News archive (3 / 2014)

A Weibo user has posted a photo alleging to be the iPhone 6, directly from manufacturer Foxconn.

The caption of the photo said "These are the pictures of the real iPhone 6 which were taken at Foxconn."

Although there is always the chance that the photos are faked, the images do appear to fit within expectations for the new flagship device.

Using the schematics, Nowhereelse put together 3D renders of the device, which is rounder, thinner and larger. The schematics point to two new devices, one at 4.7 inches and one at 5.7 inches, well in the phablet range and huge compared to current model iPhones.

Motorola's Moto G has been a big hit in the UK, turning around Moto UK's fortunes in the process.

The company had close to zero market share in the region headed into 2014, but that share has now jumped to a full 6 percent thanks mainly to the cheap Android device.

Sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows the share for the three month period ended February 2014. Motorola put the G on sale last November for $179. We reviewed the phone and found it to give incredible bang for the buck, including a vibrant screen, fast internals a near-stock Android experience.

Notes Kantar's Dominic Sunnebo: "Motorola was nowhere in Europe before the Moto G launched in November last year, but the new model has since boosted the manufacturer to 6% of British sales. It highlights the speed at which a quality budget phone can disrupt a market."

Oppo has announced that the international Find 7a (non-premium) will go up for pre-order on April 7th.

Oppo's Find 7 will actually come in two models, the Find 7a and the premium Find 7, which a premium version.

The Find 7a has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and a 2800mAh battery. The premium model has a 5.5-inch quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) display, 3GB RAM, a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, 32GB internal storage and a larger 3000mAh. Both have Gorilla Glass 3, a microSD slot (expandable up to 128GB), LTE, MaxxAudio plus Dirac HD audio enhancement and VOOC rapid charging promising "zero to 75 percent" in just 30 minutes.

Another longtime Windows and Office executive is leaving Microsoft.

Antoine Leblond is leaving after over 24 years and just months after his position was reorganized. The executive is leaving today, which is his 9,000th day on the job.

Reads Leblond's email: "After almost 25 years, I've decided it's time for me to go out and see what the non-Microsoft world has to offer.

"Every single day I have had here has been amazing in its own way, and I will never look back on all of these years with anything but fondness, pride in what we've accomplished together, and a real appreciation for having been lucky enough to be part of so many awesome things. I am sad to leave all of you, but also incredibly excited for what comes next."

The exec spent his first 20 years working for Office, before moving to Windows and helping to develop the cloud services and store for Windows 8.

Kevin Morris of Chorley, West England, has plead guilty and received a 12 week jail sentence suspended for 18 months for 13 charges of copyright infringement and other trademark crimes.

Additionally, the pirate will have to serve 100 hours of community service.

Morris manufactured pirated films from Universal, Paramount and Disney and even included artwork that was either custom or made to match the original.

On Facebook, Morris boasted about sales and also offered to sell up to 10 films for £15. Last June, officers made the purchase and then raided his home, seizing computers, discs and other equipment. By August, Morris was back to selling online on Facebook, even after having the equipment taken.

Lancashire Trading Standards prosecutor Nick McNamara added: "Recently Trading Standards officers have seen a trend of counterfeiters turning to Facebook to advertise and sell their wares. To criminals, Facebook offers a number of advantages over more traditional means because unlike market stalls and e-Bay there's little official scrutiny given.

"It's down in no small part to the fact criminals are able to control who has access to their pages in such a way they can only be viewed by 'friends'. Closed communities often exist for the sole purpose of trading in counterfeit products."

According to Google security engineers, the world's top news organizations have been and are under current attack from state-sponsored hacking attacks.

At least 21 of the world's 25 largest international news organizations have been targeted.

Shane Huntley, a security software engineer at Google, says "journalists were massively over-represented" among targets of attacks, and that the hackers were working for or in a support of a government. Huntley and co-author Morgan Marquis-Boire presented the paper at a Black Hat conference.

"If you're a journalist or a journalistic organization we will see state-sponsored targeting and we see it happening regardless of region, we see it from all over the world both from where the targets are and where the targets are from," Huntley added. It is unclear how Google monitors the attacks but Huntley says the search giant "tracks the state actors that attack our users."

The news is none too surprising, given that Forbes, the Financial Times and New York Times have all admitted to being successfully attacked by the Syrian Electronic Army, a group of hackers. The Google researchers claim that one major news outlet was recently attacked by Chinese hackers via a fake questionnaire emailed to staff.

Roku has begun shipping the update to their Streaming Stick (2012), one that will directly compete with Google's Chromecast HDMI dongle.

The original model sold for $99 but the second-generation model will sell for $49.99. The Chromecast sells for $35 with a limited lineup of applications that is rapidly expanding. Just like the Chromecast, the Streaming Stick must be plugged into the TV's USB port for power aside from being placed in the HDMI port.

As part of the second-generation update, the Streaming Stick now supports 1080p and will come with an included remote familiar to Roku set-top owners. The remote has quick action buttons for Netflix, Amazon, and strangely, Blockbuster and M-Go.

Roku has a large lineup of channels, including all of the most popular streaming applications and almost 1,200 more. You can "cast" YouTube and Netflix, just like the Chromecast, and control the device from iOS and Android phones and tablets.

BlackBerry's most popular product, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) has reached a new milestone this week, reaching 85 million monthly active users.

The messaging service was recently made available to Android and iOS, increasing the potential userbase by a massive amount. The now cross-platform client appears to be sticky, seeing decent growth in its monthly active users (MAUs) and a strong growth in its registered users.

As of this week, BBM now has 85 million monthly users and 113 million registered users. "We have a very solid BBM monetisation plan," says CEO John Chen. "We're seeing a solid uptick in multi platform users, driving growth in total registration. Like last quarter, growing the BBM user base is a top priority and we have a number of initiatives driving this."

In addition, BBM is headed to Windows Phone by the end of the fiscal Q2, and it is already pre-loaded on the Nokia X and some other Lumia devices.

After the potent leaker @Evleaks showed off the renders of the Tab 4 7.0 last week, he has posted the Galaxy Tab 4 10.1 press images, as well.

The devices look very similar to previous models, and the Tab line is mid-range when compared to the TapPRO and NotePRO models which were just recently released.

Samsung's Tab 4 will have a 10.1-inch display with an expected 1280x800 resolution, a quad-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400, 1.5GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and dial 1.2/3MP cameras. The device will also launch with Android 4.4 KitKat and Samsung's own suite of apps.

The images have April 24th prominently, which could imply the release date. With low-to-mid-range specs, the device is expected to sell for $300 or less.

Even though construction on the Apple and GT Advanced sapphire manufacturing plant in Arizona is not yet complete, it appears the companies are already planning an expansion.

"Project Cascade," which encompasses the plant and its surrounding 83 acres of land, has a large main structure and parking lots, support structures and other equipment. The current talks would be for an extension into the area behind Cascade.

The adjacent land is vacant and could replicate the size of the current facility, read reports.

Apple/GT's current facility is not yet completed by still outputs product, remaining powered by an array of temporary generators, a mini substation and large chiller units. Construction is slated to finish in June.

The facility builds sapphire boules in bulk, and is used as an alternative to Gorilla Glass, a protective (unscratchable) tech for glass. Sapphire is thinner and lighter than the potassium-enhanced Gorilla Glass, but has been much more expensive in the past. So far, Apple has used the sapphire as a cover for its iPhone cameras and as a cover for the new Touch ID sensor.

BlackBerry has won an injunction against Typo Products LLC, the makers of the Typo Keyboard cases for iPhones.

The $99 case, which does have a striking resemblance to legacy BlackBerry devices, snaps on to iPhones allowing for easier typing than the native virtual keyboard.

Ryan Seacrest, the producer and TV personality, founded the company and is its largest investor. District Judge William Orrick said BlackBerry "had established a likelihood" that it could prove Typo infringed its patents. Typo could not, at least initially, prove otherwise.

With the preliminary injunction, Typo is now prohibited from selling the keyboard. "BlackBerry is pleased that its motion for a preliminary injunction against Typo Products LLC was granted. This ruling will help prevent further injury to BlackBerry from Typo's blatant theft of our patented keyboard technology," a spokesperson added (via Reuters).

"Typo will continue to make and sell innovative products that busy people can't live without," said Typo, who promised to appeal the decision.

Maker Studios, the top content creator on YouTube recently acquired by Disney for $500 million, will now be on TV, following a content-licensing deal with music video service Music Choice.

The company will provide over 500 hours of clips and content. For April, Music Choice will feature Maker Studio talent partner Bart Baker's music-parody videos for the entire month. Baker has over 568 million views to his videos so far in 2014 on YouTube.

Music Choice VP of programming Damon Williams says he approached the content maker well before Disney ever came calling. "I went after them before I knew anything about Disney," he said. "I felt the content they were creating would really resonate -- and saw an opportunity to bring their content to the TV platform."

Besides its own talent, Maker Studios has deals to develop channels with Will.i.am, Snoop Lion and other musical acts. Such programming would definitely fit in Music Choice's catalog.

"This is a valuable partnership for Maker, as Music Choice's multiple properties are a perfect fit to for our artists and music programming," said Jenna Seiden, VP distribution and strategic partnerships at Maker Studios. "We're thrilled that Music Choice viewers will now be able to experience stars like the incredible Bart Baker and we look forward to sharing more great music content in the coming year."

Mozilla's brand new CEO Brendan Eich, hired earlier this month, has already seen employees publicly demand his resignation.

Eich, who is one of the creators of the JavaScript language, donated money to California's Prop 8 (a proposal to ban gay marriage) in 2008, and protests over his anti-gay views have been increasing, especially since his promotion.

Several prominent employees have already called for the CEO's ouster, and three Mozilla board members stepped down this week, as well. Former CEOs Gary Kovacs and John Lilly, along with Shmoop CEO Ellen Siminoff, have all stepped down. The board members stepped down because they had been looking to bring in an outside CEO with better experience in mobile. This did not happen. Mozilla says one of the board members had decided to leave at the end of the CEO search no matter who was selected, and the other had plans to leave since January.

Mozilla has been trying to expand into mobile but the road has been slow and not fruitful to date.

According to the FT, Apple has been trying to poach top Swiss watchmakers from luxury brands in its efforts to bring an innovative smartwatch to market.

Apple is not the only tech giant trying to court watchmakers, however, with at least one company claiming to have seen advances from Apple, Samsung, Google and Motorola. The Swatch Group, the world's biggest watchmaker by volume, says it has little incentive nor want to working with tech companies: "We have been in discussions – not ever initiated by us – with practically all players in smart wearables up until today," Swatch CEO Nick Hayek said. "However, we see no reason why we should enter into any partnership agreement."

Rather, Hayek says, the company is looking to protect their IP for design, longevity and battery life against big tech rivals.

LVMH, the biggest luxury smartwatch maker in the world, recently accused Apple of trying to poach away staff at its Hublot brand, and from several of its part manufacturing companies. "Apple has contacted some of my employees – I saw the emails personally," LVMH President Jean-Claude Biver said. Everyone contacted rejected the proposals.

Despite Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR, it appears some of the brightest in the industry are not scared to join the team.

Michael Abrash, the lead expert for VR at Valve, has confirmed he is leaving the company to become Chief Scientist for Oculus.

Says Abrash of the move: "Facebook's acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory. The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR – and some of them are hard indeed. I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can."

Valve founder Gabe Newell hired Abrash in 2011, saying at the time that he had "been trying to hire Michael Abrash forever." The scientist is a long-time industry veteran, whose code is found in Windows, tons of video games, and other software. Abrash is the third VR engineer to leave Valve for Oculus this year.

Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood had some interesting speculation about the Apple TV, which is considered one of the company's biggest rivals in the streaming set-top box market.

"Apple TV is essentially an accessory for the iPad. They lose money, which is unusual for Apple," Wood noted. "If you're losing money, why would you want to sell more?"

Tim Cook, CEO at Apple, recently said that the Apple TV (which was once called a 'hobby' by the company) brought in $1 billion in revenue between hardware sales and the content purchased through it. That being said, the devices are very low-margin compared to their iOS devices, and does not fit with Apple's usual modus operandi.

In addition, Wood also thanked big tech companies like Apple for getting into the market, because consumer awareness immediately went up. For example, when the Apple TV was launched, Roku sales doubled, says Wood, as the company offered a cheaper price tag and more features.

A judge has given the OK for class action certification to a group of consumers who sued Apple last year for its violation of antitrust law in a major e-book scandal.

The company was found guilty of conspiring with five major book publishers to raise the price of e-books with the launch of the iPad in 2010.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote made the ruling, claiming that the plaintiffs had "more than met their burden" to be approved as a group. "This is a paradigmatic antitrust class action," wrote Cote in her ruling, with a trial set for later this year to determine monetary damages. Apple will likely have to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to millions of consumers affected. 33 states will also be part of the class action suit on behalf of their consumers, with all the plaintiffs seeking over $800 million in damages from Apple.

As part of the price-fixing conspiracy, all the publishers settled and paid millions in fines and damages, but Apple took it to court before losing last summer to the U.S. Department of Justice. At the time, Amazon had a monopoly on the e-book market, and they began to charge whatever price they saw fit, sometimes offering the books for less than retail to sell more Kindle hardware. When Apple came around, they conspired with the publishers to change the pricing scheme, setting a strong floor for book prices and making it much more expensive for consumers.

According to a new Re/code report, Yahoo is looking to start its own video sharing site, poaching some of Yahoo's biggest stars in the process.

The new strategy could be launched in the coming months, and will provide popular video sharers with more revenue for their videos. The last point has been a major criticism of YouTube since its inception. It can sometimes take hundreds of thousands of views to your videos to receive any kind of compensation.

Besides individuals, Yahoo has also approached large networks that are currently on YouTube, offering better ad revenue or guaranteed ad rates for their videos. In addition, the company has also offered marketing for the videos, even on the front page of its Yahoo.com portal.

While the service will be similar to YouTube, it won't allow millions of users to upload whatever they want at all times. The service will instead offer hand-picked professional YouTube users and content. Yahoo tried to purchase French video-sharing service DailyMotion but was blocked. The company will likely create its own content management system for the service, but sources also suggested they could look into purchasing Vimeo, which sees over 100 million page views per month and has 22 million registered users.

Google has updated their Google Mobile Services agreement for Android phones, adding the new mandate that each device must have a bootup logo that states "Powered by Android."

The new logo has its own guidelines, as well, and must be present for devices to keep their access to the Google Play Store and other Google services.

This new move certainly makes sense for Google. Google is a globally known household name, but not everyone knows Android is the operating system on their, for example, brand new Galaxy S device. By adding the logo during boot up, Google hopes to make the operating system more widely known, no matter who is your OEM of choice.

On new devices, like the Galaxy S5 and the all-new HTC One M8, the companies are already using the new logo, underneath the classic green Android robot and their own name.

Last year, Sony released their Digital Paper e-reader/tablet in Japan to a niche audience. It will now try to reach that same niche audience in the U.S.

The device, which is part e-reader and part tablet, is aimed at legal professionals with extreme note taking needs.

Digital Paper devices have 13.3-inch flexible e-ink displays with 1600x1200 resolution, 3GB internal storage (with microSD slot for more), Wi-Fi support, a battery that lasts over three weeks on average and a design that is just 6.8mm thick and 0.79 pounds heavy.

The device also has optical and active digitizer touchscreens for both finger and stylus inputs. You can mark documents right on the screen, although the device shockingly only supports PDFs. Even with Wi-Fi ability, there is no way to add an email client or other apps.

Sony will sell the Digital Paper through document management company Worlddox for the hefty price tag of $1100, even more expensive than the highest capacity 4G-capable iPad Air.

Songza has announced a partnership with The Weather Channel in which the current weather in your area will be combined with your musical preferences within the app to create customized recommendations for you.

The service allows you to get curated lists of music from "experts" depending on the activity you are doing (trying to nap, jogging) or your mood (sad, happy), or just by standard genres.

With the new deal, Songza will leverage actual weather data to help curate your music. "With new data provided by The Weather Channel, we can more accurately predict your context, helping you enjoy more sunsets and weather more storms," added Songza CEO and co-founder Elias Roman.

For example (and pictured), you will greeted with a few options depending on your weather like "angry and brooding" or "Relaxing and Soothing" if it's thunderstorming out.

Every year, the rumors for the next-generation iPhone have been steady since the launch of the previous iPhone, and this year is no different.

The most prominent rumor is that of the size of the upcoming device. A new report in the Nikkei Asian Review states that suppliers are actually building two models, a 4.7-inch and a 5.5-inch screen variety, a huge jump from the 4-inch iPhone 5, 5C and 5S and the 3.5-inch iPhone 4S, which still remains on sale.

By comparison, nearly all Android phone makers have flagships with screen sizes at 5 inches or larger, some going as large as 6.3-inches.

As the company has been doing nearly every year, as well, the Retina Display resolution will be increased, as well, with reports claiming it will be above 1080p finally.

Speaking after the company reported another quarterly loss and revenue that fell under $1 billion for the first time in 7 years, CEO John Chen also provided a roadmap for BlackBerry's hardware.

First, the 5-inch BlackBerry Z3, the company's first smartphone to emerge from their strategic partnership with Foxconn, will be made available globally following its launch in Indonesia next month. Additionally, the phone will also have an LTE variant for use in North America. The phone will be priced at $199 in Indonesia, so there is a chance it could be under $200 when it reaches Europe, the U.S. and Asia.

Second, the BlackBerry Q20 Classic will be ready for launch in the Q1 2015. The device has a small touchscreen, a full QWERTY keypad, and a dedicated row of hardware buttons with a trackpad. The device runs on the most updated BlackBerry 10 OS.

Finally, the company is bringing back and increasing production of the BlackBerry Bold, which runs on the outdated BlackBerry 7 operating system and was released most recently in 2011.

The UK government has confirmed that copyright law has been revised to allow for legalized CD and DVD ripping/copying for personal use.

In addition, the revision will update other fair use provisions, including parody and quotation rights, says TF.

The proposed changes have been in the works for years but will finally be implemented in June.

UK's Intellectual Property Office released a guide for consumers to inform them of the new changes. "Copyright law is being changed to allow you to make personal copies of media you have bought, for private purposes such as format shifting or backup," reads the guide. "The changes will mean that you will be able to copy a book or film you have purchased for one device onto another without infringing copyright."

In addition, the Office says the changes will generate extra revenue for the tech sector(as much as £31 million per year), while making copyright law more reasonable for consumers.

BlackBerry has seen another setback in its ongoing efforts to rebound, as the company brought in less than $1 billion revenue for the first time since the financial crisis was in its early stages in late 2007.

Revenue fell to $976 million, down from $2.7 billion year-over-year.

The Canadian smartphone maker lost $423 million but excluding one-time items the loss was just $43 million, much smaller than expected. Regardless, the company's stock took a hit, dropping 7 percent for the day.

New CEO John Chen was lauded for cutting expenses so quickly, but with revenue falling so quickly it may not matter. Chen has moved away from the consumer hardware business, and instead is emphasizing the company's enterprise network, its embedded QNX operating system used in automobiles and industrial machines and the BlackBerry messenger software which has been expanded to iOS and Android. "I see this as a good turnaround plan," Chen said. "Knock on wood I'm hoping that it will also slow down the erosion."

The Denmark-based smartphone maker Lumigon has been working on a luxury device for some time now, and the phone has now been revealed as the T2 HD.

Although the specs are not high-end, the company has put together a slim, water resistant, stainless steel design with innovative features.

For example, the T2 HD has flash for its 2.4MP front facing camera, allowing for selfies in the dark. The device comes with a charging and data transfer dock that works in tandem with the device's "Behavior Control Feature" which allows you to customize features such as having the phone go to silent mode when placed on the dock. There are plenty of features that can be customized.

On the audio side, the technology was built by Bang & Olufson's ICEpower, promising powerful and clear audio through the stereo speakers or through the included Hi-Fi headset.

The 4.3-inch 720p display with Gorilla Glass 3 is powered by stock Android 4.4, a dual-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon processor, Adreno 320 GPU, 2GB RAM and has 32GB internal storage (you can get 64 or 128 as well). On the back there is a 13MP camera and the device has Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, LTE, NFC, FM radio, noise cancelling mics, an IR blaster and the touch display can be used even if wearing gloves.

Facebook has updated its Messenger app, adding some popular features from the old Beluga messenger startup it acquired in 2011 but then shut down.

The update for iOS will let you group contacts together and then send texts or stickers or pictures to them as a group, rather than individually.

Additionally, you can now forward messages and photos to users that are not in the conversation, a welcome feature.

Finally, the app will see typical speed, performance and stability improvements and fixes.

Amazon has denied the WSJ's report that the e-commerce giant was planning to offer a free TV and music video service that would have been supported by ads.

"We're often experimenting with new things, but we have no plans to offer a free streaming-media service," Amazon spokeswoman Sally Fouts noted. This is the second time in recent memory that the company has had to deny a WSJ report. In January, the outlet reported that the company was looking to start an Internet-based TV service. That story was quickly denied, as well.

The service would have featured original content, said the report, similar to what is available for Prime subscribers. Prime users pay $99 a year for free two-day shipping on millions of items and access to the free streaming library of movies and TV shows.

Additionally, the service would have possibly included licensed TV programming, added the report. Regardless of the validity of the report, investors were spooked out of Netflix, with the company's stock falling nearly 3 percent on the news.

According to a Slingbox employee, the TV streaming service should be headed to the Google Chromecast "soon."

The company is working on supporting the HDMI dongle, which would be a huge upgrade for the $35 device.

Slingbox devices streams the video signals to PCs, mobile devices and more, usually TV streams from cable boxes. In the past, it was tougher to 'sling' to other HDTVs, but this would make it much easier for those that have multiple TVs in the home but only one cable box or if you are on the road and need live content.

It is important to note that the Slingbox itself sells for $180, so the upfront cost is more than just the $35 for the Chromecast, but it could be worth it to have live TV content at all times on a device that can fit in your pocket.

I can confirm TechHive's speculative piece - Slingbox support IS coming to Chromecast. Soon. http://t.co/XL8k7pIOTy

-- Dave Zatz (@davezatz) March 27, 2014

Google Play Music will now allow users to upload their music via the browser and not just exclusively through the desktop Music Manager.

The drag and drop process should be easier than using the Music Manager, which required you to put the songs you wanted uploaded in a specific folder on your computer and then Google did the rest. If it matches tracks in Google's catalog, it will be added automatically but if not it will upload the full track.

Another great addition is the ability to download your entire music library through the web interface, rather than through the Music Manager app.

In addition, the Chrome Apps launcher has added a Play Music mini-player app allowing for pause, skip forward or back with a thumbnail cover art.

Even though the game is incredibly old and has likely been played by anyone who would want to play it, Origin has made "Dead Space" available for free.

Until May 8th, the game is free to download as long as you have an EA Origin account.

The game was released in 2008 and reinvigorated the sci-fi thriller category, leading to popular sequels.

If interested, get the game here.

Turkish authorities have now moved to try to block access to video sharing giant YouTube, just days after government officials banned Twitter.

The government has been widely criticized for the move against Twitter, which came just days before a key election and is seen as a censorship of freedom of speech. At the time, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to eradicate the site, which was being used to share information about a growing corruption scandal.

A short release from the government's telecommunications authority says "After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the law, an administrative measure has been taken for this website [YouTube.com]."

On YouTube, there was recently a video uploaded allegedly of a meeting by Turkey's foreign minister, intelligence chief and top military and Foreign Ministry discussing a military intervention in Syria. one official says blocking YouTube will prevent the "posting of other recordings that may threaten national security."

Philips has decided to downgrade the size of some of its 4K TVs for 2014, but its added numerous interesting features.

First, the company has shown off its 55-inch 8809 series 4K TV with Android as the operating system, giving you full access to 1 billion apps and games through the Google Play Store.

Philip's own Smart TV apps are also included for your standard Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora, Spotify and more. Additionally, the TV gives you access to your cloud storage through Dropbox and Google Drive.

On the hardware side, the set promises a 1GHz refresh rate, hexcore processing power and Ambilight illumination.

The company says the first Philips TVs featuring Android will be available from the second quarter 2014 in Europe and Russia. There was no word on price or American availability.

After years of rumors, Microsoft has finally and officially made its Office suite of applications available for the iPad.

Office for iPad is available now in the App Store and includes native versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Each app was built from scratch and will not be ports.

The suite is free to download and will allow for free read-only of all Office documents as well as presentations. If you want to create and edit documents, you will need to pony up for an Office 365 subscription, which can be as cheap as $5 per month depending on your needs.

Releasing the apps for the most popular tablet on the planet (even amongst professional users) should give the tech giant a boost to their subscription sales. Office had been available previously on Windows and Windows Phone devices including the Surface tablet.

Kim Dotcom has announced the formal launch of his own political party in New Zealand: The Internet Party.

The new party is a "movement for the freedom of the internet and technology, for privacy and political reform."

Dotcom, the larger-than-life mogul behind the original Megaupload and the new MEGA cloud lockers, is still facing possible extradition to the U.S. for charges of copyright infringement for Megaupload, which at one point controlled over 10 percent of the entire Internet's traffic.

The Internet Party wants to "give you faster, cheaper internet, create high-tech jobs, protect your privacy and safeguard our independence," says the site. In addition, the Party will into "a New Zealand-sponsored digital currency that is safe, secure and encrypted."

Dotcom made news earlier this week when he announced plans to have MEGA go public on the New Zealand stock exchange.

Klout, the service that hooks up to your social media and measures your influence on followers with an extremely controversial score, has been acquired by Lithium Technologies for a reported $200 million.

Lithium works with enterprise customers by managing their customer service through social media.

"With Klout, Lithium fully delivers on its vision of building a trusted online connection between consumers and the brands they care about," said Rob Tarkoff, Lithium President and CEO. "Trust is the currency online. For consumers, a trusted expert provides greater confidence in making purchases and getting advice. For brands, building a trusted reputation allows them to better find and keep customers."

The company says that combined, the companies now reach more than 500 million consumers across 10,000 specific interest areas, and 300+ branded communities.

Klout CEO Jose Fernandez sent emails to all current users: "We started Klout in 2008 with the crazy idea of measuring the world's influence. We wanted to help people understand and be recognized for the impact of their voice. It has been amazing to watch this happen. The Klout Score has grown into the standard of influence and our platform has evolved significantly to help users share their passions online.

Amazon's long-anticipated set-top box could be on the way.

The company has sent out press invites for an event in New York on April 2nd, in which the company has promised an "update for our video business."

An Amazon set-top box would offer streaming access to a plethora of apps, just like rivals Apple TV, Roku and WD Live. In addition, the box is expected to run on Amazon's own version of Android, Fire, which should mean access to the Amazon App Store of curated Android apps.

Finally, the company's set-top is rumored to come with a discounted or trial subscription to Prime, the company's $99 per year service that gives access to the free Netflix rival Amazon Prime Video and potentially an upcoming rumored unlimited streaming music service.

Android users beware: a new research report has pointed to a critical exploit in the operating system that could lead to over a billion devices being vulnerable.

The report comes via researchers from Indiana University and Microsoft and the security flaw is related to the Android update process. They call the bug "Pileup," and say that while the operating system is updating and replacing thousands of files, the bug could allow malicious apps to attach to the update, pretending to be replacements for real update files and then attaching to legitimate apps.

Reads the research report: "A third-party package attribute or property, which bears the name of its system counterpart, can be elevated to a system one during the updating shuffle-up where all apps are installed or reinstalled, and all system configurations are reset. Also, when two apps from old and new systems are merged as described above, security risks can also be brought in when the one on the original system turns out to be malicious."

PlayStation's Turkey division has confirmed that "The Last of Us" is headed to the PlayStation 4 soon as a physical and digital release with 'enhanced graphics.'

VP Sercan Sulun made the comments to Turkish gaming site Multiplayer, which was then translated by Neogaf.

Reads the translation: "Sequel is not coming right now as far as I know, but I can say that [the] first game will be released this summer for PS4 as a physical and digital copy with enhanced graphics." Sulun had been asked if there was plans for a sequel.

The game was released for PS3 in June of last year, and has seen critical and commercial success. The game has been rumored to be one of the first PlayStation Now titles so a physical PS4 release does not seem to make too much sense, so take Sulun's comments with a grain of salt.

Facebook has denied a recent report that the social network behemoth will be re-branding the Oculus Rift and interface with its own Facebook branding.

Earlier this week, following the $2 billion acquisition, the NYTimes wrote, "According to a person involved in the deal who was not allowed to speak publicly because he was not authorized by either company, Facebook eventually plans to redesign the Oculus hardware and rebrand it with a Facebook interface and logo."

Facebook has said this is just not true "and not in the spirit of our relationship [with Oculus]."

The company has already said it will let Oculus operate independently, exactly like it allows Instagram to do, and will do for its $19 billion acquisition, WhatsApp, as well. Facebook will certainly fund additional R&D, and help with talent hiring along with additional marketing.

Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer has confirmed that the company is looking to enhance the Xbox One's digital marketplace with the ability to have gamers loan/gift their digital titles.

Speaking during the 2014 GDC event last week, Spencer noted: "We believe in a digital future on our box. On the digital space, and the things that we've talked about, what that opens up...like we understand what games you own and who you are and how you move around and who you might want to loan rights to your games or gift your games to. We totally believe in that future. And any other marketplace you play in, these kind of mechanisms are out there."

Microsoft would not be the first with such initiatives. Steam has allowed gifting for some time and also has a "Family Sharing" service that lets families and households play each other's games and save progress in their cloud servers.

Before its launch of the Xbox One, Microsoft had promised a similar feature which would have allowed users to share their games with up to 10 others, but the decision was reversed at the last moment.

Supercell, best known for its massive hit "Clash of Clans," has made its latest game, "Boom Beach" available for download around the globe today.

Apple announced the exclusivity of the game with a Tweet earlier in the week.

The game, as described by Supercell: "Storm the beach and win the day! Boom Beach is a combat strategy game where you fight an epic war against the evil Blackguard. Take your expeditionary force to beautiful paradise islands invaded by the enemy. Fight for every beachhead, free enslaved islanders and explore the uncharted archipelago. The fight becomes a race to harness the ancient powers hidden on the islands. Are you ready for the BOOM?"

Supercell had made the game available via a soft launch in Canada in November of last year. It is unclear when it will make it to Android or other platforms.

#News: This Thursday you can get Supercell's new game, Boom Beach, only on the App Store. pic.twitter.com/nhYZZQKJiI

-- App Store (@AppStore) March 25, 2014

Nvidia has reached new levels of technological superiority with its Titan Z GPU, but that kind of power comes with a steep price tag.

The card has 5760 cores, two Kepler-based GPUs and 12GB VRAM.

Nvidia says the video card can produce 5K content without issue (forget 4K, that's old) with support for every game and video intensive program on the market on multiple monitors.

"If you're in desperate need of a supercomputer that you can fit under your desk, we have just the card for you," CEO Jen-Hsun said.

The company also says that "unlike traditional dual-GPU cards, Titan Z's twin GPUs are tuned to run at the same clock speed, and with dynamic power balancing. So neither GPU creates a performance bottleneck."

Yesterday, HTC finally, officially, unveiled the all-new HTC One (codename M8), its latest flagship and attempt to stay relevant.

For fans of the hardware that may not be fans of HTC's software, however, Google has come to the rescue and made a Google Play Edition of the device already available.

Unfortunately, the GPe is selling for $699 and won't ship for at least another two weeks but it will run on the latest stock Android without HTC Sense and HTC's other software tweaks and features.

HTC's new One has a 5-inch 1080p display, a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB RAM and dual 4MP UltraPixel cameras on the back.

The old model HTC One GPe has dropped from $599 to $499 following the move.

Get it here.

Twitter has rolled out two new mobile features for its service, one that it says should make Twitter "more social."

The first is photo tagging, which will allow tweeters to tag people in their photos without using characters. Says Twitter: "Tagging people in a picture makes conversations around photos fun and easy. And tagging doesn't affect character count in the Tweet -- you can tag up to 10 people in a photo and still have all 140 characters at your disposal, making it easier to connect with your friends. If you're the one being tagged, you'll get a notification. You can adjust notifications, as well as who can tag you, in your Settings."

In addition, the second new feature is the ability to add four photos in a single Tweet. Adds the company in their post: "And now, you can also share a series of photos that automatically create a collage. Just tap on a preview to get the full image and slide through the group. The ability to upload multiple photos is starting to roll out today on iPhone, and is coming soon to Android and twitter.com. Whether you're on iPhone, Android or twitter.com, you can view Tweets with multiple photos."

Markus 'Notch' Persson, the developer behind Minecraft, has killed all plans for bringing the game to the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, following Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of the company.

In his initial Tweet, which was a bit bold, Notch said: "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out."

Notch had just received his developer kit for the VR headset, and was already thinking about creating a new Minecraft experience for it. The developer had even met the company at their headquarters in California.

In his expanded post, Notch added:

Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers. People have made games for Facebook platforms before, and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build.

Don't get me wrong, VR is not bad for social. In fact, I think social could become one of the biggest applications of VR. Being able to sit in a virtual living room and see your friend's avatar? Business meetings? Virtual cinemas where you feel like you're actually watching the movie with your friend who is seven time zones away?

Instagram has proudly boasted a new milestone: 200 million monthly active users.

The service now sees 60 million photos shared per day, with a total of 20 billion shared since launch in 2010.

Facebook has been the beneficiary of strong growth for the photo sharing service. When it acquired the company for $1 billion in 2012, the service only had 30 million active users. 50 million users have joined in just the last six months.

"From documenting a passion for jazz to the protests in Kiev, we're continually surprised and humbled by the moments you share," said Instagram in their post. "The vibrance and diversity of this community has increased as it has grown. Over the past six months, we've seen new communities coming together in cities and towns across the world, whether they be in Guthrie, Oklahoma, or Guatemala City. With January's Worldwide InstaMeet 8, we saw record turnouts of communities coming together to form friendships, explore new places and celebrate creativity in all corners of the globe from New Dehli to New York, Bucharest, Nairobi and beyond."

King Digital Entertainment, the casual gaming company behind the blockbuster "Candy Crush Saga" has had the worst IPO of 2014, falling 15.5 percent on its first day of being public.

The IPO was the largest since Twitter's in November, and the company was valued at $22.50 per share, a full market capitalization of $6 billion. The price fell to $19 at the close of business today.

Even though the company has over 180 games and has been around since 2003, it is known mainly for Candy Crush. The game, which simply lets users move candy around to line up similar colors for hundreds of different levels, now accounts for over 75 percent of King's overall revenue.

Candy Crush is free to download and sells extra lives, playing time and other add-ons. The game has seen over 500 million downloads across multiple platforms including iOS and Android.

King raised $500 million in the IPO, and unlike other recent tech IPOs, the company has been profitable for some time. For the Q4 2013, the company had revenue of $602 million and the company had an excellent $714.3 million pre-tax profit in 2013. There are major concerns, however, including a "monthly unique players" figure that seems to have already peaked.

Sony, which has had relatively popular smartwatches for a couple of years, will not be using Google's Android Wear operating system, at least for now.

The company has left the path open to eventually move to Android Wear for its smartwatches, however. Sony Mobile USA boss Ravi Nookala says "We've already invested time and resources on this platform [Smartwatch], and we will continue in that direction."

Sony did send a follow up statement to Nookala's response, stating: "We're excited about the potential of Android Wear to extend the mobile OS experience into wearable devices. While we are currently focused on our in-market wearable offering, including SmartWatch 2, we continue to work closely with Google as a key partner and continue to evaluate opportunities across a number of areas as we extend our SmartWear Experience."

Google unveiled the Android Wear SDK last week and has already signed up Motorola and LG as initial partners. The operating system has integrated Google Now into regular Android/smartwatch notifications.

Over the past week, one rumor has remained consistent in the Xbox world: that the Xbox One had a second 'secret GPU.'

Microsoft's director of product planning Albert Penello has categorically squashed the rumor, via Twitter and Reddit.

"I thought I had already said something about that. There is no 2nd GPU, there is no stacked GPU," Penello said. "I didn't think [the second GPU rumor] was festering because I thought I'd already commented on it. For some reason the DX12 announce seemed to make it resurface."

The executive was then asked how the new DirectX 12 (DX12) would impact the Xbox One, but he admitted that he was not yet fully versed on the upcoming graphics API. "I know we're continually improving our tools for developers, as we did with Xbox 360, so you'll see consistent performance improvements over time."

@J_Martinez2012 @thuway @PNF4LYFE I thought I had already said something about that. There is no 2nd GPU, there is no stacked GPU.

-- Albert Penello (@albertpenello) March 20, 2014

Facebook has looked to the long-term and will be purchasing Oculus VR for $2 billion, mainly in stock.

The company makes the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset which has just been sent out to developers and is ushering in a new generation of gaming.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, confirmed the deal, which will be $400 million in cash and another 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock. Why did Facebook make the investment? Zuckerberg says:

This is where Oculus comes in. They build virtual reality technology, like the Oculus Rift headset. When you put it on, you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away. The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you're actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it's different from anything they've ever experienced in their lives.

Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences.

Google has announced another major milestone for its Google Glass headwear, a deal with luxury eyewear company Luxottica.

Luxottica is responsible for major brands like Ray-Ban, Oakley and Persol. The company has over 5000 retail stores in the U.S.

Reads Google's post:

When the first eyeglasses appeared in the 13th century, they took off and over the next 700 years, they evolved over and over, with the first bifocals appearing in the 18th century, and the monocle and sunglasses shortly after. Nowadays, glasses are global phenomenon – a reflection of both function and fashion.

We see Glass as the next chapter in this long story. Light, simple and modular, Glass introduces new functionality as your glasses get smarter – but bringing your own style to Glass is just as important. Earlier this year, we launched the Titanium Collection, designed by the Glass team. Between frames, shades, and colors, there are over 40 different ways for Explorers to make Glass their own today... but that's not enough.

Luxottica understands how to build, distribute and sell great products that their clients and consumers love – something we care deeply about at Glass, too. They'll bring design and manufacturing expertise to the mix, and, together, we'll bring even more Glass style choices to our Explorers. In addition, Luxottica's retail and wholesale distribution channels will serve us well when we make Glass available to more people down the road.

LG, one of the first Google partners to announce a smartwatch with Android Wear, has revealed another photo of the upcoming G watch.

The photo shows the device (unlike the 'mysterious' teaser that really only showed the shape), which is rectangular in shape and was "developed in close collaboration with Google."

LG has not revealed any specs, but the device certainly does not look as nice as the Moto 360.

LG #GWatch - Coming Soon! pic.twitter.com/dBUNZU2EA9

-- LG Electronics UK (@LGUK) March 24, 2014

Last year, Microsoft announced it was purchasing Nokia's devices and services businesses for $7.2 billion, following regulatory approval on multiple continents.

Expected to close in March, the companies have confirmed that the deal will close instead in April.

Reads the short press release:

Nokia today announced that it now expects the transaction whereby the company will sell substantially all of its Devices & Services business and license its patents to Microsoft to close in April 2014. This compares with Nokia's previous expectation on the transaction closing in the first quarter of 2014, which Nokia communicated when the company first announced the transaction on September 3, 2013. Nokia and Microsoft remain committed to the transaction.

As previously communicated, the closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Nokia and Microsoft have already received most of the required regulatory approvals, including approvals from the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice. Furthermore, Nokia and Microsoft continue to make good progress related to the closing conditions and integration planning. However, the transaction is pending approvals from certain antitrust authorities in Asia which are still conducting their reviews.

Ex-Microsoft software architect Alex Kibkalo has been arrested and is now facing criminal charges of leaking trade secrets.

Supposedly, the programmer received a poor performance review and thought it would be wise to get some payback on the Redmond giant by leaking Windows 8 code and screenshots to a French tech blogger. Additionally, he leaked some Windows 7 program files and an internal system to fight software piracy called the "Activation Server Software Development Kit."

Microsoft brought their concerns to the FBI in July, after their own corporate investigators tagged him as leaking the Windows 8 code. Kibkalo is said to have admitted giving the info to the blogger, after meeting in an online forum.

Kibkalo worked for Microsoft in Russia and Lebanon. The Activation Server SDK was spread around with the ultimate goal of having developers reverse engineer the code and easily crack the protection on Microsoft products. In September, 2012, the blogger sent the SDK to a Microsoft employee to have it verified for authenticity. The employee went right to a supervisor who notified corporate investigations.

Michael Robertson, the former CEO of now-defunct digital music locker MP3tunes, has been found liable for copyright infringement in the long-standing case brought by the record labels, namely EMI Group.

In addition, MP3tunes was found to be willfully blind to copyright infringement on its site, allowing unauthorized music to be distributed and saved to cloud lockers. MP3tunes also sold independent music without DRM starting in 2005.

Following the verdict, jurors will now decide on damages for all of the copyright claims.

EMI filed the suit in 2007, claiming the company's services "enabled infringement of copyrights in sound recordings, musical compositions and cover art." There were over 2100 copyrights abused, said EMI. During the trial, Robertson's lawyers argued he should not be held liable, and that the record companies had made most of the music available online for free as promotional copies.

If users were abusing the locker system, MP3tunes shut down those accounts, argued the lawyer. It appears, the jury did not agree. MP3tunes declared bankruptcy in 2012, so it is unclear what kind of damages will ever make it to the coffers at EMI, which has also since been broken up and acquired by multiple parties.

According to Billboard, Apple is finally considering launching iTunes for Android, as well as an unlimited on-demand streaming service to rival Spotify, Google All Play and the rumored upcoming Amazon Prime Music.

Apple would launch its popular music store for Android because digital downloads have now possibly peaked and are in decline. Streaming services have taken much of the share, as physical music demand continues its trend to zero.

Overall, digital downloads saw a 1 percent decline year-over-year to $2.4 billion while total music industry sales stayed stagnant at $7 billion, where it has been for the last 4 years.

Android is the top smartphone operating system on the planet, by far, so adding iTunes could bring in a new demographic of customers. The service will directly compete with Google's own Play Store.

HTC will be livestreaming its official announcement and unveiling of the All New HTC One (One 2014).

The company is announcing the device in just under two days at dual events in London and New York City.

Updating their previous flagship, the new device has a 5-inch 1080p screen, a Snapdragon 801 processor, dual UltraPixel cameras and run on Android 4.4 right out of the box along with the latest HTC Sense user interface.

HTC has also added a microSD slot for the device, which should be a welcome upgrade for consumers who like lots of apps and have large collections of music and movies.

Check for more info here.

After months of rumors that the app would be shut down, Twitter has confirmed the death of its #Music service.

The iOS app is already gone from the App Store but if you have it installed already the service will continue to run until April 18th.

April 18th is the one-year anniversary of when the microblogging giant launched the app.

Download numbers were never great, and project boss Kevin Thau left his position late last year to join Jelly.

Walmart has begun offering a nice $50 discount on the new Titanfall Xbox One bundle, selling the console for $450.

The deal is available both online and in-store, although it has sold out online in quick order.

Walmart has also made the standard console available for the same price, if you aren't a fan of Titanfall and multiplayer mech fighting.

By itself, Titanfall sells for $60, making the $450 deal a nice discount for those looking to get the console.

Check it here.

The Canadian-based hip-hop group "Aint No Love" has become the first to accept Bitcoin with their latest album.

Aint No Love has made their album, 'Tears of Joy' available on iTunes but also on BitTorrent for free, through FrostWire and its newly introduced Bitcoin tipping option.

New February builds of Frostwire for Windows, Mac and Linux includes the feature. Besides Bitcoin, the donation feature also supports less widely used Litecoin, Dogecoin and industry standard PayPal.

When clicking through, you will be met with a custom donation page, the first time torrents have had a true monetization option. "Using Bitcoin has definitely widened our reach to people who don't necessarily listen to our type of music, but like that we get down with Bitcoin, and started listening to our music, which is a cool thing in itself," says lead singer Saidah Conrad (via TF).

Google has updated the image files used by YouTube to its own, lean WebP format, and says the site should now run much quicker.

The company has used the image format for its Play Store on Android (and on the Web) for some time now.

Reads the blog post:

The WebP team at Google focuses on making the web better through smaller, faster-loading images. We've seen that WebP compares favorably with other contemporary image formats, but our team has been hard at work to make WebP even faster and more capable. A few months ago, we added support for animated WebP images to Chrome, making WebP the first unified format that can address the key use cases of JPEG, PNG and GIF files. The recent release of libwebp 0.4.0, currently in Chrome's Beta channel, is a culmination of numerous encoder and decoder optimizations that make encoding lossless images twice as fast, and decrease lossless decode time by 25%.

While the WebP team was delivering these improvements, other teams at Google have been busy deploying WebP in their own products. Google Play's online store, redesigned mid-last year, replaced png images with lossless WebP, reducing image file sizes by nearly 35%. Another major WebP rollout is currently in progress: YouTube video thumbnails are starting to be served in WebP with initial results indicating up to a 10% reduction in page load time.

Microsoft has announced this week that it will give you $100 off a new Surface Pro 2 or select new PCs valued at $599 or more if you decide to get rid of that old Windows XP machine.

If you are near a Microsoft store, you can bring the old device in for trade-in, or if you are purchasing online you just have to make the purchase from a computer that Microsoft detects as running Windows XP. While this hardly seems fair to someone near a Microsoft store, there are only a few locations anyway and those consumers can opt to buy online, also.

In addition, Microsoft is offering free 90-day premium support for the new device and a free PC migration software to bring all your data, apps and preferences over to your new computer.

The deal ends June 15th, and Microsoft's support of Windows XP ends next month.

Check the select PCs and more details here.

Earlier this week, Microsoft unveiled the next step for their gaming graphics API, DirectX 12.

The key enhancement of the upgrade will be on performance. PC utilization will be improved significantly, better spreading the computing across multiple cores.

Reads the company's blog post:

DirectX 12 introduces the next version of Direct3D, the graphics API at the heart of DirectX. Direct3D is one of the most critical pieces of a game or game engine, and we've redesigned it to be faster and more efficient than ever before. Direct3D 12 enables richer scenes, more objects, and full utilization of modern GPU hardware. And it isn't just for high-end gaming PCs either – Direct3D 12 works across all the Microsoft devices you care about. From phones and tablets, to laptops and desktops, and, of course, Xbox One, Direct3D 12 is the API you've been waiting for.

Two more streaming radio services have dropped music curating provider The Echo Nest, less than a month after it was acquired by market leader Spotify.

Rdio was the first to drop the service, last week, followed by Rhapsody and Napster (same company) today.

Says Rhapsody: "Echo Nest has been a good partner, but we have never been completely satisfied with recommendations from any third party." The company will now "invest heavily" in their own technologies, and that users should not experience any difference.

Spotify, at the time of acquisition, said the company would remain independent and that all existing contracts would be fulfilled, even with rival services.

The company still powers Vevo, MTV, MOG, IHeartRadio and more.

Sony has unveiled their first original TV show available via PlayStation consoles, a supernatural thriller called "Powers."

"It's about having a broad range of broadcast content to replicate the live TV experience," president and group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Andrew House added.

The show is being produced by Sony Pictures TV, and will be streamable through the PlayStation Network just like other content.

Sony says the show will be a "fantasy drama" about a group of people with supernatural powers. Differentiating itself from other similar plot lines, the main character is a detective investigating crimes committed by those with superhero abilities.

"It overlays extremely well with the demographics of the PlayStation," CEO of Sony Entertainment Michael Lynton noted, when asked about whether gamers would buy into the show. It remains unclear when it will "air" and if it will cost money.

Rival Microsoft announced last year an initiative to bring original content to the Xbox.

MtGox, the major Bitcoin exchange that filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, has said in a statement that they have found 200,000 of their missing bitcoins.

The coins were found in an old digital wallet from 2011, and have a value of about $115 million.

Despite the major find, the company is still missing 650,000 of its own and customer's bitcoins.

"MtGox had certain old-format wallets which were used in the past and which, MtGox thought, no longer held any bitcoins," said Mt Gox CEO Mark Karpeles, "however on March 7, 2014, MtGox confirmed that an old-format wallet which was used prior to June 2011 held a balance of approximately 200,000 bitcoin."

To avoid having the new find stolen by hackers, the coins were moved to offline wallets this week.

Hackers have stolen the rest of the coins, which amount to about 7 percent of all bitcoins ever mined.

Turkey's telecommunications regulator has blocked Twitter, following a threat by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

There is a major election next week, and the PM has been linked to a massive corruption probe in the nation. The government was recently given expanded oversight over the Internet, and is apparently not afraid to use it.

Turkey is one of the most social media-friendly nations in the world, with 79 percent of citizens using some form of service, including Twitter and Facebook. Twitter claims Turkey is a top 10 user of the microblogging platform, globally.

Erdogan has called Twitter a "malice to society" and threatened to "eradicate" it earlier today. "Access to Twitter may be blocked as a last resort to avert the unjust treatment of our citizens in case of a continuation of this ignorance of the court rulings," the PM's office said in a statement. Courts have ruled that certain links were to be removed, but users kept on retweeting them anyways.

Twitter has seen restrictions and outright bans in nations where there are no restrictions on freedoms, including China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Libya, Pakistan and Syria.

China Mobile has announced that the carrier added about 1 million new iPhone users in February alone, following the device's mid-January launch.

CEO Li Yue and the company announced their first decline in annual earnings in 11 years earlier in the week, following an expensive upgrade to their network and increased subsidies for smartphones to help stave off competition from China Unicom and others.

Following years of rumors that the carrier would strike a deal with Apple, it finally occurred this year after 4G LTE licenses were awarded to China Mobile and the new iPhones were built with support for those networks. "We added 1.34 million new 4G users in February and most of them are iPhone users. We are happy with the progress as we are still building our 4G network and the coverage is only available in some major cities," said the company.

Toshiba has finally revealed the full spec sheet for its upcoming Satellite P50t notebook.

The company first unveiled the notebook, which features a 4K resolution display, at this year's CES event.

At the heart of the notebook is its 3,840 x 2,160, 15.6-inch touchscreen, powered by an Intel Core-i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, a 2GB AMD Radeon R9 M265 GPU, 4 USB 3.0 ports, an SD/SDHC slot, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11ac WiFi and pre-installed Windows 8.1.

Strangely, the device does not have a hybrid storage option, opting for a 1TB HDD. There is no optical disc drive, leading to a relatively light 4.8 pound frame.

The device has seen all kinds of teasers and leaks over the past few weeks, but the Oppo Find 7 is finally official.

As expected, the Find 7 will actually come in two models, the Find 7a (Find 7 Lite) and the standard Find 7, which a premium version.

The Find 7a has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and a 2800mAh battery. The premium model has a 5.5-inch quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) display, 3GB RAM, a 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801, 32GB internal storage and a larger 3000mAh. Both have Gorilla Glass 3, a microSD slot (expandable up to 128GB), LTE, MaxxAudio plus Dirac HD audio enhancement and VOOC rapid charging promising "zero to 75 percent" in just 30 minutes.

Both devices run on Android 4.3 (with Oppo's Color OS 1.2 user interface) and have 13MP Sony CMOS sensors that can take 50MP shots thanks to Oppo's image signal processor dubbed Pure Image 2.0. The device takes 10 quick shots, picks the best four, and combines them into a 50MP shot (8,160 x 6,120).

Google has confirmed that its Chromecast HDMI dongle is now available in 11 new nations.

The device is now available in 11 more countries: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.

Depending on where you are, there will be some native local apps available, including the BBC iPlayer in the U.K.; France TV Pluzz and SFR TV in France with CANALPLAY coming soon; and Watchever in Germany with Maxdome coming soon.

Adds Google: "Chromecast will keep getting better. We recently opened up Chromecast to developers, and in a few short weeks more than 3,000 developers worldwide have signed up to bring their apps and websites to Chromecast. You'll soon have more TV shows, movies, videos, sports, music and games to choose from. Stay up-to-date on the latest apps that work with Chromecast at Chromecast Apps"

The device is available through many major retailers including Google Play, Amazon, Currys and more.

Last night, Sony gave even more credibility to the virtual reality market, unveiling its Project Morpheus headset for the PlayStation 4 at the GDC 2014 event.

The Kickstarter-backed Oculus Rift had already revealed a promising future for VR, but Sony's new prototype should speed up the consumer adoption of such technology.

Morpheus is two pieces, a closed eyewear display with a PlayStation Move-esque sensor.

The new prototype is "a culmination of three years of work" says the company, and the VR headset is now available as a dev kit.

Sony says the LCD is 5-inches, with panel resolution of 1920×RGB×1080 (960×RGB×1080 per eye). The full field of view is 90 degrees and the device will have an HDMI + USB connection and built-in accelerometer and gyroscope sensors. On the audio side, the headset has "true spatial sound using binaural audio" and there is the option for your own headphones, as well. The device also has positional head tracking with full 360-degree tracking that can work with the existing PlayStation Camera.

Microsoft has confirmed that Xbox Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten has left the company.

Whitten was with Microsoft since 2000, and will now be the CPO of audio devices for Sonos.

Throughout his tenure, Whitten was instrumental in the launch of all three Xbox consoles and also in the launch of Xbox Live, which now has nearly 50 million paying users.

"I have had the extreme pleasure over the last 14 years to work on the greatest product with the greatest team and for the greatest community," said Whitten in the announcement. "Xbox is so special because of the amazing team I've had the opportunity to work with and because our fans are the most incredible fans on the planet. It has been the highlight of my career to work on a product so loved. It's incredibly tough to leave but I am confident the best days are ahead for Xbox fans, in the capable hands of a very talented team."

Microsoft Studios corporate VP Phil Spencer also commented: "I've had the pleasure of working with Marc for more than a decade and he has always led Xbox forward with a focus on our fans and delivering a platform that developers and creators can embrace to deliver incredible entertainment. We wish Marc well, while looking forward to the next chapter of Xbox."

Google and Viacom has finally settled a copyright lawsuit brought forth in 2007 that accused YouTube of allowing users to upload copyrighted movies and television shows from the content giant without permission.

Over time, YouTube parent Google won multiple court cases after Viacom failed to prove that YouTube had knowledge of what its users were uploading and were purposely allowing it. As recently as last year, Judge Louis Stanton ruled that "the burden of showing that YouTube knew or was aware of the specific infringements of the works in suit cannot be shifted to YouTube to disprove."

As stated in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (with "Safe Harbor" provision), YouTube should be granted protection from claims like those brought by Viacom as long as they take down offending content after being made aware of its existence. For its case, Viacom had an extremely tough time proving its case. Of the hundreds of videos it initially cited, 100 were uploaded by its own employees to YouTube and it later removed 187 from the suit, causing confusion and weakening its claims.

Over time, the two companies have become partners, and YouTube has also exploded in popularity. Viacom now posts clips and longer form content on the network and Viacom is also a syndication partner with Vevo, the music video on-demand streaming site that gets most of its traffic through Google.

Just hours after Google unveiled the Android Wear SDK for smartwatches, Motorola has shown off their first wearable to use the Google Now-based software and user interface.

The gorgeous new Moto 360 watch will see release this summer, in a number of styles. The device is the first true smartwatch to use a classic round design rather than the geeky square/rectangle design of current smartwatches.

Reads the company's posts:

Researchers over at security firm Symantec have come across a new advanced phishing attack aimed at stealing your Google credentials.

The new attack specifically targets Google Docs and Google Drive users. An email will hit your inbox with a subject line of "Documents" or similar, claiming there is an 'important document' stored in Google Docs that you can open by clicking the included link.

By clicking, you are directed to a Google Docs login page where you are required to input your username and password. The page looks just like the official login page Google uses when you have not signed in for an extended period of time.

The attackers have created a folder on Google Drive to host the phishing page, so the address bar does show Google.com, making the phish very clever for unsuspecting victims.

"The fake page is actually hosted on Google's servers and is served over SSL, making the page even more convincing," Symantec security expert Nick Johnston says. "The scammers have simply created a folder inside a Google Drive account, marked it as public, uploaded a file there, and then used Google Drive's preview feature to get a publicly accessible URL to include in their messages."

Apple has dropped Windows 7 support for their Boot Camp multi-boot utility for the redesigned Mac Pro.

The utility allows Mac owners to run legacy Windows applications on their computers, as long as they are Intel-based.

If you try to install Windows 7, the utility will prompt you to install "Windows 8 or later," and Apple has updated their support documentation to reflect as such.

Many professional users have not yet embraced Windows 8, and were likely not preparing to in the near future, either. With the new changes, Mac users will need to either upgrade or begin emulating Windows 7.

The new Mac Pro is built in the U.S. and the base model starts at $2999 and features a 3.7GHz Intel Xeon E5 with 10MB L3 cache and Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz, 12GB (three 4GB) of 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory, Dual AMD FirePro D300 GPUs with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM each. Flash storage shockingly starts at just 256GB, but can be configured up to 1TB. For connectivity there are four USB 3.0 ports, six Thunderbolt 2 ports, dual gigabit ethernet, and HDMI 1.4 UltraHD.

Apple has officially unveiled an 8GB model of their poorly selling iPhone 5C mid-range phone, but not for the U.S. market.

The device is on sale in Europe for £429 unlocked, £40 cheaper than the 16 GB model. The iPad 4 is also back, selling for $399 in the U.S. for the Wi-Fi model, replacing the three-year-old iPad 2 which Apple kept alive following the release of the iPad Air.

Apple turned heads when it brought back the iPad 2 as the "low-end" iPad option last year, given that it has an ancient A5 processor and 512MB RAM. The iPad 4 has a Retina Display, an A6X chip and 1GB RAM.

Both the devices are available in-store and online.

Earlier this month, Chrome and Android boss Sundar Pichai confirmed that the company would be releasing a new SDK for wearable devices beginning with watches.

Today, the company has revealed "Android Wear" in developer preview, showing deep integration with Google Now functionality.

More importantly, the company has also confirmed OEMs and partners for product releases this year including Asus, HTC, LG, Motorola, Samsung, Broadcom, Imagination, Intel, Mediatek, Qualcomm and even watch maker Fossil.

Reads the company's blog post:

According to multiple new reports, Amazon's highly anticipated media streaming set-top box is set for imminent release, likely within a few weeks.

Reportedly, the retail giant has already begun distributing pre-production hardware to developers to begin working on native applications.

The set-top box will come bundled with the Prime streaming library, say the reports, although it is unclear whether that means buyers will get a full Prime membership which also includes free 2-day shipping on million of items.

Staples and Best Buy have already signed on to carry the set-top starting in early April, but the price has not been revealed.

The device will use the Amazon "Fire" version of Android, meaning there will be an Amazon app store, not the standard Google Play store.

Sony Computer Entertainment has released the latest mandatory software update for the PlayStation 4, version 1.62.

The update is a full 336MB but there is little information provided in the change log.

Sony says with the update, "operation quality during use of some PlayStation 4 software has been improved."

There is no update to the console's UI, so it appears it really is just a large-sized patch to tweak performance.

Google has significantly expanded its Play Movies and TV application, adding new international support and new language support, as well.

The app now has support for 40 new languages, and the update also adds "the ability to download movies in either HD or SD," compared to just HD previously.

Change log:

-Support for over 40 new countries
-Get your content offline faster – now HD movies and shows may be downloaded in HD or SD.
-Improved video streaming performance for select KitKat devices.
-Additional app improvements and bugfixes.

GOG.com, the DRM-free PC game store will begin offering games for the Linux operating system starting this fall.

The company says it has been working on Linux support for some time, with Mint and Ubuntu getting the "good old games."

Reads the press release:

Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox One will launch in 26 new nations in September, including the key market of Japan.

The full list includes Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UAE.

"We'll have much more to share at a local level towards the end of April, so stay tuned," adds Xbox boss Larry Hryb.

Microsoft will need a strong launch in the international nations if it wants to bridge the sales gap between the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. Sony has sold over 6.1 million units since launch, while Microsoft has only sold 3.7 million units of the more expensive console.

Online DRM-free PC game store Good Old Games (GOG) has started their annual "Luck of the Irish" sale, dropping the price of 25 games by up to 90 percent.

The sale, which started today for St. Patrick's Day, will conclude on March 21st.

All the games are priced between $2 and $4, and the most popular as of writing are Alan Wake, Hotline Miami, Fez and Deponia, all of which are $2 or $3.

To be able to take advantage of the sale you will need to pick 5 games and if you choose "Pot of Gold" for an extra $2 the company will include a game not included in the standard list at random.

If you choose to buy all the game available, the price is $65, 83 percent off the retail price of $379.75.

Check the sale here.

According to a new book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane entitled "Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs," Apple founder Steve Jobs reportedly told his top executives that HDTVs were a terrible idea due to razor thin margins and incredibly infrequent user upgrades.

Jobs made the comments at a 2010 meeting with his "Top 100" employees, about a year before his death.

During the meeting, Jobs was asked if the company was planning on joining the saturated HDTV market, moving beyond their 'hobby' Apple TV set-top streamer. Jobs responded bluntly, "no" and then continued on to say "TV is a terrible business. They don't turn over and the margins suck."

The tech visionary's alleged answers are in complete contrast with what Jobs told his authorized biographer, Walter Isaacson, as the author wrote the "Steve Jobs" biography in 2011. Jobs said in the biography that Apple had "cracked" the code for HDTV, and that the device would be advanced and sync with all of your other iGadgets.

Over the weekend we reported that Nokia happily boasted about 1 million pre-orders of their new Android-based X smartphone.

It turns out that number is extremely misleading. LiveSide has reported that the number came via retailer JD.com, and that pre-orders in China do not require registration or any money down, meaning anyone with an Internet connection can "pre-order."

In addition, the device was part of a contest where anyone who "pre-orders" can win a Nokia X at launch, so the inflated number was likely even more inflated.

Finally, anyone could "pre-order" one of each of the 4 available colors, meaning real pre-order interest could have been closer to the 100,000 range.

IBM has confirmed that it has not given up any client data to the government, and will challenge any orders to do so in the future.

The company wrote a large blog post, specifically related to how IBM handles customer data, and how it deals with government requests for such data.

Says Big Blue (Full Letter):

-IBM has not provided client data to the National Security Agency (NSA) or any other government agency under the program known as PRISM.
-IBM has not provided client data to the NSA or any other government agency under any surveillance program involving the bulk collection of content or metadata.
-IBM has not provided client data stored outside the United States to the U.S. government under a national security order, such as a FISA order or a National Security Letter.
-IBM does not put "backdoors" in its products for the NSA or any other government agency, nor does IBM provide software source code or encryption keys to the NSA or any other government agency for the purpose of accessing client data.
-IBM has and will continue to comply with the local laws, including data privacy laws, in all countries in which it operates.

The popular music streaming service Rdio has confirmed their acquisition of Indian-based Dhingana, entering the nation for the first time.

Dhingana had shut down its operations in February, after India's largest label, T-Series, did not renew its contract with the streaming service.

Rdio is supposedly paying less for the company than it had raised in startup funding, giving the company a cheap investment and entry into India. Dhingana founders Snehal Shinde and Swapnil Shinde will join Rdio and lead the company's efforts in India and other emerging markets.

In addition, Rdio will also get existing music label contracts, although as previously noted, the biggest label in the nation had already pulled support.

Rdio is currently available in the US, Canada, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Israel, Netherlands, Belgium, Mexico, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Colombia, Chile, Czech Republic, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Ireland, Italy, France, Latvia, Austria and South Africa. The company charges $9.99 per month for unlimited music streaming.

Last year, Time Warner Cable began offering a data usage cap for some small markets, testing the waters with a voluntary option they call "Essentials."

Users that opt in for Essentials originally got a $5 discount off their bill, but were capped at 5GB per month with $1 per GB overage. Hardly a good deal. TWC changed the offer recently, giving an $8 discount for the 5GB cap, or $5 off for a 30GB cap.

The plans have not seen any traction, however, admits Time Warner Cable CEO Rob Marcus. The number of subscribers that have opted-in is "in the thousands," says the CEO, a fraction of the company's nearly 13 million broadband customers.

Of course, the company is still pursuing the caps, or what it calls "creative pricing." The company continues to introduce other fees, including modem rental fees that continue to increase, and a new "broadband tax."

Sprint has unveiled a few new prepaid plans for its smartphone users, including one with no data for subscribers who may always have access to Wi-Fi.

The struggling carrier has seen success in the past with its prepaid offerings, under the Sprint As You Go brand, as well as the independent Virgin Mobile USA and Boost Mobile brands.

Unceremoniously named "Sprint Prepaid," the new service will replace As You Go moving forward. At launch, Sprint will offer Spark (faster LTE)-enabled Samsung Galaxy 4 Mini, the Galaxy S3, the Moto G and the iPhone 4S.

The new no-data plan costs $45 per month and comes with unlimited text and voice, but gives you no 2G/3G/4G cellular data. The second option is $60 per month and includes 2.5GB of unlimited data and then throttled speeds afterwards. Strangely, videos will be throttled to 3G speeds when using the plan.

Apple has created a new section in the App Store for the group among us that loves to take selfies.

Snapchat is the featured app but there are 12 in total in the new section.

Included in the group are "Front Flash," which helps with low-light selfies, Facetune for editing your shots, and Shots of Me, the Justin Bieber-backed selfie direct message app.

Apple has put the temporary section front in center in its App Store for mobile and for desktops.

The full list:

Picr
Frontback
Everyday
Snapchat
Samba
Close-up
Selfie cam
Front Flash
Facetune
SnapDash
1 Second Everyday
Shots/Shots of Me

The Twitter of China, Sina Weibo, will file for its IPO in the U.S., looking to take advantage of a strong stock market, especially for social media and technology companies.

Weibo will raise $500 million via the offering, and will likely become one of the largest public Chinese companies on the U.S. exchanges.

Of note, the company did warn in its IPO filing that there could be uncertainty from Chinese government regulation that would affect traffic. For example, a new regulation in the nation states that any Internet user that makes "or shares information considered defamatory or false could face up to three years' jail time in China."

"The implementation of this newly promulgated judicial interpretation may have a significant and adverse effect on the traffic of our platform and discourage the creation of user generated content," the company wrote in its filing. Additionally, the government could intervene in its encryption tools and software, with the Chinese government requiring all "cipher code products" to be registered with them, adds Weibo.

Weibo has seen strong growth, with revenue growing to $188.3 million in 2013 compared to $65.9 million in 2012. Net losses have also been falling, with profitably expected next year. Daily usership grew 36 percent to 61.4 million in 2013, adds the company.

Nokia has proudly boasted that their new X Android smartphone has already reached 1 million units pre-ordered in China.

The device goes on sale in the nation on March 25th, and pre-orders began on the 11th.

Nokia's X, which will sell for just 89 euros, has a 4-inch IPS LCD, 800 x 480 resolution, 512MB RAM, a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon, 4GB internal storage, a 3MP camera with no autofocus, a microSD slot and no LTE support. The device runs on a custom Android 4.1, one that strips away Google's applications and services and replaces it with Nokia and Microsoft's own.

On the software end, despite being Android the phones look nothing like Android. Instead, Nokia has built a poor man's Windows Phone, with tiles rather an app drawer, and the tile sizes can be adjusted for the apps you want to take more screen real estate. Some tiles are "live" like the calendar and weather, but they won't work as well as Android's widgets. Nokia has added its "Fastlane" stream which can be accessed by swiping across the screen. It will show contacts, recent photos, app notifications and more in one place.

Mozilla has confirmed that its Metro version of Firefox had such tiny adoption that it will be discontinuing support for the specialized browser.

Instead, the company will stick to its much more popular "desktop" AKA the standard version of the software, which remains the second most popular browser behind Internet Explorer.

Mozilla had been working on the Metro-based browser for over two years, trying to give Windows 8 users a native alternative to Internet Explorer. Firefox for Windows 8 had such little interest, the company says it never had more than 1000 active users.

"As the team built and tested and refined the product, we've been watching Metro's adoption. From what we can see, it's pretty flat," Johnathan Nightingale, vice president of Firefox, added. "On any given day, we have, for instance, millions of people testing pre-release versions of Firefox desktop, but we've never seen more than 1,000 active daily users in the Metro environment. When I talk about the need to pick our battles, this feels like a bad one to pick: significant investment and low impact."

DVDFab, the once popular DVD ripping software company, will be completely wiped off the map by a new court ruling.

New York federal court Judge Vernon Broderick ruled in favor of the AACS-LA, a group that includes behemoths Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Warner Bros., IBM, Toshiba and Sony. AACS is the DRM used on DVDs and Blu-ray media, an encryption that has been cracked since 2006.

DVDFab, one of the more popular DVD ripping software, was sued by the AACS-LA, with accusations that it violates the DMCA's anti-circumvention clauses in relation to DVD encryption. "The DVDFab Group openly touts these illegal circumvention attributes of the DVDFab Software on the DVDFab Websites, advertising that, among other things, its software products 'remove all Blu-ray copy protections,' and 'can remove ... all known AACS copy protections'," AACS wrote in the initial complaint.

Just hours after the founders of the controversial movie streaming application Popcorn Time announced they were shutting it down, it appears the popular app will be making a quick comeback.

The group behind YTS (YIFY) will purportedly take over Popcorn Time, immediately, according to Torrentfreak.

After a week of mainstream articles brought the app to the forefront of attention, it became clear that Popcorn Time was quickly becoming the "Netflix of piracy" (as dubbed my multiple sites). Not all of the attention was good, however, and the Popcorn Time team stepped away with a long blog post last night: "Our experiment has put us at the doors of endless debates about piracy and copyright, legal threats and the shady machinery that makes us feel in danger for doing what we love. And that's not a battle we want a place in."

Not all is lost, however. YTS (formerly known as the scene group YIFY-Torrents) has picked up the software: "The YTS team will now be picking up the Popcorn Time project and continuing on like previously. We are in a better position copyright wise as for us, because it's build on our API, it's as if we have built another interface to our website. We are no worse off managing the project than we would be just supplying the movies.

Google has begun rolling out an update for its Play Store that will give users more control over password requirements when making app purchases.

The new update is likely related to a new class action suit the company is facing over in-app purchases. Currently, if making a purchase, users are asked to input a password when first making a password, but any subsequent purchase in the next thirty minutes does not require a password.

While this would normally not be too big of an issue, when a child gets their hands on a device, not requiring a password could be a monetary disaster.

Google has now made it that the 30-minute option is still available, or the setting can be changed to require a password every time a purchase is made. Additionally, the Google Play Store has now added the "In-app purchase (IAP) indicator directly into the permissions window."

All the updates come via Google Play Store version 4.6.16.

According to a new filing with an overseas regulatory agency (like the U.S.' FCC), it appears that Amazon's oft-rumored set-top box will include a Bluetooth gaming controller.

The media streaming device was set for a fall launch last year, but was met with delays. The new device could launch as soon as next month, if rumors prove to be accurate.

Netflix and Hulu Plus have already been confirmed for the device, as has a Kindle-ized version of Android. There has always been an expectation that gaming would be supported right out of the gate, given the hundreds of thousands of games available for Android.

The wireless Bluetooth controller will include shoulder buttons, triggers, dual analog controls and media playback controls including play/pause and rewind/fast forward.

An LED array will indicate battery levels and also whether you are connected to Bluetooth.

Popcorn Time, the desktop app that had become the 'Netflix of piracy,' has shut down for good.

The app made it easy to stream pirated films (with varying quality depending on what is available currently), and had recently received significant attention.

In a blog post, the company decided to shut down the service, and the full post is worth reposting:

We started Popcorn Time as a challenge to ourselves. That's our motto. That's what we stand for.

We are enormously proud of this project. It is the biggest thing we've ever achieved. And we've assembled an amazing team in the process, with people we love to work with. And to be honest, right now every single one of us has a knot in our stomachs. We love Pochoclín and everything it stands for, and we feel that we are letting our amazing contributors down. The ones who translated the app into 32 languages, some of which we weren't even aware existed. We stand in awe at what open source community can do.

We are startup geeks, first and foremost. We read Techcrunch, Reddit and Hacker News. We got frontpaged in Hacker News twice. At the same time. We got articles on Time Magazine, Fast Company, TechCrunch, TUAW, Ars Technica, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Yahoo Finance, Gizmodo, PC Magazine and Torrent Freak, just to name a few. And we got some action on TV and Radio shows, and this doesn't even include the many interviews we had to reject due to the barrage of media attention.
And they were not chastising us. They were cheering for us. We became the underdog that would fight for the consumer. Some people we respect, some of our heroes spoke wonders of Popcorn Time, which is a lot more than what we wanted to get out of an experiment we threw together in a couple of weeks.

According to a new report, Motorola had envisioned an Android superphone for Google, but Google CEO Larry Page refused to have it made.

The company wanted to create a Google-powered, fully integrated superphone, but Google would not sign off. What ended up happening was the Moto X, which is still an incredible device, but was more a Motorola device than a Google one.

One of the examples of the software/hardware Motorola was looking to build with Google is highlighted in the report: "Motorola wanted to work more closely with the Google team that develops natural language processing technologies, which help computers understand naturally-spoken phrases rather than a limited set of commands. Deeply integrating such technology with Motorola hardware could enable people to use a much wider array of voice commands and speed up the time it took for the smartphone to respond to commands."

Larry Page prohibited Motorola's engineers from working with Google's Android team after the acquisition. Page did not want to upset Android's powerful partners, including Samsung, LG and Sony, which makes perfect sense and was a viable fear. Additionally, Page refused to back the Moto X with a major marketing campaign, like Apple and Samsung do with their flagships.

The Oppo Find 7 has leaked in pictures finally, including packaging.

IT168 has posted pictures of the device, a few days before its official unveiling on March 19th.

The device features some high-end specs (at least rumored), including a 5.9-inch display with Quad HD (1440x2560) resolution, a Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB RAM, and a camera with an over 20MP camera (rumored to be a ridiculous 50MP).

Design for the phone is otherwise unspectacular, using the now standard black front face and white back and thin bezels.

Check the pics here:

Samsung has aimed high for the rich and/or gullible, launching their "Black Edition" Galaxy S4 in the UK for a whopping £499.

The company first confirmed the device last month, but did not disclose which markets would see it.

Available now exclusively in the UK through Phones4U, the unlocked unit will sell at a massive premium (about $825 USD) compared to the standard S4, despite having the same exact specs. The S4 sells, on average, for £325.80 ($540 USD) in the region.

Having the same internal specs, the Black Edition is different in that it has a black faux leather back cover, black accessories, and exclusive wallpapers and music tracks pre-installed.

The device goes on sale on April 11th.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved large carrier AT&T's acquisition of Leap Wireless, a company best known for the pre-paid Cricket wireless brand.

The deal, without any concessions, would have harmed the public interest, notes the FCC, but AT&T agreed to commitments and concessions to balance out any ongoing concerns.

"We find that the public interest benefits of the proposed transaction outweigh the likelihood of significant public interest harms, such that overall, the proposed transaction is in the public interest," the commission reported.

For its part, AT&T will integrate 5 million new customers and use Leap's spectrum and other assets to boost its existing networks. Cricket customers will get a much more robust LTE network.

In order to allow the deal to go through, AT&T agreed to divest spectrum in a few markets and must begin using "unused Leap spectrum within 12 months of closing." Additionally, AT&T must "offer certain rate plans targeted to help value-conscious and Lifeline customers." Finally, the U.S.'second-largest carrier must build out LTE service to six new markets in south Texas within 18 months.

Analogue Interactive has announced their aircraft-grade all-aluminum NES console dubbed the Analogue Nt.

The hardware will be heavy at 3 pounds, and has been "designed around the heart and brain of the original NES." Gamers will be sad to know that emulation is not featured (but could possibly be supported).

Founder Chris Taber added: "The NES has an incredibly rich history to explore. I think it's the most iconic video game system of all time -- a pivotal part of video game history. There are over 2,000 games for the NES, Famicom and Famicom Disk System. I want everyone to be able to explore them all, with no emulation. With videophile and audiophile quality ... We created the Analogue Nt to experience this pivotal part of gaming history with the quality and justice it deserves."

In addition, the console has four-player support and will "output the highest quality analog video signals possible" due to being RGB.

According to the NPD Group, the Sony PS4 outsold the Microsoft Xbox One again in February, but the gap closed from January.

287,000 PlayStation 4 units were sold for the month, with Microsoft moving 258,000 Xboxes.

"PS4 led hardware sales in February 2014, but by a narrow margin with Xbox One selling over 90 percent of what the PS4 sold in terms of unit sales," NPD's Liam Callahan noted. "However, with Xbox One's higher price point it led hardware sales on a dollar basis."

The video game industry has had a revival since the launch of the two consoles in November, with overall sales up 42 percent year-over-year and 44 percent month-over-month. Game sales were up 41 percent month-over-month but down 11 percent year-over-year due to sales falling for older consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360.

T-Mobile has made some big news today, announcing that its entire existing 2G/EDGE network will be upgraded to 4G LTE by mid-2015.

Currently, its LTE coverage blankets 210 million Americans and has been aggressively expanding and upgrading since launching in 2013.

The carrier has always been criticized for having great, fast service in metro areas, but awful service in suburban and especially rural areas. The new upgrade would improve these faults.

Additionally, T-Mobile has called out Verizon for what it claims are "misleading competitive claims" in its LTE coverage map ads. The ads leave out T-Mobile's massive HSPA+ network (which offers 4G speeds), making T-Mobile's LTE map look tiny.

"Verizon's ink blots massively understate our coverage and don't begin to represent the actual customer experience on T-Mobile's network," added CEO John Legere.

Potent leaker @EVleaks has revealed some specs and details about Google's upcoming smartwatch, rumored to be launching in June.

LG is expected to be building the wearable device, following their strong relationship with previous Nexus devices.

If accurate, Evleaks says the device will have a 1.65-inch IPS LCD screen (280x280 resolution), 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage and an unknown processor.

Those specs make the watch similar to the Galaxy Gear 2, recently unveiled by Samsung.

More Google (LG) smartwatch specs: 1.65" IPS LCD @ 280x280, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage, processor TBD.

-- @evleaks (@evleaks) March 13, 2014

Google has slashed the monthly price of extra Google Drive storage today, for every tier.

Reads the blog post:

We've lowered the price of our monthly storage plans to $1.99 for 100GB (previously $4.99), $9.99 for 1TB (previously $49.99), and $99.99 for 10TB, with even more storage available if you need it. How big is a terabyte anyway? Well, that's enough storage for you to take a selfie twice a day for the next 200 years and still have room left over for... shall we say... less important things. Like before, storage continues to work across Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos. And, of course, the 15GB plan remains free.

As implied earlier in the year, Amazon has raised the price of their Prime membership.

Reads the email I received as a Prime user early this morning:

We are writing to provide you advance notice that the price of your Prime membership will be increasing. The annual rate will be $99 when your membership renews on xxx, 2014.

Even as fuel and transportation costs have increased, the price of Prime has remained the same for nine years. Since 2005, the number of items eligible for unlimited free Two-Day Shipping has grown from one million to over 20 million. We also added unlimited access to over 40,000 movies and TV episodes with Prime Instant Video and a selection of over 500,000 books to borrow from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library.

For more information about your Prime membership, visit our Prime membership page.

Pono, the high-fidelity portable music player, has already surpassed its Kickstarter goal.

The player had a goal of $800,000 which was reached in under 24 hours, and 6,476 backers have contributed $2,112,066.

Pono Players will cost $399 when they launch at retail in October, but 100 lucky backers got it for $199 and all other Kickstarter backers can get it for $299.

What is Pono?

Pono's mission is to provide the best possible listening experience of your favorite music. We want to be very clear that PonoMusic is not a new audio file format or standard. PonoMusic is an end-to-end ecosystem for music lovers to get access to and enjoy their favorite music exactly as the artist created it, at the recording resolution they chose in the studio. We offer PonoMusic customers the highest resolution digital music available. PonoMusic is more than just a high-resolution music store and player; it is a grassroots movement to keep the heart of music beating. PonoMusic aims to preserve the feeling, spirit, and emotion that the artists put in their original studio recordings.

Google has acquired Green Throttle Games, perhaps signaling that a true Google Android set-top box may be on the way with gaming foundations.

The company used to make its Atlas controller for Android devices, before shuttering four months ago. Google has picked up the technology and former employees (including founders) for an undisclosed price.

Atlas controllers needed to be synced to the company's Atlas Arena app, which was removed from the Google Play Store late last year, making the hardware effectively useless.

Sources claim Google purchased the company to enhance the Bluetooth capabilities of its own upcoming set-top box and controller, one that has been oft-rumored but never confirmed.

Green Throttle's hardware woes mixed with Ouya shuttering its hardware business and moving towards software and services only likely has marked the death of the independent gaming console market, and the beginning of the battle of titans including Amazon, Apple, Google and possibly Microsoft.

It has been discovered that popular cross-platform messenger WhatsApp has a vulneranability that could make Android users susceptible to their conversations being read by other apps.

Even with the company's major update for Android this week, Bas Bosschert, CTO at DoubleThink, has posted a method to accessing WhatsApp chats, using an exploit in the service's encryption.

Bosschert (via TCrunch) explains how it works:

"WhatsApp for Android stores conversations on the phone's SD card, which is accessible by many other apps on the phone as long as the user gives those apps the permissions they ask for (many apps ask for full access to the phone). This is an infrastructure issue for Android more than a gaping security flaw on the part of WhatsApp.

From there, a malicious app could access the WhatsApp conversation database. Savvy users will note that this is hardly a hack but more of a problem with Android's data sandboxing system."

Last week, Spotify announced it had acquired The Echo Nest, a company "that powers the vast majority of internet radio" with its technology and music curating services.

For example, The Echo Nest powers Twitter Music, Rdio, Vevo, MTV, MOG, IHeartRadio and more.

With the acquisition, however, Echo Nest is losing at least one customer: Rdio.

Rdio says it will "discontinue the arrangement because it doesn't want to share its data with competitors."

Notes Rdio CEO Anthony Bay: "As far as we are concerned, they were a good partner, but we have other good partners and we'll move on. We, probably like most people, have multiple sources of data that we use. So we will stop using that source of data and use other sources."

Earlier this week, Rovio teased their upcoming 'Angry Birds' game with a video showing a bird hiding in a suit of armor and the tagline of "it will be epic."

Well, the new game, soft launching in Canada and Australia, is actually called 'Angry Birds Epic' and will be a step away from their traditional games.

The latest will be an adventure RPG with turn-based combat, and will also include a crafting system (popular in many other games). Finally, the company says the game will have a "challenging endgame."

As part of the crafting system, gamers can use in-game currency to build armor, weapons, potions, etc, and the currency can be won or purchased through Rovio for real money.

After its soft launch this week, the title will see a global launch for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 later in the year.

AngryBirdsNest had the scoop and some extra pics:

For the second time in two weeks, Twitter was temporarily down today, due to a software glitch.

The popular microblogging service was down for about 45 minutes starting at 1PM EST.

On March 2nd, during the Oscars, Twitter crashed briefly as well following Ellen DeGeneres' now famous "selfie" hit the service and quickly saw over 3 million retweets.

Read Twitter's status update: "Update [12:12pm PDT]: During a planned deploy in one of our core services, we experienced unexpected complications that made Twitter unavailable for many users starting at 11:01am. We rolled back the change as soon as we identified the issue and began a controlled recovery to ensure stability of other parts of the service. The site was fully recovered by 11:47am PDT. We apologize for the inconvenience. "

In its younger years, Twitter was infamous for downtime that sometimes extended for hours on end. The "fail whale" became the unoffical symbol of Twitter before it invested millions in 2013 to make sure the site stayed up.

Microsoft has revealed the release date for their Power Covers for Surface tablets, with the accessory shipping on March 19th.

The cover will significantly extend the battery life of Surface Pro, Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets. Microsoft claims the accessory will extend life by up to 70 percent, which could make the devices much more productive and portable.

Weighing in at 1.2 pounds, the cover is also over 18mm thick, not necessarily small. It also does not include back-lit keys, which the standard Type covers do.

The Covers were announced back in October when the company unveiled their new tablets.

Microsoft is making the Power Covers available in the U.S., Japan and Canada first. In the U.S. it will retail for $199.

'Star Citizen', the upcoming combat simulator game for Windows, has reached another crowd funding milestone: $40 million.

The game, which will feature space combat within a MMO universe, and single player action, as well, has been hugely popular since word of its development began in 2012. The game will be one of the first to support the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. Developed by 'Wing Commander' creator Chris Roberts, the game has seen 405,289 backers averaging nearly $100 each, much more than an average gamer spends on games.

As part of reaching their goal, the chairman has posted a message explaining what features will be added now that the milestone has been hit.

We've done it again! The Star Citizen community has pushed us to another incredible crowd funding goal: $40 million, a number that would have been an impossible dream at the start of the game's development. I'm constantly amazed by the continued support we receive and how this community manages to grow every day. Since the last milestone we've added over 10,000 new citizens! Some say that space sims are niche. I'm not so sure!

Instagram has put together a major update for its Android app.

The app was first launched in April 2012, and is now supported by most Android devices (unless your device is really old), but there have been very little improvements to the aesthetics of the application.

Says Instagram of the new update: "These changes mean a faster, more responsive app. Your profile screen now loads twice as fast, and we've cut the overall app size in half to increase speed throughout Instagram.

By making our design cleaner, we've also made Instagram for Android easier to use. We've simplified our visuals throughout our app, making use of valuable screen space for small devices and feature phones and rearranging our design to keep buttons within easy reach as you navigate the app on a larger device.

It's the same Instagram for Android you know and love--faster, cleaner and easier to use than ever."

In practice, you'll see an updated and redesigned camera screen and icons which will look similar to what iOS users see. Outside of the look and feel changes, there are no added features with the most recent update.

Google has confirmed that its popular Chromecast HDMI dongle will be headed to "many more countries" in the next month.

Android/Chrome boss Sundar Pichai, speaking during the company's SXSW keynote, noted the timetable for the global releases.

Pinchai noted that sales were in the "millions" of units, and unit sales growth has continued rapidly.

Google recently made the SDK available to developers, so the device's limited applications should see an increase in the near future. A global expansion should help in that department, as well.

Samsung has denied that a major fire at a factory in South Korea will lead to less supply of the upcoming Galaxy S5 at launch.

The factory in Anseong was being used to manufacture PCBs (printed circuit boards) for the new flagship.

Damage has been estimated at nearly $1 billion and it took over 280 firefighters to contain the fire. The fire began Sunday morning local time, and burned through equipment and components. It took about six hours to put the fire out.

Samsung has said the fire will not affect the April 11th launch of the device, and the company uses other PCB factories, as well.

Availability in certain smaller markets could be affected still, but most likely you will not have to worry.

The optical disc is not dead yet.

Sony and Panasonic have unveiled their new Archival Disc format aimed at users who need long-term storage, with disc capacities ranging from 300GB to 1TB per disc.

Says Sony: "Optical discs have excellent properties to protect themselves against the environment, such as dust-resistance and water-resistance, and can also withstand changes in temperature and humidity when stored. They also allow inter-generational compatibility between different formats, ensuring that data can continue to be read even as formats evolve. This makes them robust media for long-term storage of content. Recognizing that optical discs will need to accommodate much larger volumes of storage going forward, particularly given the anticipated future growth in the archive market, Sony and Panasonic have been engaged in the joint development of a standard for professional-use next-generation optical discs."

The companies had originally announced the development of the discs, last summer, but have now unveiled the technology roadmap and specs, along with the new logo.

Both companies will launch systems with writing capabilities of 300GB per disc starting in the summer of 2015, with eventually capacity reaching 1TB. The discs are dual-sided and triple layer.

Pinterest has published their first transparency report this week, with the promise that they will release on every six months.

Interestingly, the company had 12 government data requests for the second half of 2013, including seven warrants and five subpoenas.

The breakdown of law enforcement requests were four from California, two from Florida, two from Utah and one from New York, Oregon and Wisconsin, The 12th request was from a federal agency.

Pinterest says it gives notice to users whose information has been requested, unless the law prohibited it, which was the case for three of the requests. The company refused to give info for one of the requests.

"Every company that stores information -- from banks to phone companies to email providers -- must respond to requests for that information from folks like law enforcement agencies, courts, and others," Pinterest explained. "We think it's important that you know about these requests."

Seeing increasing pressure from rival carrier T-Mobile, AT&T dropped the price of its family plans earlier in the year and has followed up that move by dropping the price for some of its individual and two-line plans.

Beginning this week, customers can get an individual plan with 2GB of shared data for $65 per month, down from the $80 it currently is. The plan you will need to purchase is the AT&T Mobile Share Value Plan, which means you are getting no subsidies for your smartphone but there is no 2-year contract.

T-Mobile has really turned the U.S. market on its head since last year, getting rid of contracts and device subsidies but offering plans with the most value for the buck, and extra features like free international roaming.

Verizon has made small price cuts, and Sprint continues to try to play catch-up by creating their "Framily" plans.

AT&T has also announced that it will give customers a one-time $100 credit for each new line of service, a nice introductory offer.

Aereo, the popular Internet TV startup, has had to shut down their streams in Salt Lake City and Denver following a loss in the US District Court of Utah.

The federal court rejected Aereo's request to stay the injunction while it prepares its appeal, claiming "Aereo has not made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal. Nor has Aereo demonstrated that the other factors weigh in its favor."

Aereo, which costs $8 per month, allows users to watch free, OTA content on any mobile device along with a free remote DVR. Aereo does not pay any re-transmission fees as it uses tiny digital TV antennas for each user in its own facilities and links to the streams.

Reads the message from Aereo:

Speaking during SXSW today, Google's Android/Chrome SVP Sundar Pichai has announced that the company is preparing to release an Android dev SDK for wearable devices.

Google will give a "vision for developers of how we see this market working" with the SDK, shaping the future of smartwatches, Glass and more.

The SDK will hit before the end of March.

Pichai says developers and partners will have to decide what form factors to use the SDK for, so there could be some interesting devices on the horizon.

Ouya, the Android-based hardware console that nearly reached $10 million in funding on Kickstarter, is already dead in less than a year of availability, says the Verge.

The indie game console took Kickstarter by storm in 2012, raising $8.6 million, promising TV gaming for $99 and a plethora of games, all of which were free-to-play. The company was run by CEO Julie Uhrman, a former VP of digital distribution for both IGN and GameFly, very experienced in the gaming world. Uhrman wanted the Ouya to curate and promote games, and even possibly fund indies.

Unfortunately, the box launched late, the plans to fund indies fell through, and the console launched only a few months ahead of the PS4 and Xbox One.

Ouya, having failed as a hardware console, will now be transitioning to a software platform, effectively killing its hardware business. The company will look to embed the platform into TVs and set-top boxes, starting with the Mad Catz Mojo, which was formerly its own hardware console.

By killing off its hardware, Ouya has turned itself into another Android variant, one that has even less users than others. There are no incentives to build for Ouya, especially when standard Android and iOS have over 1.2 billion users and the PlayStation 4 continues to be a smash hit.

Rovio has teased another upcoming 'Angry Birds' game this week, following last month's reveal of Angry Birds Stella.

Without revealing a name (or much else), the gaming company hints that the "next epic Angry Birds game" will be medieval themed.

The teaser shows off an angry bird inside a suit of armor, who then flies out at you.

Strangely, the game company will be "soft launching" the game fist in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

OnLive, the once-promising cloud gaming service, has returned from the dead.

A year after collapsing, the company has returned as a partner with Steam, allowing you to stream PC games you already own to your TV, notebook, mobile phone and more for $15 per month. The service will sync with Steam, allowing you to seamlessly move from PC to TV, notebook etc., and vice versa.

Dubbed 'Cloudlift,' the service will be very limited out of the gate. The company has signed two publishers, with just 20 games available. That is expected to grow significantly soon, but for now the selection is limited.

One of the major publishers signed up is Warner Bros., who has made the Batman Arkham series available, as well as the new Lego Movie game.

"The new strategy is providing complimentary services," says OnLive executive chairman Mark Jung. Rather than requiring that let OnLive modify the game code in a complex manner, the new service simply needs a publisher's permission to run.

The hit video game 'The Last of Us' will be getting a live-action feature film in the future.

Screen Gems has signed on to distribute the film, and the Creative Director for the game, Naughty Dog's own Neil Druckmann, will write the script.

Among the group helping on the film are Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spiderman series), Naughty Dog co-presidents Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra and the game's director Bruce Straley.

The story, as per the site's own bio: "Joel, a ruthless survivor with few moral lines left to cross, lives in one of the last remaining Quarantine Zones. These walled-off, oppressive cities are run by what's left of the military. Despite the strict martial law, Joel operates in the black market of the city, smuggling contraband for the right price.

Joel is asked by a dying friend to look after Ellie, a fourteen-year-old girl with courage beyond her years. What starts out as a simple job to deliver Ellie to another Quarantine Zone, soon transforms into a profound journey that will forever change Joel and Ellie."

New streaming music service Beats Music has opened up its API to the developer world.

The service costs $9.99 per month and gives users access to 20 million tracks on-demand.

"If you're willing to pay $100 a year for music, which in my experience for all the world's music is a tremendous bargain, you should have access to music anywhere you might want it, in your car, house, anywhere," Beats Music Chief Executive Ian C. Rogers added.

Many other streaming music services have made their APIs available, including Spotify, who allows for third-party developers to add applications to the service and to integrate their sites better with the services.

Beats Music had previously opened up its API to select developers, including Sonos and Bop.fm.

Ever since Marissa Mayer took over as CEO of Yahoo in 2012, the company's stock and its reputation has soared.

The executive has made a plethora of acquisitions, mainly startups, each of which was supposed to help the company become "cool" again and keep up with current and future trends. Just two days ago, the company made such an acquisition, purchasing Vizify, a "data visualization startup" that allows you to turn your social media posts into interactive infographics.

Overall, since January 1st the company has purchased eight companies, none of which really fit into Yahoo's focus, at least not coherently as of yet.

The strategy of buying everything and anything does not appear to be paying off. Since Mayer's hiring, 31 of the 38 startups acquired have shut down or discontinued their services. Vizify will also be closing down their products, having already provided full refunds to customers.

Cloud storage and collaboration company Box has projected that its revenue will double this year to $200 million, ahead of the company going public.

Box is likely to IPO in the coming two months, and will make a prospectus available in the coming weeks.

CEO Aaron Levie has quietly begun increasing the company's sales staff to promote the service to enterprises that are now shifting to the cloud.

Box is one of the most highly funded startups since its humble founding in 2005 by two college students. Major investors include Mark Cuban, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Meritech Capital Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz and Salesforce.com Inc.

Walmart has dropped the price of the iPhone 5S to new lows, pricing the high-end device at $119 with contract.

The phone retails for $200 with contract, and the current promotion beats out Best Buy's ongoing $50 price cut for the device.

In addition, you can get an even lower price by trading in older gadgets for Walmart credit (via gift cards). The retailer accepts tablets, smartphones and even video games.

If you prefer the plastic iPhone 5C and its nearly two-year old specs, you can get the device for $29 with contract, one of the better deals out there, as well.

The iPhone 5S introduced a fingerprint sensor (Touch ID) and 64-bit processing and remains a hot seller for Apple.

Samsung has introduced a new Internet radio service for its own products, "Milk Music."

Exclusive to Samsung phones and tablets, Milk Music is completely free to download and free of ads.

As of this week, the service only works on the Galaxy S3, the Galaxy S4, the Note 2, the Note 3 and most S4 variants including the Active and the Mini. Of course, it will also work with the newly unveiled Galaxy S5.

Milk Music is powered by Slacker radio, and includes 200 genre stations and has over 13 million songs in total. Samsung's partnership with the company means they did not have to secure new licensing deals with the labels.

Samsung will deliver exclusives and other "first listens," as well, through its "Spotlight" section. The interface of the service has an aesthetically pleasing dial with genres, Spotlight, and a history of the last 500 songs you have listened to.

The app is available through Google Play now if you own one of the aforementioned devices and it is U.S.-only for the time being.

Instagram has signed its first major ad deal, with agency giant Omnicom.

As part of its upcoming paid advertising program, Instagram and Omnicom have signed the year-long deal that could have the ad agency spend up to $100 million.

Instagram users will soon begin to see ads in their streams from hundreds of brands that work with Omnicom in their media and creative agencies.

Facebook did not comment on the deal except to confirm the partnership, as did Omnicom. Instagram has over 150 million active users, with 55 million photos shared on a daily basis.

"This doesn't change our advertising strategy moving forward -- people will continue to see a limited number of beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from select brands who already have a strong presence on Instagram," added Jim Squires, director of market operations for Instagram. "Our teams are going to work hand in hand to develop and execute campaigns that provide people with amazing imagery. This is an exciting new chapter and we're looking forward to the great creative content that comes out of this partnership."

According to comScore's latest U.S. smartphone data, Windows Phone has finally surpassed BlackBerry for the third spot in the market.

Apple led the way with 41.6 percent share as far as OEMs go, beating out Samsung at 26.7 percent (a new high for them), LG, Motorola and HTC.

Android took a small dive to 51.7 percent, while Apple rose a full percentage point to its 41.6 percent share. Microsoft remained completely flat at 3.2 percent while BlackBerry fell to 3.1 percent, continuing its eventual trend to zero. Symbian retained fractional share.

LG increased to 6.9 percent, Motorola dropped to 6.4 percent and HTC fell 20 percent to 5.4 percent.

Overall, 159.8 million Americans had smartphones, up 7 percent from the previous quarter.

HP has quietly unveiled another Android tablet this week, dubbed the HP 8.

The new Android device has a 7.85 inch screen and will sell for just $170.

Besides its cheap price, there isn't too much to like about the tablet. This display has a 1,024 x 768 resolution, the devices runs on Android 4.2.2, and is powered by a quad-core Allwinner ARM chip and 1GB RAM.

The tablet has 3800mAh battery for 5-7 hours of use and 16GB internal storage with a microSD slot. There are two cameras, but at 0.3MP and 2MP they are not too functional.

HP has quietly returned to the mobile hardware market, unveiling the VoiceTab devices for the Indian market recently and other "Slate" devices.

Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Jack Tretton has confirmed he will be stepping down from the position at the end of the month.

Tretton had been with Sony for almost twenty years, and Sony says the decision was reached after the two parties could not "renew their contractual relationship."

Beginning next month, Sony Network Entertainment International EVP and COO Shawn Layden will take over the position.

"Working at SCEA for the past 19 years has been the most rewarding experience of my career," Tretton added. "I leave PlayStation in a position of considerable strength."

Sony has been in a transitional stage for the last year, as it cuts costs and changes focus.

Following a blockbuster deal with rival Dish Network, Disney is in talks with DirecTV where the satellite company will license the rights to offer Disney's broadcast/cable channels via a new Internet-based TV product.

DirecTV and Disney's current contract expires in December, and the Internet rights would be part of a larger multi-year programming deal.

"The deal and terms are not unexpected as the Dish contract was the most recent in the Disney timeline to expire," DirecTV added. "The DirecTV contract is up next and we're in the process of working with Disney on a similar long-term agreement of our own."

The landmark deal between Dish and Disney was the first time a major pay TV operator gave rights to its content to be viewed via smartphones, tablets, PCs and set-top boxes outside of their already paid for TV subscriptions.

Disney controls ABC, the Disney Channel, ESPN and more popular content.

Getty Images, with over a hundred years of photography, has made their previously watermarked images available to all.

The company is dumping the watermark for most of its collection, as part of a broad embedding program that will include the image with a footer at the bottom of the picture with a credit and a link to the original licensing page.

While it will still be simple to take the un-watermarked image by screenshotting it, Getty says the images were already everywhere. "Look, if you want to get a Getty image today, you can find it without a watermark very simply," says Craig Peters of Getty Images. "The way you do that is you go to one of our customer sites and you right-click. Or you go to Google Image search or Bing Image Search and you get it there. And that's what's happening... Our content was everywhere already."

Getty has made their embeds social media friendly, with native code for Twitter and Tumblr along with standard WordPress embed code. Getty can build revenue from the new code by potentially mining data or adding ads, although it will do neither at launch. Regardless, they will control the images, which is a step up from the unlicensed versions being available everywhere.

Roku has followed up their 2012 Streaming Stick with an updated model that will directly compete with Google's Chromecast HDMI dongle.

The original model sold for $99 but the second-generation model will sell for $49.99. The Chromecast sells for $35 with a limited lineup of applications that is rapidly expanding.

Unlike the Chromecast, the Streaming Stick must also be plugged into the TV's USB port for power aside from being placed in the HDMI port.

The updated Streaming Stick now supports 1080p and will come with an included remote familiar to Roku set-top owners. The remote has quick action buttons for Netflix, Amazon, and strangely, Blockbuster and M-Go.

Roku has a large lineup of channels, including all of the most popular streaming applications and almost 1,200 more. You can "cast" YouTube and Netflix, just like the Chromecast, and control the device from iOS and Android phones and tablets.

Spotify has acquired The Echo Nest, a company "that powers the vast majority of internet radio" with its technology.

Echo Nest powers Twitter Music, Rdio, Vevo, MTV, MOG, IHeartRadio and more.

Despite being aquired, "The Echo Nest API will remain free and open to support its robust developer ecosystem," and the company will remain a "wholly owned subsidiary" of Spotify, working independently.

Says Spotify of the move: "The addition of The Echo Nest to Spotify will also strengthen Spotify's ability to help brands and partners build amazing music experiences for their audiences." When asked about competing companies, Spotify noted: "In the few cases where The Echo Nest does work with direct competitors we will work with them to understand these relationships and determine the next business steps. The Echo Nest will meet all contractual obligations to all customers."

Although it is the general consensus that Nintendo has played itself out of the home console market with the Wii U being a failure, according to VGChartz, Microsoft's new Xbox One only barely beat out the Wii U in sales for the week ended February 22nd.

For the period, the Xbox One saw global sales of 56,769 units, while the older Wii U had global sales of 44,503 units. Sony demolished its rivals for the week, thanks to the PS4's launch in Japan. The console saw 449,705 units sold, with 319,000 coming from Japan, alone.

Of course, the aging Xbox 360 and PS3 still saw sales, but Microsoft once again was the laggard, at 28,782 units sold.

The Xbox One is not available in Japan but Microsoft struggles heavily in the nation, and will likely continue to do so even with the Xbox One.

According to a new AP report, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) will build the chips for Apple's next iPhone, leaving rival Samsung hanging.

The semiconductor company has already begun producing the A8 chip, a more powerful version of last year's 64-bit processor.

Multiple supply chain sources are cited in the report, and the report also claims the new iPhone 6 will have a 4.7-inch screen.

Samsung used to make nearly all of Apple's chips, but as the two companies have stepped up their global battle, both in smartphones and in patent litigation, Apple has been trying to move away from its reliance on the components maker. This has been tough, as there are very few companies that can match even half of Samsung's production.

Chinese-based OnePlus has revealed details about its upcoming CyanogenMod-powered smartphone.

The device will launch in 10 markets in the Q2, and will sell for under $400 unlocked.

"We followed the minimalistic approach "less is more". Our designers put a lot of effort into it, focusing on making a device that looks good and it's easy to hold and use," OnePlus developers said during a Reddit AMA.

Although the company did not give exact specs, it did note it will be doing only online sales and the phone will not include unnecessary sensors like the Galaxy S5's heart rate monitor.

"On one hand, users want a larger screen because it gives them more space to view their content. On the other hand, other users have also been requesting that screen sizes do not exceed 5-inches, so they can use it with one hand," the company added. "What do we make of these conflicting demands? We designed the OnePlus One to be easy to handle with one hand, while at the same time having the largest possible display size under these circumstances. How? By having a slim body, tapered edges and narrow bezels."

While Google has been actively updating their services and apps for iOS devices, it is undoubtedly true that some of their apps just do not work as well for the iPhone and iPad as they do for Android.

One of those apps was Gmail but the latest update should remedy two of the more glaring issues with the app.

Reads the blog post:

"The app now fully supports background app refresh, which means your Gmail messages will be pre-fetched and synced so they're right there when you open the app--no more annoying pauses while you wait for your inbox to refresh. This feature requires iOS 7, and you'll also need to turn on background app refresh and notifications (badge or any other type) for the Gmail app.

The Gmail app also now supports sign-in across Google iOS apps, including Maps, Drive, YouTube and Chrome. Sign in to one, and you'll be signed in to all (this also works for signing out). So you won't have to type in that 27-character password or retrieve your 2-step verification code every time you navigate to another Google app. You may need to re-login after you update the app, but then you'll be all set."

Sony has announced today this week that PlayStation 4 sales have reached 6 million units sold around the world, including 370,000 units sold in Japan during its first ten days of availability in the nation.

Additionally, PS4 software sales reached 13.7 million units, including physical and digital downloads from the PlayStation Store.

"I am absolutely delighted that PS4 is off to such a great start in Japan," said Andrew House, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "The responses we have received for the PS4 system's integrated social capabilities have been phenomenal, and I couldn't be more thrilled that gamers are utilizing these unique features to engage, share, play and connect with users around the world. SCE will continue to expand the world of PlayStation by growing its library of breakthrough games and bringing more innovative features and services only possible on PS4."

Sony says Killzone Shadow Fall is one of their most popular titles, with over 2.1 million units shipped globally. The other top titles were none too surprising, including KNACK, Call of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA14, Battlefield 4, and Assassin's Creed: IV Black Flag.

While the Academy Awards will undoubtedly lead to a surge in movie sales and legal downloads, it has also proven to be a boon for unauthorized pirated downloads.

Citing data from public torrent trackers (not including cyber lockers and private trackers), Torrentfreak says illegal downloads for "12 Years a Slave" tripled week-over-week and "Gravity" saw downloads double.

"12 Years a Slave" won Best Picture and "Gravity" was the big winner with seven Oscar wins, mainly due to its great visual effects.

This is certainly not a new occurrence, as it happens most years, most notably when the "Hurt Locker" saw downloads grow nearly 1000 percent after winning multiple awards in 2012.

This morning, Apple announced the launch of CarPlay, bringing the iOS experience to automobiles starting in 2014.

iPhone 5, 5C and 5S users can use CarPlay to control phone calls, use Maps, play their music, and have messages dictated to them. When released, cars will have a native CarPlay interface or you can choose to activate Siri from a new voice control button on the steering wheel.

"CarPlay has been designed from the ground up to provide drivers with an incredible experience using their iPhone in the car," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPhone and iOS Product Marketing. "iPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimized distraction. We have an amazing lineup of auto partners rolling out CarPlay, and we're thrilled it will make its debut this week in Geneva."

According to the latest Net Applications data, Firefox has hit a 5-year low in browser market share.

February saw the launch of Firefox 27, Chrome 33 and continued migration to IE11, which is the browser of choice in Windows 8.1.

Internet Explorer (in all versions) remained flat, losing just 0.02 percentage points, falling to 58.19 percent share. Firefox fell nearly half a percent to 17.68 percent and Chrome took everyone's losses and turned them to gains, jumping to 16.84 percent from 16.28 percent.

Rounding out the top 5, both Safari and Opera fell marginally, to 5.67 percent and 1.23 percent, respectively.

In 2012, Internet Explorer hit all-time lows at around 51 percent share, but has slowly rebounded and appears to be aiming at 60 percent share again by the end of the year. Firefox had been above 18 percent share since April 2008, so Mozilla clearly needs to begin thinking strategy to stem more losses. Chrome has stayed between 15 and 19 percent for the last two years, and appears stagnant. Chrome could soon pass Firefox though, which it got within hundredths of a percentage point of doing so in May 2012 and July 2013.

Even though one of Ellen DeGeneres' selfies from last night's Oscars event is the most retweeted image of all-time, that hasn't stopped Nokia from mocking the blurriness of a few other photos taken throughout the night.

The photos, taken with a Samsung-sponsored Galaxy Note 3 (Ellen uses an iPhone in real life), did come out blurry (as do most impromptu selfies taken with 2MP cameras), so Nokia jumped at the opportunity to take aim at a rival.

"Let's do away with blurry photos, Ellen!", read the tweet from Nokia USA's official page, including the hashtags #blessed and #blurry.

Samsung has been a huge supporter of recent events, including being a sponsor at the Sochi Olympics, the NBA All-Star Game and now the Oscars.

Let's do away with blurry photos, Ellen! | @TheEllenShow #Oscars #Blessed #blurry pic.twitter.com/56p0xQO2WV

-- Nokia USA (@NokiaUS) March 3, 2014

Ellen DeGeneres has managed to smash the record for Twitter retweets by a huge margin, and the photo has nearly 3 million retweets as of writing.

During the Oscars, Ellen grabbed a bunch of celebrity friends including Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and more and snapped a "selfie" using her Samsung-sponsored phone.

Within an hour, the photo broke the record for most retweets, and even took down Twitter for a very brief period, bringing back bad memories of Twitter's early "fail whale" days.

The previous record was President Obama's celebratory 2012 election winning tweet, at nearly 780,000.

Windows XP's end is nigh.

The aging operating system will soon lose support from Microsoft, and the company has announced two initiatives to help those still using XP. The software giant launched XP twelve years ago.

Starting April 8th, there will be no more security updates or technical support for the OS, effectively making the OS unsafe for future use.

In order to help customers migrate to newer versions of Windows, Microsoft says it has partnered with Laplink to create a free data migration tool called PCmover Express that should simply move your files and data including user profiles and settings over to a new device or to a new partitioned OS. If you want applications to move over, you will need to buy a premium version of the software, which will be discounted.

Furthermore, starting March 8th, Windows XP users who have opted into Windows Update will receive pop-up messages letting them know about the end-of-life for the OS and where to learn more.

Finally, if you don't know what OS you are running, Microsoft will tell you here.

Oppo keeps on teasing impressive specs for its upcoming Find 7 flagship.

First, it was leaked that the smartphone will run on the new Snapdragon 801 SoC, which features upgraded Krait 400 cores, a top clock speed of 2.5GHz, integrated 4G LTE Category 4 and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Additionally, the imaging processing has been improved so much that much higher resolution sensors can be used in the future.

Second, the company teased that the device will be available as a 5-inch 1080p device or as a 5.5-inch, 2560x1440 handset.

This week, an image uploaded to Weibo of a car has a 8160x6120 resolution and the EXIF data names the Oppo Find 7 as the shooter.

The image itself looks great and detailed, but 50MP is complete overkill. Regardless, the high-end device will launch on March 19th.

Samsung has unveiled two new Chromebooks today, using ARM-based SoC and a redesigned textured, stitched lid.

The company's current $249 Chromebook accounts for over 50 percent of Chrome OS device sales, and was popular enough to sell out of Google's hardware Play store.

Besides improved specs, the new devices have soft touch "durable textured lid and elegant stitched design" that looks like leather.

The smaller Chromebook 2 has a 11.6-inch LED with 1366x768 resolution, is powered by Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa clocked at 1.9GHz, has 4GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. Available in black and white, the device weighs just 2.43 pounds, promises 8 hours of battery life and will cost $319.99.

Moving up to the bigger Chromebook 2, you will get a 13.3-inch LED display with 1080p resolution, the same processor but clocked at 2.1GHz. At 3.09 pounds, the company promises 8.5 hours of battery life at the $399.99 price point.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has once again called out Canada for being a magnet for piracy, where piracy sites are free to operate and downloaders are free to download unauthorized content without fear of retribution.

IIPA members include the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and ESA among others, and the group last month released their latest report to the U.S. government in which countries are not doing enough to combat piracy. Just like in years past, Canada was placed in the 2014 Special 301 "watch list" for countries on the naughty list (via TorrentFreak).

In their complaints, one of the largest criticisms was that Canada remained a popular home to many "rogue" businesses including torrent sites like torrentz.eu and kickass.to as well as the recently shut down giant isoHunt. "Even after the shuttering of Isohunt, Canada is still the home to some of the world's most popular Internet sites dedicated to piracy, including torrentz.eu and kickass.to, which garnered rankings of third and second place, respectively, on one of the most widely accessed listings of the world's most popular illicit BitTorrent sites," the IIPA writes. The Pirate Bay of course remained in the top spot.

Last year, police officials in the UK, in conjunction with Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) raided the home of an alleged movie cammer, seizing tons of evidence. The officers then returned months later, arresting the man and his sister and her ex-boyfriend on charges that they had cammed 'Fast and Furious 6' and 'Epic.'

Released on bail, the arrested were banned from entering any movie theater in England and Wales.

In total, three smartphones, seven laptops, a desktop, tablets, two Xbox 360s, a modem, a router, USB flash drives, and almost 20 hard drives were seized but were eventually returned (minus the modem and router and one phone) and it appears the criminal prosecution will be dropped (via TF): "Speaking with the officer in charge of the case this week he informed me that when I do go to answer bail all criminal charges will be dropped, or NFA [no further action] as they call it," says the alleged cammer.

FACT is still looking to bring a private prosecution against the man, he informs, but they may not get anything in a lawsuit. "The fact that there is no evidence for a criminal prosecution begs the question as to whether or not there is sufficient evidence for a private law suit. Surely if there was any evidence at all [the police] would not be dropping the criminal charges," the man adds. "Also what can they possibly sue me for? I have no job, no savings and no means of paying any compensation regardless of the outcome. Is it simply going to be a waste of everyone's time?"

Comcast, in their ongoing efforts to own the world, is preparing to acquire FreeWheel, one of the largest ad-serving platforms for streaming TV content online, says a new report.

The deal will be announced in the near future with a $320 million price (still in negotiations) and should clear in the coming quarter.

FreeWheel was founded in 2007 and has major clients including MLB.tv, ESPN, FOX, NBC Universal, Sky, Turner, Amazon and VEVO. The content providers use FreeWheel to serve ads alongside their content.

Comcast, the U.S.' largest cable company, has their own video ad platform, and will integrate FreeWheel. The service will almost certainly continue to serve its other clients into the future, as many have already partnered with Comcast for its TV Everywhere on-demand service.

The massive ISP/Cable company recently announced its bid for the U.S.' second-largest cable company, Time Warner Cable, in a $45 billion deal that would mark one of the largest acquisitions of all-time.

IBM has confirmed this week that it will be laying off employees as the company continues to focus on more priority areas including the cloud, analytics, and cognitive computing.

"As reported in our recent earnings briefing, IBM continues to rebalance its workforce to meet the changing requirements of its clients, and to pioneer new, high value segments of the IT industry," IBM spokesman Doug Shelton added. "To that end, IBM is positioning itself to lead in areas such as cloud, analytics and cognitive computing, and investing in these priority areas."

Although the company would not state how many people or from where, sources claim almost 25 percent of the entire Systems and Technology group (the server hardware division) will be laid off.

IBM has over 400,000 employees, and last month sold its x86 server businesses to Lenovo for $2.3 billion. Not all the employees were expected to migrate to Lenovo, so the layoffs do make some sense.

Google has updated their search results with full restaurant menus, a cool feature when it works.

You can search for menus using multiple types of searches including "[name of restaurant], city, menu" or "show me the menu for [name of restaurant]."

The menu will then show up in its entirety (if that menu was available online in the first place) and be broken down into sections like appetizers, entrees, etc.

While the feature is very cool, it does not always work, and in my testing, the results popped up just under 30 percent of the time. This will almost certainly improve in the coming weeks and months, as with most services Google releases.

Google's menus appear to be powered by AllMenus.com.

Speaking during the company's annual stockholders meeting, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that their "hobby" project Apple TV set-top box is now a billion dollar business.

The hardware set-top box along with movie rentals and TV show purchases generated $1 billion in sales for 2013.

In fiscal 2012, the company sold over 5 million set-tops, which was double the 2.5 million they sold in 2011. It is unclear how many were sold in 2013, but with the sales hitting a new milestone sales, Horace Deidu suggests the sales are near 10 million. While it is the fastest growing device in the company's lineup, it is still a very small piece of revenue.

The company is expected to launch a new, updated model this year with gaming support and an Apple TV app store which will coincide with the released of an Apple SDK for application development.T

Hobby pic.twitter.com/YOXPv1ALpw

-- Horace Dediu (@asymco) February 28, 2014

In less than a week since launch, Nokia's Android-based X smartphone has already been hacked to run Google's apps and services.

Gaining root access, xda-developers member Kashamalaga then added Google apps (like Gmail, Google Now, Maps, Hangouts, and more) in less than five steps.

The Nokia X, despite running on Android, was built with Microsoft in mind. For example, the device has Outlook, OneDrive, Skype and other Nokia/Microsoft services pre-installed including Nokia's own curated Android app store.

It appears Nokia has anticipated the device getting developer love, tweeting that they are excited at the developments.

Warner Bros. Pictures is working on a movie based on Mojang's hit game 'Minecraft.'

"Someone is trying leak the fact that we're working with Warner Brothers on a potential Minecraft Movie," tweeted Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson. "I wanted to be the leak!"

When asked for more detail, Persson joked: "It's for real. I think every part of that tweet was real, including me wanting to be the one to spill the news about a potential movie. Also, I [am] very well aware that this might be Minecraft jumping the shark, but how often do you get to be part of making a movie?""

Warner acquired the rights from Mojang earlier this year, and the live-action film will have Roy Lee and Jill Messick as producers. Lee just produced the hit "The Lego Movie."

Someone is trying leak the fact that we're working with Warner Brothers on a potential Minecraft Movie. I wanted to be the leak!

-- Markus Persson (@notch) February 27, 2014

Actor Ashton Kutcher has designed a line of smartphones for Lenovo that will launch later this year.

The star of 'Two and a Half Men' was hired in October as a product engineer and to promote other devices including the Yoga hybrid tablets. At the time, Kutcher said "This partnership with Lenovo brings together my love of technology and design that makes your life better. I can't wait to dig in and help Lenovo develop future mobile computing products."

Lenovo Chief Marketing Officer David Roman confirmed the new line of phones, and says Kutcher worked extensively on the user experience. "I know on one level, it sounds corny, but it is real," said Roman (via Re/code). "He not only sees himself as an engineer, but he is an engineer. If he sees a problem, he wants to solve it."

Kutcher is not new to the technology world, as a co-founder of venture capital group A-Grade Investments. The group has been an early investor in Foursquare, Airbnb and Uber.

Microsoft Studios corporate VP Phil Spencer has confirmed Halo news for this year's E3 event in June.

"Halo news will be coming at E3," Spencer tweeted. "343i [343 Industries] has a great plan in place, will be cool to share with everyone."

For fans that hoped this would mean a new Halo title this year, the voice actor for Master Chief, Steve Downes has put a damper on those rumors. "I think you may be ahead of yourself on Halo 5," Downes said. "I wouldn't expect anything until 2015. What you can look forward to this year is an anniversary edition of Halo 2."

Microsoft has said Halo 5 will be released in 2014, and has yet to change their stance.

E3 begins on June 10th.

@MarvelousJoJo Halo news will be coming at E3. 343i has a great plan in place, will be cool to share with everyone.

-- Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) February 28, 2014

Apple iPhone 5S owners are likely to get a software update in the coming weeks that will significantly improve the reliability of the TouchID fingerprint sensor.

While the sensor has generally strong reviews, more recently there have been complaints from iPhone owners that the reliability of their TouchID has diminished since they first purchased the device. A quick fix has been to delete the original fingerprint scan, and rescanning them to start fresh, but the issues seem to come back over time again.

With the new update, Apple is working on that "fade" issue, and it could be part of iOS 7.1 or its own update (7.0.7). 7.1 is expected to rollout towards the end of next month.

Moving forward for future iPhones, Apple is actively working on improved hardware sensors using AuthenTec technology it acquired in 2012.

Sony has decided to sell its former headquarters and the buildings surrounding it in Tokyo in its ongoing efforts to cut expenses and losses.

The sale would be the third in two years of iconic Sony buildings. The company sold its U.S. headquarters in NYC for $1.1 billion and another Tokyo building for $1.1 billion in the last year.

With an asking price of $146.5 million, the buildings house Sony's medical business and other back office operations. It was the company's headquarters from 1990 until 2007.

The area in Shinagawa Ward where the buildings are located used to be called "Sony Village" because the company owned over 10 buildings there. Sony founders Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka moved to the area in 1947.

Sony recently forecasted a loss of $1.1 billion for the fiscal year thanks to devastating PC and TV divisions. The company has been selling assets and laying off employees to help shave costs, and will also spin-off its struggling divisions to focus on consumer electronics like the PlayStation and Xperia smartphones.

According to the latest mobile monetization report from app testing firm Swrve, a shockingly small amount of mobile gamers account for almost the majority of all in-app purchases.

In fact, just 0.15 percent of players account for about 50 percent of all in-app purchases, with these players being dubbed "whales" like counterparts in a casino that lose huge money to the house but always come back.

Digging deeper into the report, only 1.5 percent of players pay for any in-app purchases at all, which can include character upgrades, coins, new lives, virtual money, clothes, upgraded vehicles and more.

You can check the rest of the report here.

Facebook has confirmed that its Facebook Messenger for Windows service will be shutting down effective March 3rd.

The Windows version of Messenger had been around for over two years, and there is little explanation from the social networking giant as to why it is being shut down. Additionally, Facebook Messenger for Firefox will also end on the same day.

When trying to use the application, users are greeted with the message: "We're sorry, but we can no longer support Facebook Messenger for Windows, and it will stop working on March 3, 2014. We really appreciate you using Messenger to reach your friends, and we want to make sure you know that you can keep chatting and view all your messages on [ link ]

The app will remain available for iOS and Android, and a new Windows Phone app is on the way in the coming weeks.