribute fixes for them for Windows XP.

On the second Tuesday of every month, Microsoft releases security patches that are typically downloaded and installed automatically by Windows computers. You may be familiar with this "Patch Tuesday" schedule. The next day however - "Exploit Wednesday" - is when attackers will target unpatched machines (that have not yet gotten the monthly updates) after they dissect Microsoft's updates and attempt to identify the bug that Microsoft is fixing.

If any security vulnerability is discovered that affects an array of Windows operating systems that also includes Windows XP, then this is a serious problem for people still running Windows XP after April 2014, because cybercriminals will become aware of the security bug and Windows XP will not be updated to fix it.

Zynga has not infringed the 'Scrabble' trademark owned by toy giant Mattel, the High Court in the UK has found.

Mattel accused Zynga - the company behind online gaming successes like Farmville - of infringing its 'Scrabble' trademark with its "Scramble With Friend". Essentially, Mattel felt that Zynga was trying to confuse users into thinking they were downloading a scrabble game.

While the High Court judge, Mr Justice Peter Smith, did not agree with Mattel's assessment that Zynga's actions constitute trademark infringement, he did concede that a curly letter M in the logo of the game could be confusing for users, who might think the game is Scrabble.

Mattel - the world's largest manufacturer of toys - said it planned to appeal.

"We are pleased that the English High Court today affirmed Mattel's request for an injunction against Zynga, finding that the similarities between their Scramble With Friends logo and Mattel's intellectual property likely would confuse the public into thinking they were in fact downloading Scrabble," said Mattel spokesman Alan Hilowitz, reports BBC News.

"We are, however, disappointed that the court did not rule that Zynga should cease using the Scramble name, which Mattel intends to appeal."

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States has considerably relaxed the rules that govern the use of electronic devices lime smartphones, tablets and e-readers during flights.

By the end of the year, U.S. carriers will allow their passengers to use such devices during the entire duration of a flight, including take-off and landing which up until now has been prohibited.

Passengers still won't be able to make cellular voice calls due to the potential interference with radio transmission equipment, and Internet connections will be prohibited below 10,000 feet, but using an e-reader to read a book or a tablet to play a game will be fine.

U.S. carriers will have to demonstrate for the FAA that they can handle the effects that mobile devices can have on flight instruments. Delta Airlines said that it should be able to let passengers use their devices for the duration of flights starting this month.

Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman has revealed that the second generation Ouya microconsole will begin development in early 2014 and launch during the year.

Before the Ouya Android microconsole was launched this summer, Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman had pledged that a new upgraded Ouya would be released annually. It appears that the company is sticking to that plan, as Uhrman informed Polygon that Ouya 2.0 will launch next year, with development commencing early in the year.

Additionally, new improved Ouya controllers will roll-out soon that resolve a button-sticking issue, have tighter triggers and textured thumbsticks.

Whether or not the first Ouya console will remain on sale or will be replaced with the second iteration of the console is a decision not yet made by the company.

Some users of Apple's new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display have encountered a problem with the device.

Apple has said that in some rare cases the MacBook Pro's keyboard and touchpad may become unresponsive. It has pledged to fix the issue as soon as possible with an update.

Until then, it suggests closing the laptop for a minute or so and then re-open, which resets the affected components and will act as a temporary workaround for affected users.

Apple also acknowledged a battery drain problem with its new iPhone 5S smartphone this week.

Google will crack down on third-party apps that make use of Google Voice, it has been announced.

Developers of such apps have six months to transition users away from Google Voice by May 15, 2014. The announcement was made by Google's Nikhyl Singhal on Google+.

"We want to make Google Voice as secure as possible. There are a few third-party applications that provide calling and SMS services by making unauthorized use of Google Voice. These apps violate our Terms of Service and pose a threat to your security, so we're notifying these app developers that they must stop making unauthorized use of Google Voice to run their services and transition users by May 15, 2014," Singhal wrote.

He also revealed that a new version of Google+ Hangouts for Android would be released supporting SMS and MMS messages. Unfortunately, today's update does not work with Google Voice numbers unless you've enabled Google Voice on your Sprint phone.

"But rest assured, we're working to support SMS messages for all Google Voice phone numbers by early next year. And don't worry, your Voice number will go unchanged," Singhal wrote.

The Uplay Passport system used by Ubisoft is to be discontinued for all new games, including Assassin's Creed IV.

"The Uplay Passport program was initiated as a means of giving customers full access and support for online multiplayer and features, along with exclusive content, bonuses, and rewards," Ubisoft said in a statement.

"However, games today are blurring the line between offline and online, between what is 'single-player' and what is 'multiplayer.' Based on that and on the feedback we received from you, we recognized that Passport is no longer the best approach for ensuring that all our customers have the best possible experience with all facets of our games."

While Uplay Passport is included with all copies of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, those who won't have one in future will be able to download one for free either through Xbox Live or PSN. Anyone who already bought one should contact the Ubisoft support team.

Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja has confirmed that the country's government data networks were breached by hackers.

While Mr. Tuomioja did not point the finger of blame himself, TV station MTV3 cited unnamed officials in labelling Russia and China as the primary suspects.

"I can confirm there has been a severe and large hacking in the ministry's data network," he told reporters. The nation's most highly classified information was not affected however.

The hackers seemed to have been targeting communications between Finland and the European Union for years until the breach was discovered in the spring.

Russia and China have been accused of hacking government and corporate entities in the Western World throughout recent years. In 2007, Estonia blamed Russia for a crippling cyber attack against the country.

In weeks, all eyes have been on the National Security Agency in the United States after leaked documents emerged showing widespread surveillance of political targets in Europe, including German chancellor Angela Merkel.

A man in Norway received a very pleasant surprise when he realized that 5,000 Bitcoins he bought and forgot about in 2009 had risen in value to $848,000.

Kristoffer Koch bought 150 kroner ($25.43) worth of Bitcoins in 2009 when researching encryption. He discovered Bitcoin as part of his research. In the years that passed, Koch completely forgot about his purchase.

Bitcoin gathered some more attention in the media in recent times, and Koch decided to check how much his ~$25 investment was now worth. To his surprise, the value of his small investment has grown to around $848,000.

He began converting his Bitcoin into cash and was raking in $75,000 per day. With the money he has already bought an apartment that he is currently renovating.

TuneIn has released an app for the PS3 console, and will release an app for the PS Vita handheld next week.

TuneIn offers more than 70,000 AM, FM, and internet radio stations, and over 2 million podcasts from around the world.

Features of the TuneIn app include:

• World's Radio: With over 70,000 stations and 2 million podcasts from around the world, TuneIn is a leading service for listening to music, sports, and news.
• Live Music: Live Music on TuneIn lets listeners discover and enjoy unplugged, acoustic, and even local performances from their favorite artists -- plus, TuneIn has partnered with the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Austin's SXSW, San Francisco's Outside Lands, and Seattle's Bumbershoot to make live music festivals available to music fans everywhere.
• Sports: TuneIn offers listeners the ability to catch a wide variety of live sports, including college football, cricket, lacrosse, and baseball.
• Talk: Listen to the world's best comedians and personalities on TuneIn, like NPR's "Fresh Air," "This American Life," or the Adam Carolla Show.

Dell co-founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners have taken the PC manufacturer private.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, Dell stockholders will receive $13.75 in cash for each share of Dell common stock they hold, plus payment of a special cash dividend of $0.13 per share to stockholders of record as of the close of business on Oct. 28, 2013, for total consideration of $13.88 per share in cash.

The total transaction is valued at approximately $24.9 billion.

"Today, Dell enters an exciting new chapter as a private enterprise," said Michael Dell said on Tuesday. "Our 110,000 team members worldwide are 100 percent focused on our customers and aggressively executing our long-term strategy for their benefit."