Latest news

Apple CEO Tim Cook has proudly tweeted that developers on the App Store have earned over $50 billion since the marketplace launched in late 2008.

July 2016 was a record-crushing month for the Store, as well, and many speculate it was due to Pokemon Go. Cook thanked and congratulated developers on their "success and such inspired creativity".

Growth remains strong for the App Store, as we have seen $10 billion paid to developers since Apple's last announcement in January 2016, following $20 billion in 2015 and $20 billion for the entire 2008-2014 period.

According to the WSJ, giant retailer Wal-Mart is in talks to buy the one-time "Amazon killer," Jet.

The move is expected to give Wal-Mart an improved e-commerce solution to better fend off Amazon, which has recently become the largest retailer by market cap.

Sources claim Jet could be valued as high as $3 billion, even though it has been unprofitable since launch. Jet launched last year as an "Amazon killer" but it has yet to make a dent. The company also had to backtrack on a subscription fee they began charging after sales were significantly affected.

Wal-Mart could certainly use the e-commerce help, as the company's e-commerce sales were just $14 billion last year, a measly 3% of their total revenue. Online growth has been slowing for two years, as well, while Amazon's has done nothing but grow at an exponential rate for the last decade.

Jet, started by Diapers.com founder Marc Lore, has some interesting technology. The company is able to reduce prices (and usually undercut Amazon, others) using sophisticated pricing algorithms that take into account the size of your cart, your proximity to suppliers, and more.

Apple recently announced that it has surpassed 15 million subscribers on Apple Music but the fight for the number one spot is still far away in the horizon. The first year has been everything but easy for the Cupertino's new music service but Apple is only getting started.

That is at least according to the new deals the company is making to boast even exclusive music. Largely the millions of songs are the same you can listen to on Spotify, or Tidal for that matter, but Apple has now struck a deal that will bring one of our generations biggest star's album exclusively to Apple Music.

After making Apple Music the only streaming service to get Taylor Swift's critically-acclaimed album 1989 last year, Apple has now managed to lure Britney Spears in on an exclusive deal. Spears' upcoming album Glory, which will apparently be "the beginning of a new era", will be available on Apple Music 8/26 the star tweeted.

Apple has been striking deals left and right, Apple Insider notes, trying to catch up to Spotify which has double the paying subscribers and a total of over 100 million listeners. Another Apple exclusive this month is Frank Ocean's Boys Don't Cry.

Apple has released a new version of its music streaming app for Android, 9to5Mac reports. The new app is finally and officially out of beta and you can download it, of course, from Google Play.

Despite the problems (and there were plenty) Apple has considered its iOS version of the app stable from the get-go. For some reason Apple has kept the Android app under the beta stamp for nearly 10 months after releasing it in the Google Play Store in November last year.

There are no major changes to the app, unless you consider equalizer one, but getting called stable means that plenty of stabilizing and performance fixes have been made. Apple had already introduced offline playing and the Android widget to the app previously.

Reportedly Apple Music recently arrived at the landmark of 15 million subscribers but is far from over 30 million paying (and another 70 million ad-supported) subscribers that Spotify hosts.

As promised, Microsoft has released the first Anniversary Update for the company's number one product. This is the first major update for Windows 10 but many will struggle to find any visible changes. There are changes however.

The biggest deal amongst the new features seems to be support for Ubuntu software. Other major changes include improvements to the assistant Cortana, Windows Defender, Microsoft's new main browser Edge, Skype, Windows Hello, and digital pens and styli.

The update should be offered automatically or via Windows Update but if you have just recently updated to Windows 10 it won't show up. This is due to the fact that Microsoft keeps an option to go back to your previous Windows version for 30 days.

If you still want the update you can download it manually from Microsoft's website.

Samsung has revealed its new flagship Note smartphone. Continuing the success of Galaxy S7 and of course the previous generation Note5, Note7 (yes, Samsung skipped 6) will try to take the phablet segment of the smartphone market by storm like it has done so many times before.

Galaxy Note7 was revealed first time officially at the yearly Unpacked event held simultaneously in London and New York. As per usual the new Note comes with a big, and now curved, 5.7 inch screen and the S Pen stylus. Samsung will distribute two versions, one with their own Exynos chip (Europe) and one with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chip (USA).

Note7 is by and large what you would expect from a Note smartphone but there are some new features too. The highly rumored iris scanner indeed made it in the device and allows users to identify themselves for Samsung Pay and unlocking using their eyes in addition to fingerprints. Another first for Note smartphones is the IP68 water and dirt proofing.

The phone comes with 4 gigabytes of RAM, 64 gigabytes of storage, and even includes a microSD slot. The battery is nothing over-the-top but the now larger (and still not removable) 3500 mAh should offer stellar battery life. The main camera is the solid 12 megapixel perfomer from Galaxy S7 that has been touted as the best smartphone camera so far and is accompanied by the 5 megapixel shooter in the front.

Over the past week, there have been multiple reports about the future of Cyanogen Inc., the company behind the popular CyanogenMod Android fork. None were good.

Today, founder Steve Kondik addressed the "misinformation" and seems to suggest that Cyanogen is doing just fine:

Without giving specific details, Apple has confirmed that Pokemon Go had the most downloads in its first week of availability than any other app in history.

The game launched in North America earlier this month and just released in Japan, where it is expected to continue its blockbuster run. The game is currently the top free and top-grossing app on Google Play and iTunes.

Most estimates from experts place revenue at $1-$2.3 million per day for the game, putting it on par with hits like Clash Royale.

As expected, Verizon will bid $4.8 billion for Yahoo's core assets, ending the Web pioneer company's sad decline since its peak in the early 2000s.

Verizon will acquire the core internet operations and land holdings but not the company's highly valuable Alibaba stake, giving Verizon access to 1 billion visitors per month across a portfolio of media assets like the popular Yahoo Finance.

Revenue and profits for Yahoo have fallen for the last half decade, and the company's high-profile acquisitions like Tumblr have all misfired.

Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo CEO brought in 2012 to turn around the fortunes of the company but who did the exact opposite, will receive an extra $55 million in severance after the sale, giving yet another example of how executive pay is usually outrageous.

Facebook has yet another service that has reached 1 billion users.

The company's "Messenger" messaging and payments service hit the milestone this month, following in the footsteps of Facebook itself, and WhatsApp. The company's Instagram photo-sharing service has 500 million users, as well.

"As part of this journey to 1 billion, we focused on creating the best possible experiences in modern day communications. We remain focused on helping connect people to the people and businesses who matter most," said David Marcus, VP of Messenger, in a statement.

Less importantly, Facebook also says 22 million GIFs are sent via Messenger daily.

Microsoft has announced today that it will no longer support Skype for those using Windows Phones and users with Android versions before 4.03.

There will be continued support for iOS 8 and newer (which is most Apple users) and Windows 10 Mobile users (which is not most of Windows phone users).

You can continue to use Skype if you have those old operating systems, but you will not be receiving any future updates which will likely include new and improved features over time.

U.S. authorities have charged Ukranian Artem Vaulin with copyright infringement, alleging that he ran the world's most popular torrent site, Kickass Torrents.

Vaulin was arrested in Poland and the U.S. is actively looking to extradite him.

Prosecutors in Chicago claim the site offers unauthorized downloads of music, movies, games, ebooks and more valued at over $1 billion.

It also appears that domains have been seized.

Deezer, an on-demand music streaming service popular in parts of Europe, has launched in the U.S.

The company was available in 180 countries and had plans to go public last year, but competition from Apple, Spotify and others delayed and eventually killed their offering.

U.S. users will not get an ad-supported tier like Deezer offers in other countries, and so will have to pay $9.99 a month for the service, in-line with other competitors. Deezer offers 40 million tracks, 40,000 podcasts, "Flow" personalized radio stations based on your habits, lyrics and more.

Deezer currently has 6.3 million users and will have to pick up significant steam if it wants to compete against Spotify and Apple.

There is growing evidence that Tesla Motors will soon be just Tesla.

The electric vehicle giant has changed its web address from teslamotors.com to tesla.com, less than a year after the company purchased the domain. All traffic to Tesla Motors is now redirected to Tesla.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been cryptically tweeting about his upcoming "Master Plan" part 2, and this could be the initial step. Tesla is trying to acquire the Musk-founded SolarCity, and is expected to begin testing on driverless electric trucks that can drive hundreds of miles at a time. By changing to just Tesla, the company could be suggesting a pivot in the company from "just" a car company.

Last month, Musk said a merger of SolarCity and Tesla would build "a combined automotive and power storage and power generation company," that would feature stationary storage batteries, electric vehicles, and solar panels.

Despite the fact that Nintendo is only a partner in the game, shares of the gaming giant have doubled since the July 6 launch of Pokemon GO.

The game has become a global phenomenon, shocking even the game's creators, and the game has now expanded to 35 countries. Japan is the next country where Pokemon GO will launch, and it is expected to be a massive hit there, as well.

Nintendo isn't the only company expected to be helped by the launch of "GO." Apple and Google are expected to see hundreds of millions in profits from their cut of in-app purchases, and other companies have begun using Pokemon GO as a way to get traffic to their sites or retail locations.

Investors are clearly betting that Nintendo can hit gold again in the future with their popular catalog of characters including Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda.